#this was a hit musical way back when I studied in Prague

[darerendevil]

For archive purposes: August, 2016

Pretty much every summer since he was a little boy, the Irish actor Cillian Murphy has taken his summer holidays in Dingle, a small fishing and market town in Co Kerry. It’s a curious mix of Graham Greene’s 1930s Brighton — all colourfully painted pubs and no flashing amusement arcades — and organic restaurants and sushi bars from the cosmopolitan 21st century. It seems entirely appropriate for Murphy, 40, who can wrap a dangerous hardman from the past, like the Peaky Blinders gangster chief Tommy Shelby, in a soft cloak of contemporary vulnerability.We meet a few streets back from the front, in a pub so Irish, you’d think it was a film set. On one side, there’s the bar; on the other, a hardware store counter. He walks in as I’m trying to buy a drink and finding they don’t take debit cards. It takes a couple of seconds to recognise him. He’s slender, hunched into his denim jacket, slim legs in black jeans, a mop of hair almost covering his startling blue eyes. I explain that I’m wondering if it’s wise to drink while interviewing, and he gives a small smile. “I think it would be rude not to, don’t you?” And he buys me a Guinness.

Settling in a chair at the back of the pub, he talks about Dingle, suggesting places to hear live music. “My father’s been coming here since he was a boy, so the holiday tradition goes back a long way,” he says. It’s briefly disconcerting to be sipping a pint and chatting about family holidays with the piercing gaze and paper-slicing cheekbones of the chillingly dangerous Shelby.

When Murphy leans forward on screen, someone’s probably about to die. “He has movie-star stillness,” says Caryn Mandabach, the executive producer of Peaky Blinders. “It’s when the camera loves to stay on your face, and you can just think what the character is thinking, and it comes across. You’re born to that, you can’t learn it.“When I met him for the role of Tommy Shelby, he was so slender for a gangster, I asked how he could convey the physicality of a violent man. He leant forward, looked me in the eyes and said, ‘I’m an actor’, in such a way that I backed down instantly. There’s something in his eyes.”

In Foxy John’s pub, however, if he leans forward, it’s because he’s excited, discussing Stevie Wonder’s drumming groove or how he can’t fall asleep if he’s not listening to Radio 4, or — a favourite topic — his constant grappling to understand modern notions of masculinity.His latest movie, Anthropoid, is part of that study. It’s an unconventional war film and he plays an unconventional hero. The script is based on the true story of two Czech soldiers in the republic’s London-based army in exile during the Second World War, who were sent back to Prague by the clandestine British Special Operations Executive. Their mission was to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, the SS officer running the Nazi-designated protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

The operation was successful, although luck played a significant part. Murphy’s character, Jozef Gabcik, jumped in front of Heydrich’s open-topped car and began to fire, only to find that his British-supplied Sten gun had jammed. His accomplice, Jan Kubis (played by Jamie Dornan), threw a bomb, which narrowly missed. The pair fled, assuming they had failed, not realising that Heydrich had been hit by a jagged chunk of shrapnel and would die, days later, from severe septicaemia.

Unusually for an action film, the assassination comes at roughly the halfway point. The story moves on through the destruction of entire towns in SS reprisal attacks, and the horrific torture techniques the Gestapo used to drag information from civilians suspected of helping the duo, before they’re hunted down in a church.All the time, they are battling doubts about the point of their mission. Dornan can’t bring himself to shoot a fleeing collaborator, and Murphy is consumed by guilt at having recruited local women to give the pair a convincing cover story.

“Their fear and paralysis is very relatable — they’re not presented as invincible superheroes, and that was the appeal for me,” Murphy explains. “Even though it was a small act, it had huge global repercussions. But they did not have the benefit of history to see that they did the right thing. They heard that 10,000 people had been massacred because of them. Imagine trying to live with that. Are there contemporary causes you could be that committed to, that would demand taking innocent lives? I don’t know.”He wonders what path he would have chosen, might still choose, if heroic action were demanded of him. He recently saw Force Majeure, a Swedish film that’s “like a meditation on masculinity”, he says. “This father is with his family on a skiing holiday. They’re having lunch when an avalanche roars down on the restaurant. He grabs his iPhone and runs — but the avalanche just passes over. It was dust. The mother had grabbed the two children, and they watch him walk back. For the rest of the film, they have to figure out what this has done to their family, what it’s done to him as a man and as a father.”

He gives a little shiver. How to be a father is something he’s working through carefully. His sons, Malachy and Aran, are in primary school in Ireland — Murphy and his wife of 12 years, the artist Yvonne McGuinness, recently moved back there from Kilburn, northwest London, because they wanted their boys to be Irish, to live by the sea, to know their grandparents. At the same time, he worries about protecting them from the iron casket of being an Irish man.“I’m firmly of the belief that women are the superior sex. It became apparent to me pretty early on as a young man,” he says. “Men, and particularly Irish men, project this macho facade. They still find it hard to express emotions. It’s why we’re great storytellers — it’s internalised, and it comes out through great drama or after 11 pints of stout, but it’s not the default setting. I hope my boys aren’t growing up that way.”

When he was an adolescent, emotion came via music. Both his parents were in education: his mother is a French teacher, his father a civil servant in the Irish education department. “My dad was one of those people who could pick up any instrument and play it. He’s a traditional music aficionado, so we went to a lot of sessions as kids. It was my first experience with an art form that could change you emotionally.”He rebelled against his father’s tastes, preferring the Beatles, Stevie Wonder and Van Morrison, although “by the way, I also bought a lot of terrible 1980s music... my first record was probably Europe’s The Final Countdown”. By luck, Stevie Wonder’s Superstition comes on the pub stereo, and for a moment he’s lost, recalling his days in a Frank Zappa-esque band that almost signed a five-album deal with Acid Jazz Records back in August 1996. He suddenly pauses, frozen for a second, thinking things through.

“So that’s 20 years ago this month,” he muses. “That’s the month everything in my life changed. We turned down the record deal, I failed my law exams, I met my wife and I got cast in Disco Pigs... It was the ultimate turning point.” He raises his glass and we silently toast this anniversary.

Disco Pigs, Enda Walsh’s play about a pair of strange, inseparable teens on a night out in Cork, was his first proper acting job after school and student am-dram. It was supposed to run for three weeks at an arts centre in Cork, but blew up, transferring to Dublin, then Edinburgh and London, then Europe, Australia and North America. He was on the road for 18 months and, in 2001, reprised his role for the film version. That’s where Danny Boyle saw him and cast him as a bike courier battling the zombie apocalypse in 28 Days Later — which is where Christopher Nolan saw him and cast him in Batman Begins and Inception.And on and on, until his movie-star stillness and piercing blue eyes placed him in the rare position noted by Mandabach: “He’s both a movie star and an actor, and almost no one gets to be both.”

All of which surprised him completely. “I’d never seen a zombie movie before 28 Days, so I really thought they were making a film about the problem with rage in our society.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t know it was a hit in America until Chris Nolan flew me over. To be honest, with Tommy Shelby, I saw it as a show about the generation unmade by the First World War, trying to figure out how to be a man... I’m always drawn to stories about damaged men.”By now, two pints down, I’m getting overfamiliar. He played a transgender foundling in search of a mother in Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto, in 2005, and an Irish republican soldier in Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006). These feel like pioneering, campaigning roles, I say — and it’s as if shutters crash down behind those eyes. He suddenly becomes watchful and cautious. “It was the roles, really — I had no particular desire to bring the issue of transgender to the public,” he says carefully. “If that was a by-product, I’m really happy, but that was not the primary motivation. You have to be careful. You can annoy people by being righteous, preachy and privileged. And the IRA...” He shrugs. “I’m not going to be drawn onto that particular minefield.”

There’s a brief pause, then he starts gathering his things, heading back for dinner with the family. “Look,” he says kindly, “there are things I don’t like talking about in interviews — no one really wants an actor’s opinion. But also I’m wary of this whole thing.” He waves at the tape recorder. “Unburdening your soul in public. All my male mates are Irish, at ease with slagging each other off. Like Jamie on this movie — we slagged each other off all the time. With Irish men, slagging is code for love, but it’s never really articulated.”He still feels music is the safest place for him to feel emotion. “It’s much more instinctual than intellectual, and the words are secondary. I don’t think I cry at a song because the lyrics are so affecting. It’s generally the melody that gets me first.” He still plays guitar and writes songs. “Which makes me bad news at parties,” he says with a grin as we shake hands. “People ask me to play something, and all I’ve got is this thing I’m working on that no one’s heard of.

“Even in Dingle,” he says over his shoulder, “they don’t let you get away with self-indulgent crap like that.”

[dianora77]

Jsi Muj Pan

[bigwhispersbluebird]

Goodbyes with BTS (Maknae Line)

Warnings: Mentions of covid-19, implied smut

 Jimin

“Honey, I am home”, Jimin announced dramatically as he entered his apartment, quickly taking off his shoes and slipping into the home slippers- his heart still thumping in his ear from running all the way to you. 

He had almost screamed in frustration when the group was called for some urgent recordings for the new album that morning. He had looked at you curled up around his body, your big brown eyes staring up at him quizzically and he almost said no because you would be going back the next day and Jimin did not want to spend a single second away from you. 

From the moment you had announced that you would finally be visiting him after being apart for over 6 months, he had been on his toes making calls and plans to assure that nothing would disturb him. But you insisted that he go to work, “At least, I will be able to pack my stuff without you clinging on to my body”, you had joked and he left hurriedly so that he could be back soon. 

But as soon as he walked into the bedroom, his eyes caught sight of the suitcases neatly lined at the farthest corner of the wall, ready to be tagged and carried- Jimin suddenly felt like somebody was plucking his heart out of his chest and without uttering another word, he quietly walked towards you, standing in front of the closet and folding your shirts neatly, and engulfed you in a warm hug; his arms wrapped around your waist and his face deeply snuggled in the crook of your neck. 

Jimin inhaled the sweet scent of lavender mixed with your body musk and realized that it was home to him. Your hands gently carressed his arms as he gently placed kisses on your neck and you understood every word he couldn’t say. 

“I wish I could ask you to stay”, Jimin whispered slowly and you wished you could take away all the pain he was feeling. It was not easy to part over and over again but your studies were important for you and it was just a matter of a few years, then you both would be in the same city. Until then, this was the choice you both had made. 

Turning around, you looked him in the eye before pulling him in for a passionate kiss, growing fervent and rough with all the goodbyes between you two. 

That night, as you both lay in a tangled mess of limbs and rushed hands, you both silently promised each other to wait, no matter how long it took.

Taehyung or V

“5 am tomorrow. Be there till 3 30″.

Taehyung read the message from the notification bar and slid it across the screen, making it disappear. Then, he turned the ring on mute and pocketed his phone, he did not want to be disturbed tonight. 

Standing at the door of the art gallery, for the first time, his eyes did not linger on the beautiful pieces of art that decorated the wall. Instead, he searched for a familiar figure and the same silky locks of hair that were tangled around his long slender fingers all those years ago. 

Granted, he had not seen you since the time you both met in Italy, even then surrounded by art and music- he had searched desperately for you ever since. And it seemed like fate had decided to have mercy on him when he heard about a musical art exhibition at Prague and remembered the way you had laid your head on his chest, your hair spilling on his bare body, and talked about that particular idea being your dream. 

You stood in front of a massive painting in the far end of the room, still as awestruck by the strokes and colors on the canvas as you were the first time a boy with a boxy smile had watched you unwrap it. You remember holding onto this giant board of colors through years of remote silence and wondering if it was just a mirage or the boy that had left without a goodbye had once promised that he would come back. 

“Is this one for sale?”, a voice broke you out of your reverie and if it wasn’t for the fact that you had watched him on social media like an addict, you would have forced your brain to consider it all a cause of sleepless nights and alcohol in your system. But it was him, it was Kim Taehyung and suddenly you were 22 again with small dreams and a boy you were irrecoverably in love with. 

Without even glancing at his way again you replied as calmly as you could muster, “No. You cannot make a home out of this one”. 

Taehyung almost flinched at your words but he reminded himself that he deserved it. 

“Home only demands love”, he spoke only audible enough for your ears. 

“It demands the presence of that love at least, not the promise of one. Not words or music or stupid paintings, Mr. Kim Taehyung”, you had now turned towards him, your eyes boring into his and even though your angry eyes met his remorseful ones, the only thing you both could recognize in them was the love that had been there all those years ago. 

“I missed you, Y/N”, he whispered as he suddenly pulled you into him. His arms holding you tight and you almost stood their motionless until a lone tear slipped down your cheeks and you returned the hug. 

“You’re too late, Tae. Too late”.

He did not reply for a while, not wanting to let the moment slip away until it had to. 

But when he had finally memorized your scent and the familiar contours of your body and how it fit in his like pieces of a puzzle, he pulled back. His hand slid down your arms until they held your slender fingers in his, his thumb gently grazing the big diamond on your ring finger, “I know”.

Jungkook

Jungkook loves being surrounded with familiarity. Familiar faces that he loves and trusts, a bowl of ramyeon in a foreign city, loud cheers from fans that had been there all along, a ticket always back home and you. Perhaps, that is a reason why he hated things that disturbed the peace he had found in his life. 

But when Covid-19 hit the world, it was like his world tilted on its axes and all that was familiar was lost. Already reeling from the shock of the tour being cancelled, Jungkook had held the phone in his hand and couldn’t help but breakdown as you told him that you had no idea when you could fly to Korea. 

You had expanded your business to Korea as well which made it easier for you to spend plenty of time with your boyfriend and you both had gotten used to the travelling if it meant being together for most part of the year. 

Jungkook was not taking it well. He would spend hours at the gym then hours dancing till he could not feel anything other than the excruciating pain in his body. He would barely talk to you, only giving one word answers and never answering video calls- his heart knowing well that it could not bear looking at you and being unable to touch you or feel you. 

However, he loved you and as days passed on and the unfamiliarity of Covid-19 became familiar, Jungkook could finally see how much he had hurt you. Even through all that, you had maintained a brave face and been normal with him in the moments he would actually talk to you. You knew Jungkook and perhaps that is why you could not blame him for acting that way. You knew that this boy is made of love and purity and it would not be long till he finds his way back to you, like he always did. 

So, when one night you prepared to go to bed, a message popped up on your phone. 

“Thank you for making me realize that we can get through anything”

And along with it was an acoustic version of a song Jungkook had recently written and was yet to be released. 

As still with you played in your empty dark apartment, Jungkook’s sweet voice bouncing off the walls and hugging you, you finally let your tears fall as you whispered the words that you both craved to hold each and say:

“I miss you”.

[csykora]

After ‘84, Igor felt the pieces were beginning to fall off the Red Machine. 

He hated being called a robot as much as he hated being called a soldier. He didn’t know what the world wanted the Green Unit to do on the ice or off it, how they had to behave, before someone would believe they had feelings. On the worst days they were too tired and numb to feel anything else.  

When he’d met Bobby Clarke, who he thought looked like a hockey angel with a blond halo and no teeth, Bobby commented about the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Igor didn’t know how to say that he’d definitely never been allowed to go to Afghanistan, and under the uniform he didn’t deserve to be a soldier, for good or bad. The national team was a tool of the Soviet government: at the same time it was a comfort for ordinary people in cold little apartments in mining towns where the players grew up and also a prop in the illusions that kept everything how it was. 

The illusion went skin deep: every time they left Russia, Igor was issued a snappy winter coat and brand-name Western clothes, so no one would think the Soviets looked poor.

[A black and white photo of the Green Unit posing, smiling except for Igor, in matching windbreakers with saddle shoulders and bold stripes. This was a hot look, about 10 years before the Soviet Union Costuming Department thought it was a hot look]

Underneath the coat or the beautiful red sweater, everything was a mess. At one point, at a tournament in Canada, a Canadian player would hit Igor from behind. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except the Soviet management hadn’t provided enough hockey pads. Igor was wearing a partial set he’d borrowed from a high school team that played in the host arena earlier that day. (Across Europe and Canada I bet there are grown men, still hockey fans now, who have no idea they once owned game-worn gear from the world’s top scorers. To Igor’s fans those pieces might be worth as much as he ever earned in his CSKA career.) He would play the rest of that tournament with broken ribs.

The only outsider he’d met who seemed to understand, however briefly, was their friend Vanya. Asked what it was like playing against those Russian robots, Wayne said, 

“Robots don’t hurt when they lose.”

By June 1985, Slava was recovering from that knee injury that had sidelined him for half the last season. He and his little brother Tolya, now a CSKA rookie, drove back for the start of training. Their car was hit, and Tolya was killed. Slava thought about leaving that season, but their parents told him to keep going, and just try to live for two people.

In November, the players at Arkhangel heard a rumor: someone had written an article, in a Soviet paper, that criticized the hockey program. Anything that wasn’t awe was criticism. Someone got their hands on a copy, and Igor, Vova, Sergei, and Slava huddled around their usual table that evening, hiding each other as they read it in turns. Igor reread it twice. He’d read Canadian and American papers that dragged the Soviet system, but never something like this, that got it--almost--right. It didn’t have all the details to understand the illusion--how they trained, how Tikhonov acted behind Arkhangel’s walls--but it guessed some.

Glasnost was beginning, a long rustling cracking thaw opening new streams of information and communication like Igor had dreamed. The Canucks drafted him that year, and then Vova. The Devils had dibsed Slava and Lyosha a few years before, and the Flames wanted Sergei. There was a place for them, waiting, if they could ever get to the NHL. But there wouldn’t be any thaw in Arkhangel as long as Tikhonov ruled it.

The ’85 World Championships were held in Prague, and ’86 in Moscow. Igor played both, and nothing else. For two years, no one saw him outside the Soviet Union. 

In December of ‘85, CSKA was supposed to tour North America. Igor was dressed and ready. Then he heard his passport, which he had used a hundred times before, had run into problems. Coach told him not to worry, but to stay behind in Russia and--how convenient--keep training for the championships in Moscow. Igor woke up at three in the morning to watch the games he was supposed to be playing. He learned that Canadian journalists were asking about him: apparently, he had tonsillitis. Igor wasn’t entirely sure where his tonsils were. 

Two months later CSKA played in Sweden. Strange, how his tonsils still weren’t better, and his passport was still missing. Two nights before they were set to leave Tikhonov called him into the office, in front of the team, and told him so. But the next evening Tretiak, now a more senior officer, came out to visit the barracks. He hugged Igor and promised him he would do what he could to get the passport by the time they were supposed to leave the next morning. Igor went to bed hoping. At 4:30 AM the coaches woke him just to tell him the passport wasn’t there yet, so the team really would be leaving without him. 

The third time it happened, he was told to go back to the passport office to file everything all over again--maybe he had fucked up his passport. He didn’t bother. Taking away travel had been one thing. But doing it in front of the team, in front of the Green Unit, so that he knew that they knew that he had let them down somehow, broke his heart. 

He was still allowed to play inside the Soviet Union. As long as he was with CSKA, the other Greens treated him the same as always. If they had known how bad things were going to get, Igor thought they would have done more sooner, but he knew that they didn’t understand what was happening. In between games, he spent his days in office buildings, being grilled about suspicious activities like listening to rock music, calling his mom too often, or kissing Canadians. 

“I was at fault all around. That I gladly gave interviews to journalists. That I liked the NHL...that I like rock music. That the living standard there impressed me. All this was raked up into a pile. I was the enemy. Because, you see, if I liked the American way of life, then in general I was an American by heart. All of this they said about me.

By nature, I am clearly a Russian. I do not like everything in America. It cannot be that somewhere is as in a fairytale, and somewhere else is total darkness.

Particularly, it seemed, my [friendliness] offended the preservers of government secrets….I also knew a little English. Therefore I had the possibility to rub elbows with whomever I might come in contact: hockey players, journalists and even immigrants. And, they assumed, to each of them I could give important information--everyone getting an equal share, no doubt, in order to be fair.”

He couldn’t talk to his friends from other countries, or his Russian friends either when they traveled without him. On the street outside between the rink and the party offices, none of his former fans would speak to him, except to ask or tell him their opinion if he really was a traitor.

He was wanted everywhere but home. Obviously, no other country believed that a 25 year-old athlete who had been the best in the world six months before had been brought down by tonsillitis multiple times in a row. There’s only so many tonsils a person can have. Obviously, every other country thought Igor must want to defect, the one thing he did not want and couldn’t convince anyone of. So each host on the international hockey circuit was bouncing on their toes, first Canada, then Sweden and so on, thinking maybe the Soviet Union would slip up and let him come to their tournament, he'd defect, and then they’d get to keep him. Obviously, the Soviets noticed that, and squeezed tighter.

Each time the team left on tour, he was told to spend his time alone training harder and hope. If he was good enough, maybe he’d make the next tournament. His body, always a battle-ground with Coach Tikhonov, became a hostage situation. The more Tikhonov told him to train, the less he ate. Eventually he was eating mostly fruit, and restricting his water intake. 

He stopped pretending to defer to anyone.  He used to be the sober one between his hot-head wingers, and now he egged every fight on. Sometimes he faked an American accent, calling Coach “Tikhonoff” the way American broadcasters had at the '81 Olympics.

One day at the rink he bumped into figure skater Lena Batanova, who “knew nothing about hockey and could not have cared less.” She had been through worse training than he had growing up, only to win two World Championships, and then be slighted from a third. They understood each other without having to say anything.

[Igor washing dishes in their Moscow apartment, turning to glance at Lena pressing up him.]

That summer he stayed up late talking with his friends, and realized he wanted to marry Lena. He asked her the next morning, and she said yes. Behind Igor’s back, Slava, Vova, Sergei, and Lyosha went to Coach Tikhonov’s office, and told him that they would play every other day of the year if they had to, but they would be going to Igor’s wedding. Coach wouldn’t allow the three days for a traditional Russian wedding, but he had to give Igor one.

Waking up the morning after the wedding, Igor checked the mail and found a summons to appear before the Central Committee of the Communist Party. His friends, who I imagine lying hungover on his and Lena’s new couch and floor, rushed for their unused books to help him study up on Communist doctrine, in case he got quizzed. This is presumably when Lena woke up, realized she’d married a whole line of hockey players for their one communal brain cell, and rolled back over. Igor reported the next morning, probably with flashcards Vova had made for him in his pocket.

The Party officials congratulated him on getting married and gave him the wedding gift they were sure no one else would have gotten: his passport. We have to guess the logic here, if there was one. It’s possible the Party thought he wouldn’t risk his wife, or that two years had just been enough to realize the team wasn’t working without him. 

But he was allowed to go to Canada for the Calgary Cup before the end of ‘86, and everyone had questions about his two years of tonsillitis. Igor, for the first time in his life, didn’t talk. But that just left the hockey world to gossip. Two months later it was announced he’d be in Quebec City for another tournament, and right before they arrived a Quebec newspaper printed a version of the night out with Gretzky--with quotes, they claimed, from Wayne. This time the tournament organizers called someone from every team up for a pregame presser. I imagine Igor shrugging at his KGB handlers and sliding away to the stage: nothing could stop him talking now.

Except the Canadian journalists. They wanted to interview Team Canada first. Igor stewed, and then looked up to see an oncoming Wayne. Someone had asked him about the alleged quotes in the article, which Igor had snagged a copy of to read the second they let him loose in Canada. Apparently Wayne hadn’t. 

“‘Believe me, Igor,’” Igor remembers Wayne blurting out. “‘I didn’t say what was printed in the paper. I’ll tell them it didn’t happen! But what is your position now?’”

“‘Do not worry,” Igor promised him. “‘Now, everything is okay.’”

“Oh, awesome,” (I’m assuming again) Wayne said. “So do you want to come over later and hang out in my mom’s basement?!”

“If the KGB pulls a gun, then call me.” --Wayne Gretzky

Weirdly, I’ve never seen this inspirational quote cross-stitched on someone’s wall. 

The next Canada Cup was held in August ‘87 in Hamilton, Ontario, which is like, basically next door to Wayne’s parents’ house. So the afternoon before the first game, Wayne sent his dad Walter to the hotel where the Soviet team was staying. Walter asked in Ukrainian if he could chat with Igor, who had to come down to the hotel lobby to meet him, since visitors were absolutely not allowed to wander up to players’ rooms. Walter invited his son’s friend over for dinner. Igor cut eyes at the KGB agent in the corner, and said he had to go upstairs and ask Coach. Tikhonov said no before Igor started talking.

Igor came back downstairs and apologized to Walter, who thought hard for a minute. He told Igor to ask what if the whole Green Unit went to Wayne’s house for team bonding? Coach Tikhonov considered, and said no, and Igor went back to Walter. 

Walter hitched up his suspenders, and announced to the KGB that he would talk go to Coach Tikhonov now.

He told Tikhonov he would be honored if Coach came to dinner at his house that evening, and if Coach felt like it, he might bring the boys over too. Tikhonov said he’d love to. 

Tikhonov, Igor, Vova, Sergei, Slava, Lyosha, and a KGB operative spent a delightful half hour packed in a car together driving to the Gretzkys' house, where Walter and Phyllis were throwing a cookout. Walter and some of his local buddies had barbecue and corn on the cob on the grill, and Phyllis had quizzed her son about his Moscow trip before throwing up her hands in despair and making a big batch of her mother’s Polish dumplings and sausage.

Nothing makes me happier than the image of Wayne Gretzky, beaming from ear to ear, handing famously fussy little Igor Larionov a piece of barbecued corn on the cob. Igor had to explain that yes, they had corn in Russia, but they ate it on a plate and not like squirrels. Walter offered him a beer, and Igor looked to Coach Tikhonov before saying no. Tikhonov allowed the players to have a soda.

Wayne started asking him how everything had been since the last time they hung out, and didn’t get why his friend wouldn’t talk to him at first. Igor might answer one question, and then act like he didn’t understand. Sergei and Vova really didn’t speak English, and kept elbowing Igor to explain what was going on and why Wayne was smiling at them like that, but Igor was still pretending he only spoke Russian and hesitated to translate for them. Finally Wayne realized Igor was clamming up every time Tikhonov got within earshot.

Wayne went to Walter to change the game plan. Walter would use his Ukrainian to ask Coach Tikhonov about his many amazing accomplishments, while Wayne told the whole party he wanted to show the other boys his medals, which were all down in the basement. Unfortunately the Gretzky family’s basement was very small, and housed Wayne’s many, many medals, so only two people could possibly fit down there at a time: one Gretzky, and one Russian. Tikhonov thought about it, decided he didn’t care about someone else’s medals, and gave the okay.

 Just in case, Wayne deputized his dad’s buddy Charlie, who did not speak Russian or anything like it but was somebody’s dad from suburban Ontario, to chat up the KGB agent.

So Wayne began to escort the Green Unit, one by one, down to his family’s basement. At the bottom of the stairs, he handed them a beer. The two of them chugged their beers together, trying not to take suspiciously long or laugh too loud, and then ran back up to change out for the next boy.

Nothing happened that night. It didn’t change anything, except that Tikhonov never found out. The Greens had been able to get one over on him, because they didn’t have to do it alone.

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[lunavadash-creates]

Have I ever told you that you are the sweetest cupcake ever?❤️ It’s impossible to not smile at your posts! I sincerely thank you for all your sympathy towards me! My heart just melts! It’s so rare to find such a pure and kind soul like you. Please, don’t change. Ever.

You made me worried a bit with your last paragraph - maybe I am oversensitive, but I am really worried. It breaks my heart honestly, I feel like you belittle yourself. Babe, you are wonderful! I am not saying this just for you to feel better, but because you REALLY are. Think for a moment about things you’ve already achieved! Darling, you graduated! It’s really something. It is even more something when you study two different majors at the same time and study in language school at weekends. It’s real hardcore! I am proud of you. SO FREAKING MUCH! You did so well and you did so much! Please, be aware of it. You are incredibly talented and creative. YOU are hard working, not me. And you know what? Please, have a proper rest. Don’t overwork yourself anymore. You have to have some space just for you. You have to rest and regain your balance. Don’t think about writing as your duty. I know you feel responsible for all requests you have. But they really won’t run away or disappear. They all will be waiting to be written when you rest. Don’t pressure yourself, I beg you. You know I love your writing. We all here love it. But we love you even more. Taking a break it’s not bad. It’s necessary. When you rest you will be able to concentrate, you will have a fresh mind and new ideas. Just remember that you are a priority.

Speaking of your visit to Prague. OMG, THIS ASTRONOMICAL CLOCK!! I envy you soooooo much! I wish I could see it by myself someday! Thank you so much for the photo! And geez, you are the very first person admitting that museums are wonderful! No one amongst my friends likes them and it hurts so much, because I couldn’t go to the Uffizi museum and Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. I would love to go to any museum with you then! Museum of sex toys sounds really interesting, mostly because it’s not about modern toys. Like, I would never thought that people could have such rich sex life! I heard that in Amsterdam and Paris there are similar museums. But! I bet you would love icelandic museum of punk. Ohh, I am pretty sure you would enjoy it! It’s really small, because well..Its former public toilet. Buuuut, if you like non-obvious museums this is definitely for you. Whale museum was also pretty good. Or I enjoyed it just because I love whales. I was also in a museum of teddy bears in Seoul and it was the cutest museum I have ever been in! Tell me more about that vegan restaurant! What good did you eat? I am not vege myself, but I avoid eating meat on a daily basis so it’s easy to make me excited with such things!

I am not sure if I am better. I mean, I changed my mind about being able to sleep all day. I am not able to sleep at all at the moment. I am tired and my eyelids are so heavy, but sleep never comes. I guess insomnia hits again, it's a never-ending circle. But I am concerned about your leg! I guess you had spoken with doctor since you got xray and usg. Did they say anything? Any ideas of what it could possibly be? It has to be something serious if you have problems with walking! How did you manage to go sightseeing in Prague? Babe, please, take care of yourself! And what does “health problem AGAIN” mean?! Have you had such a problem before?? It scares me like.. we just started adulthood? My friend sneezed and it made him lay in bed for 6 days not being able to move. Literally.

Yeah, I was in South Korea, but please, do not perceive me as your role model. Gods, it would be a terrible decision, really. But, I would love to share some stories with you if you want! I know it's a popular destination these days because of kpop. I used to listen to it, but I think a few years ago kpop was better? More interesting? Now I’m more into khh, but I think I can’t say that I’m into it anymore.

Talking about music! I discovered two new songs and I bet you know them already, but for me it was huge woah woah woah! First of it - Sabaton. Thay covered Metallica’s For Whom The Bell Tolls and they did it so good! Secondly - The Heart Asks Pleasure First. They basically made their own song based on one of my favourite piano songs. Oh my.. it’s sooo good!

And still talking about music! I just wanted to say that I also love our Wombo edits! That one with Ezio singing Stressed out was perfect! Mr Auditore looked very believably singing it. I liked the one with Edward and Haytham. I don’t know the song but it had such a christmas vibe! It made me think of Edward and Shay singing Last Christmas or some other shitty Christmas song together. Why them? No idea. I love Altair, but your latest headcanons could make me love them even more.

And! I just wanted to tell you that you inspired me to take japanese lessons on Duolingo. I am aware that such app won’t help me with learning such a language, but at least I can tell you that katakana sucks. Gods, I hate it so much. Hiragana is so pleasurable to learn. And I know katakana is visually similar, but it is a no no from me. I have learnt some basic kanji signs. And I just admire you so much more.

I hope you will have wonderful and peaceful week, Babe! Once again, please take care of yourself. Remember to have proper rest, sleep at least 8 hours and drink water! I hope your leg will be better soon!

🔪

Hey Knifey! I finally have the right mind set to respond to this ask!

So first of all thank you. You always make me blush with your kind words and I have no idea how to react! I want to squeaze you in a hug and give you all the sweets in the world!

As for the rest. You see i have always worked to hard on studying, so hard it actually burned out everything inside so now all i want to do i nothing! But i cant, i really want to go back to spending my free time in more creative way!

Omg Knifey! Finally i met a museum lover! And gods i want to visit them all! And you know? That Icelandinc museum sounds like such a goal, i want to go there 🥺 and Seoul museum of teddy bears?! I want to go there!

Honestly I love all museums and generally history. I enjoy visiting ruins of castles and villages, going to museums of everything! Art, machines, objects! There are always so many things and so many different ways to find the inspiration! And I always take so many photos for 'future references'. Some time ago i was in a gardens which showed different time of gardens of the world and there was this amazing exhibition of demons from Slavic mithology. That was so awesome! As well as Japanese garden!

In began restaurant i have this fried soy bites in some sweet-spicy sauce. So tasty! Im trying to recreate this recipe but so far its 1:0 for the soy :/

As for my leg. Its swollen AF bht i just... Put on my shoe and pretended it didnt exist. I can walk in good shoes but still im worried. As for that little again... I generally have some weird health issues. I had 5 surgeries for different stuff (spine, tumor, nose) so like... Generally i am healthy... Or at least i was until thst damned foot decided to show off. Its been 4 weeks and im still looking for a solution, running different tests and all. Hopefully they will figure out whag is going on.

Yes TELL ME ALL THE STORIES ABOUT KOREA.! I love stories, tell me everything!

Tbh i never listen ed to k-pop. I guess its just nkt my type of music but I enjoy some Japanese and Chinese songs (one i like is Arrogant by Xiao Zhang). I know songs you sent me and gods they are amazing! I love sabaton, rock/metal im general but I listen to all kind of music. Like Italian soundtrack from Winx, music from burlesque, Dragonforce, shanties. If there are k-pop songs you like you can always send then to me! Ill gladly listen to them all!

Im glad you like those wombos i guess i should make more! 😂😂

And gods. Katakana. 4 years of learning Japanese and I still need katakana board to remember those signs! And tbh i feel like Japanese duolingo has some mistakes ;/ but for Japanese i used lingodeer app and it was nice!

Knifey Im very sorry you have troubles sleeping. Is there something you can do to make it easier for you? Maybe you can take some melatonin pills? Maybe you are stressed? Can you maybe contact doctor, maybe they can help? I dont want anything bad to happen to you! Please take care of yourself? Pretty please?

Love you so much Knifey, you are such a sunshine and I just want you to be happy and healthy!

[diaryofabeautyfiend]

Small Time Witch (14)

Yours and Steve’s relationship was blissfully uncomplicated. You actually had a lot in common as far as movies and music you both enjoyed. You liked a lot of the same foods but he was also adventurous when it came to trying things. You loved all of his friends of course so it was never an issue when he wanted to hang out with them. You had your own relationships with each of them. It was especially a relief to Steve when you and Bucky bonded. He often found you two passed out on the couch surrounded by junk food wrappers. He secretly loved your relationship with Bucky.

It was a little contentious at first. He didn’t enjoy the fact that you wore the bracelet Loki gave you all the damn time. But he was gone so he got over it. Tony suggested he buy you something you wouldn’t take off. Being ever practical he bought you a watch for your birthday. The face of the watch was the same shade of blue as his eyes. This is very possibly the most expensive thing Steve had ever purchased. It was well worth it when your face lit up when you opened the box. You wore it every day.

You were a little jealous of his relationship with Sharon. She was his last link to Peggy. Of course you understood his reasoning for keeping her in his life. It didn’t mean she had to be invited to every event. He also wasn’t in charge of entertaining her either. Once you introduced her to Agent Gregory she was no longer an issue.

You fell into an easy routine where you worked and he worked. You ate dinner together. You went on dates. You spent time with friends. You were both very happy.

He said he loved you for the first time when he came home from a particularly long mission in Prague. The team got back very late and you were already asleep. Everyone was exhausted and retreated to their rooms. Steve’s room had a large window that bathed the entire place in silvery blue light. He normally had the blackout curtains drawn but you liked the windows open.

You had kicked off the blanket at some point leaving your body exposed to the moonlight. His heart melted when he saw you sleeping so peacefully. He noticed your wrist was also naked. The bracelet and a screwdriver were sitting on the bedside table. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He stripped down and crawled into bed. When you felt the mattress sag under his weight you rolled over to snuggle up to him. “Sorry I woke you.”

“S’okay, baby. Everyone make it back ok?”

“Yep. All good.” He rubbed your back and stared at your wrist. He didn’t want to bring it up. Taking it off had to be up to you. As long as you had it on there was always something in the air that he couldn’t quite figure out. Now that it was off it was like a fog was lifted. You felt more like his than ever before.

Without thinking he rolled you to your back and situated himself between your legs. “May I help you, Sir?” You smiled and ran your hands through his chest hair. He did not look like he was in a very playful mood. He bent down to kiss you. This one felt different than any other kiss. It was the kind of kiss that made your heart beat faster and your whole body feel warm.

“What was that?

“What do you mean?”

“That felt different.” He was quietly studying your face. He noticed every freckle every line every highlight and shadow. For the first time he realized your upper lip line was a little crooked and you had a faded scar on your forehead. He traced over it with his fingertip. Your eyes fluttered closed under his touch and your lips parted sightly.

“I love you” he whispered. His eyes were still roaming your face like he was seeing it for the first time.

“What did you say?” You were in shock.

“I said I love you.” You weren’t sure if you were physically capable of saying it back. He looked at you anticipating your words.

“I love you too.” He kissed you again. Each touch was gentle every movement felt new. Sex any other time was explosive but a means to and end for sure. The way he was touching you now was foreign to him. It felt special. He had never been with anyone like this before and will never be again.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It was a few months since you last heard from Loki. He never said he would keep in touch. Somehow, it always felt like he was around. The only people you could talk to about this were Thor and Wanda.

Wanda felt like you just missed him and wearing the bracelet (which was basically a handcuff) kept him around. “I’m sure the spell wasn’t just to protect the metal from the elements. He wants you to be able to feel him. He is a wedge in your relationship with Steve. You have to take it off to break the bond.”

That was all very true. Thor was a bit more practical. “If he’s back on Asgard he is no doubt asking Heimdall to watch you. If he’s still here on Midgard he probably is always around. He’s a shapeshifter. Weird black cat following you home? Probably Loki. Gnarled tree outside of your window? Probably Loki. I’d be surprised if he didn’t glamour your make up mirror so that he could see you anytime you used it. If I know my brother he probably linked himself to that bracelet. Take it off and he’ll magically be gone.”

All of this was likely true as well. The bracelet started feeling heavy on your wrist. The longer Steve was away the more aware you were that it was hanging there. By the tenth night you were alone in your bed you decided to have a chat with Loki. You weren’t sure he could hear you. He said if you needed him he would know. So you spoke out loud feeling less than confident. “Lok, I don’t know if you can hear me but, I have to take this off for a little while. I miss you so much but I have to move on.”

You grabbed the screw driver and fit it into the groove where the little gold one would fit. At first it wouldn’t budge. You thought you might have to have Tony melt it off or at least try some bolt cutters. You sighed in frustration. “Come on, Lok. I have to. Please.” You weren’t sure whether you were talking to him or the bracelet. You tried it one more time and it worked. Like magic. You slipped it off and tenderly touched each emerald before you set it down.

As soon as Steve hit the door you knew. The air was different when he walked in. You felt different. When he said he loved you you wanted to cry. Steve would be only the third man you had ever really loved. You felt guilty for even feeling how you felt. You knew the two of you were alone now. You certainly didn’t mean to fall in love with him. Yet, you did. You said it back and meant every syllable.

🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Loki searched high and low for a way to make you immortal. He found a few promising leads from a mystic in Niflheim that lead him to the elves in Alfheim. They gained immortality from the Yggdrasil. Speaking to one of the elders there Loki was asked to consider two possibilities.

“You can grant her immortality by binding her to your life force. A snippet of the Yggdrasil forged with part of yourself will let her live as you do. The problem with that is if either of you dies the other will follow. You are not impervious to death and neither is she. You also cannot force her to take the gift. She must choose to live forever. The alternative, dear boy, is to make yourself mortal.”

The thought made Loki queasy. “How do I do that?”

“There is a tree on Midgard called manzanilla de muerte. Apple of death. Highly poisonous for humans. For you, it makes you mortal. You just need a bit of the sap. Once ingested you will age as she does and die as she will.”

“Will I lose my abilities?”

“No. But you will be far more fragile. Do not make this decision lightly or in haste. Be sure that whatever you choose it is the right choice.” Loki took the snippet of tree and headed back to Asgard.

Yes, Heimdall was watching you. Loki did not always appreciate his honesty especially when you and Steve were in the throes of passion. On this day Heimdall said you looked perplexed. “She’s talking to you.”

“What does she say?” He listened closer.

“She’s taking off her bracelet.”

Loki felt like he was being kicked in the stomach. He wrapped his hand around the tiny screwdriver he wore around his neck. The spell he cast on the bracelet did keep you connected to him. He could feel your pulse your warmth. At times he smelled the spice of your perfume. When he removed the leather cord from around his neck he released you. “Heimdall I need to go to Midgard.”

“It doesn’t seem like she wants you there.”

“I’m not going to New York. I need to go to Florida. I’m looking for a tree.” Heimdall set him in a remote part of Florida. He had an idea where the tree was but before he could be on his way his phone rang.

“Mr. Laufeyson this is Alan. The house is ready. When can I hand over the keys?”

“I can be there in an hour if that’s alright.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be here finishing a few things. Look forward to showing you around. She’s a beaut.”

Loki got to the tree and carefully collected its milky white sap in a vile. Soon after he was navigating his way through the woods near your new home.

The light hit the house just as you saw in your vision. Alan saw him and waved him over.

“Alan you exceeded my expectations” he said as he handed him a bag of cash. “It’s all there. You can count it.”

“All of your payments have been correct to the penny. No reason for me to mistrust you now. Come on. Have a look around. The gardener finished this morning. Everything is to your specifications. The decorator had a hard time finding the table but we got it.”

Loki marveled at the craftsmanship. Every nook and cranny was exactly how you wanted it. Four perfect bedrooms. The master was large but still felt very cozy. A shower and a large soaker tub set on gryphons feet. Soon the ivy would overtake the window casting the most interesting shadows. He imagined laying in the bath with you washing your hair belly heavy with his child. It took his breath away.

“Alan you are a master at your craft. I so appreciate your attention to detail. We’ll be in touch when we’re ready to expand.”

“Yes, sir. Looking forward to working with you again.” He handed Loki the keys and showed himself out.

Loki decided to stay in the house for a while. He stowed the Yggdrasil cutting in the herb cabinet he had built into the wall of the kitchen and the sap in another drawer. He spent the better part of the day warding the house. Had you been there it would have made for lighter work. No matter. It was done and you could feel safe. When he went to bed he took off the tiny screwdriver from around his neck and set it on the bedside table. He couldn’t feel you anymore.

The next morning, when the light was just right, he took a picture of the perfect cottage set in the glen. He went down to the drugstore and had the picture printed onto a postcard. Next he went to the locksmith where he had the ornate key to the front door fabricated. Last was the post office where he sent off the package and a copy of the deed. “Until we meet again, Pet” he said as he dropped it into the box. He went back home to have tea in the garden across from the empty chair where he hoped one day soon he would see you worrying over a book.

[metazensae]

Hi there! you know? A long time ago, I used to draw a lot. but for some situations, I stopped doing it. Now I do not even know if I still know how to draw, but I think it could help me improve my mental health a little and I want to thank you because you are one of the main people that motivated me to start over. Could you give me some advice, now that I want to draw again? 🌻

Hello!!!

I’m so glad to hear you’re interested in picking up the pencil/pen/marker/pen tool/what-have-you again! THAT’S SO EXCITING!!!!!! It is never too late, and just thinking about all the wonderful things you’re going to bring into the world next is making me giddy!!!

But also - you know what? Same Hat! 

 I drew LITERALLY every waking second of my life until I hit 17 and - WHOMP WHOMP-  got Real Depressed(tm). I had a near decade of depression where I couldn’t draw much, or well, or even at all, so I feel you very hard on this. I started drawing again about 3 years ago, and started over from scratch, and now you see what I can do - WELL! That’s you! You’re where I was standing just a short time ago. You GOT this and I believe in you.

But it’s not going to be easy, that’s for absolute sure. 

BUT DON’T GIVE UP!!!

I can’t really tell you what to do bc it really depends on you, your interests, and your end goals. But what I can tell you is to make sure you’re having fun with it no matter what. 

The goal is just to add happiness back into your life, right? 

But I’ll still give you some advice from my own personal experience:

Don’t care. About ANYTHING. Just do what you love and do it apologetically and with it with abandon. You need to start drawing something at all before you can fix it, and just focus on the specific content that you like to create. That should be your priority.

I hear a lot of people (and myself included) are just afraid to make mistakes. Like what if i mess this up or what if I can’t do it well or what if people don’t like it;;;;; And I have to just say - fuck that noise. MESS IT UP. MAKE THOSE MISTAKES. That’s how we learn, and we get better thru trying over and over and over again.

Also, I hear people obsessing over whether or not they have a style, and tbh, sometimes? They don’t? Bc they haven’t drawn enough. Style comes with time and style is just the culmination of how-you-do-things and it will change and grow and develop the more you draw and learn about how to draw. Don’t. Worry. About. It.

As for how to stay motivated? Think about what motivates you? For me, it’s sharing my work with people and seeing their reactions, and joining a fandom has been?? A great experience with that, but initially, I had a small group of artists/writers/creators here on Tumblr whom I shared my stories and characters with. I invested myself into the success of their works and they so graciously returned the favor, and it did SO MUCH to push me to make more and share more and toss love around. I personally wanted to make comics, so I found drawing fun Q&As way more interesting to do than flat character studies and gesture drawings. Fundamentals are so important, but remember - having fun with it? and finding some sort of reward in it? WAY BETTER. Find a way to work on fundamentals while doing things that are entertaining for you and you’ll have a much better time of it.

Thirst also motivates me. I just draw hot demons all day believe me.

Also, very Very VERY important. Finding media and other artists whose style gives you that fucking spark and drive to create. I call these Masters, and I have 3 - Dana Rune of the Arcana Game, Tess Stone of (so many works, but most recently) Not Drunk Enough, and Erika Petra Nordlund of Prague Race and Tiger Tiger are my style heroes. Their art speaks to my very soul and I feel a strange sort of resonance with their works - like THAT’S who and where I want to be and I hope to achieve that one day. You need Masters because they guide you gently into the worlds they’ve created and show you how they render the different things you want to bring into your craft. You borrow from them and reanalyze it into your own thing and then you’ve made something new and beautiful and you learn that other people have started looking at YOU as a master and then you get all weepy and write posts like this and oh my god;;;;;;;;;;;

When I’m having a shit art day, I put on some atmosphere music and just let the music take me to a far away place and it helps me focus. 

Usually my shit art day is bc I’m putting too much pressure on myself to be good at whatever that is, so I just? do something else? Go change it up. Go draw something you’ve been neglecting or do some gesture drawings, or like draw some fun art for someone else? I do that. A lot? 

Also, warming up is important too. 3 years ago, I didn’t know about this? I would sorta get all worked up trying to force myself to draw, but sometimes you need something silly to just get the anxiety out of the way, so do some shit silly loose sketches before you GET SERIOUS (tm).

Finally, sometimes shit art days just come to you that you can’t do anything about, and the reason is bc there’s a gap of knowledge between what you want to be able to do and what you’re currently capable of doing. When that happens, you actually need to go out into the world and do some observation. Your brain hasn’t analyzed the thing ENOUGH for you to be able to draw it and that’s fine. Just do the work. Look long and hard at something - look at negative space and contours. Lighting. Coloring. Idk. But go observe. And it will make you that much better. 

Use references? That’s so important. Like. You can’t draw the thing if you don’t know what it exactly looks like. But also, exactly replicating something is shitty, so only do it for self practice!

Anyway, I gotta go to bed now, so I hope some of these can resonate with you. And I’m always happy to share my experiences? So if you have further questions or need more explanation on this, feel free to ask!!Again I’m super excited for you and looking forward to seeing your work in the future!!!

Good luck!!

[247krp]

— Rejoice, little lambs! We have recovered our own Yoo Hana, spotted prancing about in the Southwest Side. I don’t remember seeing her with any clique back in high school, but I’m not here to spill yesterday’s tea. So straight to the rundown: can you say sly and callous? Apparently now she spends time as a commissioning editor at PJJ Publishing, and keeps skeletons buried at Prague Tower, 701. But those won’t stay hidden for long, if you and I have any say on it. Welcome back, Sugar Baby; we missed you so.

In case you don’t remember the devil’s name, here’s to refresh your memory:

Hana has an icy air around her. She kept herself out of everyone’s way for she knew where she stood. At the bottom tier. She doesn’t want to interact with anyone and focused on her academics instead. Aside from the occasional tormentors due to her social and economical stature, she had evaded all of their attention, including Gossip Girl. All of these changed on her senior year. With luxurious items and a shiny black car picking her up and dropping her off to school, wannabes and cliques flock around her. The boys kissed her feet. However, she is still the same old callous Hana, only with sparkling new things this time. Rumors about her having a sugar daddy started to spread around and even Gossip Girl tapped to the delicious source. She came out with a bang when photos of her hugging and receiving flowers from a very influential man at the parking lot during graduation day was posted, cementing her alias as the “sugar baby.”

Nevermind the memory lane though, the present is always the ripest fruit:

Hana may seem softer and gentler now, but watch out for the jagged edges. You may be bleeding to death after getting a taste of her. Her every move is calculated and you may be an unsuspecting accomplice to destroy someone’s life. She went overseas to study for college, leading more buzz in the school she had left behind until people grew bored of her story. After a brief stint in the U.S., Hana returned to Seoul this year, securing a job position at a publishing company. Now, her job cannot exactly pay for her luxurious life so whose credit card is she using? Why did she suddenly let go of her American dream? Moreover, who is the guy she regularly meets at wee hours?

But we are nothing if not open books – my job is to ensure you get to the best pages:

i. September 1992: Yoo Jian is an upcoming musical actress and is about to take the world by storm. However, on the opening night of the show, she never appeared. The media went in a frenzy because of their MIA star and tabloids and gossip boards wildly talked about a faceless sponsor who was behind it all.

On the outskirts of Seoul in 1993, Yoo Hana was born. To make sure she can eat three times a day, her mother sold her body for prostitution. As Hana grew up, she became aware of their state and vowed to get themselves out of the slums.

Each day, her mother become too frustrated with their lives, cursing her father she had never met. However, when Hana asked who he is, her mother gets tongue-tied, peeking outside from the windows before telling her to go to sleep.

ii. A virus was spreading around the slums and Hana caught it. She opened her eyes and saw herself in a white room with a pretty nurse. Her mother is talking in hushed tones with an unfamiliar man. Her fever had her delirious and made her see things, she thought.

She came home to see an envelope on the table. It was a scholarship grant from Cheongnam High. Hana was confused for she knew she never had the smarts nor talents to receive such an opportunity, but she grabbed the chance for this is their only way out of their miserable lives.

They moved in a decent apartment, much to her confusion where her mother had gotten the money, but she ignored it since it was an hour nearer to her new school. Upon stepping on the school grounds, Hana immediately learned the setup in the harshest way and never crossed the line for fear that she might lose her scholarship.

Her mother became sick and Hana has to juggle her academics and part-time jobs. The illegal ones has the highest wage thus she went on that path. Selling drugs was an easy feat especially when her wealthy schoolmates likes to get high. However, she made sure to conceal her stint by hiding behind the alias, “Fox,” and delivered their packages through their lockers or desks. However, the business dwindled when Gossip Girl arrived and the fabled character retreated back in the shadows.

iii. On the summer before her senior year, Hana returned home from work with the news of her mother’s death. A victim of a hit-and-run incident. She knew better to treat it as an accident for she saw her mother had been scanning through her insurance papers. It was all for her. She wanted her beloved daughter not to suffer anymore.

Whilst cleaning, Hana found her late mother’s journal that talked about the past she had deliberately hid from her. Her mother was a rookie musical actress and had an affair with a married man. She got pregnant and told her father about it. Since he was a respected congressman back then, he doesn’t want to tarnish his name and promised he would regularly send her money. Shortly after that, the wife discovered the affair and threatened that she will kill Hana’s mother if she won’t leave her husband. Out of fear for the safety of her child, she ran away and went into hiding for years.

This changed when Hana got sick and her mother has nowhere else to turn to. She contacted her father, and seeing the state of the two, kept his promise to support their child. Thus, the Cheongnam High scholarship and new apartment came into play.

Hana saw nothing but red. This man, his family, stole everything from her. And now, they will all pay. She met up with her father and demanded to be let in his picture-perfect household. However, since he was gearing to run for the Senate, he wasn’t able to do so. Instead, he promised her a luxurious life in exchange for keeping the secret.

Gears shifted and ran, the higher you are in life, the harder you fall, and Hana wanted nothing but to see their brains splattered on the ground. He accepted his terms, molding the vendetta she has to become the most poisonous acid that can perish a lot of lives.

iv. As elusive as she was on the past years at Cheongnam High, Hana was under the spotlight for the rest of her senior year. Wild rumors cemented her into a new stereotype, but she never minded them as long as her plan can come to fruition.

v. March 2018: After getting exiled to U.S. due to an action she executed at Cheongnam High, Hana has finally returned to Seoul. As softer and sweeter as she may now be, the poison she has been brewing is now almost ripe. Beware of that angelic face, she is a wolf under a sheep’s clothing.

[10dayson2largeislands]

Days 8-10: Northern Lights and the Blue Lagoon

 On Thursday morning Chris and I woke up relatively early (9:30-ish, around sunrise), and got breakfast at our hostel. After that we got on the road, driving north from Reykjavik to Akranes, a mountainous peninsula about 20 minutes up the coast. To get there, we drove through Hvalfjörður Tunnel, a 6-kilometer stretch of road that spans the length of the Hvalfjörður fjord. On the other side of the tunnel we took some pictures with our Jimny, and then continued up the road to Borgarnes, a small fishing community framed by mountains roughly 25 miles away from Reykjavik. The mountain views of Iceland are the stuff of legend.

After taking a requisite amount of amazing scenery photos, we turned around and drove back down to Keflavik Airport to pick up John, another of my friends from high school who’s currently studying abroad in Prague. We picked him up, and proceeded out of the greater Reykjavik area towards Lake Thingvellir to give him an initial sense of the climate and lack of density of this crazy country. About 20 minutes outside the city, arctic force winds infused with stinging hail forced us to turn back. We got John checked into our hostel, then went out for dinner at Noodle Station, Reykjavik’s cheapest meal at $16 per person, for some Icelandic pho noodles with spicy peanut sauce over beef and chicken. Not exactly traditional Nordic fare, but under the circumstances, a perfect meal with which to warm up. 

Nothing could have prepared us for what happened next. After dinner, we drove out of the city in anticipation of seeing the Northern Lights. We did. They’re best shown through photos since not much I write here will be able to convey the sheer wonder we felt. Smartphone cameras don’t do much to capture them, but luckily Chris brought his DSLR for long exposures, some of which will shortly follow this post. Seeing them in person was really, truly life-affirming stuff. It was a moment of almost unimaginable sincerity and true natural beauty I won’t soon replicate. “Well that’s one of the coolest things I’ve seen in my entire life,” already a running line of the trip, was uttered many times by all of us that night. We went to several different places with varying degrees of light, culminating in an area about 20 minutes outside Reykjavik where we saw a solid bar of Aurora Borealis that spanned the entire sky.  We later found out that Auroras occur when when the Sun sends off small particles into space. These particles are mainly electrons, with charge and energy, which means they contribute to electricity. Earth has a protective shield of energy around it called a magnetic field, which forms an elongated sphere around the Earth called the magnetosphere. The Earth’s magnetic field keeps off most of the Sun’s solar wind. At high-latitude areas (polar areas), the magnetic field is vertical. It does not keep off particles of the solar wind which can come from the magnetosphere and hit the particles of the air (Earth's atmosphere). When they hit, the atmosphere is heated and excited and the excess energy gets away, a phenomenon which can be seen as moving lights in the sky above 100 km altitude typically, best viewed in places like Iceland between October and April (Wikipedia). Without a doubt, seeing the Northern Lights was one of the coolest things I’ve ever personally experienced and it’s not something I’ll ever forget. That alone was worth this entire trip. We got back to our hostel at around 1am and fell asleep shortly thereafter, all of us thoroughly in disbelief at our good fortune.

Friday morning we got up at around 10:30, ate breakfast, and drove to the Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa about 40 minutes outside Reykjavik on Iceland’s Southern Peninsula. The Blue Lagoon is man-made, fed by the water output of the nearby geothermal power plant Svartsengi. Superheated water is vented from the ground near a lava flow and used to run turbines that generate electricity. After going through the turbines, the steam and hot water passes through a heat exchanger to provide heat for a municipal water heating system. Then the water is fed into the lagoon for recreational and medicinal users to bathe in. The water is renewed every two days, and is rich in minerals like silica and sulfur. Bathing in the Blue Lagoon is reputed to help some people suffering from skin diseases such as psoriasis. At a perfect 99-102 degrees Fahrenheit, it contrasted amazingly with the 27 degree temperatures outside (Wikipedia).

The Blue Lagoon is also probably one of the ritziest places I’ve ever been. It’s so fancy, they sell Canada Goose jackets in their gift shop. Skincare products made from the algae and silica of the lagoon cost up to $350 for three small tubes of ointment. It’s Fancy with a capital F. It was also easily the most relaxing part of the trip- sitting in the turquoise water with a silica mud mask, sipping a beer, framed by Icelandic mountains and lifeguards wearing parkas... it was quite an experience, to say the least. 

We ended up staying for around four hours, before drying off, piling back into our Jimny, and driving back to Reykjavik, this time driving through the Reykjanesfólkvangur, a nature preserve filled with lava formations, crater lakes, and geothermic fields. It was at this point in our trip that we discovered that Iceland makes some seriously killer 70s-esque pop music, most notably the 2015 Helgi Björnsson classic “Ég fer á Land Rover frá Mývatni á Kópasker” which became a running theme song for the last two days of the trip. They also make amazing Christmas music, like “Snaefinnur Snjokarl,” an Icelandic rendition of “Frosty the Snowman.” Between Icelandic pop and Icelandic Christmas music, the rest of our trip was filled with some seriously thematic tunes. 

Once we got back to Reykjavik, we opted to go to Noodle Station again. It was that good (and that cheap, compared to the rest of Iceland’s dinner options). John had an early flight the next morning so he opted to turn in early after dinner, while Chris and I headed back out of town to try to see some more Northern Lights. We got just as lucky on our second night, and yet again saw some truly unbelievable, mind-bendingly beautiful sights. 

Yesterday morning we got up, checked out of our hostel, and drove over to Hallgrímskirkja, Iceland’s largest church and one of the country’s tallest structures. Commissioned in 1937 and fully completed/consecrated in 1986, it has a distinct art deco style that beautifully accentuates the country’s wild weather and landscapes. In keeping with its Lutheran denomination, the interior of the church is extremely ascetic and minimalist, but in a beautiful, Scandinavian way. After checking out the church we drove over to the Sun Voyager, a massive sculpture of a stylized longship built in the 90s to commemorate Reykjavik’s 200th anniversary as a proper city. From there we went to get some coffee and breakfast sandwiches at Café Babalú, before embarking on the 40 minute drive back down to the airport where we made a bittersweet farewell to our Jimny, drank two beers, ate two more sandwiches, and boarded our flight back to Boston.

As I write this, sitting at home in Newbury, I am again overcome by feelings of immense gratitude and thankfulness for my sheer luck- for being alive in general, being alive in such privileged circumstances, and having the great fortune to be able to see such amazing things and have such incredible experiences. This trip is not one I’ll soon forget, and I’ll carry the memories and lessons I’ve taken from it with me always. Thanks to all who followed along with my journey! Peace.

[yourmusicquestions]

Sounding Together #31: L. van Beethoven, Symphony #3, “Eroica,” (1804)

So. We have finally arrived. This is the symphony that is touted as forever changing what the symphony was, for bridging the gap between classicism and romanticism in music, and for cementing Beethoven as a composer of great music, a new breed of musician, quite unlike Mozart or Haydn. This symphony has been examined and analyzed so many times, adding my own voice to the mix seems almost a futile gesture. And yet, I said I would look at the symphony over time . . . and I can’t very well do that and not look at the Eroica.

I was taught--as were many, I think--that this symphony was the beginning of the Romantic era of music. And while I think that’s a severe oversimplification, there’s no doubt that the symphony wouldn’t be the same after the Eroica. It should be noted, of course, that many of the so-called “revolutionary” elements of the symphony--the length, the strange harmonies, the early horn entrance--had been done before. Some of them we’ve already talked about. However, what Beethoven essentially does is take all of these odd elements from other symphonies, the little moments that stand out and briefly strike you as strange before the symphony continues on its merry way, and builds an entire work out of them.

One of the more famous stories associated with this symphony is the fact that Beethoven had originally intended to dedicate it to Napoleon Bonaparte, who Beethoven greatly admired, but upon hearing the Bonaparte had crowned himself Emperor, he was so enraged that he either tore the title page in two or scratched the dedication out so vigorously that he tore through the paper. (There are a couple different accounts of the incident.) Apocryphal or not, the story reveals Beethoven’s real passion. Napoleon was a figure of the French Revolution, wherein the monarchy was overthrown and, for a time, the people governed. (Relatively unsuccessfully, but never mind.) Beethoven was very much a champion of the human spirit and leadership by the people, and had little patience for titles or royalty, and in that sense, he was very much a romantic. And this symphony, regardless of its original intent, is very much a work of the people, intended not so much as an exercise in form and structure--though those elements are still present--but an exercise in expression and visceral emotion.

In spite of that, this symphony was not so easy to understand. Symphonies up to that point had a very predictable pattern to them, and analysis and interpretation were simply a matter of stating which theme started where and in what key. But this symphony was different, and audiences found it more than a little off-putting when they first heard it. (The second symphony got a similar, though far milder, reaction.) It wasn’t until the score was published and people could actually take time to study and analyze the symphony that it began to garner higher praise. Because there was more to this symphony than mere form and harmony. Music was passing from the Era of Stimulation to the Era of Expression, something which invited audience to ask the question: What is he trying to say? Because with this symphony, Beethoven was absolutely making a statement.

One of the elements of Romantic symphonies that became more prevalent was programmatic writing; that is music that represented some extra-musical element, an emotion or a story. Though we have seen some programmatic elements in some other symphonies, particularly Haydn’s, often these are assigned after the fact, and may or may not have been intentional by the composer. Though this work is not as programmatic in nature as later symphonies of the Romantic era, we can definitely see a more programmatic style of writing here. The name “Eroica,” or Heroic, was assigned by Beethoven himself, indicating a certain thoughtfulness in what this symphony was meant to represent. I’ve compared the structure of a sonata to the structure of a three-act story, and in the first movement of this symphony, we see another story: specifically, the Hero’s Journey.

In this symphony, Beethoven dispenses with the slow introduction and starts things off right away with two strong, loud chords in E-flat major. This gives way to the opening theme, which outlines an E-flat arpeggio, leaving utterly no doubt as to what the key is . . . before plunging down into the highly unusual C-sharp. So just seven measures in, Beethoven is already indicating to us that this is not going to be a typical symphony. Not only does C-sharp not belong in the key of E-flat, but with the high strings playing a tritone above, it creates an uncomfortable dissonance that takes a couple measures to resolve. Then the opening theme repeats in the winds, this time resolving in a far different manner, taking us to the third playing of the opening theme with the full orchestra and changing the key to the dominant B-flat. The transition to the second theme, then, occurs after the key has already changed, and contains in it three distinct motifs: a gentle lilting of descending notes, a pattering upward scale pattern, and a flurry of more descending notes, this time rougher and stormier. This transition gives us the fundamental conflict within this movement, which has a give and take between stormy and dramatic dissonance and a tone so gentle and spare, it almost sounds like it belongs in the second slow movement rather than the first. Perhaps that’s why Beethoven decided against a slow introduction: there’s already plenty of it within the movement proper.

The second theme is carried, as it often is, by the winds, and has an almost hymn-like quality to it. The forward movement almost stops here, and we’re given a brief moment to catch our breath before a few quiet, but gradually accelerating chords take us back into the excited flurry of the movement. As we move into the codetta, Beethoven plays with our expectations of the meter. This is a triple meter movement, but Beethoven puts orchestral hits on the off beats, finally using hemiola and putting a strong chord every two beats instead of three. As the movement ends with more dynamic and style contrast, we’re carried back to the key of E-flat and quieter opening, with one strong dominant chord finally pushing us the rest of the way into the repeat. Just in the exposition, Beethoven has already laid out much of what we can expect in the rest of this movement, as well as the symphony in general.

Strange though it may have sounded, the exposition was still easy enough to follow. Beethoven didn’t want to completely alienate his audiences, after all. He needed to make sure that no matter what experiments he performed on the symphony, it was still rooted in classical style and form, and those elements are still recognizable, if a little harder to pin down. It’s the development, though, which distinguishes this movement, as it is longer and far more intricate than any we’ve so far seen. Though Mozart’s Prague symphony may have had a longer first movement (if you observe all the repeats), with Beethoven, it’s the development section that lends most of the length, and it takes us on a ride through not only different keys and themes, but also vastly different styles. It begins very gently, and almost sounds as though it’s setting up an entirely different tempo, like the transition from the fast section of an overture to the slow section. The beat is very difficult to locate, even though the tempo has not actually changed. This eventually solidifies into the descending lyrical theme, still gentle, but with a feeling of the original tempo now. A little tension, and then the stormy theme returns again, followed by some of the hemiola patterns, similar to what we heard in the bridge before the full playing of the first theme. These rise chromatically, increasing the tension, and with a loud, blaring, and very dissonant chord, things quiet down again, bringing us to a completely new theme in the winds.

This new theme is gentle, another hymn-like passage, but more melodic than the second theme of the exposition. Indeed, it’s the most melodic passage in the entire movement. This serves as the midpoint of the development. Where the first half of the development mostly developed the transition themes, the second half deals almost exclusively with the opening theme. And here we see the advantage of having thematic material be more texture-based than melody-based. All Beethoven has to do is give us an ascending arpeggio--which he does, many times in many guises--and it has the feel of the opening theme. This texture alternates with the new theme, and then all this activity finally quiets down, and we have the infamous “early” entrance of the horns on the recapitulation, which, it should be noted, is a musical joke that already been employed by Haydn. And yet many listeners thought a mistake had been made, and that those silly horns had come in too early. (Silly horns . . .) A couple of loud chords later (an angry reaction to the early entrance, perhaps?) and the recapitulation proper begins.

We begin, of course, with the opening theme, but this time instead of resolving up, and C-sharp resolves down, giving us an entirely new take on the theme for the bridging passage, almost as if we’re not quite finished developing this particular theme yet. Then the orchestra comes through, we hear our three transition themes and the second theme, all in the tonic key of E-flat, and the recapitulation continues as normal . . . that is until the coda, which takes us on what could be considered to be a second development section, not nearly as extensive as the first, but one like might have seen in the days of Haydn or Mozart. The first theme is developed primarily, which could simply be the practice of playing the opening theme at the end of the movement except that the new theme introduced in the development section is also played here. The arpeggios build and build, resolving in the ascending pattern we heard in the transition of the exposition . . . but this time, it leads not to a storm, but to the final triumphant chords of the movement, ending the way it began. The Hero’s Journey is evident throughout the movement. The trials of a turbulent transition, the stormy development, the new lessons learned in a new theme, an impulsive early entrance, the return to the recapitulation, but with a stark difference even in the opening theme, and a final triumph over adversity. And that’s just the first movement.

The second movement changes the mood from one of triumph to one of grief with a funeral march, which has elements of rondo and even sonata in it as well. It begins as a typical march, with an opening theme in C minor. The theme is played again, this time ending in the relative E-flat major for the beginning of the second theme, which returns to minor relatively quickly, and then a repeat of the opening theme. This section is then also repeated, although in both cases, they are not literal repeats. That is, Beethoven doesn’t just throw in repeat markers, but rewrites the themes so that he can change certain things, like the color and tone. This opening section gives way to what would be the trio of the march, a gentle section in C major (actually marked “Major” in the music) with triplets in the accompaniment. It’s in the third section that things begin to get strange. Normally with a march, there would be a de capo and a return to the beginning of the movement, playing everything over literally. But again, Beethoven rewrites the opening . . . and then the third section becomes something else entirely. The opening theme gives way to a fugal passage built on an inversion of the second theme. The first theme returns, but is then interrupted by what can only be referred to as a mini-development section, featuring fragments of the opening theme interrupted by stormy textures. featuring a back and forth between the triplet accompaniment from the trio and the duple accompaniment of the rest of the march. Finally, the opening material returns, and we get the restatement of the opening section, eventually winding down to a fragmented playing the opening motif, as though theme was finally having an emotional breakdown over the grief of the music.

The third movement scherzo is at least easier to follow as far as form is concerned, though it does play with expectations of beat and meter. It opens with the strings alternating between two notes very quietly--in triple meter, remember, so the beat is almost impossible to find until the main melody comes in, which is really just a little flourish on the oboe. The entire opening section is basically built on that flourish, eventually bringing it in a different key, and then with the full orchestra. The second theme, if it can be called that, is a set of descending notes, written completely off the beat, making it necessary to throw a rest into the mix making it sound as though the music has tripped over itself, somehow. Then some back and forth between strings and winds brings us to the end of the opening section. The trio is carried almost entirely by a horn trio, with the other winds coming in on the secondary theme and the strings providing accompaniment. And again, Beethoven elects not to do a de capo, but instead to rewrite the opening section again, but with two major differences. First, at the descending pattern with the “trip” in the middle, he writes it differently the second time, switching to cut time and having the notes descend evenly, making it seem as though that was way those notes were always meant to be played. And second, he adds a coda to the end, with the orchestra giving the movement a grand ending that third movements don’t typically get. In that way, he has given more weight to what is typically a lighthearted, easy movement.

The finale of the symphony is a theme and variations, but much like the march and scherzo before, Beethoven takes what would ordinarily be a very simple musical structure and makes it into something much more. The main theme used here is actually a theme he had used in a previous work about Prometheus--a character who stole fire from the gods for humanity’s use, drawing something a parallel to humanity’s fight against monarchy at that time. Beethoven actually begins, not with the main theme itself, but the theme’s bass line, variations of which can actually be spotted in the previous three movements, lending evidence to the idea that this movement was actually composed first. Eventually, after a couple variations, the main melody make its appearance, and is also varied in numerous ways and moods. We see a fugal section in the middle, as well as a substantial slowing of tempo for a hymn-like section. And in the end, the movement ends as it began, with a flurry of notes and chords in E-flat major.

It’s easy to see why this movement was so difficult for audiences to understand upon first listening. They were used to music that was easy to follow, able to anticipate basic form, harmonies, and meters. But in this symphony, Beethoven plays with expectations on all three. Though the familiar forms, harmonies, and meters are there, they’re hidden, obscured by the thing that had taken precedence over all else: expression, the thing that would become the backbone of the Romantic era. Though it’s too soon to call the start of the Romantic era proper--classical form and harmony are still quite prominent after all--it’s easy to see why people call the Eroica the start of musical Romanticism. This is a piece of emotion.

[blogeel]

Rome

My first week long trip was supposed to be to Croatia. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to enter the country because of the limited validity passport I was given in Amsterdam. It’s a long story, so if you want more details on that you can read all about it in my Passport & Visa Recovery blog. 

So, I spontaneously decided to fly to Rome to see Kyle, my boyfriend. I didn’t know how I could crash the other trips kids in my program were on that week, however I knew Kyle would be in Rome all week with his classes. 

It was so nice flying into a country where someone could give me advice on how to get around. Kyle gave me all the details on how to get to the city center from the airport. I took a train from FCO to Roma Termini. Kyle met me at the station and we walked to his apartment. It was so nice being able to put faces to names of his five roommates. I was also really grateful they accepted me into their apartment for the week; I was able to sleep on their couch and save money by not having to stay in a hostel. Saving money was much needed after I paid for two new passports, I missed out on my pre-paid Croatia trip, all the flights involved, a makeup flight for Paige after I couldn’t fly, a flight back to Prague, and a flight to Rome. 

After all the stress from the weekend (being stuck in Istanbul, being forced to make new week long plans, etc.), waking up in Rome the first morning was a breath of fresh air. The view outside of the apartment was beautiful. 

My first order of business in Rome was to go to the US Embassy. I had to get a new limited validity passport that had a longer time period on it so that I could travel to non-Schengen countries without issue. The employees at the embassy were so kind. The process went a lot more smoothly than before, they answered all of my questions, and they had a lot of compassion for me and my situation. 

After, I made the trip to Kyle’s school. He was in class so I made a lap around the school then went to the park across the street, Villa Sciarra, to walk around and relax. They had HUGE snake plants, I was set. 

After his class he brought me to this small café. It’s run by an American guy who makes delicious American food for all the study abroad kids in Rome. Apparently, he has his own guy who sells him bacon because it’s so hard to find American style bacon in Europe. The café had wi-fi too, so I decided to stay there and read a book while Kyle went back to his last class. 

When his classes for the day ended, we walked back to his apartment together. Kyle showed me the beauty around his school and on his walk home. I loved it. Rome was so green and warm during my time there it was like a true vacation. 

That night we walked around his neighborhood: Trastevere. We walked past all kinds of restaurants promoting pizza and pasta and enjoyed hearing the live music. We finally settled on Ristorante le Mani in Pasta where they were cutting fresh pasta in the entrance. Yum! I got the strozzapreti and Kyle ordered spaghetti carbonara. Strozzapreti has an interesting history that Kyle shared with me over our meal. Strozzapreti translates to “strangle the priests.” Back in the day when there was a lot of really bad corruption in the church, each day, the cardinals and priests in Rome would pick one household every evening. These houses they went to were basically told to feed the visitors. However, these homes were not wealthy and would dread being chosen each night. The wives would have to cook for their spontaneous visitors, often more than ten priests at a time. Meanwhile, the husbands would have to shine all the shoes of the priests. While the wives rolled the pasta, they would roll and roll and roll it to make the pasta extra fat, and every roll of their hands they would say “strozza preti, strozza preti, …” cursing the priests. 

After dinner, we got gelato and walked home along the River Tiber. 

The next morning I again could not help but sit in awe over the beautiful morning light sweeping across the apartment complex. 

I met with Julie, another girl apart of my Prague program, to do a free walking tour that morning. The tour took us to many places around Rome. To start we saw: Porta del Popolo, Piazza del Popolo, Fontana della Dea di Roma, Fontana del Nettuno, Santa Maria in Montesanto, and Santa Maria dei Miracoli. This is where visitors to Rome and groups that wanted to take over Rome would first encounter the city in the old days. The piazza is huge and beautifully decorated to show the power of Rome. We then walked down Via del Corso which was full of high end shopping stores. 

We made our way to Mausoleo di Augusto where our guide dove into the history of Augustus (both his name history as well as the rest of his life). 

After this, we went to Gelateria Della Palma, where they serve 150 flavors of gelato. I got raspberry and lemon. Yum! 

We walked to the Pantheon after and even had the chance to walk inside because there was no line. Crazy to think it was built nearly 2000 years ago. The dome remains one of the world’s largest unreinforced concrete domes today. Also, the height to the dome’s oculus is the same as the diameter of the interior circle. Inside the Pantheon is Raphael’s tomb, with the inscription: “Here lies Raphael, by whom Nature feared to be outdone while he lives, and when he died, feared that she herself would die.” 

After, we went to the Piazza Navona where we saw the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi. The fountain represents the four rivers from the four continents in which papal authority had spread at that time. The rivers were the Nile representing Africa, the Danube representing Europe, the Ganges representing Asia, and the Rio de la Plata representing the Americas. 

Next, we crossed the Ponte Umberto I to see the Supreme Court building. Then we walked just a bit further to see the Vatican from far away. 

I enjoyed the tour and learned a lot. A few of us from the tour went back to a place the guide recommended to get food. It was so fun! There was a German, an Australia, two Israelis, and two Americans. It was probably the most interesting meal I had abroad, as I was able to see massive cultural differences among all of us. I also really enjoyed my pesto meal. 

When lunch ended I went back to Trastevere. Kyle and I met up at Giuffre Gelato up the street from his place and we ordered Gelato Brioche, which is Sicilian gelato that is placed in between two sweet buns. Yum! 

After, we bought groceries to use for dinner later on. Then we headed out to Kyle’s soccer practice. That’s right! He tried out for his neighborhood soccer team in Italy and MADE IT. Absolutely crazy. I had a lot of fun watching the dynamic of the team practice, as it was all in Italian, even though some of the boys were other study abroad kids. Thank goodness Kyle can speak Italian! 

For dinner, Kyle made me sciuè sciuè. It was quite a treat! 

The next day Kyle and I had brunch near his school at HomeBaked before we started our days. He had class and I planned to go to the Vatican. I waited at the bus stop for 25 minutes before I realized the bus was never coming. I decided to walk, until Google maps sent me down a road with no sidewalk and blind corners. I got scared I would get hit and tried to make my own route through a park, Villa Doria Pamphili, until I got lost and realized this route wasn’t toward the Vatican. At that point I gave up and just waited in the park until Kyle’s class let out. 

When he had a break between classes we grabbed coffee. After, I went to the Fontana dell’Acqua Paola and headed over to Terrazza del Gianicolo. I stumbled upon this view of Rome from the terrace that became one of my favorites! 

That night I went to another one of Kyle’s soccer practices. This time it was raining and a few of the boys during a drill told me to take shelter inside the field under the covered bench. I sorta waved them off because first I felt like it was an intrusion, and second I didn’t want to interrupt or get in the way of their drill. After the drill was over and the coach gave them a water break he came over and told me to sit on the bench with the rest of the team. It was quite the experience being up close and personal with everyone. I loved it. From this view I got the inside scoop on everything being said, despite not understanding most of it from my limited Italian language skills, it was still wonderful. 

The next day Kyle didn’t have any classes so we made a plan to hit a few major spots in Rome. First, we started with Pizza Boom, Kyle’s favorite local pizza place. We got our pizza and headed off to Piazza Venezia. We sat and enjoyed our pizza while admiring fellow tourists and locals roam and explore. Next, we walked past the Roman Forums on our way to the Colosseum. The Colosseum blew me away. It was HUGE. Despite it not being the intended sight, through years of wear and tear you can see all the rooms that had been built underneath the main floor. It was fascinating! 

The Colosseum was great and all, until it start monsooning. That’s when we ended up jumping on any random bus we could get because it was so bad and windy and wet. 

This really messed up the rest of our plans because after this we could not get a bus back in the direction we needed. 

We hoped on metro and did our best to get to the Vatican before they stopped allowing visitors. We got there with just enough time to explore St. Peter’s Basilica. It was massive, and absolutely beautiful. Inside we got to see the Tomb of the Apostle Peter. When they closed up and we had pushed our stay, we were able to enjoy the sun fully set behind Vatican City. It was a wonderful sight. 

That night we used TripAdvisor for food recommendations and settled on a dinner place that was the best in Municipio Rome 1, which covers about 1/5 of Rome. Crazy! It was beyond delicious. No pasta could ever beat it. 

After dinner, we got our hands on gelato again. We enjoyed it at the Trevi Fountain, and followed it up with throwing our coins in the fountain. When in Rome!

[kurkovab]

MY SUMMER 2017

I had big musical ambitions for this summer. I wanted to go to festivals and work at one or two as well. I had plans to go to back home and go to a festival that I went to in 2016 – Aerodrome in Prague. The headliners last year were Billy Talent, Bring Me The Horizon and Korn. This year I was even more excited to go as the main headliner was one of my favourite bands since I was a child – Linkin Park. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get the tickets and looking back now I regret it immensely. I just thought I’d go and see them at a concert some other time as they have only just started their tour for the One More Light album. I can’t put into words how I felt when I heard the sad news of Chester’s suicide. When I read about it online I couldn’t believe it. I know that in past years some amazing and hugely successful musicians have left us (David Bowie, Prince) and even though I liked and admired them, their deaths never hit me nearly as much as Chester Bennington’s did. Chester was a huge talent. His voice was amazing and he was an amazing person who gave everything to his music, fans, friends and family. He (like many other musicians) suffered from depression and earlier this year he lost one of his best friends – Chris Cornell. So before I get even more emotional and start talking about how it was on Chris’s birthday that Chester committed suicide… I’ll put a stop to this topic. But I just want to say one more thing - Chester, you are hugely missed and you will never be forgotten.

(Linkin Park Instagram, 2017)

As I already said, I didn’t get to go to the festival I wanted to, so I thought I’d at least have a work placement at one of the British festivals. Studying a music course at uni, our lecturers gave us a lot of opportunities to work at many different festivals from Reading to a folk festival in Cambridge, which I am very thankful for. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to participate in any of these as I had rent to pay. I would have loved to work at Reading or Creamfields. So as this blog post was supposed to be about our summer spent at music festivals and I didn’t go to any, I thought I’d write about something else.

I went to a few concerts at the beginning of this summer but the two bands I would most like to focus on are The 1975 and Guns n Roses. The 1975 is a  relatively new band with a mainly young audience. My experience at their concert was nothing like the experience at the Guns n Roses one. Now don’t get me wrong - I loved both of them. But everything from the energy at the concerts, the types of people that went, their behaviour and the behaviour of the artists.. to the audience and venue size were really, really different. And that is what I will write about in this post. I will try and explain how a concert of a worldwide known heritage band is different from a concert of a new and relatively small band.

So first, The 1975. The concert was at a really nice Prague venue called Forum Karlín. It is a small venue with the capacity somewhere under 5000 people. The 1975’s first music came out in 2012. The band performed in Prague twice before already (2013 – Lucerna Music Bar, 2014 - MeetFactory) so it is safe to say they have a good audience there. I went to see them with my best friend and I have to say their performance was amazing. Full of energy, great light and fog effects.. they looked incredible on stage. There was surprisingly a lot of guys in the audience which quite surprised me because of the type of music they play (pop-rock.. although I feel like it is mainly pop). The age demographic must have been somewhere between 15 and 25. The interaction with us (fans) was great and I had the best time at the concert.

On the other hand, the Guns n Roses concert was a monumental thing. It was at Letná airport and there were more than 55 thousand people there. I don’t think this is really necessary to talk about their backstory but I will just for the purpose of this blog post. Guns n Roses is a rock band formed in 1985, consisting of iconic musicians such as Slash, who is considered one of the best guitar players alive. In 2012 (the year the 1975 started out) they were inducted into the Rock n Roll hall of fame. They have had their fair share of drama and problems, mainly between Axl Rose and Slash so this year’s Not In This Lifetime tour was the first time they have toured together after 23 years. The concert was a whole day experience for me.. I got to the venue at 4 pm when the gates opened and went to wait by the stage. The first supporting band started at half 5 and played a few songs. After them, Biffy Clyro came on. That was the first time I realized this was probably not going to be a typical rock concert (lots of jumping around, moshing,..). Guns n Roses’ fanbase demographic ranges from people my age (20) to people my grandfathers age (who was by the way very sad he could go with me and tried making me jealous by telling me about his experiences at concerts of for example Pink Floyd and Bruce Springsteen.. needless to say it worked). As a huge part of the audience was of older age, they didn’t know Biffy Clyro at all (I didn’t know them much either before but I loved their set). They just came in to see the main act and weren’t really interested in the supporting bands, not knowing one of them is a hugely successful rock band as well. Guns n Roses came on at 7 pm sharp and played for amazing 3 hours and 30 minutes. By the end of the set, they have played their biggest hits such as Yesterday and Knocking on Heaven’s Door and much more along with a few covers of bands like Pink Floyd, AC/DC and Soundgarden. As it was in July, most of their set was in the daylight.. but when the sun went down the atmosphere changed drastically for the better. I can’t even explain how I felt. I was standing in one of the front rows with over 50 thousand people behind me and in front of me on the stage were 50-year-old men running around and playing my favourite songs. It was surreal.

But even though the Guns n Roses concert was this big and amazing thing but I have to say I liked the atmosphere better at the 1975 concert. It was all about the interactions. I know this is a trivial thing, but communication between the 1975 and fans was incredible. I think it’s mainly because of the younger audience. Nowadays everyone learns English at school so they can understand when the band is talking to them. But when Axl Rose started talking to us in Prague, just half of the crowd had some kind of respond. It just felt so strange. One of the biggest bands ever performed in front of us and we couldn’t even respond properly because a huge part of the audience didn’t understand them. I wouldn’t say I was let down by Guns n Roses.. I’d say I was let down by the crowd. I was expecting this amazing atmosphere and I didn’t get that.. That said, I would gladly buy £100 tickets to see a heritage band again. Because at the end of the day we are all expecting a bit more from their performance and therefore are a lot more judgmental.

Linkin Park Instagram (2017). Chester Bennington. [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BWySXXTlAyN/?taken-by=linkinpark [Accessed 26 Sep. 2017].

Rolling Stone. (2017). Guns N’ Roses Biography. [online] Available at: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/guns-n-roses/biography [Accessed 26 Sep. 2017].

Wilkening, M. (2012). 25 Most Destructive Guns N’ Roses Moments. [online] Ultimate Classic Rock. Available at: http://ultimateclassicrock.com/25-most-destructive-guns-n-roses-moments/ [Accessed 26 Sep. 2017].

Kerr, S. (n.d.). The 1975 | Biography & History | AllMusic. [online] AllMusic. Available at: http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-1975-mn0002986022/biography [Accessed 26 Sep. 2017].

[exploring-vastness-blog]

No Sleep Guide: Prague Edition

Prague, Czech Republic. In the three nights you will spend there, you will stay up to watch the sun rise at a minimum of once. I am now herby renaming it the central European ‘city of no sleep’. If you love dancing all night, trying new kinds of liquor, and exploring new places, keep reading – this guide is for you.

Night 1: Thursday:

You arrive in Prague by train Thursday night around 9:30 p.m., and immediately take a taxi to your Airbnb. The apartment is crisp white and spacious, with a beautiful view of the Charles Bridge and Vltava, the longest river in the Czech Republic. The hunger for a meal heightens, as well as the thirst to explore, so you waste no time at the apartment, and begin walking along the river in search of an ATM. You find one just a couple of minutes down the street, and withdraw 4,000 Czech korunas, also referred to as Czech crowns or Kč.  Don’t be fooled by this seemingly high number, because Prague is a relatively cheap city. To put things into perspective, $1 is equivalent to 22.74 Kč, and most half liter draft beers cost less than 50 Kč; so if you are charged 50 Kč or more, you’re getting ripped off.  Many locations also accept Euros and credit cards, although smaller cafe’s and most clubs only accept crowns as a form of payment.  A sit down dinner is not a priority compared to your hunger, so you buy a bratwurst from a street vendor nearby, and the “hanger” quickly dissipates.  

Now that you have food in your system, its time to pregame. You make your way to U Sudu, an authentic underground cave bar. From the street, it appears as a small unassuming pub. Step inside, however, and you will find a seemingly endless maze of dark underground bars. You and your crew pick one, order half a liter of beer, and within no time befriend half of the people in the bar. Once the first beer has been consumed, everyone begins dancing to the early 2000’s throwback music that includes Britney Spear’s “Hit Me Baby One More Time”. Clearly this is not Czech music, but you don’t mind.

When the clock strikes midnight, you are ready to change locations. You head towards Club Roxy, prepared to get a better taste of what Prague’s nightlife has to offer.  Roxy has a great drink selection at the bar and a fun atmosphere.  When you walk in, go down the stairs to find a bar and many lounge areas. Descend one more floor, however, and you will find another bar wrapped around a dance floor. All of the light fixtures in Roxy contain vibrant neon pink light bulbs to set the club atmosphere. The base of this dancefloor pit is constructed of clear Plexiglas that shows video images plaing a never ending game of tag under your dancing feet. Make sure you try an authentic Absinth shot, as in the Czech Republic it contains a special chemical called thujone that is illegal in the U.S. No, it will not make you hallucinate, but you will be able to claim that you tried it in its authentic setting. The music here caters to the general public – only playing remixes of the top 100 songs. So hold off on this club if that’s not your thing. For the rest of you – you will love it.

Once your feet feel as if they might fall off and your ears begin ringing from the blasting music it is time to make your way back. Walking home is entirely feasible, but if you can’t make it back (for whatever reason), Uber home instead of taking a taxi. It will probably end up being less than $5. If you pass a Burrito Loco on the way home, do yourself a favor by grabbing a late night bite there, as it boasts some of the best Mexican street food you will find in central Europe.  

Day 2: Friday:

Waking up might be considered some form of torture after the little amount of sleep you got last night, but head over to Old Town Square and grab a cappuccino from a local café. This should at least begin to revive you. Add Bailey’s to your caffeine if you are one of those people who believe the hair of the dog is a hangover’s only medicine. Once  your zombie-like state has somewhat subsided, check out the astronomical clock in the square. This clock is the third oldest in the world, dating back to 1380, and is the oldest working astronomical clock in the world.  

Next, head towards the Charles Bridge to take a few shots of the most picturesque views the city has to offer, and be sure to purchase some handmade jewelry from the local artisans stationed there.  Charles Bridge was built during the reign of King Charles IV and was originally called Stone Bridge. The bridge connects Old Town and Prague Castle, and is decorated with a series of baroque style statues, a unique part of this historical hotspot.  

If you are a Beatles fan, this next part will have you hard core fangirling. Continue dragging your exhausted feet along the Charles Bridge and you will find a series of steps that will lead you along your way to the John Lennon Wall.  This wall is a study in grattifi overdrive-- Beatles lyrics, peace signs, and quotes. Bring a can of spray paint if you wish to leave your mark on it, or simply snap an  picture in front of this tribute. Once you feel as if you have spent enough time admiring the wall, head over to the John Lennon Pub nearby. The inside of the pub is decorated as such to resemble a yellow submarine, and Beatles memorabilia appears everywhere from the stained glass windows to the posters mounted on the walls.  

You are now exhausted from walking around all day, and should head back to your Airbnb to rest up a bit before dinner. On your way back; however, grab a Trdelnik from a Czech Bakery. Trdelniks are rolled pastries that are covered in sugar and stuffed with your choice of topping: Ice Cream, Nutella, jam, white chocolate, or whipped cream. Share it with a friend or two, or your dinner in a few hours will be out of the question.  

After you rest, make your way to Národní Kavárna. Order the handmade aglio olio pepperoncino pasta, and finish off your meal with a shot of Becherovka.  Becherovka is a high quality herbal digestive aid liquor produced in the Czech Republic that is served chilled after a meal.  It has a slightly spicy taste, but is also quite refreshing.  

Next up: Boat party. Immediately after your meal, walk over to Zephyr Bar for the boat party pregame, where you will be provided with an ‘all you can drink’ bar until 10:30 PM for just 25 Euro (this also includes the price of the boat tour).  Be prepared to be stared at for the next part, because the boat party crew will attempt to herd 150 boat partiers throughout the city to the port. Sit on the top level of the boat if you wish to enjoy the night time view of Prague, or go downstairs if you prefer to dance or drink by the boat bar.  Once the boat tour is over, the guides will lead you back to where you were last night, Roxy, but stray away from the group and make your way towards Karlovy Lazne – better known as the 5 story club. Although this is a touristy club, it is the largest one in central Europe, and is worth at the minimum stopping by. The first floor of the club is the ice pub, the second is mainstream music, the third is dance music, the fourth is hip hop, and the last is “chill out” music. Karlovy Lazne closes at 5 a.m., so if you are enjoying yourself you might unknowingly stay until closing time and once again watch the sun rise.  

Day 3: Saturday:

Prague has done it once again. You wake up too late to eat breakfast, and immediately head to lunch after getting ready for the day. Your first stop today is The P.U.B., which stands for Pilsner Unique Bar.  Each table has a draft beer tap built into it, and you compete against other tables to see who can drink the most beer. Order one of the large variety of specialty burgers to get your American food fix, then walk over to one of the most amazing sights in Prague: The Prague Castle. This castle is the largest ancient caste in the world, and is made of beautiful baroque style architecture. Its construction began in 870 and it was finally completed in 1929. Make sure you make your way all around its stunning grounds, and find the castle gardens. They offer a magnificent view of Prague from above, and are a peaceful place to rest your tired feet after days of walking and a night’s worth of dancing.  

For more above-city views, head to Letná Park, a biergarten on the same side of the river as Prague Castle just about 15 minutes away walking distance. Sit at one of the long bench tables and enjoy the overlook Staré Město with your friends.  After a few hours of relaxing brews and views, it is almost time for dinner. Tonight you will be dining at Charles Bridge Restaurant. As the name gives it away, this dinner locale is right next to the Charles Bridge, and the terrace seating puts you eye-to-eye with the river.  Order the salmon steak with mashed potatoes and spinach, the Frankovka Rosé, and the crème brulee for a complete meal of delightfulness.  Prepare to spend at least two hours at this restaurant, as it is slow placed and slightly understaffed.  

For your final night in Prague, take an Uber 15 minutes away to one of the most peculiar places you have ever set foot in: Cross Club. Outside of the club the first thing you see is a square clock rotating at 10 times the standard speed. This is open to interpretation, as it could be possibly hinting that time is relative, or that you are about to enter into the future. The latter makes sense once you step inside the club, as it has a futuristic, eccentric, almost post-apocalyptic design that follows a cyberpunk theme. The metal pipes and scraps compose the entirety of the club, and very much resembles the scenery of Tim Burton’s film 9. Sit in the outside terrace and people watch as you are most likely one of the only people that does not have dreadlocks, a septum piercing, and speak a European language. Order some shots at the bar inside and receive them in small, prescription like containers with a sealed top. Explore the two DJs stages at the bottom and main floor, and find an array of music being produced on the spot until 7 a.m. Once you are finally tired of clubbing, eating, drinking and exploring, make your way back once more for a one or two-hour night’s sleep before you have to check out of the apartment and catch the train back home.  

[ramialkarmi]

How music streaming service SoundCloud ended up on the brink of extinction

"Two weeks ago I moved from Scotland to Germany to start a new job as an iOS engineer at SoundCloud," wrote Matthew Healy on the Hackernoon website on July 10. "On Monday of last week I started that job. By Thursday evening I, along with 172 of my new colleagues, was officially being laid off."

"Why was a business that was about to cut 40% of its workforce still hiring so aggressively?" he asked.

It's a question that Healey and many other SoundCloud employees are still struggling to understand. 

Reports started to appear online on July 5 that said SoundCloud was about to cut its 420-strong workforce by 40%. Bloomberg had read a draft blog post in which SoundCloud CEO Alex Ljung explained that the company was letting go of 173 staff, and shutting down its offices in London and San Francisco (leaving only offices in New York City and Berlin) as part of an effort to reduce costs at the company whose losses have been spiralling out of control. 

"Nobody saw it coming," a SoundCloud employee, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Business Insider. "It was a sudden announcement."

Those that remain at the company could be forgiven for feeling nervous. SoundCloud's existing cash reserves will only carry it through to the fourth quarter of the year, which is less than 50 days away, according to sources cited by TechCrunch. SoundCloud has attempted to downplay the TechCrunch report, although the company confirmed last week that it is in the process of trying to raise more capital. 

The leaked blog post that Bloomberg saw was quickly published onto SoundCloud's website and there have been two company all-hands meetings since. 

During last week's all-hands meeting — held on July 11 and monitored by a number of security personnel — "SoundClouders" were looking for answers as to why the company had to suddenly lay off almost half of its staff.

Staff wanted to know why they hadn't been warned that cuts were on the way, and the remaining employees wanted assurance that the cost reductions would keep the company in business for the foreseeable future. 

"The all hands today was absolutely horrible," another SoundCloud employee, who also wishes to remain anonymous, told Business Insider shortly after the meeting. "[There were] no real answers and [they were] politically avoiding questions."

Ljung and cofounder Eric Wahlforss accepted "no ownership of the responsibility and no admittance of fault," the source claimed, adding that they also failed to state whether there would be any repercussions for the executives that have led SoundCloud into the sticky position it now finds itself in. 

SoundCloud was born in Stockholm and raised in Berlin

SoundCloud was founded in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 2007. It launched in 2008 and started out as a cool, indie platform for people interested in discovering the latest and greatest new music.

"We build an online audio platform that's used by people working with music to be able to receive, send, and distribute their music," Ljung said in a YouTube video uploaded in October 2008 when SoundCloud had around 25,000 users.

"They use it on a daily basic to be able to get files they're working on over to other people ... or to be able to take their finished tracks and get them out to people who then sell the tracks or to other social networks. What we're basically doing in the long term is trying to build a cloud-based audio platform that anybody who is involved with music can work with."

The founders met while studying at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, which has a reputation for being one of the world's best computer science universities. They bonded over a shared love of music and decided to create a platform that was something like Flickr or Wordpress but for sound.

"We both were working in music and one way or another I used to be a sound designer for films and Eric used to release music," Ljung said in the same YouTube video. "We had a lot of trouble trying to collaborate with people. Trying to use the web and getting sent music all the time. Getting it to our inboxes and getting the weird FTP logins. One day we realised OK it's actually annoying when people send us new music they're working on when that should be like a really happy moment." 

Shortly after setting up the company, the founders moved SoundCloud to Berlin, which was developing a reputation as one of the most startup-friendly cities in Europe at the time, partly due to its cheap accommodation and its abundance of talented programmers. 

"If I look back 10 years ago, Berlin was a nascent [startup] ecosystem," Wahlforss said at a startup event in March. "It didn't have all of the infrastructure in place, but it certainly had some of the raw ingredients."

The company became one of Berlin's most-loved startups and in May 2014, SoundCloud was reported to have caught the eye of Twitter, which was considering buying the platform. Twitter had already tried to launch a music product to get people to stay longer on the platform, but the attempt failed.

Ultimately the Twitter talks fell through. This is thought to be partly because SoundCloud wanted a deal worth $1 billion (£770 million) when its valuation was only $700 million (£386 million). It could also be because, despite its best efforts, SoundCloud had been plagued by copyright infringement issues. 

SoundCloud was constantly battling with the major music labels

In May 2015, Sony Music pulled music by several key artists from SoundCloud after the label decided it wasn't making enough money from music hosted on the streaming site. Original recordings from Sony artists like Adele, Kelly Clarkson, Miguel, and Hozier were removed. They were later added again after SoundCloud negotiated a new deal with Sony Music. 

In August 2015, SoundCloud was sued for not paying musicians royalties. In an email sent to its members, the Performing Rights Society for Music (PRS for Music) announced that it felt it has "no alternative but to commence legal proceedings," following "five years of unsuccessful negotiations." 

By November 2015, loyal SoundCloud users were starting to lose faith in the site as it shifted from a hangout for DJs and radio hosts to a commercial platform. Users said the music streaming app and website had strayed from its earlier focus on supporting DJs and felt that it was unfairly removing content and focusing on high-profile users and licensed music. 

At the time, Business Insider spoke to Chris Reed, known as Plastician, owner of the Terrorhythm Recordings music label which he launched in 2002. He said that he "had trouble" with a track on his personal SoundCloud profile as well as the profile of his record label. "I own all the rights to it, it contains no illegal samples, and I even own the publishing to it," he said. "So I was really confused as to why this is happening."

Over time, the company managed to successfully negotiate deals with many of the major record labels — but this didn't come cheap. SoundCloud had to sacrifice some of its equity in the process but bringing the major labels on board helped it to compete with the likes of Apple Music and Spotify.  

Today, the company has deals with all three major music labels: Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner. In the process, it's given away a significant amount equity, with 3-5% going to Warner and possibly more going to Universal. 

SoundCloud introduced ads and a premium service

SoundCloud claims to have around 175 million listeners who can tune into listen to more than 150 million pieces of content. For most of its life, it was completely free and had no revenue stream. 

It introduced advertisements in mid-2015 ahead of the launch of its £9.99 SoundCloud Go subscription streaming service, which launched in March 2016 to compete with Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. There's also a cheaper £4.99 option that allows users to listen to content without ad interruptions but they don't get access to all of the music on the platform. 

The deals with the major labels are what allowed Spotify to launch its premium service. That essentially means the company was forced to give away chunks of equity to launch its music streaming service. 

But ultimately, SoundCloud remains unprofitable. The last official numbers show SoundCloud incurred a €51 million (£45 million) loss in 2015, higher than the €39 million (£35 million) loss it recorded in 2014. The company's revenues in 2015 were €21 million (£19 million). 

During 2015, SoundCloud's headcount grew by 25%, up from 236 to 295 people. A Companies House filing shows that it spent €26.77 million ($28 million, £23 million) on wages and salaries in the year. That meant the average annual salary at the company hit €90,729 ($95,000, £77,000) in 2015 – up 19% on the €75,979 ($80,000, £65,000) average wage paid out to staff in 2014.

  New staff were hired even though job cuts were imminent

One major point of contention is the fact that SoundCloud hired a number of people into roles over the last few months knowing full well that they were going to have to make large redundancies, according to TechCrunch. 

Developer Vojta Stavik and his girlfriend were planning to pack up their lives in Prague and move to Berlin where Stavik was planning to take his dream job at SoundCloud. He and his girlfriend were planning to let go of their apartment, say goodbye to their friends and family, and relocate to the German capital.

Stavik was due to start on July 17 but his engineering role was axed on July 7. He told Business Insider on the day he was due to start: "I'm moving there this week by my own without having any particular job."

Stavik applied for the job at SoundCloud in April. In May, after a 20-minute Skype call and a remote coding assignment that he spent 20 hours on, SoundCloud flew him to Berlin for a series of interviews and tests. He was offered a job at SoundCloud two days after his trip to Berlin

"I was super happy and excited about moving to Berlin!" Stavik wrote in a blog post explaining the process on July 9. 

SoundCloud told Stavik that it would provide him and his girlfriend with temporary accommodation for their first few weeks in Berlin. They were supposed to get the keys on July 13.  

On July 6, Stavik saw a report about the job cuts at the company. He immediately sent an email to the recruiter asking whether they affected him.

On July 7, he received an email from the relocation agency saying it had paused his relocation process and it was waiting for SoundCloud HR to provide it with more information. The company also told him that everyone at SoundCloud had been given a day off to process the news. "That was the moment when I realised that I'm probably screwed," Stavik wrote on his blog. 

"For the whole day, I was sending emails to every contact person at SoundCloud I had, asking them about my planned start day, having no response." 

Finally, at 8pm that evening, SoundCloud chief technology officer Artem Fishman called him up and told him his job has been cancelled. "I told him I already quit my job, let my apartment in Prague go, and was supposed to move to Berlin in just a few days! I also asked him about the possible compensation. The response was negative."

Stavik claimed that Fishman said SoundCloud wanted to act like his application never happened. 

Stavik is now on the hunt for a job in Berlin. 

I was supposed to start at #soundcloud next Monday and got laid off. Looking for an iOS dev job in Berlin. #ios #job #berlin

— Vojta Stavik (@vojtastavik) 8. Juli 2017

Elsewhere, software engineer Matthew Healy wrote a blog post on titled: "My week at SoundCloud." 

In the post, Healy said: "Two weeks ago I moved from Scotland to Germany to start a new job as an iOS engineer at SoundCloud. On Monday of last week I started that job. By Thursday evening I, along with 172 of my new colleagues, was officially being laid off."

Healey had secured a lease on an apartment and sold many of his belongings in order to move to Berlin to work for SoundCloud. 

"I had my first day at SoundCloud on the Monday before I signed that lease. It was a ridiculous start to a new job. First, there was the obligatory branded swag: a t-shirt, a water bottle, a pair of headphones, all in a branded tote bag. Then there was the office itself: an incredible space where every detail had been considered, with free snacks and drinks, and an espresso machine. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to work there.

"Eleven other people started with me. Around the office, people were telling us it was the biggest intake in months."

Stavik, Healy, and many other SoundCloud staff have added their names to an open spreadsheet of SoundClouders for hire. Recruiters that are interested in hiring the laid off SoundClouders are also adding their names and details to a separate page on the spreadsheet. 

TechCrunch reports that SoundCloud's founders told staff during one of the post-redundancy all-hands meetings that investors had asked them in March to make the job cuts as part of a $70 million (£54 million) debt funding deal that was first reported by Business Insider. SoundCloud was reportedly forced to raise the debt funding after it failed to raise $100 million (£77 million) in venture funding. 

Several top tier executives left SoundCloud in the months leading up to the job cuts, possibly because they knew they were on the way. SoundCloud's COO and finance director both left the company around February, while veteran SoundCloud employee David Noël left in March. 

During a fireside chat with TechCrunch editor at large Mike Butcher in Berlin on July 12, Ljung carefully dodged questions that staff would no doubt love to know the answers to.

"We were hiring people up until we shifted strategy," Ljung said at the Tech Open Air conference. "We operate in many different countries. In some countries it takes a long time for people to be hired." 

SoundCloud is desperately trying to raise more money as cash reserves dwindle

The company's current cash reserves will only last until the end of the fourth quarter, according to TechCrunch sources. Ljung confirmed on July 12 that he's in the process of trying to raise more money for the company after he was asked about a rumoured $250 million (£193 million) funding round. 

Ljung repeatedly said during his interview with Butcher that he was adamant on building a strong and independent music streaming platform and refused to comment on Google and Spotify acquisition rumours. The Financial Times reported last September that Spotify was in "advanced talks" to buy SoundCloud for $1 billion (£770 million), while Music Business Worldwide reported in January that Google was mulling an acquisition that was likely to be in the order of $500 million (£386 million). 

"It's a very sad event to let go of these people but if we zoom out and look at the entire company right now, I think people are missing a couple of key points," Ljung said in Berlin. He highlighted how SoundCloud was the twentieth most-downloaded app in the US App Store on the day before the interview. "We have an enormous user base and very good growth. Very good engagement too. Everything in terms of the business and user metrics is growing.

"Now is the time where we have to take more control over our situation," he said. "We're in the process of reducing our cost basis significantly. We're taking more control of our own future and ensuring our independence."

Chance the Rapper: 'SoundCloud is here to stay'

On July 13, as rumours circulated that SoundCloud was close to running out of money, hip hop artist Chancelor Bennett (a.k.a Chance the Rapper) wrote on Twitter: "I'm working on the SoundCloud thing." The next day, he followed up with another tweet that read: "Just had a very fruitful call with Alex Ljung. @SoundCloud is here to stay." 

Just had a very fruitful call with Alex Ljung. @SoundCloud is here to stay.

— Lil Chano From 79th (@chancetherapper) July 14, 2017

I got money on my card

— Lil Chano From 79th (@chancetherapper) July 15, 2017

What was said on the call isn't known. Some people speculated that Bennett's mysterious tweet meant that he had given SoundCloud some money, while others speculated that he might be buying the service. It wouldn't be the first time a solo artist has bought a music streaming platform — Jay Z acquired Tidal in 2015. 

A representative for SoundCloud reportedly told Variety that the rapper is "essentially spreading good vibes about the company during a challenging time." The representative added that they were unaware of a more material commitment. 

Shortly after Bennett's tweet, a post from Ljung appeared on SoundCloud's blog. It read:

Hey everyone,

There's an insane amount of noise about SoundCloud in the world right now. And it's just that, noise. The music you love on SoundCloud isn't going away, the music you shared or uploaded isn’t going away, because SoundCloud is not going away. Not in 50 days, not in 80 days or anytime in the foreseeable future. Your music is safe.

Along with each of you, we’ve built this incredible creative community of artists, podcasters, DJs, producers and more who are the driving force in pushing culture forward in the world. That’s not going to change. Last week we had to make some tough decisions to let go of some of our staff, but we did this to ensure SoundCloud remains a strong, independent company.

Thank you for the outpouring of love and support. Some of you have asked how you can help–spread the word that we’re not going anywhere and keep doing what you’re doing–creating, listening, uploading, sharing, liking, and discovering what’s new, now and next in music. SoundCloud is here to stay.

Peace, Alex

SoundCloud cofounders continue partying, despite the layoffs

It's safe to assume that the last two weeks have been among the most difficult for SoundCloud since it was founded. 

But SoundCloud's cofounders appear to be trying to carry on as normal. Both cofounders have attended parties in Berlin over the last couple of weeks, with Wahlforss co-hosting one with his wife last Thursday at a rural site just outside Berlin. He refused to answer Business Insider's questions at the party, saying: "I don't want to do an interview."

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[kenzieinfirenze]

Spring break: Prague

On Sunday night of spring break, we flew from Amsterdam to Prague. We arrived to our hostel, which was so much nicer than the one in Amsterdam, and went to bed. We woke up Monday morning and walked across the Charles Bridge to do a free walking tour of the city. The Charles Bridge has a beautiful view of the city as you walk over it. The walking tour wasn't as informative or as fun as the one in Amsterdam, but it's always good to start off the trip with some knowledge of where the hell I am. One fun fact I remember learning was that McJagger paid for the lights that light the Prague castle at night, just because he was friends with the president at the time. I guess to president mentioned that they couldn't afford lights after coming out of communism, and McJagger was just like "yeah, don't worry, I'll pay for them," which is just so random but interesting. After the walking tour, we met up with Sophie's friend Jocelyn, who I met previously when she visited Florence, and she studies in Prague. We went to a cheap cafe to grab lunch, but more importantly, we got trdelnik after. Trdelnik is essentially a big hollow churro with ice cream, Nutella, or caramel inside it. I got it with ice cream and it was delicious. We walked to the famous John Lennon wall and took some really cool photos. The wall is much smaller than I expected, but it was just as cool as I expected. We also walked down by the river where there are a ton of swans roaming around and they let you get extremely close to them. It was a beautiful day! We also saw peacocks when Jocelyn showed us where she has class. Behind her building there is a huge, really cute park. After leaving Jocelyn, we went to a park called Letna garden that has a view of the entire city. It reminded me of Piazzale Michaelangelo in Florence. We had to climb a bunch of stairs to get up there, but it was worth it. We sat for at least 45 minutes on the edge of this wall and just looked over the city. We ended up stumbling upon a cute restaurant up there and stopped for some Pilsners (the beer of Prague). Beer is soooo cheap in Prague it was insane. I'm talking $1.50 for a HUGE beer. We went back to the hostel for a little bit, and then went to dinner at a place called Lokal, that has traditional Czech food. I got a chicken dish, unlimited potato dumplings, and like a lot of beer for only $12. It was amazing. We met up with Jocelyn and her roommates after at an underground bar called vzorkavna. Apparently there's strict noise restrictions in Prague, so most of their bars are underground, which is actually really cool! This bar was nothing like I've ever seen. There were swings in the first room, foosball tables, people playing drums, and lofts where people were high above everyone. There was also a huge dog running around, it was very interesting and hipstery there. The next morning, Autumn, Alyssa and I got up and went to a "cat cafe." How freaking cute. There were cats roaming around this lounge-type place with free coffee and snacks, x box games, and board games. We ended up just taking a lot of coffee and snacks and playing with the cats. I've been so deprived of animal love over here, and I surprisingly didn't sneeze too many times playing with the kitties. After, Alyssa, Autumn and I climbed up to the Prague Castle. We didn't go inside, but just walking around the castle grounds was really cool. Actually, the Prague Castle is in the Guinness Book of Records for being the largest ancient castle in the world! There were a ton of tourists up there, but it was a beautiful day to be outside and the view from up there of the city was unbeatable. We worked up an appetite and met up with Autumn's friend from home, Emily, and grabbed lunch at this cute place called Bakeshop before walking along the river to find somewhere to get a Pilsner and socialize. We ended up sitting outside near the river for an hour or so just enjoying Prague. Emily had to go take a midterm (she studies in Prague), so Lyss, Autumn, and I went back to the hostel to relax for a few minutes before we went to sit by the swans and drink Kingswood cider, which is another popular drink in Prague. I guess a lot of what we did in Prague was drink casually, but it was just so cheap and it's the social thing to do in Prague! We sat for a while then went back to the hostel to get ready for dinner, which the dude at the hostel recommended. I can't remember what the restaurant was called, but I had beef goulash, which is very typical Czech food and it was amazing. However, we decided we were done with Czech food after 2 nights in a row of it. It's just so heavy. When we were at the restaurant I swear I saw Liam Neeson's doppelgänger, and couldn't stop staring at him. When he stood up to leave, though, I was sure it wasn't him, haha! We had a few drinks at dinner, then met up with Alyssa's friend Kevin that's also studying in Prague. He is in Prague with around 10 of his fraternity brothers, in delta chi at Penn State. They were all so nice and outgoing! We met them at a bar that was like a cave, also underground. We stayed there for a while, then the guys showed us a club they like to go to. This ended up being my favorite night of spring break! Good company, good music, and a good city. The next morning, we slept in because we probably didn't get home until 4am (lol). Autumn, Lyss, and I took our time getting up, then walked around and explored a little. We ran into these big, creepy baby statues. There are many strange statues in Prague, which are apparently all done by one artist. We decided to walk to Old Town Square to climb the famous clock tower. The view was amazing of the city...I always enjoy climbing things wherever I go so I can have a better view. The clock itself in Prague is supposed to be really cool, and there's a lot of history around it, but it is very hyped up. It is considered the 2nd most disappointing tourist attraction in Europe. You can see for yourself. After climbing the clock tower, we went to a place called Bohemian Bagels for lunch. There are a bunch of different dishes that somehow incorporate bagels. I got a hummus plate, and hummus is my favorite food so I missed it a lot. We then walked around and found an outdoor market. On beautiful days, my favorite thing is to walk around markets and see all the fresh fruit and flowers. Alyssa and I split a fruit bowl, and it was quite delicious. After the market, we walked all the way up the hill to what Prague calls their "Eiffel tower." It's just another viewpoint of the city that is supposed to be really pretty. We walked all the way there and realized we didn't have enough korunas to get in, and they didn't take card or Euros. We didn't care, though, because the view was already beautiful from where we were. On this day, the length and amount of walking during spring break was hitting me hard, I was TIRED. We had an early flight the next morning (to Copenhagen!!!), and so we called it a night pretty early. Before that, though, Alyssa and I went to a place called Dish that her friend recommended for extremely good burgers. Highly recommend. Praha overall was a success, but I still liked Amsterdam more. Next stop: Copenhagen, and the 3rd new country within a week to check off my list!

[fwiona-blog1]

1: A Guide to Oxford

hello friends!

so for my first post I wanted to write about what I know best at the moment.  That for me is Oxford!

In case you missed it: I am currently studying abroad in Oxford, UK with my university (go dawgs!) on a program with the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) even though that’s not even my major hahaha I still don’t know how I got here anywayyy…

This city is literally so breathtaking.  I’ve been to Florence and Rome and Venice and Prague and Paris and Oxford is so different. It’s got that old-timey brick-housed feel and those cramped pubs that are both too small and perfectly cozy at the same time.  It’s got sprawling marble castles and ivy-covered red brick hole-in-the-wall stores. It’s got three story bookstores and national history museums and urban sprawl and hipsters smoking around corners and tiny coffee shops full of intellectuals I love this place.

So in case you ever decide to visit this beautiful subject of English culture and architecture, I’m going to share with you my favorite places in this town.

Sites of Interest: Random places where I like to hang out

The Covered Market: Okay this place is really cool.  It’s just off Broad Street in the City Centre and it’s a coalition of stores and shops and food places and is honestly just super cute.

The University Parks: I actually went on a run through this place this morning! It’s just a giant ass park off Banbury Road (by Keble College) that has a bunch of soccer fields and random pathways and in the middle there’s this gorgeous ass rickety ass bridge like wtf.  I kinda actually got lost this morning haha but it’s so peaceful and atmospheric and picturesque and existential.  Lots of puppies.

Cafes: Why is it that I get the majority of my work done in cafes? Is it the ambiance? Is it the coffee that I don’t have to make for myself for once?

Society: Society is this adorable little hipster café that always plays the literal best music and is very cheap and very good.  We went there for two weeks straight to converse about the readings for Dr. J Money’s class when we were in that class.  I haven’t been back since but that’s where I went to get all my work done when I still had work to do haha.

George Street Social: I walked past this place maybe 50 times before I realized it was a café. It looks so legit like an actual British cottage but the inside is really kitschy art deco and some beautiful ass little nooks and crannies and natural lighting it kills me you need to go here.  V cheap also dank ass salads.

Pubs: Where ya go to pick up a cheeky pint

Lamb and Flag//Eagle and Child: These pubs are right across the street from each other and are known hangouts of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, & friends.  Dank beer, cute and cozy.  V ambient 10/10 would recommend.

King’s Arms: This my home base.  The Kappa Alpha House can never lead me astray.  They have the best English food (not saying much ja feel) and the best mulled cider around!!! Also cute bartenders, always remember me when I go in (which is frequent).  I used to go here for a cheeky pint and lunch for the first couple of weeks I was here but I haven’t been back for a while which is v sad. Definitely my favorite place around.

Turf Tavern: Okay so Turf is right around the corner from KA and I shit you not apparently this is where Bill Clinton famously “didn’t inhale” or whatever idk I still haven’t found that little chair.  Turf is huge and has a great little patio where you can sit outside and chat though idk why you would when England is so gd cold all the time.  Also they have the best (and most alcoholic) cider on tap which is Rosie’s so deff go here.

Restaurants: When you need something to soak up all the alcohol in your stomach

White Rabbit: When I tell you this place is DANK I mean that literally you could probably walk in with dank and they’d be like ayyy.  This place has it all, such as lots of pints on draft including my favorite Czech beer, authentic pizza italiano, and hot boizz yeah buddy.  Frequent this place with your friends and sit for hours doing absolutely nothing but eating, drinking, and talking.  Very conducive to great conversations.

PieMinister: When I think of British food, I think of meat pies.  This place in the Covered Market is the cutest and coziest and has the BEST pies I’ve ever had.  The first time I went was my first day here and I’m a sucker for goat cheese so I immediately grabbed a goat cheese and sweet potato pie and I died right there on the floor they had to mop me up I swear. Seriously-- go here.

Bill’s: Residing in the residence directly above Society, Bill’s is a convenient hop and skip from Broad Street in the City Centre.  This place is delicious dude they have everything from fried chicken sandwiches (it’s not Chik-Fil-A but hey) to ridiculously good chocolate donuts (I cried and then I licked the plate).  Would recommend especially for brunch.

DISCLAIMER: This is not everything Oxford has to offer, and honestly I’ve only been here for a month now.  These are just my favorite hangouts that I wanted to share with you. If you ever end up in Oxford, feel free to hit me up and consult with me // share your experiences!

Some pictures taken by yours truly (: (the others were taken by the internet)

~sending good vibes your way~

-fiona