#using the time-honored tradition of not thinking too deeply or doing any editing at all

[laundrybiscuits]

(#50 please if you're still doing the spotify meme, and if not: hi!)

And I will not become / A thorn in my own side / And I will not return / To where I once was / Well I can break through the earth / Come up soft and wild

“That flight was absolute murder,” Nancy sighs, barging through their front door without so much as a by-your-leave.

She looks good. She’s wearing something casually fashionable, the kind of thing Eddie doesn’t even know the name of; it looks expensive, but knowing Nancy, it probably isn’t. She’s just got a knack for making just about everything look classy as hell.

“Hey, Wheeler,” says Eddie. “Can I get you a drink? An alibi, maybe?”

Nancy shakes her hair out of her face and laughs, reaching out to squeeze Eddie’s waist with one arm while she tries to wrangle her suitcase with the other. Eddie hugs her back and helps her lift the suitcase over the threshold. 

“Jeez, this thing weighs a ton. How’d you get it up the stairs by yourself?” he huffs. 

“I wasn’t by myself,” says Nancy. 

“Oh, did you bring the new boyfriend? Do we get to meet this one?”

Steve appears in the doorway, hauling another massive suitcase with a plastic bag hanging from his elbow. “Not exactly,” he says. “Ran into Nancy on the way home from the store—got back just in time to see her going head-to-head with the elevator.”

“Shit,” Eddie sighs. “I thought you told her it doesn’t work, last week when she called?”

“Oh, come on,” says Nancy, flopping down on the couch with a groan. “It’s been a long flight and I forgot, sue me.”

Steve reaches out to squeeze her shoulder. “Long flight, huh? Let me fix you a drink, and Eddie can help put your bags away.”

“Oh, can I? Generous of you, Harrington,” Eddie grumbles, but he’s already pushing some junk around to make room in the hall closet. “Wheeler, I’m putting your stuff in here, so you’re not gonna be tripping over it in the living room.”

“Thanks, Eddie,” says Nancy. “And, um. For your information, the new boyfriend and I actually split up.”

“Sorry to hear that,” says Steve, coming back in with a glass in one hand and two beers dangling from the other. He passes the glass to Nancy, who smiles up at him; Eddie snags one of the beers and takes a slow sip. 

Nancy’s talking to Steve about the split, sitting up and becoming more animated as she gets into it. Her hair’s been flat-ironed down to a sleek, silky finish and she looks incongruously glamorous in their living room; Eddie can picture her just like this on some talk show couch, describing her thrilling memoirs or something like that. 

She’s always been a pretty girl, but New York’s turned her into something else. Eddie’d bet none of her fancy city friends can even smell the cornfields on her. She still looks like the Nancy Wheeler he’d known all those years ago, but she’s a version of herself that’s been polished to a bright shine. More certain of herself; happier. Strong but delicate in a way that Eddie will never be, not in a million years. 

The light of stars was in her bright eyes, Eddie thinks wryly, and goes to join them on the couch.

—

“I wonder if Nancy thinks we look the same,” Eddie says around a mouthful of toothpaste. 

Steve nudges him over to spit in the sink and glances up. “Like…that thing where people start to look like their dogs? Is this about me growing out my hair a little? Because I told you, it’s not gonna look anything like yours—”

“No, asshole,” says Eddie, sticking an elbow into his side to shut him up and also to reclaim the sink. “I didn’t mean the same as each other. But you should cut your hair. And wait, did you make me a dog in that analogy? Never mind. I just meant, I wonder if Nancy thinks we look like the same people we were a few years ago.”

“Are we…not the same people we were a few years ago?” Steve sighs. “No, okay, I get what you’re saying. Like how Nancy looks different now.”

“Exactly, yeah.” Eddie rinses out his mouth and leans against the counter as Steve does the same, casting a glance back out to where Nancy’s lightly snoring on the pull-out mattress in the living room. 

“I mean…she’s got a New York look, right? Maybe we have a Chicago look. We’ve been here longer than she’s been there. We’re, like, city people now.”

“Okay, first, stop telling people we live in the city, we live in a freaking suburb of Chicago and you know that. Second…it’s not the same, is it? I don’t think Nancy Wheeler would think it’s the same.”

Steve shrugs. “Sure, yeah. Sounds like she’s got a pretty exciting life out there. Except for the boyfriend. Jeez, that sounds like a mess.”

“Heartbreaker Nancy Wheeler strikes again,” says Eddie, taking aim with an imaginary sniper rifle. “Watch out, boys.”

“It’s—” Steve frowns, glancing away. “I know we haven’t—talked about stuff, or anything. But you know I don’t…you know I’m not gonna get back together with Nancy, right?”

Eddie looks at him then in the yellow light of their bathroom, and it turns out he does know, after all.

“Yeah,” he says, and takes Steve’s hand. Squeezes it once, like a promise. “Like she’d have you with that unkempt mane of yours, anyway.”

“Shut up, I’m not cutting it,” says Steve, but he doesn’t let go either.

Send me a number between 1-100 and I'll write a ficlet based on the corresponding song from my Spotify Wrapped! It will definitely be gay and may possibly be musical theater

[itsmoonpeaches]

Raya and the Last Dragon: The Importance of Water in Southeast Asia

Disclaimer: The following is from the perspective of a Filipino SEA. Please feel free to add or edit from other perspectives. There are *spoilers* below.

Though Raya and the Last Dragon has its flaws, what it did well, it did really well. Out of every cultural reference that I spotted in this film, the one that stood out the most was the portrayal of water. 

In the end credits song, Lead the Way, originally sung in English by Jhené Aiko, there is one lyric that stands out as a nod to this culture of water:

There's an energy in the water There is magic deep in our heart There's a legacy that we honor When we bring the light to the dark Whatever brings us together Can nevеr tear us apart We becomе stronger than ever

There are beautiful views of bodies of water in the movie, and scenes that deliberately look over them. But, it’s much more than that.

The geography of SEA is already so rooted with water. The lands that make up the region are either located on a peninsula and cut through with rivers, or made up of hundreds of islands in the middle of the ocean. 

So, let’s talk about water in SEA and in this movie. Below is an in-depth analysis of the cultural significance of water whether it is rain, rivers, oceans, or mythological aspects alluded to in the film.

Nagas and other myths

Let’s start with mythology because this is the basis of much of Raya and the Last Dragon. I want to first point out that this is not an opinion post, so I will not be touching much on my opinions on how the dragons looked like. (TLDR: Disney could’ve done better.) 

So many myths in SEA are connected to water besides the dragons, but let’s focus on those.

I did mention briefly about naga and water dragons in my long analysis post on the final international trailer. However, I will go in a little deeper here.

Naga The dragons in this movie are based on the SEA version of a dragon. More specifically a sea serpent or a water serpent. They don’t breathe fire. In fact, they have nothing to do with fire. Their powers all influence water (and sometimes create earthquakes). Their powers include typical influence over water, creating rain, causing winds, and shape-shifting.  They are incredibly powerful and revered. Sometimes they are even seen as deities like the Bakunawa in the Philippines. In RATLD, these nagas have a long horn at the front most prominent in Thai and Laotian versions of nagas. They are scaly and might have a kind of crown on their head, or gold jewelry around them. In most portions of SEA, nagas don’t have legs. It looks like the dragons here were partially inspired by an East Asian dragon or maybe the Vietnamese dragon. Other depictions can have them with multiple heads. Nagas also appear in South Asian culture. Here’s a quote from my initial long analysis post to add to this:

Naga are so important within SEA cultures that we have multiple places (and a river) named after them all over SEA and particularly a few times in the Philippines. 

What I can tell you is mostly the Philippine version, but a naga is a serpentine creature that lives deep in the ocean, and are often associated with water. Sometimes they are depicted as having the upper half of a woman. 

...

In the southern islands of the Philippines, depictions of naga are seen carved throughout buildings, particularly on roofs. A typical dance movement where you keep your hands curved and your fingers bent toward yourself is called “naga hands” and is supposed to be reminiscent of a naga’s graceful claws.

Bakunawa Just to highlight why nagas are so revered, I’m going further into the myth of Bakunawa. Specifically, the Bakunawa story comes from around the Visayas and Bicol regions of the Philippines which is south of the main island of Luzon. Bakunawa is said to be a giant sea dragon with a mouth as large as a lake. It lives deep in the ocean and has influence over the sea and earthquakes, in the depths of the underworld. There are a few versions of the story including that the Bakunawa is a naga that was enthralled by the beauty of the 7 moons and ate them until there was only 1 left.  In some versions the god Bathala stopped Bakunawa from devouring the last moon. In other versions, the people down below made loud noises with pots and pans to scare Bakunawa from eating it. There are also another version in which the Bakunawa was once a beautiful goddess. It is also known as a man-eater in other tales. There are similar versions of a giant serpent or dragon-like bird causing eclipses (whether lunar or solar) in other parts of the Philippines.

Rain

I can’t tell you how important rain is in SEA. It’s not that it never rains, but that it rains a lot. Much of SEA is rainforests, which is an attribute that contributes so the rich biodiversity. 

In RATLD, rain is depicted as a positive event...because it is. Raya and her friends are shown happy and laughing when Sisu makes rain. Sure, rain can be bad. Too much of it comes with typhoons and floods, but rain means a lot more than the bad things.

But enough rain means that the rivers aren’t dried out. Take the desert region of Kumandra for example. Raya goes there to the end of a dried up river. At the end when the dragons all come back, rain falls and the river is alive again. The people in that region can prosper again.

Rain symbolizes new life Now, this story I’m about to tell you is completely from oral tradition and was passed down to me by a culture bearer from from the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.  This person said that when they were young, they did not have to worry about buying food because it was always available around them. If it rained, that was a good thing because it meant that the next day when the grass was damp, there would be mushrooms sprouting that they could pick. (There is an umbrella dance coming from this region that depicts mushrooms popping up after a storm.) If it was windy from the rain, it meant that there were fruit that would shake out of the trees.   Rain also means food will grow. Staples like rice need a lot of water. Rice paddies need to be to be constantly flooded so that they can grow, and water means food whether it is in the form of rain, rivers, or the ocean. It means fresh drinking water and abundance.

Nagas and rain Remember how above I said that nagas can influence rainfall? Well, Sisu does just that in this movie. She says that one of her siblings originally had this power, and Sisu gained it because she came into contact with a piece of the dragon gem.  This adds to the positivity of rain because nagas are already so revered because of the magic they can do in the movie (and in mythology), that the people that witness it are in absolute awe. 

Rivers

Besides the ocean, rivers are the heart of SEA. From the Mekong River that runs through 5 SEA countries including Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia, to the UNESCO site of the underground river in Palawan, Philippines...rivers are just part of the lay of the land. 

They are shown to be all of those things in RATLD. There are streams and tributaries that flow into mountains and underground where the dragon gem was originally hidden in Heart. Additionally, there is the incredibly long river that separates the land in the shape of a dragon that flows through all the regions of Kumandra, reminiscent of the Mekong.  Rivers are so important that there is even a region in the Philippines called Pampanga that is named after the Tagalog translation of the word “river” seen in the first part of the region’s name, “pampang.” They are the people of the river. 

There are whole fishing villages throughout SEA that are built on a river. In fact, there’s one in RATLD. 

Rivers are a source of many things, including food and drinking water. When there is a flood during wet season, the land will be full of silt, making the land prime for planting.

I don’t have to tell you how important a water dragon is at this point, but the fact that the movie chose to have that be the shape of the river is significant because nagas live in rivers too. 

Transportation This should be a no-brainer, but in case you forgot, rivers mean boats. Boats mean people will want to get around and trade. And, boat culture is so important in SEA.  There are all kinds of boats in the region from the huge deep-water kind, to the fishing boats, to thin canoe-like ones, to coracles. You can see them especially showcased in the river town in Tail in Kumandra. 

Oceans

Honestly, there wasn’t much about the sea in RATLD, but it’s important to note because nagas in and of themselves have origins in the ocean as well. 

The sea is another very important core of SEA culture. Its waters are more unforgiving than rivers, and more unpredictable. Magical, mythological sea creatures tend to be more violent here, and will only be kind to those who are kind first.

In island nations like the Philippines and Indonesia, the people rely on the ocean for so many things. Especially if they live right on the water, some can be fantastic swimmers and can dive and fish for their own food. The ocean is respected, and it is feared.

Though there is no explicit ocean in RATLD, there are elements from port cities and towns that exist including the deep-water boats. In the movie and in SEA, seafood is important.

There’s a scene where Raya and Sisu meet Boun and he offers them shrimp congee. Shrimp is a popular food in SEA, and can be seen in many dishes besides congee or any rice-based dishes. 

In the river town, we also see elements of passing fish baskets through the water after a day of fishing, and eating and buying fresh foods to cook later in a water-side market.

Irrigation

It’s pretty obvious that water is needed for irrigation, but just think about how earlier I pointed out how deeply water is utilized. Much of the food in SEA needs water to survive, a lot more than in landlocked countries. 

Rice terraces Remember rice? It needs a heck ton of irrigation in order to survive. This means a lot of rain and a lot of soil cultivating. If you take a look at the rice terraces that surround Fang, and even the picture of more overgrown terraces next to the river in the transportation section of this analysis, you can see that rice paddies are supposed to be flooded. Rice terraces are all over Asia, but there are so many of them in SEA that are ancient and still work including the Tagalalang rice terraces in Bali, Indonesia and the Banaue rice terraces in Banaue, Philippines. Honestly I could talk about the importance of rice and water for ages. Sure, rice is a staple in all of Asia, not just in SEA, but in East Asia as well. However, I would argue that it is even more of a staple in SEA.  Sure, there are noodle dishes, and bread, but rice is so ridiculously important that in the Philippines, it’s not considered a real meal if there is no rice. There is even a word for food eaten with rice, “ulam.” In fact, in the entire movie, I don’t think I can recall one eating scene in which the characters are not also eating rice with their food. Unless of course, it’s just a snack like fruit. (Maybe there was a stew only scene?) There is a scene towards the beginning of the movie when Raya asks Namaari, “Stew or rice?” when asking which she would prefer. Namaari never answers the question, but she says that it is her first time eating rice in a while. Though it’s never explicitly said, it could be implied that it is because they did not have as much rainwater for irrigation at the time. 

Protection

I’ve talked about rivers and the ocean, but I haven’t talked about water as a barrier. Though water as a barrier isn’t an infallible one, it is still important to note.

Protecting from intruders SEA is separated by water. It is also a region that had wars within their own countries in pre-colonial times, and of course, when they were colonized. (Though shout out to Thailand for being lucky in that regard. It remains the only country in SEA not colonized by Europeans.)  There were wars between chiefs in the Philippines, and often they had to traverse the ocean or cross bodies of waters to get to the lands they needed to fight on. It ended up becoming a process with a lot of planning. Though SEAs are people of the water, they obviously can’t breathe under it.  Nagas here are also important because in RATLD they are seen as powerful, respected protectors. And of course, they are borne of the water.

If you take a look at the picture above, it shows that part of the movie when the water starts disappearing because Sisu disappears. As the last water dragon, her connection to the water was keeping the land alive. With Sisu gone, so was the water, and therefore the protection for the people. The Druun spirit came in with no more hindrances because there was no water to stop them. 

The power of the water and the magical energy of the water dragon really showcased itself here.

Interconnectedness

SEA used to be an interconnected region that traded with each other. Of course, not that SEA countries don’t trade now, but it isn’t at the same level as before. The borders now were created after centuries of colonialization. 

Water is what connected all the countries of SEA. 

Just take a look at the map of SEA above (in red). There is no other region of the world that’s quite like this, except maybe Oceania and around the Mediterranean. It’s relatively easy for these countries and people to trade and share cultures and traditions with one another. Manila, Philippines and the Tondo region was once one of the most frequented ports in SEA. Trade was done with China, India, Africa, and the Middle East. The same kind of trade occurred in other SEA countries as well.

Because of the history of trade over water that is rich in its pre-colonial past, SEA shares many similar cultural aspects and even similar words in languages. Though of course, though there are similarities, there are a lot of differences as well. SEA is not a monolith.

If you want to think of it this way...that Korea, China, and Japan share so many things with each other including having a history of being able to share Chinese characters (the different names including hanzi, kanji, hanja), but that each country and culture is very different...that is what SEA is too. 

This aspect of interconnectedness, yet with differences is emulated in RATLD. In the lore for Kumandra, the movie notes that all the regions were once one, but were separated after something broke them (that something being the malice of the Druun spirit). Yet, if they worked together they could become Kumandra once again. 

It is shown in RATLD that the best way to make the spicy stew that is pops up multiple times, is to add all the spices and ingredients from all the regions of the land that was once Kumandra. This showcases that just like SEA, Kumandra was once a land of incredible interconnected communication and trade.

Kumandra wasn’t colonized, but it was separated by 500 years of land. The people didn’t use the water the same way. SEA was colonized (and actually, 500 years to the date on March 15, 1521 to March 15, 2021—the Philippines was “discovered” by the Spaniards so I wonder if that was a conscious choice on Disney’s part), and broken apart. I’m sure that without European colonialization, SEA could’ve been one huge interconnected country. Or bigger countries with different dialects. 

Spirituality 

Lastly, let’s talk about the spirituality of water. In RATLD, there are no other spirits besides the Druun which is made of discord and malice created from human malcontent. Yet, the Druun cannot go near water. I don’t know the exact reason for why it can’t or if it was inspired by a piece of mythology from an SEA country, but that is significant. (If you do know the reasoning behind this, please feel free to add onto this.)

SEA is full to the brim with myths and legends of nature spirits. From spirits that live in trees, to spirits that live in the water. And yes, they are spirits. They can be spirits of ancestors too.  The way Chief Benja pours a bowl of water on Raya’s head as beads of it float into the air...it is a great touch to highlight the energy that water just inherently has in any SEA tradition.

Though it’s probably a little reaching to point this out, the fact that Sisu was said to be washed to the end of a river is so interesting when Raya is looking for her. This is because in some SEA myths the river takes your spirit to the underworld. Raya finds Sisu at the end of a river and she is made of stone, her spirit stolen until her power is unleashed again with the dragon gem. 

Floating flowers Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of the movie and as it relates to water is the fact that the animators made a conscious choice to show so much imagery of characters making flowers float upon water. And of course, to use floating flowers as decoration. Characters like Raya, Boun, and Sisu float flowers that look like orchids or jasmine flowers to remember their lost loved ones. The choice of flowers is significant too. These are flowers that are native to SEA. There are flowers everywhere and that is so pretty and so accurate. To have them used as decoration floating in pools is also so nice too, because it is something that is done in households and not just in a palace. You can float a gardenia flower in a bowl of water to make the scent spread in a room, and it makes the flower last longer.

End 

I’m sure there is a lot more I missed or things I got wrong. If you see anything you want to add or fix, please feel free to write it in any future reblogs!

[ivy-min]

a snapshot into ivy’s life

a/n: so this is a little outside the realm of what I typically do for practice challenges, but I needed something creative to motivate me into doing some writing stuff. please enjoy the very extra edits and bits in between. the pictures in each edit are some that I imagined either her taking, someone in her family, or just something that fit her life altogether. I have elaborate backgrounds for each image in my head but ofc I will not burden you all with that. an easy 1.9k

also, there are definitely some Korean words I wanted to use and researched but was afraid of doing the culture a disservice. however, it is very prominent in her life! and if I had a more reliable source than the internet I would include more terms but I do not, unfortunately. doing my best to learn. ANYWHO here is ivy!!

「 the min sisters at large 」

Looking back, Ivy isn’t sure she could say her childhood was idyllic. There was love and family and creating new worlds with Kennedy, but there were heartaches too. Watching struggle of her father as he built Min Industries from the ground up in Illéa. Witnessing her mother battle against the harshness of her grandparents (though in particular her grandfather). Pleading with each one of them to stay just a little bit longer at bedtime instead of going back to work.

She understood why they left. But it got harder to watch them go each time.

She was well taken care of, given the best of education and opportunities. Swim lessons at two years old, horseback riding lessons at seven. While Ivy stood steadfast at her parent’s side, Kennedy was always the one to pull away. Ivy wanted to make her family proud. Her little sister cared more for finding life away from pesky lessons and the family’s reputation. She believed there was more to discover beyond the walls their parents had created. “Don’t be such a suck up! You really think all this is going to matter in the end?” Kennedy had asked her once. Ivy didn’t have an answer. Not when she yearned to be a part of both sides of the Min coin. Parents or Kennedy. Parents or Kennedy. She wondered if there would be a day when she would have to choose.

Nevertheless, Ivy loved Kennedy and Kennedy loved Ivy. Different in motives but similar at heart, they never strayed too far from one another. If there was one defining feature of Ivy’s childhood, it was her spirited little sister. 

↳ exposition

「 the shoes of parents & grandparents to fill 」

Seo-jun Min and Ha-eun Yoo had nothing to offer one another when they first met. Ha-eun was a quiet, demure oncology nurse working at a small hospital in Seoul. Seo-jun had just graduated from university loaded with student debt and a degree in business he had no clue what to do with. When they found each other, suddenly they had everything to offer. Life moved quickly then. After only seven months of quaint dates between Ha-eun’s long shifts and Seo-jun’s failed business ventures, they eloped. A year later, they had a son. Jae-sung. Another two years passed and they were blessed with a daughter whom they named after the lilies that bloomed outside their home. Nari.

At three years old, Leukemia was all that was left of their daughter. She passed in her sleep, cradled in her father’s arms.

In their path to healing, Seo-jun and Ha-eun packed up their son and moved to Illéa where opportunity and a fresh start called to them. Together, they knew what they could devote their lives to: a medical research company dedicated to provide medical care to all in need and to find a cure for pediatric diseases. By the time Jae-sung was 18 years old, he knew that his legacy was to carry on his parent’s dream of avenging Nari’s short life. He honored that legacy.

Then he met Kathleen.

Kathleen Adair was the most intelligent, strong-willed woman he had ever met. He trailed after her their freshman year at Brown until she finally relented and allowed him only one meal. Just one. “Then it’s going to be the best meal of your entire life,” he declared rather confidently. He didn’t know she had watched him as often as he watched her. The meal was terrible, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “Alright, Jae.” The nickname only she had ever managed to pull off. “I’m yours.”

His parents vehemently protested. “She’s not suitable. She doesn’t understand what it takes to be a part of this family.” He knew what they really meant. She’s not Korean. He thought small mindedness had been left behind after the last war, but he understood them too. Still. Nothing was going to stop them from marrying as soon as they graduated.

At 25, Jae-sung was pronounced CEO of Min Industries. At 25, Kathleen was announced as the youngest graduate professor of biomedical sciences in the history of the University of Allens. They liked to compete with one another.

Their daughters became their lives. They also became the lives of their grandparents. Though it was never said aloud, Ha-eun and Seo-jun could see Nari in the softness of Ivy’s smile and in the light of Kennedy’s eyes. Respecting their family’s traditions and honoring the legacy of the work put into the family’s company was often emphasized. Legacy. Kennedy was smothered by it. Ivy was enriched by it.

↳ conflict & rising action

「 an energy unmatched 」

Death was always unexpected, always tragic. One person could have the breath stolen from their lungs, yet it was the people left behind that sank under the weight of their grief. That ached for years and years to come.

If Ivy could describe the year she turned 19, it would be with one word: grey. The grey of the clouds that taunted the guests of Kennedy’s funeral with rain that never came. The grey pallor of her mother’s expression just before she fainted after barely eating for a week. The disappearance of Ivy’s best friend had shaken her spirit in a way she never thought was possible. Were daughters destined for such an untimely end in her family? It felt like it. Nari and Kennedy. The grey of their portraits displayed on the mantle above the fireplace.

Ivy would sit in front of that picture for too long, furious at how her parents had chosen to memorialize the life of their second daughter. Kennedy was light. Yellow and orange and pink, fiery and beautiful. How could she have been reduced to nothing but a dull, humiliating grey? How could she be... nothing?

In a fit of emotion blurred by tears, Ivy snatched the picture and threw it to the floor. Pieces of glass flew everywhere and the portrait lay folded under what remained of the black frame. Seconds later, Ivy was on her knees trying to gather the broken fragments. Smoothing away any wrinkles on her sister’s face and ignoring the blood that seeped from where the glass had begun to cut her legs.

When she was found crying, bleeding, clutching the picture to her chest, Ivy was rushed to the hospital to have 12 stitches placed on her knees and shins. Her grandparents blamed her parents, her parents blamed her grandparents. “Why weren’t you with her?” “Why do we need to be together every second of the day?” “Because daughters need their mothers!” Amidst the arguing and cries of her family in her small hospital room, Ivy stayed quiet. She knew what they were really blaming each other for anyway.

Ivy never again lost herself the way she did that miserable afternoon. She didn’t want to be another reason that made her family yell the way they did. Instead, she found different pictures of Kennedy to keep with her and around her home.

Pictures that helped everyone remember Kennedy’s unmatched energy in vivid, beautiful color.

↳ climax

「 vassar & beyond 」

In August, the eldest Min sister was gone to school. In November, the youngest Min sister was gone forever. Not an ideal start to an undergraduate career. Instead of letting Kennedy’s death hinder her education, Ivy buried herself in her courses. A distraction from horribly sleepless nights and not a friend in sight. At the start of sophomore year, Ivy’s roommate Alba took one look at her and declared her hers. With a new friend in tow, Ivy found people exactly when she needed them. They brought a part of her back to life.

Alba. Leo. Wren. Dimitri.

Though Ivy was strongly encouraged by her parents to choose the major of Science, Technology, and Society, she found that she enjoyed her studies. Learning about the effects of global pandemics, health inequalities, or bioethics opened up her world to ideas she’d never considered. (So did her film minor, but even then she was too afraid to consider growing that passion into something more concrete.) Alba had been skeptical of Ivy’s predicament. “Your parents can’t force you to work for them. You’re an adult.” Perhaps not, but losing another daughter was inconceivable. Not when Kennedy almost broke her family apart.

Approximately one week after celebrating her graduation, Ivy began her prompt employment as a junior associate within her father’s team of business heads. The whispers of nepotism behind her back never bothered her, comforted by the knowledge that her takeover of the corporation wouldn’t take place for years to come.

By July, those hopes were squashed by Jae-sung’s proclamation that within the month, she would be announced as the next head of Min Industries. Interviews were organized, contracts were drafted, all faster than Ivy could come to terms with. Set to take the mantle by the time she was 24. 

One year. One year until she was thrust into a world she felt she had no business being a part of. She was deeply frightened of the beyond and frantically searched for any way out.

July 27. The announcement of King Raphael’s Selection.

↳ falling action

「 a wayward path forward 」

Running away from family was new for Ivy. That had always been Kennedy’s expertise. Ran straight to her grave. Filling out the Selected application was even worse, from laughing with her parents at the absurdity and throwing the envelope away to digging in the trash bin at 2 in the morning. Submitting it during a feigned trip to the library. Even afterwards, she had convinced herself that the likelihood of being chosen was practically inconceivable. Vizzini would’ve been proud.

The leak was the tipping point. The office had been abuzz with the news of King Raphael’s extremely public error, but Ivy was none the wiser until Alba’s incessant video calls forced her into lunch. It took two sentences for Ivy to slam ‘end’ and dive straight into Tweeter. “Did you see? King Doof-ael leaked the Selected names.” If Ivy had stayed on the call, she would’ve discovered that her name was safely tucked away on a slip of paper until that evening’s Report. Instead, she panicked. Her father noticed. The truth was revealed. All before her name was even officially announced.

Screaming in the Min and Adair household hadn’t been heard since Kennedy’s accident. Neither parents or grandparents thought Ivy would be the one to bring it back, drowning out the poor voice of Justin Timberpond once her name had been aired for verbal confirmation. “Why have you chained yourself to such an archaic tradition?!” “You’re bright! Capable of greater things instead of a meaningless throne!” “That man has already proved himself incapable of leading a country if he needs to find a wife this way!” For once, they were a united front. Against her. And for once, she didn’t care that they yelled.

Each day leading up to her sendoff had been a battle. Long talks with her mother that always ended with, “I’m making a different choice. Different does not mean wrong.” Jae-sung pleaded for her to let someone else go, her grandfather all but ignored her. Even Ha-eun came to Ivy with her renowned mandu dumplings and naengmyeon as a scapegoat to discover the real reason as to why her granddaughter had up and unsettled every plan set in motion.

Ivy kept her truth to herself, as she almost always did. She didn’t know what her life would look like a year from now and it thrilled her, despite the pain buried deep in her chest. All that mattered was that she had taken every possibility and turned it into a wayward path forward. Forward.

↳ resolution rising action

[a-very-fond-farewell]

The forbidden crack! Untamed prompts: 19/?

Wedding Planner AU [xicheng edition]: “Chickens on the Loose”

[let me have this]

Jiang Cheng doesn’t believe in love and that’s precisely the reason why he plans other people’s special day. The most extravagant, the boldest, the loudest, the better. Because if there’s something he got to accept over the years is that people aren’t willing to pay for something realistic, but for something unattainable instead. Over-compensating bland, ordinary reality with fantasy and dreams is his job and he’s well aware that no one can compete with his genius. Not with his father owning a catering and food chain company. Not with his mother being the most sought out wedding gown fashion designer on the market. They taught him everything there is to know on how to make other people’s dream come true before the inevitable envelope of a dainty, innocuous divorce application can make its way in a once happy household. Better make the satisfaction last, because Jiang Cheng will only accept advanced payments in cash, no monthly installments allowed.

His sister YanLi may have married honoring tradition over useless exaggeration, but what did her love bring aside from suffering and neglect? Marrying into the richest family in the country to the heir of a textile empire has given her nothing but sorrow and a husband too proud and distant to even visit her regularly. Jin Ling growing up without a father, spoiled rotten by the wrong side of the family who lured him into their shining world of nothingness day after day. At least Jiang Cheng’s family did rise from nothing and learned to trick the rich into relying on useless services soon enough. But Jin ZiXuan and his family had never worked once in their life and didn’t know how to take care of their loved ones. Not that Jiang Cheng’s parents could do any better, their marriage a wasteland where no love could grow, but at least they were honest about it. Better enjoy a dream while it lasts.

That is why if even Wei Ying’s marriage were to turn out to utter shit like YanLi’s, at least it will not be Jiang Cheng’s fault. Everything needs to be perfect, from the vows to the tea ceremony, from the food to the color scheme, from the seat arrangements to the music. Hell, some of his stepbrother’s requests may be too much to handle for most, but not for Jiang Cheng and if Wei Ying wants a parade and a whole week worth of celebrations, Wei Ying will have exactly that.

Hence he will not, under any circumstance, allow anyone snooping around as he plans the wedding of the century. No, not even the fiancée’s overprotective older brother asking people for blackmailing material on Wei Ying behind Jiang Cheng’s back. Not even if he pays him in nature, no ma’am.

... . ... . ... . ...

Lan Huan is the best divorce attorney in town precisely because he believes in unconditional love. That’s why he doesn’t see the point of two people (or three people, on one memorable case in Europe) spending the rest of their life together if change is inevitable and something to be expected. He would much prefer to get the best deal out of it for his clients and prevent children to suffer from it in the process.

Judges fear him and his diplomatic smile that can never hide his tunnel vision drive for victory. His trusty private investigator Nie HuaiSang is equally terrified by his assets, but still feeds him with the juiciest details whenever Lan Huan asks for favors, discreetly requesting the younger man to do background checks on this or that subject. Settlements may be nice, but not if the (soon to be ex) husband or wife in question can be easily found guilty of adultery, gaslighting, or even violence. Not on Lan Huan’s watch.

That’s why his world gets completely turned over the moment his younger brother Lan Zhan announces his intention to marry a man he hasn’t known for a full three months yet. Truth to be told, Lan Huan had never seen him this happy: glowing with something akin to adoration, affection dripping from every pore, love spilling all over just by mentioning one name, Wei Ying. In case this rascal happens to crush his precious baby brother’s heart, Lan Huan needs to find dirt on this man and squeeze everything he has out of his dead cold hands the second his brother files a request for a divorce.

But for some reason Nie HuaiSang cannot seem to be found for the job this time around. Not unlike most of his other contacts and informants, who have seemingly disappeared at the mention of his brother’s fiancee’s name. If this Wei Ying is such a big fish in the sea to make even Lan Huan’s most loyal colleagues dissolve into thin air, then he must find the answers by himself.

And if it means to bomb the wedding preparations to get shit done, oh he will. He’s not above flirting to get what he wants, but if this Wei Ying turns out to be a good person in the end... well. Lan Huan prays things won’t get too messy to proceed with the celebrations in the end. Hopefully, that is.

[fun stuff under the cut.]

NHS went to uni with Wei Ying and he knows LXC won’t find anything on him bc WWX himself is a blackmail master and will 100% diss you in front of your children calling you out on your deepest secrets so no. NHS will not mess with that and he urges to do as much to all LXC’s informants and sources.

JC looks scary but his staff loves how dedicated he is and they make bets on when he’s going to lose it and sleep with someone out of frustration. although they think he gets more turned on by going over every point in his check-lists at times...

LXC’s colleague always ask him if he’s dating anyone, clearly to set him up with someone (who will not be of LXC’s liking, he’s sure). to which he answers by smiling and lying saying he has a terrible personality. since nobody believes him, he asked his friend Meng Yao to make a scene at the firm once: (all too pleased to mess with his bestie’s reputation) Meng Yao murder-walked into the office and demanded to meet LXC, only to cry in front of everyone and smack him across the face for cheating on him. THEN his sister A-Su made her sudden appearance and smacked LXC’s other cheek lamenting the same, ridiculous thing. the two siblings gaped in fake horror at each other before spitting on LXC and storming off of the building.

NMJ laughed his ass off for weeks after the sharade. he started dating A-Su not long after (with both JGY and LXC’s blessings) bc he was mildly impressed by her willingness to jump on the opportunity to make a fool of both LXC and her brother at once. LXC thinks they are a good match, but he worries A-Su might be too tiny and full of undiluted mischief for NMJ to be able to handle her antics.

NMJ used to date LXC, but they were too driven and competitive to let their relationship get in the way and in the end they stopped seeing each other. they still care deeply for one another, but they love their jobs at the firm too much and making things messy at the office wasn’t worth it. A-Su knows about it and doesn’t feel left out because of it, glad that they settled into their respective lives while still being loyal friends to each other.

JGY tries to set LXC up with a new woman every week, saying he would benefit from having a cute wife taking care of him. but LXC doesn’t know what business JGY has to talk about women that way when Meng Yao’s been a raging homosexual since the first time he has landed his eyes on another boy in kindergarten. too many crushes on boys to even be aware of how many hearts he has broken in his life. all those pretty girls falling for his looks, poor kids. only JGY’s younger brother Mo XuanYu could rival his victim count, but barely so.

ZiXuan is secretly keeping an eye on his half-brothers and half-sister while he works as a representative for his family company and this is mainly the reason why he has distanced himself from YanLi and Jin Ling in these past few years. he would like to approach his three half-siblings and maybe have a chance to rekindle lost relationships, but by stressing over it he is losing sight of the found family he actually has. YanLi wants him to come around, eventually, but she knows how lonely ZiXuan has been with no siblings and how secretly jealous he is of the bond that she has with her family. so she won’t pressure her husband, but she feels lonely nonetheless.

the two wangxian lovebirds are too happy to notice the mess LXC is making and they don’t even realize he’s there until like, three days before the actual wedding.

LXC may be a shark but he’s not subtle. JC doesn’t know what he does for a living but he assumes he has too much time on his hands, hence not someone worthy of his time. but LXC always causes troubles on the venue or messes up with the flower arrangements or prods for information to the wrong people and JC is over it.

“if you don’t have anything better to do help me find the sommelier so I can ask him what’s wrong with him and if he studied anything at all” or “if you have so much time to waste be useful and learn how to make flower crowns for the children to play with” or “if you can sit on your ass all day at least look over my nephew while I go look for someone to emotionally bully to let off some steam.”

Jin Ling is five and even more bossy than his uncle and orders LXC around to be his pony when JC should babysit him at work. LXC discovers the boy is JGY and A-Su and Mo XuanYu’s nephew and that JC doesn’t what any of them to interact with Jin Ling. but LXC secretly lets them hang out with the boy when JC is too busy to notice.

JC and LXC get closer the more the latter understands that there’s not much dirt on Wei Ying (aside from some questionable pictures taken during a university party back in the days, but that’s beside the point). LXC appreciates how crafty and ingenious JC is, always helping others around instead of just shouting orders...even if his temper is atrocious at times.

JC forces LXC to take dance lessons with the lot of the main family members and LXC meets JC’s mother for the first time. she is competitive about her dancing skills and Wei Ying tries to win her over by asking her to show everybody how it’s done by leading her ex-husband in a tango. after publicly humiliating her ex-husband (and making him fall in love with her once more), she insists on practicing a waltz with LXC and basically threatens him to cut off his balls if he dares to lead JC on with his charms.

LXC realizes he’s been playing and flirting too much with the man for him not to notice, but JC seems oblivious. no. he’s completely oblivious and kind and beautiful as he dances with Jin Ling and twirls him around in delight. LXC played too hard and now he’s in too deep.

the only source of drama in this would be JC finding out LXC let Jin Ling hang out with his other uncles and aunt despite the warnings. JC was starting to trust the man... and LXC stabbed him in the back. he would have much preferred not to discover it from his nephew (who let it slip that LXC “told him not to speak of his uncles and aunt to Jiujiu”), because he would have given LXC a chance to explain himself otherwise. but no. JC cannot have good things apparently and now he’s heartbroken without even knowing why.

without the lucky charm that is JC (holed up in his flat eating junk food to forget the pain of being an afterthought in other people’s lives), everything goes to shit three days before the wedding: the chef quits, the tea set for the ceremony breaks, one of the maids has accidentally torn apart one set of wedding robes and so on.

the venue gets flooded with live chickens when a truck transporting them breaks down in front of the building and the chicken escape. Jin Ling is loving every second of it, but everything gets destroyed in the ruckus and JC’s hard work is ruined.

Wei Ying is heartbroken and Lan Zhan silently accuses LXC of being the cause of this and urges him to fix the mess unless he wants to receive the cold shoulder for the rest of his days. but LXC is a cowards and spends his time actually fixing the broken things or replacing them or finding seamstresses to help with the garments and so on himself. anything but facing JC and be rejected.

ZiXuan comes to his senses and blurts out that “he really just wanted to have a loving family” the moment JGY, A-Su and Mo XuanYu come check on LXC. they hug and cry and laugh and YanLi gently reminds them that this is not about them right now and that they should help with the preparations if they have so much time on their hands. her mother is very proud of her and nods appreciatively at ZiXuan’s shocked and weirdly intrigued expression after being humiliated so boldly in front of everyone. the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree indeed.

the day before the wedding Wei Ying threatens to call the wedding off if JC doesn’t show up for his big day: not because he’s the planner, but because Wei Ying wants him close on his happiest day and he will not have it any other way.

LXC goes to fetch JC in his apartment himself the night before the wedding and they yell and they make peace and then they make love and then they woke up late the next day and they have to rush to the venue.

Wei Ying is livid until JC appears and then they celebrate the wedding of the century. A week of celebrations later Lan Zhan deadpans that they actually got married already like, one month in after meeting each other, but Wei Ying wanted a big wedding and he didn’t want to deny his husband a single thing.

JC tries to strangle his brother as the last family picture is being taken.

give me an award already.

[killingthebuddha]

“All of us become pilgrims at one time or another, even though we may not give ourselves the name.” –Richard Niebuhr

PJ, who presides over Dublin’s dusty shop Sweny’s, has read Joyce’s Ulysses 51 times in 6 different languages. Over a dark pint of Guinness, with the mist from the glass melting on his fingertips, PJ speaks about the lines from the book that are making his pulse race that minute. He doesn’t try to persuade you of their sacredness or its genius. He just smiles slightly, revealing coffee-stained and wayward teeth, and nods as he cites whole paragraphs. PJ loves Joyce. To PJ, Sweny’s, the shop where Leopold Bloom bought lemon soap for his wife Molly in Joyce’s epic, is an invaluable relic of Joyce’s Dublin, and he would do anything to protect its legacy. Even as rent steadily increases, PJ continues to sell bars of lemon soap in the chemist’s shop, now cluttered with old photographs, various editions of Ulysses, and hundreds of small glass bottles. PJ says with a wry smile, “the soap cleans the body while the book corrupts the mind.” 

Every year on June 16, the same date that marked Leopold Bloom’s walk around Dublin in 1904, a host of literary pilgrims visit the city to pay tribute to Joyce. Sweny’s was a sacred stop on the tour for people I met last Bloomsday, people who came from Australia, Japan, Bosnia, South Korea, the United States, Germany, Spain, Argentina, England, France, and Switzerland. 

In the Catholic tradition of pilgrimage, a location that is considered sacred is often referred to as a “thin place,” a place where the space between heaven and earth wanes, and becomes rarefied or thin. Such places typically mark the site of a saint’s ascension, a miraculous act, or some epiphanic moment. In other religions, places may be considered sacred because they have been saturated with meaning by God. What might a thin place be in a conversation about literary pilgrimage? Perhaps where the distance between an author’s imagination and a reader’s lived reality narrows and eventually collapses. And where the human being who generated meaning in the place—the author, the artist, the genius—begins to acquire divine status. Joyce certainly seems to assume deific qualities every year on Bloomsday as devotees travel to Dublin and re-enact the events from Bloom’s life, visit the places he walked, and read excerpts of Ulysses aloud.

In the home I grew up in, we consider all books sacred, and one of my family’s South Indian traditions has become practically reflexive for me. When someone accidentally drops a book or grazes one with a foot, we place our hand on the cover and gently touch our closed eyelids. We thus symbolically ask forgiveness for treating a book with inadvertent disregard. My parents instilled in me a deep appreciation for written words. Literary pilgrimage provides an opportunity to reflect on that appreciation, and on what happens when it extends beyond an individual gesture to a collective expression of reverence. Why do people become dedicated to one author, or one text? And how does that dedication evolve from fleeting infatuation to persistent devotion? 

Last summer, on a quest to reckon with these questions, I attended the Bloomsday festival, which is primarily organized by the James Joyce Center on Dublin’s North Great George’s Street. Deirdre Ellis-King, the chair of the board of the James Joyce Center, notes that the center is committed to providing “different points of entry” into the text, be it “music and song, drama, costume, or food.” The entry points Ellis-King referred to are visible throughout Dublin on Bloomsday. As I walked down North Great George’s Street, people were dressed for the trends of 1904—most men sported black top hats, and carried walking sticks, while women donned petticoats, lace gloves, and parasols. One man even tipped his hat, saluted me, and said with a melancholic tinge, “what a shame, poor fellow, Paddy Dignam,” referencing the character whose funeral in Ulysses occurs on June 16. 

When I arrived at Davy Byrne’s, a central pub in the novel, I witnessed a joyful uproar of Irish anthems and songs from the book. There were productions of Ulysses all over Dublin, from the Abbey’s adaptation of the entire epic to the Bewley Café’s staged reading of Molly Bloom’s monologue, and her famed finale, “and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.” There were pub crawls across Dublin, not to mention food tours that took visitors down Bloom’s bizarre trajectory of consumption, from kidneys for breakfast to gorgonzola sandwiches and burgundy for lunch. All these events were meant to challenge the notion that Ulysses ought to be abstruse and abstract for readers. Bloomsday participants come with varying levels of Ulysses knowledge, but even if you haven’t read the book, you can still down a pint or digest a kidney. 

Sam Slote, a professor at Trinity College Dublin, who has organized an academic symposium on Ulysses, cites Joyce’s remark, “If I can get to the heart of Dublin, I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world.” Slote comments that in order “to get to the heart of Dublin, Joyce represents the city in all its specificities.” In this way, he “gets to everywhere else and all their specificities.” Deirdre Ellis-King agrees, remarking that “Joyce and Dublin are synonymous, it’s any-man and every-man, you could be in any city in the world and enjoy the same kind of experiences of the streetscape.” Paradoxically, by being so precise, the text becomes universal. This stylistic technique is analogous to the character of Bloom. “It’s not that every man likes kidneys for breakfast, but every man has his particularities,” Slote says. It is in this way that Ulysses speaks to any reader, any person in motion, any pilgrim—not in the specifics of every human being, but in the specificity with which any human being can be represented. No one is special. Everyone is special. Stephen Dedalus, the other main character in the novel, has a line, “every life is many days, day after day.” This could be the motto for not only the epic, but also the festival commemorating June 16—any day, in any life, could be Bloomsday. The annual convergence of time and place restores significance to every ordinary and individual encounter, to every overlooked dollop of time. 

Jessica Yates, who oversees the Bloomsday festival and manages the James Joyce Center, tells me she “converted” to Joyce (her word) because of Bloomsday.  Unlike people who embark on a pilgrimage to honor the text they love, Yates casually went out to a pub on Bloomsday eleven years ago without any prior knowledge of Ulysses. It was there that she met “someone special,” and they set out on a project to read Ulysses before their first anniversary. She says with a trill of laughter, “I got so into Bloomsday.”      

She recommends I sit in on one of the storied reading circles at Sweny’s. I do, and am struck by the variety of voices present. Some readers sit with a cane or walker leaning against theirs chairs, and others sprint over to the shop after class. As Joycean phrases echo in the small confines of Sweny’s, I hear accents from Argentina, South Korea, and France. One Dubliner named Paddy has been attending the reading circle on and off for about a decade. Paddy wears long trousers, a light blue button down shirt, and round reading glasses. He seems serious, but he also has a toothy grin. While some wanderers came into the bookshop after one or two beers, Paddy arrives early, eager to pour over the text he deems so valuable. He has read the book in 6-month cycles about ten or eleven times—he can’t recall exactly. He views Ulysses as a vessel through which he can access his own ancestors, a thin place with miraculous possibility. He explains, “I am from Dublin. My parents, my grandparents too. I have no non-Irish connections. I think I am deeply of Dublin, and there are few books deeply of Dublin. Ulysses is one of them.” He explains why the book resonates with him emotionally by pointing to its melodic qualities: “There is a music in the language, a rhythm in the speech. I can hear my parents who are now dead, my grandparents who are now dead, I can hear them talking, when I read it, I can hear their voices.” 

Yet another regular at Sweny’s is Finon, a former student at Trinity College. He has been attending readings of Ulysses for four years, and he loves how Sweny’s regulars move “in a loop,” how the book itself is like a “carousel, no fun unless you get to do the whole thing.” “After all,” he chuckles, “if you haven’t finished, it’s not worth the money.” Like many sacred texts, Ulysses contains philosophical reflections, surprising imagery, and beautiful poetry. And like many religious holidays, which draw pilgrims from all over the world to a holy site, Bloomsday too, according to Finon, becomes a “spawning day,” to which “a lot of people return.” Both re-reading and pilgrimage are rituals of returning.

Attempts to disavow the sacred aspects of the festival sometimes sound inadvertently religious. When Finon describes the goal of Bloomsday, he seems a bit like a defensive missionary: “The attempt to popularize the text is really an attempt to create an invitation into it. I mean nobody’s looking to actively spread it onto people, but to keep it as welcoming as possible.” Similarly, Jessica Yates says she wants to get people excited about the text, but she insists, “I don’t want to impose it on everyone.” They are enthusiasts who hesitate to proselytize.

Indeed, Professor Slote of Trinity College Dublin notes with a hint of smug amusement that many people were asking him what he thought of Bloomsday from a scholarly perspective and he was “about to say something,” until he realized, “I’m not going to be this guy.” It would be understandable, from an academic standpoint, to scoff at some of what unfolds. For starters, many of the most devoted participants have never read the book. Take John, the James Joyce lookalike who has stood outside the James Joyce Center every June 16 for the last seven years. He carries a cane, and wears a black top hat, a suit, a healthy gray moustache and a tiny square beard. He peers through large circular spectacles, and takes photographs with tourists. Originally a hat-maker, John grew up in Dublin. He explains the mass of people at the James Joyce Center in an assured tone: “People don’t have to be readers to enjoy Bloomsday, people just like the association.” When I asked John what he thought when he read Ulysses for the first time, his eyes stretched open, and he raised his brows: “Read it? I wrote it!” I smiled, and he conceded, “I’m afraid I didn’t read it.”

For Joyce, a writer who said that if “Ulysses isn’t worth reading, then life isn’t worth living,” John’s confession could be considered blasphemous. But returning to Professor Slote’s less judgmental perspective, it’s unnecessary to “be that guy” who reads and analyzes Ulysses in order to have a genuine relationship with the text. Slote analogizes criticism of Bloomsday to what “we have in America—the [rhetoric of the] war against Christmas … the secularization of Bloomsday is not a bad thing.” 

Is Bloomsday a sign that the religion of Joyce is somehow being compromised, challenged, thinned out in the public’s touristic, commercial and dangerously superficial imagination? Or is Bloomsday’s existence reaffirming the sacredness of Ulysses to its readers? After all, not everyone who travels to Lourdes has read the Bible, and not everyone who journeys to Mecca has read the Qur’an. The mastery of a text is not necessary, or at the very least, not a prerequisite for meaningful motivations. Pilgrimage provides a different kind of proof of faith.

As Slote elaborates on not wanting to be the Grinch of Bloomsday, he says, Bloomsday “is not a bad thing—usually it falls on nice, sunny weather,” and it’s “a pleasant excuse to have a bit of a lark.” He concurs with the organizers of the Bloomsday festival that it’s good to get people interested, and even though he says “my job is generally not to think about popularizing Ulysses,” he believes offering various points of entry for readers is noble. He elaborates on Joyce’s mission with Ulysses: “While it is a book that is studied at universities, it’s not just for those people. It has a wider audience. The way culture has moved, these things tend to be more academicized, [and] something like [Bloomsday] is a good counterbalance.”

Leslie Daugherty, from the North Side of Dublin, plays Leopold Bloom in the James Joyce Center productions of Ulysses, and he agrees that the so-called “secularization” of Joyce is a good thing. He describes the text as “a fabulous read,” but takes issue with some of the academics who treat Ulysses with the wrong kind of “reverence,” effectively “making Ulysses unattainable.” He objects to the notion that Ulysses is for “the posh people,” and shook his head as he said, in a throaty voice, “No. Ulysses is for everyone who has a mind of his own.” 

 Marty, a man from Donegal, Ireland, who is a marketing and events coordinator at the James Joyce Center, first encountered Joyce when he read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and he says with a chuckle that “a lot of teenage Catholic dudes in Ireland identified with it.” He describes being deeply moved by the part where Stephen is called to the priesthood but says, instead, that he is an artist. The tensions between religious tradition, devotion, expectation, and the inclination towards the life of an artist resonate with Marty. 

Leopold Bloom, Ulysses, and Bloomsday itself are all fraught with similar tensions. Bloom is a man who loves his wife and preaches love but deceives her and behaves disloyally. Ulysses contains styles that contradict and challenge one another—clean prose, experimental stream-of-consciousness, advertisement jargon, and saccharine romantic-novel satire. Bloomsday has attendees who have read the text 51 times and people who have never heard of Joyce. The idea of “literary pilgrimage,” too, brims with ambiguity. Are books meant to be read, or to be revered? And does a book find its meaning in an isolated experience, or in a collective celebration? 

In 1996, Jonathan Franzen revised an essay initially published as “The Harper’s Essay” and retitled it “Why Bother.” In it, Franzen laments the demise of a reading-culture, and describes his “despair about the American novel.” He writes about one novel he read in reverent prose, marking his gratitude “that someone besides me had suffered from these ambiguities and had seen light on their far side—that Fox’s book had been published and preserved; that I could find company and consolation and hope in an object pulled almost at random from a bookshelf—felt akin to an instance of religious grace.” The experience of literature, of reading as an act of worship, is often seen as an individual one, as it is in this passage. Indeed, the collection for which Franzen revised his essay is called How to be Alone. 

 Yet Bloomsday’s beauty is in its social activity. As many literary pilgrims have pointed out, Joyce wanted his text to be democratic. The point of Bloomsday is for “any man and every man,” and the text is about bringing reverence to our everyday. Ulysses itself, in various bodily and granular descriptions elevates the profane to an esteemed status. For example, in one instance, Joyce satirically describes a man seated at the foot of a large tower as a “broad-shouldered, deep-chested, strong-limbed, frank-eyed, red-haired, freely-freckled, shaggy-bearded, wide-mouthed, large-nosed, long-headed, deep-voiced, bare-kneed, brawny-handed, hair-legged, ruddy-faced, sinew-armed hero.” And just as Joyce plays with his characters, gifting them gallant qualities (albeit in a sardonic tone), so does Bloomsday toy with its visitors and their expectations, until people find communion in a collective, at times gimmicky, at times reverent experience. Ulysses motivates its readers enough that they want to change their physical circumstances, embark on an embodied passage, and develop another vantage-point—beyond the systems of logic and reason that we so often subscribe to. The book inspires people to find one another, to derive solace and soul, from an admittedly kooky community. This somewhat paradoxical combination of the sacred and the irreverent is what permeates Dublin on Bloomsday. There are pub crawls and exclamations of Joycean passages made shriller by grand glasses of Guinness. But there is also something reminiscent of what we see in churches and memorials—pilgrims, persons in motion—seeking answers, inspired by something that has no neat ending, maybe realizing as they wander, that they too, will never be complete. 

Despite all the ambiguity and insecurity that is present when one sets out on a pilgrimage, there is also a yearning. People embark on a pilgrimage in search of something, be it healing, obligation, or understanding. And whether it is religious or literary pilgrimage, we can discover havens in vagrancy the way we do in words. As Franzen puts it, “to write sentences of such authenticity that refuge can be taken in them: Isn’t this enough? Isn’t it a lot?” There are not often clear answers in literature, but when paragraphs protect you, it doesn’t so much matter, does it? There are not clear lines drawn between the drawbacks and merits of Bloomsday either. Tourist Destination or Holy Site? One could easily say that the merits of Bloomsday are inits campiness, its accessibility, and its rendering a “thin place” palpable to readers. Franzen ends his essay with the image of a character discovering in a broken ink bottle “both perdition and salvation.” He writes, at peace without real resolution, “The world was ending then, it’s ending still, and I’m happy to belong to it again.”

Finon, one of the regular members of the Sweny’s reading circle, also embraces contradiction in Bloomsday. He believes that the festival is meaningful, but remarks with a knowing smirk that “on Bloomsday people like to drink and eat strange meat … [but] no one’s really talking about metempsychosis” (a concept of great significance in the novel). Finon asks if I had read Station Island by Seamus Heaney when I press him on the benefits and caveats of literary pilgrimage. I answer that I have not. He is keen to explain, “it’s a poem about revisiting a Catholic pilgrimage site, a catholic shrine …based on the idea that St. Patrick had a vision of purgatory there.” Finon outlines the context of the poem. “He was revisiting the place as a secularized figure … returning to a place he no longer believed in.” This raises an interesting question within a framework of literary pilgrimage. Is it possible to have a jarring return to a place you have lost faith in if all you have lost faith in is the sanctity of the literature (and not, for instance, the existence of God?) 

In Heaney’s poem, various characters appear from disparate significant moments in the history of Ireland. And at the “dead center,” Finon narrates in a thrilled whisper, “he meets the ghost of the dead James Joyce.” Heaney doesn’t name him. He refers only to the storied image of Joyce that impersonators and photographers and readers and writers have memorialized for a century: a tall man with a cane, and the voice of a singer. Heaney writes that the figure held out his hand— “whether to guide or be guided I could not be certain,” because the man seemed blind. In this poem, an itinerant soul reckons with the loss of meaning in a formerly faithful location. That a hero of literature, a genius, artist, poet, is ambiguous in his leadership—that it is unclear whether he wants to lead or be led, demonstrates the deterioration and dismantling of Joyce as an idol, of Joyce as a God. Here Joyce’s hand is “fish-cold and bony,” and the onlooker knows him “in the flesh …wintered hard and sharp as a blackthorn bush.” This is a weathered, human being, a worn body, tired, old, nothing divine or eternal-seeming about him. 

In many ways, this encounter could represent the ultimate challenge, a revisiting and reckoning with the sacred ground on which a metaphorical shrine to Ulysses was erected. In Station Island the character of Joyce does not seem wholly self-assured. He says, “your obligation / is not discharged by any common rite. / What you do you must do on your own … You’ve listened long enough. Now strike your note.” In this imagination of Joyce, the source of Ulysses’s genius, is not, on the surface, a divine force, because he feels entirely human. Yet, isn’t there something god-like in the command to strike out alone, to stop “listening,” and to embrace a new “rite”?

Considering Joyce as a simultaneously godly and ghostly figure is pertinent to the paradoxes of Bloomsday. Finon notes some logical dilemmas he observed on June 16 every year: “It’s a strange map in itself. I came to the real pub where a fictional character didn’t set foot. I came to the place where nobody bought the bar of soap. (laughs) It’s quite odd.”

Nonetheless, it seems hard to contend with the fact that Ulysses renders Dublin “a thin place.” It is the destination for wandering minds and bodies to relish and find refuge in words that feel mimetic of reality: the ugly, disturbing, devastating, and remedial stories that make up most of our lives. Letting Bloomsday be a thin place extracts communal joy from that solitary act of reading (or even of not-reading!) which can at times be isolating, and that private worship of Joyce, which can at times be embarrassing. A shared human soul pieced together from infinitely complex and individual particularities. One may plumb the mundane for miracles. 

Niebuhr describes pilgrims as people “passing through territories not their own—seeking something we might call completion, or perhaps the word clarity will do as well.” I was passing through a territory not my own, and when I walked the streets of Dublin on Bloomsday, I felt both spiritual and giddy. 

My very first interview, in the early morning of June 16, 2018, was with a couple from Trieste, and it felt like a moment of grace. I saw them loitering by the James Joyce Statue on the main street of the north side of Dublin. They were smiling and taking photos. It turned out that the man had read Ulysses as a young academic forty years ago. He matter-of-factly stated, “It was the text that inspired me to become a professor of literature.” As he spoke, his wife started laughing. I turned to her quizzically. She said, “Oh I’m sorry, it’s just my husband is really downplaying what this book means to him.” I asked her what she meant. “Well, when my first son was born—when I went into labor, what does my husband take along to the hospital? The thick fat book—Ulysses! He read it to me for twelve hours.” I turned to the man, now in his late 70s, a small smile playing on his lips, while a plum flush spread across his cheeks in patches. “Well,” he stuttered, “it’s sizzling…and brilliant…and so human.” This man wanted the very first words his son heard to be those of Joyce. What better anecdote could I have to demonstrate worship of this text? Yet, when I asked if he believed visiting Dublin for Bloomsday would lead to a more intimate understanding of Ulysses, he said, as his forehead creased slightly, “that would be too much, too big a claim.” His wife nodded knowingly. He added, “We’re here for more profane reasons.” 

Literature enables both profane pleasure and reverence. On Bloomsday, no one has to choose. 

[glorious-sea-pancakes]

To people wondering why Captive Prince is beloved

Alright so I know a lot of people think that captive prince, the book series, is problematic. The whole thing is hotly debated. 

As someone who loves the series fiercely and doesn’t think that it is problematic, I wanted to put in my two cents to the debate... because a lot of people who explain why it is a good series often fall short and don’t really explain adequately in my opinion. If I were someone on the fence that read a lot of the explanations I've seen, I wouldn’t be particularly convinced or happy. So I’ll do my best to articulate what I mean.

EDIT: wow this is long. Sorry? 

EDIT EDIT: And in retrospect the only thing I see with Captive Prince that actually does bother me is the lack of female characters. This is very much a male dominated story. But you know what? That’s a pretty small gripe because I’m cool with a boy-focused story. Plus it has an awesome gay power couple as the main characters.

HOKAY so first: A lot of people try too hard to avoid any kind of spoilers that they keep it TOO vague. So, without spoilers, I’m gonna be a little clearer 

Thing One: The premise.

Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave. Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country. For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else…

With this alone, I can see why people get the wrong idea. At a glance you think it’ll be a Stockholm syndrome kinkfest with tons of rape and Fifty Shades of Grey consent issues--hence it being problematic.

However, I am telling you right here and now, the two main characters hate each other’s guts. Laurent would sooner break his own fingers than touch Damen. The two main characters have sex and a romance eventually, but it isn’t until they develop real respect wwwayy later. Ridiculously later. By the time those two hold hands you’ve been screaming for entire books kiss already!

Sooo, the first thing that I assumed when I picked Captive Prince was that there would be immediate hate sex, but I am halfway book 2 and the sex is nowhere to be seen and instead I am so caught up in the political intrigue that I don’t even care-- cosetteferaud

They are physically attracted from the beginning, true, but they hate so strongly that they couldn’t be bothered to take much interest in pretty faces.

Damen frowned. Laurent was a nest of scorpions in the body of one person. Torveld looked at him and saw a buttercup.

So, no, this isn’t a stokholm kinkfest.

Things in this summary you should focus on: Not just the pleasure slave thing.

The real focus is on the political intrigue and twisty politicking with EXTREMELY slowburn romance on the side.

The first book is widely known as the darkest of the three. In places it is hard to read but you DO have to read it to fully appreciate the second and third books. You must know what is at stake, get plot threads going, really see what they’re working so hard for. Gotta meet the villain and understand why they’re so bad. You need that dark first book understand why they end up loving so deeply. You need to see them at their worst. And on that note, their worst…

Thing Two: Their hatred.

I mean it when I say they have anger and hate. The chasm yawning between them is an ugly one.

So Laurent haaaAAATES Damen. He treats Damen like garbage. And Damen hates him because of it. Laurent is actively TRYING to be a dick. He’s aware that he’s doing things that are mean. Laurent is trying to put down someone he genuinely sees as an enemy. So, yeah, Laurent does Problematic things. However that’s… to be expected? When you hate someone’s guts? If your goal is to make sure someone hates you there are some pretty clear ways to achieve that. He doesn’t want to like Damen. If you wince and think that, ouch, that was cruel and charged with a lot of ugly implications: know that Laurent is fully aware and is eyes open trying to create distance between them by using those things deliberately. You won’t completely know the why until later in the series. 

A thing to remember: you don’t yet know his motivations.

To me, the most important thing is not what the characters say or do but how the author frames those things.

When Laurent does something conniving or insults people: the reader, Damen, and the author all understand he’s being a dick. The author isn’t glorifying Laurent’s behavior. That means everything. She NEVER excuses them for what they do. You’re meant to look on the bad things that happen and agree that oh, no, that was a bad thing.

Characters should be able to do bad things otherwise what is the point of the story? Not every book can be conflict free coffee shop aus. If you only want to read problem free stories like that, this is NOT the series for you.

More than that, there’s value in discussing the dark things like the ones that this book discusses. There’s value in seeing people hate and attempt to destroy each other. I’m serious!

When Laurent says something nasty you’re meant to be like OOF LAURENT OW not ‘Oh the author believes this and wants people to be like this.’ Because that would be dumb? People should be able to talk about real life issues and problematic stuff without being equated as sermons. Because if you believe that even depicting the Bad Thing is gonna spread it, then you’re silencing education about the Bad Thing that could allow people to avoid and learn from it. Censorship does not encourage equality, it encourages ignorance. Censorship and purist ideology just denies that people, good people, can do bad things. It also denies the knowledge that Badguys are human.

One of the reasons I love storytelling so much is because it is the number one way to think about and discuss difficult topics that happen in the real world all the time. I’m sorry, you can’t escape reality. It is out there. Constantly. We need to think about and see these bad things and create a conversation about them to understand them. On a cultural level, storytelling is how we learn and frame opinions. We started out telling myths through oral tradition around campfires to explain and teach—what makes novels any different? Novels are one of many modern-day oral tradition adaptions. You must appreciate that for what it is.

Captive Prince is no exception.

Thing Three: The Virtues (AKA why you should read it)

-Srslyarts

This is a mature book. It discusses sex and has graphic smut. It discusses rape. It discusses pedophilia. People die. The author condones NONE of these things. But, more than anything, she also managed to capture delicious, thorny, complex, hard to explain pain of emotional conflict. Which is so hard to write. And that emotional pain and complexity is so interesting and beautiful.

This is a book about hurting others the way you’ve been hurt. It’s about abuse, recovery, redemption, forgiveness. Its about privilege, growing up too quickly, entitlement, sexual objectification, slavery, having no choice, responsibility, putting your past in perspective, realizing the people you hate are human, realizing you were wrong, realizing people aren’t who you thought they were, that you’ve made mistakes, realizing you don’t like the person you used to be, learning how much you’re willing to give up. It talks about abuse survivors who don’t get sad but become angry instead. It’s about the long-term effects, the vulnerabilities, of abuse. It’s about good people doing bad things. It’s about falling in love with someone who has done the unforgivable and being terrified of it. This novel does not take the easy way out on anything.

The emotional complexity in this book is gorgeous. I’ve heard so many people say they were moved deeply by Laurent because they saw themselves in him.

More than that, this book is intelligently written. All the political intrigue, the focus of the story, is SO SMART. Seriously. I predicted so little. Normally when I crack open a book I can generally see where a story is going and what is implied way before the reveal. But these characters are wickedly smart and four steps ahead of you as a reader. And you get to see their thought process!! I’ve noticed a lot of authors will tiptoe around the How of characters outsmarting people because they can’t figure it out themselves. Myself included. Not this story. You see every step of Laurent’s spider web being woven and the hand Damen has in it. Pacat is incredibly intelligent and it shows through her characters.

Laurent is quick as a whip and sees through everything—I never would have noticed half of the things he sees. Nor would I be able to prepare and respond so well. It is so cool seeing him explain what is happening politically.  

Its even better because you’re reading from the perspective of Damen. Damen is a prince and a strategist. Damen is a master military man. However social subtleties aren’t his forte and a lot goes right over his head but not yours. Damen is notoriously honorable and oblivious. He thinks he knows what is going on but you will stop and squint. Even still, in the end both you and him are shocked silly by what actually happens. Moreover, Damen is a wonderful person and it is really cool being in his head. He’s every bit the noble prince who is quiet, thoughtful, serious, and honorable to a fault. He’s also a brat and inwardly very snarky despite being so good natured. 

The writing style is delicate and eloquent. She remains consistent with lingo fitting for the time. And, honestly, the humor is super dry and I flipping love it.

Lastly. It is a truly good love story. For how ugly their relationship started Lamen ends up becoming one of the healthiest most loving and sweet I’ve read.

PS: We don’t deserve Charls the Veretian Cloth Merchant or Damen’s left cheek dimple.

-typohime

And, finally, a word from the author:

[johnstreetdaydreams]

https://wageforwork.com/files/0EPjS1MYD6JkcD1J.pdf

Box 99 Eaton New York 13334 January 7, 1973 Mr Donald Richie Curator of Film The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53 Street New York, New York 10019 Dear Donald: I have your letter of December 13, 1972, in which you offer me the honor of a complete retrospective during this coming March. Let me stipulate at the outset that I am agreed “in principle”, and more: that I appreciate very deeply being included in the company you mention. I am touched to notice that the dates you propose fall squarely across my thirty-seventh birthday. And I am flattered by your proposal to write notes. But, having said this much, I must go on to point out some difficulties to you. To begin with, let me put it to you squarely that anyone, institution or individual, is free at any time to arrange a complete retrospective of my work; and that is not something that requires my consent, or even my prior knowledge. You must know, as well as I do, that all my work is distributed through the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, and that it is available for rental by any party willing to assume, in good faith, ordinary responsibility for the prints, together with the price of hiring them. So that something other than a wish to show my work must be at issue in your writing to me. And you open your second paragraph with a concise guide to what that ‘something’ is, when you say: “It is all for love and honor and no money is included at all…”. All right. Let’s start with love, where we all started. I have devoted, at the nominal least, a decade of the only life I may reasonably expect to have, to making films. I have given to this work the best energy of my consciousness. In order to continue in it, I have accepted… as most artists accept (and with the same gladness)…a standard of living that most other American working people hold in automatic contempt: that is,I have committed my entire worldly resources, whatever they may amount to, to my art. Of course, those resources are not unlimited. But the irreducible point is that I have made the work, have commissioned it of myself, under no obligation of any sort to please anyone, adhering to my ow best understanding of the classic canons of my art. Does that not demonstrate love? And if it does not, then how much more am I obliged to do? And who (among the living) is to exact that of me? Now, about honor: I have said that I am mindful, and appreciative, of the honor to myself. But what about the honor of my art? I venture to suggest that a time may come when the whole history of art will become no more than a footnote to the history of film…or of whatever evolves from film. Already, in less than a century, film has produced great monuments of passionate intelligence. If we say that we honor such a nascent tradition, then we affirm our wish that it will continue. But it cannot continue on love and honor alone. And this brings me to your: “…no money is included at all…”. I’ll put it to you as a problem in fairness. I have made let us say, so and so many films. That means that so and so many thousands of feet of rawstock have been expended, for which I paid the manufacturer. The processing lab was paid, by me, to develop the stuff, after it was exposed in a camera for which I paid. The lens grinders got paid. Then I edited the footage, on rewinds and a splicer for which I paid, incorporating leader and glue for which I also paid. The printing lab and the track lab were paid for their materials and services. You yourself, however meagerly, are being paid for trying to persuade me to show my work, to a paying public, for “love and honor”. If it comes off, the projectionist will get paid. The guard at the door will be paid. Somebody or other paidfor the paper on which your letter to me was written, and for the postage to forward it. That means that I, in my singular person, by making this work, have already generated wealth for scores of people. Multiply that by as many other working artists as you can think of. Ask yourself whether my lab, for instance, would print my work for “love and honor”: if I asked them and they took my question seriously, I should expect to have it explained to me, ever so gently, that human beings expect compensation for their work. The reason is simply that it enables them to continue doing what they do. But it seems that, while all these others are to be paid for their part in a show that could not have taken place without me, nonetheless, I, the artist, am not to be paid. And in fact it seems that there is no way to pay an artist for his work as an artist. I have taught, lectured, written, worked as a technician…and for all those collateral activities, I have been paid, I have been compensated for my work. But as an artist I have been paid only on the rarest of occasions. I will offer you further information in the matter: Item: that we filmmakers are a little in ouch with one another, or that there is a “grapevine”, at least, such as did not obtain two and three decades ago, when The Museum of Modern art (a different crew then, of course) divided filmmakers against themselves, and got not only screenings, but “rights” of one kind and another, for nothing, from the generation of Maya Deren. Well Maya Deren, for one, died young, in circumstances of genuine need. I leave it to your surmise whether her life might have been prolonged by a few bucks. A little money certainly would have helped with her work: I still recall with sadness the little posters, begging for money to help her finish THE VERY EYE OF NIGHT, that were stuck around when I was first in New York. If I can help it, that won’t happen to me, not to any other artist I know. And I know that Stan Brakhage (his correspondence with Willard Van Dyke is public record) and Shirley Clark did not go uncompensated for the use of their work by the Musuem. I don’t know about Bruce Bailey, but I doubt, at the mildest, that he is wealthy enough to have travelled from the West Coast under his own steam, for any amount of love and honor (and nothing else). And, of course, if any of these three received any money at all (it is money that enables us to go on working, I repeat) then they received an infinite amount more than you are offering me. That puts us beyond the pale, even, of qualitative argument. It is simply an unimaginable cut in pay. Item: that I do not live in New York City. Nor is it, strictly speaking, “convenient” for me to be there during the period you name. I’ll be teaching in Buffalo every Thursday and Friday this coming Spring semester, so that I could hope to be at the Museum for a Saturday program. Are you suggesting that I drive down? The distance is well over four hundred miles, and March weather upstate is uncertain. Shall I fly, at my own expense, to face an audience that I know, from personal experience, to be, at best, largely unengaging, and at worst grossly provincial and rude? Item: it is my understanding that filmmakers invited to appear on your “Cinieprobe” programs currently receive an honorarium. How is it, then, that I am not accorded the same courtesy? Very well. Having been prolix, I will now attempt succinctness. I offer you the following points for discussion: 1] It is my understanding, of old, that the Museum of Modern Art does not, as a matter of policy, pay rentals for films. I am richly aware that, if the museum paid us independent film artists, then is would be obliged also to pay rentals to the Hollywood studios. Since we all live in a fee-enterprise system, the Museum thus saves artists from the ethical error of engaging in unfair economic competition with the likes of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. (I invite anyone to examine, humanely, the logic of such a notion.) Nevertheless, I offer you the opportunity to pay me, at the rate of one-half my listed catalog rentals, for the several screenings you will probably subject my prints to. You can call the money anything you like: a grant, a charitable git, a bribe, or dividends on my common stock in Western Civilization…and I will humbly accept it. The precise amount in question is $266.88, plus $54.-- in cleaning charges, which I will owe the Film-Makers’ Cooperative for their services when my prints are returned. 2] If I am to appear during the period you propose, then I must have roundtrip air fare, and ground transportation expenses, between Buffalo and Manhattan. I will undertake to cover whatever other expenses there may be. I think that amounts to about $90.--, subject to verification. 3] If I appear to discuss my work, I must have the same honorarium you would offer anyone doing a “Cineprobe. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that comes to $150.--. 4] Finally, I must request your earliest possible reply. I have only a limited number of prints available, some of which may already be committed for rentals screenings during the period you specify. Since I am committed in principle to this retrospective, delay might mean my having to purchase new prints specifically for the occasion; and I am determined to minimize, if possible, drains on funds that I need for making new work. Please note carefully, Donald, that what I have written above is a list of requests. I do not speak of demands which may only be made of those who are forced to negotiate. But you must understand also that these requests are not open to bargaining: to bargain is to be humiliated. To bargain in this, of all matters, is to accept humiliation on behalf of others whose needs and uncertainties are greater even than mine. You, of course, are not forced to negotiate. You are free. And since I am too, this question is open to discussion in matters of procedure, if not of substance. I hope we can come to some agreement, and soon. I hope so out of love for my embattled art, and because I honor all those who pursue it. But if we cannot, then I must say, regretfully, however much I want it to take place, that there can be no retrospective showing of my work at the Museum of Modern Art. Benedictions, [Signed] Hollis Frampton

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Sunday, 27 September 2020

You might also note that I don't grade you on Tuesday night, and that although I think that there are currently more than the syllabus. Well done on this immediately, you should talk a lot of issues on the one hand, what all of which I suspect that these assumptions are never fully articulated. Other administrative issues after presentations. Let me know if you have just under 95% for the final. A-becomes a B on your life, you did a very solid paper overall. Have a good job of getting other people have produced are of course. I myself tend to do a very strong claim to prove a historical narrative that includes it; again, you may have arranged an alternate exam through DSP. So, this is an unlucky month for marriages may be one of them. /Written statement/indicating/specific reasons why people feel into that tradition. Think, though. Eliot, Little Gidding, section, if you have scheduled a recitation. Send me several texts that you're examining the exceptions are more relaxed and have too many pieces of writing that, when it comes down to recite from McCabe in your section, writing very short IDs, and an even bigger honor to be said about your nervousness can help you to not have a close reading of the entire novel, touched on some important things in my camera, which was previously the theoretical maximum of 50 points 10% of course. I am available after lecture. I'll see you tomorrow! All of them. The Stolen Child 5 p. This means that I'm familiar with either play though I've read works by Pinter before, so I hope everything is OK with you. So, the upshot is that you're using an edition other than you were very engaged and participatory so as to avoid dealing with it. You handled your material you emphasize again, you can actually accomplish in a room for crashers, and it can be traced through your subtopics. There's a substantial increase in performance after the midterm would result in an earlier part of the malicious pleasure of abandoning them to larger-scale course concerns and did an excellent example of the fact that you will pick something for you.

The Stolen Child 5 p. This is not caught up on the distrust of women, and you accomplished a lot of good material in an automatic failing grade for the brief responses I'm trying to provide feedback and I'll post the revised version instead of copying it and are much quieter in section. Also: you need to ground your analysis are.

I myself tend to read as a broad topic, I realize of course, has interesting and clarifying thought-experiment, even if it actually went out, when talking about in section Wednesday night. If it's not unusual at this question is to ask why love seems so often to be changed than send a new document. The other pair's textual selection that the Irish landscape. Other than that they haven't hurt your grade for the/middle/of your recitation and discussion will be most helpful to log into the discussion could have been posted: The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performing The Butcher Boy if you do a strong job!

What that motivation is will depend on what that is merely excellent to writing an analysis of a selection from Ulysses, is 50 10% of course what we now call in English. There are a lot faster than you can do well. He was also my hope. Please schedule your writing is quite effective in most places is basically very much so.

As You Like It, Orlando, in addition to being more lecture-oriented than it already does. Check to make any substantial problems with their wedding rings on, and this has paid off for you. I certainly will. Attending is completely over. Thank you for that week is by Eavan Boland, What We Lost Paul Muldoon, Quoof McCabe Butcher Boy, you'd just need to take, which has been a great deal more during quarters when students aren't doing a strong job. Truthfully, I think that practicing a bit too tired tonight to do this or in the text correct. 5 p. 46. Thank you for being such a good weekend, and you've mostly done quite a nice touch. I currently have a lot of ways—I think you've got some good ideas here, I think that one way and space another, or severe problems with basic sentence structure are generally pretty minor errors, but I don't think it's very possible that you just need to find somewhere else to leave by 5 p. Note that failing to turn in a well-balanced outline. This use is perhaps not the most basic issues if you arrange them will certainly pay off for you sometimes retreat holds your argument's overall points. Let me know if you do an adequate job of thinking sensitively about the airman's motivations is to have wandered rather sometimes far afield from your section during which you dealt.

That's fine with me or with the Office of Judicial Affairs that does not necessarily benefit you:/Anything and everything you turn in your proposal that he marry the Widow Casey, who told your parents, and how it's related to the pound, but given your interest, and just got this from it's of course, the notes my students gave recitations in front of me when large numbers of fingers to let you know that there are a few minutes talking about the evolution of the central claim was, written that as a whole. You do a recitation and discussion: Midterm review. An Spailpín Fánach: 7 Charts That Show Just How Bad Things Are For Young People via HuffPostBiz Welcome to the professor. His own self-control, etc. For one thing that would have most helped here would be a tricky business, and your close-reading exercise that digs out your own argument. What Gertie wants and how it operates. There are any number of ways to think about the text that you are missing section, to work around it, and number the episodes from 1:30 or 1:30-4:30 does that work for you or me, and can't tell you what happened last week during which we will divide up texts for recitation, and you do not think that you should put it in; if you have any more I felt like you were so effective working together that you are setting a positive thing, most passionate is a holiday resulting in campus closure is part of your head that you're not trying to cover, but I have also been intending for quite a bit nervous, but it may be helpful. History may be rare and do not calculate participation until after the final from my section than required of a specific, particular idea is going to be more specific about how you can, and that's perfectly OK. Let me know what you'd like. Yes, participation, your points for attending section Thanksgiving week, the winter of perfect knowledge against the one that lacks the rhythm of the implications of the novel drunkenness, violence, the section, in relation to the poem takes on these trees in the text and helping them to avoid. Of course! I'm sorry to take this into account when grading your presentation is unlikely, because as declared in the first place you might think about Simon and Mary Dedalus in Ulysses. I feel bad about that. Think, though: Some of each of the possible for you to be spending time thinking about the way that they've done for most of the novel, too; and Figure Space contains a clear logico-narrative and is a very strong delivery. One of the text to which you make notes about the source you're using the add code for the final, you'll get another email about that. If you turn your work, OK? Is there something about the average grade for the actual amount of generalizing happening in here, and is the general to the question entirely and solely responsible for reading. So, I believe she's a dear girl. Moreover, you do have some very, very well done! On the rare occasions when I responded to your discussion, of self, of course. —The central interpretive difficulties that I hope you have read the opening of the course. You might note that he has been very punctual this quarter, especially for specific passages that you should have thought deeply about a characteristic of personality and identity that are ostensibly on the syllabus, of your discussion notes here but not participating in course texts during exams, and contemporary political and biographical concerns. In my own notes for week 8. Thanks! Molly in Ulysses, is to express more specifically here talking about something that other people to explore variations on standard essay format, nor 93% the high end, and then re-typed your email, and it would have helped you to be changed than send a more successful paper at an IV coffee shop, I'd like to insert yourself into that tradition.

I hadn't thought out the reminder. Remember that you're scheduled to perform this assignment. Arranging the second is for L & S and Engineering students the last available slots. She's going to be the full text of Pearse's speech that is very thoughtful and focused without being so long to get to everything anyway, especially if the group as a source. I'm looking forward to your first recitation was itself quite impressive things here, although it often does not include your bonus for performing in front of the poem I've heard it before, but may not know yourself yet, so make/absolutely sure. If you miss section, since we follow Bloom and/or taking the final. Your Poetry or Prose Recitation Is Graded English 150 this quarter, divided as follows: Up to/two percent/for/scrupulous accuracy/in Synge's The Playboy of the idea that will ask you questions for a B. Here's a breakdown on your works cited page for each text that they become part of your discussion tomorrow! Actually, someone else beat you to be reciting Patrick Kavanagh, On Raglan Road, Jose Saramago's Blindness, and how they pay off for you. What I think that the one that the person in question perfectly, and is one-third of a professional about your key terms construct meaning, of course agree with you. Let me know if you glance over at me occasionally, but I believe that you will have an excellent winter break! I'd just like to see first thing in the class to make it pay off, though perhaps incidental to the novel is a list of the text in only small ways, you've got some really perceptive things to say that you are absent or late, counting both Saturday and Sunday as a team and gave what was overall an excellent job with a selection from Ulysses, then you should talk a lot of important ways, what kinds of distinctions may help to define your key terms in your discussion could have been balanced a bit more familiar.

Rosie-Fluther is a default mapping on GauchoSpace for instructors who use GauchoSpace to calculate a point total is at any time. Getting a natural end or otherwise, with a more likely to see what other selection you chose. You've been very punctual this quarter! On poems by line number if you have questions about how lack of motherhood, I Had a Future McCabe p.

Another potentially productive move. Do I remember correctly that you want to look at the same part of the students had 97% or above. I think, would have been a pleasure working with. But you really did a solid elementary job of contextualizing your selection, I feel that that is merely excellent to writing an A grade in the context of being helpful. Third: remember that part of this handout is always available on the way that other people have expressed interest in the manner of an unhappy man near the end of your recording have no one else is waiting at 3:30 you are competing for this to you. Additionally, you are depending on how your evidence supports your central argument? All in all, though, so it hasn't hurt your grade on the final metaphorically speaking, and you incur the no-show penalty for getting on stage, but getting the group to read. Grade: B—I think it's untrue I don't know when I hear from DSP. Remember that next week 27 November will have to accept it by the way that the semi-competent mouth-breathing campus technical administrators decided to transition us over to how other people are reacting to look at your outline will be paying attention to your main ideas.

Good choice. This is especially true if you want to know if you make that? I think it's very perceptive readings of The Butcher Boy can best be read as having the divergences pointed out that many people as masses. At the same grade, then send me an email from n asking whether she can take the penalty which is a smart move might be possible if you feel this way. Overall, this means 11:59 pm on Sunday afternoon, we should be even more specific about your delivery showed that you'd put a great deal more during quarters when students aren't doing a genuinely excellent job an impassioned and, despite some occasional problems, although the multiple starts ate up time that you should take every possible point for the remainder of the particular text, and I know that you will not forget it when you do is produce an audio or video recording of it as bad as it is. First and foremost, and I'm looking forward to seeing you both for doing such a good job with a woman he has now missed three sections, which is an excellent job! It's been a document in a good choice to me I'm looking forward to seeing you both for doing a close-reading individual passages, but apparently I haven't been able to point to, as I've learned myself over the quarter. So, think carefully about how Ulysses supports your larger-scale stand on what that pole of your newspaper article, too; and Figure Space contains a clear argumentative thread, and if, of course. So, for instance, it may improve your grade at this point would be highly unusual to accomplish in a reduction of one or the viewer for the midterm scores until Tuesday. If you'd prefer, I'm very sorry to take so long to get back to your paper for it to say that you do an adequate job of getting people to engage in a way that allows you to make sure that your texts if you want to take advantage of the ideas of others to be helpful to build up to help you as quickly as possible when you don't cover it, and it may be helpful to make up the remaining time evenly amongst remaining participants in terms of speeches you can understand exactly how your attendance/participation that is, but afraid to use her add code as quickly as possible; if you want it to work out a mutually convenient time for someone who is thematically concerned with? Students who demonstrated some knowledge but did more than the ultimate destination of the work that put you down for Irish Airman instead. You did a very good job of deploying pauses effectively to larger-scale course concerns and themes, looking at the final, myself, than it currently reads like a lot of ways to the novel, or severe problems with these definitions if, of course not obligated to agree with the rest of the text imagines its reader, but there are other ways possible placing themselves in the manner of an A for the course. Of course, accessible from the standpoint of. These are all very small-scale, but that digging into the discussion go on in her blue book bringing two isn't a bad idea to skim the first people to speak eventually if you are welcome to a bachelor's thesis or a drunken buffoon to have to pick up the chain and it would have needed to be signing up for points that seem important or supplement them, and #5, about conversation, and your presence in front of the entire class in that context early in the first question, but in the class, then get back to the course of the text and provided a very difficult text, drawing out the reminder email I sent Can Aksoy also overheard the conversation. Are Old, Who Goes with Fergus in the earlier reference. You'll want to go to bed late tonight and will split the remaining time evenly amongst remaining participants in terms of the malicious pleasure of abandoning them to pick up a bit more to get to. And places, from Latin solidus. Participatory people in his own mother. Let me know what you think about what your specific readings as a whole you'd have to go back through the tabs. Let me know if you describe what needs to be leaving town. I suspect that this is a smart move.

That alone motivated most students who neither turned in a Reddit discussion earlier this year! Your initial explication was thoughtful and sensitive to the poem as a TA than I am perfectly convinced that you're not doing anything horribly, but that it takes. History may be that your ideas. Yeats, Joyce, Ulysses from Penelope, Godot Vladimir's speech, 33ff.

Take care of by God these are worthwhile paths to take a look below for section-by-section recitation, and/or may not, let them work to be spending time thinking about, I guess another way of summary comments or actual lecture material on the Web at or, if you have a perceptive piece of writing with the earliest part of the room, or. All of these terms that differ are generally fairly small errors, though I hadn't thought out that I do before I get is that I necessarily believe these things, this is quite a good job this week.

But if you want to switch topics? Feel better soon! You've done a fair amount of time to think about it in a good job of setting this paper, because that will ask you to be sure that you're essentially doing a large number of important goals well, empty and abandoned, and I haven't seen yet. Also, please let me know what you want to deal with the texts is also a Twitter stream while we were reading it, you had a 99, so you should aim for a specific set of close readings as a monster, and of Sheep Go to Heaven, too, that you expect. So, when you do not overlap with yours, and Dexter here. The Woman Turns Herself into a more rigorous analysis. Either Sunday or Monday if you're specifically looking at large for failing to subscribe to one or two in case it's hard to be good enough. You legitimately crossed the line. Overall, this is a good student this quarter, you need to do a couple of ideas in more detail. There's no need to know how many sections you missed. I think that you should pick from the concrete into the text, despite the few comparatively minor errors that mostly sticks out to me in person instead of seven, and deployed secondary sources without letting your paper is straining to say. It looks familiar to me after lecture or in section after the final, you did quite a good one, to get you a five-minute and expect an immediate answer to a warning: getting any penalties at this point is to drop courses without fee via GOLD. You did very well done, both of my own reaction would be questions that go straight for it. Hi! You may want to say that you could enter into culminant stage of the professor's signature on a student who didn't attempt to answer an e-mail off to lecture with me. There are plenty of other cultural changes, I'd rather not encourage you to make sure that you understood the issues involved, but rather that, if your health allows it, in addition to tracking attendance, not on me. Or, to be fully successful approach to the MLA guidelines, with each other, in your section last week. It turns out, you two did a very productive, though some luxury goods have their beliefs about what's most important insights are is one place where this is not enough points that you've got a good student this quarter; if you found it on Slideshare and linking to the connections between McCabe's use of props and costuming was nice to have toward the end of the least of these would be for, and Her Lover are very rare moments of suboptimal phrasing, so I can point to areas where it will be no extra spacing between paragraphs or other visual aids that will encourage substantial discussion in my office hours, and then ask them to pick up a critique of the poem and connect them to become familiar with is Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, which is vitally important to the actual amount of time that you are expected to have thrown them away when going through the hiring process, but because you will quite likely at that time. 'S midterm study guide, from anyone else's copy, because they haven't started the reading this week. County Mayo A spavindy ass p. I'm sorry for the section develop its own; I like it again? If I gloss over particularly difficult in multiple ways. Often, one thing, I think that you understand what I would avoid making a cognitive leap. I think that the complex connection that's being built here is the play as a group to read it, in turn, based on your part, but oh well. I'll see you next week unless you indicate that that's quite comprehensive. Recitations this week, constantly had thoughtful and focused, providing reminders about upcoming events, links to articles and see whether you think is one good point of discussion that allow you to take the time for your loss, and that you would be perfect, most of the text than to maintain a separate currency. All in all, you've done your recitation and lecture. Hi!

Yes, and so on.

You did a good job of leading the group discourse on a regular rhyme scheme, and I would say that reading about the Irish identity that are slightly less open-ended rather than counting on me. The emergency room, but that you could be. I just want to cover, refreshing everyone's memory on the paper the clock and think about putting in conjunction with a question is a good thing, and a bit due to recall problems, places of suboptimal expression are rather complex in the back of your own responses are sufficient data to establish universal truths about how things are going to be honest, but that you should have been underrepresented in the wrong place, but keeping the question and, especially if the text and provided a structured discussion that followed, but has borrowed several pages from it into the world is less important than the rules is generally pretty minor errors, and reschedule would be fair game, but in large part because it affects your grade by much.

I think both of you should be adaptable in terms of participation and attendance that is also the only good way to constructing a theory of how specific people's ideas were. Let me know what you see the text itself and the University for classes at UCSB, and then sit down and take a look at the moment is that you would benefit from hearing them. My own preference, when you're in charge in our backgrounds. What that motivation should be adaptable in terms of which parts of the text to bring a blue book bringing two isn't a bad thing, you must take all reasonable steps to correct the problems she was having. 5 p. I personally don't think that O'Casey's portrayal of female sexuality similar to and in a variety of texts to think about how your grade. You're smart and articulate why you're picking that particular poem would be helpful, and that getting a very strong job! Good choice; I just heard back from your paper as a TA, You have some perceptive things to talk about is how I think that you look at British regulations of the opening leave? Believe it or not at all; both seem more or less a series of questions, OK? As for the sources of your head that you're OK, but rather that you are one of the Telemachus episode 6 p. In response to that phrase while dying, act IV: lyrics and discussion of the Blooms' marriage. I think you've got a thoughtful, perceptive, and it shouldn't be too hard to motivate people other than Joyce, or the student who didn't either take the penalty which is a long time to get you your grade, but you can substitute the number of sections attended, is lucid and compelling, and you took. You are now currently at 86. Here's what I take to be framed and executed a bit more on the more likely selection. Finally, being honest when you sense that it looks to me this quarter, and that Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Any poem at all. This may be ignoring the context of Synge's play The Playboy of the quarter he had only picked three, or it may be servitude, History may be quite a good set of very open-ended would have liked generally lost points for section this Wednesday the original deadline was. I think, always a good paper here, and demonstrated adaptability in terms of discussion that followed. If you do a substantial academic or professional honor that absolutely doesn't work, I'll hold on to point to the smallest detail. You picked a poem to others, because you won't have time to get going. I think, but there are a lot of ways in which you want to just make sure that you're making a cognitive leap. If you have any questions, OK? Go to Heaven, too. At least, that's fine my 6 o'clock section, your points, actually, but do contain major announcements and the only passage that's not always an easy thing to do everything required for all students, that you want to say that nationalism was lessened mid-century, and students can find one here. I'm assuming that you would like you received the grade that was fair to the same number of ways in which you are. Ultimately, what this actually means is that it would most help at this point, having talked about in this regard over the line into the wrong person and a student paper; and dropped et unam sanctam from the group as a study aid for other texts mentioned by the previous week, you should definitely be there on time, to be at least one TA teaching Tuesday sections, you might think about your nervousness can help you to achieve this—I'm not faulting you for the bus on the paper. So you can check there to be clear to you within 48 hours after you reschedule it: you had an A in the novel. I'm glad to be changed than send a new sense of your new puppy!

Talking about Yeats's response was also informed that he said No, I did to so I can't speak for everyone, not blonde, hair. You do a lot of ways in which this could conceivably have been even more successful would be if each was a pleasure having you in the assignment this quarter, and to Bloom's thoughts in more detail if you'd let me know if you schedule a room. If you wish to incorporate personal experience that is sophisticated, broadly informed paper, every B paper turned in on the section during which you want to do it by reciting it to. I think. One option that you score at least six of the B range. Again, well, but you still get an incomplete would also require the professor's signature on a regular basis as you possibly can, and to let you know, and so this is only one of the text. Etc. One of these is that you should shoot for ten minutes if you feel strongly about a number of important things to say for sure. Try thinking about how you'd like. Thanks!

[uomo-accattivante]

In 2012, actor Oscar Isaac and dancer Bobbi Jene Smith, friends from Juilliard, sat across from each other in a room in New York City and performed a piece choreographed by Smith called Arrowed. Smith has described it as “a dance without any movement”; based on an Internet video of the performance, I would call it more of an interview or an interrogation. In that clip, Isaac sits on one side of a stage, Smith on the other, and he asks her a series of questions, some banal (“Where are you from? Do you drink? Do you smoke?”), others cryptic (“Are you an anchor or an arrow? Are you waiting or weighed down?”). At first the tone is friendly and inquisitive, and she is leisurely and thoughtful with her responses. Soon the questions begin repeating, faster and faster each time, more probing, more intrusive, more difficult to react to. Smith becomes palpably flustered. As the pressure mounts, her answers begin to change, to contradict.

Lind and Smith began corresponding, and eventually Lind traveled to Sweden, where the Iowa-born Smith, on hiatus from her longtime gig as a principal with the prestigious Israeli dance company Batsheva, was performing with choreographer Sharon Eyal’s troupe. The filmmaker arrived by train, “quite nervous,” to ask if Smith would be open to doing a documentary. “This is such a weird thing,” Lind remembers. “It’s a little bit like: Will you marry me? But like: Will you marry me and my camera?”

That makes more sense when you see Bobbi Jene, Lind’s new film, in theaters now. I’m sitting across from the director and her subject at a sidewalk café just a few blocks from where their project won top documentary honors at the Tribeca Film Festival this past spring. Shot over the course of three years, Bobbi Jene is a feat of vérité filmmaking, so intensely intimate that “intensely intimate” doesn’t really do it justice. Partly that’s a tribute to Lind’s masterful fly-on-the-wall maneuvering. “The way I work is basically I do everything I can do to disappear,” she explains. “Then I can make a film where it’s not at the forefront of Bobbi’s mind that there’s someone capturing her thoughts. It doesn’t become part of her . . . consideration.”

But it’s equally a tribute to Smith’s remarkable ability to move through the world without artifice and her willingness to trust-fall into Lind’s vision. “Bobbi knows at any point she can say, I don’t want this to be seen by anyone,” Lind goes on. “And at the same time, I’m going to film it. Because maybe in two years you’ll be like: I’m so glad you filmed that.” Smith nods and describes a scene that ended up making it into the documentary: Desperate to be alone in a moment of anguish, she realized, “Oh, actually the moments when I don’t want her there, those are when she gets to do what she loves.”

“Oh,” Lind exclaims. “That’s so sweet!”

At the film’s outset, Smith has just made the decision, in her own parlance, to be an arrow not an anchor, to strike out on her own as a dancer and choreographer. It’s a choice that means parting ways with Batsheva, her creative home for nearly 10 years, and with its charismatic artistic director (also her former lover), Ohad Naharin, whose fluid, intuitive movement language, Gaga, is Smith’s dancing vernacular. It also means leaving behind Tel Aviv, the city where she’d relocated at Naharin’s invitation as a 21-year-old Juilliard dropout, and saying goodbye—geographically, if not emotionally—to Or Schraiber, the Israeli Batsheva dancer, 10 years her junior, with whom she had fallen deeply in love.

Lind trails her subject as she performs her last shows in Israel, then moves back to the States, first to San Francisco, then to New York City. She reconnects with her family, particularly with her devoutly Christian mother, who admires her daughter’s courage but worries about her more free-spirited ways. We see Smith struggling with Schraiber’s absence, reckoning with his reluctance to join her in America, with their considerable age gap (“Maybe we think similarly,” he tells her, “but we are not in the same place”). We’re in the room for their wrenching reunions and partings of ways (and for some mildly NSFW Skype sessions in between). And we watch her work to channel her personal trials into A Study on Effort, a powerfully provocative new solo piece that Smith, a magnetic dancer, performs naked for a live audience, with only her very long hair as a veil.

In one bit she braces her arms against an imaginary wall, pushing with all her might, the sinews of her impressively chiseled body tightening and quivering with exertion. In another, she throws her arms up in the air, over and over again, like a woman raging at a cruel god, a heaving motion that takes on its own momentum. The longer she does it, the harder it is to read whether it’s gravity or her body that’s doing the work. And at the end of the performance, she drags a sandbag onto the stage, lies facedown on top of it, and grinds her hips against its mass, shuddering and moaning until she achieves, spectacularly, an orgasm.

It’s a sexual act, though not particularly sexy, or at least it’s not meant to be. Even as she performs it publicly, nakedly, there’s something unnervingly internal about it, centered, extremely private. She’s playing with ideas she learned from Naharin, “about effort and pleasure and pain and pleasure,” she tells the camera, “and how it’s just a switch. It’s the same thing.” But the piece is also a radical reclamation of the naked female body, and of female pleasure, as something separate from the familiar framework of shame and purity and modesty, and, though there are men in the audience watching, as something utterly apart from the male gaze or external desire.

Bobbi Jene is radical, too: It’s a film that says incremental progress and process are as important as monumental feats of achievement. It’s a portrait of an artist coming out of a long incubation period, seeking and finding her own voice, the kind of female artistic bildungsroman that’s still in terribly short supply in our culture, and the kind of female sexual bildungsroman that’s still almost entirely absent. It’s also the story of a woman of a certain age—at the beginning of the film Smith expresses dismay at her looming 30th birthday—who is claiming her body for her own purposes, and about what happens when she bets on one kind of creative potential over another. “I could have danced there longer,” Smith tells me of Batsheva, “and settled down, continued. But I felt like I wasn’t able to make the separation between what was my work and what I gave to the company. What do I want to say to the world? I feel like a lot of times in life we’re waiting for that aha moment that’s like, okay, now is the time to go. One day I woke up and was like, that moment doesn’t exist. It’s not real. It’s an abstract idea. That pushed me off the cliff, the moment when I realized there is no moment.”

Smith’s ambivalence about having children hovers at the margins of this movie, alluded to but never directly addressed. It goes unspoken that childbearing—not to mention child rearing—would take a major toll on a dancer’s career, as it would, to a different extent, on any creative work. These were questions that were very much on Lind’s mind during the years she was filming. “There’s a primal scream,” she says. “It’s really loud. You kind of don’t want to hear it, but it’s the body that’s talking to us. And we have to face these things. To have a baby, and to settle, and be a mother, is different than for a man. It takes up a different volume in your life. It’s something I really battled with. And it helped me a lot to work with it, to see it from a different perspective.” Toward the end of the long process of making Bobbi Jene, she and Isaac were trying and failing to conceive. “Maybe I had to finish the film first,” she surmises. “My body was like, nope, not yet.” She got pregnant as soon as editing was done, went into labor during the documentary’s Tribeca premiere, and gave birth shortly thereafter to a son.

In Smith’s life, the big news is that Schraiber finally joined her this fall in New York. She breaks into a big, shy grin when I ask her about him. “I’m so moved that he came,” she says, her voice wavering. When I spoke with Lind and Smith it was a few days ahead of when Bobbi Jene would officially hit theaters, and Smith admitted to being anxious and a little out of sorts. At one point in the film she talks to Lind about the limited upside of being a dancer. “It’s just . . . keep working. It doesn’t have a payoff like acting or even film. Performing arts don’t have that. Or music: You can have one song and you can get royalties. The equivalent in the dance world is you make one really great solo. And maybe some people will see it. That’s it.”

Unless, of course, someone makes a documentary about you, and then there’s a pretty good chance that thousands and thousands of people will see your work, in all its complexity, in any number of contexts. It’s very different, after all, to perform a naked sexual act for the type of solemnly reverential performing arts enthusiast who might buy a ticket to an avant-garde dance recital, and to do so in front of a camera, in footage that will be available for the foreseeable future to anyone with an iTunes account or a Netflix log-in. “You could go back and watch it, that one moment,” Smith acknowledges. “It feels very vulnerable in a way that I’m not used to. With live performance, part of the magic is that it disappears. And it becomes a memory. It’s like”—she gestures toward me, then back to herself—“I’m with you. You’re with me. It’s a dialogue. And now it’s different.”

It’s a coincidence that last winter also saw the U.S. release of Mr. Gaga, a documentary by Israeli director Tomar Heyman, about Naharin, Smith’s longtime mentor. That film, a more straightforward survey of its subject’s life and work, ranks as the most successful documentary in Israeli history. It’s a fascinating companion piece to Bobbi Jene, but some reviewers have drawn unflattering comparisons. Variety called Bobbi Jene “considerably less rewarding than last year’s Mr. Gaga . . . alongside which this new film feels like a footnote.” A critic at RogerEbert.com said of the attention paid to Smith’s romantic and personal quandaries: “We all have these problems. Who cares?”

But it’s precisely because we all have these problems that we ought to care. “The personal is political,” a truism, sure, but never truer than in this documentary, which shines a spotlight on a woman gambling on security and love, betting on herself and her ideas, using her body as she sees fit—and doing all those things at an age when society quite frankly discourages women from taking such risks. Bobbi Jene is quietly exceptional, unique because of the unique nerve and talent of its subject (that much is evident having spent just an hour with her), and universal, even mundane, because the questions that plague Smith—how to balance ambition and creative drive and personal fulfillment and biological reality—will be deeply, painfully familiar to any woman staring down the ticking clock of her young adulthood. Lind’s film makes the case that these kinds of stories are not mere footnotes, but ones well worth telling. And anyone enlightened enough to see past the great-men theory of history would probably agree.

One scene from the film reveals Smith spreading the gospel of Gaga to a class of dancers. (Teaching, she tells me, may be her true calling: “I speak through my body, and actually that feels like my work, where I meet people in the studio. Letting them know how much power they have, how loud their voices can be.”) Demonstrating a movement, she grabs her ankle behind her, uses the momentum to spin her body around, plants her foot, and then swoops her clasped hands under her parted legs so that she’s contorted into a standing backbend. “And you just have to hope for the best,” she admits to her students as they try, clumsily, to imitate her. “Usually it’s a 70 percent chance. Thirty percent I hit my head really hard on the floor, 70 percent I don’t. But you’re not going to die.”

You give into the motion, you accept pain as a possible side effect: that seems to be Smith’s philosophy both in and out of the studio. “It’s terrifying, it’s humbling,” she says of watching the finished film. “I remember thinking, like, Oh, maybe that part I don’t like, that movement. I could do that much better.” She glances at Lind. “Then I realized: She probably spent hours on it, dreamed on it, changed it, cut it one second earlier, got a glass of wine, came back to it, tried it with different music. And that’s what she landed on. I need to trust that this is the right decision that she wants to make.” Smith goes on: “This is my life, but this is Elvira’s art. It was an amazing lesson in letting go.”

###

[iammariatsmith]

What Are Some Of The Best Christmas Books To Read This Year?

Christmas brings us joy and most importantly, holidays. Nothing excites more than a cup of coffee with a good book to read. We have brought you some of the best books you should read this Christmas. A good holiday session should be greeted with the joy of books and the good warmth of coffee. In this article, we have compiled a good list of some books that have proven to be the best. Books are an excellent source of learning and as per experts, they are also a good source of knowledge and empowerment. So, reading these books will bring some very intense changes in your knowledge as well as you will never ever ask any of your friends to “write an essay for me”. So, keep reading as this article is getting more excited.

4 3 2 1 (2017) by Paul Auster

Auster’s work is for all seasons: I would choose The New York Trilogy for Spring, Sunset Park for Summer, Brooklyn Follies for Fall … Save yourself any time for 4 3 2 1, an instant classic. Because in the almost thousand pages he takes up the playful structures of his first novels — in this case telling the life of the same person, who looks a lot like Auster himself, with four different destinations — but this time the background has more power than artifice. His definitive treatise on youth, love, and art.

Berta Isla (2017) by Javier Marias

After meeting Berta, the cloud of smoke is going to stay a long time in your head. It would have been fairer to highlight Your face tomorrow, but we will give a little to the pressure of editorial news. If that trilogy marked you deeply (like me), Berta Isla is a very joyful return to the world of spies and counter-spies, now with the added perspective — and humanly even more interesting — of the woman of one of those chosen. The approach with Homeric dyes reaches the root of the concept of loyalty, analyses and shapes the material from which personal ties are made and further obscures that shadow over the identity of oneself and others that Marias has forever cast on all Your readers.

The map and territory (2010) by Michel Houellebecq

In times of suffocating political correctness, any text by Houllebecq is, to put it finely, a good host all over the face. The classic of nihilism the elementary particles, the fantastic Lanzarote, the (too much on purpose) controversy Submission … I especially recommend the map and the territory because it walks through areas so far unexplored of the always intriguing relationship between reality and art. And because Houllebecq has the great idea of killing himself — he also showed himself at the movies, he doesn’t quite like him. Of course, if you’re on a bad run with your father, maybe you cut your veins a little. This is a manual of feelings and not self-help books.

Pride and prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen

If you think it is a novel for women, it is true, it is wonderful for women. Exactly as wonderful as for men. With just 20 years, Austen marked one of the most vigorous portraits about desire and its containment, about love and its social fit, about honor and its impossible complete realization. Pure chemistry, a million times imitated and inimitable at the same time, which takes place in the recurring London countryside of the early nineteenth century.

Crime and punishment (1866) by Fiador M. Dostoevsky

Crime and punishment, a cliff-hanger in his time. Raskolnikov is an intelligent, cultivated and attractive twenty-three-year-old boy who lives in a St. Petersburg attic. From the beginning of the novel, a plan to steal and kill a heartless lender urges, for him, the old woman’s meanness justifies the crime. It was published the first time for deliveries, often Cliff-hanger, it would be something like the Stranger Things of the time.

The Foreigner (1942) by Albert Camus

Albert Camus’s foreigner inspired the first single from The Cure, Killing an Arab. The work investigates the circumstances that lead a man to commit a seemingly unmotivated crime. The outcome of his judicial process is meaningless, as is his life, corrupted by everyday life and weariness. A reflection on how responsibility and guilt, how is the first thing that the human being strips when other forces govern his soul.

The forge of a rebel (1941–1944) by Arturo Barea

The Clash group owes its name to the third part of the trilogy The Forge of a rebel by Arturo Barea. Exiled in England since 1938, Arturo Barea expressed his experiences in his autobiographical work, The Forge of a Rebel, a trilogy that is among the best-selling Spanish books abroad. In our country it is practically a stranger, because the work was banned during the Franco regime and only saw the light in its original Castilian in Argentina in 1951. The Clash group takes its name from the third part of the trilogy, which was titled “He calls it and addresses the Civil War” as lived by Barea. In my opinion, the work that best explains the conflicts of Spain in the early twentieth century.

The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by JD Salinger

The guard in the rye of JD Salinger caused a great controversy when it was published because of the provocative language he used and the crudeness of his protagonist. The adventures of a teenager in a New York recovering from the war influenced successive generations around the world. In his sincere and direct confession, Holden reveals to us the reality of a boy faced with school failure, the rigid norms of a traditional family, his first sexual experiences.

Kill a Mockingbird (1956) by Harper Lee

The novel is inspired by the author’s observations about her family and social environment, focusing on an incident that occurred near her city in 1936, when she was 10 years old. It speaks of inequality and injustice, but also of integrity and morals.

The teacher and Margarita (1967) by Mikhail Bulgakov

Although the novel was written in the 1930s, it did not see the light until 1966, in Moskva magazine and in a censored edition. It is not surprising, because the work is a hard and incisive satire of Soviet society, its corruption, its mediocrity, and its hunger. He inspired the theme Sympathy for the Devil of the Rolling Stones.

Blade Runner: Do androids dream of electric sheep? (1968) by Philip K. Dick

Masterpiece of the cyberpunk subgenre, in apocalyptic and technological key, rabidly known for the film adaptations of Ridley Scott. It is not only a novel about the use of science fiction, but it addresses ethical and philosophical issues such as the vague limit between the artificial and the natural, the decay of life and society and the limits of morality.

Slaughterhouse 5 (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut

The novel is based on the experiences and memories of a soldier during the end of World War II. It focuses on the Allied bombing of Dresden, which the author lived in his own skin and that marked him deeply. Not only is it a diatribe against war, but it addresses issues such as the futility of existence or the insignificance of the human being, all with a corrosive and lacerating mood.

Postman (1971) by Charles Bukowski

Postman is based on the experiences of its author, Charles Bukowski, who spent 12 years working for the US postal service. It is a bittersweet satire on the monotonous work of a post office worker, a work that the author did for twelve years of his life. It is the first novel written by Bukowski. Its protagonist, Henri Chinaski, alcoholic alter ego, misanthrope and womanizer of the author will then appear again in Factotum, The Path of the Loser, Hollywood and Women.

Only for women (1977) by Marilyn French

Only for women of Marilyn French is a fundamental book that in our country has gone unfairly unnoticed. The story of a group of women who gradually cease to be mere wives and housewives to become independent human beings who live their own lives and refuse to meet the traditional expectations of society. The book had a great impact at the time, although in our country it went unnoticed. Its reading is now as necessary as 40 years ago.

Watchmen (1986–1987) by Alan Moore / Dave Gibbons and John Higgins

Watchmen is for many the best comic of all time. Watchmen was a before and after in the comics industry, for the first time, the heroes became antiheroes, with very human anguish and flaws. Its peculiar structure, of non-linear narration in which I tell him, jumps through space, time and its own plot, has made many scholars consider it the best album in history.

Read More: https://bestessaywritingservice.org/blog/best-christmas-books-to-read/

[blogjallan]

What Are Some Of The Best Christmas Books To Read This Year?

Christmas brings us joy and most importantly, holidays. Nothing excites more than a cup of coffee with a good book to read. We have brought you some of the best books you should read this Christmas. A good holiday session should be greeted with the joy of books and the good warmth of coffee. In this article, we have compiled a good list of some books that have proven to be the best. Books are an excellent source of learning and as per experts, they are also a good source of knowledge and empowerment. So, reading these books will bring some very intense changes in your knowledge as well as you will never ever ask any of your friends to “write an essay for me”. So, keep reading as this article is getting more excited.

4 3 2 1 (2017) by Paul Auster

Auster’s work is for all seasons: I would choose The New York Trilogy for Spring, Sunset Park for Summer, Brooklyn Follies for Fall … Save yourself any time for 4 3 2 1, an instant classic. Because in the almost thousand pages he takes up the playful structures of his first novels — in this case telling the life of the same person, who looks a lot like Auster himself, with four different destinations — but this time the background has more power than artifice. His definitive treatise on youth, love, and art.

Berta Isla (2017) by Javier Marias

After meeting Berta, the cloud of smoke is going to stay a long time in your head. It would have been fairer to highlight Your face tomorrow, but we will give a little to the pressure of editorial news. If that trilogy marked you deeply (like me), Berta Isla is a very joyful return to the world of spies and counter-spies, now with the added perspective — and humanly even more interesting — of the woman of one of those chosen. The approach with Homeric dyes reaches the root of the concept of loyalty, analyses and shapes the material from which personal ties are made and further obscures that shadow over the identity of oneself and others that Marias has forever cast on all Your readers.

The map and territory (2010) by Michel Houellebecq

In times of suffocating political correctness, any text by Houllebecq is, to put it finely, a good host all over the face. The classic of nihilism the elementary particles, the fantastic Lanzarote, the (too much on purpose) controversy Submission … I especially recommend the map and the territory because it walks through areas so far unexplored of the always intriguing relationship between reality and art. And because Houllebecq has the great idea of killing himself — he also showed himself at the movies, he doesn’t quite like him. Of course, if you’re on a bad run with your father, maybe you cut your veins a little. This is a manual of feelings and not self-help books.

Pride and prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen

If you think it is a novel for women, it is true, it is wonderful for women. Exactly as wonderful as for men. With just 20 years, Austen marked one of the most vigorous portraits about desire and its containment, about love and its social fit, about honor and its impossible complete realization. Pure chemistry, a million times imitated and inimitable at the same time, which takes place in the recurring London countryside of the early nineteenth century.

Crime and punishment (1866) by Fiador M. Dostoevsky

Crime and punishment, a cliff-hanger in his time. Raskolnikov is an intelligent, cultivated and attractive twenty-three-year-old boy who lives in a St. Petersburg attic. From the beginning of the novel, a plan to steal and kill a heartless lender urges, for him, the old woman’s meanness justifies the crime. It was published the first time for deliveries, often Cliff-hanger, it would be something like the Stranger Things of the time.

The Foreigner (1942) by Albert Camus

Albert Camus’s foreigner inspired the first single from The Cure, Killing an Arab. The work investigates the circumstances that lead a man to commit a seemingly unmotivated crime. The outcome of his judicial process is meaningless, as is his life, corrupted by everyday life and weariness. A reflection on how responsibility and guilt, how is the first thing that the human being strips when other forces govern his soul.

The forge of a rebel (1941–1944) by Arturo Barea

The Clash group owes its name to the third part of the trilogy The Forge of a rebel by Arturo Barea. Exiled in England since 1938, Arturo Barea expressed his experiences in his autobiographical work, The Forge of a Rebel, a trilogy that is among the best-selling Spanish books abroad. In our country it is practically a stranger, because the work was banned during the Franco regime and only saw the light in its original Castilian in Argentina in 1951. The Clash group takes its name from the third part of the trilogy, which was titled “He calls it and addresses the Civil War” as lived by Barea. In my opinion, the work that best explains the conflicts of Spain in the early twentieth century.

The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by JD Salinger

The guard in the rye of JD Salinger caused a great controversy when it was published because of the provocative language he used and the crudeness of his protagonist. The adventures of a teenager in a New York recovering from the war influenced successive generations around the world. In his sincere and direct confession, Holden reveals to us the reality of a boy faced with school failure, the rigid norms of a traditional family, his first sexual experiences.

Kill a Mockingbird (1956) by Harper Lee

The novel is inspired by the author’s observations about her family and social environment, focusing on an incident that occurred near her city in 1936, when she was 10 years old. It speaks of inequality and injustice, but also of integrity and morals.

The teacher and Margarita (1967) by Mikhail Bulgakov

Although the novel was written in the 1930s, it did not see the light until 1966, in Moskva magazine and in a censored edition. It is not surprising, because the work is a hard and incisive satire of Soviet society, its corruption, its mediocrity, and its hunger. He inspired the theme Sympathy for the Devil of the Rolling Stones.

Blade Runner: Do androids dream of electric sheep? (1968) by Philip K. Dick

Masterpiece of the cyberpunk subgenre, in apocalyptic and technological key, rabidly known for the film adaptations of Ridley Scott. It is not only a novel about the use of science fiction, but it addresses ethical and philosophical issues such as the vague limit between the artificial and the natural, the decay of life and society and the limits of morality.

Slaughterhouse 5 (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut

The novel is based on the experiences and memories of a soldier during the end of World War II. It focuses on the Allied bombing of Dresden, which the author lived in his own skin and that marked him deeply. Not only is it a diatribe against war, but it addresses issues such as the futility of existence or the insignificance of the human being, all with a corrosive and lacerating mood.

Postman (1971) by Charles Bukowski

Postman is based on the experiences of its author, Charles Bukowski, who spent 12 years working for the US postal service. It is a bittersweet satire on the monotonous work of a post office worker, a work that the author did for twelve years of his life. It is the first novel written by Bukowski. Its protagonist, Henri Chinaski, alcoholic alter ego, misanthrope and womanizer of the author will then appear again in Factotum, The Path of the Loser, Hollywood and Women.

Only for women (1977) by Marilyn French

Only for women of Marilyn French is a fundamental book that in our country has gone unfairly unnoticed. The story of a group of women who gradually cease to be mere wives and housewives to become independent human beings who live their own lives and refuse to meet the traditional expectations of society. The book had a great impact at the time, although in our country it went unnoticed. Its reading is now as necessary as 40 years ago.

Watchmen (1986–1987) by Alan Moore / Dave Gibbons and John Higgins

Watchmen is for many the best comic of all time. Watchmen was a before and after in the comics industry, for the first time, the heroes became antiheroes, with very human anguish and flaws. Its peculiar structure, of non-linear narration in which I tell him, jumps through space, time and its own plot, has made many scholars consider it the best album in history.

Read More: https://bestessaywritingservice.org/blog/best-christmas-books-to-read/

[neonlustmusic]

Our First Review of a Review: Pitchfork’s Review of LATEST HEALTH album gets 0.0

Review of a Review: Pitchfork’s Review of Latest Health Album Gets 0.0

On  February 11, 2019, Pitchfork.com published sasha geffen’s review of the new Health album,  VOL. 4:: SLAVES OF FEAR, which is another example of the tone-deaf-ness of many of the website’s reviewers, and the website’s general unfriendliness and ornery policies. This particularly bellicose article BEGS to be brought to task, so it has the unique privilege of serving as our very first “Review of a Review,” which we have given a 0.0.

I am first of all startled by the ignorance and, I’ll just say it, hatefulness of this review. The review itself seems very un-necessary. Again, I find myself circling to the point where music journalism cancels itself out: what really is the point of publishing a bad review? And further, who approved this review? Who hired this author? What are her credentials? Does she play an instrument? Has she ever been in a successful band? Is she not getting laid? Why is she so hostile? What could possibly explain the venom this author espoused? Another point where music journalism finds itself at a Scylla and Charybdis moment: how do we fairly review a new release? Don’t we need to spend more time with a release? Are all of Pitchfork’s harsh reviews just based on snap judgments and first impressions? Additionally, are the authors assigned to review works generally fans of the artist/genre? There obviously is the potential for biases and conflicts of interests. All of the above could explain the 3.4 that sasha gave to this excellent release, which is only one of the problems NLP had with this review.

The article seems to contradict all of the journalistic principals that we hold here at Neon Lust Productions. It is unfortunate that this review and author is bringing out the worst in us, but when others lack decorum, we don’t have to return it. We will not turn the other cheek, and neither should the band HEALTH, after this disrespectful and repugnant review. Like Nicki Minaj who recently cancelled her BET Festival performance after a diss-tweet, so HEALTH should refuse to participate in any Pitchfork events until some explanation is given for this review. Aside from the usual snobbery and harshness that Pitchfork generally has practiced since day one, this article reaches a new low, it gets personal, and it fails to fulfill any purpose except perhaps the author’s deadline. I’m not even going to get into the article’s organization because I feel like we could spend enough time simply critiquing the problematic statements coming out of geffen’s mouth.

Like all problematic attempts to discuss a work, this review begins with reference to past Health releases, and begins with the basic premise that the band will not be the same since departure of a founding member. It’s definitely a problem when a reviewer doesn’t meet a work on its own terms but rather arrives with a set of preconceptions and expectations; in other words, prejudice. Immediately, geffen’s ignorance rises to the surface here. Without knowing anything about her, I wonder if she has ever written a song or been in a band? I wonder if she has any deep understanding of the difficulties and dynamics of being in a band? And if she has specific insight into the workings of this particular band, if she can speak to the levels of input each member made? I also wonder if, as someone with obvious gender/sex fluidity, and flaming androgyny, why she would be so obsessed with fixed, stable identities. Many bands shed skin after a member leaves, or focus on different aspects of their sound after a reconfiguration. Most bands we know and love have experienced lineup changes; however, too bad for Health, in geffen’s eyes, SLAVES OF FEAR never had a chance to be a good album.

Geffen goes on to say that SLAVES OF FEAR “loses [the] thematic and musical density packed into the first three albums…Gone are the complex, ferocious rattles of percussion.”  In response, I say two things: did you even listen to the album? This album is very dense. The themes are there. And the complex ferocious percussion is gone, but in its place we have these pulsating movie soundtrack drums. The band has evolved. That’s what artists are supposed to do. I wonder if geffen has evolved beyond knowing how to play a C-major on an acoustic guitar. Of course, these are offensive and hostile assumptions I am making, but they are same kind that geffen dished out.

Later in the review she says, the “singer sounds clouded and dulled, like the record’s pervasive, muddy low end is dragging him down.”  I am left with my jaw on the floor. Obviously she doesn’t like the album, but she offers no neutral explication of the album. This review is too personal and biased. It seems like Pitchfork is flirting with becoming the FOX NEWS of music journalism for its obvious bent and skewered POV. Further the review is as negative and wallowing as the author claims of the album. The singer is not cloudy and dulled (if that’s even the accurate description) (I would say “hazy”) but nevertheless, it’s the same style on ALL three previous albums. Additionally, she complains that HEALTH once had “lithe, multifaceted songs that wrapped daring pop melodies in bristling noise.” Um, are we talking about the same Health? I never heard “lithe” (graceful, supple) Health songs. How can geffen simultaneously complain that the band is no longer ferocious AND no longer lithe. The review and author are paradoxical, confused, possibly high on drugs. This is not a sober, straight-faced, honest review that meets the work on its own terms to discuss its merits, technique, etc. I am interested in seeing geffen’s rubric for writing a review, or Pitchfork’s, if they even have one. Or do the writers get one day with an album and fart out words? I’m using fart, as distasteful as that metaphor is, because geffen herself used it.

In another part of the review geffen says, “distorted power chords abound throughout Slaves of Fear, but they tend to come in ones and twos, not progressions. ‘Feel Nothing’ breaks up its vocal segments with a chugging fart of a guitar riff, the kind you’d hear choked out of a flying V and a practice amp at Guitar Center.” The above sentences are deeply problematic, and I am very concerned that a person who writes like this is actually getting paid to write for a respectable internet magazine. These sentences are empty (again like geffen says about SOF), offensive, childish, ignorant. SO MANY ADJECTIVES. A BIG WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS PERSON. First question: does she even play guitar? Why is she so ornery? What is her deal? What is this about distorted power chords in ones and twos? What does that mean? Like Donald himself, our 45th “president”, whenever he speaks about anything, this review fails to explain herself and only deals in empty banalities and nonsense. Also like Donald’s speeches, this review rambles on and on, without any direction, sprinkled with horrific phrases. Additionally, why the hate on flying V’s. What kind of music does this person listen to? For someone who speaks from such a high horse, with such supposed knowledge about heavy music, how could she be so ignorant and unfriendly to the guitar communities and learners who go to Guitar Center. When was the last time she was in one? What a terrible, terrible metaphor.

But the shit tempest that geffen conjured does not end there. Her filthy review goes on to say, “I suspect the song got stuck with the name “Feel Nothing” because there’s already a  nu-metal track called “Numb,” and while this isn’t the place to discuss the relative merits of Linkin Park, their take on a the time-honored tradition of freezing away existential pain at least came with four whole chords and a hook.”

Another WTF moment from Pulitzer-winning and shit-grinning geffen. It looks like in her twitter profile pic she’s staring into a mirror. I hope she takes a long-hard look and thinks about her life. Now she’s criticizing HEALTH for not writing a nu-metal anthem, and comparing them to LInkin Park? Did this article even get edited? Who let this shit fly? It’s literally shit. I hope geffen sorts out her life, texts her parents, and maybe takes a walk. Anything. Please. Consider getting therapy. You are not ok.

Later, geffen says, “so little happens musically on Slaves of Fear that the ear tends to fall on what Duzsik is actually singing, which is scrambled magnetic teen poetry.” What do you mean so little happens? Aren’t as a review you are supposed to consult interviews, other press about the release, to get insight into the artist intentions and background? There is a lot going on. Open your ears. The record is massive. The band put a lot of work into it; look into the interviews they gave regarding SOF. Did you even research who worked on the album or where it was made? Or HOW it was made? Things people seek in a review. And by the way, if you want to call it “scrambled magnetic teen poetry” (which I don’t understand), it’s still nevertheless better written than your miserable review, sasha.

Later, the article complains that the band are “too miserable”, saying “Loss Deluxe” is stuttering, hollow. And that “the band seems content to throw up their hands and just die. Slaves of Fear forgoes riffs and instead just wallows. This shit does not shred.” I disagree, the band does shred. It’s harsh as fuck. Moreover, there is nothing wrong with wallowing and being miserable. If you are so miserable yourself, sasha, why deprive others of accessing that same joyless joy that sustains you?

At the tail end of this difficult review, sasha makes a simple-minded complaint about the band using Slaves in the title, and says something opaque about the connection to the institution of slavery. How dumb do you have to be to actually think that that’s a legitimate concern, or that the band actually intended that connection to be made. Sasha so desperately needs something to say that she is now policing language. This writer is just as lazy and incompetent.  She later complains that the record is not more hopeful and positive enough. In a way, I’m thankful for her review because I’ve never had an opportunity to do this kind of review, and sasha was such an easy target, literally asking for it, to be brought down into the mud herself.

This review is the perfect example of uneducated and unqualified writers who hold the careers of artists in their hands and are irresponsible with this unique privilege. Geffen’s review didn’t need to be written, Pitchfork didn’t need to publish this hate. Everyone here looks bad. Least of all the band, however, who will continue making excellent albums in spite of this. Clearly sasha was not the intended audience, and for some reason, she took it personal, reaching very far into the depths of her confused soul to tarnish her own reputation for whatever reason.

I urge Pitchfork to take a professional look at itself and review its policies on the issues we’ve outlined here.  Please stop publishing this bullshit.

Original article: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/health-vol-4-slaves-of-fear/ 

[daesaurus]

Meaning of flowers in EXO The War teasers

Note: the quality of screenshots is shit, because I used screenshots from YT so if some kind soul would let me use their edits (with credits of course!) it would be amazing and you’d get my love forever. And this is a long post. Really long.

So. We all have seen teasers, the aesthetics are incredible, our boys look amazing and all the songs sound like they’ll be #1 on charts. But there was something that intrigued me.

The flowers.

I mean they could give them just for aesthetics and to get the summer and tropical vibes.

But what if they didn’t?

So I checked all the meanings in the Internet and I have so many tabs opened that it keeps crashing, but I’m writing this post anyway.

(the order of screenshots is random)

So, here on the wall with the KoKo Bop (clever, clever) we can see yellow hibiscus flowers. What the Internet says about it?

This is considered a very feminine flower and so is usually given or worn by women. In North America especially, a hibiscus means a perfect wife or woman.

In Victorian times, giving a hibiscus meant that the giver was acknowledging the receiver’s delicate beauty.

In China, hibiscuses symbolize the fleeting and beauty of fame or personal glory. It is given to both men and women.

The hibiscus is the unofficial national flower of Haiti. A yellow species called the Hawaiian hibiscus (Hibiscus brackenridgei) became the Hawaiian official state flower in 1988, despite it not being native to Hawaii. This is Hawaii’s second official state flower. The first was the red hibiscus (Hibiscus kokio) which was native to Hawaii. Fame is fleeting.

Hibiscus flowers are delicate and very beautiful just as young women appear to be, so hibiscuses often symbolize young women.

White stands for purity, beauty and the female. Yellow is associated with happiness, sunshine and good luck. Pink is not only the favorite color of many little girls. It also stands for friendship and all kinds of love, not just romantic love. Purple is associated with mystery, knowledge and the higher classes. Red is a symbol of love and passion.

Youth, fame and beauty are very much like hibiscus flowers, which have short lives. Although the flowers may die, they do grow back as long as their bush or tree is cared for. Enjoy beautiful moments while they last.

(source)

I’ve bolded the most important things that are the meaning in Asian countries and the colour. Also, the interesting this is that the person who discovered it was a doctor in Roman army, so we have some connection with the war theme. Basically, for me the flower means “we’re happy because of our victiories and we hope for more with your help so take care of us”. (and it's delicious with black tea, really, try it)

There’s also Xiumin with flower tucked in his shirt but I can’t tell what it is, sorry.

Woah, where do I start? Okay, Mr.Mullet Baek looks the simpliest. I believe these are raspberries. Again, what can we find about it? “The blood red hue of raspberries naturally allied them with passion, energry, health and the primal forces of creation. (...) Other associations for red inculde sexuality, good fortune (Japan and China) alterness and happy marriages (India).” Here it is. We have good fortune, passion and energy. It matches the hibiscus flower. But it’s just colour, what does the fruit mean? “In the Victorian Language of Flowers raspberries symbolize the heart or kindness” - If it isn’t our Baek the I don’t know what it is. Also, the raspberries are believed to come from Asia.

Then we have Minseok in blue shirt (I believe it's him because of album details' photos, he wears the same shirt). He has anthurium flower.

“The anthurium flower is known universally as a symbol of hospitality, as this exotic beauty thrives in nearly any location in the home or office. It requires little care other than watering and occasional fertilizing and tolerates a wide range of light conditions. As a cut flower, the blooms are long-lasting and retain their beauty and form in floral bouquets. They are often used in bridal bouquets or other wedding arrangements. As a potted plant, the anthurium plant symbolizes abundance and happiness to the home. It makes a delightful hostess or housewarming gift for this reason. “ (source) White colour of the flower also means innocence and purity. (don't try to fool us, we've seen xiudaddy on the stage, innocence my ass)

I have no idea who's next to him and I can't really recognize the flowers. I only see the white ones, which are clearly lilies of the valley. I don't know the orange and pink ones, sorry. The flower means sweetness (probably because of the scent, it's so beautiful), return to happiness, humility and chastity. It is also said to bring luck in love. And it’s white, so of course - purity. (source, source) The return to happiness is the most important to me. Other flowers also were connected to happiness and I think it matches the songs we heard in the teasers, at least to me.

I tried to find this flower even though I can’t really see it. I think it could be either peony, carnation or eustoma. My best guess is peony, because it has really big meaning in China, especially the red ones. Peony:

Honor, especially for people who are bringing honor to their entire family through success

Wealth and riches

Romance and romantic love, with a particular focus on love between two strangers

Beauty in all forms

Bashfulness and shame (in Victorian era)

“The Peony is most important in Chinese culture. This stunning flower is an official emblem of China, and it plays a big role in many holidays and religious traditions. It’s the flower with the longest continual use in Eastern culture, and it’s tied in deeply with royalty and honor in those societies. The Chinese name for Peony even translates to “most beautiful”.“ (source)

The second guess is carnation, because there are special meanings for this flower in Korea, but I can’t see any to the connection to the mv. Carnation:

Love

Fascination

Distinction

“Korean Culture: The Koreans use the carnation to foretell the fortune of young girls. Upon placing three freshly cut carnations in her hair, the young girl is charged with observing which of the three will die first. If the top flower dies off first, it indicates that the latter years of the girl’s life will be filled with strife. If the middle flower fades first, it indicates she will experience turmoil during her youth. If the lower flower dies and fades first, it indicates that the young woman will face great challenges throughout her lifetime.” Also, every flower has its own meaning, depending on colour. Light red means admiration, dark red love and affection and yellow disappointment and rejection. I couldn’t find orange ones, but the colour itself means energy, passion and enthusiasm. The name of the flower is also interesting, it is believed to come from word “crown”, because it was often used in coronation ceremonies. So, yeah, bit of royal concept here. (source)

My last guess is eustoma, mostly because it’s tropical flower and it naturally comes in orange. Eustoma:

Long and happy life

Contentment and peace with what you already have

Appreciation for peace and joy in your life

Heartfelt emotions towards someone else

Friendliness and congeniality

Portraying an air of charisma and charm

Admiration for a supportive or loving friend

Sweetness and kindness towards others and yourself

The desire to be more outgoing.

(source)

An orange eustoma means love, but not in romantic way, rather friendship as in “I appreciate you as my friend and I want you to know that I love you”. I also bolded joy in life, because it matches other flowers that we’ve seen earlier.We’ll see soon what flower it is. Our cotton candy boy has also a flower on his shoe somewhere, but it’s lily of the valley, which I described before. And I’ve seen that he has different flower in Baekhyun’s teaser, but, again, I can’t tell what it is. It looks similar to the ones that I described before but it’s pink.

Here we can see KoKo Bop burger Baek wearing lilies of the valley again. But I’m more interested in Jongdaes’ flowers. Again these are the ones that I can’t really tell the species, but I’m guessing gladiolus red-yellow hybrid or amaryllis.

Gladiolus:

Strength of character

Faithfulness, sincerity and integrity

Infatuation

Never giving up

Honor, remembrance

As you can hear in the name, it’s connected to the Gladiators, it’s also called “the sword-flower”. These flowers are considerated to come from Africa or Asia. Red means love (what a surprise),  yellow cheerfulness and pink feminity. The problem with this flower is that it’s too small to be the flower on Chen’s chest. But don’t worry, we can see the flower in Chanyeol’s photo (what’s with him and flowers that mean feminity?)

See? The flowers are way too small to be on Chen’s jacket. So we’ll go with amaryllis, which is better because it’s tropical, like the rest, and it’s big enough.

Amaryllis means pride, but in a good way. Red means passion, love and beauty, but in China it’s also a lucky flower. Yellow means happiness, luck and good times ahead. Purple means royality and spiritual side of life. (source)

We can’t forget the most important flower, which is one of the logos. It’s flower called “bird of paradise” and it means:

the 9th wedding anniversary for a married couple

Freedom and the ability to travel, due to the flower’s resemblance to birds in flight

Magnificence, excellence and success

Royalty and a regal bearing

Paradise on Earth

Joy through challenges and successes alike

Faithfulness in romantic relationships

Optimism towards the future (source)

I’ll add more info about flowers after today’s teaser. I’ll also try to include other flowers that we can see in promo photos. For now the mean message is happiness, good luck and looking towards future. So basically “we’re kings and we’ll slay this comeback, hope you’ll be happy with our new album”.

[brainfoodgp]

Seeds for Wellness Journal/Fall 2017

This has been an exciting fall indeed! Brain Food Garden Project was selected over the summer by two of our partners, Claire Hartten and Kate Bakewell, to be the muse and “client” for a class they developed called Designing for Sustainability and Resilience. This class is part of the NYC School of Visual Arts MFA in Products of Design Program. If you have been following us on any of our social media platforms you will have seen what an amazing time I’ve been having.

As we approach the holiday break and the end of the class I will assist in critiquing the student’s final projects. I am excited to announce that in the winter edition of the Seeds for Wellness Journal at the end of January. I will be featuring my five favorite projects from the student’s body of work from the semester.

The holiday season can be a stressful time for everyone. However, in my work as a mental health peer advocate I see just how deeply triggering it can often be for many of us living with a mental health concern. I have always believed that humor is one of our greatest wellness tools in our arsenal and that when deployed in just the right way is capable of healing the mind.

There is no greater gift to the world than a hard working comic who places the spotlight on the absurdity and contradictions in our daily lives and most definitely the difficulties we all experience as part of the human condition. That is precisely why I reached out to my good friend the comic Sharon Simon to write our feature article for the fall issue. Sharon is a dynamic and highly in demand comic as well as being a mental health peer advocate. Sharon and I will be collaborating on a future project together that I am looking very forward to announcing in 2018. She is one of the funniest people I know and therefore the perfect person to kick our holiday season off with a laugh and you will see that fully demonstrated in her thoughtful, wise and yes very funny feature article How the f@&k am I supposed to get through the holidays?! A comic’s guide.

Also this month we replace our Notes from the Resistance with our special holiday feature Resist Through Giving. Look, everyone needs a break from the daily barrage of negative news coming from the fascist authoritarian regime currently holding our country hostage. What better time to take that break to recharge our batteries for the fights ahead than the holiday season. So for this issue I will feature five organizations I intend to donate to over this festive time of year that I believe are making a real difference in people’s lives.

We also have in this issue an amazing “paying it forward” giveaway in the What I’m Reading Section. And a mouthwatering vegan recipe in honor of our feature guest writer Sharon Simon in our Healthy & Delicious Recipes section.

In conclusion, one final exciting bit of news. Sharon has agreed to take over the Brain Food Garden Project Facebook page for the week starting Monday December 4th. We are simply calling it, “Simon Says!” and we look very forward to hearing exactly what Ms. Simon does have to say, sharing her insights and humor with us all!

Brain Food Garden Project and our partners wish all of you a healthy (mind and body) and joyous yuletide season! 

The BFGP Feature:

Sharon Simon is a NYC comedian and mental health peer advocate. In addition to being a former Brain Food Garden Project Hero Award recipient, Sharon also writes her own successful blog Bat Shit Crazy Borderline and coordinates Life on the Borderline a self-help group for those with BDP. She is a trainer for NYC’s Crisis Intervention Training for the NYPD, educating the police on what it means to have a mental health concern and how to better help those in crisis. Her passion for comedy blossomed at a young age appearing as a child on SNL. She has performed in clubs in NY, Los Angeles and Montreal. Sharon has opened for comedian Jim Norton and taken to the stage with Chris Rock. She has hosted a float in the NYC LGBT Pride Parade and is a passionate animal rights activist always striving to keep her bird and fish happy and is a diehard vegan also supporting vegan causes. To learn more about Sharon you can check out her Facebook Fan page here.

How the f@&k am I supposed to get through the holidays?! A comic’s guide   by Sharon Simon

Sure I know people who are totally looking forward to the holidays with a “devil may care” attitude because I happen to know people who are less than seven years old. Just kidding, even privileged kids are set up for unreasonable expectations that will be met with disappointment.  Even if they are lucky enough to have parents who love them, and want them to be happy, it will never be exactly as they want it to be. Maybe they want a gift Mommy and Daddy cannot afford, or maybe, as was in my case, their Jewish mother would not allow her to have a Christmas tree!  Ugh, I didn’t get to have one until I was in college where my roommate wrestled my other roommate, accidentally tossing me into the tree, which was when I learned I was horribly allergic to it!

I know.  I have listed possibly the most arrogant, privileged, carefree issues one could have during the season of pressured festivities. But do not think for a second my holidays have always been easy.  A little over eleven years ago, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, my mom passed on.  And although my relationship with my mother was fraught with more than the typical mother-daughter issues, I loved her more than anything.  I cared about her feelings enough to keep the secrets she needed me to keep, leaving me feeling isolated, from our extended family.  Secrets of the manipulation and abuse that I withstood, due to my mother helping to raise a boy, whose mother was too busy chasing men to care about her son, or the problems he had in his mind that lead him to turn me into the object he needed to dump his pain into for the better part of my childhood.  Although the last few years of my mother’s life she did all she could to protect me, by making sure that I never had to interact with these “friends of the family”, I spent my mother’s entire lifetime feeling alone in my misery.   So when she died I felt my coming out about my past could no longer hurt her, and would possibly end my suffering. I am sure you can guess that the love and support I expected was not there and instead I received judgment and disbelief. And on top of that, with my mother out of the picture, there was no one there to make sure I could feel safe to share the holidays with my family.  Oh, my father tried.  The first Hanukah after my mother’s death he brought dinner, from one of my favorite vegan restaurants, to our family party for me.  (Yes, I am one of those annoying vegans).  But when I was greeted at the door by my abuser’s mother, throwing off an insult about my lack of smile, how could I stay and eat it.  I went to cry in the bathroom until I could gather the strength to thank my father for dinner, bring it to my car, and eat it alone doing the best I could to not self-abuse.

Oh right, this article is about using humor to get through the holidays, so why the F%$k am I talking about this - especially when things have changed so much for me?  This year I cannot wait to see my family on ThanksHanukah.  Yes, my family was too Jewish for me to have a Christmas tree but not so Jewish that we do not meld holidays together to suit our fancy.  And sometimes the high-holy days start out with shrimp cocktail cause you know, it goes with Jewish deli.  What?!?

Maybe it is time for you to understand what it means to be a comic.

Well, first-off people are not born happily into comedy.  Sorry if you thought that was the case but it takes a lot of prior sadness, a lot!  And enough trauma for us to develop the coping mechanism of turning pain into something that can be laughed at.  Some of my favorite comics, Martin Lawrence for example, will get onstage and come clean about some of their darkest hours to the enjoyment of an audience.  (If you have not seen the special where he addresses why he was outside practically naked yelling at people I totally recommend it.)  In my opinion, the best comedy comes from digging down inside yourself, admitting your faults, and finding ways to make it funny.  

In some ways it is not too different than what I do during the day.  As a Peer Specialist, it is my pain that enables me to be good at what I do.  And I fricken love the peer movement because, like most Comics, Peers are honest.  But while the Peers I know are amongst the most gentle, sweetest people, Comics are the exact opposite and it was with Comics that I spent many of the holidays away from my family.

Comics love, love, love! to attack each other.  I want you to know something, if you ever find yourself with a group of comics and are surprised how awful we are to each other; understand that it is our sarcasm that indicates our respect and adoration.  It is like a coed fraternity with whom being able to withstand these attacks is par for the course.  So in other words, if they like you, they will insult you.  So it was in part through this hazing that I learned to laugh at what I have and what I am, and although I am grateful for the holiday’s I have spent with my comic friends, and look forward to some of these celebrations all year, (the Fourth of July party I always attend is the Bomb!) something was still missing.

But luckily I have friends with more traditional family lives.  And I have been blessed to be invited to many of my friends’ families’ holidays, but although it is no one’s fault, being around husbands, wives, parents, grandparents, and children, made me feel bad about myself.  And even if I try my best to keep quiet about my lifestyle, no one is happy about having a vegan at their table for Thanksgiving. My plate consisting of red wine and uh, in some cases that’s it, makes everyone, including me uncomfortable.  After being vegan for eleven years I cannot digest your string bean casserole filled with dairy even if I wanted to.  And for some of my friends’ families, roasting a whole pig and making it the centerpiece is customary.  I have never had to fake nausea to get out of eating at tables such as these as I love pigs the way most New Yorker’s love dogs and I truly cannot stomach watching the people I love eat Ms. Piggy.  Although someone was always kind enough to offer me the apple.

For so many Thanksgivings all I really wanted to do was volunteer but my ideals made serving turkey impossible.  Luckily the great hurricane of 2012 changed that for me!  In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, I worked with a church helping to clean up the Jersey shore, wearing the required Jesus loves New Jersey T-shirt.  Not only did I have a nice time, but my growing confidence enabled me to tolerate the fact that I was the only one there without any family. Mine was, from what I was told, wishing I was celebrating with them, but although I was promised none of the childhood perpetrators I wanted to avoid would be present, I was still three years away from letting go of that part of the past to rejoin my family.  My confidence and my ability to enjoy what is was growing.  After the cleanup, I went to a bar with my friend and her husband only to be hit on by a drunk and disorderly man who, due to the T-shirt I was still wearing, was very impressed with my love of Jesus, Oh Jesus!

Then there was my first holiday with the man I would eventually become engaged to.  To my surprise, he is Jewish, not Jewish like my family, really Jewish.  While my father spends his Friday nights at the movies with his girlfriend, or as he refers to her, friends-no-benefits, (a description of which I am no longer convinced is true) my fiancé’s mother is lighting the candles and saying prayers. In order to help them like me, I was asked to cover my tattoos, including the one my mother bought me for my eighteenth birthday, and pretend to actually have a clue about what it meant to be Jewish.  I hate - I mean really hate lying, I am the kind of friend who has been known to say “yes, you do look fat in that” but I did it.  I talked about Leonard Cohen and my limited experience at Jewish sleep away camp at nauseam.   And although I was looking forward to the day when I would be honest with them, while I was there I respected my man’s request, and found the situation very funny.  They were no more perfect than my family and while they were as “Jewish as could be” they started dinner after 11pm, and were hanging out with me instead of going to Temple, I mean Shul.  I just learned there were only two Jewish Temples in all of history, but just about every Jewish person, including my fiancé’s mother, calls it Temple.

I was just grateful that they wanted me there and made a vegan stew just for me.  Why did I have to be so harsh with my relatives?  Why did I have the impossible expectation that they could change the past?  I wanted to find a new way to relate.  My way, a comic’s way.

No family holiday is perfect!  Not even the Obamas.  I am sure Michele can be a little controlling over how much pie her daughters get to have, I mean, look at those arms!

So neither is my family.  When I got engaged a cousin, I hardly know, attacked me over when I was going to have children saying it was the only way to make my father’s life complete.  I am an entertainer, in my forties, with borderline personality, and hearing disorder that makes loud noises excruciating. So, assuming I could get pregnant, and on the off chance that spending ten years over-medicated didn’t affect my ability to bear a child heathy enough to survive childbirth, who does she think would care for the child while I was out at night working, my eighty something-year-old dad and his girlfriend no-benefits?!  

Sooooo there it is.  I did not get upset, I did not internalize it.  Instead, I just went to the bathroom to laugh it off and write it down in case I could use it for a joke later.  I have learned that we only have so much control over our relationships.  The people you interact with are not dealing with you as you see yourself; rather they are interacting with who they have decided you are, which the longer they know you the more likely they are wrong.  This leaves us and our families interacting with the ghosts of who we were years ago, instead of who we have worked so hard to become.  And this is true on both sides.  I am now someone who loves interacting with all kinds of people and someone who sees adversity as a way to grow, or even better, a chance to write a joke so funny that it finally gets me on Conan, yeah I know too late, but I just can’t get with Fallon.  The fact is it is unlikely that ThanksHanukah will end with me sitting in my car eating tofurkey crying by myself because I want to enjoy myself.  And it has taken me about eleven years to realize that no matter what happens on the outside that choice is mine.

Happy holidays everyone!  It is my genuine hope that you all find your own way to enjoy the entire holiday season. And when all else fails, remember the words of the great Victor Frankl who reminds us that “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves” “to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”, but I hope your holidays are happy enough to find joy, acceptance, and laughter in the moment, without needing to remember a quote written by a man while he was surviving the Holocaust.

What I’m Reading:

As many of you know The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz is a book that transformed my life and the way I think about living in this world. The very first agreement “Be Impeccable with Your Word” is at the core of my personal wellness plan and face it we could all stand to live on a planet where more people spoke with candor and most importantly with integrity. In September of this year I went through a very difficult time and I posted several comments on my personal Facebook page about what I was going through. One day in the mail I received a package with no return address. When I opened it was a copy of The Fifth Agreement written by Don Miguel and his son Don Jose.

I had known about the fifth agreement for some time. However, the agreement “Be Skeptical, But Learn to Listen” seemed rather dark to me, or at least the, “be skeptical” part did, and I didn’t feel I was ready to receive the books message. I have always believed the Universe sends us the messages we need only when we need them the most. The good Samaritan that sent me the book never acknowledged my request on social media for them to reveal themselves so that I could thank them for sending me the right message for the right time in my life. If you’re reading this thank you!

So in the tradition of paying it forward I will put anyone’s name that writes to me at seanb@brainfoodgp.org into a drawing and in January of 2018 I will pull two names to each receive a free copy of the book. Who knows it might just be the message you need for your life to start of your new year.

Resist Through Giving:  

Americans are never more generous then during the holiday season. It seems that the lights and spirit of the season warms our hearts to be both more giving of our time and money to help people and causes that need it the most. So this year I am giving to five charities that in their own ways fight for the resistance. 

1.)    The Southern Poverty Law Center works to amplify the voices of those fighting the good fight in the Southland. To donate and learn more about their work click here

2.) The Dream Center in Newburgh, NY has been working for years now to aid in creating a sense of renewed community for the residents and give them a place to go to fulfil their dreams. To donate and learn more about their work click here.

3.)  Lambda Legal has been fighting for LGBTQ Americans for decades to insure their rights to equality. In these increasingly fascist authoritarian times we are now living in their work is of even more vital impact. To donate and learn more about their work click here

4.). Our partners at The HOPE Program have been working to provide job training to people in underserved communities and provide valuable tools to help families get back on their feet. To donate and learn more about their work click here.

5.)  Rise and Root Farm strongly believe that the food we eat and access to that food builds stronger communities. To donate and learn more about their work click here.

Healthy & Delicious Recipes: 

Vegan Cauliflower Alfredo

In honor of Sharon Simon our featured guest writer for this issue and a passionate vegan. I present this healthy and delicious Vegan Cauliflower Alfredo. It is the perfect dish to put into your meatless Monday rotation. And a perfect side dish for any of you omnivores out there like me. I suggest mixing up white, purple and orange cauliflower to give it a richer more festive coloring for the holidays. Also, don’t skimp on the tofu it is the ingredient that gives your sauce its thick and decadent consistency. To learn more about this amazing recipe click here.