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lovelyirony · 4 years

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"a single thread of gold/tied me to you" for ironhusbands?💛

If there is one thing that James Rhodes cannot stand, it is “love at first sight.” In his professional and personal opinion, there is no such thing. It is simply a concept that Disney invented so they could make cutesy stories about princesses finding their princes immediately and give people hope about love, but in the end it is all about the money.

“You’re a cynic,” his sister Jeanie tells him over breakfast. She flings a stray Cheerio at him. “You are a cynic and you’re never gonna date someone because they’re going to think you suck.”

“People are going to date me and realize that I’m a good, realistic choice,” James responds, sticking his tongue out and stealing a drink of her orange juice. “People are going to date you and you’ll be disappointed because you watched too many romantic movies and you let it taint reality.”

“Loser.”

“Dork.”

And then he’s in college.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t meet Tony Stark for two years despite the fact that every single year, they live in the same building on different floors. He has had to evacuate about twenty different times because Tony cannot stop himself from doing experiments in his room.

The third year, James is an RA and required to live with one of the residents because of “experimental tendencies.” They don’t elaborate on why he’s stuck with a roommate, what the tendencies are, or who he is.

“You’ll know,” comes the email from the coordinator, and he has never wanted to curse so badly in an email before, but here he is.

But he’ll deal with it. Just like how he’s going to deal with everything this year.

He thought he would get the room to himself for a little while before everyone moved in and brought everything and he would check them in.

But no.

There’s his roommate, lounging on a bed, and grinning.

“Simply enlightening to meet you, James. They told me I could come back if I had a trusted roommate.”

“And they stuck you with me?”

“Well they were going to stick me with some dude who got the email, and then immediately transferred to Dartmouth. So I think you were the second option.”

“Great.”

He hates life, maybe just a little bit.

Tony wants to do things. Which is fine, but he isn’t really in the mood to have the conversation of the fact that he can do things, but he doesn’t want to do them. He has to focus on being an RA and preparing for the Air Force.

“Why prepare for that when you could be living?” Tony asks, lounging on Rhodey’s bed.

Oh yeah, that’s new too. Rhodey. Apparently, “Jim,” “James,” and “Rhodes” were unacceptable nicknames.

What is acceptable is Rhodey. And of course, the “honey bunches of oats” and “loveliest RA of all time in the history of MIT” and “sugar-puff” and “sweetness overload”

He’s responding to all of them, by the way.

Rhodey didn’t think his mental health would get this bad by the beginning. He had actually scheduled it to be around October.

And then the students come. There are nervous freshmen, the sophomores who don’t say anything as they move in and get settled, and the returning juniors and seniors greet Rhodey and Tony with familiarity and laugh about the posters that Rhodey’s worked hard on.

“So, we’re having joint-RA’s or something?” Miles asks, throwing his comforter over his bed.

“No, we’re not,” Rhodey says, hoping his expression is somewhere along the lines of not-showing-emotion. “Tony’s just...”

“I’m simply too exhausting for Housing to deal with anymore, so I have a babysitter,” Tony says with a wink. “And who better than our lovely Rhodey?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Sugar-puff?”

“Still no.”

Miles snorts.

“This year should be good. Tony, you gonna pull any fire alarms this year?”

“Rhodey has expressly banned experiments in the building, unfortunately,” Tony sighs. “It’s like he doesn’t want everyone to bond over having to leave at two in the morning...”

“Nothing says bonding like hating a rude wake-up call,” Rhodey says, and Tony nods. “We’ll let you get all moved in, Miles. Remember that floor dinner is at six!”

“You got it!”

Rhodey gives Tony a look.

“You know, I can do this on my own.”

“Aw shutterbug, I’m not gonna let you.”

“Are you really this intent on following me around?”

“Well, what if I want to overtake your position next year? What if you tragically get a raging headache and it’s up to me to know what to do? What if your mother kidnaps you and never lets you come here again?”

“I’m sure the college kids will be fine,” Rhodey stresses. “And I’ll still have access to email and the groupchat, genius.”

Tony just laughs.

“Alright, okay. I gotta go get some shit for my new class. The teacher sent out an email stating that the textbook is mandatory, and we have to do book work. This feels like eighth grade all over again.”

Rhodey snorts.

“Is it for Professor Casper?”

“Yeah, did you have him?”

“Yeah, you don’t need the book. You can find it online for free, and he never collects the book work. It’s a waste of time to get the book.”

“You’re an angel-and-a-half, love of my life,” Tony says. “And for that, I’ll snag an extra pudding for you at the dining hall.”

“Is it vanilla or chocolate this time?”

“Chocolate with cookies in it.”

“Oh my god, seriously? Already?”

“Guess they must have had a jump,” Tony teases. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

Tony has a specific way of getting people to open up and actually talk with others that Rhodey envies.

If Tony wasn’t so hellbent on convincing the group that if Miles and Kamala create a distraction, they could totally sneak out one of the pictures of the mascot.

“We are not doing that the first week,” Rhodey says. “Maybe the last.”

“It’s a beaver,” Tony whines. “Who’s gonna miss it, a Canadian?”

“It’ll be the floor bonding activity,” Gwen says, finishing off her fifth (maybe sixth) slice of pizza. “Better than talking about your feelings about the campus or whatever.”

“No.”

“We’ll convince him soon,” Tony whispers conspiratorially. “Also, who here is a freshman? I have some advice regarding the math classes and which teacher you want...”

Rhodey does have to admit, that sometimes it’s easier to have Tony around, who is so willing to stay up until the late hours because of some stupid drama or to help Peter at his chemistry homework and also ease his anxiety about leaving his Aunt May all alone.

Tony isn’t all wild and crazy as stories have led him up to be.

"I wore out all my crazy freshman year after going to two frat parties and deciding that no one knew anything about how to have fun,” he declared. “I mean, come on. Why have beer pong when you could quiz people about obscure fashion facts?”

Rhodey snorts.

“Don’t make that the next game night. Hey, what do you think about having a movie night this Friday? I’m thinking something not scary, we’ve been doing a lot of those.”

“It is October, what do you mean not scary?”

“Some of our residents don’t like scary,” Rhodey reminds him. “Honestly, I think we could do with a bit of Halloween fun.”

“Hocus Pocus? Double Double, Toil and Trouble? If you want to be slightly scared of old women and clown parties, I’d recommend it.”

“You weren’t scared of clowns beforehand?”

“Of course not, I wanted what they have; the ability to fit eighteen people in a car.”

“Couldn’t you just gut the car?”

“Not the same effect, honey-pie. Not the same effect.”

Miles and Peter both end up lobbying for Hocus Pocus, with little to no competition other than a promise that the other choice would be shown later on in the semester.

They’ve shoved all the chairs together and multiple people have brought out their own chairs, and Tony saves a seat for Rhodey under the premise of “Rhodey organized it, he gets a seat.”

It’s a tough squeeze, and Tony and Rhodey get all tangled up together.

Tony smells like expensive cologne and coffee, and he grins up at Rhodey and maybe the lights from the TV aren’t bright enough, but for a moment his heart skips a beat.

Well. Shit.

When he goes home for Thanksgiving break, Tony seems a bit...sad.

“What, your mom cook the worst turkey in the world?” he jokes.

"Sure,” Tony says, eyes unfocused. “Yeah.”

"Dude, you okay?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, turning. His smile brightens, eyes crinkling. “Why wouldn’t I be fine, buttercup?”

Rhodey gives him a look.

“I’m gonna call you when I get home, okay? You better answer.”

“I always answer to you,” Tony says, and damn Rhodey’s mind shouldn’t be going where it is.

Rhodey waves, gets in his car, and thinks about how Tony most likely has a problem on his mind, how he should probably not room with him, and his Aunt Ada’s green beans.

God, he loves those green beans.

Tony is alone for Thanksgiving. Jarvis and Ana got an opportunity to visit Aunt Peggy in England, and he knew that they hadn’t seen her in two years. He didn’t want to be selfish, have them stay just for him.

So, it looked like deli turkey sandwiches were in his future. If there’s still some soda in the fridge, maybe that too.

He sighs, and turns towards the lab. Dum-E’s not even here, as he didn’t fit in the travel car, so Tony let him loose on the floor to “keep guard” over the dorms and make sure that no one broke in or stole the cords that he knows he accidentally left in the common room.

The odd thing is, he had almost told Rhodey. Almost let him know that he’d be alone for Thanksgiving, but is that weird? That’s weird, right? To tell people your emotions just...it’s so messy.

They have to deal with it, you have to deal with the fact that they’re dealing with it, and then other people know that you both are dealing with it and it’s just a whole mess of epic proportions, you know?

Rhodey finds out on Thanksgiving, when they’re doing the parade on the TV and there’s a new snippet on the gossip channel when they go on commercial break.

Howard and Maria Stark, vacationing off the Mediterranean Coast.

“It’s reported that Tony Stark has preferred to spend his time in the vacation home,” the news reporter said, her smile wide and placid.

“Tony’s lucky,” Mama says, wrapping golden yarn around her fingers as she works on another sweater. (A small one, a tiny one. It’s for the new baby in the family for Christmas.) “He tell you about it?”

“He’s not there,” Rhodey says numbly.

“He’s not?” Dad says, eyes raised over the newspaper.

“No.”

“He didn’t tell you, did he?” Dad asks.

“No, no he didn’t.”

“Well then. Next time he’ll come with us.”

Rhodey nods.

“Christmas?”

“Clear it with his parents if they’re not spending time together.”

“Got it.”

Rhodey’s Thanksgiving is...nice. He can’t stop thinking about Tony going alone.

So he calls him. It’s two in the morning, he might be asleep, and Rhodey’s not sure if he got the “eight” in the last four digits right or not.

“Howard’s out, who is it?” comes a sleep-addled voice.

“Good thing I’m not looking for Howard, Tones.”

“Rhodey? Why are you calling me?” Tony asks, and Rhodey can imagine his eyes lighting up and that’s...that’s something.

“You spent Thanksgiving alone, I wanted to see how you were.”

“Aw, checking in your residents?”

“Checking in on you.”

Tony stills for a moment at the phone.

Besides Jarvis, no one had ever really checked in on him.

“Um, I’m fine?”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I mean, it sucks to be alone on Thanksgiving, but I don’t really like any of the foods that people usually have, so I’ve been fine. I ordered wraps from my favorite place.”

“Good to hear, good to hear.”

There’s a silent pause for a moment, the one where they both try to find something to say.

“Listen,” Rhodey says. “If you’re ever stuck for a holiday alone, you’re coming with me, okay?”

“I don’t want to intrude on your family,” Tony says softly.

“They all wanna meet you. Jeanie says she can kick your ass at ice hockey!”

“You guys can actually play ice hockey?”

“With limited degrees of success.”

“Oh, now that I gotta see some time.”

They come back to college, and Tony is back to his usual antics, greeting everyone who comes through the elevator with a shower of shredded paper.

“Welcome to Winter Wonderland! Next stop: suffering through finals!”

“Ugh,” Kamala groans, “stop it. Stop making me think. I have to memorize Byronic poetry. Do you know how boring that is?”

"Speak for yourself, I have to build a wooden chair,” Riri whines. “Who works with wood these days? It’s so old-fashioned.”

“Create the most bitching chair alive,” Tony says. “And I’ll help you with the necessary tools. Your professor isn’t expecting much, mainly just that it can support the weight of two people, you’ll be fine. Kam, Byronic poetry is not that bad, you will be good. We will bake cookies.”

“Can we even bake cookies? I thought our floor got banned from kitchen usage,” Peter says. “Hey Rhodey.”

“Hey kiddo,” Rhodey says. “First of all, yes we are banned from the kitchen. Second, we’re only banned and get in trouble so long as they know we’re there. And since more than half of us are nocturnal creatures and I am willing to wake up to help, we can bake cookies.”

There are cheers around the room, and Tony mocks offense.

“You don’t trust me to help the future youth?”

“Given that we’re not allowed to rent out any more equipment from the front office? Yes.”

“You wound me, darling.”

“Only as much as kitchen equipment goes, sweetheart.”

Tony grins.

“Aw, you missed me.”

“Yeah, I did. Now come on, you gotta help me with a billboard about the movie night this Friday. We thinking a romantic comedy or something mildly terrifying but probably won an award?”

“Mildly terrifying!” Gwen calls from her dorm. “If we watch two people falling in love I’ll choke! We’ve been doing it all year!”

“We’ve only watched, like, three rom-coms?”

Gwen rolls her eyes, as if he’s missed something completely obvious.

“You don’t get it. I’ll try again later. Hey, are we doing floor dinner tonight?”

“They’re serving pizza sandwiches, so obviously,” Tony says. “We will feast like kings.”

Christmas is a festive time for Tony. He loves it, and goes overboard with decorations. Rhodey lets him, because you can’t stop Tony once he loves something (and Rhodey is kind of. Fond of him).

Pepper comes up from the fifth floor, whistling.

“Damn, Jim. I knew you would do a good job with decorations, but not this good. Is this...did you buy a miniature village? How was this budgeted?”

“It wasn’t,” Rhodey says. “Tony’s really into Christmas and the floor convinced him that the theme should be Christmas Village. He’s been crafting identities for each villager instead of studying for any exam. The craft store employees know him by name now.”

“Well, we all have our vices. You two seem to get along well. Housing is pleased that he hasn’t blown up anything yet.”

“If they try to serve cheese ravioli again, he might.”

“That’s a problem for Dining,” Pepper reminds him.

“Still, it’s abominable. Where did they get them, bottom of the Hudson River?”

She snorts, adjusting her shirt.

“Probably, but hey. They still got eaten, even if that one freshman threw them all back up at the entrance.”

“It was payback, they were vile.”

Tony waltzes into the lobby, arms filled with glittering tinsel.

“We are not letting you hang that,” Pepper says, gaping at it all. “Do you know how hard it is to get rid of tinsel?”

“We’ll manage!” Tony says. “Also, are you free at six-thirty?”

“No, that’s when we’re getting dinner on my floor, what do you need?”

“Just that little tidbit of knowledge,” Tony says, looking down at his phone.

A message buzzes from the groupchat, and Rhodey glances at it:

We are a go for the real Christmas tree. I have the vacuum, and a believable lie. Rhodey’s gonna tell us when the RA on duty is gonna come so we can hide it.

Rhodey looks at Tony, grinning. He smiles right back.

“Is there some weird roommate telekinesis I’m missing here?” Pepper asks.

“Yes,” Rhodey says. “We’re discussing dinner plans.”

Another text from Harley:

I’m already picking one out with Peter. I have good taste. When is the ornament-making party?

Pepper looks at them.

“You’re planning something that I probably would have to disapprove of. I’ll tell people I got your floor watched tonight.”

“Pepper, light of my life, my absolute sunshine? You’re the best,” Tony says, grinning. “Rhodey-darling, help me with tinsel?”

He can’t say no. Simple as that.

That is how tinsel gets strung throughout his hair as he’s watching Tony climb onto chairs that shouldn’t be climbed on to hang it from everywhere.

“People deserve to have a good-looking Christmas,” he says. “Besides, I wanna win the decoration contest.”

Rhodey laughs.

“Okay, okay. I think we got it in the bag.”

Later on in the week, Tony can be seen flitting about from room to room with help and jokes to lighten the mood.

Rhodey has to admit, being an RA with Tony around is...nice. Better than he thought.

And maybe he has feelings. He’s not going to say anything about it. After all, they’re roommates. He also isn’t allowed to have a relationship with anyone on the floor, regardless of anything.

It doesn’t mean every RA follows it. God knows Sharon’s snuck down to the fourth floor to see Sam near-about every night, and her residents usually keep it a pretty good secret.

Still. There’s also everything else to consider, and the fact that he doesn’t even know if Tony likes him like that.

He doesn’t have to focus on it.

At least, not until the week of finals when he’s dying and Tony’s made him peppermint hot chocolate and sits on his bed, just about an inch away from his notes for his history class.

“Do you remember what you told me on the phone?” Tony asks softly.

“You up to compete against Jeanie for this year’s ice hockey championship?” Rhodey asks, smiling.

Tension releases from Tony’s shoulders.

“Only so long as you’ll have me.”

“Always, genius. Always.”

After the last resident leaves for the holiday and Rhodey checks in with those who are staying, he and Tony hit the road, dragging suitcases behind them.

“Are you sure I’m allowed?” Tony asks. “I can always find a hotel along the way...”

“Mama wants to meet you, I keep telling them a ton about you,” Rhodey says, laughing. “They told me they want to hear your side of the great Glitter Debacle.”

Tony laughs.

“You mean the truth?”

“Uh, I’m sorry, how are you going to convince them that green glitter was needed? And that you could clean it out of carpet?”

“Determination and grit?”

Rhodey laughs again as they pull onto the highway.

After a couple of hours, they make it to Rhodey’s home. His sister comes out, hugs for both.

“Good to meet you Tony,” Jeanie says. “I’ve heard a lot, and I think we’re going to get along awesomely after I tell you every single embarrassing thing that Jim’s ever done.”

“Only if I get to share stories too,” Tony teases, grinning. “Aw, they call you Jim?”

“What do you call him?” Jeanie asks.

“Jim-Jam, angel-dear, sugar-puff, Rhodey. You know, the usual.”

Jeanie snorts, taking one of Rhodey’s bags.

“Calling you the first one from now on.”

“Tony did you have to let her hear any of those?” Rhodey asks, exasperated in a teasing manner.

“Of course I did,” Tony sing-songed. “Now after you, I’m sure your mom is waiting to hug the living daylights out of you.”

It’s not until Rhodey gets all settled in and Tony is downstairs competing with his dad in a round of chess that Jeanie sits on his bed, the intention to annoy.

But it’s...different. She looks at him.

“You love him a lot, don’t you?”

Rhodey stills.

“You wouldn’t have told him he could come here if you didn’t.”

“You’re right.”

“I’m always right,” Jeanie says, flipping braids over her shoulder. “Nice of you to finally realize that I’m the smart one.”

Rhodey doesn’t say anything as she saunters out of the room.

He makes the decision not to tell Tony.

If it goes wrong and if Tony says no, he doesn’t want it to be an awkward family event but more importantly, the most awkward rest of the year ever. He can say it as they’re moving out, and that’s that.

He tells Jeanie as such.

“I thought you didn’t believe in love,” she says as they’re preparing the soup for dinner.”

“I don’t believe in love at first sight,” Rhodey says. “I do believe in love. There’s a difference.”

There’s a hell of a difference.

First sight, you don’t know everything. The second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on? Oh you learn so much more, and they become that more important.

He learns that he doesn’t mind picking up tinsel, so long as Tony is laughing and singing along to all of the worst Christmas songs ever, and maybe. Just maybe he could picture looking at Tony underneath the fairy-lights that they hung in the dorm room for all time.

Love is terrifyingly exhilarating, even when it isn’t supposed to be.

Rhodey did not think his heart would race so much as Tony listened to his Mama talk about her wedding china, about the utter disaster that his father was.

“He forgot his tie,” Mama said, smiling. “Oh my lord, my mother had a cow about that. I thought he looked kind of dashing.”

Tony’s eyes drift towards the wedding pictures, which are slightly shaky, but everyone had such wide smiles.

It’s a far cry from the publicity photos from the Stark wedding, Rhodey remembers the solemn expressions, the stuff tuxedos.

“I love it,” Tony says softly. He looks at Rhodey across the table, setting down the final plate. “Tell me more, Mrs. Rhodes.”

“Call me Mama, honey, Mrs. Rhodes is for people I don’t like that much. I think you’re gonna be my new favorite.”

“Even over me?” Jeanie says, grinning as she kisses Dad on the cheek. “I’m your favorite.”

“You’re my favorite until now,” Mama says. “Don’t think I don’t know that you skipped out on setting the table because Tony was here and graciously offered.”

“It was nothing,” Tony says. “Just happy to help. Thank you for letting me stay at your home for the holidays.”

“We’re always lucky to have guests,” Dad says, setting down the main dish. “Now let’s eat.”

Family dinner is a brand new concept to Tony. He’s had maybe four or five of them, and the majority of which were staged for some holiday shoot or some “celebrating American values” shoot.

It was awkward, weird, and he didn’t get why.

Now, he does. Jeanie has been steadily moving mashed potatoes away from Rhodey’s plate, and Mama caught her eye and winked, distracting him with talk about his college major and news about the neighbors.

Mr. Rhodes watches it all with a careful eye and a lax smile.

After dinner, they play cards.

It should be boring, but Jeanie puts on an old record and Rhodey keeps trying to count cards, and Tony didn’t think you could count cards in a game of Spoons.

“You can’t, he’s just a try-hard,” Jeanie stage-whispers.

“You-”

Jeanie laughs, rolling herself out of Rhodey’s grasp as he chases her around the family room. Tony leans back into the couch, and shouts with surprise as Jeanie trips Rhodey into the couch.

His body twists, and Rhodey’s facing him on the couch and they’re close and with the fire roaring in the fireplace and the Christmas lights outside shining through the windows, it’s almost magic.

It is magic, but Rhodey is kind of terrified of that.

Tony breathes in, breathes out.

“Hello sugar-puff,” he says.

“Hello genius,” Rhodey says, a smile on his face.

Oh.

The night does not get much sleep.

Tony doesn’t sleep anyway, but Rhodey finds that quite often he can’t sleep without some softly-playing rock in the background, doesn’t matter if it is a highly-questionable AC/DC song. That and Tony softly murmuring about his plans, and it’s like a personalized lullaby.

Rhodey cannot sleep. Tony’s in the guest room, and he can’t sleep.

There’s a soft knock on his door.

Tony’s there in shorts and a t-shirt that’s probably expensive, but he’ll never say if it is or not.

“Can I...I can’t sleep.”

“Get in here, Tones. I can’t sleep either.”

The bed is a tight squeeze, but they make it work.

Rhodey whispers until he drifts off to sleep about Christmas and school and everything else.

Tony watches with quiet eyes, interjecting with his own stories occasionally.

They fall asleep tangled up together, and Rhodey doesn’t mind it one bit, not as he pulls Tony in closer.

Waking up is bittersweet, honestly. Rhodey has Tony in his arms, and that’s...that’s perfect. He thinks this is going to be the best thing that’s ever happened in his lifetime.

“It’s too early, darling,” Tony groans. The light from outside is already peeking through the blinds, and he has stuffed his head right back into a pillow.

“Jeanie’ll be here soon to bother us for Christmas breakfast,” Rhodey says. “And unless you want her pouncing on the bed and landing on wrong everything, we better get down there.”

Tony smiles sleepily, stretching.

“Thanks for letting me sleep in your room, honey-bunch.”

“No problem,” Rhodey said. “Missed the constant AC/DC and late-night discussions about robotics.”

“Not like I did much talking, Mr. Sap,” Tony teased. “Or was it me who mentioned that they had a favorite plate for dinner?”

“Listen, it’s superior and you did not once interrupt that story to complain. I think I did a great job explaining it.”

Tony laughs.

“I’m gonna go get dressed, okay?”

“Not until after present unwrapping,” Rhodey says. “We stay in pajamas.”

“I’m cold,” Tony whines.

Rhodey chucks his sweatshirt at him.

“Then here you go.”

Tony’s eyes light up as he shrugs it on, wiggling as he brings it up to his nose. It shouldn’t be that cute. But it is.

“You are the light of my life.”

Rhodey laughs, rolling his eyes.

“Maybe. Now come on.”

They head downstairs together, and they both get swept up into the speed of things, with Jeanie racing around the house and telling Tony that he got treats too, they just didn’t have a back-up stocking.

“Hush,” Mr. Rhodes says, handing Tony a carefully wrapped gift. “After breakfast, we’ll go ahead and open it.”

He smiles, and Rhodey thinks it’s the best thing he’ll ever see.

Christmas gifts, Rhodey thinks, are his new favorite thing to see Tony interact with.

It’s painfully obvious that he’s never really had any personal gifts, anything that reminds people of himself. He carefully unwraps the paper, careful not to rip it.

“You nerd,” Rhodey says, grinning. “Come on, show us what you got.”

Tony laughs as he opens a box with two coffee mugs from the rest of the family, emblazoned with “Rhodes” on one cup, and the other being a simple red with gold trim.

“They’re perfect,” he says. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re feeding his coffee addiction,” Rhodey answers.

“Like you aren’t doing the same,” Jeanie teases. “You made him his cups of coffee this morning.”

“That is because I have trained him well,” Tony says, grinning. “Rhodey, here’s my present to you, open it.”

He’s nervous.

Both of them are, but Tony especially so.

He told Rhodey once that he’s not good at shopping for other people. He tends to have the phrase “go big or go home” permanently circling in his mind, and it can lead to...complications.

(Rhodey remembers the overhaul of his closet for his birthday, complete with a visit from a rather well-known designer.)

Inside is a beautiful jacket. It’s all patchwork, artfully sewn together with embroidery thread spelling out “James” at the lapel.

“I commissioned Janet,” Tony says, smiling softly. “She wants you to still walk in her fashion show, by the way. Says you’re a model.”

Rhodey snorts, shrugging on the jacket.

“You helped with this, right?” Rhodey says. “I can see it in the gold thread you got on the sleeves.”

“I may have had some creative input.”

“I love it,” Rhodey says. “Now here’s mine.”

Tony breathes, and Rhodey wonders if this gift will be enough. He feels a bit stupid, it doesn’t seem like that great of a gift, in retrospect-

It’s a puzzle.

A puzzle of their favorite cafe and restaurant to go to at MIT. It was in a shop window, and Rhodey could tell that Tony would love it.

On top is a scarf, since Tony gave away his last one to another student in their philosophy class.

“I love it,” Tony breathes, tackling Rhodey in a hug. “I love it, I love it! We have to do the puzzle after this.”

Mrs. Rhodes sends her husband a look.

Yeah, Tony would be around for a long time.

They set up the puzzle on the floor of Rhodey’s room, clearing away any luggage. It’s silent for a while, Tony moving around the pieces and Rhodey looking for edge pieces.

They work closely together, side by side.

Rhodey can’t stop staring.

He should be able to. He’s stopped himself before, but now?

Sunlight is coming in through the window, playing around Tony’s fingers as he nimbly picks up puzzle pieces, and this is the eternity that Rhodey wants so badly. If he died right now, he thinks he would choose for Heaven to look like this.

“You okay?” Tony asks, eyes looking up. He took his contacts out, and now he’s just in his tortoiseshell glasses, the ones that he secretly likes more and Rhodey loves.

“I’m in love with you,” Rhodey blurts out, because he can’t stop thinking about how beautiful Tony is and how much he loves him.

He realizes that this could very well be considered a mistake. Because they still have to live together and drive back together and it won’t be the same, and the residents will notice no matter how well they both act--

Tony pops his head right under Rhodey’s chin.

“Kiss me?”

That’s all it takes.

They mess up part of the puzzle, but that’s okay. They find they don’t mind it too much. They can work on it later, when Tony’s done getting Rhodey out of his new jacket and Rhodey works his hands underneath Tony’s sweatshirt.

Mama takes one look at them for dinner and grins.

“Jeanie, you owe me a night of dish-washing.”

“Seriously?”

“Mama!” Rhodey hisses, embarrassed beyond belief.

Tony just cackles, and elbows Rhodey out of the way so he can get to his chair at the table.

“Couldn’t have fooled you for a second, could we?” Tony teases.

“Not at all,” Mama states proudly.

Rhodey rolls his eyes and squeezes Tony’s hand under the table. All will be well.

When they both get back to college, none of their residents are surprised, at least not until they have to have a “knocking before entering” policy put in place after one particular late morning.

#lovelyirony writes #jeanie rhodes #mama rhodes #rhodeytony #ironhusbands #pepper potts #harley keener #gwen but i can't remember her last name #spidey gwen #gwen spider-man #kamala khan #peter parker #tony stark #rhodey

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doshmanziari · 4 years

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Musical Offerings for the New Year || What is “Radical Music” in 2021?

Near the end of 2020, a bunch of musicians populating a chatroom, including myself, each submitted ten minutes’ worth of our work to another musician, Chimeratio, who generously compiled it all into a set totaling nearly ten hours.¹ The work didn’t need to be new; just what we thought might best represent our abilities/style(s) and/or perhaps what we were especially pleased with. The set premiered in late January. Since I have some tentative plans for reorienting Brick By Brick this year, while not overriding its emphases, I wanted to share that music with anyone who’s interested.

I compiled the four videos into a playlist, although you can also access them individually: here (1), here (2), here (3), and here (4). If you care to, and are on a computer, you can also view the accompanying chatlog and read people’s responses from when they were listening to the live broadcast.

The compulsion for this project was sparked by excited discussions over and usage of the term “digital fusion”, most helpfully propagated by Aivi Tran, designating a computer-based body of work that for years lacked the rooftop of a commonly agreed upon genre-name. While describing my music has never been a big concern, even if it’s usually felt impossible (what, for example, is this? or this? I dunno!), I’ve appreciated how the spread and application of this term has brought together people who may have felt isolated.²

As “digital fusion” gained designative traction, I witnessed the activity in the aforementioned chatroom explode over the course of a few days. Before, a day’s discussion might’ve been a few dozen messages; now, there were dozens of messages every half-minute. This had positive and negative ramifications, the negative being that conversations often proceeded at a pace of rapidity which precluded concentrated thought. Eventually, I bowed out because the rapidity exceeded my threshold for meaningful interaction; but I was glad that significant invigoration was going on.

I wanted to share this music also because it intersects with thoughts and talks I’ve been having stemming from the question, “What is ‘radical music’ in 2021?” This was stimulated by a 2014 talk given by the writer Mark Fisher, wherein he contends that, were we to play prominent “cutting edge” music from now to people twenty years ago, very nearly none of it would be aesthetically shocking, bizarre, or revelatory (think of playing house music to an audience in the early 1960s!). Fisher also observes a trend of returning to music which once was seen as the future -- as if, deprived of a shared prograde vision, imaginations turn hazily retrograde; ergo, genres such as synthwave or albums like Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories.

It isn’t my goal here to argue about the “end of history.” Fisher’s time-travel hypothetical, however, rings loud and true to me. Visible musical radicalism has, for at least a decade, been strictly extra-musical, in the sense of songs like “This is America” or “WAP”, where one’s response is primarily to the spectacle of the music video, the performer’s identistic markers, and/or the manner in which the lyrics intersect with (mostly US-centric) ideological hotspots. Musically, there is really nothing radical here. Any vociferous condemnations or defenses of a song like “WAP” deal in moralizing reactions to semantics or imagery: how progressive or regressive is the political aspect? how propelled or repelled are we by the word “pussy”?

It would be a mistake, and simply wrong, to assert that the only music one can enjoy escapes the parameters outlined above; and my inability to coherently categorize some of my own music hardly raises that portion to the status of radicality. But the question here pertains to what is being made, and I think that if we’re going to seriously consider the nature of truly radical music today, we do need to question if such a quality can prominently exist when our hyper-fast consumerist cycle seems to forbid not just sustained, lifelong relationships to artwork but also the local, unhurried nourishment of creative gestation. Now, in my opinion, there are good, even great, examples of radical music still being made in deep Internet-burrows, and for evidence of that I would offer some of the material contained in the linked playlists. Moreover, I’d say that this quality can exist in part because these little artistic communities are so buried.

Let me share a quote that another person shared with me recently:

For culture to shift, you need pockets of isolated humanity. Since all pockets of humanity (outside of the perpetually isolated indigenous people in remote wilderness) are connected in instantaneous fashion, independent ideas aren’t allowed to ferment on their own. When you cook a meal, you have to bring ingredients together that have had time to grow, ferment, or decompose separately. A cucumber starts out as a seed, then you mix it with the soil, water and sunlight. You can’t bring the seed, soil, water and sunlight to the kitchen from the get-go. When you throw those things in to the mixture without letting them mature, the flavor cannot stand out on its own. Same thing with art and fashion. A kid in Russia can come up with a new way to dance, gets filmed on a phone, it goes viral quickly but gets lost in the morass of all of the other multitudinous forms of dance. Sure it spread far and wide, but it gets forgotten in a week. In the past, his new art form would have been confined locally, nurtured, honed, then spread geographically, creating a distinct new cultural idiosyncrasy with a strong support base. By the time it was big enough to be presented globally, it was already a cultural phenomenon locally. This isn’t possible anymore. We’re consuming too many unripened fruits.

The main impression I have here is that radical music today will, and must be, folk music. Our common idea of folkiness might be the scrappy singer strumming a guitar, but my interpretive reference rather has to do with the idea of a music being written, first of all, for one’s self, and then shared with a small-scale community, which in turn helps the artist grow at their own pace. This transcends a dependence upon image, the primacy of acoustic instrumentation, or the signaling of sincerity versus insincerity. It is a return to the valuation of outsider art, so rare nowadays. As someone who I was recently in dialogue with wrote, “Where can you find new genuine folk music? Pretty much just with your friends, imo. Even then, the global world is so influential and seeps into any crack it can find. I think vaporwave was radical and folk for a while. Grant Forbes made that music way before the world knew about it.”

Sometimes, a lot of fuss is made over what’s seen as “gatekeeping” within certain communities. It can be, depending on the context, justifiable to question and critique this behavior. At other times, the effort of maintaining a level of exclusivity, of retaining an idiosyncratic shapeliness to the communal organism, can be a legitimate attempt to protect the personal, interpersonal, and cultural aspects from the flattening effect of monoculture. Hypothetically, I welcome the Castlevania TV series and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate having introduced new and younger demographics to Castlevania. In actuality, stuff like “wholesome sad gay himbo Alucard”, image macros, and neurotic “stan” fanfiction being what’s now first associated with the series makes me want to put as much distance as possible between my interests and those latecoming impositions.

The group-terminology David Chapman uses in his essay “Geeks, MOPs, and Sociopaths in Subculture Evolution” is kinda cringey, but some of the cultural/behavioral patterns he lays out are relevant to the topic. Give it a look. If we cross his belief that “[subcultures] are no longer the primary drivers of cultural development” with our contemporary consume-and-dispose customs, we’re left with the predicament of it’s even worth attempting to bring radical/outsider art beyond its rhizomatic habitat. This is troubling, because it would mean that artistic radicality no longer might not only refuse to but cannot encompass cultural upheaval. It would be like if dance music were invented and -- instead of progressively permeating nightlife, stimulating countercultural trends, and ultimately being adapted as the basis for pop music globally -- only were listened to via headphones by a few thousand people on their own, stimulated a group meeting once a year or two, and never affected music beyond a niche-within-a-niche. That’s a very sad picture to me.

⁂

¹ Chimeratio has also maintained an excellent blog on here dedicated to looking at videogame music written in irregular time signatures, far preceding higher-profile examinations like 8-bit Music Theory’s video on the same topic.

² For myself, creative isolation has had its uses, because it has led me down routes that are highly personalized. The isolation can be dispiriting too. Although a lot of my music is videogame-music-adjacent, almost none of it uses “authentic” technology, such as PSG synthesizers or FM synthesis; and the identification of those sounds is fairly important for recognition.

#music analysis #radicalism #digital fusion

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i-dont-want-your-hysteria · 4 years

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a message.

This whole post is full of things I’ve wanted to say for a very long time. So yes, this is going to be very long.

Before I begin, I just wanted to say I’m sorry to the innocent people who had nothing to do with this. I’ve never ever been involved with online/fandom drama before, I hate being in this position so fucking much with all my heart and soul, and I never thought in my whole life that I’d be in this position, either.

Secondly, this is about the DEF LEPPARD FANDOM ON TUMBLR. If you’re not part of this fandom, kindly fuck off :^) This is not about you.

This post explains why I feel this way. And to those innocent people who aren’t involved with this, I’m sincerely sorry if any of this has changed your opinions of me.

I’m in a mood and a half, so I’ll do my best to effectively tell everything from my perspective. Read if you want, but this is just what I’m thinking.

I’ve been running this blog for almost three years now. When I first joined this fandom on tumblr at the beginning of 2018, there wasn’t really a ‘fandom’ per se; all the main blogs were dead, no one ever really posted, and there wasn’t much content. I decided to start a DL blog of my own to vent my love into it and not spam my main account.

Within a month, I could quickly see that some sort of renaissance was happening in this fandom; more blogs were popping up, more people were posting, and more people were just participating in general. There were memes now, there were conversations now- it was great! There was a real community; it was all about sharing information, spewing our love, getting creative, and interacting!

There was integrity, and there was respect for the band as well as one another.

I, as part of this community, wanted to do everything in my physical power to contribute in any way I could. I was insanely active and hyper-productive and could not be stopped. I still haven’t stopped, but I certainly have slowed down significantly (due to lack of new activity from the band and increased mental health issues I won’t get into). I don’t want to be self-centered and say that I was “running” this branch of the fandom for the past 2.7 years, but I was certainly a big player in it, and I feel everyone agreed (and some still agree) with that as well.

There were some times where disagreements happened. There were times where many of us knew that someone else was crossing a line in a post. We knew what qualified as “not okay” in terms of being perverted and such. We’d solve this by not blaming, not hounding, not sending anon hate, not calling out, but by presenting facts, talking maturely, and trying to right the wrongs as maturely as we could.

Yes, it was possible. Was.

I don’t think you guys realize just how much content I’ve contributed to this fandom. I have spent basically every single day of the past 3-ish years trying to spread information/content/photos/videos/links/etc. to everyone who follows me (and everyone who doesn’t). This fandom was (and I cannot stress this enough), literally my entire life for the past 3 odd years, and I really wanted to spend the rest of my life contributing to it the way I’ve been.

I don't think anyone on here realizes everything that I have done for this community. Because of me:

this fandom has access to Animal Instinct for free

this fandom has access to the rare picture disc interview

this fandom has numerous scans of photos that may have not ended up online otherwise (I also paid $70 to have access to some of these. You're welcome.)

we have Fabulist Icons content

we have a decent amount of fanfiction that doesn't only focus on the boys banging each other/sex in general (seriously, this simply didn’t exist on here before I started posting my shit)

we have a little more fan art

we have content from Phil's and Ross's books

we have hundreds (yes, literally, HUNDREDS) of edits/moodboards/memes/etc. that I made myself

we have gifsets of things that no one else would have made

we have achieved justice a lot of the time when content was stolen because I have defended everyone without question/rallied up armies the second I heard it happened

some of you have gotten updates on news/facts/history/details/etc. that you’ve never even heard of

probably a shit ton more things, but that’s all I can think of for now. You get the point.

But that’s only half the story. This band and fandom has given me so much to cherish over the past few years.

Because of this fandom and the people (that were once) in it, I have:

met Rick in person

met, quite honestly, my two best friends ever, @ballistic-lipstick-dream-machine (my true Terror Twin) and @paper-sxn (adopted little sister/cousin)

became in contact with Phil's guitar tech from the mid-80s (Mike)

gained creative ambition to play guitar, create art, write stories, make edits/gifs, travel, and basically just better myself

began a record collection that is now in the hundreds and gained a lot of knowledge from it

discovered a whole new genre of music

found a community/culture where, for the very very first time in my life, I felt like I BELONGED.

fallen in love with something and someone for the first time

felt like I actually mattered to people, like I was actually important (because people would always come to me for information or help if they needed it)

basically impacted every corner of my life

just about a million other things, too, but I will be here all night if I try to list them all.

To put it delicately: Def Leppard and this fandom on tumblr absolutely changed my life, and was the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.

I have spread so much information around, you newer people wouldn't imagine. I have gathered and seen so much information, you wouldn't believe how much I know and how much I've learned. I have bounced back and forth between formats time after time again that I feel like I’m stuck in a time warp. I have edited so many things on non-professional programs that I am an MS paint expert. I have been here so long, that I’ve seen 98% of the people in this branch of the fandom rotate in and out at least two or three times.

That being said, all of the toxic people in this fandom will most likely be gone within the next 6 months.

Def Leppard has taught me so much, but a big thing was love and loyalty. It's clear that the majority of people in this fandom (read my lips- I am N O T saying anyone’s names. I mean that.) do not know the meanings of either of these words. I've been practically running this fandom on Tumblr for nearly three years now, you’ve seen all that I’ve done for you, and what have I gotten in return?

Slander, cyberbullying, disrespect, consistently stolen content, etc. That’s what I’ve gotten. I’ve never attacked anyone on here, and that is still something I won’t do.

Yes, I am against slash fic, and I can’t believe that THAT’S the only reason why I’m being torn down like this. Something so dumb and immature as that has torn my beloved community in half. I have never attacked ANYONE for writing slash fic, yet I’ve been getting attacked since August (it is November now) for simply believing it is wrong to openly admit you want the boys to fuck each other.

(I’d also like to point out that someone from the KISS fandom ((god knows why)) had the balls to call me “homophobic” for hating slashfic. I can’t even begin to explain how much I laughed at that.)

I just wanna say that these are REAL people you’re writing about, you know. Don’t you think THEY would be against it? I know I cannot stop anyone from writing slash (I’ve said that before, but no one seems to remember it). I don’t think any of you realize that there is a certain line you shouldn’t cross when it comes to the internet, and being perverted in such an explicit and disrespectful way is one of them. We always had integrity in this fandom, and slash was never part of something we stood for. We knew when to stop, and we kept the slash on rockfic.com (where it belongs imo. That’s like their element).

I was very confused when more slash fics started appearing on tumblr this year. Now, it seems like that’s all there is, and I’m disgusted.

Whenever something close to that happened in 2018, everyone would be totally against it, and we’d talk it out and explain. While we all had our fair share of horny (and maybe then some) in this fandom, but we always knew where to draw the line. That was the line. That line doesn’t exist anymore, apparently, and nobody knows how to be mature and respectful to the band, to each other, and just for fuck’s sake. Now, I’m being slammed that being perverted for them fucking their best friends is “just fandom, bitch” and “the norm” and that it’s done “out of respect”, which I will never understand. You can’t use “slash” and “respectful” in the same sentence, and you can’t change my mind, but I know I can’t change yours, either.

Slash is not, nor will it ever be, respectful. This fandom has become toxic.

Fanfiction is an outlet for creativity to be used for fun, not to be used as an excuse to project your sexually perverted sexuality headcannons/fetishes onto innocent, REAL, LIVE people. If all you write/read is them having sex with each other, then it really makes you wonder if it’s about “respect” anymore, doesn’t it?

In my opinion it’s fucked up that it’s “normal” and “just part of fandom” to create sexualities for- again- REAL, LIVE PEOPLE, and it’s everyone’s first instinct to argue that it’s fine, apparently? If you “respect” your idols so much like you claim you do, then why don’t you maybe respect their actual orientations instead of creating masturbation material for random 12 year olds and boomers, perhaps?

I don’t know what I did that was so fucking wrong in your eyes, as I’ve always tried to keep integrity in this area of tumblr.

I'm very deeply hurt, more than I've ever been by this. It physically hurts me to admit that this fandom has become as toxic as it currently is. I don’t feel welcome here anymore at all, despite practically running things on here for so long.

I don’t know how I could ever live without this fandom, but now it looks like I’m going to have to try, or at least try and rebuild it on my own (again). I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop posting about Def Leppard, and after all, I only started posting about them for myself to begin with.

We were supposed to be the good fandom, the happy fandom, the fandom with no drama. I am ashamed to be associated with you now. I tried to stop it as best as I could, and hoped people would back me up, but I’ve received nothing but hate for simply trying to preserve some dignity.

You guys have been immature to say the least, and I find it very hard to believe that some of you are legal adults (but let’s be honest; most of you toxic people are probably too young to even be behind a computer, anyway).

I’ve had to block some people that I really didn’t want to, but the deed is done. Keep your slash to yourself, tag it, do a read more, post it somewhere else, even- that’s how you co-exist. Just don’t come after me because I think it’s wrong. I never came after anyone specifically like that.

This isn’t goodbye, but I certainly am leaving for a while. I hope I got my point, my history, and my perspective across.

And I hope you’re fucking happy, because you’ve destroyed something I loved.

-Rachel

#also to helena_s_renn on rockfic: suck my dick bitch :3 #thank you to those who have messaged me and been kind #time to watch my follower count dwindle at the speed of sound #goodbye

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fleomae · 3 years

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MMS 194: JOURNAL

Beginning this journal with the ultimate art question of "What does art mean to you?"

I liked what Thomas McEvilley, professor of art history in Rice University said, "The last time I was in Houston, I went to a place called Media Center, where someone had set up posts as in a back yard with laundry hung all over. I immediately knew it was an artwork because of where it was. If I had seen it hanging in someone's yard, I would not have known whether it was art, though it might have been. It is art if it is called art, written about in an art magazine, exhibited in a museum or bought by a private collector.".

To continue with his point, "What's hard for people to accept is that issues of art are just as difficult as issues of molecular biology; you cannot expect to open up a page on molecular biology and understand it. This is the hard news about art that irritates the public. if people are going to be irritated by that, they just have to be irritated by that.".

Something I also find meaningful to this most asked question is perfectly worded by Arthur Danto from Art critic of The Nation, he says, "You can't say something's art or not art anymore. That's all finished. There used to be a time when you could pick out something perceptually the way you can recognize, say, tulips or giraffes. But the way things have evolved, art can look like anything, so you can't tell by looking. Criteria like the critic's good eye no longer apply. Art these days has very little to do with esthetic responses; it has more to do with intellectual responses. You have to project a hypothesis: Suppose it is a work of art? Then certain questions come into play -- what's it about, what does it mean, why was it made, when was it made and with respect to what social and artistic conversations does it make a contribution? If you get good answers to those questions, it's art. Otherwise it turned out just to be a hole in the ground."

And as a religious type of person I find this short saying from Robert Hughes striking. He says, "The Puritans thought of religious art as a form of idolatry, a luxury a distraction, morally questionable in its essence, compared to the written and spoken word.”.

From here you can see the art differences from Catholics, Orthodox, and the many many denominations of Protestantism. I guess growing up in the Philippines most art I experience is about the religious if not historical. It's always been my dream to visit France and Rome to come and see all the "art" people are identifying as but as society moves forward with nano technology, we can see many forms of Computational Art.

For example are the three below...

Digital illustrations, sounds cool right? Well, I was thinking of Digital Kinetic Art at first but I couldn't find an artist that purely does a digital version, so I had to look for other options until I finally found this amazing artist named Sean Charmatz. He was born on August 28, 1980, in San Diego, California. He is an animator of Spongebob Squarepants, LEGO Movie 2, and Trolls. He spent several years as a writer, artist, and storyboard director for the television show Nickelodeon. He also shared his digital art talents with the companies like Dreamworks and Disney.

He is making the mundane normal ordinary things as something worth looking at, with a story to portray from scratch!!! Looking into his art, I don't know if I have a bias reason because I grew up watching Spongebob and I really like the show and other types of cartoons too like "The Adventure Time", "Princess Sophia", "Barbie Movies", "Dora the Explorer", "The Amazing World of Gumball", and the like. It's something I find pleasurable as a younger child (actually until now, but I don't have the leisure time I used to have), and as I see his newest digital illustrations, I can't help but be in awe and smile with a childlike smirk. I might do something like this as he inspired me to make the mundane objects into something fun with a cool story to tell.

Especially now during pandemic, and everyone is asked to stay indoors and minimize social interactions at most. We should be creative to learn in entertaining ourselves and making the most of our everyday situations. He is truly inspiring, and maybe with the practice I'll do, I might be able to make cute short children's comics for the next generation.

Here are some of his recent digital illustrations,

Moving from visuals let's talk about our hearing, let's talk about Generative Music. Majority of my life I've been listening to Pop songs and classical ones, usually made the traditional way 100% human, learning about this algorithm or computer composed type of music is a bit odd for me because it feels technical and numbers complicated, in a way distant and out of touch. Computers are a recent invention by the human race, so we can understand why more and more innovations related to it are still growing everyday, a lot of people who doesn't see it's importance will be left behind and soon enough more and more generative music art will enter the music scene, digital divide will be inevitable.

This type of music scene is "experimental" as it's unknown to a lot of possibilities and very different from the traditional music producers and artists, we still don't know how will it click, is it a fad or here to stay? I'm not sure, but I think more types of sounds will be incorporated in music, specially in movies and other types of effects if it doesn't get popularity in the music industry.

Hatsune Miku, the first ever open-source singer is having popularity around people specially those who like anime and the things of its kind. Only this year I was able to discover this type of music scene and I never expected that Hatsune Miku Youtube music has millions and millions of viewers and subscribers. Music analysis software exists that can predict hits with increasing accuracy, and Google Labs have an ersatz neural network up and running that can make convincing music. Along with all the other jobs currently being destroyed by automation, it looks like the most human of all – music – is under threat.

To move forward let’s go back in 2017, I liked this guy from the College of Business Administration and he is one of those cool distant type of guy who gives this big mystery vibe, and what do you do when someone is mysterious? You stalk them online, so I did and that's how I found out about "hello poetry". I didn't know digital poetry actually has a term, a name but I knew it has a community online, which is cool because you can make an online library and records of all your poems easily accessible online if you're into this thing. I actually joined the platform "hello poetry" after reading a ton about my crush's online poems, in a way I was inspired. Once you join it's nice to see other poets about their works, what others are raving about, and sometimes judge inevitably although some are very beautiful others are also unconventionally short and seems like a tweet. This category of art can fall on art & literature which is something purely human, well as of now. Soon enough computers will be able to make their own poems, maybe there already is.

Here's a link to my first and only poem I published in the community, https://hellopoetry.com/fleomae/

#MMS194 artjournal computationalart #essay

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momo-de-avis · 5 years

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Hi! Just wondering about your opinion that if the Catholic Church sold its art&treasures it would no longer be there for the world to enjoy and would fall into private hands&be hoarded away (many saying the church should sell rn) I've often sat in cathedrals like Notre Dame and marveled at what palaces were built for the masses to enjoy. Like a little luxury for all of us, even the least of us. I know you are an art historian and wondered what you thought of this. : ) hope you are well : )

Thank you anon! I hope you are well too!!

To be frank, this is actually a legal question. And as such, it varies from country to country.

The Notre Dame, for example, is not owned by the Catholic church. I think France has very similar laws in this respect to my country, and what that means is: the monument, itself, is a National Treasure or National Monument (I don’t know the correct definition, but what it means is: it’s a building highly classified, of not just historical interest to the country, but in heritage as well, and as such is prioritized above others).

In my country, for example, if I am not mistaken, churches that are not classified as National Monuments do not belong to the church entirely (they are allowed financial compensation from the Vatican, which should be employed in restoration, but then priests… you know), but if they aren’t, then the State has to stay away from it. This is because our Constitution states the separation of Church and State, and it’s a double-edged sword: if you wonder why stuff like the infamous restoration of that Jesus painting by Dona Cecilia happened, it’s because the church it’s the sole holder of the building and every artefact inside of it. Stuff like that actually happened several times over in our country: because there is no legal classification of the building, nor the artefacts inside of it—thus no legal protection from the State—priests do what the fuck they want and hire retired 80-year-old painters to slap some plastic paint on an 18th century mural (I wish I was kidding but this shit actually happened).

Again, I don’t know how it goes in other countries, but in Portugal, since the law defines ‘culture’ as something that belongs to everyone, everyone is allowed—and motivated to—act if they see a certain building decaying or believe it to be in danger. This is actually something a lot of people don’t know, and instead take it to facebook, but as a citizen, you can walk into your local city hall and present a form of petition (I sincerely forgot what paperwork this involves) requestion for the monument in question to be classified as ‘in danger’. As soon as that classification happens, the withholder of the monument will be inquired, and if anything happens to it, the owner will be fined.

So, what I mean to say is: the actual Catholic church actually doesn’t own lot of the churches out there classified as Monuments. One thing that also helps to preserve these monuments and to maintain them as public property—actually, now that I think of it, I think it completely forbids governments from selling a monument to a private owner—is if they are classified by Unesco. If it’s got a Unesco stamp of approval, it’s public and cannot be private, I believe (though correct me if I am wrong).

When it comes to privately owning art, however… I am for the opinion that art belongs to everyone, and though you are entitled to own art privately, you have to keep in mind that it is not yours, but everyone’s, and thus SHOULD allow for the art you possess to be viewed by the public. I don’t mean display it in a museum, but work towards images and information of the artwork you own to be made public and accessible to everyone. I say this because portuguese art history is a nightmare. You have an insane amount of incredible artists from the 19th century, and the vast majority of their works, you can’t even find an image.

See, I teach art history, and it’s absolute hell for me. I remember telling my students, super frustrated, that I couldn’t find a single picture of more than 2 or 3 paintings by Aurélia de Sousa. And what is more frustrating is that, the more you progress through history, the less resources you find. Portuguese Neo-Realism is inexistent. If you google it, this is what you get:

The most important painting, the one that set the movement, isn’t even on the first few pages. Now would you believe if I told you we actually have an entire museum dedicated to neo-realism? Would you believe if I told you it was one of the most important artistic movements in the end of second world war, and an incredible voice against fascism at a time? Probably not, because we don’t really have anything out there to be seen.

This happens because, since our market is tiny and absolute shit, most things that exist are privately owned—usually, heirs of the painters or people who bought it in auctions for pennies—in other words, people you have to wait to die out to actually see the paintings. And there’s something incredibly cruel there. I teach this shit and I have nothing to teach, no tools to teach my students, because these private owners of art refuse to share—and I mean refuse. Aurélia de Sousa, for example, was a passionate photographer, which is something people don’t know. Why? Because the man who owns her photos, for years, refused to let anyone even touch them. This raises another issue as well: if you refuse to let anyone get close, then you suck because art needs to be preserved. 19th century photos in particular wither away. With everything, happens.

With that in mind, there’s also the issue of how these privately owned artworks are preserved. Paintings, if you don’t know, cannot be exposed to natural light, especially sunlight—particularly older paintings. Photos and film have to be preserved at a particularly cold temperature. Wood has to be constantly polished, but because of how old it is, it requires the right technique and materials. Same with silver, gold, etc. Of course, a museum, a cathedral, or what have you, they all have teams at ready for that sort of conservation—but when a private owner acquires a piece of art that isn’t legally classified in any way, they can very well be responsible for its distruction.

We’ve had two very important works burn because of that. First, this painting by Vieira Portuense, who is the only other name we have to have defined neo-classicism (it was short-lived here, we were to busy having a civil war or fending off the french). It’s an emblematic painting for its time, because it’s an embryonic moment of transition between neo-classicism and romanticism. But it’s gone, because the house it was in burned down. Another one I don’t remember the name, but it was Josefa d’Óbidos—the first female painter to have her own workshop here in Portugal. Again, a flood caused a short-circuit which caused for the house to burn down, and the painting was lost.

If a painting (and I think other artefacts as well) is classified in some way (National Treasure, National Interest and uhhhh…. there’s a third one I forgot D:), the owner IS forced to keep it preserved. He is forced to clean it and restore it. If he damages in any way, he is fined and the painting can be confiscated from him. Same for buildings that are classified as anything below National Monument. But if it happens to be a work of art that isn’t classified in any way, legally speaking… Well, if it disappears, it’s gone, and the owner just loses a painting.

So it’s an incredibly delicate issue. On the one hand, privately owning art is necessary for artists, and I speak of both galleries and auction houses. It keeps the flow of the art economy going (though the art world is RIDICULOUS INFLATED economically speaking, but that’s a whole other conversation) and the market value of artists that are alive and, well, need to eat, is raised every time they sell something. Also, a country’s art market increases if they manage to sell more of their art alongside international artists (why Portugal fucking sucks in that respect), so that in itself is of great interest to artists who are alive and practicing, as well as for the country itself.

But on the other hand, it’s really a double-edged sword. Because I still maintain that art belongs to everyone, and no matter how many artworks you own, you have to keep that in mind. I had the chance to work for art collector who was very conscious about this: he lent his art constantly without charging anything and he kept his every artwork so well preserved he actually had restore works after lending them to museums. Now if everyone had that conscience, the world would be a better place.

So I put it this way to sort of generalize it, because I don’t believe, for one second, the church is exempt from this in any way. In Europe, they detain a great part of many country’s heritage. In our own country, they hold like half of our shit. But again: double-edged sword.

You said something that is very accurate: churches like the Notre Dame were built for the masses. They were built for everyone, because it is the House of God where everyone is accepted and welcomed. Yes, it initially had a purpose, bore a function that doesn’t serve entirely anymore (though mass is still held in it, the fact that it is today a touristic attraction has shifted the church’s initial purpose, so to speak). So to think that the Catholic Church would close it down, or simply decide that suddenly they couldn’t allow people inside because they own it goes against not just (in our case) the legal definition of cultural object, it goes against the very principle of catholicism—something they turn around easily by opening its doors free of charge during mass. There is a huge debate in my country every like, two summers, because some cathedrals you have to pay to get inside—and something about that isn’t right. If you have to pay to enter, that means the building in itself is important enough that it’s classified as something, at the very least National Monument, but by charging money to get inside, you’re already breaking the very definition of cultural object, legally speaking: everyone is allowed to experience culture. This is a serious debate that happens every so often, and reason why it’s moved certain parties to try and end this shit of pay-to-enter churches, which is maddening to me (supposedly, they say, it’s to tame touristic masses a bit, but we all know that ain’t it).

What’s graver, as I said, is the case of small parishes that happen to own ancient artefacts like statues from the 18th century. Because priests aren’t educated on the matter, they think, oh this is a pretty little nativity scene! And hire some old dude to paint over a fresco. The example I mentioned above, where this happened?

This is what it looked like before:

this is after:

Yeah. I mean, I laugh every time cause it is fucking funny, but you gotta do it not to cry lmao

So like, for me, if we are going to entrust the Catholic church with artefacts and monuments—not necessarily sell them, you can legally lend them, like a legal guardian sort of agreement (I’m sorry, there’s a correct legal term for this but I don’t know it, the shit about law is that you have to address things with the right word)—you gotta force these fuckers to respect what they own. Force them to have restorations made, to clean their shit, to maintain their possessions. Force them to make an effort into bringing awareness to the existence of these things. For the love of God, FORCE THESE PEOPLE TO MAKE AN INVENTORY. Bitch, HIRE ME, I’LL DO YOUR INVENTORY FOR YOU.

And bring these artworks into the world. Create a website. Make pictures of these artworks publically available, free of charge, so that people can look at it, study and it and have free access to it. Have you ever walked into a museum and got told you aren’t allowed to photograph the works inside? I’ll tell you that’s bogus. Sure, flash damages the work, but no flash causes no harm. When a museum does that, I can guarantee you it’s one of two things: one, the artwork you are forbidden from photographing is privately owned by some Elongated Muskrat who thinks they’re above everyone else because LoOk aT mE I oWn ArT, and two: the museum is telling you to buy a catalogue.

What museums usually tend to not understand is that the free circulation of images of their artworks is actually what brings MORE people to their museum. Like, this is a fucking proven fact—that’s why they sell postcards, prints and tote bags with their paintings on it. Case in point? London: you think they give a shit if you take up-close photos of their paintings in Tate Britain? I know they don’t cause I was the idiot photographing paint drips on a goddamn William Holman Hunt. And you don’t even pay to get inside. But do you remember what artworks are inside the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid—aside from the Guernica? Yeah, which one has a strict policy in not photographing their paintings, you ask? Well.

So, tl;dr: if you’re gonna own art, make it available to the public, whether by putting it in a museum or making information about it—including pictures—accessible to all, and the government should be all over your ass annually to make sure you’re not damaging the artworks, otherwise lose custody of the baby and pay a fine. If you’re not gonna abide by these principles, then I am of the opinion that you don’t truly know the real worth of what you’re in possession of, and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to have it. AND THAT MEANS YOU TOO, VATICAN. Fuck your parishes, hire me. There’s a bunch of qualified people to do the job for you, you guys are just lazy and are keeping the Vatican’s money in your pockets.

#damn this got long sorry anon #Anonymous

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anniversary-magazine · 6 years

Text

In Conversation with Ben Storms, the Belgian Designer Giving Lightness to Marble

A couple of months ago in Antwerp, our team met with designer Ben Storms. His studio was, at the time, still in construction. Surrounded by some of his most innovative pieces, tending to defy gravity and traditional perceptions of matters, we took the time to reflect on his creative process and the way he became a master of novelty in marble design.

LV : I'd like to revisit your childhood and try to explore how, as a child, you developed your interest, and perhaps your skills and craftsmanship, at an early stage in your life, to forego your career.

BS : Well, it's quite simple. My father was a self-made man, meaning that he never went to school, but he had always shown interest in construction work. So at an early age, he started a business out of re-purposing old buildings' materials. His father (my grandfather) was already building houses and my father was working with him, so he never went to school. But then, an architect with whom he worked with later developed an interest in old buildings’ materials, so my father started a business out of this experience. That's the environment I grew up in. We had a big yard next to our house with all these materials piled up on pallets. This was me and my brother’s play yard, in which we played between all these old materials. Also at a young age, we started working with our father, helping in the family business, working with our hands, and with those old materials. I think that those experiences were a big part of my development. When I grew a bit older, I also took courses in stone cutting, and started doing just that in the company, through weekends and holidays as a student.

Then at university, I studied art history, while taking a lot of other courses in sculpting, woodworking, stone cutting, and others. At the end of my studies in art history, I took a one-year course in design. For me, everything came together during that year: my interests, which I had developed in the family, the knowledge I had in marble and natural stones and my university studies themselves. It all came together to the functional design pieces that I create today in a way. Before that, I was searching a lot to find what I wanted to do with my life. You know?

LV : Sure!

BS : I was trying to find different ways. When you're taking a course in sculpting, and then you go to stone cutting, and then to woodworking, people around you start questioning your ambitions and your understanding of those fields…

During that time, I was also studying art history with my nose in the books, which was a totally different thing, but in the end, with what I'm doing now, it's all connected.

LV : Do you feel like your work today resonates with your dad's work in any way?

BS : Oh, I think it resonates mainly in terms of his search for developing techniques in a different way, trying to find his own language in finishing a piece or a material. That’s something I saw my father do, but he wasn't doing it as a designer. He was just looking for certain patina for example.

LV : I know you work with marble a lot, and that you have great connections with marble producers. Were those connections coming from your dad?

BS : Yes, my dad had them already. Actually, one of those companies still exists now. It was bought by my brother, who is continuing that family marble business. So when I need to cut or do any processes with marble, which is done using big machines and special tools, I go to my brother’s.

Furthermore, a lot of the new relations that I have now with marble providers is mainly due to the fact that they appreciate my work. It's quite easy for me to get access to them, where it would normally not be so simple to buy smaller amounts of rough stones, as it is normally sold at an industrial scale.

For the Belgium black marble, for instance, it took me a couple of years to be able to reach the owner and make my orders. It's very difficult to get. A lot of people in Belgium would even tell you that this marble doesn't exist anymore.

“What I find very interesting in all these old materials is that, since it’s been used for such a long time already, if you can find a way to use it in a different way, it will stand out and be unique.”

— Ben Storms

LV : What's the story behind the Belgium black marble?

BS : Well the Belgium black, it's very difficult to excavate. It's a very expensive stone. The guy that owns it, he also owns the Belgium gray marble, which was used a lot by my father in the past. He always said that he was one of the first to put it back on the market, but I don't know if that's true. So there was that connection already. My brother also had a connection with this marble producer.

Yeah, and after a couple of... I don't know, maybe after one year, I was able to buy his black marble and start working with it. It takes a lot of time and a lot of talking to gain access to it you know…

I don't know how to explain it. It's difficult sometimes. Sometimes I can get it, and then a few months later it gets more difficult. For me, it's annoying because my clients need to know if they can get it or not. This black marble is quite exclusive...

There is also another type of marble that I use, the Saint Anne marble, which is also from Belgium. The producer’s quarry was closed a long time ago. You cannot get in there anymore. My brother was lucky to be able to buy a leftover stock that they found underneath a big pile of dirt.

The prototype of the “Inhale” coffee table for instance, was made out of this Saint Anne marble. For me, it's fun to do this, to use those materials, because they are so exclusive and hard to find. They are beautiful stones!

It's so interesting. We have a heart for it. We're very happy if we can find these kinds of special things. But maybe for the audience it's not so interesting to know this story, but I'm very into it.

LV : In previous interviews, you mentioned about the process of working with different stones, working with marble, and using those materials to achieve mind-bending results, so that they don't seem to be as heavy as they really are. Could you put us back in time, when you created your first piece using marble, and tell us how you approached this project? What was your main idea behind it?

BS : My first piece would be the In Vein trestle table. This was my end project in a one year's design course. I chose to work with marble, because I grew up with this stone and so I had more knowledge about it.

Then, I basically summed up different characteristics of marble, just easy things that everybody understands: it's heavy, it's cold, sometimes it's kitsch, it breaks easily, etc. I compiled 25 different characteristics associated with marble.

Then, I looked for ways to do something different with it, because what I find interesting in these very old materials is that, since they have been used for such a long time already, you can find new and creative ways to use them, to make them stand out.

The first things I was thinking of would be very heavy. I wanted to use the mass and the weight and the monumental aspect of stone, a piece of about 10 tons. But the teachers wouldn't allow me, although they liked the idea. At first they said, "Okay, if you're going to do this you’ll automatically pass the course, because this is a good idea. You can make it, but we're just the first month in the course, so try to come up with something different for now." Only then I came up with the idea of a trestle table. Therefore, I went for the opposite idea: to make the marble appear super light.

So I went for a trestle table, because it's the mother of all tables. I also had the idea of using it as a double function, where the back of the table would be a mirror. I thought I could polish the back of the table to get a mirror look, and then I thought of making it look like a blown up mirror.

About three weeks before the end of the year, I started making crafting the piece. At first I did some tests, small scale, and then I built the table. The first prototype still exists, so it all worked out from the first attempt, which was fantastic.

LV : Amazing…

BS : Yeah, because all the materials and techniques used to make this piece are quite expensive. I was blowing the metal myself, but cutting the marble was done by my brother, and he wasn’t working for free of course, so those things were quite expensive for a student. But anyway, I took the challenge. It seems like it worked out well, because I'm still getting orders for this piece now.

“I’m mostly inspired when I have the time to let my mind wander and just dream away.”

— Ben Storms

LV : When a new client comes in and he wants you to create something new and different for him or when you think of a piece that you want to create for yourself, do you start on a blank page or do you you always have an idea in advance of what you want to create, such as notes from previous ideas which you could revisit?

BS : Well, it's been a long time since I created something new actually. Which is annoying me a lot. But so I'm basically working on those two projects, so the trestle table and the coffee table most of my time right now. I'm now trying to reorganize myself, so that different tasks that I do I'm just a one-man show right now, but are going to be done by somebody else, so I have more time to create new stuff.

But to answer your question, I think ... The two pieces I did were just for myself, so it was not an assignment. I could do whatever I wanted, which I like a lot. I have different things in my mind now that I want to create in the future, so mostly it's just an inspiration that I get, sometimes when looking at art, sometimes just something else, not design, but just when I have the time to just wander and dream away, like in my head. That's mostly when it happens.

I have clients now that ask me to make something special for them, something new. That's something new for me also, but I feel that it's not easy, because they want something and they give you carte blanche, but still they have somethings that they want in there, so you're a bit restricted. When I'm a bit restricted I feel it's more difficult, you understand?

LV : Sure!

BS : It’s actually the last item that I created. In this case, for instance, the black marble mirror seems blown, but it’s not. Because of the look, you don’t make the connection to marble anymore, as it looks like something that has been blown with air pressure. I like these kind of illusions a lot, basically tricking people to think what they see is impossible.

LV : You mentioned earlier that you approached your first project by identifying a group of words which would guide your project’s direction. Is this a process that you often go through, or do you approach each project differently?

BS : No, the first piece, the trestle table, my starting point was just marble, just the one material. Then I summed up the words that are usually connected to that, like all the characteristics of the material. I then looked for a way to do something different with it, I wanted to go against the characteristics of marble.

Again, I made a lightweight marble table, which doesn’t normally exist. Two people can easily carry it, it’s only four millimeters thick which is also something that you don’t have with marble. Then the marble rests on trestles, also something you don’t do with marble plates because it would normally break.

So, there I just wanted to go against all the usual characteristics and then I searched for the right way and form to do that.

For the second piece, the Inhale coffee table, I was just looking at a remnant piece of marble; the Saint Anne that I was talking about earlier. It was just right in front of me and I loved the shape of the natural, rough side of the stone. I wanted to use that rough side as a coffee table. I started to think of a way to lift it up and balance it straight.

I wanted to make it seem almost invisible in the back and underneath, like jelly. After a while I remembered the first test I ever did to make this type of metal - to blow metal pillows.

It just clicked with me, that I could blow a metal pillow underneath the stone and it would take the shape of the stone and be balanced. The polished reflective object would just seem to disappear.

Just like that, I had my solution and I finished it the day before a fair in Belgium. The trestle table took me almost a year to develop and then the coffee table was just an instantaneous idea coming to life.

I never work on the computer. I have my schedule book, which is mainly filled with ideas, more written ideas than drawings. But, once I start a project, I will start in the workshop making it and testing the material. I will try to make it on scale, one to one and try to make it as if the first piece is going to be sold. I always try to get it right the first time around.

“I like these kind of illusions a lot, basically tricking people to think what they see is impossible.”

— Ben Storms

LV : I also wanted to ask you a question about BRUT collective (Bram Vanderbeke, Cédric Etienne, Charlotte Jonckheer, Linde Freya Tangelder & Nel Verbeke). Have you known them for a long time ? How did you come about deciding to create the Antwerp Six of design?

BS : I’ve actually known Nel Verbeke for a long time. We were both into design and used to work together. She came to me once with the idea of forming this group of designers which would help each work towards collective objectives. I liked the idea. I knew she was involved in the industry and I trusted her, so I instantly said: “Okay, I’m in!” I was following my gut feeling, which is something that I always do.

Although I knew that I didn’t really have time for a collective, as I’m very busy with my own business, finishing all my projects and orders, I still went for it. It was a good choice. I didn’t know all of them. I saw a few things from Braam, who recently finished its studies at the Eindhoven Design Academy, I think. I’ve met Charlotte before, but didn’t know a lot about her. The design scene in Belgium is very small, so we all knew about each other, but didn’t really know one another.

I think it works perfectly, the way we communicate and our set-up, pictures, everything is fantastic. Do you like it?

LV : Yes, absolutely. That’s mostly why I’m asking, as I’m curious to hear your side of the story.

BS : I was actually thinking of doing something like that before, but I never had the time or the right people to do it with. So, when she called me and came up with that very same idea of working together, doing a fair and ultimately being stronger because of that, I think that’s why I immediately agreed to do it. That’s the way to go in the beginning.

LV : In the ideal world, if I could relieve you of all your current work and projects and you can start the day tomorrow with nothing new on your plate, no deliveries, due dates, nothing… What kind of project would you be most excited to work on?

BS : Oh my goodness, that is such as difficult question - the absolute dream scenario! I would have the time to do something that is most likely in my head right now. Most probably something sculptural and probably with marble.

LV : Would you go for a bigger or smaller scale project?

BS : A bigger project, I think. Something connected to architecture. It would still be a functional furniture piece, but sensible to its location and surroundings, as if it was becoming a part of it. It would still be a very individual piece, so you would see that it’s a piece on it’s own, but would only fit in that position, in that architecture.

It would also be a bit of a scale work, so it would lean more toward the sculptural again. I think it could be many different things…

All images by Alex Lesage — threefold.

#Ben Storms #Antwerp #Designer #BRUT #Collective #Belgium #Featured #In Conversation

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crimsonrevolt · 6 years

Photo

Congratulations Dih you’ve been accepted to Crimson Revolt as Lily Evans!

↳ please refer to our character checklist

Dih, we’re so excited to have you and Lily join our rp! You went so in-depth into Lily and her history and backstory from your own point of view and we can’t wait to see what you do with her during your time here! Your faceclaim change to Marina Ruy Barbosa has been accepted

application beneath the cut

OUT OF CHARACTER

INTRODUCTION

Dih, 26 (My bday is in 2 weeks, let’s face my elderly age), she/her, MST. I am from Brazil, but I live in USA for years.

ACTIVITY 8. I tent to answer mostly during weekdays and less on weekends, most of the time three times a week or more, depending on my muse. I have my normal life and my hard times, but normally I explain to people with I plot with and work hard to keep my up with the activity check.

HOW DID YOU FIND US? Mah, who played Rosemerta told me how wonderful you guys are and I have to say that I was looking here for a while.

WHAT HARRY POTTER CHARACTER DO YOU IDENTIFY WITH MOST? Remus Lupin. OMG. I love him, actually I love the Marauders the most. They are so unique and kind with themselves, what helps me to also understand about my fears and problems. Everyone is not perfect, and sometimes we hide ourselves inside of shells and Remus always helped me to see the beauty in others even when they hurt me. He helped me to understand so many things when I was younger and now, my love for this character just grew.

ANYTHING ELSE? I didn’t saw anything at the guidelines to put here, so no! thanks!

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER

Lily Evans

FACE CLAIM Holland Roden or Marina Ruy Barbosa..

REASON FOR CHOSEN CHARACTER Lily has always been a lovely character to me. Maybe because there were details in her life that I never understood, but also because I did not experience problems that she passed, she is a mystery to me. Since entering this world of Tumblr RP, I have realized that many things about her have made me fall in love with the idea of interpreting her. One of them is the fact of the discrimination by blood, which she passed through every school year and she had to show that she went far beyond just a DNA or who her parents were. Another factor that caught my attention was her relationship with Snape and how what happened between them caused a huge break not only in friendship but in her life She started to realized how people can be affected by their environment, and maybe they cannot be what they look like. It also shows me a lot about how Lily reacts to people (the first impression counts a lot) and how she slowly began to see James in a different way by understanding that everyone changes. She is not only a dedicated but also a loving character who fights for her ideas but also a role model of justice. She is someone who lives intensely human relations and suffers when she lose relationships, especially with her sister.

She is mature, someone who needed to grow up fast due to the daily exposures to students who believed that being a muggle born was a symbol of garbage. Lily’s intelligence and ability to handle problems showed constantly that her efforts were being valued when she was the first of her class. She tried her best to absorb all she could of this new world, but to love it as well. Every day, something attracted her attention, but it also makes her smile for simple and genuine spells that make Lily’s day even more beautiful. She still enjoys muggle culture a lot and whenever she can, she’ll wander the streets looking for some novelty, technology and even something she missed doing due to the adult crazy routine. It has almost a library at home, coupled with several vinyl records and also some things of the muggle world that make your life much easier.

Lily decided to work as a healer, being able to apply her wonderful potions skills to help the Order and also others during the battles. At home, or even wherever possible, practice duels so that you do not lose the agility and ability to reason during stressful situations. She has studied in depth also about potions, seeking to learn new ones and to create simplified and beautiful versions to be more accessible to all.

PREFERRED SHIPS // CHARACTER SEXUALITY // GENDER & PRONOUNS Lily ama James. Ela talvez ainda não perceba isso com as devidas palavras, porém tudo indica que seu coração é do Potter. Ela teve alguns namorados ao longo da vida escolar e também teve uma vida sexual, porém sempre fora ensinada que era algo importante que unia relacionamentos. Por isso, só fazia sexo quando tinha certeza de que estava pelo menos emocionalmente envolvida. Lily pensa que precisa só de si mesma para conquistar a vida e, aos poucos, James lhe mostra a ela o amor incondicional e tem sido uma das melhores experiencias que poderia ter e isso tem também curando o coração de Lily. Prefered Pronouns: She/Her

CREATE ONE (OR MORE!) OF THE FOLLOWING FOR YOUR CHARACTER: -AN AESTHETIC Ride bikes around the neighborhood during Summer and Spring – hot coffee with cream, and just one spoon of sugar – leather shoes with over knee socks – red sweaters – James’ Quidditch Shirts – Muggle pictures around the window, mixed with wizard pictures – The smell of potions around the house – Old books around her bed with different and colored pens – Stag necklace – A laugh during a kiss – Summer yellow flowered dresses – A lily and Petunia’s garden at Potter’s backyard – Vinyl discos stacked at the living room – Dancing at the rooftop during the night – Strawberry’s pie fresh handmade at the kitchen. -A PLAYLIST That’s my playlist for her, so just saying before being crazy: https://open.spotify.com/user/dms.mendez.diana/playlist/2W8DK1cuAwl8TzfTpo66BO?si=KCoEo5XWSgevqJBatmesDQ -EXPAND ON THE TRAITS (I am adding some where I think they are similar to what you have now for her) (+) Intelligent – She is always looking ahead, searching for dots, points or anything that could help her or others to be protected or rescued. She is really good create plans and organized without blind spots, being also brilliant executed. (+) Talent – Since when she was young, Lily proved to be someone extremely talented with magic. All from her year, beyond and before them knew her abilities of memorization, excellence at the use of charms and potions. Because of that, she received many marks that proved her strong capacity to use her talents and intelligence for her success. (+) Kind – Even that she is strong and very sharp with her words, she is always worried about others. It doesn’t matter to her if you are a werewolf, vampire or just a human. You deserve to be treated with kindness and love. And this is the most remarkable quality of her. (-) Blunt – Lily is very sharp with her words, not caring a lot about what others would it think. It is a protection against all the discrimination she suffered during the teenager life, and she tends to continuing using even when she doesn’t want to do that. At one point, many people thought she was mean but actually she was more honest than many people at school, so it worked well and it was fine. (-) Judmental – Lily tends to quickly create hypothesis about situations, people and phrases around her and already creating barriers or sharp words to defend herself. She is trying to not to do a lot of these, but sometimes James overpasses the limits and she cannot control herself. (-) Overeact – If combined with Judmental, she can react to the situation in a way that normally ends into a fight. She is also trying to control that, but it can have some interesting situations around it.

-A FEW HEADCANONS >> Lily and Petunia were best friends forever until Lily got Hogwarts’ letter. Petunia wanted to write to Dumbledore to also have a letter and be a witch. This separate them for not having the same things in life. During the years, it was not just a house separate them, but also conversations, friends, ways to dress and even how they handled things in life. This pain was strong and Lily had times she could not handle with it, because she loved so much her sister and separation was not necessary, but they were not the same anymore and with fights during the summer, it was easy to open even more the abyss between them. >> Lily met Severus during her childhood, where they started to be friends. She defended him many times from the boys around the neighborhood and it was from him she learned about magic. Lily always saw him as a good friend who was amazing and never understood that. >> Since young, Lily understood that everyone was equal. Boys, girls, people with different color, religion or even countries. They were united because of human race, and always was very open to integrate anyone who was lost, alone, needing food or even clothes. Her spirit was free and loved to lead people with positive feedback and inspired conversations. All her friends loved her and wanted to play with the “ginger hair” girl, and Petunia was always around. Even with the strange situations that started to happened around her with 7 years old. Some sparkles, fire in places that was not expected and even one-time locking Petunia inside her bedroom for no reason. Imagine, that for someone so young and no one could explain to her the situation, could it be very scary and Lily tried her best to act like was not her fault. >> Lily always reacted strongly about people being mean to others, including her. With words, posture and actions, she never let someone being attacked because of nothing. That’s why she hated so much the Marauders. >> Remus is one of her best friends. She loves his personality and kindness, doing anything for him, even helping with money if necessary for his potions. >> When Lily started to be around more the Marauders, she realized they were very similar to her personality, turning them also her best friends. She loves Sirius and how he with everything he suffered, he is still an amazing man. Peter, with kindness and gentle personality captivated her to help him to be stronger and never accept people bullying him. >> Lily could it be very strong and defend herself in every moment, that doesn’t mean she couldn’t suffer with the situation. Sometimes, Marlene could find her crying inside of the bedroom with all the things that could hurt her so bad. Never in public, but always appreciated friends who could help her to go back on track. >> Lily is a protector. She will give a 100% of her time, life and everything to never hurt someone she loves and cares about. This turns her very powerful, and strong compare to others. Because with love, she is able to do anything she needs for others. >> Sometimes she forgets about herself and she needs her friends to reminds her to sleep, eat, and even relax. The war is making her worried about everyone around her, and she knows that fighting at the Order means to put in danger her family. >> She discovered she cared a ton of affection for James when she saw him working on some papers to deliver to McGonnagal. Lily had been sick for a few days and could not do anything, but she fought against the forces and finding them is not known how to go down the stairs and continue. When she saw him, late at night taking care of everything, her heart warmed. >> To protect her family, Lily was considering a plan to completely break contact with them and a way to prevent both (her parents, Petunia, and her whale fianceé) from being unharmed by Voldemort. They would it be protected and that’s all matters to her, when she would create a way to hide them and never comeback proving she was still alive with that signal. And if all went well, in years they could meet again, when maybe she was engaged and about to marry James. >>Lily fights with Voldemort 2 times before she dies. All of those ones, she was pretty strong and incredibly fast in defending herself and attacking, but when it finished she was so scared. >> Lily received an offer from Voldemort to have her by his side and he would safe some of her friends and family from being dead at the war. She refuses and after that, she starts to put her plan in practice.

-A FEW POTENTIAL PLOT POINTS >> I really want to do in the future this process of her thinking about this plan to protect her family. >> Plots (self-para) with Petunia and her parents. Probably, her wedding (that probably Lily was not invited because of James). >> Lily helping Remus after a full moon, taking care of Padfoot and also helping wormtail with something he needed at work. >> Lily moving to live alone and maybe with James. >> Lily fighting against Voldemort. >> LILY AND JAMES WEDDING!

IN CHARACTER QUESTIONNAIRE The following section should be looked at like a survey for your character. Answer them in character and feel free to use gifs. Or, if you’d rather, answer them in third person or OOC without gifs. Answers do not have to be extremely lengthy. ♔ If you were able to invent one spell, potion, or charm, what would it do, what would you use it for or how would you use it? Feel free to name it: Lily: I would love to do a Wolfbane potion in a version that could be cheaper and still remain the powerful proprieties of the potion. All the ingredients are so expensive that normally werewolves cannot afford. If that happens, I will make sure they have the recipe and instructions to do it by themselves and having a better life condition. ♔ You have to venture deep into the Forbidden Forest one night. Pick one other character and one object (muggle or magical), besides your wand, that you’d want with you: Lily: I would take Hagrid with me. He knows the Forest like no one, and his passion for creatures could help me to survive during the hardest times. Also, he knows the trails and all the locations of dangerous areas around the forest and this could make our life easier. As an object, I would definitely bring with us a tent. The forest is big, and also if we are going to make any kind of study or research, we will need a place to sleep, so a tent like the magical ones (large and with a lot of space), it seems to be very reasonable. ♔ What kinds of decisions are the most difficult for you to make? Lily: I know the war is starting to be stronger. Everyday we see that on news. I know that my parents and sister are in danger because of me and I cannot let them suffer because of my decisions and life to protect others. I am still deciding what to do with them, but I know that we will be apart for a while, and this hurts me for knowing the possibility that we will not see each other again. This decision is taking me forever to have an action, and I know that is because I believe I can also protect them all the time, and that’s not true. ♔ What is one thing you would never want said about you? Lily: Mudblood.

REACTION TO LAST EVENT DROP Lily would it be inside of St Mungos most of the time, trying to help others and making sure they were safe to return home. She constantly would return home tired and also worried about the situation, talking with James and the other Marauders about how the Order could actually do something. During the days pass, and others joining the cause, it makes her have more hope that love and equality will remain over such a horror situation. She would light so many candles at her house, for each one of those she knows died in Voldemort’s hand. She would ask for James to stay with her where they are and not be afraid of what is going on right now and help Greta, Hestia and Molly to create a place for the refugees.

WRITING SAMPLE

The ring-ring on the phone caught Lily’s attention as she walked into the bedroom to get some clothes before going to James’ house. She shifted the course of her feet until she found the muggle object and picked up the phone in her hands and placed it on her ears. “Hello, this is Lily Evans.” Her curious voice echoed through the air, recognizing right away that it was her mother on the other end of the line. “Hello, mom. I was about to tell you I’m going to visit James and if you want me to say something for him.” Beats on the door appeared, and her cry of ‘come in’ was loud enough for James to show up and she just waived, telling him where she was. Her mother’s voice was strange as if something had happened and she was having trouble telling her daughter about it. “Mom? Is everything okay?” Her heart skipped a beat, imagining that Voldemort had found her parents, Petunia, Dursley’s Wale and perhaps killed everyone but mom. Lily closed her eyes, trying to control the worries that were beginning to dominate her body, striving so that horrible images did not come to mind as well.

“What?” The news was not too bad, not as she imagined. She felt her fingers tighten the phone cord and scratched her head, trying to react to the news. Lily turned to see James, dropping her body to the wall. “It’s okay, Mom. We can not force Petunia. It’s going to be all right, I promise.” She tried her hardest to keep a normal voice, but James and her mother knew it was a complete lie. When Lily hung up the phone, she stared into nothingness for a few seconds until she could tell what had been one of the most painful news that year.

“Petunia is getting married.” The sentence in her mouth was a little strange. Her sister had dated Vernon for years and had never even had him as a fiance until now. Or maybe before and Lily did not know that. She held James’s hand, seeking psychological support for the situation, while the memories of the two little ones flew like the secrets they shared and were never told again. “She’s going to marry wale in two weeks.” A tear trickled from her eye, knowing James might be happy with the news since he could see a real Muggle marriage. “And she did not invite us, James. She-she-sh.” She could not continue the sentence, feeling herself again fragile in such an intimate and painful moment for her. “She does not want freaks at her wedding party, James. She does not want me at her wedding party. What happened to us, so that the young sister is not invited?” Tears streamed from her eyes as she tried to wipe them off with her sweater and not caring that it might be a little weird.

She stared at James for a few seconds, pulling him into a tight embrace, realizing that after all, she was completely alone. “She does not want me there. What did I do wrong, James? What did I do wrong?”

#Accepted App

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moodboardinthecloud · 4 years

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Out There, Nobody Can Hear You Scream

Out There, Nobody Can Hear You Scream Sep 21, 2020

https://www.outsideonline.com/2416929/out-there-nobody-can-hear-you-scream

Two years ago, Latria Graham wrote an essay about the challenges of being Black in the outdoors. Countless readers reached out to her, asking for advice on how to stay safe in places where nonwhite people aren’t always welcome. She didn't write back, because she had no idea what to say. In the aftermath of a revolutionary spring and summer, she responds.

In the spring of 2019, right before I leave for my writing residency in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, my mama tries to give me a gun. A Ruger P89DC that used to belong to my daddy, it’s one of the few things she kept after his death. Even though she doesn't know how to use it, she knows that I do. She’s just had back surgery, and she’s in no shape to come and get me if something goes wrong up in those mountains, so she tries to give me this. I turn the gun over in my hand. It’s a little dusty and sorely out of use. The metal sends a chill up my arm.

Even though it is legal for me to have a gun, I cannot tell if, as a Black woman, I’d be safer with or without it. Back in 2016, I watched the aftermath of Philando Castile’s killing as it was streamed on Facebook Live by his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds. Castile was shot five times at close range by a police officer during a routine traffic stop, when he went to reach for his license, registration, and permit to carry a gun. His four-year-old daughter watched him die from the back seat. In his case, having the proper paperwork didn’t matter.

I’ll be in the Smokies for six weeks in early spring, the park’s quiet season, staying in a cabin on my own. My local contact list will be short: the other writer who had been awarded the residency, our mentor, maybe a couple of park employees. If something happens to me, there will likely be no witnesses, no one to stream my last moments. When my mother isn’t looking, I make sure the safety is on, and then I put the gun back where she got it. I leave my fate to the universe.

Before I back out of our driveway, my mama insists on saying a protective blessing over me. She has probably said some version of this prayer over my body as long as I’ve been able to explore on my own.

In 2018, I wrote an article for this magazine titled “We’re Here. You Just Don’t See Us,” about my family’s relationship to nature and the stereotypes and obstacles to access that Black people face in the outdoors. As a journalist, that piece opened doors for me, like the residency in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

It also inspired people to write me.

Two years later, the messages still find me on almost every social media platform: Twitter, Instagram, even LinkedIn. They come through my Gmail. Most of them sound the same—they thank me for writing the article and tell me how much it meant to them to see a facet of the Black experience represented in a major outdoor magazine. They express apprehension about venturing into new places and ask for my advice on recreating outside of their perceived safety zone. They ask what they can do to protect themselves in case they wind up in a hostile environment.

Folks have their desires and dreams tied up in the sentences they send me. They want to make room for the hope that I cautiously decided to write about in 2018.

Back then, as a realist, I didn’t want my essay’s ending to sound too optimistic. But I still strayed from talking about individual discrimination in the parks, often perpetrated by white visitors, like the woman who recently told an Asian American family that they “can’t be in this country�� as they finished their hike near Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California, this past Fourth of July. Or the now famous “BBQ Becky” who called the police on two Black men at Lake Merritt in Oakland, California, in 2018, for using a charcoal grill in a non-charcoal-grill-designated area. Nor did I mention that when I venture into new spaces, I am always doing the math: noting the lengths of dirt roads so I know how far I have to run if I need help, taking stock of my gas gauge to ensure I have enough to get away.

I have been the target of death threats since 2015, when I started writing about race. I wasn’t sure if magazine readers were ready for that level of candid conversation, so in 2018 I left that tidbit out.

There are risks to being Black in the outdoors; I am simply willing to assume them. And that’s why I struggle to answer the senders of these messages, because I don’t have any tips to protect them. Instead I invoke magical thinking, pretending that if I don’t hit the reply button, the communication didn’t happen. Sometimes technology helps: when I let the message requests sit unaccepted in Instagram, the app deletes them after four weeks.

I deem myself a coward. I know I am a coward.

There are two messages that still haunt me.

The first is an e-mail from a woman who wanted to know what she and her brown-skinned husband should do if they encounter another campground with a Confederate flag hanging in the check-in office. She described to me a night of unease, of worrying if they and their daughter would be safe. I filed her e-mail so deep in my folders that I don’t even think I can find it anymore. I was dying to forget that I had no salve for her suffering.

The second was even more personal. It came via Facebook Messenger, from a woman named Tish. In it she says: “I came across a read of yours when I was searching African Americans and camping. I want to rent an RV and go with my family. I live in Anderson S.C. Had a daughter that also attended SCGSAH. Is there a campground you recommend that is not too far and yes where I would feel comfortable? Thank you.”

The signaling in it, of tying me to her daughter, examining my background enough to offhandedly reference the South Carolina arts high school I attended and saying, Please, my daughter is similar to you.

I leave her message in the unread folder.

These women have families, and they too are trying to pray a blessing over the ones they love while leaving room for them to play, grow, and learn—the same things their white peers want for their offspring. In their letters, they hang some of their hopes for a better America on me, on any advice I might be able to share.

I haven’t written back because I haven’t had any good advice to offer, and that is what troubles me. These letters have been a sore spot, festering, unwilling to heal.

Now, in the summer of 2020, there are bodies hanging from trees again, and that has motivated me to pick up my pen. Our country is trying to figure out what to do about racial injustice and systemic brutality against Black people. It’s time to tell those who wrote to me what I know.

Dear Tish, Alex, Susan, and everyone else:

I want to apologize for the delayed reply. It took a long time to gather my thoughts. When I wrote that article back in 2018, I was light on the risks and violence and heavy-handed on hope. I come to you now as a woman who insists we must be heavy-handed on both if we are to survive.

I write to you in the middle of the night, with the only light on the entire street emanating from my headlamp. Here in upstate South Carolina, we are in the midst of a regional blackout. My time outdoors has taught me how to sit with the darkness—how to be equipped for it. Over the years, I have found ways to work within it, or perhaps in spite of it. If there’s anything I can do, maybe it’s help you become more comfortable with the darkness, too.

But before I tell you any more, I want you to understand that you and I are more than our pain. We are more than the human-rights moment we are fighting for.

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that the Outside article changed my life. People paid me for speaking gigs and writing workshops. They put me on planes and flew me across the country to talk about equity, inclusion, and accountability. I know the statistics, the history, the arguments that organizations give about why they have no need to change. I call them on it.

I have to apologize for not being prepared for the heaviness of this mantle at the time. I have to admit my hesitation back then to call white supremacy and racism by their names. The unraveling of this country in the summer of 2020 has forced me to reckon with my actions, my place in the natural world, and the fact that as a Black woman writer in America, I am tasked with telling you a terrible truth: I am so sorry. I have nothing of merit to offer you as protection.

I am reluctant to inform you that while I can challenge white people to make the outdoors a nonhostile, equitable space where you can be your authentic selves, when the violence of white supremacy turns its eyes toward you, there’s nothing I can give you to protect yourself from its gaze and dehumanization.

I do not wish to ask you to have to be brave in the face of inequality. This nation’s diminished moral capacity for seeing Black people as human beings is not our fault. Their perception of you isn’t your problem—it’s theirs, the direct result of the manifest-destiny and “anybody can become anything in America” narratives they have bought into. We are made to suffer so they can slake their guilt. I want you to be unapologetically yourselves.

I check with my fellow Black outdoor friends, and they say they’ve gotten your e-mail and messages, too. They also waffle on what to say, telling y’all to carry pepper spray or dress in a nonthreatening way. I am troubled about instructing people who have already been socially policed to death—to literal, functional death—to change the way they walk, talk, dress, or take up space in order to seem less threatening to those who are uncomfortable with seeing our brown skin.

The Great Smoky Mountains (Photo: Kennedi Carter)

I have no talisman that can shield you from the white imagination. The incantation “I’m calling the police” will be less potent coming from your mouth, and will not work in the same way. In the end, your utterance could backfire, causing you more pain.

I want to tell you to make sure you know wilderness first aid, to carry the ten essentials, to practice leave no trace, so no one has any right to bother you as you enjoy your day. I want to tell you to make sure you know what it means not to need, to be so prepared that you never have to ask for a shred, scrap, or ribbon of compassion from anybody.

But that is misanthropic—maybe, at its core, inhumane.

I resist the urge to pass on to you the instinct my Black foremothers ingrained in me to make ourselves small before the denizens of this land. I have watched this scenario play out since I was a child: my father, a tall 50-year-old man with big hands, being called “boy” by some white person and playing along, willing to let them believe that they have more power than he does, even though I have watched him pin down a 400-pound hog on his own. I have seen my mother shrink behind her steering wheel, pulled over for going five miles above the speed limit on her way to her mom’s house. She taught me and my brother the rules early: only speak when spoken to, do not ask questions, do not make eye contact, do not get out of the car, keep your hands on the wheel, comply, comply, comply, even if it costs you your agency. Never, ever show your fear. Cry in the driveway when you get to your destination alive. Those traffic stops could’ve ended very differently. The corpses of Samuel DuBose, Maurice Gordon, Walter Scott, and Rayshard Brooks prove that.

I will not pass on these generational curses; they were ways of compensating for anti-Black thinking. They should never have been your burden.

It would be easy to tell you to always be aware of your surroundings, to never let your guard down, to be prepared to hit record in case you run into an Amy Cooper or if a white man points an AR-15 at you and your friends as you take a break from riding your motorcycles, hoping to make the most of a sunny almost-summer day in Virginia.

These moments—tied to a phone, always tensed in fear—are not what time in nature is supposed to be. Yet the videos seem to be the only way America at large believes us. It took an eight-minute-and-forty-six-second snuff film for the masses to wake up and challenge the unjust system our people have had to navigate for more than 400 years. They are killing us for mundane things—running, like Ahmaud Arbery; playing in the park, like Tamir Rice. They’ve always killed us for unexceptional reasons. But now the entire country gets to watch life leak away from Black bodies in high definition.

I started writing this on the eve of what should have been Breonna Taylor’s 27th birthday. The police broke into her home while she was sleeping and killed her. I write to you during a global pandemic, during a time when COVID-19 has had disproportionate impact on Black and brown communities. I conclude my thoughts during what should have been the summer before Tamir Rice’s senior year of high school. All the old protective mechanisms and safety nets Black people created for ourselves aren’t working anymore. Sometimes compliance is not enough. Sometimes they kill you anyway.

Having grown up in the Deep South, I have long been aware of the threat of racial violence, of its symbolism. In middle school, many of my peers wore the Dixie Outfitters T-shirts that were in vogue in that part of the country during the late nineties. The shirts often featured collages of the Confederate flag, puppies, and shotguns on the front, with slogans like “Stand and Fight for Southern Rights” and “Preserving Southern Heritage Since 1861” printed on the back.

I was 11 years old, and these kids—and their commitment to a symbol from a long-lost war—signaled that they believed I shouldn’t be in the same classroom with them, that I didn’t belong in their world.

But that was nothing compared with the routine brutality perpetrated upon Black people in my home state. In 2010, years before the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Sandra Bland, there was the killing of Anthony Hill. Gregory Collins, a white worker at a local poultry plant not far from my family farm, shot and killed Hill, his Black coworker. He dragged Hill’s body behind his pickup truck for ten miles along the highways near my grandmother’s house, leaving a trail of blood and tendons. Abandoned on the road, the corpse was found with a single gunshot wound to the head and a rope tied around what remained of the body. Collins was sentenced for manslaughter. Five years ago, a radicalized white supremacist murdered nine Black parishioners as they prayed in Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. South Carolina is one of three states that still does not have a hate-crime law.

All the old protective mechanisms and safety nets Black people created for ourselves aren’t working anymore. Sometimes compliance is not enough. Sometimes they will kill you anyway.

Before my writing residency, I did not own a range map. Traditionally, these are used to depict plant and animal habitats and indicate where certain species thrive. Ranges are often defined by climate, food sources, water availability, the presence of predators, and a species’s ability to adapt.

My friend J. Drew Lanham taught me I could apply this sort of logic to myself. A Black ornithologist and professor of wildlife ecology, he was unfazed by what happened to birdwatcher Christian Cooper in Central Park—he’s had his own encounters with white people who can’t understand why he might be standing in a field with binoculars in his hand. Several years ago he wrote a piece for Orion magazine called “9 Rules for the Black Birdwatcher.”

“Carry your binoculars—and three forms of identification—at all times,” he wrote. “You’ll need the binoculars to pick that tufted duck out of the flock of scaup and ring-necks. You’ll need the photo ID to convince the cops, FBI, Homeland Security, and the flashlight-toting security guard that you’re not a terrorist or escaped convict.” Drew frequently checks the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate-group map and the Equal Justice Initiative’s “Lynching in America” map and overlays them. The blank spaces are those he might travel to.

I never thought to lay out the data like that until the day I went to Abrams Creek.

Three weeks into my residency, I made an early-afternoon visit to the national-park archives. I needed to know what information they had on Black people. I left with one sheet of paper—a slave schedule that listed the age, sex, and race (“black” or “mulatto”) of bodies held in captivity. There were no names. There were no pictures. I remember chiding myself for believing there might be.

Emotionally wrought and with a couple of hours of sunlight ahead of me, I decided to go for a drive to clear my mind. I came to the Smokies with dreams of writing about the natural world. I wanted to talk about the enigmatic Walker sisters, the park’s brook trout restoration efforts, and the groundbreaking agreement that the National Park Service reached with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians about their right to sustainably harvest the edible sochan plant on their ancestral lands. My Blackness, and curiosity about the Black people living in this region, was not at the front of my mind. I naively figured I would learn about them in the historical panels of the visitor’s center, along with the former white inhabitants and the Cherokee. I thought there would be a book or a guide about them.

There was nothing.

Vacations are meant to be methods of escapism. Believing this idyllic wilderness to be free of struggle, of complicated emotions, allows visitors to enjoy their day hikes. Many tourists to Great Smoky Mountains National Park see what they believe it has always been: rainbow-emitting waterfalls, cathedrals of green, carpets of yellow trillium in the spring. The majority never venture more than a couple of miles off the main road. They haven’t trained their eyes to look for the overgrown homesites of the park’s former inhabitants through the thick underbrush. Using the park as a side trip from the popular tourist destinations like Dollywood and Ripley’s Believe it or Not, they aren’t hiking the trails that pass by cemeteries where entire communities of white, enslaved, and emancipated people lived, loved, worked, died, and were buried, some, without ever being paid a living wage. Slavery here was arguably more intimate. An owner had four slaves, not 400. But it happened.

There is a revisionist fantasy that Americans cling to about the people in this region of North Carolina and Tennessee: that they were dirt-poor, struggled to survive, and wrestled the mountains into submission with their own brute strength. In reality, many families hired their sharecropping neighbors, along with Black convicts on chain gangs, to do the hard labor for them.

These corrections of history aren’t conversations most people are interested in having.

After a fruitless stop at Fontana Dam, the site of a former African American settlement where I find precious little to see, I try to navigate back to where I’m staying. Cell service is spotty. My phone’s GPS takes me on a new route along the edge of the park, through Happy Valley, which you can assume from the moniker is less than happy.

Early spring in the mountains is not as beautiful as you might believe. The trees are bare, and you can see the Confederate and Gadsden flags, the latter with their coiled rattlesnakes, flapping in the wind, so they do not take you by surprise. At home after home, I see flag after flag. The banners tell me that down in this valley I am on my own, as do the corpses of Jonathan A. Ferrell and Renisha McBride, Black people who knocked on the doors of white homeowners asking for help and were shot in response.

In the middle of this drive back to the part of the park where I belong, I round a corner to see a man burning a big pile of lumber, the flames taller than my car.

I am convinced that pyrophobia is embedded in my genes. The Ku Klux Klan was notorious for cross burnings and a willingness to torch homes. The fire over my shoulder is large enough to burn up any evidence that I ever existed. There is a man standing in his yard wearing a baseball cap and holding a drink, watching me as my white rental car creeps by. I want to ask him how to get out of here. I think of my mama’s frantic phone calls going straight to voice mail. I stay in the car.

Farther down the road, another man is burning a big pile of lumber. I know it’s just coincidence, that these bundles of timber were stacked before I set off down this path, but the symbolism unnerves me.

I round a bend and a familiar sign appears—a national-park placard with the words “Abrams Creek Campground Ranger Station” in white letters. Believing some fresh air might settle my stomach and strengthen my nerves, I decide to enter that section of the park. The road I drive is the border between someone’s property and the park. Uneven, it forces me to go slowly.

The dog is at my car before I recognize what is happening. It materializes as a strawberry blond streak bumping up against my driver-side door. Tall enough to reach my face, it is gnashing at my side mirror, trying to bite my reflection.

I’m not scared of dogs, but this one, with its explicit hostility, gives me pause.

Before emancipation, dogs hunted runaway slaves by scent, often maiming the quarry to keep them in place until their owner could arrive. During the civil rights movement, dogs were weaponized by police. In the modern era, use of K-9 units to intimidate and attack is so common that police have referred to Black people as “dog biscuits.”

I force myself to keep driving.

When I reach the ranger station, the building is dark: closed for the season. I see a trail inviting me to walk between two shortleaf pines, but I decline. There is something in me that is more wound up than it has a right to be. No one knows my whereabouts. Despite making up 13 percent of the population, more than 30 percent of all missing persons in the U.S. in 2019 were Black. A significant portion of these cases are never covered by the news. The chances of me disappearing without a mention are higher than I’d like.

There are three cars in the little gravel parking lot. A pair of men, both bigger than me, are illegally flying drones around the clearing, and there is palpable apprehension around my presence. They don’t acknowledge me, and I can’t think of what I’m supposed to say to convince them I’m not a threat. I have no idea who the third car belongs to—they are somewhere in my periphery, real and not real, an ancillary portion of my calculation.

I take photos of the clearing, including the cars, just in case I don’t make it out. It is the only thing I know to do.

I run my odds. No one in an official capacity to enforce the rules, no cell service to call for help, little knowledge of the area. I leave. Later, my residency mentor gently suggests that maybe I don’t visit that section of the park alone anymore.

A favorite spot in the Smokies (Photo: Kennedi Carter)

Ipromise that there are parts of this park, and by extension the outdoors as a whole, that make visiting worth it. Time in nature is integral to my physical, spiritual, and mental health. I chase the radiant moments, because as a person who struggles with chronic depression, the times I am enthusiastically happy are few and far between. Most of them happen outside.

I relish the moments right before sunrise up at Purchase Knob in the North Carolina section of the Smokies. The world is quiet, my mind is still, and the birds, chattering to one another, do not mind my presence. I believe this is what Eden must have been like. I still live for the nights where I sink into my sleeping pad while I cowboy-camp, with nothing in or above my head except the stars. I believe in the healing power of hiking, the days when I am strong, capable, at home in my body.

The fear, on some level, will always exist. I say this to myself all the time: I know you’re scared. Do it anyway.

Toward the end of my writing residency, the road to Clingmans Dome opens. At 6,643 feet, Clingmans is the highest point in Tennessee and in the park. About two days before I’m scheduled to leave, I go to see what this peak holds for me.

There is a paved trail leading to the observatory at the summit. It isn’t long, just steep. Maybe it’s the elevation; I have to do the hike 20 steps at a time, putting one foot in front of the other until I get to 20, then starting over again. I catch my breath in ragged clips, and there are moments when I can feel my heartbeat throbbing in my fingertips. I’d planned to be at the top for sunset, but I realize the sun might be gone when I get there. I continue anyhow. I’m slow but stubborn.

If there’s anything I appreciate about the crucible we’re living in, it’s the role of social media in creating a place for us when others won’t. We’re no longer waiting for outdoors companies to find the budget for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. With the creation of a hashtag, a social media movement, suddenly we are hyper-visible, proud, and unyielding.

As I make my way up the ramp toward its intersection with the Appalachian Trail, I think about Will Robinson (@akunahikes on Instagram), the first documented African American man to complete the triple crown of hiking: the Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continental Divide Trails. I understand that I’m following in Robinson’s footsteps, and those of other Black explorers like writer Rahawa Haile (@rahawahaile) and long-haul hiker Daniel White (@theblackalachian)—people who passed this way while completing their AT through-hikes and whom I now call friends, thanks to the internet. I smile and think of them as the trail meets the pavement, and stop for a moment. We have all seen this junction.

Their stories, videos, and photographs tell me what they know of the world I’m still learning to navigate. They are the adventurers I’ve been rooting for since the very beginning, and now I know they’re also rooting for me.

It’s our turn to wish for good things for you.

We’re no longer waiting for outdoors companies to find the budget for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. With the creation of a hashtag, a social media movement, suddenly we are hypervisible, proud, and unyielding.

When I get to the summit the world is tinged in blue, and with minimal cloud cover I can see the borders of seven states. There is nothing around me now but heaven. I’m grateful I didn’t quit.

My daddy had a saying that I hated as a child: “The man on top of the mountain didn’t fall there.” It’s a quote by NFL coach Vince Lombardi, who during the fifties and sixties refused to give in to the racial pressures of the time and segregate his Green Bay Packers. It took me decades to understand what those two were trying to tell me, but standing at the top of Clingmans Dome, I get it. The trick is that there is no trick. You learn to eat fire by eating fire.

But none of us has to do it alone.

America is a vast place, and we often feel isolated because of its geography. But there are organizations around the country that have our backs: Black Outside, Inc., Color Outside, WeGotNext, Outdoor Afro, Black Folks Camp Too, Blackpackers, Melanin Base Camp, and others.

The honest discussions must happen now. I acknowledge that I am the descendant of enslaved people—folks who someone else kidnapped from their homeland and held captive in this one.

We were more than bodies then.

We are more than bodies now.

We have survived fierce things.

My ancestors survived genocide, the centuries-long hostage situation they were born into, and the tortures that followed when they called for freedom and equality. They witnessed murder. They endured as their wages and dreams were taken from them by systemic policies and physical force. And yet, because of their drive to survive, I am here.

I stand in the stream of a legacy started by my ancestors and populated by present-day Black trailblazers like outdoors journalist James Edward Mills, environmental-justice activist Teresa Baker, and conservationists Audrey and Frank Peterman. Remembering them—their struggles and triumphs—allows me to center myself in this scenery, as part of this landscape, and claim it as my history. This might be the closest thing to reparations that this country, founded on lofty ideals from morally bankrupt slaveholders, will ever give me.

I promised you at the beginning that I would be candid about the violence and even-keeled about the hope. I still have hope—I consider it essential for navigating these spaces, for being critical of America. I wouldn’t be this way if I didn’t know there was a better day coming for this country.

Even when hope doesn’t reside within me—those days happen, too—I know that it is safely in the hands of fellow Black adventurers to hold until I am ready to reclaim my share of it. I pray almost unceasingly for your ability to understand how powerful you are. If you weren’t, they wouldn’t be trying to keep you out, to make sure they keep the beauty and understanding of this vast world to themselves. If we weren’t rewriting the story about who belongs in these places, they wouldn’t be so focused on silencing us with their physical intimidation and calls for murder.

The more we see, the more we document, the more we share, the better we can empower those who come after us. I’ve learned during all my years of historical research that even when white guilt, complacency, and intentional neglect try to erase our presence, there is always a trace. Now there are hundreds of us, if not thousands, intent on blazing a trail.

It is true: I cannot protect you. But there is one thing I can continue to do: let you know that you are not alone in doing this big, monumental thing. You deserve a life of adventure, of joy, of enlightenment. The outdoors are part of our inheritance. So I will keep writing, posting photos, and doing my own signaling. For every new place I visit, and the old ones I return to, my message to you is that you belong here, too.

Latria Graham is a journalist and fifth-generation farmer living in South Carolina. Her writing has appeared in Oxford American, Bicycling, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Backpacker, The Guardian, Southern Living, and other local and national outlets. You can find more of her work at LatriaGraham.com.

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kmsherrard · 4 years

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Lab in the time of covid-19

"...since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand than ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole command; nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure. The sailors, mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before him; in obedience to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal homage, as to a god. Such things may seem incredible; but, however wondrous, they are true. Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others."

-Herman Melville

These days I go into lab once or twice a week. The plants I brought home in March in a massive rescue operation are back on the broad, light-filled windowsills. Once again they thrive in the peaceful assurance that they will not be chewed on by bored cats. Lab is almost as quiet as it used to be when I would go in as early in the morning as I could manage (nowadays, I prefer to reserve early mornings for walks or runs, before the summer heat gets too bad). For me, it has always been a relief to turn to lab work as a break from the hard intellectual labor of planning and analyzing experiments and placing your findings in the context of the published scientific literature; it is hard to escape the impression that there are just too many biologists making far too many discoveries nowadays to have much hope of making sense of anything. If the ratio of data to story gets much higher, I fear we’ll have to cede the project of interpretation to pattern-detecting software, which would take much of the fun out the whole enterprise.

In any case, one of the great pleasures of doing biology is that you get to use your hands for part of the work. Not so much in recent months, however. During the shelter in place and exile from lab that my university experienced from March-June, all that was left was the intellectual work of reading, thinking, analyzing, writing, attending meetings and talking with colleagues by zoom. It's unbalanced to have all your work take place within the narrow, two-dimensional confines of a computer screen. So I am very grateful to be back to doing experiments with flies.

Many fly experiments start with a cross of two different stocks to get progeny one or more generations down the line with certain desired characteristics, such as a particular protein lighting up with a fluorescent label in a particular tissue at a particular time. So you sit at a microscope and knock out flies with carbon dioxide gas, and gently push them around with a paintbrush to separate males from females and virgin females from experienced ones. How can you tell? You keep the females who look paler and softer than their compatriots, because they emerged from their pupal cases within the past 20 minutes or so, and assume all the others have been around the block. And why do only the females need to be virgins? For the exact same reason that people in many times and places have cared about this.

For more involved crosses, you will be selecting for or against various visible markers to assist sorting out your desired genotypes: stubbly vs. long hairs on the dorsal thorax; stubbly vs. long or abundant vs. sparse hairs on the lateral front thorax (reminding me of an old Seattle joke in poor taste: How do tell the bride at a Swedish wedding? She’s the one with braided armpit hairs); wings straight or so curly the flies should be called crawls because they cannot fly anymore; eyes white or orange or brick red or many shades between, including some only visible by fluorescent light—just to name a few. I’m convinced that looking hard at anything is one form of meditation, and we Drosophologists get to know our flies very well. Then again, there is the early-grade-school satisfaction of circling and crossing out: keep these flies, discard those. This is algebra embodied in living, breeding organisms. In certain types of crosses, we can see direct evidence of that fundamental generator of evolutionary diversity and sexual healing, meiotic crossing over.

In the old, pre-pandemic days, this work took place in a communal “fly room,” where a half-dozen different labs kept stations for fly work. There were two radios, usually both turned on and both playing NPR. I don’t know how it was for others, but my attention to the news stories wandered in and out depending on how complicated my crosses were to sort out. Sometimes someone would turn the volume way down in order to have a conversation, maybe half the time to do with science and the other half something else.

Now, the labs have set up fly stations in their private spaces, where access can be limited to one or two people, minimizing airborne exposure to the virus and reducing the need to exhaustively clean the scopes between users. It’s yet another of the ways this pandemic has isolated us from our habitual social spaces. I hear there’s a Slack for former fly room aficionados, but I don’t have the bandwidth for that these days: I am spending much of my free time keeping up with extended family and a few close friends near and far (since that distinction hardly matters any more, for better and for worse).

Today, working at my lonely fly station in a quiet lab, I put NPR on, streaming it from my laptop into my headphones. We used to be asked to refrain from wearing headphones or earbuds while in lab during regular hours, as it discouraged conversation and normal interaction. Now, of course, none of that can be helped in any case. Despite the often worrying content of the news—covid cases rising in the majority of U.S. states, most horrifically in Florida, governor of Oklahoma tested positive; Greece now requiring tourists provide proof of recent negative test; White House attempting to roll back climate-change mitigating regulations on infrastructure projects; Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the hospital for an unspecified infection (but also: legitimacy and extent of reservations in Oklahoma resoundingly upheld by the Supreme Court, in a rare promise kept to Native Americans; public radio examines its own racial biases in the workplace; White House gives up on demanding colleges and universities hold in-person classes or have their foreign students lose their visas)--despite this, it was a wholly comforting experience, to sit in the air-conditioned lab listening to calm, reasoned voices sort through local, national, and international news while putting my flies in order.

#Resarch #drosophila #lab work #covid19 #science

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sataniccapitalist · 7 years

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It’s Pretty Much Inevitable That Trump Will Try To Stage A Coup And Overthrow Democracy, An Interview With Timothy Snyder, Yale Historian

Oct 25, 2017 | Articles, civil liberties, Civil Unrest, Collapse of Industrial Civilization, Empire, Resistance, Tyranny

Reposted from Salon

American democracy is in crisis. The election of Donald Trump feels like a state of emergency made normal.

Trump has threatened violence against his political enemies. He has made clear he does not believe in the norms and traditions of American democracy — unless they serve his interests. Trump and his advisers consider a free press to be enemies of his regime. Trump repeatedly lies and has a profoundly estranged relationship with empirical reality. He uses obvious and naked racism, nativism and bigotry to mobilize his voters and to disparage entire groups of people such as Latinos and Muslims.

Trump is threatening to eliminate an independent judiciary and wants to punish judges who dare to stand against his illegal and unconstitutional mandates. In what appears to be a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, Trump is using the office of the presidency to enrich himself, his family and his inner circle by peddling influence and access to corporations, foreign countries and wealthy individuals. Trump and his representatives also believe that he is above the law and cannot be prosecuted for any crimes while in office.

What can the American people do to resist Donald Trump? What lessons can history teach about the rise of authoritarianism and fascism and how democracies collapse? Are there ways that individuals can fight back on a daily basis and in their own personal lives against the political and cultural forces that gave rise to Trump’s movement? How long does American democracy have before the poison that Donald Trump and the Republican Party injected into the country’s body politic becomes lethal?

In an effort to answer these questions, I recently spoke with Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University. He is the award-winning author of numerous books including the recent “Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning” and “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.” Snyder’s new book, “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,” explores how the American people can fight back against Donald Trump’s incipient authoritarian regime.

Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. A longer version can be heard on my podcast, available on Salon’s Featured Audio page.

The election of Donald Trump is a crisis for American democracy. How did this happen?

We asked for it by saying that history was over in 1989 [with the end of the Cold War]. By saying that nothing bad could [ever] happen again, we were basically inviting something bad to happen.

Our story about how nothing could [ever] go wrong was a story about how human nature is the free market and the free market brings democracy, so everything is hunky-dory — and of course every part of that story is nonsense. The Greeks understood that democracy is likely to produce oligarchy because if you don’t have some mechanism to get inequality under control then people with the most money will likely take full control.

With Trump, one sees the new variant of this where a candidate can run by saying, “Look, we all know — wink, wink, nudge, nudge — that this isn’t really a democracy anymore.” He doesn’t use the words but basically says, “We all know this is really an oligarchy, so let me be your oligarch.” Although it’s nonsense and of course he’s a con man and will betray everyone, it makes sense only in this climate of inequality.

In my writing and interviews, I have consistently referred to Donald Trump as a fascist. I have received a great deal of resistance to that claim. Do you think this description is correct? If not, then what language should we use to describe Donald Trump?

One of the problems with American discourse is that we just assume everybody is a friendly democratic parliamentarian pluralist until proven otherwise. And then even when it’s proven otherwise we don’t have any vocabulary for it. He’s a “dictator.” He’s an “authoritarian.” He’s “Hitler.” We just toss these words around.

The pushback that you are talking about is 95 percent bad. Americans do not want to think that there is an alternative to what we have. Therefore, as soon as you say “fascism” or whatever it might be, then the American response is to say “no” because we lack the categories that allow us to think outside of the box that we are no longer in.

Is this a function of American exceptionalism?

Yes, it is. We made a move towards intellectual isolationism in a world where no kind of isolationism is possible. The fact that democracies usually fail is a rule which can’t apply to us. If you examine American society, there are high points and low points. But there is certainly nothing which puts us in a different category than other people who have failed, whether it’s historically or whether it’s now.

I don’t want to dodge your question about whether Trump is a fascist or not. As I see it, there are certainly elements of his approach which are fascistic. The straight-on confrontation with the truth is at the center of the fascist worldview. The attempt to undo the Enlightenment as a way to undo institutions, that is fascism.

Whether he realizes it or not is a different question, but that’s what fascists did. They said, “Don’t worry about the facts; don’t worry about logic. Think instead in terms of mystical unities and direct connections between the mystical leader and the people.” That’s fascism. Whether we see it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we forget, that is fascism.

Another thing that’s clearly fascist about Trump were the rallies. The way that he used the language, the blunt repetitions, the naming of the enemies, the physical removal of opponents from rallies, that was really, without exaggeration, just like the 1920s and the 1930s.

And Mr. [Steve] Bannon’s preoccupation with the 1930s and his kind of wishful reclamation of Italian and other fascists speaks for itself.

How did the news media and others get this so wrong? Why did they underestimate the threat posed by Donald Trump and his movement?

What we ended up with, from Bill Clinton onward, is a status quo party and an “undo the system” party, where the Democrats became the status quo party and the Republicans became the “undo the system” party. In that constellation it’s very hard to think of change because one party is in favor of things being the way they are, just slightly better, and the other party has this big idea of undoing everything, although it’s unclear what that really means in practice. So no one is actually articulating how you address the problems of the day, the greatest of which would be inequality. When neither party is creative, then it’s hard for scholars to get their ideas into meaningful circulation.

Why is Trump not being held accountable for all of his failures, scandals and incompetence?

Mr. Trump is primarily a television personality. As such, he is judged by that standard. This means that a scandal does not call forth a response; it calls forth the desire for a bigger scandal. It just whets the appetite for a bigger scandal because a television serial has to work on that logic. It’s almost as though he has to produce these outrageous things because what else would he be doing?

I think another part of it has to do with attention span. It’s not so much a lack of outrage; people are in fact outraged. But in order for a scandal to have political logic, the outrage has to be followed by the research. It has to be followed by the investigation. It has to be followed by an official finding.

In your book you discuss the idea that Donald Trump will have his own version of Hitler’s Reichstag fire to expand his power and take full control of the government by declaring a state of emergency. How do you think that would play out?

Let me make just two points. The first is that I think it’s pretty much inevitable that they will try. The reason I think that is that the conventional ways of being popular are not working out for them. The conventional way to be popular or to be legitimate in this country is to have some policies, to grow your popularity ratings and to win some elections. I don’t think 2018 is looking very good for the Republicans along those conventional lines — not just because the president is historically unpopular. It’s also because neither the White House nor Congress have any policies which the majority of the public like.

This means they could be seduced by the notion of getting into a new rhythm of politics, one that does not depend upon popular policies and electoral cycles.

Whether it works or not depends upon whether when something terrible happens to this country, we are aware that the main significance of it is whether or not we are going to be more or less free citizens in the future.

My gut feeling is that Trump and his administration will try and that it won’t work. Not so much because we are so great but because we have a little bit of time to prepare. I also think that there are enough people and enough agencies of the government who have also thought about this and would not necessarily go along.

What can citizens do? What would your call to action be?

The whole point of my new book, “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,” is that we have a century of wisdom and very smart people who confronted situations like our own — but usually more demanding — and that wisdom can be condensed.

What my book does is it goes across the arc of regime change, from the beginning to the end, and it provides things ranging from simpler to harder that people can literally do every day.

The thing that matters the most is to realize that in moments like this your actions really do matter. It is ironic but in an authoritarian regime-change situation, the individual matters more than [in] a democracy. In an authoritarian regime change, at the beginning the individual has a special kind of power because the authoritarian regime depends on a certain kind of consent. Which means that if you are conscious of the moment that you are in, you can find the ways not to express your consent and you can also find the little ways to be a barrier. If enough people do that, it really can make a difference — but again only at the beginning.

What are some of the more difficult and challenging things that people can do?

The last lesson in “On Tyranny” is to be as courageous as you can. Do you actually care enough about freedom that you would take risks? Do individuals actually care about freedom? Think that through. I think if enough of us take the little risks at the beginning, which aren’t really that significant, this will prevent us from having to take bigger risks down the line.

We are still at a stage where protest is not illegal. We’re still at a stage where protest is not lethal. Those are the two big thresholds. We are still on the good side of both of those thresholds and so now is the time you want to pack in as much as you can because you could actually divert things. Once you get into a world where protest is illegal, then the things that I recommend like corporeal politics, getting out on the streets — they have to happen but they are much riskier. It’s a much different kind of decision.

How much time does American democracy have left before this poison becomes lethal and there is no path of return?

You have to accept there is a time frame. Nobody can be sure how long this particular regime change with Trump will take, but there is a clock, and the clock really is ticking. It’s three years on the outside, but in more likelihood something like a year. In January 2018 we will probably have a pretty good idea which way this thing is going. It’s going to depend more on us than on them in the meantime. Once you get past a certain threshold, it starts to depend more on them than on us, and then things are much, much worse. It makes me sad to think how Americans would behave at that point.

Then Trump and his forces have the momentum because again we the American people are up against the clock.

I hate to sound like a self-help person but I’m going to. Every day you don’t do something, it makes it less likely that you will ever do something. So you’ve got to get started right away. “On Tyranny” is a suggestion of things that everyone can do. There are plenty of other great ideas from people coming from other traditions, but the basic thing is you have to change your protocol of daily behavior now.

Don’t obey in advance because you have to start by orienting yourself against the general drift of things. If you can manage that, then the other lessons — such as supporting existing political and social institutions, supporting the truth and so on — those things will then come relatively easily if you can follow the first one, which is to get out of the drift, to recognize that this is the moment where you have to not behave as you did in October 2016. You have to set your own habits now.

http://carolynbaker.net/2017/10/25/its-pretty-much-inevitable-that-trump-will-try-to-stage-a-coup-and-overthrow-democracy-an-interview-with-timothy-snyder-yale-historian/

#civil unrest #fascism #empire #resistance #tyranny #civilization #the war on women #industrial #Trump

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wineanddinosaur · 5 years

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VinePair Podcast: How to Give Back to Hospitality Professionals Impacted by Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has ravaged the food and drink industry: closures have swept the country, and even the most accomplished chefs and restaurateurs have been forced to close their restaurants and bars indefinitely, and in some cases permanently. More than that, hundreds of thousands of hospitality workers have already lost their jobs, with no idea when or if they’ll come back. In the long run, it’s almost certain that restaurants and bars will need significant governmental support and funding to reopen. But in the shorter term, there are things we can do to help aid workers and the restaurants and bars that employ them.

That’s the topic of conversation on the latest VinePair podcast, where Adam, Erica, and Zach discuss how they’re dealing with life without going out, and what individuals and companies can do to help out in this time of crisis.

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Spotify

LISTEN ONLINE OR CHECK OUT OUR CONVERSATION HERE:

Adam: From my apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: From my apartment in Jersey City, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair podcast. And Zach, you’re so weird about “in Seattle, Washington.” Like, where are you, man? Are you in a garage? Are you in your bedroom? Are you in your kid’s room? Like, where are you?

Z: “In my den in Ballard, I’m Zach Geballe.” Just hanging out here with a bunch of kids’ toys and a basketball that probably isn’t going to get any use for a while.

A: Oh, man. So we are all working from home for obvious reasons, but still keeping the podcast going. Obviously, this is a podcast we’re recording on Wednesday, March 18th with the goal of getting this up for everyone to hear tomorrow, March 19th, just because of the state of what’s happening in the industry. We’re gonna try to put these out a lot more often.

In addition, we will be putting out through the same feed individual conversations with restaurant owners, bar owners, winemakers, distillers, brewers led by either myself, Erica or Zach over the next few weeks to hear how they are dealing with life, and in the time of Corona, how they’re adapting. And these conversations are both to hear what they’re up to, but also to hopefully inspire and connect us all. I think when we all understand that we’re all going through this together, it makes the situations we’re dealing with more palatable and we can sort of start to see a path forward. And so that’s our goal with these conversations. Hopefully the first one will come out early next week. So please be on the lookout for that and support that as well. But without further ado, let’s jump into this week’s podcast. So first, I guess, Erica, Zach, how are you guys coping? How are you doing? And are you taking your advice from the last podcast in terms of making drinks at home and just trying to be centered as much as possible?

E: I’d say yes, I have upped my flask game with Manhattans. So really the only place that I can go these days is Liberty State Park, which overlooks the city, and overlooks the Statue of Liberty. And you can go there, you can have a Manhattan and it’s a really nice way to get away from some of the stress. But I’d also say, you know, right now, sitting in front me, I’ve got a bottle of Pais, which is a light bodied red that’s been made in Chile for centuries and recently winemakers have kind of rediscovered this grape and are making some really cool wines out of it. So, I’ve got this wine from the Garage Wine Company, and the founder of this estate runs MOVI, which is basically Chile’s association of independent wine growers. And so it’s a very cool small wine company to follow. And this is such a crushable spring red: It’s fresh and clean and floral, with savory, soft tannins. So I think a wine like this is giving me a little bit of relief as well.

A: First of all, I love the idea of Erica in a park with her kids while she’s swigging from a Manhattan in a flask. I think that’s awesome. And second, you definitely have become, I think, like the unofficial spokesman for Pais, which they should start paying you.

E: I mean, I love Pais, how was it overlooked, and used in these big agricultural jug wines for so long? It’s amazing.

Z: I got to tell you, it’s unfortunate to be the guy who says this, one of the single worst wines I’ve ever had in my life was made from Pais. I’ve also had some good ones, to be fair. But I had a rosé relatively recently and…and this almost never happens with me, but I actually tasted it and I was like, I can’t believe someone actually, like, put this in a bottle, sealed it and sold it and felt good about it. I think it was one of these wines of like, “philosophy more than quality.” And it was like these wild Pais vines that had grown out of control. And someone picked them and they essentially did nothing and it was just like…it was essentially somewhere between drinking vinegar and drinking like, I don’t know, like the cranberry juice that hadn’t been sweetened. And it was just I mean, it was…I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it. Rarely if ever am I like, “no, I cannot understand.” But I don’t know who would have liked that wine. But I guess the answer is, I should have just had them send it to you, Erica.

E: I mean, I am not into those Kombucha-style natural wines for sure. If a natural wine is made on the clean side and I’m not getting any sort of mousy characteristics, or those kombucha characteristics, then I’m all about it. But yeah, I probably would not have enjoyed that wine.

A: I just really discovered the grape and… when I was down in Chile this summer, it is pretty delicious. I mean, [with] the South American Beaujolais, the problem is that they just don’t have enough of it. You know, but obviously other people are trying to make it, right? So in California, a bunch of people are using the same grape, which is the Mission grape. Which is crazy to think that it was also a grape that was brought over by Spanish missionaries in order to, you know, basically make communion wine. And now a lot of these talented winemakers have realized, hey, if we cultivate this well and we use certain methods that we’ve now learned over the last few decades, we can actually make really delicious stuff with it, which is cool. Right? It’s crazy.

E: I was going to say one of the best things about it is, it’s one of the few wines that you can get that are old-vine wines for like $20. Where else in the world can you get a wine made from old vines that is $20. It’s like an insane value.

Z: Well, it does kind of highlight one of these interesting things about the history of the grape both in North and South America, which is like it came over as this [grape] to make communion wine from. And then in a lot of North America, in California, and even Mexico, [it] was largely either ripped out or ignored because when more ‘noble’ varieties from Europe came over, it was discarded. And that didn’t happen as much in South America. And I think this kind of yeah, it’s an interesting thing. Maybe when the world returns to some semblance of normality, we can explore old vines and the concept, because I do think that old vines are really interesting. I don’t always know that it means that they make better wine. Sometimes, yes, sometimes maybe. Sometimes I can attest to some non-Pais old vine wine I’ve had that still sucks. Because in the end, you can leave vines in the ground for 100 years, but if the place you’re growing them isn’t a great place to grow grapes, it doesn’t really matter. But you’re right that it is a really accessible variety and style of wine to try. What it feels, what it tastes like to drink wines made [from] vines that are 100-plus years old. Because it’s true that that is a very rare opportunity, especially with wines from this hemisphere.

A: True. So, buddy, how are you holding up?

Z: Well, you know, it’s been an interesting week, plus whatever. I’m not sure that I expected to have a week quite like this in my life. But I’m doing OK. You know, […] I guess maybe it’s one of the advantages of not living in New York City or adjacent is, I actually have space to have a pretty good-sized wine collection. So, I’m not like some people that I know in New York who are panicking that in two weeks they’ll be out of wine. I have a pretty ample supply. And my wife and I have been taking the opportunity, not that we needed the encouragement, to drink a bottle of wine every night with dinner. But I will say that one thing I’ve been struggling with is that feeling that I get, when I’m at home too much, where I’m like, “it’s one o’clock and yeah, maybe it’s a Wednesday, butis there a compelling reason I shouldn’t be drinking a Margarita right now?” So I have so far been able to fend off that instinct. But it’s coming for me. And I do think that it’s going to be a challenge for a lot of people, right? To deal with just the sort of general, you know, even if you’re working from home… I mean, some people, I think, who are working from home are really genuinely still super busy. And you know, those can be people in all kinds of industries. And for them…I actually have a friend who was telling me that he feels like he’s working even more than he used to because he’s not commuting anymore. So all of his time, basically from waking up to when he finishes with work, is work-focused. But I think for a lot of us, even with things to do, [we] inevitably end up with a little bit of downtime. At least I feel like I have. And so it’s hard to fight that urge to be like, “oh, man… the fridge is right there, the liquor cabinet is right there.” But so far, I’m holding steady.

A: I mean, I would say what I’ve found is… so we, I think, either in a good way or a bad way, had to get used to this last year when our office wasn’t ready in the construction phases. And so we had to all work from home at Team VinePair. So we kind of got used to it. But I think what I found, which is sort of what you’re saying, Zack, is I actually do find it’s very hard to turn off and that you wind up working like….I remember two nights ago…so was that Monday? I remember Naomi and I were both sitting at the dining room table, working, working, working. We looked over and we’re like… “wait, it’s eight o’clock. Should we cook dinner? Like, how did that happen?” And the second you wake up, it’s… yeah. There’s no separation of your commute. There’s no like…I mean I really miss Michael Barbaro. I haven’t listened to the daily at all because I don’t commute anymore. And so I hope that doesn’t mean you’re not listening to the podcast, everyone. But it’s weird. It’s really weird. Erica, what about you? Because you have… I mean, both you and Zach. I don’t have kids, but the two of you do. So, I mean, are you finding that there’s a separation between work for you or is having kids more of a disruption? Is it, you know, are you finding the balance? What’s it like for you to work from home?

E: Yeah, I’d say there’s no separation of time, you know, that is pretty much not Work Time. I mean, at VinePair we’ve been working kind of around the clock to cover the effects of Covid-19 on the drinks industry. And that has meant that we’re still posting at 10:00, 11:00 p.m., that we’re still fielding emails and talking to people, sources for stories, around the clock. And then when you throw in kids, two kids working alongside me at the kitchen table trying to do their kindergarten and fourth grade assignments…. I give it like a week and a half before we get to Lord of the Flies territory so…. It’s a little bit much. God bless teachers. I think teachers should get paid a million dollars apiece for every year of school, every year of time served essentially, because it is not easy. And it’s also just not easy to turn off. I think I’m the type of person who just, you know, I have a personality where like, if I have free time, I’m working on projects. I’m working ahead. I’m trying to get things done. And talking to my writers and editors and trying to make every story better. So it is a challenge to have that separation of work and home.

A: Totally. So can you talk a little bit about the reporting we’ve been doing? Cause I know, we basically have insanely shifted gears in terms of what we have been writing about. I mean, we’ve always tried to cover… take a holistic view and large scale view of the world of drinks. Whether it’s through our cultural coverage or other things, but we really went basically all in on what’s happening in the world now. So I’d love if you could talk a little about that, some of the stories that we’ve been publishing and then we can sort of take the conversation from there since today’s topic really is more what’s happening now than, you know, specifically like, “let’s talk about whether or not Napa is relevant anymore,” which we might get to at some point.

E: Yeah. [So] if you go to VinePair.com, you’ll see we have a live blog there that is about how Covid-19 is impacting the drinks industry. So we’re doing both the live coverage as well as individual stories. And really what we’re looking to do is be a resource for the industry as well as for consumers to really understand how businesses are being impacted and both how they can help, and how they can get access to funding or grants to help come out of this crisis. So everything that we’re doing, all of our staff is dedicated to these types of stories. We’ve talked to people from all parts of the industry: suppliers, importers, distributors, restaurateurs, bartenders… you name it. We’ve talked to them. And what we’re hearing really is that it’s going to be a very devastating impact for a very long time and that a lot of businesses will probably never reopen unless they had pretty significant funding or backing going into something like this. So this is really a dire time for all parts of the industry. From the independent restaurants all the way up to big companies. We have coverage looking and charting, on the big side, looking at the AB InBevs and the Diageos and what’s happening in that space. And then on the ground floor of, you know, what wine bars and restaurants are doing in New York and L.A. and throughout the entire country. Trying to really understand, are there innovations that operators can follow right now? What are people doing to try to stay afloat, to try to keep their businesses open? So our goal [is] to be a resource, to be a source for ideas and inspiration and then for consumers to really help all of us who love the drinks industry and who love going out to… if you’re in a position to donate to do that. So I think we…what we see in the hospitality industry is that we have a situation right now where entire careers, livelihoods, communities have essentially evaporated overnight and there’s just no telling when that will come back. And this is a workforce that can’t work from home, can’t take care of their customers now, can’t take care of probably their families and their rent. So, the message we want to get out is, we are a resource. We are here for you. We are dedicating all of our efforts to help keep people informed and provide ideas and pathways for recovery when that time comes.

Z: Well, as one of those people who had his career largely disappear all of a sudden, for one, I appreciate very much to have played a very small role in, and really appreciate what’s being done at VinePair, because as Adam said at the beginning of the episode it’s a good reminder that all of us are in this together, both within the beverage industry and obviously the country and the world as a whole. A couple of things I wanted to say, though, that I thought were really interesting about what’s come out of this period of time and may continue to emerge. One of them is this conversation that people are having around this idea of, what does it mean to have your food and your drinking life totally homebound, right? And for so many people, that has gone from being, all of us probably at one point or another made dinner at home or, at least ordered food in at home, [and] had opened a bottle of wine or a beer or whatever at home. But when your life suddenly is really confined to your house, as it is for a lot of people listening to this, or almost entirely confined to your house, it really does kind of force you to… it’s forced me in a lot of ways to kind of grapple with this question of like, how am I going to keep doing the things that bring me joy in life? And for me, that’s obviously a lot of things involving drinking. And I just… I’m so… I’ve been so excited to see all the people out there putting out tutorials on how to make cocktails and recipes, and obviously we’ve done that at VinePair and others have done it as well. And also this sort of ongoing conversation of, how can we keep socializing with the people that matter to us even if we can’t be with them in person? And so, obviously, the other part of that is, happy hour – virtual happy hours and dinner dates and stuff like that. And…and I mean, it’s not ideal for anyone, obviously, but it’s been really heartwarming for me to see.

A: I have to say, it has been really cool to see everyone sort of doing their thing, which is awesome. I’m curious, though, from your perspective, have any of you… so in New York we’ve seen a lot of restaurants and bars — well, in the Tri-State area — go to to-go and do cocktails to go and things like that. Have you taken advantage of any of it? If it has happened, what do you think about it in general? ‘Cause for me, I love that it’s happening and that it feels like this really fun thing. But also, it’s kind of destroying me inside because I’m like, this is happening out of desperation, because we have no support for this industry in this fucking country. And this is showing to me how much we don’t support this industry that is so vital to the United States. Like what was it… I think I saw a figure that was like almost 50 percent of our population could be considered to be employed by the service industry or something crazy like that, right? It’s a huge employer of jobs. And like the bone we’re throwing to these… to these owners and their employees, [in a] literal time of crisis is, “well you can still be open for delivery if you can figure it out”. Instead of like, look, a bail-out’s coming. We got you.

E: And why is it the airlines are getting bailed out? I mean, the airlines are getting bailed out, but that is such a small fraction of workers in this country. If you look at the hospitality industry like you’re saying or the service industry, it really is a massive percentage of people in this country and that there is no framework or support system to really support them. It’s kind of…a travesty.

A: Yeah, it’s fucking infuriating! It’s one of these things where I was talking to a friend who lives in Atlanta last night, who’s in the music business, and he was sort of saying, we used to always think we were recession-proof, and clearly we’re learning we’re not either. A lot of people are losing their jobs there as well because concerts are getting canceled, etc. But he was in his car driving to a restaurant because he had read a lot of our coverage and was like, my wife and I decided we’re going to order out every night. But he’s like we have a kid at home and we’re now also saying, like, are we putting ourselves at risk? Because we’re… because a lot of the restaurants in Atlanta aren’t delivering, they’re asking you to come and pick it up curbside. So now I’m driving out every night to pick up dinner, curbside to bring home, because we want to support our favorite restaurants, we don’t want them to go under. But it’s so upsetting because no one… like that’s all they’re being given basically, is this this new license that allows them to do this. As opposed to what the government should be saying, which is like, look, a bailout like we’ll we got you down the road, there’ll be a lot of loans, we’ll be able to help, etc. I just don’t get it.

Z: Well, there’s three different problems here that all kind of work together. So one of them is the like needs of the business, right? Which is like any business, but restaurants and bars in particular tend to be very… operate on very thin margins. And so they don’t have the ability to just sort of keep open for an indefinite period of time when they’re running a loss. And so there’s the real question, which I think is a valid one, [which] is basically what number of restaurants can realistically even pivot to delivery and/or pick up or whatever, some sort of non- dine-in format and continue to basically make ends meet? And I think the answer is, it can’t be very many, because if delivery and takeout were that profitable, that’s all people would do. And obviously, these are different circumstances and there’s maybe much more appetite for that than there would be traditionally. But there’s a reason that sit-down service has been the staple of American dining for a long time. So there’s the financial aspect of it. There’s also the other question of this, which is, frankly, I hate to be the person that’s like… none of us know how long this is going to last. And it’s one of those things where if you think about it, okay, maybe for a week or two, people are kind of willing to go along with, “Yeah I’m gonna get dinner out every night. I’m going to support other businesses.” But how many people are making enough money where they can, even if it’s less expensive than a sit-down meal, [to] truly [afford] to get takeout or delivery food every night? I mean, there are some people who certainly can. But a lot of us, even if we were inclined to support the industry, even someone like me who’s worked in it, we can’t, you know, my… my family can’t afford to order high-end takeout on a regular basis that it would… that it would take to keep some of these businesses afloat. And so for us there, there’s that balance of, okay, well, I certainly want to keep this industry alive because it’s been my employer for my adult life. But it’s also a recognition that, if we knew that this was a 1-month long issue, that would be one thing. But I think [hopefully] no one is under the misapprehension that [there’s] gonna be an end date and everything goes back to normal. Like at best, we’re talking about probably many months, if not years of a slow recovery. And we’re just… people trying to hang on for now is fine. But I think that the conversation that’s going to come out of this, and it’s already starting and some of the leading lights in food and drink are talking about it is, the industry is gonna be fundamentally changed by this. And what that change looks like is still very open to discussion and interpretation and changing via events and how people behave. But we’re not going to go back to February 2020 levels of… or not the restaurant and bar industry, certainly not for a long time and possibly never.

A: Yeah, I think there’s gonna be a massive shakeout. I think that there’s gonna be a lot of people who sort of re-evaluate if this is the career that they want anymore. I mean, it’s… look, I think there’s a lot of people who are going to re-evaluate after this crisis whether the place they live is where they want to live anymore, right? Like I was talking about that with Naomi, my wife. We were sitting in the apartment thinking like, “we’ve seen a lot of our friends choose in the last week, when they knew that they were gonna have to work from home, choose to go somewhere else,” right? Whether that was to a friend’s house upstate or whether that was like… they have kids and they decided… which good I mean, look up to them to go to a family member’s, right? To help with the kid. But because they said they didn’t want to be in New York during this trying time, I think that that’s making you really evaluate. Then do you want to be in New York long term? Same for probably people who are in Atlanta, Seattle, etc. who might have left. And additionally, I think… I’ve received lots of texts from friends in the industry being like, “I love this industry, but now I’m wondering, is this what I really want to do?” And I think it’s going to be really tough. I think you’re right Zach, I don’t know if we’re going to go back to a time when people were just opening up crazy random concepts all over the place. And, you know, it seemed like every new place had a hot opening and it just doesn’t feel that way right now. And I think that a lot of it is because people in the industry are seeing how insignificant they are to a lot of members of the government. Like… why are they not talking about this? I just…I really… And so that’s why I did want to focus some of our conversation like, how can everyone support them? Who cares deeply about this industry like we do because we’re not getting it from our elected leaders right now. So I think the biggest thing first, right? Anyone who’s listening to this podcast, you need to call your congressman, your senators, and you need to say to them, where is the bailout for the hospitality industry?

E: Right. Exactly.

A: The Executive Branch is talking very loudly about a bailout for the airlines, where is the bailout for the hospitality industry, right? What is the plan going to be moving forward? There is a fundamental part… to support a fundamental part of American life? Because they’re not getting it. And then I would say to you, if you’re a listener and you run a company right now, [or] are part of a company that is doing quite well in this time, which we know there are. We know that off-premise alcohol sales have been very high recently. How can you help? Because this is, again, a very important part of our entire industry. A lot of these restaurants and bars are the first places that they discover your products. So I know we’ve seen some really cool stuff happen so far, right? Guinness pledged five hundred thousand dollars to a bunch of bars and restaurants. Jameson did the same thing, right? But what other brands are gonna step up and do that? Because these are the brands I think that will gain a lot of love from the industry moving forward by showing that they’re there for them. I understand that not every brand has that financial capacity, but those that do I think it’s important to think about stepping up.

E: Yeah, I think they’ll generate a lot of goodwill. Absolutely.

A: Erica, I know that you’ve been working on a lot of other ways, though, so can you give us some ideas of ways that we can all help?

E: Yeah, definitely. [I’ll] list some of the different organizations that we know are doing a good job and that already have funds in place. No need to take notes, this is all at giveback.vinepair.com. I’ll go through four of the national ones, but on our site, you’ll see a lot more regional organizations and foundations that you can also give to. And if people in industry are listening, or if other organizations are listening who would like to be listed, please just contact us at [email protected]. So, the first one I’ll talk about is the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation. This is a 501c3. It’s created by and for restaurant workers and it now has a Covid-19 Crisis Relief Fund. So this relief fund is for individual workers. And another part of it is going to zero interest loans to businesses for when they are able to reopen. So that’s a good place to donate if you are able to. The next one is the United States Bartenders Guild, that’s a nonprofit that operates in 50 different cities around the U.S. and they are doing grants for bartenders and their families who’ve been affected by Covid-19. You don’t need to be a member to apply for a grant. And if you want to donate any funds to this grant, know that Jameson Whiskey has pledged $500,000 to the fund directly. And then they’re also matching up to $100,000 in additional donations. The advocacy group One Fair Wage: they started an emergency fund to provide cash assistance to tipped workers and service workers who’ve been affected by Covid-19. The organization is providing these grants to as many eligible workers as possible. So right now they’ve said that they…it’s two $213 per every eligible worker. And that number was chosen to highlight the current $2.13 sub-minimum wage for tipped workers. And then the last one that’s on our national list is the Dining Bonds Initiative from supportrestaurants.org. And that allows anyone to purchase gift certificates at the participating restaurants for twenty five percent below face value. But then when the restaurants reopen you, they’re redeemable for full value. So that allows the restaurants to both receive an influx of cash right now and a guarantee of future business. So those are some of the main funds and foundations that we’re highlighting. But again, this is an evolving list. I literally am receiving emails around the clock from organizations who are approaching me saying that they’re going to be doing wine auctions and all sorts of different types of fundraisers and so forth that are just coming together. So as the details evolve we’ll be sharing that on the site and we’ll have it pinned up at the top of our NAV and you’ll see it’s giveback.vinepair.com.

Z: I want to come back to something Adam mentioned a little bit ago, which is sort of this idea of how producers, you know, wineries, distilleries, breweries, etc. can potentially give back. Both because they may be less affected at the moment, because for many of them, they can still sell direct-to-consumer or through retail channels, and also because as Adam mentioned there, for a lot of people, the restaurant or bar is the point where they first try the product. And lastly, because frankly, they have always operated on higher margins than restaurants and bars in the first place. And I think that, obviously there’s no virtue in drowning yourself to try and save someone else, so make sure that you’re financially in a position that you can help. But I would really call upon those parts of the industry in particular to look at what they can do and whether that’s… Yeah, fundraisers, whether that’s, looking to add staff, if at all possible. And obviously, we all understand that these are difficult times for everyone. And certainly with people mostly having to work from home, there’s plenty of industries that don’t have the capacity to take on additional work from labor. But there are a lot of people out of work. There are a lot of people who have no idea what the future holds for them. And that support, I also really hope and to emphasize, the best you can do is try to provide support directly to the hourly workers who are most at risk here, who have been… all or not all, but many of whom have lost their jobs or are going to be relying on what are, at this point, insufficient unemployment benefits. I mean, I’m currently waiting to get my first unemployment check from the state of Washington. And while it’s certainly going to be better than zero money, it’s not anywhere near what I was making on a regular basis. And that’s how unemployment is designed. It’s not designed to be an exact replacement for lost income. And so for a lot of people in the restaurant industry and in the beverage industry generally, returning to work is going to be challenging. And so obviously, there’s a lot of much larger, longer societal conversation about what do we do with all these people who are going to need jobs and for whom the industry that they’ve worked in may not really be a place that they can find a job for a while, but for the time being, those people need to be able to pay their rent, presumably buy groceries, do the things that they have to do to literally stay alive. And so the production side of the industry can, I think, help maybe pick up at least a little bit of that slack, both financially and maybe in terms of work.

A: Couldn’t have said it better man. I think that is the perfect place, I feel like to wrap up \this episode of the VinePair podcast. Again, we’ll be coming out with much more regular conversations with people in the industry that are affected by Covid-19 over the next few weeks. Love to hear your thoughts at [email protected]. And then as always, if you have anything to add, if there’s something that you want us to talk about, especially surrounding this crisis and what’s happening to all of us in this amazing industry that we all love, please let us know. And with that, I’m going to say we’ll see you all here back next week.

Z: Sounds great!

A: Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast, if you like what you’ve heard please rate us or review us wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps people discover the show.

Now for the credits: The VinePair podcast is produced by myself and Zach Geballe, and is engineered by Nick Patri. We’re recorded out of cloud studios in Seattle, Washington and also in our New York City headquarters. I’d also like to give a special shout out to my co-founder Josh Malin and the rest of the VinePair staff who help us conceive of the podcast every single week. Thanks again for listening.

The article VinePair Podcast: How to Give Back to Hospitality Professionals Impacted by Covid-19 appeared first on VinePair.

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johnboothus · 5 years

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VinePair Podcast: How to Give Back to Hospitality Professionals Impacted by Covid-19

Listen on iTunes

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LISTEN ONLINE OR CHECK OUT OUR CONVERSATION HERE:

Adam: From my apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: From my apartment in Jersey City, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

Z: “In my den in Ballard, I’m Zach Geballe.” Just hanging out here with a bunch of kids’ toys and a basketball that probably isn’t going to get any use for a while.

E: I mean, I love Pais, how was it overlooked, and used in these big agricultural jug wines for so long? It’s amazing.

A: True. So, buddy, how are you holding up?

E: Right. Exactly.

E: Yeah, I think they’ll generate a lot of goodwill. Absolutely.

A: Erica, I know that you’ve been working on a lot of other ways, though, so can you give us some ideas of ways that we can all help?

Z: Sounds great!

A: Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast, if you like what you’ve heard please rate us or review us wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps people discover the show.

The article VinePair Podcast: How to Give Back to Hospitality Professionals Impacted by Covid-19 appeared first on VinePair.

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universal-translation-services · 5 years

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Top Arabic Malayalam Dictionaries

There are a lot of weird connections in the world that would not have been predicted by anyone. Even if some of them are not weird anymore, they were unexpected at one time. Who would have thought combining bananas with bread can turn into something so delicious. But we live in a global world where everything is connected in one way or another. But the biggest and strongest connections are between people and their cultures. All of us are always affecting each other and changing the lives of everyone around us. You can see many examples of this in your life by observing the influence others have on you.

The Arabic Language:

Arabic has been around for a long time. It is a known fact that its religious value has increased its importance. Muslims all over the world can read bits and pieces of it if they have had a religious upbringing. But understanding it is another thing which is mostly limited to the native speakers. It is very difficult to learn Arabic and requires a lot more time than it would to learn any modern vernacular. But the Arab world is known for its wealth, which is why a lot of businesses turn to it for profits. There are many people who have moved to one of the Arabic speaking countries to earn a better living. Fortunately for them, however, they do not have to learn the tongue as English is accepted in the offices of foreign companies.

The Malayalam Language:

Although the origin of the language is disputed, most experts believe it to be an off-shoot of Middle Tamil. It is officially recognized in the Indian constitution and spoken by the people living in the state of Kerala. It is also spoken by a small number of people in a few other states of India. In the country, it is considered a classical language. It has more than 37 million speakers, which explains its importance in the world. It has undergone changes throughout its history and has been influenced by modern vernaculars too.

Top Arabic Malayalam Dictionaries:

You may not think of it, but people might require Arabic to Malayalam or Malayalam to Arabic translation at some point in their lives. The Arab world has plenty of economically successful countries. India is another economic power where any business would love to open its shop. Which is why it is completely understandable if the two worlds interact from time to time. Even an individual from either region can require linguistic assistance to understand the language of the other area. Online dictionaries can prove to be somewhat helpful in this situation. Here are the top Arabic Malayalam dictionaries that you can easily find online:

Google Translate:

No discussion of online dictionaries can ever be completed without mentioning this name. It is, without a doubt, the best translation assistance available for free. It can be accessed by a computer or through an app on your phone. You can also use it without the internet, but that feature only supports a few vernaculars. One of the best things about this service is that it supports a hundred tongues, and that list will include more names in the future. You can easily translate Arabic to Malayalam, and vice versa, through Google Translate. However, the accuracy may vary depending on the length of sentences you need assistance with. The tool is more useful with single words when it comes to complicated language like Malayalam. When it comes to phrases, the algorithm used by this tool may fail to help you accurately.

Glosbe:

Another famous dictionary available online is Glosbe. However, this one is only available on the web. There are a lot of useful features of Glosbe, which can prove to be helpful when you need Arabic to Malayalam translation. It not only offers you the translation of a word but also suggests uses for the word or phrase it comes up with. For instance, if you need the meaning of an Arabic word in Malayalam, Glosbe will show the word and then also suggest sentences that contain the word so you can figure out how to use it in your conversations.

Arabic to Malayalam Dictionary by Syamu Vellanad:

This Android app is a favorite among users. It is a dedicated app for those who require Arabic to Malayalam translations. It does not offer linguistic solutions for any other language. But it has been rated highly by users, which proves that it is accurate. It cannot be used by businesses, but it is helpful for conversations among friends. It also comes with support for Arabic keyboard so you can type words directly in the app and get their translation, instead of typing them in English first, as is the case with a few other dictionaries. The one negative aspect of this is that it doesn’t include many words and can be frustrating to use at times. Although the internet has offered us a lot of solutions, and there is an app for almost everything, some jobs will always require the touch of a human. If a business requires Arabic to Malayalam dictionaries translation, they will have to get in touch with qualified professionals for the task. They cannot rely on Google Translate or any other online service for the solution. As much as we love the internet and our smart devices, they cannot be accurate with their linguistic solutions. Read the full article

#Glosbe #Google_Translate #Malayalam_Language #Arabic_Language #Malayalam_Dictionaries

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What Makes The Expanse a Truly International Show

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We talked to the cast and creators behind The Expanse about bringing such a global story to the Amazon platform.

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When The Expanse Season 4 launches on Amazon in December, the science fiction drama based on the bestselling series of books by James S.A. Corey will be available in the "same" place around the world for the first time ever as an Amazon Global Original.

Previously, The Expanse aired on Syfy in the United States, streamed on Amazon Prime domestically, and was available internationally via Netflix, with all of those release dates coming at different times. When Amazon swooped in to save The Expanse after Syfy cancelled it after three seasons, that not only meant we would get more of one of the best and most vital shows on TV, it also meant that, moving forward, this story would be made available to multiple countries closer to the same time.

Prime Video, as it is sometimes known, launched globally in 2016, becoming available in more than 200 countries and territories. This is in addition to the more than 100 million people in the U.S. who have access to Amazon Prime Video, according to a Consumer Intelligence Research Partners survey.

While The Expanse has always been a show that works to include diverse perspectives and tell a story about what outward expansion would look like not just for the United States or the western world, but for the entirety of the human race, this is particularly true heading into Season 4, based off the events of Corey's Cibola Burn. When we catch back up with the crew of the Roci, they will be setting off on a U.N. mission to explore the new worlds beyond the Ring Gates, the first step of a new world for humanity, which is now faced with the opportunity to explore thousands of Earth-like planets.

read more: The Expanse Season 4 — What's Next For Naomi & Amos?

Den of Geek was part of a group of reporters who had the chance to chat with the cast and creative team behind The Expanse about the move to Amazon and what makes The Expanse such an international show.

"Whether we succeeded or not, it was always the intention to not have the American experience of space, you know, the mandate was always the show cannot be white guys in space," says Ty Franck, one half of the writing team known as James S.A. Corey who writes the books and serves as an executive producer on the show.

"Because of that [mandate]," says Franck, "we always sort of tried to write to as many different audiences as we could. Hopefully we succeed more than we fail, that's always the intention. And I think, you get people in other countries, they see themselves on screen, and we're talking about issues that are true worldwide and not just true here."

Franck's writing partner and fellow executive producer Daniel Abraham noted that, in writing The Expanse book series, the authors drew from historical precedent and not just American or western examples. Because "history rhymes," Abraham said, this has led to the books and TV show feeling not only internationally-relevant, but also extremely topical, with The Expanse showrunner Naren Shankar adding that modern parallels to the experiences the characters go through in the series are often discussed in the writers room, using the Syrian refugee crisis and Prax's experience as a refugee as one example.

read more: Why We Need The Expanse More Than Ever

"It was always a part of the project," says Abraham, speaking about the books' diverse cast of characters that is also maintained in the show. "When we were talking about it, the mandate of the books was to be as rich, as diverse and the full as our lived experience of world and doing less than that seems weird. So as long as the show was as complex as like a teaching hospital, we win."

"And everybody is, you know, first and foremost human," adds Shankar, "which means, they're good and they're bad. There are violent people and kind people on every side of the factions in terms of Earth, Mars, and the Belt, of every color and every gender. It's like... they're people. And that's what people are."

While it's important to note that The Expanse is an American TV series filmed in Canada and based on a series of novels written by two Americans, it also includes an incredibly diverse cast who hail from around the world themselves. We spoke to some of them about what makes The Expanse an international show and what the move to Amazon could mean for the show's ability to start conversations and encourage change.

read more: The Expanse Season 5 Confirmed

"I am very excited about the fact that they are on Amazon because this is a global show," says Dominique Tipper, who plays Belter and Roci crew member Naomi. "It's very allegorical and I think not many of the people see themselves in the characters, but they see themselves in the situations that the characters find themselves in."

Tipper, who is half-Domincan, half British and grew up East London, hopes that The Expanse finds a broader audience now that it is on Amazon. "I'm really excited that we are now with somebody who has the kind of weight that Amazon does. Because I think the show is worthy of that in what it represents across the board."

"I just want it to go further," Tipper says. "I wonder if the little kids that grew up how a lot of us on the show grew up have seen it yet. I don't know if they have and I didn't know what it would do for them. I hope it would empower them, and I'm really interested in that and I'm interested in using the show as a vehicle for that—not only for it to be seen as art, but maybe we can use it as some kind of vehicle for outreach in the communities that we represent because I don't really see the point of it otherwise. So I think we're going to start working on that."

I am half Dominican & half British & like so many of the BAME faces you see on your UK AND US TV screens, WE are descendants of the Windrush generation. The Windrush generation have as much right to be here in the UK as any one else. Please support this cause! @AllWindrush %u2764%uFE0F pic.twitter.com/fXVa2aj8N1

— Dominique Tipper (@Mi55Tipper) May 23, 2018

Frankie Adams, a New Zealand-Samoan actress who plays Martian Bobbie Draper, is proud to be an example of a Pacific Islander on TV, but notes that she is one of only few examples across film and television.

"There's not really many of us that are going active on the world stage, " says Adams, who was born in Samoa and grew up in New Zealand, "and the only person I can think of that I saw when I was younger was Lilo from Lilo & Stitch and her big sister, and that was great, but there was never anybody that I saw that I was like, 'Oh my god, that's me,' you know?"

read more: The Expanse Book 8 Review — Tiamat's Wrath

Adams spoke about the privilege of having the opportunity to be that for other women, saying: "I definitely experience that with women in New Zealand, Australia, and in the Pacific Islands where they've gone, 'Oh, like Frankie's doing it, that's so awesome.' It just gives them so much hope and I think it's such a wonderful thing to do for young women."

The only photo I got at the wrap party. You%u2019re welcome. pic.twitter.com/Wt5d1htlLd

— Frankie Adams (@ffrankieadams) January 28, 2019

"The show is about the people of the world," says Iranian-American actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, who plays U.N. Secretary-General Chrisjen Avasarala on The Expanse. "It should have been on Amazon from Day One. If it's about the people of the world it should be shown to the people of the world."

Aghdashloo says that, prior to the Amazon switch, she would have to tape the show and send it to her brothers and mother, who live in the U.K., to watch.

"Now, they get to watch it simultaneously," says Aghdashloo. "These game-changers can change everything, it's just incredible, unbelievable that the whole world gets to watch this show and see what is happening in this future world. Which they keep calling it science fiction and I keep saying there's nothing fiction about it anymore, this is what is happening in today's world."

Cas Anvar, who plays Martian and Roci crew member Alex, was born in Canada to Iranian parents. He spoke to Den of Geek about the importance of the organic diversity of the Expanse world, and how important it is not only for viewers of color, but white audience members as well, to see.

read more: The Expanse Season 4 Reveals Release Date, Footage at SDCC

"It's not just as important for the kids of color and the women of color and the paint color to see themselves," Anvar says. "It's also equally important for the people who are not of color to see these people in those positions so that they can go, 'That's normal.'"

"I think it's only fitting because it is such a global narrative," says Steven Strait, who plays Holden, of the move to Amazon. "We were in Europe recently and we went through Germany and we met people from France and all over that part of the world. And it's remarkable how universal the story is."

Strait said he was struck by the fact that, even though the source material was written beginning almost 10 years ago, the story feels so relevant to what's happening now.

"I think we do have a globalized world," Strait says, "and a lot of the issues we deal with in the show sociopolitically and what not are mirrored all over the place: the things we're dealing with in the States are similar things they are dealing with, Europe which are similar things they're dealing with, Asia. It's a universal human narrative."

The Expanse Season 3 Reviews | The Expanse Season 2 Reviews

For Strait and the other cast members, The Expanse represents not only a chance to tell an important story, but starts important discussions.

"The show really reflects the current state of affairs and how intimately it shows what the repercussions of those things are across borders," says Strait. "[Science fiction] is a genre that really lends itself to allegory and using allegory in very powerful way. One of the things I'm most proud of on this show is that, in a time where things are really divided and it's very difficult to communicate across partisan lines or social lines or whatever... art can manage to bridge a divide and you can spark conversations out there that maybe wouldn't be had otherwise. If you mask the names and times, and things like that, that allow it to be more digestible. I think it's one of the things I'm most proud of about this show. The work feels important."

The Expanse Season 4 will return on December 13th on Amazon. The show has already been greenlit for a fifth season.

Kayti Burt is a staff editor covering books, TV, movies, and fan culture at Den of Geek. Read more of her work here or follow her on Twitter @kaytiburt.

Read and download the Den of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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