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margridarnauds · 4 years ago

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1) How'd you get into Japanese Musicals?, 2) Favorite Celtic Myth?, 3) Favorite POTO Cast (Real Trio that existed together + make a trio of anyone you want)?

(1) I feel like this is a fairly common origin story for the international fandom of Japanese musicals, but I got in, primarily, through German musicals that had been given Japanese productions. I had the...luck (?) of falling into Frank Wildhorn musicals around 2011-2012, which was perfect because it was timed EXACTLY so that I was there when the very first Japanese production of Dracula happened, and so I watched the proshot of that. I thought it was okay, not my FAVORITE (that went, at the time, to the German, though now I’m firmly #TeamKorea), but it was good! And it was a good introduction.

Because of the German production of Dracula, I fell into Elisabeth (aka “The Reason I took up German in the first place) and, like a ton of people, fell into the Takarazuka production of Elisabeth (and The Scarlet Pimpernel, because Wildhorn) because of that, though it still wasn’t a great, overwhelming love for me. It was okay, it was pretty, but not an OVERWHELMING love.

I was interested in Lady Bess...fairly early on, I want to say 2014-2015, not long after its premiere, because I was like “Oh, Kunze and Levay are doing a musical on Elizabeth I? PRETTY COSTUMES?” I think I actually was there to see the very early press releases, ft. the English demos, as they were released. But, of course, Lady Bess was a bit of a white whale. There was NOTHING on it, the cast album was phenomenal, but that was ALL, really. Very little in the way of video, very little in the way of pictures (now I could probably find them, but back then I was a bit on my own), nothing in the way of plot. So, I basically gave it up for lost, though I retained hope that, one day, SOMETHING would surface on it.

Then, 1789. Attending the European Musicals Streamathon in....around 2017. Seeing the Takarazuka 1789. It was like LIGHTNING. I’d loved the French production, though I fell out of it due to the general disdain for it that I felt in the French Musicals fandom at the time, but, if I’d loved it before, the Zuka made me fall in love with it x10. I wrote fanfic, for the first time in my fandom life (or, at least, fanfic that saw the light of day), I got involved in the world of Takarazuka (I’m not as much there as I am with Toho, and I know some people probably think I actively dislike it, but it IS where my roots are, and I retain a ton of affection for it), attended streams, etc. It got me into the rabbit hole of Japanese musical theatre, really, though Toho would have to come a little later.

Then, in 2018: The announcement that Lady Bess was coming back. I don’t know how, but even then, I had the sense of “What if they do a proshot, like they did for Elisabeth and Mozart? What if we get that?” And then, shortly afterwards. The announcement. It was a “HOLY SHIT” moment, because I’d been waiting for FOUR YEARS and there it was. And it was expensive, especially for a family that. Well, no nice way of putting it, we’re well below poverty level.

It was also...perfectly if also morbidly timed as well, because 2018 is on the record as being one of my most difficult years, even next to 2020. In 2018, I was a senior, just wrapping up my undergrad, I was overworked, exhausted, terrified of not getting my capstone in, and my uncle had just died in the last month or so of my program (along with my paternal grandfather), with my mom, who’s generally my #1 supporter, not able to be there for me at home because she was often over at his place, taking care of him.

I was, frankly, absolutely miserable.

But my mom told me that, as a present for dealing with....everything, I could get any Japanese musical that I wanted. And I chose Lady Bess.

I remember taking it back from the post office, SO excited because it was actually REAL and I could hold it after all that time, and then getting my mom and aunt to play it in the front room so that I could finally see it. And then, with that first shot of the night sky as the overture plays, as Ascham takes the stage, I was totally in love and, more than that, my family was, too.

Then the announcement that 1789 was going to re-run. As soon as I saw it, I thought of Lady Bess, and I was like “....are they....?” And then the resulting announcement shortly afterwards, which had me conflicted because, on one hand. It was *1789*. Arguably the single greatest musical love of my life, the musical that got me to write and publish fanfiction. And it was the TOHO one, the one that the entire fandom had been curious about since 2016. But also. My family had just spent the money on Lady Bess. It was hard to justify pre-ordering 1789, no matter how in love they were with Lady Bess.

But, as it was, I had a streak of luck - I’d been given some money as a graduation present by a close friend of the family (which was given under the STRICT order that I buy something “frivolous”), and so, with nothing else really frivolous to spend it on...I was basically vibrating around six months later, when the proshot arrived in the mail, and got to put it in the DVD player.

If my family fell in insta-love with Lady Bess, they REALLY fell in love with the energy of 1789. To the point where we watched either it or Lady Bess once a night. And, from there...I was sold. No real going back for me. The last year, I’ve not been able to keep up with the new releases (I know when they happen, but I can’t buy them), but I’m still very much IN, and it’s me the chance to know some very, very awesome people. It was a long road, but definitely worth it, in my opinion.

(2) Cath Maige Tuired! My actual baby, my child, the love of my life, the one that really got me into it in the first place. (Read the Elizabeth Gray translation, skip the Stokes.) It was reading John Carey’s article on “Myth and Mythography in Cath Maige Tuired” that I realized that people could study this stuff AS A FIELD and, not only that, but Americans could do it to, and since that point...I never really wanted anything else, besides the odd break. It is funny because, when I was doing aforementioned Capstone, my mom wanted to read up on it, since it was a major part of my work and she wanted to get involved. And I was like “Sure, here!”

...since I’d been reading CMT since I was 14. I had forgotten that it contains one of the single most explicit sex scenes in medieval Irish literature.

Coming from a fantasy background, it’s probably the closest you can get to a fantasy novel, in terms of scope and characterization - you have this vast variety of characters who, even though we don’t get INTERIORITY into them as such, do have quite a bit of depth to them once you pick below the surface, and it has a hundred different angles. I think that the best description was by Mark Williams, who described it as being “like shards of mirror stuck into the ground at angles to one another”, because that really is it. You have a hundred things going on, a hundred characters reflecting and refracting against one another, a hundred different social contexts, and the result is a work that, while seemingly a very simple tale about kingship and power and good and evil, is very complex.

(3) I can’t speak as much about acting since, in all honesty....I haven’t. Really. Watched any POTO bootlegs. All the way through. (I’M A FAKE FAN, I KNOW. I KNOW.)

That being said, I THINK that, as far as trios that have played, Kim So Hyun, Hong Kwang Ho, and Son Jun Ho have my entire heart. Kim So Hyun has a BRILLIANT voice, and a very distinctive porcelain doll-esque appearance that fits her very well, Hong Kwang Ho has a magnificent voice (first fell in love with him in Death Note), and Son Jun Ho....you can tell that he’s married to Kim So Hyun in real life because there’s such a tenderness to their performance - It really sells R/C.

Honorable mentions include Claire Moore’s Christine, who’s had my heart from the first time I heard her very distinctive, haunting “oo” cadenza, Ivan Ozhogin, Celia Hottenstein (got to see her live so I’ve had a soft spot for her Christine ever since), Jeremy Hays, Hugh Panaro (who was once kind enough to deal with a teenaged fan at stage door for a concert of his and take a picture, as well as sign my playbill) and....there are definitely others.

#thanks for the ask!#Anonymous #also: Always willing to take POTO recommendations!

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shawwillsuffice · 7 years ago

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Every album and song referenced in every book by Hanif Abdurraqib

I decided to put together this list after finishing Hanif’s latest full-length book, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays. For those not familiar with Hanif, he’s a poet and essayist who really loves to talk about music. He writes a lot about hip hop, punk, and emo, but I also once texted him out of the blue to ask his opinion of the largely forgotten 90′s boy band O-Town and he had a number of clearly well-thought-out observations ready to go immediately. He writes about music in ways that are simultaneously about other very big things in his life and the society and communities that shaped it. It’s something I deeply appreciate, as a person for whom narrative storytelling is often the only way for me to express the things I’m thinking and feeling, for which simpler words just won’t cut it. His books are about fear, or heartbreak, or gentrification, or religion, or death and mourning, or hope, but they’re also pretty much all about music.

With that in mind, I decided to make it my 2018 New Year’s Resolution to listen to every album and song referenced in his books, and since I had to make this list anyway, I figure I’ll share it in case anyone else wants to do the same, or just wants an exhaustive list of Hanif’s music references for some other reason.

For clarity’s sake, this list includes songs and albums, but not instances where musical artists are named without reference to any of their actual material. I’ve omitted names of individual songs in cases where the albums they appear on are referenced in the same poem or essay. I’ve also tried to include indirect references that rely on context cues without identifying actual titles or song lyrics, though I’m sure I’ve missed some.

Of course, if any of this sounds at all interesting, I’d recommend buying the books themselves. The chapbooks are quite hard to find, unfortunately. Vintage Sadness famously sold out in pre-sale, even after the publisher more than doubled the print run due to overwhelming demand, and if there are any copies of Three Crosses or To Ex-Girlfriends to be had anywhere besides my bookshelf, I sure as hell can’t find them. However, both of the full-length books, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much and They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us are still very much available.

Three Crosses (2012)

- The Notorious B.I.G., Life After Death (”And it’s full. Been full. Stays full. Full since that ‘97 summer / When Biggie blared out of everything with windows. Everything that could breathe.”) - Johnny Cash, “Oh Bury Me Not” - Taylor Swift, “Last Kiss” - Michael Jackson, “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” - Stevie Wonder, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” (”Michelle Obama loves punk rock music. / Rolls her eyes backstage when Barack picks yet another Stevie Wonder standard to stroll out to during campaign stops.”) - The Clash, “I’m So Bored with the U.S.A.” - The Pogues, Red Roses for Me - Nirvana, In Utero

To Ex-Girlfriends (2014, I think?)

- The Who, “My Generation” - Johnny Cash, “John Henry’s Hammer” - Johnny Cash, “Cocaine Blues” (”In Folsom, they banged on metal tables / when you talked about that .44 you kept under your pillow”) - Jay-Z, Big Pimpin’ - The Notorious B.I.G., “Mo Money Mo Problems” - Diana Ross, “I’m Coming Out” - Johnny Cash, “I Never Picked Cotton” - Jay-Z and Kanye West, “No Church in the Wild” - Against Me!, “Thrash Unreal” - Van Morrison, “Sweet Thing” - Hall & Oates, “Sara Smile” - Hall & Oates, “Rich Girl”

The Crown Ain’t Worth Much (2016)

- Jay-Z, “Where I’m From” - Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin’” - Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On” (”& he starts in on some marvin & the words ‘brother, brother, brother / there’s far too many of you dying’ crawl from his lips) - Fall Out Boy, “Saturday” - Jay-Z, “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” (”& Jay-Z called himself Hova / twelve times in one song”) - The Notorious B.I.G., “Mo Money Mo Problems” - Taking Back Sunday, Tell All Your Friends - Nick Drake, “Pink Moon” - The Notorious B.I.G., “N****s Bleed” - Something Corporate, “Konstantine” - Fall Out Boy, “Sugar We’re Goin’ Down” (”We wrote ‘IGNORE YOUR GOD COMPLEX’ in every bathroom stall on campus one of those years even though we knew the right lyrics”) - Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d. city - Whitney Houston, “How Will I Know” - Third Eye Blind, “Semi-Charmed Life” - The Temptations, “I Wish It Would Rain” - Nina Simone, “Mississippi Goddamn” - Nina Simone, “Sinnerman” - Nirvana, “Lithium”

Vintage Sadness (2017)

- Blood Orange ft. Carly Rae Jepsen, “Better Than Me” - Kanye West, “Only One” - Jay-Z and Kanye West, “No Church in the Wild” - Duran Duran, “Girls On Film” - Carly Rae Jepsen, “E*Mo*Tion” - Ginuwine, “Pony” - The Four Seasons, “December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)” - Jay-Z and Kanye West, “Illest Motherfucker Alive” - Aaliyah, “Rock the Boat” - Soul Decision, “Faded” - Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” - Guns N’ Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle” - Kelis, “Milkshake” - Jay-Z, “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” - Bone Thugs N Harmony, “Crossroads” - Next, “Too Close” - Olivia Newton John, “Let’s Get Physical” - Cutting Crew, “(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight” - Soul II Soul, “However Do You Want Me” - Jay-Z and Kanye West, “N****s in Paris”

They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us (2017)

- The U.S. National Anthem - Bruce Springsteen, “Born in the U.S.A.” - Lil Uzi Vert, “XO TOUR Llif3″ - Fetty Wap, “Trap Queen” - Chance the Rapper, Coloring Book - The Social Experiment, “Sunday Candy” - Chance the Rapper, Acid Rap - Drake, Views - Bruce Springsteen, The River - Carly Rae Jepsen, E*Mo*Tion - Carly Rae Jepsen, “Call Me Maybe” - Semisonic, “Closing Time” - Marcy Playground, “Sex and Candy” - Prince, “Baby, I’m a Star” - Bob Dylan, “All Along the Watchtower” - Foo Fighters, “Best of You” - Prince, “Purple Rain” - ScHoolboy Q, Oxymoron - The Notorious B.I.G., “N****s Bleed” - The Weeknd, Kiss Land - The Weeknd, House of Balloons - The Weeknd, Thursday - The Weeknd, Echoes of Silence - Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On - NOFX, “Don’t Call Me White” - Brand New, “Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades” - The Wonder Years, Suburbia I’ve Given You All And Now I’m Nothing - The Wonder Years, The Greatest Generation - The Wonder Years, No Closer to Heaven - Constellations, Alpha - Twenty One Pilots, Regional At Best - Rihanna, “Work” - Cute Is What We Aim For, The Same Old Blood Rush with a New Touch - Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Blank Generation - My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance, May Death Never Stop You - My Chemical Romance, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - Defiance, Ohio, Share What Ya Got - Defiance, Ohio, The Great Depression - Fall Out Boy, Folie a Deux - Fall Out Boy, “Saturday” - Fall Out Boy, Infinity on High - Fall Out Boy, From Under the Cork Tree - Bobby Womack, “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” - Fall Out Boy, “Dead On Arrival” - Three 6 Mafia, “Star Fly” - Willie Hutch, “Tell Me Why Has Our Love Turned Cold” - Michael Jackson, Thriller - Ice Cube, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted - Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly - The Impressions, “People Get Ready” - “The Gospel Train” - “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” - Sam Cooke, “A Change Is Gonna Come” - “Wade in the Water” - Foxx, “Wipe Me Down” - Webbie, Savage Life 2 - Lil Boosie, Incarcerated - Boosie Badazz, Touch Down 2 Cause Hell - Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac, Rumours - Atmosphere, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold - The Notorious B.I.G., Life After Death - Diana Ross, “I’m Coming Out” - Big Pun, “Still Not a Player” - Bertolt Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann, The Threepenny Opera - Nina Simone, Nina Simone In Concert - Nina Simone, “Baltimore” - Nina Simone, “Sinnerman” - Lupe Fiasco, Food and Liquor - Migos, Culture - Migos, Juug Season - Migos, “Versace” - “When the Saints Go Marching In” - Johnny Cash, “Folsom Prison Blues” - Johnny Cash, At Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash, “Hurt” - N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton - Ice Cube, “No Vaseline” - 3rd Bass, “Pop Goes the Weasel” - Bone Thugs N Harmony, “Thug Love” - Bubba Sparxxx, Deliverance - Asher Roth, RetroHash - Asher Roth, “I Love College” (”Saw him in 2015 at some festival and a drunk white woman kept yelling at him to play the college song.”) - Macklemore, The Heist - Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d. city - Macklemore, This Unruly Mess I’ve Made - Future, Honest - Future, Dirty Sprite 2 - Future and Drake, What a Time to Be Alive - Future, Evol - Future, Beast Mode - Future, 56 Nights - Future, Purple Reign - Future, Future - Future, HNDRXX

#Hanif Abdurraqib #Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib #the crown ain't worth much #vintage sadness #They can't kill us until they kill us

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chrismarshall1948 · 5 years ago

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Kyla left on Friday morning leaving Patrick and I to take the boat up to sheephaven.

On the same day Elisabeth visited the boat from her self-catering apartment and helped us out by getting some shopping in, with Patrick helping her.

We had a long chat with John the harbourmaster and another chap who gave us lots of useful information.

We went aground coming into Sligo in the supposedly dredged channel which had a larger Sandbank going across it.

This was 4 hours after high water so we had a good 4 hour wait before we could get off again with the boat heeled over at an angle of 22 degrees very uncomfortable.

Kyla went very quiet but she still succeeded in cooking our dinner for us at an angle of 22 degrees, hats off to her what a saviour.

At the far end of the pontoon in Sligo there was a 40-ft abandoned boat with debris strewn all over the decks and obviously not been cared for, for many a year.

The owner had died and passed the boat to his daughter who lived far far away in Cornwall and the harbourmaster was wondering what was going to happen to the boat.

The boat have been all over the place and the owner had lived on it for 30 years and all his personal possessions were left on the boat what a sad story.

The trip up from Sligo has been fairly uneventful. We went across Donegal Bay and anchored in Teelin Harbour then carried on around Malin more head with a fantastic coastline and up to Aran Island.

The weather has been very hot and the days were both motoring with very little sailing, later in the day we managed to get the sales up.

The trip from rosilian Bay on the Aran Isles to sheephaven was quite eventful.

It started off oily calm, motoring, then in the afternoon the wind got up we put the sails up. It then became quite brisk and at 230pm we got the sails down and motored into our Anchorage in sheephaven arriving at around 4:30 p.m.

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todaynewsstories · 6 years ago

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Prague′s astronomical clock moves again | DW Travel | DW

On Friday, September 28, the figures of the apostles and the hands of the historic clockwork from 1410 will once again move before the public’s eyes in Prague’s Old Town from 6 p.m. onwards.

Last check before recommissioning

Every hour on the hour, the figures of the twelve apostles will once again appear as usual at the little door. On the square in front of the town hall a crowd of people with visitors from all over the world will form regularly.

“Orloj” in Prague

The famous Prague clock is probably the oldest astronomical clock in the world that is still in operation. Among other things, it also shows the phases of the moon. The first major restoration in decades took place despite a legend that says the country is threatened by war and disaster if the clock stops one day.

is/ks (dpa)