#(this is geographic center not including any of the islands that are also counted as part of San Francisco)

[graveyardrabbit]

marker for the geographic center of San Francisco, Corbett Street

[jamestaylorswift]

My giant goes with me wherever I go: a study of the geographic metanarrative of folklore

This topic has been rattling around in my brain ever since I first heard folklore and I think it’s endlessly fascinating. Cue this lengthy but (hopefully) intriguing piece.

I’m afraid the title may not be an accurate reflection of this essay’s content, so here’s a preview of talking points: geography, existence, metanarrative, making sense of the theme of death, the “peace”/“hoax”/“the lakes” trio, history/philosophy, and exactly one paragraph of rep/Lover analysis (as a treat).

I make the standard disclaimer that analysis is by definition subjective. Additionally, many thanks and credit to anyone else who has written analysis of folklore. I am sure my opinions have been influenced by yours, even subconsciously.

Questions, comments, and suggestions are always welcome, and thank you for taking the time to read :)

——

“Traveling is a fool’s paradise. We owe to our first journeys the discovery that place is nothing. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me in the stern Fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

——

If Taylor Swift’s music is anything, it is highly geographic. Taylor has been a country, pop, and now alternative artist, yet a storyteller through and through—one with a special knack for developing the aesthetic of songs and even entire records through location. The people and places she writes about seem to mutually breathe life into each other.

It is plausible that Taylor, as a young storyteller, developed this talent by using places as veritable muses just like she did anything else. Furthermore, her confessional storytelling became much more geographic as she shifted to pop because of factors including (though certainly not limited to) purchasing real estate, traveling more, writing in a genre that canonically centers coastal cities, and dating individuals with their own established homes. The geographic motif in her work is so identifiable that all of the corresponding details are—for better or worse—commensurate to autobiography.

However, folklore is not autobiographical in the way that most understand her other albums to be. The relationship between people and places in folklore is likewise much less symbiotic.

The first two songs on the record illustrate this. We are at bare minimum forced to associate the characters of Betty and James with New York: the lyrics about the High Line imply a fraction of their relationship took place in this city. Even so, this does not imply Betty or James ever permanently resided in New York, or that Betty is in New York at the moment she is narrating the story of “cardigan.” Taylor places far more emphasis on James and the nostalgia of youth, with “I knew you” repeated as a hook, to develop the emotional tone of the song. Rhode Island also comes to life in “the last great american dynasty” because of Rebekah Harkness’ larger-than-life character. But Taylor, following Rebekah’s antagonism, states multiple times throughout the song that the person should be divorced from the place. folklore locations are never so revered that they gain the vibrancy of literal human life. Taylor refrains from saying a person is a place in the same way that she has said that she is New York or her lover is the West Village.

For an album undeniably with the most concrete references to location, it is highly irregular—even confusing, given that personification is such a powerful storytelling device—that Taylor does not equate location with personal ethos.

Regurgitating the truism that geography equals autobiography proves quite limiting for interpreting Taylor’s work. How, then, should geography influence our understanding of folklore?

I submit that the stories in folklore are not ‘about’ places but ‘of’ places which are not real. Taylor’s autobiographical fiction makes the settings of the songs similarly fictionalized, metaphorical, and otherwise symbolic of something much more than geography. It is this phenomenon which emotionally and philosophically distinguishes folklore from the rest of her oeuvre.

——

As a consequence of Taylor’s unusual treatment of location, real places in folklore become signposts for cultural-geographic abstractions. Reality is simply a set of worldbuilding training wheels.

Prominent geographic features define places, which define settings. The world of folklore is built from what I’ve dubbed as four archetypal settings: the Coastal Town, the Suburb, the City, and the Outside World.

Each has a couple defining geographic features:

Coastal Town: water, cliffs/a lookout

Suburb: homes, town

City: public areas, social/nightlife/entertainment venues

The Outside World serves as the logical complement of the other three settings.

Understanding that real location in folklore is neither interchangeable nor synonymous with setting is crucial. Rhode Island is like the Coastal Town, but the two settings are not one and the same. The Suburb is an idyllic mid-America setting like Nashville, St. Louis, or Pennsylvania; it is all of those places and none of them at the same time. The City may be New York City, but it is certainly not New York City in the way that Taylor has ever sung about New York City before. The Outside World is just away.

Put simply, folklore is antithetical to Taylor’s previous geographic doctrine. While we are not precluded from, for instance, imagining the City as New York City, we also cannot and should not be pigeonholed into doing so.

Note:

This album purports to embody the stereotypically American folkloric tradition. “Outside” means “anywhere that isn’t America” because the imagery and associations of the first three cultural-geographic settings indeed are very distinctly American.

While Nashville and St. Louis are relatively big cities, they are still orders of magnitude smaller than New York and LA, the urban centers that Taylor normally regards as big cities. In context of this essay, the former locations are Suburban.

In this essay, the purpose of the term ‘of’ is simply to replace the more strict term ‘about.’ ‘Of’ denotes significant emotion tied to a place, usually because of significant time spent there either in the past or present (tense matters). Not all songs are ‘of’ places—it may be ambiguous where action takes place—and some songs can be ‘of’ multiple places due to location changing throughout the story. (This does not automatically mean that songs with more than one location are ‘of’ two places. A passing mention of St. Louis does not qualify “the last great american dynasty” as ‘of’ the Suburb, for example.)

Each of the four archetypal settings must instead be understood as an amalgam of the aesthetics of every real location it could be. Setting then exists in conversation with metaphor because we have a shared understanding of what constitutes a generic Suburb, City, or Coastal Town.

Finally, by transitivity, the settings’ metaphorical significance entirely hinges upon the geographic features’ metaphorical significance. This is what Taylor authors.

The next part of the essay is concerned with deciphering geography in folklore per these guiding questions: how is an archetypal feature used as a metaphor? By proxy, what does that say about the setting defined by it? What theme, if any, unites the settings?

The Coastal Town: Water and Cliffs

The Coastal Town is defined by elemental features.

The first (brief) mentions of water occur on the first two tracks:

Roarin’ twenties, tossing pennies in the pool

Leavin’ like a father, running like water

“the last great american dynasty” introduces the setting to which the pool (water) feature belongs, our Rhode Island-like Coastal Town. It also incorporates a larger water feature, the ocean, and suggests the existence of a lookout or cliffs:

Rebekah gave up on the Rhode Island set forever

Flew in all her Bitch Pack friends from the city

Filled the pool with champagne and swam with the big names

//

They say she was seen on occasion

Pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea

“seven” and “peace” also have brief mentions of water; however, note that these songs remain situated as ‘of’ the Suburb. (More on this later.)

I hit my peak at seven

Feet in the swing over the creek

I was too scared to jump in

But I’m a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade, ocean wave blues come

“my tears ricochet” and “mad woman” with their nautical references pertain to the water metaphor:

I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace

And so the battleships will sink beneath the waves

Now I breathe flames each time I talk

My cannons all firin’ at your yacht

“epiphany” also counts, though with the understanding of “beaches” as Guadalcanal this song is ‘of’ the Outside World:

Crawling up the beaches now

“Sir, I think he’s bleeding out”

“this is me trying” and “hoax” reiterate the cliff/lookout geography:

Pulled the car off the road to the lookout

Could’ve followed my fears all the way down

Stood on the cliffside screaming, “Give me a reason”

Finally, “the lakes” features both water and cliffs:

Take me to the lakes, where all the poets went to die

//

Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry

//

While I bathe in cliffside pools

With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief

In folklore, water dovetails with permanent loss.

“epiphany” is the most egregious example. Crawling up the beaches of a war zone proves fatal. “the lakes” describes grieving in water, perhaps for the loss of one’s life because there exist cliffs from which to jump. “this is me trying” and “hoax” mirror that idea. On the other hand, in “peace,” death does not seem to have any connection to falling from a height.

Loss can also mean loss of sanity, such as with the eccentric character of Rebekah Harkness or Taylor as a “mad woman” firing cannons at (presumably) Scooter Braun’s yacht.

Subtler are the losses alluded to in “my tears ricochet” and “seven,” of identity or image and childhood audacity, respectively. And in the opening tracks water is at its most benign, aligned with loss of a relationship that has run its course in one’s young adulthood.

The most fascinating aspect of water in folklore is that it is an aberration from water as the symbol for life/birth/renewal, derived from maternity and the womb. folklore water taketh away, not giveth.

As of now, the greater significance of the Coastal Town—the meaning to which this contradiction alludes—remains to be seen.

The City: Nightlife, Entertainment, and Public Areas

Preeminent in Taylor’s pop work is the City; New York City, Los Angeles, and London are the locations most frequently extolled as Swiftian meccas. This archetypal setting is given a more understated role in folklore.

“cardigan,” ‘of’ the City, illustrates this setting using public environments and nightlife:

Vintage tee, brand new phone

High heels on cobblestones

//

But I knew you

Dancin’ in your Levi’s

Drunk under a streetlight

//

I knew you

Your heartbeat on the High Line

Once in twenty lifetimes

//

To kiss in cars and downtown bars

Was all we needed

“mirrorball” paints the clearest picture of the City’s nightlife/social venues by sheer quantity of lyrics:

I’m a mirrorball

I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight

I’ll get you out on the floor

Shimmering beautiful

//

You are not like the regulars

The masquerade revelers

Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten

//

And they called off the circus, burned the disco down

“invisible string” briefly mentions a bar:

A string that pulled me

Out of all the wrong arms, right into that dive bar

In addition, “this is me trying” implies that the speaker may currently be at a bar, making the song partially ‘of’ the City:

They told me all of my cages were mental

So I got wasted like all my potential

//

I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere

Fell behind all my classmates and I ended up here

Pouring out my heart to a stranger

But I didn’t pour the whiskey

It goes almost without saying that the City at large is alcohol-soaked. Indeed, alcohol will help us understand this location.

Each of the aforementioned songs has a distinct narrator, like Betty in the case of “cardigan” or Taylor herself, at the very least in the case of “mirrorball” or at most all songs besides “cardigan.” And because the narrative character is so strong, I posit that the meaning of this geography is tied to what alcohol reveals about the speakers of the songs themselves.

“invisible string” and “mirrorball” are alike in the fact that the stories extend well beyond or even completely after nightlife. Meeting in a dive bar in “invisible string” is just the catalyst for a relationship that feels fated. Taylor, in her “mirrorball” musing, expresses concern about how she is perceived by someone close to her. Does existing after the fact (of public perception, at an entertainment venue) constitute an authentic existence? Alcohol, apparently a necessary part of City life, predates events which later haunt the speakers. Emotional torment is then what prompts the speakers to recount their stories.

On the other hand, alcohol directly reveals the emotional states of the speakers in “cardigan” and “this is me trying.” “cardigan” is Betty’s sepia-toned memory of her time with James, in which James’ careless, youthful spirit (“dancin’ in your Levi’s, drunk under a streetlight” and “heartbeat on the High Line”) inspires sadness and nostalgia for their ultimately temporary relationship (“once in twenty lifetimes”). “this is me trying” is tinged with the speaker’s bitterness; hopelessness and regret lead them to the bar and the destructive practice of drinking just to be numb.

These observations suggest that the City is also a site of grief or loss, though not for the same reason that the Coastal Town is. Whereas the Coastal Town is associated with a permanent ending such as death, the City reveals an ending that is more transitional and wistful, tantamount to a coming of age. There is a clear ‘before’ and ‘after’ to loss related to the City: life, though changed, goes on.

The Suburb: Homes and Towns

Noteworthy though the City and Coastal Town may be, the former in particular concerning the pop mythology of Taylor Swift, it is the Suburb which Taylor most frequently references in folklore and establishes as the geographical heart of the album.

The Suburb is defined by a home and town. A “home” encompasses entrances (front/side doors), back and front yards (gardens/lawns/trees/weeds/creeks), and interiors (rooms/halls/closets). The “town” is pretty self-explanatory, with a store, mall, movie theater, school, and yogurt shop.

Observe that the folklore Suburb is the aesthetic equivalent of the “small town” that provided the debut and Fearless albums’ milieu and inspired the country mythology of Taylor Swift. While Taylor primarily wrote about home and school on those albums (because, well, that was closer to her experience as a teenager), the “small town” and the folklore Suburb are functionally the same with regard to pace, quality, and monotonicity of life. Exhibit A: driving around and lingering on front doorsteps are the main attractions for young adults. (From my personal experience growing up in a Suburb, this is completely accurate. And yes, the only other attractions are the mall and the movie theater.)

The Suburb becomes a conduit for conflict.

Conflict that Taylor explores in this setting, including inner turmoil, dissension between characters, and friction between oneself and external (societal) expectations, naturally can be distinguished by distance [1] between the two forces in conflict. As an example, ‘person vs. self’ implies no distance between the sides because they are both oneself. ‘Person vs. society’ is conflict in which the sides are the farthest they could conceivably be from each other. Conflict with greater distance between the sides is usually harder to resolve. One must move bigger mountains, so to speak, to fix these problems.

The folklore Suburb is additionally constructed upon the notion of privacy or seclusion. We can imagine a gradient [2] of privacy illustrated by Suburban geography: the town is a less intimate setting than the outside of the home, which is less intimate than the inside of the home.

I combine these two ideas in the following claim: the Suburb relates distance between two forces in conflict inversely on the geographical privacy gradient. Put simply, the more intimate or ‘internal’ the setting, the farther the two sides in conflict are from each other.

(I offer this claim in the hopes that it will clarify the nebulous meaning of the Suburb in the next section.)

Salient references to the Suburban town can be divided into one of two categories:

Allowing oneself to hope

Allowing oneself to recall

“august” clearly belongs in the first category. Hope is central to August’s character and how she approaches her relationship with James:

Wanting was enough

For me, it was enough

To live for the hope of it all

Canceled plans just in case you’d call

And say, “Meet me behind the mall”

If we interpret the bus as a school bus then “the 1” also belongs in this first town category:

I thought I saw you at the bus stop, I didn’t though

//

I hit the ground running each night

I hit the Sunday matinee

“invisible string” indicates that the yogurt shop is equally innocent as Centennial Park. The store represents the hope of Taylor’s soul mate, parallel to her hope:

Green was the color of the grass

Where I used to read at Centennial Park

I used to think I would meet somebody there

Teal was the color of your shirt

When you were sixteen at the yogurt shop

You used to work at to make a little money

“cardigan” and “this is me trying” alternatively highlight the persistence of memory, with a relationship leaving an “indelible mark” on the narrators. These songs belong in the second category:

I knew I’d curse you for the longest time

Chasin’ shadows in the grocery line

You’re a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town

James’ recollection qualifies “betty” for the second category as well. This song shows that emotional weight falls behind the act of remembering:

Betty, I won’t make assumptions

About why you switched your homeroom, but

I think it’s ‘cause of me

Betty, one time I was riding on my skateboard

When I passed your house

It’s like I couldn’t breathe

//

Betty, I know where it all went wrong

Your favorite song was playing

From the far side of the gym

I was nowhere to be found

I hate the crowds, you know that

Plus, I saw you dance with him

The surprising common denominator of these two categories is that conflict is purely internal in public spaces. Regardless of whether the speakers feel positively or negatively (i.e. per category number), their feelings are entirely a product of their own decisions, such as revisiting a memory or avoiding confrontation. This gives credence to the theory that the Suburb inversely relates conflict distance with privacy.

On the other extreme, the home is a site of conflict larger than oneself, and often more conflict in general. Conflict which occurs in the most private setting, inside the house, is conflict where the two sides are most distanced from each other. Conflict near the house, though not strictly inside, is closer, interpersonal.

“my tears ricochet” is just an ‘indoors’ song. The opening line depicts a private, funeral-like atmosphere:

We gather here, we line up, weepin’ in a sunlit room

There are multiple interpretations of this song floating around. The two prevailing ones are about the death of Taylor Swift the persona and the sale of her masters. In either interpretation, society and culture are the foundation for the implied conflict. First, the caricature of Taylor Swift exists as a reflection of pop culture; second, the sale of global superstar Taylor Swift’s masters is a dispute of such magnitude that it is not simply an interpersonal squabble.

For the alternative interpretation that “my tears ricochet” is about a dissolved relationship, “and when you can’t sleep at night // you hear my stolen lullabies” implicates Taylor Swift’s public catalogue (and thus Taylor Swift the persona) as the entity haunting someone else, as opposed to Taylor Swift the former member of the relationship.

“mad woman” is just an ‘outdoors’ song because of the line about the neighbor’s lawn:

What do you sing on your drive home?

Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn?

Does she smile?

Or does she mouth, “Fuck you forever”

It’s clear Taylor has a lot of vitriol for Scooter Braun. Though it’s probably a bit of both at the end of the day, I am comfortable calling their feud more of the ‘person vs. person’ variety than the ‘person vs. society’ variety.

Consequently, the privacy gradient claim holds for both songs.

“illicit affairs” is one of two songs with a very clear ‘transformation’ of geography:

What started in beautiful rooms

Ends with meetings in parking lots

In context, this represents the devolution of the relationship. External conflict, the illegitimacy of the relationship, defined the affair when it was in “beautiful rooms.” Relocating to the parking lot (i.e. now referencing the Suburban town) coincides with discord turning inward. Any external shame or scorn for both lovers as a consequence of the affair is replaced by the end of the song with anger the lovers feel towards each other and, more importantly, themselves.

“seven” is the best example of how many types of conflict are present in and around the home:

I hit my peak at seven

Feet in the swing over the creek

I was too scared to jump in

//

And I’ve been meaning to tell you

I think your house is haunted

Your dad is always mad and that must be why

And I think you should come live with me

And we can be pirates

Then you won’t have to cry

Or hide in the closet

//

Please picture me in the weeds

Before I learned civility

I used to scream ferociously

Any time I wanted

The first few lines exemplify ‘person vs. self’ conflict, a fear of heights. The third segment introduces a ‘person vs. society’ dilemma, shrinking pains as a result of socialization into gender norms. (I am assuming that the child is a girl.) The second verse indicates strife between a child and a father. It leaves room for three interpretations:

The conflict is interpersonal, so the father’s anger is wholly or partially directed at the child because the father is an angry person

The conflict is sociological, so the father’s anger is a whole or partial consequence of the gendered roles which the father and child perform

Both

Is curious that we need not regard sadness and the closet in “seven” as mutually inclusive. The narrator says the child’s options are crying (logical) or hiding in the closet. Both the father’s temper and the closet are facts of the child’s life, either innocuous or traumatic or somewhere in between.

But we might—and perhaps should—go further and argue that conflict in “seven” is necessarily sociological, and specifically about being civilized to perform heterosexual femininity. For, taken to its logical extreme, if only gender identity and not sexual identity incites anger, then men must be socialized to become abusive to women, who must be socialized to become submissive to that abuse. Screaming “ferociously” at any time would also denote freedom to be oneself despite men, not freedom to be oneself for one’s own gratification. Yet the child surely enjoys the second freedom at the beginning of the song. While the patriarchy is indeed an oppressive societal force, the interpretation of the social conflict in “seven” as only gendered yields contradiction. This interpretation is much more tenuous than acknowledging that the closet is, in fact, The Closet.

(Mere mention of a closet, the universal symbol for hiding one’s sexuality, immediately justifies a queer interpretation of “seven” notwithstanding other sociological and/or semantic technicalities. A sizable chunk of Taylor’s extensive discography also lends itself to queer interpretation by extension of connection with this song—for instance, by a shared theme of socialization as a primary evil. To me it seems silly at best and homophobic at worst to eschew the reading of “seven” presented here.)

It is undeniable that “seven” represents many types of conflict and places them inversely on the privacy gradient. The father embodies societal conflict larger than the young child and introduces that conflict inside the house. The child faces internal conflict (i.e. a fear of heights) and no conflict at all (i.e. freedom to act fearlessly) outside.

Reconciling “august,” “exile,” and “betty” with the privacy gradient actually requires a queer interpretation of the songs. To avoid the complete logical fallacy of a circular proof, I reiterate that the privacy gradient is simply a means of illustrating how the Suburb functions as an archetypal location. Queer interpretation is a sufficient but not necessary condition for an interesting argument about Suburban spatial symbolism. Reaching a slightly weaker conclusion about the Suburb without the privacy gradient would not impact the conclusions about the other three archetypal locations. Finally, queer (sub)text is a noteworthy topic on its own.

“betty” situates the front porch as the venue where Betty must make a decision about her relationship with James:

But if I just showed up at your party

Would you have me? Would you want me?

Would you tell me to go fuck myself

Or lead me to the garden?

In the garden, would you trust me

If I told you it was just a summer thing?

//

Yeah, I showed up at your party

Will you have me? Will you love me?

Will you kiss me on the porch

In front of all your stupid friends?

If you kiss me, will it be just like I dreamed it?

Will it patch your broken wings?

Influencing Betty’s decision is her relationship with her “stupid” (read: homophobic) friends who don’t accept James (and/or the idea of James/Betty as a pair), her own internalized homophobia, and the trepidation with which she may regard James after the August escapade. The conflict at the front door is external/societal, interpersonal, and internal.

The garden differs from the front door as an area where James and Betty can privately discuss the August escapade. By moving to the garden, the supposed root of their conflict shifts from the oppressive force of homophobia to James’ behavior regarding the love triangle (“would you trust me if I told you it was just a summer thing?”). Much like in “illicit affairs,” motion along the privacy gradient underscores that micro-geography is inversely related to conflict distance.

Next, the implied settings of “august” are a bedroom and a private outdoor location such as a backyard:

Salt air, and the rust on your door

I never needed anything more

Whispers of "Are you sure?”

“Never have I ever before”

//

Your back beneath the sun

Wishin’ I could write my name on it

Will you call when you’re back at school?

I remember thinkin’ I had you

The backyard holds a mixture of ‘person vs. self’ and ‘person vs. person’ conflict. August’s doubts about James manifest as personal insecurities. However, James, by avoiding commitment, is equally responsible for planting that seed of doubt.

The song’s opening scene depicts a young adult losing their virginity. The bedroom can thus be conceptualized as a site of societal conflict because the queer love story expands this location to the geographical manifestation of escapism and denial. James runs off with August as a means to ignore externalized homophobia from a relationship with Betty, who has homophobic friends. Yet they eventually ditch August for Betty, either because of intense feelings for Betty or internalized homophobia—the relationship with August was too perfect, too easy.

“betty” and “august” are consistent with the gradient theory provided we interpret the love triangle narrative as queer. Identity engenders conflict in these songs. The characters then confront the conflict vis-à-vis location. ‘Indoors’ becomes the arena for confronting issues farther from the self, namely concerning homophobia. ‘Outdoors’ scopes cause and therefore possible resolution to individuals’ choices.

Last but not least, consider “exile,” the song with strange staging:

And it took you five whole minutes

To pack us up and leave me with it

Holdin’ all this love out here in the hall

//

You were my crown, now I’m in exile, seein’ you out

I think I’ve seen this film before

So I’m leaving out the side door

“I’m in exile, seein’ you out” and “I’m leaving out the side door” contradict each other. The speaker, “I,” seeing their lover out means that the speaker remains inside the house while their lover leaves. But the “I” also leaves through the side door. Does the speaker follow their lover out? If so, then whose house are they leaving? It is most likely a shared residence. They plan on coming back.

Taylor said in an interview [3] that the verses, sung by different people, represent the perspectives of the two lovers. The “me” in the first segment is the “you” in the second. So our “I” is left in the hall too. Both individuals  in the relationship are implied to leave and stay at different times.

An explanation for this inconsistency lies in the distinction between doors. A front door in folklore is symbolic of trust, that which makes or breaks a relationship (see: Betty’s front door and the door in “hoax”). It also forces sociological conflict to be resolved at the interpersonal level, lest serious problems hang out in the open. Fixing the world at large is usually impossible, and so front doors only create more issues. (The mountains, as they say, are too big to move.) The main entrance is thus a site for volatility and high stakes.

“exile” suggests that a shared side door is for persistent, dull, aching pain. This door symbolizes shame which is inherent to a relationship. It forces the partners to come and go quietly, to hide the existence of their love. Inferred from a queer reading of “exile” is that it is homophobia that erases the relationship. Conflict with society as evinced in individuals is once again consistent with the staging at the home.

Note that few (though multiple) explanations could resolve the paradox between intense shame in a relationship and the setting of a permanent shared home. Racism, for example, may be a reason individuals hide the existence of a loving relationship. Nevertheless, the overall effect of Taylor’s writing is that it is believable autobiography. It is unlikely that she’s speaking about racism here, least of all because there are two other male characters in the song. So a slightly more uncouth name for “exile” would be “the last great american mutual bearding anthem.”

To summarize, the Suburb is an archetypal setting constructed upon the notion of privacy. Taylor makes the folklore Suburb the primary home (no pun intended) of conflict of all kinds. Through an intimate, inverse relationship between drama and constitutive geography, Taylor argues that unrest and incongruity are central to what the Suburb represents.

The Outside World

The final archetypal setting is the complement to the first three—a physical and symbolic alternative.

The Guadalcanal beaches in “epiphany” (which are also alluded to in “peace”) contrast the homeland in “exile” through a metaphor about war. The Lake District in England is opposite America, the setting of most of folklore. The Moon, Saturn, and India are far away from Pennsylvania, the setting of “seven.” India quantifies the lengths to which the speaker of the song would go to protect the child character, while astronomy abstracts the magnitude of the speaker’s love.

This archetypal setting is symbolic of disengagement and breaking free from limitations. Moving to India in “seven” is how the speaker and child could escape problems at the child’s home. Analogizing war with the pandemic in “epiphany” removes geographical and chronological constraints from trauma.

The Lake District is where Taylor, a poet, goes to die. The line “I don’t belong and, my beloved, neither do you” could also suggest that this location is where Taylor and her muse break free from being outcasts (i.e. they find belonging). Regardless, the Lake District is where she disengages from the ultimate limitation of life itself.

——

How is an archetypal feature used as a metaphor? By proxy, what does that say about the setting defined by said feature?

Analysis of each archetypal feature yielded the following:

The Coastal Town is representative of permanent loss/endings

The City is representative of transitional loss/endings

The Suburb is the site of character-defining conflict

The Outside World is freedom from the constraints of the other settings

What theme unites these settings?

Though the majority of songs in folklore are anachronistic, the album has a temporal spirit. Geography seems to humanize and animate folklore: the meanings of the settings mirror the stages of life.

(The theoretical foundation for this claim is a topology of being; that the nature of being [4] is an event of place.)

The City, characterized by transition, is the coming-of-age and the Coastal Town, characterized by permanent endings, is death.

The Outside World, an alternative to life itself, is hence a rebirth. (After all, Romantic poets experienced a spiritual and occupational rebirth upon retiring to the Lakes to die. We remember them by their retreat.)

Outwardly, the Suburb is ambiguous. It could be representative of adolescence or adulthood—before or after the City. Analysis shows that this setting is nothing if not complex. Adult Taylor writes about the Suburb as someone whose opinion of this setting has unquestionably soured since adolescence. Yet she also approaches the Suburb with the singular goal of creating nuance, specifically by exposing unrest and incongruity which the setting usually obfuscates. This setting, ironically one that is (culturally) ruled by haughty adolescents, is where she explores the myriad subtleties and uncertainties coloring adulthood. The Suburb thus cannot be for adolescence because James is 17 and doesn’t know anything. Taylor intentionally situates the Suburb between the City and Coastal Town as the geographic stand-in for a complicated adulthood.

Despite genre shifts, Taylor has always excelled at establishing a clear setting for her songs. She is arguably even required to establish setting more clearly for folkloric storytelling than for her brand of confessional pop. If we can’t fully distinguish between reality and fiction, we must be able to supplement our understanding of a story with strong characterization, which is ultimately a byproduct of setting. Geography is a prima facie necessity for creating folklore.

This further suggests that the ‘life story’ told through geography is the thing closest to a metanarrative of folklore.

I use this term to refer to an album’s overarching narrative structure which Taylor creates (maybe subconsciously) in service of artistic self-expression. Interrogating ‘metanarrative’ should not be confused with the protean, impossible, and distracting task of deciphering Taylor Swift’s life. True metanarrative is always worth exploring. Also, though some conclusions about metanarrative may seem more plausible than others, at the end of the day all relevant arguments are untenable. Only Taylor knows exactly which metanarrative(s) her albums follow, if any. It is simply worth appreciating that folklore allows an interesting discussion about metanarrative in the first place; that it is both possible to find patterns sewn into the fabric of the work and to resonate with that which one believes those patterns illustrate. I digress.

folklore is highly geographic but orthogonal to all of our geographic expectations of mood or tone. Through metaphor, Taylor upends our assumptions about the archetypal settings.

The Outside World is usually a setting which represents a brief and peaceful respite for travelers. Here, it is the setting for complete and permanent disengagement. Hiding and running away was a panacea in reputation/Lover, but in folklore, finding peace in running and hiding becomes impossible.

The City is usually regarded as a modern Fountain of Youth and, in Taylor’s work, a home. However, the folklore City’s shelter is temporary and its energy brittle, like the relationship between the characters that inhabit it. The City has lost its glow.

One would expect the Coastal Town to be peaceful and serene given its small size and proximity to water. Taylor makes it the primary site of death, insanity, permanent loss. The place where one cannot go with grace is hardly peaceful.

The Suburb is not the romanticized-by-necessity dead end that it is in a Bildungsroman like Fearless. Rather, it is the site of great conflict as a consequence of individual identity. The American suburb is monolithic by design; Taylor points the finger of blame back at this design for erasing hurt and trauma. By writing against the gradient of privacy, she obviates all simplicity and serenity for which this location is known. Bedrooms no longer illustrate the dancing-in-pjs-before-school and floodplain-of-tears binary. Front porches become more sinister than the place to meet a future partner and rock a baby. Characters’ choices—often between two undesirable options in situations complicated by misalignment of the self and the world at large—become their biggest mistakes. It is with near masochistic fascination that Taylor dissects how the picturesque Suburban façade disguises misery.

If we have come to expect anything from Taylor, it is that she will make lustrous even the most mundane feelings and places. (And she is very good at her job.) folklore is a departure from this practice. She replaces erstwhile veneration of geography itself with nostalgia, bitterness, sadness, or disdain for any given setting. folklore is orthogonal to our primary expectation of Taylor Swift.

Yet another fascinating aspect of folklore is the air of death. It’s understandable. Taylor has ‘killed’ relationships, her own image, and surely parts of her inner self an unknowable number of times. Others have tarnished her reputation, stolen her songs, and deserted her in personal and professional life. She perishes frequently, both by her own hand and by the hands of others. The losses compound.

I’ve lost track of the number of posts I’ve seen saying that folklore is Taylor mourning friendships, love, a past self, youth…x, y, z. It has literally never been easier to project onto a Taylor Swift album, folks! At the same time, it is very difficult to to pinpoint what, exactly, Taylor is mourning. To me, listing things is a far too limited understanding of folklore. The lists simply do not do the album justice.

Death’s omnipresence has intrigued many, and I assert for good geographic reason. Reinforcing the album’s macabre undertone is nonlinear spatial symbolism: each setting bares a grief-soaked stage of a single life. From the City to the Suburb, Coastal Town, and Outside World, we perceive one’s sadness and depression, anger and helplessness, frustration and scorn, and acceptance, respectively. folklore holds a raw, primal grief at its core.

The geographic metanarrative justifies Taylor’s unabridged grieving process as that over the death of her own Romanticism. For the album’s torment is not as simple as in aging or metamorphosis of identity, not as glorified or irreverent as in a typical Swiftian murder-suicide, not as overt as in a loss with something or someone to blame. folklore is Taylor’s reckoning with what can only be described as artistic mortality.

——

To summarize up until this point: geography in folklore is not literal but metaphorical. The artistic treatment of folklore settings evinces a ‘geographic metanarrative,’ a close connection between settings and the stages of a life spent grieving. I propose that this life tracks Taylor’s relationship to her Romanticism. folklore follows the stages of Taylor’s artistic grief, so we will see that the conclusion of the album brings the death of Taylor’s Romanticism.

It is important to distinguish between the death of Romanticism in general and the death of Taylor’s Romanticism. folklore presents an argument for the latter.

A central conceit of Romanticism is its philosophy of style:

The most characteristic romantic commitment is to the idea that the character of art and beauty and of our engagement with them should shape all aspects of human life.…if the romantic ideal is to materialize, aesthetics should permeate and shape human life. [5]

Romanticism is realized through imagination:

The imagination was elevated to a position as the supreme faculty of the mind.…The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate “shaping” or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity. It is dynamic, an active, rather than passive power, with many functions. Imagination is the primary faculty for creating all art. On a broader scale, it is also the faculty that helps humans to constitute reality…we not only perceive the world around us, but also in part create it. Uniting both reason and feeling…imagination is extolled as the ultimate synthesizing faculty, enabling humans to reconcile differences and opposites in the world of appearance. [6]

Imagination then engenders an artist-hero lifestyle [7]. This is similar—if not identical—to what we perceive of Taylor Swift’s life:

By locating the ultimate source of poetry in the individual artist, the tradition, stretching back to the ancients, of valuing art primarily for its ability to imitate human life (that is, for its mimetic qualities) was reversed. In Romantic theory, art was valuable not so much as a mirror of the external world, but as a source of illumination of the world within.…The “poetic speaker” became less a persona and more the direct person of the poet.…The interior journey and the development of the self recurred everywhere as subject material for the Romantic artist. The artist-as-hero is a specifically Romantic type.

Taylor’s Romanticism is thus her imagination deified as her artist-hero.

Moreover, the discrepancy between perceptions of grief in folklore is a consequence of the death of her Romanticism.

We (i.e. outsiders) naturally perceive the death of the Romantic as the death of Romantic aesthetics. Hence the lists upon lists of things that Taylor mourns instead of celebrates.

Taylor seems to grieve her Romantic artist-hero. Imaginative capacity predicates an artist-hero self-image, so conversely the death of the Romantic strips imagination of its power. The projected “fantasy, history, and memory” [8] of folklore indeed unnerves rather than comforts. The best example of this is from a corollary of the geographic metanarrative. Grief traces geography which traces life, and life leaks from densely populated areas to sparsely populated areas (it begins in the City and ends in the Outside World). Metaphorical setting, a product of imagination, aids the Romantic’s unbecoming. So, imagination is not a “synthesizing faculty” for reconciling difference; it is instead a faculty that divides.

Discriminating between the death of Romanticism in general and the death of Taylor’s Romanticism contextualizes folklore’s highly individualized grief. It is hard to argue that Taylor Swift will ever be unimaginative. But if we assume that she subscribes to a Romantic philosophy, then it follows that confronting the limits of the imagination is, to her, akin to a reckoning with mortality, a limit of the self.

——

folklore follows the stages of Taylor’s artistic grief. The album ends with Taylor accepting of the death of her Romanticism and being reborn into a new life. The final trio of songs, set ‘of’ the Suburb, Coastal Town, and Outside World in turn, frame the album’s solitary denouement.

In truth, “peace” is hardly grounded in Suburban geography. The nuance in it certainly makes it a thematic contemporary of other songs belonging to the Suburb, however. And consider: the events of “peace” are after the coming-of-age, the City; defining geographic features of the Coastal Town and Outside World are referenced in the future tense; an interior wall, the closest thing to Suburban home geography, is referenced in the present tense:

Our coming-of-age has come and gone

//

But I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade ocean wave blues come

//

You paint dreamscapes on the wall

//

And you know that I’d swing with you for the fences

Sit with you in the trenches

Per tense and the geographic metanarrative, “peace” is Suburban and is the first story of this trio. “hoax” and “the lakes” trivially follow (in that order) by their own geography.

The trio is clearly a story about Taylor and her muse. Understanding perspective in these songs will help us reconcile the lovers’ story and the geographic metanarrative.

We must compare lines in “peace” and “hoax” to determine who is speaking in those songs and when. Oft-repeated imagery makes it challenging to find a distinguishing detail local only to the trio. I draw attention to the affectionate nickname “darling”:

And it’s just around the corner, darlin’

'Cause it lives in me

Darling, this was just as hard

As when they pulled me apart

These two mentions are the only such ones in folklore. Whoever sings the first verse of “peace” must sing the bridge of “hoax” too.

“hoax” adds that the chorus singer’s melancholy is because of their faithless lover:

Don't want no other shade of blue but you

No other sadness in the world would do

Augmenting Lover is an undercurrent of sadness to which Taylor alludes with the color blue. By a basic understanding of that album, Taylor sings the “hoax” chorus.

The fire and color metaphors in tandem make the “hoax” verse(s) and bridge from the perspective of the lover who is burned and dimmed by the energy of their partner, the “peace” chorus singer:

I am ash from your fire

//

But what you did was just as dark

But I’m a fire and I’ll keep your brittle heart warm

Finally, a motif of an unraveling aligns the “hoax” verse(s) and bridge singer:

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

//

My kingdom come undone

The “hoax” verse(s), chorus, and bridge are all sung by the same person.

In sum: Taylor sings the first verse of “peace” and her lover sings the chorus of “peace.” (See this post for more on “peace.”) Taylor alone sings “hoax.” “the lakes” is undoubtedly from Taylor’s perspective too.

Now let’s examine “peace” more closely:

Our coming-of-age has come and gone

Suddenly this summer, it’s clear

I never had the courage of my convictions

As long as danger is near

And it’s just around the corner, darlin’

‘Cause it lives in me

No, I could never give you peace

But I’m a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade, ocean wave blues come

All these people think love’s for show

But I would die for you in secret

The devil’s in the details, but you got a friend in me

Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?

Taylor’s lover has the temerity to die for her in secret. We can infer from the first verse that Taylor’s coming-of-age brings not the courage her lover possesses but clarity about an unsustainable habit. She realizes that she cherishes youthful fantasies of life (such as “this summer,” à la “august”) for mettle. This apparently knocks her out of her reverie.

The recognition that being an artist-hero hurts her muse frames the death of Taylor’s Romanticism. It is impossible for Taylor to both manage an unpleasant reality and construct a more peaceful one using her Romantic imagination. The rift between her true lived experience (“interior journey”) and the experience of her art (“development of the self”) is what fuels alienation from Romance. The artist is unstitched from the hero.

“hoax” continues along this line of reasoning. In this song, she admits that she has been hurt by herself:

My twisted knife

My sleepless night

My winless fight

This has frozen my ground

As well as by her lover:

My best laid plan

Your sleight of hand

My barren land

I am ash from your fire

And by others:

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

The bridge marks is the turning point where she lets go of of her youth and adulthood, both of which are tied to her Romanticism through geography:

You know I left a part of me back in New York

You knew the hero died so what’s the movie for?

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

You knew the password so I let you in the door

You knew you won so what’s the point of keeping score?

You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

Of utmost importance is the very first line. The muse to whom Taylor addresses “hoax” is said to have been present at Taylor’s side through all of her struggles (“you knew”). The first line reveals that the lover did not know that Taylor left a part of herself back in New York (“you know [now]”). Taylor is only sharing her newfound realization as she stands on the precipice of the Coastal Town.

Nearly imperceptible though this syntactic difference is, it is an unmistakable reprise of the effect of the verses and chorus of “cardigan.” (Coincidentally, references to New York connect the songs.) “Knew” and “know” in both songs underscore a difference between what a character remembers (or had previously experienced) and what they understand in the current moment (or have just come to realize). Betty realizes at the very moment that she narrates “cardigan” that it was a mistake to excuse James’ behavior as total ignorance and youthful selfishness. Taylor realizes in “hoax” that she can no longer cling to youth, the romanticization of her youth, or romanticization of the romanticization of her youth. The youth in her is gone forever because she is no longer attached to the City. The adult in her has also matured for she is past the Suburb as well. The Coastal Town thus very appropriately stages the death of her Romantic.

Anyone who listens to Taylor’s music has been trained to connect geography to the vitality of Romantic artist-hero Taylor. In short, aestheticized geography renders Taylor’s Romantic autobiography. By letting go of the parts of her connected to geography, Taylor abandons the Romantic aesthetics both she and listeners associate with location. Divorcing from aesthetics also pre-empts romanticization of location in the future. The bridge of “hoax” is thus most easily summarized as the moment when any fondness for and predisposition towards Romance crumbles completely.

Lastly, we must pay special attention to micro-geography in the “hoax” chorus. We recall from “the last great american dynasty” and “this is me trying” the insanity that consumes the characters who contemplate the cliffs. The Coastal Town is not a beautiful place to die; one is graceless when moribund:

They say she was seen on occasion

Pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea

I’ve been having a hard time adjusting

//

Pulled the car off the road to the lookout

Could’ve followed my fears all the way down

From “peace” we know that Taylor’s lover is willing to die for her, in particular if Taylor’s sadness becomes too great (i.e. if she goes to the sea).

But I’m a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm

If your cascade, ocean wave blues come

All these people think love’s for show

But I would die for you in secret

The “hoax” chorus is when Taylor’s sadness balloons. Taylor the Romantic is ready to die:

Stood on the cliffside screaming, "Give me a reason"

Your faithless love’s the only hoax I believe in

Don't want no other shade of blue but you

No other sadness in the world would do

Remember Rebekah, pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea. Taylor is in this same position, on the cliffs, facing the water. Why is she screaming? Taylor is yelling down at her lover, who has already died (in secret, of course) and is in the water below waiting to catch her. (“I’m always waiting for you to be waiting below,” anyone?) Taylor’s singular faith is in her lover, and Taylor wants them to promise to catch her when she falls. In the end, though, the inherent danger nullifies what the lover could do to convince Taylor that the two would reunite safely below.

Taylor examines the water and realizes that her lover’s hue is combined with the blue of the sea. The sea cannot promise to catch her. Already mentally reeling, the admixture of sadnesses—in the setting which represents the culmination of life—makes Taylor recalcitrant. The Coastal Town has too much metaphorical baggage. It is not the place Taylor leaps from the cliffs. The first line of the “hoax” chorus uses “stood,” which implies that Taylor is reflecting on this dilemma after the fact.

The outro reinforces that the Coastal Town is where Taylor the Romantic comes to term with death but does not actually die:

My only one

My kingdom come undone

My broken drum

You have beaten my heart

Don’t want no other shade of blue but you

No other sadness in the world would do

Romantic imagination cannot protect Taylor from all the hurt she has suffered in reality. A calm settles over her as the chords modulate to the relative major key. She reflects on her journey: “my only one” corresponds to the first verse which introduces her solemn situation; “my kingdom come undone” ties to the self-inflicted hurt that froze her ground; “my broken drum // you have beaten my heart” supplements the second verse about suffering from her lover’s duplicity. The last lines are again her rationale for not jumping from the rocks. Finally, after the album-long grieving period, Taylor the Romantic has made peace with her inevitable death.

Romanticism is Taylor’s giant which goes with her wherever she goes. Running, hiding, traveling, and uprooting are indeed the fool’s paradise in her previous albums. Impermanence of setting—roaming the world for self-culture, amusement, intoxication of beauty, and loss of sadness [9]—engenders an impermanence of self, which fuels the instinct to cling tightly to what does remain constant. Naturally, then, Romanticism is Taylor’s only enduring companion. It becomes the lens through which she understands the world, yet the rose-colored one which by virtue inspires problems on top of problems. Forevermore does her Romantic inspire a cycle of catharsis that plays out in real life. Thy beautiful kingdom come, then tragically come undone.

Taylor chooses to go to the Lakes to escape from the constraints of this cycle:

Take me to the Lakes where all the poets went to die

I don’t belong and, my beloved, neither do you

Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry

I’m setting off, but not without my muse

Of the death story in the “peace”/“hoax”/“the lakes” trio, it is impossible to ignore the mutualism of Taylor and her muse. Neither of them belong of this life—and ‘of’ American geography—anymore. Taylor’s last wish is to go to the Outside World and jump (“[set] off”) from the Windermere peaks with her muse, who is ever willing to both lead Taylor to the dark and follow her into it.

Taylor bids a final goodbye—appropriately, in the tongue of Romance—to the philosophy which has anchored her all this time:

I want auroras and sad prose

I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet

'Cause I haven’t moved in years

And I want you right here

Romanticism, her art and life in tandem, brought Taylor what she values: union with her muse in the privacy of nature and her imagination. The final ode holds respect.

Finally, her death. The journey of grief concludes with Taylor both accepting death and, fascinatingly, being reborn into a new life:

A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground

With no one around to tweet it

While I bathe in cliffside pools

With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief

In keeping with metaphorical geography, old life dwindling in water is exactly concurrent with new life flourishing on land.

Observe that the rebirth concerns ice frozen ground, an element of “hoax,” which is set in the Coastal Town. The rebirth must happen back in America even though the death happens at the Lakes.

Despite the imagery, this is not a Romantic rebirth. Begetting a new life is the juxtaposition of two things Taylor once romanticized toward opposite extremes—a red rose for beauty and an ice frozen ground for tragedy—with her simple refusal that either be distorted as externalities of her experience.

This final stanza is wide open for interpretation with regards to the story of the two lovers. It allows a priori all permutations of Taylor and/or her muse experiencing rebirth as the red rose and/or the frozen ground:

Taylor and her lover experience a rebirth together

Taylor is the red rose and her lover is the ice frozen ground

Taylor is the ice frozen ground and her lover is the red rose

Taylor and her lover are indivisible: they are both the rose and the frozen ground

Taylor alone experiences a rebirth

Taylor is the rose

Taylor is the ice frozen ground

Taylor is the rose + ice frozen ground

The lover alone experiences a rebirth

The lover is the rose

The lover is the ice frozen ground

The lover is the rose + frozen ground

(2) and (3) make death at the end of “the lakes” purely sacrificial. This is inconsistent with the disproportionate emphasis placed on the lovers’ mutualism. I am thus inclined to dismiss (2) and (3) as consequences of combinatorics.

There are also two interpretations of the final lines of the bridge:

Taylor the Romantic is the implied ‘I’ overcome with grief; her muse is her calamitous love with whom she bathes

Taylor the Romantic possesses both calamitous love and insurmountable grief; her lover, as per usual, dies with her in secret

It is unclear which is the truth. Still, (1) is relatively straightforward: there are two entities said to bathe in the Lakes and two entities said to be involved in reincarnation.

There need not be ‘parity’ between old life and new (reincarnated) life with respect to the lovers’ relationship status. If Taylor’s muse dies, does her relationship dissolve? Or must her muse, who dies at Taylor’s side, be reborn at her side too? If Taylor declares her devotion to her lover before her death, does that ensure that they are together in perpetuity? Or is that sentiment purely a relic of her past life, in which case her love disappears anew? Perhaps the invisible string tying the lovers together bonds them in eternal life. Perhaps the string snaps. Which is the blessing and which is the curse?

Whatever you make of ‘parity’ in reincarnation, it is important to remember that Taylor insists the relationship between her and her muse is at least a spiritual or divine one—if not also a worldly one—for it exists in conjunction with her own metaphysic.

How does reincarnation betray Romanticism?

A. Taylor is the red rose and the lover is the ice frozen ground.

Taylor as the rose does not trivially align with a bygone Romanticism, for the rose epitomizes Romance. Key, therefore, is the line about tweeting. Taylor abhors the practice of cataloguing and oversharing in service of knowing something completely—effectively ‘modern’ Romanticism.

Digital overexposure is an occupational hazard [10], but Taylor refuses to let ‘modern’ Romanticism to become invasive this time around. New life shall not be defiled by social media. It shall remain pure by individual will. Though Taylor’s rebirth into a new life happens on land in America, that it does not become a hyperbole of local Twitter is the proverbial nail in the coffin of Romanticism, distortion in service of aesthetic.

Rose imagery also draws a direct parallel to “The Lucky One,” Taylor’s self-proclaimed meditation [11] on her worst fears of stardom. The “Rose Garden” in this song contextualizes the “lucky” one’s disappearance from the spotlight:

It was a few years later

I showed up here

And they still tell the legend of how you disappeared

How you took the money and your dignity, and got the hell out

They say you bought a bunch of land somewhere

Chose the Rose Garden over Madison Square

And it took some time, but I understand it now

Emphasis on individual choice in the aforementioned star’s return to normalcy bears a striking resemblance to the individualistic philosophy of “the lakes,” as exemplified by Taylor and her muse choosing to jump from the Windermere peaks and Taylor keeping her rose off social media. Mention of a “legend” that describes disappearance and simultaneous return elsewhere is another connection to the “the lakes.”

Taylor as the rose could alternatively represent a chromatic devolution of true love (“I once believed love was burnin’ red // but it’s golden”). That is, becoming a rose suggests she may have changed her mind back to believing that love is burning red. This more generally represents returning to the beginning of a journey that began in the Red era. Perhaps Taylor sees Red as the beginning of her calamitous Romanticism. She realizes by folklore the fears which she surveyed in “The Lucky One,” so choosing a new life presents an opportunity to protect post-Speak Now Taylor from self-inflicted wounds which fester and prove fatal to her Romantic. (In essence…time travel.)

Taylor’s lover, ice frozen ground, is reborn frigid not blazing, the opposite of their raging fire. Taming the lover’s wild essence renders it impossible for them to be a Romantic muse in a new life. If the two lovers do indeed share an eternal love, then death reveals a conscious choice not to glorify it.

Additionally, Taylor’s artist-hero imagination has no power in her new life. Taylor and her lover have effectively switched spots. All we previously knew of the lover’s secrets and secret death was from what Taylor wrote, so Taylor (for lack of a better phrase) concealed her lover. The lover, ice frozen ground, is now the one concealing Taylor, the rose. As a smothering but not razing force, Taylor’s lover thus is reincarnated into the role of a public protector. Reincarnation reveals that the death of Romanticism is abetted through the death of secrecy, which always allows distortion of truth.

Another possibility: the secrecy surrounding the lover is that they were the ice frozen ground. If Taylor confirms that the lover was something ‘tragic’ before, then after the death of Romanticism they counterintuitively may become beautiful. Or, the lover continues to be tragic, and paramount again is Taylor’s choice not to sensationalize her muse.

B. Taylor is the ice frozen ground and the lover is the red rose.

Many of the themes above apply to this interpretation too.

Taylor reborn as ice frozen ground does not change her essence from “hoax.” By not ‘shaking off’ a sadness with her rebirth, she subverts the usual expectation—a product of the many years devoted to fixing any and all criticism [12]—of artist-hero Taylor Swift.

The lover reborn as the red rose means their being surfaces where they once were hidden and/or that they are not the golden love they had been in reputation, Lover, and “invisible string.” New life brings the bright, burning “red” emotions. Either what was once very bad is now very good and vice versa, or these emotions are simply not very anything because Taylor doesn’t want to sensationalize them as a pastiche of Red. If Taylor’s love is eternal, then she will be more subdued when sharing it; if it is not eternal, then she will simply move on.

This interpretation implies that Taylor’s Rose Garden is eternal love without the necessity of elevating her partner to Romantic muse status. No one being around to tweet the rose bursting through the ice means that Taylor alone gets to appreciate her lover for their pure essence before modern society does—lest the lover be perceived at all.

C. Taylor and her lover are indivisible: they are both the rose and the frozen ground

Taylor’s “twisted knife”/“sleepless night”/“winless fight” froze her ground but her lover’s “sleight of hand” made the land barren, unable to sustain life. The two lovers are emotionally at odds, but Romanticism acts as the “synthesizing faculty” which unites them in their old life.

The metaphor of the rose and frozen ground does not work without each part. It is possible that the lovers remain equally united in their new life; the lovers’ spiritual connection yields unity after reincarnation. Abiogenesis is therefore the phenomenon which betrays Romanticism. The lovers exist alongside each other naturally, not because they are opposites which Romanticism has forced together.

This is probably the most lighthearted interpretation of the last stanza in “the lakes.” Extreme hardship helps the lovers grow, and they remain intertwined through eternity.

——

The geographic elegy of folklore is that for Taylor’s giant, her Romantic, something both treasured and despised right until its end. (How appropriately meta.)

This raises the question: what replaces it?

Nothing.

folklore can—and perhaps should—be understood as a Transcendental work rather than a Romantic one. From this angle, Romanticism is that which prevented Taylor from connecting with something deeper within herself, something more eternal.

“Transcendental” does not mean “transcendent” or beyond human experience altogether, but something through which experience is made possible. [13]

Transcendentalism and Romanticism were two literary and philosophical movements that occurred during roughly the same time period [14].  Romanticism dominated England, Germany, and France in the late 18th and early 19th centuries slightly before Transcendentalism swept through America in the mid-1800s.

The two movements heavily influenced [15] each other. Transcendentalists and Romantics shared an appreciation for nature, doubt of (Calvinist) religious dogma, and an ambivalence or dislike of society and its institutions as corrupting forces. We see Taylor align herself with these ideas by the end of the album. “the lakes” holds a reverence of the natural world, disregard of predestination, and contempt for Twitter.

But Transcendentalism sharply diverged from Romanticism along the axis of faith. Transcendentalism thrived as a religious movement that emphasized individualism as a means for self-growth and, in particular, achieving a personal, highly spiritualized [16] understanding of God:

For many of the transcendentalists the term “transcendentalism” represented nothing so technical as an inquiry into the presuppositions of human experience, but a new confidence in and appreciation of the mind’s powers, and a modern, non-doctrinal spirituality. The transcendentalist, Emerson states, believes in miracles, conceived as “the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power…”

Romantics, for instance, viewed nature as a source of imagination, inspiration, and enlightenment, whereas Transcendentalists saw nature as a vessel for exploring spirituality. Transcendentalists believed in an innate goodness of people for possession of a divine inner light [17]. Occupied with the perverse and disparate, Romantics believed people were capable both of great good and terrible evil.

It’s tempting to scope Taylor’s shift from Romanticism to Transcendentalism to this album alone. It’s true that folklore is filled with individualism, a hallmark of Transcendentalist philosophy. However, I argue that spirituality reveals a journey towards Transcendentalism that began well before folklore.

Consider the evolution of faith from reputation to Lover. Taylor places more emphasis on personal spirituality as she becomes increasingly disillusioned with organized religion/religious dogma. In “Don’t Blame Me,” Taylor defies religious convictions in favor of chasing the high of her forbidden love. Then her quiet and private life with her lover in “Cornelia Street” advances whatever traditional religious beliefs she possessed towards a self-defined spirituality (“sacred new beginnings that became my religion”). Individual spiritual enlightenment and religious conviction become mutually exclusive by the end of Lover, for the lovers would still worship their love even if it is a “false god.”

The final scene proves most important for establishing the album’s philosophy. In the end of “the lakes.” Taylor chooses death and is reincarnated into new life, kept pure also by individual will. (It should be noted that Transcendentalism was heavily influenced [18] by Indian religions, of which reincarnation is a central tenet.) Choosing reincarnation—to the extent that one even can—reflects a greater understanding of oneself. Choice, the ultimate power granted in the self, engenders spirituality. It is the means by which one follows a divine, guiding spark (i.e. “inner light”) in search of connection with others and the natural world. The album’s ending marries individualism with spirituality, which makes Taylor a true champion of Transcendentalism.

——

Transcendentalism is considered one of the most dominant American intellectual movements. Exploring the significance of Transcendentalist Taylor Swift is a rather unimaginative end to this essay. If we try hard enough, we will always be able to connect its philosophy to any art that exists in conversation with American culture.

Perhaps a more gripping conclusion comes from the assertion that philosophy doesn’t matter…

…at least, not in the way this essay regards philosophy as the ultimate Point.

So identifiable is the geographic motif in Taylor’s work that it is nearly impossible to ignore. This is especially true for folklore, an album that would literally not be folkloric if not for the blending of reality and fiction, real location and setting elevated as metaphor. So moving, moreover, is the grief at folklore’s core that it is natural to wonder what else it could represent. Hence, this essay’s charade of poking around both to see if they convey a deeper meaning.

A strong philosophical foundation establishes the ethos of art, that with which we resonate. However, we will never know to what philosophy Taylor subscribes. The interaction between her beliefs, creative spirit, and innate sense of self will always be a mystery. Any and all conclusions about the philosophical foundations of her art thus (1) are highly subjective and (2) reveal more about the ones making them than about Taylor herself.

Ironically, it is paramount to appreciate Taylor’s (Romantic) style above all else. The ways she uses basic building blocks of literature—theme, imagery, mood, setting, to name a few—piques curiosity. After all, without those building blocks, one would not be able to cultivate (should they so desire) an interest in the metaphorical, philosophical, or otherwise profound.

——

Disclaimer: this essay references (explicitly and implicitly, by way of citing expanded theoretical work) the ideas of Emerson and Heidegger, two preeminent thinkers whose ideas have had especially deep and lasting impacts on society. They are also two individuals noted to have had poor and even abhorrent political/personal views. I do not condone their views by referencing any ideas connected to these individuals (done mostly in service of rigor). I furthermore leave the task of generating nuance to those who dedicate their lives to critical examination of these individuals’ personal philosophies and the impact of their work on society.

[rpgsandbox]

Small patches of light in a dark age.

Ruin & Conquest is a unique and evocative campaign setting that can be played with any fantasy role-playing game  

This book aims first and foremost to be a toolbox for players and game masters (by whatever name they call themselves) to expand and enrich their tabletop role-playing. It introduces you to the world of Ealand, an island ablaze with conflict, tearing itself apart in the decaying shadow of its once great cultures. Foes set foot upon its shores almost daily, while the land, its people and its gods lash out with the fury of a cornered animal. Within this cauldron of strife, Ealand is a fertile soil for adventure. Where there is death, there is opportunity. Where there is pain, there is profit. Where the fathers cower and the mothers wail, there is room for legends to be born.  

What it contains:

All you need to set adventures, campaigns and encounters on the war torn isle of Ealand

History, customs and cultures for 6 distinct humanoid races living on the isle

5 unique ‘Other Folk’ races including the beautiful shapeshifting Vugael and the trickster Dwellers

A thorough guide to the major peoples and places of Ealand, leaving just enough room for creativity and exploration

Maps showing the islands varied landscapes and main conflicts

15+ tables to randomly generate everything from petty tyrants to grave curses

20+ original creatures for adventurers to encounter,  

Detailed story seeds and plot points to inspire great and harrowing adventures

A comprehensive primer on warfare of all types in this dark and terrible age allowing intricate and nuanced adventures in the thick of armed conflict

Sample encounter locations

Information on the technology, weapons, architecture and even the burial rights of the people of Ealand

35+ Original drawings immersing readers in this isle of strife

Background

The island of Ealand is a shadow of what it was. The builders once raised colossal structures to the skies and created homes of luxury and order. Now all that they erected lays crumbling and broken. Hollowed out and used by brutish men to dominate each other in conflicts over Ealand’s corpse. This is a world already used to bloodshed that has been set ablaze in a war for its very identity. The Saevolk stream in from the sea, extending Volkland deeper and deeper into the island in the slow inexorable march of invasion. With steel and fire, sword and shield, they kill all who stand in their path. The Huus, who should unite to protect their own way of life, squabble and scheme taking every opportunity to settle old scores. The land itself writhes in anger, with all the beasts and spirits of the wild in open hostility with the world of man.

To adventure in Ealand is to traffic in conflict. To forge your legend in the fires of strife. With war comes opportunity for the brave, the clever, the remorseless and the perceptive. Whichever side of the great conflicts you choose. Battles big and small. Clashes of armies on the field and the tangling of desperate bodies brawling in the smoky mead halls. Whether you’re a Saevolk raider, a brave Huus warrior or even a greedy Guldyn mercenary loyal only to gold, your story can unfold in a myriad of directions. Healers or scholars. Warrior poets or treasure hunters. It matters crucially who you count as friend and foe, and who stands beside you when cold steel is drawn. This island contains all that is needed to gather the fame and honor that will echo through the ages.

For the players and game masters who choose to set their stories in Ealand, you must understand this is a harsh world, a dark world, but one that can contain beauty and triumph as well. The major themes are conflict between the human races, and conflict with nature. The goal was to create a world that supported complex motivations, difficult situations and enormous fields of moral grey area for players to navigate. I wanted a world that was different. That embraced tales centered on violence between humans but also allowed for plenty of stories about the party against the land itself. A group of adventures can immerse themselves in very real anger between men, or ignore that entirely and adventure against the great beasts and monsters of the wild.

System-Neutral

This setting is system-neutral, which means it can be used with your favorite fantasy roleplaying ruleset, whatever that happens to be. Simply put, I wanted this world to be accessible to anyone who wants to explore it, regardless of their preferred game. Works with everything from 5e to Lamentations and DCCRPG.

How do I use it?

Using this book is easy. You can set an adventure or campaign on the Isle of Ealand taking the setting, characters, and monsters utilizing them to tell engaging tales of danger and menace. Characters would be insiders to this world. Well steeped in the islands history, traditions and people. Ealand is their home either by birth or adoption, and it encompasses much of their world, as islands often do to their people. Another option is to take Ealand and place it in an existing game world. This can be a published setting or an original creation, Ealand can slot into either quite easily. As an island, with its own unique beliefs, geography and cultures, it can just exist in a larger world, somewhere Northwest from a continent, in a cold and unforgiving sea. Adventurers can happen upon its mist-covered shores by accident or assignment. Many great stories can be spun with a foreign party coming to grips with what they don’t understand trapped in an ancient land perpetually in turmoil. Finally, and probably most simply, you can just read the book and pluck whatever ideas you want from it to sprinkle into your own game. There is no law saying the bog-dwelling FennHulm or the Storm Dancers of Ealand cannot live somewhere else. The mysterious and cursed magical artifacts of the Saevolk don’t need to be found only in the geographical confines of the isle. Imagine the book as a thickly wooded path to be wandered down, stopping and admiring what you find interesting.

However you intend to use the book, I welcome you to this world and its people. May you participate in epic tales with great friends wherever you gather.

Kickstarter campaign ends: Fri, October 26 2018 7:59 AM BST

Website: Ten of Swords Games

[photographasdocumentspring14blog]

Like all of you, we have had to adjust time and again to new information on quarantining, working from home, virtual schooling, all the while fighting off the burn-out effects of never-ending zoom calls and social media fatigue. We took a long look at what we could do and we adjusted, shifted, tweaked, reinvented, punted – we hustled – and found a way for the festival to still take place, while staying true to its spirit.

So yes, Photoville will look slightly different this year! With social distancing in mind, we’ve had to temporarily let go of our beloved shipping containers, our beer garden, and in-person sessions. Instead, we’re spreading our wings and spacing out our photo village throughout our beautiful home in Brooklyn Bridge Park and even beyond – into the heart of the city at Times Square, and parks across New York City’s five boroughs – thanks to our friends at NYC Parks, Abrons Arts Center and Times Square Arts.

We’ve worked with an exceptional group of artists and programming partners to curate 63 outdoor exhibitions. Taking many different forms, all exhibitions are designed to be viewed and enjoyed at a safe social distance.  Our daytime programming has been expanded and moved online, encompassing our growing education offerings for students and educators, as well as dozens of riveting talks and fun-filled workshops for all ages and abilities.

Another big change, while our village is normally open for two weeks in September, this year all the outdoor exhibitions will be on view for over two months (through November 29), so you’ll have plenty of time to see everything. We hope you will be able to visit every location, share your favorites with your friends, and return for second viewings as well.

After so many months of working behind-the-scenes to bring this all together, we are so excited to share with you amazing lineup of photographers and their brilliant and important work. You’ll find strong and somber stories, reflecting the times we are living in and also light and joy to lift your spirits and put a smile on your face.

To get to the point of unveiling these city-wide public exhibitions and virtual programming, we rely upon our mighty Photoville team who always answers the call, our fantastic Board of Directors, and the incredible support network of partners who trust us to present compelling photography in public spaces. Please see a complete roster of all our partners  but we want to shout out Brooklyn Bridge Park, NYC Parks, Two Trees Management, Leica Camera, PhotoWings, the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and the DUMBO Business Improvement District for continuing to step up and support our community.

We also count on you, our visitors, for your attendance, participation, and good will. If you are able, we ask you to donate to support the success and longevity of this community event.

We feel that the spirit of our annual “village” gathering will remain intact even with 6ft of physical separation between one other.  We look forward to the day in the near future when we can all safely gather in person once again, and until then, never hesitate to reach out if we can help in any way to keep you moving forward.

Stay safe, stay active, keep fighting the good fight, and making your compelling images.

Welcome to Photoville 2020 - we will see you online and 6ft away in a public space near you!

Laura, Sam, Dave and our incredible team of superstars

LET US KNOW YOU WILL BE JOINING

Over 60 Exhibitions in

Public Spaces Across NYC

This year’s exhibitions are all outdoors, spread out through all 5 boroughs! Stay safe and enjoy visual storytelling free to all and open to the public starting September 17.

Brooklyn Bridge Park

Brooklyn

St. Nicholas Park

Manhattan

Jackie Robinson Park

Manhattan

Times Square

Manhattan

Lower East Side

Manhattan

Chelsea Park

Manhattan

Soundview Park

The Bronx

Van Cortlandt Park

The Bronx

Astoria Park

Queens

Travers Park

Queens

South Beach

Staten Island  

Washington St.

Brooklyn

CHECK OUT ALL OUR EXHIBITIONS HERE

Live Sessions OnlineSeptember 17 - October 4, 2020

All of the exciting and insightful commentary and community that you’ve come to expect from Photoville’s talks and workshops will be available from the appropriately socially-distanced comfort of your own home!

The full programming schedule and registration for events will be announced on Friday, September 4!

September 25 & 26 Freelance

Safety Clinic

Presented in partnership with The ACOS Alliance, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Frontline Freelance Register. Are you a freelance photojournalist or documentary photographer in need of some expert, one-to-one advice on safety, risk assessment, digital security, or trauma management? Sign up now for one of our FREE virtual safety clinics. REGISTER HERE.

Sept. 18 - Oct. 2Back to Business - Diversify Photo Professional Development

Geared towards BIPOC photographers, and open to photographers anywhere in the world, Photoville is proud to partner with Diversify Photo to host our first set of professional development workshops, for experienced and emerging editorial photographers who would like to take on commercial assignments and want to learn the business skills to do so. Proudly supported by FujiFilm with additional support by the Philip and Edith Leonian Foundation.

Full line up and registration to be launched September 4, 2020

Sept. 19 - Oct. 4Talks

Taking place over the course of three weekends, our talks will feature some of the most innovative work and pressing issues in photography today, with conversations led by at National Geographic, Leica, The New York Times, Adobe, Aperture, and more. Panel discussions will give added depth to many of these exhibitions, with artists and industry leaders addressing some of the most compelling topics and photo stories of the moment.  LEARN MORE

Full line up and registration to be launched September 4, 2020

Sept. 19 - Oct. 4Workshops

Our interactive and on-demand workshops will provide fun, practical, skills-based instruction in some of photography’s most sought-after markets. Workshop highlights include a series of programs hosted by Adobe for photographers looking to expand their skill-sets; Editorial Masterclass Workshop with the Visual Thinking Collective; Tabletop and Prop Stylist Robin Zachary will lead Styling Beyond Instagram; and many more. LEARN MORE

Full line up and registration to be launched September 4, 2020

Sept. 17 - Nov. 29 Family-Friendly Activities

Parents grab some snacks and hang out with little ones while you enjoy some awesome family-friendly programming.

Our on-demand programming will include a pre-recorded Online Cyanotype Demonstration from Penumbra Foundation for photographers and families looking to delve into the cyanotype process; Make-Your-Own Container Exhibition and Make-Your-Own Camera guides will be available from Photoville; and other family-friendly activities like a PhotoBooth from PhotoWings. DISCOVER ON SEPT.17

Photoville Education MonthWeekly through October 2020

Photoville Education Day 2020, which will take place throughout the month of October, as a series of education programs for young people and educators. Students will be able to experience Meet the Artist Exhibition Tours, in which students connect with Photoville artists, Youth Photography Panels, in which students learn from their peers, and an Educators Lab, where teachers connect with Photoville artists and collaborate on lesson plans based on their work. Our 2020 Festival education program is proudly supported by our partner Photowings with additional contributions by the Philip and Edith Leonian Foundation.

SIGN UP FOR PHOTOVILLE EDU MONTH

Photoville-At-A-Glance

This year’s exhibitions are all outdoors, spread out through all 5 boroughs! Stay safe and enjoy visual storytelling free and open to the public.

PLAN YOUR PHOTO EXCURSION

Partners

We couldn't do it without them! Get to know our amazing Photoville 2020 partners...

Image credit from top to bottom: Empire Fulton Ferry. Brooklyn Bridge Park. Etienne Frossard via Brooklyn Bridge Park website; Fall in St. Nicholas Park. Image via NYC Gov Parks - St. Nicholas Park website; Jackie Robinson Park. Image via NYC Gov Parks - Jackie Robinson Park website; Times Square; Rainbow Shoe Repair Exhibition. Jasmin Chang; Chelsea Park. Image via NYC Gov Parks - Chelsea Park website; Soundview Park. Image via NYC Gov Parks -  Soundview Park website; Van Courtlandt Park. Image via NYC Gov Parks - Van Courtlandt Park website; Astoria Park. Image via NYC Gov Parks -  Astoria Park website; Daniel Avila. Travers Park. Image via NYC Gov Parks -  Astoria Park website. South Beach Promenade. Laura Roumanos; Washington St. Image via NYC Go website' 2019;  Photoville 2019. Freelance Safety Clinics. Lauren Crothers. Photoville 2019. Table styling workshop. Jessica Bal; Photoville 2019. Cyanotypes. Jessica Bal; Photoville 2019. On Feeling Good Talk. Lauren Crothers; Photoville 2019. Flower pounding. Jessica Bal; Photoville EDU Panel 2019. Gareth Smit.

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/covid-19-live-updates-the-new-york-times-2/

Covid-19 Live Updates - The New York Times

In Germany, early results of school reopenings are hopeful, but it’s ‘messy and imperfect.’

As Americans anxiously debate how to reopen schools, and more campuses cancel in-person lessons, Europe is a living laboratory. Despite a sharp increase in coronavirus cases in recent weeks, even countries that were badly hit last spring, like Italy, Spain, Britain and France, are determined to return to regular classes this fall.

Germany, which was far less affected at the peak of the pandemic, shuttered schools early on, then moved to a hybrid model of remote and in-classroom learning. Class sizes were smaller, and strict social-distancing rules helped keep infection numbers in check.

But now a new experiment is underway: Teachers and students have been summoned back to classes, testing whether the new vigilance is enough.

Social distancing and face masks are mandatory on most school grounds, but rarely inside classrooms, despite recent advice from the World Health Organization that children 12 and over wear masks when distancing is impossible. If students had to wear masks for several hours a day, the argument in Germany goes, their ability to learn would suffer.

Instead, schools aim to better ventilate classrooms and keep classes separate so that each student has contact with only a few dozen others, and outbreaks can be contained.

Germany’s departure from the more cautious, part-time reopening strategy is rooted partly in resource constraints: Like most countries, it has too few teachers to split students into smaller classes and allow for social distancing.

But several weeks into returning to school, educators and even virologists who were skeptical about reopening say that early results look hopeful. Despite individual infections popping up in dozens of schools, there have been no serious outbreaks — and no lasting closures.

Berlin is a case in point: By the end of last week, 49 infections had been recorded among teachers and students across the city. But thanks to fast testing and targeted quarantines, no more than 600 students out of some 366,000 have had to stay home on any given day. Of 803 schools, only 39 have been affected.

“It’s messy and imperfect and I would have liked to see more precautions, but the main takeaway so far is: It’s working,” said Sandra Ciesek, a virologist at the University Hospital of Frankfurt who signed a statement by leading German virologists supporting the reopenings.

A New York Times survey found more than 26,000 cases of the coronavirus at more than 750 American colleges and universities over the course of the pandemic. Clusters of cases have emerged in recent weeks in dorms, on Greek rows and at college bars, in some cases upending plans for the fall semester.

Seven universities, all of them large public schools in the South, have announced more than 500 cases each; more than 30 institutions nationwide have had at least 200 known cases. Already, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which reported more than 800 cases, has sent most undergraduates home. And Notre Dame, where more than 470 people have had the virus, has paused in-person classes and has restricted access to campus.

Many colleges have released extensive guidelines for social distancing, mask usage and testing in the hope of curbing outbreaks. But reports of large parties and discouraging test results have prompted rebukes from some administrators.

Stuart Bell, the University of Alabama president, warned in a note to students and employees this week that those who violated health restrictions were “subject to harsh disciplinary action, up to and including suspension.” More than 500 cases have already been identified on Alabama’s flagship campus in Tuscaloosa.

“Completing the fall semester together is our goal,” Mr. Bell said. “The margin for error is shrinking.”

The World Economic Forum is pushing back its annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, from January to early next summer, it announced on Wednesday.

The annual gathering of the global elite in the Alps brings together about 3,000 of the world’s most prominent executives and political leaders to discuss the pressing issues facing the world economy — and to do deals on the sidelines (and the ski slopes).

In a statement to the media, Adrian Monck, a managing director of the forum, said the decision “was not taken easily, since the need for global leaders to come together to design a common recovery path and shape the ‘Great Reset’ in the post-COVID-19 era is so urgent.”

Organizers made the decision to postpone on the advice of experts, who said the gathering could not convene safely in January. Instead, a virtual event dubbed “Davos Dialogues” will run during the week of Jan. 25, 2021, the forum’s originally scheduled time.

The event’s organizers previously said they would hold a “twin summit” for the 2021 edition, with about half the number of official delegates that attended in person last year and a simultaneous online event.

At the Republican convention, Melania Trump acknowledges the pandemic’s human toll.

In a speech that struck a markedly different tone from others at the Republican National Convention, the first lady, Melania Trump, on Tuesday acknowledged the pandemic’s human toll and praised the efforts of frontline medical personnel and other essential workers.

In her speech from the Rose Garden at the White House, Mrs. Trump called Covid-19 an “invisible enemy” that had swept across the nation. She also extended her sympathies to those who were ill or who had lost loved ones.

“I know many people are anxious and some feel helpless,” she said. “I want you to know you’re not alone. My husband’s administration will not stop fighting until there is an effective treatment or vaccine available to everyone.”

“Donald will not rest until he has done all he can to take care of everyone impacted by this terrible pandemic,” she added.

So far, most of the convention speakers who mentioned the pandemic have referred to it in the past tense and rarely mentioned its national toll. As of Wednesday morning, at least 5.7 million people in the United States have been infected with the virus and at least 178,000 have died, according to a New York Times database.

The tone of Mrs. Trump’s remarks also stood in contrast to her husband’s focus on defending his response to the virus and pinning the blame for it on China, while tending to mention the lives lost as an afterthought.

Mrs. Trump spoke moments after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a shorter and harsher speech, from a rooftop in Jerusalem, that was more in line with the president’s rhetoric on the pandemic. Mr. Pompeo, who is among the administration’s leading China hawks, argued that Mr. Trump had “pulled back the curtain on the predatory aggression of the Chinese Communist Party,” including its handling of the coronavirus.

“The president has held China accountable for covering up the China virus, and allowing it to spread death and destruction in America and around the world,” Mr. Pompeo said. “And he will not rest until justice is done.”

Older men are up to twice as likely to become severely sick and to die from the coronavirus as women of the same age.

Why? The first study to look at immune response by sex has turned up a clue: Men produce a weaker immune response to the virus than women, the researchers concluded.

The findings, published on Wednesday in Nature, suggest that men, particularly those over 60, may need to depend more on vaccines to protect against the infection.

“Natural infection is clearly failing” to spark adequate immune responses in men, said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale who led the work.

The results are consistent with what’s known about sex differences following various challenges to the immune system. Women mount faster and stronger immune responses, perhaps because their bodies are rigged to fight pathogens that threaten unborn or newborn children.

The findings underscore the need for companies pursing vaccines to parse their data by sex and may influence decisions about dosing, said Dr. Marcus Altfeld, an immunologist at the Heinrich Pette Institute and at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, and other experts.

“You could imagine scenarios where a single shot of a vaccine might be sufficient in young individuals or maybe young women, while older men might need to have three shots of vaccine,” Dr. Altfeld said.

Dr. Iwasaki’s team analyzed immune responses in 17 men and 22 women who were admitted to the hospital soon after they were infected. The researchers collected blood, nasopharyngeal swabs, saliva, urine and stool from the patients every three to seven days. The analysis excluded patients on ventilators and those taking drugs that affect the immune system.

American islands in the Caribbean and Pacific, including the state of Hawaii, are emerging as some of the nation’s most alarming virus hot spots.

For months, geographic isolation helped spare Hawaii, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands from much of the agony unleashed by the pandemic. All adopted early mitigation efforts, and were able to restrict travelers more readily than mainland states could.

But their case counts are surging now, revealing how the virus can spread rapidly in places with relaxed restrictions, sluggish contact tracing and widespread pressure to end the economic pain that comes with lockdowns.

Inconsistent reopenings have sown confusion in Hawaii, especially in Honolulu, where gyms remain open but hiking trails and parks are closed. Restaurants in the city are open, but residents are not supposed to entertain visitors at home. Hawaii now ranks among the states where new cases have grown fastest over the past 14 days.

The situation on Guam, an American territory in the western Pacific, seems especially problematic. Cases are emerging in several schools, at the territorial port authority and in an emergency dispatch center.

The U.S. military has a major presence on Guam, with large naval and air bases. When the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt was stricken with a virus outbreak in the spring, the ship put in to Guam, and hundreds of sailors were quarantined on shore.

The U.S. Virgin Islands, which registered almost no cases in the early days of the pandemic, is now dealing with nearly 1,000 new cases a day, pushing its per capita infection numbers higher than those of several states. The authorities are shutting nonessential businesses and imposing stay-at-home orders, checking all visitors’ temperatures and conducting aggressive testing of residents.

One exception to the crisis unfolding on U.S. islands: American Samoa, an archipelago in the Pacific, remains the only territory or state in the country without a single confirmed case.

In other news from around the United States:

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is scheduled to testify next week before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis in what the committee described as a “hybrid in-person/remote hearing.” The hearing will address the urgent need for more economic relief for Americans, including children, workers and families. Mr. Mnuchin has been one of the lead negotiators for the Trump administration to reach an agreement with Democrats over the next round of economic stimulus funds. Next week’s hearing will be the first time Mr. Mnuchin will testify before Congress since negotiations on more stimulus were halted this month.

Gyms in New Jersey can reopen on Tuesday with 25 percent capacity and rules requiring masks, Gov. Philip D. Murphy said on Twitter on Wednesday. Health clubs in the state have been closed since March for everything other than personal training sessions. But martial arts, dance and gymnastics classes have been permitted indoors, and pressure mounted as gyms in New York could start reopening this past Monday. Mr. Murphy’s announcement is certain to increase the clamor from owners of restaurants, which remain closed for indoor dining in New Jersey.

The Trump administration on Tuesday threatened hospitals with revoking their Medicare and Medicaid funding if they do not report coronavirus patient data and test results to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Protesters flooded the Idaho State Capitol in Boise this week, many of them without wearing masks, to express frustration during a special legislative session called to address voting and liability laws amid the pandemic. Among the demonstrators was Ammon Bundy, once the leader of an armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge, who was arrested on Tuesday by Idaho State Police after refusing to leave the space.

A cluster of cases in rural Maine that has been linked to a wedding reception held in early August in the town of Millinocket has spread to a county jail elsewhere in the state, infecting 18 inmates and employees, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Vatican announced on Wednesday that, starting next month, Pope Francis would resume his weekly Wednesday audience in public, six months after the coronavirus put a halt to the pontiff’s participatory events with the faithful.

Since March, Francis has been broadcasting the weekly Wednesday morning audience from the library of the Apostolic Palace, in the presence of a few clerics. Normally, the audience is held in St. Peter’s Square, or in the adjacent Paul VI Hall during the colder winter months.

Starting Sept. 2, and for the entire month, the audience will be held in the San Damaso courtyard of the Apostolic Palace, an area normally off-limits to the public.

The audience will be “open to anyone who wishes” to participate, the Vatican said in a statement. A Vatican spokesman said the number would be capped at 500 people “in keeping with health regulations.”

As he has in the past, on Wednesday, Francis spoke about the toll that the pandemic was taking, especially on the most vulnerable, as a result of the prevailing global economic model that concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, “an injustice that cries out to heaven,” he said. “The pandemic has exposed and aggravated social problems, above all that of inequality,” he said.

A ban on dancing, aimed at the young, has swept up older Italians.

In an attempt to limit a resurgence of the coronavirus, Italy has banned dancing in nightclubs and outdoor dance halls.

As in other countries, new cases in Italy are being driven by young people, with several clusters traced to nightclubs crowded with maskless patrons. Yet the new rules aimed at stopping young people from gathering en masse have also swept up older Italians for whom an evening at the dance hall is a cherished part of life.

The Italian government’s decree on dancing, issued on Aug. 16, made no distinction between packed, sweaty clubs blaring reggaeton and sedate community centers where people swirl in pairs to accordion-driven waltzes.

Many regulars at Caribe, an outdoor dance hall in Legnago that caters to an older clientele, said they understood that the government was trying to protect the country — and people their age in particular. But they didn’t understand why they could no longer hold their partners on the dance floor while bars, beaches, amateur soccer courts and gyms stayed open.

“It was good to close down nightclubs — teenagers just don’t get it,” said Raffaele Leardini, 72, who was so happy when the club reopened in July that he cried. “But here you have people with a brain and a mask.”

For the first time in three months, virus infections in South Africa have fallen below 2,000 per day. The country saw a peak of 13,944 daily cases in July, but recorded 1,677 on Monday and 1,567 on Tuesday.

But as confirmed cases are decreasing, fewer tests are being carried out, the minister of health said this week.

“The people who are presenting for tests have declined,” the minister, Zweli Mkhize, said in a webinar on Monday.

Despite this, South Africa’s health regulatory body this week approved a rapid antibody test to help track virus outbreak patterns and hot spots. The test, which gives results in a matter of minutes, can now be administered by health care professionals across the country.

Andrea Julsing-Keyter, a senior manager at the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority, had a warning for people seeking the test.

“It can only tell you, at that point of time, do you have antibodies, yes or no,” she said. “That’s all it can tell you — it is not to be used as an immunity passport.”

The downward trend in new cases comes as almost all grades returned to school this week, most for the first time since March.

And while things are looking up for the country, Salim Abdool Karim, an epidemiologist and widely respected government adviser, warned that a second surge was still possible.

“If we let our guard down or for a short while, get complacent about our prevention strategies, our social distancing, mask-wearing and hand washing, the second surge is waiting to pounce,” said Mr. Karim, who heads the Covid-19 ministerial advisory committee. “It is possible to overcome — these predictions do not have to be true,” he added.

In other news from around the world:

Madrid’s mayor asked residents of the city’s southern neighborhoods to stay at home in an effort to curb the spread of the virus. Spain, which has had more than 400,000 cases and nearly 30,000 deaths from the virus, is facing one of the most severe surges in coronavirus infections in Europe in recent days. The directive is not legally binding, but, the mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, said the authorities would ramp up police presence in the southern neighborhoods to ensure that people wear masks and that they don’t drink outdoors.

Days before schools are set to open in Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that it would be “clearly nonsensical” for students to wear face masks in class. “You can’t teach with face coverings, you can’t expect people to learn with face coverings. The most important thing is just to wash your hands,” Mr. Johnson said. In areas where local lockdowns are in place, students and staff members will be required to wear masks in communal areas with the exception of classrooms, where the government said “protective measures already mean the risks are lower.”

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has urged his government to eliminate “shortcomings” and “​defects” in its battle against Covid-19, state media reported. The country has reported no coronavirus infections, but outside experts are skeptical, citing its decrepit public health system and its proximity to China, where the virus was first detected.

Local authorities have tightened restrictions in Marseille, the second-largest city in France, where the per-capita rate of cases is more than four times the national rate. Under the new rules, which begin on Wednesday night and will remain in effect until at least Sept. 30, wearing a mask will be mandatory throughout the city. Bars and restaurants in the Bouches-du-Rhône region, which includes Marseille, will have to close overnight.

The 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina will be understated because of the virus.

New Orleans has been slammed by the virus, which has killed nearly 600 New Orleans residents so far, and sickened thousands more. Mardi Gras, the city’s signature event, fell in the early days of the pandemic and has been blamed for an eruption of cases in Louisiana.

The mayor, LaToya Cantrell, is planning to attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the site of one of the places where the city’s levees were breached by Katrina, swamping much of New Orleans, but there is nothing else formally planned by the city.

An annual ceremonial march that usually ends in a large rally is going forward, but will be livestreamed so “if you’re sick or have Covid you can stay home and just watch it online,” said Sess 4-5, a hip-hop artist who organized the march.

Robert Green Sr., who lives in the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood and lost his mother and a granddaughter in the floods from Katrina, planned processions in past years and initially had ambitious ideas for this year’s edition. He invited people from across the country who had come to New Orleans over the past decade and a half to help rebuild homes.

The procession is still happening, but without the out-of-own guests.

“Weather’s not going to be an issue,” Mr. Green said. “Covid is going to change the way that we do it.” Still, he added, “every family that lost something is going to remember that day. It’s not going go by the wayside.”

As countries work to contain fresh coronavirus outbreaks, some are making good on threats of heavy fines and even jail time for those who breach quarantine rules or border restrictions.

In the latest example, a Kentucky man accused of breaking Canadian quarantine rules faces six months in prison, a $569,000 fine or perhaps both.

The man, John Pennington, was fined about $900 by the police in late June, after staff members at an Alberta hotel grew suspicious that he was breaking the province’s quarantine rules. The police later charged him with doing just that, after finding him at Sulphur Mountain, a tourist attraction.

Though the Canadian border is closed to the United States, a loophole allows Americans to travel to and from Alaska, providing they use a direct route, quarantine at hotels and refrain from visiting national parks, leisure sites or tourist attractions.

Separately, a 28-year-old woman in Australia was sentenced to six months in jail on Tuesday after she hid in the back of a truck on a cross-country journey of more than 1,800 miles from the state of Victoria, a coronavirus hot spot, to Western Australia. The police said that she was picked up by her partner at a gas station.

The woman had traveled to Victoria to care for her sister and had received an exemption to fly back to Western Australia, which has closed its borders to travelers, her lawyer told a court. But the exemption did not apply to travel by road, and she pleaded guilty to breaking the order.

Western Australia’s pandemic rules include a 14-day mandatory quarantine for most travelers in a hotel, and the penalties for breaking them range from prison terms as long as 12 months to as much as $35,000 in fines.

Australia has had 549 deaths and more than 25,000 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, according to a Times database. Many of its state borders are closed because of the recent outbreak in Victoria, where the state capital, Melbourne, remains under lockdown.

Victoria’s latest outbreak has been linked to breaches in a quarantine hotel, but people around the country have been trying to circumvent virus-related restrictions anyway.

Last month, four men in their 20s were found hiding on an interstate freight train heading from Melbourne to Perth, on the country’s west coast. The police have also issued citations to travelers from hot spots like Sydney for lying on border declaration forms.

Reporting was contributed by Katrin Bennhold, Aurelien Breeden, Alexander Burns, Lauren Hirsch, Choe Sang-Hun, Mike Ives, Andrew Jacobs, Isabella Kwai, Alex Lemonides, Apoorva Mandavilli, Jonathan Martin, Patricia Mazzei, Heather Murphy, Elian Peltier, Elisabetta Povoledo, Campbell Robertson, Simon Romero, Anna Schaverien, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Eileen Sullivan, Tracey Tully and Katherine J. Wu.

[drjacquescoulardeau]

BBC – BERGERAC – 1981-1990

 This series was a long appreciated TV event in its own days. It lasted nine years and had a strong unity in its geographic center: It was Jersey, the most famous of all Channel Islands, best known today for its status as a tax haven in Europe. And in the time of the series, it was already that in many ways, a channel for all kinds of traffic and illegal export and import activities, not to speak of drugs and even human trafficking.

 Bergerac starts as a simple little small local Police Constable in the Bureau des Etrangers which is nothing but the local name of the police. He will eventually become a sergeant detective, but he will then leave the service to have some private life, mostly with the daughter of a winemaker in Vaucluse, France, but he will come back to Jersey as a private investigator under the authority of Charles Hungerford, the rich businessman who is the most influential member of the Law and Order Commission.

The first interest in the series is its length and the evolution of the cases dealt with in the various episodes, from petty crimes and petty traffics at first to international political situations and international illegal activities to be taken control of for the benefit of the authorities in what could be called institutionalized corruption. But the one case per episode kind of dilutes the force of the evolution. It is in a way cut up into thin baloney slices. In other words, it lacks unity and perspective.

 The second interest is Bergerac himself as a police constable, detective, sergeant or not, and private investigator. He is the type of person who cannot abide by a set of rules that should be very clear for everyone including him of course and are systematically overlooked, by him particularly. That’s often dangerous for him or other people but it has the great charm of being effective because the shortcuts used by Bergerac surprise the criminals or delinquents and they are easier to trap and catch. Bergerac’s interviewing technique is always fast, brutal, pressurizing more than empathetic. The one he considers as the culprit has to go through a rough time but that leads to quick results. This is of course totally unrealistic.

The third interest is to explore the relations between the States of Jersey and two neighboring countries, namely France and England. The relations with France are often courteous, at least with French cops. But with Bergerac having an affair with the daughter of a winemaker in Vaucluse, we are taken down south quite often in the last seasons to harvest grapes and make wine and at the same time to solve some criminal attempts there always connected in a way or another with Jersey. The affair will end up in the last episode of the last season with a “Dear Jim letter” and the immediate consequence of Bergerac who is an alcoholic falling back into the barrel of whiskey.

 The fourth interest is the strongly sexist overtone, not undertone at all when we consider the various women with whom Bergerac has affairs after his divorce with his wife, Charles Hungerford’s daughter, that took place before the very beginning of the series. For Bergerac, women are always secondary entertaining characters who are always shown as wanting a normal regular life without any fear and anxiety. To be the wife or girlfriend of a cop is to be the slave of any phone call in the middle of any one hour of the twenty-four hours a day normally counts. So Bergerac cannot have any normal and stable relationship with a woman because of his job.

To bring the series to an end, first he gets the “Dear Jim Letter” I have already mentioned and in the last case of the last episode where he is the private investigator of Charles Hungerford to make some art deals secure, we learn that he is going to be promoted to some kind of administrative job that will both satisfy him, use his competence in police work and take him away from the everyday life of simple cops, constables or policemen who both complain about and are thankful for Bergerac’s meddling in their business. His promotion is a typical Peter Principle recognition of competence and promotion to a position where he will be incompetent but also inoffensive: all his underlings will do the work and he will vaguely overlook the general picture.

 Altogether, this series is really entertaining and even maybe rather fascinating, and anyway a real testimony about the 1981-1990 period in Jersey, France, England and even Europe. That time has completely vanished in our modern times of Brexit and vast international migration.

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

[krystangreen-blog]

Alicia Keys captured the essence of New York City in her song Empire State of Mind when she wrote, “Now you’re in New York, these streets will make you feel brand new, big lights will inspire you.” Likely, you too will find yourself enraptured by this city’s buoyant energy the moment you step off the plane.

If you’re already familiar with things to do in New York City, you’ll want to dig deeper into the city that never sleeps with each visit. But for those new to NYC, you’d be remiss if you came here and skipped any of these classic must-do experiences.

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Take in the View from the Empire State Building

The Empire State Building provides spectacular views of New York City. Your experience begins at the 34th Street entrance and Visitors’ Center where you’ll pass through security and buy your tickets before boarding second-floor elevators that take you to the top.

Highlights of your visit include the 80th floor Dare to Dream Exhibit depicting the iconic 102-story Art Deco building’s 13-month construction in 1930-31. The 86th floor is New York’s highest open-air observatory and the world’s most famous where 360-degree views include Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Statue of Liberty. The 102nd-floor wraparound top deck offers panoramic views up to 80 miles away. Your experience ends in the stunning 5th Avenue Lobby.

Some tips for your visit – skip the line with an Express Pass, beat the crowd by arriving before 11 a.m., and use the second-floor bathrooms before getting in line for elevators. Note that kids under six are free. The second floor ESB store is open whenever the building is open. Shops and restaurants line ground level along 33rd and 34th streets, and 5th Avenue.

The Empire State Building is open 365 days from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.

Meet Lady Liberty

The Statue of Liberty is the most recognizable icon of the United States, a symbol of freedom and democracy. There are a number of ways to experience Lady Liberty in New York Harbor, both free and paid.

You can see the Statue of Liberty for free from the Staten Island Ferry that leaves Manhattan’s Battery Park every half hour. The 25-minute ride through New York Harbor passes by the Statue offering riders great views. Or, you can stay on land at Battery Park and enjoy the view from there. Head to the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn for great land views from Louis Valentino Jr. Pier.

For the full experience, take a tour of Liberty Island followed by Ellis Island with Statue Cruises, the only vendor authorized by the NPS to land on the islands. If you plan to climb to the Statue pedestal or crown, you have to make advance reservations. There are 377 steps to the crown and no elevators.

A final option is a New York Harbor cruise that circles the Statue of Liberty. Dinner cruises are popular, offering magnificent nighttime views of the Statue and the Manhattan skyline.

Attend a Broadway Show

We saw Hamilton and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child during our last visit to New York City. I highly recommend both.

Getting a ticket to the Broadway show of your choice can be arduous. Many of your favorites may already be sold out, but don’t despair. If you’ve been lusting after tickets to Hamilton or Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, there may still be a way. If you’re creative, you may not even have to pay full price.

The easiest way to get a ticket to a show on Broadway is to purchase it online months in advance. Since this won’t work for everyone, here are some other things to try. (The more flexible you are, the better your chances.) Grab some same day discounted show tickets from TDF’s TKTS Booths at 47th and Broadway or 62nd and Broadway – many with deep discounts. If you have your heart set on a big show, try a lottery at the theater of choice, or on TodayTix.

Even if you aren’t able to secure a ticket to a Broadway show, consider off-Broadway. The tickets are cheaper and generally easier to come by, and you’ll still have a fabulous New York theater experience. (Harry Potter fans should book tickets to Puffs, a hilarious off-Broadway spin on the popular series.)

(Tip: Don’t forget that there’s also the Apollo Theater in Harlem which first opened in 1914 as a burlesque theater. When the city’s mayor banned burlesque, the theater was closed and reopened as the Apollo in 1934 showcasing African American performers from the Harlem Renaissance. The theater’s famous Amateur Night quickly debuted such greats as Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, and Count Basie.

To get to the Apollo, you’ll make your way to the heart of Harlem on West 125th Street. You can tour the theater by joining a daily, guided group tour. One-hour tours are led by Mr. Billy Mitchell, who’s worked at the Apollo since 1965, so you’ll hear plenty of behind-the-scenes stories.

It’s also an electrifying experience to be part of the Amateur Night at the Apollo audience, cheering or deciding when to “sweep” a performer from the stage. Who knows? You may see the next Lauryn Hill, Jackson 5, or James Brown.)

Spend Time in Central Park

The state of New York set aside 750 acres of urban parkland in 1853, which became Central Park. It’s known as the lungs of New York City with thousands of trees that help to improve the air quality, myriad of jogging and biking paths, and green space to enjoy in good weather. There are so many things to see and do here, you’ll want to check out their official website, visit one of their Visitor Centers, or grab an interactive map to chart your own course.

A must-see in Central Park is the famous Central Park Mall & Literary Walk. This is the most photographed and recognizable part of the park having been featured in countless films. Mature elm trees form an elegant arc over a wide pedestrian walkway lined with benches. At its southern end is the lesser known Literary Walk with statues providing tributes to prominent writers.

Other park highlights include the bronze Alice in Wonderland sculpture, Wollman Ice Skating Rink in winter, the 1908 vintage carousel, Central Park Zoo, the Dairy Visitor Center & Gift Shop, and Bethesda Terrace. Families love Conservatory Water for its climbing sculptures, model boats, story-telling programs, and café. We tend to stay at Mandarin Oriental, New York in Columbus Circle because we like walking from the hotel into the park in a matter of minutes.

Experience Times Square

Times Square, aka Crossroads of the World, is the heartbeat of New York City. The billboards alone, or spectaculars as they’re known locally, are electrifying. At Midnight Moment, they’re also synchronized. This is classic New York, high energy hustle and bustle with everyone on the move. You’ll find something to please each member of the family in Times Square. It’s hectic but a must-do at least once in a lifetime just to say you’ve been there.

There are more than a few things to do at Times Square with kids. National Geographic Encounter: Ocean Odyssey is the most high-tech attraction with 60,000 square feet of exhibition space – for virtual sea life encounters. There’s a whole miniature world at Gulliver’s Gate, the best selection of Marvel comics at Midtown Comics, and three floors of chocolate at M&M’s World. And that’s only the beginning.

Other must-do Times Square attractions include touring Madame Tussauds wax museum and joining the studio audience for a TV show “Good Morning America.”

Explore the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Our most recent visit to the Temple of Dendur in the Sackler Wing.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has assembled an astounding collection representing over 5,000 years of cultural artworks from around the world. One really could spend days here and it’s a top pick for things to do in New York City with kids. The Met even has a family map. My daughter has always loved the Degas ballerinas, Egyptian mummies, Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), and Arms and Armour.

To make the most of your time with this vast collection, you’ll want to choose a guided or audio tour (there is also an audio tour for kids) that matches your interests. You can choose from a variety of engaging one-hour tours presented in various languages that begin at the Great Hall.

The Museum Highlights tours are regulars with other tours on rotation depending on featured collections. All guided tours are free with the price of admission.  

You can spend all of your time at The Met Fifth Avenue (where most people start) or also visit The Met Breuer for an Architecture Tour, and The Met Cloisters for European medieval art and architecture audio tours. All three museum locations open at 10:00 a.m. seven days a week, but The Met Breuer is closed on Mondays.

Top of the Rock and Rockefeller Center

Head over to Rockefeller Center for a variety of activities. In winter, enjoy the massive Christmas tree and famous ice skating rink. During the rest of the year, admire some of the best NYC views from the Top of the Rock Observation Deck or take a behind-the-scenes tour of NBC Studios. Make a booking for brunch at the famous Rainbow Room. Snag a banana pudding and cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery. Also popular with kids is the enormous LEGO store, Nintendo store, and FAO Schwarz.

Don’t forget that you can request tickets for the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon or even catch a performance at Radio City Music Hall.

Close proximity to Rockefeller Center is a benefit to staying at The Towers at Lotte Palace.

Take a Walk over the Brooklyn Bridge

Many New Yorkers consider walking across the Brooklyn Bridge a rite of passage. Visitors wanting to experience New York like a local flock to the bridge to check it off their bucket list too. The popular pedestrian walkway, elevated above traffic, connects Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan.

The Brooklyn Bridge is hands down the most iconic bridge in New York City, featured in films like Saturday Night Fever and Gangs of New York, among others. The architecture alone is stunning, but be sure to take note of the Manhattan skyline on your way across. Guided walking tours are available, including some focused on the bridge’s history or architecture.

At just over a mile long, it will take a half to full hour to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, one way. You’ll want to plan for it to be pretty windy with no protection from the elements. Wear a hat and sunscreen in the summer. Also, walkers share the bridge with cyclists, so be cautious. There are no essentials on the bridge like bathrooms, snacks, or water.

We started on the Brooklyn side and walked across to Manhattan. It’s a bit of a walk from the Brooklyn subway station (about 10 minutes) to the base of the bridge. It’s a well-marked path but not exactly through a major thoroughfare. On both sides, during a hot summer day, vendors sell much-needed bottled water and ice cream. 

Pay Respects at the 9/11 Memorial

Many visitors to New York City want to pay their respects to the victims of September 11 with a visit to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. The two are located adjacent to each other on an eight-acre Memorial Plaza, and are part of the larger 16-acre World Trade Center. They serve as a tribute to those who lost their lives as a result of terror attacks on February 26, 1993 and September 11, 2001.

The 9/11 Memorial Plaza includes 400 white oak trees, and two one-acre pools with the nation’s largest manmade waterfalls where the twin towers once stood. Every name of those who perished is inscribed in bronze surrounding the two Memorial pools. Memorial Glade includes six stone monoliths dedicated to rescue and recovery workers, relief workers, survivors, and community members affected by the attack. The Survivor Tree that endured the attack is a symbol of resilience and rebirth.

The 9/11 Memorial Museum is the nation’s primary institution dedicated to the remembrance of September, 11. Visitors will find state-of-the-art multimedia exhibits, monumental artifacts, and significant archives. The museum tells the story of both victims and survivors. Visitors can purchase tickets for guided Memorial tours, Museum tours, or combination tours which are also included options on various New York sightseeing passes.

Bask in the Nostalgia of Coney Island

Seriously, Coney Island was much more fun than I thought it would be.

Even if you’ve never been to New York City, you’ve likely heard of Coney Island. This nostalgic seaside resort is embedded in our culture through our music, theater, film, literature, television, and even video games. Once upon a time, over a century ago, it was the preeminent seaside getaway in America.

Today, it’s been revitalized to recapture at least some of its former allure. There are new bars and restaurants, and even the amusement park has gotten a major facelift. But the old carny-style ambience has remained too. You’ll find some of the same concessions that have been here for decades, an enduring circus sideshow, the traditional annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade, and of course, the famous boardwalk.

Must-do experiences at Coney Island include riding the Cyclone wooden roller coaster at Luna Park, and the 150-foot 1920s Wonder Wheel Ferris wheel at Deno’s Wonderwheel Amusement Park next door. An afternoon at the beach, or visit the New York Aquarium along the iconic Boardwalk are also good bets. Grab a hotdog from Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, or a caramel apple from the 75-year-old Williams Candy store. If it’s playing, you can even watch a family-friendly sideshow.

Save on Things to Do in New York City With Sightseeing Passes

There are several options for NYC sightseeing passes that help you save month on attractions. They also conveniently allow you to skip the ticket booth lines in many cases.

The New York Pass is a popular all-inclusive pass for active sightseers as it includes admission to over 100 attractions across 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 or 10 days. 

Less active sightseers or those who are weaving in a few major attractions in between eating glorious food and shopping may prefer the New York Explorer Pass. We used this during our trip a few months ago. This NYC sightseeing pass provides entry to 3, 4, 5, 7, or 10 attractions and tours from 90 options. You have 30 days to use the pass from its first activation.

Both are accessible via mobile phones apps so that you can skip the ticket lines and go straight to the gate in many cases. They also don’t require you to choose which attractions to visit in advance with the exception of guided tours which need reservations.

What are your favorite things to do in New York City?

[animalistauntamedblog]

Imagine a Forbidden Area, left to slumber for 100 years, in which lies a ‘Fairytale Valley’,“where diamonds were once so common they could be picked up in handfuls as they gleamed in the light of the moon.”

“The most unspoiled large plot of land left on the planet, and the only arid biodiversity hotspot.” A unique wilderness almost the size of Belgium, of “towering dunes, sea cliffs, soaring inselbergs¹, panoramic views, lonely gravel plains, the fourth largest meteorite crater in the world, and mass flowerings that follow spring rains.” A dramatic landscape of desert, grassland, coast and mountains.

This is the Sperrgebiet National Park. The park surrounding a diamond mine is an industrial exclusion zone where Nature holds sway.

(More about the Sperrgebiet shortly)

We humans have found a million ways to deface the planet. Our expanding cities devour the land, we crisscross it with highways, we strip away forests, and crush it under factories, we gauge out mines. We disfigure it with scars of a magnitude visible from space.

But do our worst, we cannot keep unstoppable Nature at bay forever. And when large industrial complexes for example, set up heavily protected security zones around them to keep unauthorised humans out, Nature seizes the slightest of chances to move right on in. Her healing hands transfigure what we have blighted into havens pulsing with life. Life finds a way to flourish in the most unlikely of places. Not least in industrial exclusion zones.

Introducing the Industrial Exclusion Zones

Possibly the most infamous of them all – the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

In 1986, the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl exploded and deadly radiation spread for hundreds of miles in smoke and dust, air and water. Every human being was evacuated from within a 30 km radius of the plant, and forbidden to return. An exclusion zone of 4000 km² was created. Fences and radiation warning signs were erected.

But wildlife is no respecter of fences and doesn’t read signs.

CEZ fence and wild dog inside the zone

30 years after the event, John Wendle made a visit to the CEZ for the National Geographic magazine, and wrote of finding “the tracks of wolf, moose, deer, badger, and horses. I counted scores of birds: ravens, songbirds, three kinds of birds of prey, and dozens of swans paddling in the radioactive cooling pond.”

And Ukrainian scientist Sergey Gaschak confirmed, “We have all large mammals: red deer, roe deer, wild boar, moose, bison, brown bear, lynx, wolves, two species of hare, beaver, otter, badger, some martins, some mink, and polecats.” And a score of other mammals including bats, as well as ten or more species of big birds: hawks, eagles, owls, storks, and swans. What a wealth of wildlife!

Wolf in Chernobyl – Sergey Gaschak

That was 2015. Now a bang-up-to-date 2019 study agrees – wildlife is abundant in the CEZ. Nature is thriving. Nature has taken over. Because we are not there. 

“In the exclusion zone, humans have been removed from the system and this greatly overshadows any of those potential radiation effects.” 

But the CEZ may be shrinking. Professor Jim Smith from Portsmouth University has been monitoring its radiation levels since 1990. In the outer regions of the CEZ radiation levels are lower than we would get flying on a plane or having a CT scan. And lower than the natural background radiation in many other parts of the world. In the decades to come, as people start to move back into the zone, what will happen to the fabulous wealth of wildlife that has so flourished in their absence?

Even in active industrial installations Nature finds a way

The Secunda Synfuels Operations plant, South Africa 

The securely-fenced compound of the Secunda Synfuels Operations plant has become an unexpected haven for servals. The servals have found Secunda’s exclusion zone such a great place to live that the ratio of serval numbers to area is “far greater than any other site on record across the entire range of the species.”

Happily for the servals, the compound intended to keep people out, encircles a large area of wetland. Wetland means a plentiful supply of rodents, and no prizes for guessing servals’ favourite food!

Secunda Synfuels scars the South African landscape but servals thrive – credit Daan Loock

Jwaneng, Botswana

There is little more commercially valuable and well-protected than diamonds. The Jwaneng diamond mine produces 11 million carats of diamonds per year, making it the richest diamond mine in the world. To get those precious stones, nearly 47 million tons of rock and ore are dug out every year. That is one big ugly scar on the face of the planet.

Jwaneng mine – Wikimedia

But the Jwaneng exclusion zone also encompasses the Jwana Game Park, home to the globally threatened lappet-faced vulture. Red hartebeest, impala, springbok, steenbok, duiker, wildebeest, gemsbok (oryx) kudu, eland, giraffe, zebra, warthog, baboon, cheetah, ostrich, leopard, caracal, and many other smaller animals are thriving in Jwana.

Venetia, South Africa

The Venetia diamond mine tells a similar story. South Africa’s biggest producer of diamonds, Venetia’s exclusion zone, all 360 km² of it, became the Venetia Limpopo Nature Reserve, notable for those most ancient of trees, the baobabs.

Pic of the life-giving baobob from Facebook (Prince Syeed)

Three of the ‘big five’, lion, elephant and leopard live there in safety, as well as “a broad array of large mammals such as African wild dogs, and cheetahs”.

Humans out, wildlife in.

Now to the Sperrgebiet, Namibia

German speakers will know that ‘Sperrgebiet’ means ‘Forbidden Area’. It lies within what was in 1908 – when diamonds were first discovered there – the colony of German South West Africa. The Forbidden Area, closed to the public for a century is now a national park extending over 26,000km². A national park with a difference, since nearly all of it is still forbidden to visitors. Though to this day diamonds continue to be mined there on a small-scale ,“the habitat is largely untouched and pristine.” It is a true wilderness.

Ancient signs still remain: “Warning. Penalty £500. Or One Year’s Imprisonment. The Public Is Warned Against Entering The Prohibited Area.”

Namibian springbok

“Exclusion of humans has helped preserve the natural biodiversity of the region which is now a hot-spot for exotic flora and fauna. The Sperrgebiet has more biodiversity than anywhere else in Namibia, supporting animals such as the gemsbok, springbok, and brown hyena, and bird species such as the African oystercatcher, the black-headed canary, and the dune lark. Some 600,000 Cape fur seals live here, representing 50 percent of the world’s seal population.”

80 terrestrial mammal species have been recorded there, and reptile species are abundant.

As for the flora:

There are 776 types of plants in the Sperrgebiet

234 of them are only found in southwest Namibia, an area known as the Succulent Karoo.

The Succulent Karoo holds the world’s richest flora of succulent plants, with one-third of the world’s approximately 10,000 succulent species

40% of its succulent plants are endemic to the Karoo

With 630 recorded species, the region is also exceptionally rich in geophytes²,

284 of the Sperrgebiet’s plants are on the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species

The Sperrgebiet is in the world’s top 25 biodiversity hotspots. Man out, Nature in with a vengeance!

The problem is of course that where there are wonders of Nature, people want to see them for themselves. In 2007 the park management were “plotting ecologically sensitive guided driving and hiking trails. Given the importance, but also the fragility, of this ecosystem, tourism planning must out of necessity be carefully and sensitively addressed. Some areas with a high endemicity and range-restricted species are to be designated as Strict Nature Reserves and will never be generally accessible. Other areas will have access limited to visitors on foot, horse or camel back.”

Fine words, and let us hope they will always be born out on the ground³. Otherwise the Sperrgebiet may not remain the forbidden, undisturbed paradise it has been for so long.

But let’s end on an up note. I love this story – Elephant seals reclaim Drake’s Beach in California during the US government shut down. No heavy industry here, but normally lots of humans, including the 85-strong staff of Point Reyes National Seashore. The government shutdown left only 12 staff there, not enough to shake blue tarps to frighten the seals away as they normally would. Every cloud, as they say …

“In January 2019, elephant seals occupied the section of Drakes Beach adjacent to the Kenneth C. Patrick Visitor Center, and, at times, the parking lot and wooden ramps leading up to the visitor center”. The elephant seals – nearly 100 of them – are mostly females with their pups, but there are a few males too.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1090105097957376000

When the seals showed up, staff promptly closed off the entire area to the public. Now they are experimenting with weekend opening of a small part of the car park, just enough for 20 cars, for supervised viewing only. If the scheme is a success, weekend viewings will continue until early April when the pups will be weaned and the seals will move on.

Drake’s Beach is a far cry from Chernobyl – or Secunda and the diamond mines if it  comes to that. But the moral of the story in all cases is the same:

In the words of Point Reyes’ chief seashore wildlife ecologist Dave Press,

“If you just get out of the way, wildlife will find its way in.”

Never a truer word.

¹Inselbergs are rock hills/mountains that arise steeply from a surrounding plain. Inselberg translates as ‘island mountain’.

²Most geophytes are plants that store water and carbohydrates underground  – think tuber or rhizome such as the ginger we buy in a store. This underground organ helps them to withstand extremes of temperature and drought and protects them from grazing animals.

³Nowadays there is a strictly controlled guided day tour to Pomona, a ghost town abandoned at the end of the diamond rush, and the famous Bogenfels, a 55 metre high arch of rock on the Sperrgebiet’s Atlantic coast.

Related posts

What Happens to Animals When People Disappear 2

What Happens to Animals When People Disappear

What Man Scars, Nature Heals

The Wildlife Haven that’s the UK’s Best Kept Secret

Sources

Chernobyl: The end of a three-decade experiment

How a South African industrial site is providing a safe haven for wild cats

Discover Namibia’s Sperrgebiet

Travel News Namibia

The Sperrgebiet – Wiki

        The Unspoilt Eden Let’s Hope We Will Never Get to See Imagine a Forbidden Area, left to slumber for 100 years, in which lies a ‘Fairytale Valley’,

[180abroad]

Day 130: Bowmore and Laphroaig

For our second day on Islay, we visited two more of the island's oldest and most prestigious distilleries--Bowmore and Laphroaig. I've already waxed poetic about Laphroaig, arguably the most challenging of all the Islay distilleries and the one that got me into Scotch whisky in the first place. Bowmore, on the other hand, sits proudly at the center of Islay, geographically as well as alcoholically.

We didn't have a car yet, so we took the early morning bus from Port Ellen to the village of Bowmore, which is Islay's administrative center. (But not it's capital--even the entire island put together doesn't constitute a city, so it has to share a council with other nearby islands and mainland villages.)

We had counted on finding a place for breakfast in Bowmore, but it turned out to be more of a challenge than we expected. Still adjusting to the realities of island time, I was surprised by just how limited and unhurried the options were, even in one of the island's biggest, most touristed villages. We eventually settled for a hotel restaurant, where after the better part of an hour we finally received some very tasty, if also very expensive, pancakes and ham.

It was mainly just me that was stressed out. Jessica and my dad thankfully seemed to be enjoying themselves fully. And once we were fed and staring out over the bay that forms the center of Islay's horseshoe, everything was right with the world again. Relaxation is a skill that requires mindful practice.

Just outside the hotel, we stepped out onto the beach and admired the view. The distillery was just a block away, and we could clearly see its traditional block-letter signage pointing out into the bay. We also got a lovely view up the village's small main street, which ends at an old round church. According to legend, the church was built that way so that the devil would have no corners to hide in.

We still had some time before the distillery was open for tastings, so we decided to take a stroll around the village. Near the edge of town--just a few blocks away from the center--we came across a grazing field that was home to a miniature horse with a mega hairdo.

We made our way up to the church, whose cemetery includes a corner dedicated to unknown sailors killed during World War II.

We saw some other evocative gravestones, too, including one erected by a man in memory of his father, mother, sister, brother, and son, all of whom he had outlived.

We hadn't booked a tour for Bowmore, so we popped in and headed up to the tasting bar just as they were opening. Along the way, we passed by a proudly presented collection of Bowmore artifacts, including a slowly rotating bottle of the most expensive whisky in the world.

Distilled in 1957, this extravagantly bottled whisky was aged in the barrel for a stunning 54 years. Shortly after the whisky was released, a bottle sold at auction for nearly $200,000.

There was also a map for visitors to mark where they came from. Clearly we aren't the only Californians with good taste in whisky.

Making our way past the impressive exhibit, we found ourselves with the place pretty much to ourselves. We each got a complimentary tasting of Bowmore 12, which was a nice and well-balanced--still peaty but much less so than the south-coast peat monsters we'd visited yesterday. After flipping through their impressive tasting menu, we settled on one of the flights they had on offer:

No. 1: This is the first of several very similar whiskies we tried on Islay. Made to be light and approachable while still distinctively Islay, our main tasting notes were vanilla and citrus, with a pleasant smoky finish. If you had to pair a Scotch with breakfast, this would be it.

15 Year Darkest: A special-edition whisky that is now being added to Bowmore's core line as Bowmore 15, this whisky has an utterly unique blend of fruity red-wine and peaty maritime flavors. I can see why some people might not like it--purist concerns about caramel coloring and chill-filtering aside--but this was easily one of our favorite whisky discoveries on Islay.

Bowmore 18: Smooth, sweet, and creamy with a long smoky finish, this one was very good as well and my dad's favorite from this tasting.

There were small water pitchers with eyedroppers set out for people who wanted to add it to their whisky, so we decided to experiment. We've found a lot of whiskies become significantly more flavorful with the addition of a single drop of water or two--something about disrupting surface tension and releasing aromatics--but it didn't seem to help with any of the whiskies we tried here.

We were starting to get pretty hungry, so we picked up some sandwiches at the local Co-Op grocery store and enjoyed a picnic on the pier.

It was here that I finally sampled the Scottish soda Irn Bru. It looks like orange soda, but it isn't. The best comparison we could come up with was that it tastes like an orange creamsicle blended with cough syrup. It's most defining characteristic, however--besides the fact that it contains actual iron--is its unnaturally fluorescent orange coloring. The color is thanks to two controversial colorants that are banned in several other countries.

Nonetheless, Irn Bru is Scotland's best-selling soft drink, making it one of the few countries in the world not dominated by Coca-Cola.

After lunch, we caught the bus back to Port Ellen, where we ran into our host. She apologized profusely for the lack of wifi, then showed us around the main house, which the guests we’d bumped into on the night we arrived had now left. She had just done a lovely renovation job and was preparing to give the guest house a similar treatment. Like all the locals we'd met so far, she was as friendly and adorable as could be. It was all I could do to drag us away for the two-mile walk out to make our scheduled tour and tasting at Laphroaig.

But when she heard where we were going, our host insisted on driving us there herself. So we all hopped into her tiny old car with her equally friendly and very large three-legged dog.

Along the way, she recommended a friend of hers that makes fruit wines, including a wine made from Rhubarb--Jessica's favorite. We made a note to pick some up from the store later. (Spoiler alert: As much as we wanted to love it, we really, really didn't.)

As we walked into Laphroaig, we were immediately delighted by a literal wall of tweets. As part of their 200th anniversary in 2015, Laphroaig sent out a call for fans to describe their favorite Laphroaig whisky in their own words

The results speak for themselves.

Inside the visitor center, we got to browse through a nice little museum while we waited for our tour to begin. The tour included a very thorough and interesting look at each stage of whisky production.

Laphroaig is one of the few Islay distilleries that still malts its own barley, so we really did get to see the whole procedure. We got to see the large rooms where moistened, heated barley is spread out to germinate for several days, generating the sugars that will get fermented into alcohol.

During this process, the barley needs to be shifted regularly to ensure the best results. According to our guide, this is where the term "work shift" actually originated, since they needed teams of people to shift the barley day and night.

And because we were between maltings, we actually got to climb inside the chamber where the malted barley is smoked. This chamber sits directly below the distinctive pagoda chimney that many Scotch distilleries have. The the pagoda design was popularized in the late 1800s and has become so iconic that new distilleries still build pagoda chimneys even though they don't even malt their own barley.

Downstairs, our guide showed us the furnace that fires the peat smoke, as well as the traditional tools used to cut peat in the field.

Next, we saw the fermentation and distillation rooms, which offered a striking juxtaposition of old and new. The fermentation process room is filled with computer terminals and stainless steel tanks, but the distillation still takes place in the traditional copper pot stills.

And rightly so. Much of the whisky's flavor is determined simply by the shape of the still. Different shapes and sizes of stills will generate different types and proportions of flavor chemicals. The stills are so sacred that they are pretty much maintained at any cost, and we could see the seams where they've been patched over and over again, Ship of Theseus style to ensure that the unique character of the distillery's whisky is never lost.

Some of the stills were resting, and we got to peak in and the machinery inside one of them.

The last stop of the tour was the barrel room. There was a much more exclusive tasting group going on, though, so we had to be quick.

The tour over, it was time for tasting. We had been given mini tasting glasses--much like the ones we'd gotten from Ardbeg--as well as clever lanyard for carrying them in. Each of our lanyards came with three small alligator clips that we could spend as tokens at the tasting bar. Basic whiskies cost one token each, special whiskies cost two, and the extra-special whiskies cost three.

The three of us pooled our tokens together, netting us the widest tasting sample of any distillery we visited:

Quarter Cask: This was and still is my favorite Laphroaig. We had one token left after getting as many whiskies as we could that we hadn't tried before, so I spent the last token on this one. Powerfully peaty with as exactly as much iodine as I can stand, this is the quintessential Islay whisky. The name is derived from the fact that this whisky is aged in smaller barrels, doubling the relative contact area between the whisky and the wood for and giving the whisky a stronger oak influence to balance out the medicinal flavors.

Select: Laphroaig's take on a light, entry-level whisky. This one had strong vanilla notes as well as the usual citrus. Very drinkable, but not the kind of whisky we came to Islay for.

Four Oak: Aged in a mix of four different barrel types, this whisky is promoted as complex, woody whisky. It smelled delightfully fresh, and we thought for sure that if there was any Laphroaig that Jessica would like, it would be this one. But when it came time to the tasting, we discovered it to be a powerful punch of intense smoke and dark earth, with a long-lingering aftertaste.

Lore: A mix of whiskies from five different casks and aged from seven to twenty-one years, Lore is billed as the richest, most complex member of the core Laphroaig range. It smelled like a peat bog in a glass, and we thought for sure that Jessica would hate it. But we were wrong. Ironically, the Lore tasted as smooth as the Four Oak smelled. I still think that the Quarter Cask is my favorite, but Lore could give it a strong challenge.

Cairdeas 15: Our last whisky was the three-token Cairdeas, which is Gaelic for "friendship." Released annually in limited editions for the Friends of Laphroaig club, it is aged entirely in first-fill bourbon barrels that give it a strong and flavorful bourbon twist.

After admiring the tweet wall for a good while on our way out, we enjoyed another beautiful sunny walk home. And since it was only a mile and we hadn't spent the entire day walking, we really did enjoy it!

Back home, we enjoyed another relaxing evening and did our best to fight off the incipient tremors of wifi withdrawal. Tomorrow, we would be getting a rental car and exploring the less-traveled roads of Islay's Atlantic coast.

Next Post: Kilchoman, Bruichladdich, and the Atlantic Coast

Last Post: Ardbeg and Lagavulin

[ohnohetaliasues]

Rakel Von Oistan

(Kat)

I told you I’d be back. Here I am. Let’s begin.

Rakel Von Oistan is a fanmade character for the anime/manga Hetalia. She is the representative of Ezrith, an island-country located between England, Germany and just below of Russia.

Where on a map would you find that? Because I am very confused.

?????????????????

Country Name

Ezrith

Human Name

Rakel Von Oistan

Age

Physically 23

That’s... fine I guess?

Gender

Female

Height

6'1" ft.

Weight

132 lbs.

The average weight for a female who is 6′1 would be 144 to 188 lbs. 

Which means she is twelve pounds underweight. 

Languages

French, English, and German

Okay? But why?

Affiliated

Allied Forces

Appearance

She has short, light-brown hair with a mixture of light-grey and platinum blonde.

That... That sounds like a bad dye job.

 Her eyes are a mixture of dark grey and light-blue. 

Just say they’re dull blue.

She is usually seen wearing boyish clothing (shirts, pants, shoes, etc.). She likes to wear dark-colored clothing. She'd rather look masculine than frilly any day. She is often mistaken for a man due to her choice in fashion.

I can’t even begin to wonder if that’s accurate of not based off the fact that the location of her country doesn’t exist. Like, geographically. There is now sea between England and Germany that exists that is also below Russia. Just look at the map I have above. If I’m wrong, someone please tell me where this country is located. I am so confused.

 Her height certainly doesn't make up for it, either. Her military uniform is solid black with gold buttons going down the center, black slacks, and black dress shoes.

Why would you wear dress shoes on the battlefield?

Personality

Rakel is mainly low-spoken and hardly says anything. She usually holds a bored or tired expression, staring out into space somewhere and ignoring her surroundings entirely.

That’s pretty much me. Not the low spoken thing, That’s something I wouldn’t describe myself as. I am very hot headed and very sarcastic, as you can tell from pretty much everything on this blog. I like to keep to myself, but open up more to people I’m close to. I also tend to talk your ear off. If I do that, you know I like you a lot. I have a positive attitude despite being very sardonic. Online, I feel like I can more be myself. Anyway, enough about me. Let’s move along. 

 She's not one to get excited over small things, and basically keeps her feelings inside, almost acting robotic. She only smiles when necessary (this can and cannot include birthdays or any other special/important occasion). She's what you'd call a "silent but deadly" kind of person. She's been this way almost her entire childhood.

The edge is real.

Interests

She tends to greatly enjoy music of all genres. Any song with a good beat will get her going and dancing all around her house. She will never, ever dance in public, though. She doesn't care all that much about fashion or what's "in"/"out"; she's sort of old-fashioned, in a way.

Esme Squalor would be appalled.

 She enjoys looking back in life rather then ahead. 

Well, if you always look back in life, you’ll never move on to do the new things.

She misses the old times of when everything was simple and peaceful. 

You know what else is simple and peaceful? My bedroom when I’m alone on Tumblr.

As another pass time activity, she will read from time to time as well.

This OC is just coming off as kind of bland.

Relationships

1. France (Francis Bonnefoy)

These two are ultimate best friends. They've known each other since Rakel was 12 years old (the year 1296 - "Two-Year War", in which Ezrith was conquered by France. 

Well this is new. An OC that doesn’t bash France. This pleases me.

Taken at a young age and made to live and work for him as a maid. 

I would be mad. I don’t like to be forced to do anything.

But, the two soon began to grow fond of each other despite what they were going through at the time). 

Stockholm Syndrome much?

They'd do whatever they could for each other, no matter the cost. In a way, they're like father and daughter.

Seychelles is France’s daughter figure.

 She sees him as the kind, lovable and warm-hearted man that he is, not a horrible manipulater that most people claim him to be.

THANK YOU.

2. United Kingdom (Arthur Kirkland)

AKA France’s actual best friend.

She sees him as brother. Though they do not talk often, they're close to one another. 

Well that’s counter intuitive.

She enjoys his cooking and tells him so despite him sometimes having a hard time believing her. 

I would have a hard time believing her, too. Also, England thinks his cooking is good.

She calls him "Iggy" for sport, finding him amusing when upset at his nickname. The one time he saw her really ecstatic was when she came over his house to watch Doctor Who.

YES COUNT ME IN.

Trivia

- She's arachnephobic and somewhat brontophobic.

Why is she afraid of thunder? A lot of this is just out of place.

- She's a major fan of sweets.

- She has a pet wolf named Zei.

Wolves in Europe are primarily found in Russia, Belarus,parts of Ukraine, the Baltic nations, Finland, some parts of Sweden, The Balkan nations, and even some parts of Italy and Spain. But in England or Germany? Nope. Does she have a reason to have a pet wolf with an African name? Nope. 

Well, that wraps this OC up. To start, she wasn’t as much a Mary sue as she was kind of scattered. Her traits didn’t really tie in with one another, and the fact that she has no fixed geographical location makes me mad. Anyway, I’ll see you all later!

~Kat

[michaeljames1221]

Foreclosure Lawyer Layton Utah

Layton is a city in Davis County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Ogden-Clearfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 67,311, rising to an estimated 77,303 by 2018. Layton is the most populous city in Davis County and the ninth most populous in Utah. Layton has direct access to Salt Lake City, Ogden, Salt Lake City International Airport, Antelope Island, and the FrontRunner commuter rail. Layton City is a leader in economic development for the region, with immediate adjacency to Hill Air Force Base, a large hospitality district (1,000+ hotel beds) and conference center, the Layton Hills Mall, multiple nationally recognized retail and food chains, the East Gate Business Park, and the Weber State University-Davis campus. In 2014, Layton contributed $1.34 billion worth of retail sales activity, the second largest market north of Salt Lake City and seventh largest in Utah. Layton was settled in the 1850s as an outgrowth of Kaysville, and is named after Christopher Layton, a Latter-day Saint colonizer and leader. It was included in the boundaries when Kaysville was incorporated as a city in 1868, but by the 1880s many Layton residents wanted to separate from the city. They challenged Kaysville’s authority to tax their property, claiming they received no municipal services.

This dispute reached the United States Supreme Court in 1894 as the case of Linford v. Ellison, which was decided in favor of the Layton property owners. The separatist movement finally succeeded in 1902, when Layton became an independent unincorporated area. After further growth it was made an incorporated town in 1920. The town’s population increased slowly; up until 1940 it was about 600. The creation of Hill Air Force Base to the north in 1940, followed shortly by the United States’ entry into World War II, led to a dramatic population increase. War workers streamed into the area; the 1950 census counted 3,456 people. Layton became a city, transformed from a farming town to a residential community. Growth slowed after the war, but Layton continued to develop as a suburban bedroom community, as those not employed at the Air Force base began commuting to the Salt Lake City or Ogden areas. The city continued to expand geographically, annexing surrounding parcels of land, including the adjacent town of Layton and city of East Layton. In 1985, Layton passed Bountiful to become the most populous city in Davis County.

States have their own rules and regulations regarding the process of foreclosures. There are several steps that take place before the actual final step of when the lender seizes your property through the foreclosure. In 22 states judicial foreclosure is the primary way of dealing with home foreclosures. This means that the lender must go through the courts to show that the borrower is failing to make the monthly mortgage payments. If the courts approve the foreclosure, the local sheriff auctions the property to the highest bidder to recoup what the bank is owed or the bank becomes the owner to resell the property. Some other states use non-judicial foreclosure, which is also known as the power of the sale. This process is faster compared to court intervention.

Foreclosure process is complicated and can be overwhelming. It is important to know what your rights are and what the banks are not allowed to do. Some banks can cross boundaries in the foreclosure processes. Each state has their own set of regulations on dealing with the foreclosure process. Here is a list of things to consider of what banks cannot do before foreclosing on the home: • Some states require banks to determine if the homeowner qualifies for either a loan modification or some other form of help before foreclosing on the home. If the bank decides to do both at the same time, it is illegal also known as “dual tracking”; • If the homeowner applies for some help or loan modification, the bank cannot start the foreclosure process; • The bank must obtain a court order and file for an eviction before foreclosing the home; • The bank cannot padlock your home if you are still living in it and; • If you reinstate your mortgage before the sheriff sale, the bank cannot continue your foreclosure process. However, there are some things that the bank is allowed to do during the foreclosure process: • Banks can padlock the home if it is empty; • The bank can seek alternative judgments if they are unable to sell the home at auction for what they are owed on the mortgage and; • The bank can either request a non-judicial foreclosure or judicial foreclosure.

If you are currently failing to make monthly payments for your mortgage. It is crucial to seek help earlier in the process to ensure that you have a path forward. Here are some practical tips to consider when trying to avoid a foreclosure: • Be timely with your loan payments and do not ignore the problem; • There may be other financial options available for you therefore, it is recommended to contact your lender earlier on; • Make sure you are receiving the notices from your lender and responding accordingly because failing to do so will not serve as an excuse in the foreclosure court; • Read and understand your rights through your loan documents to make sure you know what the lender can and cannot do if you miss a payment; • There are alternative foreclosure prevention methods and it is important to know them; • You have the option of asking additional help from the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) they have counselors that are available to assist in better managing your finances; • Mortgage payment should be priority along with healthcare therefore organizing a budget that ensures this is crucial to being on time with the monthly payments for your home; • Utilizing your assets to reinstate your loans can also be another option to avoid foreclosure on your home; • Avoid foreclosure prevention companies and do not pay fees for that type of help and; • Be aware of foreclosure fraud and scams that can require a signature on one document for your foreclosure to go away.

If you think you are in a difficult financial situation and may not be able to make your monthly mortgage payments seek help immediately. It is important to contact your lender earlier in the process and plan for other options to modify your payments than deal with a foreclosure. The foreclosure process is overwhelming and complicated; therefore contacting your local foreclosure lawyer may be helpful. Foreclosure Fraud Foreclosure fraud is a term encompassing any type of scheme involving misrepresentations, false statements, or false promises related to foreclosure. The fraud scams must be designed to enrich the person or company making the fraudulent statements or false promises and/or must be designed to deprive the scam victim of the rightful value of his property. Foreclosure fraud takes many forms including: • Foreclosure rescue scams: This type of scheme involves charging a fee for “foreclosure relief” and not providing any such relief. Homeowners who were in danger of losing their homes receive advertising material promising them that the home could be saved. After paying fees, the homeowners are often told that their houses are too far gone or that staving off foreclosure is not possible. Thousands of homeowners paid out exorbitant fees (sometimes several thousands of dollars) to get none of the foreclosure help that they were told they’d receive. • Foreclosure fee inflation: Service providers charge exorbitant fees to serve notices of foreclosure on homeowners. While a traditional fee for service of process should total a few hundred dollars, some service providers were paid thousands of dollars to give papers to homeowners. The costs of these fees were passed on to the homeowners, who become responsible for paying for the money the mortgage lender spent on the foreclosure process as part of a foreclosure judgment. • Fractional ownership transfers: This is a special type of foreclosure rescue fraud. The process involves a homeowner signing over a part interest of the home to a company that promises to stop the foreclosure. The company then hires “straw homeowners” and gives them the ownership interest. The straw owner files for bankruptcy and the foreclosure process is delayed. Homeowners were frequently misled into believing these scams could help them save their house, but instead the homeowner simply ended up paying a monthly fee as well as giving up partial ownership in the home as the foreclosure process was strung along. • Improperly taking ownership of foreclosed homes: Many homes that were in default or with pending foreclosures were vacated by their rightful owners. One foreclosure fraud scam involves using forged quit claim deeds to make it appear that a person or company owns several foreclosed homes. The homes were then rented out to unsuspecting tenants. Bank Foreclosure Fraud While some foreclosure fraud scams target financial institutions, many banks also engage in fraudulent behavior. Mortgage fraud by banks also takes many forms including: • Document forgery: Mortgages are frequently sold and resold by lending institutions. This could result in some lenders having ownership of a mortgage loan but not having the paperwork to show a right to collect. Banks could create documents after the fact to make it appear as if the paperwork was in order. An electronic database called MERS is supposed to track mortgage transfers, but there was little quality control. In fact, as part of a 2011 settlement with federal regulators, MERS promised to improve controls to avoid fraudulent assignments and database errors. • Robo-signing: Mortgage paperwork is supposed to be carefully checked before a foreclosure moves forward. Many lending institutions, however, had unqualified people rubber stamping foreclosures and signing off on thousands of actions per month without actually doing a thorough review of documents. • Mortgage modification fraud: To help people save their homes, the government created mortgage modification programs and incentivized lenders to participate. Some lenders have been accused of failing to honor loan modifications that were transferred from other mortgage servicers. Others demanded payments with promises of negotiating a modification and then never followed through on the modification. Still others delayed decisions on short sales or claimed never to have received paperwork so that foreclosure could move forward, even as homeowners were trying to participate in mortgage modification. Because of the foreclosure fraud by banks, a foreclosure fraud settlement was reached in which the five largest mortgage services were supposed to provide $5 billion in direct payments to defrauded homeowners and were supposed to take an additional $20 billion worth of action to provide relief to homeowners, such as reducing principal balances or interest rates. The government continues to pursue action against banks for foreclosure fraud. Banks could face criminal and civil actions. Lending institutions, as well as financial professionals who may have been part of fraud schemes, should consult an attorney. What Are the Types of Foreclosure? In the United States, individual states follow either a judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, typically depending upon whether they are a mortgage state or deed of trust state. However, you may safely assume that all states allow some form of judicial foreclosure process. Judicial foreclosure • The lender seeks to foreclose by filing a civil lawsuit against the borrower and serving the borrower with a formal summons and foreclosure complaint. • The foreclosure process is handled through the local court system. The court appoints a referee to conduct the foreclosure auction on the courthouse steps. • The lender records a lis pendens with the county clerk where the property is located. This lis pendens becomes a lien on the property and gives notice of the pending foreclosure auction. • The court grants a judgment permitting the lender to conduct the foreclosure auction. • The Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NFS), which announces date, time and place of the auction, is published and sometimes posted (depending on the locale) for a certain period of time prior to auction. • Generally, the borrower can stop the foreclosure by repaying what he owes up to the moment of sale. • The process can take from four to eight months to complete if no one raises any legal objections to the foreclosure. Non-judicial foreclosure • This is followed in deed of trust states. A deed of trust conveys an interest in real property to a third party (the trustee) to hold as security for repayment of a debt. • The trustee has the authority to initiate foreclosure proceedings by virtue of a power of sale clause included in the mortgage or deed of trust. • The trustee records a Notice of Default (NOD) with the county clerk where the property is located. This document gives notice of an impending foreclosure and grants the borrower a period of time in which to object to the lender’s claim or pay what he owes. • The borrower may not stop the foreclosure after the expiration of this time period. • Following the expiration of a predetermined amount of time (which varies from state to state), the trustee records a Notice of Trustee’s Sale (NTS) with the county clerk. This notice establishes the date, time and place of the foreclosure auction. • It can take up to 12 months to complete a foreclosure, depending upon the state. It is important to remember that neither judicial nor non-judicial foreclosures are one-size-fits-all. Each state follows its own established foreclosure laws and procedures. Consult with a foreclosure specialist in your state to protect your rights during a foreclosure.

Layton Utah Foreclosure Lawyer

When you need legal help with Foreclosure In Layton Utah, please call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

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Foreclosure Lawyer Layton Utah

Layton is a city in Davis County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Ogden-Clearfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 67,311, rising to an estimated 77,303 by 2018. Layton is the most populous city in Davis County and the ninth most populous in Utah. Layton has direct access to Salt Lake City, Ogden, Salt Lake City International Airport, Antelope Island, and the FrontRunner commuter rail. Layton City is a leader in economic development for the region, with immediate adjacency to Hill Air Force Base, a large hospitality district (1,000+ hotel beds) and conference center, the Layton Hills Mall, multiple nationally recognized retail and food chains, the East Gate Business Park, and the Weber State University-Davis campus. In 2014, Layton contributed $1.34 billion worth of retail sales activity, the second largest market north of Salt Lake City and seventh largest in Utah. Layton was settled in the 1850s as an outgrowth of Kaysville, and is named after Christopher Layton, a Latter-day Saint colonizer and leader. It was included in the boundaries when Kaysville was incorporated as a city in 1868, but by the 1880s many Layton residents wanted to separate from the city. They challenged Kaysville’s authority to tax their property, claiming they received no municipal services.

This dispute reached the United States Supreme Court in 1894 as the case of Linford v. Ellison, which was decided in favor of the Layton property owners. The separatist movement finally succeeded in 1902, when Layton became an independent unincorporated area. After further growth it was made an incorporated town in 1920. The town’s population increased slowly; up until 1940 it was about 600. The creation of Hill Air Force Base to the north in 1940, followed shortly by the United States’ entry into World War II, led to a dramatic population increase. War workers streamed into the area; the 1950 census counted 3,456 people. Layton became a city, transformed from a farming town to a residential community. Growth slowed after the war, but Layton continued to develop as a suburban bedroom community, as those not employed at the Air Force base began commuting to the Salt Lake City or Ogden areas. The city continued to expand geographically, annexing surrounding parcels of land, including the adjacent town of Layton and city of East Layton. In 1985, Layton passed Bountiful to become the most populous city in Davis County.

States have their own rules and regulations regarding the process of foreclosures. There are several steps that take place before the actual final step of when the lender seizes your property through the foreclosure. In 22 states judicial foreclosure is the primary way of dealing with home foreclosures. This means that the lender must go through the courts to show that the borrower is failing to make the monthly mortgage payments. If the courts approve the foreclosure, the local sheriff auctions the property to the highest bidder to recoup what the bank is owed or the bank becomes the owner to resell the property. Some other states use non-judicial foreclosure, which is also known as the power of the sale. This process is faster compared to court intervention.

Foreclosure process is complicated and can be overwhelming. It is important to know what your rights are and what the banks are not allowed to do. Some banks can cross boundaries in the foreclosure processes. Each state has their own set of regulations on dealing with the foreclosure process. Here is a list of things to consider of what banks cannot do before foreclosing on the home: • Some states require banks to determine if the homeowner qualifies for either a loan modification or some other form of help before foreclosing on the home. If the bank decides to do both at the same time, it is illegal also known as “dual tracking”; • If the homeowner applies for some help or loan modification, the bank cannot start the foreclosure process; • The bank must obtain a court order and file for an eviction before foreclosing the home; • The bank cannot padlock your home if you are still living in it and; • If you reinstate your mortgage before the sheriff sale, the bank cannot continue your foreclosure process. However, there are some things that the bank is allowed to do during the foreclosure process: • Banks can padlock the home if it is empty; • The bank can seek alternative judgments if they are unable to sell the home at auction for what they are owed on the mortgage and; • The bank can either request a non-judicial foreclosure or judicial foreclosure.

If you are currently failing to make monthly payments for your mortgage. It is crucial to seek help earlier in the process to ensure that you have a path forward. Here are some practical tips to consider when trying to avoid a foreclosure: • Be timely with your loan payments and do not ignore the problem; • There may be other financial options available for you therefore, it is recommended to contact your lender earlier on; • Make sure you are receiving the notices from your lender and responding accordingly because failing to do so will not serve as an excuse in the foreclosure court; • Read and understand your rights through your loan documents to make sure you know what the lender can and cannot do if you miss a payment; • There are alternative foreclosure prevention methods and it is important to know them; • You have the option of asking additional help from the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) they have counselors that are available to assist in better managing your finances; • Mortgage payment should be priority along with healthcare therefore organizing a budget that ensures this is crucial to being on time with the monthly payments for your home; • Utilizing your assets to reinstate your loans can also be another option to avoid foreclosure on your home; • Avoid foreclosure prevention companies and do not pay fees for that type of help and; • Be aware of foreclosure fraud and scams that can require a signature on one document for your foreclosure to go away.

If you think you are in a difficult financial situation and may not be able to make your monthly mortgage payments seek help immediately. It is important to contact your lender earlier in the process and plan for other options to modify your payments than deal with a foreclosure. The foreclosure process is overwhelming and complicated; therefore contacting your local foreclosure lawyer may be helpful. Foreclosure Fraud Foreclosure fraud is a term encompassing any type of scheme involving misrepresentations, false statements, or false promises related to foreclosure. The fraud scams must be designed to enrich the person or company making the fraudulent statements or false promises and/or must be designed to deprive the scam victim of the rightful value of his property. Foreclosure fraud takes many forms including: • Foreclosure rescue scams: This type of scheme involves charging a fee for “foreclosure relief” and not providing any such relief. Homeowners who were in danger of losing their homes receive advertising material promising them that the home could be saved. After paying fees, the homeowners are often told that their houses are too far gone or that staving off foreclosure is not possible. Thousands of homeowners paid out exorbitant fees (sometimes several thousands of dollars) to get none of the foreclosure help that they were told they’d receive. • Foreclosure fee inflation: Service providers charge exorbitant fees to serve notices of foreclosure on homeowners. While a traditional fee for service of process should total a few hundred dollars, some service providers were paid thousands of dollars to give papers to homeowners. The costs of these fees were passed on to the homeowners, who become responsible for paying for the money the mortgage lender spent on the foreclosure process as part of a foreclosure judgment. • Fractional ownership transfers: This is a special type of foreclosure rescue fraud. The process involves a homeowner signing over a part interest of the home to a company that promises to stop the foreclosure. The company then hires “straw homeowners” and gives them the ownership interest. The straw owner files for bankruptcy and the foreclosure process is delayed. Homeowners were frequently misled into believing these scams could help them save their house, but instead the homeowner simply ended up paying a monthly fee as well as giving up partial ownership in the home as the foreclosure process was strung along. • Improperly taking ownership of foreclosed homes: Many homes that were in default or with pending foreclosures were vacated by their rightful owners. One foreclosure fraud scam involves using forged quit claim deeds to make it appear that a person or company owns several foreclosed homes. The homes were then rented out to unsuspecting tenants. Bank Foreclosure Fraud While some foreclosure fraud scams target financial institutions, many banks also engage in fraudulent behavior. Mortgage fraud by banks also takes many forms including: • Document forgery: Mortgages are frequently sold and resold by lending institutions. This could result in some lenders having ownership of a mortgage loan but not having the paperwork to show a right to collect. Banks could create documents after the fact to make it appear as if the paperwork was in order. An electronic database called MERS is supposed to track mortgage transfers, but there was little quality control. In fact, as part of a 2011 settlement with federal regulators, MERS promised to improve controls to avoid fraudulent assignments and database errors. • Robo-signing: Mortgage paperwork is supposed to be carefully checked before a foreclosure moves forward. Many lending institutions, however, had unqualified people rubber stamping foreclosures and signing off on thousands of actions per month without actually doing a thorough review of documents. • Mortgage modification fraud: To help people save their homes, the government created mortgage modification programs and incentivized lenders to participate. Some lenders have been accused of failing to honor loan modifications that were transferred from other mortgage servicers. Others demanded payments with promises of negotiating a modification and then never followed through on the modification. Still others delayed decisions on short sales or claimed never to have received paperwork so that foreclosure could move forward, even as homeowners were trying to participate in mortgage modification. Because of the foreclosure fraud by banks, a foreclosure fraud settlement was reached in which the five largest mortgage services were supposed to provide $5 billion in direct payments to defrauded homeowners and were supposed to take an additional $20 billion worth of action to provide relief to homeowners, such as reducing principal balances or interest rates. The government continues to pursue action against banks for foreclosure fraud. Banks could face criminal and civil actions. Lending institutions, as well as financial professionals who may have been part of fraud schemes, should consult an attorney. What Are the Types of Foreclosure? In the United States, individual states follow either a judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, typically depending upon whether they are a mortgage state or deed of trust state. However, you may safely assume that all states allow some form of judicial foreclosure process. Judicial foreclosure • The lender seeks to foreclose by filing a civil lawsuit against the borrower and serving the borrower with a formal summons and foreclosure complaint. • The foreclosure process is handled through the local court system. The court appoints a referee to conduct the foreclosure auction on the courthouse steps. • The lender records a lis pendens with the county clerk where the property is located. This lis pendens becomes a lien on the property and gives notice of the pending foreclosure auction. • The court grants a judgment permitting the lender to conduct the foreclosure auction. • The Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NFS), which announces date, time and place of the auction, is published and sometimes posted (depending on the locale) for a certain period of time prior to auction. • Generally, the borrower can stop the foreclosure by repaying what he owes up to the moment of sale. • The process can take from four to eight months to complete if no one raises any legal objections to the foreclosure. Non-judicial foreclosure • This is followed in deed of trust states. A deed of trust conveys an interest in real property to a third party (the trustee) to hold as security for repayment of a debt. • The trustee has the authority to initiate foreclosure proceedings by virtue of a power of sale clause included in the mortgage or deed of trust. • The trustee records a Notice of Default (NOD) with the county clerk where the property is located. This document gives notice of an impending foreclosure and grants the borrower a period of time in which to object to the lender’s claim or pay what he owes. • The borrower may not stop the foreclosure after the expiration of this time period. • Following the expiration of a predetermined amount of time (which varies from state to state), the trustee records a Notice of Trustee’s Sale (NTS) with the county clerk. This notice establishes the date, time and place of the foreclosure auction. • It can take up to 12 months to complete a foreclosure, depending upon the state. It is important to remember that neither judicial nor non-judicial foreclosures are one-size-fits-all. Each state follows its own established foreclosure laws and procedures. Consult with a foreclosure specialist in your state to protect your rights during a foreclosure.

Layton Utah Foreclosure Lawyer

When you need legal help with Foreclosure In Layton Utah, please call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

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Foreclosure Lawyer Layton Utah

Layton is a city in Davis County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Ogden-Clearfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 67,311, rising to an estimated 77,303 by 2018. Layton is the most populous city in Davis County and the ninth most populous in Utah. Layton has direct access to Salt Lake City, Ogden, Salt Lake City International Airport, Antelope Island, and the FrontRunner commuter rail. Layton City is a leader in economic development for the region, with immediate adjacency to Hill Air Force Base, a large hospitality district (1,000+ hotel beds) and conference center, the Layton Hills Mall, multiple nationally recognized retail and food chains, the East Gate Business Park, and the Weber State University-Davis campus. In 2014, Layton contributed $1.34 billion worth of retail sales activity, the second largest market north of Salt Lake City and seventh largest in Utah. Layton was settled in the 1850s as an outgrowth of Kaysville, and is named after Christopher Layton, a Latter-day Saint colonizer and leader. It was included in the boundaries when Kaysville was incorporated as a city in 1868, but by the 1880s many Layton residents wanted to separate from the city. They challenged Kaysville’s authority to tax their property, claiming they received no municipal services.

This dispute reached the United States Supreme Court in 1894 as the case of Linford v. Ellison, which was decided in favor of the Layton property owners. The separatist movement finally succeeded in 1902, when Layton became an independent unincorporated area. After further growth it was made an incorporated town in 1920. The town’s population increased slowly; up until 1940 it was about 600. The creation of Hill Air Force Base to the north in 1940, followed shortly by the United States’ entry into World War II, led to a dramatic population increase. War workers streamed into the area; the 1950 census counted 3,456 people. Layton became a city, transformed from a farming town to a residential community. Growth slowed after the war, but Layton continued to develop as a suburban bedroom community, as those not employed at the Air Force base began commuting to the Salt Lake City or Ogden areas. The city continued to expand geographically, annexing surrounding parcels of land, including the adjacent town of Layton and city of East Layton. In 1985, Layton passed Bountiful to become the most populous city in Davis County.

States have their own rules and regulations regarding the process of foreclosures. There are several steps that take place before the actual final step of when the lender seizes your property through the foreclosure. In 22 states judicial foreclosure is the primary way of dealing with home foreclosures. This means that the lender must go through the courts to show that the borrower is failing to make the monthly mortgage payments. If the courts approve the foreclosure, the local sheriff auctions the property to the highest bidder to recoup what the bank is owed or the bank becomes the owner to resell the property. Some other states use non-judicial foreclosure, which is also known as the power of the sale. This process is faster compared to court intervention. Foreclosure process is complicated and can be overwhelming. It is important to know what your rights are and what the banks are not allowed to do. Some banks can cross boundaries in the foreclosure processes. Each state has their own set of regulations on dealing with the foreclosure process. Here is a list of things to consider of what banks cannot do before foreclosing on the home: • Some states require banks to determine if the homeowner qualifies for either a loan modification or some other form of help before foreclosing on the home. If the bank decides to do both at the same time, it is illegal also known as “dual tracking”; • If the homeowner applies for some help or loan modification, the bank cannot start the foreclosure process; • The bank must obtain a court order and file for an eviction before foreclosing the home; • The bank cannot padlock your home if you are still living in it and; • If you reinstate your mortgage before the sheriff sale, the bank cannot continue your foreclosure process. However, there are some things that the bank is allowed to do during the foreclosure process: • Banks can padlock the home if it is empty; • The bank can seek alternative judgments if they are unable to sell the home at auction for what they are owed on the mortgage and; • The bank can either request a non-judicial foreclosure or judicial foreclosure. If you are currently failing to make monthly payments for your mortgage. It is crucial to seek help earlier in the process to ensure that you have a path forward. Here are some practical tips to consider when trying to avoid a foreclosure: • Be timely with your loan payments and do not ignore the problem; • There may be other financial options available for you therefore, it is recommended to contact your lender earlier on; • Make sure you are receiving the notices from your lender and responding accordingly because failing to do so will not serve as an excuse in the foreclosure court; • Read and understand your rights through your loan documents to make sure you know what the lender can and cannot do if you miss a payment; • There are alternative foreclosure prevention methods and it is important to know them; • You have the option of asking additional help from the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) they have counselors that are available to assist in better managing your finances; • Mortgage payment should be priority along with healthcare therefore organizing a budget that ensures this is crucial to being on time with the monthly payments for your home; • Utilizing your assets to reinstate your loans can also be another option to avoid foreclosure on your home; • Avoid foreclosure prevention companies and do not pay fees for that type of help and; • Be aware of foreclosure fraud and scams that can require a signature on one document for your foreclosure to go away. If you think you are in a difficult financial situation and may not be able to make your monthly mortgage payments seek help immediately. It is important to contact your lender earlier in the process and plan for other options to modify your payments than deal with a foreclosure. The foreclosure process is overwhelming and complicated; therefore contacting your local foreclosure lawyer may be helpful. Foreclosure Fraud Foreclosure fraud is a term encompassing any type of scheme involving misrepresentations, false statements, or false promises related to foreclosure. The fraud scams must be designed to enrich the person or company making the fraudulent statements or false promises and/or must be designed to deprive the scam victim of the rightful value of his property. Foreclosure fraud takes many forms including: • Foreclosure rescue scams: This type of scheme involves charging a fee for “foreclosure relief” and not providing any such relief. Homeowners who were in danger of losing their homes receive advertising material promising them that the home could be saved. After paying fees, the homeowners are often told that their houses are too far gone or that staving off foreclosure is not possible. Thousands of homeowners paid out exorbitant fees (sometimes several thousands of dollars) to get none of the foreclosure help that they were told they’d receive. • Foreclosure fee inflation: Service providers charge exorbitant fees to serve notices of foreclosure on homeowners. While a traditional fee for service of process should total a few hundred dollars, some service providers were paid thousands of dollars to give papers to homeowners. The costs of these fees were passed on to the homeowners, who become responsible for paying for the money the mortgage lender spent on the foreclosure process as part of a foreclosure judgment. • Fractional ownership transfers: This is a special type of foreclosure rescue fraud. The process involves a homeowner signing over a part interest of the home to a company that promises to stop the foreclosure. The company then hires “straw homeowners” and gives them the ownership interest. The straw owner files for bankruptcy and the foreclosure process is delayed. Homeowners were frequently misled into believing these scams could help them save their house, but instead the homeowner simply ended up paying a monthly fee as well as giving up partial ownership in the home as the foreclosure process was strung along. • Improperly taking ownership of foreclosed homes: Many homes that were in default or with pending foreclosures were vacated by their rightful owners. One foreclosure fraud scam involves using forged quit claim deeds to make it appear that a person or company owns several foreclosed homes. The homes were then rented out to unsuspecting tenants. Bank Foreclosure Fraud While some foreclosure fraud scams target financial institutions, many banks also engage in fraudulent behavior. Mortgage fraud by banks also takes many forms including: • Document forgery: Mortgages are frequently sold and resold by lending institutions. This could result in some lenders having ownership of a mortgage loan but not having the paperwork to show a right to collect. Banks could create documents after the fact to make it appear as if the paperwork was in order. An electronic database called MERS is supposed to track mortgage transfers, but there was little quality control. In fact, as part of a 2011 settlement with federal regulators, MERS promised to improve controls to avoid fraudulent assignments and database errors. • Robo-signing: Mortgage paperwork is supposed to be carefully checked before a foreclosure moves forward. Many lending institutions, however, had unqualified people rubber stamping foreclosures and signing off on thousands of actions per month without actually doing a thorough review of documents. • Mortgage modification fraud: To help people save their homes, the government created mortgage modification programs and incentivized lenders to participate. Some lenders have been accused of failing to honor loan modifications that were transferred from other mortgage servicers. Others demanded payments with promises of negotiating a modification and then never followed through on the modification. Still others delayed decisions on short sales or claimed never to have received paperwork so that foreclosure could move forward, even as homeowners were trying to participate in mortgage modification. Because of the foreclosure fraud by banks, a foreclosure fraud settlement was reached in which the five largest mortgage services were supposed to provide $5 billion in direct payments to defrauded homeowners and were supposed to take an additional $20 billion worth of action to provide relief to homeowners, such as reducing principal balances or interest rates. The government continues to pursue action against banks for foreclosure fraud. Banks could face criminal and civil actions. Lending institutions, as well as financial professionals who may have been part of fraud schemes, should consult an attorney. What Are the Types of Foreclosure? In the United States, individual states follow either a judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, typically depending upon whether they are a mortgage state or deed of trust state. However, you may safely assume that all states allow some form of judicial foreclosure process. Judicial foreclosure • The lender seeks to foreclose by filing a civil lawsuit against the borrower and serving the borrower with a formal summons and foreclosure complaint. • The foreclosure process is handled through the local court system. The court appoints a referee to conduct the foreclosure auction on the courthouse steps. • The lender records a lis pendens with the county clerk where the property is located. This lis pendens becomes a lien on the property and gives notice of the pending foreclosure auction. • The court grants a judgment permitting the lender to conduct the foreclosure auction. • The Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NFS), which announces date, time and place of the auction, is published and sometimes posted (depending on the locale) for a certain period of time prior to auction. • Generally, the borrower can stop the foreclosure by repaying what he owes up to the moment of sale. • The process can take from four to eight months to complete if no one raises any legal objections to the foreclosure. Non-judicial foreclosure • This is followed in deed of trust states. A deed of trust conveys an interest in real property to a third party (the trustee) to hold as security for repayment of a debt. • The trustee has the authority to initiate foreclosure proceedings by virtue of a power of sale clause included in the mortgage or deed of trust. • The trustee records a Notice of Default (NOD) with the county clerk where the property is located. This document gives notice of an impending foreclosure and grants the borrower a period of time in which to object to the lender’s claim or pay what he owes. • The borrower may not stop the foreclosure after the expiration of this time period. • Following the expiration of a predetermined amount of time (which varies from state to state), the trustee records a Notice of Trustee’s Sale (NTS) with the county clerk. This notice establishes the date, time and place of the foreclosure auction. • It can take up to 12 months to complete a foreclosure, depending upon the state. It is important to remember that neither judicial nor non-judicial foreclosures are one-size-fits-all. Each state follows its own established foreclosure laws and procedures. Consult with a foreclosure specialist in your state to protect your rights during a foreclosure.

Layton Utah Foreclosure Lawyer

When you need legal help with Foreclosure In Layton Utah, please call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

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Foreclosure Lawyer Layton Utah

Layton is a city in Davis County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Ogden-Clearfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 67,311, rising to an estimated 77,303 by 2018. Layton is the most populous city in Davis County and the ninth most populous in Utah. Layton has direct access to Salt Lake City, Ogden, Salt Lake City International Airport, Antelope Island, and the FrontRunner commuter rail. Layton City is a leader in economic development for the region, with immediate adjacency to Hill Air Force Base, a large hospitality district (1,000+ hotel beds) and conference center, the Layton Hills Mall, multiple nationally recognized retail and food chains, the East Gate Business Park, and the Weber State University-Davis campus. In 2014, Layton contributed $1.34 billion worth of retail sales activity, the second largest market north of Salt Lake City and seventh largest in Utah. Layton was settled in the 1850s as an outgrowth of Kaysville, and is named after Christopher Layton, a Latter-day Saint colonizer and leader. It was included in the boundaries when Kaysville was incorporated as a city in 1868, but by the 1880s many Layton residents wanted to separate from the city. They challenged Kaysville’s authority to tax their property, claiming they received no municipal services.

This dispute reached the United States Supreme Court in 1894 as the case of Linford v. Ellison, which was decided in favor of the Layton property owners. The separatist movement finally succeeded in 1902, when Layton became an independent unincorporated area. After further growth it was made an incorporated town in 1920. The town’s population increased slowly; up until 1940 it was about 600. The creation of Hill Air Force Base to the north in 1940, followed shortly by the United States’ entry into World War II, led to a dramatic population increase. War workers streamed into the area; the 1950 census counted 3,456 people. Layton became a city, transformed from a farming town to a residential community. Growth slowed after the war, but Layton continued to develop as a suburban bedroom community, as those not employed at the Air Force base began commuting to the Salt Lake City or Ogden areas. The city continued to expand geographically, annexing surrounding parcels of land, including the adjacent town of Layton and city of East Layton. In 1985, Layton passed Bountiful to become the most populous city in Davis County.

States have their own rules and regulations regarding the process of foreclosures. There are several steps that take place before the actual final step of when the lender seizes your property through the foreclosure. In 22 states judicial foreclosure is the primary way of dealing with home foreclosures. This means that the lender must go through the courts to show that the borrower is failing to make the monthly mortgage payments. If the courts approve the foreclosure, the local sheriff auctions the property to the highest bidder to recoup what the bank is owed or the bank becomes the owner to resell the property. Some other states use non-judicial foreclosure, which is also known as the power of the sale. This process is faster compared to court intervention.

Foreclosure process is complicated and can be overwhelming. It is important to know what your rights are and what the banks are not allowed to do. Some banks can cross boundaries in the foreclosure processes. Each state has their own set of regulations on dealing with the foreclosure process. Here is a list of things to consider of what banks cannot do before foreclosing on the home: • Some states require banks to determine if the homeowner qualifies for either a loan modification or some other form of help before foreclosing on the home. If the bank decides to do both at the same time, it is illegal also known as “dual tracking”; • If the homeowner applies for some help or loan modification, the bank cannot start the foreclosure process; • The bank must obtain a court order and file for an eviction before foreclosing the home; • The bank cannot padlock your home if you are still living in it and; • If you reinstate your mortgage before the sheriff sale, the bank cannot continue your foreclosure process. However, there are some things that the bank is allowed to do during the foreclosure process: • Banks can padlock the home if it is empty; • The bank can seek alternative judgments if they are unable to sell the home at auction for what they are owed on the mortgage and; • The bank can either request a non-judicial foreclosure or judicial foreclosure.

If you are currently failing to make monthly payments for your mortgage. It is crucial to seek help earlier in the process to ensure that you have a path forward. Here are some practical tips to consider when trying to avoid a foreclosure: • Be timely with your loan payments and do not ignore the problem; • There may be other financial options available for you therefore, it is recommended to contact your lender earlier on; • Make sure you are receiving the notices from your lender and responding accordingly because failing to do so will not serve as an excuse in the foreclosure court; • Read and understand your rights through your loan documents to make sure you know what the lender can and cannot do if you miss a payment; • There are alternative foreclosure prevention methods and it is important to know them; • You have the option of asking additional help from the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) they have counselors that are available to assist in better managing your finances; • Mortgage payment should be priority along with healthcare therefore organizing a budget that ensures this is crucial to being on time with the monthly payments for your home; • Utilizing your assets to reinstate your loans can also be another option to avoid foreclosure on your home; • Avoid foreclosure prevention companies and do not pay fees for that type of help and; • Be aware of foreclosure fraud and scams that can require a signature on one document for your foreclosure to go away.

If you think you are in a difficult financial situation and may not be able to make your monthly mortgage payments seek help immediately. It is important to contact your lender earlier in the process and plan for other options to modify your payments than deal with a foreclosure. The foreclosure process is overwhelming and complicated; therefore contacting your local foreclosure lawyer may be helpful. Foreclosure Fraud Foreclosure fraud is a term encompassing any type of scheme involving misrepresentations, false statements, or false promises related to foreclosure. The fraud scams must be designed to enrich the person or company making the fraudulent statements or false promises and/or must be designed to deprive the scam victim of the rightful value of his property. Foreclosure fraud takes many forms including: • Foreclosure rescue scams: This type of scheme involves charging a fee for “foreclosure relief” and not providing any such relief. Homeowners who were in danger of losing their homes receive advertising material promising them that the home could be saved. After paying fees, the homeowners are often told that their houses are too far gone or that staving off foreclosure is not possible. Thousands of homeowners paid out exorbitant fees (sometimes several thousands of dollars) to get none of the foreclosure help that they were told they’d receive. • Foreclosure fee inflation: Service providers charge exorbitant fees to serve notices of foreclosure on homeowners. While a traditional fee for service of process should total a few hundred dollars, some service providers were paid thousands of dollars to give papers to homeowners. The costs of these fees were passed on to the homeowners, who become responsible for paying for the money the mortgage lender spent on the foreclosure process as part of a foreclosure judgment. • Fractional ownership transfers: This is a special type of foreclosure rescue fraud. The process involves a homeowner signing over a part interest of the home to a company that promises to stop the foreclosure. The company then hires “straw homeowners” and gives them the ownership interest. The straw owner files for bankruptcy and the foreclosure process is delayed. Homeowners were frequently misled into believing these scams could help them save their house, but instead the homeowner simply ended up paying a monthly fee as well as giving up partial ownership in the home as the foreclosure process was strung along. • Improperly taking ownership of foreclosed homes: Many homes that were in default or with pending foreclosures were vacated by their rightful owners. One foreclosure fraud scam involves using forged quit claim deeds to make it appear that a person or company owns several foreclosed homes. The homes were then rented out to unsuspecting tenants. Bank Foreclosure Fraud While some foreclosure fraud scams target financial institutions, many banks also engage in fraudulent behavior. Mortgage fraud by banks also takes many forms including: • Document forgery: Mortgages are frequently sold and resold by lending institutions. This could result in some lenders having ownership of a mortgage loan but not having the paperwork to show a right to collect. Banks could create documents after the fact to make it appear as if the paperwork was in order. An electronic database called MERS is supposed to track mortgage transfers, but there was little quality control. In fact, as part of a 2011 settlement with federal regulators, MERS promised to improve controls to avoid fraudulent assignments and database errors. • Robo-signing: Mortgage paperwork is supposed to be carefully checked before a foreclosure moves forward. Many lending institutions, however, had unqualified people rubber stamping foreclosures and signing off on thousands of actions per month without actually doing a thorough review of documents. • Mortgage modification fraud: To help people save their homes, the government created mortgage modification programs and incentivized lenders to participate. Some lenders have been accused of failing to honor loan modifications that were transferred from other mortgage servicers. Others demanded payments with promises of negotiating a modification and then never followed through on the modification. Still others delayed decisions on short sales or claimed never to have received paperwork so that foreclosure could move forward, even as homeowners were trying to participate in mortgage modification. Because of the foreclosure fraud by banks, a foreclosure fraud settlement was reached in which the five largest mortgage services were supposed to provide $5 billion in direct payments to defrauded homeowners and were supposed to take an additional $20 billion worth of action to provide relief to homeowners, such as reducing principal balances or interest rates. The government continues to pursue action against banks for foreclosure fraud. Banks could face criminal and civil actions. Lending institutions, as well as financial professionals who may have been part of fraud schemes, should consult an attorney. What Are the Types of Foreclosure? In the United States, individual states follow either a judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, typically depending upon whether they are a mortgage state or deed of trust state. However, you may safely assume that all states allow some form of judicial foreclosure process. Judicial foreclosure • The lender seeks to foreclose by filing a civil lawsuit against the borrower and serving the borrower with a formal summons and foreclosure complaint. • The foreclosure process is handled through the local court system. The court appoints a referee to conduct the foreclosure auction on the courthouse steps. • The lender records a lis pendens with the county clerk where the property is located. This lis pendens becomes a lien on the property and gives notice of the pending foreclosure auction. • The court grants a judgment permitting the lender to conduct the foreclosure auction. • The Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NFS), which announces date, time and place of the auction, is published and sometimes posted (depending on the locale) for a certain period of time prior to auction. • Generally, the borrower can stop the foreclosure by repaying what he owes up to the moment of sale. • The process can take from four to eight months to complete if no one raises any legal objections to the foreclosure. Non-judicial foreclosure • This is followed in deed of trust states. A deed of trust conveys an interest in real property to a third party (the trustee) to hold as security for repayment of a debt. • The trustee has the authority to initiate foreclosure proceedings by virtue of a power of sale clause included in the mortgage or deed of trust. • The trustee records a Notice of Default (NOD) with the county clerk where the property is located. This document gives notice of an impending foreclosure and grants the borrower a period of time in which to object to the lender’s claim or pay what he owes. • The borrower may not stop the foreclosure after the expiration of this time period. • Following the expiration of a predetermined amount of time (which varies from state to state), the trustee records a Notice of Trustee’s Sale (NTS) with the county clerk. This notice establishes the date, time and place of the foreclosure auction. • It can take up to 12 months to complete a foreclosure, depending upon the state. It is important to remember that neither judicial nor non-judicial foreclosures are one-size-fits-all. Each state follows its own established foreclosure laws and procedures. Consult with a foreclosure specialist in your state to protect your rights during a foreclosure.

Layton Utah Foreclosure Lawyer

When you need legal help with Foreclosure In Layton Utah, please call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

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Limited Liability Company

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Foreclosure Lawyer Layton Utah

Layton is a city in Davis County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Ogden-Clearfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 67,311, rising to an estimated 77,303 by 2018. Layton is the most populous city in Davis County and the ninth most populous in Utah. Layton has direct access to Salt Lake City, Ogden, Salt Lake City International Airport, Antelope Island, and the FrontRunner commuter rail. Layton City is a leader in economic development for the region, with immediate adjacency to Hill Air Force Base, a large hospitality district (1,000+ hotel beds) and conference center, the Layton Hills Mall, multiple nationally recognized retail and food chains, the East Gate Business Park, and the Weber State University-Davis campus. In 2014, Layton contributed $1.34 billion worth of retail sales activity, the second largest market north of Salt Lake City and seventh largest in Utah. Layton was settled in the 1850s as an outgrowth of Kaysville, and is named after Christopher Layton, a Latter-day Saint colonizer and leader. It was included in the boundaries when Kaysville was incorporated as a city in 1868, but by the 1880s many Layton residents wanted to separate from the city. They challenged Kaysville’s authority to tax their property, claiming they received no municipal services.

This dispute reached the United States Supreme Court in 1894 as the case of Linford v. Ellison, which was decided in favor of the Layton property owners. The separatist movement finally succeeded in 1902, when Layton became an independent unincorporated area. After further growth it was made an incorporated town in 1920. The town’s population increased slowly; up until 1940 it was about 600. The creation of Hill Air Force Base to the north in 1940, followed shortly by the United States’ entry into World War II, led to a dramatic population increase. War workers streamed into the area; the 1950 census counted 3,456 people. Layton became a city, transformed from a farming town to a residential community. Growth slowed after the war, but Layton continued to develop as a suburban bedroom community, as those not employed at the Air Force base began commuting to the Salt Lake City or Ogden areas. The city continued to expand geographically, annexing surrounding parcels of land, including the adjacent town of Layton and city of East Layton. In 1985, Layton passed Bountiful to become the most populous city in Davis County.

States have their own rules and regulations regarding the process of foreclosures. There are several steps that take place before the actual final step of when the lender seizes your property through the foreclosure. In 22 states judicial foreclosure is the primary way of dealing with home foreclosures. This means that the lender must go through the courts to show that the borrower is failing to make the monthly mortgage payments. If the courts approve the foreclosure, the local sheriff auctions the property to the highest bidder to recoup what the bank is owed or the bank becomes the owner to resell the property. Some other states use non-judicial foreclosure, which is also known as the power of the sale. This process is faster compared to court intervention.

Foreclosure process is complicated and can be overwhelming. It is important to know what your rights are and what the banks are not allowed to do. Some banks can cross boundaries in the foreclosure processes. Each state has their own set of regulations on dealing with the foreclosure process. Here is a list of things to consider of what banks cannot do before foreclosing on the home: • Some states require banks to determine if the homeowner qualifies for either a loan modification or some other form of help before foreclosing on the home. If the bank decides to do both at the same time, it is illegal also known as “dual tracking”; • If the homeowner applies for some help or loan modification, the bank cannot start the foreclosure process; • The bank must obtain a court order and file for an eviction before foreclosing the home; • The bank cannot padlock your home if you are still living in it and; • If you reinstate your mortgage before the sheriff sale, the bank cannot continue your foreclosure process. However, there are some things that the bank is allowed to do during the foreclosure process: • Banks can padlock the home if it is empty; • The bank can seek alternative judgments if they are unable to sell the home at auction for what they are owed on the mortgage and; • The bank can either request a non-judicial foreclosure or judicial foreclosure.

If you are currently failing to make monthly payments for your mortgage. It is crucial to seek help earlier in the process to ensure that you have a path forward. Here are some practical tips to consider when trying to avoid a foreclosure: • Be timely with your loan payments and do not ignore the problem; • There may be other financial options available for you therefore, it is recommended to contact your lender earlier on; • Make sure you are receiving the notices from your lender and responding accordingly because failing to do so will not serve as an excuse in the foreclosure court; • Read and understand your rights through your loan documents to make sure you know what the lender can and cannot do if you miss a payment; • There are alternative foreclosure prevention methods and it is important to know them; • You have the option of asking additional help from the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) they have counselors that are available to assist in better managing your finances; • Mortgage payment should be priority along with healthcare therefore organizing a budget that ensures this is crucial to being on time with the monthly payments for your home; • Utilizing your assets to reinstate your loans can also be another option to avoid foreclosure on your home; • Avoid foreclosure prevention companies and do not pay fees for that type of help and; • Be aware of foreclosure fraud and scams that can require a signature on one document for your foreclosure to go away.

If you think you are in a difficult financial situation and may not be able to make your monthly mortgage payments seek help immediately. It is important to contact your lender earlier in the process and plan for other options to modify your payments than deal with a foreclosure. The foreclosure process is overwhelming and complicated; therefore contacting your local foreclosure lawyer may be helpful. Foreclosure Fraud Foreclosure fraud is a term encompassing any type of scheme involving misrepresentations, false statements, or false promises related to foreclosure. The fraud scams must be designed to enrich the person or company making the fraudulent statements or false promises and/or must be designed to deprive the scam victim of the rightful value of his property. Foreclosure fraud takes many forms including: • Foreclosure rescue scams: This type of scheme involves charging a fee for “foreclosure relief” and not providing any such relief. Homeowners who were in danger of losing their homes receive advertising material promising them that the home could be saved. After paying fees, the homeowners are often told that their houses are too far gone or that staving off foreclosure is not possible. Thousands of homeowners paid out exorbitant fees (sometimes several thousands of dollars) to get none of the foreclosure help that they were told they’d receive. • Foreclosure fee inflation: Service providers charge exorbitant fees to serve notices of foreclosure on homeowners. While a traditional fee for service of process should total a few hundred dollars, some service providers were paid thousands of dollars to give papers to homeowners. The costs of these fees were passed on to the homeowners, who become responsible for paying for the money the mortgage lender spent on the foreclosure process as part of a foreclosure judgment. • Fractional ownership transfers: This is a special type of foreclosure rescue fraud. The process involves a homeowner signing over a part interest of the home to a company that promises to stop the foreclosure. The company then hires “straw homeowners” and gives them the ownership interest. The straw owner files for bankruptcy and the foreclosure process is delayed. Homeowners were frequently misled into believing these scams could help them save their house, but instead the homeowner simply ended up paying a monthly fee as well as giving up partial ownership in the home as the foreclosure process was strung along. • Improperly taking ownership of foreclosed homes: Many homes that were in default or with pending foreclosures were vacated by their rightful owners. One foreclosure fraud scam involves using forged quit claim deeds to make it appear that a person or company owns several foreclosed homes. The homes were then rented out to unsuspecting tenants. Bank Foreclosure Fraud While some foreclosure fraud scams target financial institutions, many banks also engage in fraudulent behavior. Mortgage fraud by banks also takes many forms including: • Document forgery: Mortgages are frequently sold and resold by lending institutions. This could result in some lenders having ownership of a mortgage loan but not having the paperwork to show a right to collect. Banks could create documents after the fact to make it appear as if the paperwork was in order. An electronic database called MERS is supposed to track mortgage transfers, but there was little quality control. In fact, as part of a 2011 settlement with federal regulators, MERS promised to improve controls to avoid fraudulent assignments and database errors. • Robo-signing: Mortgage paperwork is supposed to be carefully checked before a foreclosure moves forward. Many lending institutions, however, had unqualified people rubber stamping foreclosures and signing off on thousands of actions per month without actually doing a thorough review of documents. • Mortgage modification fraud: To help people save their homes, the government created mortgage modification programs and incentivized lenders to participate. Some lenders have been accused of failing to honor loan modifications that were transferred from other mortgage servicers. Others demanded payments with promises of negotiating a modification and then never followed through on the modification. Still others delayed decisions on short sales or claimed never to have received paperwork so that foreclosure could move forward, even as homeowners were trying to participate in mortgage modification. Because of the foreclosure fraud by banks, a foreclosure fraud settlement was reached in which the five largest mortgage services were supposed to provide $5 billion in direct payments to defrauded homeowners and were supposed to take an additional $20 billion worth of action to provide relief to homeowners, such as reducing principal balances or interest rates. The government continues to pursue action against banks for foreclosure fraud. Banks could face criminal and civil actions. Lending institutions, as well as financial professionals who may have been part of fraud schemes, should consult an attorney. What Are the Types of Foreclosure? In the United States, individual states follow either a judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, typically depending upon whether they are a mortgage state or deed of trust state. However, you may safely assume that all states allow some form of judicial foreclosure process. Judicial foreclosure • The lender seeks to foreclose by filing a civil lawsuit against the borrower and serving the borrower with a formal summons and foreclosure complaint. • The foreclosure process is handled through the local court system. The court appoints a referee to conduct the foreclosure auction on the courthouse steps. • The lender records a lis pendens with the county clerk where the property is located. This lis pendens becomes a lien on the property and gives notice of the pending foreclosure auction. • The court grants a judgment permitting the lender to conduct the foreclosure auction. • The Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NFS), which announces date, time and place of the auction, is published and sometimes posted (depending on the locale) for a certain period of time prior to auction. • Generally, the borrower can stop the foreclosure by repaying what he owes up to the moment of sale. • The process can take from four to eight months to complete if no one raises any legal objections to the foreclosure. Non-judicial foreclosure • This is followed in deed of trust states. A deed of trust conveys an interest in real property to a third party (the trustee) to hold as security for repayment of a debt. • The trustee has the authority to initiate foreclosure proceedings by virtue of a power of sale clause included in the mortgage or deed of trust. • The trustee records a Notice of Default (NOD) with the county clerk where the property is located. This document gives notice of an impending foreclosure and grants the borrower a period of time in which to object to the lender’s claim or pay what he owes. • The borrower may not stop the foreclosure after the expiration of this time period. • Following the expiration of a predetermined amount of time (which varies from state to state), the trustee records a Notice of Trustee’s Sale (NTS) with the county clerk. This notice establishes the date, time and place of the foreclosure auction. • It can take up to 12 months to complete a foreclosure, depending upon the state. It is important to remember that neither judicial nor non-judicial foreclosures are one-size-fits-all. Each state follows its own established foreclosure laws and procedures. Consult with a foreclosure specialist in your state to protect your rights during a foreclosure.

Layton Utah Foreclosure Lawyer

When you need legal help with Foreclosure In Layton Utah, please call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

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Limited Liability Company

Income From Trusts In Divorce

How To Avoid An Income Tax Audit

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Title 1 Firearms And Purchasers With Criminal Records

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The post Foreclosure Lawyer Layton Utah first appeared on Michael Anderson.

Source: https://www.ascentlawfirm.com/foreclosure-lawyer-layton-utah/

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Foreclosure Lawyer Layton Utah

Layton is a city in Davis County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Ogden-Clearfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 67,311, rising to an estimated 77,303 by 2018. Layton is the most populous city in Davis County and the ninth most populous in Utah. Layton has direct access to Salt Lake City, Ogden, Salt Lake City International Airport, Antelope Island, and the FrontRunner commuter rail. Layton City is a leader in economic development for the region, with immediate adjacency to Hill Air Force Base, a large hospitality district (1,000+ hotel beds) and conference center, the Layton Hills Mall, multiple nationally recognized retail and food chains, the East Gate Business Park, and the Weber State University-Davis campus. In 2014, Layton contributed $1.34 billion worth of retail sales activity, the second largest market north of Salt Lake City and seventh largest in Utah. Layton was settled in the 1850s as an outgrowth of Kaysville, and is named after Christopher Layton, a Latter-day Saint colonizer and leader. It was included in the boundaries when Kaysville was incorporated as a city in 1868, but by the 1880s many Layton residents wanted to separate from the city. They challenged Kaysville’s authority to tax their property, claiming they received no municipal services.

This dispute reached the United States Supreme Court in 1894 as the case of Linford v. Ellison, which was decided in favor of the Layton property owners. The separatist movement finally succeeded in 1902, when Layton became an independent unincorporated area. After further growth it was made an incorporated town in 1920. The town’s population increased slowly; up until 1940 it was about 600. The creation of Hill Air Force Base to the north in 1940, followed shortly by the United States’ entry into World War II, led to a dramatic population increase. War workers streamed into the area; the 1950 census counted 3,456 people. Layton became a city, transformed from a farming town to a residential community. Growth slowed after the war, but Layton continued to develop as a suburban bedroom community, as those not employed at the Air Force base began commuting to the Salt Lake City or Ogden areas. The city continued to expand geographically, annexing surrounding parcels of land, including the adjacent town of Layton and city of East Layton. In 1985, Layton passed Bountiful to become the most populous city in Davis County.

States have their own rules and regulations regarding the process of foreclosures. There are several steps that take place before the actual final step of when the lender seizes your property through the foreclosure. In 22 states judicial foreclosure is the primary way of dealing with home foreclosures. This means that the lender must go through the courts to show that the borrower is failing to make the monthly mortgage payments. If the courts approve the foreclosure, the local sheriff auctions the property to the highest bidder to recoup what the bank is owed or the bank becomes the owner to resell the property. Some other states use non-judicial foreclosure, which is also known as the power of the sale. This process is faster compared to court intervention.

Foreclosure process is complicated and can be overwhelming. It is important to know what your rights are and what the banks are not allowed to do. Some banks can cross boundaries in the foreclosure processes. Each state has their own set of regulations on dealing with the foreclosure process. Here is a list of things to consider of what banks cannot do before foreclosing on the home: • Some states require banks to determine if the homeowner qualifies for either a loan modification or some other form of help before foreclosing on the home. If the bank decides to do both at the same time, it is illegal also known as “dual tracking”; • If the homeowner applies for some help or loan modification, the bank cannot start the foreclosure process; • The bank must obtain a court order and file for an eviction before foreclosing the home; • The bank cannot padlock your home if you are still living in it and; • If you reinstate your mortgage before the sheriff sale, the bank cannot continue your foreclosure process. However, there are some things that the bank is allowed to do during the foreclosure process: • Banks can padlock the home if it is empty; • The bank can seek alternative judgments if they are unable to sell the home at auction for what they are owed on the mortgage and; • The bank can either request a non-judicial foreclosure or judicial foreclosure.

If you are currently failing to make monthly payments for your mortgage. It is crucial to seek help earlier in the process to ensure that you have a path forward. Here are some practical tips to consider when trying to avoid a foreclosure: • Be timely with your loan payments and do not ignore the problem; • There may be other financial options available for you therefore, it is recommended to contact your lender earlier on; • Make sure you are receiving the notices from your lender and responding accordingly because failing to do so will not serve as an excuse in the foreclosure court; • Read and understand your rights through your loan documents to make sure you know what the lender can and cannot do if you miss a payment; • There are alternative foreclosure prevention methods and it is important to know them; • You have the option of asking additional help from the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) they have counselors that are available to assist in better managing your finances; • Mortgage payment should be priority along with healthcare therefore organizing a budget that ensures this is crucial to being on time with the monthly payments for your home; • Utilizing your assets to reinstate your loans can also be another option to avoid foreclosure on your home; • Avoid foreclosure prevention companies and do not pay fees for that type of help and; • Be aware of foreclosure fraud and scams that can require a signature on one document for your foreclosure to go away.

If you think you are in a difficult financial situation and may not be able to make your monthly mortgage payments seek help immediately. It is important to contact your lender earlier in the process and plan for other options to modify your payments than deal with a foreclosure. The foreclosure process is overwhelming and complicated; therefore contacting your local foreclosure lawyer may be helpful. Foreclosure Fraud Foreclosure fraud is a term encompassing any type of scheme involving misrepresentations, false statements, or false promises related to foreclosure. The fraud scams must be designed to enrich the person or company making the fraudulent statements or false promises and/or must be designed to deprive the scam victim of the rightful value of his property. Foreclosure fraud takes many forms including: • Foreclosure rescue scams: This type of scheme involves charging a fee for “foreclosure relief” and not providing any such relief. Homeowners who were in danger of losing their homes receive advertising material promising them that the home could be saved. After paying fees, the homeowners are often told that their houses are too far gone or that staving off foreclosure is not possible. Thousands of homeowners paid out exorbitant fees (sometimes several thousands of dollars) to get none of the foreclosure help that they were told they’d receive. • Foreclosure fee inflation: Service providers charge exorbitant fees to serve notices of foreclosure on homeowners. While a traditional fee for service of process should total a few hundred dollars, some service providers were paid thousands of dollars to give papers to homeowners. The costs of these fees were passed on to the homeowners, who become responsible for paying for the money the mortgage lender spent on the foreclosure process as part of a foreclosure judgment. • Fractional ownership transfers: This is a special type of foreclosure rescue fraud. The process involves a homeowner signing over a part interest of the home to a company that promises to stop the foreclosure. The company then hires “straw homeowners” and gives them the ownership interest. The straw owner files for bankruptcy and the foreclosure process is delayed. Homeowners were frequently misled into believing these scams could help them save their house, but instead the homeowner simply ended up paying a monthly fee as well as giving up partial ownership in the home as the foreclosure process was strung along. • Improperly taking ownership of foreclosed homes: Many homes that were in default or with pending foreclosures were vacated by their rightful owners. One foreclosure fraud scam involves using forged quit claim deeds to make it appear that a person or company owns several foreclosed homes. The homes were then rented out to unsuspecting tenants. Bank Foreclosure Fraud While some foreclosure fraud scams target financial institutions, many banks also engage in fraudulent behavior. Mortgage fraud by banks also takes many forms including: • Document forgery: Mortgages are frequently sold and resold by lending institutions. This could result in some lenders having ownership of a mortgage loan but not having the paperwork to show a right to collect. Banks could create documents after the fact to make it appear as if the paperwork was in order. An electronic database called MERS is supposed to track mortgage transfers, but there was little quality control. In fact, as part of a 2011 settlement with federal regulators, MERS promised to improve controls to avoid fraudulent assignments and database errors. • Robo-signing: Mortgage paperwork is supposed to be carefully checked before a foreclosure moves forward. Many lending institutions, however, had unqualified people rubber stamping foreclosures and signing off on thousands of actions per month without actually doing a thorough review of documents. • Mortgage modification fraud: To help people save their homes, the government created mortgage modification programs and incentivized lenders to participate. Some lenders have been accused of failing to honor loan modifications that were transferred from other mortgage servicers. Others demanded payments with promises of negotiating a modification and then never followed through on the modification. Still others delayed decisions on short sales or claimed never to have received paperwork so that foreclosure could move forward, even as homeowners were trying to participate in mortgage modification. Because of the foreclosure fraud by banks, a foreclosure fraud settlement was reached in which the five largest mortgage services were supposed to provide $5 billion in direct payments to defrauded homeowners and were supposed to take an additional $20 billion worth of action to provide relief to homeowners, such as reducing principal balances or interest rates. The government continues to pursue action against banks for foreclosure fraud. Banks could face criminal and civil actions. Lending institutions, as well as financial professionals who may have been part of fraud schemes, should consult an attorney. What Are the Types of Foreclosure? In the United States, individual states follow either a judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, typically depending upon whether they are a mortgage state or deed of trust state. However, you may safely assume that all states allow some form of judicial foreclosure process. Judicial foreclosure • The lender seeks to foreclose by filing a civil lawsuit against the borrower and serving the borrower with a formal summons and foreclosure complaint. • The foreclosure process is handled through the local court system. The court appoints a referee to conduct the foreclosure auction on the courthouse steps. • The lender records a lis pendens with the county clerk where the property is located. This lis pendens becomes a lien on the property and gives notice of the pending foreclosure auction. • The court grants a judgment permitting the lender to conduct the foreclosure auction. • The Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NFS), which announces date, time and place of the auction, is published and sometimes posted (depending on the locale) for a certain period of time prior to auction. • Generally, the borrower can stop the foreclosure by repaying what he owes up to the moment of sale. • The process can take from four to eight months to complete if no one raises any legal objections to the foreclosure. Non-judicial foreclosure • This is followed in deed of trust states. A deed of trust conveys an interest in real property to a third party (the trustee) to hold as security for repayment of a debt. • The trustee has the authority to initiate foreclosure proceedings by virtue of a power of sale clause included in the mortgage or deed of trust. • The trustee records a Notice of Default (NOD) with the county clerk where the property is located. This document gives notice of an impending foreclosure and grants the borrower a period of time in which to object to the lender’s claim or pay what he owes. • The borrower may not stop the foreclosure after the expiration of this time period. • Following the expiration of a predetermined amount of time (which varies from state to state), the trustee records a Notice of Trustee’s Sale (NTS) with the county clerk. This notice establishes the date, time and place of the foreclosure auction. • It can take up to 12 months to complete a foreclosure, depending upon the state. It is important to remember that neither judicial nor non-judicial foreclosures are one-size-fits-all. Each state follows its own established foreclosure laws and procedures. Consult with a foreclosure specialist in your state to protect your rights during a foreclosure.

Layton Utah Foreclosure Lawyer

When you need legal help with Foreclosure In Layton Utah, please call Ascent Law for your free consultation (801) 676-5506. We want to help you!

Ascent Law LLC 8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C West Jordan, Utah 84088 United States Telephone: (801) 676-5506

Ascent Law LLC

4.9 stars – based on 67 reviews

Recent Posts

Utah Divorce Code 30-3-10.8

Limited Liability Company

Income From Trusts In Divorce

How To Avoid An Income Tax Audit

What Is Private Placement Of Shares In Utah?

Title 1 Firearms And Purchasers With Criminal Records

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