#1990s apple soap

[y2kbeautyandother2000sstuff]

Bath and Body Works Art Stuff Electric Apple Twinkle Time Glitter Soap

1996-2004

My personal collection

[agapi-kalyptei]

Primer to Privacy

Hi! This is a very simple summary of how Internet Capitalism wages war on your privacy.

Who can harvest data about you:

your internet provider

your OS vendor (Apple, Google, Microsoft)

any app vendor (Meta, TikTok, whoever makes a calculator or a game...)

government agencies, both yours and others

various internet infrastructure service providers (CDN, cloud, ...)

makers of various small pieces of software

owner of any website you visit

almost anyone on the internet, if you don't use https (rare these days, luckily)

advertisers you've never even heard of

lobbying / propaganda machines, usually called "think tanks"

...some of these are registered as non-profit organizations

anyone with a computer and basic programming skills

anyone who makes dumb apps for social media platforms like the infamous facebook quiz spam of early 2010s

marketing companies that provide various widgets for other websites like customer support chat

browser extensions

browser toolbars, if it's still 1990s

chat apps

any program you install anywhere, really

whoever sells you smart watch, smart doorbell, smart soap dispenser - anything "smart" is a spying machine

whoever is broke and oppressed and turns to hacking/social engineering/scamming as the last resort job - and remember! Your country very likely impoverished their country. Colonialism never went away.

law enforcement! remember they have the budget the size of a small military

Now, not all of these actors have equal power. Still, here's a range of things they can do:

see URLs you visit (e.g. toolbars, OS/browser vendors, sometimes internet providers, browser extensions, antivirus software)

read your clipboard and store it remotely (tiktok app)

record your browser screen and mouse cursor (potentially the owner of any website you visit, but only on their website... usually)

your location (any major social or chat app, phone makers, google)

list of other apps you've installed (almost any app)

your microphone randomly throughout the day or night! (google, apple, amazon - anything "smart" or voice activated)

your floor plan (roomba)

the number of breathing people in your house, through the walls (police)

your phone number, your phone IMEI, SIM card number, and any calls, texts, and data you transmit (the police, US embassies, anyone with ~$50k to buy fake mobile network connection points)

your public and semi-public social media activity!

youtube knows every second that you spent on every video

social media know that you've started a little too long at that one bikini pic of your former classmate

social media know that you've scrolled past some boring serious political post

social media know that you paused to look at something upsetting

social media know that you've been stalking your crush

your anonymous blog has most likely already been linked to your real name!

some of your "friends" on semi-private social networks might be government spy bots!

remember: anything can be saved! zoom call, your shameful disappearing messages, your private instagram stories, reels & photos (if you've added someone you don't know), your reddit comments, your youtube videos, your childhood photo that you set as your profile photo when some dumb ass awareness campaign prompted you to, your tumblr posts, your stupid ass NFTs --- someone might have those on their hard drive, forever

there is literally no guarantee that large companies (meta, google, ...) don't trade political favors in exchange for stealthily sharing data about select few (million) of their users, outside of any legal framework and accountability!

unlimited wiretapping of your calls and data is not legal, but that never stopped the US government!

all your photos have been scraped by third parties, analyzed for faces, and correlated with real world names and other online handles! by an AI! you're just a drop in the ocean!

foreign governments are collecting information on you as well, and regardless of whether you think you're important or not, in case of a global conflict (overt or covert), they will use this information to destroy your life, if they will feel threatened (by your government, not you personally)

many marketing companies you've never heard of collect as much data about you as they can, regardless of legality or jurisdiction! They are often very bad at IT, so time and again they leave these databases unsecured and publicly accessible, so then "fourth parties" steal these, use, publish, or resell this data, so don't be shocked if your name and a list of hobbies, sexual orientation, friends, brand of your car or toothpaste just washes up somewhere online

also! if your mom searches for toothpaste online, and you come visit and use her wifi, be ready to get her toothpaste ads for the next 3 months! yayyyyy

if you are a prominent online (or *shudders* real world) personality in an area that can be, or already is capitalized (say, videogame reviews), and you're active on public discussion boards, it's possible someone was already briefed on your strengths and weaknesses, and paid to influence you or argue with you! shills are real and they're not going away until Ubisoft, EA, and their likes burn to the ground.

What can you do:

use firefox

enable all privacy options that you see anywhere (phone, browser, apps, different accounts you have online... see what's available)

turn off location, bluetooth, etc on your phone every time you don't need it

prefer apps and tools that don't show ads, don't need an account, don't need internet to work

uninstall everything you don't need, and haven't used in a few weeks

reject all cookies

write to google/apple that you want them to let you disable internet access to any application, including system ones

write to your fave social media to send you a zip file of all derived information that they have about you, and a list of all advertisers who ever had access to your personal data

threaten your social media with leaving forever if they don't let you delete all information they provide to advertisers

don't be online as much! it really is an option, at least partially

use Signal instead of for-profit messaging apps

donate to causes you believe in! look for reports on how they're spending money!

Please note: I have simplified a lot of things, but did my best not to exaggerate. Again: not everyone can see all your data, but you can be sure there's more data about you out there than you'd like. (Version 2, 2022-11-08 6pm.)

[chloefashionthroughtime]

MTV

MTV, or Music Television, is a cable television network that originated as a 24-hour music video platform. MTV made its premiere just after midnight on August 1, 1981, with the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" broadcast. Video disc jockeys (or "veejays") introduced videos and spoke about music news between clips, similar to Top 40 radio.Following a strong start, the network suffered in its early years. The reservoir of music videos was fairly shallow at the time, resulting in frequent recurrence of clips, while cable television remained a luxury that had yet to find a market. MTV's popularity skyrocketed once it extended its programming to include rhythm and blues musicians. Singles from Michael Jackson's Thriller (1982), such as "Billie Jean" and "Beat It," not only demonstrated the virtues of the music video genre, but also demonstrated that exposure on MTV could catapult musicians to superstardom. The network helped newcomers like Madonna and new wave legends Duran Duran achieve popularity by using more complex tactics to make the visual parts of the video as essential as the music. MTV also resurrected older musicians such as ZZ Top, Tina Turner, and Peter Gabriel, who each had their best successes of their careers as a result of strong rotation of their videos. MTV had had a notable impact on motion films, advertisements, and television by the mid-1980s. It additionally had an impact on the music industry; appearing nice (or at least intriguing) on MTV became as crucial as sounding good when it came to selling records.

When Viacom Inc. bought MTV Networks, the parent company of MTV, from Warner Communications Inc. in 1985, the programming change was drastic and quick. Instead of a veejay's full shift being covered by a free-form mix of music, videos were packed into separate blocks depending on genre. Specialty series such as 120 Minutes (alternative music), Headbangers Ball (heavy metal), and Yo! MTV Raps arose as a result (hip-hop). Soon, game programmes, reality series, animated cartoons, and soap operas joined the MTV schedule, and the network's focus changed from music to youth-oriented pop culture. By the mid-1990s, the bulk of MTV's daily schedule was devoted to non-music programming. VH1 has been showing adult-oriented rock videos since 1985, and it quickly filled the void with original programming such as Pop Up Video and the documentary series Behind the Music. MTV Networks created MTV2 in 1996 with the purpose of recapturing the enthusiasm symbolised by their 1980s "I Want My MTV" advertising campaign. MTV2 began with the same free-form framework as early MTV, but quickly moved to genre-specific programming. By 2005, MTV2 had taken the same path as its parent network, with the majority of its programming consisting of reality shows, celebrity news, and comedy. While music had a diminished prominence on MTV, visuals remained vital to the network's brand. MTV began honouring accomplishment in the medium with its annual Video Music Awards in 1984. Total Request Live (TRL), an hour-long interview and music video show that anchored the daily lineup, started in 1998. By the early twenty-first century, however, MTV was rapidly attempting to market itself as an Internet music destination.Its website included streaming video and music material, and in 2007, it launched Rhapsody America, a joint venture with RealNetworks and Verizon Wireless, as a subscription-based competitor to Apple Inc.'s enormously popular iTunes service; in 2010, it was split out as Rhapsody International. TRL was terminated in 2008, in part due to the popularity of watching music videos on the Internet, but it reappeared in 2017. When the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" appeared on MTV (Music TeleVision) in the summer of 1981, it only slightly overestimated the influence that the cable television network would have on music and popular culture. MTV, which broadcasted 24-hour music videos interrupted by "music news" and hosted by peppy "veejays," was accused of everything from decreasing viewers' attention spans to racism and discrimination.

Nonetheless, its quick speed and the increasingly complex techniques used in the music videos it transmitted had a considerable impact on film, television, and ads. It also had an impact on the music industry; appearing nice (or at least intriguing) on MTV became as crucial as sounding good when it came to selling records. Artists like Madonna and Michael Jackson rose to fame as a result of their use of the media. Jackson's Thriller (1982) videos were dance-oriented minimusicals that not only helped the album become a millions seller, but also expanded MTV programming to include black artists. MTV was instrumental in selling hip-hop to a primarily white suburban audience at the time. The network's programming has also expanded to include youth-oriented game programmes, animation, comedy, and bizarre documentaries. VH1, a sister network, was launched in 1985 to cater to a little older demographic, and by the 1990s, MTV had affiliates all over the world.

Referencing:

[finallywatchingthefuckingwire]

21 years later

The Wire came out in 2002. Season 1 looks at a unit of police formed to look into a kingpin of the Baltimore drug trade that most of Baltimore doesn't know exists, including law enforcement. The first four episodes have been a study in how the bureaucracy, political and career considerations for law-enforcement make everyone work at odds. At the time, this was largely considered revelatory to the public, and the greatest achievement of The Wire beyond helping HBO's ratings was shining a light on how this works and how it prevents law-enforcement from doing anything but janitorial work.

The trick of the show to date (which I've never seen before) uses some familiar tropes along with things that would become tropes or more familiar to the public. We might have an occasional movie like Colors that focused on a critically @#$%ed situation, but one that was localized. Or we might have one that focused on an individual corrupt cop. We were still coming off broadcast and movie standards that more or less required law-enforcement winning the day to be part of the narrative. Although those standards hadn't been technically in place for years, the expectations for how we depicted police as basically good and heroic unless they were a bad apple were deeply baked into American media. We hadn't ever been shown how the system was riddled with incompetence, recklessness and indifference.

In 2002, we're only 9 years from the debut of "gritty" crime show NYPD Blue, mostly famous in early seasons for showing David Caruso's ass and melding soap opera dynamics with tough talking cop stuff. We're also only 12 years from the absolutely batshit experiment that was the unironically named, produced, performed and delivered Cop Rock. And if you aren't old enough to remember Cop Rock, I invite you to try to survive the pilot. (The show is also a phenomenal example of the casual racism built into the architecture of 1990's mass media). Both were produced by Steven Bochco.

The juggernaut that is the still-kicking Law & Order franchise started in 1990, and like The Wire, only occasionally touched on the personal lives of the leads, focusing instead on "procedural", replacing the booming baritone of The Naked City or Joe Friday with whatever the hell the L&O musical sting was. But it was squarely on the side of law. And order. And the belief that weasels weasel. This is not the quagmire of almost codependence that exists in The Wire (here in episode 4).

Of course the real predecessor was Homicide: Life on the Street, which ran only from 1993-1999. It's where David Simon got trained up on television, and it's arguably almost a draft version of The Wire. And it's the only one of these shows I'd watched at all aside from the occasional episode of L&O over the years, because you can't exist as a human and not have seen L&O.

In The Wire you can still see the DNA of crime fiction - it's still an entertainment, not journalism despite show-runner David Simon's journalistic bona fides. And they do have to tell a multi-angled story that is going to wind up having vibes of sprawling gangster movies, novels, etc... Arguably, it's still got a bit of one foot in how 90's media worked, but I'd say the weight is on the other foot that is trying to do something new, buyable and not feel like just one more soapish drama.

Anyway - it has it's moments of artifice that harken back to how TV was under Bochco or Wolf. Or speeches you expect in gangster movies. But it still feels like a quantum leap.

What's interesting is that it feels like there's been an evolutionary branching along the way. You can't throw a rock at a legacy network lineup and not hit a show that could have been on the air in the 1990s, from the entire line of Chicago-based cop, fire and ambulance programs, to The Rookie to the NCIS/ CSI line of shows. People love them. CBS is insane with the cop shows. Hawaii 5-0 is out there still, think.

L&O muddles on - and we should all send Mariska Hargitay a dollar for hanging in there for like 20 years.

But I'm not sure there's much like The Wire on right now. And maybe it's a weird time to put on a cop show that shows cops and law enforcement in less than a beneficent light. That's not to say cops need media boosterism, but that the events of the past fifteen years or so may have complicated what it means to put something on their air acknowledging cops fuck up a lot would no doubt be polarizing. I'm sure you're reading *something* into that sentence, and it's not meant to draw any specific conclusions, so you can see the problem.

Anyway. So far so good. Enjoying this first watch.

(this post by The Signal Watch)

[duine-aiteach]

Irish LGBT+ Content

These lists include LGBT pieces set in Ireland, LGBT pieces with Irish main characters, LGBT pieces as Gaeilge, and LGBT pieces created by Irish people, often they overlap but not always. Feel free to suggest things I ought to add or offer corrections for mistakes I've made.

Please note that the inclusion on this list does not mean I recommend the piece in question - I am familiar with only a few.

Where possible links lead to RTÉ player, TG4 player, YouTube or official sites. Not all links lead to pieces that are available to watch at the time of posting.

Television:

Eipic (2016) [gay, as G]

Derry Girls [lesbian]

Ros na Rún [soap, as G]

Fair City [soap, trans m briefly]

6Degrees [mlm, NI]

Film:

The Crying Game (1992)

Cowboys and Angels (2003)

The Blackwater Lightship (2004) [based off book below]

Breakfast on Pluto (2005) [trans f]

Viva (2015) [mlm, Irish writer/director only, in Spanish]

Handsome Devil (2017) [gay, mlm]

Papi Chulo (2019) [gay, Irish writer/director only]

Rialto (2019) [mlm]

Dating Amber (2020) [gay, lesbian]

Shorts:

Chicken (2002)

Lúbtha (2019) [mlm]

The First Saturday of May (2019) [trans]

Scene from the Men's Toilets at a Ceilidh (2019)

OUT (2020)

Candid (2020)

Punch Line (trans f)

Boxed In (trans m)

Cailín Álainn [trans f, as G]

Where Do All The Old Gays Go? [trans]

Homebird [trans]

Books:

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (1872) [wlw, Irish writer only]

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890) [mlm, outside Ireland]

As Music and Splendour by Kate O'Brien (1958) [wlw, outside Ireland]

"Sister Imelda" by Edna O'Brien (1981) [wlw, short story]

A Noise from the Woodshed by Mary Dorcey (1989) [lesbian, anthology]

The Kiss by Linda Cullen (1990)

When Love Comes to Town by Tom Lennon (1993) [gay]

Hood by Emma Donoghue (1995) [wlw]

Biography of Desire by Mary Dorcey (1997) [wlw]

Breakfast On Pluto by Patrick McCabe (1998) [trans f, bi]

Crazy Love by Tom Lennon (1999) [gay]

The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Tóibín (1999) [gay]

The International by Glenn Patterson (1999) [bi]

At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill (2001) [mlm]

A Son Called Gabriel by Damian McNicholl (2004) [NI, gay]

The Master by Colm Tóibín (2004) [mlm, Irish writer only]

Stir-Fry by Emma Donoghue (2006) [wlw]

Landing by Emma Donoghue (2007) [wlw]

Map of Ireland by Stephanie Grant (2008) [wlw, Irish-American]

Falling Colours: The Misadventures of a Vision Painter by R.J. Samuel (2012) [wlw]

The Rarest Rose by I. Beacham (2013) [wlw, Irish character, non-Irish writer]

To Summon Nightmares by J.K. Pendragon (2014) [trans, mlm]

Carolyn for Christmas by Lucy Carey (2015) [lesbian]

The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle (2015) [bi, lesbian]

The Green Road by Anne Enright (2015) [gay]

Wormwood Gate by Katherine Farmar (2015) [wlw]

A Good Hiding by Shirley-Anne McMillan (2016) [NI, gay]

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (2016) [mlm, outside Ireland]

Eelgrass by Tori Curtis (2016) [wlw, Irish myth inspired only?, non-Irish writer]

All the Bad Apples by Moïra Fowley-Doyle (2017)

Forget Me Not by Kris Bryant (2017) [wlw]

The Art of Three by Erin McRae & Racheline Maltese (2017) [bi, polyam, Irish character, non-Irish writers]

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne (2017) [gay]

The Spellbook of Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle (2017) [wlw]

The Unknowns by Shirley-Anne McMillan (2017) [NI, bi m, bi f]

My Brother's Name Is Jessica by John Boyne (2019) [trans f]

Every Sparrow Falling by Shirley-Anne McMillan (2019) [NI, mlm]

Perfectly Preventable Deaths (2019) and Precious Catastrophe (2021) by Deirdre Sullivan [wlw]

The Falling in Love Montage by Ciara Smyth (2020) [wlw]

The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar (2020) [lesbian]

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue (2020) [wlw]

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan (2021) [bi f, wlw]

Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating by Adiba Jaigirdar (2021) [bi f, wlw]

Not My Problem by Ciara Smyth (2021)

The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar (2023) [wlw]

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman, as Gaeilge by @heartstopper-i-ngaeilge (2024)[mlm, wlw, as G only, graphic novel]

Nonfiction:

Please be aware especially for this section that the pieces listed may be upsetting or cover difficult topics.

Print:

The Strange Story of Dr James Barry by Isobel Rae (1958) [biography: Barry, trans m]

The Perfect Gentleman by June Rose (1977) [biography: Barry, trans m]

Love In a Dark Time: Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodóvar by Colm Tóibín (2002) [essay collection]

The Secret Life of Dr James Barry by Rachel Holmes (2002/2020) [biography: Barry, trans m]

Queer & Celtic edited by Wesley J Koster (2013) [anthology]

Running Amach in Ireland: True Stories by LGBTQ Women edited by Maureen Looney (2016) [essay anthology]

Dr James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time by Michael du Preez and Jeremy Dronfield (2016) [biography: Barry, trans m]

Green Carnations/Glas na Gile edited by John Ennis & Moxie Lofton (2021) [poetry anthology]

Screen:

A Different Country (2017) [pre-1993 documentary]

Outitude (2018) [lesbian documentary]

Tabú: Tras (2020) [trans m, trans f, as G]

Seal le Dáithí - Niamh Ní Féineadh (2023) [as G, trans f]

Scéalta Grá na hÉireann: Eleanor Butler & Sarah Ponsonby (2023) [as G, wlw]

Misneach: Ceist Bhróid (2023) [as G, gay]

Croíthe Radacacha (2023) [as G, wlw]

Aiteach Ní Aisteach [as G, queer]

[holycatsandrabbits]

Part 14 of Giant Post of Completed Good Omens Human AU’s: May 2022

Thank you to all the creators who bring us so much joy AND to the readers who support the creators! <3

Also! A searchable list of all of my Good Omens human AU recs.

You can use it to find fics where Aziraphale is a librarian, or fics with Ineffable Wives, etc.

More of my Completed Good Omens Human AU Recs on Tumblr

More Good Omens recs from me here: Dannye's fic recs and

Dannye's artist recs

And here's me: Ao3 ~ DannyeChase.com ~ Linktree

**************

Series: (not all of these series are complete)

#RainbowRoad by @nieded rated T-E (C & A are race car drivers)

and they have escaped the weight of darkness by @whisperingwainscot (Ao3 waxing_crescent) Rated T-E (C & A are neighbors)

Disaster Dads by @tawnyontumblr (Ao3 TawnyOwl95) Rated T-E (Actor C and writer A are single dads)

Families Reunited by @darknessandfyre Rated G-E (C & A are childhood friends who reunite)

Good Omens Meet-Cutes by @bornonthesavage (Ao3 KiaraMGrey) Rated T-E. (Series contains unrelated fics. Part 1: Bartender C & customer A; Part 2: C & A are strangers who meet on a train; Part 3: Stripper C & birthday boy A; Parts 4 & 5: A is a religious solicitor at C's door; Part 6: Waiter C & customer A; Part 7: C & A are university students; Part 8: fast food worker C and customer A; Part 9: C & A are soul mates; Part 10: C & A are college students)

Good Omens Regency AU: The Serpent & The Flaming Sword by @worse0mens (Ao3 WorseOmens) Unrated (Lord Crowley & Lady Fell in the regency period)

Hurts So Good: A Whumptober 2021 Collection by @dietraumerei (Ao3 die_traumerei) Rated E (series contains several human AUs: Ch. 4: Ineffable wives: C & A meet while apple-picking; Ch. 5: C & A are ex-lovers; Ch. 6: C cares for A after an accident; Ch. 8 is part of the Bike Girls AU; Ch. 10: Ineffable Wives: C & A are lovers acting out a scene; Ch. 12: Ineffable Wives: A moves to C's town; Ch. 15: Ineffable Wives: C helps office worker A after someone tries to kill her)

Priest Crowley by FlashBastard Rated T-E (Priest C & congregant A)

Scissor and Ink - Good Omens Human AU by @samara-lillllly (Ao3 Samara Lilly (Amber_Rose)) Rated G-Unrated (Hairstylist C and tattoo artist A)

The Big British Wedding Bash by @caedmonfaith (Ao3 Caedmon) 17,659 words, Rated E (Host C & contestant A met on a TV baking show). Sequel to The Big British Baking Bash

Single Fics:

Along the Changing Tide by @naromoreau 53,831 words, Rated E (C & A are roommates at a beach house)

A Moment by @tawnyontumblr (Ao3 TawnyOwl95) 1657 words, Rated M (C & A are patients on an AIDS ward in the 1990's)

And so beguile thy sorrow by hapax (hapaxnym) 48,805 words, Rated T (Librarian A & patron C)

An Evening With An Angel [High School AU] by @ineffableimpression (Ao3 alex232227) (2605 words, Rated G (C & A are high school students)

Angels on High by Santillatron 30,569 words, Rated M (C & A are rock climbers)

Based on a True Story by @brightwanderer (Ao3 Atalan) 2051 words, Rated M (C & A are sex bloggers)

Belonging by @justanotherlittlequeerdo (Ao3 LittleQueerdo) 2190 words, Rated T (Librarian A & patron C)

Boyfriend Debut by snae_b 20,045 words, Rated E (C & A are porn stars)

Confessional by @stormiepassions 4713 words, Rated M (Priest A & ex-catholic C)

Convergent Evolution by AppleSeeds 22,894 words, Rated T (Genetics researcher C & linguist A)

Delectable But Not Edible by AppleSeeds 4023 words, Rated G (Lush (soap store) employee C and customer A)

don't read too much into it by @mllekurtz (Ao3 TheKnittingJedi) 97,922 words, Rated M (Ineffable wives: Publishing house editor C & proofreader A)

d'you know what seven minutes is? by @ineffablefool 1322 words, Rated G (C & A are best friends)

End of the Summer by @brokencasbutt67-writer (Ao3 brokencasbutt67) 7000 words, Rated T (Beelzebub & Gabriel are high school students at Bible Camp)

Ethical Butchery: the boneless artisan by @eunyisadoran (Ao3 Euny_Sloane) 5247 words, Rated E (Butcher Beelzebub and customer Gabriel)

Father Figure by @ChristocentricQueer 5996 words, Rated E (C & A are in an established relationship)

Gold Hands, Warm Heart by @ineffableomenshusbands (Ao3 Dashicra1) 500 words, Rated G (Ineffable wives: Queen C and miller's daughter A)

Good Neighbours, Good Cake by @caedmonfaith (Ao3 Caedmon) 2403 words, Rated T (Baker C & lecturer A are neighbors)

If my dreams were ever this good by AppleSeeds 7710 words, Rated T (C & A are office co-workers)

in the quiet hours after the shipwreck by @bebrave-andbekind (Ao3 Mikaeru) 15,342 words, Rated E (College student C & librarian A)

It Burned Down, Remember? by PrincessDesire 1399 words, Rated G (C is best friends with A, who has early onset dementia)

Love Languages by @ineffablefool 4859 words, Rated T (C & A are IT co-workers)

Moonlight Serenade (Extended) by @tawnyontumblr (Ao3 TawnyOwl95) 26,453 words, Rated E (Farmer C & pilot A during WWII)

Natural reserve by Joseph_Amadeus 7348 words, Rated M (C & A are business rivals)

New Approaches by FeralTuxedo 19,376 words, Rated M (Writer C & creative writing professor A)

Rearrangements by sheendav 60,105 words, Rated E (Bookseller A meets florist C in a park)

Reunion by snae_b 22,920 words, Rated E (Rock star C and A are ex-lovers)

Rumor Has It by @arielavader 5006 words, Rated E (Singer C is married to A)

Sanctuary by @leilakalomi 97,104 words, Rated E (A falls in love with dancer C in an AU based on The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

Six Thousand Miles by Nadzieja 7055 words, Rated E (C searches for childhood friend A)

Take the Monet and Run by SilenceDogood117 44,142 words, Rated M (Ineffable wives: art thief C runs into old acquaintance A)

The Golden Lion by ineffablebadger 2347 words, Rated E (Pirate C and privateer A)

The Universe Around You by @brokencasbutt67-writer (Ao3 brokencasbutt67) 1400 words, Rated G (Beelzebub & Gabriel are high school students)

Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour’s Ass by Epimeliad 10,413 words, Rated E (C & A are neighbors)

Transfigured So Together by @eveningstarcatcher 3000 words, Rated G (C & A go on their first date)

Unexpected by AppleSeeds 2623 words, Rated T (C & A are customers who meet at a grocery store)

Variable Speed Shaft by AppleSeeds 4494 words, Rated T (Engineer C & businessman A are co-workers)

You Are My World by AppleSeeds 35,415 words, Rated M (C & A are college students)

you know, a facebook word map? by @miss-minnelli (Ao3 miss_minnelli) 727 words, Rated G (C has a crush on his friend A)

you take my breath away by @whisperingwainscot (Ao3 waxing_crescent) 2080 words, Rated E (C (he/him) & A (she/her) are in an established relationship)

[soitsashowpodcast]

ep. 105: I used to love Dark Shadows.

It's another spooOOooky episode from your favorite Italian vampires(?)! We're biting into a classic soap opera all about vampires, time travel, and how soap operas haven't changed a bit since the '60s. Join us as we look into how this show changed the trajectory of vampire pop culture, compare it to some of the other refs we've covered, and maybe get tricked by the WB's marketing team once again.

Pop Culture Recommendations: Summer of Soul (2021), Bad Influence (1990)

Other pop culture we ref: Murder, She Wrote; The Waltons; Peyton Place; The Beatles; Electra Woman and Dyna Girl; Dynasty; Jessica Chastain; Buffy, the Vampire Slayer; Twilight; Father of the Bride

LISTEN TO THE EP

Apple Podcasts

Google Podcasts

iHeartRadio

Spotify

Stitcher

Episodes We Watched

Ep 1 (Jun. 27, 1966)

Ep 211-212 (Apr 18-19, 1967) - Barnabas first appears

Ep 248 (Jun 8, 1967) - Barnabas kidnaps Maggie

Ep 366 (Nov 20, 1967)

Ep 405 (Jan 12, 1968)

MORE ABOUT DARK SHADOWS

DarkShadows.fandom.com

"Dark Shadows: The Birth of the Modern TV Vampire," NPR.org (2012)

"A Dark Shadows Crash Course," Tor.com (2012)

"The 10 Best Episodes of Dark Shadows," CollinsportHistoricalSociety.com (2014)

"THE DR. JULIA HOFFMAN SHOW (Grayson Hall's Best Moments from Dark Shadows)" (2013)

CollinsportHistoricalSociety.com (2014)

"Was Lyndhurst Mansion Used on the Set of Dark Shadows?" WestchesterMagazine.com (2016)

"9 terrifyingly amusing facts about Dark Shadows," METV.com (2016)

"The 24 Most Important Vampire TV Shows Ever, Ranked," IndieWire.com (2017)

"Comfort Viewing: 3 Reasons I Love Dark Shadows," NYTimes.com (2020)

"You Need to Watch the Most Influential Vampire Show for Free Online ASAP," Inverse.com (2021)

"On the 55th Anniversary of Dark Shadows Premiere, We Shed New Light on the Supernatural Soap’s Enduring Popularity," Soaps.SheKnows.com (2021)

"Geoffrey Scott, Dark Shadows and Dynasty Actor, Dies at 79," Variety.com (2021)

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"The CW Reportedly Scraps Dark Shadows Reboot," PopCulture.com (2020)

"Thirty Years After NBC Drove a Stake Into Its Heart, We Autopsy the Resurrected Soap That Couldn’t Stay Out of the Grave," Soaps.SheKnows.com (2021)

[gabriellasmith]

The Fragmentation of Media Audiences

“Have you seen Heartstopper on Netflix?”“No, it’s on my list”.

“Have you caught up with Peaky Blinders?”

“We haven’t got round to it; we’ve been watching the new Prime series”.

Do these conversations sound familiar to those you have with family and friends?

The overwhelming choice now available to us in terms of media consumption means that the recommendations are constant and our ‘to be watched’ list is never-ending. We are now living in a high choice media environment, which has been created through the development of multiple streaming platforms, and media giants vying for consumer attention.

“Infinite choice equals ultimate fragmentation”

Fragmentation is the price we pay for the endless choice.

A fragmented media environment is one in which audiences for each media tend to overlap very little or not at all with one another, which accounts for why the 'have you watched...?' conversations are ever present. Previously, in the 1990s/2000s, commonly referred to as 'The Golden Age of TV', most households watched the same programme at the same time, and then were able to discuss the programme with others the next day, safe in the knowledge that they had watched it too.

Source: https://www.snapcomms.com/blog/water-cooler-talk

Are the Soaps a Dying Breed?

A classic example of this is the soaps. Coronation Street, for example, started in 1960, and its most watched episode aired in 1985, attracting more than 21 million viewers. In contrast, the soap only pulled in 5.5 million viewers in March 2022. The soaps’ original popularity can be attributed to their ability to create 'water cooler TV' moments, 'in which our shared consumption fostered a sense of connection and...togetherness'. But this water cooler discussion at work, on the bus, or over the phone the next day has been replaced with a fragmented audience that is spreading their attention too thin and replacing ‘togetherness’ with more solitary moments.

The fragmentation of audiences means there is a lessened community around certain media because the multiple streaming services have created smaller 'sphericules' that scarcely interact. Whilst Netflix, Prime and Apple TV create enough competition on their own, the introduction of platforms like ESPN+ and DC Universe have created an even more niche set of audiences that are further removed from one another.

Source: https://midiaresearch.com/blog/niche-is-the-new-mainstream

Is Choice a Good Thing?

The question, then, is whether this increased saturation of the market should be viewed as a positive or negative?

On one hand, we can be much better informed, educated and entertained with the array of documentaries, dramas and comedies that are available to us, instantly. Also, the flexibility and portability of these services allows us to integrate our favourite media into our, now busier than ever, lives. However, this vast choice is arguably contributing to an 'epidemic of loneliness' as research shows that 45% of people watch a programme or film alone every day. With the loss of simultaneous viewing comes the loss of water cooler moments and family screenings, and with the increase in streaming choices comes solitary moments and spherical separation.

[toongrrl-blog]

The Mommy Myth: Threats from Without (Part One)

*TRIGGER WARNING FOR ABUSE*

This will be a doozy folks...

Razor blades in apples and cookies during Halloween. Day cares run by child molesters and Satanists! Flammable pajamas! Car seats not installed properly! Cavities from bottles! Child Porn! Kidnappers! Toys choking kids! Alar in apple juice! Peanuts stuck in windpipes! Stalkers! Rapists! Radiation from household appliances! Murderers! Gangs! Fetal Alcohol Syndrome! Car jacking! Tylenol causes liver damage! Milk Cartons with missing kids! If you fuck up just a little, your kid is screwed!

Welcome to the 1980s where childhood danger became the new obsession along with designer goods, buns of steel, big hair, cell phones, and greed being good. In many decades that traced the growth of mothers in the workplace (check the 1940s), there was moral panic about juvenile delinquents and latchkey kids going bad, there were 19.5 million working mothers by 1984, also 6/10 women with children under eighteen. Mothers of preschool children working had doubled since 1970 and it was 15% higher for African-American women because unemployment for black fathers was 10.2% compared with 5% for white fathers. And these women were not making the big bucks to afford clothes and lifestyles seen on Dynasty and Falcon Crest, where they’d mostly work in retail, clerical, service, or factory positions and daycare workers earned less than most clerks of liquor stores. 

In 1984, aside from the fictitious case of the disappearance of Barbara Holland and the re-appearance of the thought to be dead Will Byers the previous year, there were two media events that captured the public fascination with child endangerment: the McMartin daycare scandal and the premiere of The Cosby Show (it was a more naive time) which was a typical sitcom except it featured two parents who worked outside the home in white-collar professions and focused on an African-American family. It showed the contradictions of what 1980s moms lived with: you can’t trust your kids with just anyone or leave them alone, you can have a demanding job and the loving family made for tv, act as paranoid as an FBI agent, be the spontaneous mom, and be constantly aware.

These media panics also happened around the same time the Reagan Administration was a big thing; he was aided by the regressive STOP ERA and Religious Right which led to a huge anti-feminist backlash in policies and the media. Women’s magazines scared moms about what could go wrong with their kids and exploited the fears of the public. Around the same time the McMartin daycare scandal was a thing, the government refused to fund daycare centers for millions of kids and was a result of such coverage. The War Against Women had started and programs benefiting women and children were in it’s crosshairs as being “too expensive” and “trickle down economics” will help anyways. So while the Chrysler Corporation and the Savings and Loans industry were given financial life rafts, programs like WIC (Womens, Infants, and Children) were cut mortality rates for infants of color (which declined in the 1970s) started climbing again and family leave was virtually non-existent. Parents magazine published a later-debunked warning in 1982, that children in daycare will become hoodlums. Moms were also warned kids will pick up lice (also in Little League or in the classroom) from daycares. 

The roots of this sensationalization of childhood perils stared in the mid 1970s with it’s peak a decade later, where Ladies Home Journal dumped Bruno Bettelheim for Geraldine Carro’s “Mothering” column where she was a mom giving guidance to other moms where she acknowledged that “motherhood rates mixed reviews” and she promised to offer opinions rather than impose them as “For too long, we’ve been living by other people’s books” and featured short pieces with titles on how to pick a pediatrician or teach the kids to cook safely. What was meant to soothe and offer empowerment ended up striking terror with warnings about all the things that could kill kids and that summer camps were the sources of “close to 100 deaths and 250,000 accidents” in 1974 and moms were urged to investigate the camp’s accreditation, the camper-counselor ratio, the number of life preservers in boats, all the codes were met by state standards, the lifeguards had Red Cross training, and all the counselors were experienced. Imagine what happened when Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp came out...

If you tossed your baby in the air, you could risk whiplash and hemorrhage of blood vessels feeding into the brain. But kids can’t get new babysitter and crib on the same day or kid will freak and kids got poisoned a lot from eating plants and flowers. Also kid’s sleepwear had to be flame retardant but washed with warm water, high-phosphate laundry detergent, no soap or bleach, no fabric softener or they will be rendered non-retardant. Ages where kids need to learn swimming was disputed, even Santa was scary or teaches them to lie, buy simple toys, costumes needed to be flame retardant and have reflective tape strips on the costumes and bags, kids needed flashlights or can only trick or treat in the daylight hours, kids can’t wear masks anymore, and all treats need to be examined.  Then in 1977, Carro asked how parents can protect kids without making them fearful. Hrrrrmmmmmm......

There have been missing children before in the past, even in that sweet long ago when people hardly bothered to lock their front doors at night, one of the most notorious early cases that have been exploited by the media was the Etan Patz case where 6 year old Etan was kidnapped in downtown New York City on May 1979, before getting on his school bus, there was a huge effort to find him locally and in the media but the case has remained unsolved until 2010 when his killer was found and it was 9 years since he was declared dead. Perhaps the most influential case was that of Adam Walsh, son of John Walsh from America’s Most Wanted, who was kidnapped from the toy department at a Florida store and was made into a TV movie. In March 1984, the missing for a month ten year old Kevin Collins made the cover of Newsweek magazine. The media had exploited these tragic cases with wildly exaggerated figures soon circulated in the media, what was a small number of cases became sensationalized to make people think kids were being snatched every time they took a breath.

On March 28 1984 NBC’s Tom Brokaw reported “The fear is thick around Denver these days. A number of kidnappings have made everyone nervous--parents, children, and police.” Parents were driving their kids to school rather than let them wait on the bus stop and left the school after seeing their kid enter the building, such stories hardly explored what could be done as a society and community to protect children. No you were on your own.

Late March 1984, headlines talked about a daycare on Manhattan Beach, California, this daycare being McMartin Preschool where seven nursery teachers were arraigned on over 100 counts of child molestation. Virginia McMartin, age 76 and on a wheelchair, presided over the day care center where she and her family members allegedly drugged, fondled, and molested at least 125 children and killed cuddly animals in front of them. 90% of Los Angeles residents surveyed believed that Ray Buckey and his grandmother Virginia to be guilty. Children were interviewed by therapists where they were videotaped and used puppets. As it turned out, the children were badgered by therapists who used leading questions and threats to get the kids talking. From 1989 to 1990, California received at least 440, 000 reports of child abuse, 84% deemed to be unfounded, and 8,448 of the cases were defined as sexual abuse. Suddenly, as the media warned, you couldn’t trust very many people with your children. In other news, the founder of Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis, John Clark Donahue was forced to resign after allegations of molesting three boys and Little Rascals Day Care in North Carolina became notorious when it was the owner and cook (owner’s conviction was overturned). There was news of fathers molesting their daughters. On May 21st, there was a Los Angeles teacher brought to court on charges of molestation at the elementary school and both ABC and CBS reported that a religious boarding school for boys in Walterboro, South Carolina had beaten and abused boys. Then in June, CBS and ABC reported on a fundamentalist commune in Island Pond, Vermont that was raided with 100 children taken from their homes because it was alleged their elders and parents abused them. The FBI got involved, saying groups of people abuse kids and circulate a book titled “How to Have Sex with Kids”. Obviously these stories had the subtext that no place was safe. In 1985, CBS announced that a church run day care had children suffering broken bones linked to violence (a total of eleven broken arms and legs) and Missouri exempted church run centers from licensing. 

Even “Rockwellian”, small-town, Christian (and White) American places were dens of abuse. Jordan, Minnesota featured 24 defendants (factory workers, housewives, and a grandma) who were part of a “sex ring” and charged with more than 400 counts of sexually abusing dozens of children including their own kids. As Michaels and Douglas noted, a central theme was the failure of government agencies to oversee day care centers and catch molestation in time but Reagan’s administration kept their fingers in their ears singing “La la la can’t hear you la la la”. Geraldo Rivera did a sensationalist show on Satanism that played on adult fears of their teens. And Priests were being outed as having molested altar boys and other young men, like a priest in Henry, Louisiana where he admitted sexually abusing at least 35 boys and was sentenced to 20 years hard labor. The media was talking childhood abuse more seriously with 22% of adults saying they were victims of sexual abuse as children who never told anyone or when they did, nothing was done to the abuser. 

Back to old Virginia McMartin, follow-up stories assuring people that child care centers weren’t dens of rampant abuse weren’t publicized for example. Raymond Buckey’s defense attorney found two doctors who said that one of the children told them that it was his own father who “poked” him in the anus and the boy’s mother Judy Johnson who circulated the charges against them was known to be mentally ill and had trouble distinguishing between what’s real and what’s not. She also accused a Los Angeles school board member of molesting her son and claimed kid was injured by an elephant and forced to drink baby’s blood. The children initially denied abuse, Kee MacFarlane the therapist had the kids name gas station attendants, community leaders, and store clerks as molesters and she came up with the name “naked movie star” for a game the teachers supposedly made the kids play. Jurors viewing the tapes of the interviews were appalled and it turned out Kee had an affair with Wayne Satz, television reporter for KABC who broke the McMartin story. After nearly 6 years and $15 million, Ray Buckey and his mother were found not guilty and there was a hung jury and still not found guilty. Sadly he was viewed as a loner who liked to go commando in shorts and a mama’s boy with more shorts than brains. Virginia died in 1995, Peggy McMartin Buckey died in 2000, and Ray Buckey who was incarcerated for five years during the trials later went to law school and changed his name and moved elsewhere to have a family. Meanwhile in Jordan, cases were falling apart with one couple getting aquitted and vowed to regain custody of their three sons. Only one person plead guilty: James Rud, who lied and implicated others. 

“It was all Momma’s fault!” I’m exaggerating but the public imagination linked day care centers with child sexual abuse, molesters targeted kids from “broken homes” (read single moms not like dysfunctional families with distant parents) and you couldn’t trust Mr. Wilson next door. The subtext clearly targeting working mothers or moms considering going into the workplace and leaving their kids in programs after school before picking them up. Of course Susan Faludi in her book Backlash, revealed that kids were twice as likely to be abused at home than in day care but media panics tend to focus on what’s juicy rather than facts. In her study of working moms in magazines, Kathryn Keller stated:

Each negative image of day care and the implication behind it that women should not be working but should be at home with their children was countered by a positive image.

Moms were surrounded by mixed messages that served them guilt and paranoia, it was nice that issues that were swept under the rug were given the attention they deserved, but it was used as an indictment of non-traditional family structures and women not feeling they have to sacrifice their autonomy at the service of their families or stay in terrible marriages for “the good of the children”. It’s best I leave this dreary part (before heading to sitcoms and humor and magazines) with Tamme Dawson from GLOW to empower all women and snap back at the powers that be.

[rgr-pop]

I need an ENTIRE afternoon wall of noise. 4/3 music library on shuffle until I hit a killdozer song.

the thermals - “god and country” reset - "double cross" nirvana - "polly" (1986-88 home recording) nirvana - "radio friendly unit shifter" (2013 mix) peterbuilt - "sateliteyes" the dickies - "got it at the store" apocalypse hoboken - "box of pills" fiona apple - "slow like honey" tex & the horseheads - "big boss man" everclear - "the drama king" anti-flag - "america got it right" neil young - "tonight's the night, pt. ii" everclear - "brown-eyed girl" noooooooooo oh my god no please millencolin - “israelites" listen you know that i'm p tolerant when it comes to this subject but why specifically did you boys do this. specifically you useless id - "note" never accuse me of pop punk nationalism again! that's three of global pop punk the selecter - "selling out your future" built to spill - "some things last a long time" holidays - "proof" let's wrestle - "bad mammaries" radhos - "one breath" ween - "boing" bracket - "g-vibe" local h - "'cha!' said the kitty" sublime - "40oz to freedom" failure - "saturday saviour" blink-182 - "don't leave me" (tmtts live take) why did they make this live album, they were so bad live shrimp boat - "melon song" interpol - "not even jail" the ataris - "angry nerd rock" 50 million - "superhero" skankin pickle - "violent love" the breeders - "put on a side" all - "honey peeps" the commandos (suicide commandos) - "weekend warrior" suicide machines - "friends are hard to find" the eclectics - "laura" good ska block! love this band pansy division - "jack u off" rocket from the tombs - "ain't it fun" dynamite boy - "devoted" young pioneers - "downtown tragedy" the breeders - "so sad about us" fenix tx - "jean claude trans am" fuck i love this song nofx - "bob" hickey - "happily ever after" bob dylan - "tangled up in blue" (bootlegs vol. 2) gas huffer - "king of hubcaps" tullycraft - "crush this town" atom and his package - "goalie" faith no more - "the real thing" carly rae jepsen - "tell me" bis - "listen up" one direction - "still the one" mtx - "she's no rocket scientist" eugene chadbourne - "roger miller medley" grouvie ghoulies - "carly simon" white town - "thursday at the blue note" gas huffer - "moon mission" rx bandits - "sleepy tyme" everclear - "rocket for the girl" failure - "kindred" blood on the saddle - "johnny's at the fair" the distillers - "red carpet and rebellion" cruiserweight - "dearest drew" stp - "plush" everclear - "wonderful" (live, from the closure ep) (don't hate it) new found glory - "sonny" everclear - "otis redding" (impure white evil demo) (BEST song) stp - "adhesive" incubus - "have you ever" cub - "tell me now" everclear - "short blonde hair" i simply do not hate it letters to cleo - "happy ever after" amazing transparent man - “the ocean is a fuck of a long way to swim” nerf herder - “(stand by your) manatee” kitty kitty - “ab tokeless” osker - “the mistakes you made” perfume genius - “hood” radhos - “shut up & deal” (welcome to the jungle take) osker - “the body”  gas huffer - “the sin of sloth” the fall - “bombast” excuse 17 - “code red” mad season - “lifeless dead” unwritten law - “differences” hanson - “two tears” the eyeliners - “anywhere but here” moby grape - “lazy me” brian wilson - “wonderful” 88 fingers louie - “something i don’t know” sicko - “wisdom tooth weekend” the replacements - “love you till friday” suicide machines - “green world” midtown - “another boy” hickey - “cool kids attacked by flying monkeys” the roman invasion suite - “carnations” the beat - “tears of a clown” local h - “24 hour break up session” okay i’m awake i want to end this now toots & the maytals - “funky kingston” local h - “strict-9″ his name is alive - “her eyes were huge things” nirvana - “frances farmer will have her revenge on seattle” slapstick - “almost punk enough” urge overkill - “bionic revolution” janet jackson - “you want this” piebald - “long nights” small brown bike - “now i’m a shadow” the story so far - “left unsaid” crj - “more than a memory” tracy + the plastics - “my friends end parties” liz phair - “6′1″“ fastbacks - “555, pt. 1″ this mix is feminist now swindle - “one track” shockabilly - “burma shave” temple of the dog - “say hello to heaven” amazing transparent man - “shove” cool soul asylum cover from dekalb illinois :)) the vindictives “eating me alive” midwests only!! the judys - “radiation squirm” gulfs only!! frogpond - “sleep” flipp - “rock-n-roll star” throwing muses - “red shoes” everclear - “santa monica” throwing muses on summerland??? mekons - “atone & forsaken” holidays - “take me home country roads” this is a good tone to lead up to killdozer... true believers - “all mixed up again” prince - “adore” beulah - “queen of the populists” eveclear - “rocky mountain high” (99x live acoustic--I don’t have a date for this actually) of montreal - “dustin hoffman thinks about eating the soap” heatmiser - “stray” rickie lee jones - “woody and dutch on the slow train to peking” tar - “viaduct removal” common rider - “carry on” the frogs - “u bastards” mudhoney - “this gift” hammerbox - “outside” fuck my mom would have loved this song if it had gotten the airplay it deserved in 1993... hammerbox on summerland!!!! letters to cleo - “little rosa” kay hanley on summerland!! nine pound hammer “wrongside of the road” hanson - “with you in your dreams” (3cg demo) hamson on summerland!!! fastbacks - “555, pt. 1″ again... fastbacks on summerland!!! face to face - “sensible” soul asylum - “happy” soul asylum on summerland!!!! television - “see no evil” pinq - “careful not to mention the obvious” the dickies - “nights in white satin” tar - “mel’s” truly - “chlorine” babes in toyland - “deep song” hole - “berry” hellbender - “half driven” hammerhead  - “new york? ...alone?” everclear - “malevolent” guzzard - “last”  archers of loaf - “tatyana” hum - “stars” hum on summerland die kreuzen - “don’t say please” this is not fair joanna newsom - “sadie” down by law - “peace, love and understanding” nirvana - “aneurysm” (1990 demo) hovercraft - “endoradiosonde” modest mouse - “cowboy dan” rage against the machine - “born of a broken man” skatalites - “scandal ska” pylon - “driving school” the vindictives - “babysitter” jimmy eat world - “ten” the get up kids - “lowercase west thomas” oh we’re doing this now? hot rod circuit - “knees” fine triple fast action - “the rescue” FINE  full disclosure i do skip emo diaries tracks at my discretion the amps - “bragging party” everclear - “am radio” this is not fair mxpx - “middlename” MXPX ON SUMMERLAND chokebore - “your let down” bob dylan - “you’re a big girl now” helmet - “primitive” pond - “filterless” blink-182 - “all the small things” local h - “ralph” tar - “over and out” pearl jam - “black” the gits - “sniveling little rat faced git” local h - “eddie vedder” >:) tar - “flow plow” i always misremember this as a subpop single so i’m like “i’m not amphetamine reptile biased?” but it was an a/r release, lol. brad wood produced it. lake michigan as hell  unicorns - “jellybones” this song makes me sad ever since i didn’t get to adopt the jellybones cat oblivion - “clark” desmond dekker - “jeserene” veruca salt - “one last time” veruca salt on summerland!!!! dead moon - “dead moon night” extremely dead moon on summerland fishbone - “i like to hide behind my glasses” dead moon - “on my own” paw - “sleeping bag” tar - “goethe” doc dart - “casket with flowers” smashing pumpkins - “zero” i don’t want billy corgan on summerland and i am sorry for that kicking giant - “&” kicking giant on summerland lmao shockabilly - “pile up all architecture” ween - “sorry charlie” sublime - “april 29, 1992 (miami)” heatmiser - “blackout” the clash - “pressure drop” hellbender - “pissant’s retrospective” the queers - “i won’t be” the vindictives - “circles” the beat farmers - “selfish heart” screaming trees - “end of the universe” 7 year bitch - “second hand” bourgeois filth - “above” nirvana - “scoff” the breeders - “cannonball” saturday looks good to me - “save my life” cara beth satalino - “good ones” communique - “dagger version” soul asylum - “sometime to return” sublime - “jailhouse” tullycraft - “twee” nuns - “wild” beyonce - “countdown” the replacements - “sixteen blue” living colour - “what’s your favorite color” britney - “why should i be sad” mdc - “church and state” alice in chains - “junkhead” rage against the machine - “mic check” everclear - “nervous and weird” soundgarden - “fresh tendrils” helmet - “army of me” the gits - “it all dies anyway” pansy division - “smells like queer spirit” mtx - “i’d do anything for you” 5 year sentence - “just a punk” pennywise - “nothing” mudhoney - “thirteenth floor opening” yesterday’s kids - “eighteen” mxpx - “punk rawk show” small brown bike - “zerosum” incubus - “trouble in 421″ hanson - “speechless” incubus - “circles” dead moon - “my time has come” (!!!!) first of all is this killdozer blink-182 - “here’s your letter” everclear - “electra made me blind” (nervous & weird take) saves the day - “through being cool” groovie ghoulies - “don’t go out into the rain (you’re gonna melt)” babes in toyland - “never” husker du - “target” guzzard - “biro” fairweather - “next day flight” mcr - “house of wolves” broadcast - “until then” liz phair - “never said” the dicks - “rich daddy” quasi - “the iron worm” mustard plug - “not again” janitor joe - “boyfriend” snapcase - “new academy” neil young - “someday” blindsided - “spaceman” placebo - “without you i’m nothing” the creeps - “lakeside cabin” solomon grundy - “time is not your own” the clash - “the card cheat” silversun pickups - “common reactor” lagwagon - “leave the light on” denali - “where i landed” system of a down - “highway song” sprinkler - “personality doll” the vindictives - “structure and function” unplugged” the queers - “ursula finally has tits” we’re entering no repeats territory  buffalo springfield - “expecting to fly” hit squad - “pictures of matchstick men” cows - “almost a god” hop along - “young and happy” pixies - “i’ve been tired” the fall - “spoilt victorian child” camper van chadbourne - “knock on the door” queens of the stone age - “tension head” choking victim - “war story” cool that we have gotten to drop by the greatest song ever recorded :) guttermount - “happy loving couples” audio karate - “nintendo 89″ tad - “pork chop” the kelley deal 6000 - “where did the home team go” colorfinger - “hateful” :} man or astroman - “evil plans of planet spectra” pere ubu - “arabian nights” accepting repeats for  new found glory - “my friends over you” cool moving on american steel - “optimist” tom petty & the heartbreakers - “even the losers” meat puppets - “another moon” black cat music - “wine in a box” wallside - “ready” crucifucks - “pig in a blanket” the bananas - “my charmed life”

KILLDOZER - “EARL SCHEIB,” UNCOMPROMISING WAR ON ART UNDER THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT, 1994. KILLDOZER ON SUMMERLAND

[pamphletstoinspire]

Porn’s Harm Is Changing Fast

Skeptics of pornography’s danger point out that porn has been around a long time. After all, the ancient Greeks painted sexual images on their pottery. But comparing paintings on Greek vases to today’s endless stream of live-action, hardcore videos is like comparing apples to…um…kumquats. Technology is changing not only the content of porn, but how, when, and at what age it’s being consumed.

The year was 1953, and Hugh Heffner had just published the first copy of Playboy.

Sex had just started to become a more prominent part of American’s cultural conversation, partly because of Dr. Alfred Kinsey who, five years earlier, had published a controversial but extremely popular book on sexuality. [1] He was heralded as one of the first scientists and writers to talk so openly about sexuality, and his books went flying off the shelves. [2]

Heffner saw a chance to make money from the changing cultural views about sex. But to maximize sales of his new magazine he had to change porn’s image from something your friend’s creepy relative might read to something sophisticated and mainstream. So Heffner put his pornographic photos next to essays and articles written by respected authors. In Playboy, porn started to look like nothing more than harmless pleasure engaged in by respectable and successful individuals.

Flash forward to the 1980s, when VCRs suddenly made it possible for people to watch movies at home. [3] For porn consumers, that meant that instead of having to go to seedy movie theaters on the wrong side of town, they just went to the back room at their local movie rental place. Sure, they still had to go out to find it, but porn was a lot more accessible.

And then the internet changed everything. [4][5]

Once porn hit the Web in the 1990s, suddenly there was nothing but a few keystrokes between anyone with an internet connection and the most graphic material available. [4] The online porn industry exploded. Between 1998 and 2007, the number of pornographic websites grew by 1,800%. [6] By 2004, porn sites were getting three times more visitors than Google, Yahoo!, and MSN Search put together. [7] It was “big business” in a way the world had never seen before. Thirty percent of all internet data was related to porn, [8] and worldwide porn revenues (including internet, sex shops, videos rented in hotel rooms, etc.) grew to exceed the incomes of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix, and Earthlink combined! [9]

As internet porn grew more popular, it also turned darker, more graphic, and more extreme. (See Why Consuming Porn Is An Escalating Behavior.) With so much porn available, pornographers tried to compete for attention by constantly pushing the boundaries. [10] “Thirty years ago ‘hardcore’ pornography usually meant the explicit depiction of sexual intercourse,” writes Dr. Norman Doidge, a neuroscientist and author of The Brain That Changes Itself. “Now hardcore has evolved and is increasingly dominated by the sadomasochistic themes … all involving scripts fusing sex with hatred and humiliation.” [11] In our post-Playboy world, porn now features degradation, abuse, and humiliation of people in a way never before seen in the mass media. [12] “[S]oftcore is now what hardcore was a few decades ago,” Doidge explains. “The comparatively tame softcore pictures of yesteryear … now show up on mainstream media all day long, in the pornification of everything, including television, rock videos, soap operas, advertisements, and so on.” [13]

As the popularity of internet porn grew like wildfire, so did its influence. Network television shows, pay-per-view channel series, and movies began to up the ante with more and more graphic content as they scrambled to keep the attention of audiences accustomed to internet porn. [14] Between 1998 and 2005, the number of sex scenes on American TV shows nearly doubled, [15] and it wasn’t just happening on adult programs. In a study conducted in 2004 and 2005, 70% of the 20 TV shows most often watched by teens included sexual content, and nearly half showed sexual behavior. [16] And for the first time, porn was becoming a routine part of teen life and a major way adolescents learned about sex. [17]

By now, porn’s effects have soaked into every aspect of our lives. [18] Popular video games now feature full nudity. [19] Snowboards marketed to teens are plastered with images of porn performers. [20] Even children’s toys have become more sexualized. [21]

Technology has changed not only the content of the porn, but also how, when, and at what age they consume it. Young men and women are all presented with the issue of today’s porn, and studies show that by the time they turn 14 years old, two out of three boys in the U.S. have viewed porn in the last year, [22] and many are watching it on devices they have with them 24 hours a day.

And for all of these changes to the nature and reach of today’s pornography, we haven’t even mentioned the most disturbing development of all: human trafficking. The modern-day slave trade (and there is one) is fueled by pornography. Over two-thirds of all calls to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center involve sex trafficking—an estimated 21 million victims worldwide [23], and in one survey, 63% of underage sex trafficking victims said they had been advertised or sold online [24].

This is not a Third World problem. Sex trafficking, and its dissemination through online pornographic sites, extends beyond prostitution and child trafficking rings to the many “revenge porn” sites, to the coercion, drugging, and/or physical abuse of porn performers, wannabe models, and runaways right here in the United States. Human trafficking includes any “commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion.” [25] (See How Porn Fuels Sex Trafficking.)

In fact, exposure to porn has been found, along with poverty, drug abuse, and homelessness, to be one of the most consistent risk factors associated with human trafficking. [26] And after victims are ensnared, porn is often used to desensitize them to the acts in which they will be forced to engage. Quite literally, porn feeds human trafficking and human trafficking feeds porn. [27]

The argument that porn is nothing new—that it’s been around forever and never caused any great harm—seems pretty silly when you think about how different today’s porn is from anything that existed before. Porn is incomparably more accessible, more widespread, and more extreme than anything that existed even a generation ago. Those centerfold magazines that were passed around among youth in previous generations were nothing compared to what youth have access to today, [28] and the consequences of looking today go far beyond young people hoping their parents don’t find out.

The good news is that in response to the unprecedented spread of pornography there are an unprecedented number of resources and people who want to help, whether by spreading facts about pornography or helping those who feel caught in its undertow. Today’s pornography is a new phenomenon, unlike anything humankind has ever seen, but the things that can push porn back are as old as humanity itself: wisdom, vigilance, and a commitment to real love.

Citations

[1] Brown, T. M., & Fee, E. (2003). Alfred C. Kinsey: A Pioneer Of Sex Research. American Journal Of Public Health 93(6), 896-897. Retrieved From Ncbi.Nlm.Nih.Go..cles/PMC1447862

[2] Mestel, R. (2004, November 15). The Kinsey Effect. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved From Articles.Latime..lth/He-Kinsey15

[3] Kalman, T.P. (2008). Clinical Encounters With Internet Pornography. Journal Of The American Academy Of Psychoanalysis And Dynamic Psychiatry, 36(4) 593-618. Doi:10.1521/Jaap.2008.36.4.593; McAline, D. (2001). Interview On American Porn. Frontline, PBS, August.

[4] Layden, M. A. (2010). Pornography And Violence: A New Look At The Research. In J. Stoner & D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 57–68). Princeton, NJ: Witherspoon Institute; Kalman, T.P. (2008). Clinical Encounters With Internet Pornography. Journal Of The American Academy Of Psychoanalysis And Dynamic Psychiatry, 36(4) 593-618. Doi:10.1521/Jaap.2008.36.4.593;

[5] Paul, P. (2007). Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, And Our Families. New York: Henry Hold & Co., 3; McCarthy, B. W. (2002). The Wife’s Role In Facilitating Recovery From Male Compulsive Sexual Behavior. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity 9, 4: 275–84. Doi:10.1080/10720160216045; Schneider, J. P. (2000). Effects Of Cybersex Addiction On The Family: Results Of A Survey. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 7(1-2), 31–58. Retrieved From Jenniferschneid..sex_family.Html

[6] Websense Research Shows Online Pornography Sites Continue Strong Growth. (2004). PRNewswire.Com, April 4.

[7] Porn More Popular Than Search. (2004). InternetWeek.Com, June 4.

[8] Negash, S., Van Ness Sheppard, N., Lambert, N. M., & Fincham, F. D. (2016). Trading Later Rewards For Current Pleasure: Pornography Consumption And Delay Discounting. Journal Of Sex Research, 53(6), 689-700. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2015.1025123; Porn Sites Get More Visitors Each Month Than Netflix, Amazon, & Twitter Combined. (2013, May 4). Huffington Post. Retrieved From Huffingtonpost..._n_3187682.Html

[9] DeKeseredy, W. (2015). Critical Criminological Understandings Of Adult Pornography And Women Abuse: New Progressive Directions In Research And Theory. International Journal For Crime, Justice, And Social Democracy, 4(4) 4-21. Doi:10.5204/Ijcjsd.V4i4.184

[10] Woods, J. (2012). Jamie Is 13 And Hasn’t Even Kissed A Girl. But He’s Now On The Sex Offender Register After Online Porn Warped His Mind. Daily Mail (U.K.), April 25.

[11] Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books.

[12] DeKeseredy, W. (2015). Critical Criminological Understandings Of Adult Pornography And Women Abuse: New Progressive Directions In Research And Theory. International Journal For Crime, Justice, And Social Democracy, 4(4) 4-21. Doi:10.5204/Ijcjsd.V4i4.184

[13] Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books.

[14] Caro, M. (2004). The New Skin Trade. Chicago Tribune, September 19.

[15] Kunkel, D., Eyal, K., Finnerty, K., Biely, E., And Donnerstein, E. (2005). Sex On TV 4. Menlo Park, CA: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

[16] Peter, J. And Valkenburg, P. M. (2007). Adolescents’ Exposure To A Sexualized Media Environment And Their Notions Of Women As Sex Objects. Sex Roles 56,(5-6), Doi:381–95.10.1007/S11199-006-9176-Y

[17] Peter, J. & Valkenburg, P. M., (2016) Adolescents And Pornography: A Review Of 20 Years Of Research. Journal Of Sex Research, 53(4-5), 509-531. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2016.1143441; Rothman, E. F., Kaczmarsky, C., Burke, N., Jansen, E., & Baughman, A. (2015). “Without Porn…I Wouldn’t Know Half The Things I Know Now”: A Qualitative Study Of Pornography Use Among A Sample Of Urban, Low-Income, Black And Hispanic Youth. Journal Of Sex Research, 52(7), 736-746. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2014.960908; Paul, P. (2010). From Pornography To Porno To Porn: How Porn Became The Norm. In J. Stoner & D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 3–20). Princeton, N.J.: Witherspoon Institute; Carroll, J. S., Padilla-Walker, L. M., And Nelson, L. J. (2008). Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance And Use Among Emerging Adults. Journal Of Adolescent Research, 23(1), 6–30. Doi:10.1177/0743558407306348

[18] Bridges, A. J. (2010). Pornography’s Effect On Interpersonal Relationships. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 89-110). Princeton, NJ: Witherspoon Institute; Paul, P. (2010). From Pornography To Porno To Porn: How Porn Became The Norm. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 3–20). Princeton, N.J.: Witherspoon Institute; Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books, 102; Caro, M. (2004). The New Skin Trade. Chicago Tribune, September 19.

[19] Paul, P. (2010). From Pornography To Porno To Porn: How Porn Became The Norm. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 3–20). Princeton, N.J.: Witherspoon Institute.

[20] Paul, P. (2010). From Pornography To Porno To Porn: How Porn Became The Norm. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 3–20). Princeton, N.J.: Witherspoon Institute.

[21] Bridges, A. J. (2010). Pornography’s Effect On Interpersonal Relationships. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 89-110). Princeton, NJ: Witherspoon Institute.

[22] Rothman, E. F., Kaczmarsky, C., Burke, N., Jansen, E., & Baughman, A. (2015). “Without Porn…I Wouldn’t Know Half The Things I Know Now”: A Qualitative Study Of Pornography Use Among A Sample Of Urban, Low-Income, Black And Hispanic Youth. Journal Of Sex Research, 52(7), 736-746. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2014.960908

[23] University Of New England, “Human Sex Trafficking: An Online Epidemic #Infographic” (2015). Retreived By Visualistan.Com..e-Epidemic.Html

[24] Thorn, “A Report On The Use Of Technology To Recruit, Groom, And Sell Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Victim (2015). Retrieved From Wearethorn.Org/..r_Survey_r5.Pdf

[25] Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) Of 2000. Pub. L. No. 106-386, Section 103 (8) (A).

[26] Countryman-Roswurm, Karen (2017). Primed For Perpetration: Porn And The Perpetuation Of Sex Trafficking. Guest Blog For FTND, Retrieved From Fightthenewdrug..ing-Pornography

[27] Dr. Karen Countryman-Roswurm, LMSW, Ph.D. Interview || Truth About Porn [Video File]. (2016, December 28). Retrieved From Vimeo.Com/190317258

[28] Price, J., Patterson, R., Regnerus, M., & Walley, J. (2016). How Much More XXX Is Generation X Consuming? Evidence Of Changing Attitudes And Behaviors Related To Pornography Since 1973. Journal Of Sex Research, 53(1), 12-20. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2014.1003773

[y2kbeautyandother2000sstuff]

Bath and Body Works Flowering Herbs Mini Body Cream and Country Apple Moisturizing Anti Bacterial Soap Gift Set

1990-1994ish

Found on Ebay, user kerri2247

[theperfumewarehouse]

Fragrances are not just there to smell nice, plays an extremely important role in a man’s dressing. Here are the best perfumes for men, rated by users at The Perfume Warehouse.

[wineanddinosaur]

Wine 101: Piquette

This episode of “Wine 101” is sponsored by E. & J. Gallo Winery. At Gallo, we exist to serve enjoyment in moments that matter. The hallmark of our company has always been an unwavering commitment to making quality wine and spirits, Whether it’s getting Barefoot and having a great time, making every day sparkle with La Marca Prosecco, or continuing our legacy with Louis Martini in Napa, we want to welcome new friends to wine and share in all of life’s moments.

Interested in trying some of the wine brands discussed on “Wine 101”? Follow the link in each episode description to purchase featured wines or browse our full portfolio at TheBarrelRoom.com. Cheers, and all the best.

Think of piquette like the session beer of the wine world. It’s fun, fizzy, and has a low percentage of alcohol by volume. Piquette’s rise in popularity is tied, in part, to the natural wine movement, but the style has a unique story of its own.

On this episode of “Wine 101,” VinePair’s tastings director Keith Beavers introduces listeners to the up-and-coming style of wine. There’s some interesting information out there about the style, including the meaning behind piquette’s name, how it got its reputation, and the re-fermentation process used to make it, to name a few. Beavers breaks it all down for “Wine 101” listeners.

Tune in to Episode 8 of the bonus season of “Wine 101” to learn more about piquette.

LISTEN ONLINE

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OR CHECK OUT THE CONVERSATION HERE

Keith Beavers: My name is Keith Beavers. I’m just going to say it: “The Wheel of Time” is better than any other fantasy novel series ever to be written.

What’s going on, wine lovers? Welcome to Episode 8 of VinePair’s “Wine 101” podcast. This is the bonus season. My name is Keith Beavers. I am the tastings director of VinePair. How are you doing?

OK, we’ve got to talk about this thing called piquette. You may have heard of it. You may not have, but it’s coming. It’s around. If it’s going to be around, you should probably know what it is. Let’s just bang it out of the park.

Every once in a while, the wine world will throw a curveball at you. It seems like, since the organic movement started in the late 1990s and early 2000s, we’ve seen a big evolution in styles of wine. We’re at a point right now where we’re hitting a peak and then a plateau of that movement. Some of these wines out there are a little bit confusing. There’s the term “natural wine,” which is extremely confusing to everyone. There’s the orange wine thing, which we covered already. There’s this thing called pét-nat, or pétillant natural, which we’ll talk about in another episode.

Another wine style word that’s been floating around lately is called piquette. It’s becoming sort of popular. You can find it mostly in city wine shops in urban environments like New York, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and places like that. It’s working its way around the country. But, what is piquette? It’s not a grape. It’s not a region. What is this? It’s a style. We should talk about piquette, because if you’re going to see it around, you’re going to want to know what it’s about. Then, you’re going to want to make your own decision of, “Am I going to drink piquette?” Let’s get into it.

OK, technically the word piquette means “prickle.” We know how wine is made. Grapes are pressed and put into a vat. That’s called the must. Yeast has entered into the situation. Yeast converts to alcohol. Then, we have wine. We draw the new wine off of the organic material. That organic material is now called pomace. This is going all the way back to the first season here. Often, the pomace is used for a couple of things. Sometimes it’s used as fertilizer or compost, to go back into the agricultural side of winemaking. Sometimes it is distilled — especially in Italy — to make a brandy-like wine called grappa. It’s also made into soaps and stuff like that.

There’s one other thing you can do with pomace. This is the stuff that has a whisper of what the wine is. It has nuances of what that wine that was just made is. It doesn’t have the full flavor of it, though. If you were to add water to that pomace, once the pomace is soaked with water, you do another pressing. You’re basically pressing the remnants of what was mixed into the water, and then that can be refermented, whether with ambient yeast or yeast added. What you get is very thin, lean, and has almost neutral hints of fruit. It’s a bubbly wine. What’s happening is that fermentation is happening all over again, but it’s happening at a very low rate. You bottle that, and you can even let it finish fermenting in the bottle and put a crown cap on it. I don’t want to say that what you have is a watered down version of the wine that was made, even though that’s literally what it is. You add water to the pomace and referment. It’s this very juicy, fun, low-alcohol wine. We’re talking 4 to maybe 9, at the highest, percentage alcohol. That’s basically it.

These are made with red and white grapes. Let’s say you have a pomace of Cab Franc and you soak it, referment it, and make this slightly fizzy, bubbly wine. You’re still going to get some fruit flavor and some of the pyrazine-y, peppery notes from that. It’s going to be lean. It’s almost what Jedi Wine Master Jancis Robinson calls vinous. Imagine doing it with a white wine grape where you don’t really get maceration, color, or any of those phenolics. Often, when you drink a white wine that’s been aged or fermented in stainless steel, you’re getting whatever that wine wants to give you without any influence of oak or anything else. It’s giving you as much as it can give you. When you make a piquette from white wine grapes, you are getting just an almost slightly fruity, more neutral, fizzy drink. It’s a fizzy drink. It’s not even really wine, technically.

This is where it gets very interesting, and this is also where it gets really confusing. I think this is pretty fascinating. I was actually reading an article from The New York Times from 1976. This article was about the new French wines that were coming onto the American market. What was interesting about that is that they weren’t talking about Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne, and all these legendary wines that we know from France. They were talking about how France was starting to import their lower-price, more affordable wines into the U.S. When the journalist was writing this article, they wanted us to know that, just because the wine was not legendary from these places like Bordeaux and Burgundy, it could still be good wine. It was very interesting because as we know now, that’s absolutely true. Of course, there’s wines from all different price points from France that are great on the American market. In 1976, it was just starting to come on. For the journalists to differentiate good, affordable French wine from what we in the United States sometimes called plonk — or low-quality wine — they referred to that low-quality wine as piquette. I found that very interesting.

I looked around and found that the word piquette has often, throughout history in France, been used to describe wines that are low-quality, meaning just not the best of the best. I went even further back. You could even go back into antiquity. You can go into the Roman era, where they had a wine they made that was of this style. They called it lorca. What I find really crazy is that this piquette style — or lorca — was reserved for slaves, farm workers, and women. The reason I say that is because, in antiquity, those three titles were lesser than the Roman men. That’s just the way it was. It has this connotation throughout history of a “lesser-than” wine.

I also found out that the word piquette is French, of course, but the EU does not allow the sale or export of any wine labeled piquette. I went online and started looking for wines imported from France that are piquette. I found none. All I found was piquette from California, Michigan, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Maryland, and Vermont. They’re calling it piquette. I think what’s going on here is that we, as an American winemaking society, have adopted the word piquette. In this organic, biodynamic, “natural wine” movement, there is this move to get the most out of a winemaking process. The word piquette, meaning prickle or prickly, worked for the American winemaker. It worked for them to say “Oh, we’re going to call it piquette because it’s a little bit prickly and a little bit fizzy.” Maybe “lorca” was just too ancient. I don’t know.

I actually did see one on the American market from Slovenia. I find that pretty interesting. Slovenia is calling it “piquette” as well. The term has become so popular with this style of wine, but one thing to understand about piquette is that there are no real rules. There’s no appellations. There’s no government anywhere, saying anything, except for “Don’t sell it if you’re in the EU”

What this is is a fun thing. It’s something fun that winemakers do to get the most out of their agriculture. They could do the other things that people do with pomace. They can distill it. They can make it into soaps. They can use it for agriculture and all that. They can do that after they make the piquette, too, but they try to just get the most out of the wine.

They’re often going to be in Burgundy-style bottles. These are bottles that look like a Pinot Noir bottle. They’re going to always have crown caps on them because they’re fizzy, but not so fizzy that they have as much pressure in them as a sparkling wine. It’s going to have the fizziness of a beer, almost. You pop it up, it makes a “tss” sound, and it’s done. Speaking of beer, because it’s a new and playful category that is on the modern wine market, you’re going to notice the labels are very playful as well. The beer world is going through a very colorful design phase for their labels, and it seems like the piquette category is also having fun with it.

When you listen to the Champagne or sparkling wine episode, you realize how much work and effort goes into making wine out of something like that, with that kind of pressure, time, and labor-intensive stuff that is required to make not only Champagne, but other sparkling wines around the world, like Cava. This is not that. You’re not going through a labor-intensive process to create subtle complexities. You’re not doing very critical things in the vineyard or in the winery to make sure that this particular style of wine has a legacy to it. This is literally something fun to do.

Wines like Champagne and Cava are made with such care that, while you’re drinking the wine — just like any other wine — it does evolve as you’re drinking it. Also, these wines age. Piquettes do not age. They’re not complex. They’re not age-worthy. They might as well be in the cooler with the beer. They’re fun and fruity. Sometimes, they’re not fruity. That’s a hit or miss depending on who you get it from. Piquette isn’t really about having the conversation of, “Hey, guys, this is the new style of wine. It’s going to have a legacy on the American market.” That’s not what it is. The beer world has these things called session beers. They’re low-alcohol beers. You can drink multiple cans or drafts of them, get together with friends, not get too crazy, and be able to get home and all that. It feels like this is the wine world’s answer to session beers. Sometimes, piquettes come in cans.

That’s what it is. We are on a wine journey, and we are looking to explore all kinds of different things. Piquette is just one of those fun things to explore. You don’t need to collect piquette. It’s not going to be a “thing,” but it’s going to be a fun thing. Either you’re going to enjoy it, or you’re not going to enjoy it. You’re going to dig the fact that it’s just light, fizzy, and fun, or you’re going to feel like you’re not getting enough and it’s not really what you’re looking for.

Just like orange wine, every piquette is different. One you’re going to like. One you’re not going to like. You may not like any of them. It’s just this new thing playing around in the wine world. I don’t know how long it’s going to last. It’s probably going to be around for a while. It’s kind of being promoted as a skin-contact wine, and that’s not necessarily true. It technically is skin contact, but you’re actually just re-fermenting water and whatever you can press out of the pomace.

That’s just about it. If I keep on talking about piquette, I’ll keep repeating myself. We’ve got the gist of it. I wanted to do this episode because I wanted you guys to know what you’re looking at when you see it in a wine shop and know what you’re enjoying when you enjoy it.

@VinePairKeith is my Insta. Rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. It really helps get the word out there.

And now, for some totally awesome credits. “Wine 101” was produced, recorded, and edited by yours truly, Keith Beavers, at the VinePair headquarters in New York City. I want to give a big ol’ shout-out to co-founders Adam Teeter and Josh Malin for creating VinePair. Big shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, the art director of VinePair, for creating the most awesome logo for this podcast. Also, Darbi Cicci for the theme song. Listen to this. And I want to thank the entire VinePair staff for helping me learn something new every day. See you next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Wine 101: Piquette appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/wine-101-piquette/

[orbemnews]

With Fewer Ads on Streaming, Brands Make More Movies When the N.B.A. shut down its season last year because of the pandemic, one of the first phone calls Chris Paul made was to the Hollywood producer Brian Grazer. Mr. Paul, then a point guard with the Oklahoma Thunder, knew he wanted to chronicle what was going on, and he wanted Mr. Grazer’s help. “The idea was, basically, film everything that had taken place in that game that night and what was going to come of it,” Mr. Paul said. “We had no clue what would happen next.” The result was “The Day Sports Stood Still,” a documentary about the shutdown, the N.B.A.’s pandemic bubble and the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement on the league. (Mr. Paul appears in the film and is an executive producer.) It is a portrait of the ways the pandemic convulsed the sports world, but also an example of how Covid-19 has upended the entertainment industry. The film, which debuts Wednesday on HBO and HBO Max, comes from Mr. Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment and a newer entrant to Hollywood: Waffle Iron Entertainment, Nike’s production entity. With more people home and glued to their streaming services, many of which don’t allow advertising, companies are finding they need to be creative about the ways they get in front of audiences no longer seeing 30-second commercials. More are turning to traditional Hollywood production companies like Imagine to partner on feature films like “The Day Sports Stood Still,” which is infused with Nike’s ethos but carries none of the traditional branding audiences are used to seeing. “The best partnership you can have is a marriage where the themes between the company and the story are aligned,” Mr. Grazer said in an interview. “If you’ve got Chris Paul and Nike is part of the marketing, that is an added ingredient why someone will see it. They will feel Nike endorsed it and Nike does good things.” Data from the research firm WARC showed that the amount advertisers spent in broadcast television in 2020 declined 10 percent from the previous year while online video spending rose 12 percent. Much of that money has gone to streaming services like Hulu, YouTube and Peacock that accept advertising. But those that don’t allow commercials, like Netflix, still remain unavailable to traditional marketing. “Streaming is giving less and less opportunity for advertisers to connect with consumers in a meaningful way,” said Justin Wilkes, chief creative officer of Imagine Entertainment. “One of the last ways to do that is through long-form content. It’s all circular. This goes back to the earliest days of advertising and underwriting the great entertainment program.” Brands have linked themselves to movies and television for almost as long as the mediums have existed. Long before he became president, for instance, Ronald Reagan hosted the popular “General Electric Theater” television show from 1954 through 1962. In the past decade, branded filmmaking has only proliferated. Patagonia funded a feature-length documentary about dams, called “DamNation,” in 2014. Pepsi backed the 2018 movie “Uncle Drew,” which showcased the basketball star Kyrie Irving recreating his septuagenarian character from a popular series of Pepsi Max commercials. The film made $42 million and marked one of the first branded entertainment campaigns to be adapted into a major motion picture. “Gay Chorus Deep South,” a documentary produced by Airbnb, debuted on the festival circuit in 2019. And Apple’s acclaimed “Ted Lasso” began its life as an NBC Sports promotion for its acquisition of the broadcast rights to the English Premier League. Imagine Entertainment, the production company founded by Mr. Grazer and Ron Howard in 1985, formed Imagine Brands in 2018 to pair companies with filmmakers, hiring Mr. Wilkes and Marc Gilbar, the creator of the “Uncle Drew” Pepsi campaign and an executive producer on the film, to run the group. The division has produced both feature-length documentaries and narrative films with their partners, which have included Unilever, Walmart and Ford. Imagine is also working with the consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble. The company, which effectively created soap operas when it began to sponsor serial radio dramas in the 1930s to help promote its soap products, is cofinancing a feature-length film with Imagine called “Mars 2080.” It will be directed by Eliza McNitt and begin production later this year. The film, which is scheduled to be released theatrically by IMAX in 2022 before moving to a streaming service, focuses on a family resettling on Mars. It grew out of a breakfast in New York in 2019, where Mr. Wilkes, Mr. Howard and Marc Pritchard, Procter & Gamble’s chief brand officer, discussed technology in the pipeline. The Imagine team later toured Procter & Gamble’s research labs in Cincinnati, seeing examples of its “home of the future” products and meeting its scientists. Kimberly Doebereiner, the vice president of Procter & Gamble’s future of advertising division, said the company hoped to do more long-form storytelling, like “The Cost of Winning,” the four-part sports documentary its shaving brand Gillette produced. It debuted on HBO in November. “We want to be more interesting so consumers are leaning into our experiences and we’re creating content that they want to see as opposed to messages that are annoying to them,” she said. “Finding a way to have content that is in places where ads don’t exist is definitely one of the reasons why we’re leaning into this.” It’s all part of a deliberate shift by brands to try to integrate themselves more fully into consumers’ lives, the way companies like Apple and Amazon have, said Dipanjan Chatterjee, an analyst with Forrester. And they want to do so without commercials, which, he said, have “zero credibility” with consumers. “If the right story has the right ingredients and it becomes worthwhile for sharing, it doesn’t come across as an intrusive bit of advertising,” Mr. Chatterjee said. “It feels much more like a natural part of our lives.” Alessandro Uzielli, the head of Ford Motor Company’s global brand and entertainment division, first met with Imagine Brands in early 2018. He was looking for a way to augment Ford’s advertising campaign for its relaunched Bronco with a piece of entertainment that would reach a younger audience. The result was “John Bronco,” a 37-minute long mockumentary directed by Jake Szymanski (“Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates”) and starring Walton Goggins (“Justified”) as the greatest fictional pitchman of all time. The short film earned a slot in the Tribeca Film Festival and is now streaming on Hulu. In addition to featuring guest spots from Tim Meadows, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bo Derek, it helped reintroduce the Bronco, a sport utility vehicle that the automaker pulled in the mid-1990s. “This helped us speak to an audience that we probably weren’t going to speak to on our own,” Mr. Uzielli said. “It was Imagine’s project, and we didn’t want to cloud their process, to try to make it feel like too much of a sales job,” he added. Mr. Szymanski, who has directed both feature films and commercials, including ads for the Dodge Durango starring Will Ferrell’s “Anchorman” character Ron Burgundy, said Ford allowed him a great deal of creative freedom. “I think they could have tried to impose a much larger shadow on it than they did,” he said. Now, Imagine, Mr. Szymanski and Mr. Goggins are trying to turn John Bronco into the next Ted Lasso — an effort in the early stages of development. “It’s kind of a win-win,” Mr. Szymanski said of a possible television series based on Mr. Goggins’ character. “I don’t think Ford would have any creative control over it but to have a character named John Bronco in the world, that would be a good thing for them.” Source link Orbem News #ads #brands #Movies #Streaming

[grahamstoney]

Musique Concrète and Other Experimental And Electronic Music

New Post has been published on https://grahamstoney.com/music/musique-concrete-and-other-experimental-and-electronic-music

Musique Concrète and Other Experimental And Electronic Music

In the subject Creative Music Technology at university last semester, I was asked to listen to a collection of experimental and electronic music to stimulate my creative imagination, and to write what I liked and didn't like about it. Here's my rather cynical take on the genre.

Musique Concrète

Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry – Symphonie pour un Homme Seul

This piece reminded me of Strauss’s Symphonia Domestica; only less musical. I’m a Homme Seul (single man) and my life doesn’t sound anything like this. In his book La musique concrète, Schaeffer described the work as “an opera for blind people…”. Haven’t they suffered enough?

Edgard Varèse – Poème Électronique

The audio equivalent of Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali’s Un Chien Andalou.

Does to my ears what the asbestos coating on the walls of the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair for which it was commissioned, would do to my lungs.

György Ligeti – Artikulation

George Lucas must owe Ligeti millions in royalties for R2D2’s sound effects. Initially I thought I was joking when I first wrote that, but I’ve since discovered that he was actually trying to create a sort of phonetic speech in electronic music, which pretty much fits R2D2’s dialogue. Plus, the title is German for “articulation”. That should have been a giveaway.

I thought this piece might make more sense to me if I played it backwards, so I dropped it into Logic Pro X and reversed it. I couldn’t tell the difference. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I listened to it in the original quadraphonic. I’ll just end noting that Ligeti abandoned electronic music after composing this piece.

Iannis Xenakis – Concret PH

2 minutes and 44 seconds of breaking glass to my ears. I think I’d rather listen to Kraftwerk.

Karlheinz Stockhausen – Kontakte

It’s long. It’s too long. I think this is how Jacob Collier learned to play piano in his mother’s womb; but look at him now. The title is German for “Contacts”, which I think Stockhausen interpreted as “Just hit the things.” Maybe it sounds better in the original quadraphonic.

Stockhausen was evidently a pioneer of the extended dance remix, as the work exists in several versions: “Nr. 12”, “Nr. 12½” and “Nr. 12⅔”

Bernard Parmegiani - Accidents / harmoniques

Parmegiani had studied mime before turning his hand to electro-acoustic composition, and in this piece it really shows. From the album De Natura Sonorum (the nature of sound). I felt like there were Martians in my head listening to this. Surely he’s just playing a joke on us.

Pauline Oliveiros – Bye Bye Butterfly

Bids farewell to the institutionalized oppression of the female sex while also providing inspiration for the sound of the Theramin. Gave my new monitor speakers a good workout; I hope the neighbours enjoyed it too.

Tape Loops

Steve Reich – It’s Gonna Rain

I’ve got this pervasive feeling that it’s going to rain. I’m not sure why. I liked the way the meteorological message panned left and right. More like It’s Gonna Have An Acid Trip.

Halleluiah Part II is over. I’m not sure how I lasted the full 18 minutes.

Terry Riley – Mescalin Mix

Parts of this sounded to me like an industrial version of native Australian bush sounds. I felt like I was on a camping trip in the 23rd century.

Brian Eno – 1/1

From his album Music For Airports/Ambient 1, which apparently coined the term Ambient Music. Brian Eno has a lot to answer for. However, this track put me in a relaxing state, ready to fall asleep on the plane; so I liked it.

Sampling

Luc Ferrari – Ronda, Spain, June 2001

After being jolted awake by the sound of a loud sliding door opening to greet the day, I was drawn into this by the sweet sound of a French woman’s voice. I imagined she was Ferrari’s lover, speaking to him in bed after awakening on a warm Spanish summer Sunday morning. I wanted to know what she was saying, but my French isn’t good enough. In my mind’s eye, they head to a busy market together to buy some croissants for breakfast, where we hear a man’s voice repeating “numero quatro”, which I assumed is Spanish for “number 4”. As the voices fade, the sound becomes more musical and we return to the soft sound of Ronda speaking to her beloved back in their villa together. I quite liked it.

My interpretation, however, is not what the composer had in mind. According to him, the point of Les Anecdotiques (The Anecdotals) is to dispense with the story altogether. My busy market was, in fact, the sound of Spanish tourists in a museum. While he describes the woman’s words as “Spontaneous and intimate”, in this context they are simply words in a foreign language with no narrative purpose. Just another one of Pierre Schaeffer and Michel Chion’s sound objects, if you will. My narrative interpretation of what was intended as an explicitly anecdotal work is testament to the human brain’s tendency to make meaning out of nothing. It turns out Rhonda is a village in Spain, not a woman.

Still, I enjoyed my little fantasy, thank you Luc.

John Oswald – Manifold

Wow, this was short. I didn’t even have time to eat breakfast while listening to it. It was only about as long as the Spotify ads, but certainly more fun. I recognised a couple of songs, like U2’s With or Without You and Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares To You. Artists who use samples liberally often sample obscure works, sometimes affording them attention they would otherwise have missed; but in this work Oswald went mainstream. It sounded to me like the soundtrack to a sample-abusing hip-hop artist from the 1990’s being beaten up in a boxing ring by all the artists who reckoned he’d ripped off their work.

Tod Dockstader - Water Music: Part III

I quite liked this piece. The cuteness of the sounds and the stereo effects bouncing between the left and right channels really drew me in. I’ve recently got myself some decent monitor speakers for my home studio and this piece really worked on them. Pretty amazing for something released in 1963.

Dockstader started out in the 1940’s, prior to the invention of magnetic tape, editing his steel wire recordings with a lit cigarette. That makes me realise how much I take the piece-of-crap Logic Pro X File Editor for granted. Listening to this, I found myself wanting to know what was going to happen next, like I was watching a soap opera on TV; only with no actual story.

Synthesis

Karlheinz Stockhausen – Studie I

I found this quite disorienting to listen to. I guess it was revolutionary in 1953 but I reckon now you could whip it up in Ableton in about 5 minutes using the Random MIDI Effect and some automation.

Eliane Radigue – Jetsun Mila (Pt.1) / Birth and Youth (Excerpt)

I liked how the pulsing ambient drone sound in this grew over time; it drew me in and had me wondering what was going to happen next. Unfortunately the answer was: not much. Gradually a rhythmic element with some high pulsing tones which grew over time came in. It was a bit like listening to a very slow EDM dance track from underwater in a diesel-powered submarine going at full throttle for 12 minutes.

Laurie Spiegel – Appalachian Grove: I

I liked the pulsing stereo effects in this piece and the way the tonal characteristics of the sound varied while the pitch changed. It’s much more melodic than the other tracks we’ve listened to and that made it more enjoyable to my ears. It got a bit harsh in the middle though. This piece puts the musique in musique concrète.

Morton Subotnick – Silver Apples of the Moon – Part A

Perhaps the sound designer for Star Wars had this in mind when creating the sound effects for R2D2. I kind of lost the flow of the conversation without the witty English-accented retorts from C3PO though. Morton Sobotnick is described as The Mad Scientist in one interview, and I think if I listen to this too often I’ll end up fitting one of the DSM-5 diagnostic categories I’m learning about over in PSYC1002.

Suzanne Ciani – Concert at Phil Niblock’s Loft

This piece had some funky sounds that I liked. The start reminded me a bit of Kraftwerk but without the rhythm and melody; although it did get more melodic later. I’d probably give it a Distinction for its use of technology given it was made in 1975, but only a Credit for musicality.

Barry Schraeder – Lost Atlantis: Introduction

At first, I thought this sounded a lot like a modern ad for KFC; then I realised I was hearing a Spotify ad.

I liked the ambient sounds in this piece and the way it surged in and out with its “mysterious tone colors”. It slowly builds to a crescendo until we get the drop that EDM lovers crave, and then built more quickly to the ultimate drop at the end. I kept wondering what was going to happen next; I’d still rather listen to Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp or Queen though.

Contemporary Examples

Amon Tobin – Foley Room

DJ & producer. Retain percussive quality through sounds. Horsefish & Esther’s. Create beauty and delicate textures from sounds. Pitched percussive material. Fast loops. New textures. Funky beats. Check out the Foley Room Documentary.

Aphex Twin - 1ST 44

Acid house DJ in rave scene. Intelligent Dance Music. More complex sampling, polyrhythms, rhythmic patterns. From Collapsed album. Polyrhythms sounded funky. Lots of variation.

Holly Herndon – Chorus

Intersection of humanity and technology. Recorded web browsing. Stereo ping-pong effects. Here’s a talk she gave about her creative process.

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – Riparian

This was my favourite out of these three, largely because it sounds the most musical to my ears. I liked the pulsing beat in this track. I can hear a bass line for instance, melodies played on the synth and lyrics, although I can’t tell what they are saying. I also like the way the soundscape swirls around when listened to with headphones. It feels ambient, immersive and musical all at the same time. I get the sense that she’s using the electronics at her disposal in service of the music rather than the other way around. There’s even a great video about how she uses modular synthesis.

Graham Stoney - Foster le Concrète

"How hard can it be?", I asked myself. And since I had an assignment to do, I wrote my own musique concrète track based on the drum rhythm from one of my favourite songs, Coming of Age by Foster The People. I even made a breakdown video showing how I did it; because that's what the assignment required.

Conclusion

I didn’t take too easily to some of the more experimental musique concrète pieces we studied at the beginning of this semester. The weekly listening tasks felt harsh to my untrained ears and I would think mean things like:

“Didn’t the Geneva Convention ban cruel and unusual punishment?”

Perhaps these tracks will never be my preferred go-to pieces for chilling out on a Friday night, but when I look back at some of my cynicism-laced early comments in these discussion threads, I cringe. I just didn’t appreciate the historical significance of these pieces and how they might have influenced later electronic music that I do enjoy, like Kraftwerk say.

Then in Angharad Davis’s Music Colloquium Series talk on George Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique, when she played a snippet of the work I heard sounds reminiscent of musique concrète. Sure enough, they were roughly contemporaneous, and Antheil had been living in Paris at the time musique concrète was just getting started. You never know when something you study in one arena will pop up elsewhere.

Another thing I’ve learned in this subject is about taking creative risks and learning to follow my gut instincts without worrying whether a concept will work, or other people will like it. This has been an opportunity for me to explore that. My Formative Skills Assignment piece Foster le Concrète was in part a reaction to my frustration at the lack of discernible rhythm in some of the early pieces we studied. However, I really didn’t know whether the concept was going to work, and that was a little anxiety-inducing; especially given that I was doing it for an assignment which would be graded. I was quite touched to hear other students say they liked the end result, and I feel more confident about following my gut instincts in future and seeing what I end up.

Finally, I’ve been really inspired by the creativity of the other students in this subject. It’s been a weird experience studying online this year without ever meeting them in person, but I’ve really enjoyed hearing the creative works everyone came up with. They’re all so distinctive and amazingly different, it’s incredible; yet they were all products of the same brief. I can’t wait to hear everyone's works on the radio, TV, movies, video games, Spotify, or whatever audio technology is around when we all graduate: live streaming direct to our neurons perhaps?