#AUTHORS AND ARTISTS WANT BOTH PARTIES TO RECEIVE PRAISE

[triforce-of-mischief]

You were so slay with that reposting thing, I commend you for that 👏

thank you, i am so tired. talking with a friend and realized that it (and people interacting with it) is the same principle as readers who comment on fanart but not fics (which i have another post about and i swear i always word it horribly). anyway. i'm tired, both from this and physically/mentally so i'll stop there.

tell your fandom creators directly how much you appreciate their work, and don't steal crap for goddesses' sake.

[v3nusxsky]

Hey, do you write for wandanat? If not that's totally fine but if you do I was wondering if maybe I could request one?

Maybe where Wanda and nat are already together and one night at an avengers party they spot reader and Wanda falls for them and so convinces Natasha to seduce and take reader home with them?

Hopefully with smut, and maybe with daddy nat and soft mommy Wanda?

Love your work soooo much, feel no pressure to write this❤️

One of a Kind 18+

*Authors note~ a) I wrote this exhausted so mistakes are mine sorry y’all. B) I know you guys are all excited for different things so I was struggling to choose what I should post, shamefully having an anxiety attack over not choosing the right fic. So to save the day my lovely girlfriend choose wandnat for tonight*

To requester, I'm sorry I took some artistic liberties here but I honestly couldn't help but write them as g!p I hope that's okay!!!

Trigger warnings~threesome smut seduction daddy and mommy kink g!p Wanda Nat fingering r receiving praise and degrading kinks choking semi public sex??

Prompt~ see ask^^^^

Wanda and Tasha really didn't want to come to this party. No. But as per normal Tony wanted to throw a party and showed off his wealth and success. Wanda opting for a stunning emerald dress and Nat going for a form fitting suit. Wanda hid her cock so well that Nat often found herself being jealous. But she couldn't deny that her girlfriend is absolutely stunning in everything and nothing.

You'd been invited by Fury as a way to introduce you to the Avengers. You'd be set to join the team soon, but no one but Fury or Tony knew. Nat spotted you first, a simple Maroon skirt tucked into a beautiful black pencil skirt. Your legs on full display and a few buttons undone to give a tasteful view of your cleavage to the public. Alone at the bar is how the story starts, a rather cliche but important fact. That was where under an agreement between her and her wife Natasha swooped in on you.

You'd be lying if you said she wasn't sexy and very alluring but you still don't quite understand why she's here wasting time trying to get you in her bed. No one ever does that. It made you skeptical of her advances and actively ignoring the way her voice alone caused your cunt to become slick. The way her voice deepened as her eyes drank you in almost got you. Almost. But your past caught you first, you ended up lashing out at the woman.

"No one's ever really shown an interest in me. I'm not the prettiest or the smartest or the funniest girl around, I'm just average." You almost whispered but the woman could hear the sadness dripping through every word. "So this cruel joke of yours. Just stop it! Because I know no one would ever want me especially when they look like you do. So just stop" your voice broke on the last few words before you fled the scene. Really how could she do this to you? You thought she was a nice person, but to suggest this and not mean it was obviously going to hurt. After all who in their right mind would want an inexperienced virgin when they can have anyone in the whole world?

"Hey, you're beautiful, and I'd gladly take you home for my wife and me to enjoy for the night, you just have to trust we want you in the way we say" she murmured to you a gentle handed rubbing at your back in an attempt to soothe the confusing outburst. Yet both women were no strangers to being used and abused by other people. "You mean it?" You were really speaking more to yourself but when she replied with a Russian pet name that slipped off her tongue, you were a goner, "детка, we've been watching you all evening, no one in this room has caught our interest because we've been focused on you."

A simple nod had Nat leading you to the table to introduce you to her wife. By no surprise, her wife was just as beautiful as the red head. You immediately felt like you were unworthy of their attention. "I um should say I've never, um" you stumbled over your own admission but you could see you had both women's attention. "It's okay детка we will take this slow and at your pace, we truly want to get to know you дорогой" she whispered to you over the loud noise of the party. The other woman who you learned was the Scarlett Witch offered you to come sit closer to the women as you all conversed over small things really, but you were now completely at ease with them, exactly how they wanted you.

Your head warm and fuzzy, you felt an electric pulse of a slender hand trailing your thighs. It appeared you were more sensitive with the alcohol but soon enough you were spreading your legs for the brunette woman with a little help from her magic. From there you exposed your panty covered core to her curious fingers. The woman seemingly unaffected by her actions and holding a conversation with her wife about how much of an asset you'd be to the team. You almost got away with it, almost, but a little whimper escaped you as she accidentally bumped your aching clit.

"Wans" Nat warned, "you best not be playing with the хорошенькая шлюха without me" she growled the last two words. Truly how rude of you both not to wait for her, especially after her work to bring you to them. "I'm sorry Natty, I just couldn't wait anymore" the woman replied and removed her fingers from your core causing you to release a very disappointed whine. "сейчас, котенок, о тебе хорошо позаботятся" Nat purred before gracing you with a kiss to your neck before taking your hand to lead you away from the party, knowing that her wife will follow behind you.

As soon as you rounded the corner the Russian woman immediately slammed your back against the wall and attached her lips to yours with ease. The need was pouring into the kiss as the brunette woman watched in jealousy. She wanted to be the one kissing you, dragging all the pretty nosies she possibly could, but then again watching her wife touch you was doing unspeakable things to her nether region. "Tashsa" Wanda whimpered feeling the tent begin to show through her dress. "Come котенок, mommy is getting impatient and daddy can't wait to ruin your pretty untouched pussy" Natasha purred leading you to the bedroom once again. Only this time she never got side tracked.

Perhaps you'd had too much, but from there it's hazy, how did you end up absolutely bare for two of the most wanted and famous women in the world? And most importantly why the hell did they have throbbing cocks just desperate for you to take them. The women wanted to do this right, they showered you in love and praises. The made sure to touch and caress every inch of skin they could. And only when your ready did they introduce you to more. "котенок, sort out mommy's problem you caused" Nat demanded, encouraging you to bring your head to her shaft, with another quick check in and some guidance you were now choking on her cock as she forced it down your throat. "Oh fuck natty, this throat is perfect, fuck a good cock whore for me oh!"

With a few strokes to own dick she enjoyed the show, you are a fast learner by the looks of it and she was now struggling to contain herself and refrain from doing all the filthy things she desired to you. Wands sensing her wife's impatience slipped from your throat allowing you to breath as Natasha guided you into a new position. With you now on your hands and knees you were able to suck off wanda and give Nat access to your untouched cunt.

She took it slow, letting you adjust to her size, Wanda telepathically sharing the image of you with teary eyes, choking on her cock as you let Nat deflower you. But soon enough you began to rock backwards in a need for something, yet you didn't know what. "Oh there she is, our flight little girl, a dirty slut for us to use. Oh you've made mommy feel so good котенок she's ready to treat you for all your work, you'd love that huh? Mommy to fill your petty throat with cum?" Nat teased keeping her thrusts slow, "and fuck you're so fucking tight котенок, if mommy doesn't hurry up daddy will paint your pretty pussy white instead."

At the pure threat, Wanda was thrown over the edge into her own pools of bliss, breath heaving as all she could do is mewl yours and her wife's name. You greedily sucked every last drop from her shaft, surprising both women with the fact it was your first time. Only when she was sure she'd finished cumming did she slip from your front and encourage you to slip onto your back so Natasha could see your face. The new position only seemed to encourage the red head, especially with Wanda dropping her head to your breast and skilfully sucking and licking the hardened peaks. She even managed to roughly tweak her wife's right bud causing you both to cry out together.

The gasp you let out when Nat brought one hand from the bed to your throat was something both women wanted on a loop, experimenting with a bit of pressure they discovered a kink for you. "Oh Natty she liked your hand as her necklace. Oh darling is your head all fuzzy?" A broken confirmation left you as Natasha picked up an almost animalistic pace of pounding into you. And when your cries became to loud Wanda guided you to her breast, allowing you to suckle and nip her sensitive skin and effectively soothe you at the same time.

When Natasha came in long spurts of sticky white cum you honestly had no thoughts other than both the women. You lost count of how many times you'd been forced over the edge and just how long you'd been here, but now you didn't care. What a first experience to have. Oh but you weren't done, they immediately started to clean up and look after you, offering food water and cuddles. You wanted to talk, what could this mean? You'd slept with married women? Was it a fling? You hoped not. And Wanda heard all those thoughts and settled you into bed between the women with promises of talking about everything when your brain wasn't still in sub space. You'd be needing a clear mind to decide if you would join the relationship as a third party. But for now, you all slept.

Word count ~ 1839

[handers-time]

Handers Gift Exchange 2024 Round-up! 

This year's Handers Gift Exchange has officially come to a close!

We'd like to give a huge thank you and shoutout to all 20 of our participants this year. Congratulations to you all, for doing so well creating beautiful works for your giftees.

On behalf of the mods ( @dismalzelenka, @un-shit-yourself, @storybookhawke, and @hollyand-writes ), thank you to everyone who remains in the Handers fandom—in addition to authors and artists, it also includes readers, commenters, serial kudosers, and avid rebloggers! We appreciate all the love, enthusiasm, support, and cheerleading everyone did throughout this event. Everyone involved keeps the love of the ship alive and well even thirteen years after the game came out.

If you participated in this event, we ask that you please leave a comment on the gift you received, at least three lines in length! Participation goes both ways, so please give some praise and adoration to the person who devoted their time and energy to create a gift for you.

You can view the blog's tag for this event here, and the AO3 collection here, but below is a compiled list of all the amazing gifts shared over the course of this exchange. Please mind the tags and ratings as you go through them!

Invitations by replicatortrash for ghostbunny M!Handers | Explicit |

Summary: Garrett Hawke has been trying to open his home to Anders for weeks and it's been slow going. Is he keeping distance because of something from his past, or because Garrett is a vampire... or is there something else going on Garrett hasn't considered?

Mélange by dismalzelenka for Sulkyvalkyrie F!Handers | Explicit |

Summary: “I want Justice involved.” It was a marvel, Anders thought, how four words flipped his entire world on its head. “You what?” Hawke tilted her head, catlike curiosity peppered across her face. “Justice,” she repeated. “I want him involved.” In which Hawke confesses some secrets, and Anders and Justice both learn there is far more to Hawke than meets the eye.

The Short Straw by autumninfall for DemonicPersephone F!Handers | Mature |

Summary: A quick way to earn some coin while fleeing the Templars of Kirkwall. A dragon up in the mountains. Surely nothing will go wrong, right?

at the end of the world by PhantomsLost for barbex F!Handers | Teen |

Summary: “Hawke, no.” She shook her head and took a step back, both hands still gripping her staff tight. “You and I both know we don’t have a better option.” Tipping her head slightly in the direction of the looming Nightmare, she added, “Go. I’ve got this.”

Broken, yet Remade by Actually_An_Insane_Fangirl for PhantomsLost F!Handers | Teen |

Summary: Hawke may be broken, but that doesn't mean she cannot be remade with the gentle hands of a healer.

Lunacy by Sulkyvalkyrie for GhostGarrison M!Handers | Explicit |

Summary: Hawke wanted to wait another night, but Anders can't stop worrying about him...

Looking the Part by acesdesire M!Handers | Teen |

Summary: While visiting Chateau Haine, Hawke finds himself enjoying the party more than expected, especially with Anders looking so dashing in his formal wear. Infiltration can wait (even if Tallis might have other plans). He would much rather indulge in this rare and beautiful moment.

Some Guys Have All the Luck by barbex for dismalzelenka M!Handers | Explicit |

Summary: Watching Anders fight, powerful, controlled, turns Hawke on like nothing else. That's a man he wants to get on his knees for. And more.

Hunting by DemonicPersephone for Actually_An_Insane_Fangirl F!Handers | Explicit |

Summary: Nothing like a near death experience to make romance bloom <3

Chasing the Light by leonidskies for SalsedinePicta M!Handers | Teen |

Summary: Anders is having a bad day. Hawke, forever down bad, refuses to let it go.

Hurt Less by ghostbunny for PorlPoint M!Handers | Mature |

Summary: After coming close to killing the mage girl, Ella, Anders is in a bad way, consumed by guilt and shame and beginning to spiral. Hawke attempts to help him through it, while dealing with some of his own insecurities.

The One That Didn't Get Away by FactoryKat for winebearcat M!Handers | G |

Summary: Of all the things that could have happened to newcomer Garrett Hawke after moving to Kirkwall, picking up a date outside of a walk-in clinic wasn't exactly on his predictions list.

Healing the Healer by PorlPoint M!Handers | Teen |

Summary: Anders is seriously injured and out of mana, with only Hawke there to heal him before it's too late.

Rose Cottage by winebearcat for leonidskies M!Handers | Mature |

Summary: Anders reaches his 50th Name Day. He never expected to make it past 30, let alone have his happy ending.

ART: storybookhawke's piece for autumninfall M!Handers | G |

ART: notomys-mordax-blog's piece for ocean-in-my-rebel-soul M!Handers | G |

ART: salsedinepicta's piece for notomys-mordax-blog M!Handers | G |

ART: kittyopera's piece for acesdesire M!Handers | G |

ART: gevascloset's piece for factorykat M!Handers | G |

ART: moosu's piece for kittyoperas M!Handers | G |

[marketingprofitmedia]

SoundBeast AI Review – Clones Any Voice Into UR 100% Human-Like Voices

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SoundBeast AI Review: Overview

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Product: SoundBeast AI

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SoundBeast AI Review: Key Features

Clone Any Voice Into Ultra Realistic Human Like Voices In Major Languages Spoken Globally

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Users Say About SoundBeast AI

SoundBeast AI Review: Is SoundBeast AI Right for You?

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SoundBeast AI Review: OTO’s And Pricing

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SoundBeast AI Review: Pros and Cons

Pros:

User-friendly interface

Powerful AI-driven features

Comprehensive toolset

High-quality sound output

Affordable pricing plans

Cons:

You need internet for using this product.

No issues reported, it works perfectly!

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SoundBeast AI Review: My Recommendation

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Check Out My Previous Reviews: MeetingHub Review, DealSites Review, CourseKit Review, SendBox AI Review, WAzap Review, Aero App Review, BlogNinja Review, & MailerMonster Review.

Thank for reading my SoundBeast AI Review till the end. Hope it will help you to make purchase decision perfectly.

Disclaimer: This review is based on the information available at the time of writing and is intended for informational purposes only. The author does not claim ownership or affiliation with SoundBeast AI. The views expressed in this review are subjective and personal opinions. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research before making any purchasing decisions.

Affiliate Disclaimer: Please note that this review may contain affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. This helps support the creation of high-quality content and does not influence the opinions expressed in this review.

[introvertguide]

The Apartment (1960); AFI #80

The next film on the list that we reviewed was the one of the last black and white films to win best picture, The Apartment (1960). The film actually held the title of last B&W Best Picture winner for 50 years until The Artist came along in in 2011. Along with Best Picture, the film was nominated for 10 Oscars and won Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction, and Best Editing. The film also won Best Picture from the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, the Director’s Guild Awards, and the Critic’s Circle Awards. Truly a great synthesis of acting, directing, cinematography, music, and story, this movie is one of the lesser known greatest films of all time. I have more to say about this film, but I want to go over the story in all of its excellence. But first...

SPOILER ALERT!!! THIS COMEDY HAS LEGITIMATE SURPRISES AND SUBJECT MATTER THAT WOULDN’T FLY TODAY!!! TRULY A GREAT FILM THAT NEEDS TO BE SEEN!!! I STRONGLY SUGGEST WATCHING IT INSTEAD OF JUST READING THE STORY LINE!!!

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An opening run of establishing shots with a voice over by the main character lets the audience know that he is a drone accountant at a giant firm with little chance to move up in the world. C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a lonely office drudge at a national insurance corporation in New York City. He has lucked out and found a way to leverage his home in order to climb the corporate ladder. Baxter allows four company managers to take turns borrowing his Upper West Side apartment for their extramarital liaisons, which he manages with a detailed schedule. Baxter has not seen any movement, but he is constantly offered the promise of a promotion since he is a “team player.” 

One of the serious down sides of this ploy is that his apartment is in constant use and the bosses are making a mess and drinking all his liquor. C.C. has no place to go some nights so he stays and works late. Because C.C. is constantly going in and out and people can hear women in his apartment, he is starting to develop a different kind of reputation with the other tenants. While unable to enter his own apartment when it is in use, his neighbors assume that their neighbor is a playboy bringing home a different woman every night.

C.C. is able to get glowing performance reports from his four managers and he is able to submit them to the personnel director, Jeff D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), in hope of a promotion. Sheldrake promises to promote him, but demands that he also receive use of the apartment for his own affairs, beginning that night. As compensation for such short notice, he gives Baxter two theater tickets to The Music Man. After work, C.C. asks Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), an elevator operator in the office building, to go to the musical with him. She agrees but goes first to meet with a "former fling," who turns out to be Sheldrake, and let him know there will be no more meetings. When Sheldrake dissuades her from breaking up with him and promising to divorce his wife for her, they go to the apartment as poor Baxter waits forlornly outside the theater.

Later, at the company's raucous Christmas party (there is dancing on the tables and the lamest strip tease of all time), Fran is told by Miss Olsen (Edie Adams), Sheldrake's secretary, that Sheldrake has also had affairs with her and other women employees. Later at Baxter’s apartment, Fran confronts Sheldrake with his lies. Sheldrake maintains that he genuinely loves her, but that he has no intention of splitting up with his wife. He then leaves to return to his suburban family as usual and Fran is so depressed that she finds sleeping pills in the apartment bathroom and attempts suicide.

Baxter learns through finding a dropped hand mirror that Fran is the woman Sheldrake has been taking to his apartment, so he goes to a bar and lets himself be picked up by a married woman. When they arrive at his apartment, he is shocked to find Fran in his bed, seemingly dead. He sends his pick-up away and enlists the help of his neighbor, Dr. Dreyfuss (Jack Krushen), to revive Fran without notifying the authorities. I should not laugh, but it is pretty funny that the doctor goes straight to slapping Fran in the face to wake her up. The actors did not hold back; he is slapping her in the face really hard, so much so that you can tell her cheeks are reddening even in black and white. Baxter makes Dreyfuss believe that he was the cause of the incident and, scolding his neighbor for his apparent philandering, Dreyfuss advises him to "be a mensch, a human being."

As Fran spends two days recuperating in the apartment, C.C. takes care of her, and a bond develops between them, especially after he confesses to having attempted suicide himself over unrequited feelings for a woman who now sends him a fruitcake every Christmas. While they play a game of gin rummy, Fran reveals that she has always suffered bad luck in her love life. As Baxter prepares a romantic dinner, one of the managers arrives with a woman. Although Baxter persuades them to leave, the manager recognizes Fran and informs his colleagues. Later confronted by Fran's brother-in-law, Karl Matuschka, who is looking for her, the managers direct Karl to the apartment out of jealousy. At the apartment, Karl's anger at Fran for her behavior is deflected by Baxter, who again takes responsibility. Karl punches C.C. (and interviews with Lemmon revealed that the punch did land), but when Fran kisses him for protecting her, he just smiles and says it "didn't hurt a bit."

Sheldrake learns that Miss Olsen told Fran about his affairs, so he makes the poor choice of firing the woman who knows of all his dealings, and she retaliates by meeting with Sheldrake's wife, who promptly throws her husband out. Sheldrake believes that this situation just makes it easier to pursue his affair with Fran. Having promoted C.C. to an even higher position, which also gives him a key to the executive washroom, Sheldrake expects Baxter to loan out his apartment yet again. Baxter gives him back the washroom key instead, proclaiming that he has decided to become a mensch, and quits the firm.

That night at a New Year's Eve party, Sheldrake indignantly tells Fran what happened. Realizing she is in love with Baxter, Fran abandons Sheldrake and runs to the apartment. At the door, she hears what sounds like a gunshot. Fearing that Baxter has attempted suicide again, she frantically pounds on the door. Baxter answers, holding a bottle of champagne whose cork he had just popped in celebration of his plan to start anew. As the two settle down to resume their gin rummy game, Fran tells C.C. that she is now free too. When he asks about Sheldrake, she replies, "We'll send him a fruitcake every Christmas." He declares his love for her, and she replies, "Shut up and deal."

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This film is one of the most praised movies of all time, but it is not one of the most generally well known. This is probably due to the subject matter, although It’s A Wonderful Life also deals with suicide and is one of the America’s most popular family films. The problem is most likely that extra marital affairs by big company management as a normal thing was highly frowned upon. With the whole #MeToo movement, it seems that this kind of philandering culture might very well have been a known problem for decades. A movie based around the premise that office managers need a nice place to have sex with secretaries and elevator girls would not have been acceptable under the Hays Code. This is also the second film on the AFI list where Fred MacMurray plays a bad guy before being the understanding patriarch on My Three Sons and the first person honored as a Disney Legend in 1987. Fun fact, MacMurray was an uncredited extra in a film called Girls Gone Wild in 1929.

Billy Wilder knew that this was going to be a divisive film due to content, but he also had the confidence that everything would work out following the massive success of his previous film, Some Like It Hot. Wilder had considered a film based on adultery back in the 1940s but was unable to get funding at the time due to the Hays Code. The film was also based on a real life Hollywood drama in which an agent was shot by a producer over an affair (in which a low level employee apartment was used) as well as a friend of a co-writer who returned home to a dead ex-girlfriend following a break-up. 

It is amazing to think that this film is described as a comedy. There are office politics in which mid-level managers use local celeb status to take advantage of their subordinates. There are half a dozen cheating husbands that string along their affairs. There are characters so hurt that they would rather die than deal with what is done with them. There are raging parties at work where everyone gets massively drunk and dance on the desks. Women are treated like objects that either need to be protected with violence or thrown away. And yet the film is legitimately fun with characters that are worth rooting for.

Some of the success rides on the fabulous acting of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine and the witty dialogue written by I.A.L. Diamond. In fact, the dialogue and limited characters feels a lot like a stage play, which come to fruition in the form of Promises, Promises on Broadway by Burt Bacharach, Hal David, and Neil Simon. Dealing with real sets and locations, however, resulted in some colds and sickness since the actors were really out in the New York snow. Some other realism in the film came from both lead actors taking blows for the film: Shirley MacLaine got proper slapped by the doctor and Jack Lemmon was really punched by the brother-in-law.

A stand out aspect for me in this film which I talk up quite a bit is the cinematography. I have used many screen grabs from the film and used them as my avatar. I identify with the feeling of being used for something which made a mid manager look good while allowing them to do bad things. In fact, I am sure that everyone has felt like a Baxter at some point, and it is great to see him stand up for himself. Here are a couple of screen grabs (besides the top photo above) that I have used:

That lonely man in the middle of countless empty desks, that look of frustration when others are using your things to live a better life than you, and that time that love makes utility become fun and gadgets seem pretentious. It is very easy for me to get lost in how much I love this film. It has been far and away my favorite find from the AFI Top 100 between when I first saw the film in 2014 and now.

So, should the film be on the top 100 list? It has the awards and the history along with being a fantastic film. Of course it belongs on the list. Would I recommend it? Yes. This film is the type that makes people like me want to go through lists like this. I had never heard of the film in 2014 and it floored me how good it was. Each time I watch I appreciate it more, and the whole film project becomes well worth my time and effort. This film is so good, it affirms my life choices. I invite and implore you to check it out for yourself.

[oumiyuki]

Anju's Heart is a Spring Party

SUMMARY: Sometimes Anju gets extra flustered and embarrassed around her privilege AKA Saitou Shuka. 

Pairing: AnShuka

Genre: Romance, Fluff

Read me at fanfiction.net or AO3~

Author Notes

Happy birthday to you~

Happy birthday to you~

Happy Birthday to Anjuuuuuu~~

Happy birthday to you~

\\>w<//

May you enjoy! ;D

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is the filming of Aqours CLUB Spring Party today.

Anju was early and her makeup artist was already done with the finishing touches. The Leader of Aqours thanks the staff and excuses herself to go walk around the set; it will be a nice change of pace so she does not get too nervous.

Staffs walking around, cameras tested and setting up, quite a few people filtering in and out of a certain room… Anju smiles inwardly, ready to do a little snooping around.

Wonder what’s in there. Probably where we’ll film…

Anju pokes her head inside and her eyes widen, taking in all the pink and flowers – spring blossoms to be exact, matching the pink fluffy carpet and other decorations to do with Springtime.

Wow…

Anju consciously closes her mouth that fell agape from awe and astonishment.

Staff-san really went all out. It’s so pretty…

“Anju~ Morning~”

Ah, that voice.

“You’re super early! But I wasn’t too far behind. Hehe~ I’m all ready for filming too!”

Anju turns around and sure enough – a blinding smile, cheerful eyes Saito Shuka greets her vision. Anju sucks in a slightly deep breath through her nose as she took in all that at once.

Now this is pretty…

“What are you peeking at~?” Shuka tries to close the distance and get a sneak preview of the set and to see what Anju was seeing moments before her appearance.

She’s so loud but so cute. Super cute…

“Morning…” Anju greets after the delay effect of her best friend’s prowess.

Shuka chuckles before proceeding to produce an array of sounds to showcase her amazement of what she sees. “Oh my gosh, Anju look!!” Shuka waves her hand like a dog’s excited tail wagging.

I’m looking.

Anju and Shuka make eye contact briefly when Shuka turns back around to confirm the taller girl came to look too. Anju almost falls into another line of thought to praise Shuka’s eyes in her mind but Shuka turns back around all too soon.

Looking at you.

“This room is amazing!” Shuka was going to step further in but Anju takes her hand and pulls her out. “Whaaa~”

“No entry just yet.” Anju points out.

“Aww~” Shuka nods her understanding, leaning back on her heels as she attempts to not be too high tensioned.

Gods why is Shuka so…breathtakingly pretty and cute?

Anju eyes travel up and down and slightly around Shuka as much as she can observe from standing where she is.

It’s truly my privilege to get to be in the same room and stare at her all I want…

Anju’s cheeks heat up slow and soft.

Shuka makes eye contact with Anju again and her brown eyes light up, her smile growing brighter. “Anju!”

What are you doing to me Shuka?

Anju’s heart skips a million beats. “What’s up.”

Anju responds lamely, her brain cells still fangirling over Shuka’s cuteness to function well.

Shuka chuckles in that happy-go-lucky way she does and Anju’s brain cells did a little cheer. “We’re about to have a Spring Party with the rest of the girls. I’m excited.” Shuka bounced her weight from side to side.

Shuka standing idly seems to be rare now that I think about it.

Anju smiles. “Very excited.”

“YEAH!!” Shuka could no longer conceal her megawatt smile.

Anju wants to frame that scene up somewhere in her room but instead, it’s etched in her heart forever.

“Did I ever tell you your hairdresser and costume manager does an amazing job?” Anju voiced her thoughts unintentionally.

“Eh?” Shuka blinks, a tad confused from the surprise question.

“Ah, I mean…” Anju’s cheeks probably pinkened into an obvious shade as she averts her eyes from Shuka.

Shuka who waggles her eyebrows up and down teasingly and moves over to bump her blushing partner’s shoulder. “You mean~~~”

Anju grumbles, face red.

Am I that obvious? I mean that statement was way too obvious? Ughhh, now I’m going to be on the receiving end of Shuka’s cheeky grin.

“You find me cute?~” Shuka’s tone 100% amused and elated, one could almost see the heart emoticon at the end of her sentence. And her joviality only accentuated tenfold with that huge smile of hers.

Shuka and her megawatt smiles…

Anju whines a weak protest, cheeks still a cute red as she refused to make full eye contact with Shuka. “M-mmph…”        

Shuka falls into a soft silence. Bumping her shoulder on Anju’s again – lightly. Whispering, “I think you’re super pretty too.”

If possible, Anju’s face was becoming Shuka’s favourite colour a bit too perfectly.

Ugh…my heart is too loud…

~~

More of the other girls have arrived and were done with preparation for the filming and Anju enjoyed chatting of every random thing she and Shuka could come up with as the conversation flows.

“So I’m thinking that bees are cute too but not cuter than the rhinoceros beetle?” Shuka went on to share her thoughts about bugs and Anju usually would retort on that topic but…she was distracted.

Mm…The way Shuka’s hair is longer now… She doesn’t give off that dorky feel.

Anju rubs her chin thoughtfully.

Even though she is. Now she’s…looking so mature and pretty-

Anju covers her mouth as her heart did MIRACLE WAVE flips without her permission; not that her heart ever listened to her easily embarrassed brain.

Shuka…

Anju reaches up without thinking, her fingers tangling into Shuka’s soft light brown hair.

Addictive…this is addictive…

“Anju?” Shuka stares innocently with a hint of amusement in those magnetic brown hues.

Wait what am I doing?!

Anju retracts her hand now that she has caught up with reality. “Ah- Shuka- I- Um… You were there?!”

That’s not even a good excuse at all!!

Anju once again averts her eyes and turns her head as far away as possible while not running away, plus she could feel the blush itself this time.

Why is it so hot here??  

Shuka’s eyes held a big playful glint and she leans forwards to Anju, a Cheshire grin thick on her lips. “We were having a conversation until you decided to touch my hair~”

Ahhhhhhhh!!!

Anju gulps. “D-Did I?”

Gosh, why am I stuttering!

Shuka laughs heartily. “You can.”

Shuka’s mad at me, right? She disliked that I touched her like that right?

Anju opens her mouth to apologize and admit to her “crimes” but stops short as her not panicking brain waved frantically at her to notice what Shuka, the girl of her affections, just said. “Wait, what?”

Shuka’s eyes were grinning with her smile. “You can, Anju.”

“I can…do what?” Anju tries to think but she could only gaze cluelessly into Shuka’s alluring eyes.

Touch her?? Is she saying I can touch her???

Shuka answers Anju’s frantic questions by taking Anju’s hand into both of hers, lifting it slowly up towards her, watching Anju stare intently at the action. And then she guides those fingers back into her hair resting on her shoulder.

…Shuka…

Anju takes her time to move her fingers; intertwining, unravelling, lifting lightly, watching Shuka’s hair fall back into place and then going back in.

Ugh, I’m hooked to playing with Shuka’s hair now.

“I can?” Anju asks quietly, jaw shifting as she wanted to hear a yes oh so badly and her kind of stubborn, in denial part of her also wanted to deny her from accepting how much she adores being close to Shuka.

Shuka laughs gently; all of Anju’s attention on her. “Yes, my dear~”

Anju blushes at the affectionate call, a tease it may be, it still placed Anju on cloud nine nonetheless.

“So…Shuka.”

“Yeah?”

“I can touch you anywhere?” Anju weaved her fingers in and out of Shuka’s hair like it was second nature now.

Shuka pretends to give it a thought before she smiled widely once more. “You can touch me wherever you like.”

Anju tries to hold back the smirk and smugness as she rubbed the ends of Shuka’s hair between her fingers in delight while Shuka was always weak to Anju’s devilish grin.

Shuka punches Anju’s arms lightly. “Hey…What are you thinking of! I’ll take back what I said!”

Anju grins from ear to ear, eyes sparkling. “Not telling~”

“Anjuuu!!” Shuka protests, trying the puppy dog eyes while Anju avoids fully looking into it.

Touching Shuka is my privilege too.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author Notes

Let’s all wish Anju a Shuka-filled day that is made up of love and laughter!! ^w^ hehehe~

I hope y’all enjoyed the read! :D

Anju just…loves touching Shuka, I’m telling you. XD I love how they naturally holds hands and hug for longer and gaze into each other’s eyes and give each other headpats and now – well – hair touching ;D

Let me know your fave part! *w*

Also drop in the comments what other lovely AnShuka you have witnessed and perhaps that might be a blast of inspiration for little Miyuki here to expand on those scenes XD nante ne!

I love you, Anju!!

[gryfon-spanish-werewolf]

About the frozen fandom ask :

🎨, ✍️, and 👗

P.s remember to get enough sleep~

@like-redhead-probably I got enough sleep I swear ;-; actually I overslept TBH

🎨- Favorite fanart(s)/ artist(s)?

I’m gonna limit my answers to those who are currently active in the fandom otherwise we will be here all day xD. Anyone who has seen my tags knows this  to be true. My favorite fan artists are:

@giuliaciulia89 - because asdfghjklssh have you SEEN her line art?? And her expressions?? And how she does shading and color (with markers!! Traditional Art YO!!) literally is just... takes my breath away. Her recent Hogwarts Elsanna commission was absolutely delightful, but I am always delighted to see her original content as well such as her 101 Dalmatians au and her All For One And All For Love Three Musketeers au. It has so many mysteries, I’m very intrigued. Watching her process is very relaxing as well, like *sketch, sketch, sketch* and suddenly WHOA, there’s like, a whole concept outlines in no time at all. Incredible

@zero-kiba - because while much more active on Deviantart, I am ALWAYS extremely gay for Copper! That’s been going on 5 WHOLE YEARS Y’ALL! I stayed up until the sun started creeping through my windows catching up on every single page that I’d missed out after about 2017 when I started working full time. Zero-kiba’s work is BOMBASTICALLY expressive and really hits that mark between UTTERLY badass and heart-meltingly soft. Also do yourselves a favor and read their other works too! Tip of the Iceberg is Copper characters in a comedy setting, The Realm is 65 pounds of concentrated whoop-ass, and The Whole Shebang?? Gay has hell. Really gay. I cannot stress that enough (also it’s a little self plug - I help make that one alongside Zero-Kiba, daughterofhel and giuliaciulia89)

@ice-bjorn - because like.... do I even need to....expand?? Y’all have seen my tags. Ice-bjorn’s got the kind of content that just pulls you up short. Doing something? Concentrating? Not anymore you’re not! Ice-bjorn posted new art and you’re gonna FEEL ABOUT IT for the current conceivable future! Unbelievably emotive, you can see all the hard work that goes into each piece (including writing!!). I’ve gone OFF in my tags so many times about their stuff and I aLWAYS anticipate doing it again XD I can’t possibly pick a favorite piece, but this one gives me the warm fuzzies (Edit: although I did link another further down)

@jabs-wocks - because they constantly surprise me. One day ADORABLE! Next day ANGSTY. Next time? New style?? New type of coloring?? Always has a great sense of humor and unique ideas. Also, such an enabler xD Always makes me want to make something in turn <3 Like, remember when I went OFF with that angsty piece of Anna drowning after the dam collapses? Or when I nearly ditched my (already very long) project to idea bomb on about their Skadi!Elsa piece? Yeah, I love their work very much

 @gracepago0314 - because I’m a long time fan from when they had a different username! Great style, strong short comics, and WOW have they come a long way! They already had such a strong aesthetic, but seeing their work at the top of 2020 was such a treat because it was SUCH a change! I loved seeing what I recognized about their unique style and getting to see all the ways they’ve improved and expanded! Also that reincarnation au goes straight for the heart ;-;

✍️- Favorite fanfic(s)/ author(s)?

Limiting my answer to the same for the same reasons. Many of my favorite authors are no longer active, but my heart is very big, and I am always making room for new stories and writers to love!

@fruipit - because every time I get an email from ao3 that they’ve updated I go ballistic. Every story I have ever read (or reread... many times) by them is just SO INCREDIBLE. Their writing makes me make bad decisions: like fighting sleep to make it through one last chapter xD Their work makes me ask questions, their stories flows like a needle and thread, their diction makes me believe. I have nothing but the highest praise for Fruipit’s work, they’ve been writing for years and continue to pick at that gentle thing called wonder. Choosing a favorite work of theirs is GENUINELY DIFFICULT, but I love Risky Business, Koselig, and When Spring Comes very much. Tiny Hearts is a riot tho xD Oh wait and Who Dares Wins! .....Look just... go read Fruipit, you won’t regret it xD

@arendellesfirstwinter - because after years and years they just bang out one badass story after another. Their most recent (and with the dawn, what comes then?) has reduced me to tears twice. No. Three times, I reread a chapter. Their writing is exceptionally raw and pointed, but they are never angsty for angst sake. Their prose has the kind of weight one gets from having a huge amount of intent and care for what they create, and the characters they foster along the way <3

@daughterofhel - because I enjoy the simple pleasures of comedy. Literally just makes me laugh. Her dialogue SLAPS. Her world building is effortless (well, it’s not, she works very hard but it FEELS effortless, which is quite the trick xD). Her stories just WORK, her scenes are so alive and colorful and I adore how she makes characters interact even under the most RIDICULOUS prompts xD Exceptionally creative and silly, I guarantee she will surprise you for the better

@themountainsays - because every story idea is completely fascinating. Even if it’s not like, written yet? Just idea bombing or musing? Totally cool, I love reading them because you can feel the excitement behind them. Or the spite xD. Ara’s writing is also almost lyrical, it’s lovely to read, and honestly? Read out loud too! I’m a huge fan of spoken poetry/spoken stories and Ara’s always gives me that vibe. I’m behind (orz) on Creatures of the Arctic, but it’s SO FUN, I’m always keen on updates :D

@theseerasures - because I adore their frohana stuff. So freaking much. Kristanna + Icebros with so much tenderness that I just stare at my screen and go “holy hell someone MADE that.” Reading their work is like... being given a soft blanket to wrap yourself in, receiving a mug of hot chocolate, and then being told “Okay, now here’s a story that’s going to make you feel feelings really hard,” and you kind of nod back like, “Okay, seems fair.” Idk man they just get me real good, every time. For years.

👗- Favorite outfit? One you’d like to see?

Picking a favorite is hard! But please for the love of god: bring Anna’s military-esque jacket/dress to the silver screen. Holy hell. I’m such a sucker for how absolutely DASHING Elsa and Anna look in masculine/military dress. @giuliaciulia89 and @ice-bjorn both here and here get me xD But I also love their highly feminine outfits? Anna’s coronation dress in F1 is a fav and of course Elsa’s ice-dress is iconic, but my absolute favorites? I don’t know, they’re all so beautiful...

Oh! You know what else I’d want? Casual wear. They’re always dressed up for adventure! Or a fancy party! Let the crew relax more! More day-to-day, more cozy pjs! Kristoff in a big oversized shirt, Elsa in Fifth-Spirit inspired sleepwear, Anna in clothes made by their new Northudran family - complete with little hexagons but like, lined with soft reindeer fur <3. I’d love to see them when the world isn’t falling down around their ears, for more than 5 minutes, please ;-;

Thanks again for asking!! I know this is a few days late but I hope my jabbering made up for it ^_^

[berlysbandcamp]

Mazouni - A Dandy In Exile - 1969/1982

1958, in the middle of the liberation war. While the rattle of machine guns could be heard in the maquis, in the city, the population listened at low volume to Algerian patriotic songs broadcast by the powerful Egyptian radio: "The Voice of the Arabs". These artists all belonged to a troupe created by the self-proclaimed management of the National Liberation Front (FLN), based in Tunis and claiming to gather a "representative" sample of the Algerian musical movement of the time.

1960, cafe terraces were crowded and glasses of anisette kept coming with metronomic regularity, despite the alarming music of police sirens heard at intervals and the silhouettes of soldiers marching in the streets. The mood was good, united by a tune escaping from everywhere: balconies, where laundry was finishing drying, windows wide open from apartments or restaurants serving the famous Algiers shrimps along with copious rosé wine. Couples spontaneously joined the party upon hearing "Ya Mustafa", punctuated by improvised choirs screaming "Chérie je t’aime, chérie je t’adore". The song, as played by Sétif-born Alberto Staïffi, was a phenomenal success, to the point that even FLN fighters adopted it unanimously. Hence an unfortunate misunderstanding that would trick colonial authorities into believing Mustafa was an ode to the glory of Fellaghas. 

1961, Cheikh Raymond Leyris, a Jewish grand master of ma’luf (one of Algeria’s three Andalusian waves) who was Enrico Macias’ professor, was killed in Constantine, making him the first victim of a terrorist wave that would catch up with Algeria at the dawn of the 1990s by attacking anything that thought, wrote or sang.

Mohamed Mazouni, born January 4, 1940 in Blida – “The City of Roses" both known for its beautiful ‘Blueberry Square’ (saht ettout) in the middle of which a majestic bandstand took center stage, and its brothels – had just turned twenty. He was rather handsome and his memory dragged around a lot of catchy refrains by Rabah Driassa and Abderrahmane Aziz, also natives of Blida, or by 'asri (modern music) masters Bentir or Lamari. He would make good use of all these influences and many others stemming from the Algerian heritage. The young Mohamed was certainly aware of his vocal limits, as he used to underline them: "I had a small voice, I came to terms with it!". But it didn’t lack charm nor authenticity, and it was to improve with age. He began his singing career in those years, chosing bedoui as a style (a Saharan genre popularized among others by the great Khelifi Ahmed). 

1962, the last French soldiers were preparing their pack. A jubilant crowd was proclaiming its joy of an independent Algeria. Remembering the impact of popular music to galvanize the "working classes", the new authorities in office rewarded the former members of the FLN troupe by appointing them at the head of national orchestras. In widespread euphoria, the government encouraged odes to the recovered independence, and refrains to the glory of "restored dignity" sprung from everywhere. Abderrahmane Aziz, a star of 'asri (Algiers’ yé-yé) was a favorite with Mabrouk Alik ("Congratulations, Mohamed / Algeria came back to you"); Blaoui Houari, a precursor of Raï music, praised the courage of Zabana the hero; Kamel Hamadi recalled in Kabyle the experience of Amirouche the chahid (martyr), and even the venerable Remitti had her own song for the Children of Algeria. All this under the benevolent eye (and ear) of the regime led by Ahmed Ben Bella, the herald of the single party and vigilant guardian of the "Arab-Islamic values" established as a code of conduct. Singers were praised the Egyptian model, as well as Andalusian art intended for a nascent petty bourgeoisie and decreed a "national classic"; some did not hesitate to sell out. These Khobzists – an Algerian humorous term mocking those who put “putting-food-on-the-table” reasons forward to justify their allegiance to the system – were to monopolize all programs and stages, while on the fringes, popular music settled for animating wedding or circumcision celebrations. Its absence in the media further strengthened its regionalization: each genre (chaâbi, chaouï, Kabyle, Oranian...) stayed confined within its local boundaries, and its "national representatives" were those whose tunes didn’t bother anyone. The first criticisms would emanate from France, where many Algerian artists went to tackle other styles. During the Kabyle-expression time slot on Radio Paris, Slimane Azem – once accused of "collaboration" – sang, evoking animals, the first political lines denouncing the dictatorship and preconceived thinking prevailing in his country. The reaction was swift: under pressure from the Algerian government, the Kabyle minute was cancelled. Even in Algeria, Ahmed Baghdadi aka Saber, an idol for fans of Raï music (still called "Oranian folklore"), was imprisoned for denouncing the bureaucracy of El Khedma (work).

For his part, Mazouni was to be noticed through a very committed song: Rebtouh Fel Mechnak (“They tied him to the guillotine”). But above all, the general public discovered him through a performance at the Ibn Khaldoun Theater (formerly Pierre Bordes Theater, in the heart of Algiers), broadcast by the Algerian Radio Broadcasting, later renamed ENTV. This would enable him to integrate the Algerian National Theater’s artistic troupe. Then, to pay tribute to independence, he sang “Farewell France, Hello Algeria”. 1965: Boumediene's coup only made matters worse. Algeria adopted a Soviet-style profile where everything was planned, even music. Associations devoted to Arab-Andalusian music proliferated and some sycophantic music movement emerged, in charge of spreading the message about "fundamental options". Not so far from the real-fake lyricism epitomized by Djamel Amrani, the poet who evoked a “woman as beautiful as a self-managed farm". The power glorified itself through cultural weeks abroad or official events, summoning troubadours rallied to its cause. On the other hand, popular music kept surviving through wedding, banquets and 45s recorded for private companies, undergoing censorship and increased surveillance from the military.

As for Mazouni, he followed his path, recording a few popular tunes, but he also was in the mood for traveling beyond the Mediterranean: "In 1969 I left Algeria to settle in France. I wanted to get a change of air, to discover new artistic worlds". He, then, had no idea that he was about to become an idolized star within the immigrant community. During the 1950s and 1960s, when parents were hugging the walls, almost apologizing for existing, a few Maghrebi artists assumed Western names to hide their origins. This was the case of Laïd Hamani, an Algerian from Kabylia, better known as Victor Leed, a rocker from the Golf Drouot’s heyday, or of Moroccan Berber Abdelghafour Mociane, the self-proclaimed “Vigon”, a hack of a r&b voice. Others, far more numerous, made careers in the shadow of cafes run by their compatriots, performing on makeshift stages: a few chairs around a table with two or three microphones on it, with terrible feedback occasionally interfering. Their names were Ahmed Wahby or Dahmane El Harrachi. Between the Bastille, Nation, Saint-Michel, Belleville and Barbès districts, an exclusively communitarian, generally male audience previously informed by a few words written on a slate, came to applaud the announced singers. It happened on Friday and Saturday nights, plus on extra Sunday afternoons.

In a nostalgia-clouded atmosphere heated by draft beers, customers – from this isolated population, a part of the French people nevertheless – hung on the words of these musicians who resembled them so much. Like many of them, they worked hard all week, impatiently waiting for the weekend to get intoxicated with some tunes from the village. Sometimes, they spent Saturday afternoons at movie theaters such as the Delta or the Louxor, with extra mini-concerts during intermissions, dreaming, eyes open, to the sound of Abdel Halim Hafez’ voice whispering melancholic songs or Indian laments made in Bombay on full screen. And the radio or records were also there for people to be touched to the rhythm of Oum Kalsoum’s songs, and scopitones as well to watch one’s favorite star’s videos again and again.

Dumbfounded, Mohamed received this atmosphere of culture of exile and much more in the face. Fully immersed in it, he soaked up the songs of Dahmane El Harrachi (the creator of Ya Rayah), Slimane Azem, Akli Yahiaten or Cheikh El Hasnaoui, but also those from the crazy years of twist and rock’n’roll as embodied by Johnny Hallyday, Les Chaussettes Noires or Les Chats Sauvages, not to mention Elvis Presley and the triumphant beginnings of Anglo-Saxon pop music. Between 1970 and 1990, he had a series of hits such bearing such titles as “Miniskirt”, “Darling Lady”, “20 years in France”, “Faded Blue”, Clichy, Daag Dagui, “Comrade”, “Tell me it’s not true” or “I’m the Chaoui”, some kind of unifying anthem for all regions of Algeria, as he explained: "I sang for people who, like me, experienced exile. I was and have always remained very attached to my country, Algeria. To me, it’s not about people from Constantine, Oran or Algiers, it’s just about Algerians. I sing in classical or dialectal Arabic as much as in French and Kabyle”.

Mazouni, a dandy shattered by his century and always all spruced up who barely performed on stage, had greatly benefited from the impact of scopitones, the ancestors of music videos – those image and sound machines inevitably found in many bars held by immigrants. His strength lay in Arabic lyrics all his compatriots could understand, and catchy melodies accompanied by violin, goblet drum, qanun, tar (a small tambourine with jingles), lute, and sometimes electric guitar on yé-yé compositions. Like a politician, Mazouni drew on all themes knowing that he would nail it each time. This earned him the nickname "Polaroid singer" – let’s add "kaleidoscope" to it. Both a conformist (his lectures on infidelity or mixed-race marriage) and disturbing singer (his lyrics about the agitation upon seeing a mini-skirt or being on the make in high school…), Mohamed Mazouni crossed the 1960s and 1970s with his dark humor and unifying mix of local styles. Besides his trivial topics, he also denounced racism and the appalling condition of immigrant workers. However, his way of telling of high school girls, cars and pleasure places earned him the favors of France’s young migrant zazous.

But by casting his net too wide, he made a mistake in 1991, during the interactive Gulf War, supporting Saddam Hussein’s position through his provocative title Zadam Ya Saddam (“Go Saddam”). He was banned from residing in France for five years, only returning in 2013 for a concert at the Arab World Institute where he appeared dressed as the Bedouin of his beginnings.

At the end of the 1990s, the very wide distribution of Michèle Collery and Anaïs Prosaïc's documentary on Arabic and Berber scopitones, highlighted Mazouni’s important role, giving new impetus to his career.  

Living in Algeria, Mohamed Mazouni did not stop singing and even had a few local hits, always driven by a “wide targeting” ambition. This compilation, the first one dedicated to him, includes all of his never-reissued “hits” with, as a bonus, unobtainable songs such as L’amour Maâk, Bleu Délavé or Daag Dagui.

[spookyspemilyreid]

Happy Anniversary “Collision Course”! (November 30, 2004)

Collision Course is a collaborative album from American rapper Jay-Z and rock band Linkin Park, released on November 30, 2004 by Roc-A-Fella, Machine Shop, Warner Bros. and Def Jam records.

From Linkin Park's catalog, Collision Course features three songs from Meteora and four from Hybrid Theory. From Jay-Z's catalog, it features three songs from The Black Album, one from Vol. 3: Life and Times of S. Carter, one from Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life and one from The Blueprint.

Before the album, Jay-Z had released collaborations with The Roots and R. Kelly, and Linkin Park had collaborated with various artists on their remix album Reanimation. The album was inspired by The Grey Album by Danger Mouse, which was a mash-up album between Jay-Z and The Beatles. MTV had originally planned on mashing up only one or two songs, but the project was eventually expanded to a six-song album. The album was mostly produced by Mike Shinoda and Jay-Z, and was recorded between July 16 and July 19.

The album spawned one single, "Numb/Encore" which eventually won Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 2006 Grammy Awards. 

Due to its short running time at 21:18, with six tracks in total included on the disc, the release has been identified as an EP. All of the tracks included are mashups combining songs by both artists.

The DVD contains behind-the-scenes new footage of the making of the album, as well as the second take of all of the Collision Course songs at The Roxy Theatre on July 18, 2004. Also included are the five scenes from the concert shown on MTV Ultimate Mash-Ups and a picture gallery.

The first single released from the EP, "Numb/Encore", achieved significant airplay on the charts, and stayed on 6 months after its release. "Points of Authority/99 Problems/One Step Closer" was also released to the radio in the US, but was never featured on the Billboard Charts – the videos for both that track and "Jigga What/Faint" were also seen on Kerrang! in the UK. "Izzo/In the End" was also heavily promoted on the official Linkin Park websites.

It is the second EP ever (after Alice in Chains' Jar of Flies in 1994) to top the Billboard 200, going on to sell over 300,000 copies in its first week.

Mike Shinoda revealed in his 2004 Grammy acceptance speech that he would be mashing up with Jay-Z for a record under MTV's Mash Ups show.

The network allowed Jay-Z to choose a group or artist for the mash-up. Jay contacted Shinoda, who began experimenting with mixing the tracks before sending some examples to him. As a result, Jay-Z began working with Shinoda through email. The two decided that instead of combining the existing tracks for the live performance on MTV, they wanted to re-work and re-record parts of the songs to make them fit better. Shinoda explains, "Jay and I realized it's better to re-perform the rap vocals if you're gonna do it to a new beat because the vibe changes and you have to deliver your verse a little differently." Shinoda asked his bandmates to re-record instrumental and vocal tracks as well, and ultimately both parties decided they wanted to release the studio tracks. The entire album was put together within four days. 

Collision Course was the first album of Linkin Park that contained a Parental Advisory sticker, since most of Jay-Z's verses contain profanity (although Shinoda and Chester Bennington are also heard using vulgar language on the album). This album was also made in an edited/censored version. Linkin Park wouldn't use profanities themselves until Minutes to Midnight in 2007. However, the clean version of the album left the words "bitch", "ass", and "hoes" uncensored, which means that "Izzo/In the End" is the same on the clean and explicit versions.

A year after the release of Collision Course, Jay-Z was the executive producer on Mike Shinoda's solo effort Fort Minor's The Rising Tied. Also, the song "High Road" from the same record talks about how some critics negatively received Collision Course.

Critics gave mixed reviews to Collision Course. David Jeffries of AllMusic praised the album, calling it "awesomely fun". K.B. Tindal of HipHopDX also equally praised the album, saying that the project "will open a passageway for artists who want to dare to be different as well as those who want to work hard to maintain that difference." Steve Juon of RapReviews called the album "an experiment which bodes well since for the most part these two artists compliment [sic] each other." 

Meanwhile, Raymond Fiore of Entertainment Weekly, gave a negative review of the album, saying that the pairing of Linkin Park and Jay-Z "comes off like a sanitized nonevent."

The song "Numb/Encore", a mash-up of "Numb" by Linkin Park and "Encore" by Jay-Z, won Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the Grammy Awards of 2006. 

[errgative]

Japanese Literature Essentials

This is a list of five classic Japanese books and short stories that I feel are essential reads for anyone interested in Japan. I’ve chosen these books not only because they are excellent literature in their own right, but because they offer unique insight into Japanese culture and showcase the differences between Japanese and Western literature. Whether or not you are studying Japanese, I think you can gain something valuable by reading them. I know there are many great books I’ve left off this list, but Japanese literature is just too expansive to be summarized in one post - feel free to reblog with your own favorites if I didn’t include them!

Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji (源氏物語)

Recommended Translation: Royall Tyler

The Tale of Genji is one of the most iconic and foundational works in the history of Japanese literature. Written at the peak of the Heian period, it combined aspects of Chinese literature with traditional forms of Japanese storytelling, resulting in an 1100 page (written almost entirely in kana!!) epic that follows Genji through his adventures and romantic pursuits while giving insight into Heian court life. I feel that Tyler’s translation brings the beautiful Classical Japanese prose to life while preserving the original aesthetics of the tale.

The author, Murasaki Shikibu, was a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Court. Although women were traditionally not taught Chinese, she was able to study it due to her immense talent. Her mastery of literature is shown in that Genji was greatly praised even at the time of its release, despite her being a woman. 

Soseki Natsume: Kokoro (こころ)

Recommended Translation: Edwin McClellan

Soseki is often regarded as the founder of modern Japanese literature. His works are informed by his life experiences, as well as issues salient to Meiji-era Japan, such as the westernization of Japan and conflicts between modern and traditional culture. 

Kokoro takes place during the transition out of the Meiji era. The central characters are a young student and the man he idolizes, called Sensei. Through the young man’s relationship with his parents and Sensei, Soseki explores the boundaries between urban and rural values, as well as what it means to receive an education. The third and final part is in the form of a letter from Sensei, and deals with themes of guilt, isolation, and the egoism of youth, as the reality behind the student’s idealization of him is revealed. 

In the interest of full disclosure, this is my favorite book on this list and definitely in my top five books of all time - it has only a spare, basic plot, but manages to convey the feeling of an entire nation in a time of transition, while not sacrificing beautiful language or complex, nuanced characters.

Akutagawa Ryunosuke: Hell Screen (地獄変)

Recommended Translation: I actually don’t know who translated the version I’ve read, since it’s a pdf that doesn’t include the title page. Contact me if you want it, or pick a translation that sounds good to you.

Akutagawa was one of the most influential Japanese writers of the twentieth century. Japan’s most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him. He is probably best known outside of Japan for his story Rashomon, which inspired Kurosawa Akira’s film of the same name. Much of his work deals with what he perceives as the corruption and spiritual anxiety of modern life, as well as themes of obsession, isolation, and illusion. 

Hell Screen is a short story set in an ambiguously medieval Japan, potentially the late Heian period. It centers around the painter Yoshihide, who is the finest painter in the land, but hates everything except for his art and his daughter. He is commisioned by a lord to create a screen painted with the Buddhist hell. Through Yoshihide, Akutagawa explores the nature of artistic obsession and the conflict between art and moral behaviour, all while creating a sense of uncertainty around the truth by choosing an unnamed courtier who is devoted to the lord as a narrator. The end result is a wonderfully disturbing story that subtly critiques modern ways of thinking in the guise of a Buddhist parable.

Warning for implied rape.

Mishima Yukio: Forbidden Colors (禁色)

Recommended Translation: Alfred H. Marks

One of the most well-known postwar Japanese authors, Mishima wrote about themes such as beauty, gender, sexual desire, and patriotism, and his work has been equally praised and criticized for its long, flowing descriptions and decadent prose. Today, Mishima is known almost as much for his gruesome death by ritual suicide as for his literary accomplishments.

Some of you might wonder why I chose to include Forbidden Colors on this list rather than the better known and less disturbing Confessions of a Mask. While it’s true that both of them feature gay protagonists and involve similar themes, I feel that the viscerally disgusting nature of Forbidden Colors makes it a much more powerful read. It is by no means enjoyable, essentially being 400 pages of nothing but hatred and vitriol. Both the protagonist, Yuichi, and his ‘mentor,’ Shunsuke, are amoral, manipulative, and hopelessly misogynistic. The plot is based around Shunsuke’s quest to get revenge on the entire female population by using Yuichi’s good looks as his weapon. Yuichi starts out as somewhat naïve and afraid, thinking he’s the only man to ever be gay, but begins to become more and more like Shunsuke, adopting his misogynistic habits and using his experiences in Tokyo’s gay scene to learn how to weaponize his beauty. The horrifying story of what Yuichi does and experiences provides a harsh, angry critique of Japanese society without any moments of hope or levity.

While I do highly recommend this book, please know that it is highly disturbing and if you cannot read books that contain rape/dubious consent, graphic violence, extreme misogyny, or homophobia, it might be a good idea to skip it. 

Enchi Fumiko: Masks (女面)

Recommended Translation: Juliet Carpenter

Enchi is probably the most well-known female Japanese writer from the Showa period. She drew attention to the plight of women in an increasingly militaristic and patriarchal Japan, and achieved success after World War II despite the male-dominated Japanese literary establishment. Her works explore gender and the nature of power.

I had a hard time deciding whether to include Masks or The Waiting Years; both are powerful explorations of female forms of power, and both are quintessentially Japanese in nature. Ultimately Masks won out because of its direct ties to The Tale of Genji, which opened this list. Masks draws on countless layers of Japanese culture, from Genji to traditional shamanistic practices to Noh theatre and art. The story is told from the perspective of men, but as the novel goes on, it becomes clear that the men are being manipulated by the crafty Mieko, whose schemes quickly ensnare the narrators. Central to the story is an essay Mieko wrote on the role of the Rokujo Lady in Genji. Ultimately, Masks is about power, how it can be subverted, and the results of those subversions, while simultaneously exploring the nature of gender, revenge, and legacy. It’s hard to summarize the genius of this book - the way Enchi weaves together differing sources and plot threads into a cohesive, indictive whole - in one paragraph, but I hope you all will read it. 

Once again, I’m including warnings, this time for graphic sex, dubious consent (in that one party does not know who the other is), graphic descriptions of blood, and death.

More Recommendations:

Soseki Natsume: I am a Cat; Botchan

Akutagawa Ryunosuke: Spinning Gears; Kappa

Oe Kenzaburo: The Silent Cry; Hiroshima Notes

Enchi Fumiko: The Waiting Years

Tanizaki Junichiro: Naomi

Kawabata Yasunari: The Old Capital; Thousand Cranes

Mishima Yukio: Death in Midsummer - Onnagata, Patriotism

Murakami Ryu: Almost Transparent Blue

Abe Kobo: The Woman in the Dunes

Yoshimoto Banana: Kitchen

[melodiouswhite]

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde rewritten - Ch. 17

17. Dr. Jekyll returns home

On the 28th of December Lady Summers informed Jekyll that he was free to go home.

He was ecstatic. Sure, he had enjoyed his recovery in the Lady's eccentric, but lively household, but he had missed his home. 

The Lady had sent her own butler to inform Poole that his master was coming home. Jekyll hoped that his house was in a half-way habitable state. Of course he had no doubt in the diligence of his servants, but he was a perfectionist. Besides, he had been away for quite a while and wondered, if they had still done their job as well without his authority. But his butler Poole was the highest authority among the servants and the doctor trusted him.

He knew that Hyde was even happier than he was. One month and a half of idleness had been a torture for his other half and now he could do what he likes again – when Jekyll let him out.

It was easier now.

Jekyll's will had grown so much stronger during the recovery.

Just like Hyde, he could now take over whenever he wanted. That was fortunate, because he was low on the special salt. But now that he was fully independent of the drug, that was no reason to worry. Lady Summers had discovered, that there was an impurity in the salt that made it work. This had happened, when he had asked her to get more of it, but the new supply hadn't done anything. They had both concluded, that the initial sample was impure. Lady Summers had offered to help him find out what the impurity was.

“Admit it”, he had responded lightly, “Psychology isn't your only field of expertise!”

The Prussian had just laughed and retorted, that she was just as much of a mad scientist as he was.

But Jekyll was envious. Was there anything the small woman didn't surpass him in?

The Countess must have read his mind, because she assured him that he was a better artist and mathematician than she was.

She had told him that, while she was good at finances, she failed in every other field of mathematics. “Maybe it's because finances are practical and something I do almost every day”, she had theorised. “Because I can't remember the others to save my life.”

He had snorted at that. But he had burst into full laughter, when the Lady had shown him her sad excuse of a drawing of a flower (seriously, he had done better when he had been six!). She had no artistic talent at all, even though she had received a high and broad education. But she evened that out with her musical and poetic talent.

“One can't be good at everything”, she had concluded. “I excel in the field I am good at and you excel in yours.”

Now he was standing at the Lady's door, a bag with Hyde's clothes and their Christmas gifts in one hand, the pot plant in the other, waiting for her coachman to pick him up and take him home. It was a rainy day, which didn't fit his mood at all.

“Are you happy to finally return home?”, she asked him.

He nodded eagerly. “Oh yes! Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my time here, but still I really miss my own house.”

She laughed: “No need to excuse yourself, I would have felt the same. In the end, there is no place like home.”

He smiled warmly. “Thank you for everything, Milady.”

She smiled back. “You don't have to thank me, Doctor. I'm glad that I could be of help. And remember, my door will always be open to you.”

Jekyll felt something wet in his eyes and blinked it away. Then he felt a sudden urge and gave his benefactress a hug.

First she tensed up in surprise, but then he felt her relax and requite the hug with a quiet chuckle.

“Good thing the door wasn't open”, she commented lightly and he agreed.

Then there was a ring at the door and the Lady opened it to find her coachman waiting.

“Time to go 'ome, Doc!”, he announced cheerfully and took Jekyll's bag to load it in.

Jekyll kissed the Lady's hand, said goodbye and followed the Irishman to the hansom.

As they drove away, he caught a glimpse of her standing in her door waving after them.

She may not be an angel, but she certainly is to her clients.

“True”, Hyde responded and there was no sarcasm in his voice.

Jekyll wondered briefly, if his servants would receive him accordingly.

Poole had prepared everything to perfection. The house was polished to a mirror shine, the servants were standing in the parlour to welcome their master home and waiting for the coach to arrive.

One of the maids was looking out of window, watching out for the doctor's cab.

And soon enough, a hansom arrived with a tall, blond man in a grey raincoat sitting on the passenger's seat.

“He's home, he's home!”, the woman cried excitedly.

“Into your place then!”, Poole ordered, “All in a row! We will give the Doctor a reception worthy of the Queen herself!”

They obeyed immediately, standing in a row like soldiers ready to salute their commander.

Poole nodded in satisfaction, before running to the door to greet the master of the house. Just as he opened it, Dr. Jekyll was running up the stairs, his travelling bag in one, a pot with earth in the other  arm.

“Welcome home, Sir”, he said and held the door open.

The doctor thanked him with an amiable smile and set his luggage down, so Poole could help him out of his coat and shoes.

“Be careful with the pot plant!”, Dr. Jekyll cried, when the butler took his luggage.

“Of course, Sir”, the butler assured him. “The rest of the staff is waiting in the parlour.”

The Doctor's eyes sparkled with curiosity, as he followed the older man into the parlour.

Poole hurried to get in before him, set the luggage onto a table and stood in front of the rest of the staff.

Just as the master of the house entered the room, the staff cried in unison: “Welcome home, Dr. Jekyll!”

The Doctor stopped dead in his tracks. With wide eyes he looked at all the people who were here to welcome him home. Before he could say anything, Poole lead him to the table. A set with tea and cake was already waiting for him. Dr. Jekyll sat down, obviously overwhelmed.

Finally, his spirit seemed to return and he whispered: “All this for me …?”

“But of course, Doctor!”, Bradshaw spoke up, “You've been gone for one month and a half and now you're home! This must be celebrated!”

For a few seconds, Dr. Jekyll continued to gape at the tea and cake in front of him. Then he smiled, the kind of gentle smile that the servants hadn't seen in years.

“You didn't have to”, he told them warmly.

“Yes, we did!”, the cook objected, “As Bradshaw said, this is a welcome home party!”

The Doctor chuckled: “It feels like my birthday! Thank you so much, everybody. I couldn't have asked for a better reception.”

Poole was certain that the wetness in his master's eyes wasn't just his imagination.

“Yes … it's good to be home.”

Jekyll had never felt so close to his servants in the entire time he had employed them. With a simple gesture they had made him feel like he was good enough to deserve their respect. Of course he had expected a proper welcome, but this exceeded his expectations by far.

In the late evening, when Poole lit the way to the bedroom, he was tired, but content.

“I heard that you're the mastermind behind this?”, he asked his butler on the way.

Poole unsurprisingly confirmed it.

“You have truly outdone yourself. I can't remember the last time I was so pleasantly surprised”, Jekyll praised him.

The old butler turned to face him. He was beaming with well-deserved pride. “Thank you, Sir!”

The Doctor chuckled: “Please, it's a matter of fact.”

“I'm happy that you enjoyed it so much, Sir”, the butler replied, “And if you pardon my boldness, it's good to see a real smile on your face again. I haven't seen one in ages.”

Jekyll couldn't deny that Poole had a point.

“Your recovery at her Ladyship's house has really done you good.”

The blond smiled warmly. “Yes. It really has.”

More than words could ever say.

Poole opened the door to the bedroom and lit a lamp inside, then wishing him a good night's sleep.

“Good night”, Jekyll returned, “I hope that all of you sleep well too.”

“Thank you. Oh, and Sir!”

“Yes?”

“Say hello to Mr. Hyde from me please, and welcome home.”

The Doctor felt Hyde stir within him, obviously surprised by the butler's words.

He had told him the truth about Hyde during his recovery at Lady Summers' house. Poole had taken it surprisingly well. Maybe he had been relieved that Jekyll and Hyde weren't in an inappropriate relationship (little did he know – of course he hadn't told him that). But the butler had promised to never tell anyone and Jekyll trusted him.

“I will”, the Doctor replied, “Go to sleep now. You've earned it.”

Poole bowed and left.

Now alone in his bedroom, Jekyll went to his bed and sat down.

“What a day!”, he sighed happily.

“Yeah, it really was!”, Hyde agreed, “More fun than I expected!”

“Hey, Edward.”

“Hm?”

“I know that you're anxious to be out and about again.”

“I certainly am!”, Hyde agreed enthusiastically.

“But …” Jekyll hesitated. He was about to ruin his alter ego's mood. “… could you have one more night of patience? Just one? Tonight I just want to be here, relishing the feeling of sleeping in my own bed again.”

Hyde sighed theatrically. But he consented.

The Doctor smiled and slipped under the covers to nestle in the familiar warmth of his own bed.

“Thank you, Edward.”

“Hmph. Shut up and sleep.”

---

I … I actually managed to write a chapter that isn’t frigging long! ;v;

[dippedanddripped]

Keary Kase created a legacy not only for himself but Oregon with his classic record “Oowee.” And with recording artists the biggest influencers in the world, during the current widespread of a social issue known as Black Lives Matter, Kase dedicates his star power to bringing awareness to the importance of unity against police brutality and social injustice. Now not a time to make people dance, Keary Kase is here to wake people up.

“We, as humans, have evolved to higher consciousness,” he says. “In the last 5 years, we have experienced a re-awakening. We are aware of our connection to each other and the detrimental effect that negative vibrations have on our development. The days of praising the lord in one breath and cursing the devil in the next are reaching an end. It has become obvious that both of those forces, however, you choose to address them, exist inside every one of us.

The universally recognized symbol of balance, yin and yang, depicts a white shape with a bit of black at its core and a black shape, with a bit of white at its core. That symbol masterfully describes the human race as we are today. Unfortunately, we have a group of people who want to continue with the current version of slavery that allows them to move with a level of impunity and shields their families from everyday struggles endured by those outside of the group for generations to come. The shackles are off. They are not going back on.”

While there have been plenty of celebrities joining the protesters in the streets around the world. There are a majority of celebrities who have shy away from getting involved due to commitments with endorsements and branding. Keary Kase is definitely not one of those individuals and frowns upon those who are more concerned with their bank account than morality.

“I’m definitely not afraid to align with the BLM movement. We saw artists release songs and videos in the days following George Floyd’s murder. I watched Nick Canon’s “I Can’t Breathe Again,” for the first time with one eye opened. I was afraid the Comedian might soften the intensity of the moment. Instead, he came off on point with it. We need more straight talk from artists, now,  more than ever. I’m with it 100% and my music will reflect my support. My only issue with the movement is that it may be providing a cloak for any individual or organization wanting to undermine the true BLM agenda. We see politicians attempting to pass legislation at the Senate by feigning support of bills like the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act while attempting to pass bills designed to lynch us. Love goes out to Senator Kamala Harris, btw, and the finger to Senator Small Paul.”

More than just a protest, Keary Kase involvement in the current movement is extremely personal, like most Black men in America, he ‘s been on the receiving in of police misconduct his entire life. Traumatic experiences due to Police’s abuse of power and authority which has become the normal understanding for Black America.

“When I meet a black man over the age of 25, I assume he has been wrongfully accused, arrested, prosecuted, beaten, judged, and mistreated. Often to the point of ruin (felony), leaving him with very few options to proceed with. Similarly, we are viewed by many white people in just the same way. The only difference is, they assume we are criminals by nature and that we have been justly convicted of any crime found in the record of our criminal history. They believe that aggressive arrests, beatings, and deaths occurring during infraction driven encounters are justifiable incidents in which a person of color did not comply.

When I was old enough to drive (16), I became exposed to police bias and harassment. Several times each month, I would get pulled over and asked to get out of the car so the officers could illegally search my car for drugs and weapons, which I told them I did not have. There is a suburb to Portland called Lake Oswego, which is known by EVERYONE as ‘Lake No Negro.’ If you are “driving while black” in Lake Oswego, you will be followed by the police. If you stay on one of the two main streets that pass through, they will escort you to the city limit and make a u-turn. If you happen to have an ‘intermittent tail light,’ you might get pulled over and hit with multiple tickets. This is Lake Oswego’s way of discouraging black visitors. The Lake Oswego Police Department should definitely be defunded. The first time I had to physically defend myself against police was age 17. There was a biker bar in Southeast Portland where my friend, his wife and newborn child lived. We would walk by the bar going to and from the store, throughout the day, as teens do. One night, as we were walking by, someone standing in front of the bar said ‘NIGGERS.’ We looked across the street where three older white guys, maybe in their 30’s-40’s, were standing and provoking us. We crossed the street to engage them and the entire bar spilled outside to surround us. A fight broke out and the police were called. When they arrived, the 6 or so police officers immediately started hitting us with their batons. I remember getting beaten by 4 officers, while I was on the ground, before being cuffed and placed in the back of a cruiser. Once the officers ran our names and realized we were mostly minors, they drove us home. None of the people in the bar were beaten, cuffed or questioned. It was Just-us. As an adult teen, I was convicted of a crime that I did not commit. The detectives told me it did not matter if I did not commit the crime. They said unless I told them who did commit the crime and the guilty party would verify that I was not involved, I was guilty.

In my twenties, I was shopping at a notoriously racist branch of a store called Fred Meyer, in Beaverton, OR. I had just purchased a karaoke machine and was waiting by the door for my friend to get out of the bathroom. A security officer told me I couldn’t stand there and I needed to leave. I told him that if I was going to be treated that way I was going to go to customer service and return the item. He said I could do it another time but I needed to leave immediately. I walked to the customer service desk where they refused to return the item I had just bought. The security officer grabbed my arm, I reacted and he fell, breaking his glasses in the process. Another security officer grabbed me from behind and put his arm around my neck. I started to blackout and was taken down. The police were called and I was arrested for trespassing. In the police report, they said I had damaged the karaoke machine and demanded a discount. It further said that I started yelling and making threats, then attacked the security officers as they addressed me. Again, I was convicted. After court, the first security officer approached me and said ‘see what happens when you go against us?” I replied, ‘yeah, you get your glasses broke.’

I often ask myself if that really happened because it makes no sense. Police are not our masters. They do not have the right to arrest us, beat us, or kill us when we don’t agree with them. But it’s not just the police who abuse power to the detriment of people of color, it’s the entire judicial system. The police are just the spear’s tip. Arguably, everybody gets the tip but we, especially black people,  always end up getting the shaft.My friend, Sgt. James Brown was killed by county jail staff in El Paso, TX while he was serving a 2-day sentence for a DWI. In his final moments, while struggling with the 5 officers who were restraining him, guess what his last words were. Years later the video of his murder was released. I watched my friend, who had just been honorably discharged from the Army after 2 tours in Iraq, gasping and shouting repeatedly, “I CAN’T BREATHE.” He begged the officers, who were killing him, to help him. I became friends with his mother and stepfather in the years following his death. It is still hard to look into his mother’s eyes to this day. Justice for Sgt. James Brown.”

In a radical mood, Keary Kase supplies a soundtrack to the current climate with new music in the works. Displaying that same energy and impact that created classic songs like “Change Gon’ Come,” “What’s Going On” and more, Kase’s knows that today’s music can deliver a similar impact. He explains:

“I won’t be writing any love songs for a while, but for black people, being killed by police, former police, and the likes has become a condition of our reality. This is not news to us. If you listen to Hip Hop from the ’70s, when it was created, all the way up to the hip hop of 2020, (pre- George Floyd) you will hear a steady flow of lyrics about police bias and brutality and the killing of black people at the hands of the police. We don’t even call it “murder” because, until 2020, they were never convicted or even charged with the crime.

Speaking against the system through our music is what we have done since our ancestors were slaves. Today’s field calls may be repeated by a rifle.”

He further elaborates, stating:

“Thanks to the internet, fans will be impacted by the artists of today even more than they were by our predecessors. Whether or not the message will be delivered and who will deliver it is still a question. All of this is still so recent. As an artist, I observe life, collect data, and translate through my perspective. I’m still taking it all in. If other artists are in the frame of mind that I am right now, fans should be expecting to hear some of the most inspirational music they have ever heard from us.”

[a-h-arts]

The Professional Beauty and the Wonderful Painter Always a devoted fan of John Singer Sargent and enthralled by Madame X from the moment I first saw the painting, I devoured Strapless. I believe Deborah Davis did her research and I wish there was more to know about Amelie Avegno as both Sargent and the painting Madame X certainly have eclipsed the original woman. Sargent captured her in what I consider to be his best work, which is saying something considering he was prolific and left a mesmerizing look into the Gilded Age and those privileged few who inhabited that world. Amelie's life began in Louisiana, the daughter of the Proud South and a product of the plantation system, guided by her very strong grandmother and mother. The haunting photograph of Amelie and her sister, Valentine, during the Civil War shows the long arms and tiny waist as well as the Avegno nose which would be her trademarks later. Her life as an expatriate in Paris during a truly fascinating time period is intriguing while her ambitious mother set about marketing her daughter for a good marriage. Amelie embodied the modern woman of Paris but sadly, being a Professional Beauty has a short shelf life which doomed her to a miserably empty existence. Go to Amazon

Good backstory to a masterpiece I never knew the portrait was originally called Portrait of Madame X. I always thought that was how people referred to it because of its femme fatale attitude. This is an engaging back story to the painting of this iconic portrait. The author worked in Hollywood as a story developer and it shows. She takes what is essentially very little hard information and paints a vivid picture of the lives involved in this masterpiece and the era which produced it. The story development comes through in an overabundance of phrases like "One can imagine that she was among the guests at the grand ball." and "He might have felt..." Loaded with storytelling license that sometimes goes too far, it's still good to know the background of one of America's greatest portraitists and the woman whose reputation he ruined with his most famous work. Go to Amazon

Interesting portrait of the artist and the woman behind his most famous painting Viewing the amazing watercolors by John S. Sargent gave me the nudge I needed to read this autobiography of both the artist, John Singer Sargent, and the person captured in the famous Madame X portrait. Virginie Amelie Gautreau was an American expatriate living in Paris at the time Jon Sargent was gaining prominence as a portraitist, having had successive impressive showings at the annual Salon in Paris. Amelie Gautreau was the 'It' girl of Parisian society in the late 1800s and lived for ostentation, non-stop parties and lavish spending. She was known for her alabaster skin and her beauty. The paparazzi of the time followed her every move and reported on them accordingly. She had famously declined invitations from many a painter to sit for them, but she agreed to sit for Sargent. It was a difficult sitting and Sargent faced more challenges with this portrait than he had with others. He actually painted a second portrait of Amelie Gautreau which he thought was better than the original, but didn't finish it, having been persuaded that he should show the original in the Salon, and that it was one of his masterpieces. The original Madame X was not received well at all at the exhibition. Viewers were scathing with their reviews, attacking Sargent for the cadaver-like hue to her skin and that with one strap of her dress hanging off her shoulder, that the painting was pornographic. Ironical considering the nudes also exhibited that year were highly praised. The negative reaction to the painting affected Amelie Gautreau as well. She became reclusive for a spell and then she commissioned more portraits of herself, seeking to undue the damage she perceived she suffered from the Madame X portrait. Alas, none of the subsequent portraits were pleasing, nor did they propel her back up to the pedestal she had fallen from. Amelie was aging and she did not want to accept that. Go to Amazon

it goes much more into her love life and the many lovers she had and tells ... I read this book after reading I am Madame X by Gioia Diliberto which is an historical novel. Go to Amazon

How much have times changed? Five Stars Can never read enough on John Singer Sargeant. An amazing chronology of the impact of art. Five Stars Attention sustainer Interesting read about a famous painting. Not only do ... Five Stars Kardashians are nothing new - this is an earlier version and no less tawdry! I liked it a lot as it tells much of the ...

[stevepotterwrites]

A GLORIOUS THOUGHT EXCURSION: On John Olson’s Novel In Advance of the Broken Justy

https://bookshop.org/a/8227/9781935835172

John Olson's thoughtful and often humorous new novel, In Advance of the Broken Justy, opens with a somewhat Kafkaesque quest to find medical attention for the narrator's wife's infected eye late at night in Paris during a doctor's strike and ends on January 8th, 2015 with news of the previous day's terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices playing on the television in their hotel room as they prepare to leave for home.

In the pages between the personal crisis and the international one, we are introduced to the oddball mix of neighbors in the narrator's thin-walled building who are driving him and his wife, Ronnie, crazy with noise from construction projects, stomping feet, and rather explicitly audible sounds of digestive functions from a neighboring bathroom. Noisy neighbors are enough to drive any introverted, bookish homebody nuts, but our unnamed protagonist tells us, during a seemingly obsessive and often hilariously aggrieved section of narration reminiscent of Thomas Bernhard, that he additionally suffers from hyperacusia — a heightened sensitivity to noise, and tinnitus — ringing in the ears, as well as Generalized Anxiety Disorder for which he has been prescribed a variety of antidepressants through the years.

It's not only their immediate living situation that is cause for aggravation, the couple are also dealing more generally with a growing dissatisfaction with life in rapidly-changing Seattle. Olson writes that his dislike of Seattle, “evolved over a period of time, like an allergy that starts out with a minor rash and then grows into strange secretions and the constant application of topical ointments.” As their disaffection with Seattle grows, so does their love of Paris. “...we each felt an attachment that had become deeply emotional, like a drug. We had become addicted to this city. It inhabited us, as Ronnie put it.”

The love of Paris among certain artistically-inclined Americans has a longstanding literary and cinematic history, of course. Mr. Olson's novel continues a lineage tracing back at least as far as Ernest Hemingway's A Movable Feast and F. Scott Fitzgerald's “Babylon Revisited” through Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road to Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. Unlike Gil Pender, the protagonist of Mr. Allen's film, who is mostly enthralled with fantasies of Cole Porter, Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein and other American ex-pats in Paris during the Jazz Age, Olson's two protagonists are most interested in actual French poets, writers and artists such as; Rimbaud, Georges Perec, Michel Tournier, Gaston Bachelard, Raymond Queneau and Pierre Michon. And while their yearning for Paris is similar to that of the couple at the center of Revolutionary Road, it is a rather more grown-up and grounded love of the City of Lights. Olson's protagonists are a pair of older, working-class poets not young, upper-middle-class, suburban dilettantes like Yates's Frank and April Wheeler.

In addition to their dissatisfaction with home and city, the couple are also dealing with the loss of their beloved car, the broken Subaru Justy of the novel's title. After attempting to adapt to a car-less life, including several comic misadventures with public transit and Car2Go, the narrator takes some money out of savings to buy another used Subaru but somewhat spontaneously decides he'd rather take a trip to Paris than own a car again. Ronnie agrees. Plans are made, tickets are purchased, and their ongoing study of French is kicked into a higher gear. Away they go.

The narrator alludes to dark and outrageous moments in his past, back when he was still drinking and taking drugs. “At the age of eighteen, I left my father's house and struck out for California, following the scent of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. I was into Dylan and the Rolling Stones. I liked the Beatles, but they remained a bit too wholesome for my rebel-without-a-cause setup. And after reading Aldous Huxley's seminal essay, The Doors of Perception, I had a raging desire to experiment with psychedelic drugs.”

He tells briefly of getting beaten up at a New Years Eve party in Burien, attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and three failed marriages. One suspects Olson could write some fine fiction of wild times, drunkenness, heartache and despair in a Kerouacian or Carveresque vein if he felt the urge to mine his past, but part of what I love about this novel is that it doesn't do that. The image of the artist as a young wild man is a popular one and there have certainly been more than enough misbehaving poets, musicians, painters, novelists and so forth to give that cliché some weight, but what makes an artist an artist is serious, longstanding dedication to one's art. It's refreshing to read a novel that dispenses with the youthful misbehavior in a few short sentences and instead depicts the couple at its center as actual grown-up artists.

In Advance of the Broken Justy is not a novel which glorifies the wild kicks of youth or wallows in the despair of drunkenness and divorce, but rather one which celebrates more mature, quiet kicks like the contemplation of works of art in the Musée d'Orsay, the Louvre, and the Georges Pompidou Centre. It is a celebration of bookstores not barrooms. The narrator and Ronnie go on a sort of literary safari, with guidance provided by a list of the best bookstores in Paris received via email from the French poet Claude Royet-Journoud, and enjoy a cafe visit with the poet and translator Michel Deguy.

“One of the main reasons I wanted to go to Paris was so I could stand in a real bookstore once again before I die,” Olson writes. “The bookstores in the United States have deteriorated into something little better than a gift shop, or those book and magazine shops you sometimes see at the airport. Trashy titles. Nothing of any real interest.” He's not grown so jaded that he's lost all perspective, however, and can still see quality on those rare occasions it may be found. He goes on later in that passage to praise Elliott Bay Books and Open Books and elsewhere declares Magus Books in the University District to be one of the best, if not the best, used bookstores he's ever been to.

While at certain points it's clear that the author's imagination is at play, much of In Advance of the Broken Justy reads close to straight autobiography. That, of course, does not necessarily mean that it is, but the pleasures of reading the novel, for me, were often more akin to those of nonfiction. David Shields, among others, would argue that the distinction between fiction and nonfiction is meaningless. Whiile there is some validity to that stance in that in either case the author is working with a blend of memory and imagination, I think it is a bit of an overstatement. Phillip Lopate writes in a section of To Show and To Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction in which he compares and contrasts the tendencies of nonfiction versus those of fiction that, “What makes me want to keep reading a nonfiction text is the encounter with a surprising, well-stocked mind as it takes on the challenge of the next sentence, paragraph, and thematic problem it has set for itself.... None of these examples read like short stories or screenplays; they read like what they are: glorious thought excursions.”

It is Olson's surprising, well-stocked mind which is of the greatest interest here, the consciousness which regards what happens more so than the particulars of what happens, that takes interesting digressions into considerations of the work of Bob Dylan, Marcel Duchamp, Georges Braque, and organic chemist August Kekulé among others. Of the other books I've read recently, it is Patti Smith's second memoir, M Train, I find it most similar to in both tone and content. Smith, the poet-rocker legend, and Olson, the poet's poet who can count luminaries such as Michael McClure, Clayton Eshleman and the late, great Philip Lamantia among his fans, are exact contemporaries, Ms. Smith being the elder by only a matter of months. Their influences overlap to a considerable degree. Both books weave together narratives of domesticity and travel. Both books present the day-to-day lives of practicing artists and consider the lives of their artistic influences. Both books recount journeys to literary sacred ground in search of a sort of spiritual contact high with forebears and idols.

Mr. Lopate's phrase, “glorious thought excursions,” seems like the perfect description of much of Olson's output. Fans of his prose poetry will find moments replete with the reeling riffs of surrealistic, hallucinatory lyricism familiar from his books such as Oxbow Kazoo, Echo Regime, Logo Lagoon and Eggs & Mirrors in the pages of In Advance of the Broken Justy. Preparations for the sale of their 500 square foot condo and a move away from their infuriatingly noisy building (preparations for naught, as it turns out, for neither sale nor move ever transpire within the pages of the novel) instigates a stream of thoughts on the nature of reality leading eventually to the following passage:  

“When consciousness meets reality the result is milk. Traffic lights blossom into prayer wheels. Laundry folds itself into armies of tide pool angst and marches around like generalities of floral chambray. Rain falls up instead of down. The acceptance of frogs liberates bubbles of pulp. Time sags with basement ping pong tournaments. Garrets ovulate glass bagatelles. Realism percolates prizefight sweat. Details sparkle like crawling kingsnakes in the mouth of a Mississippi attorney.”

In Advance of the Broken Justy is a thoughtful, grown-up novel for the sort of thoughtful, grown-up readers who seek out real bookstores and is not likely to have much appeal to fans of those trashy, escapist titles found in the sad, little book and magazine shops in airports Olson derides.  

Review by Steve Potter. Previously appeared in A Screw in the Shoe from Golden Handcuffs Review Publications. 

[mikemortgage]

AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s murky claims on weather, shutdown

WASHINGTON — There’s nothing like a cold snap to bring out the global-warming skepticism of President Donald Trump.

The fact that periods of extreme cold happen in a warming climate is well known by his government but Trump’s crack Sunday — “Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!” — suggests that hasn’t sunk in for the president.

Over the past week and through the weekend, Trump and his team misstated the reality on myriad issues, many connected with the partial government shutdown, Trump’s proposed wall and the Russia investigation. Here’s a look:

RUSSIA

TRUMP: “Remember it was Buzzfeed that released the totally discredited ‘Dossier,’ paid for by Crooked Hillary Clinton and the Democrats (as opposition research), on which the entire Russian probe is based!” — tweet Friday.

THE FACTS: Trump’s claim that special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe is based on a “discredited dossier” is false. The FBI’s investigation actually began months before it received a dossier of anti-Trump research financed by the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The FBI probe’s origins were based on other evidence — not the existence of the dossier, which has not been discredited.

Last year, the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee found the Russia probe was initiated after the FBI received information related to Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, not the dossier. The committee’s final report was praised by Trump.

——

CLIMATE CHANGE

TRUMP: “Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold. Amazing how big this system is. Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!” — tweet Sunday.

THE FACTS: Trump is suggesting, as he has done before, that global warming can’t exist if it’s cold outside. But he is conflating weather and climate. Weather is like mood, which changes daily. Climate is like personality, which is long term.

The climate is warming, which still allows for intense cold spells.

While much of the United States was frigid Sunday, that is still less than 2 per cent of the world. Earth on Sunday was about 0.9 degrees (0.5 Celsius) warmer than from 1979-2000, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer.

The White House in November produced the National Climate Assessment by scientists from 13 Trump administration agencies and outside scientists. It amounted to a slap in the face for those who question whether climate is changing.

“Climate change is transforming where and how we live and presents growing challenges to human health and quality of life, the economy, and the natural systems that support us,” the report says.

The White House report swept aside the idea, already discredited, that a particular plunge in temperatures can cast uncertainty on whether Earth is warming. It says more than 90 per cent of current warming is caused by humans: “There are no credible alternative human or natural explanations supported by the observational evidence.”

——

THE SHUTDOWN

TRUMP: “As a candidate for President, I promised I would fix this crisis, and I intend to keep that promise one way or the other. …To physically secure our border, the plan includes $5.7 billion for a strategic deployment of physical barriers, or a wall. This is not a 2,000-mile concrete structure from sea to sea. These are steel barriers in high-priority locations.” — remarks Saturday.

THE FACTS: His campaign promise to build a concrete border wall continues to evolve.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump pledged to build a “big, beautiful wall” made of concrete, rebar and steel across the length of the southern border with Mexico. Back then, he lashed out at the suggestion that what he was proposing had anything in common with mere fencing.

“Jeb Bush just talked about my border proposal to build a ‘fence,’ he tweeted in 2015. “It’s not a fence, Jeb, it’s a WALL, and there’s a BIG difference!”

And as recently as Dec. 31, he tweeted, “An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED.”

He now commonly refers to the wall as “steel slats” and “steel barriers.”

——

TRUMP: “If we build a powerful and fully designed see-through steel barrier on our southern border, the crime rate and drug problem in our country would be quickly and greatly reduced. Some say it could be cut in half.” — remarks from White House on Saturday.

TRUMP, on the virtues of a wall: “We can stop heroin.” — White House remarks Saturday.

THE FACTS: His comments fly in the face of findings by his government about how drugs get into the county. Drugs from Mexico are primarily smuggled into the U.S. at official border crossings, not remote lands that can be walled off. His proposal Saturday to end the government shutdown implicitly recognizes that reality by proposing money to improve drug-detection technology specifically at land ports of entry.

Even so, Trump pitched a wall as a solution to drugs and crime.

The Drug Enforcement Administration says “only a small percentage” of heroin seized by U.S. authorities comes across on territory between ports of entry. It says the same is true of drugs overall.

Even if a wall could stop all drugs from Mexico, America’s drug problem would be far from over. For example, the government says about 40 per cent of opioid deaths in 2016 involved prescription painkillers, made by pharmaceutical companies. Some feed the addiction of people who have prescriptions; others are stolen and sold on the black market. Moreover, illicit versions of powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have come to the U.S. from China.

On crime, many researchers have found that people in the U.S. illegally are less likely to commit violence than U.S. citizens.

——

TRUMP: “Nancy Pelosi’s in Hawaii over the holidays, now she’s in Puerto Rico with a bunch of Democrats and lobbyists, you know, enjoying the sun and partying down there.” — Fox News interview on Jan. 12.

TRUMP: “I’d rather see the Democrats come back from their vacation and act. … I’m in the White House, and most of them are in different locations. They’re watching a certain musical in a very nice location.” — Fox News interview.

TRUMP: “A lot of the Democrats were in Puerto Rico celebrating something. I don’t know, maybe they’re celebrating the shutdown.” — comments Jan. 14.

THE FACTS: Far from “enjoying the sun” in Puerto Rico, Pelosi stayed in Washington, which got a big snowfall. She spent that weekend working at the Capitol, said Drew Hammill, her deputy chief of staff.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer did not go to Puerto Rico, either. The senator from New York spent that weekend in New York, said spokesman Justin Goodman.

Most Democratic lawmakers were somewhere other than Puerto Rico. Most who went are members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. They attended the annual winter retreat of the caucus’s political and fundraising arm.

Some attended “Hamilton” as the musical opened a two-week run in Puerto Rico expected to raise millions of dollars for artists and cultural groups struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Referring to Democrats at the fundraising performance in his Fox News interview, Trump called it “frankly, ridiculous.”

During the trip, lawmakers indeed met political contributors but also made several visits to local and federal institutions, said Marieli Padro, spokeswoman for Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez. Last Saturday, a small group visited the veterans’ hospital to learn about its needs post-hurricane, while another group met U.S. Coast Guard officials.

Trump is correct that Pelosi visited Hawaii over the Christmas holiday.

——

TRUMP: “We need strong barriers and walls. Nothing else is going to work.” — remarks Thursday at the Pentagon.

TRUMP: “You can have all the people you want dressed in military. You can have ICE. You can have Border Patrol. If you don’t have that barrier, there’s not a thing you can do. You know, they all say, ‘We like technology.’ I like technology, too. But we can have all the drones in the world flying around; we can have all the sensors in the world, but if you don’t have a strong steel or concrete barrier, there’s no way you’re going to stop these people from rushing.” — remarks Jan. 14 in New Orleans.

THE FACTS: The evidence is inconclusive on the effectiveness of border walls or other barriers.

The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ auditing arm, reported in 2017 that the government does not have a way to measure how well barriers work to deter illegal immigration from Mexico. Despite $2.3 billion spent by the government on such construction from 2007 to 2015, GAO found that authorities “cannot measure the contribution of fencing to border security operations along the southwest border because it has not developed metrics for this assessment.”

Few people dispute that fences contributed to a sharp drop in crossings in cities such as San Diego and El Paso, Texas. Before fences were built in San Diego, crossers played soccer on U.S. soil as vendors hawked tamales, waiting until night fell to overwhelm agents. But those barriers also pushed people into more remote and less-patrolled areas such as in Arizona, where thousands of migrants have perished in extreme heat.

When barriers were built in the Border Patrol’s Yuma, Arizona, sector in the mid-2000s, arrests for illegal crossings plummeted 94 per cent in three years to 8,363 from 138,438. When barriers were built in San Diego in the 1990s and early 2000s, arrests fell 80 per cent over seven years from 524,231 in 1995 to 100,681 in 2002. But both areas also saw sharp increases in Border Patrol staffing during that time, making it difficult to pinpoint why illegal crossings fell so dramatically.

——

KEVIN HASSETT, Trump economic adviser: “You know as soon as it’s resolved, then people get their paychecks and the government will go back to acting normal and the economy will go back to the 3 per cent growth that President Trump’s policies have delivered.” — interview Tuesday with Fox Business Network.

THE FACTS: It’s true the economy probably will get a boost once the shutdown ends, but few independent economists think that boost will be sustained. The economy is facing other headwinds that make it unlikely growth will return to 2018’s pace. Before the shutdown, most independent economists already were forecasting that growth would slow this year as the impact of President Trump’s tax credit fades and trade tensions and slowing global growth take a toll.

Even if the government shutdown ends up being a wash in economic terms, with strong growth in the second quarter offsetting weakness in the first, the economy is likely to be weaker this year than last. Scott Anderson, an economist at Bank of the West, expects last year’s stock market drop will cause many wealthier households to pull back on spending, a drag on growth this year.

He’s not alone. A group of 15 economists at major U.S. banks earlier this month projected that growth would slow to just a 2.1 per cent pace in 2019, down from roughly 3 per cent in 2018.

The economy’s current health is difficult to gauge because the partial shutdown means many economic statistics aren’t being released. Recent signs are mixed: The job market is strong, with few layoffs in sight, and manufacturing output rose in December. But higher interest rates have also caused home prices and sales to fall.

——

SYRIA

VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: “The caliphate has crumbled, and ISIS has been defeated.” — remarks Wednesday at State Department.

THE FACTS: Pence’s remark followed the deadly suicide bombing claimed by IS, which demonstrated the extremist group, however weakened, has not been vanquished. The bombing underscored Pentagon assertions that IS still poses a threat and is capable of deadly attacks.

The attack killed at least 16 people in Syria, including two U.S. service members and two American civilians. It was the deadliest assault on U.S. troops in Syria since American forces went into the country in 2015.

A tweet Wednesday morning by Pence��s press secretary, Alyssa Farah, indicated the vice-president had been briefed on the attacks before he delivered his remarks claiming the defeat of IS. Pence later released a statement acknowledging the fatalities and IS “remnants” but reaffirming Trump’s plan to withdraw troops.

“We will never allow the remnants of ISIS to re-establish their evil and murderous caliphate,” he said.

Trump, in a Dec. 19 tweet, announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. He said: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.” He said the troops would begin coming home “now.” That plan triggered immediate pushback from military leaders and the resignation of Defence Secretary Jim Mattis.

Over the past month, however, Trump and others have appeared to adjust the timeline, and U.S. officials have suggested it will probably take several months to withdraw American forces from Syria safely.

——

VETERANS

TRUMP: “Just announced that Veterans unemployment has reached an 18 year low, really good news for our Vets and their families. Will soon be an all time low! Do you think the media will report on this and all of the other great economic news? — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Trump is wrong in terms of up-to-date monthly data, right when measuring veterans’ unemployment over a longer term.

It is true that the average veterans’ unemployment rate for 2018 was 3.5 per cent, the lowest annual figure since 2000, when it was 2.9 per cent.

On a monthly basis, the rate is more volatile. The lowest vets’ unemployment rate under Trump was 2.7 per cent in October 2017, and it has risen a bit since then to 3.2 per cent in December, the latest data available. In the 18 years that the government has tracked veterans’ unemployment data, the lowest monthly rate was 2.3 per cent in May 2000.

Veterans’ unemployment has fallen mostly for the same reasons that joblessness has dropped generally: strong hiring and steady economic growth for the past eight years.

——

TRUMP: “We got Veterans Choice. We got Veterans Choice approved, which is pretty amazing. They’ve been trying to get that for years and years — decades and decades.” — remarks Jan. 14 in New Orleans.

THE FACTS: No, he is not the first president in “decades and decades” to get Congress to pass a private-sector health program for veterans. Congress first approved the Veterans Choice program in 2014 during the Obama administration.

The program was approved after some veterans died while waiting months for appointments at the Phoenix VA medical centre. It allows veterans to see doctors outside the VA system if they must wait more than 30 days for an appointment or drive more than 40 miles to a VA facility.

Trump did sign legislation in June to expand the Choice program, part of his campaign promise to give veterans greater access to private care at government expense. The exact scope of that new program will be subject to yet-to-be-completed rules that will determine veterans’ eligibility as well as federal funding. The VA has yet to resolve long-term financing due to congressional budget caps that could put money for VA or other domestic programs at risk later this year.

——

Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, Christopher Rugaber, Seth Borenstein and Jill Colvin in Washington and Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report.

——

Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

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EDITOR’S NOTE — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures

from Financial Post http://bit.ly/2U2WBkv via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[kellydiels]

Thinking Across Cialdini’s Influence and Jeff Walker’s Launch to See How Online Marketing Formulas Using “Social Triggers” and “Mental Triggers” Can Perpetuate Rape Culture

Dr. Robert Cialdini writes about reciprocity in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. He calls it one of the six persuasion principles.

Here’s reciprocity, in a nutshell: 

You share, I share. You offer, I reciprocate. Fairness for all!

As Cialdini sketches it out, reciprocity doesn’t operate at the conscious level. Instead, it’s a deep, subconscious drive. As I understand it, it’s our human communal instinct. It unconsciously tips us towards towards keeping relationship harmonious and power dynamics mutual and equitable.

So when someone gives you an unasked for gift, you instinctually want to reciprocate in some way. Reciprocity is ingrained so deeply into us that it's often automatic.

I'm talking about it like it's a concept, but it's a practice, and it's not something you have to conscious choose to do or rehearse.

So to me, reciprocity is fundamentally about justice. It’s one of our justice instincts.

And the thing about reciprocity is that it’s a sequence and it's automatic. Reflexive. If someone offers us a gift, we feel compelled to accept it and compelled to reciprocate.

Compelled.

If we either refuse the gift or fail to reciprocate, we feel deeply uncomfortable.

The reason? We've violated a social contract. Our human social programming insists -- on a subterranean, psychological level deep within us -- that we participate in this sequence once it's activated.

That's why sometimes, instinctively, we want to refuse certain offerings or gifts.

Because we don't want to be drawn into this particular dynamic with this particular person. Still, the instinct and compulsion towards reciprocity is so ingrained and so fundamentally human, that even when our other other instincts are insisting we don't engage with a particular person, we hesitate to say no.

We hesitate to opt out of reciprocity because it's viscerally uncomfortable.

Even if we don't want the gift, we'll accept it to avoid the visceral discomfort that comes with violating our social programming.

I'm saying social programming like it's nefarious, but again: reciprocity is about justice.

It's a lever we've developed as communal animals to keep things fair and harmonious.

That's why it feels so bad - awful - to deviate from it.

Some People Know That and Seek to Systematically Exploit It

Some people -- like pretty much any entrepreneur or online marketer enthusing about 'mental triggers' or 'social triggers' -- talk about reciprocity like it's an engine or mental programming: once it's activated, the fairness dominoes automatically fall into sequence. The task for these folks, then, is to figure out how to initiate that sequence so that your instinct towards reciprocity results in them extracting what they want out of you.

That’s why a whole segment of online marketers are staunch champions of sales funnels that they call “social triggers”.

 (Cialdini maps these out as persuasion principles; Jeff Walker, in Launch, his influential book about online marketing, appears to adapt/pervert Cialdini’s work and calls them “mental triggers”; there’s now a large and more diffuse body of work about online marketing that calls them “social triggers”.)

The people Cialdini calls "compliance professionals" strive to activate these persuasion sequences - our human, social programming towards cooperation, justice and harmony - in us in order to get us to comply with their interests and agenda.

Compliance professionals are marketers, sales people, politicians, pick up artists, activists, parents, me.

Anyone with an interest in changing people's minds or getting people to say yes and comply is a compliance professional. We are all compliance professionals. But some of us are predators and use persuasion to feed our pleasure and profits at the expense of other people and the social good. When it comes to reciprocity, a justice lever, some of us deliberately activate the need to reciprocate in order to disproportionately advantage ourselves over other people.

We are being taught, by champions of “social triggers”, to use the human instinct and social programming towards justice  to construct an asymmetrical and unjust transaction.

And this gross abuse of our social justice programming is ubiquitous, online.

Jeff Walker, the author of Launch and a "online marketing guru", for example, appears to take the six principles of persuasion mapped out by Cialdini and embed them in his launch sequence - and, arguably, his model is the foundation of most online marketing including the business models of many (most?) significant Female Lifestyle Empowerment Brands.

Walker argues that reciprocity is a powerful "mental trigger" and therefore if you want to be successful as online entrepreneur, you need to activate it in your marketing.

Here's how you do it: offer lots of free content, instruction and gifts, including a bribe to sign up to your email list, and people will eventually feel obliged to reciprocate by buying your product.

If you Google big name marketing gurus + Cialdini, you will find lots and lots of people praising his insights about persuasion and bragging about how they successfully apply these social triggers in their marketing.

However.

Cialdini says that he wrote his book in order to counter exploitative marketing.

He wanted us to read the book and realize how marketers and sales people were triggering these sequences in us - and, when it was dishonest or disadvantaging us, push back. Argue. Write letters protesting certain techniques and campaigns. Boycott. Unsubscribe.

Cialdini says he is a proponent of ethical marketing.

In my understanding of his work, he wants us to be conscious of how people try to manipulate us to serve their ends without respect for our well-being or the social good.

He worked as a consultant for a chain of hotels, for example, who wanted to reduce costs and environmental impact by asking guests to reuse their towels. They experimented with different methods. The rule of reciprocity suggests that in order to get guests to do a favour like this, the hotel needed to offer a gift first. To accomplish this first-offer that triggers the reciprocity sequence, the hotel made a donation to an environmental organization and then put a card in each room saying, roughly, we're committed to reducing our environmental footprint by using less water, electricity and detergent. As a testament to our commitment, we made a donation to an environmental org and could you do us a favour? Please reuse your towels as it helps us saves money and recoup the cost of that donation. Plus it's good for our world!

Guests started reusing their towels at a significantly higher rate. The hotel made the first offer: the donation. The guests reciprocated with a gift of their own: they reused their towels.

No doubt the hotel saved more money than they donated.

But, arguably, the guests were not disadvantaged by this low-risk transaction anda social good - environmental preservation - was served.

The reciprocity sequence, which is meant to regulate social interactions and tilt them towards justice and the social good, was consistent and achieved its intent.

Reciprocity can be used in daily interactions and marketing to achieve positive ends. Persuasion is not inherently evil.

But when people are crowing about using reciprocity to trigger unconscious obligations that primarily and disproportionately serve their interests without due consideration for the other party and which is inconsistent with the impact and social good - justice! - then that is a sign they are exploiters and predators and they need to be countered.

Which is what Cialdini preaches: Resist. Boycott.

When someone offers you a gift to initiate a sales sequence, it is essential that resist your own compunction to reciprocate and carefully assess whether the outcome serves both of you.

As Cialdini explains, when a compliance profession is attempting to oblige you into a transaction that is inequitable, it is essential that you reframe the "gift".

REFRAME: This is not a gift, it is sales collateral.

It's no different than a brochure or a business card.

If you accept it, you are not obliged to counter with a favour of your own because it is not a favour, it is a trigger. Exploitative compliance professionals are trying to force you to receive. They know that once you receive a gift you will be triggered - compelled, viscerally, by your deep social programming and tendency towards justice - to offer your own gift in return.

This is what sexual predators and romantic con-men do, too.

They love-bomb. They offer so much time, attention, affection and gifts that their prey - women and girls - eventually feel obliged to reciprocate and give the exploiter what he has been grooming them to provide. Obliged isn't quite the right word. It's deeper and more visceral than obligation. Exploitative compliance professionals in marketing, sales and politics try to force you to receive so you are compelled to reciprocate in a way that disproportionately serves them.

Sexual predators, romantic con-men and pick-up artists try to force girls and women to receive so we are compelled to reciprocate. Force you to receive. This is what we need to scan for and counter.

Once you receive, you are in a sequence in which you will feel compelled to reciprocate.

Now let me bring this home to coaches and thinkers working in the realm of divine femininity or in feminine leadership or for whom femininity is one of their personal touchstones.

Where I'm going with this might be very, very hard to hear.

It may go to the center of your work and beliefs.

When it comes to constructing women as innately receptive, and coaching women to be more receptive, this very teaching and its impact may not advance the cause of feminism, justice or women's empowerment.

It may actually undermine it.

Because the voice of culture often works through us without our consent.

Please, stay with me as I connect the dots.

On The Dangers of Preaching Receptivity to Women When We Live in A Predatory, Misogynist Culture

When some people talk about the essential or divine nature of women, they often say one of the characteristics of femininity is being receptive.

In the broadest caricature of this way of thinking about of masculinity and femininity, men do and women receive. In other words, heterosexual men trigger the reciprocity sequence in heterosexual women. Men offer a gift so that women will reciprocate. In this broad interpretation of femininity, to be a woman is to be receptive. (This is why there's so much work being done to coach women into being open to receiving, to being receptive.)

To receive means being obliged - compelled by reciprocity AKA our deep social programming towards justice - to reciprocate. And this equivalence - femininity means being receptive - means that when men offer women a gift, women are obliged to reciprocate whether they wanted that gift or not. Consent and desire are irrelevant. Entitlement and automatic obligation govern this sequence. This is rape culture. If we construct one gender as innate receivers who are then obliged to reciprocate once the reciprocity sequence has been initiated, then men are entitled to extract offerings from women. They initiate. We receive and reciprocate whether we want to or not. Smile! Looking goooooood, girl. Do you have a boyfriend? Why are you being so rude, I'm trying to give you a compliment. But I bought you dinner.

I believe it's essential for the safety and dignity of girls and women that we interrupt the association of being receptive with femininity and femininity with women.

When we counsel women and girls to be receptive, when we tell them that's who they uniquely are, their role in our culture and their source of feminine power, then we train them to comply with reciprocity sequences designed to harm them. Let's return for a moment to the principle of reciprocity. Do Cialdini and Walker et al say that reciprocity only works on women, because women are innately receptive? No. They say it works on everyone and given the success of online marketers, this seems to be true. All humans are receptive.

Receptive is not the same thing as feminine and feminine is not the same thing as women.

 I see something in my daily work with femmes and women entrepreneurs that I do think we need to unpack, and I suspect that's the work of many of the helpers and healers reading this -- including many coaches doing teaching women to ‘receive’.

I see it in myself when I have trouble asking to be adequately compensated for my services.

I see it in many -- if not most -- of the entrepreneurs I work with.

We under-earn because we have been conditioned to be uncomfortable negotiating -- and, thanks to a culture that consistently and constantly devalues us, perhaps fundamentally uncertain about the value we're contributing.

Not because we have individually defective mindsets but because that's the system we were born into and collectively socialized to perform.

In an economic system that needs us to work for less than our value (and ideally, free)  in order to create comfort and profits for others, we are trained to be uncompensated or under-compensated labourers in families and organizations.

So yes, we do need to interrupt that mindset and self-advocate for compensation of all kinds -- attention, care, respect, love, safety, money.

If this is the impact we're trying to create, perhaps we should reframe the women’s empowerment conversation & coaching away from 'receptivity' and 'being able to receive' towards one that emphasizes self-advocating, negotiation and compensation.

(I'm talking to myself too: I often use the language of 'being able to receive' when I urging people to promote their work and services.

But it's a short-cut that's not only NOT helping, it might be doing harm.

When I do this, I'm using language and frame we're already familiar with rather than doing the work to truly unpack it and paradigm-shift it, together.)

Conditioning women to be more receptive in a dangerous culture that exploits that instinct and teaching women entrepreneurs to use and abuse the reciprocity trigger in their sales funnels fundamentally supports rape culture.

Girls and women in our culture are already marked as prey and so many of us - too many of us - have experienced gender-based violence and violation that often starts with a deliberate, malicious triggering of reciprocity.

Coaching girls and women to be more receptive puts more of us at risk. Being the target of exploitative transactions triggered by an abuse of reciprocity is unpleasant and dehumanizing for anyone but is especially familiar to and awful for trauma survivors. Maybe that's why I viscerally recoil when I see online marketers exhorting people to evoke reciprocity and shower people with free gifts in order to extract sales.

If there is no fairness and conscious choice and social good achieved by the transaction then it feels like grooming to me.

It’s also why I feel that women’s empowerment entrepreneurs who use Walker’s launch marketing and partner with him to promote his products may ultimately working against the cause of women’s liberation rather than for it. And that's why, like Cialdini, I want us to understand how those levers and sequences are being deliberately triggered in us and have the skills to recognized and resist them when they are exploitative.

I also want entrepreneurs, especially those who sell to women and marginalized peoples, to be very conscious and careful about how they use reciprocity in their marketing and sales - especially when they are high-risk transactions.

As Dr. Michelle Mazur, who taught persuasion at the university level, explained to me:

The six principles [of persuasion] do have a benefit to us. They help us make decisions quickly in low risk situations. Imagine if you had to go to the grocery store and thoughtfully choose which brand of coffee buy. It would suck the life out of you and you'd be mentally exhausted after each trip to the grocery store. The real issue is that people are using these principles in HIGH risk situations (big investments). [emphasis mine; from an email correspondence]

IF you're initiating a sequence that is low-risk, serves everybody in the transaction and the social good of harmony and fairness, then you're in integrity with the principle of reciprocity which is fundamentally about justice.

This is how reciprocity is supposed to function and there is no shame in that game. IF you're triggering a reciprocity sequence to automatically oblige someone into buying a high-risk, high-priced product that may or may not and in most cases will not work for them but will DEFINITELY work for you or you're telling a woman to smile so she'll start to obey and serve you, well then, the outcome is exploitation.

Even if we say we're doing it in the name of women's empowerment. When we coach vulnerable populations to be more receptive and open to receiving in a world that is fundamentally hostile to their safety, we (inadvertently) put them at risk. Even when what we're coaches trying to do positive things like increase the amount of wealth and love in their life.

When we use reciprocity in high-risk transactions to disadvantage people, especially marginalized peoples, we are undermining rather creating the conditions of collective empowerment.

When we use reciprocity to disadvantage the people acting in good faith with us and whom we claim to serve, we are contributing to the degradation of justice in our culture. And I am not buying that from anyone.