#Claire Macintosh | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

coupdepoucefinancier · 5 months ago

Text

Comment acheter des actions AAPL: investir dans Apple

Investir dans Apple, c'est miser sur une entreprise porté par la vision d'un homme hors norme. Figurant parmi les entreprises les plus rentables du monde, Apple est tout simplement incontournable dans le monde de l'investissement. C'est parti pour explorer ensemble l'histoire de cette entreprise, suivi de l'analyse de son action et de sa performance globale.

Date de création de l’entreprise et l'entrée dans la cour des grands

Apple a été fondée le 1er avril 1976 par Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak et Ronald Wayne. Dès le début, l'objectif était clair : créer des ordinateurs personnels accessibles à tous. Le premier produit, l'Apple I, a été conçu dans le garage des parents de Steve Jobs. L'entrée d'Apple dans la cour des grands s'est vraiment concrétisée en 1984 avec le lancement du Macintosh. Ce fut le premier ordinateur personnel à succès à utiliser une interface graphique et une souris. Cette innovation a non seulement distingué Apple de ses concurrents, mais a également posé les bases de l'interface utilisateur moderne. Dans les années 2000, sous la direction de Steve Jobs, Apple a lancé une série de produits révolutionnaires. L'iPod en 2001, l'iPhone en 2007 et l'iPad en 2010 ont tous transformé leurs industries respectives. Ces lancements ont permis à Apple de devenir l'une des entreprises les plus précieuses au monde. Aujourd'hui, Apple ne se contente pas de produire des appareils technologiques. L'entreprise s'implique également dans les services, avec des offres comme Apple Music, Apple TV+ et Apple Pay. Cette diversification montre la capacité d'Apple à évoluer et à s'adapter aux changements du marché. Apple, c'est avant tout une histoire de vision, d'innovation et de persévérance. L'entreprise a traversé des hauts et des bas, mais elle a toujours su rebondir. Je vous encourage au passage à lire le livre de Walter Isaacson sur la vie de Steve Jobs. C'est une des meilleurs biographies qu'il m'a été donné de lire. C'est un livre qui m'a ouvert les yeux sur beaucoup de choses, notamment sur l'importance de la création. Bref, je vous recommande chaudement cet incroyable livre. Je vous mets un lien d'affiliation ici si ça vous intéresse.

Son fondateur et sa vision

Steve Jobs est indissociable de l'histoire et de la vision d'Apple. De son vivant, il était le coeur de l'entreprise. Sa capacité à voir au-delà des tendances actuelles et à anticiper les besoins futurs des consommateurs a été un facteur clé de la réussite de l'entreprise. Jobs ne se contentait pas de suivre les tendances: il les créait. Sa vision était de créer des produits simples, élégants et intuitifs. Il croyait fermement que la technologie devait être accessible à tous et qu'elle devait enrichir la vie des gens. Cette philosophie a guidé la conception de tous les produits Apple. Après la mort de Jobs en 2011, Tim Cook a pris la relève en tant que PDG. Sous sa direction, Apple a continué à innover et à se diversifier. La stratégie de Cook a été de renforcer l'écosystème Apple. Il a développé des services complémentaires aux produits matériels, créant ainsi une fidélité accrue parmi les utilisateurs d'Apple. Apple mise également sur la durabilité et l'éthique. L'entreprise s'efforce de réduire son empreinte carbone et d'utiliser des matériaux recyclés dans ses produits. Cette démarche répond à une demande croissante des consommateurs pour des produits plus respectueux de l'environnement. En termes de stratégie d'investissement, Apple présente plusieurs atouts. La solidité financière de l'entreprise, sa capacité à générer des revenus récurrents grâce aux services et sa position dominante sur le marché sont autant de raisons qui font d'Apple une valeur sûre. De plus, l'entreprise distribue régulièrement des dividendes, ce qui en fait un choix attractif pour les investisseurs à long terme

Historique de l’action Apple : Un Parcours Remarquable

Les Débuts de l’Action Apple Apple a fait ses débuts en bourse le 12 décembre 1980. À cette époque, l'entreprise était déjà bien connue pour ses ordinateurs personnels. Son introduction a été un succès immédiat. Le prix initial de l'action était de 22 dollars. En quelques instants, la valeur de l'entreprise a grimpé à 1,2 milliard de dollars. Ce succès rapide a attiré l'attention des investisseurs du monde entier. Malgré les hauts et les bas, l'entreprise a su maintenir l'intérêt des investisseurs grâce à ses produits révolutionnaires. Les Années 90 : Une Décennie de Défis Les années 90 ont été particulièrement difficiles pour Apple. La concurrence féroce avec Microsoft et d'autres fabricants de PC a mis à rude épreuve la société. L'action Apple a connu des baisses significatives. En 1997, l'entreprise était au bord de la faillite. C'est à ce moment-là que Steve Jobs est revenu à la tête de l'entreprise. Avec sa vision et son leadership, Apple a entamé une phase de restructuration majeure. Jobs a lancé des produits innovants comme l'iMac et a revigoré l'image de la marque. L'action Apple a progressivement commencé à remonter, mais la route était encore longue. Les Années 2000 : La Renaissance Le début des années 2000 a marqué un tournant décisif pour Apple. L'introduction de l'iPod en 2001 a transformé l'industrie de la musique. Les ventes ont explosé et l'action Apple a connu une hausse significative. En 2007, l'entreprise a lancé l'iPhone, un produit qui a révolutionné le marché des smartphones. L'impact de l'iPhone sur les finances d'Apple a été immense. Les revenus et les bénéfices ont augmenté de manière exponentielle. L’action Apple a suivi cette tendance, atteignant des sommets historiques sur le NASDAQ. Cette période a consolidé la position de l'entreprise comme leader de l'innovation technologique. La Dernière Décennie : Croissance et Diversification Depuis 2010, Apple a continué à diversifier ses produits et services. L'iPad, Apple Watch et divers services comme Apple Music ont contribué à cette diversification. Cette stratégie a permis de stabiliser et de renforcer la croissance de l'entreprise. En 2018, Apple est devenue la première entreprise américaine à atteindre une capitalisation boursière de 1 000 milliards de dollars. Cette performance remarquable a renforcé, à nouveau, la confiance des investisseurs à la recherche de revenus passifs. L'entreprise a également commencé à distribuer des dividendes en 2012, ce qui a attiré un nouveau segment d'investisseurs. Les dividendes réguliers ont ajouté une valeur supplémentaire aux actions Apple. Voici le cours de l'action Apple aujourd'hui : Track all markets on TradingView Et le cours de l'action depuis sa création en 1980 :

La performance globale de l’action Apple

Depuis ses débuts en bourse, elle a offert aux investisseurs des rendements impressionnants. Les actions Apple ont été scindées plusieurs fois pour en rendre l’achat plus accessible. Une des scissions les plus marquantes a eu lieu en 2014, lorsque l’action a été divisée par sept. Cette stratégie de scission a non seulement permis à plus d’investisseurs d’acheter des actions Apple, mais a également contribué à maintenir un prix attractif. Au fil des années, comme vu plus haut, Apple a innové avec des produits révolutionnaires. Plus récemment, malgré les défis posés par la pandémie de COVID-19, Apple a su maintenir une performance robuste. La demande pour ses produits et services a continué de croître, alimentant la hausse de son action. Analyse des rendements En regardant les rendements sur le long terme, il est évident qu'Apple a été un investissement exceptionnel. Par exemple, si vous aviez investi 1 000 dollars lors de l’introduction en bourse, votre investissement vaudrait plusieurs millions aujourd’hui. C'est un exemple frappant de la puissance des investissements à long terme dans des entreprises innovantes et bien gérées. Nous devons cependant noter que le passé ne garantit pas les performances futures. Investir dans Apple comporte des risques. La concurrence dans le secteur technologique est féroce et les préférences des consommateurs peuvent changer rapidement. Néanmoins, l’historique de l’action Apple montre une capacité remarquable à innover et à s’adapter.

L’entreprise verse-t-elle des dividendes ?

Oui, Apple verse des dividendes à ses actionnaires depuis 2012. Cette décision a été bien accueillie par les investisseurs, car elle offre un revenu supplémentaire en plus de la croissance potentielle du capital. Les dividendes d’Apple ont été initialement fixés à 2,65 dollars par action. Depuis, l'entreprise a régulièrement augmenté ses paiements de dividendes, reflétant sa santé financière solide et sa capacité à générer des flux de trésorerie importants. Analyse des dividendes Les dividendes sont versés trimestriellement, offrant une source de revenu régulière. En outre, les augmentations périodiques des dividendes montrent la confiance de l'entreprise en sa capacité à maintenir une performance financière solide. Au delà des dividendes, Apple utilise également les rachats d’actions comme moyen de rémunérer ses actionnaires. En rachetant ses propres actions, Apple réduit le nombre d’actions en circulation, ce qui augmente la valeur de chaque action restante. Cette stratégie de rachat a contribué à maintenir le cours de l’action à des niveaux élevés et à renforcer la confiance des investisseurs.

Notre Point de Vue sur l'action Apple

Investir dans l'action Apple peut être une stratégie judicieuse pour diversifier votre portefeuille. L'historique de l'action Apple montre une tendance à la hausse sur le long terme, soutenue par des innovations constantes et une solide gestion financière. De plus, la politique de dividendes d'Apple ajoute une dimension de revenu passif intéressante pour les investisseurs. Nous croyons fermement que la diversification est essentielle pour gérer les risques. Bien que l'action Apple soit un excellent ajout à un portefeuille, il est important de ne pas concentrer tous vos investissements dans une seule entreprise ou un seul secteur. L'action Apple offre un potentiel de croissance impressionnant ainsi qu’un revenu passif grâce aux dividendes. Cependant, il est crucial de rester informé et de surveiller les performances de l'entreprise et du marché. Comme toujours, investir nécessite une approche réfléchie et informée.

Comment acheter des actions Apple ?

Si vous vous demandez comment acheter l'action apple, nous avons détaillé tout ce processus dans cet article sur Amazon. Nous vous conseillons également combien il faut investir en général dans une action de type GAFAM. Pour résumer, voici les principaux points: - Choisissez une plateforme de trading, comme BitPanda, TradeRepublik, BoursoBank - Ouvrez un compte de courtage - Déposez des fonds pour vos transactions - Recherchez le symbole AAPL - Passez une commande et acheter au prix du marché ou placer une commande à un prix spécifique (ordre à cours limité)

Où acheter des actions Apple ?

Pour investir dans Apple, voici deux plateformes que nous recommandons vivement. Bitpanda : Plateforme Moderne et Intuitive

Bitpanda, basée en Autriche, est réputée pour son interface conviviale et ses fonctionnalités variées. - Simplicité d'utilisation : Vérification d'identité en quelques minutes. - Diversité des actifs : Actions, cryptomonnaies, actions fractionnées, métaux précieux, ETF. - Frais transparents : Inclus dans le prix affiché, sans surprises. - Gestion centralisée : Idéal pour regrouper tous vos actifs. Inscrivez-vous sur Bitpanda ici. BoursoBank : Banque en Ligne Complète

BoursoBank, une banque en ligne française, offre des services de trading et des outils de gestion financière avancés. - Banque complète : Gérez vos finances personnelles et investissements en un seul endroit. - Frais compétitifs : Un des meilleurs taux sur le marché francophones - Outils avancés : Analyse technique et données de marché en temps réel. - Large gamme de produits : Actions, obligations, fonds d'investissement, produits dérivés. Utilisez le code de parrainage PACH6920 sur BoursoBank pour obtenir des réductions.

Conclusion

Investir dans Apple représente une opportunité unique de participer à l’évolution d’une entreprise emblématique. Apple, avec son histoire riche en innovations et son avenir prometteur, attire les investisseurs à long terme Son parcours boursier depuis 1980 témoigne de sa capacité à se réinventer et à innover constamment, consolidant ainsi sa position de leader dans l'industrie technologique. Sa stratégie de diversification des produits et services, couplée à une gestion financière exemplaire et à une politique de dividendes attrayante, en fait une option intéressante pour diversifier votre portefeuille. Cependant, comme tout investissement, il comporte des risques. Nous croyons fermement que le conseil en investissement est essentiel pour un portefeuille solide, alors n'hésitez pas à nous solliciter. Read the full article

#investissement #apple #bourse

0 notes

hisiggy · 11 months ago

Text

new mix

WOMEN OF COLOR - BIRTH (SCUBA’S WATER BIRTH MIX)

JAZMINE SULLIVAN - THE OTHER SIDE

DJ SHADOW- WHAT DOES YOUR SOUL LOOK LIKE

QUINN - 12/25/18

AMAI & YAYAYI - PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK

HYPE WILLIAMS - DIOR 3

COYOTE CLEAN UP - GUESS WHO’S NEW SKOOL

FREDDIE GIBBS & THE ALCHEMIST - SKINNY SUGE

LIL WAYNE - LIVE FROM 504

仮想夢プラザ - 欲求

KACY HILL - PORSCHE

DJ SCREW - WANNA BE DOWN

SIGGY - VOICEMALES

LANA DEL REY - VENICE BITCH

SALEM - DIEWITHME

TRICKY- SUFFOCATED LOVE

VINCE STAPLES - THE APPLE & THE TREE

MACINTOSH PLUS -ECCOと悪寒ダイビング

LORDE- HELEN OF TROY

ROSALIA - CAP.III CELOS: PIENSO EN TU MIRA

DEVON HENDRYX - TOONAMI

DEAN BLUNT & INGA COPELAND- SCHADENFREUDE

FRANK OCEAN - SLIDE ON ME (FEAT YOUNG THUG)

CAROLINE SHAW - Partita for 8 Voices: No. 1. Allemande

LOVE, CLAIRE- CONSTELLATION

KATE BUSH - BERTIE

Amanda Lepore - interviewd by sterilecowboys.org

#candy darling #ethel cain #harmony korine #brittany murphy #music #john waters #hari nef #contemporary art #chloe sevigny #nick zedd #dj #dj set #dj mix #calm #electronic #ambient #siggy #ambient music #SoundCloud

0 notes

readwithmeeg · 2 years ago

Text

5 All Time Best Book to Screen Adaptations

When I read a book, I see every image in my head exactly the way the author describes it. But I know not everyone experiences reading this way. When books become adapted for screen, they can go one of two ways…well or poorly. So, if you don’t have the story play out in your head you may never be able to see how the author hoped for the story to play out unless it’s done well. Here are my top 5 picks for the best book to screen adaptations. Spoiler Warning Ahead!

Outlander

Little Women

Pride and Prejudice

Stardust

The Lord of The Rings

Outlander

Outlander is a fantastic romance series with time, travel, history, and love. This Diana Gabaldon series has nine published books of a proposed ten books in the series and generally the seasons follow the plot of the books well. They both focus of Claire who mysteriously travels back in time in Scotland and fall in love with Jamie. The show does a great job of being accurate to the books as well as the time periods (there are quite a few times jumps so I think it would be a lot to keep track of…) making it number 5 on my list.

Little Women

Next up is Little Women specifically the 2019 Greta Gerwig film adaptation. The story follows Jo March and her sisters and their struggles and successes growing up together becoming women. There is humor, love and heartbreak and the film does a tremendous job of making you fall in love with these characters and this story just like the book does. Greta really did a great job fitting as much detail as she could in the 2hr and 15-minute run time giving it the number 4 spot on my list.

Pride and Prejudice

Now Pride and Prejudice will always have a special place in my heart (I’m named after if for goodness’ sake) but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve the number 3 spot on my list. There are a few different adaptations of this beloved story out there now, but my absolute favourite is the 2005 film. While it may not be as accurate or as detailed at the almost 6-hour 1995 version. It still does a great job conveying the emotions felt by Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, and the rest of the characters. I will never be tired of this story or this moving making it a well-deserved 3 place.

Stardust

Stardust by Neil Gaiman gets the runner up spot on my list and not just because it has three of my favourite actors together in one film. The story is a short one with magic, adventure and romance all wrapped up into one. But the film perfectly depicts what I saw in my head as I was reading this book and more. I think it captures exactly what the author was trying to portray though this story with the bonus or Ben Barnes, Charlie Cox and Henry Cavil making appearances…

The Lord of The Rings

If you know me this will be no surprise but my number 1 book to screen adaptation has got to be The Lord of the Rings. It’s such a beautiful =, detailed and well written story by J.R.R. Tolkien already and I believe Peter Jackson did an amazing job making Tolkien’s vision come to life. The extended versions are far superior to the theatrical cuts just because they include so much more detail. They are not easy stories to being to life and the fact that Peter Jackson not only did it for the original trilogy, but The Hobbit as well proves that this deserves the honour of the best book to screen adaptation in my books.

All these stories are so well written to begin with but the fact that they were brought to the screen so well just enhances the fact that I love them so much. It provides another layer for me to enjoy as a viewer and see what I saw the same way as the directors or maybe interpreted a little bit differently. Do you agree with my list? If not, what would you say is your favourite book to screen adaptation I’d love to know!

#book blog #bookworm #book to screen #reading #10/10 reccomend #highly recommend

1 note · View note

devianbooks · 2 years ago

Text

(PDF) [Download] It Happened One Christmas Eve (A Museum of Literature Romance, #3) BY : Jenn McKinl

E-Book Download It Happened One Christmas Eve (A Museum of Literature Romance, #3) by Jenn McKinlay

Ebook PDF It Happened One Christmas Eve (A Museum of Literature Romance, #3) | EBOOK ONLINE DOWNLOAD If you want to download free Ebook, you are in the right place to download Ebook. Ebook/PDF It Happened One Christmas Eve (A Museum of Literature Romance, #3) DOWNLOAD in English is available for free here, Click on the download LINK below to download Ebook After You 2020 PDF Download in English by Jojo Moyes (Author).

Download Link : [Downlload Now] It Happened One Christmas Eve (A Museum of Literature Romance, #3)

Read More : [Read Now] It Happened One Christmas Eve (A Museum of Literature Romance, #3)

Description

Claire Macintosh is about to get engaged to a man she doesn't love at the holiday gala she is hosting as director of the Museum of Literature. Her mother, Hildy Macintosh, has made it clear that if the museum is to continue to receive the enormous donations from the family trust that Hildy has approved all these years then Claire will marry the man Hildy has chosen for her and start to produce some grandbabies. At forty and single, Claire feels she has no choice. But when the horse and carriage arrive at the gala with the driver dressed as Santa to deliver Claire's engagement ring, she just can't go through with it. She hijacks the horse and carriage with Santa still on board and escapes!Reporter Sam Carpenter thought he was being so clever convincing his friend to let him step in as Santa so he could get up close and personal to the subject of his upcoming magazine expose. He is completely unprepared for the events that unfold and finds himself dashing through Central Park with a

0 notes

blogbibliophilia · 2 years ago

Text

Book Review: It Happened One Christmas Eve by Jenn McKinlay

•

Synopsis (from Amazon.com): Claire Macintosh is about to get engaged to a man she doesn't love at the holiday gala she is hosting as director of the Museum of Literature. Her mother, Hildy Macintosh, has made it clear that if the museum is to continue to receive the enormous donations from the family trust that Hildy has approved all these years then Claire will marry the man Hildy has chosen for her and start to produce some grandbabies. At forty and single, Claire feels she has no choice. But when the horse and carriage arrive at the gala with the driver dressed as Santa to deliver Claire's engagement ring, she just can't go through with it. She hijacks the horse and carriage with Santa still on board and escapes!

Reporter Sam Carpenter thought he was being so clever convincing his friend to let him step in as Santa so he could get up close and personal to the subject of his upcoming magazine expose. He is completely unprepared for the events that unfold and finds himself dashing through Central Park with a runaway would be fiancé. Now the only way to save his story is to broker a deal with Claire Macintosh. In exchange for his help in getting her to her cottage in Maine by Christmas Eve, she'll grant him an exclusive interview. As their journey takes a series of unexpected twists, turns, and misadventures, both Claire and Sam realize that there's more than their careers on the line. And it's going to take a Christmas miracle to find their happily ever after.

•

Book Length: - pages

•

My Review: This is a cute Christmas story about a run away heiress who was on the precipice of getting engaged to someone her mother picked for because she was 40 years old and that’s what mothers do when you get that age unmarried. Ha!!! I thought it could have been a little bit better had it been longer. It was quirky and funny but it just felt rushed.

0 notes

rathertoofondofbooks · 5 years ago

Text

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and Reading Reality, which is all about sharing the books that you’ve acquired in the past week!

So, I haven’t shared a book haul for a couple of weeks so this is a rather large haul. I’m blaming Audible for having a fabulous sale (with books from my wish list in it!) when I actually had a few spare credits! Also, I went on NetGalley to leave some reviews and accidentally requested some more books… oops!

Purchased eBooks

The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Helen Cullen

I’ve seen so many fabulous reviews of this book so when I spotted the ebook on sale recently I couldn’t resist downloading it. I love the idea of a lost letter department so am excited to read this!

Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith

I bought this essay collection on a whim because I love Zadie Smith’s writing. I’ve recently enjoyed a couple of essay collections so I’m looking forward to dipping in and out of this one very soon.

A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne

I still haven’t read The Heart’s Invisible Furies but I feel sure I’m going to love it so I couldn’t resist buying another book by the author!

Unfollow Me by Charlotte Duckworth

I forgot that I’d pre-ordered this book so I was delighted when I discovered it on my kindle the other day. It felt like a present from past me to now me! I’m really keen to read this one so am going to try and get to it in the next week or so.

The Girl Before You by Nicola Rayner

I bought this on a whim too after seeing some reviews by bloggers that I trust so am looking forward to getting to this one.

Anna by Patricia Dixon

I bought this book after the author posted a really lovely post on her publication day and I could empathise with what she wrote so immediately went and ordered a copy of her book.

Happiness for Beginners by Carole Matthews

This was a kindle daily deal this week so I snapped it up. I really enjoy Carole Matthews’ novels so am happy to have another one on my TBR stack.

Every Mother’s Nightmare by Mark Thomas

I bought this one this week and am now half-way through it. The formatting of the book is awful though, which is such a shame, and I’m not sure I’ll continue with it.

Purchased Audiobooks

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde and The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde

I bought both of these audiobooks in a recent Audible sale when they had the first few books in a selection of series for £3 each! I’ve already got the first book so I can’t wait to start listening to these books!

People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Parry

This has been on my wish list for such a long time after a good friend recommended it to me. I decided to get the audio book in the recent Audible 2 for 1 sale!

Milkshakes and Morphine by Genevieve Fox

This memoir is a recent addition to my wish list so I was delighted to spot it in the same sale as the book above. I’m definitely going to be listening to this very soon.

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

This is one of those books that I’ve heard so much about for so many years that I feel like I must have already read it but I actually haven’t. I do have a print copy of this on my TBR but couldn’t resist getting the audio book in the 2 for 1 sale.

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

This is another wish list book that was in the sale so I had to get to it. I’ve wanted to read this for a long time so I’m really happy to have a copy of it.

Tennison by Lynda la Plante

I’ve read quite a few books from this series but I’ve never read them in order so when I saw this first book in the Audible sale I decided to get it. I think it’s nice to re-read books in a different format than I first read it in to get a different experience of a story.

Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather by Tessa Boase

I needed another book to go with the one above to get 2 for 1 and this one jumped out at me. It sounds like such an interesting read so I’m really glad I got it.

Help Me! by Marianne Power

This was an Audible daily deal recently and it sounded like an interesting listen. I went through a phase of reading self help books when I was in my teens and so this book seemed like it would be a fun look at those kind of books.

Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak

I love The Book Thief so couldn’t resist grabbing this new one by the author when it was on an Audible daily deal. I’m looking forward to getting to this one.

Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally

This was also an Audible daily deal so I decided to get it. I have tried to read the book when it was first published but I just couldn’t finish it. I’m hoping that I might cope better with it on audio.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

I actually downloaded this book via Scribd and have just finished listening to it. It was an interesting book but I was hoping for something more from it.

ARCs

After the End by Claire Macintosh

This is one of my most anticipated books of the year so I was thrilled to get approved for it on NetGalley recently. I’m planning to read this as soon as I finished one of my current reads!

Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson

This is another book that I’ve been keen to get my hands on so again it was great to get approved on NetGalley to read it.

Then She Vanishes by Claire Douglas

I love Claire Douglas’ novels so was delighted to get an email saying that I was pre-approved on NG for this new one. I love the premise of this one and hope to get to it very soon.

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

I also got pre-approved for this one on NG and while it wasn’t on my radar at the time I’ve since seen some brilliant reviews of it and I think this will be a great read.

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

This book isn’t due out until next year so I was surprised to get approved to read it straight away. I really want to read this one but feel like I should hold off until a bit nearer publication.

The Au Pair by Emma Rous

I requested this on a whim after seeing reviews of it. It sounds like my kind of book and one that I will likely devour over an afternoon!

The Friendship Pact by Alison James

I downloaded this on NG when I was browsing. It sounds like my kind of book and I can’t wait to get to it.

Horizontal Collaborations by Navie

I’ve already read this graphic novel set during the second world war. It’s got beautiful artwork and the story was very moving. I’ll be reviewing this one for the blog tour later this month.

The Sea Refuses No River by Bethany Rivers

I’ve also already read this poetry collection. It’s a beautiful collection looking at grief and I found it very moving. I’m on the blog tour for it this month so will be reviewing it then.

Don’t Feed the Bear by Rachel Elliott

This was a lovely surprise ARC that arrived a couple of weeks ago. It’s such a gorgeous book and I’m looking forward to reading it.

Have you bought any new books over the last week? Please tell me below. 🙂 If you join in with Stacking the Shelves please feel free to leave your link and I’ll make sure to read and comment on your post.

A Brand New Book Haul (Stacking the Shelves 8 Jun 2019)! Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and Reading Reality, which is all about sharing the books that you’ve acquired in the past week!

0 notes

westerhos · 4 years ago

Text

Our Story: Chapter 7

Hi friends! Sorry for the delay here. I’ve been on vacation, so my priorities have been boozin’ and cruisin’. Thanks for your continued support of this story—I love hearing your feedback. This one’s a whopper of a chapter!

______

We often lose track of time in this great, big world of ours, in much the same way we lose a pair of keys, a couple of pens. “I swear I saw them two seconds ago!” we groan, groping to purse-bottoms, finding only lint and chump-change. So many things—these small facets of our lives—sucked into the void of bygones, taken before we can ever think to tie them down.

“I swear I was twenty-two just yesterday.”

This is how it is for Jamie and Claire, their years like old playbills confiscated by the wind and an invisible clock. Certain acts reappear from time to time, when the arm of a broom sweeps them into the light, when the frosting of dust disturbs, then floats. And for a brief moment, as the particles of time and forget resettle themselves, Jamie and Claire can hear their lives’ most glorious crescendos. The lowest notes tip-toe from the long-kept silence, rising and sinking slowly, steadily. All plucked strings, still vibrating, until the echoes die, cradling the past.

You can write an entire story with these bits and pieces of their lives, cut the acts together to form one winding opera. It plays and stops until, eventually, the grand finale. The overlap: a perfect harmony which carries them from their separate wings, to center stage and to each other.

And it is there, finally, that they meet again, lips and lives melding. They stand together in the orb of the spotlight. A single sun, glowing.

THE SPIRIT IN THE HORSE, 2000

Starring James Fraser, Jenny Fraser, Brian Fraser, The Doctor, Ellen Fraser, Fitzy (and a More-Than-Flash of Someone Else)

Though a bestselling author, JAMES FRASER did not grow up with dreams of books, but of horses.

He was born on an unusually hot day, spring 1968. Everything melting at its very seams, the birthing room’s thermometer feverish with mercury blood. His father and sister had fashioned fans from intake forms, moving heat-murk and birth-stink with the accordioned papers. They looked on with damp foreheads, lips white and tight, so that Ellen could have the breaths they saved.

At half-past noon, the doctor had caught Jamie’s auburn crown, dripping more heavily than his own laboring mother. All of this—the heat, the sweat, the waving forms—was taken as the stamp of Jamie’s fate. Surely, they had all agreed, he would set the world on fire, would be a brand forever puckering its skin.

The hibernators had emerged early that year, scurrying from their earthen wombs just as Jamie had slipped from his mother’s. Heat-drunk and dizzied, they had eaten everything in sight. Corn stalks, cabbage leaves, whole fields of barley—gone. Even Ellen’s strawberries, barely ripened—devoured by mid-April. The red fruits had shrunk to halves, then thirds, as the creatures munched and munched. Fleshy hearts eaten to bleeding, the pulp left to the sleepy stragglers.

And so on the day Jamie entered the world, the Frasers had returned to a dark and stifling house. Rot wafted from the windows, and the electrical wires were chewed cleanly through. One rabbit, the chosen martyr, had laid cooked in the grass, fur spiked.

Brian had thrust Jamie into his daughter’s arms, ran inside to rescue what unspoiled food he could (three eggs, a loaf of bread). Waiting in the yard, Jenny had imagined the wilting lettuce inside the fridge and Ellen, equally wilted under the blue hospital sheet. She had watched a squirrel leap across the berry guts, a rope of black wire between his paws.

How—if at all, she had wondered—would they survive without her mother?

Too exhausted for a trip to the store, Brian had fried the eggs on the driveway. The yolk was thick in his mouth and the sorrow thicker in his chest, before he realized Jamie’s cries had quieted. He started when he heard the horse’s whinny, the snorty exhale through its nostrils. Beside him, Jenny had scuttled away, feet scraping at the egg crusts.

Incensed by the heat and the crowd, Fitzy the horse had stormed her stable doors to freedom. She had brayed, desolate to find her owner gone, until she spotted the flame in Brian’s arms. Copper, auburn, cinnabar—all Ellen’s colors—poking from a swaddle of blue. And so Fitzy had bowed her head, brought Jamie into her awed silence. One shining moment, the first since Ellen’s passing—calm and peaceful.

Even now, 32 years later, Jamie loves to tell this story. How Brian had pressed his baby fist to the mane, his mother still a stickiness on his baby thumb. And how, as a young boy, Jamie had thought Ellen lived somewhere inside auld Fitzy. Something in the black bead of the mare’s eye: a flash, a peculiar spark. It was an acknowledgement that, until one night in 1989, Jamie had never felt before.

After his book tour in ’99, Jamie Fraser decided to take the leap—carpe diem—and purchase his own horse and his own land (fields way out in the Highlands; a farmhouse converted to splendor by his millions). The horse, like Fitzy, wears a chestnut coat. She is stubborn but loving, recognizes Jamie’s voice when he calls and his face when it floats above her stable door. He sees a flash of Fitzy—and of his mother, he thinks—when she surrenders her anger to Jamie’s flags of truce: a fresh Granny Smith, a carrot stick plucked from the ground. He sees a More-Than-Flash of Someone Else when she nudges his shoulder, apologetic. The only source of happiness, this beautiful beast, outside of his writing.

“Ye see?” Jamie had said after their first standoff, “Ye canna stay mad at me forever.” And when the horse had chomped the apple from his hand, he’d sworn that she was smiling.

“Mo nighean donn,” he’d whispered, and decided, then and there, to name her Sorcha.

______

CARROLL’S THEORY OF TRUTH, 2003

Starring Claire Randall, Frank Randall, Joe Abernathy, duncandonuts, wetwillie, mark_me_1745, parsleymarsley, l.mackenzie (and The Author)

When CLAIRE RANDALL is not working at the hospital, her nose is pressed to a blue-white screen.

For years, she had resisted those monstrous, blocky machines—Macintosh, Dell, Gateway—all brand names accompanied by her husband’s greedy and jabbing elbows.

But there was value in tradition, Claire had argued. A kind of sanctity in the ping of an Underwood or the swish of pen; privacy and authentic connection. Frank had merely rolled his eyes, always lusting after the new and shiny—whether it was a computer or a student’s gloss-plumped lips—knowing it was not “tradition” itself that his wife was holding onto.

“So like you, Claire,” he’d said bitterly one day, “wanting to stay stuck in the past.” And, of course, he’d been right. Just to spite him, she’d finally surrendered and gave him one for Christmas.

Gradually, Claire came to love the whirring engine, the wail of the dial-up, the period of isolation where she was unreachable by phone. Like time travel, almost, the way it took her places past and present, opening every door like some futuristic gentleman.

But mostly, Claire loved the computer for the freedom it gave her. Boot up the system, click the mouse, log on, be someone else. Online, Claire could play a different role than the surgeon or the amateur gardener, pretend she was not the wife who turned her cheek as often as she made her husband’s dinner. On the Internet, her identity was a thirty-word bio, her face a grey silhouette displayed comfortably—anonymously—inside a neat, square frame. A million different bodies growing inside her, once her fingers flew across keyboard:

Claire Randall, the British spy.

Claire Randall, the avid hiker, climbing the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Claire Randall, the mother, who loved the melt of ice cream down her daughter’s chin. Her tiny mouth, sweet and sugared, when it met hers for a kiss.

One website, her favorite, was this: a forum, populated by other faceless humans who, like Claire, could recite page 451 (or any others) of A Blade of Grass. In this corner of the online universe, they had spoken of The Author on a first-name basis, trading facts like prized baseball cards. But it was only Claire who could share the most private knowledge, attribute it all to her keen nose and thus earn the respect of 16 anonymous users.

Even so, Claire had been surprised by what they knew solely through their reading. The Author’s childhood, his relationships, his favorite color. She was able to ask her own prodding questions and receive correct answers, such as:

whiteraven: A long shot, but does anyone know how to contact him by telephone?

And five of the grey-faced few had responded.

duncandonuts: easier to send him send him a letter (might get lost among the rest of his fan mail though).

wetwillie: have you tried his agent, john grey, in london?

mark_me_1745: if u meet him, tell him 2 come 2 brasil!!!!!!! we <3 him!!!!!!!

parsleymarsali: Publishers Weekly mentioned he’s now with Geordie Gibbons at the Claude F. Agency, not Grey, @wetwillie. Think it had something to do with creative differences and missed deadlines.

l.mackenzie: pass that info onto _me_ if you find it, girl! <g>

By a stroke of luck, someone had known someone who’d known someone who’d known someone. And just like that, she was given a phone number the following Wednesday. A day like any other, if it weren’t for a single string of digits sitting in her inbox, a silent but ticking grenade.

She spent three months with the numbers inside her head, stored in a folder marked with The Author’s name. She did manage to call though—once—when her hand finally lowered from its hover. She’d waited out the sonorous ring-ring-ring, the robotic chime, “You have reached the voice mailbox of..." She had listened to the beep that followed and then the silence, stretching, until she remembered her mouth. It opened, exhaled, then shut abruptly with the click of her teeth. There was the clatter of keys and the thwop of a briefcase—Frank home from work.

She had almost whispered, but did not.

It was too much to have both men in the same room: one gently pecking her lips, the other pressing an electric current into her cheek, crackling. Too much, too much. Claire had slammed the phone down and cursed, “Bloody teleprompter. Always calling before dinner,” which had made her husband laugh. She’d made him spaghetti that night, the spices forming twelve digits in the saucepan no matter how many times she swirled the spoon.

It’s been four months since that first and only call, though Claire still remembers The Author’s number. She thinks of if—when—she will have the courage to call again, to finally speak and fill the space of eleven empty years. While Frank snores beside her, she plays the scene from start to finish, like a draft of the real, inevitable thing.

Again: the sonorous ring, the tinny greeting, the beep, and the silence that waits for her. But this time: her mouth opens—one, two three times—and five words repeated, again and again.

In some versions, she says them aloud. In others, merely pushes them, soundless, into the air. Still, they are there, held aloft by satellite arms high up in the sky. Somewhere between her and The Author, existing: I was born for you, I was born for you, I was born for you.

And what is said three times—even unfinished, even without words—is always, always true.

______

THREE TIMES THE WORLD ENDED , 2004

Starring Jamie Fraser, Jenny Fraser, and Laoghaire Mackenzie (and The Girl)

JAMES FRASER, age 34, can pinpoint three moments where his world fell apart.

He was eighteen during the first, a brazen thing, but still as green as the pot freshly stinking his Levi’s. After reading the call notice pasted to his door, he’d floated to the common room on a cloud of White Widow weed. He dialed, laughing, until Jenny’s voice had sobbed down the line, breaking the peace of his druggy fug.

Their father, she’d cried, had died the previous evening.

With the news, the had drugs turned. Floors slanted, limbs jellied. Jamie watched as a hole ripped open the wall behind him, its enormous black void revealing the space Brian Fraser had left behind. It had swallowed Jamie up, refused to spit him back again until The Girl reached inside and found his heart two years later. Returned it to him, like a love note, passed on the inside of her smile.

Jamie describes the second collapse in his two famous novels, A Blade of Grass and Two Centuries in Purgatory. This time, the world had split completely, Jamie and The Girl like two tectonic plates shifting in the night. It was his writing that had bound Jamie’s world together again, though the spine remained cracked, a few of the pages missing.

The third time occurred just last week though Jamie was not entirely surprised. It’s what happens, he supposes, when you build something on uneven ground. Physical presence—someone’s here-ness—does not equate to love.

Nine years after the second earthquake, a new person had come into Jamie’s life. She would stand in the doorway at 6:30PM, jump to her tip-toes to welcome him home. There would be steam from the stove, and utensils would gleam in perfect, shining order. Napkins would wait with their patient folds, each prepared to catch the food that she, his ever-present Laoghaire, had prepared during the day. And for those three years, Laoghaire’s toothbrush had sat next to Jamie’s, her silks hanging beside his cottons. Evidence, he had thought, that he maybe-almost loved her.

But then Laoghaire had grown curious—“Why’ve no made progress on yer novel? What are ye writing all day if it isna yer third book?”—and stuck her piglet nose into places it did not belong. She, in a rare moment of ingenuity, had unlocked the safe and found his letters.

And so this time, Jamie’s world had not ripped or split—but exploded with a thousand sticks of paper dynamite. Laoghaire had burned through the house, burned through the letters. She’d called the magazines and the bloggers, vowing to tarnish his reputation with lies: cheater, drunk, lunatic, fraud. Finally, she’d left, taking the napkins, the cutlery, and the toothbrush—but leaving the embers in her wake, smoldering. A few scraps had avoided the fire, and Jamie read them as the night rose.

My da once told me I’d know straight away, that I’d have no doubt. And I didn’t.

For so many years, for so long, I have been so many different men.

The love of you was my soul.

and

Yours, Jamie

Forever, Jamie

Come home, my heart. I am not as brave as I was before, Jamie

On and on and on they went. Singed pieces of his letters. Every one meant for The Girl who’d confronted his darkness, had rescued his heart at a Christmas Eve party.

4,380. One letter for every day he had missed her.

______

THE KILLING GIRL, 2006

Starring Claire Randall*, Henry Beauchamp, Julia Beauchamp, Quentin Lambert Beauchamp, Frank Randall (and The One Person)

CLAIRE RANDALL* , resident at Boston GH, was five years old when she thought she was murderer. For years, she could hardly sleep, fearing not the monster beneath her bed, but the one beneath her covers.

Instead of counting sheep, she’d recounted facts as they’d been reported in the paper: Henry and Julia Beauchamp, parents of one Claire Beauchamp. Their mangled car, and a rocky deathbed set one hundred feet below. Both husband and wife, father and mother—dead upon impact.

Rarely, did this guide Claire towards sleep, and so she began to picture the accident as she’d recorded it in her diary. The same story, but more accurate—one that played behind her eyelids as if she had watched it all, a spectator on the road’s shoulder.

There was her parents’ blue Ford ribboning the cliffside. The low hum of conversation and the static of the radio. There was Claire’s goodbye before they left—“You always go without me! IhateyouIhateyou!”— which followed her parents and pushed them off the edge. She was sure it was her words that had broken her mother’s neck, had snapped it like a flower’s stem. One Claire Beauchamp, the little killing girl.

Five years passed before Lamb had found her in the courtyard, weeping her guilt into a mat of grey feathers. She had confessed to her five-year old anger then; how she’d pried open the rocky mouth and dropped her parents in.

“Death doesn’t move according to reason, my dear,” Lamb had said, “but only chance. And by no fault of yours.” He had patted her on the head like a priest grants forgiveness, and they buried the bird in the Nyungwe Forest. Wings and Claire’s blame laid to rest beneath the trees.

Still, Claire likes how accountability sets her world—so wracked by coincidence—back on its axis. Responsibility, however false, is easier to accept than the fickleness of husbands, of dead parents, of love and life. She assumes the role of the guilty to feel a sense of control, like she herself is in charge of the scale’s tip. And so:

It was Claire’s fault that the frost returned in May, all her marigold suns snuffed out.

It was Claire’s fault that the infection took the wound, gnawed the patient’s flesh so that a saw had to chop the bone.

It was Claire’s fault that midnight voices chirped down the receiver. The girls’ lovesick pleas—I need you. I love you. Leave her.—placed in Frank’s pockets by Claire’s own hands.

And of course, it was Claire’s fault that things had ended as they did. The final fight, every bit of hate, hers to claim:

“I am not an idiot, Frank! And I’m tired of being made into one.”

“Darling, you aren’t an idiot. I never said you were an idiot.”

“Don’t bloody ‘darling’ me, you bloody cad.”

“I’m sorry.”

“How novel.”

“Truly, I am.”

“So that’s it, then? Just ‘I’m sorry.’ No excuses? No begging-on-bended-knee?” (Claire had scoffed. Her laughter, like the paring knife that guts the beast.) “No, of course not. Begging would be too embarrassing for you. Too much effort. All your energy is spent chasing skirts and quick fucks. You selfish, disgusting man.”

“So I’m the only selfish one here, is that it? Just me?”

“You’re saying that I’m selfish?”

“I am.”

“Me.”

“Yes, you, Claire! You, who is always working and never here. You, who sleeps with his books under our mattress, still wears the man’s goddamn ring on a chain. Like a fucking noose around our marriage, from the start.” (Claire had winced; Frank’s knuckles had cracked the wall.) “No, I’m not selfish, Claire. I’ve shared you with another man for thirteen years.”

“So I see you’ve lost all sense, but still have some fucking nerve."

“Cursing doesn’t improve your argument.”

“Wanker.”

“Now Claire…”

“Just go.”

“Claire, please—”

“Go.”

And thus, it was Claire’s fault that Frank had whispered, “You’ve never looked at me. Not once, not really.” And it was her fault that he had grabbed his keys, slipped into the blizzard and into his car.

And it was Claire—Claire, Claire, Claire—who became the ice that hissed against tires. Who launched Frank’s body through the glass, turned his skin purple-blue and the snow dark red. Her fault that the last thing she’d said was “go”, and Frank had taken her at her very word.

All of this, she has put upon her shoulders, for its burden is lesser than the truth: that she has no control, never did and never would. Claire is forever held at the mercy of a capricious gravity—she and everyone else, a little bit helpless. Always.

But there was One Person, she often remembers, who had given her a kind of foothold. On their wedding night, she had whispered about her mother’s flower neck, about the grey bird whose wings she’d given to the Nyungwe. And he had understood, promised forgiveness for whatever wrongs she had and would commit. “Real or imagined, Sassenach” he’d said into hair, “Already forgiven.” They had spiraled through life, the pair of them, both a little bit helpless—but everything shared.

But of all of her false faults, this is one Claire fears is true: that she is the reason The One Person is not here, but some 3,000 miles away. She was, after all, the one who had packed the suitcase and caused the gavel to fall, Divorce.

All her fault: Claire Randall. The guilty one, the killing girl, the widow. Spinning and spinning into empty space, grasping at stars, alone.

*[Note from director: Ms. Claire Randall has requested we change her name to Claire Beauchamp. Please reprint with this correction ASAP. Thank you.]

______

POINT OF CONVERGENCE, 2007

Starring Jamie Fraser (The Author, The One Person), Claire Beauchamp (A More-Than-Flash Of Someone-Else, The Girl), Geordie Gibbons

JAMES FRASER does not like to disappoint. It is his greatest fear, seeing someone’s face pull, twist, and finally droop into an expression of discontent. Even worse: when the expression is given a name, “I’m so disappointed in you, Jamie.” And worst of all: when the name is given by his agent, Geordie Gibbons.

One of the most important days of Jamie’s life began in anticipation of such disappointment. He had twiddled his thumbs beneath a table, dreading the moment Geordie’s fedora ducked beneath the restaurant’s eaves. The wait staff had milled around him: A waiter dashed towards snapping fingers, the hostess offered towels for rain-soaked heads. He’d felt jealous, watching them, of their readiness—how they could be so effortlessly on time. Jamie couldn’t even manage to meet his deadlines, the desk calendar at home flipped far beyond the designated X.

Jamie and Geordie were to have “lunch” and “catch up”. This would, inadvertently, devolve into an interrogation about Jamie’s third novel, which was nothing more than a series of working titles. It was a pattern, this lateness and lunching, never changing despite the demands and promises made by both parties. Geordie would remove his hat, exposing the frown previously shadowed beneath its brim. Their food would be served—Jamie, something yeasty; Geordie, a taxidermist’s culinary experiment—and Jamie would choke down a side of his agent’s disappointment. Eventually, they would part ways, and Jamie would return home, knock out a few pages. Turn in a shitty draft the next morning for the sake of postponing a second “lunch.”

But on this day, the universe had shifted; the pattern broke. Jamie had continued to sit there, all sweat and nerves, but Geordie’s fedora, the interrogation, and the food never came.

Because while Jamie had waited in the restaurant, CLAIRE BEAUCHAMP was arguing in her bedroom mirror: Claire vs. Claire, Head vs. Heart. She was thousands of miles away in a Boston apartment, but still—the tremor traveled, pushing a storm across the Atlantic, down the Royal Mile, to Jamie. The trajectory of his day and his life had changed as Claire gesticulated wildly at her own reflection.

So at 12:14, Jamie had been alone, Geordie unusually late for a man so fond of punctuality. He read the menu three times, settled on a whisky. Thought better of it; ordered two.

At 12:30, Claire’s battle had still raged, no victor in sight. The thunder had shaken the house, shaken the mirror on the wall.

At 12:46, Jamie had condemned Geordie, then deadlines. Art, he’d fumed, was beyond time, existed outside of it. He had ordered a third whisky when a wine spill was wiped up, gone before it had the chance to leave its mark.

At 12:48, Claire had moved to the kitchen. Both armies were advancing quickly, charging into the living room, to the yard, back to the living room, over and over. She and herself, it seemed, had reached a stalemate. Head and Heart had squatted, dripping rain, and awaited the other's surrender.

At 12:50, Claire had paused and looked through the window. She caught a glimpse of her garden, reborn and thriving despite the storm, and the sight of the marigold blooms did not reveal an emptiness inside her. She felt, for once, happy. Her Heart had stormed her Head’s walls, then, the gates of decision giving way.

At 12:51, Claire had opened her scrapbook, a secret once kept from Frank. It was filled with bits and bobs: a piece of bubble wrap, a bell from her holiday sweater. Both of them glued beside old polaroids. Again, she did not feel her Heart stutter, but expand; lift straight out of her chest. A full siege after that. Her Head’s weakest men fell beneath the lash of artery whips.

At 12:52, the end was near, and Claire’s Heart marched to her computer, hunted through years of mail. Its trophy had laid buried in a folder—one message with twelve digits—and the battle, at last, was won.

At 12:53, both Jamie and his phone had buzzed. The door opened, letting in the air. It had smelled of wet soil, earthy and ripe. Familiar, like a ghost’s kiss on the back of his neck. He put the phone to his ear, and…

At 12:53:05, he said, “Jesus, man! Where are ye? I’ve been waiting nigh on 50 minutes!” There was no response.

At 12:53:08: “Did ye get caught in the storm? Are ye calling from a pay phone?” More silence.

At 12:53:13: “Hello? Anyone there?”

At 12:53:20: “Geordie, man, is that you?”

At 12:53:25: A deep, shaking breath. An audible gulp. Claire’s Heart whispering its victory song.

12:53:26: “It’s isn’t Geordie.”

12:53:27: “It’s me.”

And at 12:53:28, everywhere, suddenly—the brightest sun.

Phew! This chapter is one of the longest, but it’s also one of my favorites. The structure is lifted straight from Fates and Furies—there’s a chapter that is just a series of the protagonist’s plays—and I was looking to try something new (it also weirdly fits in with the tone of the chapter introductions). In my opinion, the best thing about writing fanfiction is that you have so much room to experiment.

This structure also allowed me to do what I’d been wanting to do from the beginning: move away from the One Day conceit and explore Jamie and Claire’s pasts. It was very easy to just run with any image or idea that came to mind—we know so little about their childhoods; there are so many possibilities!

And speaking of why fanfiction is so awesome—and I mentioned this in another post—but it’s a blast figuring out how to incorporate canon into an AU setting. Using canon dialogue can boost the emotional punch of a line in a way that is just *chef’s kiss*. “I was born for you.” “I am not as brave as I was before.” Ugh, kill me.

I have to whistle past some of the melodrama and Frank’s computer craze (wouldn’t he also be a typewriter sort of person???). And modern!Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Brazil comment still tickles me. This is not meant as an offense to Brazilians—y’all are just always on *clap* it *clap*, and I love your enthusiasm.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed :)

#myfic #outlander #claire beauchamp #jamie fraser #reunited and it feels so gooooood

68 notes · View notes

scapegrace74-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Saorsa, Chapter 22

A/N Here is the next installment of Saorsa. At long last, after dragging things out for 21 chapters (21!), I’m finally sending Jamie and Claire on their honeymoon, with all the bow-chicka-wow-wow that implies. Although it’s pretty tame, by my smut standards. Why am I still writing? Go read it!

Rather than link to all previously posted chapters, I’ll just direct those of you wanting to catch up on your Saorsa-reading to my AO3 page, where the fic is posted in its entirety.

Thank you to each of you liking and reblogging! It does my little fanfic writer’s heart good.

The honeymoon was Claire’s idea. After two weeks of painfully polite coexistence in which she felt they were both acting the parts of a newly married couple for an audience of two, she suggested the getaway. Jamie had never heard of such a thing. She insisted time spent cloistered away from their everyday lives was now the norm for newlyweds, and he begrudgingly agreed. They left as soon as Murtagh returned from his visit home to the Isle of Lewis.

Jamie was an uneasy automobile passenger, and he refused to learn how to drive, so it was Claire who navigated onto the ferry that crossed the narrow channel to the Isle of Skye.

“Are you alright?” she asked as Jamie clutched the door handle in a white knuckled grip.

“Aye. Jus’ no’ fond of ships, is all,” he answered, eyes pointed out the windshield as though he could bring the looming island closer with the strength of his stare.

“Just a few more minutes, an duine agam,” she assured, taking his clammy right hand in her left.

“Who’s been teachin’ ye Gàidhlig, Sassenach?” he asked, distracted from imminent sea sickness.

“Murtagh. Just a few words, here and there. I thought it would be useful, so I could speak it to the baby once he or she is born.” As it usually did, her free hand came to rest on the softly rounded swell of her belly when she spoke of her child.

There was silence from the passenger’s seat. She glanced over only to be met by a look of stunning intensity. She felt naked before so much bridled emotion, but she could not break away. The only movement between the two of them was the clenching of a muscle high in his jaw.

“Claire, I…”

Whatever Jamie was about to say, it was interrupted by the shunt of the ferry as it met the shore. They both looked away, and the moment was gone.

The drive to their inn at Dunvegan was shrouded in low-lying clouds. She could just make out the lower slopes of mountains robed in snow. Jamie had once again fallen silent but seemed content to gaze at the passing scenery. She parked carefully on the side of the main road in the tiny village, just two lines of tidy single-story stone cottages, a café and their inn.

Jamie rose awkwardly from the car and stretched before walking to the boot to gather their shared suitcase. As he did, a pair of women exited a nearby cottage, talking in loud, animated voices. He froze, then spun around.

The women turned right at the pavement and continued walking and chatting. Seeing the tall, handsome red-haired man standing near their path, they both uttered a polite “feasgar math” before continuing on their way.

“Feasgar math,” he responded belatedly, bowing slightly at the waist out of habit. He turned around, slack-jawed, as the scene came into sharper focus. The signage above the café and inn was in Gaelic. There were horseshoes hung above every door and tartan decorations festooned a nearby fence. Sheep bleated from the fields beyond. Apart from their car and another parked across the street, nothing in view would have been out of place two centuries before.

She stepped onto the pavement beside Jamie and touched his chest.

“You see? The Highland culture did not die. It fled, far to the north and over the sea, but it survived. Here,” she gestured around them. “And here,” pressing her hand against his breastbone. “It takes something tremendously resilient to face that sort of hardship and endure.”

Jamie’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. She could see that he was struggling against tears.

“Come on. Let’s check into our room, and then you can show me around.”

The matronly innkeeper greeted them in a waterfall of Gaelic, to which Jamie answered in kind. He seemed taller suddenly, although perhaps it was the low, timber-beamed ceiling that made him appear so. She heard him say “Claire Fraser, mo bhean”, while looking at her with pride.

If the innkeeper thought it strange that the tall Scot and his obviously pregnant English wife were making heart-eyes at each other across her lobby, she did not let on. She led them up a steep stairwell into a hallway so low that Jamie had to duck to avoid banging his head. At one end was a gabled room with a merry fire already lit. It wasn’t large, having room for just an immense four-posted bed, two wooden chairs facing the fire, and a window with views across the slate roofs to the slate-grey sea beyond.

Thanking their hostess and promising to come downstairs later for tea, they stood facing each other from across the room with nervous expressions. It was strange. They had shared the laird’s bed chamber in the days since their wedding, but the idea of being alone in this strange room felt more intimate. There were no routines or distractions to mask the fact that they were now man and wife.

Jamie spent an inordinate amount of time placing their luggage on a low stool, and then stared out the window like he was searching for answers.

“Did you want to take a walk down to the castle?” she suggested timidly.

“Aye,” he agreed eagerly. “Tis a braw day for a ramble.”

She glanced at the fine drizzle that had begun to fall, shrugged and grabbed her Macintosh.

Jamie was like a giddy schoolboy upon entering the ancestral seat of Clan MacLeod. The castle itself was not open to visitors, but they had the grounds to themselves. He capered about the battlements, pointing out one feature after another.

“What eejit built those turrets? They’re no’ big enough for a wee lad to enter, ne’er mind a marksman,” he commented, looking up at the main stronghold’s façade.

“I imagine they were added recently, merely for decoration,” she replied, smiling at his outraged tone. “I understand the current Chief Macleod made significant improvements, prior to the war.” Jamie replied with a truly Scottish noise that expressed dubiousness and concession in a single, guttural sound. He spun around, taking in the whole view.

“I always heard it was the bonniest castle in all of Scotland, but I dinna believe it. Now that I see it wi’ my own eyes, weel…” Jamie scuffed his boot on the gritty rock, looking guilty for a moment. “I still prefer Lallybroch, ye ken, but this, this is…” he trailed off, at a loss for words.

Jamie face grew pensive, a deep furrow bisecting his brow.

“What is it?” she asked, stepping closer.

“It’s only… Tormod MacLeod fought on the side of the English at Culloden. I didna ken it at the time, but I read in yer husband’s books that the MacLeod attacked the lands of Jacobite supporters after the Rising, causing much suffering. And yet here their laird abides, twa hundred years on, while the Frasers are nought but names on graves…”

She stepped towards him, wrapping an arm carefully around his broad back.

“Listen to me, James Fraser. You fought bravely for a cause that you believed in, even though you knew the odds were overwhelmingly against you. There is honour in that, and honour is stronger than any castle wall. Also, you are my husband now. I’d thank you to remember that.”

He wrapped an arm around her slim shoulders in return. “Duly noted, Sassenach.”

They stood there in the drizzle, leaning slightly into each other until she interrupted the moment with a vital clarification.

“Oh, and Jamie? I never said that a laird lived in this castle.”

He leaned back to gaze at her face, eyebrows lowered in confusion.

“Flora MacLeod of MacLeod, twenty-eighth clan chief of the MacLeod since her father passed away in 1935.” She grinned smugly, watching the perplexity transform to amazement on his expressive face. He let forth a burst of laughter.

“Dhia, I hope she looks fairer in a kilt than Tormod. That man was a hairy beast.”

After a light meal of crusty bread, sheep’s milk cheese, dried sausage, and tea for Claire (“why do ye English insist on polluting water wi’ wee leaves, Sassenach?”), they retired to their room to warm themselves in front of the fire.

Jamie was quiet again, pulling at his lip as he stared into the flames. She sensed he was working something through in his mind and gave him room for silence. She allowed the warmth and crackling pop of green logs lull her into a state of suspended awareness.

“I havena been entirely truthful wi’ ye, Sassenach, and tis vexing me greatly,” Jamie began without taking his eyes from the fire. Her stomach dropped, trying to imagine what fact was so awful that even his absolute candor bowed to the demand that it remain unspoken.

“When I asked ye tae be my wife, I told ye it was on account of yer bairn, how t’would be… practical for me tae be its Da, and tae help ye in the running of Lallybroch.”

“Yes. I remember,” she said hesitantly. “It’s a little late for second thoughts, Jamie. The Catholic Church isn’t any fonder of divorce than they were two hundred years ago...”

“Ifrinn. That’s no’ what I mean at all. Christ, Claire, would ye let a man speak for once!” He rose and began pacing the small room in tight circles. His speech hurried to catch the cadence of his steps.

“Tis no’ that the reasons I gave were untrue. Tis just that t’werenna the only ones. No’ even the main one. I asked ye tae be marrit, weel, because I wanted tae be yer husband.”

Running out of words, he stopped near the bed and looked at her. At his apparent inability to continue, she ventured, “You are my husband, Jamie. And I’m very grateful for…”

“No’ a husband in body. Only a husband in name.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh!” She felt her cheeks reddening, even warmer than the glow of the fire. “Are you saying that you would want to be a husband… in body… to me?”

“Aye. Och, look at ye, Sassenach. What man wouldna want tae lie wi’ ye? I’m only mortal.”

She tried to imagine how she looked to Jamie. She was wearing a practical cotton dress, cut a little loose to accommodate her expanding waist. Her cheeks were no doubt flushed from the walk in the rain, the fire, and Jamie’s sudden revelation. She was certain her head was surrounded by a veritable Gorgon of curls.

His confession expelled, Jamie was once again able to meet her eyes, and what she saw there ignited a spark inside her that she was certain had been extinguished forever. She rose gracefully and made her way to where he was standing. In her stocking feet, she had to look up into his face. When she did, she felt electricity prickle her skin.

“Well, it is our honeymoon. I suppose it would be the… traditional thing to do.”

Her hand came to rest on Jamie’s damp linen shirt. Underneath, she could feel his heat and the tremor of muscles held tightly in check. A broad palm cupped her hip.

“I dinna mean this verra minute, Claire. Ye can take yer time tae consider. And wi’ the bairn…”

She ignored him, plucking gently at the fabric. “Your shirt is damp. You’ll catch a chill. You should hang it… by the fire…” she finished as he disposed of the offending clothing in a single move. Her hand now was free to rest against bare, gold-hued flesh.

She paced a tight circle around his body, stopping behind him where the firelight and shadows emphasized the lacerated surface of his back. Jamie’s shoulders stopped rising and falling as he held his breath, obviously nervous for his scars to be so closely observed. Before he could comment or grow restive, she pressed a careful kiss along his spine, teasing her fingertips over the sensitive skin of his flank as she completed her turn.

“Yer dress is wet as weel, Sassenach. I wouldna wish ye tae fall ill.” His voice, deep normally, was positively cavernous, pulling her pulse deep into her belly.

She spun away and lifted her hair from her neck, presenting the zipper. After a moment’s pause, Jamie’s fingers fluttered across her nape.

“What do I do?” he asked in an entirely different tone. Gone was his brash confidence, and she reminded herself anew that he was only twenty-two, five years her junior, and came from a world unaffected by modern notions of love or sex. Not wanting to embarrass him by calling attention to his inexperience, real or perceived, she determined that if Jamie was in want of guidance, he’d ask. As he had just done.

“You pull downwards on the little tab. It’s called a zipper,” she whispered back. A metallic tearing noise, and her dress loosened. Moist breath blew against the tiny hairs of her back, causing them to rise in greeting.

“Verra practical wee fastening, Sassenach,” he muttered as the garment cleaved in two, held up by the precarious slopes of her shoulders.

She turned back to him, and the sparks in his eyes rivalled those in the hearth, hot as ingots with a pulsing blue glow. A ratchety breath stuttered from her lungs.

“Ye dinna have tae do this, mo bhean ghaoil. Imma verra patient man. I’ve already bided twa hundred years just tae meet ye.”

Her lips twitched at his beautiful, though not entirely accurate gallantry.

“Mo bhean ghaoil?” she asked as she let first one, then the other shoulder dip. Her dress fell easily to the floor.

“My beautiful wife.” The words withered away to air as the vision of her body unfolded before him. Undulating ribbons of amber and shadow caressed the ivory of her skin, broken by the pale satin of her long line bra and maternity girdle.

“That’s where ye’ve been hiding yer corset,” Jamie muttered, half to himself. They were both drawing hungry lungfuls of breath, the space between them fraught with an oncoming storm.

Very slowly, as though certain she would startle and flee, he raised an outstretched hand until it met her breastbone with the pressure of a feather. She could feel the tremors that shook within him as he dragged each fingertip downward until they gathered in the warm valley between her breasts. The air in the room suddenly felt thick, too heavy to breathe.

Just as it seemed Jamie’s hand was about to venture below the edge of her undergarments, a memory assaulted her addled senses. Jamie, unknown to her as anything other than a mysterious and gravely injured patient, lay sleeping on his side in her room at Lallybroch. He was still fevered, and she had lowered the sheet to his waist, allowing night air to caress his wounded back. The firelight caught the powerful lines of his shoulder and pectorals, lighting each russet hair that bisected his torso so that he glowed like a lazy sunrise. She had been flooded by a sudden desire to know where that trail of hair led.

“It’s my turn,” she asserted, reaching for the belt holding up his trousers.

The buckle clattered to the floor without heed as Jamie pulled her roughly upwards into his descending mouth. It was a kiss without introduction or politeness, a tactical assault on her senses launched through the breach of his open mouth. It bore no relation to the few chaste kisses they had thus far shared as man and wife. She had evidently pushed him past the breaking point of his ingrained courteous behaviour.

They parted, stunned speechless, wet mouths agape. He angrily pushed his trousers past his hips and the two collapsed onto the high mattress in an inelegant flop, limbs battling and grasping anywhere for purchase. Her legs fell open instinctively to cradle the long, muscular arc of his body. A cool button nudged her inner thigh. Calloused hands pushed desperately on the unyielding structure of her girdle. A coarse abrasion between her legs. Heat. And then an urgent plunge, both familiar and foreign.

His forehead was pushed into the pillow above her shoulder. Untutored, laboured grunts echoed in her ears.

“Jamie,” she gasped. “Jamie, you’re crushing me.”

He rose immediately onto his elbows, relieving the grinding pressure on her chest, but seemed unable to halt the tidal surge of his body into hers. In a moment, it was moot. He froze, letting loose a shuddering moan that scaled his spine one vertebra at a time. Collapsing sideways onto his back, his face was a portrait of mute astonishment.

She lay beside him, staring at the beamed ceiling, and tried to gather her thoughts. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t invited this very thing. And while the… encounter had been ephemerally brief, she could not deny that she’d enjoyed it. Enjoyed being the recipient of so much passion, no matter how short-lived.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jamie’s ring finger bouncing, tapping a morse code of disquiet against his chest. Awkwardness was a palpable third presence in the bed between them. She wanted to say something to ease his nerves, but words floated away as she tried to wrangle them into coherent sentences.

“Claire, I… please tell me I didna hurt ye. Ye or the bairn.”

His quiet anguish snapped the cord that had been holding her tongue still in her mouth.

“No. Jamie, of course not. I would have said something, if you had.”

“I didna ken it would be sae… fierce,” he confessed.

That certainly answered her earlier question about his prior experience. She couldn’t help feeling a flutter of… something… deep in her belly at the thought.

“It can be. But my body is designed to protect the baby. It will probably become more awkward, as I grow larger. I’ll tell you, if anything doesn’t feel…nice.”

Jamie rose on an elbow, peering down at her. His face was now alight with novice curiosity.

“Ye liked it then? Men gossip about these things, ye ken, and I had heard that most women dinna like it.”

It was too late, and her nerves were too taxed to launch into a conversation about female sexual pleasure and a man’s role in assuring it. She hazarded it was a better lesson to learn by example, in any event. But she didn’t want him to go to sleep disappointed in himself.

Instead she told him the truth.

“I did like it, Jamie. Very much. I’m tired now, but perhaps in the morning…?”

He grinned like a Cheshire cat. Shucking his trousers carelessly, he splayed naked across the bed with his hands tucked behind his head, looking for all the world like a piece of toppled Grecian statuary. It suddenly hurt to breath. The simmering warmth low in her belly threatened to burst into flame, but she was truly exhausted. What she needed most was sleep.

Turning modestly aside, she unhooked her bra and unzipped her girdle before quickly donning a white nightdress. She could feel Jamie’s eyes run over the bared skin of her back.

“Cuir stad air do cheann, Sassenach,” he said softly as she once again settled beside him.

He lay behind her, fingers trailing through her hair and down her arms like spider webs. She fell asleep to his quiet Gaelic mutterings, a lilting lullaby.

an duine agam - my husband

feasgar math - good afternoon

mo bhean - my wife

mo bhean ghaoil - my beautiful wife

Cuir stad air do cheann - Rest your head

#outlander #my writing

53 notes · View notes

mlphaiku · 8 years ago

Text

HARD TO SAY ANYTHING

CMC help Mac Woo Sugar Belle from heartthrob Fairy tale logic

1 note · View note

lemonde01net · 4 years ago

Quote

bibliothèques de programmation Python Top 10 des bibliothèques de programmation Python Python est un langage de programmation de haut niveau, facile à apprendre, orienté objet, modulaire et souligné facile à lire. Python est largement utilisé dans la sphère éducative, pour le calcul scientifique, les mégadonnées et l'apprentissage automatique, dans le développement Web et Internet, les graphiques, l'interface graphique, les jeux et d'autres directions. Parce que l'écosystème Python est énorme, il existe d'innombrables bibliothèques qui simplifient la programmation dans ce langage. Grâce à de telles bibliothèques, il devient possible d'effectuer plus facilement certaines tâches sans avoir besoin d'écrire du code redondant. Si vous êtes un programmeur Python, il est utile de vous familiariser avec les bibliothèques les plus populaires. Notre article en décrit dix. Commençons par les bibliothèques générales telles que Requests, Simplejson, SQLAlchemy, NumPy, puis nous nous tournerons vers des bibliothèques plus «avancées» pour l'apprentissage automatique, les données scientifiques, la construction d'interfaces graphiques et le calcul scientifique. 1. Requests Avec plus de 26 000 étoiles sur GitHub et des milliers de téléchargements quotidiens, Requests se classe premier dans le classement des bibliothèques de développement les plus populaires et utiles en Python. Cette bibliothèque est utilisée dans des projets de Spotify, Microsoft, NPR, Heroku, Amazon, BuzzFeed, Reddit, Twitter, Mozzila (la liste est longue). Les demandes réduisent le travail manuel lourd et automatisent les tâches telles que l'ajout d'une chaîne de requête à une URL, le cryptage des formulaires de soumission de données, une connexion HTTP permanente, la combinaison des connexions HTTP, etc. en utilisant urllib3. Pour faciliter le développement, un déchiffrement automatique du contenu est également fourni. La bibliothèque propose le chargement d'autres fonctions, telles que le journal d'authentification, les cookies de clé / valeur élégants, la représentation Unicode pour l'attribut body de l'objet de réponse, le téléchargement en continu, le délai de connexion, la prise en charge de .netrc. En général, Requests n'est pas une bibliothèque supplémentaire pour un projet Web. 2. Simplejson Il s'agit d'une autre bibliothèque très populaire et l'une des plus téléchargées. Simplejson est un encodeur et décodeur json rapide, précis et extensible qui prend en charge Python 3.3+ avec une compatibilité descendante avec Python 2.5. Simplejson est écrit en Python et n'a aucune dépendance externe. Il comprend également des extensions écrites en C pour des représentations à vitesse particulièrement élevée. En plus de l'UTF-8 par défaut, le décodeur Simplejson peut gérer les chaînes JSON qui viennent dans n'importe quel encodage. Avec le Kwarg par défaut pour les vidages , l'encodeur Simplejson peut être utilisé pour sérialiser même des objets non pris en charge. La bibliothèque Simplejson peut effectuer un post-traitement des objets JSON à l' aide de quarts object_hook ou object_pairs_hook. L'implémentation de protocoles tels que JSON-RPC est grandement facilitée à l'aide de Simplejson. 3. Alchimie SQL B ase data - partie intégrante du développement d'applications et dans le monde de Python SQLAlchemy - bibliothèque nécessaire pour travailler avec des bases de données. P redlagaya ensemble complet de durable modèles de domaines d'accès haute performance aux bases de données sur d'agir comme un ensemble d'outils SQL et mapping objet-relationnel. Dans un intérêt particulier, le mappage du modèle de données dans lequel différentes classes sont affichées dans la base de données de différentes manières, permettant au modèle d'objet et au schéma de base de données d'être déclenchés initialement. Les développeurs obtiennent le contrôle total et la révision de la construction SQL, rien ne se cache derrière les murs des packers. L'approche de cette bibliothèque est beaucoup plus moderne et efficace par rapport aux outils SQL / ORM disponibles, et prend donc une place de choix dans la liste des bibliothèques Python les plus utiles. P Après la dernière version, SQLAlchemy a pris la tête; Il est utilisé par des organisations telles que Freshbooks, Survey Monkey, Mozilla, reddit, Yelp et bien d'autres. 4. TensorFlow TensorFlow suit les bibliothèques de base et vous plonge dans le monde de l'intelligence artificielle. Il s'agit d'une bibliothèque Python open source qui a été utilisée avec succès pour effectuer des calculs à l'aide de graphiques de flux de données. Le calcul est initialement présenté sous forme de graphiques, où chaque nœud du graphique est conçu pour effectuer des opérations mathématiques. Cependant, le calcul réel est effectué sur demande, ce qui vous permet d'augmenter la productivité des calculs complexes. La bibliothèque prend en compte les besoins de l'informatique complexe: elle sert l'informatique répartie sur le CPU / GPU et plusieurs systèmes, en prenant soin de la duplication. TensorFlow est une bibliothèque open source gratuite. Il a été développé par les ingénieurs de Google travaillant sur le projet Google Brain. 5. Scrapy Scrapy est un cadre utilisé pour extraire des données structurées de sites Web. Il s'agit d'une bibliothèque rapide, simple, extensible et facile à utiliser. Son utilisation comprend l'exploration de données, le traitement de l'information, un robot de recherche, l'exploration de données à l'aide de l'API, et bien plus encore. Scrapy out of the box prend en charge l'extraction de données à partir de HTML / XML à l'aide d'expressions Xpath et de sélecteurs CSS, un shell de console interactif, l'exportation de données vers json, csv, xml, back-end ftp, stockage s3, stockage local, gestion des cookies et des sessions, compression, mise en cache, authentification, usurpation de l'agent utilisateur. Scrapy vous permet de prescrire des règles pour l'extraction des données. La bibliothèque est écrite en Python, sa conception suggère la possibilité d'extension en raison de nouvelles fonctionnalités, et vous pouvez la porter pour qu'elle s'exécute sur Linux, Windows, Mac et BSD. 6. Matplotlib Bibliothèque de constructions numériques bidimensionnelles. Il est idéal pour analyser les données et créer des formes de haute qualité de différents formats, y compris des graphiques et des tableaux interactifs. Matplotlib peut être utilisé dans des scripts écrits en Python, dans le shell IPython et sur une grande variété de serveurs d'applications Web. Cela simplifie considérablement les tâches de construction complexes. En écrivant un petit morceau de code, vous pouvez générer des graphiques, des histogrammes, des diagrammes de dispersion de données. Les modules combinés pyplot et Ipython offrent MATLAB comme interface pour la construction de graphiques simples. Vous pouvez contrôler complètement l'apparence des lignes, les propriétés du système de coordonnées, etc. C'est sans aucun doute l'une des meilleures bibliothèques de construction numérique disponibles pour Python. Des outils tels que fond de carte, cartopie, mplot3d, axes_grid améliorent les capacités de Mataplotlib. Cette bibliothèque est une idée originale de John Hunter. Il est utilisé dans des milliers de projets de recherche, scientifiques et d'édition. 7. Scikit-Learn Une bibliothèque de haut niveau contenant des algorithmes comme la forêt aléatoire, prêts à être utilisés dans des projets d'apprentissage automatique. Le langage Scikit-learn est pour la plupart Python, mais il a également activé Cython pour améliorer les performances de certains algorithmes internes. L'encapsuleur Cython autour de LIBSVM est utilisé pour prendre en charge les implémentations vectorielles, et LIBLINEAR est utilisé pour la régression informatique et la prise en charge linéaire des machines vectorielles. Scikit-learn utilise également CBLAS, qui est l'interface C pour l'utilisation de la bibliothèque de sous-programmes d'algèbre linéaire de base (CBLAS). Cette bibliothèque est construite sur SciPy et est distribuée sous la licence open source BSD 3 clauses pour la recherche ainsi que pour un usage commercial. 8. Pygame Aimez-vous le développement de jeux? Pygame est conçu pour créer des applications multimédias avec des jeux inclus. Il est construit sur la puissante bibliothèque Simple Directmedia (SDL). Cette bibliothèque est, entre autres, utilisée pour enseigner le développement de jeux aux enfants. C'est open source. La force de Pygame est qu'il ne nécessite pas OpenGL, permet l'utilisation de plusieurs processeurs pour fonctionner dans un système multicœur pour des performances très élevées, ainsi que l'utilisation de codes C et d'assemblage optimisés pour les fonctions internes. Pygame est très portable et peut fonctionner sur presque toutes les plateformes et tous les systèmes d'exploitation. Cette bibliothèque a été téléchargée par des millions de personnes et il est très probable qu'elle soit l'une des meilleures bibliothèques de jeux. 9. Arrow Arrow est conçu pour surmonter les lacunes de la fonctionnalité intégrée de date et d'heure de Python, qui n'est pas entièrement claire et facile. Il peut être utilisé comme un excellent remplacement pour les modules datetime et time en Python. 10. wxPython wxPython est l'une des trois bibliothèques GUI les plus populaires pour Python (les deux autres sont PyQT et Tkinter). wxPython est intuitif pour les développeurs de python et facile à utiliser, c'est un excellent mélange de programmation C ++ et Python de wxWidget. wxPython est utilisé comme module d'extension Python et est une boîte à outils multiplateforme qui s'exécute sur de nombreuses plates-formes sans nécessiter de modifications. Il est pris en charge sur de nombreuses plates-formes, notamment Unix, Macintosh OS X et Microsoft Windows (32 bits). wxPython offre des milliers d'éléments qui facilitent la création d'applications GUI Python longues et fonctionnelles.

http://lemonde01net.blogspot.com/2020/06/top-10-des-bibliotheques-de.html

#SEO #Local SEO training

1 note · View note

literaryvice · 5 years ago

Text

I Let You Go: Mystery! Thrills! Daring Escapes!

I Let You Go, by Clare Macintosh, is totally silly and totally fun and I listened to it on audiobook and then book an ebook version for the cottage because I can read faster than anyone can read to me, and I wanted to know! what! happens! next!

Oh I get it, it’s plenty flawed with damsels in distress, and deceit, and assumptions about women-and-work. But it’s still… so fun. Like when…

View On WordPress

#Claire Macintosh #I Let You Go #Mystery #thriller

0 notes

gazemoil · 5 years ago

Text

RECENSIONE: Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe (Beer On The Rug, 2011)

Abbiamo fatto tutto. Questa è l’impressione quando si parla di storia dell’uomo. Così tanto che non è rimasto più nulla di nuovo da fare e tutto sembra un ciclico ripetersi di ciò che è già avvenuto in passato, soltanto che a volte si ripropone secondo diverse combinazioni e cambiamenti minimi. Per molti questa situazione non corrisponde ad un’occasione per celebrare i traguardi raggiunti dall’uomo, evidentemente talmente avanguardisti da aver riscritto un modello duraturo e funzionante nel tempo, piuttosto vedono con scoraggiata delusione la loro specie che non sembra più in grado di progredire come una volta. Anche in musica tutti i generi sembrano stati inventati e ormai la novità si basa su una combinazione di ciò che è esistito. Lo shoegaze, il dream pop, il trip-hop e tutti i “post” ad iniziare dal post-punk fino al post-club non sono altro che piccole correnti difficilmente riconoscibili, variazioni minime dei generi musicali principali a cui appartengono che invece hanno delle forme meglio definite. Pare che la vaporwave, un microgenere musicale nato - ed alcuni sostengono sia anche morto - proprio in questi tempi di crisi del progresso, manifesti il disagio del vivere nel presente volendosi cullare nella gloria del passato con perpetua nostalgia. Allo stesso tempo, idealizzando gli anni che furono, ne critica gli aspetti più superficiali ed effimeri che forse non sono altro che le cause stesse per cui l’adesso sembra così invivibile. Neanche la musica che verte sulla ripresa di atmosfere passate è certo una novità, ma la vaporwave ha una genesi molto particolare che la rende manifesto di un fenomeno molto diffuso, ovvero, il limite dell’uomo che pur sfruttando invenzioni tecnologiche che prima non esistevano continua a pensare allo stesso modo. Per capire meglio questo strano genere musicale bisogna fare un passo indietro e scoprire dove e come è nato e perché non potrebbe esistere in nessun altro tempo se non questo.

Nel 2010 il mondo si sente già nell’era post-internet, vale a dire, secondo qualcuno la società ha metabolizzato e si sta sviluppando secondo il profondo impatto della nascita di internet, avviandosi verso un nuovo periodo storico. Paradossalmente, gli stravolgimenti più radicali nel nostro modo di vivere sono appena iniziati e da lì a poco ci saremo ritrovati con cellulari dallo schermo sensibile al tocco delle dita, in grado di riconoscere la nostra faccia e sui quali avremo potuto connetterci con tutto il mondo in tempo reale tramite social network sempre più aggiornati. In quegli anni viviamo l’ultimo grande nuovo cambiamento dell’umanità. Contemporaneamente, anche la musica si sposta sui computer e sui siti web. In quegli anni, Claire Boucher ha usato proprio lo stesso termine “post-internet” per descrivere il suo nuovo progetto musicale sotto lo pseudonimo Grimes, come se avesse previsto ciò che sarebbe diventata l’esperienza della creazione musicale nell’era digitale. Con uno sguardo similmente acuto al futuro, qualcuno seduto dietro uno schermo da qualche parte del mondo ha intuito ciò che sta succedendo, volendo testimoniare il momento in cui ci avviamo verso un futuro e salutiamo un passato, ma rendendosi conto che probabilmente sarebbe stato un addio solo alle modalità di creazione, adesso più veloci ed esaustive, e un arrivederci ad assuefazioni ed illusioni che si prospettano più invasive e convincenti.

Dalle costole di artisti come Ariel Pink e James Ferraro che manifestano il loro attaccamento alla cultura popolare anni 90′ tramite sonorità per le quali si è dovuto inventare dei termini specifici, la chillwave ed il pop ipnagogico, si dirama una tendenza sperimentale ed ironica basata su internet chiamata proprio vaporwave. Per gli storici musicali questo è coinciso al momento in cui viene pubblicato Floral Shoppe, l’album accreditato al misterioso Macintosh Plush destinato a definire il genere, nel 2011. Le undici tracce attingono esclusivamente da risorse musicali e culturali degli anni 80′ e 90′ e le riutilizzano tramite l’uso compulsivo del campionamento fino a formare un agglomerato smooth jazz, rnb e lounge. Poi è tutta una manipolazione, un rallentare ed accelerare le canzoni di quegli anni, aggiungere effetti surreali e soporiferi per proporre musica da camera rimodellata e sintetizzata con un gusto onirico, spesso esportata in chiave lo-fi proprio per aumentare la dimensione del sogno. Molti la definiscono come una naturale progressione delle melodie impressionistiche e nebulose del pop ipnagogico, ma qui le trasformazioni sono ambigue, la nostalgia per quei tempi è quasi inquietante e non si capisce se si tratti di una presa in giro ironica o di un’infatuazione malsana. A primo ascolto sembra quasi i file siano corrotti o il computer sia invaso da un virus. Tutto ad un tratto, l’idea dell’era post-internet non è più così eccitante, al contrario, si è inacidita. Oltre il cielo di uno sgargiante rosa, i colori pastello ed il lucido paesaggio urbano si prospetta uno scenario quasi distopico, un posto asetticamente digitale e rigido, una matematica illusione ottica nauseante in cui nulla è attinente e tutto è incollato senza contesto. Michelle Lhooq di Vice a riguardo dice: “Immagina di prendere pezzi di musica da ascensore, da supermercato o dalle televendite anni 80′ o quella canzoncina metallica che mettono nella segreteria telefonica, poi fai qualche taglio, abbassala di qualche tono e rimescola il tutto finché non ottieni un sassofono melmoso che sgocciola da una valvola di plastica scadente. Quella è la vaporwave”.

Per molti la vaporwave è solo una stupidaggine, un’altra tendenza da archiviare, un meme su internet nato per fare ridere qualcuno. E’ vero, in contemporanea della musica prodotta dalla stessa Vektroid o dal visionario Blank Banshee veniva caricata su internet una grandissima quantità di altra roba meno seria e soprattutto negli anni a venire, quando qualcuno si accorge di questa bizzarria musicale, la trasforma in un’estetica facile da prendere in giro. Ma la vaporwave nasce con un suo scopo, un messaggio di critica verso il capitalismo consumistico, secondo lo stravolgimento della spettacolarizzazione mediatica di alcuni fenomeni popolari dell’occidente con toni psichedelici e, a volte, dichiaratamente non-sense, proprio per evidenziarne l’assurdità, una parodia dell'ipercontestualizzazione americana dell'Asia a seguito dell’appropriazione della cultura di manga ed anime. E’ un’estetica fortemente ironica, satirica ed accelerazionista che si è autodeterminata in una serie sconfinata di rappresentazioni grafiche e materiale sonoro. Nel suo libro Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts lo scrittore Grafton Tanner ha definito la vaporwave come la musica del non-tempo e del non-luogo, perché secondo lui questo genere musicale ricorda di come la cultura del consumismo sfrenato non abbia lasciato alcuna impronta significativa nel tempo e nello spazio.

Secondo nessuna logica convenzionale un disco che allora sembra totalmente incomprensibile avrebbe dovuto sopravvivere oltre i regni del profondo internet nei quali è nato, eppure, più o meno consapevolmente, la giovane Ramona Xavier, poi conosciuta con lo pseudonimo Vektroid, l’elusiva autrice del disco ha saputo rappresentare l’ansia esistenziale e la terrificante distorsione della realtà odierna. Nel 2019, l’ottimismo nei confronti dell’era digitale è assente come lo era in Floral Shoppe quasi dieci anni prima.

L’album inizia con Booting - tradotto dal giapponese ブート Būto - un ritaglio di Tar Baby di Sade che, esattamente come dice il titolo, è un continuo re-bot e si ripete come una gif che si trasforma in una spirale di attacchi d’ansia. Se il pop ipnagogico o la chillwave utilizzano i loop come finestre su una beata eternità, Xavier disorienta tagliando i suoi sample cortissimi, trasformandoli in muri che gradualmente ti si chiudono addosso. Nei momenti finali la traccia si annulla con maggiore violenza, rallentando ancora di più mentre contemporaneamente le versioni accelerate dello stesso loop riecheggiano nello sfondo. E’ l’equivalente musicale dell’iperventilazione, nonché il momento più tetro del disco, rotto bruscamente dall’entrata della più estatica e celeberrima Lisa Frank 420 / Modern Computing - tradotto dal giapponese リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー Risafuranku 420 / gendai no konpyū - il quale cinguettante ed euforico groove è diventato il biglietto da visita della vaporwave. La traccia ripropone la versione di Diana Ross di It’s Your Move, ma Xavier abbassa la tonalità vocale dell’icona pop fino a ridurla ad una macchia scura, prosciugandone il fascino ed amplificandone la disperazione. Appropriatamente, la canzone è inebriante, un vertiginoso volo in picchiata verso un’euforia dolorosa. Richiama inavvertitamente il dub, dove il missaggio diventa lo strumento principale, costruendo echi mentre il suono balza da un canale ad un altro. E’ un curioso caso in cui la vaporwave infetta il mondo reale delle corporative, infatti, la traccia diventa persino una hit che appare nelle catene di e-mail e la colonna sonora di un video virale su Youtube che mostra riprese ipnotiche da catene di montaggio nelle fabbriche, semplicemente intitolato The Most Satisfying Video In The World.

youtube

La potenza trasformista del disco accresce mano a mano che le canzoni campionate diventano più oscure, come un paio della band Pages nelle due tracce successive, rispettivamente You Need A Hero in Library - tradotto dal giapponese ライブラリ Raiburari - e If I Saw You Again, una traccia che puntava al successo in classifica ma ha fallito nel suo intento, nella title-track Floral Shoppe - tradotto dal giapponese 花の専門店 Hana no Senmon-ten. Tuttavia, in quest’ultima Xavier è interessata soltanto al breve intro, un rimbalzo fluttuante di synth e batteria che viene totalmente stravolto e ripiegato su se stesso fino a quando diventa labirintico. Nelle canzoni successive vengono campionate tre canzoni della band Dancing Fantasy degli anni 90′, unificando la seconda parte del disco in una specie di suite. Ad esempio, la tentacolare Chill Divin' with ECCO - tradotto dal giapponese ECCOと悪寒ダイビング ECCO to Okan Daibingu - ripete all’infinito lavaggi di synth come fossero onde dentro una lavatrice che sbattono sulle stesse metalliche pareti e riff di chitarra senza volto, ma il risultato è sorprendentemente elegante e gradevole, raggiungendo il picco d’equilibrio tra banalità e trascendenza del disco. Te - tradotto dal giapponese て - è l’unica traccia senza alcun campionamento, una boccata d’aria dopo aver fissato lo schermo di un computer per troppo tempo. La melodia non mostra segni di rallentamento prolungato o editing confuso come in precedenza e quando gli uccelli cinguettano in lontananza comunica un senso di pace ed equilibrio che il resto dell'album scompone così sapientemente.

TRACCE MIGLIORI: Lisa Frank 420 / Modern Computer; Flower Shoppe; Chill Divin' with ECCO

TRACCE PEGGIORI: Foreign Banks Aviation

CLICCA QUI PER LA VALUTAZIONE FINALE

#floral shoppe #macintosh plus #vektroid #ramona xavier #vaporwave #hypnagogic pop #chillwave #future funk #downtempo #recensione #musicale #recensioni #musicali #music #review #gazemoil #2011 #beer on the rug

1 note · View note