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woman-loving · 3 years ago

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Lesbian Unintelligibility in Pre-1989 Poland

Selection from ""No one talked about it": The Paradoxes of Lesbian Identity in pre-1989 Poland, by Magdalena Staroszczyk, in Queers in State Socialism: Cruising 1970s Poland, eds. Tomasz Basiuk and Jędrzej Burszta, 2021

The question of lesbian visibility is pertinent today because of the limited number of lesbian-oriented activist events and cultural representations. But it presents a major methodological problem when looking at the past. That problem lies in an almost complete lack of historical sources, something partly mended with oral history interviews, but also in an epistemological dilemma. How can we talk about lesbians when they did not exist as a recognizable category? What did their (supposed) non-existence mean? And should we even call those who (supposedly) did not exist “lesbians”?

To illustrate this problem, let me begin with excerpts from an interview I conducted for the CRUSEV project [a study of queer cultures in the 1970s]. My interlocutor is a lesbian woman born in the 1950s, who lived in Cracow most of her life:

“To this very day I have a problem with my brothers, as I cannot talk to them about this. They just won’t do it, I would like to talk, but. . . . They have this problem, they lace up their mouths when any reference is made to this topic, because they were raised in that reality [when] no one talked about it. It was a taboo. It still is. ... I was so weak, unable to take initiative, lacking a concept of my own life—all this testifies to the oppression of homosexual persons, who do not know how to live, have no support from [others], no information or knowledge learned at school, or from a psychologist. What did I do? I searched in encyclopaedias for the single entry, “homosexuality.” What did I learn? That I was a pervert. What did it do to me? It only hurt me, no? Q: Was the word lesbian in use? Only as a slur. Even my mother used it as an offensive word. When she finally figured out my orientation, she said the word a few times. With hatred. Hissing the word at me.”

The woman offers shocking testimony of intense and persistent hostility towards a family member—sister, daughter—who happens to be a lesbian. The brothers and the mother are so profoundly unable to accept her sexuality that they cannot speak about it at all, least of all rationally. The taboo has remained firmly in place for decades. How was it maintained? And, perhaps more importantly, how do we access the emotional reality that it caused? The quotes all highlight the theme of language, silence, and something unspeakable. Tabooization implies a gap in representation, and the appropriate word cannot be spoken but merely hissed out with hatred.

Popular discourse and academic literature alike address this problem under the rubric of “lesbian invisibility” (Mizielińska 2001). I put forward a different conceptual frame, proposing to address the question of lesbian identity in pre-1989 Poland not in terms of visibility versus invisibility, but instead in terms of cultural intelligibility versus unintelligibility. The former concepts, which have a rich history in discussions of pre-emancipatory lesbian experience, presume an already existing identity that is self-evident to the person in question. They assume the existence of a person who thinks of herself as a lesbian. One then proceeds to ask whether or not this lesbian was visible as such to others, that is, whether others viewed her as the lesbian she knew she was. Another assumption behind this framing is that the woman in question wished to be visible although this desired visibility had been denied her. These are some of the essentializing assumptions inscribed in the concept of (in)visibility. Their limitation is that they only allow us to ask whether or not the lesbian is seen for who she feels she is and wishes to be seen by others.

By contrast, (un)intelligibility looks first to the social construction of identity, especially to the constitutive role of language. To think in those terms is to ask under what conditions same-sex desire between women is culturally legible as constitutive of an identity. So, instead of asking if people saw lesbians for who they really were, we will try to understand the specific epistemic conditions which made some women socially recognizable to others, and also to themselves, as “lesbians.” This use of the concept “intelligibility” is analogous to its use by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble, as she explains why gender conformity is key to successful personhood[...].

For Butler, cultural intelligibility is thus an aspect of the social norm, as it corresponds to “a normative ideal.” It is one of the conditions of coherence and continuity requisite for successful personhood. In a similar vein, to say that lesbians in the People’s Republic of Poland were not culturally intelligible is of course not to claim that there were no women engaged in same-sex romantic and erotic relationships—such a conclusion would be absurd, as well as untrue. It is, rather, to suggest that “lesbian” was not a category of personhood available or, for that matter, desirable to many nonheteronormative women. The word was not in common use and it did not signify to them the sort of person they felt they were. Nor was another word readily available, as interlocutors’ frequent periphrases strongly suggest, for example, “I cannot talk to them about this. ... They ... lace up their mouths when any reference is made to this topic” (my emphases).

Interviews conducted with women for the CRUSEV project are filled with pain due to rejection. So are the interviews conducted by Anna Laszuk, whose Dziewczyny, wyjdźcie z szafy (Come Out of the Closet, Girls! 2006 ) was a pioneering collection of herstories which gave voice to non-heteronormative Polish women of different ages, including those who remember the pre-1989 era. Lesbian unintelligibility is arguably a major theme in the collection. The pain caused by the sense of not belonging expressed by many illustrates that being unintelligible can be harmful. At the same time, unintelligibility had some practical advantages. The main among them was relative safety in a profoundly heteronormative society. As long as things went unnamed, a women-loving woman was not in danger of stigmatization or social ostracism.

Basia, born in 1939 and thus the oldest among Laszuk’s interviewees, offers a reassuring narrative in which unintelligibility has a positive valence:

“I cannot say a bad word about my parents. They knew but they did not comment. . . . My parents never asked me personal questions, never exerted any kind of pressure on me to get married. They were people of great culture, very understanding, and they quite simply loved me. They would meet my various girlfriends, but these were never referred to as anything but “friends” (przyjaciółki). Girls had it much easier than boys because intimacy between girls was generally accepted. Nobody was surprised that I showed up with a woman, invited her home, held her hand, or that we went on trips together.” (Laszuk 2006, 27)

The gap between visceral knowing and the impossibility of naming is especially striking in this passage. The parents “knew” and Basia knew that they knew, but they did not comment, ask questions, or make demands, and Basia clearly appreciates their silence as a favour. To her, it was a form of politeness, discreetness, perhaps even protectiveness. The silence was, in fact, a form of affectionate communication: “they quite simply loved me.”

Another of Laszuk’s interviewees is Nina, born around 1945 and 60 years old at the time of the interview. With a certain nostalgia, Nina recalls the days when certain things were left unnamed, suggesting that there is erotic potential in the unintelligibility of women’s desire. Laszuk summarizes her views:

“Nina claims that those times certainly carried a certain charm: erotic relationships between women, veiled with understatement and secrecy, had a lot of beauty to them. Clandestine looks were exchanged above the heads of people who remained unaware of their meaning, as women understood each other with half a gesture, between words. Nowadays, everything has a name, everything is direct.” (Laszuk 2006, 33)

A similar equation between secrecy and eroticism is drawn by the much younger Izabela Filipiak, trailblazing author of Polish feminist fiction in the 1990s and the very first woman in Poland to publicly come out as lesbian, in an interview for the Polish edition of Cosmopolitan in 1998. Six years later, Filipiak suggested a link between things remaining unnamed and erotic pleasure, and admitted to a certain nostalgia for this pre-emancipatory formula of lesbian (non)identity. Her avowed motivation was not the fear of stigmatization but a desire for erotic intensity:

“When love becomes passion in which I lose myself, I stop calculating, stop comparing, no longer anchor it in social relations, or some norm. I simply immerse myself in passion. My feelings condition and justify everything that happens from that point on. I do not reflect upon myself nor dwell on stigma because my feeling is so pure that it burns through and clears away everything that might attach to me as a woman who loves women.” (Kulpa and Warkocki 2004)

Filipiak acknowledges the contemporary, “postmodern” (her word) lesbian identity which requires activism and entails enumerating various kinds of discrimination. But paradoxically—considering that she is the first public lesbian in Poland—she speaks with much more enthusiasm about the “modernist lesbians” described by Baudelaire:

“They chose the path of passion. Secrecy and passion. Of course, their passion becomes a form of consent to remain secret, to stay invisible to others, but this is not unambivalent. I once talked to such an “oldtimer” who lived her entire life in just that way and she protested very strongly when I made a remark about hiding. Because, she says, she did not hide anything, she drove all around the city with her beloved and, of course, everyone knew. Yes, everyone knew, but nobody remembers it now, there is no trace of all that.” (Kulpa and Warkocki 2004)

Cultural unintelligibility causes the gap between “everyone knew” and “nobody remembers” but it is also the source of excitement and pleasure. For Filipiak’s “old-timer” and her predecessors, Baudelaire’s modernist lesbians, the evasion, or rejection, of identity and the maintaining of secrecy is the path of passion. Crucially, these disavowals of identity mobilize a discourse of freedom rather than hiding, entrapment, or staying in the closet. The lack of a name is interpreted as an unmooring from language and a liberation from its norms.

Needless to say, cultural unintelligibility may also lead to profound torment and self-hatred. In the concept of nationhood generated by nationalists and by the Catholic Church in Poland, lesbians (seen stereotypically) are double outsiders whose exclusion from language is vital.[1] A repentant homosexual woman named Katarzyna offers her testimony in a Catholic self-help manual addressing those who wish to be cured of homosexuality. (It is irrelevant for my purpose whether the testimony is authentic; my interest is in the discursive construction of lesbian identity as literally impossible and nonexistent.) Katarzyna speaks about her search for love, her profound sense of guilt and her disgust with herself. The word “lesbian” is never used; her homosexuality is framed as confusion and as straying from her true desire for God. The origin of the pain is the woman’s unintelligibility to herself:

“Only I knew how much despair there was in my life on account of being different. First, there was the sense of being torn apart when I realized how different my desires were from the appearance of my body. Despite the storm of homosexual desire, I was still a woman. Then, the question: What to do with myself? How to live?” (Huk 1996, 121)

A woman cannot love other women—the subject knows this. We can speculate that her knowledge is due to her Catholic upbringing; she has internalized the teaching that homosexuality is a sin, and thus untrue and not real. The logic of the confession is overdetermined: the only way for her to become intelligible to herself is to abandon same-sex desire and turn to God, and through him to men. Church language thus frames homosexuality as chaos: it is a disordered space where no appropriate language can obtain. Within this frame, unintelligibility is anything but erotic. It is rather an instrument of shaming and, once internalized, a symptom of shame.

For many, the experience of unintelligibility is moored in intense heteronormativity, without regard to Church teachings or the language of national belonging. Struggling with the choice between social intelligibility available to straights and leading an authentic life outside the realm of intelligibility, one CRUSEV interlocutor, aged 67, describes her youth in 1960s and 1970s:

“I always knew I was a lesbian ... and if I am one, then I will be one. Yes, in that sense. And not to live the life of a married woman, mother and so on. This life wasn’t my life at all. However, as I said, it was fine in an external sense. So calm and well-ordered: a husband, nice children, everything, everything. But it was external, and my life was not my life at all, it wasn’t me.”

She thus underscores her internal sense of dissonance, a felt incompatibility with the social role she was playing. The role model of a wife and mother was available to her, but a lesbian role model was not.

The discomfort felt at the unavailability of a role model may have had different consequences. Another CRUSEV interviewee, aged 62, describes her impulse to change her life so as to authentically experience her feelings for another woman, in contrast to that woman’s ex:

“She visited me a few times, and it was enough that I wrote something, anything ... [and] she would get on the train and travel across the country. There were no telephones then, during martial law. Regardless of anything, she would be there. And at one point I realized that I ... damn, I loved her. ... She broke up with her previous girlfriend very violently—this may interest you—because it turned out that the girl was so terribly afraid of being exposed and of some unimaginable consequences that she simply ran away.”

The fear of exposure, critically addressed by the interlocutor, was nonetheless something she, too, experienced. She goes on to speak of “hiding a secret” and “stifling” her emotions.

A concern with leading an inauthentic life resurfaces in the account of the afore-quoted woman, aged 67:

“I couldn’t reveal my secret to anyone. The only person who knew was my friend in Cracow. I led such a double life, I mean. ... It is difficult to say if this was a life, because it was as if I had my inner spirituality and my inner world, entirely secret, but outside I behaved like all the other girls, so I went out with some boys. ... It was always deeply suppressed by me and I was always fighting with myself. I mean, I fell in love [with women] and did everything to fall out of love [laughter]. On and on again.”

Her anxiety translates into self-pathologizing behaviour:

“In 1971 I received my high school diploma and I was already . . . in a relationship of some years with my high school girlfriend. . . . But because we both thought we were abnormal, perverted or something, somehow we wanted to be cured, and so she was going to college to Cracow, and I to Poznań. We engaged in geographic therapy, so to speak.”

The desire to “be cured” from homosexuality recurs in a number of interviews. Sometimes it has a factual dimension, as interlocutors describe having undergone psychotherapy and even reparative therapy—of course, to no avail.

Others decide to have a relationship with a woman after years spent in relationships with men. Referring to her female partner of 25 years, who had previously been married to a man, one of my interlocutors suggests that her partner had been disavowing her homosexual desires for many years before the two women’s relationship began: “the truth is that H. had struggled with it for more than 20 years and she was probably not sure what was going on.” Despite this presumed initial confusion, the women’s relationship had already lasted for more than 25 years at the time I conducted the interview.

Recognizing one’s homosexual desires did not necessarily have to be difficult or shocking. It was not for this woman, aged 66 at the time of the interview:

“It was obvious to me. I didn’t, no, no, I didn’t suppress it, I knew that [I was going], “Oh, such a nice girl, I like this one, with this one I want to be close, with that one I want to talk longer, with that one I want to spend time, with that one I want, for example, to embrace her neck or grab her hand”.”

Rather, what came as a shock was the unavailability of any social role or language corresponding to this felt desire that came as a shock. The woman continues:

“It turned out that I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, that I couldn’t tell anyone. I realized this when I grew up and watched my surroundings, family, friends, society. I saw that this topic was not there! If it’s not there, how can I get it out of myself? I wasn’t so brave.”

The tabooization of homosexuality—its unintelligibility—is a recurring thread in these accounts; what varies is the extent to which it marred the subjects’ self-perception.

#lgbtq history #poland #lesbian history #unintelligibility #lesbian unintelligibility #this might be deleted in the future so read it while you can

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christinaroseandrews · 4 years ago

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Best Books We Reviewed in 2020

Despite being the year from hell, 2020 was a good reading year for us. Especially Lark.

Here are the Best of the Best from 2020. And because we reviewed so many good books this year and got into a major argument over who was going to have their books off the list, you get 10 -- count them -- 10 really fucking awesome books that we read this year. (And let me tell you it was even a fight to get it down to 10.)

So here we go... our top 10!

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10. Project Duchess by Sabrina Jeffries

I first read this book as part of my lockdown reading spree this year. And let me tell you, it kindled a “I must read lots of regency romance” in me. I really love that the heroine is not fresh from the schoolroom. I liked the hint of mystery running through this. And the banter is fabulous. It’s a great book that I’m happy to recommend.

If you want to see what we said, you can read our review here!

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9. After Hours by Lynda Aicher

There’s hot and then there’s the boardroom. This is steamy. sensual, sexy and a whole lot of other smouldering “s” words. LOL. Frankly this is what 50 Shades of Grey wishes it could be.

If you want well-written erotic romance, then this is for you!

Check out our review of it here!

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8. The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel

Look, I get it. Non-fiction can often be dry and dull. I mean, who thought that a comprehensive multi-disciplinary look back on the history of textiles could be so engaging? But it is. It really is. It also includes experts who aren’t white men and women and those who come from the countries in question. It’s inclusive and not European-centric like many history books.

It’s a really fascinating read.

Want to know why we liked it so much? Read our review here!

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7. The Galactic Pantheon Novellas by Alyce Caswell

I didn’t know I needed a collection of Novellas featuring LBGTQIA+ gods until I read this book. But I did, oh how I did. The stories are great. The characters are great. The universe makes sense. And the sex is steamy.

I really loved this collection of novellas. I really really did.

If you want to see what we said, you can read our review here!

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6. Falling for Her Brother’s Best Friend by Noelle Adams

Sometimes I want something sweet and fluffy, and back during the early days of the pandemic, this really fit the bill. I loved the characters, the teashop, the friendships, the small town feel, the everything. In fact, I liked this so much that I’ve made the sequel my first read of 2021!

Want to know why we liked it? Read our review here!

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5. The Baroness Affair by Jean Wilde

Both of us love equal triads -- absolutely adore them. And The Baroness Affair is a great example of how sexual compatibility, romantic compatibility, and true love aren’t always directly linked... but with creative thinking, you can find solutions anyway. It’s great to see a queer relationship treated both well and realistically in a historical romance. Plus, the smut was hot. And the characters are awesome.

Check out our review here!

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4. Dramacon by Svetlana Chmakova

This manga was pure nostalgia glasses for me. It perfectly captured the anime con scene of the early 2000s. Like I swear that one of the people in the book was me. LOL. The art is beautiful and the romance totally believable. If you like very fandom meta romance, this is totally for you. It’s so good!

Check out our review here!

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3. Loving Maddie from A to Z by Kelly Jamieson

This was flat out the hottest book I read this year, including a triad, dominance/submission, and friends-to-lovers. (And communication!) The characters, the relationship, the setting -- everything about it was great, including the use of (and proper reaction to) safewords. I loved Maddie, I loved Aiden, I loved Zach, and I absolutely adored them as a triad. This is a book I intend to come back to again.

Want to know the details? Read our review here!

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2. Actually, the Comma Goes Here by Lucy Cripps

As an editor, my bread and butter is copy editing. Like straight up. And to do that, it’s imperative that you have a good handle on the technical side. The problem, each style guide is different. And the rules, especially for punctuation, seem arbitrary. (Ask me about the Oxford Comma some time) this book spells out How and Why to use certain punctuation marks. It goes into the history and helps you deal with the pendants.

I’ve already reread this book this year. It’s seriously a fabulous and entertaining guide.

This was our favorite nonfiction of the year -- to find out why, go here!

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1. How to Start a Scandal by Madeline Martin

This was a surprise find for me this year. A hero with believable PTSD. A plus-size heroine who is awesome and sexy. A cute cat. Cute kids. And lots of drama of all sorts. But also warmth and heart and comedy. This book gave me such a happy that I lobbied hard for it to be the best of this year. It’s so good. And it’s super under appreciated.

Want to know why this was our favorite? You can find out here!

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So that’s our top ten!

And honestly, ten wasn’t easy -- we easily could have put 15 or 20 books on this list.

Curious about our other reviews? Check out our blog, and you can see the best books posts for 2017, 2018, and 2019.

We hope 2021 is a great year of reading for everyone!

Enjoy our reviews? Buy us a coffee!

#best books #best books of 2020 #2020 in review #book reviews #book lists #romance novels #non-fiction

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jeannereames · 4 years ago

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Writing Historical Fiction (Well)

From an anonymous ask:

"What advice would you give to someone who wants to write about Alexander?" Sorry I didn't clarify, I was thinking of writing a fictional novel (but do not plan to publish it, lol)

If you’re just writing for yourself with no plans to publish, you don’t have to worry about constraints like wordcount and publishability. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to sell mainstream historicals. Selling a genre historical is easier (historical fantasy, historical mystery, historical romance). But there’s a reason it took me 30 years to get Dancing with the Lion into print. Yes, some of that time I was actually writing it, but much more was devoted to finding a market for it, and notice that I did, finally, have to sell it as genre even though it isn’t really. (It was that or shelve it forever.)

Yet if you’re asking for my recommendations, I assume you want to write something that’s marginally readable. Ergo, what follows is general advice I’d give anybody writing historical fiction.

For historicals, one must keep track of two things simultaneously: telling a good story, and portraying history accurately enough. It’s possible to do one well, but the other quite badly.

First, let’s look at how to write a good story.

There are two very basic sorts of stories: the romance, and the novel. Notice it’s romance small /r/. A romance is an adventure story; in romances, the plot dominates and characters serve the plot. A novel is character-driven, so plot events serve character development. Dancing with the Lion is a novel.

Once you’ve decided which of those you’re writing, you have a better handle on how to write it. You also need to know where you’re going: what’s the end of the story? What are the major plot points? Writers who dive in with no road map tend to produce bloated books that require massive edits. That said, romances will almost always be faster paced, in part because “what’s happening” drives it. Whereas in novels, the impact of events on characters drives it. Exclusive readers of romances are rarely pleased by the pacing of novels. They’re too slow: “Nothing is happening!” Things are happening, but internally, not externally.

Yet pacing does matter. Never let a scene do one thing when it can do three.

You will want to pay attention to something called “scene and sequel.” A “scene” is an event and a “sequel” are the consequences. So let’s say (as in my current MIP [monster in progress]) you open with a fugitive from the city jail racing through the streets with guards following: he leaps the wall of a rich man’s house and ends up in the bedroom of a visiting prince. That’s the scene. The sequel is the fall-out. (House searched, prince hides fugitive, prince gets fugitive to tell him why he’s running.) Usually near the end of the sequel(s) to the first scene, you embed the hook to the next (a slave of the rich man has been found murdered outside the city walls). The next scene concerns recovering the body and what they discover (then fall-out from that). Etc., etc., etc.

That’s how stories progress. Or don’t progress, if the author can’t master scene-sequel patterns.

It also means—again—you need to know where you’re going. Outlines Are Your Friends. But yes, your plot can still take a sharp left-hand turn that surprises you…they almost always do.

When I sat down to write Dancing with the Lion, I knew three things:

1) I wanted to write about Alexander before he became king.

2) I wanted to explore his relationship with Hephaistion.

3) I especially wanted to consider how both became the men they’d did.

With those goals in mind, I could frame the story. Because I always intended Hephaistion to be as important as Alexander, the novel opens in his point-of-view to establish that. And because I didn’t want to deal with Alexander as king, the novel had to end before he became one. History itself gives a HUGE and obvious gift in the abrupt murder of Philip. Where to open was harder to decide, but as I wanted to explore the boys’ friendship and its impact on their maturation into men, I should logically begin with their meeting, and decided not to have them meet too young. From there, I spun out Hephaistion’s background, and his decision to run away from home to join the circus, er, I mean Pages. 😉

IMO, Alexander’s story is Too Big to do in a single novel, or you get an 800+ page monstrosity like Chris Cameron’s God of War. The author must decide on what piece of the story she wants to tell. (Or, like me, view it as a series.)

So that’s (in a nutshell) how you construct a story.

As for the historical side, there are three levels here:

1) What the world looks like (details).

2) The events that take place.

3) How people living in that world understand life, the universe, and everything.

Number two is probably the easiest. Numbers one and three require deeper research on all sorts of things. Sometimes historical novels spend all their time on number one and completely forget number three exists.

The past is a foreign country. Just as you wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) write a novel set in Japan (if you’re American) without learning something not only about the physical country but also the customs…same with stories set in the past.

This is why the Oliver Stone movie failed. He put modern people in a costume drama. He didn’t understand how ancient Macedonians (or Greeks or Persians) thought. So he committed crazy anachronisms like the oedipal complex between Alexander and Olympias. Freud may have named his theory after a Greek hero, but it’s largely a foreign idea to the Greek mind. (Whether it’s valid at all is a topic for another day).

The author has to let ancient people be properly ancient.

Problem: what do you do when they’re SO foreign they’re impossible to understand for modern readers—or their attitudes are outright offensive?

Well, if you don’t plan to get your story published, you don’t have to worry about that. Or not as much. But if you want to share it with others, you might still want to consider it.

There are two basic approaches:

1) Introduce your world through a “stranger” who enters it.

2) Spread out more “modern” views among various characters in the story, to give modern readers something familiar to hang onto.

The first of those is by far the most common. So in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, Claire Randall—quite literally a modern woman—introduces the modern reader to Jacobite Scotland. As she learns about her new world, so does the reader, and in Claire, the reader has a voice to express both their fascination and their horror of that world. In Judith Tarr’s Lord of the Two Lands, she uses Meriamon, an Egyptian priestess, to enter the Macedonian world of Alexander. Judy can then contrast Egyptian and Macedonian cultural values in order to explain them. Meriamon asks questions the reader wants answers to—or Niko (or Alexander) ask questions of her about Egypt.

The second choice (which is what I did in Dancing) is to identify cultural mores likely to offend modern readers: indifference to slavery, glorification of war and conquest, Greco-Macedonian attitudes towards women, and Greco-Macedonian attitudes towards sexuality. Then to assign one of the characters to voice a more modern view. Alexander gets to be a proto-feminist, and I gave points of view to two women. One of those women, I made a slave. Hephaistion gets to express a more modern view regarding the horrors of war. Sexuality was a bit tougher, but I used the boys’ atypical relationship—that the younger is the one of higher status—to illustrate Greco-Macedonian assumptions about what a male-male relationship should look like.

That approach presents more hurdles, but for my purposes, I preferred it.

I harp on this because it’s the biggest problem for historical fiction: not having historical characters! It wrecks what might otherwise be decent research into the details. No matter how much you look up what they ate, how they dressed, the way their houses were laid out…if you have them behaving anachronistically, it’s a bad historical. Or if you have circumstances that just wouldn’t occur.

Let me give an example. I’ve said before that, when I started writing the novel in December of 1988, Dancing always began with a run-away boy (Hephaistion). But in my initial version, he showed up in Pella incognito. The more I read about Macedonia, however, the more I realized that was virtually impossible. There just weren’t that many Hetairoi. He’d have been recognized, and probably sooner rather than later. So I went back to the drawing board and, instead of having him try to hide, he comes right out and says who he is, and that he wants to join the Pages. It might take away the “mystery,” but set up more interesting dynamics: would Philip let him stay? What would his father do? Etc.

That requires the author know enough about the culture to know what’s possible, probable, and impossible. It also requires the author to be willing to change original plans in order to reflect reality, not insist on doing ___ anyway.

A good example of jettisoning history in favor of “what I want to do!” can be found in David Gemmell’s Lion of Macedon. So many, many things wrong with that book, starting with his choice to make Parmenion a Spartan for no historical reason whatsoever—but (I assume?) because Spartans Are Sexy. Parmenion likely belonged to the royal house of Upper Macedonian Pelagonia. Although even if he didn’t, absolutely nothing suggests he wasn’t Macedonian, and quite a lot says he was. The whole duology (with included The Dark Prince) was essentially Blue Boltz ™ Epic Fantasy Does Greece. The fact he actually included a bibliography in back, and got weird, isolated details right only added insult to injury.

Yet Gemmell was a best-selling British fantasy novelist who knew pacing and how to spin a good yarn. For a reader with zero knowledge of Alexander, it would stack up as a predictable but tolerable fantasy set.

Remember that as an historical fiction author, your job is to practice the art of getting it right. If that isn’t important to you, please God, write something completely made up.

At the spectrum’s other end is Showing Notecards on Every Page. You’ve done ALL that hard research, and you’ll be damn sure the reader knows it!

Um, the reader doesn’t care. The reader wants to be transported to another world. How locals in that world shoed horses (or if they shoed horses at all) is irrelevant. It matters only if your main character’s a farrier. And even then, it matters only if said-farrier is having a conversation with someone else while shoeing a horse.

If people want all the little details of history, they’ll read a history book.

Now, how much detail is “too much” can vary from reader to reader, and often has something to do with the genre.

Regular readers of historical fiction are fans because they enjoy history. So they’ll expect proper world-building. But they don’t want the Dreaded Information Dump. Weave in details. The Dreaded Information Dump is a common beginning-author error across the board, but especially bad in certain genres, such as historicals, fantasy, and SF.

What’s an “information dump”? It’s where the author provides details the reader doesn’t need at that point in the story. What the character looks like, is wearing, their family background, what they had for breakfast….

As mentioned, details should be woven into the story organically. What your character had for breakfast matters only if, later, it’s giving him/her gas: “Damn those beans in my breakfast burrito!” Some details may be useful to set a scene and prevent characters from walking around, having conversations in a void, but again, a light touch.

Similarly, One scene, One head. We do NOT need to see everything from each character’s point of view. No, really. We don’t. And dear God, please don’t “head-hop” inside of scenes (unless you’re writing omniscient, but be sure you know what omniscient IS). Drives me BUGGY.

Anyway, back to the Notecard Showing Problem. As noted above, genre expectations and reader preferences often dictate what IS “too much detail.” Generally, historical Romance (the genre) and historical mysteries go lighter on detail than historical fantasy or plain historicals. That’s because the former two have genre conventions that work against it. Romances preference the love story front-and-center at all times, and mysteries have a mystery to unravel. E.g, they’re plot driven. By contrast, historical fantasies tolerate more world building because world building itself is a feature of fantasy (and science fiction too). And the appeal of mainstream or literary historicals IS the world building, so you get massive novels like Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth.

I’m blathering now, but hopefully this gives pointers not just about writing Alexander, but writing fiction period, and historical fiction in particular.

#historical fiction #writing #the writing life #writing how-to #Alexander the Great #Dancing with the Lion #ancient Greek fiction #scene and sequel #asks

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the-busy-ghost · 4 years ago

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☕️ It seems like so many shows fumble the ball, but I'd love to hear about a portrayal of Scottish history in period drama that you thought did a good job?

Thank you for asking! I don’t watch that many tbh and so far I’ve never really found one that was really good. I said the other day that Outlander probably can’t be said to be all bad- but I really haven’t watched it, it’s more that it doesn’t at first sight look completely unrecognisable as the eighteenth century (also the soundtrack is dope).

There is also actually very little content about medieval and early modern Scotland to go on. We don’t even have that many televised documentaries to watch (I may be remembering incorrectly but I think it’s something like two in the last twenty years- one of which was appalling).

Which leaves by process of elimination, ‘Outlaw King’. The plot is not hugely accurate, there wasn’t enough Gaelic in it, and the whole depiction of Edward II was... not that good (I mean it wasn’t as bad as Braveheart but that’s such a low bar). The accents were a bit dodgy. There were also some annoying plotholes and in general it would probably have been much better as a tv series. On the other hand it was somewhat recognisable as fictional representation of fourteenth century Scotland, there wasn’t quite so much silly costuming and nor was the political situation reduced to ‘The Clans Are Fighting’. The Comyns got a bad rap but that’s about par for the course in popular Scottish history.

It was also a genuinely beautifully shot film and actually shot in Scotland for once- and some of the CGI was actually worth it for once, even if not 100% accurate (Stirling Castle, god what a great moment- and it even felt suitably dreich for Stirling. And Berwick was interesting too). One of the things too many people don’t have an appreciation for when it comes to Scotland is the variety of its landscape and the cultural and regional differences.

Characters who cracked jokes were actually quite funny and not just drunk stereotypes! And attention to detail was good (if sometimes a bit gross- James Douglas’ “Farmers’ Hanky” for example).

I think there was only one made-up character? I’m not sure I didn’t count- but it was a kid who served to drive home an emotional point about war so I suppose I’ll let it slide, even if Drew is not at all a believable name.

The obligatory sex scene could have been much worse. Also if there has to be a romantic plot at least the two leads felt like they had some chemistry.

I felt what really sold it for me was that if you watch carefully there are little asides and hints towards characters who don’t have important roles in the movie, but whose own interesting careers can be followed in the historical record. I think that is important because what’s often forgotten about the Wars of Independence is that it was so much bigger than one or two men, it’s not Bruce and Wallace alone against the world. Hundreds of people had their own complex reactions to the conflict and even though the film obviously didn’t have time to show all that on screen, it really gave a nod to some of these characters that showed that the creators had at least tried to build the world (even if some other characters were less well-researched).

From a general medieval point of view it’s not terrible either actually- at least the costumes are more colourful and the religious bits are not all one sided. The sheer level of violence is A Lot to take in, but tbh it can’t really be called gratuitous given how bloody the year 1306-7 was. But no gratuitous sexual violence on screen- even if some is implied.

I would say it was a half-decent historical film, with its fair share of inaccuracies. It’s no Lion in Winter in terms of Pure Class either, but it can still be an enjoyable film for someone who loves studying mediaeval Scotland to watch- and it’s even enjoyable to pick inaccuracies out! So often with Scotland there’s not even much point picking out the inaccuracies, because it’s all so inaccurate it’s practically fantasy. It’s a bit of a luxury with Outlaw King to actually be able to point out where it’s inaccurate for once, rather than just making incoherent whining noises.

Also if someone knew nothing about Scottish history, it does not have very many hugely misleading stereotypes that would hinder them in finding out anything more (except maybe the portrayal of Edward II).

And I’m not sure it would be everyone’s cup of tea but (aside from a few rather sickening scenes that I will only watch once, even though I know the history) I sort of enjoyed the film. I had issues with a lot of it but I can admit that I genuinely adored the colours, the dry humour, the tiny details and the attention to landscape, buildings, and weather.

Sorry I ranted a bit, I just have a complex emotional relationship to this film and that’s a new experience for me when it comes to Scottish historical media! I do think, to answer your question in short, it did a reasonably OK job, not sure about plain ‘good’. I just reacted to it with such relief my judgement may be clouded.

Thank you so much for asking!

Edit: Oh I forgot- funny thing is that Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in itself, isn’t that terrible either. The plot’s all wrong, as are the character’s title, but (perhaps because it was written in the sixteenth century) the usual stereotypes are not present in the script and the people in the play are about as human as in any other Shakespeare tragedy. The problem comes more with how most people decide to stage Macbeth rather than the play itself. The same could be said of Douglas’ scenes in Henry IV Part 1 (honestly what were the Hollow Crown thinking with that costuming?). So it’s not a period drama per se but when on screen the reason Macbeth adaptations are bad (in terms of portrayal of Scottish history) is because of the preconceived notions of the modern directors and not because of Shakespeare. But if I talk about Shakespeare too much I’d have to bring up historical novels which can sometimes do a better job too.

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panharmonium · 4 years ago

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what kind of research did you do for your will and merlin fic? (i would absolutely love just,,, an in-depth explanation)

Oh, man, this is such a nice ask! I think anybody who ever writes anything would probably love the opportunity to ramble about their process, and I am no exception, so thank you!

I can definitely give you the in-depth explanation - I’ll just pop it under a cut here, so that anyone who’s not interested can just scroll past. :)

So when I first began working on the thing that turned into Wheel of the Year, I just started writing, without worrying about research. And that was good to begin with, just to get a handle on the characters, but before I’d even finished the first section I knew that I needed to do a LOT of research if I was going to be able to continue writing the story at all. It was kind of a situation where like - if you asked me to write a story that takes place in a school or a veterinary hospital, I could do that with a high degree of accuracy/believability, and without any prep work, because I’ve worked as a teacher and a veterinary technician. But writing about a medieval farming village was going to be impossible to do in a way that felt real/convincing without me doing a lot of reading.

I’ve never been a medieval peasant farmer, you know? I lived and worked on a small farm for a brief period of time, so I had a teeny bit of background on large animal work, but it was still minimal, and it lacked all of the historical context. So even the most basic scenes felt impossible for me to start, because it was like - ‘well, what would this person even be doing on this day? How would they be spending their time?’ It’s hard to write characters doing anything when you don’t even know what the possibilities are.

I wanted to make my Ealdor into a place that felt real, specific, and convincing. And I couldn’t do that with just sort of a foggy, movie-type image of ‘it’s a Medieval Village™ with Crops and some Cows.’ So I just decided that I was going to do the research. I wasn’t going to follow an exact historical profile, obviously, because it’s a fantasy show, but I really did want to have a basic understanding of the context of that general era; otherwise there was no way I could ground my story in reality.

So! My approach was basically two-pronged, encompassing a) character/show prep and b) historical/context prep.

Character/Show Prep

I started off by doing a close watch of 1.10. This included lots of screencap-taking of the village exterior, the house interiors, and the villagers. (This is the point where I realized that Will was a woodworker, from looking more closely at his home and the tools he was consistently shown carrying, and that ended up really shaping a number of parts of the story, so it just goes to show how helpful this step was.)

I knew from the beginning that this fic was, by necessity, going to include a number of characters who didn’t exist in the show (or, I mean, they existed, but they existed as extras, not characters in their own right). Ealdor is too small for these people not to show up - Merlin would be working in close proximity with them every day. He knows every single one of his neighbors. They see each constantly. It would be unrealistic to write this story with them being only vague and out-of-focus.

And this was a little bit of an intimidating thought, because the idea of coming up with that many original characters is just...well, you know, it’s enough to make a person hesitate, but it had to be done. So, I decided I wanted to base everybody on an actual extra who appears in the episode - I took a lot of screenshots of all the villagers, starting with the people Merlin’s age (because they would be the people with whom Merlin had the most contact), and I gave them names. And then I began to build out the rest of the village from those characters - parents, grandparents, siblings, friendships, who gets along, who doesn’t get along, etc. I have a bunch of screencaps in my folder that have all the characters labeled with everybody’s name, and then another folder of family trees that I built - most of which didn’t even end up featuring in the story, obviously, but it helped me in terms of feeling like I had a solid context for who lived in the village and how they all related to each other.

I tried to draw as much info from the background canon as I could. For example, there’s a blonde girl in the background of the final battle who drags a bandit off his horse and then just DECKS him with one punch, absolutely clobbers him - so I took that small moment of characterization and used it to help me create one of Merlin’s agemates.

(And this wasn’t all done in one go, obviously; I’m more of a ‘let things emerge naturally’ kind of writer, so as characters came to me in the course of writing, I was matching them with actual faces in the show and continuing to build out the world.) And ultimately, the result now is that when I watch 1.10, it’s a funny experience, because I feel like I “know” every character onscreen - most of them have names and stories for me, because any character that appears in the fic is based on an actual face that appeared in the show - I could point at them and say ‘yeah that’s Ellinor/Peter/Margoret/etc.’

I also combed the rest of the show for every single reference to Ealdor or Cenred’s kingdom, in order to get a solid understanding of the geography surrounding Merlin’s home (hence my recent post summarizing what we know about Ealdor and why the BBC’s supplemental map is incorrect). I did the same thing with Cenred himself - I rewatched everything that included him and took notes on particular things that he said or that were said about him. This helped in terms of figuring out what the political state of Camelot/Cenred’s kingdom was at various points - ie, in 1.10, there’s a throwaway line saying that 'our treaty with Cenred was years in the making’ indicating that the two kingdoms have recently made peace but have previously been at war for a long time, and that affected parts of my story.

I also did a lot of character prep for Will specifically. I started a document full of notes about everything we knew about him (and about his relationship with Merlin), and then I kept expanding on it with a detailed analysis of the canon in which he appeared and the person who I understood him to be - it grew to be very, very long (I ended up cleaning it up and posting it over a year later, after the fic was finished), and it was very helpful in terms of feeling like I really knew him inside and out.

And those were the most important things I did in terms of working with the show/characters!

At the same time, I was doing a lot of work on the historical prep.

Historical/Context Prep:

I needed to learn more about Will and Merlin’s daily context in order to write about them with any degree of believability. I’m an old-fashioned nerd, so I started with books.

I read six books before and during the writing process of this fic, with scattered pieces of others. The ones I read fully were the following:

Life in a Medieval Village (Frances and Joseph Gies)

The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England (Ian Mortimer)

Life on the English Manor 1150-1400 (H.S. Bennett)

Daily Life in the Middle Ages (Paul B. Newman)

The Middle Ages Unlocked (Gillian Polack and Katrin Kania)

Chaucer’s People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England (Liza Picard)

Those Who Worked: An Anthology of Medieval Sources (edited by Peter Speed)

The first four were the most helpful, but all six had useful info in them. And basically what I did was I just sat down with the book and a pencil, and as I read, I took in-book notes on all the things I thought would be relevant/important/interesting/helpful:

And as I went, I was filling in that diagram I posted the other day about the medieval agricultural year.

This was all extremely helpful in so many ways...just - by giving me the context of what various tasks actually looked like and what the flow of the year was and various other daily life things. I could not have written this fic without doing the research. It wouldn’t have worked for me.

So that was where I got my foundation, but as I was writing, a thousand smaller instances came up where I needed more specialized information, and that’s where I utilized lots of internet resources. My bookmarks folder for this fic has 200 items in it, and those are just the things I remembered to save.

Some sample titles of articles I actually read, in case I haven’t embarrassed myself enough already:

“Temporary freedoms? Ethnoarchaeology of female herders at seasonal sites in northern Europe”

“Five Early European Winterings in the Atlantic Arctic (1596-1635): A Comparison”

“English Peasant Buildings in the Later Middle Ages (1200-1500)”

“The Cost of Doing Scribal Business: Prices of Manuscript Books in England, 1300–1483″

“Seasonal Management of Cattle in the Booleying System: New Insights from Connemara, Western Ireland"

And so on.

I watched absurd amounts of videos on how to do specific things - how to carve thatching spars, how to build a wheel, how to thatch a roof, how to build willow hurdles, how to use a drop spindle, how to shear a sheep, how to use a hand quern, etc. I can’t begin to list the number of topics I typed into Google or the number of research holes I fell into. The littlest thing could take hours to figure out - the fic would take me to a place where the characters were going down to the cow byre, but then I’d have to stop, because ‘what would a cow byre even reasonably look like?’, and then I’d do a day of research on different types of barns/byres in England throughout history and ultimately hardly any of this information would even make it into the fic but I just. Needed. To Know. (And I’m not complaining at all; I’m glad I did it, and I had a lot of fun with it. But it was a Process.)

I also used a lot of primary sources. I used this site for primary source images, to get an idea of what things looked like. I spent a lot of time on this site reading Old English and Middle English songs/poetry/texts + their accompanying analysis. I spent too much time reading Pliny’s The Natural History, for one chapter. And a lot of these sources were adapted and used in-fic for various purposes (hence my desire to include a bibliography, heh).

I used this Old English dictionary and this Middle English dictionary a lot (I took both of these subjects in college, but I have forgotten literally every shred of OE I ever knew, which wasn’t much to begin with. My ME reading is better, but…still. XD) I used this resource on period carpentry frequently, as well as a number of others. And a myriad of other sites.

And that was kind of how it would go. After the initial ramp-up (reading all the books and doing the basic research/character work) I would write until I encountered something that needed more specialized knowledge (...which happened basically every couple of pages, ha) and then I would research again.

…looking back, I’m suddenly not surprised this took me over a year to finish. I’m a slow writer anyway, but…yeah there was actually a lot going on here. XD

Ultimately, did any of this need to happen? No, absolutely not. Fanfic 100% does not require this kind of thing, and I honestly think most of the time it’s better to write fic without worrying about this kind of stuff, just to have fun. I only did it because I felt like in this particular situation, I needed to do it in order to be able to write about this subject at all. Before I did this, I felt stuck, like I couldn’t move forward because I just didn’t know enough. The only things I could see with any clarity were Will and Merlin themselves - everything else about their context felt like looking at a video game’s world map when I hadn’t explored anywhere yet, so the whole universe was still masked by clouds. But afterwards, I could see what I was doing, and I felt free to move around, like I had more places to go.

So overall, I’m glad I did it. And since then, I’ve read many more history books on different subjects, because as it turns out I am not done writing Merlin fanfiction, and therefore I am not done researching, either. XD

Thank you so much for asking this - I hope this answers your question!

#the last chapter of my fic is an appendix/bibliography that does summarize this #but it makes specific references to spoiler-y things so #here is the non-spoilery version of what i did #with some info that didn't make it into the appendix as well #<3 #the once and future slowburn #writing #replies

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years ago

Text

Pluralistic: 02 Mar 2020 (Disasters vs dystopias, meet me in Kelowna, Cool Mules, astrosovkitsch, drug policy)

Today's links

My new podcast, "Disasters Don't Have to End in Dystopia": Tired: Look for the helpers. Wired: Be the helper.

The next frontier for school censorware is spying on kids all the time: It's how we'll stop ISIS, apparently.

I'm coming to Kelowna on March 5: It's my first-ever trip to the BC interior and more than half the (free) tickets are gone. RSVP now!

Cool Mules, an investigative series on a Vice editor's cocaine-smuggling ring: From the people who brought you the stunning "Thunder Bay."

Soviet Space Graphics: Cosmic Visions from the USSR.

Apple, Nike and Dell's supply chain includes enslaved Uyghurs: Xinjiang Phase II.

Drugs Without the Hot Air: The best book I've ever read on drugs and drug policy, in an expanded new edition.

This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

My new podcast, "Disasters Don't Have to End in Dystopia" (permalink)

I just posted a new podcast! "Disasters Don't Have to End in Dystopia" is an essay I wrote for Wired about the ways that the stories we tell ourselves make the difference between rising to meet a crisis and devolving into catastrophe.

The podcast is here:

https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/01/disasters-dont-have-to-end-in-dystopias/

The Wired essay is here:

https://www.wired.com/2017/04/cory-doctorow-walkaway/

Though I wrote it in 2017, it really applies today. Our beliefs about whether we can trust our neighbors to have our back in times of crisis informs whether we behave in a way that shows THEY can trust US in times of crisis.

And since every crisis is (eventually) overcome by people pitching in to get things fixed, the belief that our fellow humans are untrustworthy means that crises are more likely to turn into disasters – and the stories we write can instil or dispel that belief.

I know that there's some controversy about Mr Rogers' famous "Look for the helpers" speech – that it's advice for children, not adults.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/look-for-the-helpers-mr-rogers-is-bad-for-adults/574210/

But the adult version is "BE the helper." That is, prepared to run towards the emergency, not to cower in a luxury bunker while better people than you get the machine started again.

The next frontier for school censorware is spying on kids all the time (permalink)

We spend a lot of time bemoaning the lack of privacy-consciousness among kids, and then we spy on them at school with censorware and punish them for taking any action that might protect their privacy from us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAGjNe1YhMA

Meanwhile, censorware companies – whose primary customers have always been oppressive regimes seeking to control political oppositions – have morphed into full-on student surveillance companies, and their sales pitch is a terrifying slurry of war-on-terror/active shooter FUD.

When companies like Gaggle and Securely pitch school-boards on their products, they claim that they can detect incipient in-school ISIS attacks and the like, and use that as justification to spy on kids in-school and out-of-school online activities. These companies are mini-NSAs-for-hire, tracking social media usage and every keystroke and click on school networks and devices, storing it (insecurely) for years, if not decades.

https://www.thegazette.com/subject/opinion/staff-columnist/iowa-city-schools-student-social-media-monitoring-surveillance-gaggle-securly-20200302

They make bizarre claims ("the average 7th grader has 6 Instagram accounts" – which would make 7th graders 25% of the entire IG user-base). And they find terrified parents to endorse spying ("If it's going to protect my child, I don't care how you get the info, just get it"). People who sell security need to sell fear. If we want our kids to care about their privacy, we can't make them "safe" by spying on them all the time and banning any steps they take to make us stop.

I'm coming to Kelowna on March 5 (permalink)

I'm coming to the BC interior for the first time ever, talking about my book Radicalized at the Kelowna library as part of Canada Reads. I'm being hosted by the CBC's Sarah Penton from 6-8PM! It's free to attend but it's ticketed, and the majority of tickets are already gone — if you want to come, now's the time to RSVP.

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cbc-radio-presents-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-96154415445

(and if you can't make it, it's OK! The CBC will broadcast the audio and I'll put it my podcast, too)

Cool Mules, an investigative series on a Vice editor's cocaine-smuggling ring (permalink)

Back in 2015, Slava Pastuk was an editor at Vice, and he abused his position there to pressure young, desperate would-be journalists into smuggling suitcases full of millions of dollars' worth of cocaine into Australia.

https://nationalpost.com/news/former-vice-editor-gets-nine-year-sentence-for-recruiting-young-drug-mules-for-massive-cocaine-smuggling-ring

Five of them went to prison, but Slava Pastuk did not (at first). When Pastuk's role in the affair became public and he was indicted and tried, he refused to talk to the press at all, making the whole thing something of a non-story cipher (despite its spectacular details).

Incredibly, though, Canadaland got Slava to talk. At length. And they got the other side of the story, too, both from Slava's victims and those who risked career suicide by turning him down. The result is a new, six-part investigative series called Cool Mules, hosted by Kasia Mychajlowycz, whose work I discovered through the spectacular On The Media.

https://www.canadalandshow.com/shows/cool-mules/

It's modeled on Canadaland's last, spectacular miniseries, Thunder Bay, easily the best investigative series I ever listened to.

https://www.canadalandshow.com/shows/thunder-bay/

This morning's Canadaland features an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the making of the series between Mychajlowycz and Jesse Brown, and it has me licking my chops for the series itself.

https://www.canadalandshow.com/podcast/315-the-cocaine-smuggling-ring-at-vice/

Soviet Space Graphics (permalink)

When my grandmother was 12, she was inducted into the Leningrad civil defense corps during the 900 day siege of Leningrad (I wrote a science fiction novella about this called "After the Siege").

http://www.infinitematrix.net/stories/shorts/after-the-siege.html

The story is also available as a five-part audiobook reading by Mary Robinette Kowal:

http://scalzi.com/atseige/afterthesiege1.mp3 http://scalzi.com/atseige/afterthesiege2.mp3 http://scalzi.com/atseige/afterthesiege3.mp3 http://scalzi.com/atseige/afterthesiege4.mp3 http://scalzi.com/atseige/afterthesiege5.mp3

Eventually (years later) my grandmother was evacuated with the women and children across the winter ice and ended up in Siberia, where she met my grandfather, got pregnant, fled to Azerbaijan and birthed my father. They made their way to Canada over six years, through a series of refugee adventures and crises that could each be a novella of its own (the part where she married my grandfather's one-armed partisan fighter brother, for example, and got caught in a pogrom).

My grandmother completely lost contact with her family in Leningrad, for years. More than a decade. My father vividly recounts how he, as a little boy, heard his mother in Toronto answer the phone and say, "Mama, mama" and begin to cry for the family she thought was dead.

Over the years that followed, my grandmother and grandfather traveled to the USSR several times to see her family, and my Leningrad family came often to visit us in Toronto. Whenever they came, the brought Soviet space-program memoribilia.

There was SO MUCH of this stuff (in the early 90s, Russian sf fans used to pay their way to US conventions by shlepping suitcases full of astrosovkitsch to sell at the event), and it was gorgeous and magical. Some of the best art of the Soviet era was produced to celebrate the space program, and my most cherished toys and knickkacks growing up featured Sputnik, Gagarin, and Valentina Tereshkova. Today, much of that stuff is in our home, thanks in part to Ukrainian Ebay sellers who've taken over the astrosovkitsch market from Russian sf fans.

I'm awfully excited, therefore, by the news that Phaidon is bringing out "Soviet Space Graphics: Cosmic Visions from the USSR." It's a lavishly illustrated volume, produced in collaboration with the Moscow Design Museum.

https://www.phaidon.com/store/design/soviet-space-graphics-9781838660536/

If you're ever in St Petersburg and you want to see some amazing historical examples of Soviet space and tech materials, visit the Popov Museum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.S._Popov_Central_Museum_of_Communications

Incidentally, my grandmother's baby brother Bora, who stayed behind in Leningrad, grew up to be curator of the Popov. I last saw Uncle Bora in 2005, shortly before his death, and he gave us a curator's behind-the-scenes tour of the museum. You can see my photos from the visit here:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=37996580417%40N01&sort=date-taken-desc&text=popov&view_all=1

Apple, Nike and Dell's supply chain includes enslaved Uyghurs (permalink)

Phase II of China's Xinjiang concentration camps for ethno-religious minorities (mostly Uyghurs but also other Muslim minorities) is creating slave-labor factories that serve major US brands.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51697800

Nike, Apple and Dell's supply chains are all implicated.

As a reminder, the Xinjiang concentration camps used torture, punitive rape, brainwashing, forced medical experimentation and other tactics to "retrain" a disfavored minority.

"Between 2017 and 2019, the ASPI think tank estimates that more than 80,000 Uighurs were transferred out of the far western Xinjiang autonomous region to work in factories across China. It said some were sent directly from detention camps."

The revelations come from a report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute:

https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale

The workers enslaved in these factories spend their off-hours in brainwashing sessions, living "in segregated dormitories, with Mandarin lessons and 'ideological training', subjected to constant surveillance and banned from observing religious practices."

Drugs Without the Hot Air (permalink)

I first read "Drugs Without the Hot Air," David Nutt's astoundingly good book about drug policy back in 2012; in the eight years since, hardly a month has gone by without my thinking about it. Now, there's a new, updated edition, extensively revised, and it's an absolute must-read.

Nutt came to fame when he served as the UK "Drugs Czar" under the Labour Government in the late 2000s; especially when Home Secretary Jacqui Smith fired him for his refusal to lie and say that marijuana was more harmful than alcohol, despite the extensive evidence to the contrary (Smith also threatened Nutt for publishing a paper in Nature that compared the neurological harms of recreational horseback riding to harms from recreational MDMA use, a paper that concluded that if horses came in pill form we might call them "Equasy").

Since then, Nutt — an eminent psychopharmacologist researcher and practioner — has continued to campaign, research, and write about evidence-based drugs policy that takes as its central mission to reduce harm and preserve therapeutic benefits from drugs.

Like the first edition of Drugs Without the Hot Air, the new edition serves three missions:

First, to describe how a wide variety of drugs — benzos, cocaine, opoiods, cannabis, etc, but also alcohol, caffeine and nicotine — work in the body, in clear, nontechnical language that anyone can follow.

Next, to describe the harms and benefits of drugs, considered both on individual and societal levels — and also to describe what the best medical evidence tells us about maximizing those benefits and minimizing those harms.

Finally, to recount how governments — mainly in the UK but also in the USA and elsewhere — have responded to the evidence on drug mechanisms, harms and benefits.

Inevitably, part 3 becomes an indictment, as Nutt describes in eye-watering, frustrating, brutal detail how harmful, incoherent, self-serving and cowardly government responses to drugs have been, and how many lives they have ruined — through criminalizing harmless conduct, through treating medical problems as criminal ones, and through badly thought-through policies that caused relatively benign substances to be replaced with far more harmful ones (for example, Nutt traces the lethal rise in fentanyl partly to the successful global interdiction of opium poppies).

One important difference between the new edition and the original is visible progress on this last. In the years since Nutt was fired for refusing to lie about science, he has founded Drugscience, a research and advocacy nonprofit that has scored significant policy wins and made real therapeutic breakthroughs through hard work and rigour.

I don't think you could ask for a more sensible, clear-eyed, and useful book about drugs, from the ones your doctor prescribes to the ones your bartender serves you to the ones you can go to jail for possessing. Nutt is not just a great and principled campaigner, nor merely a talented and dedicated scientist — he's also a superb communicator.

Drugs Without the Hot Air is part of an outstanding series of technical books — mostly about climate change — that have greatly influenced my thinking. The publisher, UIT Cambridge, has several more that I recommend.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago Media professors' SCOTUS brief on why P2P should be legal https://web.archive.org/web/20050910210056/http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/mediagrokster.pdf

#15yrsago Study: Used hard-drives full of juicy blackmail material https://web.archive.org/web/20051223054039/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1487674,00.html

#15yrsago Revolved: Beatles mashup album https://web.archive.org/web/20050221212052/http://www.hearingdouble.co.uk/ccc/

#15yrsago 1121 phrases you can't put on personalized jerseys at nfl.com https://web.archive.org/web/20050304035349/https://www.outsports.com/nfl/2005/0301nflshopnaughtywords.htm

#10yrsago Brits: tell the LibDem Peers not to bring web-censorship to Britain! https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2010/lib-dems-seek-web-blocking

#10yrsago If chess were redesigned by MMORPG developers https://akma.disseminary.org/2010/03/if-chess-were-invented-by-mmog-developers/

#5yrsago America's growing gangs of armed, arrest-making, untrained rent-a-cops https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/private-police-carry-guns-and-make-arrests-and-their-ranks-are-swelling/2015/02/28/29f6e02e-8f79-11e4-a900-9960214d4cd7_story.html

#5yrsago Bruce Schneier's Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World https://boingboing.net/2015/03/02/bruce-schneiers-data-and-gol.html

#1yrago Man-Eaters: Handmaid's Tale meets Cat People in a comic where girls turn into man-eating were-panthers when they get their periods https://boingboing.net/2019/03/02/lycanthropes-v-patriarchy.html

#1yrago Massive study finds strong correlation between "early affluence" and "faster cognitive drop" in old age https://www.pnas.org/content/116/12/5478

#1yrago Comcast assigned every mobile customer the same unchangeable PIN to protect against SIM hijack attacks: 0000 https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/03/a-comcast-security-flub-helped-attackers-steal-mobile-phone-numbers/

#1yrago Improbably, a Black activist is now the owner and leader of the "National Socialist Movement," which he is turning into an anti-racist group https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/03/01/how-black-man-outsmarted-neo-nazi-group-became-their-new-leader/?utm_term=.e5eb80c543cb

#1yrago Study that claimed majority of Copyright Directive opposition came from the US assumed all English-language tweets came from Washington, DC https://webschauder.de/wer-zwitschert-zum-eu-urheberrecht/

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Slashdot (https://slashdot.org), Dark Roasted Blend (https://www.darkroastedblend.com/) and Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/).

Hugo nominators! My story "Unauthorized Bread" is eligible in the Novella category and you can read it free on Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Upcoming appearances:

Canada Reads Kelowna: March 5, 6PM, Kelowna Library, 1380 Ellis Street, with CBC's Sarah Penton https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cbc-radio-presents-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-96154415445

Currently writing: I just finished a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel now, though the timing is going to depend on another pending commission (I've been solicited by an NGO) to write a short story set in the world's prehistory.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Disasters Don't Have to End in Dystopias: https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/01/disasters-dont-have-to-end-in-dystopias/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a very special, s00per s33kr1t intro.

18 notes · View notes

omgbrainstorming · 6 years ago

Text

John Rogers’ Facebook Live

For those of you who didn’t know, this evening on the UPtv Facebook page, John Rogers (writer and producer of The Librarians and Leverage) did a Live and answered fans’ questions.

Here’s a recap of what happened (it’s a freaking poem, sorry!):

The comments in square brackets [like these] are my comments.

It started with some good old awkward silence (because few people were there and UPtv wanted for him to wait).

He said hi to everyone and marvelled at the fact that he had The Librarians fans watching him from all over the world (Please don’t ask me what time is it where I live). Someone had mistaken him for an actor and he thanked them, but said that they were mistaking him for someone way cooler than him.

In the meantime, he had a record on the wall behind him and someone asked him about it, he proudly took it in front of the camera to show that it was a 45 Bohemian Rapsody record (he’s a big Queen fan).

He reminded all of you lucky folks in the US that UPtv is not only showing all the episodes with new material every Wednesday, this weekend there will be a The Librarian marathon (the 3 movies plus the pilot and interviews with the cast), so don’t forget!

What was his fave moment from the show?

One of his fave was the videogame episode written for John Kim, the idea of the episode wasn’t new, but it was supposed to be a sort of redemption arc for Ezekiel. John Kim wasn’t a seasoned actor when he came from Australia to film the show and he really gave his best in this episode, thanks to - John Rogers added - the help of John Larroquette (Jenkins) and Rebecca Romijn (Eve Baird) who really helped him a lot.

He added that every single moment spent watching John Larroquette was a great moment [and can’t we Larroquetthishes understand], also watching Rebecca and Noah interact was really funny because Flynn had been really unlucky, romantically speaking, on the show and watching him being pulled out of his shell because of Eve, his equal, was a gift, especially when they figured out that Rebecca had a lot of comedian potential and they learned to tap into that. He liked working with Jonathan Frakes, and when Christian Kane finally got to fight in season 3 and 4 (they intentionally held him back). Overall too many great moments because it was a great cast.

Please talk about your experience as a writer and producer for The Librarians.

He wasn’t one of the original writers, he just hopped on the first and third movie of The Librarian because Flynn is a polymath and he (John Rogers) has a degree in phisics and could help with lots of science and cool knowledge stuff. After Leverage ended they managed to get the rights to make a tv show out of The Librarian, they had schedule problems because Noah was on Falling Skies, so they needed to make it quickly, they couldn’t replace him because he was a franchise character, so they came up with the idea of a team looking back at the first movie [when there’s that loooooooooong queue of people on the stairs that are trying to get the job like Flynn] and thought “Who are these people who had a shot of living this magical life?” and just one replacement Librarian would have been constantly compared to Flynn, while a team gave them the possibility to have the format change they were looking for. So then they sat down to think how Flynn would change and how these new characters would change. John Rogers thought about the fact that throughout the movies a big theme was loneliness, because this dream job made you isolated, and Noah was all for playing a Flynn who had been through a lot of action in those 10 years and was a different guy.

What was your inspiration for the episodes you wrote?

They put togethere a lot of ideas, mainly thinking “What is a great myth, urban legend, urban lore, etc.? And how do we twist it?” Because us, the fans, watch a lot of genre entertainment, so we were probably ahead of them in terms of knowing the subject. So they decided to start with “something like the 90s X-Files, something that the audience’s expecting, and twist it!”. He makes the example of the “witchcraft episode” [1x07 The Librarians and the Rule of Three, the one with Morgan Le Fay] “so in the 90s the kids.. it would’ve been a goth cult doing satanic practices, how do we twist it? Well, it turns out it’s actually the parents and it’s with good intentions. And also we brought in Morgan le Fay, fantastic character”. They sit down, think about the themes, do a lot of research, have fun with weird historical stuff and then twist it. Then he added that beside all of this, they listened to whatever John Larroquette would say/point out because “whatever John Larroquette says is super super interesting!” [Preach.]

How did you decide the villains of each season?

Since they didn’t know if they were going to be renewed (this for each season), they always tried to give us closure, they didn’t want to leave us hanging too much, they tried to make each season like a book with only one big villain. Since the first season was a reboot of the movies they used the original villain, The Serpent Brotherhood, to ease us in a new mythology. By the second season they were really fascinated with how books and narrative works, so Geoffrey Thorne came up with the idea of the fictionals. For season 3 and 4 they found an interesting historical path to follow and explore. So they actually decided first what they wanted to talk about in that season and then picked a villain that would fit.

Where does the story of What Lies Beneath the Stones come from?

[Can I say that this question is getting old?] Jacob Stone comes from a place where he’s uncomfortable with himself and that’s mostly because of the expectations that are put upon us by others, so they wanted to tell you where those expectations came from, in this case from his father. John Rogers was quick to assure us that Christian actually has a great relationship with his father, but they wanted to show what happens when you leave home, when you go out of a “redneck” situation like that.

If there could have been only one Librarian in the end, which of the LITs would you have chosen?

“Well that’s not fair!” He says that there’s a reason for which he wrote the season 1 finale like that, to show you what all of them would have been like as the ultimate Librarian, partially because they didn’t know if they were getting a season 2 (they filmed it all before airing) and he “has no desire to revisit that nightmare”, he likes to think that “Ezekiel is annoying the hell out of Stone” somewhere, somehow, still all happily together. [Is John Rogers a Jazekiel shipper? Yes, he is]

Had you been able to do a 5th season, what ideas would you have liked to explore?

He thinks that the show had a lot more seasons in it than what they actually got, and they were leaning toward the idea that you can’t keep a secret forever, they would have to go public, they would have to address the fact that magic is in the world and the world would find out and that would have been a whole new mess.

How did you come up with Galahad and the other immortals?

A lot of it was looking back at the movies, and once they established that Jenkins was immortal and Excalibur was there as a character, “a real character, he made us all cry when he died! I mean, probably my favourite thing in my entire career, is that I made a bunch of people cry when a sword died on tv!”, it made sense to look at the Knights of the Round Table for immortals (with the help of historians on staff, like Kate Rorick) and other immortals too are just “what are other cool myths and how do we integrate them with our story?”

Why otters?!

Always in the Morgan Le Fay episode, they were researching projects to put in the background and they stumbled upon the fact that otters are actually really dangerous, and “when you’re a bunch of writers locked in one room with each other for ten hours a day... you get a little sneaky, and so... deadly otters just became a recurring joke and we just never let it go!”

Which of the cast members could you see as a librarian, working the books and stuff?

Surprisingly for us, he says, Christian Kane, because he had a real interest in history, and he or Lindy Booth would have had a natural inclination towards it.

When did you decide Charlene and Judson were an item? I ask since in the movies it was never really hinted at.

Bob [Newhart, Judson] was retiring and Jane [Curtin, Charlene] was on a CBS show and they had just enough time to shoot that first episode of season 1 with them, so they had to tie them together to say goodbye at the same time. They first tied them together with her being his Guardian - there was actually a cool sword fight with Jane Curtin we never got to see because there wasn’t enough time - and when they brought her back they got to throw Jenkins in the mix (they liked their banter and decided to up their relationship) [dumbest decision ever], they created a backstory and properly said goodbye to her.

About the death of Excalibur,

on the first edit Dean put in the dog whines sound without warning him and when it played he told him it was too heartbreaking, take that out, but Dean loved it.

Did you keep anything from the set?

No, because they were still shooting when he left. Everyone wanted the Globe, but Dean kept it.

So who was Charlene married to prior to Judson?

Actually, it was after Judson. But he said “think of Higlander, once you realise Judson will never be able to settle down you think, well, maybe you should have a human relationship to have a real life”

What do you think was the secret sauce that made the show so special?

“Honestly, I think it was love”. And the fact that they could literally tap into any subject, and “they could all hit a joke!”, they [the cast] really liked each other, “Rebecca and Lindy were inseparable, everyone adopted John [Kim] as their little brother” so that showed on camera. On a business side nobody else was making a family show.

How did you keep pace with the episodes so that nothing would happen too quickly?

In the first season they were lucky to be able to write it all before filming it, so they had a solid background, and he says that it’s important, for the emotional growth of the characters, to see the episodes in the order they were intended to, not like they are on DVD, especially “Jake and Cassie are kinda screwed up if you watch them in the DVD order”. The first season is about how you build trust, welcome to the magical world and see them rise to the occasion. In the second season it was how do you change, you’ve been introduced to this world, how do you become a different person. He loves writing about characters who don’t have a choice but to change. The actors really helped (they came up with “Jacob’s dad, the fact that Cassandra had never really dated so she was not aware of her sexual orientation, John [Kim] wanted to talk about his family. So it was very much talkig to them, looking at the emotional story we wanted to tell over the season and then split it into ten and figure out how to pace that”

How much ad libbing space was the cast allowed?

A lot. He knew Christian very well, kinda knew Lindy, “Rebecca was fantastic, John Larroquette has... nine Emmy’s! John Larroquette won so many Emmy’s he had to ask them to stop giving them to him! So, yeah, you let him do what he wants”. John Kim is a natural talent and Noah knows Flynn inside out. So they all go through reharsal (when they ask “oh, can I change this, can I change that?” and you’re like “yeah, sure” unless it’s a piece of information that is needed for later) and then they ask the directors “can I try this? Can I try that?”, sometimes they just go for it and you keep rolling. In the time loop episode (Ezekiel’s videogame) Christian Kane had to say “Some thief!” a billion times in one day and he tried to make it funny and new every single time.

Did you prefer writing more mythical/historical based stories or more science fiction based stories?

Fifty fifty. The mythical stories were funny because they had to find the real story and then find the magic tweak, science fiction is easier because you have control and people assume that what you’re saying is real, it feels easier. He likes the fact that in the historical ones you think “oh wow! That’s really weird, then you Google it and go like, oh wow! That’s true!”, both cool and sometimes disturbing, he says, what more could you want?

Was it important for you to be working on a family friendly show?

Yes, very much so. Because there wasn’t much you could watch together with your kids back then. It was a beautiful challenge to make a show with deeply emotional stories and characters with real problems, real arcs, and do it in a family friendly setting. Raise subjects that were relevant, like in the Morgan Le Fay episode where a lot of the staff had kids in highschool and they talked about the fact that kids these days are under so much pressure, so much homework and still need to have lives! And they approached that through the metaphor of magic.

Which tv shows and movies inspired you as a writer?

Old action shows, con shows, Doctor Who, historical shows, The Rocket Files [?? sorry, I’m really not sure about the name, English is not my first language], Raiders of the Lost Ark, old pulps (they structured the episodes titles to be like old pulps). Probably more books. Alastor MaClaine [??], Isaac Asimov, Robert Howard.

If the show had continued, what other mythologies would you have drawn from for ideas?

Probably expand the Arthurian mythology, Asian mythology, Russian mythology, etc. He would have liked a more diverse casting with the new mythologies to make it even more inclusive as a show, because The Librarians are the Guardians of the world and you should have world cultures and world mythologies represented.

What were some of your favourite ideas put into the show?

Santa Claus. He thinks it came up because they knew they were going to be a winter show, so they had a Christmas episode, and he said “well, we can just do Santa Claus!” and then someone said “he’d be a friend of Jenkins because he’s immortal!” and then “but who do you get to play Santa Claus?!” and Bruce Campbell had just conveniently moved to Oregon. He was a delight, everyone loved him and he broke their hearts when later his schedule never allowed him to be back on the show. Jeff Thone’s fictionals as well, the vampire quest with Cassie and Jenkins and Clara Lago (Estrella) because of Cassie’s sexuality that was set out at the end of season 1 and had to roll out, basically they figured out who she had chemistry with, “Honestly, I was kinda going for her [Cassie] and Baird, but we never got there. Yeah, Noah kept coming back and he’s a charming bastard! Ops! I’m not supposed to swear, sorry” [John Rogers is a wild fanboy and I love him]. “Most of my favourite things were not mine”

About Nicole coming back:

They had to be careful, because it wasn’t something that could have happened in season 1, the story had to progress before her [you could have just... not brought her back? Just saying], the show needed to be able to stand alone and only then they could bring a character from the original movies back [yeah, but like, why Nicole?? Why not Emily? Better yet, why not Simone?? And don’t you dare tell me “Simone died” because guess what, Nicole was dead too.]

Which character was the most fun to write?

It’s a tie, but Lindy because he had fun with maths, all the calculations she does they (espacially he) did them, in the pilot when she’s in Stonehenge, John Rogers went there and had fun calculating the actual height of the sun in Germany at that particular time, and then Rebecca because she’s a gifted comedian ancd actor, like with the story that Eve tells Ezekiel in the time loop episode that was the anchor to that episode.

Who’s your fave director to work with?

They were all great, probably Mark Roskin and Jonathan Frakes.

About the pilot:

The pilot was a challenge because in the middle of it they found out they could not have Jane Curtin for the second half, so her part was rushed.

Did you ever have to deal with writers block trying to create such intricate arcs? How did you or would you deal with it?

There’s the writers’ room, so hopefully when you’re stuck, the others are not. That’s why it’s important to rely on your writers, because even if you don’t have a way to approach something, they will. There’s an old saying that goes “you don’t think your way out of a writing block, you write your way out of a thinking block”, if you are stuck you just start writing, even if it’s bad, till you hit one interesting line, one interesting moment and you hook on that and realise that that was what your brain was trying to get to.

It was action packed, but was it hard to keep it family friendly?

No, lots of them had kids so they knew the right tone. Action doesn’t mean brutal violence, the most challenging thing was how to do the emotional stories that are mature but still resonates with, like, 12yo.

Did you ever start working on an episode and find it wasn’t working? How did you change in the fly?

It happened only once to him. The physical sets weren’t lining up, they were trying to go for a dream sequence (later on they made something similar with the Wonderland episode), so they changed it with the “deal with the Devil in a small town with Baird’s old friend”.

Was there ever a storyline that you wanted to do and didn't get to do?

He would have liked to do something more with the “the Government has found out that magic is real”, especially because the idea of magic in the show is not “weeeeee, we can do magic now! Hardwork is what pays off and magic is a short cut and is dangerous”, Jenkins is saying it constantly, they wanted to blow up some myths “everyone loves talking about kings and queens, but everyone forget that that means you don’t have any rights, that’s why Jenkins had that speech at the end of episode 10″ [season 1, Loom of Fate]

Who was the best poker player?

Not John Kim because he has no poker face “I love the boy but you can see everything that he’s thinking crossing his face at all times”.

After the time line resetted in the last couple of episodes, do you think Jenkins still has his D&D games with Jeff?

As you may have noticed from episode 10, season 1, Baird points out that the thing she did with Santa that enables her to remember all the other timelines did not come from the Clippings Book, it came from Jenkins, so the assumption is that Jenkins can at least see other timelines and certainly as immortal he’s aware of them, he’s a different relationship with time, so even if during the timeline reset maybe Jeff doesn’t remember, he [John Rogers] likes to think that Jenkins found his way back to them, if that was something that he enjoyed doing (and John Rogers thinks he does), “but Jenkins definitely remembers all of the timelines, wheter he admits it or not”. [Like, be still my Casskins heart, he remembers, he remember Tea Time in the Annex, I’m cool, I’m calm. Fine. Someone call an ambulance]

Which character relationship was your favourite? Eg. Eve/Jenkins, Jake/Ezekiel etc.

He says that the question is which characters do you prefer to write, because that’s how they exist, with dialogue. He loved Eve/Jenkins because they were “the old guys”, they’ve been through a lot, a lot of pain, loss, so there was a lot of bonding ground in those scenes, and Cassandra and Jacob because they both didn’t have a chance to live their best life, “because Ezekiel is living his best life, it’s just a shallow one”, and then as Lindy and Rebecca became friends they just let them ride with it. And then Flynn/Everybody because when Flynn shows up they can torture him and have fun.

In the first episode there’s a conversation between Jenkins and Eve about Flynn’s mental state that i just LOVE. It made me fall in love with Jenkins.

That’s the idea of Jenkins, he’s been through A LOT, he’s known pain, has lost a lot and he’ll help you to help other people the way he couldn’t. [I’m crying, someone needs to hug Jenkins for like, a whole new season. I volunteer]

Did you have a favourite artefact?

They were trying to distance themselves from the movies by stopping the show from being all about artefacts. He can’t choose. But he really loved Frankenstein, loved that everyone forgets that in the book he’s actually really literate and wanted to bring him back to show his relationship with Ezekiel but the actor wasn’t available.

What are you up to currently?

After The Librarians and The Player on MBC he’s adapting the Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss for the tv.

Was the storybook episode easier or harder to write?

It was really easy once they figured out the archetypes, they wanted to subvert the tropes because they didn’t want Jacob as Prince Charming and they knew Ezekiel was Jack, so Cassandra being Prince Charming was a great clue of what would happen later on “and also, she nailed it! She was amazing, everyone was amazing”. It was very easy to write but very hard to produce.

I remember reading about an abandoned "Black Mask" idea. What was up with that?

They were thinking about doing a much more complicated time travel story (for season 1), where Eve, instead of being thrown into parallel dimensions, would be thrown back through time, and they’d later reveal that each time the “mysterious hero” that Jenkins was supposed to tell them about, appeared in time of need was actually one of the Librarians going back wearing the mask to save the day, and that Jenkins himself originally had that role.

In the episode with Dorian Grey, how difficult was it to turn the classic art story into the electronic version.

The idea came very easily, from selfies to narcissism, from that to Dorian, that’s done.

I loved your blog posts as we went through first season - thank you for that!

He said thank you.

What a great storyline that would be - the black mask - maybe if you get to do reunion movie!!?

He said that instead of looking back he’d like to move forward, what would it be like for them not to have to hide anymore.

I think the darkest episode was the Bender House, but it was really cool.

Perfect example of twisting classic stories.

Would Ezekiel have ever found aliens?

No, never! They find it too funny, in a world were everything is true, aliens are not.

Did you ever think about having a kind of "flashback" episode of Jenkins' Arthurian times? [This was mine]

[Ignoring the fact that he though I was Spanish just because I told him who played Estrella - I just Googled it, I’m weak] They did think about it, it was going to be in the season 2 finale, when Eve and Flynn go back in time, it was supposed to be a King Arthur episode, when they were to find out that Shakespeare was Merlin, find him and give him their statue so he would be the guardian of it, but then they thought it’d be cooler - and John [Larroquette] himself liked this better - if even he didn’t know what was going on and they could talk more about his longing and the loss for Flynn and Eve like everybody else, they didn’t want him to be like “let the LITs suffer thinking they’ve lost them while I know better”. [So either the episode didn’t make sense or like... Galahad was just hanging out with Merlin in the Elizabethan period?? So it wouldn’t have been “his Arthurians time”, just “hanging out with almost the only remaining buddy from Camelot”, still cool, but I meant like, middle ages]

Who came up with the Serpent Brotherhood?

It was the original writers.

He finished reminding averyone about the marathon, to tweet along because the actors will be active (he’ll personally bog John Kim so he’ll remember), he’ll be on the hashtag too. Thanked us fans and closed hoping for new The Librarians material.

Now I’m knackered, it’s stupid early in the morning here, I have yet to go to sleep, send help. (If you see any errors, please let me know!)

69 notes · View notes

mattskeebah · 6 years ago

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PLEASE READ

I know how much y’all hate “your fave is problematic” posts...but it’s necessary.

Summary: Matt Skiba, singer of the band Alkaline Trio and member of Blink-182, has nazi tattoos, is a fan of nazi bands, made tasteless nazi related paintings, is best friends with Boyd Rice, and in fact, owns nazi insignia. Matt claims to be a feminist but likes countless scantily clad pics of young models and sex workers and follows actual porn actresses on IG. Also, he never distanced himself from Asia Argento and still sells t-shirts with her face on them in his webstore. Matt supports the police and the military and he has a weird gun fetish. He attacked fans who criticized his behavior and his problematic associations.

---

WHY I STOPPED BEING A FAN OF MATT SKIBA

He supports the police as an instutition, specifically Chicago PD. He made a post on Instagram in favor of CPD which ofc received backlash from fans but he ignored the negative comments and brushed it off as “there are bad people in every profession” and then he deleted the post. Thanks to a Tumblr user who screencapped it: [x] please notice the tiny blue (lives matters) heart. Also, here are some “cute” pics of him wearing police-related stuff [x] [x] and check out this post of him “repping” new CPD merch on his car [x] (he disabled the comments).

He supports the military, which might be because his parents served in the Vietnam war, but that doesn’t make it less shitty. Examples for his military-support can be found all over his Instagram. [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] and so on... and in this post he’s delighted that a soldier in Afghanistan is wearing an Alkaline Trio patch. [x]

He’s close friends with Asia Argento / or had possible romantic relationship with her and he still sells t-shirts with her face on them in his merch shop. For those of you who don’t know her, she was one of the leaders of the #metoo movement but then it was revealed that she herself had sex with an intoxicated 17-year-old (!) and her bf Anthony Bourdain gave the boy money so he would keep his mouth shut about the incident, ((later Bourdain committed suicide))

Story of a fan who gave Matt a letter criticizing him for being friends with Argento, and the same night he posted a picture of her on IG (I think it was this post)… which seems like a subtle F*CK YOU at the person who gave him the letter. (he can’t take criticism, can he?)

His IG activity is .. something else. Matt’s major interests are motorbikes, cars, and young, attractive, half-naked models and strippers. One of his recent likes (nudity and bruises cw) [x] [x] [x] [x]….that one is an actual porn actress he follows and thirsts over: (more nudity cw) [x] he commented ‘cool butt momma. miss you xoxo’ [x] [x] (liked)…and my “personal fave” a picture with a sex worker [x] he deleted the picture ofc

HE LOVES GUNS (+said that he would use them) he has quite a big gun collection: SIG SAUERs, a Morning Star, many knifes, a shotgun, a Desert Eagle gun, a samurai sword, a faux snakeskin baton, and more stuff I can’t remember, he posted his collection on November 5th 2018 on IG, but unfortunately I didn’t take a screenshot!! but he posted them individually on IG. [x] [x] [x] [x] etc. and a recently deleted pic at the shooting range [x] ……also this pic exists.. edgelord (tw gun to the head).

In the comments of the same post (I swear on my life it’s real, you have to trust me) a user commented that he’s a Trump supporter but he would still defend Matt, even if he’s “politically left”. Matt’s answer: “I would defend you too, my man!”. o k a y. then Matt said he identifies as “quite a bit left” o K AY. MATT. Just so btw. the user also had a name including “88″ ( is a code phrase commonly used in fascist circles for “Heil Hitler”) or he just meant the year 88. but I saw some racist “memes” on his IG too.

Matt has a weird obsession with WW2. He literally watched a holocaust docu on HIS FUCKING BDAY (or at least he posted about it) and he said he collects WW2 books. Theoretically, nothing wrong with being interested in history, but in the context of everything… bad vibes……….

He really loves Nordic/Scandinavian-related stuff, like jewelry of the Hammer of Thor etc and he even uses MS runes for his merch. Runes are popular among occultists but they also have a really problematic history concerning WW2 and the nazis. Considering one of his most favorite bands Death in June mentions runes in their lyrics and they are a REALLY REALLY questionable band flirting with nazi imagery and being openly affiliated with fascist and far-right satanists, I have every right to question Matt’s intentions.

He literally has a crutch cross tattoo on his chest (which was used as the symbol of Austro-Fascism, and is also the logo of the neo folk - nazi band Blood Axis) PHOTO 1, PHOTO 2 and an EDELWEISS tattoo [x], which is the national flower of Austria and is considered a magical flower in occult circles. Nothing wrong with having a flower tattoo but it was used a lot in the context of nationalsocialism and “traditional values”. To add, it was also used as a symbol of the 1st Mountain division “Gebirgsjäger” in WW2 (Hitler’s elite formation of the Wehrmacht who were involved in large scale war crimes).

Matt OWNS NAZI INSIGNIA. He is wearing a WW2 Edelweiss patch in this pic [x] and here [x] combined with a crutch cross patch (Alk3 used an iron cross backdrop at their concerts 2014ish and a crutch cross symbol on their guitar picks btw.)

He owns several Death In June patches, their merch [x] [x] [x] [x] etc. and other patches and buttons featuring nazi-related symbols. [DIJ WIKI]. He is also friends with their singer. Matt’s a huge DIJ fan, attended their concerts [x] and Douglas P. reads the intro of the Alkaline Trio song “I Found Away”. DIJ uses fascist symbols and “aesthetics” for the band, including an SS Totenkopf logo.

Matt painted the same logo and exhibited it at an art show [x]

HE LITERALLY DID PAINTINGS REFERENCING DOLLFUSS AND MUSSOLINI and another piece of “art” called “surf nazis” [x] what the actual f u c k .. and here he is with his painting of Mickey Mouse as Hitler [x]

HE IS BEST FRIENDS with Boyd Rice, (here’s a picture of them holding Wolfsangels, a nazi symbol) they are REALLY CLOSE. According to Rice’s IG they meet every week and hang out and Rice considers Matt “family”… the entire Boyd Rice shit can be read in this post (important please read). Matt even attacked fans that were calling him out and called them stupid.

The first liked video on his Youtube channel is a video about neo-nazi biker gangs in Germany....... [x]

He is friends with Kat von D, she did a few of his tattoos and she appeared in the Alk3 video “Help Me”.

He collabed with Jeffree Star on a violent song [x]

He was at an art show of a friend who used nazi symbols (!)

posts like these [x] [x]

In this interview [x] he’s pretty much romanticizing that people got stabbed back then at concerts and that there was a big skinhead scene (he wasn’t “stoked” about the violence happening BUT “the energy surrounding” was “very ATTRACTIVE” to him. Make of that what you will.)

When he was a sophomore in HS (and on acid) he beat up a classmate who threw a U.S. flag on the floor. [x]

Matt made a racist remark a few years ago about Chinese people [x] and according to him //or he’s joking// he has a tattoo on his dick that says “welcome to Jamaica” which can be interpreted as racist.

Many of the movies he praises blatantly depict violence against women, like Blue Velvet, Funny Games, A Clockwork Orange (it has almost 3 rape scenes in the first 15 minutes), lyrics like “Radio” can be seen as misogynist, he literally wishes that his ex-GF (/or someone’s ex-gf) should take a bath with a radio and get electrocuted.

A person on IG commented that his ex-girlfriend accused him of domestic violence, I have no proof for that but he deleted the comments ofc and then a few days later he donated money to a women’s shelter in LA… which seems like he’s trying to avoid a shitstorm…

He compared L.A. women to zoo animals in this interview [x].

He cheated on his ex-gf(s) which I think should go on this list too.

Matt used to be a member of the Church of Satan, just leaving this here. you can argue if it’s good or bad but there seems to be a connection between satanists and neo-nazis .. sadly.

He listed the song* “Los Angeles” by X among his faves in this interview [x] (*edit: Someone has reached out to me and explained that the song was not racist, antisemitic or anything but from the *perspective* of a racist. However, we don't know Matt's reason for liking the song and considering his WW2 fetish, it's sketchy that he would consider the song as one of his favorites. Maybe he likes it because the song openly says things out loud under the veil of "sarcasm" that would be criticized under different circumstances. See also: [Oscar Wild was right.] Matt still listened to the band in 2014 and was at a concert of them [x], even months after their singer spew right-wing conspiracy theories concerning (school) shootings.

THIS FUCKING PICTURE OF HIM WITH A CHARLES MANSON DOLL AND A SW*STIKA. He still had the doll in other pictures [x] [x].

This picture I found on a fansite. It’s supposed to be Matt as a child.. where does that even come from and why is he wearing a military hat with something that vaguely looks like an eagle (?)

I can’t be the only one who noticed that but Matt had a vaguely ~nazi haircut thoughout the years and even some sort of nazi / white power aesthetic~ going on, even fans recognized it as such [x] [x] [x] and in the context of him hanging out with Boyd Rice like this in this picture [x] it’s safe to say he was EXACTLY GOING FOR THAT LOOK.

When he was in Germany during the Blink-182 tour 2017 he proudly posed at a famous Third Reich location in the Alps. Yk. nothing wrong with visiting historical locations but in the context of everything mentioned in this post. IT LOOKS REALLY BAD.

…probably more.. this man is a walking disaster

- - -

In this post I listed a lot, there are probably some things you would consider “minor” because they happened years ago but I thought I’d mention them anyway. Also, I’m not saying he has those beliefs but he definitely doesn’t distance himself from nazi(-sympathizing) scum like Boyd Rice and keeps being BFFs with him. And what’s up with the problematic tattoos and WWII insignia? I can’t be the only one who thinks this is not okay!!!

Thanks for reading.

#I never thought I would write this... he meant so much to me.. he was my inspiration. wtf #RECEIPTS #PLEASE DONT IGNORE THIS!!!!!#matt skiba #alkaline trio #blink-182 #blink182

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azfellandco · 6 years ago

Note

Hey there, so your reply to my comment on the vampire AU, about Aziraphale and consumption and such, has been rattling around in my head since I read it, and I was hoping, if you have the time/energy/desire of course, to pick your brains about what kinds of meta/headcanons you've got? Because Aziraphale and food and softness and subversion give me LIFE and I have some thoughts of my own but I'd love to hear yours :D

I would love to talk about this some more, hell yeah. Thank you so much. Please do also tell me your headcanons, @dwarven-beard-spores, I definitely want to hear them. Here is the AU in question for anyone else who might be interested.

Anyway I’m going to have to put this under a read-more because this has become like… thesis level long. My apologies to anyone on mobile.

The thing I love about this book in general is that there’s such a rich vein of history of thought to explore baked into the premise. Angels and demons and god and the devil and satanic nuns and witches and the four horsemen and the antichrist and the Book of Revelation’s “capital A for Apocalypse” exist in this universe and because so much of it is played for humorous effect there’s a lot of wiggle room as to how these things actually interact with their real world theological equivalents. Which is all building up to say: I am absolutely fascinated with the dichotomy in popular conception between angels as good/holy and angels as monstrous, and how to a lot of people that really isn’t a dichotomy at all.

Here are some quotes I think about in conjunction with Aziraphale a lot.

“Did you ever notice how in the Bible, whenever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?“ –The Prophecy

“Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the hierarchyof angels? and even if one of thempressed me against his heart: I would be consumedin that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothingbut the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure,and we are so awed because it serenely disdainsto annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying.” –Rainer Maria Rilke

Every angel is terrifying. What? Whomst? Aziraphale, light of my life, in love with a demon who thinks bullet-hole window transfers and expensive divers’ watches are cool, calls said demon “my dear”, is terrifying? Excuse me?

I am utterly in love with the idea of Aziraphale as this potential force of nature, with the righteous fury and the wings and the sword and wait. What did Aziraphale do with that sword? He gave it away to the humans that got kicked out of paradise, because they looked cold.

The first thing Aziraphale does in the whole book is a renouncement of this particular idea of angels, and we see him sort of… butt up against it later, when he talks to the Metatron. Aziraphale doesn’t want the world to end, of course he doesn’t, but I just have… so many feelings about the way Aziraphale talks about the war versus the way the Metatron talks about the war.

The point is not to avoid the war, it is to win it. –the Metatron, pg. 242

The Metatron is the kind of angel above, blood and fury, and Aziraphale’s voice goes “flat and hopeless” in the face of it, “the bitterness in his voice would have soured milk”. Aziraphale doesn’t want this war to happen, and the way all his thoughts and feelings are tagged versus the sort of netural, descriptionless way the Metatron’s are (pretty much the only characterization the Metatron gets is “a well-educated voice” and “a shade testily”, the latter of which is in response to Aziraphale saying he has to delay returning to Heaven) has always struck me as like… the difference between Aziraphale and other angels is that Aziraphale cares so much. We talk a lot in this fandom about Crowley and “the truth was that Crowley rather liked humans. It was a major failing in a demon” but Aziraphale is the same, he’s just… subtler.

Where the heck was I going with this. I’m so fond.

Ah yes. Aziraphale is different from other angels because he cares, because he wants. I wrote a fic about this, too, actually. So it’s sort of interesting to me that it’s in the things Aziraphale wants that he is most an ”every angel is terrifying” angel, even though in some cases it’s a muted and complex kind of thing, a lot of which has been helped along for my by popular fandom and my love of gothic lit and isn’t necessarily comping from the book anymore, everything from here on out is my headcanons.

The most obvious example of Aziraphale’s desires being the most monstrous thing about him comes from that same conversation with the Metatron. I’m sure everybody here is aware of the good old “Aziraphale was willing to kill a child so he could stay on earth and keep eating sushi” post which, while reductive, is essentially what I’m getting at here. Aziraphale calls the Metatron with the specific intent of the Metatron killing Adam and stopping the ball rolling because he likes the world and he likes living there and I really do think, when it comes down to it, that’s a purely selfish decision on Aziraphale’s part. Crowley knows that the things about the world that will get Aziraphale on his side near the start of the book are all things Aziraphale likes.

“No more compact discs… no salt, no eggs. No gravlax with dill sauce. No more fascinating little restaurants where they know you. No Daily Telegraph crosswords. No small antique shops. No book shops either. No interesting first editions. No–” Crowley scraped the bottom of Aziraphale’s barrel of interests, “regency silver snuffboxes.” –pg. 46

It’s all well and good to like people and want to help them and want to save them, but in the end, for a certain kind of person (the kind of person I see Aziraphale as), you have to make it personal. And people, as I’m sure everyone is aware, will do truly awful things in the name of protecting what is personal to them.

I don’t know where to put this observation so it’s going here. That one line that’s like “Six millennia exposure to humans was having the same effect on Aziraphale as it was on Crowley, only in the opposite direction”? I’ve generally seen this taken to mean “six millennia had made them both more human-like by making Crowley less evil and Aziraphale less good” but personally I’ve always taken it to mean that exposure to humans has made Crowley like humans more and Aziraphale like humans less. My angel is antisocial and likes people in a general sense only, because it’s important to his self-image to love all of God’s creation or whatever.

On that slightly ominous note let’s move on to the point about consumption. There’s a sentiment in some feminist literature about desire, and sexual desire, and hunger, and how they overlap that is relevant here but I cannot find the exact quote I am thinking of so these will have to do.

For a woman who has learned to make herself physically and emotionally small, to live literally and figuratively on scraps, admitting that you have an appetite is a source of cavernous fear. Women are often on a diet of the body, but we are always on a diet of the heart. The low-maintenance woman, the ideal woman, has no appetite. This is not to say that she refuses food, sex, romance, emotional effort; to refuse is petulant, which is ironically more demanding. The woman without appetite politely finishes what’s on her plate, and declines seconds. She is satisfied and satisfiable. –Hunger Makes Me by Jess Zimmerman (if the contents of this meta i’m writing interest you then I suggest you read this article as well)

Please also see this “a softer world” fancomic which is a remix of the poem Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe– “And we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee.”

To want is to hunger and to hunger is to want and it’s extremely important to me that Aziraphale’s particular temptation, and one Crowley knows full well, is lunch. Wanting as selfishness, as monstrousness, is… how you say… my entire shit. The subgenre of gothic horror that is about women who want and the way this makes them feel, as though they’re destructive and dark and dangerous, is pretty much the reason I am the person I am today. Crimson Peak, Shirley Jackson’s work but especially The Haunting of Hill House (speaking of which i am going to personally eviscerate whoever approved that netflix series, how dare they), to some extent Karen Navidson’s story in House Of Leaves, probably lots of others but those are the main ones that come to mind. They’re all about women who want, and feel they shouldn’t, and how that disconnect makes them othered from themselves and the world around them.

I’ve always seen some overlap between this and the concept of queering the villain, because historically the idea of sexual desire has been made to look monstrous by bigots and assholes and that absolutely has not stopped us from grabbing these characters and archetypes and saying “mine now”. I’m never going to stop loving queer-coded villains as long as I live, because if society wants us to be evil we will damn well show them evil.

But of course, wanting isn’t actually evil. It’s just human. Aziraphale is not especially selfish, for a human, even when that selfishness manifests as disregard for his companion’s feelings or stubbornness about the big picture (”That only works, right, if you start everyone off equal… that’s the good bit. The lower you start the more opportunities you have. Crowley had said, that’s lunatic. No, said Aziraphale, it’s ineffable.”) it’s still just… human. People have a notoriously hard time caring about suffering beyond themselves, it’s why we invented morality. Wanting has no moral value, not really, just as hunger doesn’t.

But I can’t help but think that, if Aziraphale agrees with this assessment, it’s taken him thousands of years and certainly until after the apocalypse to arrive there. Aziraphale wants to be good, and he wants his side to be “the good side”, so much so that he’s deluded himself for ages into thinking he doesn’t care about or consider the validity of the stuff Crowley says and believes. There is no textual evidence to support the statement “Aziraphale feels guilty for wanting things and part of the reason he’s so attached to Crowley is that Crowley makes him feel less guilty”, but there it is.

Aziraphale wants, and other angels don’t, or at least, Aziraphale wants in a very concrete and specific sense that other angels don’t seem to–food, wine, books, snuffboxes, Crowley– in short, to be in the world and experience. Aziraphale wants sensual things, pretty things. Comfortable things. Aziraphale is such a soft and homey character despite all these little apparent sharp points, and I adore that about him.

Let me quote my own fic for a moment, the vampire fic that prompted this ask in the first place.

Everything about Aziraphale said “soft” to Crowley, it was something he’d always rather liked about his friend. Soft curls framing his round face, gentle hands, warm and unfashionable clothes covering his pudgy middle. There was absolutely nothing about Aziraphale that looked even slightly predatory, and Crowley had never been able to determine if this was intentional camouflage or just the way Aziraphale was [footnote: it was both].

Aziraphale is selfish and petty and can be inconsiderate and obtuse, but he gave away the thing that identified him as an angel because some humans were suffering and needed it. He loves wine, and books, and he’s fat goddammit, because of course he is. He’s nonthreatening because he’s chosen to be. He’s human because he’s chosen to be, just as Crowley is. It just took him longer to realize that’s what he’d done. He’s got the potential, by virtue of being an angel, to be this incredibly powerful and dangerous thing, and instead he owns a bookshop and feeds the ducks and goes to lunch with his friend.

I’m sure I’ll think of like ten additional things I want to say about this after I post it lmao prepare yourself for that, I guess.

#meta #aziraphale #dwarven-beard-spores #my writing

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hamishmacpherson · 6 years ago

Text

Dance Theory and Practice (Lecture)

This is something based on a presentation I gave to MA students at the London School for Contemporary Dance about research in November 2017. I used it as a chance to think about the relationships between practice and theory. I wonder if it might seem a bit condescending but this is really how I talk to myself and this was a way for me to try and get things a bit clearer in my own head.

First off I wanted to get my head around what research is. It’s something about finding stuff out. Like Googling maybe? Or what journalists do for example? These are forms of research but I’m specifically talking about research in the context of academia. Maybe this is what academia is: ways of finding stuff out that has some consistency and rigour; or agreed ways of finding out stuff. And it’s something about creating new knowledge - so more than just finding any stuff out.

To get doctorate for example you need to make new knowledge (like say something or discover something that hasn’t been articulated or found previously). Up to that point in academia all the way from school, research is generally about summarising existing knowledge.

Julian Klein in an article ‘What is Artistic research’ writes about how research needs to strike a balance between tradition and innovation; between connecting with other people’s research, and developing new material. “Tradition without research would be blind takeover, and innovation without research would be pure intuition.”

There are different types of research for example scientific, historical, artistic, economic and business. To illustrate some of these different types I’m going to use some made up research questions relating to dance and repetition, which is a common enough subject in dance. In doing so I’ll be showing about how academic research forms part of dance.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH involves coming up with a hypothesis and then gathering data: is the hypothesis disproved or supported (it’s never proved) by the data? The method has to be repeatable. A scientific research question might be something like this (I’m pulling these questions off the top of my head):

TrinityLaban seem to do a lot of scientific research about dance for example. Their dance science department looks at optimising elite performance and researching impact on other people who dance. Dance for Parkinsons is another quite well known area of research at the moment. Or think of Matthias Sperling working with psychology researchers to use dance as a means to study how moving together is linked to liking each other.

This brings us to the distinction between BASIC (sometimes called pure) research and APPLIED research.

Basic research might involve something like developing scientific theories and might be thought of as being driven by curiosity.

Applied research however has a specific political or business drive to address specific problems, for example researching a new product that a company wants to sell.

In reality these two things are not distinct and there might be different motives and interests running through any research activity. And these might shift over time.

Andrew Simonet is a choreographer that wrote a book called Making Your Life As an Artist.

In it he writes (this is long quote but a good one):

“I think of artists like scientists. Just like scientists, we begin with a question, something we don’t know.

We go into our studio and research that question.

Like scientists, at the end of our research, we share the results with the public and with our peers.

Some research is “basic,” useful primarily to other researchers. Some is “applied,” relevant to everyday life.

Both are essential. And most artists do some of both, creating experimental work that pushes the form as well as work that is more broadly relevant.

Just as in science, a negative result is as important as a positive result.

Finding that a certain drug does not cure cancer is a crucial discovery. And an artistic experiment that fails produces important information.

When you are working beyond what is known, when you are questioning assumptions that haven’t been questioned, you generate a lot of useful failure.

Failure in science and art is a sign that the process is working.

Though certain scientists win the Nobel Prize and get famous, all scientists know they are standing on the shoulders of thousands of researchers all over the world who have been asking questions.

And while some artists will get the fancy awards (and maybe even get on TV), we know they are standing on the shoulders of thousands of artists who have been doing artistic research for decades.

In art, as in science, there is an element of faith. Scientists don’t enter the lab saying,

“I will cure cancer.” They say, “If I join the thousands of researchers asking rigorous questions about cancer, discoveries and breakthroughs will be made.” In science and in art, you cannot say in advance that this experiment will lead to this result.

But we artists know that if we join the thousands of artists asking rigorous questions, the world will change.

It always has.

The scientific method and the artistic process are the two most robust problem- solving methodologies ever developed. Take either one away, and our world would be unrecognizable.

Look around you: every object, every surface, every technology was created, re ned, and designed using the scientific method and the artistic process.”

OK, now let’s look at some other areas of research, moving to HISTORICAL. This could be looking at original sources, conducting interviews etc. to understand history of something, for example:

HUMANITIES is another field of research. Humanities research is less about right or objective answers and more about looking at the issues around more ‘factual’ events.

We need to remember that science and historical are not ways of finding out absolute truths. They are subject to cultural, personal and structural biases of those who construct this knowledge. Often dominated by white European men. Not to say these are just opinions but nor are they absolute truths.

Lot of the popular research relating to contemporary dance is in the humanities.

FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY and DECOLONISATION are two examples of sort of meta-research projects that examine and seek to undo these biases.

Another key term in humanities research is HERMENUTICS which is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Modern hermeneutics includes both verbal and non-verbal communication as well as semiotics.

Okay let’s move onto PRACTICE BASED research. In this sort of research, creative works are considered both the research and the object of research itself. Practice based research can be non-artistic too.

A practice based research relating to dance and repetition might look like this and involve making and reflecting on different works that use repetition:

Okay, so what is the relationship between PRACTICE and THEORY?

Henk Borgdorff in The conflict of the faculties : perspectives on artistic research and academia describes four perspectives for thinking about this relationship.

1) THE INSTRUMENTAL PERSPECTIVE (music mostly - no pun intended “suggests that ‘theory’ serves the creative process or performance practice in the arts. This viewpoint, predominant in professional arts schools, understands theory first of all as a body of technical professional knowledge. Each art discipline thus has its own ‘theory’ – instrumental knowledge specific to the craft, needed to practise the art form in question.

Examples are the theory of editing in film, the theory of harmony and counterpoint in music (...)

This might, for instance, involve research into a specific use of materials in visual arts, dramaturgic research into a theatrical text, or even the current fad of applying information technology in artistic practice.”

2) THE INTERPRETIVE PERSPECTIVE “holds that theory provides reflection, knowledge, and understanding with respect to artistic practices and products. Historically, this view is associated with academic disciplines like theatre studies and musicology, which try to facilitate understanding of artistic practice from a certain ‘retrospective’ theoretical distance.”

Here some examples of theory that are currently popular for interpreting dance:

It’s worth remembering that practice can be acknowledged/ made visible in theoretical reflection through CITATION; events, performances, workshops and other things can be referenced in written academic texts just like articles and book.

3) THE PERFORMATIVE PERSPECTIVE holds that: “theory itself is a practice, and that theoretical approaches always partially shape the practices they focus on. Whether we are dealing with the theory of linear perspective, classical rhetoric, the twelve-tone technique, set theory in serial music, or insights into the cultural meanings and societal functions of art, the performative power of theory not only alters the way we look at art and the world, but it also makes these into what they are.

That art practitioners can be sceptical about theory – even to the point of developing a misplaced aversion to it – is perhaps not just because some theories seem far afield from the actual practice of art, but also because the performative power of theory competes with the performative power of art. On the other hand, thinkers about art who take unnecessarily reticent or aloof attitudes towards artistic practice (especially that of the present day), and who develop their own codes to institutionally protect their ‘profession’ from artistic practice, may be exhibiting a similar perception.”

4) THE IMMANENT PERSPECTIVE holds that: “All practices embody concepts, theories, and understandings. Artistic practices do so in a literal sense, too – no practices and no materials exist in the arts which are not saturated with experiences, histories, or beliefs.

“Creative processes, artistic practices, and artworks all incorporate knowledge which simultaneously shapes and expands the horizons of the existing world – not discursively, but in auditory, visual, and tactile ways, aesthetically, expressively, and emotively.This ‘art knowledge’ is the subject, as well as partly an outcome, of artistic research as defined here.

Another way to think about this is to think that the human mind - and all its abstract structures and concepts - is rooted in the human body. This is the underlying hypothesis of the field of embodied cognition.

Philosophy occurs within and through particular physical activities even if that activity is sitting still. Different physical practices enable different modes of thinking.”

I then proposed some readings to thinking about these things further before a seminar on the subject (that I did not run). I will post these next.

#writing

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readymade-journal-en · 7 years ago

Photo

Wong Chi Chung / HKU General Education Unit Assistant Director The Sky’s the Limit

What do you say it’s the age limit for pursuing dreams?

If achievements were packaged food, “middle age” was the best before date printed on the plastics. But it doesn’t apply to Chi Chung, for his dream chasing knows no bounds. Since the moment he started studying communication and recommended himself for DJ, his self-made term “Academediartradexperienceducation” was like an endless python stretching all the way, and items are constantly put in and ticked off on his bucket list. He must have savoured the sweetness of success before, though I wondered why he was so intimate to me, as if we were somehow standing side by side, measuring the heights of our dreams.

He said, putting on the gentle voice I mostly heard from the radio, “The sky’ s the limit.”.

Chi Chung’s own experience convinced us that dreams could come as a thick bundle, big or small, and they gave off the smell of possibilities. He wished that as the film “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” would be celebrating its thirty-fifth anniversary next year, he could again interview Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Sylvian to realise his dreams, and at the same time sow the seeds of dream for others.

“I still have more dreams to catch”, he added enchantingly.

youtube

You’ve put “academic” foremost in your self-created word. Is it one of your biggest dreams?

Studying has always been at the top of my dream list, even though my way to it was never plain. I took the programmes in communication of Hong Kong Baptist University and learnt about films. I was very much into European films, music and cultures, and even ready to press ahead with the plan studying in some notable universities. But near the end of my programme, the Commercial Radio’s reform was underway. I received a very good offer to work as a full-time DJ, and so I stayed. Yet, I still kept my dream of studying alive. So, when someone mentioned the prominent Dr. Ng Chun Hung in the University of Hong Kong to me, I brought with me a large pile of research materials to see Dr. Ng without a second thought. And I was admitted to the MPhil programme! Those materials I’ve presented were in fact the notes for my previous TV and radio shows. I had a passion for overseas music, but I also enjoyed greatly looking into local pop music. I had a lot of thoughts about Hong Kong’s pop music development which were then made to radio programme proposals, and I’ve written scripts for “Mild Seven Vision of Music”. I did not draw a clear-cut distinction between education and media, as they were circling around the same core. In the wake of SARS, I pondered what dream of mine was yet to be fulfilled, and also was encouraged by James Wong’s perseverance to complete his degree despite his illness. As a result, I went back to my path of studying by taking a PhD degree. I haven’t really taken a day off from creating.

As a DJ, you witnessed the golden age of broadcasting and media, and also the world's transformation towards an internet era. How did you adjust to your new roles?

There was a moment when I considered my historical mission accomplished. From 2004 to 2010, I immersed myself in the dissertation, and saw how things have changed! The creation of youtube and facebook has allowed a more direct access to information for everyone than ever. At that time I reflected, did it really matter if I carried on providing commentary and as a DJ to be an opinion leader? Right after submitting my dissertation I felt like finishing off a huge task, so I returned to my radio post, treating myself as a complete novice. I have been working in this field for thirty years, and yet I am also a beginner. All my earlier projects and interviews are my assets and perks. But in the meantime, I need to enter a new world and redefine myself. We can aim at all sorts of things as long as we keep the faith. Now I am only after a slow living, with a grain of detail admiration.

You roam around the world, read a lot and connect with creative individuals. How do you convert all these precious experiences to your inspirations?

Well, I absorb like a sponge and jot them down . Because ideas do not just pop up, they have to be collected and stored away. The backpack trip made me realise that the world was so much bigger than I thought, and I felt very tiny. That’s why I yearned for travelling to places I’ve never been, and the knowledge I lacked. I went to libraries to read books and journals, thinking how they could help my assignment and how they helped me achieve my dreams. It is significant that we hear more, see more, think more and question more. Cross-generational dialogues are equally important, both in the contexts of schools and of media. Every day I wake up and tell myself that there are a lot of things that I can strive for, things I still need to find out and wonderful places to go.

So what else do you wish to give a go? Or are you developing any hobbies now?

I have been indulging in a kind of primitive surfing for ten-odd years. I have been learning it by myself since 1998 or 1999, and this hobby has motivated me to stay physically fit. So I go swimming in the morning regularly, and while I swim I imagine the moment of my next surfing. Another thing I learn is more on the spiritual side, that is to be patient, getting prepared both physically and mentally, after that you could simply enjoy riding the waves, and looking forward to the next ones. I have hurt myself while surfing recently and blood ran down my body, but isn’t it part of our real life? I want to surf until seventy or eighty years of age, just like some of the elderly people I meet on the Hawaii beach, because it means that I still have the ability and passion for surfing. The same applies to many other things, for example, I hope I could continue to host radio shows and dub, when others might consider my voice relevant.

You propel young people to pursue their dreams, encouraging them to experiment with new elements. What do you want to say to these dream chasers?

Don’t give up trying, for there could be more than a single dream and they are related. I always tell young people to dream big, but it is true that they will be frustrated when they are struggling to achieve it. This is exactly why we have to own a mountain of dreams, and we could start from those easier ones. When one dream is fulfilled, we will have the confidence and courage to carry on. I don’t conceal my disappointment and hitch, as it is where I discover my soul. If you have doubts about striking a balance, then grab someone with life experience (for example, me) and talk.

Can you share with us some of your inspirational objects?

A polaroid with David Bowie; David Bowie’s “Seven Years in Tibet” limited edition clear vinyl: The “Seven Years in Tibet” project in 1997 was life-changing. It turned into my motivation, proving that beliefs could actually be infectious. And it was an assurance that dreaming big could have its rewards.

Smartphone and notebook: The two worlds created by the smartphone and the notebook should co-exist and be put into good use. A smartphone is a convenience, but if the notebook is left out, we’d have forgotten how to write and draw. And of course, we can’t get enough of our phones now.

Ryuichi Sakamoto’s solo album “async”: This project was simply magical, as it was my dream to work with Sakamoto when I was around ten years old. At that time I thought his film “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” was very powerful, and I still believe so when I watch it again. The film will be having its thirty-fifth anniversary next year, and yet its concepts are very progressive, for instance, Sakamoto, who played the role of a Japanese officer, even wore mascara. The film portrays a kind of universal love, the attachment between an officer and his prisoner, and explores the historical background. Its songs and music are beautiful and poignant.

Chi Chung Wong Facebook Page

Video Interview by Sabrina Li

Text by Sabrina Li

#readymade journal #hong kong #talents #people #creativity #interview #hktalents #love hong kong #readymade people #chi chung wong #music #influencer #dj #education #hku #2017

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tkwc · 8 years ago

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Polina Barskova by Michael Juliani

Source: BOMB — Artists in Conversation

Written in the Dark

Polina Barskova was born in 1976 in Leningrad (present-day St. Petersburg), a city that hosted one of the most destructive arenas of the Second World War. The Nazi Siege of Leningrad claimed more than one million lives, trapping its citizens for over three years in a landscape of darkness, starvation, and disease. Barskova left Russia at the age of twenty to pursue a PhD in Russian Studies at UC Berkeley, having already earned a graduate degree and become an accomplished poet in her homeland. I first found her work in The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, co-edited by fellow émigré Ilya Kaminsky, who translated a short volume of her poems for Tupelo Press, This Lamentable City (2010). Barskova is also the author of several books in Russian, the earliest of which was published during her adolescence. Some of this work is represented in The Zoo in Winter: Selected Poems (Melville House, 2011). As a professor of Russian literature at Hampshire College, Barskova began an archival project that resulted in Written in the Dark: Five Poets in the Siege of Leningrad (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2016), an anthology of work written during the siege that remained unknown for decades. Barskova's book gives form to the fluidities of poetic lineage, cultural context, and literary translation, a meld of aberrations optimized by what Barskova calls "the siege surreal." In service of these five poets, who found themselves caught in an often misrepresented moment in Russian history, Barskova and the several translators of this book have rendered these pieces from the catacombs of the twentieth century.

Michael Juliani In the introduction of Written in the Dark: Five Poets in the Siege of Leningrad, you mention how being in America for many years enabled you to study the blockade in a new way. What was that process like and how long did it take?

Polina Barskova Forever. At least five years in making. It's been one of the most important and humbling discoveries in life—that everything takes long, and good things take forever. The book came out of my larger project about the siege culture and literature. The siege is not a big mystery or a hidden secret, but for decades we knew only the official version—that it was absolutely heroic and courageous. Which, of course, has nothing to do with reality. One million people were not starving to death courageously, but for political and ideological reasons Soviets couldn't say this. What's curious is that it's still the case—or rather again the case, because Putin is making a very useful thing out of the Second World War and the so-called Great Victory. So, it wasn't a good idea, and it still isn't a good idea to talk about the actual price of the Siege of Leningrad.

I was always interested in the incredibly rich twentieth-century culture of my city, all its hidden layers, the avant-garde. While working on this topic [in America], I found names and texts I had never heard of before, which was kind of offensive to me. I thought I knew the culture of my city. How was it possible that I, such a nerd, a totally bookish person—this is all I do, basically, unfortunately—didn't know that such unbelievable texts remained hidden and invisible? And then this whole process of thought began: What happened to that culture? Why are there hidden nooks of culture? The hidden culture of the siege became my obsession. So I thought, okay, we don't have a book where strange siege poets are together. [They were] a phenomenon, a world of which people are not so aware.

Hampshire College generously gave me a prize for this work, and I took it to Matvei Yankelevich [at Ugly Duckling Presse] and then there was this huge adventure of translating these poets. There were discussions, quarrels, exaltations, but it happened. I think these are good translations, as far as I can understand. English, for me, is very much a second language. These were difficult translations. This poetry is ugly. This is not beautiful poetry, and one of the problems was to overcome the desire to make it beautiful in English.

MJ Because it's an anthology of five poets, I could experience each of them individually, but they also seemed to weave a collective fabric. I'm curious about the thought process behind choosing these particular poets and poems?

PB The world of siege poetry is rather big. I like to think about this in crazy architectural terms. There are many stories, many floors. The obvious one is "official" poetry. There are some poets, for example, like the most famous, Olga Bergholz, who wrote for Leningrad radio. In the official siege cemetery, Piskariovskoye, her words are engraved in gold, and it says, "Nobody is forgotten, nothing is forgotten," which is absolutely the opposite of the situation as I see it. So, there is this well-known official poetry, some of which is actually very strong.

For this particular project, I decided to concentrate on the strangest, least publishable, and least published—only surrealist poetry about the siege. We do know of surrealist art and poetry coming from the Holocaust. I think such poetry, on some level, makes lots of sense. Human minds cannot process these events. It stops and says, "I do not want to process you, Siege of Leningrad. I do not know what to do with you." Another reason why I became interested, [is that] they were connected to my favorite Leningrad poets—this generation who Matvei Yankelevich and Eugene Ostashevsky, for example, translated beautifully. This group was called OBERIU, which included Kharms and Vvedensky and Oleynikov, who were all murdered in the purges of the 1930s. These absurd, funny, beautiful men in their thirties, writing strange poetry about god and music and numbers, they were killed. Which is one of the most surreal things, because one understands why one kills Mandelstam, on some level. Mandelstam writes a poem where he calls Stalin a cockroach.

MJ Going right to the source.

PB Right. But Kharms and Vvedensky didn't call Stalin a cockroach. They wrote a lot about insects, but in very metaphysical ways. While they were playing their games in the 1930s, younger artists and poets were observing these strange masters. And when the masters died, these young gentlemen remained. This was the next generation. Which is also kind of touching and poignant, because when you study literature and its history—maybe this is a human thing to believe there is some connection—after you, your students will follow. This is why we teach. To create this texture. So on some level of reading, observation, whatnot, these poets are the disciples of the murdered OBERIU, and these are disciples who happened to live in the siege with this amazing language to describe one of the least believable events of the twentieth century.

MJ With a number of writers I love from the Siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian War, the situation set up time for them to write, because the social fabric was so destroyed they couldn't work. They just had to find food and survive, and write. These Leningrad poets also experienced total collapse. I guess for some writers it could destroy their ability to write, but with these poets it enabled them to write in a way they wouldn't have been able to before, as well as process their relationships with their heroes.

PB I really like what you say about a hole in the social fabric. A lot has been written about this. We don't have women [in this book], but one of the most important people who wrote about the Siege of Leningrad is Lidiya Ginzburg. More of her work is being translated into English, to my delirious happiness, because she is great. She was working with the word relief. The siege was a time of hell, but it was relief. For one thing, it was relief from silence, because they were so tired from the 1930s, when things were unspeakable. Nobody could even remotely write about the arrest of their best friends, husbands, wives, or children. You couldn't talk about it, basically. So your best friend, husband, child disappear at night and you go on, if you're lucky. You continue being in the society, in silence, which is like the worst thing ever. The siege allowed people to scream about it. One could say that the pressure of unspeakability was relieved. And this is what happened, great poetry, just like water, it went under this pressure.

MJ I was also very interested in how the OBERIU poets released themselves from historical references, and how the siege made these poets attach to their historical moment in the process of playing with language.

PB Yeah, this is one of my main observations. If you study history of literature, this is your weird disease. When we say that these people, like Gor and Zaltsman, learn from OBERIU, they learn to break language. They learn that smooth, ornate, orderly language doesn't work for the twentieth century as they saw it. But what was absolutely crucial for OBERIU, I think, was to create a capsule of some sort where Soviet reality was like a gas you breathe. OBERIU played many games, social games, but they were these brilliant young people who, on some level, pretended that the Soviet thing didn't exist. It was their experiment, it was an artistic endeavor. They were womanizers, gamblers. They had very peculiar obsessions for the 1930s. They loved mathematics. They were interested in theology, a strange interest to have in the Soviet Union. They were obsessed with Bach, for example, with very high music, which is almost as strange as theology and mathematics. When we read their diaries it's like reality, history, is almost nowhere to be found. It's not like, "Today is the First of May parade, everything is colored red—disgusting," or something. It's just not there. And it's more or less not there in their poetry, at least not directly. What makes the siege generation different is that, using the toolbox of OBERIU, they do write history. Now their camera is very much on. This is history written through a surrealist lens.

MJ As an American, I never learned anything in school about Russia except that they were our enemy in the '60s or something. So, I learn a lot from studying literary figures. One of the things I've heard, especially with Mandelstam, is that before Russian modernism there was an emptiness of tradition, as if there was Pushkin and then modernism. I'm wondering if that's at all fair. It's extremely complicated, I'm sure.

PB It is extremely complicated. There were people between Pushkin and modernists, indeed. Since I teach literature in this country, I think about it all the time, as do friends and colleagues. When American students study Russian things, it's Pushkin then Tolstoy and Dostoevsky—where did Lermontov and others go? What happened to Leskov and Goncharov?

Russia has its own problems with the history of Russian literature. This is a little bit more of an immediate, urgent concern for me. Sometimes we look at the medieval maps of the world, like for example, an old Spanish map—there is Spain, there is France, and a little bit further [out] you see dragons and mermaids and monsters. Certain topics are covered too well on the map of twentieth-century Soviet literature. And then we see monsters and white spots. How can it be that [we don't know about] a poet of the scale of Gennady Gor? It's like waking up and realizing you've spent your whole life next to a whale. Like, "Ah, mama!"

MJ Moby Dick.

PB Right, Moby Dick! Precisely. How can it be that we didn't know that such was Soviet history, such were social pressures. We are still very much in the process of active discovery. Gor never published one poem in his lifetime—by which I mean he didn't read one poem to anybody. When I say this to my American friends, there is a difficult pause. I claim that Gennady Gor is one of the ten greatest poets of the Russian century, if this would be the right way to view this discipline, which it is not. There are no strongest poets; it's not sports. Somehow it works in a different way. But how can you spend your whole life without reading one of your poems to your lover, to your child, to your best friend?

We are still trying to understand what it means for Russian literature that suddenly we have this island, it's like Atlantis coming up from being hidden. It's a big event. When our friends learn about this anthology, their first reaction is, "Great!" and the second is, "What do we do now? Where do we find a place in the sequence of things?" Twentieth-century Russian literature is like an earthquake since we're not sure what will end up where, what the mountain will be.

MJ Most of these poets were prominently involved as artists or philologists. Was that a symptom of their need to hide their poetry, or were they truly more involved in other pursuits? Would that make their siege poetry an aberration?

PB Gor's poetry is an aberration. Everybody who knew him after the war speaks of him as nice, agreeable, and curious. According to his poetry, he is a total monster—a genius. Nothing is nice or agreeable. He produced huge numbers of well-disciplined, pro-Soviet sci-fi about good Soviet citizens traveling to other planets. He hid himself rather well. Zaltsman was much more difficult, but he was a brilliant artist. He went to Kazakhstan and decided never to go back to Leningrad. Many people did that on some level. For example, the greatest philosopher of the Russian century, Bakhtin. Everyone around him was eliminated, but [sarcastically] Bakhtin was a teacher of literature in Saransk, with his cat, and somehow nobody found him until it was not a murderous adventure to be found, not a death sentence. Rudakov died at the front, but everybody else was rather good at assimilation, which makes each of these cases more interesting than just a book of siege heroes. I'm a huge enemy of the notion of hero. I'm interested in humans. Survival and writing are acts of outlandish strength.

MJ It would seem, at least from a civilian perspective, a non-poetic perspective, that maybe sitting and writing poetry during the Siege of Leningrad would be an absurd thing to do.

PB I think some of them didn't even imagine going to the front. They were not of that material. Again, it was a different form of strength, a different form of courage and humanity. There was nothing military about them. They were, I would say, like children. This understanding that children can be crazy, weak, and strong. I am a mother, I know weak and strong. But they could not play war, and this poetry is what they did.

MJ Because you've been involved in this archival and editorial work for a number of years now, can you trace any effect it has had on your own writing, your own practice, or the way you think about being a poet?

PB It completely changed me. I've become an archival poet. It changed my language. I stopped writing beautiful poetry. I stopped being interested in beautiful poetry. I became interested in the hidden. I'm like a mole hunter. I'm interested in subterranean culture that says 'I will trick you' to official culture, 'I will play you.' Bergholz, who we just mentioned, now has huge diaries being published. She understood everything about the Soviet era, and she wanted to play different games. She wanted to be a Soviet-accepted, huge canonical poet, but also to write real stuff, and she desperately tried to figure out how one can do both. It's a question of whether it's possible at all—that's why we're talking now about Bergholz now. All this is possible because we have documents. This is the whole thing about archive fever. None of this would exist otherwise. It's like a ghost. Who are they? What are the notepads that were never found? I think this book, and all books of this kind, are memorials to things that disappeared.”

“Michael Juliani is a poet, editor, and journalist from Pasadena, California. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in outlets such as The Adirondack Review, the Los Angeles Times, The Conversant, Truthdig, and The Huffington Post. The editor of three books by the filmmaker and photographer Harun Mehmedinovic, he earned a BA in Print & Digital Journalism from the University of Southern California and an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. He lives in New York City.”

#poetry #soviet union #russian literature #russian language #surrealism #siege of leningrad #communism #thekidswantcommunism #tkwc #museumsofbatyam

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you-did-well-my-love · 8 years ago

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Drama Review: Hwarang

The biggest disappointment of 2016 and probably 2017, screw you writers.

Rating: 2/5. If I’m being generous, 2.5.

OST: I wasn’t the biggest fan, but that might have just been my hatred for the drama boiling over onto everything else. When you listen to the album, there are some good songs. But they kept playing the same two bland songs over and over again. I personally recommend It’s Definitely You by V and Jin, and Memories of a Miracle by Jeon Woosung. Hyungsik’s song is really nice too.

Genre: Romantic Comedy, Historical

Synopsis: History is often made on the backs of truly passionate, talented young people. During the Kingdom of Silla, a group of elite youth known as Hwarang (literally "Flowering Knights") would wield great influence. These dashing, talented knights – Moo Myung, Sam Maek Jong, Soo Ho, Ban Ryu, Yeo Wool, Han Sung, and maiden Ah Ro – could outsmart and outfight anyone as they pushed for justice in Seorabeol, the capital city. One of them would become King Jin Heung of Silla and change the course of history.

Thoughts/Review: (spoilers)

This drama was a mess, and I’m going to rip into it. If you don’t want to hear what I believe are legitimate reasons this drama was bad, then don’t read further.

I’ll get what I liked out of the way in the beginning because there’s not much. The actors were all great. I thought the actors who played the Hwarang embodied their characters to the T and you could really feel the bromance and how well they got along off set. When their was comedy, it was great. I loved how Ah Ro called Sam Maek Jong out after the forced kiss. “If kissing me against my will wasn’t a mistake, then was it a childish tantrum?” was the best line of the entire drama. Plot-wise: I loved the romance between Ban Ryu and Soo Yeon.

That’s about it.

This drama was an overwhelming disappointment. I waited so damn long because they kept pushing the air date back, which only built up the hype more. Then they had all these promotions with the six boys, and I was SO excited.

That is my first complaint. The synopsis is bullshit. The drama is not about our lovely “dashing, talented knights” rather it is about a pathetic love triangle with a female lead who does nothing but get into trouble and cry.

This drama was about the Hwarang. It was called Hwarang. There was not enough Hwarang.

It started out very promising, and with a great cameo from Lee Kwang Soo, and the comedy was pretty great. But the more you watch, the more it goes to shit. The reason I kept watching is because I wanted to see how things turned out. I’ve been a fan of Hyungsik’s since High Society and enjoy watching his dramas. Minho and V are my babies. And I fell in love with Do Ji Han and Ban Ryu’s character.

The first mistake was making Ah Ro think Moo Myung was her brother. The two of them did not have chemistry, and I think that just sort of killed anything that could have bloomed between them. There was no development in their romance, there was a weak attempt at internal conflict with Ah Ro and her feelings, and then they were all of the sudden in love with each other.

Also, there was literally no point for them to lie to her. This wasn’t like That Winter the Wind Blows when he was trying to scam her. They should have just told her “Hey, your brother died, this is his friend and I want to take care of him out of respect for your brother.” and then given her her right to mourn her brother’s death. Looking back, that was the first sign to get out while I could.

Their romance wasn’t the only romance I had a problem with. It was Soo Ho’s crush on the queen. If they had cast someone else as the queen, it might have been tolerable. But I could not stand the queen. Could not stand her. The actress was expressionless and emotionless unless she was screaming over something stupid.

Second thing I disliked, the first being the romance lines, was the editing. It was really jumpy, and made the whole thing seem weird. For example that one scene in like episode 7 or 8 where Moo Myung fell off the horse. He hadn’t shown signs of any problem for the past like five episodes and all of the sudden he blacked out and fell off his horse with no pulse, and suddenly Ah Ro regrets all of the terrible things she yelled at him literally three seconds before in a different scene. SPEAKING OF WHICH did they ever explain why he passed out? I don’t think they did? Add that to the list of problems...

The third thing I disliked was Ah Ro. She was so boring. I don’t blame Go Ara (entirely... some things she did and certain lines she delivered annoyed me) but the character was really poorly written. She was really shallow with barely any background or personality. All the writers had her do was run around between the two boys and cry. Her most interesting scenes were when she was acting as a physician, and there were hardly any. When they did happen, they lasted for merely seconds. Then she went back to crying and moping about Moo Myung.

It was so damn repetitive. Moo Myung gets his dumb ass injured and Ah Ro cried about it. Or Ah Ro got her dumb ass in trouble, and cried about it.

Which leads me to my next problem.

My biggest issue with the drama: terrible writing.

Such poor writing. It took them forever to set up the story, the Hwarang weren’t formed until episode four. A drama that was supposed to center around them didn’t. We got to episode fifteen and the plot hadn’t progressed one bit. Episode 19 was literally a waste of time. And boy did they twist history.

First, I want to talk about Han Sung’s death and how it showcases the terrible writing. I remember before the episode aired, a ton of articles came out saying “BTS’s V’s character revealed to play a key part in setting the final conflict into motion.”

It’s a common trope when you have a group of friends; killing off the youngest, the purest, the last person who deserved to die. It’s used to really rip into that raw emotion of the main characters, and as the Hwarang writers were trying to do, set the final conflict into motion.

But they fell so flat. They spent less than half an episode killing him off, spent half the episode talking about him. Yeah I cried, but it was because of the emotion delivered by the actors. Taehyung did so well and so did Yoon Woo with his tears, but the second they opened up their mouths and delivered the dialogue + the editing of the scenes absolutely killed the suspense.

And his death was supposedly so important, but then they don’t even mention him again save for that one line by Yeo Wool in episode 19. Nobody even told Ah Ro that her precious friend died.

Now, about how badly they twisted history:

Someone on twitter explained this better, and I’m sorry if I butcher the facts, but the main thing is that they twisted history too much. I know that it’s necessary to do in historical dramas, but this was too much. History should be used as a guideline.

To explain: the Bone Rank system was a very real thing, and the writers twisted it to give Moo Myung a fictional character an illegitimate claim to the throne. As the person on twitter explained it, when the queen’s brother gave up the throne (i believe it was because of his illness) he gave up his entire family’s line to the throne. Meaning Moo Myung was not a sacred bone and had no right to the throne.

The pathetic two-episode “battle” for the throne was the worst thing they could have done for the drama. It was weak in intensity, dialogue, and emotion. And it was just plain stupid. Especially when you look at how historically significant King Jinheung was/is.

History aside, it’s still stupid. The writers spent 85% of the drama pushing Sam Maek Jong’s struggle against the queen and pushing that he is the rightful king, and then all of the sudden Moo Myung, who is supposed to be his friend, comes along and tries to steal the throne from him? Moo Myung is the main character, and the viewers are supposed to support him, but after all of the build-up behind Sam Maek Jong’s struggle to claim the throne, all I felt was sympathy towards Sam Maek Jong and resentmore towards Moo Myung for betraying his friend. That is not what I want to be feeling as a viewer.

Seriously, that is not how you sell a product to a consumer. That’s what dramas are: a product. The viewers watch dramas and support them with their money because they are captivating and enjoyable, not because it makes them feel like shit.

Did they not have editors? Did nobody really stop and think, “Hey this concept here doesn’t push the plot forward, rather it drives it backwards”???

You could tell through the OST the mood they were trying to set. They were trying to make Jinheung the enemy, but they absolutely failed.

And the ending.

I liked the swearing of the allegiance to Jinheung. It delivered the emotion it was supposed to and was exciting. That’s the only thing I liked.

The montage basically proved that Sam Maek Jong was the real main character.

And then, oh get this, they NEVER TOLD ANYBODY ELSE THEY WEREN’T RELATED. I get that everyone probably made the connection on their own but like the viewer has to assume since nobody ever actually put it into words and it’s like jesus you can’t just drop a plotline like that. SUCH. MESSY. WRITING.

And what pisses me off the most:

Ban Ryu and Soo Yeon’s had a half-assed resolution.

Soo Ho had no resolution

BAN RYU AND SOO HO HAD NO RESOLUTION

LITERALLY THE LAST THING SAID BETWEEN THE TWO WAS SOO HO TELLING BAN RYU TO STAY AWAY FROM SOO YEON OR SOMETHING STUPID

where the fuck was Yeo Wool

And then they had a riding into the sunset, THEY RODE INTO THE FUCKING SUNSET, without Soo Ho.

I mean I understand if Minho had SHINee activities and couldn’t make it, but like they could have done something different to include him. At least say that he left and went of to travel or something.

This drama was pathetic and I’m glad it’s over. I feel bad for the actors whose hard work was wasted in bad writing, editing, and directing. I look forward to seeing them in other projects, but I am never watching anything from this writer again.

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Finished 02/21/17

#hwarang #park seo joon #go ara #hyungsik #minho #v #taehyung #do ji han #park hyungsik #kim taehyung #choi minho #jo yoon woo #kdrama #drama review

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theanimewarren · 8 years ago

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Top 25 Anime Series - 2017 Edition

Oh man, I can't believe I actually managed to come up with this damn list. There are so many changes to my previous top 25 list, it's almost scary. But I promised I would for my dear friend, Doaks as part of the celebration of his finishing his 100 top 10 lists (see his post here https://kitsu.io/posts/8688917 ), so I really dove in and gave it my all to come up with the list. Hopefully I'll be able to explain why I placed the shows on the list in a way that makes sense as well.

I do have to say that that I couldn't actually narrow my list down to 25 though. I got it down to 35 by some miracle. Once I had that ordered the way I liked it, I decided to take the remaining 10, pick 5 of them that made decent talking points and listed them as honorable mentions to the list. I'll be going through those first, then proceeding on to the true meat of the dish, my top 25 anime series! So let's get on with it!

The Honorable Mentions:

5. Bunny Drop/Sweetness and Lightning/Aishiteruze Baby/Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father/etc.

This is the only time on this list that I am going to cite several shows that are not all part of a single series, but I honestly couldn't pick just one of them to represent this topic. Suffice it to say though, I really enjoy these series that deal with the single parent role to a small child. Most of my examples deal with a teenager or young adult in the role, but it doesn't have to be that way. Sweetness and Lightning and Bunny Drop have the parent role filled by someone who is old enough to know better for instance. They all share the same sort of storyline thread though, seeing the ups and downs of parenting from both sides of the relationship and how bonds form and grow as time goes on. You could probably lump Barakamon in with these as well, though Handa-sensei doesn't quite fit the role of legal guardian, but there is still a lot of the same sort of storytelling involved. Poco's Udon World would also fit here, just with that added supernatural element. But yeah, I really love these shows, but alas, not nearly as much as the ones that made the final list.

4. Yoru no Yatterman

https://kitsu.io/anime/yoru-no-yatterman

We've long since gotten used to the concept of a reboot. At least once a year, it seems, there's a new anime reboot of some old series. I'm sure that in Japan, there are actually a fair number of people who either remember the original shows or know about them because they're parents were raised on them, or had a soft spot for them. For us westerners though, this is not always the case. You might get a few of us who happen to stumble across an old show like Time Bokan or Gatchaman, but how many really delve into them? I love older anime and even I'm not well versed in the more obscure series beyond about the mid-90's. That being said, I did make an effort to get some information about Yatterman and the various other characters involved in the Time Bokan universe (it probably has a far better name but I don't know it offhand). Now, why did I do this? Because this series did such a good job of making me want to relive these characters. I knew it was a reboot of sorts, but I didn't know the characters. I could tell it was a total love letter to them and the shows they were from though. If I had grown up with it, I'd probably be in tears of joy the whole time for the wonderful job they did, from many returning characters and set pieces to even the simplest subtle nods left here and there in the show. I loved this show for that. It's not often you can get a sense of nostalgia from something you couldn't possibly have proper nostalgia for, but Yoru no Yatterman did it, and I applaud it for that.

3. Strawberry Panic

https://kitsu.io/anime/strawberry-panic

So, anyone who's spent some time with anime is probably at least somewhat familiar with Yuri. It's not a hard thing to find though. The basic idea has been bastardized for use in many a harem series or comedy series for the laughs. But how many of us know the difference between that and the more proper, pure form of Yuri? Probably more than I'd expect, but still, it's a huge difference that I wasn't totally aware of before I watched Strawberry Panic. I'm very glad I did though. While I'm sure the very idea of Yuri, even in this form, would unsettle many westerners, I found the whole idea very captivating to watch. It was so pure and innocent, and yet it stirred emotions in me that I never thought I'd feel from a show that I thought would be a step below softcore lesbians before I watched it. Boy, was I wrong. This show opened my eyes to yet another facet of anime that that I really need to explore more.

2. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

https://kitsu.io/anime/tokyo-magnitude-8-0

This is a series unlike anything else I think I've ever seen. I mean, we've had many a disaster movie made in the west. They tend to be either super cheesy summer flicks as far as I've ever seen, though I'm sure there are some decent ones out there. In anime though, I don't know that I've ever seen anything quite like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. The premise alone is pretty bold coming from a country that is quite possibly one of the most active in the world when it comes to earthquakes. All the same though, there is just something amazing about the execution of the whole story. It's sensationalized a bit, but overall it's a great lesson in the kinds of things you might expect in a huge disaster, and it does that while still telling a powerful and moving story at the same time.

1. The Pilot's Love Song

https://kitsu.io/anime/toaru-hikuushi-e-no-koiuta

For myself, this is one of the more shocking entries on my entire list. When this series ended, I was so pissed off. I have stated many times how much I hated this show for how it ended. But I've reflected on it a bit since then, and you know what? I like it. I mean, yes, the ending is a terrible cliffhanger that never got resolved and there is a bit of the plot near the end that's kinda disappointing as well. The journey to get there though. That is something I enjoyed a lot. The world was also quite cool as an experience, and I wish I could have more of it. Oh, and while I won't delve into this big time, I do appreciate any series that isn't afraid to kill off cast members in a meaningful way, and for a purpose. So yeah, in a lot of ways, This is actually a really great show. The only reason it didn't make the top 25 really is the way we were shafted out of an ending.

Alright. Now that we're past the honorable mentions, it's time, for the shows that I love more than any others. The shows that make me happy, keep me entertained and generally could be the only shows I ever needed if I was stuck on a desert island. Here, are my top 25 anime series!

Top 25:

25. Taisho Baseball Girls

https://kitsu.io/anime/taishou-yakyuu-musume

Considering how highly I spoke of some of the shows in the honorable mentions, seeing this show here is probably quite a surprise to some of you. To that, all I can say is that this show gave me many things that I enjoy just by themselves, but all together in one package.

Sports series. Check.

Moe cast. Check.

Historical setting. Check.

Decent comedy backed by a good story. Check.

All around, it just pleased me in so many ways to watch this. It does feel like the moe edition of “A League of Our Own” at times, but for me this isn't a bad thing. Watching our two initial leads build a female baseball team at a time when so many things were changing in the world, let alone, Japan was just inspiring on a certain level. Add to that the fact that this series has all the proper staples of a sports series without being so long it's hard to watch, and I'm hooked. Both times that I've sat through this series, I've very quickly marathoned through it because I just can't stop once I've started. That's how good it is for me.

24. Mitsudomoe

https://kitsu.io/anime/mitsudomoe

Now, I love me some comedy. But like anyone, my tastes in comedy can be hit or miss at times. I've dropped more than a couple shows where I just didn't get the joke. But when I do get the joke, oh man, it's all over. I'm sure this will be a running theme through this list, but there is one thing I can say about Mitsudomoe that I can't say about any other show on here. Never have I laughed so hard watching anime, and in every episode too. I'm talking big, laugh out loud, in tears and bawling from how funny things get. For some, the humor can surely be low-brow, even sick and disgusting at times, but not me. I just laughed my ass off and moved on to the next episode ready for more.

23. YuruYuri

https://kitsu.io/anime/yuru-yuri

I honestly almost took this off the list entirely. But then I thought back to why I kept up with this show as the OVAs and third season came out. While this series does pander to the less proper Yuri I mentioned above, it's not nearly as bad as some series I've watched. I almost feel like it's the missing link between the two camps of Yuri. It lacks that pure and innocent side, but it doesn't have the overly sexualized side to the degree that we usually see either. It mostly uses it for heartfelt moments or comedic effect, which is a lot more fun to watch. Also, the cast is just brilliant, the OP is catchy as all hell in most seasons and the animation looks great, even to the point where I didn't notice the studio change.

22. Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!

https://kitsu.io/anime/chuunibyou-demo-koi-ga-shitai

Okay, simple answer to why I like this series. Because I was Rikka and Yuuta as a teenager. Not to that degree, of course, but I can relate to what it's like to want to be something you aren't and to live in my own world rather than face the harsh realities around me. Now if only I had been able to turn mine into a halfway decent harem in the process, hehe. But yeah, beyond that, I just love the way this series executes it's approach to these delusions, both from a story standpoint and from a visual standpoint. Showing us the world as it really is and as Rikka see's it was a wonderful touch and it still pleases me when I think about it. Also, the whole thing about how sweet and innocent the relationships in the seres were portrayed was just great. I know a lot of fans felt the series didn't pay off in the end. I, on the other hand, fell it went exactly where it should have given the personality traits of the characters involved.

21. Shiki

https://kitsu.io/anime/shiki

So, let's analyze this series for a second. It's about vampires, sorta. It holds a lot of the common tropes we all know to be true of vampire stories. But it does avoid some of them and change others to suit it's needs. It also makes sure that, while it's a very dark and depressing series, that has plenty of very bright and flashy elements to it to catch the eye, most notably, the truly unique hairstyles of townsfolk. These two things would probably send any hardcore fan of vampires running away long before the series can sink it's teeth into them. For those that look beyond these two things though, this is probably one of the better vampire stories out there, period. It retains so much of it's gothic roots while making sure it stays modern and original, creating this perfect blend of suspense and horror that even I, someone who is not usually a fan of said things, can be drawn in. Also, that first OP is just awesome, and the sole reason I'm slowly becoming a huge fan of Buck-Tick.

20. Space Dandy

https://kitsu.io/anime/space-dandy

This show has so many things for so many people in it that your enjoyment is pretty dependent on how many of those things click with you. For myself, there was only really one episode that didn't click with me, and even then I saw it as a bit of a spoof on things like it, so I wasn't too bored. Dandy just does so much right and checked so many boxes for me that to list all the reasons why I loved this series would be like writing a term paper, and I sure ain't doing that right now. Let's just say I love it for the boobies and be done with it, okay?

19. My Daddy Long Legs

https://kitsu.io/anime/my-daddy-long-legs

Anyone who knows me, knows my big passions outside of anime are music and reading. Music we'll touch on later. For now though, let's talk about books. Specifically, let's talk about classic literature. I'm sure anyone reading this has at some point taken a class where they had to read some old classic like Tom Sawyer or Little Women or something. Well, there's an anime version of quite a few of these classics held in a series known as World Masterpiece Theater. Now, I personally love these series, having seen a few of them now. They do a great job of presenting classics that I may or may not have read in a way that is entertaining while not taking too much away from the original story (usually). For myself, I've oddly found that I got the most enjoyment out of the ones from books I've never heard of or have very little passing knowledge of. My Daddy Long Legs is a book I've since picked up and enjoyed because of this series. I will say they changed a lot of details for reasons I'm not too clear on, but nonetheless, the series is very enjoyable and one I would definitely watch again. Judy is a great lead character and all the stuff she goes through to get where she does by the end is just inspiring. And on top of all that, this series got me to go out and buy the book it's based on. I can't say that for any other anime I've watched (not counting manga and light novel adaptations of course).

18. Nanaka 6/17

https://kitsu.io/anime/nanaka-6-17

I don't think I've ever thought so much about my own childhood as I did after watching this. It just amazed me. To have all the things I didn't know I'd forgotten pointed out in a very simple way like that was a life lesson I didn't see coming, and I love this series for that. Before, I would always have a reason to justify my doing something of importance to me. I can't just go buy a mandolin and attempt to learn to play it because it might be fun. There has to be a reason that sounds mature and responsible, right? Wrong. This show managed to remind me that there are times when it's okay, and possibly even the better option, to think more like a kid than an adult. The whole thing is done in such an adorable way too. I honestly felt for Nanaka through the whole series, watching her struggle with concepts that would boggle any kid if they were thrown into them, all while making the adults around her realize that they might be looking at it all wrong in the process.

17. Romeo no Aoi Sora

https://kitsu.io/anime/romeo-no-aoi-sora

And we're back with more World Masterpiece Theater action. This time it's a book I knew nothing about before I watched this, and one I'm realizing now that I never did get around to buying afterwards. I really must fix that. But yeah, I can say that I had a great time watching such a powerful story, with a great cast and a well executed ending. It was also a nice mini-group watch so there is that bit of fun to make sure this series sits up there as something memorable for me and the other two involved. There's just something that can't beat watching a series with some good friends.

16. Azumanga Daioh

https://kitsu.io/anime/azumanga-daioh

We'll surely be hearing about comedy a couple more times on this list. This one is a pretty charming series to watch though, and ranks with only a handful of other series where I've read the source material, I enjoyed it so much. I think what got me here is just how off the wall the comedy can be at times. The teachers are just nuts, but the students all have their own, err, quirks about them as well. It just all works out to this brand of insanity that draws you in with one thing and keeps you there with a dozen more. I also have to give it credit for being a 4-koma manga adaptation that doesn't feel like a ton of short comics tied together, while still being very true to the manga. It's weird how it pulled that off.

15. Macross 7

https://kitsu.io/anime/macross-7

Remember how I said we'd get back to music later. Well, here we are. I love music, so what better way to keep my attention than to base a series around the idea that music can stop evil and save the universe. And while I really want to acknowledge the entire Macross franchise here, I have to give special kudos to Macross 7, almost solely because it has the best soundtrack of the franchise, and a soundtrack in the top 5 of all anime I've ever seen. The tracks just rock, and fit well into the story as a whole. So well in fact, that one of the better tracks (in my opinion of course) has shown up in every Macross iteration since. I may be wrong, but I'm not sure anything from the original TV series managed to do that. Just a track from the movie, Do You Remember Love? (someone will surely prove me wrong on this, right?)

14. Super Sonico

https://kitsu.io/anime/super-sonico-the-animation

This is not on the list because of mindless T and A. This is on the list because it was the most unexpected slice of life miracle I've ever seen. Because it had a decent soundtrack. Because it devoted an entire episode to her pet cats. Because it knows how to take a character that looks like the ultimate fan-boy wet dream and make that one of the last things to cross your mind while watching it. Oh, and also because it has one of the best Christmas episodes in anime. If you haven't watched it because you think it's all about the fan-service, go watch it. If you still think I'm wrong, we can discuss it, but I think Episode 7 will be my winning card. Never have I been more surprised by the content of an episode than when that episode aired.

13. Steins;Gate

https://kitsu.io/anime/steins-gate

Time travel stories always fascinate me. If they're done especially well, I love them even more. While not the best time travel story I've ever come across (go read Tim Powers' novel, The Anubus Gates if you're curious), Steins;Gate is certainly very near the top of the list. With a very engaging cast and the kind of drama that I wish was present in any of the other series linked by the errant semicolon, I just have to keep coming back to this one. It was also one of my first anime when I really dove into the fandom a few years back and holds a bit of a nostalgia slot in my heart. Oh, and also, that soundtrack is just brilliant.

12. Nodame Cantabile

https://kitsu.io/anime/nodame-cantabile

Ah, Nodame Cantabile. This is actually the most recently watched anime to make this list. I honestly only competed it early this year. This one did so many things right for me though, so it easily made the list. To start, the music selection here is just about perfect for a show revolving around classical music. The choices weren't always super obvious picks, but they didn't get so obscure that a casual viewer would feel lost or bored. It was a mix of well known and not so much so, and being the huge music fanatic that I am, this was perfect. Add to this that Nodame is just so damn charming as a character and that the rest of the cast is so very enjoyable to watch interact, and you have something I could have easily plowed through in a couple of days. It was a real struggle not to fly through, instead really forcing myself to take some time with it. I'm so glad I did though. This show will not be forgotten by me or many that watched it.

11. Galaxy Express 999

https://kitsu.io/anime/galaxy-express-999

Okay, so I haven't actually finished this show yet. In fact, I've been watching it for nearly 3 years now and am only a smidge past the halfway point. So why is it on this list? Because it is that show that I can go to when I don't feel like watching anything else and just enjoy an episode in peace. There is an overarching story to the show, but for the most part, we only see that in the first couple episodes and brief reminders from the cast when something happens to remind us that this is why they are on the Galaxy Express, bound for the planet where Tetsuro can get a mechanical body for free. Otherwise, this show is just a lot of one-off stories, often with morals. This is where my love of the show comes in though (well, that, and the fact that I love Leiji Matsumoto's artistic style). I love these stories. They are not always complex, but they are very often surprising and unexpected, and told so very well. For a show from the late 70's, this one just blows me away sometimes, because I never think of it as a time when we'd get something like this. That's probably my bad western mindset towards animated shows of the time though, and I should be shamed for this. Still, this is a classic and I love it.

10. F

https://kitsu.io/anime/f

I wrote a big review on this series after I watched it, which I will link here.

https://kitsu.io/reviews/13194

The short version though, and why I love it so much, is that this is probably one of the best anime endings I've ever seen. The show is wild at times, and a bit unconventional in how it portrays the sport it's based around, but man, the rivalry between the main characters is just brilliant, and it ends so perfectly. I love it! I only wish this had a better fansub than it does. Someone really needs to fix this.

9. Aria

https://kitsu.io/anime/aria-the-animation

Wait, what!? Aria isn't number 1 anymore? You must be in shock over this if you know me and how long it's held that spot. Well, all I can say is that I really put a lot of thought into this list, and I realized something. I do really love Aria. It's a wonderful series with great stories, some of the best music in anime and a cast to die for. Still, I have 8 other shows that I would more quickly watch if given the choice. It sounds weird saying that, but that's how it is. My tastes have shifted a little and become more clear in the past year or so, and that's what moved Aria down the line. I love it for it's slice of life nature and the calm, peaceful stories it give us. It just doesn't have something else to really grab and hold me like other shows that pair in more drama or comedy, which seems to be where my tastes have gone. Still, I'll recommend this show to anyone that asks if I see it missing from their lists. It's a must watch, like every show in my top 10 (I will back this up if anyone dares question that statement).

8. Emma: A Victorian Romance

https://kitsu.io/anime/eikoku-koi-monogatari-emma

So, I really have a thing for British history and culture. It's one of my other big geek things besides music and anime. So of course, a show that feels like a mangaka tried to be Jane Austin for a while is obviously going to catch my attention. And as you can see, it was really, really good. Romance in anime is a genre unfortunately plagued by unfinished stories and plenty of bad tropes that we're all sick of. Emma takes a different track with it's Victorian romance styles, and I think it does it beautifully. The cast is very enjoyable, the story moves along properly and the romance is a wonderful thing to watch unfold. And of course, it has a proper ending! I also have to give a shout out to this series for great accuracy in historical detail. So many sites of old London town were brought to life here, which was a joy to see.

7. Nichijou

https://kitsu.io/anime/nichijou

And speaking of British culture, well, okay, Nichijou doesn't have any link to it. If ever there was a series that feels like I'm watching an anime rendition of Monty Python's Flying Circus though, this would be it. There are totally random side jokes and stories that go nowhere, jokes that start in one sketch and end up in another one, and a sort of humor that doesn't feel Japanese at all, aside from the setting. Maybe this is why, for the longest time, the only western release of this show was in Australia. Hmm? Anyways, this show makes me happy when I watch it, with much laughter included. The cast is something I can't even begin start praising and the art style is just amazing for a weekly show. If you haven't seen this yet, I dare ask you, “Why not!?”

6. Cross Game

https://kitsu.io/anime/cross-game

Best first episode ever! Simple as that. If you aren't hooked and ready for more by the end of that episode, you might as well hand in your anime fanboy ID card and find a new hobby. Seriously though, this show is just amazing, starting with that first episode, and just building from there. The cast is near perfection, the story is not nearly what you would expect from a sports anime and the culmination of the series just works so well. I honestly could not be more pleased with a show. Also, it has a song for drawing the cat and shows off fan art. How cool is that?

5. Eden of the East

https://kitsu.io/anime/eden-of-the-east

Eden of the East is a show I didn't really think about putting on my favorites for a long time. Then I realized I had been rewatching every year, and enjoying it just as much every time. I don't know exactly why I like it so much. It's just kindof become that show that I have a mood for, put on and have a good time for a couple days. I think it's just a combination of a fun cast and an interesting story with lots of movie references that I actually get. Then again, this could be another case of a series that I watched early on in my return to anime and it holds some nostalgic value. Either way, I think it's great.

4. Yawara!

https://kitsu.io/anime/yawara

I'm sure most would not pick this as their series of choice from Naoki Urasawa, but dammit, it's so good! And I don't even like Judo. But then I watched Yawara and found it to be the most interesting sport for a few months. Then again, this series isn't just here for making me like a sport I knew nothing about. It's here because it mixes that up with an intriguing romance plot and a great cast of characters that I'll never forget. Also, it did a great job of fleshing out side characters that I honestly didn't expect. It pleased me so much with two particular characters because one deserved the attention and the other grew so much from the bumbling idiot he started out as. It was just amazing to watch.

3. Working!!

https://kitsu.io/anime/working-1

You know those series you relate to because you've been there and done that. Working is that series for me. I mean, my food service jobs were nothing nearly as insane as this series, but I can relate so much to the things that happen at Wagnaria. The cast encompass so many of the types of people that I've dealt with, only with the insanity knob turned to 11. This series also gets a nod from me for having some of the catchiest opening themes I've ever seen. Not the best, mind you, but damn if I didn't watch them every freaking time.

2. Maison Ikkoku

https://kitsu.io/anime/maison-ikkoku

Right, now we're in to the really tricky entry for me. I really, really wanted this to be number 1. I loved so much about this series when I watched it. I relate so much to Godai and his struggles, more so than nearly any other anime character I can think of with the possible exception of Anna in When Marnie Was There (but that's a whole other list). I understand what it's like to be in a crappy living situation with people that drive you up the wall on a daily basis with no regard for your personal space. I know the struggles of trying to make it through college. And like a lot of us, I understand the desires love gives us, even when they seem unrealistic and someone else is trying to get the same girl you want (granted, my experience with this one ended up much worse in the end, but yeah). These alone are big reasons why I absolutely love the series. But there's more. The cast is just a joy to watch, from the most annoying characters on up to all of my favorites. There is plenty of off the wall comedy like any good Rumiko Takahashi series, but there is so much heart behind her work, and nowhere else do I see that than in this series. It is the perfect romantic comedy as far as I'm concerned, and a joy to watch through. This is also the only anime, because it's out of print in the west, that I would more than willingly drop the money to buy on DVD (that price currently being well beyond $1000 last I checked). That's how much I love this show. It would be number 1, except that number 1 happens to be...

1. Ichigo Mashimaro

https://kitsu.io/anime/ichigo-mashimaro

Remember way back in the honorable mentions section, how I talked about that whole single parent slice of life subgenre that I love so much? Well, this series is kinda one of those. I mean, not totally since there is some indication that there are parents around. We never see them though, so this show is really all about an older sibling taking care of her younger sister and her friends. Of course, this group of characters works in such a way as to make sure that only the best possible comedy happens whenever possible. I can't even describe the joy it gives me in these moments. The jokes just have me in stitches. But there is an equal amount of heart in the show as well. It still has my absolute favorite Christmas episode ever. For all the jokes in that episode, the innocence it portrays and the care that most of the characters go to to protect that is just a thing of beauty. So yes, I love this show. Often times, it is the show that I drag out first when someone asks for a recommendation, and I've yet to get anything but a good response when said persons finish the show. And if that's not enough to show my love, well then, how about this. This is the only anime that I own twice. I bought a DVD box set back when it was still out of print, and then I bought a copy of the Blurays when Sentai Filmworks picked it up last year. I have not gone to the trouble to do this kind of upgrade for any other series, and probably will not, even though I have many series that I can now upgrade. This is the only one I see a reason to have done so. And believe me, it was so worth it! It feels so great to finally have the OVAs for this series too.

And with that, it looks like we're done. If you made it this far, I really want to thank you for reading all of that (unless you skimmed through it all, then shame on you, I put a lot of work into this and now you hurt my feelings). While this is of course, only my list, I'm feeling brave enough to ask what you guys think? Do you agree with anything? Disagree with a reason better than “It's Shit!” or any other mean spirited remark? Should I do a list like this for movies or OVAs? Whatever it is, I'd love to hear it. So thanks again, and take care!

#top 25 #anime #2017

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itsfinancethings · 4 years ago

Text

New story in Business from Time: Chancellor Harold L. Martin, on His Plan to Safely Open the Nation’s Largest HBCU During COVID-19

(Miss this week’s The Leadership Brief? This interview above was delivered to the inbox of Leadership Brief subscribers on Sunday morning, Aug. 23; to receive weekly emails of conversations with the world’s top CEOs and business decisionmakers, click here.)

Education has become as much about logistics as instruction during the COVID-19 crisis, and Harold L. Martin, the chancellor of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, has spent the summer months immersed in planning to make returning to campus as safe as possible for the school’s student body, faculty and staff. With more than 12,500 students, NC A&T is the nation’s largest historically black university and under Martin, it has become one of the top producers of African American STEM graduates in the country.

Demand for the school’s STEM graduates has increased so much in recent years that the school has added multiple job fairs to handle the influx of recruiters from big tech companies.

Classes started Aug. 19 with a hybrid model. About 70% percent of students returned to the Greensboro campus for a combination of virtual and in-person instruction, in classrooms outfitted with plexiglass protections for professors and socially distanced seating. Football and other fall sports have been canceled. Martin, 68, joined TIME for a video conversation about the school’s safety protocols, what it’s like to lead an institution with a rich history in the civil rights movement during a period of national protests against systemic racism (the Greensboro Four, who began the historic 1960 sit-in at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, were all freshmen at NC A&T and are known locally as the A&T Four), and the selection of Sen. Kamala Harris as the Democratic vice presidential candidate.

Subscribe to The Leadership Brief by clicking here.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What was your reaction to the selection of Senator Harris, a graduate of Howard, another historically black university, as Joe Biden’s running mate?

Senator Harris embodies so much that is important and worthy about historically black universities, and it is truly a historic moment to see one of our graduates included on the Democratic ticket. We join our friends at Howard in their celebration of this extraordinary development. Having experienced the history-making presidential campaigns of our own alumnus, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, in 1984 and 1988, we know well the national significance of such an electoral event and how it can help many Americans to see HBCUs in a new and perhaps different light.

Make the case for an African American student attending an historically Black university versus a predominantly white institution. What is your argument to the parents and to prospective students?

It’s the same argument I gave myself when we spoke to both our boys who are both overachievers academically: that we want you to go to a university where you will have access to the very best faculty and the best friends and the best experiences to grow personally and professionally. And never have compromised in any way, shape or fashion your preparation for your career or for your profession or for access to America’s top graduate and professional schools. We can demonstrate that time and time again, there are very few universities in America that do what we do as well as we do it for African American students.

How have HBCUs fared under the current administration?

HBCUs have fared well in federal funding over the past three years. Title III support has increased. $85 million in annual STEM funding for HBCUs was made permanent and year-round funding for Pell Grants was approved. Passage of all of those reflect positively on the president and his administration.

Yet when you see the President tweeting “my Administration has done more for the Black community than any President since Abraham Lincoln” how do you respond to that?

Well, I’m insulted quite honestly. I’m sort of appalled by the notion that one would make such a claim.

So you don’t agree?

No.

What do you think of his leadership at a time of great social unrest in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

I think he tends to inflame situations and tends to divide versus providing a voice that is healing for our nation on the heels of COVID-19 where there’s been evidence of so many missteps by the Administration.

But you are optimistic?

Probably as optimistic as I’ve been. I do feel it’s in a different moment. The corporate boards I serve on, we have a very different conversation with our board members about what this means and how we must rethink the way we do business. I spend enormous amounts of my time engaging with our students, and I believe because of the great history and traditions of our university as an institution actively involved in social change over the decades, and because of my own experiences growing up in America, as an African American individual, overlapping into periods of segregation and Jim Crow, my experiences tell me this feels different. This is more than just about police brutality. This is also very significantly about disparities in America that are embedded in racism through education, health care, unemployment, wealth, et cetera. And no matter how you cut it, we’re not going to get out of some of these deep-seated race-based disparities until America comes to grip with our racism.

Where do you start and what changes do you feel are most important to make?

If I look at most people in America, those who have not come from wealth, education has played the biggest part in transforming those individuals’ lives, including my own.</span><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;">If I look at most people in America, those who have not come from wealth, education has played the biggest part in transforming those individuals’ lives, including my own. And as a consequence I would say that education is one of the most critical investments we can make in changing the outcomes and trajectory for young people in America.

Previously, as dean of engineering at NC A&T, you raised the admissions standards, turning your school into one of the top producers of African American STEM graduates in the country. How has corporate America responded?

It is a great point of pride for us. The number of corporations and agencies that have come to our university to recruit our graduates over the last five to seven years has grown in record numbers. We have built very strong relationships with Apple, Intel, Google, Facebook, Twitter, for example. Amazon. Silicon Valley recruits our graduates in record numbers, along with a host of organizations and state agencies and federal agencies from around the world.

On the whole, how is corporate America doing? It is a force for good?

It’s a mixed bag. I believe certainly in the most recent few months following the unfortunate murder of George Floyd for all the world to see, there’s a higher level of consciousness around having more meaningful conversations.

I understand you’ve been outspoken with corporations and organizations that have a history of funding predominately white institutions and have recently become more interested in your graduates.

I shared this with my corporate colleagues and CEOs of these organizations. ‘Look, you can’t continue to come to the table and drop a dime here and a dollar there.’ ‘Or multiple dollars there.’ You’re trying to get access to our very best resource, and we have to make big investments to make that happen.

So the conversation is essentially, if you want a table at the career fair, you have to be more of a long-term partner with us?

That’s exactly right. We’ve been very clear about building relationships for the long-term.

So have you seen a demonstrable increase in internship offers and support?

We have seen significant increases in internship opportunities for our students. And we’ve seen significant increases in corporate contributions and foundation contributions.

I understand that your institution also graduates a number of students that end up being officers in the military.

Over the years, the military has been one of the leading organizations in America that has valued diversity. It has not all been perfect by any measure, but it’s been one of the leading organizations that has provided advancement opportunities for people of color. Our ROTC program has become an incredible source of pride for our university. It serves as the hub for all ROTC programs in the region. We attract exceptionally talented students who are engineers and health care providers who are graduating and they’re being commissioned at commencement. And they’re going off to serve America.

You received a Phd in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech. What was your dissertation on?

My PhD dissertation was a highly theoretical model representing computer systems that were framed as a mathematical model, and if they were interconnected in such a way that these interconnected computers would communicate like cells in the body. Whether I wanted to remain engaged in research and teaching graduates being engaged in scholarship, or be pulled away into administration, that was really a tug-of-war for me.

Students are back at campus. Despite all the safety precautions, I know recently you’ve felt “guarded reluctance” and have made the case against opening. What is your current feeling?

Guarded but comfortable.

UNC Chapel Hill, part of your same system, just abruptly moved classes to virtual after an outbreak of COVID among returning students. Can you tick off some of the things you are doing to keep your students and the university community healthy and safe.

All of our students who are returning to the campus have been checked for symptoms as they move into the residence hall .

What else?

We obviously are requiring masking. Safe social distancing. We have a high intensity cleansing protocol on a daily basis and a daily morning ritual of self-assessment, of all students who are living in residence halls. And each of our classrooms was reduced to about 30% occupancy.

How are you accommodating faculty and staff that are reluctant to come back to a classroom setting?

They can apply to telework. We’ve been very generous in providing those employees the opportunity to tele-work.

What percent of your faculty do you expect to tele-work?

About 60% of our faculty will be tele-working this fall.</span><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;">About 60% of our faculty will be tele-working this fall.

I understand you ordered lots of masks.

We’ve ordered a million masks. And then we’ve ordered somewhere around 30 to 40,000 branded cloth masks. All students, faculty and staff will get at least two of those.

What’s been the initial reaction from the student body to the health protocols, including canceling your historic homecoming, which has been dubbed the greatest homecoming on earth?

Our students are responding overall. They are 18, 19, 20 year olds, though, and so we have to continue to remind them of the expectations, quite honestly.

Your institution has a storied history in the Civil Rights movement. What is it like to lead this historic institution at this juncture in American history?

It is an inspiration to me. In every conversation , it’ll come up. We can’t compromise what we do.

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