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spacelazarwolf · 9 months

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in honor of that anon who said jews have done nothing for the world, here’s a non exhaustive list of things we’ve done for the world:

arts, fashion, and lifestyle:

jeans - levi strauss

modern bras - ida rosenthal

sewing machines - isaac merritt singer

modern film industry - carl laemmle (universal pictures), adolph zukor (paramount pictures), william fox (fox film forporation), louis b. mayer (mgm - metro-goldwyn-mayer), harry, sam, albert, and jack warners (warner bros.), steven spielberg, mel brooks, marx brothers

operetta - jacques offenbach

comic books - stan lee

graphic novels - will eisner

teddy bears - morris and rose michtom

influential musicians - irving berlin, stephen sondheim, benny goodman, george gershwin, paul simon, itzhak perlman, leonard bernstein, bob dylan, leonard cohen

artists - mark rothko

actors - elizabeth taylor, jerry lewis, barbara streisand

comedians - lenny bruce, joan rivers, jerry seinfeld

authors - judy blume, tony kushner, allen ginsberg, walter mosley

culture:

esperanto - ludwik lazar zamenhof

feminism - betty friedan, gloria steinem, ruth bader ginsberg

queer and trans rights - larry kramer, harvey milk, leslie feinberg, abby stein, kate bornstein, frank kameny, judith butler

international women's day - clara zetkin

principles of journalizm, statue of liberty, and pulitzer prize - joseph pulitzer

"the new colossus" - emma lazarus

universal declaration of human rights - rene samuel cassin

holocaust remembrance and human rights activism - elie wiesel

workers rights - louis brandeis, rose schneiderman

public health care, women's rights, and children's rights - lillian wald

racial equity - rabbi abraham joshua heschel, julius rosenwald, andrew goodman, michael schwerner

political theory - hannah arendt

disability rights - judith heumann

black lives matter slogan and movement - alicia garza

#metoo movement - jodi kantor

institute of sexology - magnus hirschfeld

technology:

word processing computers - evelyn berezin

facebook - mark zuckerberg

console video game system - ralph henry baer

cell phones - amos edward joel jr., martin cooper

3d - leonard lipton

telephone - philipp reis

fax machines - arthur korn

microphone - emile berliner

gramophone - emile berliner

television - boris rosing

barcodes - norman joseph woodland and bernard silver

secret communication system, which is the foundation of the technology used for wifi - hedy lamarr

three laws of robotics - isaac asimov

cybernetics - norbert wiener

helicopters - emile berliner

BASIC (programming language) - john george kemeny

google - sergey mikhaylovich brin and larry page

VCR - jerome lemelson

fax machine - jerome lemelson

telegraph - samuel finley breese morse

morse code - samuel finley breese morse

bulletproof glass - edouard benedictus

electric motor and electroplating - boris semyonovich jacobi

nuclear powered submarine - hyman george rickover

the internet - paul baran

icq instant messenger - arik vardi, yair goldfinger,, sefi vigiser, amnon amir

color photography - leopold godowsky and leopold mannes

world's first computer - herman goldstine

modern computer architecture - john von neumann

bittorrent - bram cohen

voip internet telephony - alon cohen

data archiving - phil katz, eugene roshal, abraham lempel, jacob ziv

nemeth code - abraham nemeth

holography - dennis gabor

laser - theodor maiman

instant photo sharing online - philippe kahn

first automobile - siegfried samuel marcus

electrical maglev road - boris petrovich weinberg

drip irrigation - simcha blass

ballpoint pen and automatic gearbox - laszlo biro

photo booth - anatol marco josepho

medicine:

pacemakers and defibrillators - louise robinovitch

defibrillators - bernard lown

anti-plague and anti-cholera vaccines - vladimir aronovich khavkin

polio vaccine - jonas salk

test for diagnosis of syphilis - august paul von wasserman

test for typhoid fever - ferdinand widal

penicillin - ernst boris chain

pregnancy test - barnhard zondek

antiretroviral drug to treat aids and fight rejection in organ transplants - gertrude elion

discovery of hepatitis c virus - harvey alter

chemotherapy - paul ehrlich

discovery of prions - stanley prusiner

psychoanalysis - sigmund freud

rubber condoms - julius fromm

birth control pill - gregory goodwin pincus

asorbic acid (vitamin c) - tadeusz reichstein

blood groups and rh blood factor - karl landsteiner

acyclovir (treatment for infections caused by herpes virus) - gertrude elion

vitamins - caismir funk

technique for measuring blood insulin levils - rosalyn sussman yalow

antigen for hepatitus - baruch samuel blumberg

a bone fusion technique - gavriil abramovich ilizarov

homeopathy - christian friedrich samuel hahnemann

aspirin - arthur ernst eichengrun

science:

theory of relativity - albert einstein

theory of the electromagnetic field - james maxwell

quantum mechanics - max born, gustav ludwig hertz

quantum theory of gravity - matvei bronstein

microbiology - ferdinand julius cohn

neuropsychology - alexander romanovich luria

counters for x-rays and gamma rays - robert hofstadter

genetic engineering - paul berg

discovery of the antiproton - emilio gino segre

discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation - arno allan penzias

discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe - adam riess and saul merlmutter

discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity - roger penrose

discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of the milky way - andrea ghez

modern cosmology and the big bang theory - alexander alexandrovich friedmann

stainless steel - hans goldschmidt

gas powered vehicles

interferometer - albert abraham michelson

discovery of the source of energy production in stars - hans albrecht bethe

proved poincare conjecture - grigori yakovlevich perelman

biochemistry - otto fritz meyerhof

electron-positron collider - bruno touschek

#jewish #jumblr #am yisrael fucking chai

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llovelymoonn · 1 year

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favourite poems of july

knar gavin strindberg grey

dahlia ravikovitch the love of an orange (tr. chana bloch)

danez smith summer, somewhere

hannah gamble your invitation to a modest breakfast: “your invitation to a modest breakfast”

claire schwartz lecture on the history of the house

joseph brodsky collected poems in english, 1972-1999: “a part of speech”

ralph angel twice removed: “alpine wedding”

bob hicok insomnia diary: “spirit ditty of no fax-line dial tone”

caleb klaces language is her caravan

philip good & bernadette mayer alternating lunes

hester knibbe light-years (tr. jacquelyn pope)

tracy k. smith life on mars: “the universe as primal scream”

rigoberto gonzález other fugitives and other strangers: “the strangers who find me in the woods”

stephen edgar murray dreaming

james schuyler other flowers: uncollected poems: “light night”

amy beeder because our waiters are hopeless romantics

diane seuss backyard song

tomás q. morín love train

safiya sinclair the art of unselfing

carol muske-dukes skylight: “the invention of cuisine”

peter gizzi the outernationale: “vincent, homesick for the land of pictures”

william matthews selected poems and translations, 1969-1991: “onions”

c.k. williams butcher

mark mccloskey the smell of the woods

jennifer chang the age of unreason

richard blanco city of a hundred fires: “contemplations at the virgin de la caridad cafeteria, inc.”

bob hicock the pregnancy of words

j. allyn rosser impromptu

carl phillips then the war

stephanie young ursula or university: “essay”

gloria e. anzaldúa the new speakers

kofi

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kaylorstree · 3 months

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TTPD Gaylor Lyric Analysis

Because there are so many songs, I’m only analysing the gayest ones.

SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG TO POST THIS!!!!!!

But Daddy I Love Him

Possibly Taylor’s gayest song EVER.

‘These people only raise you to cage you’

A lot of this is about her team, handlers and parents wanting her to stay closeted.

‘These people try to save you because they hate you’

This references judgemental religious people, to whom if she ever came out would want to save her, and pray for her, out of faux concern.

‘Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best’

Again, religious Bible names, but also could reference American conservatives.

‘Told my parents and they came around’

This has to be about being gay. I really doubt her parents wouldn’t have a HUGE problem or be able to influence her that much in terms of problematic men, since she has dated many previously, such as John Mayer and Jake Gylenhall.

‘Tell him to floor it through the fences’

This references Getaway Car, but I also think it references the YNTCD fences, and the other fence meme.

‘I’d rather burn my whole life down’ Dating a man would never ‘burn down’ her entire life.

Down Bad

‘Crying at the gym’

Taylor and Karlie went to the gym all the time. There is so much photographic evidence of this.

Side note (which I think I have previously posted about): I’ve always found it odd how they would be so dressed up for the gym, particularly Taylor. It makes me think they were having lunch or hanging out in secret, for some privacy from the paparazzi maybe?

‘Like I just lost my twin’

Do I really need to elaborate this line?

‘Fuck it if I can’t have him’

I genuinely see no way Taylor couldn’t date any man she really wanted. The only way she REALLY couldn’t have someone would have to be a HUGE reason.

‘Did you take all my old clothes, just to leave me here naked and alone?’

A man wouldn’t take a woman’s clothes, Also, Taylor and Karlie shared a load of clothes back in the day.

Guilty As Sin?

The religious undertones continue, along with the references to heaven and angels.

‘Written mine on my upper thigh, only in my mind’

‘What if the way you hold me, is the thing that’s holy’

‘Without touching his skin, how can I be guilty as sin’

Surely it isn’t a sin by any standards to THINK about having sex with a man? But a woman, YES.

‘I keep my longest locked, in lower case inside a vault’.

This was suggest she has repressed longings she needs to hide, but also suggests ‘loml’ and ‘iwannagetyouback’ are important to listen to and decipher.

Fresh Out The Slammer

‘Fresh out the slammer, I’m running back home to you’

This suggests being imprisoned or trapped. To consider a 6 year relationship as being a prison would be offensive to Joe, but would make sense if this was just another fake relationship she’s trapped in until she can finally be with the person she has been waiting for.

Clara Bow

‘You look like Stevie Nicks, in ‘75, the hair and lips’

At first I didn’t understand why this reference jumped out at me- I then realised that there was this tweet comparing Karlie to Steve Nicks’ ex, Linsday Buckingham.

‘You look like Clara Bow in this life, remarkable’

She sings about women and their features throughout this song.

‘Half moonshine, full eclipse’

Karlie is always referred to the sunshine, hiding the sun would be an eclipse.

Peter

‘In closets like cedar, preserved from when we were just kids’

‘You said you were gonna grow up, then you were gonna come find me’

This suggests waiting for someone when they can finally be together.

‘As the men masqueraded, I hope you’d return’

Men masquerading suggests acting or pretending, just as her beards have been until she can be in a real relationship with the person she actually wants to be with.

iwannagetyouback

‘Wait til you fix your face’

Only a girl would need to fix their face. This also aligns with The 1975 song ‘Girls’, the one that was playing when Taylor and Karlie famously kissed.

‘Curse you out, or pull you into the closet’

I mean, again, when does someone ever literally pull some into a closet? Only figuratively.

Chloe Or Sam Or Sophia Or Marcus

The premise of the song is talking about someone bisexual. It’s impossible to decipher it any other way.

So, she’s outing and implicating one of her previous boyfriends which would be EXTREMELY problematic.

On the other hand, if she was singing about a bisexual woman, that would make sense. There is less stigma surrounding bisexual women compared to men, by some extent.

The Prophecy

‘Don’t want money, just someone who really loves me’

Again, this doesn’t make sense to attribute to a man. Why would she lose money by being in a relationship? Only if it was incredibly controversial, like a queer one.

Also, ‘The Prophecy’ suggests that this is the way things have to be, have been and will be. However, if she changes this it will not be expected for others in the future.

‘I got cursed like Eve got bitten’

‘Was it punishment?’

This alludes once again to sin and religious imagery, but also about how being LGBT can feel like a curse or something unwanted.

‘Looked to the sky’

This suggests God is responsible for the prophecy itself.

‘Pat around when I get home’ alludes to crime and accusations. Perhaps growing up her family were maybe onto her concerning where she’s been and who she’s been with.

Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?

‘You don’t get to tell me about sad’

‘You wouldn’t last a year in the asylum where they raised me’

As discussed online, Taylor didn’t grow up with any particular trauma or a bad childhood by any stretch of the imagination. However, the concept of her being closeted on a global scale, to constantly having to lie in order to keep her livelihood is pretty traumatic in my opinion.

A lot of people wouldn’t be able to survive that.

Please tell me what your interpretations are! 🌼🌈

#kaylor #spotify #taylor swift #gaylor swift #gaylor #taylurking #ttb #karlie kloss #lgbetty #lgbtqia #lyrical analysis #the tortured poets department #ttpd

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sarahjacobs · 1 month

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“If I’ve done my job right, it makes a statement that’s bigger than the newsies,” [Fierstein] said. “It’s about a bunch of kids changing the world, about handing over the world to a new generation.”

[source]

i find this quote fascinating because fierstein seems to imply that the 92 film didn’t “[make] a statement that's bigger than the newsies,” which is why he changed the framing of the strike from being about the rich vs the poor to the young vs the old. from a class struggle to a generational divide. and i really want to take this opportunity to think through newsies through a politically nihilist lens, keeping in mind that a) i don't think the film is a perfect political text either, nor do i believe such a thing is possible, and b) this is a springboard of sorts to critique a broader pattern of how leftist movements and history are represented and talked about.

katherine often unfairly catches a lot of flak when this thematic overhaul is critiqued, but the issue doesn’t lie in katherine’s inclusion. it’s more about how she was written to say things like “their mistake is they got old,” in conjunction with how the writers cut out every adult ally who wasn’t medda and roosevelt (and slotted in hannah to replace seitz as the sole advisor who pushes back against the price hike). denton was cut, of course. and sure, the trolley workers still serve as inspiration for the newsie strike, but we don’t actually see them like we did in 92. mayer, who is similarly used as a reason to strike (“if your father had a union, you wouldn’t be out here sellin’ papes right now”) but isn’t shown. the mention of his overwhelming support for the strike was also cut.

it’s even in the little things. compare and contrast the small moment in which, after denton bails the newsies out, a waiter tries to refuse when denton gives him money to cover their food expenses, to how on broadway, jacobi still charges two cents for seltzer, then shoos the newsies away to make room for paying customers.

(also i would be remiss if i didn’t at least briefly talk about how sarah was cut entirely, not even a passing mention reserved for her. and while her potential was never fully realized in 92, the fact that sarah, a child laborer who worked in the garment industry, helped produce and distribute the newsies banner feels significant to me in further marking the transition from a purely newsie strike to a more generalized children’s strike.)

additionally, more dialogue and lyrics that criticize adults were written in. and to be fair, there’s a trace of this in 92, as they sing, “and the torch is passed,” as well as “and the old will fall / and the young stand tall” in twwk (i believe these are the only instances of this). but on broadway, it is wayyy more recurring and explicit. i’m not going to list them all out because the only instance i actually want to talk about in depth is this —

ROOSEVELT: (recognizing this historical moment) Each generation must, at the height of its power, step aside and invite the young to share the day. You have laid claim to our world and I believe the future, in your hands, will be bright and prosperous.

— which is a deeply revealing line, one that shows the progressivist heart of the broadway production. and by progressivism, i mean the myth that history is a linear story of progress, and no matter what, we are always marching towards a brighter future. as bædan argues, politics revolve around futurity, which revolves around the image of the Child — think of how often children are evoked in politics as an unassuming, blank slate that deserve unique protection from evil. in left wing spaces, this is often expressed in the desire to improve the world for future generations; “the future is kid stuff,” as lee edelman claims.

but the Child, futurity, and progressivism are all problematic — it's a kind of cruel optimism. these ideas ask people to be content with horrifying conditions today, and with bitterly disappointing reformism, because progress is slow while simultaneously being certain. and yet the future, and the utopia it promises, is always hovering on the horizon… but never within reach. all of this points to a general “[misrecognition of] promise as an achievement.”

i would also argue that anything that uncritically valorizes youth movements, or the Youth more generally, plays into this. and don’t get me wrong, youth liberation is a real thing, and the age of the newsies and katherine does play a role in how they’re perceived (“i'm young, i ain't stupid”). but resistance is always delegitimized, most often by discounting them as violent, illegal, or outside agitators... and flatly rendering the conflict of newsies into a matter of age obfuscates precisely what they are struggling against — complex power structures that privilege the upper class and men. as mayer and the trolley workers show, it doesn’t really matter if they’re kids or adults, the newsies would still be crushed under the heel of the boss because they’re workers, doubly so because they’re poor.

and being young, just like the future, doesn’t guarantee anything, least of all a kind of politic. young people aren’t exempt from engaging in and replicating harmful dynamics. many are privileged in some way — because of their whiteness, class, gender, etc — or they’re desperate to attain privilege. and as a result, they have a vested interest in the uninterrupted existence of varying systems of domination, rather than its abolition. take the delanceys, who are around jack’s age, and yet they’re actively involved in breaking the strike. their age doesn’t automatically guarantee their allyship; as hired muscle, or “rent a cops,” they act in favor of protecting capital and the state, as all cops do.

too often movements populated by young faces are turned into feel good spectacles of how “the kids are alright,” that these so called revolutionaries are going to be the leaders of tomorrow, and how the future therefore looks “bright and prosperous,” to borrow roosevelt’s words. but implicit in this messaging is not only the continuance of the current social order, which is fucked and rotten to the core and needs to be destroyed, but the Youth assimilating and integrating into these systems.

take a look at how the skills jack used to rebel (his charisma and art) were met with repression at first but praised and rewarded at the end.

PULITZER: (to JACK) I can’t help thinking… if one of your drawings convinced the governor to close The Refuge, what might a daily political cartoon do to expose the dealings in our own government back rooms?

it’s worth noting the framing of this job offer — jack is not only being given a chance to climb the professional ladder, but he's specifically being hired to use his artistic skills for what essentially amounts to activism. and i use the term activism critically; it packages resistance, something anyone can do, into a specialized/professionalized role, a class of people separate from ordinary people. this makes it similar to a job, or, in jack's case, an actual salaried position. and as “give up activism” points out, all of this renders activism an “accepted form of dissent.”

additionally, jack using the world as an outlet for his discontent with the current state of affairs automatically defangs him. after all, how much social change can jack really push for in the inherently exploitative context of a worker-boss relationship? how effective can jack really be when his ideas are mediated to the public via a company like the world, which ordered a news blackout of the strike and used its wealth and power to violently crackdown on the newsies? that concerns itself with whether or not its papers are marketable to the masses and therefore profitable? anything jack publishes will have to go through a process of approval, filtered through a boss who derisively calls roosevelt a socialist, then a communist. this means jack can continue to publish his drawings, continue his activism, so long as he’s not threatening the interests of the world. what a huge constraint!

more broadly speaking, integration and assimilation can be seen in the recurring idea of power being transferred throughout newsies — from “just look around at the world we’re inheriting / and think of the one we’ll create,” to “you’re getting too old, too weak to keep holding on / a new world is gunning for you, and joe, we is too.” and finally, roosevelt claiming that the future “in your hands,” as in, under your leadership, is bright. but i take issue with the very notion of power, of leadership itself. as katherine quotes, “power tends to corrupt,” and while she proposes that corruption can be avoided so long as “[we] stay young forever,” having youthful, friendly faces in positions of power is meaningless when the very systems that facilitated any abuse of power are allowed to persist.

i want to close this out with an excerpt from serafinski's blessed is the flame:

The “progress of society” might be better described as the “evolution of systems of power,” and as Bædan reminds us: “any progressive development can only mean a more sophisticated system of misery and exploitation.”

think of the differences and similarities between the 1899 that newsies portrays and where we stand now. how history has been an unceasing transfer of power between generations, by virtue of the previous one dying out. and yet misogyny still prevails in the workforce and in everyday life, workers remain exploited, police continue to be employed against any social unrest, and the prison industrial complex has only expanded. have we really improved?

#newsies #92sies #*

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garadinervi · 10 months

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«Stereo Headphones» – an occasional magazine of the new poetries, No. 6, 'The Treated Text', Edited by Nicholas Zurbrugg, Kersey, Summer 1974, Edition of 515 [room 3o2 books, Ottawa]

Issued in 2 variants: (i) 500 unique trade copies; (ii) 15 numbered copies on handmade paper with extra material by Lourdes Castro, Hans Richter, and Edgardo Antonio Vigo

Cover Art: Nicholas Zurbrugg

Contributors: Stephen Bann, Lourdes Castro, Jacques Caumont, Henri Chopin, Thomas A Clark, Bob Cobbing, Peter Dienst, François Dufrêne, Peter Finch, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Paul-Armand Gette, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Marcel Janco, Kitasono Katué, Robert Lax, Jean Le Gac, Peter Mayer, Barry McCallion, Edwin Morgan, Tom Phillips, Hans Richter, Edward Ruscha, Kurt Schwitters, Joe Tilson, Ben Vautier, Edgardo Antonio Vigo, Lawrence Weiner, Gloria Wilson, Nicholas Zurbrugg

#graphic design #art #poetry #concrete poetry #visual poetry #magazine #cover #magazine cover #stereo headphones #nicholas zurbrugg #lourdes castro #hans richter #edgardo antonio vigo #room 3o2 books #1970s

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beautifulbizarremagazine · 1 year

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🌟 10th Anniversary Issue on sale now 🌟

Shop today 👉 https://store.beautifulbizarre.net/product/issue-41/

INSIDE ISSUE 41

Exclusive In-Depth Interviews:

Michael Parkes [cover artist], Tamura Yoshiyasu, Tania Rivilis, Andrew Hem.

Articles:

Roxanne Sauriol Hauenherm, Paolo Puck, Known as Myself, Yuki T Photography, Ilya Zomb.

10 Years of Beautiful Bizarre Magazine:

Interview with Beautiful Bizarre Magazine’s Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief who speaks to us about how the magazine began, how it has grown and evolved over the last decade. Her challenges, successes, learning, and her journey thus far.

Curator’s Wishlist:

Martin & Louise McIntosh, Directors of Outre Gallery in Melbourne, Australia share what they would like to add to their personal collection.

Collectors Profile:

Kim Larson & Bradley Platz, Directors of Modern Eden Gallery speak to us about their personal collection and what motivates them to collect contemporary art.

Lookbook:

Full page reproductions of Nona Limmen’s dark surreal photography.

Quick Q&A:

Lou Benesch, Loputyn, Petite Doll, Karen Turner, and Win Wallace [2022 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize, Honourable Mention], all respond to the same 4 questions which delve into their artistic practice.

Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory:

Discover exceptional, innovative and skilled artists from around the world with Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory – the leading platform for connecting with top talent.

Inside this issue: Jon Ching, Adrian Cox, Iness Rychlik, Elizabeth Winnel, Ransom & Mitchell, Dawid Planeta, El Gato Chimney, Tran Nguyen, Daantje Bons, Troy Brooks, Hannah Yata, Mothmeister, Josh Dykgraaf, Reuben Negron, Amahi Mori, Stephanie Rew, Jeff Echevarria, Bill Mayer, Akishi Ueda, Adam Matano, Brian Viveros, Annie Stegg Gerard, Eunpyon, Marcela Bolivar, Lindsey Carr, Ebony Russell, Hannah Flowers, Theodora Capat, Erik Mark Sandberg, Sara Gallagher, Brittany Markert, Adrian Cox, Bill Mayer, Beth Mitchell, Aaron Mcpolin, Nicolas Bruno, Steven Kenny, Allison Reimold, Adam Matano, Hiroshi Hayakawa, Lexi Laine, Hannah Flowers, Ema Shin, Heidi Taillefer.

Some of our Favourite Things:

We share some of our favourite artisan fashion designers including: Louise Gardiner Embroidery, Ellen Rococo, Yu Tanaka, Jingyi Xiexie, and Sandra Mansour.

Our Community:

Our Instagram #beautifulbizarre community feature including: @candiceghaiphotography, @christina.ridgeway.art, @julyhendrix, @marieeve_proteau, @petulantpretty, @vasilisa.romanenko, @margosimms, @thisiscraves

#beautifulbizarre #artmagazine #art #painting #drawing #photography #sculpture #digitalart #fashion #artinspiration #artist

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backup-baby-backup · 1 year

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Taylor Swift and Martin Johnson

9 February 2008: In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Taylor mentions that her most recent iTunes download is Hero/Heroine by Bostonian pop-rock band Boys Like Girls. (John Mayer is also up there... ugh.) The lead singer, Martin Johnson, is flattered and reaches out to Taylor.

Late February 2008: Taylor and Martin write You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home for the Hannah Montana movie.

Boys Like Girls opened for Avril Lavigne throughout March and April and weren't free again until May. (On an unrelated note, the openers for the next leg of the tour were the Jonas Brothers.) I think given how Taylor continuously mentioned Boys Like Girls afterwards, they had written this song in February already.

26 March 2008: Taylor mentions that her current ringtone is Hero/Heroine.

Early April 2008: Taylor films Once Upon A Prom. At the beginning of the video, she wears a Boys Like Girls vest in the studio.

Why is she pretending to write Picture To Burn in 2008??? Anyway, I do wonder what the new bridge she had just thought up was...

Early June 2008: Miley Cyrus shoots the part in Hannah Montana: The Movie where she sings You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home.

Summer 2008: Boys Like Girls drummer John Keefe records drums on You're Not Sorry.

Late September 2008: Taylor and Martin write Drama Queen. The song would be mastered along with the rest of Fearless.

11 November 2008: Fearless is released.

April 2009: Taylor and Martin write If This Was A Movie.

27 August 2009: Boys Like Girls attend Taylor's show at Madison Square Garden.

8 September 2009: Two Is Better Than One featuring Taylor Swift is released. It was co-written by Taylor Swift.

A lot of people seem to think If This Was A Movie and Two Is Better Than One were written in the same session, which I think is pretty probable.

It seems that after writing Two Is Better Than One, Boys Like Girls recorded a version of the song themselves, but then decided they wanted some female vocals on the song and so contacted Taylor again.

We finished up the whole song “Two Is Better Than One.” It was all produced and recorded and we wanted to make it a little bit better. We thought she would do a killer job on it and we just hit her up, and she said she’d do it and it was the coolest thing ever.

11 December 2009: Taylor and Boys Like Girls perform Two Is Better Than One together at the Z100 Jingle Ball.

...but is it a love story?

Love Story was written in March 2008. Although there were rumours of Taylor and Martin dating as early as 2008, the first "report" I can find that Taylor and Martin ever dated was in 2012 in an article on his then-date Ashley Tisdale, which was picked up by the Daily Mail shortly after. Martin himself also apparently confirmed that Love Story was about him, according to a few Reddit comments, but he also said that Fearless was about him, which is impossible since it was written in 2007.

Taylor said that Love Story was written about a guy that her parents disapproved of and who turned out to be a "creep". We won't know what she meant by "creep", but there are also some rumours of his inappropriate behaviour with female fans, and on a more serious note, Martin was struggling with addiction problems up till 2010, so both of those might have played a part in her parents' distaste.

In 2018, Martin had this to say about those rumours:

Is that confirmation? I have no idea.

Conclusion

There are so many John Mayer parallels here that it's honestly a bit worrying.

#taylor swift #martin johnson #speak now #speak now taylor’s version

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sporadiceagleheart · 5 months

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here's a tribute edit for statues of those who passed away Inez Briggs, Mary Jane Barker, Maud H. Munn, George Sturgis Pillsbury, Margaret Raithel, Marie “Mary” Raithel, Caddy Naugle, Tacie Hannah Fargo, Dorothy Wade Huff, Grace Sherwood Allen, Gracie Perry Watson, "Little" Annie Kerr Aiken (1853-56), Annie Oakley, Anne Frank, Kelly Ann Fleming, Dr. Seuss, Louis B. Mayer, Judy Garland, Clockwise, from far left: the poignant Boy in the Boat; cemetery guides and stone seating by the cemetery entrance; statue of Revolutionary War Major General Joseph Warren, also a doctor, who was slain during the Battle of Bunker Hill; and one of the many picturesque vistas at Forest Hills, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, John Denver, Michael Jackson, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Walt Disney, James Brown, Ray Charles,Terry, Elvis Presley, Greyfriars Bobby, Austin was only six when he died, Andrea the Giant, Dusty Rhodes, And Emmett Till

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brookstonalmanac · 3 months

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Birthdays 7.4

Beer Birthdays

Cord Hinrich Haake (1801)

J.P. Benzel (1833)

Alonzo Gilford Van Nostrand (1854)

Sammy Fuchs (1905)

Jos Brouwer

Gary Gilman (1950)

Dave Hoops (1967)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Rube Goldberg; cartoonist (1883)

Tonio K.; rock singer, songwriter (1950)

Thomas Nagel; philosopher (1937)

Hiram Walker; distiller (1816)

Bill Withers; pop singer, songwriter (1938)

Famous Birthdays

Elena Arzak; Spanish chef (1969)

Calvin Coolidge; 30th U.S. President (1872)

Al Davis; Oakland Raiders owner/manager (1929)

Stephen Foster; songwriter (1826)

Giuseppe Garibaldi; Italian patriot (1807)

Hannah Harper; English Adult actress (1982)

Nathaniel Hawthorne; writer (1804)

Ron Kovic; anti-war activist, veteran, writer (1946)

Ann Landers; advice columnist (1918)

Floyd Little; Dencer Broncos RB (1942)

Gina Lollobrigida; Italian actor (1928)

Manolete; Spanish bullfighter

Louis B. Mayer; movie studio executive (1885)

Alyssa Miller; model (1989)

Mitch Miller; choir leader (1911)

Neil Morrissey; English actor (1962)

George Murphy; actor, dancer, politician (1902)

Geraldo Rivera; television personality (1943)

Eva Marie Saint; actor (1924)

Neil Simon; playwright (1927)

Bill Tuttle; Detroit Tigers CF (1929)

Darth Vader (a.k.a. Anakin Skywalker; 42 BBY)

Abigail Van Buren; advice columnist (1918)

John Waite; pop singer (1955)

Edward Craven Walker; lava lamp inventor (1918)

Al "Blind Owl" Wilson; rock singer, guitarist (1943)

#Birthdays

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nothingunrealistic · 1 year

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review roundup: billions 7x03 “winston dick energy”

place your bets on how far i’ll get into this post before my commentary shifts into all-caps!

New York Times: ‘Billions’ Season 7, Episode 3 Recap: Confidence Games

Which would be fine if Chuck were operating in a vacuum. Instead, he has an office full of lawyers champing at the bit for the opportunity to unleash their full skills on unsuspecting white-collar criminals everywhere — the kinds of cases that turned their freshly reinstated boss into a beloved man of the people. His reticence in choosing his opening salvo frustrates everyone: his right-hand man, Ira; his father, Charles Sr. (Jeffrey DeMunn); his button man, Karl; and the Southern District’s bold up-and-comer Amanda Torre (Hannah Hodson).

or, as i described it to milo in the heat of liveblogging: all of those characters (and wendy!) call chuck a wuss.

Then along comes Winston (Will Roland). A twerpy quant who’s been a core part of the Taylor Mason team for some time, largely in spite of himself, Winston quits the firm and immediately — like, within eight hours — goes into business for himself.

can’t say i expected anything better than this. correction: a core part of the taylor mason team for some time, largely in spite of taylor forgetting he’s alive, let alone that he and his work are valuable, until he quits and starts trying to make money that won’t go to them.

Acting on advice from Wendy (you can see why Dr. Mayer is concerned, no?), Wags storms into Winston’s apartment, where an attempted come-to-Jesus meeting with Taylor and Philip is already underway, and all but attacks the guy.

thanks for pointing out wendy’s role in that, at least.

Unless he comes back to Prince Cap, software in tow, as a sort of indentured servant, Wags will see to it personally that Winston’s reputation and finances are left about as intact as ancient Carthage.

“comes back to prince cap” is interesting phrasing, considering the odds are against us ever seeing him in the prince cap office again.

Watching a good episode of “Billions,” which this undoubtedly is,

not in my house it isn’t!

is like watching someone expertly play a puzzle game — solving a Rubik’s cube, say, or beating a level of “Tetris.” You gaze in admiration as skilled hands slide pieces and panels from one place to the next until everything lines up exactly where it should. Chuck’s friends and enemies inadvertently guide him to the correct course of action. Wendy’s petulance puts her on the path toward a major breakthrough. Winston’s defection provides Wags with the fresh kill he requires.

“the people around chuck help him make the right choice. wendy’s character flaws help her make the right choice. winston is thrown to wags for him to tear apart like a side of beef. these are all comparable and equally indicative of good writing.”

Notably absent from this episode, barring a pointed glance or pained look here and there: Taylor, Wendy and Wags’s quest to stop their boss’s rise to power.

you could have ended that sentence at “taylor” and it would still be accurate.

Perhaps, chastened by Axe’s rejection last week, they’ve taken his “if you can’t beat him, join him” advice to heart, at least temporarily.

if you can’t beat him, beat the guy he wants to sue with hammers!

Before Wags takes charge of the operation, there’s some concern in the Prince Cap inner circle about destroying Winston publicly. Mike is running for president, after all, and America is a very pro-labor environment these days.

really makes you wonder why the last commentary anyone offers on winston is “spread this tale [of his humiliation] far and wide to anyone who will listen.” ?????

Vulture: Billions Recap: Hamster Wheel

It’s pretty hard to beat “Winston Dick Energy,”

haha hard to beat dick energy

Case in point, the best storyline of “Winston Dick Energy” is Wags’s orchestrated humiliation of Winston, his highly inappropriate brand name, and his risk-management software.

😒😒😒😒😒

Classic Billions sabotage and I loved every minute of it, but I don’t see how or if this plot device will affect Mike Prince’s presidential campaign.

on the one hand, it could set up a revenge plot for winston that negatively affects prince and his campaign. on the other hand, it could just be the result of the writers wanting to kick winston around for more than thirty seconds before writing him out and/or give wags someone to destroy, with no payoff intended ever.

On that note, the Wendy storyline this week is relatively straightforward: Ben Kim lets it slip that everyone at Prince Capital is cheating on Dr. Wendy Rhoades with Holland Taylor’s Dr. Eleanor Mayer — and that Mayer is the bee’s knees.

everyone except winston, of course!

And I have to suspect that someone is pulling the strings behind Mayer … (Axe? Prince?)

what??? why would you assume either of them is pulling her strings at this point? (especially axe — there’s no way he bothered to plant a therapist for taylor to consult and then recommend to their coworkers more than six months ago. he was busy war profiteering and not giving a fuck about the united states.)

The next morning, Wags hijacks Winston’s big pitch meeting right before the COOs show up. In front of Kate Sacker, Taylor, and Philip, Wags stages a twisted version of This Is Your Life (an old TV show enjoyed by members of the Greatest Generation), though Winston only has himself to blame for his pathetic internet search history — and his hacktivism.

oh my god! literal victim blaming! i should have put *that* on my season 7 bingo card!

And it’s not like MPC’s deal is that shabby: If Winston cooperates, he can come back and run the software himself.

first of all, he’s not going to come back to mpc in any meaningful sense. second of all, winston’s whole goal was to not have to work for mpc (or anyone else) ever again. being dragged back onto the hamster wheel — even if he isn’t physically in the cage — against his will is, in fact, a shabby deal!

What does work is a late-night intervention at Grant’s Tomb with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. (Ah, Billions — they do this because they can.)

rarely has billions been more aptly and concisely described.

I do like how Billions deliberately avoids any mention of the name “Trump”: Senior’s story only needed the words “Bedminster golf club,” and “his first wife,” to get the point across.

ironically, i didn’t understand that joke at all until first reading this portion of this recap. my bad for not remembering the significance of bedminster golf club, clearly.

Fan Fun with Damian Lewis (Damianista): Billions on Showtime, Season 7 Episode 3: Winston Dick Energy

The first Axe-less episode in the final season has three storylines that are light-hearted compared to those in the first two.

oh, yeah, for sure. so glad we could take our minds off the looming threat of a fascist presidential candidate by watching half a dozen people (some of whom are ostensibly opposed to said presidential candidate) work together to stalk, assault, and blackmail their autistic former coworker because their ringleader desperately wants to RETVRN to the good old days when he could treat anyone he wanted like that. how lighthearted!

Even Rian, who seems to be the only one that will be missing Winston, finds it weird that she will miss her colleague, but then he was the only one that looked at her the same way after they were forced to move to the main floor which Rian calls “Princident.” Haha.

Talking about Rian, I wonder whether Prince put her name on the list he submitted to Bradford in the last episode… but he is now in his office, I find him not attending Winston’s party a bit rude, talking to Bradford about his SuperPAC FEC disclosure that he will share with Chuck.

that is NOT what “princident” refers to, and you should realize that given that you referred to rian’s tryst with prince — the actual meaning of “princident” — in your very next thought.

It turns out WDE is an AI-based risk management software that can give a considerable bump to returns – exactly what Bradford asked Prince to do in their first meeting.

gee whiz! sounds like winston and his work are pretty valuable and prince et al should have tried harder to keep him around!

Wags follows Taylor and Philip, without asking for permission, to Winston’s apartment and adds his “scaring him out of hiding” to carrots (“head of risk management”) and sticks (“a potential lawsuit”) Taylor and Philip use to have Winston surrender the code.

sure used the carrots & sticks analogy myself to describe everyone’s approach to winston this episode. pretty shortsighted of taylor to not realize that offering him another job at mpc would be a pathetic carrot. if he wanted to run his software for you, he’d have stayed and showed it to you, not left and sold it on his own.

I said it before and I will say it again. I do not get why Kate is still on Prince’s side. Is it really the future prospects she has when Prince is in the White House?

that, and the money, and the greater freedom she has when not under chuck’s thumb. she always saw her work at the sdny (and later, the nyag) as a launching pad for her future ambitions, not a calling in itself. that work was holding her back instead, so she left.

I do not buy it since Kate has always been very cautious in every step she has taken. So I cannot wrap my head around her staying with him even after she has found out about his untaxed billions in crypto! Could it be that she is a double agent of sorts?!?!

i highly doubt that she is a double agent at this juncture. (and she stayed with chuck for a long time even knowing he’d engaged in illegal conduct.)

Entertainment Weekly: Billions recap: Chuck and Prince's old rivalry re-emerges

[…]

you guessed it: no mention of taylor at all! normally i’d be mad, but in this case it seems quite appropriate.

The whole plot is wonderful, from Winston's epically tedious and uncaring "going away" party, to the scene where Wags lets loose on him at his apartment, planting a bug that eventually allows Wags and the team to track who Winston plans on pitching and ruin his chances.

wonderful! who wouldn’t be having tons of fun watching everyone’s collective boot stamp on one guy’s face forever!

Still, this is the best episode of the season so far because it does have quite a few entertaining scenes, and a lot of focus on character motivations.

sean and kyle have both expressed this opinion. we may as well be living in different worlds.

Fan Fun with Damian Lewis (Gingersnap): The Unbeatable, Unstoppable, Unparalleled MVPs from Billions Season 7 Episode 3 ‘Winston Dick Energy’

Gingersnap

Overall Episode MVP: Dr. Eleanor Mayer. What a rich character. Small but mighty! It’s that very allure why you don’t see her coming.

Wendy accuses her of rustling up her cattle (patients) but Dr. Mayer counters they weren’t noticeably branded until she dug deeper and found their burns. Ouch!

i took note of that line as well! the exact phrasing:

WENDY: You rustle someone’s cattle, they’re gonna come looking. Was it the welcoming literary patter that helped you snare my patients? DR. MAYER: I didn’t see your brand on them. At first. After talking to them, the burns became more visible.

get her ass, eleanor!

The Scandoval Award – And the winner is….Rian…for giving us a new portmanteau by combining Prince + incident into “Princident” to describe their *ahem* tryst.

at least someone at ffwdl realized what that referred to.

Food for Thought:

Hey Ben Kim, you can’t drink alcohol and take Wellbutrin. Next time lay off the Heineken at farewell parties. Tuk’s on Adderall and Ben’s on Wellbutrin. Is Dr. Eleanor Mayer an over-medicater???

i sure looked up whether or not it’s safe to mix wellbutrin and alcohol myself after this episode. (answer: it’s not advisable, since wellbutrin can reduce your alcohol tolerance, and both of them make seizures more likely. but you might be able to have small amounts of alcohol without it being a problem.) but you’re not supposed to mix mdma and alcohol, either, and somehow prince and rian managed just fine doing that in 6x10. (also, ben hadn’t taken his wellbutrin that day, which was why he approached wendy about it.)

without Getting Into the ethics of psychiatry and psychiatric medication, because i’m not qualified to talk about that: i don’t think “this psychiatrist has at least two patients who are each taking at least one medication” is really grounds to go “is this psychiatrist an over-medicator???” (also, we don’t even know if tuk’s adderall was prescribed or not.)

Lady Trader

[…]

The Most Loyal: When every other Prince Capper has cheated on Wendy with Mayer, Wags makes sure Wendy knows she will always be his “Dr. Mojo”. This is why you want Wags in the trenches with you!

well, wags is probably also the only prince capper that wendy would never screw over for her own benefit, so that’s no surprise.

The “Tell Me You Wrote Your Pitch Presentation with AI, Without Telling Me You Wrote Your Pitch Presentation with AI” Award: Winston. As someone who has read and had to write pitches, that description slide was as Auric Goldfinger once said “words you may have overheard which cannot possibly have any significance to you or your organization”. It said nothing at all. You disappoint me Mr. Winston!

here’s the full text of his pitch, for anyone who wants to judge it by this standard. as for my take on it, well…

The Tired Old Trope Award: “hold the rich and powerful criminality accountable”, trading and earning is an “addiction”, blah, blah, blahdy blah. We get it, the writers hate wealthy people, but I don’t see them doing what they do for free!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. oh, lady trader. you’re never going to figure out who that sign is for, are you?

The “Do Your Research” Award”: Wendy would not have been able to give Ben Kim his prescription for Wellbutrin with a prescription pad – beginning on March 16, 2017 all prescriptions in NYS must be electronic. Also, Philip states that Winston’s risk management software is using ASI for risk mitigation. However ASI doesn’t exist yet. If I’m going to give credit when the writers get it right, well I got to call them when they flub too.

fair enough.

TheTailThatWagsTheDog

[…]

Biggest Absence – Dave? No Dave? Is she out of the picture now that Chuck has his own authority back? I still don’t buy Chuck getting the SDNY position back so easily. Who was occupying that spot before, and what happened to them? Too convenient for me.

i wondered about that as well. her absence in this episode and sacker’s in 7x02, despite both of them being series regulars, is a little concerning. as for chuck’s sdny spot, his quick return frankly was overly convenient, but billions is like that sometimes. and it’s possible that it was occupied by an acting / interim us attorney who wouldn’t have been around indefinitely anyway.

And now my update on the analogies/cultural references …

Worst Analogy Moment – Kate Sacker bringing up Phil Mickelson to Prince. This is exactly the kind of nonsensical reference that they have introduced ad nauseum over the past couple of seasons. It’s there because they want it there, not because it makes any sense. It feels totally out of character for someone like Sacker to bring up a person like Mickelson, and Prince’s response is so obvious. Their writing can be so clever – they have proven this time and time again – and yet they too often fall back on these tired clichés. I wish they would stop.

Most Encouraging Analogy Moment – I did not hear one analogy out of Dr. Mayer. Maybe she’s too old to do them? I don’t know – but it was wonderfully refreshing. I hope she stays clean.

the references have always been there because the writers want them there. they’re entertaining themselves first and foremost.

the first line out of dr. mayer’s mouth was a quote from a room of one’s own, by virginia woolf, and wendy pointed this out twice within the next thirty seconds. did you not notice, or does this not count because it wasn’t in the form of an analogy?

Ending on a Good Note – I love the “three-dimensional game of chess” Chuck is now playing with Prince. That is the fun stuff. I do not know how this is all going to play out, but I am definitely invested – and that is what I want in my shows – keep me aching for more. So more of this intrigue, just less culture please!

highly entertained by someone asking for a tv show to have “less culture please!”

Fan Fun with Damian Lewis (Lady Trader): “From the Trader’s Desk”: Crisis of Confidence?

I was asked why MPC is claiming ownership of Winston’s software. If he developed it how does MPC have the rights to it? Well, the type of risk management software Winston is trying to sell would most certainly take months (if not years) to develop, code, back test, and debug. Which means there is no way he could have developed it overnight. If what Taylor says is correct, (that Winston used data to test his software using MPC trader transactions) then that also would make it property of MPC. By using data and equipment owned by MPC, legally Winston doesn’t own it. Could a court possibly rule that he co-owns it? Yes. Also, most funds would have a clause written in his contract that he would not be able to market any type of software for a stated period (usually 6-9 months). His best course of action would have been to offer it to MPC first to either buy him out or lease the program. If they passed, he then could have tried to get permission from MPC to market it to other firms. Just another example of unnecessary greed killing a golden goose.

lengthy, yes, but this is a helpful clarification on the (il)legality of winston selling his risk management software on his own. until the last sentence, which i’m guessing is referring to winston’s greed rather than mpc’s greed. can you perhaps think of any other reasons why winston would have wanted to sell his software on his own rather than via mpc? perhaps something he said outright, such as “i’m done working for other people”? take your time! i’m here all week!

It was good to see Wags, Wendy and Chuck get their belief in themselves back, all in different ways.

can’t say i agree!

Winston agrees let MPC license a watered-down version of the software to other firms, and Winston is a Prince Capper again, as Taylor will let him run it.

again, winston is not A Prince Capper Again in any meaningful sense, and it wouldn’t automatically be a good thing if he were!

Out of the three characters who are having confidence issues this week, Wendy would be the last person I would think would have any issues. It was very surprising to me to see her going on this journey, and she has always been the glue that held everything and everyone together.

skill issue.

I could understand why maybe Taylor would see someone else (Wendy did burn her pretty good with Taylor’s Dad back in S4E7) but the rest of the gang is shocking. They all see her as just a performance coach who only cares about results, and not a therapist they can talk to about anything. Wendy is wounded by their words.

have you seen the way wendy’s treated ben and tuk and rian in the past? it’s not at all surprising that they’d go to another therapist. and sacker and philip haven’t known wendy long enough to have any reason to trust her, especially after reading the draft of her book. the only one i’m at all surprised by is dollar bill.

But Mayer doesn’t think they do the same thing. And this is where Mayer loses me. She basically says that Wendy’s just a dealer keeping her addicted patients “on the hamster wheel”. What complete and utter bullshit. It can’t be that these people like what they do? It can’t be that they enjoy the feeling of being alive doing what they are good at?

THAT IS THE POINT. THAT’S THE QUESTION BEING ASKED. wendy and dr. mayer have different opinions about the reasons that the prince cappers do what they do! are you always this affronted when someone suggests that maybe working at a hedge fund isn’t the greatest job in the world? hell, have you registered any of the misery that these characters have experienced as a direct or indirect result of the work they do?

This doctor wants Wendy to free her patients, but I ask from what? You can want to improve yourself (and go see Mayer) but at the same time enjoy what you do and want to be the best at it (and see Wendy). I don’t see it as an either/or situation.

i put years of hard work into getting my capitalism degree at capitalism college & now everyones like “oh capitalisms bad”,“its ineffective” fuck off

I’m just afraid this “doctor” is going to mess with Wendy’s head. And a sharp and focused Wendy is what’s needed for Axe later in the season.

what’s needed *for axe*??? do you think she exists just to serve him??? in this of all seasons???

#billions #7x03 #review roundup

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takeariskao3 · 9 months

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I can’t believe you answered to John Mayer and not Celine. Hannah where do your priorities lie?

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES ANY OF THESE FICTIONAL WIZARDS KNOW THE MEME POTENTIAL OF CELINE DION

next time send cestelena warebeck

#do you want in character or out of character #HUB #anon #answered

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godshippies · 6 months

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List of the Living

Sister Arianna Abdul

Sister Tiara Alysse

Sister Courtney Antalek

Sister Diana Avel

Sister Loren Beech

Sister Madison Beer

Sister Renee Bellerive

Brother Andre Benjamin

Sister Luciana Beraj

Sister Hailey Bieber

Brother Justin Bieber

Sister Rowan Blanchard

Sister Lindsay Brewer

Sister Phoebe Broadhead

Sister Victoria Brono

Sister Alla Bruletova

Sister Alissa Butler

Sister Deva Cassel

Sister Frida Chiabra

Sister Zendaya Coleman

Sister Paola Cossentino

Sister Heather Crockett

Sister Lily Crosland

Sister Miley Cyrus

Sister Ash Daniels

Sister Angelina Dimova

Sister Amala Dlamini

Sister Olivia Dunne

Sister Calystabelle Erickson

Sister Robyn Fenty

Sister Megan Fox

Sister Madelyn Francesca

Sister Kaia Gerber

Sister Neelam Gill

Sister Selena Gomez

Sister Ariana Grande

Sister Kristina Gulina

Sister Bella Hadid

Sister Melanie Hamrick

Sister Morgan Hart

Sister Eve Helling

Sister Paris Hilton

Sister Sarah Holden

Sister Davika Hoorne

Brother Tyler Hubbard

Sister Olivia Jade

Brother Deveraux Jagger

Brother Michael Jagger

Sister Shyla Jah

Sister Kendall Jenner

Brother Joe Jonas

Brother Nick Jonas

Sister Maria Kalinina

Sister Than Kambridge

Sister Elizabeth Kapran

Sister Kimberly Kardashian

Brother Brian Kelley

Brother Khaled Khaled

Sister Cindy Kimberly

Sister Beyonce Knowles-Carter

Sister Veronika Kostei

Sister Bec Lauder

Sister Avril Lavigne

Sister Sophia Levi

Sister Alisa Levina

Sister Margaret Lindemann

Sister Dua Lipa

Sister Jennifer Lopez

Sister Nazanin Mandi

Sister Carolina Marie

Sister Karina Marikova

Sister Lucy Markovic

Sister Julia Mas

Sister Stella Maxwell

Sister Clarissa May

Brother Rakim Mayers

Sister Gracie McKenna

Sister Jessie Mesa

Sister Kang Min

Sister Eva Mosevich

Sister Jasmin Murabet

Sister Inna Nord

Sister Billie O’Connell

Sister Gabby O’Reilly

Sister Jenna Ortega

Sister Avery Ovard

Sister Hannah Palmer

Sister Ananya Panday

Brother Antwan Patton

Sister Anastasia Pellegrino

Brother Miguel Pimentel

Sister Lani Pliopa

Brother Chris Pratt

Sister Mailani Romo

Sister Valeria Shashenok

Sister Kieran Shipka

Sister Emilia Silberg

Sister Blanca Soler

Sister Amanda Steele

Sister Taylor Swift

Sister Tabitha Templer

Brother Abel Tesfaye

Sister Bella Thorne

Sister Carrie Underwood

Brother Keith Urban

Sister Olivia Wardlow

Brother Brian Warner

Sister Daniela Washington

Sister Minna Weber

Sister Asya Yavuzecetin

Sister Sab Zada

Sister Madison Ziegler

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mvmvmvmvmvmvmvmvmvmvmv · 11 months

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The Baroness of Jazz

By Barry Singer

Oct. 17, 2008

IF the mysterious Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter is at all remembered today, it is for her proximity to the deaths of two legendary jazz musicians. In 1955 Charlie Parker died on a sofa in her Fifth Avenue home; 27 years later Thelonious Monk died after secluding himself for years in her New Jersey house.

Both deaths made the baroness an immediate target of tabloid headlines and a long-term subject for scurrilous gossip. Almost no one, though, beyond the insular jazz world, could possibly know her whole story: how, until her death in 1988, she championed jazz as both a friend and a generous, if rather unlikely, benefactor.

A Rothschild heiress, she offered her home to countless jazzmen as a place to work and even live, while quietly paying their bills when they couldn’t find work. She chauffeured them to gigs around New York, toured with them as a kind of racial chaperon, and was even known to confront anyone she felt was taking advantage of her friends because they were black.

“I always likened her to the great royal patrons of Mozart or Wagner’s day,” the saxophonist Sonny Rollins said in a telephone interview. “Yet she never put the spotlight on herself. I try not to talk publicly about people I knew in jazz. But I have to say something about the baroness. She really loved our music.”

The baroness first materialized in New York jazz clubs in the early 1950s like some film noir siren, right down to the raven hair and long cigarette holder. She seduced the music’s greatest figures with her friendship, the revolutionists of the bebop era: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and many others. Her illustrious family has long refused to discuss her. But now a new book, “Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats” (Abrams Image), offers a window into her personal life, providing details even her jazz intimates were probably unaware of.

The book is primarily a collection of candid photographs of the musicians taken by the baroness, and a compilation of their varied responses to a favorite question: “What are your three wishes?” On Oct. 30 an exhibition of her original notebooks collecting these snapshots and wish lists will open at the Gallery at Hermès in New York.

“Three Wishes” arrives with the implicit sanction of the Rothschild family, including a six-page introduction by a granddaughter, Nadine de Koenigswarter. The book offers more concrete information about the baroness than has ever before appeared between covers. But the source of her extraordinarily deep bond with jazz musicians remains elusive.

She was born, her granddaughter writes, in London on Dec. 10, 1913. Her full name was Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild, according to her 1935 wedding announcement in The New York Times. She was the granddaughter of Nathan Mayer, the first Lord Rothschild, and the great-granddaughter of Mayer Amschel, the Rothschild patriarch who, from the Frankfurt ghetto, orchestrated his family’s rise. Her father was Nathaniel Charles Rothschild, a partner in the family bank, whose greater passion was entomology, a hobby at which he was both gifted and exceedingly accomplished. According to a great-niece, Hannah Rothschild, who is completing a documentary about her for the BBC, the baroness’s father was plagued by clinical depression that sometimes led the family to hospitalize him. He killed himself in 1923, at 46.

Nica Rothschild, as she was known, became an aviation enthusiast and an accomplished pilot. At 21 she met a kindred spirit at Le Touquet airfield in France. Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, 31, was a French mining engineer, banker and pilot. He was also a widower with a young son, and like Nica, he was Jewish. The baron quickly proposed after just three months; her response was flight to New York. They were married at City Hall in October 1935.

The couple took up residence in Abondant, a 17th-century chateau not far from Normandy. Their first-born child, Patrick de Koenigswarter, recalled in May in an interview published in The National, an Abu Dhabi newspaper, that when the Nazis invaded France, the baron, a lieutenant in the reserves, was called up. His father “left my mother a map, with instructions: If the Germans get to this point, take the children and escape any way you can to your family in England.” Shortly thereafter, his mother did, accompanied by a nanny and a maid, on what proved to be the last train out of Paris. The baron’s mother dismissed her son’s entreaties and instructions. She died at Auschwitz.

The baron joined de Gaulle’s Free French forces and was assigned to the Congo. At his instigation his wife next moved their two children to the United States, placing Patrick de Koenigswarter and his younger sister, Janka, with the Guggenheim family on Long Island. The baroness then somehow rejoined her husband in Africa with the Free French, serving in various capacities including ambulance driver and ending the war as a decorated lieutenant.

One little-known wartime detail lends a different sense to her later arrival in the New York jazz world. Her husband’s extended family, as well as her Hungarian-born mother’s, were nearly all killed in the Holocaust. The baroness’s adoption of New York’s predominantly black jazz family in the war’s aftermath thus seems less the act of a louche dilettante than of a survivor bent on resurrection and rebirth.

“I believe that she could no longer live in any ivory tower after what she saw in the war,” Hannah Rothschild said in a telephone interview. “Privilege offered no protection. The fate of her own mother-in-law proved that. She had experienced the very depths of prejudice herself firsthand.”

The baron entered the French diplomatic service after the war, settling his wife and children first in Norway and then in Mexico. “My father was a very controlling person,” Patrick de Koenigswarter said. “He was adamant about punctuality, while Nica was notorious for being late. She missed appointments, sometimes by days.” He continued, “It didn’t help that my father had no particular interest in the subjects that fascinated her: art and music.”

The baroness always credited her brother, Victor, a jazz fan and amateur pianist who studied with Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson, with introducing her to jazz. Shortly before her death, though, she revealed in a rare interview for the Monk documentary "Straight, No Chaser" the moment when her interest in jazz music escalated into something more.

“I was in the throes of the diplomatic life in Mexico,” she remembered of the years 1949 to 1952, “and I had a friend who got hold of records for me. I used to go to his pad to hear them. I couldn’t have listened to them in my own house, with that atmosphere. I heard them and really got the message. I belonged where that music was. This was something I was supposed to be involved in in some way. It wasn’t long afterwards that I cut out.”

It is well known in jazz circles that the great project of the baroness’s life was the torturously unstable Monk, whom she served as a surrogate wife right alongside Monk’s equally devoted actual wife, Nellie. The baroness paid Monk’s bills, dragged him to an endless array of doctors, put him and his family up in her own home and, when necessary, helped Nellie institutionalize him. In 1958 Monk and the baroness were stopped by the police in Delaware. When a small amount of marijuana was discovered, she took the rap for her friend and even served a few nights in jail.

People have always asked why. What drew her to him so intensely? Was it sex, drugs or groupie-esque infatuation? Clearly her steadfast devotion to Monk’s music propelled their relationship, which both maintained was platonic. In light of her father’s history, though, it seems possible that the underlying bond was love and childhood loss. In Monk, she may have been drawn to the same anguished brilliance that had consumed her father, whom she could not save.

he introduction to “Three Wishes” still leaves unanswered many questions that pursued the baroness throughout her life. Did she abandon her children in her headlong embrace of the jazz life, or were they taken from her? Did she enable addiction in the musicians she loved? Did she buy them drugs? Did she use drugs herself?

These questions once loomed large in her mystique. As her back story deepens, however, their sense of enormity recedes. The baron divorced his wife in 1956 after the scandalous publicity surrounding Charlie Parker’s death in her home. Shaun de Koenigswarter, the couple’s youngest son, recently confirmed that the baron also got custody of the three younger children, Berit (born in 1946), Kari (1950) and himself (1948). “I am the only child who never lived with my mother after she settled in New York in 1953,” he said in an e-mail message, adding that his four siblings lived with her during different periods.

That the baroness in fact lost custody of her three youngest children as a consequence of her love of jazz further illuminates the maternal quality of her presence on the scene. Is it any wonder that she clung to her musicians like family?

“She realized that jazz needed any kind of help it could get,” Mr. Rollins said, “especially the musicians. She was monetarily helpful to a lot who were struggling. But more than that, she was with us. By being with the baroness, we could go places and feel like human beings. It certainly made us feel good. I don’t know how you could measure it. But it was a palpable thing. I think she was a heroic woman.”

It has taken the actual family she left behind a long time to arrive at a similar conclusion. “Not all members of our family were enthused about the life she chose to lead (especially our father!),” Shaun de Koenigswarter wrote. “But over the years, many of those who had initially disapproved particularly in light of the many viciously biased and racist press reports about her came to understand and appreciate what she was all about.”

The saxophonist Sonny Rollins, photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter.

Thelonious Monk was among the many jazz musicians befriended (and photographed) by Pannonica de Koenigswarter, right.

Thelonious Monk by Pannonica De Koenigswarter

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