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isitthemoon · 1 year ago

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✧ Musical Thoughts & Opinions ✧

Discography Review - Red Velvet

This post involves me stating my personal opinions and thoughts while listening to the artist's discography, separated by era/release and pointing out my favorite song from each release. At the end of each section I'll give a score based on my enjoyment of the release as a whole, as well as a final score for the entire discography.

This is not an introduction to the artist, these are just my opinions posted on the internet for fun and should not be taken seriously.

Disclaimers and Rating System

Red Velvet Edition: official korean and japanese discographies are included.

Sub-Unit Contents, Solo Releases, OSTs and Special Singles are not included.

SM Stations are also not included.

Word Count: 3779,

Originally posted on 17/11/23 in a sideblog.

A Bit About Me:

Something I do regarding kpop songs, mini albums and full albums is that I mostly listen to title tracks only. I follow about 200 kpop artists (including groups, sub units and soloists) give or take, so I limit myself to the title tracks so it's easier to check out their releases.

Still, I want to listen to all of their discographies, hence why I made this series.

My History With Red Velvet:

Red Velvet was actually one of the first kpop groups I ever listened to back in 2016, when my friend first recommended "kpop" to me (she gave me a list with boy groups and one with girl groups, I chose Red Velvet and Seventeen, so she sent me some of their songs). Their first song I listened to was Dumb Dumb but at the time they had already released Russian Roulette.

I only went out of my way to learn more about them a few months later and I found out Wendy and I actually have the same birthday ^^ I already loved her voice so that was the cherry on top for me, so she's been my bias ever since.

This is not at all my first listen of their discography, I listened to all their songs back in 2017 with the release of Red Flavor and then kept up to date with their new comebacks. I just wanted to revisit it because there were still a lot of songs I wasn't familiar with and because they just released their 3rd Full Album - Chill Kill - after 6 years, so I wanted to do this in honor of the successor of Perfect Velvet 🤭.

If you've followed me for a while you will know that I've been jumping and screaming and fangirling (gender neutral) about this album and how Red Velvet is one of my favorite groups of all time. So, yeah. This post comes with a ✨️ favoritism warning ✨️.

This also turned into an excuse for me to fangirl (gender neutral) about Red Velvet. Enjoy ^^

Happiness

Now, Red Velvet doesn't have many singles in their official discography (counting their korean releases they only have Happiness and Be Natural), which I think is for the best. Of course releasing multiple singles is more of a recent thing with 4th gen and the streaming era, but I personally think Red Velvet benefits way more with longer releases.

Happiness as a debut single is a solid choice and became a staple (at least in my opinion) when talking about debuts. I think it's a great display of their 'Red' side and introduction to the group. Which other group could pull off the "Shine On Me" bridge just as good? I really like the song because of the "fullness" of the sound, you can hear and feel the amount of layers and it doesn't feel like there's an empty space (which is my preference over all, though of course there are great songs out there with the minimalist and 'empty' sound).

The melody is nice, the chorus is catchy, the rap is good AND this is a socialist anthem.

》 ☆☆☆☆ (Four Stars)

Be Natural

An interesting SM tradition is giving their girl groups (at least starting with f(x)) a remake song for their first comeback. I'll say that most times it's not really a successfull strategy, but for Red Velvet it really worked out. As the predecessor of Automatic, Be Natural is a great introduction to their 'Velvet' side. This song choice was basically perfect, plus it gave us "Boomin' system, uh uh, TY track, TY track".

》 ☆☆☆☆ (Four Stars)

Ice Cream Cake

It's not common to add a new member to your group, and it definitely wasn't common back in 2015. Still, I truly believe Yeri was the best thing that happened to the group as a team and as a family. Besides the min heejin (*exhasperated sigh*) thing, I also think it was a good introduction.

Now, this mini album isn't my personal favorite, but I think it was what stablished the 'Red Velvet Sound' and gave us their blueprint and *really* introduced Red Velvet to the industry. I love the arrangement choices and sounds used here and my favorite song is Something Kinda Crazy. Over all, great 1st mini album.

》 ☆☆☆ (Three Stars)

The Red

Now, here's something I wish more groups did: it's not for everyone to release their first FULL album within one year of debut, and thank god they did. It really is the pinacle of 'The Red' side, and all the songs are SO fun. It has a very light (as in laidback) sound but very heavy and hard-hitting sounds (especially with the use of bass and backing vocals, as in Time Slip). I LOVE the production choices and the sounds they used - early Itzy definitely took some inspiration from here. My favorite song is Red Dress, and it's definitely one of my favorites from their entire discography.

》 ☆☆☆☆ (Four Stars)

The Velvet

Honestly... when I first listened to this EP a few years ago I didn't give it much thought... but holy shit I do not know what happened now. This mini album (which SHOULD'VE BEEN A FULL ALBUM) is SO cohesive. With 4 original songs, 1 remake (I think) and 3 remixes, SM really encaptured the 'Velvet' sound and made a masterpiece. This really blew me away. These songs are so good, but above all, SO well put together. I'll definitely come back to these songs more frequently now that I revisited them.

I just can't explain what happened, I just now that this mini album has that magic sauce, the flavor, the spice to do what it has to do, and what it did was slay in a ballad way. My favorite song from here is probably Light Me Up, but First Time is a close second (no pun intended). This was such a suprise to me that I never would've expected to put our first 5-star-rating here.

Also, fun fact: this is their first title track where they sing separately and don't share a chorus.

》 ☆☆☆☆☆ (Five Stars)

Russian Roulette

Okay... I think for me, in every discography there's always a mini album that I think it's cool but I just don't vibe with it, and Russian Roulette is that for me. I like most of the songs (and it's REALLY hard for me to actually dislike a song) but I really didn't vibe with it. It didn't catch my attention and I almost gave it two stars.

My problem with this release is that it didn't expand on anything, it didn't explore anything from Red Velvet's discography, and dare I say, it's a bit generic in a few (2? I guess) songs. Still, I can't deny it's well put together and I still like most of the songs. My favorites are Some Love and Bad Dracula, and I have a lot of fun when listening to them. Still, it's not enough to give it 4 stars, but it did raise them to 3.

》 ☆☆☆ (Three Stars)

Rookie

When I first listened to Rookie (the song), I didn't like the chorus that much because of the repeating rookierookiemysuperrookierookierookie. But, god, that chorus instrumental is so fun. As a mini album, I think four out of six songs are GREAT together. Of course this release gave us Body Talk, known as the first b-side crowned by fans as The Best Red Velvet B-Side, but it doesn't really fit this concept, even if it's my favorite song from here. Same goes for Last Love: I don't think giving Wendy a solo plus a ballad one was the best idea.

Still, I enjoy the first four songs way too much to give it a lower score, they fit too well. Also Talk To Me is the introduction of my LYRE girls to the kpop industry ^^.

》 ☆☆☆☆ (Four Stars)

The Red Summer

I don't really think I have bad things to say about this mini album. I enjoy all songs individually AND as a collective. This was also their first release that I listened to fully, and in a way it solidified Red Velvet as one of my favorite artists. I don't have much to say about it besides that it slays (in a fresh and summery way). My favorite song is Mojito.

》 ☆☆☆☆ (Four Stars)

Perfect Velvet

.............. do I even have to say anything?? Yes I do because most people don't know how in love I am with this album.

I love everything about this album (except the packaging, maybe): the songs, the concept, the mv, the photos, the story, the sound, the genres, the outfits, absolutely everything. It really is PERFECT Velvet. This album is forever my favorite, it's literally a core memory for me. I don't know what else to say.

ALSO MY USERNAME LITERALLY CAME FROM THIS ALBUM!!!! MOONLIGHT MELODY IS MY BELOVED.

I only have compliments. I personally can't choose my favorite song from here, but I do have a personal history with I Just. I've experienced the song's lyrics more than once in my life and this song always finds a way to remain relevant in my life, so yeah.

As a final thought: Talented, Brilliant, Incredible, Amazing, Showstopping, Spectacular, Never The Same, Totally Unique, Completely Not Ever Been Done Before, Unafraid To Reference Or Not Reference, Put It In A Blender, Shit On It, Vomit On It, Eat It, Give Birth To It.

》 ☆☆☆☆☆ (Five Stars) + 🌙 (Moon Badge)

The Perfect Red Velvet

So far the first and only repackage by Red Velvet, I don't think it really lived up to its name. Of course, this is biased because it's my own post, and I personally think this wasn't necessary. We only have 3 new songs, and I get the concept of repackages, but I think I'd have them release All Right and Time To Love with the standard album and then release Bad Boy either as a pre-release single. This repackage doesn't add anything to me since I love Perfect Velvet as it is, even if I think the songs fit with the concept and I love Time To Love.

》 ☆☆☆ (Three Stars)

#CookieJar

#CookieJar was first released as a single, with the EP adding 2 more original songs, which are the ones I listened to.

If it was just the title track, I'd rate it 5 stars because I just love the song. It rules, it's interesting and it's so fun and catchy. However, as a mini album, it didn't really captivate me that much. Again, with only 3 original songs (including the title track which was previously released) it doesn't add that much to their discography. I think it's nice, sure, but I don't see myself coming back to the other songs.

》 ☆☆☆ (Three Stars)

Summer Magic

I feel like I like this mini album a bit more than I even realise... even if I don't come back to these songs that often. These are the kind of songs that even if I take forever to listen to them again, I always enjoy my time with them. All the songs work great together, it really feels like a summer magic party. My favorite song is probably With You, since I'm a sucker for anything that resembles a steel drum.

Plus it gave us the english version of Bad Boy (even if I don't like english versions a lot) and the line "I'm making you fall to your knees".

》 ☆☆☆☆ (Four Stars)

RBB

This release is so.... I don't even know if Camp is the right word, but it's just so glittery and sassy and confident and the perfect aesthetic of "girly horror" and fun. I love this so much, this is giving cunt, it's giving cohesion, it's serving so much. All the songs are great on their own and when together it's just an explosion of girly pop in an elegant and dark way. Some of my favorite Red Velvet b-sides are here and my #1 spot from this release goes to So Good. It really is SO good. Plus, I really like the overall fashion aesthetic of the era.

This mini album deserves all the best, not any less.

》 ☆☆☆☆☆ (Five Stars)

Sappy

Now, being a japanese release AND a single, I don't really have much to say about the song. It's nice, but I don't think it lives up to the title of 'successor of #CookieJar'. It didn't catch my attention, and for that reason it won't get rated higher. Plus this section only gets a paragraph. That's how uninteresting this is to me, even if I won't skip the song when it comes on shuffle.

》 ☆☆ (Two Stars)

The ReVe Festival - Day 1

As a general spoiler, I think most of the ReVe Festival editions will get similar scores, and I don't think that's a bad thing. Each release shows a new side of this never ending festival and is consistent with its contents. Being the opening act, I think they went ALL OUT.

It's a summer release but it doesn't feel like a "fresh" summer, instead it brings out the heat and the sweat when you're having too much fun. My favorite song used to be Sunny Side Up, but after revisiting this EP as a whole, I'm starting to like Parade more.

However... none of the songs could quite catch my eye like she did...

Zimzalabim is everything I could've asked for. I loved this song from the first time I listened to the MV teaser. I waited for it jumping up and down since day 0. I love how crazy everything is, I love the contrast the chorus brings and the chanting of "zimzalabim" is the perfect thing to show a spell being cast. I knew it would be a banger. I love this song so much that it earned this mini album a Moon Badge.

Now, I know some people don't like this song for the same reasons I love it, and for being too much or too weird. But see, I have this thing. I'd very much rather talk about a song that is "horrible" and "so bad" for being experimental and INTERESTING than just listen to a plain generic song because it's "good" and "not bad". I don't think I truly hate any song, and even if I truly dislike a song (example: Kick It by NCT 127) I could never hate it, I still respect it. So yeah.

If it was just Zimzalabim, this release would receive 5 stars, but as whole, I'm afraid it didn't reach the potential I was looking for. Still, I really enjoy all the songs.

》 ☆☆☆☆ (Four Stars) + 🌙 (Moon Badge)

The ReVe Festival - Day 2

If Day 1 is the hot and sweaty kind of summer, this is the fresh and chill one. This mini album makes me think of relaxing by the pool in the morning, breeze on your face. It's giving High School Musical 2 realness and for me, this means they nailed the summer vibe. Maybe I do have a weakness/soft spot for summer concepts.

All in all, a great release, even if it's the ReVe Festival rendition that receives the least amount of attention. Which is a shame, since it has Love Is The Way.

》 ☆☆☆☆ (Four Stars)

The ReVe Festival Finale

I think this release has two downsides for me. First one is, unfortunately, the Wendy accident. It really impacted this era as a whole for me, which is... well, sad. I can't remember this release without thinking back on how Wendy fell from a height of basically 3 whole ass meters just because SBS Staff were fucking around. It makes my blood boil (FUCK SBS).

The second downside is that it has 2 songs less than its Festival counterparts, which is a shame. Still, there's a saying in portuguese that goes "not all are flowers" in the sense that every situation has its downsides. In this case, I'll say "not all are thorns", because there are great thinks to take from here.

With its 4 original songs, it gives the ReVe Festival a perfect ending. It really lives up to the 'Finale' title (not considering the 2022 batch), and all songs are bops. Like, come on. Psycho?? In&Out?? Remember Forever?? La Rouge?? They all serve, your honor. They go so well with the concept, and for me Remember Forever really captures the spirit of this era, especially in the lyrics. Like, seriously.

This release didn't quite reach my requirements for 5 stars, but it did receive a Moon Badge, which you can argue that is better, considering my rating system.

》 ☆☆☆☆ (Four Stars) + 🌙 (Moon Badge)

Queendom

Unfortunately, this era falls into a kind of a tough spot: it is the middle point between Psycho and Feel My Rhythm. I do like all the songs, my favorites being Pushin' N Pullin' and Knock On Wood, but for the era that marked the Wendy comeback, I think it falls a bit behind as a whole. It's not interesting enough for me to rate it any higher, even if I think it's a cohesive (I really like this word) release. Also, again, like Day 2, it doesn't receive the same attention as its predecessor AND successor. It doesn't reach the same standard, and for that reason I can't like it any more than I already do.

As a final thought: this marks their second title track where they don't share the chorus.

》 ☆☆☆ (Three Stars)

The ReVe Festival 2022 - Feel My Rhythm

Now, I'll bet that no one was expecting a ReVe Festival in 2022. Was it necessary? Hm... I don't think so. This mini album can hold its own really well - it has the classiness, the weirdness, the magical and the arcadeism vibes all at once - and we didn't need it to be part of A Whole. Still, if you're gonna bring your own concept back, this is how you do it well. The use of Air on G String was the best decision they could've made and, for me, it really payed off.

I think the only song from here that I truly don't like is Bad, Good And Ugly. Which is interesting, because I also didn't like Rainbow Halo when it first came out. My favorite songs are In My Dreams with an honorable mention for Bamboleo.

》 ☆☆☆☆ (Four Stars)

Bloom

As a japanese release, I don't really give that much attention to it, since I'm not captivaded by them in general. Not every song can be #CookieJar or Falling Flower (by Seventeen). With seven original songs, my favorites are Marionette and Swimming Pool, but I don't have anything else to say about it. It's nice, but that's about it.

》 ☆☆☆ (Three Stars)

The ReVe Festival 2022 - Birthday

No one was expecting the ReVe Festival in 2022, so what did SM do? They gave us TWO parts of this neverending festival last year. Why? I have no idea. Did it HAVE to be part of the ReVe Festival? Well... for this release, I think it did. Now, what's funny is that Birthday is definitely NOT my favorite title track from Red Velvet, but this mini album captivated me SO much... I don't know what they put in it, but all the songs are so fun to listen to - I love the direction they chose for this. I wouldn't call the songs "fun" as a concept, Bye Bye and Zoom (my favorite song from this era) are more hard hitting, but they work really well.

Did we need yet another ReVe Festival? No, we didn't. Am I gonna give it five stars anyway? Yes, I will.

》 ☆☆☆☆☆ (Five Stars)

Chill Kill

................. I'm gonna try and keep this short and simple: Talented, Brilliant, Incredible, Amazing, Showstopping, Spectacular, Never The Same, Totally Unique, Completely Not Ever Been Done Before, Unafraid To Reference Or Not Reference, Put It In A Blender, Shit On It, Vomit On It, Eat It, Give Birth To It.

No, like, really. I could cry just thinking about this album. The successor of Perfect Velvet is FINALLY here. After 6 whole years, this is really all I could ask for. After so many 'Red' releases, we finally have more of their 'Velvet' side. I don't know what else to say. This sounds like nothing they did before. It's creepy, it's fun to listen to, It's classy, it's velvety, it's full, it's perfectly Red Velvet. I love this so much. My favorite song is Nightmare and I swear I could cry while listening to this song. It hits in all the right melancholic spots.

As for the title track, I did think the chorus brought a weird texture compared to the verse, but when the second verse hit, it just hit me so much harder because of the ""brightness"" of the chorus. This is the first time I'm saying this on this post, but it stays true to all the songs that apply: MY GIRL KENZIE NEVER DISAPPOINTS!!!!!

Five stars. Moon Badge. Song of the Year. Album of the Year. All the Awards. All the Compliments.

As a closing thought: this is their THIRD title track where they don't share the chorus (aka have individual parts), which is something I truly wasn't expecting.

》 ☆☆☆☆☆ (Five Stars) + 🌙 (Moon Badge)

Final Scoring

Now... I think this discography deserves nothing less than the highest rating. It was one of the first groups I ever listened to, one of the first discographies I listened to as a whole and the first group that became my favorite. Red Velvet's songs have a place in my heart that won't leave, and too much relevance in my real life that I just can't ignore. I already love most of the songs, so when you consider the ones I have as 'my favorite' songs, there's no way I'd rate this any less.

For being one of my favorite discographies and for getting me through the toughest parts of my life, the Moon Badge was well earned.

》 ☆☆☆☆☆ (Five Stars) + 🌙 (Moon Badge)

Final Thoughts

If you choose to visit (or revisit) Red Velvet's songs, I promise that you won't be disappointed. They have a diverse discography and are known for their awesome b-sides FOR A REASON!!! Even if their style is not your style, I think it's worth it at least to expose yourself to different concepts.

Also, I'm happy to say that, with the help of my friends' suggestions, I already chose the next 3 artists that will receive a Discography Review. In order: Enhypen, Seventeen and Stray Kids. I also won't discard the option to talk about separate releases as separate posts, so do keep an eye out for that.

Until the next post and happy listening 💜✨️

~ Gio🌙

#🌙 gio talks #🌙 mto #🌙 discography review #red velvet

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geezerwench · 11 months ago

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What the hell did you expect me to do?

You told me to love my neighbors, to model the life of Jesus. To be kind and considerate, and to stand up for the bullied.

You told me to love people, consider others as more important than myself. "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight." We sang it together, pressing the volume pedal and leaning our hearts into the chorus.

You told me to love my enemies, to even do good to those who wish for bad things. You told me to never "hate" anyone and to always find ways to encourage people.

You told me it's better to give than receive, to be last instead of first. You told me that money doesn't bring happiness and can even lead to evil, but taking care of the needs of others brings great joy and life to the soul.

You told me that Jesus looks at what I do for the least-of-these as the true depth of my faith. You told me to focus on my own sin instead of trying to police it in others. You told me to be accepting and forgiving.

I paid attention.

I took every lesson.

And I did what you told me.

But now, you call me a libtard. A queer-lover.

You call me "woke." A backslider.

You call me a heretic. A child of the devil.

You call me a false prophet. A reprobate leading people to gates of hell.

You call me soft. A snowflake. A socialist.

What the hell did you expect me to do?

You passed out the "WWJD" bracelets.

I took it to heart.

I thought you were serious, apparently not.

We were once friends. But now, the lines have been drawn. You hate nearly all the people I love. You stand against nearly all the things I stand for. I'm trying to see a way forward, but it's hard when I survey all the hurt, harm, and darkness that comes in the wake of your beliefs and presence.

What the hell did you expect me to do?

I believed it all the way.

I'm still believing it all the way.

Which leaves me wondering, what happened to you?

Grace is brave. Be brave.

By Chris Kratzer

#be brave #religion #religious #jesus loves the little children

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hedrigal · 1 year ago

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I have a very mixed opinion on Billy braggs version of the internationale. On the one hand, many of his additions are welcome and highlight things unstated in the original. On the other hand though, I think he does blunt the edges of the song in ways that I think dramatically undermine the whole point.

His version dramatically pairs down the length of the song, containing half as many verses as the original. Among the things removed are all of the direct acknowledgements that the revolution being called for by the song is socialist. The only allusions to that content from Bragg is the line "those who have taken, now they must give". Which can be understood as "expropriate the expropriators", but I think just as easily if not more easily can be read as "tax the rich". Otherwise it is an odd silence to feature in a song that has always been considered the anthem of socialist revolution.

I also think some of his lyrical choices undermine the internationalist side of the song. "the Internationale unites the world in song" and "the international ideal unites the human race" are significant steps down from "The International will become the Human Race". The vanity of nations should be ended, but not necessarily nations themselves. I won't pretend that the original end of the chorus isn't itself very vague, and isnt poisoned by the hypocrisy of the 4th of August. I do however think that it's a mistake with his additions of direct anti racist and anti colonial lines to then change from a statement on how the world will be organized into a statement on how people will view the world.

These combine in my view to create a song that feels like it's capitulating to the end of history viewpoint that was inescapable back then. Which dates the song in a much more damaging way than the original, in spite of the original also being so thoroughly of its time and place.

For my part though I also think the perfect English language version of the International already exists. It's just that it's Solidarity Forever, which captures the spirit of the original perfectly even though it is also just a completely different song.

Would you say that the message of L'Internationale is softened somewhat when translated from French to English (thinking of Billy Bragg's version specifically)? Most English versions are short and are more generic calls to unite for change, while the original French version is over six minutes long and is more explicitly a call for revolution by the working class, specifically calling out various oppressors and in one verse calls for soldiers to mutiny.

Good question!

youtube

I would certainly agree that the original French lyrics go hard- "Arise, wretched of the earth/Arise, convicts of hunger/Reason thunders in its volcano" is pretty hard to beat. However, it's also a very distinctively 19th century French political statement - it's very anti-clerical ("Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes"), there are pointed references to Napoleon and the "droit au travail" and the concept of "égalité" and the argument of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen that rights and obligations come hand-in-hand, it's a bit more anarchist/syndicalist in its description of the state (which was always a bit embarrassing to the more statist socialist groups), and so forth.

Thus, it has always required translation into not just other languages but other political idioms; notably, the Soviet translation changed the tense of most of the lyrics from the future to the present to emphasize that the Revolution was a reality already achieved rather than in the offing.

Billy Bragg's version is a consciously post-Soviet socialist anthem. It's explicitly anti-racist (say what you like about the original version, but it is very class>race) and intersectional, it's explicitly post-colonial and clearly draws inspiration from the anti-apartheid movement, it's more grounded in a human rights consciousness than historical materialism, it's environmentalist as well as anti-nationalist, and you can see a strong element of non-violence ideology there too. It's still a call for revolution-

"And so begins the final drama In the streets and in the fields We stand unbowed before their armour We defy their guns and shields... For though they offer us concessions Change will not come from above."

-but the dominant imagery is of a protest movement that only engages in violence as a defensive measure "provoked by their aggression."

So I would argue that, as hardcore as the 1887 lyrics are, Bragg's version is better suited to the culture of the British left circa 1990.

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qqueenofhades · 3 years ago

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ppl on Twitter trying to defend not voting for HRC in 2016, like bro you were dumb and selfish! just admit it! there’s no quick fix to this mess that took decades to build! people told you that democracy is a gradual process and not a magic wand that resolves all your individual problems and you refused to listen! now we’re all in hell together!

Unfortunately, simple as it seems, they can't do that. First, they would have to admit that they were actually wrong not to vote for her, and somehow, despite the chaos and devastation of the Trump years, they still don't think either that it was a problem or that they had anything to do with it. It was the fault of the establishment Democrats for not being wise enough to embrace the Almighty Bernie and scurrilously handicapping his chances by... scheduling Democratic primary debates on a weekend, in a nefarious attempt to trick fewer people into tuning in. (No, I am not making that up.) Yeah, it's just astonishingly evil how the DNC would prefer Hillary, an actual Democrat with a long and accomplished track record of working legislatively and financially with the party and who wasn't radioactive poison to much of the country, whether due to the Socialist!!! label or the fact that approximately zero Black people voted for him and a Democratic candidate kinda needs that demographic, over Bernie. If only more people had watched the evilly-weekend-scheduled debates, they would have been instantly Enlightened and hastened to vote for Bernie. Cue the angelic chorus.

Next, they have built their Brand entirely on being better than the establishment and not participating in it, so they can't just go "whoops our bad, maybe we should have actually voted for Clinton after all!" Their own followers will turn on them and eat them alive and accuse them of being corporate centrist bootlicking shills, etc etc, rather than doubling down on the Revolution. They still see no correlation between their own actions and Trump winning, and they never will, so why should they apologize for it? It is, again, entirely the fault of the Evil DNC for not feeling the Bern.

Besides, taking responsibility for not voting and thus enabling Trump would mean that they would have to a) admit their entire no-vote-only-tweet strategy is wrong, and b) take some responsibility for the moral and civic calamity that is currently at hand. Don't expect them to understand how the Supreme Court or the separation of powers or the Senate rules work; Democrats are in power right now, so when an extreme Republican-hijacked SCOTUS strikes down literally everything we have fought for in the last 50 years, that is the Democrats' fault and clearly these unsung political geniuses were 100% justified in either not voting for them or doing it a grand total of once while bitching and whining the entire time, and being aghast and upset that anyone expects them to do it again. So. Yeah. We're fucked.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts #snark what snark

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scotianostra · 2 years ago

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Happy 81st Birthday Scottish musician and singer Alastair Mcdonald born 27th October 1941.

Alastair is primarily a Banjo-playing folk/jazz musician, probably most famous for his recordings of Jim MacLean’s folk songs, such as The Barras and The massacre of Glencoe, but also for some humorous songs, such as the jazz comedy song Sam the skull, about a Glasgow cat.

McDonald has mainly recorded songs written by other songwriters, for example Robert Burns and Jim MacLean, but has also written songs himself including Culloden’s Harvest and The Village Green at Gretna and more reworked traditional songs, The Bell Rock Light, Mingulay Boat Song among others.

Though quite well known – he has toured US, every state except Hawaii and Alaska, also touring Canada, Israel, Denmark, Thailand and several more countries – not much is spoken of him in media.

Much of his work in recent years has been political song, usually socialist and/or republican, such as his tribute song to John MacLean and The Declaration of Arbroath.

It’s the latter song I have chosen, the video was put together by my good friend Tam Reilly, better known to some as SITV.

In Thirteen-Twenty Scotland said, Should England dare our soil to tread, The blood will flow in rivers red, Before capitulation. No more will Scotland bow the knee, To foreign prince who e're he be, For come what may we'll aye be free, From English domination.

Chorus : Here's to the men who took the oath, The Declaration of Arbroath, Freedom and right, our cause is both, To save us from damnation. Out with traitor, out with foe, Give the Saxon blow for blow, And freedom's brightest star shall glow, Above the Scottish nation.

Its not for honour that we sigh, Nor glory makes us long to die. But liberty is Scotland's cry, No English subjugation. Our fathers didn't die in vain, For while a hundred men remain, No English king shall o'er us reign, Stand up for Scotland's nation.

Too long we've played the tartan fool, Too long we've bowed to English rule, Too long we've cringed before John Bull, Afreaid of confrontation. So heed the words from Bruce's pen, Scotland must be free again, Stand up a hundred Scottish men, Who'll honour the Declaration.

#Scotland #scottish #singersongwriter #Patriot #happy birhtday

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artielu · 4 years ago

Text

[Yes, this is long, but it is worth your time to read the whole thing.]

January 6, 2021 (Wednesday)

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

This morning, results from the Georgia senatorial runoff elections showed that Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff had beaten their Republican opponents—both incumbents—by more than the threshold that would require a recount. The Senate is now split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, so the position of majority leader goes to a Democrat. Mitch McConnell, who has bent the government to his will since he took over the position of majority leader in 2007, will be replaced.

With the Democrats in control of both Congress and the Executive Branch, it is reasonable to expect we will see voting rights legislation, which will doom the current-day Republican Party, depending as it has on voter suppression to stay in power.

Trump Republicans and McConnell Republicans had just begun to blame each other for the debacle when Congress began to count the certified electoral votes from the states to establish that Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. The election was not close—Biden won the popular vote by more than 7 million votes and the Electoral College by 306 to 232—but Trump contends that he won the election in a landslide and “fraud” made Biden the winner.

Trump has never had a case. His campaign filed and either lost or had dismissed 62 out of 63 lawsuits because it could produce no evidence for any of its wild accusations. Nonetheless, radical lawmakers courted Trump’s base by echoing Trump’s charges, then tried to argue that the fact voters no longer trusted the vote was reason to contest the certified votes.

More than 100 members of the House announced they would object to counting the votes of certain states. About 13 senators, led by Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), agreed to join them. The move would slow down the count as each chamber would have to debate and take a separate vote on whether to accept the state votes, but the objectors never had anywhere near the votes they needed to make their objections stick.

So Trump turned to pressuring Vice President Mike Pence, who would preside over the counting, to throw out the Biden votes. On Monday, Trump tweeted that “the Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.” This would throw the blame for the loss onto Pence, but the vice president has no constitutional power to do any such thing, and this morning he made that clear in a statement. Trump then tweeted that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”

It seemed clear that the voting would be heated, but it was also clear that most of the lawmakers opposing the count were posturing to court Trump’s base for future elections. Congress would count Biden’s win.

But Trump had urged his supporters for weeks to descend on Washington, D.C., to stop what he insisted was the stealing of the election. They did so and, this morning, began to congregate near the Capitol, where the counting would take place. As he passed them on the east side of the Capitol, Hawley raised a power fist.

In the middle of the day, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani spoke to the crowd, telling them: “Let’s have trial by combat.” Trump followed, lying that he had won the election and saying “we are going to have to fight much harder.” He warned that Pence had better “come through for us, and if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country.” He warned that Chinese-driven socialists are taking over the country. And he told them to march on Congress to “save our democracy.”

As rioters took Trump at his word, Congress was counting the votes alphabetically by state. When they got to Arizona, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) stood up to echo the rhetoric radicals had been using to discredit the certified votes, saying that public distrust in the election—created out of thin air by Republicans—justified an investigation.

Within an hour, a violent mob stormed the Capitol and Cruz, along with the rest of the lawmakers, was rushed to safety (four quick-thinking staffers brought along the electoral ballots, in their ceremonial boxes). As the rioters broke in, police shot and killed one of them: Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran from San Diego, QAnon believer, and staunch Trump supporter. The insurrectionists broke into the Senate chamber, where one was photographed on the dais of the Senate, shirtless and wearing a bull costume that revealed a Ku Klux Klan tattoo on his abdomen. They roamed the Capitol looking for Pence and other lawmakers they considered enemies. Not finding them, they ransacked offices. One rioter photographed himself sitting at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk with his feet on it.

They carried with them the Confederate flag.

Capitol police provided little obstruction, apparently eager to avoid confrontations that could be used as propaganda on social media. The intruders seemed a little surprised at their success, taking selfies and wandering around like tourists. One stole a lectern.

As the White House, the FBI, the Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security all remained silent, President-Elect Joe Biden spoke to cameras urging calm and calling on Trump to tell his supporters to go home. But CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins later reported that she spoke to White House officials who were “genuinely freaked… out” that Trump was “borderline enthusiastic” about the storming of the Capitol because “it meant the certification was being derailed.”

At 4:17, Trump issued his own video, reiterating his false claims that he had been cheated of victory. Only then did he conclude with: “Go home, we love you, you’re very special.” Twitter immediately took the video down. By nighttime Trump’s Twitter feed seemed to blame his enemies for the violence the president had incited (although the rhythm of the words did not sound to me like Trump’s own usual cadence): “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

Twitter took down the tweet and banned the president for at least twelve hours for inciting violence; Facebook and Instagram followed suit.

As the afternoon wore on, police found two pipe bombs near the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C., as well as a truck full of weapons and ammunition, and mobs gathered at statehouses across the country, including in Kansas, Ohio, Minnesota, California, and Georgia.

By 5:00, acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller issued a statement saying he had conferred with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Vice President Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and had fully activated the D.C. National Guard.

He did not mention the president.

By late evening, Washington, D.C., police chief Robert J. Contee III announced that at least 52 people had been arrested and 14 law enforcement officers injured. A total of four people died, including one who died of a heart attack and one who tased themself.

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone urged people to stay away from Trump to limit their chances of being prosecuted for treason under the Sedition Act. By midnight, four staffers had resigned, as well as Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger, with other, higher level officials also talking about leaving. Even Trump adviser Stephen Miller admitted it was a bad day. Quickly, pro-Trump media began to insist that the attack was a false-flag operation of “Antifa,” despite the selfies and videos posted by known right-wing agitators, and the fact that Trump had invited, incited, and praised them.

Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis laid the blame for today’s attack squarely at the feet of Trump himself: “Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, and effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump. His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice.”

The attempted coup drew condemnation from all but the radical Trump supporters in government. Former President George W. Bush issued a statement “on insurrection at the Capitol,” saying “it is a sickening and heartbreaking sight.” “I am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election,” he said, and accused such leaders of enflaming the rioters with lies and false hopes. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) was more direct: “What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the President of the United States.”

Across the country tonight are calls for Trump’s removal through the 25th amendment, impeachment, or resignation. The Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have joined the chorus, writing to Pence urging him to invoke the 25th. Angry at Trump’s sabotaging of the Georgia elections in addition to the attack on our democracy, prominent Republicans are rumored to be doing the same.

At 8:00, heavily armed guards escorted the lawmakers back to the Capitol, thoroughly scrubbed by janitors, where the senators and representatives resumed their counting of the certified votes. The events of the afternoon had broken some of the Republicans away from their determination to challenge the votes. Fourteen Republican senators had announced they would object to counting the certified votes from Arizona; in the evening count the number dropped to six: Cruz (R-TX), Hawley (R-MO), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), John Kennedy (R-LA), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL).

In the House, 121 Republicans, more than half the Republican caucus, voted to throw out Biden’s electors from Arizona. As in the Senate, they lost when 303 Representatives voted in favor.

Six senators and more than half of the House Republicans backed an attempt to overthrow our government, in favor of a man caught on tape just four days ago trying to strong-arm a state election official into falsifying the election results.

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

[Heather Cox Richardson is a Professor of History at Boston College. She has daily posts on Facebook that summarize the day's political events and puts them in historical context. The Facebook post link's first comment are her citations to sources.]

#read the entire thing #domestic terrorism #fuck trump #heather cox richardson

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ultramaga · 1 year ago

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The accusation of "coloniser" never made sense. In the context of MCU Black Panther, the Wakandans sat in the same place for thousands of years due to a luxury resource that no-one else had, but even then, there was a day before that meteor, and up to that point, they would have had to have been colonising because the alternative is extinction. e.g.

They deliberately conflate colonisation with imperialism and exploitation, because the alternative is to admit that there's nothing intrinsically bad about being white, and the foundations of Leftism, as opposed to Communism, is a hatred of "whiteness", which they associate with capitalism, democracy, and free speech. They saw the fall of the communists, realised that the European cultures had won, and figured the answer was to degrade the morale and encourage racial conflict. This goes way back to the Cold War, where the Soviets did their best to fund racial supremacy groups and encourage conflict. They didn't care either way - most would be classed as white - but they figured that if they could just get a race war going in the West, then their enemies would collapse and they could march in and finally have the socialist utopia.

So the Soviets encouraged all of this, trained up people - many who had no idea of who was puppeteering them - and then collapsed themselves. But the Leftist movement had begun - probably back in the sixties, ymmv.

This is distinct from the communists, but connected. Communism had largely failed to appeal to people. They could see the gigantic gap between the rhetoric and the atrocities. Same with Nazism. You could say it is older than that ...

But the proto-Leftists also failed. They advocated sex with children etc, just as Leftists do now, but just couldn't get anyone to take them seriously. It wasn't until Leftists infiltrated the education system, and could take advantage of vulnerable children, that things changed.

And they are quite open about the plan. They then lie about it, but it's there in black and white.

We’ll convert your children Happens bit by bit Quietly and subtly And you will barely notice it You can keep them from disco Warn about San Francisco Make ’em wear pleated pants We don’t care We’ll convert your children We’ll make them tolerant and fair

And we've seen what their version of "tolerant and fair" leads to.

The amount of doublespeak is astonishing. I often say that if a Leftist says the truth, their head will explode, but the fact is they have no idea what Truth is, because a foundation of Leftism - taken from bad philosophers - is that reality doesn't exist objectively, it alters according to the opinions of humans. It is a "social construct". This is at war with the "white" idea that reality is objective, that 2+2=4, that Truth exists even if humans cannot understand it. This has weird knock on effects. A science populariser I follow was talking about the climates of planets in distant star systems. His video was censored. Why? Because he said the climates were changing. The YT censors, who are Leftists, claimed that CLIMATE CHANGE IS CAUSED BY HUMANS BECAUSE CAPITALISM. So you can't point out that climates change without humans. That is a contradiction in terms. They have determined that climate change is human made, that is now absolute truth, and you saying otherwise is undermining their reality. Even though most agree that humans aren't actually teleporting light years away and setting up coal fired plants. Or time travelling and setting up refrigeration to cause ancient ice ages.

Humans are a new thing, and a local thing, but from the point of view of a Leftist, you need to get everyone to believe the same things and that will make it true, so pointing out that climates change regardless is badfact and needs to be purged. Control the minds, remove dissent, and finally communism can work! And when you talk to a Leftist and point out that every time they say that a nightmare is the result, they will say that communism has never been tried, and it's the fault of the feelthy whites that it failed, and if they can just get rid of them, then it is a certainty that this time the system that has never been tried will work perfectly. I have to say it's funny reading what leftist/communists think utopia would look like. They often talk about a universal basic income - the idea that money will be printed out and handed to them without having to work, and nobody will work, and stuff will just be made and arrive without workers, and if you point out any problems with this fantasy then you are a hateful bigot who deserves to die.

Modern Doctor Who claims it was always communist, but if you actually go back and look at the episodes, they made fun of it directly. The idea is delusion. All they would do is collapse the economy and create famine. Which commies have done, again and again, but they cannot learn from the past because that is badfact.

45 million people died in a famine caused by economic mismanagement, environmental disaster, and state terror.

Leftists genuinely believe if they can stop you thinking - make you only think as they do - utopia will appear. The Truth is the exact opposite. Their beliefs bring Hell to Earth, every time. And they hate the fact you know that is true.

You know the term “Colonizers” being used today

I know it because Black Panther popularized it, but do people forget that the villain Killmonger WAS the colonizer in the film?

He became the cia favorite agent in American imperialism, and in the movie, killed T’Challa, burned their sacred plant, and stated he was going to create a Wakandan EMPIRE after slaughter people in power including their fucking children.

How…how did the left miss the most spoon-fed shit Disney can throw at you. And go with the idea colonizer=white people despite the underlying joke is that Shuri (who said it to the white guy that took a bullet to save a Wakandan) say that insult because she was on the internet too much.

I appreciate how anal retentive @siryouarebeingmocked is about tagging and cataloguing things, even if you don't agree with his conclusions it's always through.

This is just 2 obviously but, there's almost every kind of analysis you could possibly want, just search Killmonger, or any of the characters probably.

Both of those posts I linked go deeper into what your ask was, I don't have the knowledge base to touch on it too much, never saw the movie, I DO know where to find the info tho.

#leftism #history #colonisers #colonisation #black panther #colonists #1984 #antiwhite #racism

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victory-rose · 4 years ago

Text

January 6, 2021 (Wednesday)

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

They carried with them the Confederate flag.

Twitter took down the tweet and banned the president for at least twelve hours for inciting violence; Facebook and Instagram followed suit.

He did not mention the president.

In the House, 121 Republicans, more than half the Republican caucus, voted to throw out Biden’s electors from Arizona. As in the Senate, they lost when 303 Representatives voted in favor.

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

#tw #tw politics #us #us politics #tw us politics

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nervous-young-unhuman · 4 years ago

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good sunday

Next on Car Seat Headrest’s debut album is Good Sunday. This track brings a lot more to the table lyrically as to the previous (that being Tybee Island horse ghost), and is in fact musically, one of my favorite songs on the album. 1 is in my unprofessional opinion, a very raw album. Will can even be quoted on the album's bandcamp saying that if he had known anyone would have listened to the album, he would have never released it. This leads to a lot of interesting commentary from the perspective of a young man who is starting to become an adult, and the trials and tribulations that follow this.

The song starts strong, opening with these lyrics.

“Am I going mad?

I feel like walking into traffic

Oh shit I think I am

I need to learn how to be online”

This appears to be a look into Will's descent into “madness”, which is likely some form of mental struggle. He says he feels like walking into traffic, which further solidifies the idea that he is struggling mentally with an urge to do something to put himself in danger. This doesn’t have to mean suicide, but perhaps an urge to harm himself or let go of control. He follows by “snapping out of it” and claiming to be going crazy by having these sorts of intrusive thoughts. He says he needs to learn how to be online, maybe the past lyrics could be a struggle in dealing with having a social media presence, which, though not at the scale it is today, Will likely had at the time of the album’s release.

“Jesus we love you

And we adore you

Spirit we love you

And we forgive you

Jesus we love you

And we adore you

Spirit we love you

And we destroy you”

Religion can have a million different themes in music. While Will did grow up in the Presbyterian church, he hasn’t spoken on his current personal religious beliefs, and I will not be speaking on behalf of him or speculating on the topic. I am only looking at this from the perspective of a 17 year old Will Toledo. Aside from this, Will did study religion academically. He minored in it along with a major in English at William and Mary. There isn’t much information or speculation online of a possible meaning to these lyrics. I don’t know a lot about religion personally, so my apologies if anything I state is incorrect. Of course it could have nothing to do with religion at all, only using Jesus as an example of one higher and holier than thyself. I do take interest in the change from “Spirit we love you and we forgive you” to “Spirit we love you and we destroy you.” This again can be taken as spirit in oneself, or a kind of Holy Spirit. It could also in some ways mock traditional hymns and songs traditionally sung in churches, which usually reflect the religions beliefs and have some kind of religious message. Or it’s some kind of warped way of getting to the top and then being destroyed by the people who brought you there . Loving Jesus but destroying the spirit, whether that be one that is holy or one’s personal spirit I’m unsure and urge you to decide for yourself, whatever means the most to you. That’s an important idea for all of these, I don’t want to come off and say that I’m right, these are just my interpretations as someone who enjoys Car Seat Headrest.

Now we move to another verse.

“Oh my god

No one wants to know what you’re saying ’til you’re speaking in code

(No one wants to know what you’re saying ’til you’re speaking in code) [reversed]

No one wants to know what you’re saying until you’re speaking in code”

I also really enjoy this lyric. Maybe it’s a way of saying nobody cares what you have to say until they don’t understand what you’re saying. When it becomes impossible to drown out the background noise we’re accustomed to, when it’s something we’ve never heard before, we take more time to stop and listen and perhaps try to understand. The use of a reversed lyric is also very interesting, maybe a way to grab the listeners attention and instantly prove his point, nobody cared to know what he was saying until it was said in a way that wasn’t understandable. This is something I think of as an interactive lyric, WIll isn’t just singing out what he thinks, he’s proving to you that he stands correct on the issue.

The chorus of Jesus and the spirit is repeated 3 more times, except for the very last line. Traditionally it is “And we destroy you” which is still said, but in this set destroy you is reversed. Likely to refer to the previous verse. It’s an interesting way to maintain the theme in an album that quite honestly bounces all over the place (and not in a bad way, it’s really good chaos).

The next part is what really grabbed my attention and is possibly the most memorable part of the song in my opinion. It’s a piece of spoken commentary and is read as follows.

“Eugene Debs was the... socialist presidential candidate in the uh, election between him, Taft, Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt

Nobody told me that my earbuds were exposed to the elements”

I really love this line and I honestly have no idea why. It’s just some ramblings of a young Toledo, and I have no clue what it means or how it relates. I don’t want to try and pull a meaning out of it, I think it should be preserved in its natural state. The only information I could find on it was a small note on the Genius music page (which has now been viewed by a mighty 11 people!), which was only the word socialist highlighted with a note of “based.” Thank you for the laugh whoever you are.

(And suddenly we’re driving across the ocean) [reversed]

The last line of the song is actually a sample from an earlier project of an even younger Toledo called Nervous Young Men. It’s taken from a song called AC, which details a bus ride he had taken.

Next is a little on the actual musical elements of the song. It’s fairly monotone and moody, but enjoyable. The entire album was produced on Will’s laptop, which provides some interesting sounds. I don’t know how to describe the way I hear it, it's like stretching a rubber band as far as it will go then slowly returning it to normal. There’s nothing snappy and sharp about it, but it has its own curves which give it a really cool vibe overall. I know nothing about music production, I just like the sounds, and this album has a lot of them. I like the grain that the spoken part has, it reminds me of audio from an old family video camera, enough so to where I can picture this very camera. There’s a lot of really sick recording techniques and such and I wish I knew more about what they all meant, but alas I’ll just listen to them and enjoy what I hear.

Thank you a lot for reading this, I hope you’re enjoying reading as much as I am enjoying writing.

#car seat headrest #csh #cshr #1 #album 1 #will toledo #good sunday #music analysis #music #musicians #musician #song #song analysis #car seat commentary #car seat headrest commentary #commetary #celeberty

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freefromlightandlaw · 3 years ago

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For Juliana, Mahogany Hall, Singing Mandrake, Cave of the Nadir

Mahogany Hall: What songs do you associate with your OC?

The Party by Phil Ochs

They travel to the table, the host is served for supper / And they pass each other down for salt and pepper / And the conversation sparkles as their wits are dipped in wine / Dinosaurs on a diet, on each other they will dine

Juliana disassociating her way through spying on another Rich People Event

No Choir by Florence and the Machine

I gathered you here / to hide from some vast unnameable fear / But the loneliness never left me, I always took it with me / But I can put it down in the pleasure of your company / And there will be no grand choirs to sing, no chorus will come in / No ballad will be written, this will be entirely forgotten / ... And, darling, things seem so unstable / But for a moment we were able to be still

Juliana and August being cute

No Plan and Wasteland, Baby by Hozier, because I can be basic on occasion

Your secret is safe with me / And if secrets were like seeds / When I'm lying under marble / Marvel at flowers you'll have made

All the things yet to come are the things that have passed / Like the holding of hands, like the breaking of glass / Like the bonfire that burns / That all words in the fight fell to

More rev spies being all sappy

Singing Mandrake: What does your OC want the most for themself?

Laying aside socialist revolution, which isn't really a personal goal, she just wants a break tbh.

She's tired, of lying and hiding and calculating arms costs in her head and sitting at dinner parties listening to useless aristocrats call her friends lunatics and parasites.

And she wants to marry August. They've been unofficially engaged for half a decade, but actually get married would be a political nightmare since they're both public figures. Her plan is to liberate the night, and then get married.

The Cave of the Nadir: What does your OC want to forget?

Most of her childhood, honestly. Not much to be nostalgic about, honestly, between the mother dead of exhaustion and the shitty English private school and the father who wouldn't stop shouting.

She tries not to think about it, honestly.

#fallen london #the jovial contrarian #juliana atwater #he speaks

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theatticoneighth · 4 years ago

Text

Watching The Queen’s Gambit; on the Remarkable Unexceptionality of Beth Harmon

‘With some people, chess is a pastime. With others, it is a compulsion, even an addiction. And every now and then, a person comes along for whom it is a birthright. Now and then, a small boy appears and dazzles us with his precocity, at what may be the world’s most difficult game. But what if that boy were a girl? A young, unsmiling girl, with brown eyes, red hair, and a dark blue dress? Into the male-dominated world of the nation’s top chess tournaments, strolls a teenage girl with bright, intense eyes, from Fairfield High School in Lexington, Kentucky. She is quiet, well-mannered, and out for blood.’

The preceding epigraph opens a fictional profile of Beth Harmon featured in the third episode of The Queen’s Gambit (2020), and is written and published after the protagonist — a teenage, rookie chess player, no less — beats a series of ranked pros to win her first of many tournaments. In the same deft manner as it depicts the character’s ascent to her global chess stardom, the piece also sets up the series’s narrative: this is evidence of a great talent, it tells us, a grandmaster in the making. As with most other stories about prodigies, this new entry into a timeworn genre is framed unexceptionally by its subject’s exceptionality.

Yet as far as tales regaled about young chess wunderkinds go, Beth Harmon’s stands out in more ways than one. That she is a girl in a male-dominated world has clearly not gone unremarked by both her diegetic and nondiegetic audiences. That her life has thus far — and despite her circumstances — been relatively uneventful, however, is what makes this show so remarkable. After all, much of our culture has undeniably primed us to expect the consequential from those whom we raise upon the pedestal of genius. As Harmon’s interviewer suggests in her conversation with Harmon for the latter’s profile, “Creativity and psychosis often go hand in hand. Or, for that matter, genius and madness.” So quickly do we attribute extraordinary accomplishments to similarly irregular origins that we presume an inexplicability of our geniuses: their idiosyncrasies are warranted, their bad behaviours are excused, and deep into their biographies we dig to excavate the enigmatic anomalies behind their gifts. Through our myths of exceptionality, we make the slightest aberrations into metonyms for brilliance.

Nonetheless, for all her sullenness, non-conformity, and her plethora of addictions, Beth Harmon seems an uncommonly normal girl. No doubt this may be a contentious view, as evinced perhaps by the chorus of viewers and reviewers alike who have already begun to brand the character a Mary Sue. Writing on the series for the LA Review of Books, for instance, Aaron Bady construes The Queen’s Gambit as “the tragedy of Bobby Fischer [made] into a feminist fantasy, a superhero story.” In the same vein, Jane Hu also laments in her astute critique of the Cold War-era drama its flagrant and saccharine wish-fulfillment tendencies. “The show gets to have it both ways,” she observes, “a beautiful heroine who leans into the edge of near self-destruction, but never entirely, because of all the male friends she makes along the way.” Sexual difference is here reconstituted as the unbridgeable chasm that divides the US from the Soviet Union, whereas the mutual friendliness shared between Harmon and her male chess opponents becomes a utopic revision of history. Should one follow Hu’s evaluation of the series as a period drama, then the retroactive ascription of a recognisably socialist collaborative ethos to Harmon and her compatriots is a contrived one indeed.

Accordingly, both Hu and Bady conclude that the series grants us depthless emotional satisfaction at the costly expense of realism: its all-too-easy resolutions swiftly sidestep any nascent hint of overwhelming tension; its resulting calm betrays our desire for reprieve. Underlying these arguments is the fundamental assumption that the unembellished truth should also be an inconvenient one, but why must we always demand difficulty from those we deem noteworthy? Summing up the show’s conspicuous penchant for conflict-avoidance, Bady writes that:

over and over again, the show strongly suggests — through a variety of genre and narrative cues — that something bad is about to happen. And then … it just doesn’t. An orphan is sent to a gothic orphanage and the staff … are benign. She meets a creepy, taciturn old man in the basement … and he teaches her chess and loans her money. She is adopted by a dysfunctional family and the mother … takes care of her. She goes to a chess tournament and midway through a crucial game she gets her first period and … another girl helps her, who she rebuffs, and she is fine anyway. She wins games, defeating older male players, and … they respect and welcome her, selflessly helping her. The foster father comes back and …she has the money to buy him off. She gets entangled in cold war politics and … decides not to be.

In short, everything that could go wrong … simply does not go wrong.

Time and again predicaments arise in Harmon’s narrative, but at each point, she is helped fortuitously by the people around her. In turn, the character is allowed to move through the series with the restrained unflappability of a sleepwalker, as if unaffected by the drama of her life. Of course, this is not to say that she fails to encounter any obstacle on her way to celebrity and success — for neither her childhood trauma nor her substance-laden adolescence are exactly rosy portraits of idyll — but only that such challenges seem so easily ironed out by that they hardly register as true adversity. In other words, the show takes us repeatedly to the brink of what could become a life-altering crisis but refuses to indulge our taste for the spectacle that follows. Skipping over the Aristotelian climax, it shields us from the height of suspense, and without much struggle or effort on the viewers’ part, hands us our payoff. Consequently lacking the epochal weight of plot, little feels deserved in Harmon’s story.

In his study of eschatological fictions, The Sense of an Ending, Frank Kermode would associate such a predilection for catastrophes with our abiding fear of disorder. Seeing as time, as he argues, is “purely successive [and] disorganised,” we can only reach to the fictive concords of plot to make sense of our experiences. Endings in particular serve as the teleological objective towards which humanity projects our existence, so we hold paradigms of apocalypse closely to ourselves to restore significance to our lives. It probably comes as no surprise then that in a year of chaos and relentless disaster — not to mention the present era of extreme precariousness, doomscrolling, and the 24/7 news cycle, all of which have irrevocably attuned us to the dreadful expectation of “the worst thing to come” — we find ourselves eyeing Harmon’s good fortune with such scepticism. Surely, we imagine, something has to have happened to the character for her in order to justify her immense consequence. But just as children are adopted each day into loving families and chess tournaments play out regularly without much strife, so too can Harmon maintain low-grade dysfunctional relationships with her typically flawed family and friends.

In any case, although “it seems to be a condition attaching to the exercise of thinking about the future that one should assume one's own time to stand in extraordinary relation to it,” not all orphans have to face Dickensian fates and not all geniuses have to be so tortured (Kermode). The fact remains that the vagaries of our existence are beyond perfect reason, and any attempt at thinking otherwise, while vital, may be naive. Contrary to most critics’ contentions, it is hence not The Queen’s Gambit’s subversions of form but its continued reach towards the same that holds up for viewers such a comforting promise of coherence. The show comes closest to disappointing us as a result when it eschews melodrama for the straightforward. Surprised by the ease and randomness of Harmon’s life, it is not difficult for one to wonder, four or five episodes into the show, what it is all for; one could even begin to empathise with Hu’s description of the series as mere “fodder for beauty.”

Watching over the series now with Bady’s recap of it in mind, however, I am reminded oddly not of the prestige and historical dramas to which the series is frequently compared, but the low-stakes, slice-of-life cartoons that had peppered my childhood. Defined by the prosaicness of its settings, the genre punctuates the life’s mundanity with brief moments of marvel to accentuate the curious in the ordinary. In these shows, kindergarteners fix the troubles of adults with their hilarious playground antics, while time-traveling robot cats and toddler scientists alike are confronted with the woes of chores. Likewise, we find in The Queen’s Gambit a comparable glimpse of the quotidian framed by its protagonist’s quirks. Certainly, little about the Netflix series’ visual and narrative features would identify it as a slice-of-life serial, but there remains some merit, I believe, in watching it as such. For, if there is anything to be gained from plots wherein nothing is introduced that cannot be resolved in an episode or ten, it is not just what Bady calls the “drowsy comfort” of satisfaction — of knowing that things will be alright, or at the very least, that they will not be terrible. Rather, it is the sense that we are not yet so estranged from ourselves, and that both life and familiarity persists even in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

Perhaps some might find such a tendency towards the normal questionable, yet when all the world is on fire and everyone clambers for acclaim, it is ultimately the ongoingness of everyday life for which one yearns. As Harmon’s childhood friend, Jolene, tells her when she is once again about to fall off the wagon, “You’ve been the best at what you do for so long, you don’t even know what it’s like for the rest of us.” For so long, and especially over the past year, we have catastrophized the myriad crises in which we’re living that we often overlook the minor details and habits that nonetheless sustain us. To inhabit the congruence of both the remarkable and its opposite in the singular figure of Beth Harmon is therefore to be reminded of the possibility of being outstanding without being exceptional — that is, to not make an exception of oneself despite one’s situation — and to let oneself be drawn back, however placid or insignificant it may be, into the unassuming hum of dailiness. It is in this way of living that one lives on, minute by minute, day by day, against the looming fear and anxiety that seek to suspend our plodding regular existence. It is also in this way that I will soon be turning the page on the last few months in anticipation of what is to come.

Born and raised in the perpetually summery tropics — that is, Singapore — Rachel Tay wishes she could say her life was just like a still from Call Me By Your Name: tanned boys, peaches, and all. Unfortunately, the only resemblance that her life bears to the film comes in the form of books, albeit ones read in the comfort of air-conditioned cafés, and not the pool, for the heat is sweltering and the humidity unbearable. A fervent turtleneck-wearer and an unrepentant hot coffee-addict, she is thus the ideal self-parodying Literature student, and the complete anti-thesis to tropical life.

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daybreak-dragon · 4 years ago

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January 6, 2021

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

They carried with them the Confederate flag.

Twitter took down the tweet and banned the president for at least twelve hours for inciting violence; Facebook and Instagram followed suit.

He did not mention the president.

In the House, 121 Republicans, more than half the Republican caucus, voted to throw out Biden’s electors from Arizona. As in the Senate, they lost when 303 Representatives voted in favor.

Today the Confederate flag flew in the United States Capitol.

-Heather Cox Richardson

American historian and Professor of History at Boston College

#us politics #washington dc #capitol insurrection #heather cox richardson #trump #if you aren't angry you should be #i'm absolutely furious #politics

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idiopath-fic-smile · 5 years ago

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“Little Dawn” | 1k | A W.A.R. companion piece, Enjolras POV

Officially, there is no “canon” answer for what song Grantaire plays Enjolras in his van.

Unofficially, there is definitely a track, and an album, I think of when I think of that scene. This piece was directly inspired by that album, and takes a real stance on what the van song was. It’s also just absurdly self-indulgent, but y’know, I’m not doing this to be cool.

Enjolras runs to his room, and then wastes several seconds just standing there in front of his desk, surrounded by all of his familiar things, reeling from unfamiliar thoughts. He stood in the exact same place this morning, the exact same view, and he didn’t even know yet what Grantaire sounded like, belting out a rock chorus with pure conviction, each word known, each word so clearly beloved.

He swallows, boots up his computer, which is surely working much more slowly than usual. When it finally loads, he navigates to Google, and types in every lyric from the song he can remember.

A title appears. The song Grantaire said you need to hear is “Shake the Sheets”, by a band called Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. The album is also called Shake the Sheets, and Enjolras would find this all uncomfortably sexual except he knows it’s not about that at all, it’s about waking up and seeing what’s in front of you, and realizing what has to be done.

Enjolras scribbles a note in case his dad comes home early, finds his bike, clips on his helmet. It’s a fifteen-minute ride to Borders, and on the way, Enjolras promises himself he’ll atone for putting money in the pockets of an evil corporation, he’ll buy two albums from that indie record store out in Ann Arbor, but that’s way too far to bike, and he needs answers right now.

It’s like there are two Grantaires.

There’s the Grantaire who doesn’t care about anything, who thinks caring is a fucking joke, and then there’s the Grantaire who does things like cover Jehan’s shoes with flowers, and put real work into making Enjolras smile, and lovingly memorize the lyrics to a song that’s basically about revolution.

I think there’s a song you need to hear.

Wake up, Enjolras. What have you been missing?

There are two Grantaires. There’s the Grantaire that’s an act, and then there’s the real person, under all those layers of posturing, and more and more—it sounds completely far-fetched, Enjolras knows, it sounds like every kind of wishful thinking piled on itself, his own worst tendencies to see what he wants to see—more and more, it’s starting to seem like the actual genuine Grantaire is, well. Genuine. A little anxious. Surprisingly kind.

It turns out you can get to Borders in about ten minutes if you don’t pace yourself, if you pedal full-force up every incline and then keep pushing downhill. Enjolras wipes sweat from his forehead as he rifles through the T section of Rock/Alternative. He didn’t even bother to take off his helmet.

Shake the Sheets is exactly where it’s supposed to be. The colors are weirdly bold, like socialist propaganda. Like a flag.

The cashier is talking to a co-worker as she rings him up, like it’s just any other regular CD. Enjolras doesn’t pay attention to how much it costs, just hands her a twenty and takes the change she gives him.

The ride back home is, if anything, faster.

Enjolras rips off the cellophane, then opens the CD case with maybe a little reverence and pops the disc into his computer. He’s already vowed he won’t skip straight to the one song he knows, much as he wants to relive that exact moment, a flash of delighted eye contact, Grantaire air-drumming against the steering wheel of a parked van in the middle of suburbia. He wants to show proper respect for the album, and besides, maybe jumping right back to “Shake the Sheets” is a little creepy?

The music is not bad, but waiting for track nine to come up again is torture, until about halfway through, when Ted Leo sings, “So take a sigh as long as the war's been going on in your heart tonight.”

Enjolras sits up straight and fumbles for the booklet with the lyrics.

There’s a driving urgency to the song, a sense that Ted Leo knows exactly what he’s talking about. Enjolras reads ahead, and then waits with breathless anticipation for the chorus:

“But on the days and nights it's hard to breathe And you can't believe you still walk the streets Stretch out your weary hand to me, it's alright And if you're not content to just believe And if you don't consent to just let it be Stretch out your legs and dance with me all night”

He’d had no idea rock music could be like this, could reach right inside your heart and grab at precisely the thing you’ve been wanting, the longing you didn’t even know how to put into words. That’s what he wants, for someone to stand with him and reach out a hand, even if just to say, I see where you are and I’m here.

And in a way, isn’t that what Grantaire did this afternoon? Isn’t that what he’s been doing for weeks, even months? Grantaire learned that song on his own time. Nobody backed him into it, he played that track over and over again because he loves it. He loves it and he’d wanted Enjolras to have it, too.

The song they sang together, this whole album, it’s about doing. Not thinking yourself in circles, not paralyzing yourself with fear or worry or indecision. Boots on the ground. Time to go.

Enjolras is going to do it. He’s going to ask out Grantaire. Maybe he’s wrong, maybe the Grantaire he’s come to see and know and really, really, really like is the charade. But after today, he really doesn’t think so.

“It’s alright it’s alright it’s alright it’s alright,” Ted Leo chants under a guitar riff, and Enjolras opens up a new word doc, so he can make some notes on what exactly he’ll say tomorrow. The words will matter, he thinks. He’s been too judgmental, too hasty, in the past. He needs to get this right, to say the right thing that will let Grantaire know exactly what Enjolras means.

(And what if he does? What if he gets it right, and Grantaire smiles back at him, maybe a little shy but already cracking a smile the way he does sometimes--)

When the track runs out, he starts it again. He’s already humming along.

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