#I only learned about Charles when I finished the first four panels and I was MAD

[woopwhop]

Losing my mind on the number of Sycamore variations we have 😭😭😭

[riisinaakka-draws]

part 2/6

2nd part of my old Black Sails scraps and doodles from 2016–2021. Not in any particular order.

This time the drawings are short comics that were abandoned for a reason or another, mostly because I lost the interest or felt like there was too much to redraw compared to the satisfaction of finishing something else more interesting. There’s also some talk about rigid mindset and how overthinking can lead to stagnation.

Contains early silverflint moments, specks of dust, rackham's glasses are found, jealous-Billy spying, desk-Flint gets caught, "squint-squint", a quiet moment and its bird dilemma etc.

And please do not steal and repost elsewhere. But if you do get inspired, feel free to make your own interpretations!

Long-ish post under the cut!

“What are you thinking about?”

“Specks of dust.”

“Liar.”

The idea was to show how much they and their relationship had changed. This was around 2016 when the season 3 began and I was still re-learning to draw with a tablet. Another art from the same time period (and idea) is this art: The Dynamic Duet. 

And for some reason I was really stuck up thinking that I’d have to first do the sketch, then the clean line art, then planes underneath, then shadows etc. and I have always struggled with that kind of approach! Mainly because I hate doing clean line work, lol. And I was a fool for trying to start with a white canvas! It’s so much harder to find values and plan things, or at least in my opinion..

“Rackham’s glasses are found”

To celebrate their new pirate alliance, they share the four lenses of Rackham’s sunglasses as they were also found at the time (because I wanted it to resurface and they could be made into jewellery you know...). This was right after the episode where Anne fights and hurts her hands (here wearing protecting mittens from Max even though she’s not trusted at the moment). Uh, this doesn’t spark joy interest me much and it’s quite stiff and would recuire a lot of redrawing faces, so - discarded!  

I somewhat like the idea still (them having something to share, although it’s on Jack’s detriment). I tried to find a stylished comical easier doodlier? way to draw them and draw clean lines etc, but it just wasn’t for me. Also here too, the background is blank and too bright. Later I started to think things as scenes and draw everything at the same time instead of adding the bg later or trying to show everything (and everyone) at the same time.

Here’s also Billy in the same story:

He’s spying on them and since it’s so bright he’s wearing his diy “sunglasses” and being envious to the others. *cough* uhhh...Idk? Also people were shipping Ben Gunn (and cheese) with Billy, so that bled into this too... Charles’ spirit is riding the “big white bird” that was mentioned in Teach’ story and in this case it’s a pelican.

As you can see, I also wasn’t using the brushes that I use nowadays. A hard (or soft) round brushes with no change in opacity just aren’t for me. For example, in traditional art, I struggle with markers and copics, but really enjoy charcoals and watercolours. I prefer ragged edges, layering and thus blending things into each other (and leaving the viewer to fill in the gaps) instead of having stark or definite things. I also struggle with vector drawings, although I have decided to finally start learning to use them...somedayyyy.

Also, I wasn’t paying attention to anatomy, like, at all LMAO. I was just so happy to be able to put something on the canvas.

This is one of my first ink drawings, but I cannot find the original anymore. Again, I like the idea, but not how things look art-wise. And I was so adamant, that I have to get everything right in the traditional drawing and not fix anything later on on photoshop because then it would be cheating. And thus, I was never able to move on or finish this properly the way I liked it (idiot).

BUT! It was a good practise to just draw and test things on paper and gain confidense on drawing things in overall (as I was still getting back into art). To get over the fear of blank paper you know, and try to find my style whatever it would start to form into.

Oh, yeah, Desk Flint.

Desk Flint was a thing for a while (still is, lol). Another drawing from that time is this Slingshot Pirate (2016). And Desk Flint keeps repeating in many later works too. The point is mainly “Flint sitting behind his desk and people interrupt him and I don’t have to draw him fully”

Well, anyway... moving on.

Here’s a plan that has been stuck for years. It’s name is “Squint-squint.” Left is the sketch (with another sketch underneath because the expressions were clearer in the old one). On the right is the continued piece with colour scheme but I cropped the eyes panel and faces out (it was so ugly for some reason) but if I ever continue/finish this, it will be redrawn there in the middle.)

Left. “On that moment their eyes were literally open(ed).”

Right. “After squinting on the shore for days, they had actually forgotten how pretty the other idiot’s eyes were.”

I still like it, quite a lot, but my perfectionist ass only sees too much “boring” things to draw and get right, so it hasn’t been a priority for a long time and other works have kept me occupied and more interested in them.

--------------------

“Quiet Moment.” 2018 (a wordless comic happening after the events of Charles Town)

I’m going to explain after these pictures, but see how big the difference is when you start to look at references and plan things together (the space, “camera” movement, background etc). I also started to colour with coarser brushes:

I drew this around early 2018. A lot of improvement! Still quite a lot of negative space (empty white backgrounds), but it fits this work. A few things tell where we are (the ship’s cabin and the balcony). Changing distances and how things are cropped/framed make things more moving and focused (and less to draw, lol). Colours and brush strokes are softer, more layered and so on.

But guess why it’s still a wip!

I couldn’t decide what bird is flying over there.

Yeap! At first it was an albatross (doesn’t go to Bahamas?). Then a seagull (but which seagull? there’s so many subspecies! Is the ship at sea or at the harbour? what birds are there on the open water/ close to the shore?? oh noo...) So, yeah, wayyyy too much over-thinking.

At some point I ended up with white-tailed-tropic-bird which was a plus! because it sounds like the bosun’s whistle, but at that point I was so tangled and frustrated and still had so much to finish with this that I left it be. Also Flint’s face looks different in every frame so I would’ve had to change some parts, lol. And then I forgot it for a couple of years! And then I had learned to draw a bit differently and again saw too much things to do, so it’s quite hard to take on this again, especially when there are so many other interesting wips waiting...

But I still really like the feeling of it! And the colour scheme. So I might just limit the things I’m allowed to fix and then post it as it own someday. I mean, it’s 90% finished, but the last reach just feels like miles.

And that’s what usually happens with my wips. They reach a certain point and it suddenly becomes really hard to finish or get back into.

But every time I learn things and then use the information in another work! :D

Final note for this post (altough this has been said hundreds of times): use references and look how things go and try to see the structure and form beneath things. And think where it is happening and how the light and surroundings affects the characters and/or spaces. And maybe think what you’re trying to convey with the art, what idea? what emotions? what purpose? or like, what are you trying to learn with the piece? and so on...

Thanks for checking this out, I hope you had fun <3

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Charles Schulz vs Andrew Dobson: What a Blockhead!

There are certain things about Dobson’s behavior and particularly his approach at being a nerd and presenting himself as someone who enjoys the art of storytelling that I have issues with. Issues I want to tackle on in more detail within later entries quite a bit.

One such tendency is, that he mocks directly or indirectly the work and accomplishments of others.

See, if Dobson doesn’t like you as a content creator because he does not like something you work on, he will try to show it. He will make stupid assumptions of you (like how he accused Kojima of being a sexist creep because of Quiet and how he deals with “male gaze” in MGS compared to Death Stranding), half heartedly mock you (look at anything he makes about Ethan Van Sciver) or he will call a piece of work boring and dull based on a minor element instead of overarching problems (calling Batman the character a white supremacist based on the dumb work of only one author).

By doing that he also tries indirectly to insinuate that he is better in some manner, though most of the time it really just shows his own ego and that his pet peeves are rather petty compared to the overall quality of the work he criticizes as well as its flaws.

One such sight of ego boosting while mocking the work of his better is in my opinion to be found in this comic he uploaded sometimes around 2016/17 randomly online.

This comic in my opinion is both laughable and insulting. Why? I will explain soon.

First however I want to clarify that I get that this comic is supposed to be a joke mostly. The old “What others expect, what I expect” thing, where the punchline is supposed to be the discrepancy between the two fractions and what they expect, mostly by making one of the expectations come off as worse than the other. However, I find the punchline to be Charlie Brown (and as such what Dobson seems to see as something he does not want to be favorable compared too) quite insulting. Why, as I said, will be elaborated on sooner.

First, let me just get on the part I find laughable: The fact that Dobson in his own head seems to believe he can be even remotely compared to people like Paul Dinni, Bruce Timm, Greg Weismann, Justin Roiland, Miyazaki, Shigeru Miyamoto and all the other character creators and animators whose creations we see in the first panel.

 Dobson, don’t make me laugh. Putting aside the fact that those people are animators more than cartoonists, what makes you even believe in your wildest dreams you are on the same level as them? The fact you too are an animator, seeing how you graduated from an art school with a degree in that field? I have seen your contributions to the field and honestly, I would expect a bit more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0tdWNCrIxo

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps6PfiUCxHQ

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PyonOqClf8

 I give you credit, you can animate. Which is more than I can say for myself when it comes to the arts. But when you look what other freelance animators can do online, some of them younger than you and NOT with a degree in animation…

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=64&v=FmkAcGz1BJk&feature=emb_title

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97IfPfjSaDg

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEUoxQ4qSfs

 Viviepop’s demo reels alone are just gorgeous to look at and more fluid than what I have seen of you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFlha-KOKCc

 And it is not just the technical quality, Dobson. It is also just the overall “originality” of your work. Cause this is the thing with those animators hinted on in the first pic and even many, many freelancers/fanartists as well as webcomic creators online: They have a spark of originality in presentation and storytelling that you lack. I will one day go more into detail for that, but here is the most brutal thing I can say at the moment: I know shitty porn fanfictions, that have more plot development and character growth than all of Alex ze Pirate.

Your characters and stories tend to be derivative and you barely take any risks in telling a story. Neither in your fanbased work (like the Miraculous comics) nor your original content (mostly because you take comfort in four panel strips anyway)  and when you have an idea for something on which the basis idea actually sounds good, you screw it up by a lackluster execution. One example I want to give for that, would be this fanart of yours in regard to Steven Universe.  

(I apologize for not getting one in better quality) This pic was something Dobson created around 2015 for Steven Universe. The picture is supposed to show Lapis, trapped under the ocean following the events of the season 1 finale of the show. A very emotional situation if you are aware of why Lapis sacrificed herself and was “banned” to the ocean floor. Short explanation: Fused with Jasper and then took primarily control of the fused being they became (Malachite) by using her water powers to bond it with heavy water chains on the ocean floor, so that Jasper would not hurt Steven anymore.

 How much of that was even an emotional strain on her and her psyche was in one episode of season 2 even a theme, as seen here.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK3l8mGNhMg

 I am not even a fan of the show and I get the emotional weight and impact of Lapis actions.

So… why is that not conveyed in the artwork? If you are so talented Dobson, why is none of the strain and despair on the character? The idea of a pic showing Lapis under water, longingly looking up, even in despair is a good basis for a fanart. But the execution lacks any emotional detail. You want to know how I would execute the thing if I had the artistic talent? Make the picture a huge horizontal pic, where we slowly decent from water surface down the ocean. The light getting dimmer. Blue turning into dark. The silhouette of a hand and an arm similar to Malachite’s in the background, trying to travel up, the fingertips barely touching the surface. Heavy chains around the flesh. Symbolic of the fusion trying to break free and cause havoc. And down on the dark bottom, beaten and exhausted Lapis with tears in her eyes and chains all over her body like she is Jacob Marley, desperately trying to keep Malachite at bay for the sake of the only being on earth who ever showed just a little bit of kindness towards her.

 Why can’t we have something like this here, Dobson? If you were even remotely as original as the creators you want to be compared with, I think you could come up with something like that and perhaps even draw it.

But you know, his delusions of being as good as them is one thing. It is even funny.

Pissing over the Peanuts is another. Dobson, what are you trying to hint at?

That people comparing you to Charles Schulz and his creation is in your eyes automatically a sort of insult? That it is something that should at best only be a mockable punchline in a comparison?

Just to clarify a few things: I am NOT much of a fan of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts as a property. As a child, I was just not very entertained by them. Yes, I saw animated movies, episodes and specials of them here and there and my grandparents gave me volumes of them to read, but as a whole I never thought them quite as entertaining than other comics or cartoons I watched. Some parts of Peanuts animation felt to me often times like just dead air (especially parts of Snooby dancing with Woodstuck, as they had no function to move the plots forward) and I really could not stand how some characters treat Charles on a regular basis. I mean, we all agree that Lucy is one of the worst female characters in fiction and that even while we hate Family Guy, this clip likely gave some of us some sort of satisfaction, right?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZkJAx8FycI

 But before the Peanuts fan out there go and want my head on a silver platter, let me make one thing clear: I may not like the Peanuts franchise… but I respect it and the man behind it.

 Charles Schulz drew the comic strip from October 1950 till late 1999 (the final strip being finished months before it would be published on February 13 of 2000, one day after he died of colon cancer) , creating a total amount of 17,897 Peanuts’ strips. His work marks a major impact in the nature of newspaper comic strips and inspired many people out there, including Bill Watterson, to create comics or be in the field of animation. His achievements include among other things, that he created what many people consider the first animated Christmas special ever. The names of his creations became nicknames for the Apollo 10 command module and its’ lunar modul. Four of the five Peanuts movies in existence (animated made for tv specials not withstanding now) were written by him. And the fifth was only not by him, because that one came out in 2015, a decade and a half after he died.

And speaking of things Schulz wrote for the Peanuts, let me mention two things. Two things that though I am not a fan of the Peanuts, I have mad respect for existing in the realm of animation. Two animated specials that stuck with me ever since I was eight.

 “What have we learnt, Charlie Brown?” from 1983 and “Why, Charlie Brown, Why?” from 1990.

 In the first special, which functions as a semi sequel to the fourth Peanuts’ movie “Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown”, the characters actually travel across France and after ending up on Omaha Beach and Ypres the special turns into a tribute to the soldiers who fought in World War 1 and 2, elaborating on the sacrifices made during the war by showing actual footage of fights, recordings of Eisenhower and reciting the poem “In Flanders Fields” among other things. Do you know how impactful it is to learn about the world wars as a small kid, by being reminded of the actual sacrifices others made in order for your own grandparents to survive?

 And speaking of grandparents, I lost my grandmother as a child by cancer. So when I saw the second special I mentioned, you can bet it stuck with me. After all, of all the things in the world, the Peanuts addressing the seriousness of cancer by having a story where a friend of Linus is diagnosed with leukemia and we follow the emotional impact it has on Linus and the girl? Again, I may not like the franchise, but I am not ashamed to admit I think the special treats the subject with a lot of respect and dignity while telling a good story. You bet your ass I get a bit teary eyed when the little girl survives her leukemia treatment and finally gets on that swing again. Those two specials alone are more mature than ¾ of the shit Dobson likes to gosh about, including his oh so precious gay space rocks. And just for those things existing I have respect for Schulz, his creation and the impact it had on so many people. As such, Dobson “belittling” the Peanuts, at least for me, is a freaking insult. The only way Dobson could have been even more insulting is if he called Schulz something derogative.  Dobson should be glad if his life’s work in total could even amount to 10% of what Schulz has done and achieved.

 Cause Dobson, you are NOT a Charles Schulz. Schulz served during the second world war on the front, fighting actual Nazis instead of calling idiots on the internet fascists for not liking Star Wars. He had integrity and work ethics that drove him to draw and write over 17.000 strips, while you can not even finish one FREAKING story. He knew how to tackle a mature subject, while you make shitty shipping jokes involving Ladybug and Cat Noir and claim Steven Universe knows how to be about psychological trauma, when it just romanticizes abuse. He may have drawn simplistically, but at least he could tell a joke instead of constantly berating others for not sharing his opinion. He did all of that and more without having graduated from college.

 And what have you done, Andrew Dobson?

If Dobson reads this, there is one thing in my opinion he should take away from more than anything else: That if people compare him to Charles Schulz’s work, that it means a) he should not be ashamed of it and b) they overestimate him.

[therucrap]

RPDR 13 Episode 1 RuCrap

Hello dear internet! I just started a new page for my first ever RPDR RuCrap so please share and follow and I’ll continue if they catch on! Hope you enjoy!

The lucky 13th season of RuPaul’s Trauma Spectacular launches with the promise of “all new surprises” and a brand new twist that will leave you wondering how you ever sat through a boring old premiere with a coherent intro, climax, and conclusion when you could be enduring a dizzying hour and a half of WOW presents Happy Death Day 3: Covid Edition!

We open up on the trusty trauma center - I mean Werk Room - and the first to enter is NYC’s “Dominican Doll” and human drag lingo See ‘N Say Kandy Muse in an elaborate bejeweled patchwork jean mini dress and MATCHING DENIM BOOMBOX and she immediately informs us that we may know her from the now former Haus of Aja which was recently deconstructed like the pair of Wranglers that Kandy is wearing as fingerless gloves. Kandy is no longer alone in VIP because the befeathered Joey Jay arrives and half-heartedly delivers her intro line. “Filler queen!” We discover that Kandy is likely going to provide our Greek chorus confessional this season and all in a soft smoky eye when she informs us uncultured swine that Joey is wearing the cheapest variety of feather - chicken. Kandy didn’t construct an entire outfit from the remnants section of a Joanne Fabrics and not learn a thing or two about quality, sweetie! Joey is determined to beat viewers to the punchline and immediately clucks around branding herself as “basic” and “filler.” Joey is from the city of Phoenix (and possibly the online University as well) but she’s here to rise like a chicken!

Thunder mysteriously rumbles as RuPaul appears on the digitally enhanced Werk room TV but what could this be?! For all you newbies this is one of the several instances in every season where Ru mixes things up and gives us what we really want: a twist that is equal parts confusing, fucks up the natural order of the competition, and is ultimately unfulfilling! Come on season 13, let’s put a bunch of queer people through even more turmoil in a pandemic! Ru has a surprise but they’ll have to head to the mainstage to get the full story that they’ll be recounting to a mental health professional later!

We’re merely four minutes in and here comes Ru down the runway dressed like a glitterdot jellyfish! Our tour guide on Trauma Island introduces us to the main panel of judges for the season - Disco Morticia Addams and the two human Trapper Keepers who are now separated by glass because for the first time in Drag Race herstory we’re in the middle of a international health crisis, mawma!

Now let’s get down to trauma! Ru explains that the queens will be pairing off to lipsync unexpectedly as they enter! What could possibly go wrong? Well if you’re hoping that someone comes in wearing blades on their feet well just stick around because I have quite the treat for you! Our Dungaree Diva and the Chicken Feather Filler hit the Mainstage looking as confused as Shangela researching CDC protocol on her way to Puerto Vallarta last week. The judges interview our test subjects and immediately bring up the Haus of Aja and Kandy clarifies that she’s now an esteemed member of The Doll Haus along with last season’s ever-gorgeous Dahlia Sinn. I personally prefer not to say that Dahlia was eliminated first but instead that she was season 12’s brocco-leading lady! (Writer’s note: if you’re thinking “there’s a drag show called The Doll Haus in my hometown... is it THAT Doll Haus?!” No, there’s a drag show called The Doll Haus in almost every city in America but now, like with the former Sharon Needles, Kim Chis, and Penny Trations of the world, this one’s been on TV and alas, the others must now rename themselves)! Joey also charms the judges with her plucky demeanor and it’s already time to lipsync feather they like it or not!

Gay anthem Call Me Maybe by Canadian legend Carley Rae Jepson begins and Kandy immediately pushes a fake button on her DENIM BOOMBOX to start the party. Honestly... crown her right there on the spot. We will ALWAYS give points for prop work and the Carrot Top of the Bronx does not disappoint. Both are energetic but it’s The Dutchess of Denim who wins by infusing humor and our feathered friend is given “the Porkchop” but before we can even wrap our head around what this means for the state of the competition we snap back to the Werk Room to meet our next unsuspecting victims!

Now dear reader, this is the part where I’m just going to cut the shit. The set-up they’re selling us is that the losers of these premiere lipsyncs will be eliminated from the show but they are obviously not about to Porkchop half of the cast on day one so just stick with me while we suspend disbelief and go on RuPaul’s Totally Twisted Trauma Adventure as she convinces 6 gay people who just spent upwards of $10,000 on clothing, jewelry, and hair and then meticulously packed it into regulation suitcases to travel here during a pandemic after probably not making any money for the last four months (this was filmed in July) that they are going home on day one! This herstory-making twist, like so many before it, exemplifies the show’s worst qualities: a lack of empathy for its contestants, an underestimation of viewer intelligence and ability to decode heavy-handed editing witchery, and its love for completely dismantling its own format every year for the sake of drama. Whatever keeps the Emmy’s coming, baby! When you’re on the other side of one of these twists you usually feel like you just finished your morning coffee only to find out that the barista gave you decaf. Your mind will be blown when it’s happening but the payoff is usually at the expense of the show’s own legitimacy. With that said... this is the punishment we come to gleefully endure every year and we’re not here to complain, we’re here to watch gay people break down, dammit!

It’s deja Ru all over again as we snap back to the Werk Room where Chicago’s Denali walks in on ice skates and immediately ruins any chance of a deposit return for the bumpy, rented roll-out vinyl floors and declares “Let me break the ice!” She’s wearing the expensive feathers that Joey Jay didn’t spring for. Denali might not be the first ice skater on Drag Race but she’s the one I didn’t watch shit on a dick on Twitter last week so let’s give credit where it’s due. Ugh I wish Trinity the Tuck could block THAT from my memory! Next up is Atlanta’s Lala Ri whose white blazer, body suit, and unteased hair is immediately called basic by an icy Denali in confessional. Denali is confident but we know something that she doesn’t and Lala is wearing a sensible dancing ankle boot not two blades on her feet so let’s see how this turns out!

The lipsync song is “When I Grow Up” by Nicole Scherzinger and her assistants who were accidentally given microphones a few times! Denali struggles to conceal her wayward nipples during some ambitious dance moves and all while in skates but Lala gives us a good old fashioned drag performance and a big finale split unbothered by an elaborate costume and ultimately ices Denali who signs off with “Feeling icy, feeling spicy!” Asking these queens to lipsync upon entering is one thing but asking them to improvise their exit lines 10 minutes in is just cruel!

Denali heads backstage devastated where SURPRISE... Joey Jay is sitting alone in a sad room made of plywood walls featuring a bunch of pictures of first eliminated queens, an ominous “Porkchop Loading Dock” sign, and some cocktail tables with no cocktails (how dreadful).

Before we get the full picture and God for bid our bearings on Mr Charles’ Wild Ride let’s leave this plywood hellscape and jump back into the familiar comfort of the Werk Room’s pixelated neon pink faux brick walls where LA’s modelesque Symone stomps in wearing a dress made of tiny Polaroids of herself. She’s stylish, her energy is fresh, and she’s clearly one to watch. Then dear reader life as we know it changes. A breeze comes through the room and God herself blesses us when living legend and matriarch of the Iman dynasty Tamisha Iman from Atlanta arrives in a pointy-shouldered red power suit and proclaims to us simple townsfolk “Holler at me, I know you know me. Holler at me, I know you know me. Tamisha is here!” The sea parts, the crops are replenished, and all war stops on Earth. On stage Tamisha reveals that she’s been doing drag for 30 years (which seems like a long time to us mere mortals) and that she was originally cast last season but was diagnosed with colon cancer two days later and had to stay home for chemo. The lipsync gods wisely choose The Pleasure Principle by Janet Jackson and Tamisha gives us exact Janet arm choreo while Simone is sultry yet commanding as she shakes her Polaroids. The judges determine that Simone was picture perfect and American hero Tamisha Iman is sent to Porkchop’s Shipping Crate of Horrors to join the nest with the fancy feather option and the chicken feather option.

We begrudgingly crawl back onto RuPaul’s ever-circling carousel of doom and plop back into the workroom where accomplished LA celebrity makeup artist GottMik stomps in wearing a wacky toile dress and a full face of white makeup declaring that it’s “Time to crash the system!” GottMik is Drag Race’s first trans man contestant (and first knowingly cast trans contestant at all) for which we cheer excitedly and then immediately look at our watches because that took too long. Next up Minneapolis’s towering Utica wriggles in with a sneeze and declares “She’s sickening!” which is just the pandemic humor I came here for! Contaminate me, mom! This gay scarecrow is wearing a series of crazy patterns and a big strawberry on her head and the two of them appear to be from the same traveling circus. These two Big Comfy Couch characters slink over to the main stage where Utica explains that her cranial statement fruit symbolizes tackling obstacles because she used to be allergic to strawberries as a kid but she grew out of it. In RuPaul’s heavy universe of heart wrenching struggles that contain chronic illness and societal rejection, Utica’s animated world that suffers only of outgrown childhood strawberry problems is a welcome one. These two lanky rag dolls will be lipsyncing to Rumors by her majesty Lady Lohan of Mykonos and the vibe is instantly wacky. I wouldn’t say that either of them are the next Kennedy Davenport but they did complement each other well on the invisible obstacle course they were both miming through. Utica’s hair flops over her eye, there’s galloping and floor humping, GottMik does a split, there’s elbows and knees aplenty, and all that’s missing is dancing poodles. The judges are tickled by the kookiness of both of these human windsocks but Gotmikk snatches the win. Neither of these two are going to win So You Think You Can Dance but luckily this is RuPaul’s So You Think You Can Trauma so we’re in luck!

Our homosexual Groundhog Day continues back in the Werk Room where we meet NYC’s Rosé who gets the Brita treatment where she’s presented as a legendary New York queen and then the editors quickly get to work making her look delusional. She’s accomplished, confident, and Drag Race’s favorite personality type to dismantle and then trick into returning to All-Stars for a redemption only to dismantle again. Rosé’s fresh-faced foil Olivia Lux enters and lights up the place right away in a velvet pink and yellow gown. She’s a humble NYC newby who has competed in shows hosted by the established Rosé and we already know what’s about to happen here. The lipsync is Exes and Oh’s by Elle King which which was a choice. Olivia strips off her gown to reveal a bodysuit so she can really articulate and Rosé does the world’s least exciting split that looked like me trying unsuccessfully separate wooden chopsticks. Olivia triumphs and Rosé fizzles as she heads to the It Didn’t Werk Room aka Porkchop’s sparsely decorated storage closet to be with the other Have Nots.

We’re almost to the finish line and we limp, slightly disoriented, back to the Werk Room where we meet Tina Burner, another NYC theater kid with the confidence of a thousand Patti LuPones who is dressed like a Ronald McDonald firefighter. What she lacks in nuance she makes up for in nonstop fire puns. Next Chicago’s glamorous Kahmora Hall saunters in glowing and is clearly unimpressed with Tina’s constant Joan Rivers impression but maintains a full pageant smile. No choice but to stan. Our final queen is the refreshingly optimistic Elliott with 2 T’s who busts in wearing a bolero jacket, some red pants from the store, and a short pink wig that screams “Sorry I’m late! Here’s my flash drive! I can go on whenever!” Elliott dances in sing-talking her entrance line like the TGIFriday’s server she is: “I’m the queen you want to see. Elliot with two T’s. Okay! Uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh! Okay!” Elliot is a dancer from Las Vegas and has the unhinged camp counselor energy of someone with snacks in her purse at all times.

On the Mainstage Tina cycles through the last of her introductory fire puns and tells the judges she was in a boy band which honestly tracks. Tina and Rosé share a similar NYC gotta-get-a-gimmick energy but for some reason production has decided to give Rosé the womp womp edit and Tina the superstar edit. The song is Lady Marmalade because we haven’t been though enough and Kahmora serves subdued sexy glamour, Elliott does the splits, and Tina bobs and weaves between the two with full play-to-the-back-row comedy queen energy. Tina extinguishes the dreams of the other two and RuPaul sends the final two losers to the chokey.

The worst is over (we think) and our frazzled cast of hopefuls finally gets to know eachother in their two very different groups. The winning queens in the Werk Room are celebrating and as blissfully unaware of the doom around them as Miss Vanjie and Silky Ganache at a Puerto Vallarta circuit party during a pandemic. Over in Porkchop’s Junk Drawer the camera looms unnecessarily close to the crestfallen losers’ now disheveled wigs and sweat drenched makeup. Ru’s voice bellows over the speaker to tell this motley crew to get out and then as the last bit of light leaves their weary eyes she checks back in to tell them that she wasn’t serious! Oh good! Finally a moment of mercy for these once hopeful queens on their first day of RuPaul’s Wipeout! She then reveals that the full twist is that she is only going to send one home but they have to vote amongst the group of losers to decide who it is! Yes, that’s correct! This group of broken queens who just met and mostly have never seen eachother perform will now be expected to turn on eachother and give up their last bit of dignity to either grovel or just straight up fight with eachother! This must be what the Donner Party’s last night looked like. The queens look around broken and wounded but still hungry, their eyes barely open, their lacefronts only partially attached to their heads, and start deciding which of their own is about to get consumed. Her highness Tamisha Iman reminds them "Well, I'm the only black girl so don't vote me off” and just like that we are TO BE CONTINUED!

Thus concludes our first headspinning episode that despite being reliably frustrating has once again sucked us in and against our better judgement entertained us to the fullest! As for our 13 queens- you can use code HERSTORY on Talkspace while relaying tonite’s events to a sickening liscensed therapist!

[dwarcomphotan1977-blog]

Foundation PrimerMy god, where would my life be without this stuff! I may have mentioned this in a former hub, but I first tried out foundation primer on a whim before it got big. I have worn it everyday since, after a good moisturizer of course. Even if you do not wear makeup everyday, you still need to try this product. After I made the powerpoint and everything, they just never responded with a date for the interview. I have a contact who worked for them, and she said that they just didn need the position anymore. It was also the same for another large company in DC. In The Office when Erin (Kimmy Schimdt's character) is introduced when Michael leaves to make his own paper company, her first name is Kelly, which causes the other Kelly (Mindy Kalings's character) to stand at the new managers office whenever he calls the receptionist in because she's attracted to him. To sort out the confusion, the new manager Charles decides to call Kimmy's character by her middle name, Erin. Fast forward to the series finale, Erin meets her biological parents at the 홍성출장샵 documentary panel and they refer to her as Erin, her middle name. Seriously. 홍성출장샵 I know people buy stuff they end up never using (which can be a problem in itself) but if you have a list of like 50 things that have at most been swatched, you either need to get your shopping addiction looked at, or you need to be arrested, and I say this as someone who used to have a severe shopping addiction. My sister was a klepto from a very young age (among other addictive behaviors) and she 100% would been selling shit on makeupexchange on a regular basis.. Then I stood up and raised my hands above my head like I just won a championship boxing match thinking I was going to be cheered and swarmed with by strangers congratulating my heroics. That didn happen. The phone owner was drunk and didn even say thanks or acknowledge me, no "good job" from the police, and my friend finally caught up to me and asked me why I ran off. Korean actresses are definitely beautiful. With their cute eyes, milky skin, and baby lips, many girls around the world are fond of beautifying themselves to achieve the same look. Every time they appear on television dramas, blockbuster films, and even in commercials and interviews, their beauty is just stunningly wow. "And I am, in plain reality. The truth is, my dear Charles," Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and lowered his voice, "you can have no conception of the difficulty with which our business is transacted, and of the peril in which our books and papers over yonder are involved. The Ardagh emeralds weren't much better; old Lady Melrose's necklace was far worse; but that little lot the other night has about finished me. A cool hundred for goods priced well over four; and L35 to come off for bait, since we only got a tenner for the ring I bought and paid for like an ass. I'll be shot if I ever touch a diamond again! Not if it was the Koh I noor; those few whacking stones are too well known, and to cut them up is to decrease their value by arithmetical retrogression. Unfortunately, the loudest are often heard above the rest so even if the majority of Wiccans are not this way, if all people ever hear is that they are "this way," then people start to think that the truth about all Wiccans and it simply not true. I am sorry you had this experience and I sure it has been, at the very least, frustrating. I hope we can all learn and become more receptive to communicating with each other to better the greater pagan community.

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY It is nighttime in a dark, foreboding cemetery. Inside a moss-covered mausoleum, the sound of someone chipping away at the cement crypt bearing the name of Caleb Croft can be heard.

On a nearby college campus, a party at a Fraternity house is celebrating the winning of the 1940 New England Seaboard Conference championship. A young couple, Leslie (KITTY VALLACHER) and her boyfriend Paul (JAY SCOTT), decide they want to be alone and drive off in Paul’s car for the damp and eerie privacy of the cemetery. When Paul slips an engagement ring on Leslie’s finger, she unabashedly leads him to the back seat of the car where they proceed toward love-making, unaware that Caleb Croll (MICHAEL PATAKI) has risen from the grave and is stalking through the cemetery in their direction. With more than human strength. Croft rips the door of the car, brutally murders Paul and when Leslie tries to escape. traps her in an open grave and rapes her.

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Police are puzzled: Paul’s body has been drained of blood, but there is no evidence of it in the car or on the ground where his body was found. When detectives talk to Leslie in her hospital room, she seems unable to comprehend until they show her a photograph of the man who is missing from the crypt, Caleb Croft. Leslie becomes hysterical and the woman in the next bed. Olga (LIEUX DRESSLER), screams at them to leave. Olga is a strong Id and had warned police to leave Leslie alone, stating that she was possessed. Shortly. Leslie will have complete faith in Olga. One of the policemen, Lt, Panzer (ERIC MASON) senses something of the supernatural about the case but cannot express his thoughts officially. After all, Caleb Croft was electrocuted three years ago.

Several months later, when Leslie, now very obviously showing the pregnancy which has resulted from her ordeal in the cemetery, and Olga move into the old house Leslie’s parents have left her. Panzer is on hand to help with the luggage. His offer is spurned but as he turns to leave, he notices another man watching them from a distance. The man turns, gets into a car and drives away. Panzer follows. all the way to the cemetery and the mausoleum where he finds the empty crypt. Croft savagely kills Panzer. His secret is safe.

With Olga acting as midwife, Leslie gives birth to a boy – although doctors have told her the baby was not alive. Unlike normal babies, her baby does not cry. giggle or drink milk. Its color is a sickly grey. Accidentally. Leslie discovers nurses her son by making small cuts on her breasts where the boy feeds. As time passes. Leslie grows weaker, age’s prematurely and goes insane. By the time the boy. James Eastman (WILLIAM SMITH). has grown to manhood. Leslie and Olga have died.

James attends the local university. He is almost devoid of ordinary human reactions. In an anthropology class, he meets Professor Adrian Lockwood. the same man who earlier was Caleb Croft. He is well groomed, about 30 years old and exerts a strange control over everyone in the class. Anne Arthur (LYN PETERS). an extremely attractive girl. finds James mysteriously fascinating. Lockwood in turn has eyes for Anne. Lockwood’s lecture centers on vampires and a legendary figure named Charles Croyden. Croyden’s wife was burned as a vampire in 1846 but Charles was never seen again. James knows that the story is not legend. but fact, and that Croyden is Caleb Croll, who is Professor Lockwood.

Anita Tacoby (DIANE HOLDEN), another very attractive student. tells the class of the existence of a book which links Croyden to Croft. Lockwood finds a small town library where a copy of the book exists: to steal the book and satisfy his lust, he kills the spinster librarian.

That evening, James drops in on a party at the apartment Anita shares with Anne. Not quite at ease, he is about to leave when Anne arrives. tired and more in the mood for a quiet dinner than a party. James offers her the use of his apartment upstairs and they leave. Alone. James finds his human characteristics and emotions emerging as he and Anne fall into an immediate and passionate attraction.

Passion also drives Lockwood to seek Anne. In the middle of the night he goes to her apartment, only to find Anita, who has uncovered his secret and strangely, has fallen in love with him. She asks him to transform her into a vampire to become his wife. Lockwood agrees to comply with her request. then kills her. When Anne returns to her own apartment, she finds Anita’s body in the shower, and Lockwood is still there. Her screams send him running and bring James and other students in the building – Brian (FRANK WHITEMAN) and Tex (INGA NEILSEN). Sam (CARMEN ARGENZIANO) and Carol (ABBI HENDERSON) to the scene. Sam calls the police. Despite the tragedy, James and Anne. Brian and Tex and Sam and Carol meet the following day at Lockwood’s house for a scheduled séance. They are gathered in the room where the seance is to take place when Lockwood enters and announces that Anne will be the medium. When Lockwood tries to call upon his wife, Sarah. it is Anita who answers. She tells everyone that she will assume Anne’s body. but it is her spirit which will serve the vampire. When Anne begins speaking in Anita’s voice. Lockwood takes her face in his hands, urging her to cast Anita out. She does, and passes out. exhausted. When James takes her upstairs. Lockwood turns on the remainder of the group and announces he is going to kill them. Sam pulls a .45 and fires bullets into the professor. The bullets go right through. One by one. Lockwood drains his victims of blood.

James returns to find the doors to the seance room locked. He crashes them open and sees the blood orgy before him. James and Lockwood struggle in fierce combat, which ends when James tells Lockwood that he is his son and has but one purpose: to kill his own father. He rips a post from the banister and drives the pointed stake into Lockwood’s heart. As Lockwood dies, a strange transformation comes over James. As he realizes what is happening, he urges Anne to run away from him. While she hesitates, he feels complete emotion and glories in the evil of being a vampire. Anne screams at the sight of him and runs. James goes after her. to kill her, his face contorted. his fangs hungry for blood.

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BEHIND THE SCENES It is now a well-known bit of trivia that “The Sopranos” creator David Chase wrote Grave, his first feature screenplay. The then-neophyte had been hired by Hayes’ production company Clover Films for some archival tasks, and previously served as production manager on Hayes’ WWII action film The Cut-Throats. In an interview for the Archive of American Television, he remembered, “I was there off and on for a year. They’d hire me, and they wouldn’t have anything and they’d fire me and I had to look for work again, and then they’d have a project and I’d go back, or they’d recommend me to somebody else…it was an internship, essentially.” Hayes suggested the primary father/son vampire concept, and Chase wrote the screenplay, reportedly from an unpublished novel he’d composed called The Still Life. Both men had endured unhappy childhoods – Hayes’ parents had split when he was four and he was raised by his grandmother and an addict uncle, while Chase’s parents fostered an environment of hostility and erratic behavior that often left him physically sick – thus Grave functioned as an exploration for both of them on the effects of youth trauma. Hayes shot the film in 11 days on a $50,000 budget. Of the production, Chase said, “That was sort of during my knocking-around phase…I was starting to learn how it all actually worked. I think I did visit the set once…I wrote the script and then he completely rewrote that. I was invited to the screening, and I was aghast, it was really not what I’d written at all.”

“My last three pictures before ‘Vampire’ were made in Spain, Bolivia and Italy,” William Smith related. “When I finish this picture, I take off for Mexico City, then the Philippines. If I’m lucky, I’ll be making another film in Hollywood before this year is over.

Bill rode his own motorcycle back and forth from his Hollywood Hills home to the set every day while filming “Vampire.”

“Although we were supposed to be filming all over Texas, we seldom left the Universal back lot. And you know. it was nice to go home to your own bed at night.”

The climactic scenes of “Grave of a Vampire.”  take place in the darkly paneled rooms of a foreboding looking mansion which is actually located in one of the most elegant sections of Los Angeles.

“We needed a somber looking house where a terrifying seance and the key point of our story take place.” said producer Daniel Cady. “Two vampires go at each other’s throats, fighting up and down wide staircases and crashing through heavy balustrades. We had to have a house to match our bizarre script and we found one.”

The house which Cady and director John Hayes found is in the Fremont Place area of Los Angeles’ mid-Wilshire district near the famous La Brea tar pits. Like neighboring Hancock Park and Rossmore. Fremont Place is an exclusive residential section where the early wealth of Southern California settled. High walled and formerly guarded by a private patrol, it is an area of mansions built by millionaires. The city of Los Angeles has exploded in all directions in both residential and commercial development but Fremont Place has resisted successfully to this point all attempts at urban progress.

“Some of the mansions which were built for $40-50,000 half a century ago today are being remodeled al costs in excess of $200,000.” Cady said. “Such was not the case with our house.”

“Our” house was built in the early 1920’s and contains 18 rooms plus an entry hall big enough to hold a party of 200 people dancing to Lawrence Welk’s orchestra-using the stairway landing as a bandstand. Its present owner is a retired clergyman who also has deed to a couple of other mansions in the area. In his heyday, the reverend was a legitimate but highly controversial figure when Los Angeles was the mecca for high powered religionists of varying persuasions-and credentials.

“There was one advantage filming there,” director Hayes said. “We did quite a bit of night shooting-and we never had to worry about our leading ladies wandering very far from the cameras. The far reaches of the house at night were almost as frightening as what we were doing in front of the camera.”

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CAST/CREW Directed John Hayes

Produced Daniel Cady (producer)

Written David Chase (screenplay) John Hayes (screen treatment)

Based on The Still Life by David Chase

William Smith as James Eastman Michael Pataki as Caleb Croft/Professor Lockwood Lyn Peters as Anne Arthur Diane Holden as Anita Jacoby Lieux Dressler as Olga Eric Mason as Lieutenant Panzer Jay Adler as Old Zack Jay Scott as Paul William Guhl as Sergeant Duffy Margaret Fairchild as Miss Fenwick Carmen Argenziano as Sam Frank Whiteman Abbi Henderson as Carol Moskowitz Inga Neilsen Lindis Guinness Kitty Vallacher as the unwilling mother

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY thenewbev Grave of the Vampire (1972) Movie Pressbook

Grave of the Vampire (1972) Retrospective SUMMARY It is nighttime in a dark, foreboding cemetery. Inside a moss-covered mausoleum, the sound of someone chipping away at the cement crypt bearing the name of Caleb Croft can be heard.

[naomidryden-smith]

North Country Gentleman

NORTH COUNTRY GENTLEMAN – by Dermott Ryder (taken from Solstice Sunset – Features From Folk Odyssey)

This tribute to Colin Dryden, first published to the on-line magazine Folk Odyssey as ‘Echoes of a North Country Trilogy’ has gained a title change.  Within days of publication Folk Odyssey received several emails suggesting that the final line in the endnote ‘Appreciation’ could provide an alternative title.  Then, at a social gathering, a truculent woman with piercing eyes accosted the mild-mannered editor and virtually ordered the change, the editor, an affable individual, acquiesced.

Colin Dryden was born to John and Doreen Dryden on July 23rd 1942 in Bradford, West Yorkshire.  He was the second of four children.  He had an older brother, Donald, and two younger sisters, June and Christine.  He was a war baby and, on the way through boyhood to youth he experienced the post war austerity years of the late nineteen forties and fifties.

The great Yorkshire conurbation was a tough industrial environment. Daily working life there presented a history of hardship and struggle.  The ‘dark satanic mills’ of the industrial revolution still cast a long shadow.  The war memorials standing in every village and town square, with weathered names in one panel and freshly carved names in another, were a constant reminder the of the tragedy and loss of the two world wars.  The betrayal and defeat of the general strike and the haunting recollections of the Great Depression were never far from memory.

Colin Dryden’s boyhood world was a world recovering from the rigours of the Second World War and at the same time battling rationing, savage winters, nationalization, factory closures and unemployment.

He attended junior school and later Lepage Secondary School in Bradford. After finishing school, being strong and fit and not afraid of hard work, he had a number of very physical jobs with International Harvesters, a local tractor company. When not working for a living he worked at life.  He loved the outdoors, particularly camping, walking and climbing, east of the Pennines in the Yorkshire Dales and far west of the Pennines in the Lake District of North West Lancashire, Cumberland and Westmoreland.

As he grew through and out of his teen years music became his greatest and most enduring passion.  His early influences included Bill Broonzy, Huddie Leadbetter and Django Rhinehart; later influences Davy Graham and John Renbourn were largely inescapable. He was a totally self-taught guitar and fiddle master and he played at every opportunity.

Although extremely important, music was not his only diversion.  In the early nineteen-sixties he followed his actor director brother Donald and turned to acting for a while.  He appeared in several plays, including Under The Milkwood by Dylan Thomas and, with Bradford Civic Playhouse Drama School, Green Fingers productions, the Mad Woman of Chaillot by Jean Giraudoux, Knit Yourself A Lost Weekend by David Climie, and Working to Rule by Michael P Walker at the Bradford Playhouse, now The Priestley.

He was naturally adventurous, questing almost, and when the opportunity to travel to Australia came to him he accepted the challenge with some enthusiasm. Colin Dryden departed the United Kingdom by air on May 20th 1965. He travelled as a ten quid tourist under the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme, and he brought with him to Australia his observations and experiences of working life in the North of England, and his talent as a songwriter and musician.

One of his earliest recorded involvements with the popular folk movement in Sydney, in the middle nineteen sixties, was with the Friday Night ‘Sydney Folk Song Club’ at the Hotel Elizabeth, a small agreeable hostelry near to central Sydney’s green and pleasant Hyde Park.  There, for a while at least, he performed and he shared the organizational load with Mike and Carol Wilkinson and Mike Ball.

The Wilkies build a reputation for their English folk song harmonies, for their uncompromising attitudes towards material presented at their folk club, and for Carol’s occasionally incendiary letters to various folk publications. The influential and renowned Mike Ball, concertina virtuoso and fine singer, claimed a place in folk-time for his intuitive musical setting of Charles Causley’s evocative poem, ‘Timothy Winters’.  In time Wilkie, Wilkie and Ball moved back to Old Albion, the Albonian’s gain was our loss. Colin Dryden, however, soldiered on in the antipodes.

For a time, after the departure of the peripatetic three, there was a slight hiatus in smooth running but there were willing workers to help bridge the Friday Night gap until expatriate Liverpudlian and expatriate Highland Scot Morag Chetwyn joined Colin Dryden on the all-singing, all-playing management team.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday Night at The Hotel Elizabeth, the irrepressible Australian Irish tidal wave ebbed and flowed in rebellious sheep shearing chorus.  The Wednesday Night had several organizers; they came and went, some like lions and some like lambs.

It was about this time that ‘The Leaf – The Sydney Folk Song Magazine’ made a brief but interesting appearance.  Colin Dryden wrote the editorial, a couple of articles and a couple of record reviews, Keith Finlayson wrote about Huddie Leadbetter and Derrick Chetwyn of the Sydney Folk Song Club, John Francis of the Jug of Punch Folk Club and G R Tomkinson of the Bower Folk Club, Bankstown, provided activity reports and comments on their neck of the woods.  It was a good read, pity it didn’t run to a second edition.  Too many other interesting things to do, I suppose.

The Chetwyn, Chetwyn, Dryden team eventually made way for another expatriate Englishman, the highly focused Mike Eves.  Under his direction the club consolidated Friday Night and expanded into Saturday Night.  He proved to be one of the most able folk club organizers in the western spiral arm of the galaxy.  He was also one of the prime movers of the 1970 Port Jackson folk festival.

A name that resonates across the years from that formidable festival is ‘Extradition’ – Colin Dryden, now at rest in Bradford, Yorkshire, UK, Colin Campbell, now residing in England, and Shayna Carlin, now in transit – were at that time far ahead of their time.  All I can say is ‘Hush’ you had to be there.  

Colin Dryden rejoiced in both the traditional and contemporary songs he had learned from others but told a much more personal series of stories in the songs of his own devising.  For ease of identification I have taken to describing three of his songs as a North Country Trilogy.  I list them as Sither, Factory Lad and Pit Boy because in this order they came to me.

The trilogy captures enduring impressions of the industrial North of England.  The cotton mills, coalmines, terraced houses, cobblestone streets, and clogs, are all here.  He has captured an echo of race memory and recorded a culture and lifestyle fast fading into history.

In the nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies, in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, Colin Dryden had a voice among voices. His interpretation of folksong, both traditional and contemporary, made him a leading folk activist of the day.  Working alone, with a partner or in a group, in a great hall or small folk club he had the power to charm and capture an audience and keep it working with him from introduction to encore.

Colin Dryden’s North Country Trilogy has a readily definable place in the common stock of Australian singers singing on.  The songs pass from one to another, in the main, b oral transmission or by hastily scribbled notes.  Some singers aim at an accurate performance of a known writer’s works, in text, tune and style.  Others add their own stamp of individuality to tune and style.  That is the nature of things.

The folk process in its way a force of nature, is always with us and a few word changes have occurred in some performances over the past thirty years or so. Even in the presentation of the songs by the most diligent of singers.

Transcription errors, copious quantities of amber fluids or the ravages of time and the failing of memory account for minor accidental changes. The only changes that I have encountered, that I find worthy of comment, are those where the delicate and contemplative North Country ‘were’ is replaced by the harder antipodean ‘was’.  To me, at least, the ‘was’ accidental modification disrupts the flow and diminishes the strangely ethereal qualify of the original words of one particular song.

The words, structure and order of verses of the three songs as written down here come from direct contact with Colin Dryden and have been tested for accuracy against the aging audiocassettes of his recorded singing.

So…moving right along, there I was, sitting at what became my favourite table in the Sydney Folk Song Club, otherwise known as the upstairs lounge of the Hotel Elizabeth, in Elizabeth Street, Sydney, one surprising Saturday evening early in nineteen seventy.  Mike Eves started the entertainment, as usual, and we all joined in with Three Score and Ten, Poverty Knock and Rough Tucker Bill.  The Port Jackson Folk Festival was still resonating in the background and there was an air of excitement around all things folk, especially at the Sydney Folk Song Club.

I was there to hear and enjoy everybody but I had a particular interested in Colin Dryden.  I had met him at the festival, at an impromptu session after a riveting Sunday night concert.  On stage his songs of choice were: Lord Franklin, Lassie With The Yellow Coatie, High Germanie, and Silver In The Stubble. Maintaining an after-part song list was too hard.

Performing alone or in a group, on stage or in the corner of a noisy, smoky, boozy room Colin Dryden was impressive.  His appearance at the Sydney Folk Song Club was my first opportunity to hear him in such an intimate venue.

Colin Dryden, introduced by Michael Eves, came to the small stage and sat for a moment in silence. Then, in his characteristically unhurried way, he told a story.  He checked the tuning on his guitar as he spoke, quite softly.  The good audience listened attentively.  Everybody laughed in the right places.  His first song, Pleasant And Delightful, selected to allow the audience to share the moment, and a chorus, worked well, then he introduced Sither.

This is a song in which he remembers, with obvious affection his paternal grandfather, James Dryden.  It tells a simple and engaging story of the old man’s retirement from full time work in the mill. It bears, as title, his grandfather’s nickname.  Sither, or Zither, translated perhaps as ‘see thee’ or ‘look here’ was the name the family used for James Dryden because it was one of his catch phrases.

SITHER Colin Dryden © The Dryden Estate

Forty years in the mill, your day’s near done, but it’s going still. Time to be thinking o’ makin’ your will, for you’ve nowhere to go, no intentions.

Weft and weave it was your game, ten thousand hours upon the frame, then walking home in the driving rain, with a brand new watch and a pension.

Time now to bide, to sit and to dream, on bygone days and the changes you’ve seen, in coal and in diesel, the power of steam, black shawls, coal stockings and courting.

Clogs on the frost on a cold winter’s morn, the smell of the grease and oil on the loom, and the wife wi’ the kids by the gateway at noon stand waiting for your wages on Friday.

Six in the morn and it’s time to rise, sleep on, old man, you’re weary and wise, to the ways of the mill, aye, and all of the tries for a part time job in the doffing.

Puffin’ and pantin’ past the mill, up to the local to get all your fill, though you’ve only got enough brass for a gill, there might be a job in the offing.

But the shuttles have flown, it’s time to roam, back to the armchair and fire at home, and leave all the mill hands and weavers alone  to their beer and their laughter and joking.

But many’s the time when you’ve stood with the best, although the looms have near turned you deaf, they’ve all got a few miles of weaving as yet before they’ll have bested old Sither.

If Sither records working life as observed from the outside, by a grandson perhaps, then Factory Lad describes working life experienced from the inside. Cold early mornings in winter, the cruel demands of the alarm clock, the desire to remain warm and snug in a cocoon of blankets are experiences shared by many.  The early shift at the engineering workshop or factory is calling and you have to go.  Travelling to work at dawn, on shank’s pony, bicycle, or double-decker bus, hurrying to clock-on almost before waking up is a way of life, if not a rite of passage. These may be memories best forgotten but they can’t be.  

           Here too, indelible and indestructible, is the manufacturer’s mark made by the mind-numbing and soul-destroying ordeal of bondage in the factory system.  So many people who have shared this song can say ‘been there done that’.  Others, of a different generation perhaps, can enjoy the song and gain some insight into the work-a-day life of a fitter and turner. Although this begs the questions: Who would want to, and why?

           Factory Lad surfaced, for me at least, at a fairly quiet drink, chat and sing a round night in a cockroach castle in Chippendale in May or June 1970. I can date the event with reasonable ease because I had recently received the first ever copy of the New South Wales Folk Federation newsletter.  It was a masthead, in small print under the larger print of the main title, ‘incorporating the Port Jackson Folk Festival Committee’.

           We discussed it at length.  It contained as much useful event information, local and interstate, that a journal that size could.  Very useful, we decided unanimously.  However, the editorial was a little disturbing in one respect.  There was an aura of ‘we’ve done good and are on our way to glory’ leeching out of the page.  ‘Big is good and bigger is better’ we inferred.  A dark omen indeed, we agreed.  The curse of the folk scene, we decided was the ambitions of some people to tur a popular music movement into a three-ring circus.  Time, we prophesied, will tell.  Then we consumed a little herbal tobacco, made several jokes about camels being horses designed by committees and got back to singing and drinking or was it drinking and singing?

           Colin Dryden sang Factory Lad.  He didn’t say as much but I gained the impression that it was a relatively new song that had been some time in the growing and cone to a performable completion during his Kings Cross sojourn during 1969.  In any event it achieved instant acclaim and there was something of a scramble to get the words. Factory Lad entered the song stock and became a favourite and the ‘Turning Steel’ chorus always gets a powerful response.

FACTORY LAD Colin Dryden © The Dryden Estate

You wake up in the morning and morn’s as black as night. Your mother’s shouting up the stairs, And you know she’s winning the fight. So you venture out of the bed, me lad, for you know it’s getting late, and it’s down the stairs and up the road, and through the factory gate.

Turning steel, how do you feel as in the chuck you spin If you felt like me you’d roll right out and never roll back in.

Sleet and dark the morning, as you squeeze in through the gate, as you clock in aye yon bell will ring, eight hours is your fate. Off comes the coat, up go the sleeves, and “right lads” is the cry, with an eye on the clock and t’other on your lathe, you wish that time could fly.

Turning steel, how do you feel as in the chuck you spin? If you felt like me you’d roll right out and never roll back in.

But time can’t fly as fast as a lathe, and work you must, the grinding, groaning, spinning metal, the hot air and the dust, and many’s the time I’m with me girl and I’m walking through the park, whilst gazing on the turning steel or the welder’s blinding spark.

Turning steel, how do you feel as in the chuck you spin? If you felt like me you’d roll right out and never roll back in.

Well old Tom left last week, his final bell did ring, with his hair as white as the hair beneath his oily sunken skin. Well he made his speech and bid farewell to a lifetime working here, but as I shook his hand I thought of hell as a lathe and forty years.

Turning steel, how do you feel as in the chuck you spin. If you felt like me you’d roll right out and never roll back in.

So, when my time comes as come it must, I’ll leave this place. And I’ll walk right out past the chargehand’s desk and never turn me face, out through the gates into the sun and I’ll leave it all behind, with one regret for the lads I’ve left to carry on the grind.

Turning steel, how do you feel as in the chuck you spin? If you felt like me you’d roll right out and never roll back in.

Pit Boy, the third song in my ordering of the trilogy, is evocative and lyrical, a song at the edge of memory.  I can only recall Colin Dryden sing it ‘live’ twice. The first time was in the winter of 1970 at a Sydney Folk Song Club Saturday night after-party at a very interesting house in Cambridge Street, Paddington.  The second occasion was at the Sydney Folk Song Club a year or so later.

           The Cambridge Street after-party had a very special resonance.  Colin Dryden hadn’t appeared at the club that night, even though he was expected, but he had a sixth sense when it came to party locations. He arrived just after midnight with a tall fair-haired girl from a different planet and a guitar swathed in a tartan car rug, because it was bloody cold out there.

           He was in good spirits, and in good voice and sang several songs.  Lark In The Morning, Cocaine and Pit Boy come to mind. Time, I regret to say has hidden the others.

PIT BOY Colin Dryden © The Dryden Estate

The times are hard, the days are long, I wish I were a farmer’s son – out in the green fields all day long – away from the dark of the day.

When the sun is hanging in the sky, the days are long, long are the sighs, down in the darkness, where we bide, passing our lives away.

And if I were a robber bold I’d rob the rich of all their gold. And if I were caught, well I’ve been told it’s better down Botany Bay.

When the sun is hanging in the sky, the days are long, long are the sighs, down in the darkness, where we bide, passing our lives away.

And if I were a sailor, I’d sail the main, and robs the ships of France and Spain. Now if we lost perhaps we’d gain for the French might raise our pay.

When the sun is sagging in the sky, the days are long, long are the sighs, down in the darkness, where we bide, passing our lives away.

Like pit ponies, down the mine going blind without the shine – though if we do we’ll never mind – ‘cos we’ll never want the sun no more.

When the sun is hanging in the sky, the days are long, long are the sighs, down in the darkness, where we bide, passing our lives away.

In terms of performance by others of a North Country Trilogy – in total, Sither, Factory Lad and Pit Boy – the only Sydney folk activists I can recall singing all three songs at one time or another are the late David Alexander and the encyclopaedic Robin Connaughton. However, I have encountered several other singers and groups of singers presenting one or other of these eminently singable songs on numerous occasions stretching over thirty years.

           Only one performance caused me to recoil with horror.  That was at a chorus cup session, when a gathering of ponderous choristers managed to turn Factory Lad into a turgid facsimile of a high church hymn.  It was the dark side of harmony singing.  Choirs, I thought, belong in far distant cathedrals, with the doors locked and bolted on the outside.

           The clock’s ceaseless ticking counted the folk at the Hotel Elizabeth on a pace through the early and into the middle nineteen seventies.  Changing fortunes hurried the departure of the Irish Musicians club and brought a new team, David Alexander and Keri Levi, to the Wednesday Elizabeth.  Within weeks they made way for Darts Kelimocum – Dermott and Alison Ryder, Tony Suttor, Maureen Cummuskey, with Keri Levito to ease the changeover.  Competing ambitions saw Mike Eves, a most able man, move on from the Friday and Saturday ‘Sydney Folk Song Club’, and the merging of the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday operations under the Darts Kelimocum banner as the ‘Elizabeth Folk Club’.

           Folk organisations always suffer the attrition of competing objectives; Keri Levi’s stay was short, and later Tony Suttor and Maureen Cummuskey sought different roads to travel.  That left yours truly and partner to run the three nights a week ‘Elizabeth Folk Club’. It was a time consuming, challenging, rewarding experience.

           A significant event in the folk lifestyle of Sydneysiders, Andrew Saunders reminded me of it, was the closing down of Tommy and Joan Doyle’s pub, the Westworth Park Hotel in Ultimo, an inner city suburb of Sydney.

           This ever-hospitable couple had made the pub a home from home for folk musicians for eight years or, as Declan Affley put it on several occasions, from time immoral.  The last Saturday, 27th November 1976, at Tommy Doyle’s was an almighty wake. The pub actually closed on the following Tuesday, many of the Saturday revellers were still there.  The Wentworth Park Hotel, and Tommy and Joan Doyle, had a mother and a father of a send off.  One of Colin Dryden’s contributions on the Saturday evening of the event was an English folk song that seemed to fit the passing of an era wonderfully well.

WHAT’S THE LIFE OF A MAN English – Traditional

As I was a-walking one morning at ease, A-viewing the leaves as the hung from the trees, They were all in full motion or seeming to be, And those that had withered, they fell from the tree.

What’s the life of a man, any more than the leaves? A man has his seasons, so why should he grieve? Even though in this wide world he seems bright and gay, Like the leaves he shall wither and soon fade away.

Did you not see the leaves but a short time ago? How lovely and green they all seemed to grow, When a frost came upon them and withered them all, Then a storm came upon them and down they did fall.

What’s the life of a man, any more than the leaves? A man has his seasons, so why should he grieve? Even though in this wide world he seems bright and gay, Like the leaves he shall wither and soon fade away.

If you look in the churchyard there you will see Those who have passed like the leaves from the tree. When age and affliction upon them did call, Like the leaves they did wither and down they did fall.

What’s the life of a man, any more than the leaves? A man has his seasons, so why should he grieve? Even though in this wide world he seems bright and gay, Like the leaves he shall wither and soon fade away.

 Russ Herman and Tom Zurycki captured that historical folk event at the Wentworth Park Hotel on half-inch reel-to-reel video p/pack film and later transferred it to VCR when they discovered that only one machine in the known universe could lay it.  It was sad to say farewell to Tommy Doyle’s but the legend lives on.

           Community access FM radio arrived in Sydney in 1975 and in early 1976 folk musicians were performing ‘live’ on 2MBS-FM on a regular basis.  The programme ‘Burn The Candle Slowly’, a magazine in pages broadcast from Tuesday midnight until 6:00am every week.  One of the pages, ‘Looking at it Sideways’ later became ‘Ryder Round Folk’.

           Derrick Chetwyn of Liverpool UK, then Sydney, later Brisbane, performed Colin Dryden’s songs Sither and Factory Lad live to air on the 2MBS-FM programme ‘Looking At It Sideways’ in September 1976.  Pit boy, performed by Colin Dryden and recorded live at The Elizabeth Folk Club, also appeared in that programme.  Recorded for posterity, and for playing in the car on the way to reunions, this moment in radio history can be found on the 2004 Screw Soapers Guild project CD, On This Michaelmas Even, SSG-sideway-760928-Z41020.

           Sither, performed live to air by Robin Connaughton on the 2MBS-FM programme ‘Ryder Round Folk’ in July 1983 generated a spirited listener response. The programme segment also included Sandy Hollow Line by Duke Tritton and Sergeant Small by Tex Morton with a tune by Brad Tate.  It was rebroadcast several times and also found a home on the 2002 Screw Soapers Guild project CD, Cross-Section of Connaughton, SSG-RRF-830723.

           Factory Lad has become, over the years, the most performed, and recorded, of the songs.  In 1977 Sydney singer Andrew Saunders, late of Folk’sle, Steamshuttle and later of the Larrikins, Balmain Light Haulage and The Symbolics, recorded it for the concept album, On My Selection, Larrikin LRF 017.  In 1982 the Melbourne group Cobbers included it on their album, By Request, Festival L37919.

           The producers of Dave Alexander’s late nineteen nineties posthumous CD, Singer At Large, DAS27/24H selected Factory Lad as the first track.  In live performance, Andrew Saunders included Factory Lad in his set at the Screw Soapers Guild 2003 Christmas convocation. Robin Connaughton of Roaring Forties, in 2004, still sings it occasionally.

           Pit Boy is also part of Robin Connaughton’s song stock.  He remembers that he first heard Colin Dryden sing it at one of the Newcastle folk festivals in the early nineteen seventies.  A short time later, in 1972 perhaps, on Connaugton’s entry into Sydney’s big city society, he heard him sing it at the Red Lion Folk Club in the Red Lion Hotel in Sydney.  There he got the words directly from the singer.  He started singing the song almost immediately and has sung it ever since. He presented it in his set at the Screw Soapers Guild 1997 Christmas convocation.

           This performance, including Old Ben by CJ Dennis and Monday Morning by Cyril Tawney, appears on the Screw Soapers Guild 2002 Limited Edition CD, Another Saturday, SSG-collect-070.  Sadly, Pit Boy and Sither are finding quiet times now.  I am hoping for a renaissance.

           Colin Dryden popularised his own songs, and others, during the nineteen sixties and seventies.  His strong, rich voice, his skill as an entertainer, his musicianship and his easy-going personality made him a popular addition to any folk club night.  Then our world moved on, tick tock.

           I have a theory, one of many, that older singers singing Colin Dryden’s songs can still hear Colin Dryden singing them, and that younger singers singing his songs wish that they could hear him singing too.

           Colin Dryden, in failing health, returned to the United Kingdom in 1986. He and his family were fortunate enough to be able to spend some valuable time together.  He died very suddenly of an aneurysm on July 28th 1988. He has found a lasting peace at Lidget Green in Bradford, Yorkshire.

Resting there, safe, home at last, a travelling bard of the hero caste, in gentle sunlight, in soothing rain, in whispering winds he’ll sing again.

People of my generation remember Colin Dryden for his personal warmth, his good companionship, his generosity, his free spirit, his delicate touch on the acoustic guitar, and for his singing of those songs we will always think of as a North Country Trilogy.

An Appreciation

Folk Odyssey – The Magazine and Dermott Ryder take this opportunity to thank the Dryden Family of London, Bradford and Newark in the United Kingdom for the help freely given in the writing of this short personal tribute to Colin Dryden [1943-1988].  He was to all that knew him, a North Country Gentleman.

FAREWELL SHANTY English Traditional

It’s time to go now, haul away the anchor. Haul away the anchor.  It’s our sailing time

Get some sail upon her. Haul away your halyards. Haul away your halyards. It’s our sailing time.

Set her on her course now, haul away your fore sheets.  Haul away your fore sheets, it’s our sailing time.

Waves are surging under, haul away down channel. Haul away down channel, on the evening tide.

When my days are over, haul away for heaven. Haul away for heaven, God be by my side.

Dermott Ryder

[stovelift5-blog]

The James Bailey House - 10 St. Nicholas Place

When 9-year old James Anthony McGinnis found himself orphaned in 1856 in Detroit, he learned to fend for himself. Five years later he was working in a circus. McGinnis took the name of the circus manager who had taken the boy under his wing, thereafter being known as James Bailey. By the 1870's Bailey was a major player in the circus field; his show aggressively competing with Phineas T. Barnum's as the nation’s premier circus.  That competition was eliminated in 1880 when the two managers joined forces, creating Barnum & Bailey's Circus, "The Greatest Show on Earth."  Bailey, who was a genius at marketing and public relations, preferred to work in the background, allowing Barnum to take credit for many of his innovations. The business made Bailey a millionaire and in 1886 he began planning a new residence.  As wealthy New York families moved ever northward, he anticipated that the developing Hamilton Heights in Harlem would become the next exclusive residential district.  The New York Times described the area as “particularly desirable and all the houses that have been put up in this neighborhood are handsome, well-built, elegant structures, and the locality is free from many objectionable features.” Bailey purchased the lot at the northeast corner of 150th Street and St. Nicholas Place and hired New Jersey-based architect Samuel Burrage Reed to design the building.  Reed had just published his House-Plans for Everybody – For Village and Country Residences, Costing from $250 to $8,000.  Bailey's home could cost far more. On July 31, 1886 The Record & Guide reported on the plans, saying that it "will be built of limestone and in the early English style."  (Today we call it Romanesque Revival; although Reed would splash the design with Renaissance Revival and Queen Anne elements.)  The article noted "a turret 69 feet high, also of stone, will be built on the southwest corner" and said "The porches will be tiled."

The date 1887, the year Bailey anticipated the project to be completed, is carved into the chimney back.  Startlingly, the beautiful (and expensive) Henry F. Belcher oculus windows in each of the gables, are above the interior ceiling line, which makes them invisible from the interior, and because of the lack of light inside, cannot be appreciated from outside.

"It will be finished in hardwoods and will be furnished with steam head and all the latest improvements.  The work throughout will be thoroughly first-class."  Bailey had given the contractor a one-year deadline; but that did not happen.  Finished in 1888 the mansion was fit for a showman--a 62-by-100-foot fantasy of limestone spires and arches, Flemish Renaissance gables and eclectic dormers, a corner tower with a conical cap, and a "boxed" porch supporting a spacious balcony,  Even more striking than the castle-like façade were the interiors, designed by Joseph Burr Tiffany, cousin of Louis Comfort Tiffany.  Each of the 29 rooms in the 8,250 square foot home was intended to awe. The Architectural Era described the conservatory as being "of iron and glass" and noted the numerous woods used throughout the residence– quartered oak in the two-story entrance hall where the polished floors held complex mahogany inlaid designs; black walnut in the office; hazel wood in the parlor and sycamore in the library.  Intricate carpenter’s lace framed the archways between rooms on the main floor. Hand painted wallpaper and frescoed ceilings, art glass chandeliers and carved wooden fireplace surrounds filled the home.

Hall & Garrison executed the intricate woodwork found throughout the house.

The Architectural Era announced, "The windows are of plate glass, cylindrical in the tower, with art glass transoms and each window has inside blinds [shutters]."  Those transoms and stained glass windows--upwards of 100--were executed by Henry F. Belcher.  He held at least 22 patents for his process, by which thousands of glass pieces, often triangular, were laid out then sandwiched tightly between layers of asbestos. A molten lead alloy was poured in to fill the gaps.  When the exterior surfaces were removed the complete, intact panels emerged.  (Belcher's company was in business only from 1884 to 1890, most likely owing to the high cost of the windows.)

This window, unfortunately washed out in this photo because of the bright sunlight, is deeply inset within the parlor overmantel.

The sub-basement held the necessary if not glamorous areas--"fuel, steam furnace, refrigerator, etc.," said The Architectural Age.  In the basement level, directly above, were the kitchen, laundry and servants' quarters, "together with store-lockers, bath-room, dumb waiter, etc., all thoroughly fitted and finished."  The family's bedrooms were on the second floor, and the third was divided into "billiard and art rooms and two chambers, together with an observatory above."

Cast iron gas lamps sprout from the gate posts in this undated photograph, and the stone urn on the porch balcony holds an exotic plant.  The female figure on the porch is presumably Ruth McCadden Bailey.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Millionaires like Bailey required private stables to house their several vehicles, horses and, most often, living accommodations for at least a coachman and one or two stable hands.  On August 29, 1886 the Record & Guide had reported "James A. Bailey is going to build a model brick two-story stable, with terra cotta trimmings" on the north side of 150th Street between St. Nicholas Place and 10th Avenue.  Samuel B. Reed, understandably, received this commission too.  Later Bailey would place the overall cost of construction for his entire property at $160,000--or around $5 million today.

The magnificent "Bailey window," on the landing of the grand staircase included Bailey's monogram.  The letters were executed in reverse to be read from the outside.

The Baileys country estate The Knolls, was in Mount Vernon, New York.  Only eleven years after the Harlem mansion was completed, the family moved there permanently.  While some historians feel that Bailey had become disenchanted with the neighborhood which was not developing as he anticipated, the sale advertisement explained "Owing to his absence in Europe, will be sold at a great sacrifice."

The sale advertisement included a sketch.  New-York Tribune, May 21, 1899

The advertisement, in May 1899, touted "The interior finish is in rare and costly woods; elegant mantels, open fire-places, steam heat, electric lights, open plumbing, beautifully decorated throughout." A quick succession of owners followed.  The mansion and stable were purchased by Henry Acker.  In 1904 he sold the property to Max Marx, who almost immediately resold it to millionaire contractor John C. Rodgers.  With Rodgers and his wife in the house were their son, John, Jr. and his wife.  

The original chandelier in the dining room survives.

The Rodgers' stable no longer housed horses and carriages, but motorcars.  It was a situation that resulted in a horrific tragedy on April 1, 1906.  The New-York Tribune reported "Two women were run down by a speeding automobile in New Rochelle yesterday and injured so seriously that one of them died a few hours later...and the other is not expected to recover."  The deceased victim was 73-year old Alvina Stein, and the other was her 70-year-old sister, Betty Kuchler.  They had just left church services. The article said "After the accident, the automobile, which contained two well dressed women and two men, ran on at even greater speed, the occupants not even stopping to see whether the women were injured."  There was no doubt that police would be determinedly looking for the culprits--Betty Kuchler was not only the mother of the Charles W. Kuchler, president of the New Rochelle Board of Aldermen, but of Police Commissioner Henry Kuchler.   Witnesses had jotted down the license number of the car.  It was registered to J. C. Rodgers, Jr.  Investigators arrived at the St. Nicholas Place mansion that evening.  The younger Mrs. Rodgers expressed surprise.  "We have had the machine about two months, and as far as I know it was not out today." Betty Kuchler lingered in the hospital for two days before dying.  But even before then, the widespread press coverage had not escaped the notice of John C. Rodgers, Sr., who did his own investigating.  On April 2 he walked into the New Rochelle courthouse with his chauffeur, 20-year-old John Johnston. On April 3 The Sun wrote "When young Rodgers's father, John C. Rodgers, the subway contractor, was told of the accident he blamed his son for running away and insisted that Johnston should give himself up."  John, Jr. refused to talk to reporters, but his father issued a statement: According to my son's story, and I think he has told me everything, the party were returning from Larchmont for dinner and going at a moderate rate of speed when the accident happened.  As they approached a bridge over the road a four horse milk wagon came from the opposite direction.  When our party was almost upon the team the leaders swung sharply across the road directly in the machine's way.  It was so sudden that Johnston had no time to shut off and to avoid running into the team.  He ran the machine up on the bank until it began to go over. He further explained that in order to keep the car from overturning, he "wrenched around the front wheels" and tore down the bank toward the elderly women.  He called the group's speeding away from the scene "a clear case of stage fright in its worst form." Johnston was held on a staggering $10,000 bail and held for trial.  Rodgers Sr. paid his legal expenses.  In a surprising turn of events, both Johnston and John C. Rodgers, Jr. were indicted for manslaughter in the second degree on April 16.

The "Bailey window" on the staircase as it appears from outside.  The small opening below is a stained glass window inset into the overmantel of an excruciatingly charming inglenook.

In April 1910 Rodgers sold the mansion to Dr. Louis Schaefer.  The German-born chemist had founded the Schaefer Alkaloid Works in Maywood, New Jersey and owned other chemicals plants both in New York and New Jersey. Schaefer and his wife, Olga, had four children.  Two of their daughters were married and living in Germany.  Moving into the mansion with their parents were the unmarried Bertha and Ludwig, who, like his father, was a doctor.   Things were not going well between Louis and Olga and on May 10, 1911 they separated.  The following year, on November 26, Schaefer died in the house. His estate, estimated at $1,555,844 (or about $22.6 million today) was divided primarily among the four children.  Newspapers were impressed that his will provided Olga an annuity of $10,000 per year--a comfortable $273,000 in today's money.  It also contained an unusual clause regarding the mansion.  The Sun reported that it "provided that the contents of his Manhattan home, including his books and paintings, were to go outright 'to those of my children that have not married at the time of my death,'" and that those children had "the right to lease the residence as a home until 1931 at a rental of $1,000 a year, and could buy it for $60,000."

The widow's watch provided breathtaking views.

That clause triggered a battle between Bertha and Ludwig.  Before too long Bertha was married to Dr. Franz Koempel.  She gave notice to her uncle, the executor of the estate, that she wanted to buy the mansion.  Ludwig countered, saying he wanted to buy it and contended that his sister's marriage "deprived her of her right to occupy the house." A law suit was initiated, and because the sisters in Germany had children, they were involved and their fathers had to be served papers.  The problem was that the men were in the German army and with Germany engaged in war both were on the battlefront.  

Restoration of the "iron and glass" conservatory at the back of the house has not yet begun.  The extensive limestone and bluestone retaining wall was listing badly and collapsing at the rear of the property.  It was deconstructed and rebuilt by English stone mason, Colin Peters, with some of the work done hands-on by Jenny Spollen and her cousin, Haihua Xu.

Settling the estate became even more complicated when England entered World War I.  The Sun explained that a "large deposit" of funds was held in the London branch of the Deutsches Bank of Berlin.  The money "was seized by the British Government immediately following the declaration of war." It took years for the Schaefer heirs to receive their inheritance.  In the meantime Ludwig and Bertha came to terms and January 1916 she and Dr. Koempel purchased the mansion from the estate. Dr. Franz Koempel's medical office was on East 86th Street.  His practice was tagged as "German" in directories for decades.  The couple would remain in the former Bailey mansion until 1950.

Apartment buildings were closing in when this photo was taken on September 1, 1935 from the collection of the New York Public Library. 

By now James Bailey's high-end residential neighborhood had noticeably changed.  The arrival of the Lenox Avenue subway in 1904 and the collapse of Harlem real estate prices around the same time resulted in the district's becoming the center of Manhattan's Black population.  Rather than mansions, it was apartment buildings that were being built.

A pretty room leading to a private porch admits light into the main house through a set of stunning etched glass panels.

For years when passing the home while walking to Wadleigh High School on West 114th Street, one teen-aged girl had dreamed of living in the castle on 150th Street.  In 1951 the grown-up girl, now married to an NYPD detective, got her wish.  Marguerite and Warren Blake purchased the nine-bedroom Bailey house from which Marguerite ran the M. Marshall Blake Funeral Home for decades.

A small fire on the upper floors in 2000 prompted firefighters to break out several of the upper windows.  The Blakes, by now, had retired and replacing the windows or repairing  the increasingly leaky slate roof of the landmark structure was impossible for the elderly pair.  Not yet willing to sell, they moved out.  The now empty property continued to deteriorate.

Finally, at the age of 87, Marguerite Blake put her dream house on the market in 2008 for $10 million.   The Blakes's inability to maintain the hulking property was apparent.  Water had continued to seep in through roof.  Plaster had fallen from some of the ceilings.  A stifling odor, the result of years of dog urine, defiled the grand spaces. Despite it all, much of the architectural fabric of the Bailey house remained remarkably intact.  The exquisite cabinetry, the fixtures like doorknobs and chased hinges, and (other than those lost in the fire) the etched and stained glass windows had survived. There were no takers.  A writer for New York Magazine toured the forsaken mansion, calling it “a modern Grey Gardens.”  Deliverance came on August 9, 2009 when physical therapist Martin Spollen and his wife, Jenny, purchased the the mother of all fixer-uppers for $1.4 million.   The couple embarked on a daunting project, one that would be considered inconceivable for most.  Priority was given to the roof--the source of the ongoing water damage.  The roof was repaired and slate singles replaced to the precise specifications of the original--down to the pattern of the tiles.   Several of the Belcher windows were in danger of being lost as their own weight caused them to sag and threaten to collapse.  Expert glass conservators Tricia Somers and Victor Rothman restored the scores of transoms and windows, at times meticulously recreating tiny missing mosaic pieces. The Spollens set up a work-working shop in the basement where Jenny's cousin, skilled carpenter Haihua Xu, reproduces missing or damaged wooden elements.  While Martin Spollen carries on his physical therapy practice, Jenny dedicates her full time to the restoration of the mansion--a hands-on labor of devotion. Their astonishing house has always been a private home. Historian Michael Henry Adams remarked that the house “could have been lost 100 times” by being divided into apartments, the interior detailing lost in a conversion to a school or business, or being razed for a modern apartment building.

The end of the restoration project is years away.  But the Bailey mansion is safely in good hands.  Without the passion of the Spollens for the house and its historic importance it would most likely have continued to decay despite its landmark status. photographs by the author

Source: http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-james-bailey-house-10-st-nicholas.html

[ianfaulkner1-blog]

​By Roxanne Reid It’s like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole to a wacky world where there’s no front door, walls are made of books, friendly ghosts walk the passages, and you’ll meet a character just as intriguing as the March Hare. Find out why to visit the Royal Hotel, Bethulie, Free State.

​Bethulie lies in sheep-and-cattle country in South Africa’s dry heartland. Call it the Free State or even the Upper Karoo, no one will argue. Founded back in the 1830s, it sits on the northern banks of the Orange River about 50km from the massive Gariep Dam. At first sight this dusty little dorp looks like it has little to offer a visitor. You might wonder what the hell you’re doing here and whether you should turn tail and run – especially when you can’t find an entrance to your accommodation at the Royal Hotel. Litter and dry leaves scuttle across the pavement and the midday heat beats down as you walk the length and breadth of the hotel’s facade. Not a door is unlocked. Eventually you’ll go round the back, through an eerily empty parking lot and hear voices through a half-open door.

The hotel faces the street on two sides yet you have to go round the back to find the entrance

​Yes, the young woman told me, I was in the right place. If I just went to that door around the back and waited, someone would let me in. I did and before long the hotel’s owner, Anthony Hocking, was beetling his bushy brows at me, smiling a Cheshire Cat welcome and gesturing me in. Down the rabbit hole. One step inside and all you see are narrow wood-floored passages lined with books. More books than you’ve ever seen in one place outside a library. (Probably more books than inside a lot of libraries.) This is the reason I’m here. Because I’ve heard about it. And I love books.

The book passage, your first sight of the Royal Hotel's interior

There’s a rabbit warren of dimly lit reception rooms stuffed with books and vinyls too (or LP records to the oldies among you). You see, Anthony is a bit of a pack rat, but with very specific tastes. He reckons his collection totals about 120 000 books and 80 000 records, but only a fraction of those are on display in the hotel. The rest spill over into his house across the road, and one or two other buildings he owns nearby.

No, it's not wallpaper - books, books, books everywhere

The collection is eclectic. Some of the books may be valuable, others he perhaps used for research when he was writing his own books, a medley of works about the paper and mining industries, the Oppenheimers, a few about Canada. The collection includes history and biography, travel and art, as well as a ton of fiction paperbacks, some of them bought for a pittance as job lots to fill the boundless spaces. The tale of the Royal Hotel Back in the 1860s the building that was to give way to the Royal Hotel was a trading store owned by JB Robinson who later made a big splash in diamonds and gold. The hotel itself was founded in the 1880s and has seen its share of well known people, like the infamous Lord Kitchener and Boer President Marthinus Steyn. Anthony has had a home across the road since 1983 so he watched as the Royal Hotel slid into shabby dilapidation. After it was auctioned and the deal fell through he bought it for song in 2005, not quite sure what he was going to do with it. Luckily, he soon struck a deal to fill the rooms with people manning road works in the area. That brought in some income for about 18 months. Later, a Spanish tour company expressed interest in adding the hotel to their stopover route if he’d restore it. And that’s how the Royal Hotel’s renaissance began.

Just a few of the vinyls in the extensive collection

It makes a good base for visitors who want to explore the historical sites of Bethulie. And although nothing was happening when we stayed there, you might strike it lucky and visit when a music recital, poetry reading, wine weekend or murder mystery weekend is on the go. The rooms are nothing fancy, but they’re clean and have all the bits and bobs you need, including a life-saving portable fan to cope with the summer heat. It’s enough for anyone who’s there chiefly for the deluge of books. Stories, stories, stories A collection that’s more subtle, less in-your-face than the books or vinyls is the anthology of stories that Anthony has on the tip of his tongue. He styles himself a storyteller and raconteur and can certainly spin a good yarn, whether it’s about the town’s history or his own life adventures. Over dinner, as we sat dwarfed by books from floor to ceiling, we discovered he’s a keen Bethulie historian and a bit of an Anglo Boer War buff. He drenched us in stories of the war and of his days as a dishwasher in Montmartre or working on a ship during his university holidays. Over breakfast he told us more about ‘the war’ (which around here always refers to the Anglo Boer War of 1899-1902) and about the hoax debutante ball he and some friends at Oxford threw together for a lark. ​He tells a ripping ghost story too. Inset into the walls of books are a few panels where paintings hang. Four of them in one of the reception rooms are blank white spaces. Those, he insists, are portraits of ghosts, who he describes in great detail – like war correspondent Edith Dickenson whose ghost helps to keep the others upbeat. Generally, they’re a peaceful lot so there’s no need to be afraid.  

Portraits of two of the 'ghosts'

Stories come burbling out non-stop. If you look interested and he’s not busy he might volunteer to take you to see historical sites around the town, all the while relating tales about shenanigans and perhaps some bad behaviour in the old days. His Duracell-bunny energy and tendency to jump from story to story can be exhausting, battering your brain with new information at breakneck speed. But if you can keep up, you’ll learn a lot of fascinating stuff. Things to do in Bethulie Obviously, experiencing the Royal Hotel’s book and vinyl collections and meeting its colourful owner are hefty reasons to stay over in Bethulie. But they’re not the only things to do in this small town. Here are some others. 1. Visit the oldest house in the Free State. Back in 1828 there was a London Missionary Society station here to convert the San, until Jean Pierre Pellissier of the Paris Missionary Society arrived in 1832. The Pellissier House museum dates back to 1834-35 and now has displays that include old furniture, photos, clothes and war relics. 

Pellissier House, the oldest house in the Free State

2. See the house where actor and storyteller Patrick Mynhardt lived as a boy. He is most well remembered for his renditions of Herman Charles Bosman’s character Oom Schalk Lourens and for his autobiography The Boy from Bethulie. 3. Visit the Louw Wepener monument on a farm 10km west of Bethulie on the Springfontein road (R715). Wepener led the Free State commandos during the second Basotho War and was killed in 1865 while trying to storm Moshoeshoe’s mountain fortress of Thaba Bosiu.

Louw Wepener monument

4. If you’re interested in San rock art and fossils, you’re in luck. Talk to Anthony or Bethulie Tourism for more info about a guide who can take you to see them. You probably need to arrange this ahead. 5. Pay homage at the Bethulie concentration camp cemetery, Kamp Kerkhof. When it was thought the Gariep Dam was going to flood the original Anglo Boer War concentration camp site, bones were exhumed and reburied on higher ground just out of town in 1966. (Later it was discovered there was too much dolerite rock where they planned to put the dam so it was built in its current position instead.) At one place in the monument it says 1737 people died here during the Anglo Boer War, in another place it says 1714. Either way, it’s a lot. At the back, under lock and key, are some of the original rough gravestones. The monument is made of austere grey stone and when we visited a blistering wind made for an appropriately grim atmosphere. 

Kamp Kerkhof, the Bethulie concentration camp cemetery and memorial

​We also went to the site of the actual concentration camp with Anthony, finding a desolate piece of veld and some remnants of broken gravestones. As many as 5000 people were interred here at full capacity. It was the worst of all 33 camps around the country – largely because the Brit running it was young and inexperienced. He put the tents too close together so disease spread quickly. Water rations were short and the inmates used stream water that was contaminated by cattle that had died of rinderpest and been buried upstream. Typhoid spread like wildfire in the cramped conditions. At the original site there’s also a strange blockish monument that looks like a ruin but in fact was never finished. British women funded the monument that was started in 1918 in solidarity with Boer women but the Boer women were in no mood to accept the gesture, so it was never finished.

Unfinished monument at the site of the Bethulie concentration camp

6. Take a drive to the Gariep Dam about 50km from Bethulie on the R701. It was completed in 1971 and is the biggest in South Africa, with a surface area of 374 square kilometres and storage capacity of 5,340,000 megalitres. Here you’ll find activities like water sports and game viewing in the adjacent nature reserve, where you might spot wildebeest, eland, kudu, red hartebeest, springbok and other antelope. Word is that the dam is silting up and there’s a plan to raise the dam wall. 7. At sunrise or sunset feast your eyes on the arched sandstone bridge across the Orange River. Known as the Hennie Steyn Bridge, it’s the longest road-rail bridge in South Africa. At 1.2km, it connects the Free State to the Eastern Cape.

Longest road-rail bridge in South Africa

8. If you’re a history buff, there are many more old buildings and monuments to discover in Bethulie, from an ox wagon monument and a monument to honour the role horses have played in South Africa’s history, to the Dutch Reformed church completed in 1887 and now a national monument.

What's left of an old water cooling plant on a hill above Bethulie

​9. Visit the old railway station at the edge of town. It’s an atmospheric corrugated iron building dating back to 1894 and painted a sun-bleached red. It has a connection to the Bethulie ‘book hotel’ too. When it was slated for demolition, Royal Hotel owner Anthony Hocking, who loves a bit of history, bought it to save it from destruction. For his efforts in preserving this small piece of heritage, the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge (an organisation dedicated to preserving Afrikaans culture and heritage) recently gave Anthony (a dyed-in-the-wool Englishman) an award. He’s understandably chuffed.

The old railway station

10. If you’re looking for something more action-packed, there’s hiking, cycling (on-road and off-road trails), fishing, star-gazing and ghost hunting. If those don’t appeal to you, just sit back and do bugger all – it’s equally exhilarating. ​Like it? Pin this image! 

You may also enjoy 15 things to do in Clarens in the Free State Maliba Lodge: a romantic & honeymoon getaway ​ Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za

[wakingwriter]

When and why did you begin writing?

My first story was in third grade, where Mario, Link, and Zelda had to stop an evil wizard. Sadly, I never finished it. As a teenager, I wrote a narrative/humorous diary of a few family vacations. Then I started on a novel, which was terrible, put it down, picked it up again in college, put it down again, and started seriously writing after I had been working a couple years. After reading so much science fiction and fantasy growing up, I needed a way to process what I had read, which turned into novels of my own.

What are some day jobs you have held?

For my day job, I’m a mechanical engineer working at a large construction company doing performance engineering. I also teach karate. I studied Wado-Ryu Karate in college, and now teach a group of about 16-18 students. The elements of my other interests influence my writing. You can usually find some cool physics or martial arts in what I write! In my spare time, I play video and board games. My wife and I cosplay at a few cons each year and also force our pets to cosplay for the annual Christmas card.

What have you written so far?

I have two novellas out Tuning the Symphony and Merchants and Maji both in the same universe.

The Dissolutionverse is a society of ten planets connected by music-based magic instead of space flight. Merchants step from one planet to another to sell their goods. Alien cultures and languages spill from one world to another. Members of all ten species gather inside the Nether, the center of the society, to debate trade, law, and the economy of the Great Assembly. Only the maji can make the portals that link the planets together, and so the maji are central to keeping the economy going. Some of the stories focus on the maji, some on regular folks.

Remember that first terrible novel I wrote? After about 20 years and 4 or 5 complete rewrites, the ideas behind that original story have become “The Seeds of Dissolution.” After so many rewrites (and a lot of great alpha and beta reader feedback), I think it’s good enough to publish, and I’m running a Kickstarter from August 15th to September 16th to raise funds for adding more art, maps, and better editing. You can read the first two chapters here, and the Kickstarter is here.

I also have a couple works of flash fiction and I’ve written a couple (unpublished) YA books. One is about a boy whose father is killed, and he and his mother decide to change history to get him back, with his father’s time machine. The other I bill as “X-Men Evolution meets High School Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”

I’ve completed an epic fantasy, which I’m currently subbing to agents, where magic comes from eating seasonal fruit. The story uses Babylonian names and architecture, and in it two sisters escape slavery with a box marked by the gods. They work to discover the secret of a fifth godfruit where there should only be four when each fruit is blessed by the god of the corresponding season.

Tell us more about your main character. What makes him or her unique?

The main character for Seeds of Dissolution is Sam van Oen, who comes from Earth, and is accidentally thrust into the society of the Dissolutionverse. As such, he’s unfamiliar with it, which means he can learn along with the reader.

What makes Sam unique is that he has anxiety issues with crowds and new places, so showing up in the Nether is really freaking him out. There aren’t a lot of SFF main characters I’ve found that not only have anxiety issues but have to cope with them, rather than something magicking them away. I specifically show that magic can’t just cure him, and if it’s used to help, there are side effects, just like any medication.

In addition, Sam is bisexual (or pansexual, as this book contains species with multiple gender norms). I try not to make a big point of him deciding whether he “is” or “is not” bisexual. It’s a part of his character, and it comes out in the people he meets and the friends he makes. In the rare case of a bisexual main character, I’ve read of only a few males, and their sexual orientation is usually a main point of the book. I prefer it to be just one part of the experience of reading, like when you meet someone in real life.

What is your next project?

Most likely, one or two Dissolutionverse novellas, and after that, the next full novel. I have several novella ideas, ranging from a Sherlock Holmes-type mystery to a heist story, to a romance, or a Jules Verne-like adventure story.

Non-Dissolutionverse, I have two other novels outlined, one about colonists who land on a planet completely occupied by a sentient fungus, and the other about a society based on Incan culture, where body kinesthetics (like martial arts) create magic.

What are some ways in which you promote your work? 

I’m slowly working through all the ways I can find!

I have a website, Facebook page, and Twitter feed. I may have driven a couple sales from Twitter, but I’m not sure. I also belong to a few indie author groups, and when a bunch of authors put together a group event, that gets the most attention and sales by far. Paid services will promote books, but I’ve never actually made money on a promo. Generally, they’re good for attention and a few sales, but probably not worth the price. I’ve also run ads on Goodreads and Amazon. Both generate clicks, but only a couple books sales. Finally, I go to various cons, both to sell books at a booth, and to be on panels. The con booths actually make some money.

Finally, there’s Kickstarter! For my latest novel, I’m attempting to offset the printing cost, and hopefully pay for some cool additions to the book while also giving some extras to the backers, like a new short story, wallpapers, buttons, maps, and even original artwork. If this is successful, I’ll likely do the same for my future self-published works.

As an independent publisher, it’s important to try a lot of methods, however, it’s also important to realize that any work you do on marketing is taking away from time you could be writing.

Do you work to an outline or plot sketch, or do you prefer to let a general idea guide your writing?

When I start a new full-length story, I’ll take a few days to type out connected thoughts about the story. When I hit an interesting thread, I start a bulleted list of events. I usually end up with 9-12 pages in the overall outline.

While writing, I paste sections of my outline below to guide how I write. So far I have not written a story that followed my original outline all the way, because I end up writing something that works so much better. Somewhere in the middle, I will stop to readjust the path of the story to reflect that and keep going.

Usually, I have several major changes to the story during the first edit, and less during the 2nd and 3rd.

How do you feel about indie/alternative vs. conventional publishing?

Self-publishing means you control everything about your book. It also means you have to do everything for your book. It takes a lot of work, and you won’t sell as many copies as a traditional publishing house, but you keep a lot more of the profit.

I’m not yet published traditionally, but I am still submitting and one day hope to be. Having books available by both methods means you can develop your brand in different ways. Your traditionally published books can boost your name further, whereas with self-publishing, you have the opportunity to write experimental stories and subject matter or genres that are not considered “marketable.” More and more traditionally published authors are using indie publishing as a way to make a little extra on the side and to give their readers something more for being loyal.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Keep writing. I’ve heard, at least for self-published authors, that you need about five books out before they start to really get noticed. When my second novella came out, I sold more of my first novella than my second, though that sounds contrary. Of course, if you land a deal with a publisher, they take care of a lot of the marketing work, but that’s why they also get a cut of the profit!

Who are some of your favorite authors that you feel were influential in your work?

I started out with Tolkien, C.S.Lewis, and Moorcock, and worked through Piers Anthony, Terry Pratchett, Robert Jordan, and David Eddings. These inspired me to start writing and to branch out in my reading.

Some of my current favorite authors are N.K.Jemisin and Brandon Sanderson, for their sheer imagination and worldbuilding. Lois McMaster Bujold and Mary Robinette Kowal have awesome characters, Jim Butcher has incredible plotting and sense of timing, and folks like Larry Niven, Neal Stephenson, Charles Stross, and James S.A. Corey obviously put a lot of research into showing how real science fiction can be.

If it’s not clear by now, I try to learn a little from each book I read, whether in style, art, or prose, and apply that to my own writing.

How can you learn more about William and his work?

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon Author Page | Kickstarter

Book Links:

Tuning the Symphony | Merchants and Maji

  William C. Tracy, author of Tuning the Symphony @wctracy When and why did you begin writing? My first story was in third grade, where Mario, Link, and Zelda had to stop an evil wizard.

[hoopslab]

Sloan Conference Day 1

See my review  Sloan Conference Day 2

The first day of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference was Friday, and I got to get a great cross section into different ways that analytics are changing the way that sports are analyzed, developed, and run in this day and age. A lot of times there is this sense, like Charles Barkley likes to say, that Sports Analytics is just a gimmick for nerds or non-athletes to be able to get in the sports world. Instead, as I’ve seen at Sloan so far, analytics is at the HEART of sports right now. Let’s talk about how.

(Shane Battier in the house)

Possession Sketches: Mapping NBA Strategies

This was an interesting talk, on how technology is being developed to change how coaches and analysts identify what play is being run. The example was given of the Hammer play that the Spurs run, and how there are several identifiable parts of that play (e.g. ball-handler brings ball past half-court, does give-and-go drive on left wing, while on right-wing there’s a screen that opens up a 3-point shooter diving to the corner). 

Miller showed that software can identify the individual parts of a play (e.g. a James Harden baseline cut), and use those as words in a type of language, where a “sentence” (e.g. the whole play) is just made up of combinations of player--movement-words. 

Really cool stuff. It’s still a developing application (Miller reported it took 21 days for his computer to process a particular dataset, for example, and many have suggested that it shouldn’t take nearly that long with slicker data handling methods). But either way, there was a lot of potential here to help improve the way that coaches and analysts are able to scout the game.

3-pointers: Separating Myth from Reality

This talk was given by Seth Partnow of Nylon Calculus, and it was literally PACKED. Standing room only:

This talk was essentially a summary of the last couple of years of Nylon Calculus. Yes, 3-pointers lead to long rebounds but no, this doesn’t lead to more fast breaks. 

Yes, corner 3-pointers are excellent shots, but still only 7 or 7.5% of shots are corner treys. Defenses also know they’re good shots, so they scheme to take it away. So, corner treys usually are the result of good offense, as well as naturally being a good shot.

Defensive 3-point percentage isn’t a very good stat, because it doesn’t tell you what you think it does. Good 3-point defense doesn’t lower the percentage....good 3-point defense PREVENTS THE SHOT. So just looking at percentages really doesn’t tell you much about how good a defense is at defending the trey.

The mid-range game has NOT disappeared with the rise of the trey. Yes, there are fewer mid-range jumpers now, but if you look into it, it’s the unassisted jumper that is declining because spot-up shooters are going further out. But the “star shot”, the ability to create a shot off the dribble, which is overwhelmingly a skill of the great players, is shot at the exact same rate now as it was 5 years ago. So the mid-range isn’t dead, it’s just beoming more the purview of the best players.

Last thing: it IS true that teams are creating more spacing by putting more shooters on the floor. And this spacing is quantifiably a good thing for offenses.

What Levers should NBA pull to improve the league?

This talk showed how analytics are being used to run the league. For example, analytics tell the NBA that back-to-back games or four-games-in-five night situations increase the likelihood of injury. So, they have used data optimizers to minimize the number of B2Bs (e.g. 19.3 B2Bs per team in 2015, down to 16.3 in 2017).

Another example, Hack-a-Shaq. Analytics say that it is a good decision to intentionally foul terrible free throw shooters, and the prevalence of this technique went through the roof between 2012 and 2016. But the numbers show that this is mainly done in the last 2 minutes of every quarter, so changed the rules of when it’s legal to do this. So, the league did NOT outlaw Hack-a-Shaq...instead, they figured out the optimal times to do it, and made it illegal THEN. And so far it’s worked, the numbers of Hacks are WAY down in 2017, because it’s no longer a benefit for teams to do.

Evan suggested ways to improve the draft lottery process. For example, same number of lottery balls for four worst teams to take away incentive to tank. Or, have 6 lottery winners instead of 3 to take away incentive to have worst record (know at worst, you’ll have fourth pick in draft). But the NBA owners voted it down, in part because of the uncertainty of the salary cap spike due to TV rights. May be re-visited later.

Last example: they decided that the current playoff strategy (separated by conference, top-8 seeds of each) was probably best. Decided against a top-16 overall approach, in part due to analytics showing that travel across time zones increases injury, and there’d be more travel like that in a 1 - 16 seeding than the current approach. I didn’t agree with the conclusion, and actually stood and asked the first question pushing back on it, but this was a case where their view of the analytics just disagreed with mine.

Sports Data & Video Automation

This was a sci fi made real talk. Two companies: Keemotion and ShotTracker are using slick algorithms and wearables to generate much more information, produce broadcasts on much smaller budgets (useful on practices, or televising games that wouldn’t previously have been televised), and generate more efficient knowledge than ever before.

The scenario laid out: a person goes into a gym, works out/practices, while they’re doing so the people on the sideline watching get all of his stats in real-time on their IPad, then when the player finishes practicing that information is available on THEIR IPAD, along with a video telecast of everything that they did that matches with those stats, and instructions from the coaches on what they need to work on that day and moving forward.

With the technology they have, that is possible today. Sci fi from when I was a college athlete, but it can be reality by the time that my children are college athletes in their own right.

Silver asks Silver

This was the jewel of the night. Nate Silver, professional statistician from FiveThirtyEight, sat on a panel and asked NBA Commisioner Adam Silver questions for an hour. Some of the highlights:

*Can the NBA ever achieve NFL type parity? Adam Silver says no, because one player makes so much difference and the CBA/Free agency can only be managed so much. Interestingly, Adam Silver didn’t like Kevin Durant going to Golden State, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. He pointed out that, financially, Durant left a lot of money in both his salary AND his endorsements on the table to leave Oklahoma City. And the league’s approach was, in this CBA, to make it even MORE financially friendly for a vet to stay with his team. But that’s as much as they can do.

*The NFL and MLB are more middle AMerica, while the NBA is more progressive politically and outspokenly so...is that a problem? Adam says no, encourages people to speak out. Pointed out that Steve Kerr’s father was killed by Islamic terrorists, and that Chris Paul’s unle is a policeman, which puts them in a good position to be able to speak intelligently about those issues. Says NBA does have a rule against sitting through the National Anthem, but that it could have been broken but he’s glad that NBA players didn’t follow Colin Kaepernick’s advantage. 

*Will there be an international team (besides the Raptors)? Adam Silver: David Stern wanted a European division, but the analytics teaching about the dangers of travel and time zone differences leading to injury has actually pushed a European league into less likely for now. But perhaps Mexico City could host a team...city population over 20 million, country population over 130 million, could be a great market. If people can figure out how to get past the wall (OK, I added that last line. Couldn’t resist)

*Adam Silver says that NBA players WILL wear wearable technology in the near future.

*Says there’s NO chance of a 4-point shot anytime soon

*Says Chris Paul reached out to him to form a committee to make the All Star Game more competitive

OK, that’s a lot of what I saw on Day 1. Come back tomorrow to see what I learned on Day 2 of the Sloan Analytics Conference.

[intellogo-blog]

Culture is the Behavior You Reward and Punish

Jocelyn Goldfein | Medium

Some lessons creep up on you gradually; others hit you over the head like an anvil.

At the outset of 2008, VMware was flying high. We were a Silicon Valley rocket ship; we’d doubled revenue and headcount for four years in a row. We were an upstart disrupting the datacenter, we were thriving despite every effort of powerful incumbents determined to stop us. We had lots of growing pains, but they were all “good problems to have.”

Our CEO collected a few dozen of her senior-most staff and rising young leaders, and took us to Half Moon Bay for an offsite to discuss the future of the company.

Charles O’Reilly of Stanford GSB came for a workshop and gave us a simple exercise: “Here you all are, VMware’s best and brightest. You’ve built this incredibly successful company, what an achievement! Now, imagine I’m a new hire, a protégé of yours, and I show up in your office on my first day of work, and I ask you ‘So what should I do to get ahead at VMware? What makes people successful here? What made you successful?’”

We filled his whiteboard, at first with the expected: “innovate!” “work hard!” “be open and collaborative!” “work with quality” “attention to detail!” “VMware first — don’t be personally selfish.” With more prompting, and we copped to some of the less self-valorizing truths: “be available on email 24x7!” “sound smart” and “get consensus on your decisions.”

Before you read onwards you might want to try this exercise for yourself, about your own company. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

When we finished, O’Reilly pointed at the whiteboard with a magician’s flourish: “That’s your culture. Your culture is the behaviors you reward and punish.” At first, I was stunned. When I thought of culture, I thought of big mission statements and values, like our emphasis on innovation. Or our social traditions — like Friday afternoon beer bash, or tossing the newly affianced into the campus fishpond. I didn’t think of responsiveness to email.

My second reaction was embarrassment. There was a glaring omission on the whiteboard: none of us had brought up customers. If O’Reilly had asked us about culture, we’d certainly have said “customer oriented.” But he’d asked how to succeed at VMware, and so we gave the true answer of what our culture actually was, not what we thought it should be.

New hires don’t walk into your company already knowing your culture. They walk in anxious — hoping for success and fearing failure. They look around them to figure out how they are supposed to behave. They see who’s succeeding, and they imitate what they’re doing as best they can. They figure out who’s failing, and they try to avoid being like them.

Compensation helps very little when it comes to aligning culture, because it’s private. Public rewards are much more influential. Who gets promoted, or hangs out socially with the founders? Who gets the plum project, or a shout-out at the company all-hands? Who gets marginalized on low-value projects, or worse, fired? What earns or derails the job offer when interview panels debrief? These are powerful signals to our teammates, and they’re imprinting on every bit of it. When all the “successful” people behave in the same way, culture is made. At Facebook, “data driven” was a critical value, and across the board, Facebook leaders uniformly make decisions informed by data and listen and respect dissenting arguments when they are presented with data.

When role models are consistent, everyone gets the message, and they align towards that expectation even if it wasn’t a significant part of their values system before joining the company. That’s how culture gets reproduced, and how we assimilate new co-workers who don’t already possess our values.

People stop taking values seriously when the public rewards (and consequences) don’t match up. We can say that our culture requires treating each other with respect, but all too often, the openly rude high performer is privately disciplined, but keeps getting more and better projects. It doesn’t matter if you docked his bonus or yelled at him in private. When your team sees unkind people get ahead, they understand that the real culture is not one of kindness. It ends up being asymmetrical: it takes unanimity to establish a positive norm in your culture, but it only takes a little inconsistency to lose it. When successful people diverge from one another (for example, a mix of rude and kind people), then there is no clear pattern established for others to follow. Your culture is simply mute on the topic, and it’s up to individuals to choose based on their own inclinations or perhaps the most influential leader in their area.

This is why CEOs can seem so sincere making statements like “There’s no place for arrogance in our culture” while individuals in their company continue to exhibit lots of arrogant behavior. Your role models may not uniformly be arrogant. You may not role model arrogance yourself, as CEO. The starting point may very well have been “a few bad apples.” But if you didn’t build a consistent culture of humility, you failed to build an immune system against arrogance.

If you try the Charles O’Reilly exercise on your teammates, like VMware’s execs, you’ll probably find some discrepancies between the culture you have and the culture you want. That learning is a gift; you can use it to change for the better, no matter where you fit in your company.

Team members: even without a formal leadership role, you can affect your company’s culture. You might not control compensation or promotions, but you have a powerful incentive at your fingertips: praise and criticism. Wield them thoughtfully and you can be a culture carrier who transmits and strengthens company values.

Managers: Most day-to-day incentives are controlled by team leads and managers, making you the central nervous system of company culture. Managers need to realize that your decisions are getting absorbed by everyone around you: Laura got a stretch project. Shawn got transferred. Jing attended the Director’s meeting in your place when you were traveling. The decisions may be nuanced, but perceptions won’t be. Be judicious about the tradeoffs you’re making.

Founders/CEOs: Once a company scales, founders and CEOs have little control over day-to-day incentives — but you still have disproportionate cultural impact. Your company sees you as the embodiment of company values. That’s high stakes: if you dither over decision making, you can expect your team to have trouble getting things done. It’s also a super power. If a CEO spends an hour on the phone taking customer support calls, then everyone gets the message that making things right for customers is everyone’s job.

Culture is powerful. It makes teams highly functional and gives meaning to our work. It’s essential for organizational scale because culture enables people to make good decisions without a lot of oversight. But ironically, culture is particularly vulnerable when you are growing quickly. If newcomers get guidance from teammates and leaders who aren’t assimilated themselves, your company norms don’t have a chance to reproduce. If rewards like stretch projects and promotions are handed out through battlefield triage, there’s no consistency to your value system.

Times of high growth are when you need to be most deliberate about your culture, but if you start early and stay relentless, you’ll be able to depend on it when you need it the most.

More great articles about corporate culture and entrepreneurship...

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Playing Diabetes Doctor, for Real

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/playing-diabetes-doctor-for-real/

Playing Diabetes Doctor, for Real

We got word earlier this year that the American Diabetes Association was trying out a new training program dubbed a "patient simulator," where docs can practice on not-so-real people with diabetes (PWDs), trying out everything from assessing conditions to ordering lab tests and meds. And they get graded on their decision-making!

Medical simulation is actually quite the trend, with a company called SciMed even launching a "virtual diabetes institute" last year.

Having some actual expertise treating patients, our columnist and correspondent Wil Dubois volunteered to take a look at how realistic and useful the ADA's new simulator is.

I've got my stethoscope draped cavalierly around my neck. I don't actually need it today, but it makes me look smart. I boot up my computer and begin reviewing the case histories of the four patients in the waiting room.

Delia P. is a 65-year-old white female who "presents for follow up of poorly-controlled type 2 diabetes." Charles T. is described as a 53-year-old man who has come in for an initial visit to "establish care" after not having seen a clinician for over a year. Jorge R. is a 58-year-old obese Latino male with a 4-year history of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. And lastly, Caroline G. is a 58-year-old African-American widow who's come in for a routine assessment of her type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

Thinking about which patient to take on first, I take a drag on my cigar and down a deep swig of Evan Williams cinnamon whiskey. Hell, why not? I'm only playing doctor today, and I'm working from home, to boot.

Don't worry, I'm not practicing medicine without a license.

I'm test-driving the new interactive patient simulator program from the American Diabetes Association and TheraSim. It's a Continuing Medical Education program for docs designed "to evaluate and reinforce best practices in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with diabetes." It's billed as the industry's first fully-interactive patient simulator.

The documentation from TheraSim says that each simulated patient is based on an actual patient case. How real will I find it? I'm told that as I diagnose and treat a patient, the system will provide me with dynamic clinical feedback — in essence, a computerized preceptor.

I decided to play the "game" straight, and make the best clinical decisions I could. But remember, I'm not a real doctor, this is waaaaaaay above my pay grade. And last week, despite having a real pilot's license, I crashed a Cessna on my son's flight simulator program while trying to land on a lake in Alaska (I don't want to talk about it). If I make a bad decision, will I "crash" my patient?

Meeting My Patient

Which patient to choose? I am tempted by the poorly controlled lady because maybe I can make simulated improvements to her simulated diabetes mess. Charles is tempting too, as he probably has some underlying issues that will need to be ferreted out. In the end, however, I choose the Latino. He's closest to the real patients I work with. I want to see if TheraSim gets him "right."

As I enter the virtual treatment room, Jorge is sitting on the exam table. I say "Hi Jorge. What brings you here to see us today?"

It's the first question on the interview list. I have to left-click to ask it.

The video screen on my computer jumps to life. "Hi Doc," says Jorge with a wave. "I'm just here for my regular checkup of my diabetes, cholesterol, and blood pressure." He has a heavy east LA accent. The treatment room is nicer than the ones we have where I work.

He's supposed to be 58 years old, but looks in his early 40's to me. He's dressed like a tradesman but is apparently an accountant. He's also listed as obese. Really? The vitals tab on my simulated medical chart shows him at 95 kilograms. Whoa! I'm no good at kilos, so I duck out of the program to Google conversion from kilos to pounds. He's 209 pounds. I don't have his height on the chart, but I'm thinking they shoulda hired a fatter actor. He's supposedly married, has one adult child, "no grandchildrens yet," and is a non-smoker. He does drink "two or three beers maybe once or twice a week." His father kicked the bucket at age 52, of a heart attack. His mom died early as well, from complications of diabetes.

He tells me, with some prompting from me, that he eats "whatever my wife makes," gets precious little exercise, and if he checks his blood sugar it doesn't seem to be included in the simulation, which strikes me as odd. Or maybe not, when you consider how rarely primary care docs look at logs.

I can only choose to ask questions on the menu. Some things that I'd probably actually ask a real patient aren't options, and I'm given the chance to ask Jorge other things I'd probably would never have thought to ask. So far it feels like I'm cheating. I've been given a script.

Exploring the Steps

The intro screen where I'm chatting with Jorge is one of seven sections. The next steps on the simulation are: history, order tests, graphs, diagnosis, orders, and results. Oh boy. I hope I don't kill my patient.

According to TheraSim, during the case simulation activities, "similar to real life, the participant can make decisions based on an unlimited number of choices."

Apparently Jorge R. has excellent simulated insurance.

Looking through the wealth of data available to me, a picture begins to emerge. It's a compelling mix of nonsense and important clues that mimic the complexity of real medicine quite well. This patient missed his last visit. His weight had been coming down, but is now rising again. I see at the last visit "we" switched his ACE-inhibitor from enalapril to losartan due to a persistent cough from the 'pril. I wonder if there's a spot I can ask about how the new med is treating him?

Playing Doctor

His BP is up a bit with the change of ACE-inhibitor. Hmmmm... I think I'll increase the dose. I click on the orders tab. A prescription pad pops up, complete with a slider to let me increase the dose. Oh how fun! I realize now I have no clue how to increase an anti-hypertensive, so I take a blind shot at the increase. I'm having flashbacks to my Alaska lake landing. While I'm in the orders section, I give him referrals to a CDE, and RD, and for exercise.

Next, I double back to labs. I'm thinking that as he missed his last visit, he might be overdue for an A1C, and sure enough he is. I order an A1C test and get instant results. Oh dear. It's 9.2%, up from 6.8 last time, according the very cool built in graph function. I get a gold star in the clinical guidance panel for catching the missing test. Well, OK, it wasn't really a gold star, it was a green check mark.

Under order tests I have the option of ordering SMBG at various times throughout the week. I click the box, and lo and behold, I get a potpourri of BG checks, running 196 to 251mg/dL, generally in the low 200s. OK, so this guy needs a basal insulin added. I go back to the prescription pad and add it on. I get another green check and Jorge doesn't cry or faint like a real patient.

My Score?

So how'd I do in the end? Each decision I made was given a right or wrong rating in real time. For instance, I ordered a cardiac stress test and was told it was "unnecessary in this patient because there is no evidence that screening asymptomatic patients decreases cardiovascular events or deaths." Oops. My bad. I ordered a $4K test for no reason. But so did a third of docs who ran the simulation. When you are finished, the program compares your actions to your "peers," who are presumably real doctors for the most part, not party crashers like me.

Oddly, I "appropriately" ordered an exercise start and got a green check mark, but 0% of my peers did the same. What? I'm the only "doctor" who thinks this fat guy should get some exercise? I also got a green check mark for the insulin start, and was told it was the "best option" for the patient. But only 4% of my peers agreed. I wasn't too surprised by that; primary care docs are notoriously hesitant to start insulin, even when it's clearly needed. Hopefully, the simulators like this will begin to change those attitudes.

But no final score, damn it. The program does not give an overall assessment of how you did. Still, it was fun. Kinda like case studies on steroids.

Grading the Program

So how did the patient simulator score with me? Well, the virtual interaction with the patient seemed forced and fake to my mind --but the rich tapestry of detail, options, and decisions to be made take the patient simulator far beyond the classic case-based learning model with its moldy PowerPoints. It made me think. And I think it might make physicians think, too. Will it make docs better? It might. The combination of real-life complexity and real-time feedback feels like a winner to me.

But, damn, I sure wish I knew if my change to Jorge's blood pressure medication killed the poor guy or not. That's one thing the simulator never told me.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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