#I think I had to recite memory verses every week or so? add to that going to church every Sunday and my family taking part in in person or

[uchiha-gaeshi]

Remembering how I went from Child of God™️ with the strength to resist Wordly Temptations to a hardcore agnostic within a year.

[inb4belphienaps]

boundaries (continued)

<pt. 1> warnings: mention of nightmare (bugs), suggestive dialogue (?) word count: 1383

later that night, as you lie in bed staring at the ceiling, you try to picture where the butterfly had gone. something tells you that it dissipated, faded into the air after you'd returned your attention to him.

you recall the intensity with which he'd looked at you and you clench your jaw. the color of his magic is that of his eyes. a wonderful mixture that reminds you of sunsets over the water, where the sky melts into the land and the horizon becomes blurred.

beautiful. he's beautiful.

overwhelming at times but not in a way that deters you. had he been a tad more impatient or a pinch more entitled, you reason that you would've thought twice about helping him.

it was odd. how alluring he could be, how alluring he is. or perhaps you were doomed from the start. he's easy to talk to and you find yourself rambling every now and then. he never really interrupts you, if only to ask a question regarding an aspect you'd neglected to mention.

did he only show interest because of his circumstances? were you only preferable in lieu of the silence he had to endure alone?

you remember the feel of his lips. the way his breath had tickled your palm and you shiver. if you were to allow yourself to imagine, how would his lips taste, you wonder.

as you close your eyes in a bid to find out, you slowly drift off to sleep.

while belphie settles in under his covers, he concludes that he'd been far too pessimistic. you were open to letting him in, within reason. he'd scrapped the plan when he'd realized how you received him.

the way you didn't jump to conclusions or assume things on your own (so unlike a certain someone else he knew). the way you'd seemingly wanted to believe him, even before he'd started to explain himself.

he'd forgotten humans could be like that too. naïve and willing and...pure? he shakes his head. he'd never liked that word as an angel and now as a demon, he disliked it all the more. it was the connotations. except, he didn't know what other word to use to describe you. had his days in the devildom led him astray?

you'd been receptive to his kiss, he recollects with some semblance of embarrassment. it'd felt right at the time. yet as he turns the lights off, he wonders what he would've done had you not been as yielding.

and then, as if on cue, his mind reminds him of That Plan. he mulls it over briefly. and his desire to know whether you'll dream of him tonight because of what happened wins.

so he relaxes, shuts his eyes and lets his magic spread. slowly, from the cracks in the walls and through the gate, this attachment he'd formed to you, helps to guide him.

he's able to reach you and a rush of excitement causes him to pre-emptively enter your room. his vision isn't as clear as he'd like it to be, given the limited amount of power he could use with lucifer's enchantments in place.

it's comforting to see you asleep. he definitely would've foregone the effort had he found you awake.

although he's tempted to feel out the bits and pieces of your room, he focuses on your figure and lets his magic seep in.

entering dreams usually requires a minute amount of exertion and depending on the dream itself, he's often able to emerge in the background of the scene taking place. it helps when he's trying not to disturb the person dreaming. and in this case, that's the last thing he wants.

he recites the verse – once, twice, thrice for good measure.

the first thing that greets him is the sound of music. dreams, however confusing and muddled they could be, were only perceivable if they were felt. the tune is soft, and he takes a step forward, opening his eyes to a forest of some kind.

sunlight wafts in through the tree branches, bouncing off of leaves and droplets of what he gathers to be water (despite their honey-like nature). there isn't much movement aside from that. as if the landscape were frozen in time.

walking along a hazy path, he comes to a clearing and finally, he sees you. there you are, ankle-deep in a river of sorts, swaying and twirling in the middle of a kaleidoscope of butterflies. they're dancing. with you, it seems.

a lovely dream, he thinks. entirely innocent when compared to the types of inclinations he'd been hoping to find.

he follows your line of sight and he sees that the sky is painted mauve, dotted with clouds of pink and blue. awfully quaint. he catches a droplet falling from an elm and he watches it burst in a manner quite unlike normal physics would suggest.

it continues. weeks pass of him doing this, invading your dreams, and your suspicions grow ever nearer to the truth.

on one particular night, you're left feeling distraught.

this dream had been personal. it'd manifested in the human world. at home in fact, in the comfort of the house whose layout you knew like the back of your hand. concerns that plagued you played out like segments of a movie haphazardly thrown together.

anxieties and concerns weaved their way in. and so did belphie, apparently. he'd shown up during a rather horrible instance, when you'd curled up on the floor and tugged at the carpet, which had fallen apart in your hands.

only, it wasn't carpet. it was hair. and there hadn't been solid ground underneath it. instead, critters with thousands of legs and pincers that 'click-click-click'-ed emerged, crawling their way onto your hands. before you could scream, he'd pulled you away. and the scene had dissolved to the two of you lying together in bed.

you'd kissed him on those pretty lips. gone as far as to admit something to him too.

and so when you return to the attic to confront him, you're afraid of the consequences.

"how long?"

he looks at you with hooded eyes, not a hint of emotion betraying him. he needed to know where you stood first.

"how long have you been coming into my dreams like that?"

you hold up the charm solomon had lent you, the round gem inside it still glowing.

"i thought- why...why would you do that?"

"i only did it recently. after you told me you dreamt about me."

your mind reels to conjure up the memory of that day. the day you'd come to him slightly tipsy (again, thanks to solomon's certain 'privileges') and you'd made a fool of yourself. shame flares up in your stomach and you avert your gaze.

he'd argue otherwise if he knew that that was how you saw it.

"fuck. i thought you'd forgotten."

he snickers. and you have a half a mind to throw the charm at him. if only you knew how long he'd really been invading your dreams for.

"i wanted to see what they were about."

you tense at that. quickly stuffing the charm back in your pocket, you cross your arms.

"those are my dreams, belphie. what if you'd seen something...terrible?"

"if by terrible, you mean us christening the bed, then i'd have to say i disagree."

the blush on your cheeks has him grinning.

"that- please! i- i'd never-"

you pause at his expression. he sees you consider it, the thought fleeting through your mind in real time.

"okay, maybe, maybe i'm more perverse than i'd care to admit. but. and there is a but. it still doesn't give you the right to do that."

he chooses his next words very carefully and lowers his voice.

"not even when it means that we could meet in your dreams?"

another pause. you were too honest. he could read you so easily like this, how that offer makes you reconsider. you were beginning to become incredibly fond of him already, weren't you?

"i hate you."

he laughs unabashedly and you smile despite yourself.

"i pick the time and place though", you quickly add.

you think he's only nodding in response until he catches your eye and leans in, pressed up against the metal to say, "of course".

[pongnosis]

I’m sorry to bother you again but are there any little scenes/headcanons that you never got to add into Devil? What are your favs?

It’s absolutely not a bother! The answer will probably be a little disappointing, though. There were a ton of ideas that never made it in, but the vast majority of them remained a line or two in my notes. Of the stuff that actually got written ... most of what I never got to add in was stuff where the plot took a different turn - things like the bare bones/main scenes of the alternate ending where Alex chose the CIA options, or snippets of an AU where Yassen chose to break Alex and turn him entirely into Orion after Santa Catarina. Bits of some of it got reused elsewhere if possible, and the rest of the discarded scenes are generally stuff that just ... didn’t fit in. It was too slow, too detail-heavy, or just didn’t quite fit the flow of the chapter. Most of the important scenes and headcanons made it in (with the exception, I believe, of the undercover agent on Santa Catarina - that was Nathan, Johann’s bodyguard, who was with the CIA, but it never fit into the fic to mention it.)

If you do feel in the mood for Yassen deciding to break Alex ‘for his own good’, I’m happy to share! It’s less of a rough first draft and more a collection of main scenes that I had to get down in writing before it would leave me alone. It’s somewhere on the discord server, too, but ... way, way back. God knows where. Warnings for Yassen deciding to break Alex through isolation:

Alex wakes up in an unfamiliar room wearing nothing but loose trousers and a t-shirt. His last recollection is leaving Malagosto with Yassen; refusing to stab someone to death, accepting however many weeks in Dr Three's care, and Yassen telling him he won't have to -

- And nothing. Drugs do weird things to memories sometimes; resistance to interrogation taught him that. It could have been days ago. It could have been hours. He has no way of knowing.

There is no daylight in the room, no windows, just the constant, low, artificial light of the lamps. There is no running water anywhere. There's a toothbrush and toothpaste and a sink, but no tap. There's a chemical toilet and disinfectant gel with a horrible, hospital-like smell to it, but nowhere to actually wash his hands. No shower. Nothing but a plastic jug of water and a cup that goes with it. To Alex's best estimate, it's enough to last a day and not much more.

The door is locked. Alex tries it twice, just to be sure. He can probably fit a single sheet of paper between the door and the frame but that's it. The walls are solid and probably soundproof.

It doesn't feel like Dr Three's style, though Alex could be wrong.

He has no idea of the time but he stays stubbornly silent. He won't beg to be let out, he won't talk, and whoever is behind this – Yassen, it has to be – can just go screw themselves.

With no shoes on, he's smart enough not to kick the door.

Eventually he settles down, resting against the wall. There's nothing else to do. The floor isn't comfortable but then, neither is the wall. His mind, already bored, is happy to supply any number of horrific possibilities as to why he's there. Alex is sure that's Yassen's plan in the first place and makes a pointed effort to ignore them.

He starts by mentally reciting every country and capital he can remember. Then he tries in alphabetical order, followed by doing the same in French, Spanish, Russian, German.

He can remember a surprising amount of song lyrics when he thinks about it, which just makes it all the more annoying when there's part of a single verse that he can't recall.

Alex spends a long time trying to remember the first lines to Total Eclipse of the Heart, and considering how many times Jack's played the damn thing -

Alex has just started on his third attempt at trying to remember all of Bohemian Rhapsody when the door opens and Yassen steps inside. Alex is on his feet seconds later, stiff and sore and furious.

Then he takes a closer look. There's something about Yassen's body language that has Alex instantly on edge. Something that reminds him of … he's not sure, but he knows it's nothing good. Gentle, almost.

“Orion,” Yassen greets, breaking the silence.

“Alex.” Probably not the best time to be stubborn, but Alex doesn't care.

There is something in Yassen's eyes – pride, pity, resigned determination – and he touches Alex's chin lightly. “Not anymore.”

Alex sneers. “What, you didn't have the heart to just shoot me, so you'll lock me up?”

“Something like that,” Yassen agrees.

----

Alex gets the point when he lets his anger get the better of him and hurls the jug at the door and calls Yassen every name in the book.

There is no food or water that evening, night, whatever time it is. The floor is still damp but dries fast in the dry, air-conditioned atmosphere. Alex goes to sleep thirsty and wakes up with a mouth that feels like sandpaper and saliva that acts like glue.

He doesn't work out that day, just does slow, careful stretches that won't make him sweat.

He's hungry, too, but the thirst is overwhelming. When the door finally opens sometimes in the 'evening' and Yassen appears with a new jug of water and a plate of nutrition bars, Alex doesn't move.

Yassen doesn't put it down but arches an eyebrow in a silent question, and Alex knows without being told that if he gets it wrong, Yassen will leave again.

A healthy adult can go for a week or more without water. Alex isn't an adult but he knows Yassen will have a good idea of what he can handle, and two days without water probably won't kill him.

Yassen's words to him before his first meeting with the executive board comes back to him, unwanted.

Be respectful, obey, never argue.

Yassen doesn't care that he's the one that locked up Alex. He doesn't care that Alex has every right to be angry and throw a fit. He doesn't care that Alex is a teenager and not exactly known for forethought and rational actions.

Thirst battles with pride. Yassen never moves. Finally the man seems to lose his patience. It's more a minute shift of muscles than anything else, but Alex can read it just fine.

Alex swallows. “- I'm sorry,” he says before he can stop himself, before Yassen can leave, and his words sound hoarse to himself. They make his throat hurt, too.

Yassen nods and holds out the water, and Alex accepts it very, very carefully. He forces himself to drink slowly – there's plenty, but he doesn't want to waste it – and when he puts it down, the plate is on the floor, and Yassen is gone again.

--------

The nutrition bars are vanilla flavoured; the cheap sort that's made of chemicals in a lab somewhere and added to everything from discount candy to the sort of milkshakes that come in plastic jugs.

By day five. Alex is ready to throw up from just the smell of chemical vanilla. It takes longer to eat those bars every day. The only reason he manages is because of hunger and the fact that if he doesn't, the smell will stick.

He dumps them in the chemical toilet in a fit of anger on day six. He gets no food on day seven. None on day eight. By the time day nine rolls around and he finally gets food again, that vanilla smell is the best thing ever.

Alex gets the lesson loud and clear.

Be respectful.

------

Yassen greets him with 'Orion' every time but says little else. He answers if Alex asks, but only sometimes. If Alex gets angry, Yassen will leave. If he stays respectful, he will have company for at least a little while.

Yassen calls him Orion. Alex corrects him. It becomes a habit, though Alex's heart isn't really in it. He's tired and bored and lonely, and it's not like Yassen doesn't know about his objections.

On day eleven, Yassen appears with the usual food and drink, for a given definition of the term.

“Orion.”

Alex wonders why he bothers. For the first time, Alex can't be bothered to correct him, too tired to care.

“... Whatever.”

-------

The reading material that appears is Dr Three's most recent work, a two-thousand page monstrosity on torture.

Alex doesn't want to read it but the boredom has become a creature of its own, gnawing slowly at his sanity.

He opens the book.

It takes him three days to finish it. When he does, Yassen spends a long time testing him, question after question on what he's read, and Alex answers to the best of his ability. It's better than the silence.

There is fresh fruit with his dinner that night; apples, grapes, sweet oranges. Alex forces himself to eat slowly and savour it. He eats everything but the stems and peel – and honest, he even tried a bite of that. At least it's not vanilla.

He loses track of the days eventually. He's not sure how. He got to twenty-something and then … forgot. Lost count. Was it twenty-two or three? His mental calendar break down after that. It's not like that matters, either. He's not getting out any time soon. Maybe never, some deep, dark part of his mind acknowledges.

[theoriginalladya]

27 100 ways to say I love you for Caleb x Kaidan

from this list

on AO3 here

Some Caleb and Kaidan set in ME1 prior to their romance, actually.  Still, small things lead to bigger ones, right?  Set right after Virmire.  A bit sad maybe, more bittersweet, but in the long run I think it works well.  Under cut due to length.

~~~

After dismissing the others, Caleb can’t exit the comms room fast enough.  Between the disastrous outcome of the mission and the lack of sensitivity on the Council’s part, he is absolutely livid.  It takes every ounce of willpower within him to keep from cursing up a blue streak and losing his temper – in Irish, just to be safe, but he still can’t count out a well-placed assistant on any of their staffs – but he manages, barely.  Logically, he knows returning to the Citadel is the right call, especially if he wants to have backup going after Saren, but it does very little in the way of calming him.  And after Virmire, he needs calming.

Heading through the CIC, he descends to the crew deck, but once he reaches the base of the steps, he hesitates.  He really should head to his own cabin; his gear needs attention, and God knows he could do with a rest after events on Virmire, but his thoughts are elsewhere for the very same reason, so he doesn’t.  Instead, he calls the lift and takes it down to the cargo bay where he spends the next few hours cleaning out Williams’ locker and her work station, packing her personal belongings away in a shipping crate that he carefully secures and labels.  He still has a letter to write, one he isn’t looking forward to but has far too much experience with.  He’ll add it later, securing it to the crate with her things.  When they arrive at the Citadel, he plans to personally see it gets onto an Alliance transport back to her family.  Ashley deserved a hell of a lot more in life than she got; he’s going to do what he can to see that she gets it now, even if it’s the last thing he does.

A quick glance at his chronometer when he’s done explains why he finds himself alone in the cargo bay; it’s 01h16.  Only third watch is up this late, all sensible crew members are asleep in their beds or pods.  With that in mind, he finally gives in and heads to his cabin.

He doesn’t get more than a half step inside the room before he hesitates.  He sees her face in his mind’s eye, hears her voice insist he protect Alenko and the bomb instead of coming for her.  The weeks and months of chasing Saren suddenly come to a drastic, unexpected halt as a result; a young life cut short far too soon.  One hand rises almost of its own accord to rub over his left breast, attempting to ease the ache there.  It doesn’t do any good, of course, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.

“Go n-ithe an cat thú is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat,” he mutters then spins on his heel needing to be any place but here …

… and runs straight into Kaidan.  Throwing his hands out is automatic, and he catches the lieutenant before either of them can fall.  “Sorry.”

“My fault,” Kaidan replies, stepping back out of his way.  

A quick assessment is all Caleb needs to see something isn’t right with him, and he steps to the side, gesturing him into the room.  “Come on in,” he invites, putting as much warmth into the words as he can just now. Whether he’s successful at that or not, he doesn’t know, but Kaidan is agreeable and moves into the room.  “Did you need something?”  He doesn’t wait for his answer, but walks on over to one of his storage lockers and retrieves a dark bottle and two glasses.

Kaidan sighs heavily, the sound echoes throughout the small room.  “I just … I can’t stop thinking about Ashley,” he admits after a minute or two.

Caleb sets the glasses onto the table and opens the bottle, pouring two-fingers worth of the liquid into each.  When he finishes, he caps the bottle then nudges a glass in Kaidan’s direction.  The lieutenant seems startled at first, but catches himself after a moment and takes it in hand.  Only then does Caleb lift his glass.  Instead of his usual toast, he murmurs, “Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.”  At Kaidan’s quizzical look, he clarifies, “May she rest in peace.”

Kaidan nods and lifts his glass, clinking it softly against Caleb’s.  They drink in silence, each to their own thoughts, own memories.  When their glasses are empty, Kaidan sets his on the table. Caleb is about to reach for the current bottle, but a twitch of distaste at his lips.  “Not to your liking?”

Kaidan shrugs but says nothing.

Grabbing what he affectionately refers to as the good stuff, he returns it to the storage locker and snags a different bottle. “How about this?” he asks, tilting it so Kaidan can see the label.  When Kaidan hesitates, Caleb provides a smile of encouragement.  “Try some,” he insists.  “I promise, it’s good.”

Kaidan chuckles softly, conceding with a slight nod of his head.  “I don’t think I’ve ever had a commander quite so … well-versed, shall we say, in spirits?”

The smile that follows doesn’t reach his eyes as Caleb pours another two-fingers worth into their glasses.  This time, he reverts to his standard toast.  “Sláinte.”  Their glasses clink lightly and they down the liquid in one gulp.  This time as he sets his glass down, Caleb takes a seat.  

Kaidan follows.  “What was that you said?”

“Hmm?”  Rubbing his hands over his face, Caleb tilts his head until he can see the lieutenant. “Sláinte?  It means ‘good health.’”

Kaidan shakes his head.  “No, before.  When we were at the door,” he clarifies.

Caleb frowns and tries to think back.  So many things he says, so many in Irish, even, and he does it without really thinking about it at the time.  How is he supposed to remember?

“Sounded like something about a … cat?”

From one instant to the next, it’s as if a light turns on in his head.  “Go n-ithe an cat thú is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat,” he repeats.

“Yeah, that one.”

Chuckling, Caleb pours himself one last drink.  This time, he silently salutes his friend, hoping she is watching down over them and keeping them safe for the rest of this mission. “Loosely translated, it means, May the cat eat you, and may the divil eat the cat.”

Kaidan waits a moment or two before he asks, “What the hell does that mean?”

Sitting back up, Caleb shrugs.  “I was wishing Saren and surefire one-way ticket to hell, simply put.”  He looks over at Kaidan and tips his chin toward the bottle, but the lieutenant shakes his head.  Pushing both the bottle and his glass to the side, Caleb settles his hands on the table as he turns toward his friend.  “Look, Kaidan, I –.”

Shaking his head, Kaidan waves off the comment.  “I’m sorry I put you into such a position to begin with,” he says quietly.  His fingers fiddle with his glass.  “I … shouldn’t have, and now? …  The shock of losing Ash like that, it just …”

Caleb reaches over and plucks the glass from his hands before covering them with one of his to keep them still.  “The whole situation shouldn’t have happened the way it did,” he corrects.  “Ashley should be here now, drinking with us; it should never have been you or her. But she isn’t here, and that’s Saren’s fault, not yours, not mine.  Understand?”

Kaidan’s closes his eyes for a minute, but he nods.

Pulling back, Caleb asks, “Do you remember that night on Arcturus, when we finally went out for the drink I owed you?”

His eyes open again and focus across the table with the question.  “What does that have to do with anything?”

Caleb shrugs.  “I made some comment about how things played out on Akuze.  And you said …?”

“Situations like that are out of your control.  There isn’t anything you could have done to change the outcome,” Kaidan repeats.  “Something like that, anyway.”

“I think we both know Ash would agree with that.” Caleb leans back in his seat and sighs. “I hate losing people under my command. But it happens.  Will happen again, no matter how I wish it won’t.  Virmire … Akuze … the streets of Shannon.  Doesn’t matter where or who, it happens.  But each time, I try to learn something from it – take something that might just keep it from happening again, or at least will lessen the numbers.”

A thoughtful look crosses Kaidan’s face.  “And this time?”  

Huffing softly, Caleb admits, “Still working that out.”

After several more moments of quiet, Kaidan pushes to his feet.  “Well, thanks for the talk, commander, and the drink. I –.”

Caleb’s eyes narrow to slits.  “Alenko, what have I told you?”

“Sir – .”

He folds his arms across his chest, giving his most intimidating stare.  Granted, after three quick drinks, it’s probably less than effective.  Probably.  But he’s got his N7 training behind it, too.  That has to count for something.

Kaidan sighs again and grumbles, “Fine, Shepard.”

Intimidation slips easily into amusement.  “Was that so difficult?  At least I’m not asking you to call me by my given name.”

“The point,” Kaidan continues acting as if he hadn’t been interrupted, though the hint of pink at his cheeks states otherwise, “I was trying to make was, thank you.  For taking the time to talk.  For the drinks.  For …”

He eases up immediately, sensing the completion of that thought.  “For remembering Ashley?”

“Yeah.”

“Not likely I’ll forget her.”

“No, I wasn’t suggesting you would.  I mean – .”

Rising, Caleb shakes his head.  “I remember every single person I’ve lost over the years under my command,” he says quietly.  “Ashley won’t ever be forgotten.”  And if he has his way about it, the entire family won’t ever be forgotten again.

“Thank you, sir.”  Kaidan slides to attention.  “Good night.”

“Good night.”  

The minute the door shuts behind the lieutenant, Caleb pours one more drink.  It isn’t what he’d prefer, but the bottle is right in front of him.  Lifting his glass, he stares across the room at the door and lifts the glass and begins to recite, “Ciara, Colin, Sean, Brennan, Nora, Aoife, Killian and Siobhan.”  Each name comes easily from his memory, gliding off his tongue with his easy lilt. He continues through the names of his unit on Akuze, of the couple of personnel lost over the years on his N7 missions, then hesitates as he concludes, “welcome her with open arms, if you’d be so kind.  Like you, she was the best of us and deserves the homecoming.  May good luck be with you Wherever you go, and your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow.”  

When he finally tumbles into bed and falls to sleep that night, his dreams are blessedly still and empty for the first night in what feels like forever …

[grimelords]

I have been unbelievably busy for all of 2020 so far. Starting a new job and crunching to finish an old one, it's been very good but it has also meant that I haven't had the downtime I'd have liked in order to write long screeds about when drums sound good in songs so my December and January playlists unfortunately never got finished. They will exist as 'lost' playlists in the grimelords canon where you will simply have to listen to them and have your own thoughts about the songs instead of having your judgement clouded by me saying things like 'this sounds nice' and 'I love when the guitar goes woo-eee'.

You can listen to them here:

December https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4crPEVSPwftPpWl14xUrXF

January https://open.spotify.com/playlist/25MP7onYLCwWRYBIi0u3yc

As far as this, my February playlist goes: It's great! It's two and a half hours. The songs sounds nice and the guitars go woo-eee. I was worried I wouldn't be able to listen to as much music with my new job but it turns out I'm listening to more than ever which is extremely nice. Please enjoy, and if you'd like to subscribe to this playlist please do so here: https://tinyletter.com/grimelords

Listen to this playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZraEZOeS6qvVxfnz3AJS9

Ballad Of The Skeletons - Allen Ginsberg, Paul McCartney, Phillip Glass and Lenny Kaye: I had a dim childhood memory of this 1996 Hottest 100 funny skeleton song that my sister randomly brought up this month and was was shocked to find out that somewhere deep in my brain the part where the electric chair skeleton says “hey what’s cooking???” was still stored. I was also shocked to find out that the funny skeleton song I remembered from when I was a kid was actually a collaboration between Allen Ginsberg, Paul McCartney and Phillip Glass and was an unexpected hit on MTV and Triple J in 1996 for an as yet unknown reason.

I Can Go With You - Sam Burton: This song came up in my Discover Weekly, and I was so excited to listen to more of this 70s singer songwriter I've never heard of before who has no doubt had a long and illustrious career and was shocked to find out that not only is this song from 2020, it is also the first and so far only release by Sam Burton and his debut album is coming out sometime this year. I love how plain it is, and the first time I heard it it made no impression on me until a couple of hours later when I realised I was humming the melody to myself. It has this decepitive simplicity to it, and it sounds like a song you've always known which is really about as good a compliment as you can give a song. I also love this statement from him: “I was writing a song a day for 30 days as a personal challenge to myself. I Can Go With You came near of that practice and I considered it a throwaway at the time. After recording most of the album I still needed a couple more songs and decided to throw it on and we recorded it live followed by two others. When I listened back it ended up being one of the tracks I was happiest with on the record.” I love when artists are asked about songs and they have no divine inspiration to relate, just a process of daily work where they're like "well, I wrote it, like I always do. Did the chords and the words and everthing just like normal. I write hundreds of these things and this one came out pretty good. I don't know what else to tell you."

Wild Dogs - Colter Wall: This is a song by Billy Don Burns who you can probably expect to see on this playlist next month, and who as I understand it is one of these 'real' country guys that have been around for a million years and only ever had success when other people sang their songs. So it's very nice of Colter Wall to continue that tradition for him. I love the way this song takes the metaphor to a place of almost uncomfortable literalism, a tryst metamophising into something private, bloody and feral. The subtle way the lap steel whines slowly along in the background before stepping out and taking centre stage once the song picks up steam near the end is a marvel too.

Tom's Diner - Suzanne Vega: I had a live version of this randomly recommended to me by youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkYPge6ZKSQ and it made me see this song that I'd always been sort of aware of in a new light and really properly appreciate it for the first time. Somehow I'd never noticed the last verse where it moves from literalism to memories, and of course that's sort of the moment that ties the whole song together. What I really appreciate about the acapella arrangement is that it feels like this is a song that's existed a million times before but she's the first person to actually write it down and record it. Everyone's made up a little dishwashing song or a little walking song, reciting some to-do list in your head. It's an entire genre that exists under people's breath for a few minutes and gets immediately forgotten.

If You Don't Know Now, You Never Will - Drugdealer: I could have sworn this was a Tobias Jesso Jr song. I really just assumed it was until I looked at the credits. It's such a nice song though and I'm glad this sort of 70s californian vibe is making a quiet comeback because it is just uniformly pleasant and it's nice to hear these sorts of arrangements, with the accenting violin runs and things like that. All the extra decorations and ornamentations that have sort of disappeared.

Crimson Tide - Destroyer: I absolutely love this new Destroyer album because it just feels like such pure uncut Destroyer. I’ve always thought of him as a sort of 400 year old vampire lounge singer who is just amusing himself at this point and so the cover art has really confirmed my suspicions on that front. The lyrics through this whole album are so good, the sort of stream of consciousness strangeness like ‘when lightning strikes twice the funeral goes completely insane’ that takes a on such gravity because he sings it with complete deadpan seriousness.

Truth (feat Alicia Keys and The Last Artful, Dodger) - Mark Ronson: I didn't really give this album a chance when it came out but ever since I found out Alicia Keys is good now (Time Machine) I've been looking for more good Alica Keys work and found one here. The Last Artful, Dodger is one of the worst artist names I think I've ever heard but she absolutely kills it on the way she says biiiiitch so I'll forgive it.

Surf & Turf - Boldy James + The Alchemist: Alchemist's production on this whole album is so incredible. He really just lets Boldy go and doesn't get in his way like good production should. Especially on the opening verse where Boldy James sticks with that loping flow for so long in 3s over 4 that matches that arpeggios in the beat, it's just a perfect harmony of rapper and producer.

Fat Mac - Duke Deuce: Misogyny in rap is a real issue that nobody seems really allowed to talk about because it's obviously very complicated, and this song some real classic 'stay in the kitchen' type woman hating in it and is basically incredibly callous and cruel throughout. However this beat is hot and there is also a part about a third of the way through where he says "fuck her till that pussy fart" and then makes a big fart noise, so.

Set It Up (feat. Trina) - Kamaiyah: I only found out about Kamaiyah's fantastic 2016 album A Good Night In The Ghetto about two weeks before her new one came out so I've been on a real Kamaiyah hype for a little while now. She's just fantastic. I love this song because I love the part where Trina seemingly out of the blue threatens to piss in my mouth. The first time I heard it I said 'wow!' out loud.

Come As You Are - Greg Phillinganes: There's something going on with the pop math in this song that I just can't put my finger on. It feels for all intents and purposes like this should be a hit. The melody is great. The big synth voice is great, it's got extremely fatty bass. It's great! But something about the structure of it is just off, it's got too many sections or something. Which kind of makes me love it more really.  

Devotion - Pure Bathing Culture: What surprised me the most about this song is the secret shredding happening throughout. It feels like a sort of clean and cool guitar that hasn’t existed in the wild since the Lethal Weapon soundtrack and it adds such an energy to this already completely wonderful song.

Paper Cup - Real Estate + Sylvan Esso: The production on this song is just so beautiful. The violin melody and the pillow soft synths really add such an extra dimension to it. The tone on everything really. The guitar in the solo. Every time I listen to this song I just want to listen to it again because it goes down so smooth.

Mark Zuckerberg - Nap Eyes: I’m a very big fan of the way this song transitions from a sort of TMBG novelty song halfway through into a lonely and beautiful thing instead. It’s like he got distracted and wandered off in the middle of his set but the camera followed him. I also haven’t heard a lyric in a long time that made me bark laugh so instantly as “And what does he do with all that sand? He collects sand right? I think I read that somewhere. Seems innocent enough.”

Viking Hair - Dry Cleaning: I fell in love with this band immediately on hearing this song. The way the spoken lyrics sit in a place of almost coherence, dipping between mysterious phrases and earnest admissions feels like Life Without Buildings for a new generation. I love the feeling of a huge crush at the centre of this song that comes through achingy in every single word, even when she's talking about abandoned refrigerators.

LeBron James - Do Nothing: This is my number one song this month I think. I've listened to it every single day and I cannot wait to see what this band does once they've got more than a couple of songs out. It's my absolute favourite kind of lyrics: the kind that sounds like you just wrote down every one-sided phone conversation you overheard on the bus and then the music is some halfway point between Black Midi and Franz Ferdinand. What else do you need!

Can I Receive The Contact? - The Spirit Of The Beehive: The Spirit Of The Beehive's album is one of the best I heard this month. The way the production incorporates sound collage and samples without diluting the immediacy of the songwriting is really something special that feels hard to pull off in a rock context but sounds effortless through this whole album. The way this shifts at the end into the odd time section is so great and really the way the whole album flows like one long track is just amazing. Please listen, I'm obsessed.

An Air Conditioned Man - Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever: There is so much space in Rolling Blackouts songs. They just go and go, sitting in this great jam space without feeling shaggy. The tempo across the album stays pretty consistently at this breezy, upbeat, driving speed that makes it feel like as soon as one song ends the next one just picks up exactly where it left off. It almost feels like a studio confines them and they'd be better off just recording their album live at a show where every song can go for 8 minutes like it wants to.

Leak -Truth, yesnoyesnoyes- - Boris: I got to see Boris and Merzbow this month, which was a great treat for me but it was also at a seated theatre venue which was a very strange choice. Sitting down and clapping politely as Merzbow pressed the screaming button feels odd, like being at an 1800s World's Fair show about the wonders of electricity or quite literally like being the guy in the chair getting blown away by the speakers in the Maxell ads. I bought earplugs for the show but ended up pulling them out for the last three songs or so to properly experience it, and it was fucking great. Something I was thinking about after the show is that it's interesting how Boris mostly have clean vocals, and really approach metal as an idea from and angle that's more shoegaze than Slayer. Aside from the immense volume, there isn't a lot about their music that I would describe as agressive, even most of what Merzbow added to the set was just extra feedback frequency noise, not atonal agression. I don't mean this in a trve kvlt way, more like it's interesting how they've taken the aesthetics of metal and refined them into pure amplifer worship, in their words, by either playing straight drone, or just playing normal hard rock at inhuman volumes. Boris are very good is what I'm saying, and I can't wait to listen to more of their extremely large discography.

Nameless Streets - Defeater: I've never really listened to much hardcore and I'm not really sure why. I've listened to Defeater's first two albums to death though so maybe it's time to branch out. What I love about this song, and this band in general is the vocal delivery. In a lot of agressive music from metal to screamo, because the agression and emotion is always sitting at a 10 the nuance can get lost and it becomes a sort of white noise, but Defeater have a nice way of backing off musically and vocally here and there to let the hard hits really hit hard. The outro to this song is also some absolutely world class snare work, building a tension bed in the simplest way thats relieved when the rest of the band comes crashing back in.

Boys In Town - Divinyls: I love the true desperation in this song. The trapped in a small town, surrounded by fuckers stress that gives way in the second half to just screaming "get me out of here!!". I am also interested in the evolution of the phrase 'too much, too young' and would like to know whether this song is referencing the song by The Specials, and if the Defeater song on this playlist is referencing this song or The Specials song, or if all three came up with it independently. It's a simply enough phrase, I suppose they could have. Who cares, really.

Body By Crystal - Spike Fuck: Come on a journey with me and imagine a world where Alex Cameron makes good music. That's Spike Fuck! The sort of burned out, past their prime singer desperate for a hit in any sense type of character - except actually put together with some heart and emotion and not an 80s comic book writer's understanding of human lows. I cannot wait to hear more from Spike Fuck.

Rogue Wave - Aesop Rock: It is something of a marvel how consistently high quality Aesop Rock's work is. For all his verbosity and expansive vocabulary he seems to never veer into white guy rap god flexing for the sake of it. Even a song like this that's 3 minutes of dense verses with nothing resembling a hook doesnt feel exhausting, it just feels like a series of extremely pleasing words and images like "take it where the warlocks lock horns, soda pop, popcorn / top notch gore set to Bach over fog horns" that makes my brain go "nice".

Momentary Bliss (feat. Slowthai and Slaves) - Gorillaz: I love the strange rollout Gorillaz are doing for this album, building the tracklist one song at a time. It's a nice way to force close listening, especially in songs with odd structures like this. I love hearing how different prouction changes Slowthai's approach; on this and Deal Wiv It that he did with Mura Masa it feels a lot brighter than anything on Nothing Great About Britain and there's a playfulness in his flow that comes through accordingly. Gorillaz are always moving around musically but I love how much of a live band feel this has compared to the more studioy sound that killed their last album for me.

We Will Always Love You (feat. Blood Orange) - The Avalanches: I am so excited at the possibility of a new Avalanches album already, and this is the perfect song to have as a lead single because it functions more like a teaser. Like 'would you like an hour more of this kind of beautiful, loving dream?'

Tar Sequence - Lalo Schifrin: I found out a little while ago that the local news theme when I was growing up was actually this song from the score to Cool Hand Luke, and according to a bunch of other guys in the youtube comments it was the local news theme for a lot of stations across America as well. The scene is of a prison road gang working under the blazing sun, and I'm sure someone could write a thinkpiece about the soundtrack to the nightly news, and really the platonic ideal of news themes in general stemming from the score to a scene about prison labour. But not me! I'm just going to write this little post and say we all owe Lalo Schifrin our lives for inventing the sonic pallette of kung fu AND the news, which is an incredible achievement whichever way you slice it.

When You - Tha Pope: It's a little bit of a shame that footwork is 'over' now but I suppose that's the way of things. The intro to this song is an absolute all timer for me. The delay soaked tag, the extended organ lick and then a total gear shift into this shrieking vocal sample that sounds like something has gone wrong but is revealed in actuality to be the centre of the whole track. I absolutely love Pope's little adlib at the start, and halfway through when he brings it back - it injects some real humanity into this cacophonous, volatile song and lets you know someone's done this on purpose, they've not just turned every dial to 10 and pressed play.  

Jonny/Jonny (Reprise) - Faye Webster: I am absolutely in love with the tone of Faye Webster's voice and especially the way she slowly slides up to the note at the end of every line in the verse. This is a song that belongs to the great genre of songs that sound like they were entirely written and performed while laying on the floor and staring at the ceiling. The reprise here comes back at the end of the album and I love it so much. It feels like a Sex And The City monologue set to music, an underexplored genre I'd definitely like to hear more of.

Holes - Matt Berninger: Matt Berninger of The National covered Mercury Rev's Holes for a series of charity 7"s that Planned Parenthood are doingand I really love his take on it. It's a difficult song to cover because it is so beloved, and I think he does really well to not smooth out the arrangement into any sort of easy listening version. The rumbling piano and the extra vocals that mirror the original saw sound near the end are just wonderful. The part that always breaks my heart in this song is the "bands" line at the end and he really does it perfectly without being overdramatic.

Ta Aro - Nadia Reid: I love the way this song is just soaked in tension and potential energy. She has a beautiful way of holding a note just past the edge of her breath, like when she sings 'glory hallelujah' or 'I am stronger' and in the wordless refrain that just draws me in. Then the way it all closes in on itself and shadows close in at the end while it swells to this beautiful thunderstorm of sound. Just great.

Purify - Neurosis: Someone had a tweet a while ago that was like 'listen to a new album every day in February and write about it' and I thought 'fuck it why not' and started doing that. I kept a little note in my phone of every album I listened to that I'd never heard before, and I ranked them out of 5 so I could remember which ones I liked. I ended up listening to 49 new albums which surprised me, and it was surprisingly easy to do as well so I've decided to keep doing it in March as well. Highly recommended. A nice side effect of constantly searching for new things to listen to is it's given me a chance to hear bands that I've always heard about and know the name of but never actually listened to for one reason or another, which is how I got to Neurosis. It's nice to hear this kind of industrial 90s metal that I'd only ever previously heard in Tool from another angle, and it is especially nice to hear bagpipes in a drone metal context - a thought I'd had independently about a week before hearing this album and was glad to have willed into existence before me.

Shallow Sun - Real Estate: Time! I love a song about aging that mentions specific years and ages so you can count along on your fingers. '25 in 2010... so he was 24 when they put out in their first album.. 39 in 24.. so he's... 35 now.. and i'm 28... which means I'm... 3 albums behind..'

Quand Vas Tu Retrer - Melody's Echo Chamber: I'll listen to any song in 5/4. It is simply groovy. This song is so beautifully textured it feels like you can just get completely lost in the sound while the groove moves it along.

Living Through Another Cuba - XTC: I think I've posted this song on one of these playlists before but fuck it, the more time passes the more I think this might be one of the best songs ever written and a complete and total encapsulation of the cold war mood. The absolute maniac resigned powerlessnes on full display, screaming and shouting about pullings fins from an atom bomb and the absolute certainty that even if the world isn't destroyed this time it'll all come around again soon enough anyway.

Time - U.S. Girls: I am a huge proponent of the long song at the end of the record as a concept, and really I believe every song should be the long song at the end of the record if at all possible. This amount of colour in this jam is just incedible, it never gets weighed down or waylaid it just keeps moving though an ever shifting kaleidoscope and I absolutely love it. It also reminds me of Los Bitchos who were on one of my secret lost playlists from December so it's nice to have their vibe represented here at least. This song also interestingly ties into a thought I was having this week about the limits of music wherein time is the only immutable constant. In all of life music is an inescapable constant of course, but in music especially compared to visual art or written art, time is an inexorable force. You simply cannot bend time in music, a song or performance will always have a duration that will define it, short or long, which cannot be muted or played with in the same way that rhythm or tonality can. 4'33" is a good example of that, being devoid of everything except time. When there is nothing, there is still time. Canyons of time.

Bad Magic - Weyes Blood: I got to see Weyes Blood a couple of weeks ago and I feel extremely blessed that I did. She's just amazing. She played this song solo as her last encore, and she's in a sort of interesting position of blowing up majorly on her fourth album so people (myself included) weren't overly familiar with her older stuff. So when she said 'this is a song called Bad Magic' everyone clapped politely and one woman right up the back screamed "oh my GOD??" which is the kind of personal, just for her, singular experience I'm always here for. Hearing this song for the first time in that setting has really made me fall in love with it. The thing that's always alienated me a little abot Weyes Blood's earlier work, and the thing she changed so dramatically on Titanic Rising is the structuring of her songs. Titanic Rising embraces pop songwriting so wonderfully where her earlier work was so much shaggier and harder to access as a result - but in this song I love it. This song is meandering and long and wanders around in circles and I'm here for every second of it.

Listen to this playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZraEZOeS6qvVxfnz3AJS9

[dontbreakstride]

I wanted to write about the Tigger Movie so I wrote about the Tigger Movie.

The Covid-19 pandemic, admittedly, has caused me to revisit a lot of older films and shows that I remember watching when I was much younger. I remember one night in the Xth week of lockdown where me and my friends dug deep and searched for all the old intros of shows we remembered on Youtube, just to get that hit of nostalgia, to retreat to features and shows that reflect more straightforward times of childhood where the weight of the world and responsibility weren’t so heavy, or confusing.

Winnie the Pooh itself is a series that bases itself around the finiteness of childhood. Christopher Robin has to grow up. The theme tune suggests that he has already grown up and all the adventures are viewed with that same nostalgia of one’s own childhood. Previous films of the Winnie the Pooh series muse on the What Comes Next of growing up and leaving your childhood fantasies behind.

I’ve not met a person yet who hasn’t been at least slightly familiar with Winnie the Pooh while growing up, whether that be the original stories by A.A. Milne, the animations and films by Disney, or even through online memes. The one feature that I’d say exemplifies how nostalgic the Winnie the Pooh series is to me is Disney’s The Tigger Movie.

The Tigger Movie never really left me, I think. I remember the banner adverts at my local cinema, where the main cast, clad in Tigger-orange-and-black-stripe liveries, were on springs and would ‘bounce’ with every movement behind concessions, and it was one of the last VHS tapes on my shelf before they were all moved about and ingloriously exiled to boxes under the bed. I remember watching it in Screen 1, where I’d be leaning over the edge of the railings and watch as the songs boomed, and the avalanches fell around the cast.

As you can probably tell from the title, lockdown summoned The Tigger Movie back into my memory, and with the advent of Disney+ and the library of Disney and non-Disney stuff it had, it was on my Watch List very quickly.

THE ONLY ONE

The Tigger Movie is pretty stunning because it centers around the deeper existentialism of the character Tigger. Tigger himself is the archetype for chaotically cheerful and energetic characters, a patron saint of upbeat innocent child-like arrogance, a source of optimism, he is the personification of BOUNCE as a word.

But the movie takes the concept of Tigger’s own theme song and tips it on its head. Tigger brags and boasts that the most wonderful thing about tiggers is that he’s the only one. But… is that truly wonderful? Of course it is, he’s wonderful and unique, but… he is the only one. Tigger’s own uniqueness puts him at odds with his more sedate friends who lack his energy, he’s an outsider. Tigger himself was introduced after the rest of the main cast, and as a result was not namechecked in the Winnie the Pooh theme until 2011’s Winnie the Pooh. Even in spite of being one of the most iconic characters from the series, he is still an outsider.

There is an innate sadness in the film through this investigation. The animation of Tigger through the emotional moments uses every line on his face to push his sadness to extremes especially considering that this is Tigger, the established energy ball of optimism. The movie is set in the liminal space of autumn’s change to winter, matching Tigger’s own orange and white palette and giving the whole film a warm, nostalgic glow, but this also allows the film to fully invest into the inevitability of change, and the loneliness of growing up.

FAMILY AND THE PAINS OF GROWING UP

Tigger waits in the snow for a letter that will never come, he walks through a snowstorm, the juxtaposition of Tigger in his height in the warmth of autumn against his low in the cold of winter makes his loneliness even more palpable.

The film’s theme is about family. Tigger wants to find his family - to find others like himself - but doesn’t recognise that he has a family in his friends. Roo looks up to Tigger and hangs to his every word, and wishes he was his little brother. Kanga and the others all decide to be the family that Tigger doesn’t have by pretending to be tiggers like him, their determination to make Tigger feel better supersedes their own preparations for winter.

But it’s also a coming of age story. Tigger grows up. He is exposed to some harsh truths throughout the narrative. He is the only tigger, his friends deceived him through good intentions, the idealised family tree he dreams of is fantasy, he feels the weight of his world on his shoulders… BUT… he is not alone. His friends all come together to remind him that they are always there for him through his highs and lows.

THE SUPERFICIAL vs. THE REALITY

The story also has a lot to say about superficial expectations vs. reality. In Tigger’s Dream Sequence Musical Sequence ‘Family Tree’, Tigger dips into the fantastical history of his imaginary family, which includes Tigger-themed pastiches on the Birth of Venus and other paintings, the Brady Bunch, Jackson 5, Don Quixote, a Marylin Monroe ‘Tiggerella’ Seven Year Inch-ing into the stratosphere from her billowing dress, and ultra-skinny supermodel Tiggers, replete with the Tigger lantern-jaw. The outlandish nature of this pop culture imagery amplifies how much of a superficial fantasy Tigger’s dream is and shows how out of place it is in the world Tigger inhabits.

The animals of the Hundred Acre Wood all try to come up with a plan to live up to this fantasy. In the song sequence ‘How To Be A Tigger’, the friends spend the first verses musing how to become Tigger to more superficial aspects of Tigger as a character. Upon reflecting, they realise that the reality of being Tigger is not in his stripes, his idiolect of ‘TTFN’s and ‘hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!’s, or his dislike of eating honey, it’s in his ability to fill everyone with happiness with his cheery nature.

Tigger’s family tree itself fits this theme. After a conversation with Owl; Tigger, being naive and innocent, presumes that a family tree is a literal tree for the whole movie, rather than it being the metaphorical branching lineage that family trees actually are. In the final act, Tigger finds a tree striped with snow and determines that it’s his Family Tree, a location he should wait at for his real family.

The stripes on the tree, much like the tigger costumes his friends adorned and the ‘family heirloom’ locket, are superficial. But, in choosing it as his Family Tree, and Tigger using it as their shelter from the avalanche, the literal becomes the metaphor as the tree he chose as his family tree protects his friends, the family that he chose as well. The ‘family heirloom’ locket is also imbued with meaning through Tigger’s own determined attachment to it, and eventual use of it to store a picture of his ACTUAL family. Tigger chooses his family and the things that protect and represent them and I think the finding the meaning in the meaningless things by giving it to them yourself really fits the themes in the movie.

TO ANIMATE A TIGGER

The animation, of course, is wonderful to look at with the more discerning eye of adulthood. Going frame-by-frame through shots allows you to appreciate the artistry on show and understand what it was about it that captivated you as a child.

The rough photocopied line art of the original shorts is reflected in the animation and, much like Aardman’s stop motions having evidence of thumbprints, the imperfections add to the style and beauty. It’s through watching it in not-VHS quality that you notice that Tigger’s stripes have a strobing animation boil texture to them, where each frame has new linework shading of the stripes, which fills him with energy even in his more subtle scenes.

Tigger himself is a veritable powerhouse of animation. Frame by framing his movements, you can see him squash and stretch with every bounce and pounce. The largeness and looseness of his jaw allows for very fluid arcs to be created in his head.

WHOOP-DE-DOOPER BOUNCE OF FAITH

In the final act, an argument between Tigger and his friends triggers an avalanche that threatens all of them. This sequence is the accumulation of the story, with the final scenes of the movie after it being the denouement resolution.

Tigger’s own self-centered search for his family immediately gets put to the side when his friends are in danger, leaping into action and helping his friends to the high branches of his tree. He even waits, arms outstretched to Rabbit, who had called his search for more Tiggers ‘nonsense’ and acted as a catalyst for his upset throughout the film. This puts Tigger’s positive nature on full display, he leaves no one behind, and this is in turn reflected outwards by Roo, who launches after Tigger as he gets swept away in the snow.

Throughout the movie, Roo idolises Tigger and wants to do anything to cheer him up, wanting him to be his big brother. Roo’s decisions and choices help drive the story alongside Tigger, and it’s a lot of his choices that end up building Tigger up for disappointment, but Roo is a child with stars in his eyes. He imitates him vocally and physically, and tries, and fails, to do the Whoop-de-Dooper bounce so that Tigger can have someone like him, tying back into the superficial against the reality. It is only when Roo acts on impulse with the determination to help someone in the same way as Tigger would that he succeeds at ‘being a Tigger’ and accomplishes the Whoop-de-Dooper bounce.

Similarly, Tigger doesn’t pay much attention to Roo, he enjoys his company but is looking too far beyond to see those who he already has as his family. But it’s when they both perform the Whoop-De-Dooper bounce in unison to escape danger and defy gravity that Tigger finally sees Roo properly.

After the avalanche, Tigger still looks beyond the horizon for more tiggers, but it’s when the other characters recite their letter that he is brought back to earth by being reminded of the family he chose. Tigger grows up, he realises he is The Only One, but that doesn’t mean he is without those who care about him and are his family.

He grows past his innocently-self-absorbed mindset and comes to project his energy outwards in a more benevolent and less chaotic manner by providing his friends with winter supplies, and celebrating them. Roo especially. Tigger finally acknowledges him as his little brother, and gives him his ‘family heirloom’ locket. Both characters have grown and have fully realised who their family are.

OTHER NOTES

The movie also works visually to bring Tigger into the main cast so he is no longer an outsider. This film is the first one to my knowledge that shows Tigger’s house, a chaotically hoarded, sporty treehouse, compared to everyone else’s more subtle housing. Prior films in the Winnie the Pooh series had Tigger simply appearing and disappearing out of the blue, but now Tigger has an official location that is his own, like everyone else in the cast.

Pooh, quite rightfully, is often depicted to the extreme of ‘bear of very little brain’. And granted, there are still moments where Pooh falls for the tricks and gets lost sometimes, but in this movie, Pooh is actually quite cunning and devious. He sneaks up a tree to get some honey because he tells the others that they are potential Tigger family members. He is the character Roo goes to when Tigger goes into the snowstorm, and comes up with the expedition to find him. He also knows to get Rabbit to lead as ‘he’s the only one who ever says he knows what he’s doing’. I think the memory of Pooh usually paints him as more ditzy, but it’s nice being able to revisit and relearn that Pooh has an extra layer of emotional depth to him.

Tigger himself is portrayed as being significantly less ditzy than in other Pooh media. He’s not as ‘book smart’ as Owl or Rabbit, but Tigger figures out the exact point he should hit the boulder to make it move, he frisbees records so they land exactly on the pin, he is the inventor of the Whoop-de-Dooper Loop-de-Looper Alley-Ooper Bounce, if the expertise and diagrams suggest anything. Tigger isn’t always a chaotic whirlwind, there are hidden depths of precision. The character is allowed fairly mature growth beyond face value.

Rabbit yelling at the others, who are determined to present themselves as the Tigger family of Tigger’s dreams, for not preparing for the winter by saying ‘At least I haven’t forgotten what’s REALLY important’ got a very loud laugh out of me because it’s such a Rabbit line.

Whenever the book transitions to a new scene, it’s fun to pause and see the story of the film being written out in Milne-esque prose. It even includes the Emphasis Capitalsation to specific Important Things. More on the book, I like Tigger arguing with the storyteller at the start and changing the direction of the story through sheer tiggerific chaotic energy.

The songs are wonderful in this. The decision to give Tigger both an upbeat number (‘The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers’) and a downbeat number (‘Someone Like Me’) is genius. I like that, for his sad song, it is mostly just guitar and piano compared to the fully orchestral theme to emphasize his loneliness. 

The songs that surrounded the film are great too. Kenny Loggins’ ‘Your Heart Will Lead You Home’ is one of those things that always gives me shivers from that rusty acoustic string reverb at the start. This is also the film that indirectly introduced me to ThirdEyeBlind’s ‘Semi-Charmed Life’ through the trailers of it.

CONCLUSION

The Tigger Movie will always hold a special place in my heart, and I am glad to have had the time to properly articulate how I feel about it. It is a film that I appreciate a lot more as an adult looking back, given its themes and the way the visuals capture them.

In some ways, in these uncertain times, I feel a bit like Tigger when he’s looking out with uncertainty over the horizon for more tiggers. It’s a lonely and uncertain visual as he looked out for What Comes Next.

And even with this movie acting as a blanket against the coldness of the real world, the moral of facing whatever’s next by protecting those who are your family, whether that’s the family you’re born into or the one you choose, will always be appropriate.

[blindbatalex]

More Musings in the Multiverse McGryz AU (part 1 here)

 It's a strange thing--meeting a god. Matt is fourteen, though that was not his name back then. The beach glimmers an eerie silver under the full moon. They were told not to go to the singing sands at night a thousand times by their parents, and they have come here a thousand times. It’s difficult making fourteen year old boys listen to wisdom, no matter how many generations it’s been passed down.

Charlie is singing a silly song he made up that day, criss-crossing around Matt so their footsteps on the sand resemble an elaborate braid, always full of energy, never still.

They stop when they see a human figure stretched out against the flat, slanted side of a large rock a little ahead.

Charlie looks at him with wide eyes. “Is he dead?” he mouths. Matt can’t decide if he is scared or intrigued. Probably both, knowing him.

“Only one way to find out.”

Charlie nods. They continue walking, though this time, slowly, with stealth. Matt wonders if he should have made Charlie turn back instead. He is a year older. He promised Charlie’s mom he would always look after Charlie and meant it with all of his being.

The man when they get to him, is not dead. He is naked from the waist up. His brown skin glimmers under the moon like the sand, but it’s taut, beautiful in a way that makes Matt want to run his hands over the well defined muscles, even as the man’s chest rises and falls in uneasy breaths.

He is young--can’t more than twenty-five. A mop of brown hair graces his head; his face might have been chiseled from marble.

Charlie exhales one deep, sharp breath and the man’s eyes flutter open.

“Who are you?” he asks with keen interest.

The boys tell him. Matt also asks if he should run for a healer. The man has no injury he can see but it’s clear he is not well either.

The man shakes his head, gives Matt a smile that is beautiful and sad at once. “I am beyond the help of the healers,” he says, “but will the two of you entertain me?”

The boys exchange a glance. Matt explains very carefully that they can, but so far each time they sang, danced, or acted in company elders yanked them away.

“We are um, a disgrace to the high arts and the human endeavor, apparently,” Matt finishes, looking away. He has a sense there is more to this man than meets the eye. Yes, he has disregarded the stories without fail so far, but he’s heard them too--of who walks the singing sands at night and what happens if you cross them.

“Or recite poetry,” Charlie adds with some but probably not enough shame. “They say the same thing when either of us try to recite poetry.”

The man laughs at that--the sound reverberates in the air and fades in a receding wave. He waves his hand.

“No such thing. It’s not your fault some men have a stick up their ass.”

The boys try and fail not to burst into giggles at what the man said, and so seriously too.

The man gestures for them to start and start they do. Charlie sings the song he made up that morning about how sad it is that man cannot be a horse; Matt provides the chorus like Charlie taught him to. They perform what they call the mad cat dance which involves circling each other while hopping and hissing at each other. Matt recites an old ballad, except he adds butter after every mention of ‘beloved’ because to him butter is much more delicious and useful than a pretty maiden.

They are hesitant at first--the both of them, maybe expect the man to yell and chase them away despite what he said. That’s what adults tend to do. But not this man. He laughs and claps and even joins in their songs. By the time they are done he is wiping tears off his face and both Matt and Charlie are grinning like mad men. This is the most their art has been appreciated by anyone in living memory.

“Tell me what you want the most in life,” the man tells them when he can speak again, still laughing a little. “I have something left in me yet--I will give it to you.”

Charlie opens his mouth to say what Matt thinks will be a giant horse but Matt stops him with a hand on his mouth before he can.

“You don’t have to give us anything,” he tells the man, remembering the stories.

The man rolls his eyes. “I don’t have to do anything but you entertained me and I have no coins to pay you. Think about what you want more than anything else and I will give it to you as a token of my gratitude.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

The boys quieten at that. It’s no small task, deciding what you want the most at life. After a while, Matt goes first.

He buried his brother last week.

He asks for immortality.

The man nods. He looks at Charlie.

Matt prays Charlie asks for something other than a giant horse, or to be a horse, or anything to do with horses.

Charlie looks at the man and then at Matt before his eyes flick to the sand underneath their feet.

“I want--” he says, “I want Matt.”

“You already have me, you dumbass,” Matt hisses at him. This is his one wish to have anything he wants and Charlie is wasting it away.

“It’s his wish,” comes the reply.

Matt wants to protest further, but the man, who is no ordinary man at all, reaches a hand and presses his thumb to the spot between Matt’s eyebrows. His thumb is burning cold but it’s not unpleasant at all. There is a spark of silver light between their skin and the world goes dark afterwards. Distantly he hears Charlie calling his name.

When he wakes up the sun is high in the sky. He is in his own bed and his mom is threatening to dump a bucket of cold water over his head if he doesn’t get up this moment.

*

He remembers that night on the singing sands on his deathbed, that first time. Some immortality, he chuckles to himself, with the resignation of those to whom death has come to mean respite a long time ago.

It’s been two decades since he buried Charlie.

They haven’t been much for poetry, either of them, for all their lives. But the first night they kissed, hands tangled in one another and bodies pressed against each other, Charlie exhaled against his ear. He heard this one verse about how a single moment with the person you loved held infinities in it--immortality for mortal men he’d called it.

Matt made fun of it, to the extent he had breath left to speak, that Charlie would presume he was Matt’s wish. Hadn’t felt like telling Charlie he was right yet.

He just wants to protest now that no one told him immortality was so brief. That for a moment you had everything and then it was taken away from you.

He doesn’t wish that it was a little more brief than it actually was.

Not yet.

[pooma-bible]

Sister. Savita Manwani

🏐

Praise the Lord! I welcome all on this platform to hear the word of God and be blessed.

Let us Pray: Gracious Father we come before thy throne in Jesus Name and we thank you for this moment you gave us to hear and learn from your word. Help us to understand your word and be blessed. In Jesus’ Name I pray…Amen.

TOPIC - SCRIPTURE MEMORIZATION

Memorizing Scripture is as an excellent strategy for spiritual growth. It allows you to have gospel truths ready at all times, whether your day brings you temptation, heartache or a friend in need of encouragement.

Scripture also helps you abide in–or stay deeply rooted in-Christ, which Jesus tells us is the key to having Kingdom impact in this world (John 15:5).

Today, let us answer some of the questions like, Who should memorize the Scripture? Why should we memorize the Scripture? What Scripture should we memorize? When should we memorize? How do you memorize? What are the Steps to memorizing more Scripture?

The Hebrew word for ‘meditate’ is ‘murmur’- in a low tone of voice until becomes implanted on your mind and this is what the Jews did day and night. They meditated on the law of God. The law of God is contained in the first five books of the Bible that are written by Moses. They are Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Psalm 119:11 – “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You”

Hiding (Keeping) God’s word in our hearts is deterrent to sin. This alone should inspire us to memorize Scripture. But memorization alone will not keep us from sin, we must also put God’s word to work in our lives, making it a vital guide for everything we do.

Psalm 119:23b – Your servant meditates on Your statues.

All believers should be memorizing God’s word. God’s laws were given to free us to be all he wants us to be. They restrict us from doing what night cripple us and keep us from being our best. God’s guidelines help us to follow his path and avoid paths that lead to destruction.

Colossians 3:16 – Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly….

The Church of Colossae did not have the Bible so they were dependent on memorizing God’s word. They had to hide God’s word in their hearts.

The famous English Proverb says, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Likewise someone said, “A chapter a day keeps the devil away”. Therefore, everyone who knows the Lord must memorize the Scripture.

2. Why should we memorize the Scripture?

There are 12 reasons to why we memorize the Scripture.

i. Memorize scripture to be successful

Joshua 1:8 - This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Whatever you do will come to maturity if you memorize the scripture and meditate on it. Your family life will be blessed, your spiritual life will be blessed, you will be happy, peaceful and contented.

God told Joshua that to succeed he must obey the rules for living found in God’s laws. Obedience to what God has revealed in the scriptures is the only sure step we can take. We need to set aside time to read God’s word and meditate upon it day and night. Act today on what you know God has said, and God will assure your success in carrying out his purposes.

ii. Memorizing Scripture will convict us of sin which leads to sinning less.

Psalm 119:11 - “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You”

Memorizing God’s word will keep us away from sin.

Psalm 37:31- The law of his God is in his heart;

None of his steps shall slide.

God’s law will keep your steps from slipping.

iii. We should memorize scriptures because God’s word has power to change our life

Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

God’s word has power. Yours and mine don’t have power. The power of God word will penetrate the core of our moral and spiritual life. It will discern the good and the evil within us. God’s word has the power to shape our lives.

iv. We should memorize scripture because it is commanded of us

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 - “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

Every scripture is to be memorized as it is God who has commanded it. We have to write it on our hearts and also get it inside our children.

v. We should memorize scripture because of the examples of saints

In the New Testament we have a man of God who memorized the scriptures.

Acts 7: 1-53 – We read in this chapter that Stephen gives 1000 years of Israel’s history.

Also we note that both the Old and the New testament writers always quoted Scripture.

vi. Memorizing scripture will transform our mind

Romans 12:1-2 - I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

When we memorize the scriptures and place our life before God, he will bring the best out of us and develop a well formed maturity in us. This transformation will come only when we renew our minds through the word of God. God will transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

vii. Memorizing scripture will enable you to be a better counselor

Psalm 119: 97-100 – God’s word makes you wise – wiser than our enemies and the teachers who ignore it. Wisdom comes from allowing God’s teachings to guide us.

viii. Memorizing scripture will keep you from error

Matthew 22:29 – You do err because you don’t know the scripture.

Memorizing scripture will keep us from giving way to false teachers and their false teaching.

ix. Memorizing scripture will increase your love and knowledge of God

1 John 5:2 – 3 - By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.

Apostle John is measuring our love for God by the obedience to His word.

Read the word of God over and over again because you have fallen in love with the author.

x. We should memorize scripture because it will comfort us in our afflictions

Psalm119:50 –This is my comfort in my affliction,

For Your word has given me life.

Days of persecution will come when your Bible, your cell phone may be taken away. Do you know enough of the word that will comfort you in your affliction.

xi. We should memorize scripture to help our spiritual growth

1 Peter 2:2 - as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,

When we will desire the pure milk of God’s word we will grow up mature and whole in God.

xii. Memorizing scripture will help us in our old age

Isaac Watts great hymn writer said this : As we get old our brain shrinks and get harder from lack of use and the best therapy for the brain is memorizing – the word of God.(Scripture).

3. What Scripture should we memorize?

2 Timothy 3:16 - All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,

All Scripture is God given and worth memorizing.

Suggestions:

• Memorize whatever the Bible teacher is teaching.

• Memorize small scriptures example: Psalms then go on with the epistles.

• If you have depression, memorize Psalms 42

• If you have problem loving people, memorize 1 Corinthians 13

• If you have anxiety, worry, fear, memorize Mathew 6

• If you gossip, slander, anger, memorize James 3, Psalm 34:8

• When you use random scriptures make sure you know the context of that scripture.

4. When should we memorize?

Joshua said meditate day and night. The Psalmist said in Psalms 1:2 to meditate God’s word day and night. Therefore, do it when doing your house work, travelling, etc. Do it anytime.

5. How to memorize the scripture?

The more we do it , the More it becomes a habit.

Steps to memorize more scripture:

a) Pick an area of gospel truth you are motivated to understand deeply. You can also pick up your favorite book of the Bible.

[8/5, 9:27 PM] 01019 CH W Savita Manwani: b) Dig into the context:

• Find the verse in your Bible and read the paragraph before and after it.

• Use this context to gain a clear understanding of what the verse means. You may want to read the verse in other Bible translations or consult a commentary.

• Read the verse through several times thoughtfully, aloud or in a whisper. This will help you grasp the verse as a whole. Each time you read it, say the topic, reference, verse, and then the reference again out loud.

• Discuss the verse with God in prayer, and ask for His help memorizing Scripture.

c) Memorize in bite-sized pieces

• Memorize the topic and reference first.

• Next, memorize only the first phrase of the verse. Once you can recite the topic, reference and first phrase from memory several times, continue to add each additional phrase, one by one.

• Consider why each word was selected as you memorize it.

• Think about ways the verse applies to you and your daily circumstances.

• Writing the verse out can be helpful. This deepens its impression in your mind.

d) Review with friends

• Review the verse immediately after learning it, incorporate it into your prayers, and repeat it frequently over subsequent days to others. This step is crucial for fixing the verse firmly in your mind because we tend to forget things recently learned.

• Invite a friend to memorize with you! Set a time each week to check in and review verses. In just ten minutes you can give each other enough accountability to grow by leaps and bounds in your love for God and knowledge of His Word.

• Review! Review! Review! Repetition is the best way to engrave the verses on your memory.

Things to Remember:

1) Don’t do scripture memorization when you are tired or distracted or when you are going through a deep crisis. It doesn’t work when your mind is not alert.

2) Stick to the same translation or else it will be very confusing.

3) If you have trouble memorizing, then find some creative ways to learn – may be you can put it through music.

4) Keep it in mind that this is God’s word and not any other word on a page.

Method:

 Do cards, stickers, etc. Put it on a recording device in your voice and read it as fast as you can. Why so fast? They have proven statistically that your brain picks up things easier if you listen to something with a fast speed instead of a slow speed.

 Copy the page out of your Bible and carry it wherever you go and read.

 When you get a chapter/Book memorize and review it every day for 30days. Say it out loud

Remember, memorized Scripture allows you to dwell continuously on a passage throughout the day. Passages memorized often bring a sense of “ownership”; a passage feels like it “belongs” to you after you have it memorized.

Followers of God have a long rich history of memorizing Scripture. From the time that the first books of the Bible were written, people have been memorizing Scripture in order to help them live faithfully.

It is clear that Jesus memorized Scripture from the fact that he so often quoted Scripture when he was talking to others. Both the Old and New Testament authors consistently quote Scripture. Do you know someone who consistently memorizes Scripture? Ask what it has meant to his or her spiritual growth. Chances are high that you’ll get a glowing testimony!

Allow me to end here. God bless everyone in this group.

[aion-rsa]

How the Passion of Hannibal Lecter Inspired a New Opera About Dante

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When you hear the name Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a few things spring to mind—and none of them are likely to involve Italian poet Dante Alighieri or opera. Of course there’s good reason for this, with Lecter’s exotic cooking ingredients superseding his gentler affectations. But even so, when author Thomas Harris first imagined how the character might move in the wild for the novel Hannibal, it was with baroque glee he unleashed the doctor in Florence: Italy’s Renaissance city and Dante’s medieval stomping grounds.

Director Ridley Scott similarly understood that secret recipe. His film version of Hannibal relishes every Italian colonnade Anthony Hopkins walks under, or the way the shadow of the statue of David casts darkness on its star’s face, often as he stands in the same spot where men were hanged or immolated centuries ago. In its better moments, Scott’s movie savors that this is a story about a devil who covets the divine; it delights in playing like an opera.

Hence for the picture’s best sequence, the filmmakers commissioned a new “mini-opera,” one that would for the first time put music to verses that Dante wrote more than 700 years ago. And in the decades since the movie’s release, those fleeting  minutes of music have blossomed into a real, full-fledged opera about to have its world premiere. Once again the doctor’s distinct tastes and influences appear singular within the realm of movie monsters.

“He is a character that’s so exaggerated and extreme, I’m not sure if a person like Hannibal Lecter really could exist,” composer Patrick Cassidy says when we chat over Zoom, nearly 20 years to the day after Hannibal’s release. “He’s a great figure for drama because he is all of these extremes.”

Cassidy should know. Once a young Irish composer who was a relatively new member of Hans Zimmer’s large Remote Control Productions film scoring company, Cassidy’s sumptuous Italian aria “Vide Cor Meum” elevated Lecter’s Italian sojourn on screen, and placed its composer on the path to eventually becoming a Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia (Knight of the Star of Italy). That’s all the more remarkable since Cassidy didn’t even speak Italian when he first set a Dante sonnet to music.

Looking back now, Cassidy remarks, “I was working with Hans Zimmer at the time, who was the composer on the movie. He works on a lot of projects simultaneously and he knew my strength was choral music… They needed an aria and they were shooting the scene in two weeks. So I was in the right place at the right time.”

The sudden impetus for needing an original aria in the movie seems to hail from Scott. In Harris’ novel, a similar scene occurs when Dr. Lecter attends the performance of a real symphony written in the 19th century, but for the movie Scott, Zimmer, and producers Dino and Martha De Laurentiis wanted something original: an aria based on a Dante poem which Hannibal repeats several times throughout the book and film. Written in 1283 when Dante was just 18, the poet’s first sonnet in La Vita Nuova is a paean to Beatrice, the woman he loved. Within its verse, the sonnet includes the following:

Joyfully Amor seemed to me to hold

my heart in his hand, and held in his arms

my lady wrapped in a cloth sleeping.

Then he woke her, and that burning heart

he fed to her reverently, she fearing,

Afterwards he went not to be seen weeping.

– Dante’s First Sonnet

Says Cassidy, “[The aria] had to be based on the first sonnet in La Vita Nuova because that sonnet has a metaphor about eating the heart. But of course Hannibal might have taken that in a literal sense.” Indeed, on both the page and screen, storytellers wanted Hannibal to pivot around the uneasy idea of the debonair cannibal giving his heart to Clarice Starling. After all, “Vide Cor Meum” is Latin for “Look into My Heart.”

Cassidy, however, had little time to digest these finer details when the opportunity to write the aria arose. Relatively new to Hollywood after being in Los Angeles only a year—and succeeding as a choral composer in his native Ireland with Children of Lir, the first major symphonic work in the Irish language—he was primarily tasked with working on library music at Zimmer’s company when the assignment came down: They needed “a good aria” ASAP.

“There was no room for anything to go wrong in a sense,” Cassidy says. “Ridley was already in Florence shooting the movie, but Ridley’s editor Pietro Scalia came into my studio and he brought in lots of CDs of Italian arias, being Italian himself.” This proved particularly useful because while the composer speaks Italian today, he needed to rely on Scalia’s ear while putting Dante’s words to music then.

Cassidy adds, “Ridley also sent me some sketches, which are very fantastic sketches of what the opera would look like. Of course then there was also Dante’s poem. So we started from that, and I think Pietro came back two days later and while I didn’t have the full aria written, I had a nice thematic kind of sense at that stage.”

By his own account, Cassidy estimates he wrote the full aria in under a week.

As a piece of choral composition, “Vide Cor Meum” is transcendently beautiful. Reliant on choral harmonies and luscious strings, the piece more than recites fragments of Dante; it taps into a sense of revelry and underlying melancholy—bringing out the inherent musicality in Dante’s lamentations. This is crucial to both the sonnet and the music’s effect, since the original verse was written in a style of poetry later dubbed by Dante to be the “dolce stil novo” (sweet new style) due to its idealization of Beatrice. This level of worshipfulness was significant for the author since the woman he adored died at the age of 25, four years before La Vita Nuova was released in 1294, complete with new prose around the sonnets in which Dante grapples with her death.

“Vide Cor Meum” brings those aspects out so hauntingly that it’s demanded greater attention ever since its inception. Even back in 2000, the piece was originally only meant to exist in its one minute of screen time; yet it was expanded to two and a half minutes at the request of Scott and the De Laurentiis’ after they heard that minute of music. And once the film was complete, Cassidy was then asked to turn it into a full aria of more than four minutes, or “mini-opera,” on the soundtrack.

Says Cassidy, “Everybody loved the aria instantly, and it was kind of immediate, really, for all the people involved, including Martha and Dino. Ridley especially loved it, and they were all thinking, ‘Maybe you should write a full opera?’ But then nobody knew what the opera should be about.” Editor Scalia did offer an amusing suggestion: write a full-length Italian opera about Hannibal Lecter.

It’s probably for the best that the Hannibal the Cannibal opera never happened, and as the years passed, everyone, including Cassidy, moved onto other projects. Still, the legacy of “Vide Cor Meum” continued to grow. In 2007, listeners of the UK’s Classic FM ranked the Hannibal score in the top 100 film soundtracks of all time (likely in large part due to “Vide Cor Meum”), and the piece has appeared in numerous other places, including another Ridley Scott film, Kingdom of Heaven.

“I loved it in that movie,” Cassidy says, “I thought that was an incredible scene. In many respects I even nearly prefer it in that movie than I do Hannibal.” And as the aria endured, so too did the persistent idea of expanding on it… and on Dante.

In 2010, producer Dino De Laurentiis passed away. While Cassidy had lost touch with the De Laurentiis family over the years, they obviously left a mark on each other, with Cassidy’s career rising after “Vide Cor Meum,” and Dino accepting his Irving G. Thalberg award from the Academy in 2001 to an orchestration of the aria—a development Cassidy suspects Dino’s wife had a hand in.

“Martha loves the piece, so I think she probably organized that,” Cassidy says. “When Dino passed away, I went to the funeral and I was going to pay my condolences to Martha, and there were rows and rows of people around her. But she saw me in the back and she said, ‘Hey, Patrick where’s Dino’s opera?!’”

It’s visibly a sweet memory for Cassidy, even as he recalls he didn’t tell Martha at the time he’d already begun work on expanding what was originally just a two-minute composition into an opera, one with a specific subject matter: Dante Alighieri.

Cassidy says, “Maybe two or three years later, I called her into my studio to give her a presentation of what I’d done on the opera and she loved it, and she wanted to be the producer immediately.” He was also able to show why the opera could only ever be about Dante, the medieval writer who similarly electrified the imaginations of Thomas Harris and his most famous fictional character.

“I think Dante was transitioning out of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance,” Cassidy says about the poet. “Especially in La Vita Nuova, the poetry is in the troubadour tradition of the idea of chivalric love. So it’s kind of a foreign idea to us. When we think of love [it’s] not as an idealization, but just a passion in a sense… for him [love] was quite religious, and he often associates Beatrice with the Virgin Mary.” That sense of an almost deification of love—Amor is a godlike character in La Vita Nuova—also gave Cassidy the space to build a story out of Dante’s life, as opposed to just adapting his most famous and macabre work, La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy).

“I realized the mistake would have been to do an opera about La Divinia Comedia where you had the Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradisio,” says Cassidy. “What I did instead was [make] the opening scene in the opera be the first meeting of Beatrice and Dante when they’re both 12 years of age. And then the opera finishes when Dante, at the end of Paradisio, meets Beatrice again in the heavenly paradise, which is the Garden of Eden. So that was the core of the story, it’s a love story of Dante in pursuit of Beatrice.”

It’s a shrewd choice since many forget that at the end of La Vita Nuova, Dante concludes by saying he will write an epic poem unlike any other, and it will be dedicated to Beatrice. Nearly 30 years later, and about 12 months before Dante’s own death in 1321, The Divine Comedy was published with its most famous passages about Dante descending down through the nine circles of Hell. However, it also features Dante ascending to the heavens where he finds Beatrice as his guide to Paradise. When these elements are combined, you have the stuff of opera.

“The second act is Inferno,” Cassidy says, “And at the beginning [of the act], Dante meets Virgil, and Virgil explains that he has been sent by Beatrice to guide him through the underworld.” In the pits of Hell, “Vide Cor Meum” will even have a reprise. While the aria appears much as it did in Hannibal during the first act of Cassidy’s opera, it’s then sung a second time in act two when a siren in the Inferno attempts to seduce Dante, and Beatrice’s angelic voice intercedes.

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It’s an ambitious concept, and one Cassidy has been working toward on and off for six years. The composer’s Dante was supposed to have its world premiere later this year in Verona—in time for the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death in 1321. Unfortunately, like many other plans since 2020, whether Dante meets that anniversary is currently up in the air.

“We were hoping to premiere it in the anniversary year,” Cassidy says, “but I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Fortunately, the Irish composer can stay busy. With Dante finished, Cassidy is already working on his second opera, this one with the added challenge of being in English: King Arthur.

“After writing a whole opera in Italian, [you realize] it’s the best language for music. I mean, you really can’t go wrong because it just sounds so beautiful… writing a new opera in English, it’s more difficult. It’s more difficult to make work.” Although as with Dante, King Arthur provides Cassidy with the chance to explore medieval classics, specifically Sir Thomas Malory’s famed 15th century tellings of the King Arthur legend.

Cassidy also recently released a new recording of “Vide Cor Meum” on Apple Music and Spotify, one of two pieces he now has in “A-List Classical” on Apple after another of his works, “The Proclamation,” gained international attention when it was used by President Joe Biden during his Presidential Inauguration Mass. But Cassidy does remain hopeful that Dante will still have its day this year, in Verona or otherwise.

“I would hope that even if we don’t get a full production that we will get something done on Dante this year, because it is an anniversary,” Cassidy says.

Whenever it does debut, Dante and its most famous aria will have come a long way from their origins in a horror movie. But in a certain sense, one imagines Dr. Lecter would approve.

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[audreysl0ve]

DOQ Day 5 - Teach Me

Thanks as always to the wonderful @repellomuggletum15 for betaing.  This is just a little fluff.  Mal spending the night at the mansion for the first time when Peanut is over, trying to get a grasp of what parenting is like from two seasoned veterans. 

Set in the Unlaced verse (you can find that here)

He wakes first.  He's not surprised; Regina has spent most of the week up at all hours, and Mal, well, she sleeps like the dead.

 Regina's beside him, her profile turned toward him, hair spread out across the pillow behind her like a scarf caught in a wind.  

 Mal’s spooned beside her, the delicate wispy ends of Regina's hair touch her face. It must tickle a bit, she crinkles her nose on every third breath in, occasionally sniffling, but not yet waking.  

 Mal has one elegant arm wrapped around Regina's waist, palm resting flat on her stomach while Regina has a hand on Robin’s chest.  Regina likes this, he knows.  Touching both of them while she slumbers.  Whenever they sleep together (actually sleep) she is always strategically trying to fight her way into the middle.  Robin finds it quite sweet, especially coming from the woman who emphatically told him she was not a cuddly sleeper.

 For a second the memories of her holding him, pressing into him, grasping at him awake in his mind, and his heart swells with emotion like a helium balloon.  She's worlds different than she had been when they first met, walls up, guarded, always hedging every action with an equal, opposite one.  But now she's here, all of her.  All in.  For the both of them.

 It's adorable, watching them sleep, and yet also incredibly erotic — curled into each other, slotted into perfect place as if they were made for one another. They are completely nude, he's made well and sure they were well seen to last night, so much so that they had collapsed without so much as picking up the strewn clothes on the floor or washing up for bed.

 It's times like these he's a bit envious of the female refractory period, for when the two of them come together they reach peaks over and over again without ever having to hold back, without ever having to slow down and wait for others.

 Mal had been hot last night, all sensitive and eager and begging for their touch, and they had both indulged in whatever had her lighting up so quickly and eagerly.

 His mind wanders back to how hard she’d come on his tongue.  He had been sure that she'd need a moment, as she usually did, but she had only held his head against her tighter, riding the whole orgasm out while writhing and moaning and begging him not to stop, each word moaned against’s Regina’s mouth as she kissed and kissed her.  He’d worked his tongue until it ached, planting firm, quick licks where she needed him most, until she had shouted and come again for him, every delicious sound making his cock throb.  She had been spent after that, naked and sweat-sheened and boneless and absolutely breathtaking.

 He had Regina then, and there had been the slightest bit of pressure to make them both enjoy this experience in equal amounts, but female biology does not work that way, he’s realized. Some days reaching that peak is more difficult, sometimes the thought of more than one orgasm is impossible.  

 It’s dependent on so many factors, so many things he cannot control.  And yet, he’d tried anyway.  Regina had begged him to fuck her hard, and fuck, he was aching for a release already, but he held back as best he could, withdrawing and replacing his cock with his fingers when the feeling became too overwhelming.  She did come, had come earlier on Mal’s mouth, and came again with Robin.  It was work, it was hard, but he’d be damned if he would make Mal come three times and Regina not even once.  

 Before he can get too caught up in memories, before he can even entertain the thought of waking them up for a second round, he hears the contraption by Regina’s nightstand cry out.

 Ellie’s awake.

 Regina has spent every morning and late night with her for the past few weeks, and he promised himself he’d give her a break this morning, let her enjoy the comfortable coziness of Mal’s embrace while he cared for their infant.  So he rushes out the bedroom door to the nursery, reciting the steps to using that infernal bottle warmer as he goes.

 .::.

 The second the child stirs, so does Regina.  And that startles Mal awake.  She hears Robin’s footsteps leaving the bedroom, and good for him.  Good man.  She prevents Regina from getting up, holding her tighter to her, close to the bed.  

 “He’s got her, R’gina” she says sleepily.  “S’ok. Rest up little one.”

 Regina falls back onto the feather pillow and goes limp into her arms.  “Hope he remembers about the bottle warmer.  He doesn’t like to use it… but the baby likes the milk nice and warm…”

 “Does she?” Mal asks. It's the first time since they started doing... this that she's spent the night when Ellie has been there.  There's something so intimate about it, even though Robin and Regina aren't touching or talking.  She suddenly feels like she doesn't quite fit.  She doesn't know about this, about babies and what type of milk they like, or how much milk they need.  She doesn't know anything, because Snow White robbed her of the opportunity to learn a damned thing.

 She squeezes her eyes shut and clings to Regina tighter.

 “I shouldn't worry. He's a natural father,” Regina murmurs before sleep takes her over.  The words sting, claw at Mal’s heart.  But Regina couldn’t know.  She knows better than to mention anything about the time she’s lost with Henry - whether it is that missing year or the time he now spends with Emma and the pirate. She doesn’t understand, however, that Mal is sensitive about her abilities as a mother.

 But Regina is sleepy and cuddling closer to her, and well, she forces the pain away, and tries to dream alongside her.

 In an hour, Regina awakes in her arms.  She’s well rested, nearly giddy with sleep.  “I love mornings like this,” she rasps.  

 “Mm,” Mal says, waking with her arms still around her.  “I could get used to this.  Shower?”

 Regina shakes her head. “You go on ahead.  I just want to check on Robin and the baby.”

 The feeling of exclusion she had in the early morning creeps back, and Maleficent turns her back to her and heads to the shower.

 She spends time under scalding hot water, taking deep breaths to calm herself.  She cries freely, and the tears are cathartic, wash away the tightness in her chest.

 When she dresses to join her two lovers, she's far more at ease.  And then she sees them, bent over their child (Regina won't call herself Ellie’s mother yet, but she belongs to her, and everyone can see it).  They coo and whisper words of love that she cannot hear or share, and it breaks her just a bit.

 Regina looks up, must hear Mal as she picks up the pot of coffee.  

 “Hey,” Regina calls out softly as she makes her way to the kitchen.

 Mal smiles back at her. “Hello there.”

 “What's wrong?”

 It's unusual that Regina need ask, she's normally so open, more than willing to tell her how she feels. But there's a shyness now that has her avoiding the two of them.

 “I just... I never had this,” she points towards Robin, who has Ellie slung over his shoulder while he pats and rubs at her back in some odd pattern he must have learned by caring for Roland.

 “I know, and I'm so sorry it was taken from you, that you missed this with Lily.” Regina's eyes go into this gentle expression, soft and soothing as a meadow breeze.  It's as hypnotizing as beautiful.  She always gets lost in those eyes.

 “It's not just Lily…” Mal starts, “I just wish I knew how to help care for her the way you do.  You two are her parents—”

 “Nooo,” Regina drawls carefully, “Robin is her father, I’m—”

 “Oh Regina, come on,” Mal sighs, “it's as clear as day. You are her mother.  And I'm not that, and worse, I can't even... I'm not even able to help you two with her.  It makes me feel…” She closes her eyes for a moment, to gather her thoughts. “I don't need to be her parent, like you two.  I just wish there was some way I could contribute, so I could feel less... on the periphery, when you are with family like this.”

 “Oh,” Regina says. “How can we help?”

 Mal frowns.  “There's nothing to help with, I'm not a part of your family in that way anyway.”

 “Yes, you are,” Regina insists, “you are her family.  Same as me. And we will do a better job making sure you know it. If there's anything we can do...”

 Her words sound so sincere, and while it's not exactly true, it seems Regina wants her involved.

 “Will you…. will you um, teach me how to care for her?”

 She's never had to ask her little pupil to teach her anything, and it's such an odd role reversal. She hates the sparkle of amusement in Regina's eye.

 “I’m sure it's easy enough,” Mal adds flippantly.  “Just, how to work that bottle water and how to make the milk, when to feed her and give her time to rest—”

 Regina cuts her off with a kiss and grabs her hand, leading her to where Robin sits with the baby.

 “Everything alright?” Robin asks as he cradles Ellie in his arms.

 “Yes,” Regina says, as she lets the baby grab tightly to her finger, “I think Mal would like to hold Ellie.”

 Robin looks up at Mal and smiles.  “Yeah? It's about time you asked.  Here you are.”

 He hands the baby to her. It's awkward, she'd studied how they hold her carefully, but she's not quite sure she has it.

 “Good,” Regina says next to her, adjusting her hands just slightly.  “Her neck is still a bit weak, so we have to support her head, like you’re already doing.”

 The child stirs, and Mal is sure she is about to cry.  But then she raises a hand to her lips and sucks at her thumb.  Instinctively, Mal begins to move, little bouncy movements that the babe seems to enjoy.  Her eyes shut, as slants of sunlight settle down on her face, with her puffy little cheeks and the balled fist against her lips, she looks angelic and peaceful.  

 “I want to, to learn how to—”

 “We will teach you. Together.” Regina promises.  “But right now you are soothing Ellie to sleep, and that is something that cannot be taught.  It's innate.  Instinctual.”

 Mal’s eyes water. She'd always wondered how she would be as a mother, how she would learn, how she'd manage.  And hearing Regina say that... it's everything.

 “It's true.  You're a natural,” Robin whispers.  He presses a kiss to her brow and rubs soothing patterns against her back.

 Her heart soars, thinking of how she finally has the opportunity to use the mothering instincts she's felt coursing through her veins for centuries.  And it's fitting that it's Robin and Regina, these beautiful lovers she cares for more than she's ready to admit, that have given this to her.

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Jane Sharp

Jane Sharp has been called a surreal writer. She freely admits to inhabiting other worlds from time to time. When she is not writing she enjoys playing the piano and the cello. Her home is in Yorkshire where her roots run deep. She also has a passion for dark chocolate.

Jane’s Blog: https://www.janesharp.org

Higgs Bottom: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07WLVTQP6

The Interview

What inspired you to write poetry?

I began wanting to write verse as a young child, by entering competitions in the comic I took every week. I never won anything, but I was inspired by the fact that somebody did. Add imagination and a competitive spirit, plus a great deal of parental praise, and like a rosebud my passion for poetry began to blossom.

Who introduced you to poetry?

Moving past the nursery rhymes of my childhood, I was first introduced to verse by the elders of the Methodist Chapel in Long Preston. As a part of the annual anniversary service I had to learn a few lines to recite along with other children of the Sunday school. At junior school I moved through the nonsense poetry of Edward Lear, The Owl and The Pussycat, A. A. Milne ‘Where the Wind Comes From… ‘ etc into the realms of Walter de la Mare, and I found myself in the throws of GCSE exams, being taught by a young, just out of college teacher, Mr Jackson, who, in his first teaching position, turned up at school with a Beatle haircut and a snazzy jacket. I thought he was the ‘bees knees,’ and consequently went all out to impress him. He encouraged me to let my imagination go wild, and seemed to appreciate my efforts at story telling and writing poetry. I even wrote a play, ‘Oedipus,’ which I have kept to this day. I would say, he was the one person who cultivated the opening rosebud with his enthusiasm for literature, and his praise of my immature efforts.

How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

By older poets, I take you to mean poets of past times, such as Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, etc. Having a general education, I was introduced to these poets at an early age. I still have my copy of The Golden Treasury, from my school days. As far as being aware of their dominance, I did not think of them in that way. I did not have a choice in the matter and was simply fed whatever the curriculum deemed appropriate. Fast forward to the present day, and I am happy to have been introduced to those heavyweights, just as I am happy to have been able to study the works of the war poets, and in more recent times, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Matthew Sweeney, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and so many more excellent poets.

What is your daily writing routine?

The words, ‘daily routine,’ imply that I do something at the same time every day. For me, writing poetry is not like that. I sometimes wake up with a poem in my head, or at least a couple of lines, in which case I jot it down straight away. I always have a pen and notebook on my bedside table. I have been known to catch a line or two whilst swinging the vacuum around, or pegging the washing on the line, or even whilst waiting for a bus, but there is no daily routine. I do, however, make sure that I read at least one poem every day, and this can be first thing in the morning, or last thing at night. Of course the novel writing is more like a nine to five job when it is in full swing.

When I am in writing mode I can sit and work on a poem for days until it is finished, and even then come back to it a week later and make revisions, and that might not be the end of it. Unless I have a deadline there can be constant additions or subtractions before I am satisfied with the result. But generally I will have a sound outline in one or two days.

What motivates you to write?

Motivation: that great, unseen push. Well, it isn’t money, that’s for sure. I write because I want to write, because I have all these words spilling out of my head that are just looking for a home. They want to manifest, they need a physical form; they are ideas, which need to be spoken out loud, stories that don’t want to sit in the void, and characters that are banging on my skull to let them out.

Of course, deadlines for magazines, spoken word events, poetry society meetings, are all great motivators, and they bring focus and an intellectual approach to my writing. Being given a subject to write about is never as easy as going with the flow, but it is possible to stoke up passion for the unlikeliest of themes, such as ‘warts’ for instance, the subject of one of my poems.

What is your work ethic?

‘Just do it!’ I can be as lazy as the next person, but I know that if I don’t get off my backside and do something, it doesn’t get done. There is a time for work, and a time for play, but there is no ‘set’ time for either.

How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

A perfect example of this is when I began to write my latest novel, Higgs Bottom. The main character is a 13-year-old schoolboy. I had in mind Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island, and I did my best to channel him. It didn’t work. The way a schoolboy of today speaks is far removed from the way a young cabin boy would have spoken in 1756. Yet the idea of a first person narration did come from my childhood memories of Treasure Island. My reading of Alice in Wonderland has influenced my writing greatly; I take the philosophical ideas, and the bizarre imagery from such books.

Who of today’s writers do you admire the most, and why?

I have long admired the accessibility of poems written by Simon Armitage. His use of form is a joy, and his vocabulary hits the spot. He can be humorous whilst at the same time very serious. And, of course, he is from Yorkshire, and like all good Yorkshire people I support members of the clan, so to speak.

I also like the poetry of Isabel Bermudez, who I think is a rising star. I find her poems to be soothing, and thought provoking, and full of imagery.

Why do you write as opposed to doing something else?

Well, I do have many other things to do, such as practicing my cello, or the piano, or even reading, in fact I would say that reading is just as important to me as writing. And I have to make time to do all of these things. But I’m not the sporty type, I can’t sew, I avoid baking because that would mean I would have to eat too many cakes and biscuits, my grandchildren are grown up, therefore there is no babysitting, and I am retired from work, and, and this is a big and, I enjoy writing. I enjoy creating a poem, or a story, and what’s more I enjoy performing and making people feel emotion, whether it be laughter or tears.

What would you say to someone who asked you “how do you become a writer?”

This is an easy one. How do you become a writer? You write: you write every day. You write down what you hear people say, you write down what you see, you write down what you smell, and you write down what you feel. And then you write down what you think.

Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I have just wrapped up my second novel, Higgs Bottom. It is now available on Amazon as a Kindle download, or as a paperback book. It has taken me several years to complete, and I am very proud of the finished work. Higgs Bottom is my second novel, the first being Tears from the Sun – A Cretan Journey. So, now I have to announce to the world that their copy is just sitting there waiting for them to snap up. It is a book for all ages, and here is a spoiler – Higgs Bottom is a place, not a bottom. I hope to write a follow up to Higgs Bottom, but I have a work in progress, which may take precedence.

I have also been working very diligently on a poetry collection, which is now complete and should be published before October is out. I have called it Scary Woman – A poet in Barnsley, and it is an eclectic mix of personal, serious, erotic and humorous poetry. I have to add that my husband, David, is such a great help in all my endeavours.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jane Sharp Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.