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davidmann95 · 5 years ago

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All-Star Superman Annotations: Smash Mouth

In the late 1990s, Grant Morrison legendarily met ‘Superman’ in a self-described shamanic encounter outside the San Diego convention center at 2 in the morning and questioned him. His answers and general demeanor inspired his take on the character in his 1998 Superman 2000/Superman NOW pitch alongside Mark Waid, Mark Millar, and Tom Peyer, and later his seminal All-Star Superman alongside Frank Quitely, Jamie Grant, Phil Balsman, and Travis Lanham.

The year after that initial pitch - whether out of the transcendent synchronicities Morrison has written on underlying the seeming arbitrary mundanity of day-to-day life, or significant behind-closed-doors dealings - Smash Mouth released its equally seminal All-Star.

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The superheroic associations are immediately evident. But Mystery Men (very fun movie) and Steve Harwell lifting a bus are but the tip of the iceberg. Or perhaps more appropriately the edge of a cliff, for when you peer within, the connections here go deep.

Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb In the shape of an "L" on her forehead

The opening of the song is obviously an evocation of the underlying rivalry between longtime nemeses’ Superman and Lex Luthor, with the latter mocking his erstwhile opponent on his idealistic shortsightedness in Lex’s mind, as well as that by poisoning him via solar radiation overdose he has at last triumphed. Of course, as the narrative remains on Superman’s side, Luthor’s worldview is exposed as self-aggrandizing solipsism, rendering him looking kind of dumb. That the figure of the song is referred to as ‘she’ is curious; perhaps this is in fact Nasthalsia ‘Nasty’ Luthor. Or it may refer to a sort of conceptual malleability of identity referring to Luthor’s eventual transformation via rehabilitation and time-travel into Leo Quintum, a decidedly more flamboyant and effeminate figure than the decidedly machismo-poisoned Luthor.

Well the years start coming and they don't stop coming Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running Didn't make sense not to live for fun Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb So much to do, so much to see So what's wrong with taking the back streets? You'll never know if you don't go You'll never shine if you don't glow

‘Hit the ground running’ is an apt choice of words when the title of the first chapter is Faster...; the progression of time and defiance of rules, going down the backstreets, can be read as his reaching beyond the typical rules and structures that have fenced him in over decades of continuity and tradition in the face of his pending mortality, such as revealing his identity to Lois (his realization of his mistreatment of her and their relationship as his intellect increases corresponds neatly to his brain getting smart but his head getting dumb), freeing Kandor, and entrusting humanity and Quintum/Luthor specifically with his genetic legacy.

Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid And all that glitters is gold Only shooting stars break the mold

Morrison referenced in his All-Star Superman exit interview with Newsarama his initial frustration with the All-Star brand going on his definitive Superman text, seeing it as an intrusive corporate logo (not knowing that it would ultimately come to be associated predominantly with that one story) when he wanted his story to be seen simply as ‘Superman’. Choosing to work with what he had, his story finds Superman becoming a literal golden glittering all-star shooting across the sky, pure information, an untouchable incorporeal living myth sprung from a man as akin to the ‘rock star’ image formed around ordinary people (such as Morrison himself in his younger days with his band The Mixers). The subject of payment will be returned to at the conclusion.

It's a cool place and they say it gets colder You're bundled up now, wait till you get older But the meteor men beg to differ Judging by the hole in the satellite picture The ice we skate is getting pretty thin The water's getting warm so you might as well swim My world's on fire, how about yours? That's the way I like it and I never get bored

This verse at first appears to be in reference to the coming of the freezing All-Night of the Bizarro Underverse, and Superman’s return as a ‘meteor man’ crashing into a travelling circus. However, while this is a neat narrative transition it is in fact in reference to metaphorical coldness and figurative meteor men, in the form of Bar-El and Lilo, and Superman’s reckoning with his Kryptonian heritage (though the opening lines also evoke the emotional coldness and grappling with mortality that define #5-6: it is this central 6-issue chunk that make up the night side of the archetypal journey into the underworld and rebirth that Morrison has commented formed the mythical structure of the series). The ‘hole in the satellite picture’ is interesting; it could be seen as a roundabout reference to the Kryptonian couple’s conquest of human culture as seen in Metropolis both architecturally and in Jimmy’s adoption of Kryptonian overpants and belt, culminating in the literal hole in the moon (symbolic of dreams, as all culture is the product of) patched up with human cultural artifacts such as the Golden Gate Bridge. More pertinently however, it evokes General Zod’s command of the airwaves in 2013′s Man of Steel, where he not only inhabits a colonialist view of planet Earth evocative of Bar-El and Lilo, but mentions that Superman “could have built a New Krypton in this squalor”, a direct line lift from the issue. Either the time-bending syncronicities go further than initially realized, Morrison played an extremely long game while consulting on the film, or Zack Snyder is not only in fact in possession of the deep understanding of Superman and his source material that his apologists claim, but himself figured this all out a very long time ago and adjusted his work accordingly. In any case, the Kryptonian astronauts’ belief in the “uncontested superiority and grandeur of Kryptonian culture” is impotent in the face of their own failing bodies and ultimate realization that Superman is right; their time has passed, the ice getting thin, and Superman’s kindness and willingness to engage human culture on its own terms - to swim - must carry the day. Per Morrison, “In mythic terms, if Superman is the story of a young king, found and raised by common people, then Krypton is the far distant kingdom he lost. It’s the secret bloodline, the aristocratic heritage that makes him special, and a hero. At the same time, Krypton is something that must be left behind for Superman to become who he is - i.e. one of us. Krypton gives him his scientific clarity of mind, Earth makes his heart blaze.” (Bolding my own)

(Chorus repeats)

Somebody once asked could I spare some change for gas? I need to get myself away from this place I said yep what a concept I could use a little fuel myself And we could all use a little change

The final non-repeating section of the song represents a final struggle between Luthor’s materialistic outlook, only able to see ‘change’ and ‘fuel’ in crass physical, monetary terms, while the enlightened Superman - transformed by his own process of personal growth and forthcoming elevation to solar deity - is capable of discerning a deeper meaning. That this is framed as an exchange, and more specifically an education, hints at Lex’s lesson at the hands of his senses in the worthwhile of the immaterial, divine unity of humanity that will prompt his transformation into Quintum, tying the story in a neat loop. Incidentally, the prospect of ‘change’ as monetary value while not a prominent factor in All-Star Superman will go on to have significant roles in both his major subsequent Superman works, Action Comics and Multiversity (the latter of which by his own admission evokes All-Star in its Thunderworld Adventures chapter, going on to reckon with the capitalistic give-and-take of commercial storytelling aiming for the type of enlightenment Morrison seeks to provide in its concluding issue), advancing the connections of the song to All-Star’s post-release impact as well as its text.

(Chorus repeats, concluding the song)

A final note: but the Meteor Men beg to differ is not only the most Jack Kirby-ass line that dude never wrote, but always reminds me of the 1993 Robert Townsend picture The Meteor Man, which I apparently viewed as a child and which I have always misremembered as having a direct connection to the 1978 Superman. I could swear I recall a bit of a picture being shown of a man with a meteor that’s the same picture of the man who found Kryptonite in the Donner film, the latter of which of course was a tremendous influence on All-Star Superman.

#All Star Superman #All Star #Smash Mouth #Grant Morrison #Analysis #Opinion

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immigrationquebeccanada · 4 years ago

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21 Amazing Things You Should Know Before You Migrate to Canada

It's hard not to get eager about Canada migration. The place is delightful and the people are renowned for their good characters. You have a bowl of maple syrup for breakfast, ski to work and say 'sorry' to everybody en route. Simply be mindful so as not to chance upon any bears. We'd prefer to disclose to you all the most significant things about existence in the Great White North, from ice-hockey and twofold duplicates to packed away milk. So, read on!

1. Canada is huge

Canada's extraordinary for people who like it, in light of the fact that there's totally heaps of it. The nation is the second biggest on the world after Russia estimating almost ten million square kilometers. In the event that that doesn't mean anything to you, think about this: you could fit the United Kingdom into Canada more than 40 times. It would take you more than four years to walk its coastline, in the event that you ever wanted. The city of St John's in Newfoundland (east coast) is in reality nearer to London than it is to Vancouver (west coast). Wood Buffalo National Park is greater than the Netherlands. To make everything a touch more reasonable, Canada is divided into ten provinces and three territories. Simply take the nation each piece in turn.

2. The cities are world class

Metropolitan life in Canada is the honey bee's knees. In the Economist's 2017 ranking of the world's most liveable urban areas, no under three Canadian urban communities put in the best ten. They were Vancouver (third), Toronto (fourth) and Calgary (fifth). The five variables were medical services, education, infrastructure, environment, and stability. It's hard to believe, but it's true, these urban communities are basically asking to be lived in. With regards to the significant stuff, the Canucks just ca-thump the ball directly out of the park. One thing to be cleared , the capital of Canada is Ottawa, not Toronto.

3. It’s very multicultural

People simply love moving to Canada, and Canada simply adores having them over. Over 20% of Canadians were conceived in another nation, and this is required to reach almost half by 2031. That is an insane pace of migration, however there's all that anyone could need space to go around. There are almost 200 nationalities the nation over (and more than 250 ethnic origins), including heaps of Aboriginal people. We surmise Canada is only a major, lovely rainbow.

4. Two official languages

One authority language was insufficient for the Canadians, so English and French have equivalent status over yonder. In the event that you believe that sounds troublesome, envision being in Singapore (four official languages) or India (sixteen official languages). You don't generally see the Frenchness of the nation except if you're in the eastern territory of Quebec, where people are making a decent attempt to keep things as French as could reasonably be expected. There are laws upheld by the OQLF (essentially the language police) to ensure everybody utilizes enough French. In the event that a shop doesn't put French on its signs and welcome its clients in French, it's in difficulté.

5. You’ve got good healthcare options

Canada's medical services are the jealousy of their American neighbors toward the south. It's an expense financed Medicare system where the government pays for people's fundamental health insurance, which is then conveyed by the private area. It resembles the NHS; in the event that you require any fundamental clinical services, you get them for free. It just includes a touch of waiting.

Indeed, Canada's hold up times aren't incredible; a 2017 Commonwealth Fund survey found that solitary 43% of Canadians see a medical professional around the same time as looking for help. Luckily there are heaps of ways around this, for example, being companions with a doctor, marrying a doctor,, or surely becoming a doctor. All joking aside, considering your private healthcare options is really reasonable, especially in the event that you need to evade those long holding up times.

6. The landscapes are beautiful

Indeed, the urban areas are good, however the spaces between the cities are far and away superior. 90% of Canadians live inside 100 miles of the American borders, which implies there's a genuine measure of space for investigating in the north. In the event that you need to move away from different people for some time (or surely forever) at that point the open door's there. Beside bubbling deserts and tropical rainforests, Canada basically has each scene going. There's the tough coastline of Pacific Rim, the supernatural Meadows in the Sky, and the rock piles of Gros Morne, to give some examples. The Alberta Badlands are especially very nice in the event that you need to feel like a cowpoke in an old western film. Yee-haw!

7. Lakes, lakes and more lakes

You know the familiar axiom: everybody's either a freshwater individual or a saltwater individual? Indeed, with the longest coastline on the planet and 20% of the Earth's lakes, Canada has the best of the two universes. New people and pungent people can live respectively in concordance. There are around 2,000,000 lakes in Canada, including the totally walloping Lake Superior, which is about the size of Maine. You can do all the fun watersports that the Australians do, however without stressing over the sharks. It's one major straightforward sprinkle party over yonder.

8. It’s freezing cold

There's a bad situation for words like 'chilly and 'nippy' in Canada. At the point when we state it gets cold, we mean truly ridiculous cold. Aside from the nation's west coast in British Columbia, no place else in Canada does the normal temperature surpass zero in winter time. Tremendous pieces of the nation can plunge as low as - 30°C or - 40°C, which makes going outside genuinely unenjoyable. Toss in the serious breeze chill and nature are an off limits. The coldest temperature ever recorded in North America was in Yukon, Canada in 1947 at - 63°C, which is truly equivalent to the surface temperature of Mars. Out of nowhere those lakes don't appear to be engaging.

9. They’re obsessed with ice-hockey

Hitting a weighty item around with sticks wasn't hazardous enough for the Canadians, so they chose to do it on ice. What else would you say you are intended to do with each one of those solidified lakes in the winter? Referred to just as "hockey" over yonder, the sports is fundamentally a religion. Just to give you a thought, the Canada versus USA men's hockey last at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 was the most watched in front of the TV broadcast in Canadian history. There's even an image of children playing hockey on a solidified lake (known as shinny) on the Canadian $5 bill. It turns out the game was really developed in England, but don't tell any Canadians that.

10. Milk comes in bags

On the off chance that you think purchasing a major plastic sack of milk sounds odd, you are completely right. It's a peculiar practice that goes on all through Ontario and Quebec. Three individual bags of milk are set in one bigger sack, which the sharp Canadian milk-consumer at that point hauls home. The customary container of milk appears to work for every other person, yet in certain pieces of Canada it's the bag or nothing. When the nation changed to the metric system in 1970, milk makers needed to change every one of their machines so they could create diverse estimated bottles. Bagging it up just appeared to be much simpler. So here we are.

11. Everyone loves poutine

Poutine is Canada's public dish. "Poutine" is slang in Quebec province for "a mess", which is essentially what you get. Chips shrouded in sauce and half-dissolved cheddar curds. It doesn't seem like an especially humble supper, yet the Canadians love it in no way different. It was invented in 1957 when a driver requested that somebody put cheddar on his chips and sauce. One person needed a touch of cheddar and out of nowhere a public dish was conceived. Gourmet specialists around the nation have attempted to make it a touch more extravagant, tossing in things like lobster and foie gras, however it's a losing fight. Simply keep an eye out for those calories; a side request of poutine in Burger King contains 740 of them. Heavy meal.

12. And maple syrup

Truly, the generalization is valid; Canadians are distraught for maple syrup. That sweet, sweet goo can be found in virtually every kitchen the nation over. The stuff basically courses through their veins. Maple trees are all over Canada and they're wonderful, turning a brilliant red shading in the fall. Some time ago, locals in Quebec told the French the best way to gather the sap from maple trees, and afterward the French bubbled it to make the syrup. It was an upbeat coordinated effort that Canada is extremely glad for. The bubbling cycle expands the sugar content in the sap from around 2-8% to a monstrous 70%, which is completely unfortunate for your teeth. Today, Canada produces 71% of the world's maple syrup, and the US is their greatest client. In 2012, thieves attacked Canada's maple syrup holds and took US$30 million worth of maple syrup. That is one sweet heist.

13. They had a flag design competition

How would you make a public banner that the entire nation is happy with? You request that they plan it. In 1965, Canada understood that they actually didn't have an official banner, so the people at the top concluded they ought to get one. Different nations had just taken all the straightforward plans, so the Canadians needed to get imaginative. Furthermore, kid did they convey! An aggregate of 3541 banner plans were put together by residents the nation over, with the vast majority of them including either a maple leaf, a beaver, a fleurs-de-lys or a Union Jack (and now and then each of the four on the double). The triumphant passage originated from Colonel George F. G. Stanley, with his basic red and white maple leaf plan. The one we as a whole know and love. Also, the one that all Canadian voyagers demand having on their knapsacks.

14. The education is top notch

In Canada, school is cool. With regards to showing their children, the Canadians don't play. In the OECD's 2017 positioning of nations' grown-up training levels (in light of the level of long term olds with a degree), Canada started things out with 56.27%. It may be awful for your teeth, however maple syrup unmistakably accomplishes something for the mind. In the event that you end up in a bar test against a lot of Canadians, it's likely best to return home before it gets excessively humiliating.

15. Learn the slang

'Canadian English' is an extraordinary sort of English. The Canucks talk their own language and it can confound the hellfire out of any ill-equipped outsider. There are just so often you can request that somebody rehash themselves before you simply gesture and grin. The most popular expression is 'eh', which Canadians like to slap on the finish of practically any sentence. Explanations, questions, affronts, orders; everything is reasonable game with regards to 'eh'. In the event that somebody goes to the "biffy" at that point they're set for the latrine. In the event that it's cool, at that point you'll require a "hat" (a beanie) on your head. A $1 coin is a "loonie" and a $2 coin is a "toonie". The lively word for a kilometer is a "klick". On the off chance that anybody converses with you about "the 6ix", they're discussing Toronto. At the point when they state "about", it seems like "aboat". It's all exceptionally overpowering.

16. Sorry!

"Sorry" is Canada's most significant word. Each Canadian is only edgy to apologize to different Canadians at some random chance. They're a broadly obliging pack, and "sorry" is their meat and potatoes. Toss enough "sorry"s at a circumstance and there is no reason to worry. Stroll down a road or through a grocery store and you'll hear constantly it. Actually, Canadians utilize the word such a great amount of that in 2009 they needed to pass an 'Expression of remorse Act' in Ontario. It implies that if any Canadian says 'sorry' at the hour of a wrongdoing or episode, it won't consider an affirmation of blame – only a declaration of compassion. Without this, there'd presumably be a ton of regretful Canadians in jail.

17. Timmies is everywhere

In a rundown of exceptionally Canadian things, Tim Hortons is likely third – soon after maple syrup and expressions of remorse. Referred to warmly as 'Timmies', it's a chain of espresso and doughnut shops and there are branches all over the place. They're in shopping centers, train stations, films, public stops, the rundown goes on. Practically every town across Canada has a Timmies. On the off chance that a space opens up on the high road, it will get loaded up with a Timmies. Leave your nursery sufficiently long and it will in the end grow a Timmies. Evidently eight out of each ten cups of espresso bought in Canada are from Timmies (source: Timmies). A public most loved is the Timmies "twofold", which is an espresso with two sugars and two creams. An additional huge one of those has 340 calories. Have too some twofold pairs and you'll be in a tough situation inconvenience.

18. Canada’s furry friends

The moose and the beaver are Canada's public mascots. They're both on the cash, and the pair of them were lining up directly behind the maple leaf to go on the banner. Nonetheless, likewise with most public creatures, they've gotten somewhat of a bug. A moose regularly weighs between 350-450kg (contingent upon sexual orientation), which is fine. Be that as it may, they simply love to go across streets, and they're not awesome at it. Moose-vehicle impacts can be intense, so you'll see heaps of caution signs on Canadian streets. The beavers are planning something sinister either. They're assaulting canines, gnawing hands, flooding streets and just for the most part causing devastation. Certain people have attempted to separate them however it's exceptionally disputable. Simply take a gander at how adorable a child beaver is (called a unit). Envision separating that.

19. Beware of the bears

Canadian bears. They're somewhat less "fun and fleecy" than the beavers and a smidgen more "large and perilous". In the event that a bear needs to murder you, it can and it will. There are three sorts of bears to stress over, from least to generally terrifying: wild bears, mountain bears and polar bears. Wild bears don't will in general go close to people except if they're really starving. They're incredible tree-climbers and there are around 500,000 of them the nation over. Wild bears are a lot greater (around seven feet tall when standing), so they can't climb trees however they can run more than 30 mph. Numbering around 20,000, grizzlies are considerably more liable to assault people than their little dark siblings. At last, there are the polar bears. There are around 17,000 polar bears in Canada, which is about 70% of the whole worldwide populace. Super cold, these ones need no encouragement to assault you. Inhabitants of Churchill, Manitoba really leave their vehicle entryways opened on the off chance that somebody needs cover. Fortunately polar bears actually haven't turned out to be the means by which to open a vehicle entryway.

20. There are bridges for animals

One answer for all the creature vehicle crashes in Canada is to assemble spans for them. Also, it really works. The extensions are lush, verdant and only a stunning method to go across the street. They're a raving success with the creatures in Banff National Park; somewhere in the range of 1996 and 2012, eleven types of enormous vertebrate were recorded utilizing these scaffolds more than 150,000 times. This incorporates moose and bears – creatures that would positively have caused a genuine mishap in the event that they took the standard street course. Certain moose were so quick to utilize the extensions that they were traverse them before they'd even completed the process of being assembled. Banff has started the precedent and now puts across Canada have connect fever, for example, British Columbia and Alberta. It's a success win for all.

21. Pekwachnamaykoskwaskwaypinwanik

It may seem as though a feline has quite recently strolled over the console, yet this is really a spot in Canada. It's a lake and its name (in the local Cree language) signifies "where the wild trout are gotten by fishing with snares". Magnificently, there is no deficiency of crazy spot names in Canada. A few people simply haven't accepted the position genuinely enough. Look at these towns and towns: Goobies, Dildo (Newfoundland), Balls Creek, Lower Economy, Mushaboom (Nova Scotia), Punkeydoodles Corners, Crotch Lake, Ball's Falls (Ontario), Finger, Flin Flon (Manitoba), Mosquito Grizzly Bear's Head Lean Man, Eyebrow and Big Beaver (Saskatchewan). The best part is that there's Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! In Quebec. Indeed, there are really two 'Ha!'s.

Final Thoughts

Ideally you're feeling beautiful Canada-insane in the wake of understanding that. It's a tremendous, lovely and multicultural nation with all that anyone could need enjoyable to go around. Get yourself a hockey stick and a bag of milk and you'll be an out and out Canadian before you know it. What's more, you shouldn't let the bears put you off – they simply make going external a smidgen all the more energizing. Now are you excited to move in Canada?

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stars-and-rose · 6 years ago

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lacrosse and starbucks

alternately called: band au shenanigans? band au shenanigans.

really, i was planning on updating cursed kingdom this weekend. or heart point. or both.

but my phone (which contains all my notes for both aus) had other ideas.

it died. i don’t mean the battery is out. i mean, it is completely done for.

so, until i get another phone (which should be very soon) and can recover my notes, it’s gonna be a little hard to update those aus. i’m currently rewriting my cursed kingdom notes in a notebook because my trust in phones has died.

in short, shit has hit the fan, and to make up for that, I found a drabble (whoops it’s actually almost 2k words) it wrote for my band au. soooooo here we go! it managed to become pining prinxiety and logically and I'm not sure how

Fandom: Thomas Sanders/Sanders Sides

Pairings: Highkey pining Prinxiety, and Logicality

Summary: Junior year is almost over... the concert is in four days time, and at that concert, leadership position's will be announced. So what is Virgil doing? Practicing? no. Sitting at his c- friends lacrosse game and getting coffee? yes

Word Count: 1908

Trigger Warnings: Cursing and Implied parental death (brief, mentioned in a single sentence)

Virgil could list a thousand other things he could be doing at the moment. He could be finishing his sociology report. He could be practicing his solo for the concert, which was less than a week away. He could be helping the younger members of the school's poetry group finish their writings for the slam coming up.

Instead, he had his back against the bleachers, his dark jean jacket hanging loosely off his shoulders and his eyes focused on the puffy clouds in a blue sky. He had been focusing on the game, but the opposite school had called a timeout and they were taking too long.

He wouldn't have been watching the lacrosse game if it weren't for the fact that one of its chief players was both his ride home and his best friend. Virgil looked away from the sky and back to the players, spotting Roman by his number. The honey blonde was twisting around his lacrosse stick, eyes focused only on the opponent. Roman got always got like this, it didn't matter if it was a lacrosse game, an audition or a friendly debate with Logan, another one of their friends; Roman’s mind was set on 'win' and it was a one-track mind on that setting.

The ref blew his whistle, and the game started back up. Virgil didn't exactly understand how the game worked, but he still sat in the stands, cheering when someone in blue and gold made a goal. No matter how hard he tried, however, he couldn't focus on any player that wasn't Roman for more than ten seconds. It didn't help his cause that Romans ass look particularly good in the lacrosse uniform-

Just as the thought caused Virgil's cheeks to tint pink, his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He pulled out his phone and noticed the caller ID- 🌸DAD🌸

It wasn't Virgil's actual father- rather, it the last member of their quartet, Patton. Virgil has been waiting for this call. He stood, his jacket falling off as he walked down the bleachers, apologizing to anyone he knocked into. After getting a decent way away from the game (so he could hear over the shouting and the clashing of sticks), he accepted the call.

He blinked as a pixelated image of Patton's face filled the screen. The brunet smiled at him, "Hey kiddo! How's the game going?"

Virgil snorted, "Bold if you to assume I understand how sports work. I think they're doing well though- Ro hasn't thrown a fit yet. But that's not important- how did your interview go?"

Patton twisted a loose piece of his hair with his free hand. "I'm honestly not sure. Mr. Sanders was smiling the whole time and he seemed to like my answers, and I kept the right time during the conducting section-"

"Patton, I heard the whole interview from the library. You did stupendously." Patton flushed and turned the camera a bit to show Logan, whose eyes were on the road and his hands were on the steering wheel.

"Yeah, Pat, I bet you did great. If Thomas doesn't give you Drum Major, I'll be really pissed. Who else is going for it? Zia Macintosh? If she gets it I'll riot, because she's a huge bitch." Virgil commented

"Don't be mean." Patton scolded, but the smile on his face contradicted his words.

Virgil rolled his eyes. "What are you guys doing now?"

"I'm treating Patton to ice cream for successfully completing his interview," Logan said, fingers drumming on the steering wheel.

"I cone not believe how nice he is to me." Patton smiled, eyes soft and a bit unfocused. Virgil laughed as Logan groaned at the pun.

"Alright you two, I'm pretty sure Princey's game is over, so I gotta go. Who's doing rides tomorrow?"

"It's my day!" Patton grinned. "Meaning we're gonna leave early and get breakfast at Lottie's!"

Logan let out a groan. "We always arrive at school late when we go to Lottie's!"

"Then we'll get take-out." Patton decided.

"That will suffice. Virgil, make sure you tell Roman to be ready on time."

"I'll make sure the beauty queen is ready," Virgil promised. "See you guys tomorrow."

Virgil hung up, and walked back to the bleachers, looking for his jacket. When it wasn't there, Virgil freaked out a bit. He was just about to climb under the bleachers when he felt the cold material draped around his shoulders. Virgil spun on his heels and almost fell onto Roman.

The blond threw his hands up in mock surrender. "Hey, hey Virge, just me!"

Virgil huffed, blowing a lock of dark hair out of his eyes. "You gave me a heart attack. Why did you take my jacket?"

"I saw that you left it up in the bleachers and grabbed it for you. Ready to go?"

"Do you have your keys?"

Roman rummaged through his letterman (which he wore all the time; Virgil only wore his own every once and a while) and pulled out his keys, which rattled against the various keychains attached. "Mmhm!"

"Then let's go Princey- I want Starbucks." Virgil speed-walked towards Roman's Jeep, ignoring the other boy's protests.

Roman caught up to him as Virgil reached the black car. "Why am I taking you to Starbucks?"

"Because I have a sociology report I have to finish and you have to finish your creative writing assignment and neither of us can function without coffee."

"I hate that you're right," Roman grumbled, before opening the passenger door for Virgil and walking around to get into the driver's side. Virgil considering banging his head on the car- Roman should not be allowed to do chivalrous and kinda cute things like opening doors and buying him coffee.

Instead, Virgil slipped into the car, breathing in the familiar scent of the sea-scented air freshener. Roman started the car and leaned back against the seat. "Hey emo nightmare, can you see if you can find my chapstick?"

Virgil rolled his eyes at the nickname but rummaged through the glove compartment until he found the vanilla chapstick that Roman was obsessed with. He passed the lacrosse player the chapstick and tried not to stare as Roman applied it. When he was done, Roman dropped it into his lap and began to pull out of the school's parking lot. "You're lucky it's on the way home."

"You'd do it even if it was on the opposite side of town." Virgil couldn't hear Romans's response, so he plugged his phone into the radio jack, settling on Pray for the Wicked. When 'Roaring Twenties' started to blast through the speakers, Roman let out a laugh and began to sing along.

By the time they pulled into the Starbucks drive-through, Virgil was wheezing as Roman started singing at an impossible octave. He was still snorting as Roman started to order.

"One iced caramel latte and one iced white chocolate mocha, both venti," Roman ordered as Virgil attempted to contain himself.

Virgil grabbed his drink as soon as Roman brought it into the car. "The white chocolate messes with your whole emo aesthetic."

"Fuck you, white chocolate is amazing." Virgil took a sip of drink to prove his point.

Roman laughed again, taking a sip of his drink before driving along. "Did you get a call from Patton and Logan?"

"Yup, Logan was taking Pat out for ice cream after what he said was a successful interview."

"When are they going to get together?" Roman complained.

"I know! They've been pining since sophomore year!" Virgil was being a hypocrite, but that was irrelevant.

"It's crazy that we're going to be seniors." Roman sighed dreamily. "But senior year is gonna be a blast! I'm going to be a head section leader, you'll be equipment manager, Logan will be running the library, and Pat will be Drum Major."

"We won't know until the concert when Thomas announces leadership positions. If it happens, we'll have basically taken over the band," Virgil noted with a grin.

"It's because Thomas loves us. And we're crazy good players."

"Take the ego down a few notches, Ro."

"Roman laughed, then stopped the car in front of Virgil's house. "It looks like your moms not home." He commented.

Virgil looked; his mom's Toyota wasn't in the driveway. "She probably got called in." Virgil unbuckled, then remembered what he was supposed to tell Roman." Be ready early tomorrow; Pat's doing rides and we're stopping to pick up breakfast at Lottie's."

"Sounds great. See ya tomorrow Virge."

"See ya tomorrow, Ro." Virgil stepped outside, shut the car door, and walked up to his house, fumbling for his keys. After he opened the door, he turned and waved as Roman drove off. He closed the door behind him and noticed the note hanging from the corkboard his mom had hung in the entryway years ago.

Vee- Hope you had a good day at school, and at Romans game! I got called into the hospital, I swear they crumble without me there. I was able to make dinner before I got called, you should just have to heat it up. Text me when you get home, and don't stay up till three in the morning! <3 Mom

Virgil smiled. His mom was an emergency physician, and her irregular hours often left nights like this. It made him treasure the days she had off more. He hung up his jacket on one of the hooks, sipping his drink.

As Virgil headed for the kitchen, his eyes flared to the photograph on the wall- his mother standing with a smile, holding himself as an infant. Hugging her was a stranger in a military uniform that Virgil knew was his father.

Virgil found the food his mom had made and threw it into the microwave to heat it. While it warmed, Virgil perched on the counter, opening the various messages on his phone. Most were just streaks, so he flipped through them without paying attention until he opened the streaks from Roman.

The picture was of Virgil. He has his eyes closed and his face was frozen in laughter. It looked like Roman had snuck the picture of him while they were in the Starbucks drive-through. Roman, ever the artist, had added purple swirls around the edges.

Virgil let out a laugh, "Dork."

After eating his dinner, texting his mom. and scrolling through Tumblr, he went upstairs and sat at his laptop. As it booted up- which usually took forever, the little shit, Virgil noticed an old poem laying on his desk. His mom must have been cleaning and found it. When he had written this? Eighth grade?

The poem was dark; it described feeling out, being on the outside looking in. Virgil has to admit, his old works were pretty cringe-worthy. But then again, eighth grade had not been fun.

Who would have thought a three-day band festival could be the catalyst that would change the lonely, sad boy who didn't know what was wrong with him to a boy who knew how to cope with his anxiety and was happily surrounded by friends?

Virgil pushed the poem off his desk, watching it fall to the floor slowly. "Don't worry." He found himself mumbling. "It gets better."

With that, Virgil opened his report and began to finish up it, a new poem idea swirling in the back of his mind, along with his improv solo playing as background music.

77 notes · View notes

thesinglesjukebox · 7 years ago

Video

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TAYLOR SWIFT - LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO [4.39] Man, look what she made US do.

Elisabeth Sanders: Here is the thing about Taylor Swift: anybody that has truly loved (despite themselves) Taylor Swift has done so because of her sharp, frightening edges, because of the way in which she is the mean girl in the midst of a panic attack, because she's petty, because she's crazy, because she believes in things and at the same time when those things aren't as they seem wants to crush them in the palm of her hand. Any interpretation of Taylor Swift that doesn't incorporate this is simply bad research. In 2006: "Go and tell your friends that I'm obsessive and crazy--There's no time for tears / I'm just sitting here, planning my revenge." In 2010: "And my mother accused me of losing my mind /But I swore I was fine /You paint me a blue sky /And go back and turn it to rain /And I lived in your chess game /But you changed the rules every day /Wondering which version of you I might get on the phone, tonight /Well I stopped picking up and this song is to let you know why" In 2012: "Maybe we got lost in translation / maybe I asked for too much / or maybe this thing was a masterpiece / til you tore it all up." And finally, in 2014, a culmination of the songwriting combined with the publicity--well, just listen to "Blank Space." I can't quote the whole thing. At the time it was brilliant, a parody that dipped just enough into the real, a joke about both media extrapolation and actual content. But we're past the time for parody. It came, it was good, it went. The criticism still followed, for other reasons, for deeper reasons, for real reasons. Along with, I'm sure, superficial ones. But if "Blank Space" was Taylor Swift's petty Gone Girl fan fiction, "Look What You Made Me Do" is the unfortunate chapter in which we have to acknowledge that the fiction was never that self-aware, and that an excavation of complication, when confronted with complicated times, sometimes reveals not a complex sympathetic maybe-villain, but simply a person not equipped to be making mass art right now. Taylor's pettiness, her villainy, her strangeness, has always been her most interesting feature. Maybe, now, too many years into seeing but not seeing it, it's just--not that interesting anymore. She's not your friend, and she's not your enemy, she's just--well. As she says, "I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me." I think that might be her final truth. [3]

Stephen Eisermann: I've never been a big Taylor Swift fan -- I like her music well enough, but there was always something about the details she painted and the cards she showed that it felt a bit... made-up. Still, I always had a weird feeling that Taylor and I had very similar personalities and personal life trajectories (bear with me) and this song reinforces that. When I was younger and "straight" (16-18), I was very quiet, nice to a fault, and introverted. Thanks to my name and skin color, a lot of (racist) older people always said it was hard to believe I was a Mexican teenager because I was so quiet, polite, well-spoken and bright. Much like Swizzle during the "Taylor Swift" and "Fearless" era, I was considered naive but genuine-hearted and people loved to love my niceness. However, I soon started coming to terms with my sexuality and started being a bit more open with myself and others about who I truly was, just like we saw glimpses of pure pop and more evocative lyrics in "Speak Now" and "Red." I still built stories and a narrative that painted me as more mystery than gay, just as Taylor toed the line between squeaky clean young adult and Lolita, but I was a bit more willing to explore. Soon after, the inevitable happened and I finally had my first NSFW encounter with a man, and was even MORE willing to be who I really was. I let my gay flag fly and if people asked, I wouldn't dance around the question, but own who I was. Taylor didn't hesitate one bit when she announced 1989 would be a pop album in its entirety, and I didn't so much was stutter when telling questioning friends my realization. Still, a part of me hid things from ass-backwards family members and people who I knew wouldn't "understand," just as Sweezy continued to play the victim card to hold on to some of the innocence that was slowly falling through her fingertips like sand on the last day of vacation. However, there is only so much sand one hand can hold and BAM -- my family became aware of my sexuality and Taylor was exposed. I was at a crossroads -- do I drop my family and throw out ALL the dirty chisme I had accumulated over the years at different holidays, effectively exposing the most bigoted family members, or do I keep my mouth shut and weather the hate, being all the stronger for it? I wanted so badly to be vindictive and evil, but I choose the high road for reasons I'm not really sure I can effectively communicate. Taylor, however, has opted for the darker route. "LWYMMD" lacks detail, yes, but it's intentional. I just... I just know it. She has secrets up her sleeves she will soon reveal -- nobody willingly takes the villainous role without ammo, and Taylor has been MANY things throughout her career, but unprepared is not one of them. This song is calculated, petty, unnecessary, and very much beneath her, but it allows me to live vicariously through her and I want her to drag her detractors just as I want to drag my family members through the mud they continue to think I belong in. And just as my bigoted family members will get theirs, so will Taylor's enemies, I'm sure. [10]

Will Rivitz: "I think I have a part to play in this drama, and I have chosen to be the villain. Every good story needs a bad guy, don't you think?" -Lorelei Granger, Frindle (Andrew Clements, 1996) [9]

David Moore: Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie (Image Comics, 2015) Synopsis: Years ago, a young woman obsessed with music videos and mythic pop celebrity made a deal with the King Behind the Screen -- she gave up half of herself to gain the mystical power needed to eventually lead a coven of music obsessives. Now the deal's gone sour, and her darker, sacrificed self has switched places to destroy the coven with an ill-advised electroclash revival. [7]

Alfred Soto: Electronic swoops, piano on the bridge, lots of boom boom bap -- this single could be the new St. Vincent, or, to return to once upon a long time ago, to a track from Lorde's estimable Melodrama, a flop also largely co-written with Jack Antonoff. A skeptic of her first singles since 2009, I approached "Look..." with caution; on the evidence she's anticipated this caution. "I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me," she sings while soap opera strings add the requisite melodrama, and for a moment I thought she sang "I don't trust my body." I've never cared about biographical parallels in any art, especially in popular art where the insistence feels like conscription; the blank space where she wants the audience to write his/her/whatever's name is a sop to us. Less persuasive is the talk-sung part informing her audience that the "old Taylor" is "dead," as if Fearless fans needed an 808 dug into their faces. It will sound terrific on the radio. I'll skip it when I buy the album. [5]

Crystal Leww: The emerging narrative of Jack Antonoff as the next king of pop production is perplexing because his resume is honestly pretty thin. It's unclear what Antonoff actually brings to the table other than an amplification factor; Antonoff's songs have only been as good as his collaborators. This works when artists are working with a strong vision they can execute against -- e.g., CRJ's "in love and feeling like a teen again" on "Sweetie," Lorde's earnest wide open heartbreak on Melodrama. It is damning if artists are falling into their worst habits. Taylor Swift is a very solid songwriter -- it's nearly impossible to have the kind of career she had in country music if you're not -- but it always falls back on specificity, the emotional connection that she can forge with her fans when she knows what she's trying to convey. "Look What You Made Me Do" fails because it's unclear what it's about -- is this song about haters? Kim and Kanye? Her exes? The media? -- and Antonoff using Right Said Fred makes it all seem very clunky. The song sounds like it could have really leaned into a psycho ex-girlfriend vibe, but it's not self-aware, not funny, not sure of itself. Ultimately, "Look What You Made Me Do" isn't awful, but it's not catchy, which is its worst sin of all. Taylor Swift's still a decent songwriter ("Better Man" was great; "I've been looking sad in all the nicest places" almost made up for that Zayn collab), but this isn't even yucky -- it's just kinda boring. [4]

Katherine St Asaph: The curse continues. Maybe it's that the past month I've been listening to very little but "Anatomy of a Plastic Girl" by The Opiates and "Justice" by Fotonovela and Sarah Blackwood, and here's the exact conceptual midpoint. I've heard comparisons to electroclash, NIN, mall emo, Lorde, but I hear more Jessie Malakouti or Britney on Original Doll: frantic tabloid petulance, slightly updated with a "Problem" anti-chorus, but otherwise things I like. Otherwise, Swift's style has not changed: self-referential ("actress" and "bad dreams" shuffle her images to make her the heel) and threaded with subliminals ("tilted stage" is literal, "kingdom keys" keeps up with the konsonance) Just as "Dear John" parodied its subject's lite-blooz guitar, "Look What You Made Me Do" parodies the austere tracks of 808s and Heartbreak on, like "Love Lockdown" in curdled Midwestern vowels: trading soporific for loaded. The song has inevitably become about everything but itself. Her milkshake duck brought all the boys to the yard, and they're like, this is garb, and I'm like, the Internet deplorables haven't adopted this in any better faith than they did Depeche Mode; any of pop's myriad songs about the tabloids would read as "political" if transplanted into 2017 (is Lindsay Lohan's "Rumours" about FAKE NEWS?), and Swift's suffocatingly prescriptive "Southern" "values" pre-Red were as politically suspect as this, and more insidious. The next salvo of attack: its rollout being unprecedentedly gimmicky and exploitative, never mind how aforementioned Depeche Mode did the same pre-order thing, or Britney Spears upholstered-carpetbombed "Pretty Girls" in everyone's Ubers, or Rihanna's Talk That Talk was launched with gamified "missions", or Srsly Legit Band Arcade Fire spent months on fake Stereogum posts and fake Ben and Jerry's. Doesn't help that when Taylor is bad, she's stunningly, loudly bad; the second verse, in its magnification of the cringiest parts of "Shake It Off" and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," seems to last forever. (The phone call is fine, though; no one had a problem with "How Ya Doin'" or, like, "Telephone.") It's no good for catharsis, definitely not relatable, maybe on purpose: like being too sexy for your shirt, all you feel is cold. [6]

Katie Gill: On the one hand, Taylor using the language of abusers in the chorus of her song is clueless at best and worrisome at worst. On the other hand, blatantly riffing off of "I'm Too Sexy" is a surprisingly smart choice for a chorus and I'm shocked that I can't think of anyone who's tried it before with this level of success. But on the one hand, for a song about how she's getting smarter and harder, the lyrics don't reflect that, giving us some petty Regina George level nonsense instead of anything remotely resembling depth or nuance. But then again, that snake is pouring Taylor Swift some tea and all the Taylor Swifts are beating up the other Taylor Swifts in a battle royale hahaha this video is so amazingly dumb. I guess I'll split the difference and give it a [5]

Alex Clifton: I've always wanted give-no-fucks Taylor Swift, but I'm dying for context, as this album (and sing) will sink or swim based entirely on the narrative she creates. She's clearly setting herself on fire in order to rebrand herself, although I question her self-awareness. The music video indicates yes, with a brilliant 30-second scene featuring various Taylors mocking each other. Yet "Look What You Made Me Do" is also curiously passive, with a reactionary title and a bored chorus--more a sign of privilege and status. The ambiguity between honest, wronged victim and villainous persona here is intriguing, especially given Swift's penchant for earnestness; obviously she cannot be both, but the tension drives the song. The song itself is a mixed bag; Swift returns to the messy rapping last heard on "Shake It Off" with an equally cringey spoken-word interlude, but her voice is simutaneously delicate and confident as she comes out swinging. While I love seeing Blood!Swift writing a hitlist of enemies like an evil Santa Claus and the hint of confronting the less attractive/more honest parts of her role in the spotlight, only time will tell whether this is truly a playful new direction or more of the same old tune. (Also, what did we make her do? The answer is classic Swift, diabolically obvious: we made her write a song about it.) [7]

Jessica Doyle: A week on I still hear more self-loathing than anything else. Nothing the supposed New Taylor offers up comes off particularly convincingly; there's no glee in her reinvention. Compare the way she rushes through honey-I-rose-up-from-the-dead when she once sounded like she was thoroughly enjoying Boys only want love when it's torture. She doesn't sound smarter, or harder; look what you made me do, when she's spent the last eighteen months making a point of not doing anything. There's no air in here, no space beyond the multiple annotated versions and multiple thinkpieces declaring her a walking horsebitch of the Trumpocalypse. Just Taylor Swift practicing telling herself to shut up, Taylor Swift wondering about karma, Taylor Swift reading Buzzfeed and taking careful notes, Taylor Swift unable to make a point about anything at all except Taylor Swift. You don't realize, when you're in the thick of it, that self-loathing is just as relentlessly, narrowly egotistical as any other kind of self-obsession. It gets old, finally. It wears you out. It wears everybody out. Right? Yes? Can we all agree to be worn out now? Are we going to allow her to move on? She can't rise up from the dead if we don't let her die first. [3]

Cassy Gress: There was a time when I thought 1989 pajama-parties-and-kittens Taylor was the "real Taylor." I don't know if that really was. What I do know is that trying to figure out who the "real Taylor" is, and arguing on the internet about it, is fucking exhausting. So much of her musical output has been autobiographical, or meant to sound generically autobiographical to women listeners; so much of her reads as "pussycat with claws." Sometimes she emphasizes the pussycat side, soft and vulnerable; "Look What You Made Me Do" is the claws side. But Taylor, who we know has the ability to be nuanced and evocative, is here transmitting her intent (to destroy Kanye, or Katy, or Hiddleston, or her old selves, or just to be the cleverest sausage) like a hammer to the skull. This, like much else about her, is exhausting to watch/listen to. I would much rather close the blinds and put on my headphones and watch GBBO reruns in my jammies. [2]

Olivia Rafferty: Washing in with the arrival of her sixth album are a tidal wave of thinkpieces on Swift, all set within the context of her A-list feuds, miscalculations and politics, or lack thereof. We've all sifted through stories of fake boyfriends, cheap shots and oblivious colonialism, and I'm going to speak for all of us when I say we probably should just all take a goddamn break from the vortex. I'm placing LWYMMD in a vacuum for now. Reaching into the embarrassing depths of my personal history, I can draw up two different past-Olivias who would be a perfect fit for this song. I'm gifting the verse, pre-chorus and middle eight to my 10-year-old self, and the chorus to my 17-year-old self. Olivia at 10 would lap up the overly-dramatic opening lines, the "I. Don't. Likes" and their thick punctuation. It's served with the attitude that would have made you want to stick on a crop top and pick up one of your tiny handbags to fling about during an ill-prepared dance routine -- no, Mum, it's not finished yet! And the moment of absolute pre-teen glory is the cheerleader delivery of the spoken half-verse, "the world moves on another day another drama drama," I can literally see the Beanie Baby music video re-enactment. All of these melodic aspects are playful but lack the precision or maturity you'd expect Swift to deliver on this "good girl grown up" song. When the chorus hits you suddenly mature into that 17 year-old whose friends-but-not-really-friends played that Peaches song at someone's house party. You could probably embarassingly attempt a slut-drop to it in your bedroom, pretending you're a dominatrix who's just split some milk on the floor. But the overall impression is that if Swift is trying to be naughty, sexy or dangerous, she's missed the mark a little. Now at 25 I'm listening and thinking that the chorus still snaps, but if this track was an attempt at sexualising Taylor in a way that's not been done before, it's only made it clear that she's still got a lot of growing up to do. [6]

Joshua Copperman: From the first bar chimes sound effect, I was worried, and I suppose my feelings didn't improve by the time the "tilted stage" line happened. On "Out Of The Woods", Antonoff and Swift brought out the best in each other (Jack's big choruses, Taylor's specific references), but on "Look What You Made Me Do", they bring out the worst (Jack's obnoxiousness, Taylor's pettiness.) Antonoff can do flamboyant earnestness, especially when it blends with Lorde's self-awareness and quirkiness; he just can't do dark and edgy. Or even campy, apparently: the glorious video mostly takes care of that, giving the song an intensity and glamour that it doesn't have nor deserve on its own. Yet even the video often misses the humor inherent in moments like the terrible rap in the second verse, or the already-infamous lift from "I'm Too Sexy". The ultimate effect is like John Green praising a burn of himself without realizing why the burn was deserved in the first place. In this case, it's one Taylor saying to another Taylor "there she goes, playing the victim, again", even though the preceding song couldn't even play the victim or villain well enough. [4]

Mo Kim: There was a time in my life when I looked up to Taylor Swift. I was eighteen once, clearing my throat of all the doubts that haunted it, and the only way I had to express myself was through songs about slights that exploded like firecrackers. But a voice with that strength comes with responsibility. Sometimes you need to stop reveling in the volume of your own speech to see the platform of power you stand on; otherwise you might build a version of yourself on the rickety foundation of innocence only to find it crashing down. On "Look What You Made Me Do," she's still trying for the pottery shard hooks that once made her so important to petty queer kids like me. It works in bits and spurts: that second verse is a bucket of water and an emergency siren to the face, and the pre-chorus utilizes a sinister piano and eerie vocal production to great effect. Too bad, then, that the flimsy chorus and winky-face lyrics cave in on themselves more easily than almost anything she's written before (like a house of cards, some might say). That it so blatantly abjects responsibility onto her audience, however, is the biggest point against it: instead of personability, or at least the pretense of it, there's just layer after layer of metanarrative. Instead of a telling that acknowledges her history -- a complicated, troubling, rich one -- there's just Queen Bee Taylor, sneering over a landfill heap of old Taylors before she discards of all her past selves. I used to hold stadiums in my chest as I listened to the stories Swift spun; now I feel like the lights have finally crackled out, and here she is, dithering in the debris of her crumbling empire, and here we are, looking down. [5]

Josh Love: If Taylor wants to go in, that's her prerogative, but because this is a song that none of us plebes can actually relate to, it's only fair to judge it solely based on whether it goes hard, and I'm sorry to report that Taylor has no bars. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "Shake It Off" seemed like wild stabs at first too, but they possessed an inclusivity that's curdled into Yeezus-level petulance here. There's nothing here to suggest she's capable of making Reputation her Lemonade. At least the video gives me some hope that maybe she realizes she's a complete dork. [3]

Anthony Easton: This is the hardest for me to grade, because I still don't know if it is good, but it is constructed in such a way that people like me (critic, liberal elitist, homosexual) are pressed to have opinions. It steals with such quickness, and with such weirdness that the opinions give birth to other opinons, somewhere between a snake hall and the ouroboros she already quotes. It sounds like Lorde, it samples Peaches, it plays with electroclash, which was a genre that was already heavily recursive. It tries to be without feeling, but it feels all too deeply. That is enough to spend time with, that is enough to unpack. It sounds like Lorde because they are both working with Jack Antonoff. Who is cribbing from who here? Is Lorde playing like Swift, is Swift cribbing Lorde's lankness, are both pulling outside of their influence, by the commercial, mainstreamed weirdness of Antonoff? Swift was always pretty; her main skill was using guile to a stiletto edge. This edges on ugliness, but it is still "ugly." Women like Peaches or the cabaret singer Bridgett Everett know how to sing, have the ambition to sing well, but chose to reject good taste for social and political power. Taylor playing with being ugly, with being flat, with kind of half singing, with no longer being the cheerleader, is not a formal refusal of beauty as a political means but has the louche boredom of a hanger-on, with maybe a bit of anger at not being cool enough. It's a capital blankness that raids and doesn't contribute. Part of the ugliness of Peaches, part of the joy of electroclash, is not only how it absorbs the amoral around it--Grace Jones, The Normal, Joy Division, Klaus Nomi--but that the sex of it works so hard. The fucking is less pleasure than hard work--the grit of dirt and sweat and bodies. When Swift quotes Peaches, she is quoting the reduction of pop to a stripping down of bodies through a formal aesthetic choice. When she quotes noir, it is an attempt to self-consciously think of herself as a body who is capable of doing real damage. Swift flatters herself as someone whose suicide could be a nihilist aesthetic gesture. She flatters herself as a fatale. She's still the kid who does damage, and plays naif. You can't be pretty and ugly. You can't be a naif fatale. You can't pretend not to care about gossip and make your career about what people think of you. You can only be so much of a feminist and rest on your producers this much, and you cannot play at louche blankness if it is so obvious how much work you are doing. This might suggest that I hate the song, but I can't. Swift doing an "ugly" heel turn fills me with poptimist longing, and I want to hear more. [9]

Eleanor Graham: There is a bit in an old Never Mind The Buzzcocks where Simon Amstell says to Amy Winehouse, "We used to be close! On Popworld, we were close." And Amy Winehouse runs her hand down his face and says, half-pityingly and to thunderous laughter, "She's dead." I don't really know why I'm bringing this up except to illustrate that a woman killing off her former self, against Joan Didion's worldly advice, has a kind of power. The crudest hyperbole. Like Amy in Gone Girl. You don't like this thing about me? You wish I was different? Well, guess what -- I'M DEAD! This line, which Swift delivers with the manic kittenish venom of Reese Witherspoon's character in Big Little Lies, is the only redeeming feature of "Look What You Made Me Do." And yet -- even as someone who has openly thrown politics to the wind in the face of such forever songs as "Style", "State of Grace" and "All Too Well" -- this single is too hallucinatory to be a flat disappointment. Quite aside from the Right Said Fred debacle, the "aw" is reminiscent of Julia Michaels, the second verse of a lobotomised Miz-Biz era Hayley Williams, the production ideas of a mid-2000s CBBC show, and the whole thing of a middle-aged man in a wig playing Sky Ferreira in an SNL skit. Disorientating. Almost euphorically horrible. Say what you want about T Swift, but who else is serving this level of pop Kafkaism in 2017? [2]

Maxwell Cavaseno: Weirdly, everything works for me sorta kinda with the second verse. The percussion thuds in the distance just a little more effectively, and Taylor's whining drone of a rap screams up into that high-pitched melodrama, only to crash and burn into an anemic "Push It," as written by someone who forgot Lady Gaga once could fool us into thinking she was funny. Past that subsection and prior, however, the record truly never clicks. You get the sense that Swift, someone so eagerly to seize the moment, doesn't realize that the horror campiness plays her hand too hard. [2]

Edward Okulicz: Saved from being her worst ever single by an out-of-nowhere, brilliant, Lorde-esque pre-chorus (and the existence of both "Welcome to New York" and "Bad Blood"), this is pretty thin gruel for the first single off a first album in three years. Remember how dense her songwriting used to be? See how clumsy it is on this. Taylor Swift's devolution from essential pop star to somewhat annoying head of a cult of personality is complete. At least there'll be better to come on the album. I hope. [4]

Rachel Bowles: I am guessing (and hoping) that "Look What You Made Me Do" is Reputation's "Shake It Off," a comparatively mediocre introduction to what is ostensibly a good album with some timeless songs ("Style" in particular on 1989). Functionally the same, both songs have to reintroduce Taylor in a new iteration to a cultural narrative she cannot be excluded from, both heavy on self-awareness and light on her signature musical flair. Where "Shake It Off" felt anodyne and compressed, "LWYMMD" is beautifully stripped back, chopping between lowly sung and rhythmically spoken word over a synthesiser, strings or a beat -- verses, bridges and middle 8's passing, though ultimately building to nothing -- the chorus of "LWYMMD" being the swirling void at its centre, one that cannot hold, however fashionable it is to build then strip to anti-climax in EDM and pop. What did Taylor do? The absence of her critical action, the bloody, thirsted-for revenge, can only leave us unsatisfied, like watching a Jacobean tragedy on tilted stage without the final release of death for all. What's left is a painful, public death of media citations of Taylor, played over and over, joylessly. [5]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: 1989 is Taylor Swift's worst album, but that shouldn't necessarily be seen as a bad thing. For an artist whose vocal melodies were able to effectively drive a song forward, it was a bit odd hearing her rely so heavily on a song's instrumentation to do all the heavy lifting. Additionally, the painterly lyrics that drew me to her work in the first place were mostly abandoned for ones more beige (simply compare the most memorable lyrics from 1989 and any other album and it becomes very obvious). It didn't work out for the most part, but I was fine with the mediocrity. And considering how stylistically diverse the album was, I very much saw it as a stepping stone for a future project. Which is why I'm completely unsurprised by the doubling down of "Look What You Made Me Do" -- it's a lead single that's heavily tied to her media perception, finds her abandoning any sense of subtlety, and utilizes amelodic singing to put greater emphasis on the instrumentation itself. It's conceptually brilliant for all these reasons, but it doesn't come together all too well. Namely, the lyrics are almost laughably bad and distract from how physical the song can be, and her calculated attempts at announcing her self-awareness have reached the point of utter parody. That the music video ends with Swift essentially explaining the (unfunny) joke only confirms this. [3]

Rebecca A. Gowns: Every new Taylor Swift single is Vizzini from "The Princess Bride," letting us know that she knows that we know that she knows that we know that she is Taylor Swift, and since she knows that we know (etc. etc. etc.), she can be confident drinking the goblet in front of her, since she knows that she switched around the goblets when we weren't looking, and she's laughing like she's clearly outsmarted us, but little does she know that we've been building up an immunity to her odorless white poison for years. [2]

William John: The hyper-specificity is gone. There are no references here to paper airplane necklaces or dead roses in December or in-jokes written on notes left on doors. In their place, platitudes abound, choruses are forgotten, "time" rhymes with "time", and "drama" with "karma". The latter is pursued with a maniacal intensity, the parody spelled out rather brilliantly in "Blank Space" quickly undoing itself. Rather obviously, "Look What You Made Me Do" does not exist in a vacuum, and the timing and nature of its release are what render it particularly dismaying. Its author, not playing to her previously demonstrated strengths, is seemingly at great pains to fuel fire to certain celebrity feuds, all the while insisting on her exclusion from them. It wouldn't matter so much were she to denounce some of her new fans with the same fervour, but for some reason this era she's opted out of interviews, perhaps at the time when some explanation driven by someone outside her inner circle is most needed. It's one way to forge a reputation, indeed. I do like the way she screams "bad DREAMS!" though. [3]

Leonel Manzanares: An auteur whose entire schtick is about framing herself as a victim, now emboldened by the current climate to address "the haters" using the language of abuse, embracing villainhood. No wonder she's considered the ambassador of Breitbart Pop. [4]

Thomas Inskeep: "Don't you understand? It's your fault that I had to go and become a mean girl!" Yeah, okay, whatever, Ms. White Privilege. [2]

Anjy Ou: For the woman who singularly embodies white female privilege, it's kind of embarrassing that she doesn't have the range. [2]

Will Adams: If you had asked me three months ago, "Hey, between 'Swish Swish' and whatever Taylor Swift ends up putting out this year, which is the more embarrassing diss track?", I wouldn't have thought I'd need to think about the answer this much. [2]

Anaïs Escobar Mathers: "Taylor, you're doing amazing, sweetie," said no one. [1]

Sonia Yang: With an artist as polarizing as Swift, it's easy to make the conversation a messy knot about the real life conflicts she's had, but I find it more interesting to tune that all out and focus on the simplicity of her work as a standalone. "Look What You Made Me Do" is Swift at her most coldly bitter yet, but betrays the resignation of long buried hurt. It's "Blank Space" but with none of the fantastical fun; it toes the line between wary irony and jadedly "becoming the mask." Most telling is the dull echo of the song title in place of a real hook, which is actually a favorite point of mine. Reality doesn't always go out with a bang; it's more likely for one to reach a gloomy conclusion than stumbling upon a glorious epiphany. Musically, I'd call this an awkward transition phase for Taylor -- it's not her worst song ever, but it's admittedly underwhelming compared to the heights we've seen from her. However, I've sat through questionable attempts at reinvention from my favorite artists before and I'm still optimistic about the potential for Swift's growth after this. [7]

Jonathan Bradley: There is nothing Taylor Swift does better than revenge, and this is not that. This is the first Swift single that exists only in conversation with Swift's media-created persona -- even "Blank Space" turned on internally resolved narrative beats and emotional moments -- but it offers little for those who hear pop through celebrity news updates, not speakers or headphones. Compare "Look What You Made Me Do" to "Mean," a pointed and hurt missive that scarified its targets with dangerous care; this new single, however, barely extends beyond the bounds of Swift's own skull. "I don't like your little games," levels Swift, her voice venom, "the role you made me play." The central character -- the only character -- in this narrative is Swift, and she enacts an immolation. Her nastiness is the etiolated savagery of Drake in his more recent and loutish incarnation: lonely and lordly, "just a sicko, a real sicko when you get to know me." "I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time" could be Jesse Lacey on Deja Entendu but sunk into the abyss of The Devil and God -- only it's delivered over ugly, the Knife-like electro clanging. The line that succeeds is classic Swift in its brittle theatrics: "Honey, I rose up from the dead; I do it all the time." The spoken-word bridge -- the song's most blatantly campy and deliciously gothic moment -- acts as a witchy incantation, walking most precariously the line between winking vamp and public tantrum. Swift has brought her monstrous birth to the world's light; contra the title, what it is we've made her do isn't even apparent yet. [8]

Lauren Gilbert: I was 18 when "Fearless" was released, and listened to it on repeat my first term of undergrad, feeling freedom and joy and hope. I listened to "We Are Never Getting Back Together" on repeat in an on-again-off-again relationship that should have ended years before it did. I listened to 1989 over and over again after recovering from a nervous breakdown and for the first time, really, truly focused on choosing a life of joy. I should be Here For This. I am not. Pop music thrives on specificity, and Taylor Swift in particular has made a career of writing about hyperspecific situations. This is... generic; it could be sung by Katy Perry, by a female Zayn, by Kim K herself. Taylor offers no hooks to her own life here, and perhaps that's not a flaw; female songwriters have the right to choose not to expose their own lives, and to write the same generic pop song nonsense that everyone else does. But as someone who bought into the whole TSwift authenticity brand -- even while I recognized it as a brand, even while I knew that she was a multimillionaire looking out for her own interests first and foremost, even as she was the definition of a Problematic Fav -- I can't really say I care that much about new Taylor. I could fault Taylor's politics and personality -- and I'm sure other blurbs will -- but the primary failing here isn't Taylor's non-music life. It's that there's no feeling here; it feels as cynical as the line "another day, another drama". Next. [4]

Andy Hutchins: "I'm Too Sexy" + "Mr. Me Too" - basically any of the elements that made "Mr. Me Too" compelling = "Ms. I'm Sexy, Too." [4]

Tara Hillegeist: Let's leave this double-edged sword hang here for a minute: Taylor Swift's personhood is irrelevant to the reality that she is a better creator than she ever gets credit for. Since her earliest days of the demo CDs she'd like to keep buried, Taylor Swift has never been less interesting or more terrible on the ears than when her songs are forcibly positioned as autobiography. For a decade she has cultivated an audience of lovers and haters alike that never felt her--or truly felt for her--because she never wanted them to know her, driven to own her brand even as she's deliberately averred to own up to what lies behind it. Witness the framing of an Etch-a-Sketch of a song like "Look What You Made Me Do": she releases a song about vengeful self-definition mere weeks after finally winning a years-long case against a man who sexually assaulted her and tried to sue her to silence over it on the sheer strength of her own self-representation, and the air charges itself with intimations that she instead meant it for Katy Perry, whose flash-in-the-pan "friendship" she publicly and memorably disowned in a bad song about bad blood an entire album ago, or perhaps Kim Kardashian-West, a woman whose "feud" with her arguably began with Taylor Swift's attempt to paint herself as the victim in an argument with Kim's husband but ended inarguably and decisively in Kim's favor. To claim someone would mangle her targets so ineptly even the conspiracy theorists have to resort to half-guesses and deliberate misquotes to draw out the barbs is a claim it's especially ridiculous to pin on a musician like Taylor Swift, a control freak who once built a labyrinth of personal references into an album full of songs about protagonists nothing like herself just to prove a point to anyone listening to them that closely about how sturdy the songs would be without knowing any of it. A public conversation that misses the point this drastically can only occur if there's a deliberately blank space where any sense of or interest in the person it's about could exist. There is a hole where this most powerfully self-determining popstar lives where a human life has never been glimpsed--because she cast that little girl and her frail voice aside years ago in search of something altogether more influential than such a weak vessel could ever hold. The girl who cajoled her family into spending enough Merrill-Lynch money to cover for her inability to sing until she had enough professional training to sing the songs she wanted to put to her name was never the girl who could truly be a flight risk with a fear of falling, was never the girl who never did anything better than revenge. But she wanted to be the girl who sang the words for that girl, who put her words in that girl's mouth, more than anything else in the world. She staked her name on nothing less than her ability to capitalize on the reputation she acquired. The Taylor Swift of Fearless and Speak Now was a Taylor Swift who believed she could be someone else in your mind, a songwriter dexterous enough to slip between gothic pop, americana-infused new wave, and pop-punk piss-offs without shaking that crisply machine-tooled Pennsylvania diction. A decade on, she's learned a lesson enough women before her already learned it's shocking she wasn't ready for it: when you're a girl and you make something about being a girl, everyone thinks you just had yourself in mind. The proof that she was more than that--more than the songs on the radio, you might say--was always there; it wasn't hidden, it wasn't obscured. But from Red onwards that Taylor began to die; a straighter Taylor Swift emerged in more ways than just her hair, all the kinks ironing themselves out in favor of her remodeling herself into a different sort of someone else's voice. Where once stood a Taylor Swift who sang for the sake of seeing her words sung by someone else's mouth back to her, there now stood a Taylor Swift who sang everyone else's words about her back to them. Tabloids cannot resurrect a life that a woman never lived, and no amount of retrospective sleight of hand about the girl she might have lied about being can hide the truth that neither can she. Conspiracy theories only flourish when people treat the mystery of human motives like a jigsaw puzzle waiting to be solved--ignoring that she already made it clear that was, still and always, the wrong answer to the questions she wouldn't let them ask. She wanted fame, she wanted a reputation; she wanted them on terms she defined; she never wanted anything else half as much as she wanted that. She has used every means available to her to earn them. Her awkward adolescence took a backseat to her life's dream of conquering America's radio. It's no shock, then, that all this gossip-mongering rings as hollow as a crown. The messy melodrama of Southern sympathy and thin-voiced warbles that defined the sweethearted ladygirls of generations before her and beside her and will define those that come after her, the sloppy humanities of Britney and Dolly and Tammy and Leann and Kesha Rose; these fumbling honesties, these vulnerabilities have never been tools in Taylor's narrative repertoire the way she uses the white girlhood she shares with them has been. She owned her protagonists' anxieties; but those songs have never defined her. This was always the moral to the story of Taylor Swift, to anyone--condemning or compassionate--who cared to really hear it: behind her careful compositions and obsessive pleas, Taylor Swift was never interested in making herself a real person at all. That would have cost her everything she ever wanted. And we, the Cicerone masses, ought very well to ask ourselves, before we let that double-edged sword finally fall: would it have been any more worth it, to anyone, if she had been? [2]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

#Taylor Swift #Look What You Made Me Do #reputatio

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sheilacwall · 5 years ago

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Jesus Walks… in Adidas

Jesus is King has finally dropped. This is Kanye West’s first Christian rap-gospel album since turning into a born-again Christian in April after the hedonistic indulgence of Coachella.

The Lucifer, Mercy and New God Flow producer has given up secular music and has now turned his career toward the servitude of God.

However, his return from hospital and new found faith will flow nicely into his plans to expand his fashion, music & entertainment empire as well as possibly delivering him the top spot in the White House. This is a man not to be underestimated.

Saint Pablo

‘Ye recently turned around a personal debt of $53 million into a nearly $50m profit. Back in 2016, ‘Ye went out cap in hand to Mark Zuckerberg for $1bn for his ideas, but was promptly ignored. Zuckerberg was raised in a Jewish household, although his wife is a Buddhist and he hasn’t publicly stated his faith. But, this wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by ‘Ye and may have pushed Kanye toward his born-again Christian position.

Soon after, the “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” star seemingly finally started listening to his wife.

“My wife said, I can’t say no to nobody, and at this rate we gon’ both die broke,” West raps on Saint Pablo. “Got friends that ask me for money knowin’ I’m in debt, and like my wife said, I still didn’t say no.”

Stronger

Whilst facing the cold shoulder from Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey – the Square & Paypal founder who was raised a Catholic, offered to invest in Kanye early on.

Jay-Z also kicked in a loan of $20m triggering tensions between the two ending in a public feud.

Here’s Jay-Z on “Kill Jay-Z��:

“You dropped outta school, you lost your principles / You gave him 20 million without thinkin’,” Jay-Z raps, seemingly confirming the rumor that he lent West money. “He gave you 20 minutes on stage, f–k was he thinkin’?”

Recently, Kanye has tried to dead the beef with the recent track “Brothers” with Charlie Wilson.

Power

‘Ye never got that billion from Zuckerberg, although they apparently became friends and even performed karaoke together, but it appears West has now healed his own financial woes: His apparel brand Yeezy is a billion-dollar empire, according to Forbes and over the past 12 months, Forbes estimates West has earned over $150 million before taxes. His wealth is due largely to Yeezy’s Adidas deal, a line that is expected to top $1.5 billion in sales in 2019.

The Jordan line does approximately $3 billion in annual sales, so the Yeezy line is catching up fast. If he can latch onto the Christian vote, sales could explode even more rapidly.

Touch the Sky

Christianity is the most adhered to religion in the United States, with 65% of polled American adults identifying themselves as Christian in 2019. This is down from 85% in 1990, 81.6% in 2001, and 12% lower than the 78% reported for 2012. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation.

Kenneth Copeland is the number one pastor in the USA and his net worth is $300m. After the backlash for supporting Trump, the natural progression seems to be for Kanye to target the Trump supporters and Christians who make up the large majority of America with around another 20% of the population perhaps open to conversion back to Christianity. It is a huge target market… and that is just America.

Christianity is by far the world’s largest religion, with an estimated 2.2 billion adherents, nearly a third (31%) of all 6.9 billion people on Earth in 2010.

Jesus is King

The new sound track has been carefully crafted to be sung by large audiences to worship god. With tracks such as “Follow God” and “Use This Gospel”, Kanye is on a mission to convert. He has brought the Church to the streets and into the hills… No Church in the Wild.

His carefully chosen purple hair and purple cloths are to portray himself as an Emperor, clergy-like figure, if not Jesus himself, I don’t think it will be long before Kanye professes himself as a Prophet of some sort.

Kanye pronounced himself “I am a God” back on Yeezus.

I just talked to Jesus He said, “What up, Yeezus?” I said, “Shit—I’m chillin’ Tryna stack these millions” I know he the most high But I am a close high Mi casa, su casa That’s our cosa nostra I am a god I am a god I am a god

Rappers as Jesus

This isn’t new in rap. Check out the images below from Kanye, Nas, Tupac, DMX and The Game.

Jeru the Damaja, who follows the Nation of Islam, like Wu-Tang, Rakim & Brand Nubian, famously wrote a song “Can’t Stop the Prophet”.

Rappers have always seen themselves as street prophets, telling war stories, from Rakim, Nas & KRS-One right back to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five in The Message.

Purple Robes

Throughout history, purple robes were worn by royalty and people of authority or high rank. Many believe this to be true because the rare occurrence of purple in nature made it one of the most expensive color dyes to create.

Purple and violet represent the future, the imagination and dreams, while spiritually calming the emotions. They inspire and enhance psychic ability and spiritual enlightenment, while, at the same time, keeping us grounded.

At the time of Jesus, the dye used for making the colour purple, extracted from shell-fish and was one of the most expensive dyes. The colour-fast (non-fading) dye was an item of luxury trade, prized by Romans, who used it to colour ceremonial robes, usually worn by Emperors. The very fact that purple was an expensive color made it affordable only to the royals. That Jesus was made to put it on before his crucifixion, implies that the Romans were sending a strong signal to the Jews against any coup.

A.D.I.D.A.S.

ADIDAS was founded by German, Adi Dassler (Adolf Dassler). In fact, one of the founders, his brother Rudolf Dassler later went on to found Puma and started a bitter rivalry between the brothers. There is a popular myth among fans (not true) that Adidas stands for All Day I Dream About Sports, whilst in 2003, Killer Mike dropped a hip hop track called A.D.I.D.A.S. (All Day I Dream About Sex).

Like many of their fellow citizens, the brothers joined the Nazi party after Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933. Their shoe business remained modest until 1936. In that year, Germany hosted the Olympics.

In an ironic twist, the two party members got legendary African-American runner Jesse Owens to wear their running shoes while competing. Owens went on to win four gold medals during the games. The exposure of their product gave Dassler Shoes a huge boost in sales. You can read more in Sportsweek History.

It does seem ironic, given Kanye’s sex addiction that he would align himself with this particular shoe and his plans are to get the shoes made in America and give “second chances” to inmates.

But, he is going to run into problems with the media as the average wage of a prison inmate ranged between $0.23 and $1.15 an hour – According to the International Labor Organization, in 2000–2011 wages in American prisons

In Texas, Georgia, and Arkansas, inmates aren’t paid at all for their labor.

The “New Slave” indeed. I initially thought another way to make money would be to make inexpensive Jesus style sandals and sure enough, I found that is exactly what ‘Ye is planning. They are called “slides” in America and Adidas will be making these from injection moulding and it hasn’t gone unnoticed from Twitter that they are basically prison shoes, but now they are being remarketed as a high fashion item for children of rich kids. That is marketing genius.

Why do the yeezy slides look like the slides worn in prison.. pic.twitter.com/LsR8dbFyqE

— Cyn ☕️ (@Kingxxcyn) October 17, 2019

ADIDAS YECHEIL

The first shoe in Ye’s collection is the Yecheil, which is a Hebrew masculine given name meaning “May God live” or “God shall live”. Several people in the Bible also have this name.

ADIDAS YEEZREEL

For the second shoe of ‘Ye’s collection, there is the“Yeezreel”. It has no exact translation but it seems he might’ve been inspired by the word “Jezreel” which was an ancient Israelite city and fortress originally within the boundaries of the Tribe of Issachar, and later within the northern Kingdom of Israel.

ADIDAS YESHAYA

The third shoe is called the “Yeshaya” which directly translates to “God Is Salvation”. The name Yeshaya (Yesha’yahu) translates from Hebrew to English as the name Isaiah, who was one of the four major prophets of the Old Testament, and the author of the Book of Isaiah. He was from Jerusalem and probably lived in the 8th century BC.

Many of these shoes use Adidas “Cloud” foam, so ‘Ye and his fans are figuratively walking on clouds.

Click the pic to get the best prices on Adidas below

Through the Wire – Prison Reform

Kim Kardashian announced her decision to study law back in April. Since then, she’s met with President Trump to discuss prison reform, teamed up with the 90 Days of Freedom campaign, and is producing a documentary on the subject.

CNN reported that Kim Kardashian West helped free 17 inmates in 90 days.

Kanye West has donated $1m to prison reform, but is now getting US prison workers to make his shoes at 25% of the cost of having his shoes made in China, unless somehow, he is quadrupling the prison wage.

There will be Church factions and sections of the media who will most likely attack Mr. West for essentially using slave labour in prisons to increase profit. Chinese factory workers are now getting paid more than ever: Average hourly wages hit $3.60 in 2017 compared to around $1 for an American prison worker.

Kanye West’s Interview with Zane Lowe

If you don’t want to watch the lengthy interview below, scroll down for a quick summary.

youtube

In the interview Kanye talks about the following:

How billboards are guilty of sex trafficking

How he became a born-again Christian in April after Coachella

Why he wants to create jobs and bring jobs back to the USA

How he experimented with Domes & living in them then “the man” tore them down as a metaphor for tearing down his ego

How his farm will be growing cotton & wheat

He will employ prisoners to make his shoes as a “second chance”

His respect for founders, especially Warren Buffett, Amancio Ortego (Zara), Elon Musk, James Turell (artist concerned with light & space) and Jack Dorsey (Paypal)

He calls himself a Christian innovator

How his daughter North drives his passion for church

How Sunday Service may become a church and how he may become a Pastor

He is asking people to fast & not have premarital sex

How he had a porn addiction due to seeing Playboy at 5 years old & his sex addiction

People should pray together, fast together, stay together to increase power

Getting stumped by Zane Lowes question on whether he had to work for his 4th house

How white owners controls hip hop

How God is using Kanye to show off

Compares himself to Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, diagnosed of Bipolar disorder. This was also the ship in the film The Matrix which “woke” people up

According to the Bible, Nebuchadnezzar II was king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who reigned c. 605 BC – 562 BC and conquered Judah and Jerusalem and sent the Jews into exile.

How he will become the President of the United States, perhaps as early as 2024

How Facebook & social media is a disease

How porn is ruining marriages and brainwashing children

How to keep the eternal, imaginative 3 year old at all costs

How he’s undeniably the greatest artist of all time, no question!

How wearing the red cap was a joke on all the liberals as well as Drake living four blocks down from him was also a joke from God.

I guess him wearing blue fur whilst talking and making a blue record is also a joke on the liberals

How he will now rewrite and censor all his old songs for performances

How some of the merchandise money will go to the church

How the Louis Vuitton boss reneging on a handshake to make him the LV don and his wife getting robbed helped put him in a mental hospital

Jokes about being the pastor at Drake’s wedding

How he objects to the censorship of speech of the left

Jesus is King is out now on Spotify, mp3, vinyl & CD

Jesus is Born, another new album, is arriving on Christmas Day this year.

Kanye West’s Journey

There is a bigger story here. How hip hop can be cathartic. Hip hop is bashed left, right and centre in the mainstream media daily, mainly times rightly so, for enforcing stereotypes. But, real hip hop can be a spiritual journey.

Some artists have found solace and teachings much earlier on in their lives such as Rakim, Wu-Tang Clan, KRS-One & Jeru the Damaja. Other artists take longer to mature. It seems to me to be better rapping about street crime then taking part in it. This is something most non-hip hop heads seem to not understand. Hip hop is way out the streets, just like a sports contract.

Everyone has their own journey and Kanye’s has taken him into Christianity. If record sales pick up, it will turn into a bigger movement. Time will tell what happens if it “All Falls Down”, streams sour and Adidas sales start to Fade. In such a scenario, it may be very hard for Kanye to stay on the straight and narrow, but I wish him luck. Time will tell.

I’m looking forward to see how he reacts surrounded with Angels in future fashion shows singing his new songs.

youtube

I’ll leave you with the last verse from Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s “The Message”, possibly still the greatest hip hop song ever written. The message is as relevant today as it was back in 1982.

A child is born, with no state of mind Blind to the ways of mankind God is smiling on you, but he’s frowning too Cause only God knows, what you go through You grow in the ghetto, living second rate And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate The place, that you play and where you stay Looks like one great big alley way You’ll admire all the number book takers Thugs, pimps and pushers and the big money makers Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens And you wanna grow up to be just like them Smugglers, scramblers, burglars, gamblers Pickpockets, peddlers and even pan-handlers You say I’m cool, I’m no fool But then you wind up dropping out of high school Now you’re unemployed, all null ‘n void Walking ’round like you’re pretty boy floyd Turned stickup kid, look what you done did Got send up for a eight year bid Now your manhood is took and you’re a may tag Spend the next two years as an undercover fag Being used and abused and served like hell Till one day you was found hung dead in a cell It was plain to see that your life was lost You was cold and your body swung back and forth But now your eyes sing the sad sad song Of how you lived so fast and died so young So, don’t push me cause I’m close to the edge I’m trying not to lose my head It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder How I keep from going under It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder How I keep from going under

Watch Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five – The Message

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hermanwatts · 4 years ago

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Sensor Sweep: Kull, Star Trek, Dying Earth, Doc Vandal

Publishing (Pulp Archivist): The market is contracting, without signs of stopping, from at least the mid-2000s generational handover. Digital and its different margins have likely kept some of these magazines in business far longer than print runs can justify. It’s almost to the point where the established science fiction “fandom” does not and should not be the audience. There are 300 million people not reading science fiction short stories. The editor who can figure out how to reach even 0.0001% of that will be the king of science fiction.

Gaming (Walker’s Retreat): In other words, WOTC’s being pozzed again. Do not give money to people who hate you. Do not buy WOTC’s products new. Not for D&D. Not for Magic. Not at all. Buy used if you must, but otherwise give your money to those making their own versions of the game (legal thanks to the Open Game License making D&D open source 20 years ago). What would those be? A short list includes: Adventurer, Conqueror, King.

Science Fiction Community (Kalimac): The news has been getting out, both within and outside the SF community, that Alan Beatts, owner of Borderland Books in San Francisco, has been credibly accused of physical and sexual assault by women close to him. I’ll leave out the details; you can read them at the above links.

D&D (RPG Pundit): They say that Oriental Adventures is full of stereotypes and needs to be cancelled. And well, yes, it is full of stereotypes and not an authentic historical setting. Every other D&D setting is also full of stereotypes and not an authentic historical setting too!

Fantasy (Fantasy Literature): Kull, for those unfamiliar with the character, made his first appearance in the August 1929 issue of Weird Tales magazine, in the story “The Shadow Kingdom,” so no, Howard most certainly did not get his inspiration for the regal name from 1933’s King Kong. Howard would go on to write 13 more stories dealing with the character (plus one poem), but only two of those were published before his suicide death in 1936. The Lancer volume, sadly enough, is complete with the exception of two of those 14 tales.

Star Trek (Superversive SF): cannot count the number of STAR TREK novels I have read over the years. Not as many recently as I used to, in fact, no new ones in a few years. It’s the old story, when you’re young you have all the time but limited money. When you’re older, you have the money to pursue your old hobbies like a demon but limited time. In the library, I stumbled across this Next Generation novel entitled Available Light and decided to give it a whirl. I’ve not read any new ST novels in a long time, so based on the back blurb, this one seemed like a great piece to dive back in with.

Cinema (Tulsa World): Today is the day to celebrate #Harryhausen 100. While we’re at it, let’s celebrate the lives of two people: a special effects legend and an Oklahoma cowboy who are connected by one movie at the dawn of their careers. Ray Harryhausen was the genius behind a form of stop-motion animation that brought all kinds of beasties to life in movies like “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,” “20 Million Miles to Earth,” “One Million Years B.C.,” “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad,” “Clash of the Titans” and a series of Sinbad flicks.

Fiction (Grubb Street): Song of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, by a LOT of people you’ve heard about, edited by George RR Martin and Gardner Dozois, with Art by Paul Kidd. TOR Books, 2009. Provenance: Christmas present, probably 2009 as well. I came to Jack Vance late in life, which is a bit of a surprise given that D&D is hip-deep in Vancian notions, tropes, and outright, um, borrowings. But once I struck his Dying Earth series, in the form of a massive compendium, I was delightfully hooked by his mannered approach to far-future fantasy, and of course, when a massive tome by a cluster of big-name authors came out in his honor, I had to get it and consume it.

Comic Books (Wasteland & Sky): omic books need to bring back all-ages comics as the standard. They have not been primarily aimed at children since the 1970s, and it has shown in declining sales. Comic books are an inherently juvenile format and that is their strength. Old comics and the classics could whip through plot points, action scenes, and wild settings within a single issue all while telling a complete standalone story.

D&D (Sacnoth’s Scriptorium): So, a few years back there was a campaign to build a Gary Gygax memorial statue in his home town of Lake Geneva. I think I even blogged about it at the time; I certainly tried to buy a copy of the memorial booklet intended to help fund the project, a collection of E.G.G.’s posts in a gaming forum, called CHEERS, GARY.

Sherlock Holmes (Black Gate): If you mention the term Gothic to most people, it’s likely to conjure visions of teenagers dressed in black, wearing black nail polish and Doc Marten boots. Someone a few years older may think of drugstore paperback racks filled with book covers featuring women in nightgowns running away from sinister mansions. But Gothic originally refers to a type of architecture, an overall aesthetic of the macabre, and a genre of fiction popular in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Gaming (Heavy Metal): Scorn is a long-awaited first-person shooter based on the art of H.R. Giger and, to a lesser extent, Zdzisław Beksiński. It’s been in development for years; developer Ebb Software dropped a drool-inducing teaser trailer in 2016 and a gameplay trailer in 2017. There have been video games — lots of them — based on the Alien movies, but this one is specifically Giger, so expect to see more of the creepy, twisted sexual side of his art than you got in the Xenomorph movies.

Pulp (The Pulp Net): While Doc Vandal is influenced by Doc Savage, he has some other influences. And a big difference is that his stories are not set in our world, but in the 1930s of an alternate world that has a steampunk element where zeppelins are everywhere, aliens exists (with hidden cities on Earth, as well as the Moon), and there are other science fictional elements. Doc Vandal is an inventor and adventurer, assisted by three people: Vic, Gus and Gilly.

Robert E. Howard (Messages from Crom): The Cthulhu Stories of Robert E. Howard. Coming in September! The Great Old Ones Return… In the early twentieth-century, in the pages of Weird Tales and other pulp magazines, H.P. Lovecraft created the Cthulhu Mythos and offered it to his friends, creating a shared mythology for much of their weird fiction. Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, was one of those good friends.

Popular Culture (Bronze Age Babies): Doug: Hi, my name is Doug, and… well, I’m addicted to the Planet of the Apes. There – I said it! Are you happy now? Welcome back to the BAB, everyone! We are pleased to be in your company today, and also excited to have been asked once again to participate in this summer’s Super Blog Team-Up. “Expanded universe” is our topic, so we are running with that across three blogs. Our premise here is that the variety of products available to kids in during the era of the Bronze Age of comics allowed our imaginations to make leaps into new territory for our favorite Apes characters.

Art (Silver Key): A big name in fantasy role-playing/Dungeons and Dragons art passed away yesterday—Jim Holloway. Jim was not my favorite D&D artist of all time—I might have to go with Bill Willingham or Erol Otus—but he was one of the 5-6 most iconic and prolific of the silver or “commercial” age of TSR, circa 1981 and on.

Tolkien (Tolkien and Fantasy): I believe that there are only two instances where J.R.R. Tolkien was interviewed on film. The first dates from 1962, and the second from 1968. The first, by John Bowen, was conducted on 10 December 1962, in black-and-white, for the BBC television program “Bookstand”. The episode was broadcast two days later, on Wednesday, 12 December, from 10.15-10.45 pm, though the Tolkien segment took up less than nine minutes.

Science Fiction (Marzaat): Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950. Well, I’ve known about this book for years, but it was pricey on the second hand market, but I got it for Christmas. A lot of science fiction crit books from the 1980s I’ve purchased recently seem to be deaccessioned from university libraries. This one came from the Columbus College Library in Columbus, Georgia. It seems to have been checked out only once, in 1995. That matches Brian Stableford stating, in his essay “The Profession of Science Fiction” that he only sold “157 copies in the UK, not counting remainders”.

Fiction (Mostly Old Books): The First Quarry doesn’t dwell on an origin story but rather shows the young hitman being fully formed as a cold-blooded and intelligent killer as he accepts his first assignment after being recruited by The Broker – killing a college professor and destroying his manuscripts. The story takes place in Iowa in the early 1970s, the years that I came of age, and I was impressed and highly amused by all of the pop culture references from that era.

Pulp (Pulpfest): When Ned Pines was asked by The American News Company to start a chain of pulp magazines that it would distribute for him, he knew he needed an editor. The young publisher requested Frank A. Munsey employee, Leo Margulies, to be the managing editor of his new enterprise. With the country gripped by the Great Depression, the two men came up with a daring idea for the rough paper market: a ten-cent pulp magazine. Standard Magazines, better known as “The Thrilling Group,” launched THRILLING DETECTIVE, THRILLING ADVENTURES, and THRILLING LOVE in late 1931. Each sold for a dime.

Art (DMR Books): Matthews created a considerable amount of artwork depicting Elric and various other characters from Michael Moorcock’s stories. Moorcock said that “Rodney captured the images and invention, having a larger space to work with on the posters and calendars. He was brilliant, for instance, on the quirky End of Time stories and I love his inventiveness.”

Sensor Sweep: Kull, Star Trek, Dying Earth, Doc Vandal published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

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wikitopx · 5 years ago

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Bangkok, as a destination has always been a stopover or entry point before heading to the jungles or the beaches of Thailand.

Historic Bangkok tour is a LOT about temple hopping and shopping for gems, authentic fakes of luxury brands, cheap phones and electronics. But, outside of shopping and a few temples, there’s a lot more to do in Bangkok.

For those not interested in the usual touristy stuff, check out some of the activities you can do while in Bangkok, and trust me, they are a whole lot of FUN !!

1. Damnoen Saduak Floating Market Tour (from 30 USD)

Damnoen Saduak Floating Market is a very popular and one of Thailand’s largest floating market in Ratchaburi, about 100 kilometers southwest of Bangkok. Although this unique and vividly colorful marketplace has been captured by photographers the world over yet, it’s worth at least a one-time visit to experience this unique and infectiously chaotic market.

The best time to visit is early in the morning to see the market at its busiest though you might have to brave the crowds. Sellers arrive early in their boats laden with tropical fruits, vegetables, flowers and other fresh produce and paddle along the congested canals to sell to shoppers on the banks.

Your tour begins with you been picked up from you hotel and driven to Damnoen Saduak, where you would be transferred to a long-tailed speedboat for a thrilling ride through the crowded yet colorful floating market. You can simply soak in the sound, smells and sights or do a bit of shopping of local fare or delicacy.

Quite often people who visit the market combine the trip with a tour to the Rose Garden Cultural resort, and/or Nakhon Pathom, the site of the largest pagoda (and highest Chedi) in Thailand. You are dropped back at a jetty pier after your tour, where you board on the vehicle for the journey back to Bangkok.

2. Dinner Cruise on Chao Phraya

The Chao Phraya Cruise is a luxurious dinner cruise experience to view the main attractions of Bangkok while floating down the spectacular Chao Phraya River. The buffet style dinner spread has an array of choices, from authentic Thai to international cuisine, including sashimi and hand-rolled sushis. A live band plays in the background and professional singers sing along as you take in the sights of the lit-up Bangkok city skyline. You can view the stunning Grand Palace lit up after dark, the illuminated silhouette of Wat Arun, 17th-century Temple of Dawn, as you cruise slowly along the river.

The dinner cruise lasts for about 2.5 to 3 hours, after which you disembark from the boat. You are dropped back to your hotel after the tour ends.

This luxurious cruise ship has a capacity of welcoming up to 290 persons and has catered to guests from around the world.

3. Sea Life Bangkok Ocean World Tunnel Ticket

Sea Life Bangkok Ocean World is an underground aquarium, one of the largest in Southeast Asia and one of the most frequented tourist attractions in Thailand. Erstwhile known as the Siam Ocean World, it is spread over an area of 10,000 square meters and is located two storeys underneath the Siam Paragon shopping mall. The Ocean world is home to over 30,000 curious looking creatures from various depths and aquatic regions across the world. They have been sourced and transported from far off places like the Amazon River.

The exhibit is divided into seven zones, each with an individually designed theme. At the Sea Life Bangkok Ocean World , you can meet the ocean’s deadliest predators in the 270-degree underwater tunnel, view some rare and bizarre-looking marine life, sneak a peek into the open ocean from a glass-bottom boat, or, if you wish, you can also dive in and have a swim amongst the sharks and rays. At the Penguin Ice Adventure you get to experience a cold ice-covered South Pole, and also, get up close and personal with the adorable Gentoo Penguins.

Some of the experiences at Sea Life Bangkok Ocean World:

Shark Feeding Show – Dive deep into the ocean world and come face-to-face with exotic aquatic species like round ribbon tail rays, sand tiger sharks, blacktip reef sharks, etc. Experience the adrenalin rush with help from experienced trainers.

The Ocean Walker - The underwater tunnel provides a safe and exciting way to experience an 180-degree view of the exotic underwater creatures.

4D Cinema – Enjoy and experience 4D movies at Sea Life Bangkok Ocean World. Apart from the audio and visual treat, the 4D effect is provided by the air jets and bumps to the seat, etc.

Behind the Scenes - Check out the Aquatic Quarantine and Nursery Centre for behind-the-scenes activity and explore the secrets of SEA LIFE Bangkok Ocean World. You get to see things like ocean exploration equipment and visit the water quality monitoring laboratory.

Ocean Feeding Boat - Take a ride on the Ocean Feeding Boat and get up close and personal with sharks, stingrays and a great variety of fish. A SEA LIFE staff, who also feed the fish by hand, helps you learn the nuances if you can handle it.

4. Dream World Bangkok Ticket

Dream World is a big American-style theme park located on the outskirts of Bangkok. The park has games, rides and attractions for kids, teens and even adults. The Sky Coaster, which is a large hanging roller coaster) and the Hurricane (it does flips and somersaults over 20 meters above the ground), the Viking which is a swinging Viking boat, and the Flying Carpet which propels you into the air and back towards the ground are some of the favorite rides of the adrenalin junkies. For smaller children there are lots of fun things, games, and rides available like the racing cars, the antique car, the bump boat, sightseeing train, Indian boat, etc. There are animals shows too at the park where they can feed the animals after the show.

The Giant House from the Jack and the Beanstalk fairytale is an attraction where everything inside the house is 50 times bigger than normal. In Snow Town, kids can enjoy a sleigh ride, build a snowman or throw snowballs with artificial snow. Dream World also features a live ‘Hollywood Action Show’ which has a display of a SWAT team invading a criminal’s den. Kids can meet their favorite cartoon characters in the spectacular The Colors of the World Parade. There is a full-fledged go-kart track as well for racing enthusiasts at Dream World. Besides, you can also enjoy a 4D Adventure movie with lots of special effects

Water rides include the Super Splash, a boat ride ending with a huge splash, the Grand Canyon where you can raft down the water rapids. For the spooky effect, try the Werewolf, Dracula, Frankenstein and many others in the Haunted Mansion

There is a cable car available to go from one end of the park to the other if don’t feel like walking. It provides an excellent view of Dream World Amusement Park. There is also an option of a short ride on the back of an elephant. There are several restaurants and food stalls all over the park that serve Thai and Western food so that you can grab a quick bite in between rides.

5. Siam Niramit Show Ticket

The famous Siam Nirami show is a must see while in Bangkok! This grandeur show is an act of demonstration of Thailand’s rich history and culture and includes more than 150 performers, breathtaking scenery, stunning sets, more than 500 colorful costumes and revolutionary special effects used to depict Thai beliefs like the Law of Karma and Mystical Forest of Himmapaan. This 80-minute show is one of the largest stage productions in the world. It finds a mention in the Guinness Book of Records and is sure to make you mesmerized.

The show starts at 20.00hrs., but it is always advisable to come early because there are lots of activities that you can see and do before the show. The gates open at 17.00 hrs., and pre-show activities include Traditional Thai Village tour, outdoor dance performances, Elephant feeding & rides. Besides, you can also choose to pamper yourself with a traditional Thai massage or shop for some gifts to take back home at the Souvenir shops.

The Siam Niramit show is divided into 3 part Act. Act 1 includes stunning live performances showcasing highlights from Thailand’s geography, cultural history, and traditions. Act 2 gives you a better understanding of the Law of Karma, which includes Hell, Heaven and the Mystical Forest in between. Act 3 is about the joy and peace of Buddhism and it ends in a show-stopping finale.

6. One Day Trip to Ayutthaya by Bus and Cruise Back by Grand Pearl

Ayutthaya is an ancient capital of Thailand and an island at the confluence of three rivers. Today it stands as a modern city, 85 km north of Bangkok and is famous for numerous magnificent ruins. Near the city, you can also find the Ayutthaya Historical Park , a UNESCO World Heritage Site since December 1991, where it is possible to visit the monuments and ruins of the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya.

Tourists usually opt for a one day tour to Ayutthaya, and Grand Pearl is one of the sought after tour operators who organizes this day trip. Your trip begins once you board the Grand Pearl air-conditioned coach. The bus journey ends at a stunning little place called Bang Pa In. Keep your cameras ready as you approach the Summer Palace of King Rama V, adorned with an incredible mixture of oriental and western architecture.

The next stop is at Ayutthaya. Here you get to see the royal monastery - Wat Mahathad, the largest and most famous temple - Wat Phra Sri Sanphet and the Wihan Phramongkhon Bophit - and the large bronze Buddha image, which was originally enshrined in the open area outside the grand palace and later enclosed by a building called Wihan.

Up next is the ride back onboard the Grand Pearl Cruise. You board the liner at Chong-Rom Pier and the cruise will travel through some of the gorgeous parts of Ayutthaya. Onboard you enjoy a delectable buffet lunch, which includes a variety of oriental and western cuisines. Enjoy the beautiful landscapes while you dine, as the cruise passes through the Pathumthani and Nonthaburi provinces and some areas of Bangkok city. Post lunch, you are served coffee, as the cruise lines passes by the colorful Royal Barges House, Thammasat University, Siriraj Hospital, The Royal Grand Palace, and the graceful Temple of Dawn.

Around 16.00 hrs you arrive and disembark at the River City Shopping Complex Pier. You are transferred back to your hotel by air-conditioned van. Accompanying guests on the tour is an English-speaking guide.

7. Arts and Crafts Workshops and Thai Village Cultural Show Sampran Riverside

Sampran Riverside is a place where guests can take part in arts and crafts workshops such as traditional weaving, rice farming, bamboo dancing, Thai martial arts, garland making, traditional pottery, traditional Thai kitchen, umbrella painting, silk processing, Thai music and dance, Thai herbal compress making and much more. Visitors try out these activities, each one in their pavilion stations where trained staff demonstrates the activity and provide information so that guests can obtain a full hands-on experience.

Later, you can watch the Thai Village Cultural Show. It is the longest daily running show in Thailand and takes place in a classic air-conditioned theatre. Live traditional Thai music accompanies the performance that highlights the Thai way of life, festivals and traditional celebrations, wedding ceremonies, dances, a Muay Thai and sword fighting exhibition, martial arts and sword fighting, and an elephant show outside the theatre.

8. Thai Cooking Class at Maliwan Cooking School with Local Market in Bangkok

While in Bangkok, you can try your hand at learning local dishes at the Maliwan Thai Cooking Class. Located in the Khaosan Road area, Bangkok, this class provides tourists, expats and even local people an opportunity to learn Thai cooking from experts. You can choose from Thai popular dishes to Thai traditional dishes, from hors d’oeuvres to main meals. Each session is 4 hours long, and all the cooking instructors are experienced professionals and fluent in English, so language is certainly not a barrier for foreigners.

The session begins with a journey by Tuk-Tuk to the local market to buy fresh produce. The shopping experience surely helps in learning about vegetables and other essential ingredients for Thai cuisine like Thai herbs, coconut milk, jasmine rice, etc. After shopping, it’s back to the school for the cooking lessons. The class begins with a welcome drink, which is followed by the first cooking demonstration. The instructor prepares 2 dishes while the class observes. Then it’s time for the students to begin cooking. The experts are around to help and guide wherever required. Now it’s time to eat! The students enjoy the dishes they prepare and then it’s time to head back for the 2nd part of the demonstration class for the next two dishes. After the demonstration, it is time for the students to prepare the final two dishes of the day. Then it’s time to eat and taste once more!

The class ends with sharing of important tips and personalized certificates. Maliwan Thai Cooking Class is a fun way of refreshing your culinary skill, exploring a Thai local market, and of course enjoying amazing Thai food along the way.

9. Canal Tour

This tour will make you experience Bangkok on a small teak boat. This tour starts at 3 p.m and you’ll have to meet at BTS Skytrain Wutthakat Station. The English-speaking tour guide will take you to a small boat, which will cruise through the city’s canals and stop at a few places such as an orchid farm, a local temple and more. Return within three hours to the place where you started.

Ensure you take sunblock and mosquito repellent during this trip. Walking shoes or sandals are recommended for this tour. Drinking water, life jacket, and tour insurance are included in the price.

10. Bangkok Jungle Bike Tour

Nature lovers will enjoy this short trip, which will take them to lush greenery near the city. This tour starts in a small clubhouse garden in the city center where you will be introduced to the tour guide, who will show you a safety video. You will be cycling through the Central Business District of the city and the first - as well as the last stop - will be the country’s former prime minister’s home, which has a set of traditional teakwood houses amid beautiful tropical gardens. You’ll then cross the River of Kings and you’ll be amazed by the amazing natural views with endless lush greenery. You’ll be cycling your way through the paths over the mangrove vegetation. Depending on the time, you can also take a short detour into the wilderness.

Read also: Top 10 things to do in Pai, Thailand

From : https://wikitopx.com/travel/top-10-things-to-do-in-bangkok-704814.html

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sheilacwall · 5 years ago

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Jesus Walks… in Adidas

Jesus is King has finally dropped. This is Kanye West’s first Christian rap-gospel album since turning into a born-again Christian in April after the hedonistic indulgence of Coachella.

The Lucifer, Mercy and New God Flow producer has given up secular music and has now turned his career toward the servitude of God.

Saint Pablo

Soon after, the “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” star seemingly finally started listening to his wife.

Stronger

Whilst facing the cold shoulder from Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey – the Square & Paypal founder who was raised a Catholic, offered to invest in Kanye early on.

Jay-Z also kicked in a loan of $20m triggering tensions between the two ending in a public feud.

Here’s Jay-Z on “Kill Jay-Z”:

Recently, Kanye has tried to dead the beef with the recent track “Brothers” with Charlie Wilson.

Power

The Jordan line does approximately $3 billion in annual sales, so the Yeezy line is catching up fast. If he can latch onto the Christian vote, sales could explode even more rapidly.

Touch the Sky

Christianity is by far the world’s largest religion, with an estimated 2.2 billion adherents, nearly a third (31%) of all 6.9 billion people on Earth in 2010.

Jesus is King

Kanye pronounced himself “I am a God” back on Yeezus.

Rappers as Jesus

This isn’t new in rap. Check out the images below from Kanye, Nas, Tupac, DMX and The Game.

Jeru the Damaja, who follows the Nation of Islam, like Wu-Tang, Rakim & Brand Nubian, famously wrote a song “Can’t Stop the Prophet”.

Rappers have always seen themselves as street prophets, telling war stories, from Rakim, Nas & KRS-One right back to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five in The Message.

Purple Robes

A.D.I.D.A.S.

It does seem ironic, given Kanye’s sex addiction that he would align himself with this particular shoe and his plans are to get the shoes made in America and give “second chances” to inmates.

In Texas, Georgia, and Arkansas, inmates aren’t paid at all for their labor.

Why do the yeezy slides look like the slides worn in prison.. pic.twitter.com/LsR8dbFyqE

— Cyn ☕️ (@Kingxxcyn) October 17, 2019

ADIDAS YECHEIL

The first shoe in Ye’s collection is the Yecheil, which is a Hebrew masculine given name meaning “May God live” or “God shall live”. Several people in the Bible also have this name.

ADIDAS YEEZREEL

ADIDAS YESHAYA

Many of these shoes use Adidas “Cloud” foam, so ‘Ye and his fans are figuratively walking on clouds.

Click the pic to get the best prices on Adidas below

Through the Wire – Prison Reform

CNN reported that Kim Kardashian West helped free 17 inmates in 90 days.

Kanye West’s Interview with Zane Lowe

If you don’t want to watch the lengthy interview below, scroll down for a quick summary.

youtube

In the interview Kanye talks about the following:

How billboards are guilty of sex trafficking

How he became a born-again Christian in April after Coachella

Why he wants to create jobs and bring jobs back to the USA

How he experimented with Domes & living in them then “the man” tore them down as a metaphor for tearing down his ego

How his farm will be growing cotton & wheat

He will employ prisoners to make his shoes as a “second chance”

His respect for founders, especially Warren Buffett, Amancio Ortego (Zara), Elon Musk, James Turell (artist concerned with light & space) and Jack Dorsey (Paypal)

He calls himself a Christian innovator

How his daughter North drives his passion for church

How Sunday Service may become a church and how he may become a Pastor

He is asking people to fast & not have premarital sex

How he had a porn addiction due to seeing Playboy at 5 years old & his sex addiction

People should pray together, fast together, stay together to increase power

Getting stumped by Zane Lowes question on whether he had to work for his 4th house

How white owners controls hip hop

How God is using Kanye to show off

Compares himself to Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, diagnosed of Bipolar disorder. This was also the ship in the film The Matrix which “woke” people up

According to the Bible, Nebuchadnezzar II was king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who reigned c. 605 BC – 562 BC and conquered Judah and Jerusalem and sent the Jews into exile.

How he will become the President of the United States, perhaps as early as 2024

How Facebook & social media is a disease

How porn is ruining marriages and brainwashing children

How to keep the eternal, imaginative 3 year old at all costs

How he’s undeniably the greatest artist of all time, no question!

How wearing the red cap was a joke on all the liberals as well as Drake living four blocks down from him was also a joke from God.

I guess him wearing blue fur whilst talking and making a blue record is also a joke on the liberals

How he will now rewrite and censor all his old songs for performances

How some of the merchandise money will go to the church

How the Louis Vuitton boss reneging on a handshake to make him the LV don and his wife getting robbed helped put him in a mental hospital

Jokes about being the pastor at Drake’s wedding

How he objects to the censorship of speech of the left

Jesus is King is out now on Spotify, mp3, vinyl & CD

Jesus is Born, another new album, is arriving on Christmas Day this year.

Kanye West’s Journey

I’m looking forward to see how he reacts surrounded with Angels in future fashion shows singing his new songs.

youtube

Watch Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five – The Message

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