#Learning center Mclean

[a-tiny-sloth]

hi! i was curious about the john everett millais painting you are discussing, so i did a little re-reading and searching and i think the answer to your post's original question is no... but also yes! lol i say this because in cdth, we learn that hennessy's forgeries are not direct copies but rather works in the style of the original artist, so i think the described painting is something that looks like it could be a millais but is not actually a 1:1 match with one specific existing work. i do think the painting you suggested was a reference and is the closest match, based on the subject's posture! im also wondering if millais's painting 'yes or no' was a secondary inspiration; the pose isn't even close to the description, but the woman is titian-haired and holds something more akin to an illustrated card behind her (though it isn't hidden from the viewer). i think this was really fun to think about! i'd love to know if you found any other interesting art-related details in the trilogy. :)

you're of course absolutely right! can't believe this hadn't even crossed my mind! and i think you're right, yes or no and wedding card have to be the main inspiration for the painting, now it finally makes sense why the hair colour is so specific. seems like i've been so focused on finding accurate matches for all the paintings and artists that i couldn't see the forest for the trees!

as for art related details, i think it's very interesting that the first three specific paintings we see copies of at the mclean mansion (so copies that hennessy and the girls did) are madame x and the daughters of edward darley boit by john singer sargent and the sisters by abbott thayer. madame x is narratively super important and compared to both hennessy and jordan over the course of the series - the daughters is also a significant sweetmetal and especially important to jordan, who notably also says her first idea of an original was a painting of the girls in similarly odd poses - the sisters is never mentioned again but still interesting since it portrays two incredibly similar-looking sisters. what i'm saying is, those three paintings show us three different aspects of the hennessys - the big personality who is the center of attention at every party but has many secrets, the group of girls who seem to be in disarray, who seem like they were just accidentally dropped in the same space, and the sisters who are eerily similar yet clearly different - i've yet to fit the fourth painting that's mentioned in the same paragraph, to the unknown british soldier in france, into all this, but yeah. i've got many more tdt art thoughts, but i've already rambled enough!

[slipping-through-my-fingertips]

In My Head, I'm Yours

A/N: dipping my toes into the world of percabeth, i hope you like it

Summary:

Percy Jackson, Piper McLean, and Jason Grace make up the band, Delphi. They're not big yet but one day they might be.

Annabeth Chase is studying to be the best damn architect New York City has ever seen.

They have a million reasons not to be together but can't seem to let the other go. Despite knowing it'll end in heartbreak.

AO3

Chapter 1: Someone Turns Your Heart Around

Annabeth didn’t need background noise while she did her homework. But her awful neighbors blared their stereo at all times of day; they favored the late to early morning hours. She could hear and feel the bass through their thin walls. Her only saving grace was noise-canceling headphones. A gift from her roommates last Christmas. So it wasn’t unusual for Leo or Thalia to scare the living daylights out of her when Annabeth was in her zone.

She was drafting on their kitchen table. During her sophomore year, she had learned the hard way not to draft buildings on the floor when she had to redo her architecture midterm overnight due to a spilled can of Diet Coke. Headphones on, no music, just good old-fashioned silence, pencil in hand, and a tightly secured cup of soda on her left.

There was no passage of time when Annabeth was drafting. But it had to be after midnight when Thalia tapped her shoulder. Annabeth jumped and tossed her pencil five feet in some direction. She pulled off her headphones.

The first thing she noticed was the music had stopped.

“C’mon bedtime,” Thalia said.

“I’m almost done,” she insisted.

“It’s one am.”

Annabeth checked her phone.

1:12 AM

“Oh.” She began packing up her supplies. “How was the thing?”

“The thing?” Thalia laughed, “you really need to get out more. The band was great. Leo and I may drag you with us next time.”

Annabeth frowned, wondering where her pencil had gotten to.

“Here.” Thalia picked up the pencil which had rolled into their living space.

“Thanks. I’m glad you had a good time, maybe I’ll go when things slow down at school.”

Thalia smirked, “I don’t think Columbia ever slows.”

Annabeth looked up at her friend and smiled, “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Oh I know, blondie. I know.”

They had known each other since Annabeth was seven when Thalia's family moved into the neighborhood. Thalia was a few years older but had a younger brother Annabeth’s age. She liked Jason Grace well enough but there was something about Thalia that just clicked. Maybe it was because with her Annabeth didn’t have to be the perfect only child, she got to be a kid. Still, the 3 of them ran that little cul-de-sac during their middle school years or at least they liked to think they did.

Being older meant Thalia was already out of school. She’d gotten the damn piece of paper because her dad threatened to do anything in his power to make her graduate. Their dad was a real piece of work.

Now, Thalia had a job in the city at a rescue center. Over the years, she’d grown pretty soft to animals and every couple of months tried to convince Annabeth and Leo to break their no pets allowed lease and adopt.

Annabeth knew Thalia loved no one in this world like her little brother. She’d do anything to protect him. She knew Thalia was terrified of heights but still went to the top of the Empire State Building for Annabeth’s eighteenth birthday. She stayed in the observatory room but she still made the journey to the top. Annabeth knew she acted tough and looked tougher but Thalia had a soft spot for animals, found family like Annabeth and Leo, and a love for anything so spicy it made you cry.

And Thalia knew Annabeth in all the same ways. She always kept a quart of mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer because she knew it was the one food Annabeth ate when stressed. Thalia knew Annabeth’s relationship with her family had always been a sore spot but as her stepbrothers got older, the closer the Chase siblings got. Most importantly, she knew Annabeth put her schoolwork above everything. Which is why she knew there was a slim chance that Annabeth would go out on weekends with her and Leo, not even to go see Jason’s band. Unless it was a special occasion like one of their birthdays.

“Alright ladies, it’s time for bed,” Leo announced from the top of their short staircase that led to their bedrooms. “Leo is tipsy and sleepy and your yapping is echoing down the hall.”

“We’re coming,” Thalia said.

…

Percy loved the rush of being on stage. It was like a wave crashing a little higher than expected but not enough to knock you down.

He didn’t always think he’d be a singer. There were a few years when he thought he’d never make anything of himself beyond a little family in New York if he was lucky. But when he got to college and met Piper it changed everything.

It was their spring semester of freshman year. Percy had been sitting in this big green space they had in the middle of campus on a blanket with his guitar. Paul, his stepdad, had taught him how to play when he was fifteen. Playing guitar had been the one thing aside from swimming that felt like home. Percy was good at it. He could calm his thoughts with chords and lyrics and keep his fingers busy with the strings. It was easy to get lost in it.

That’s exactly how Piper found him. She had this fierce energy about her. Confidence that Percy had always wished for in high school, something over the years that Piper had instilled in him.

She didn’t bother introducing herself or even saying anything at all. Instead, she just started singing.

There’s this movie that I think you’ll like This guy decides to quit his job and heads to New York City This cowboy’s running from himself And she’s been living on the highest shelf

Percy harmonized with her until the song was over.

“You’ve got a great voice,” he told her.

“You’re pretty skilled yourself,” she replied, “I’m Piper.”

He had never seen her on campus before that day but they spent the next few months hanging out, watching movies, complaining about their shitty love lives, and eventually auditioning for a drummer.

It took 3 months before Jason walked into their audition room. That day it had been a space they rented on campus. The music department also lent out instruments so they rented a drum set for a few hours.

When Jason entered the room, Piper immediately whispered to Percy, “he’s hot,” and winked.

Percy wasn’t about to hire the guy based on how hot Piper thought he was but then they heard him play.

Now, he couldn’t imagine life without the two of them.

So yeah, Percy loved being on stage with two of his best friends but what he loved more was the moments just after he left the stage; when you could still hear the crowd applauding and the noise ringing in his ears when his bandmates clapped his shoulder and he’d bring them sweat and all into a bone-crushing hug, when Percy wonders if this feeling of lightness will ever disappear. When they make it big, will stadiums feel different? Or will they always be this weird trio from the New York City streets who love making music together?

But these last weeks, that lightness had formed itself into a tightness. Sitting right in the middle of his chest. And it had everything to do with a girl named Annabeth.

Maybe he should back up a little.

It was the weekend before St. Patrick’s Day, their last gig for two weeks. Jason was going on a sibling trip with his sister, Thalia, plus with the holiday almost no bars in the city were looking for some no-name-twenty-somethings and their band to be playing to the drunkest crowds. So, they wanted it to be a good one.

This bar was a place they hadn’t played before so setup took a little longer as they realized the stage was slightly larger than what they normally dealt with. It was a college bar which meant plenty of people their age, which was refreshing. Normally, Percy pulled out some oldies covers to appease the older crowds they typically played for.

He was happy to not have to try his darndest to remember the words to Haddaway’s What Is Love tonight. It repeated itself too much and got jumbled in his head.

It happened in the middle of their set. Piper was introducing the next song. She and Percy took turns with vocals. While Piper was talking about her ex-girlfriend who she wrote this song about, Percy was switching out his guitar for a tambourine. Percy began hitting his thigh with the tambourine, Jason was playing a steady beat on his drums, and Piper opened her mouth to start singing.

Heartbreak Saturday nights, getting ready To make you see that I'm better already I put on every perfume and I do it to hurt you, oooh Make sure I smell like your bedroom when I was in it Wearing the dress that I met you and sent you spinning And I flirt with your friends but it’s a beggar’s revenge Cause she’s with you again

Percy let his eyes wander over the crowd, people seemed to be enjoying their set. It was one of the biggest crowds they had played for. His eyes trailed over to the bar because he knew if Grover had shown up he’d be there. Grover tried to make it to most of their gigs but Percy never knew for sure if Grover had made it or not until he spotted him in the crowd. Percy had been looking for a pair of brown eyes belonging to his best friend but instead, he found himself caught in a pair of stormy gray ones.

She was watching him too. He knew because her cheeks flushed like she’d be caught doing something wrong; he was positive his were red too but hopefully it played off that he was just hot from performing.

He didn’t know it then but she was about to be the death of him.

[jcmarchi]

Symposium highlights scale of mental health crisis and novel methods of diagnosis and treatment

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/symposium-highlights-scale-of-mental-health-crisis-and-novel-methods-of-diagnosis-and-treatment/

Symposium highlights scale of mental health crisis and novel methods of diagnosis and treatment

Digital technologies, such as smartphones and machine learning, have revolutionized education. At the McGovern Institute for Brain Research’s 2024 Spring Symposium, “Transformational Strategies in Mental Health,” experts from across the sciences — including psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, computer science, and others — agreed that these technologies could also play a significant role in advancing the diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders and neurological conditions.

Co-hosted by the McGovern Institute, MIT Open Learning, McClean Hospital, the Poitras Center for Psychiatric Disorders Research at MIT, and the Wellcome Trust, the symposium raised the alarm about the rise in mental health challenges and showcased the potential for novel diagnostic and treatment methods.

John Gabrieli, the Grover Hermann Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at MIT, kicked off the symposium with a call for an effort on par with the Manhattan Project, which in the 1940s saw leading scientists collaborate to do what seemed impossible. While the challenge of mental health is quite different, Gabrieli stressed, the complexity and urgency of the issue are similar. In his later talk, “How can science serve psychiatry to enhance mental health?,” he noted a 35 percent rise in teen suicide deaths between 1999 and 2000 and, between 2007 and 2015, a 100 percent increase in emergency room visits for youths ages 5 to 18 who experienced a suicide attempt or suicidal ideation.

“We have no moral ambiguity, but all of us speaking today are having this meeting in part because we feel this urgency,” said Gabrieli, who is also a professor of brain and cognitive sciences, the director of the Integrated Learning Initiative (MITili) at MIT Open Learning, and a member of the McGovern Institute. “We have to do something together as a community of scientists and partners of all kinds to make a difference.”

An urgent problem

In 2021, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on the increase in mental health challenges in youth; in 2023, he issued another, warning of the effects of social media on youth mental health. At the symposium, Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli, a research affiliate at the McGovern Institute and a professor of psychology and director of the Biomedical Imaging Center at Northeastern University, cited these recent advisories, saying they underscore the need to “innovate new methods of intervention.”

Other symposium speakers also highlighted evidence of growing mental health challenges for youth and adolescents. Christian Webb, associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, stated that by the end of adolescence, 15-20 percent of teens will have experienced at least one episode of clinical depression, with girls facing the highest risk. Most teens who experience depression receive no treatment, he added.

Adults who experience mental health challenges need new interventions, too. John Krystal, the Robert L. McNeil Jr. Professor of Translational Research and chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, pointed to the limited efficacy of antidepressants, which typically take about two months to have an effect on the patient. Patients with treatment-resistant depression face a 75 percent likelihood of relapse within a year of starting antidepressants. Treatments for other mental health disorders, including bipolar and psychotic disorders, have serious side effects that can deter patients from adherence, said Virginie-Anne Chouinard, director of research at McLean OnTrackTM, a program for first episode psychosis at McLean Hospital.

New treatments, new technologies

Emerging technologies, including smartphone technology and artificial intelligence, are key to the interventions that symposium speakers shared.

In a talk on AI and the brain, Dina Katabi, the Thuan and Nicole Pham Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, discussed novel ways to detect Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, among other diseases. Early-stage research involved developing devices that can analyze how movement within a space impacts the surrounding electromagnetic field, as well as how wireless signals can detect breathing and sleep stages.

“I realize this may sound like la-la land,” Katabi said. “But it’s not! This device is used today by real patients, enabled by a revolution in neural networks and AI.”

Parkinson’s disease often cannot be diagnosed until significant impairment has already occurred. In a set of studies, Katabi’s team collected data on nocturnal breathing and trained a custom neural network to detect occurrences of Parkinson’s. They found the network was over 90 percent accurate in its detection. Next, the team used AI to analyze two sets of breathing data collected from patients at a six-year interval. Could their custom neural network identify patients who did not have a Parkinson’s diagnosis on the first visit, but subsequently received one? The answer was largely yes: Machine learning identified 75 percent of patients who would go on to receive a diagnosis.

Detecting high-risk patients at an early stage could make a substantial difference for intervention and treatment. Similarly, research by Jordan Smoller, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Precision Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, demonstrated that AI-aided suicide risk prediction model could detect 45 percent of suicide attempts or deaths with 90 percent specificity, about two to three years in advance.

Other presentations, including a series of lightning talks, shared new and emerging treatments, such as the use of ketamine to treat depression; the use of smartphones, including daily text surveys and mindfulness apps, in treating depression in adolescents; metabolic interventions for psychotic disorders; the use of machine learning to detect impairment from THC intoxication; and family-focused treatment, rather than individual therapy, for youth depression.

Advancing understanding

The frequency and severity of adverse mental health events for children, adolescents, and adults demonstrate the necessity of funding for mental health research — and the open sharing of these findings.

Niall Boyce, head of mental health field building at the Wellcome Trust — a global charitable foundation dedicated to using science to solve urgent health challenges — outlined the foundation’s funding philosophy of supporting research that is “collaborative, coherent, and focused” and centers on “What is most important to those most affected?” Wellcome research managers Anum Farid and Tayla McCloud stressed the importance of projects that involve people with lived experience of mental health challenges and “blue sky thinking” that takes risks and can advance understanding in innovative ways. Wellcome requires that all published research resulting from its funding be open and accessible in order to maximize their benefits. 

Whether through therapeutic models, pharmaceutical treatments, or machine learning, symposium speakers agreed that transformative approaches to mental health call for collaboration and innovation.

“Understanding mental health requires us to understand the unbelievable diversity of humans,” Gabrieli said. “We have to use all the tools we have now to develop new treatments that will work for people for whom our conventional treatments don’t.”

[dixiedrudge]

Why Do Virginia Republicans Listen to the SPLC?

(The cultural marxist money machine keeps chugging on… – DD) Help Dixie Defeat Big-Tech Censorship! Spread the Word! Like, Share, Re-Post, and Subscribe! There’s a lot more to see at our main page, Dixie Drudge! (Dr. Ann McLean) – Recently I learned – because they posted their letter to Gov. Youngkin on their very own website – that the Southern Poverty Law Center used their influence to quash my…

[eviesessays]

6. Have you ever won anything?

As I review my life in regards to winning, I can only conclude I am pretty much a loser.  I thought I had surely won some award or recognition of some sort in primary school.  After all, aren’t all children given some award to bolster their enthusiasm or work ethic?  Perhaps so, but the tradition escaped me.  I certainly did not win at athletic endeavors.  My Dad once described my skating prowess  as,”graceful as a cow on ice”.  That was likely an insult to cows as I was just learning and trying to stay upright.  I did improve with age but never near any winning category.  Sports was not my forte.

I wasn’t a bad student but I excelled at nothing.  I was great at dusting ornate furniture but it was a chore I despised and there certainly was no prize or reward for a job well done.  I was a Girl Guide as scouts in Canada are called.  I could tie knots and with extreme perseverance, build a fire.  I earned my badges but no prizes.

At the age of twelve I had my appendix removed. Our neighbor, Stuart McIvor had his appendix removed a few years before and got to bring his appendix home in a jar.  I fleetingly thought I might have a prize at hand after all.  But it was not to be.  In the intervening years  it had become law that all body parts surgically removed were now to be sent to a pathology lab for analysis.  My winning prize escaped me. 

In High School I curled on curling teams.  I finally figured out the logic between, “in” and “out” turns but was never on a winning rink and I did nothing to change that statistic.    I am certain everyone in my family will be most surprised to hear that I also sang in the alto section of Sioux Lookout Continuation School Glee Club.  There were three altos and I sang softly as I firmly believe to this day that I am tone deaf. We were entered in a high school competition in Kenora, Ontario, and won second place.  Our victory was dampened by the fact that there were only two entrants.  I was in danger of graduating from SLCS, never having won anything and having to detail that some 70 years later.  However, salvation came with our annual Winter Carnival.  I was a candidate for “Queen”.  My opponents were friends of mine, Beverly Brennan and my classmate, Betty Wilson.  It was a money raiser for the annual event and the winner was the one who sold the most tickets.  So I can safely presume I had the best ticket sellers.  It was hardly a won prize on my part but it was fun and my picture was in the Sioux News section of the Winnipeg Free Press.  

After High School I went on to Nursing School in Port Arthur, now named Thunder Bay, Ontario.   A small prize almost came my way in my middle year  at the annual Alumnae Dance. I invited a boy I liked and gave him our tickets to get into the venue.  Later, when door prizes were being announced, MY number was called and without hesitation he marched up and accepted the Pendleton wool car blanket that was perfect for his car.  What.  I won but he went home with the prize.  I liked him a whole lot less after that and my vengeance is complete.  I  cannot even remember his name. At graduation, I was recognized as the winner of the,” school spirit” award but if there was a prizes that accompanied the distinction I do not recall it.

In 1998,shorty before I retired I finally redeemed myself.  I won the, Margaret Tibbetts Award for excellence in Nursing from McLean Hospital, in Belmont MA.  McLean is a prestigious and well respected psychiatric facility.  It is Harvard’s psychiatric teaching facility and home of the Mailman Research Center.  The Tibbets award was voted on by my colleagues which made it more meaningful.   It was a great honor and also came with a cash prize. I finally won something and it was a prize I cherish and feel was well worth the wait.

[k12academics]

Pathways Academy is a private, nonprofit year-round therapeutic day school developed to meet the psychological, social and academic needs of children and adolescents ages 6 through 22, with Asperger’s Syndrome and related disorders, such as autism spectrum disorders, nonverbal learning disabilities, sensory processing disorder, socialization and peer-relations problems, anxiety disorders and school phobia. Operated by the Center for Neurodevelopmental Services at McLean Hospital, Pathways Academy is fully approved by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

[theloniousbach]

On the WGTE Jazz Spectrum webpage:

THE FRIENDS OF HERBIE NICHOLS

By Kim Kleinman, Contributing Writer

I first learned of Herbie Nichols through AB Spellman’s Four Lives in the Bebop Business. It is a sad book on the whole, but there is a battered pride: Cecil Taylor, fierce and defiant, yet vulnerable; Jackie McLean, overcoming detours not solely self-imposed; and Ornette Coleman, fragile and lonely. But Herbie Nichols?!?! Surviving on Dixieland gigs? What the hell? Sad and proud, but mostly sad.

On that basis, I dutifully bought a Blue Note collection of his which turns out to have been the lion share of his recorded output. I liked it well enough but my young ears criminally underappreciated it. I didn’t play it often. Coleman was challenging, but I had glimmers of understanding his aims, whereas Taylor was simply overwhelming. I had no idea what Monk was doing, but I liked him and bought as many of his records as I could. By comparison, I couldn’t understand why Nichols didn’t work and record. He was more accessible than Coleman and Taylor. He wasn’t Ahmad Jamal or Oscar Peterson, but why was he different from the pianists of his era who were sidemen on the albums from that era that I did buy?

More recently, I listened to him, Elmo Hope, and Bud Powell by way of trying to understand Thelonious Monk in the context of his generation. Monk isn’t just another piano player or composer, but I have only reluctantly concluded he also wasn’t simply delivered from the gods. He had predecessors and contemporaries. The harmonic and rhythmic ingenuity of these four, including hearing chords that shouldn’t be there but are and giving the most angular lines an insistent swing, is a shared trait. Nichols was neither alone nor unfamiliar. Powell and Monk were revered in their own time—and ours. Hope was also obscure but he worked and recorded, including as a sideman. But Nichols somehow was the outlier.

Nichols’s tunes are quirky but perfectly charming and one of them, “Serenade,” with Billie Holliday’s lyrics became “Lady Sings the Blues.” That is a singular contribution to the art and should have counted for something. Those compositions deserve to be heard—and they are getting to be. There are a handful of albums that are specifically dedicated to these tunes, a conscious effort to call attention to this oeuvre as a whole. It is more than simply playing one of these tunes among some standards as part of a set or a recording of a composition of Tadd Dameron’s or some other established composer. The friends of Herbie Nichols, the players who have participated in these celebrations—Roswell Rudd, Steve Lacy, George Lewis, Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennik, and Frank Kimbrough and Ben Allison—indicate his impact on the music. He speaks to them and they in turn incorporate his aesthetic in their own.

Roswell Rudd, a Nichols sideman in the early 1960s, is one of the most important friends of Herbie Nichols as he was at the very center of this nexus of the earliest recordings that celebrated and uncovered “the unheard Herbie Nichols.” Before making two albums by that name more than a decade later, he enlisted his old friend Steve Lacy in 1983 for “Regeneration,” which featured three Nichols tunes juxtaposed quite naturally with their usual celebration of Monk’s music. Rudd and Lacy had backgrounds in Dixieland and their trombone/soprano saxophone has a hint of that part of the tradition even when they are at their freest.

The pianist on “Regeneration,” Misha Mengelberg, is the leader of “Change of Season” (1985) with Lacy, trombonist George Lewis, and drummer Han Bennik playing an all Nichols program. Beside once again pairing soprano and trombone, the album features Mengelberg and Bennik, whom I first knew from Eric Dolphy’s “Last Date.” Nichols’s appeal to those drawn to that adventurous side of the music is as telling as the Dixieland ones.

Rudd’s two volumes of “The Unheard Herbie Nichols,” featuring a trio with guitarist Greg Millar and percussionist John Bacon, provide completely different voicings—sparer with a guitar as the chordal instrument—on tunes that Nichols could never record.

It is that same spirit that drove Ben Allison and Frank Kimbrough to form the Herbie Nichols Project to mine the treasure trove of manuscripts in the Library of Congress as well as arranging the trio recordings for quintet. They recorded three albums from 1995-2001. Kimbrough brought that same fastidious curation to his monumental “Monk’s Dreams,” which is “the complete compositions of Thelonious Sphere Monk” over six glorious CDs.

When Kimbrough died in 2020, his colleagues paid him the fitting tribute of recording 58 of his compositions with the same loving reconstruction from recordings and manuscripts. Kimbrough’s playing was rich, reflecting such wonderful influences as Monk, Nichols, Andrew Hill, and Paul Bley. He was very much a friend of Herbie Nichols.

And his friend Ben Allison has recently returned to Nichols’s music with a trio album with guitarist Steve Cardenas and tenor saxist Ted Nash that approaches these tunes with an ensemble as fresh as Rudd’s very different trio.

Thanks to such friends, the music of Herbie Nichols is not completely unheard anymore, making our listening as fans that much richer.

[chonacas]

The Queen of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bad Cinderella on Broadway Actor Grace McLean

Grace McLean called “electrifying” by The Huffington Post and “phenomenal” by The New York Times, Grace McLean is a multi-hyphenate actor-singer-writer. In addition to performing in the New York theater scene on Broadway and off, Grace also makes time for her acclaimed original music. Stephen Holden of the New York Times says “Ms. McLean’s voice is a flexible instrument with unexpected reserves of power...Behind her playful adventurousness lies a well of passion.”

Grace is a Writer In Residence at Lincoln Center Theater where her first original musical IN THE GREEN was commissioned and produced, received a 2020 Richard Rodgers Award, and a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical. She has had two artistic ambassadorships with the US State Department touring Pakistan (2015) and Russia (2018), and her band performed in both the 2015 and 2016 Lincoln Center American Songbook series. Grace is a Broadway Women’s Fund’s Woman to Watch (2021), Jonathan Larson Grant recipient (2021), a member of The Civilians R&D Group (2019-2020), MacDowell Fellow (2018) and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Emerging Artist (2017). Grace McLean & Them Apples have released 2 EPs, “Make Me Breakfast” and “Natrural Disaster,” and are looking forward to releasing a full length album in early 2024. The IN THE GREEN original cast album is available from Ghostlight Records.

  Learn more:

www.gracemclean.com

https://twitter.com/thatgracemclean

https://www.instagram.com/thatgracemclean/

Connect more: 

https://www.chonacas.com/podcast/

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiechonacas/

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[mycoderesist]

What's Avasant Radarview ? The report covers how the enterprise adoption of intelligent automation tools is increasing to gain a competitive advantage by leveraging hyperautomation. It offers insights on various automation tools available for IT, enterprise, and contact center automation, strategies adopted by tool vendors to create a differentiated offering, and investments and innovation made to advance their automation suite. INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION TOOLS 2020 RADARVIEW™ REPORTS List of top low-code intelligent automation tools Analyst Choice 0 0 Appian Appian Corporation is a distributed computing and corporate programming corporation based in the Dulles Technology Corridor in McLean, Virginia. Team CodeResist March 17, 2022 5 READ MORE + Analyst Choice 0 0 AutomationEdge AutomationEdge is an AI-driven automation platform that automates IT and business processes quickly. Its advanced Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing ... Team CodeResist March 17, 2022 5 READ MORE + Analyst Choice 1 0 Blue Prism Blue Prism is an RPA tool that allows you to create a virtual workforce using software robots. This enables businesses to automate business processes in a ... Team CodeResist March 17, 2022 5 READ MORE + Analyst Choice 0 0 Automation Anywhere Automation Anywhere is a pioneer in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), allowing clients to automate start-to-finish business processes with intelligent ... Team CodeResist March 17, 2022 5 READ MORE + Analyst Choice 0 0 UiPath Process design is a feature of UiPath that allows users to utilize a flow chart to construct rules for data management in business applications. Salesforce, ... Team CodeResist March 17, 2022 4 READ MORE + Analyst Choice 0 0 Kryon System Team CodeResist March 17, 2022 4 READ MORE + Analyst Choice 0 0 Kofax Print management, process automation, and document/pdf management are all part of Kofax's intelligent automation software for businesses. Kofax provides you ... Team CodeResist March 17, 2022 1 READ MORE + Analyst Choice 0 0 EdgeVerve EdgeVerve Systems Limited is a fully-owned subsidiary of Infosys that leads the artificial intelligence and automation to assist businesses in achieving ... Team CodeResist March 17, 2022 5 READ MORE + Analyst Choice 0 0 Verint Verint Information Management is an AI-enabled system that helps enterprises to organize and capture knowledge about organizational policies and procedures. ... Team CodeResist March 17, 2022 3 READ MORE + Analyst Choice 0 0 Pegasystem Pegasystems is a software company that specializes in customer engagement and operational optimization. Users can swiftly install and update apps to meet ... Team CodeResist March 17, 2022 4 READ MORE + Analyst recommendation Top Low-Code Platforms Search & Compare all platforms using our native quick comparison features on portal E Everest Group Top 14 Low-Code Application Development Start Ups Gartner Magic Quadrant Top 15 Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms G Avasant Top 14 Low-Code Intelligent Automation Platforms A Forester wave Top 14 Low-Code Application Platforms F Search & Compare all platforms using our native quick comparison features on portal Check top low-code application platforms recommendation by leading market analyst Top Low-Code

[best-dulles-va]

Dulles, VA - Top Location to Retire

Are you searching for the perfect place to retire? Consider Dulles as a top contender. This rapidly growing community offers a balanced environment, making it an ideal choice for retirees who don't want to live in a retirement community. Dulles provides easy access to high-quality healthcare, excellent educational opportunities, and a vibrant cultural scene. Although it's slightly farther from DC than McLean or Bethesda, Dulles offers more convenience than living in the city. Dulles also provides a lot of businesses and small entrepreneurs. It's also a tech hub known for its powerful, cloud-based software and continuous quality improvement. Dulles, VA, is an excellent place, and there's no doubt about that. 

Accreditation Management Software

ARMATURE Solutions Corporation develops robust cloud-based software that enables organizations to enhance performance, increase resilience, and manage compliance while reducing risks. Also, with ARMATURE accreditation management software, you can transform your accreditation process and engage stakeholders in a single, easy-to-use management software product. This accreditation management software empowers all accreditation stakeholders with tailored portals to meet their needs in accreditation management software, keep track of all activities, tasks, and artifacts from application to decision in one centralized location, streamline the customer experience, improve visibility, and expand enrolment base, and facilitate continuous improvement. For inquiries, call 703.471.8310.

Certification Management 

If you're looking for a reliable certification management solution, look no further than ARMATURE's software. This powerful tool streamlines the certification process by collecting data, initiating certification processes, and facilitating communication with your constituents. With ARMATURE, you can easily track enrollment patterns, giving you more time to focus on growing your certification program. You'll have complete visibility into your workflows, ensuring transparency throughout the process. The software also includes learning, development, and evaluation tools to create a comprehensive experience. Additionally, the software comes with built-in templates and tools to help you drive continuous improvement activities. If you're interested in other application software like accreditation management and audit management, give them a call at (703)-471-8310.

Dulles Town Center

The Dulles Town Center, located in the picturesque Loudoun County of Virginia, is a highly desirable community that attracts residents and homebuyers alike. The area's strategic location, in close proximity to both Dulles Airport and the Washington Metropolitan Area, has made it a popular choice for those seeking a comfortable living environment with easy access to all the amenities of the city. With just a 30-minute drive or a 20-minute ride on the commuter train to Washington, DC, Dulles Town Center presents a convenient location for those who want to enjoy the benefits of living outside the city while still having quick access to everything it has to offer. 

A Man is Charged After shooting in Dulles Town Center Mall.

After a shooting in Dulles Town Center on Sunday afternoon, which hurt another man, deputies said that a man will face a few charges. Alan W. Colie, 31, was arrested. Deputies noted that Colie and the 21-year-old guy he is accused of shooting had some interaction in the mall's food court, which led to the shooting. They also said that Colie and the other man had never met before. Loudon County Sheriff Mike Chapman said that they had a little bit of an argument there. The shooter then got out the gun and shot the victim. Just before noon, there was a shot. When the police got to the mall, they found the hurt man near the Cheesecake Factory's exit. He had been shot in the stomach. He was taken to the hospital by paramedics. Colie was arrested by deputies. Read more.

Link to maps

Dulles Virginia 20166, USA Take Autopilot Dr and Ariane Way to VA-606 E 3 min (1.2 mi) Continue on VA-606 E to Business Ct 2 min (0.6 mi) Continue on Business Ct to your destination 44 sec (0.1 mi) ARMATURE Solutions Corporation 45240 Business Ct Suite 400, Dulles, VA 20166, United States

[addierose444]

Design Clinic Site Visit

As alluded to in my last blog post, this week my Design Clinic team and I visited our sponsoring company’s headquarters. While Design Clinic has been a significant part of my senior year experience, I rarely write about it here on my blog. Thus, for those who don’t know, my team’s sponsoring company is Iridium Communications which is a satellite communications company. Our project is entitled “Design of a Satellite Communications System for Vehicles beyond the Reach of Cellular Connectivity.”

Iridium’s headquarters is located in McLean Virginia, so in advance of the trip, we had to book plane tickets and hotel rooms. And no, we didn’t have to pay out of pocket for the trip expenses. Okay, technically we fronted the cost but will be reimbursed in the coming weeks. These reimbursable expenses are where my cashback credit cards really shine as in this case the cashback is truly free money. Additionally, while I made sure to have adequate funds in my checking account, it’s nice to know that I’ll probably be reimbursed before my credit card due date. That said, to keep my utilization ratio low, I opted to pay down my credit card balance in advance of the statement closing date. I hope to write more finance-related blog posts in the future, but for now, you can check out this post on my expense tracker spreadsheet. 

As for our flight, we flew from Bradley (the closest airport to Smith) to Reagan. The flight before ours was canceled (or crazy delayed), but fortunately ours was on time! Upon arriving at Reagan, we waited for a little while for our final teammate (who’d opted to fly in from her winter break location). We next checked in to our hotel and began researching dinner options. We ultimately decided to go to a restaurant called Founding Farmers where I order a fried chicken sandwich. 

After dinner, we worked to prepare our presentation. We essentially just extracted ⅓ of the slides from our mid-year presentation slide deck and reassigned them so everyone had a slide or two. My portion of the presentation was the app demo. While similar to the demo I’d done during our mid-year presentation, for this demo I got to reveal the Flutter app we’ve been working on (rather than the no-code prototype I made in Proto.io)! To get the app demo ready, we added some fun touches like an app logo, and generally made sure everything was working as intended. 

Our actual site visit started out with a tour of Iridium’s headquarters. (Note that the photo below just shows their sign as their actual building was actually behind where I was standing). We next learned about Iridium’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Their key pillars include STEM education, sustainability, and disaster preparedness & response. We followed this up with a mini presentation to a team of executives. While my app worked as intended, screen sharing to Teams was a bit problematic. 

Our headquarters visit also included a tour specific to the engineering resources, a few more meetings with product managers, and another abridged presentation. For lunch, we had catered sandwiches that were actually pretty good. Through these various meetings, we learned a lot about how things work at Iridium and gained valuable insights relevant to our project. We also worked to refine our project scope given that we only have 3 more months. (4 months to graduation, but we conclude project work well in advance). 

In the afternoon we visited Iridium’s Satellite Network Operations Center (SNOC) in Leesburg Virginia. At the SNOC we learned more about Iridium’s satellites and got to observe the control center itself. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take photos inside the SNOC, but if you are curious to learn more check out this Iridium blog post.

[eyelevelmclean-blog]

Math Tutoring in McLean – Key to Open Vast Possibilities

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[soia-jpg]

Piper McLean at hogwarts!

I wasn't sure where to place her, I thought of Gryffindors too but then decided on slytherin! Get ready for the rant ™

Slytherins and Gryffindors are the two houses who are most prone to rule-breaking but!! Slytherin are more sneaky in breaking rules! And I feel like piper keeps breaking rules and misconceptions.

What convinced me is that slytherin tend to be seen as self centered and arrogant.

People from this house usually aren't as insecure, and even when they are, they fake it until they make it. That's the key, her fatal flaw is low self esteem and that's what makes her come off as "rude" and arrogant!!

She fights with this a lot during the series and expecially with charmspeak! She doesn't like the effect it has on people at all for example, and made her look scary and dangerous!

Her wand has Bloodwood, is a wood perfect for healing and for "heart matters"! In fact is a rich red! It's also useful for divination. The veela core is incredibly rare! Is quite temperamental and hard to deal with but has an incredible charming power!

Her patronus is a Swan! It's a symbol of love and emotions other than beauty and grace!

Piper has divination abilities!

She also wear beadwork inspired by her house colors! (I've changed her hair a bit, but I kept the braids! I hope is correct tho)

Piper with her new Patronus!

First of all I want to thank who sent me a dm about Piper patronus and gave me a really nice website and organization I highly suggest you to check it for Native Americans Resources! it’s http://www.native-languages.org/

Anyway, on Piper! She had a Swan patronus, mostly inspired by her mother and her powers.

As jk stated “The form of a Patronus may change during the course of a witch or wizard's life... Due to bereavement, falling in love or profound shifts in a person's character” plus the patronus will more likely be an animal connected to the person native country.

Piper got her name from her grandfather in hope that she will, one day, master all the Cherokee songs, including the snake song, and her father loved that a lot.

Piper patronus is an Uktena now!

So when Piper learned to love her father again and embracing her heritage, her patronus changed because she changed! An Uktena is an incredible animal and also really dangerous. Honestly this idea is brilliant, I've read that there are different takes on this myths and sometime it's also a protection for someone, a symbol of strength!

It might be because I’m from Europe but is not really easy for me to find sources that I feel like I can trust? So I always enjoy when people share with me (or on their stories on ig) links and posts and generally anything, this makes resharing information more easy and more importantly, is helpful for avoiding spreading misinformation! I want to be helpful and I don’t want to risk being harmful, sometimes I like to play it safe until I find information that makes me feel like I can be almost sure I’m not being offensive or spreading misinformation! So thank you for sharing with me your story and your culture, I’m really grateful for that! I hope I can be helpful in my small way

[the-courage-to-heal]

Childhood:

The book Sybil and the subsequent 1976 movie in which Sally Field portrayed a girl with more than a dozen different personalities were the result of a collaboration between psychiatrist Cornelia Wilbur and author Flora Rheta Schreiber. The goal was to have people better understand a child abuse victim who developed alternative personalities as a coping mechanism.

While the book and movie raised the profile of what is now known as dissociative identity disorder (DID), they also created some significant misconceptions.

“Do people come into my office and switch personalities in a dramatic way, with different voices. Does their makeup suddenly change? No,” said Milissa Kaufman, MD, PhD, about the character Sybil. “It may feel like that to them internally, but there’s no dramatic thing that happens.”

Kaufman, director of the Dissociative Disorders and Trauma Research Program at McLean Hospital and medical director of McLean’s Hill Center for Women, said patients with DID, a form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), often carry on very normal, high-functioning lives. She pointed to Robert Oxnam, a China scholar and president emeritus of The Asia Society, who shared his life story in the 2005 book A Fractured Mind: My Life With Multiple Personality Disorder.

That is because DID is a coping mechanism, usually brought on by childhood abuse, and is a kind of ingenious, unconscious way of displacing situations onto other aspects of themselves.

“It’s the ‘not me’ phenomenon,” said Kaufman. “Little children have magical thinking. It’s at this age in development where you believe in Santa Claus, or where little children personify stuffed animals. There are displaced thoughts and feelings that are difficult for them, so they are put on these other entities. It’s a normal developmental stage that children go through.”

Where DID veers from “not me” is when abuse—physical, sexual, or emotional—is introduced into their young lives.

“If you’re being abused at night, you think to yourself that can’t possibly be happening. It has to be happening to some other little girl. It’s not me,” she said. “If a little girl is being abused at night and has to wake up the next morning and go to school and do sports and do homework and have to do as much as they can to not have people get angry at them, they displace it onto another aspect of themselves.”

“A child doesn’t have many other ways to cope. They can’t go to their parents, since that is the origin. They feel like there are other people inside of them, and they can’t tell anybody.”

Dissociation can be found in 1-3% of the general population and as high as 20-30% in psychiatric populations, about the same prevalence as schizophrenia, Kaufman said. A 1986 study by Frank W. Putman and others in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found the average patient with DID has been in the mental health delivery system for an average of 6.8 years and has received three other diagnoses. This reflected either misdiagnoses or occurrences of other diagnoses or symptoms that delayed an accurate diagnosis.

Dissociation occurs along a spectrum, from “spacing out” while driving and missing an exit to being hyper-focused on a topic. Along the range are memory issues, like gaps in recall, often associated with PTSD. Further along are depersonalization and derealization—which Kaufman described as a profound detachment from sense of self or sense of body, a sensation of being apart from one’s self, perhaps viewing what is happening from a distance.

The furthest end of the spectrum is fragmentation of identity, where “my feelings or my thoughts or my body feel like they don’t belong to me,” she said.

Richard Loewenstein, MD, a psychiatrist in the Trauma Disorders Program at the Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore, noted in a 2018 paper in Dialogues in Clinical Neurosciencethat dissociative identity disorders are among the oldest reported psychiatric disorders, with case reports appearing at the end of the 18th century.In more recent times, DID was viewed as being “rare and exotic,” except during wartime. Yet, the diagnosis was not without controversy, even among mental health professionals, with a history going back to Freud and questions about what real memories are. That was rekindled in the 1980s cases involving child abuse at day care centers in many parts of the country. Among the models developed at the time, one suggested DID could be produced in highly hypnotized, suggestible patients.

Rather than simply reveal forgotten traumas, the theory went, hypnosis could be used to implant false memories.DID can also be wrongly connected to malingering (exaggerated) and factitious (inauthentic) disorders, where patients make claims either with or without a motivation for personal gain. The best-known example of factitious disorder is the severe form once known as Munchausen syndrome.“That’s not what it looks like,” said Kaufman. “It’s a very real, very well-studied psychiatric disorder.”“It most often is chronic,” she continued. “It typically is at the hands of a caretaker. It can be sexual abuse, it can be physical abuse, it can be emotional abuse. But generally, people who have DID have had many different types of abuse at the hands of multiple perpetrators.

The women she works with at the Hill Center usually arrive with histories of childhood abuse, PTSD, co-occurring disorders such as eating disorders, or substance abuse issues. While DID affects men, she believes many are less likely to come forward for help.“I think there’s even more of a stigma for men to talk,” she said. “It may be that, or a lot of mental health professionals are not trained to ask questions. They may not be on alert for it, because the media depicts women most often as having this disorder, so maybe they don’t even ask.

”DID is also treatable with a three-stage set of professional guidelines established through expert consensus.The initial stage focuses on stabilization and safety. The goal is to

“get things calmed down and life in order. It can take a while for someone to feel comfortable and safe. It can take years.”

Once that is achieved, clinicians move on to the second stage, where the patient begins to process the traumatic events that have affected them. In the final stage, the emphasis is on

”getting your life back, mourning what you have lost and moving on without dissociation, learning how to be in the world without dissociating.”At the same time, scientists are exploring potential biological or genetic links that could predispose a person to DID. Studies to date have shown that in the classic form of PTSD, the brain’s amygdala—which controls the “fight-or-flight” response—is overactive while the prefrontal cortex is not, generating a hyper-aroused state. But in the dissociative subtype of PTSD, Kaufman said, the prefrontal cortex is overactive to the point where a person can be numb and detached.In fact, she explained, both the amygdala and prefrontal cortex become overactive in patients with DID.

“The trauma state in DID looks like classic PTSD,” said Kaufman. “In a numbed state of mind, it looks more like the dissociative subtype, where, the brakes are on too tight.”Scientists are also looking at the brain’s attentional activation system, how a person concentrates.“People who are dissociative have a really refined ability to focus attention, particularly in multitasking,” she said, saying researchers are working to understand how the brains of people with DID have a different allocation of resources toward attentional systems.Finally, there are also studies on potential genetic links.“You aren’t born with DID, but you can have a genetic predisposition to dissociate, so we are also looking for genetic markers.”But Kaufman stressed that people with DID should not give up hope.“It’s treatable. It’s a pretty phenomenal coping mechanism when you are growing up, but it becomes disruptive when you don’t need it anymore.”

source

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

how would you do a percy jackson adaptaion?

okay, so I know this is a controversial opinion right off the bat: I really don’t think it should be an animated series.

A large part of the appeal of the series is that it’s a fantasy series set very very firmly in reality. Literally, apart from the camps, you could go to every location hit in the books. Riordan mentions specific streets, buildings and landmarks, and that was cool when I first read them. I remember being a kid and waiting for him to set a scene in a place near where I lived! I remember trips to New York and being able to envision an epic war happening in the streets. So I think any adaption needs to be live action just to keep that same feeling alive, while I’m not knocking on animation, I just feel like taking the story out of real life would make it loose a little of the charm. Like, the scene where Manhattan is completely frozen in time? It would be haunting to see that in real life, but I feel like it would be less impactful if it didn’t…you know…look real? The series should be done in a way that makes you truly feel like you could just turn a corner and walk straight into a snake woman going about her day. 

Now: another large part of the appeal of the series is how funny it is, but a lot of that…is Percy’s inner monologue. He doesn’t actually voice most of it, there was even a book where Annabeth described him as being quiet. So, I think the best way to work around this: make it Interview With A Demigod. 

Imagine it’s got an interview with a vampire-esque setup- and this even works because within the riordanverse, the books canonically exist because Percy sat down with a ‘camp scribe’ and had his quests recorded. So, like, this isn’t even entirely out of left field. But just imagine, a college-aged, maybe a little older Percy, I can see it so clearly in my head, he’s wearing a sweatshirt that at first glance looks like it says NYU but a trained eye will see it actually says NRU for a camp jupiter easter egg, he’s sitting in some dinky little diner (maybe it can even be a monster donut or something with a clever greek myth related name) with a guy who’s recording the conversation on some old-ass tape recorder that keeps acting up but they can’t record on a phone because of the whole technology thing. Every now and then it’ll cut back to them to get some great Percy thoughts out there. They open with older Percy saying the ‘look, I didn’t wanna be a halfblood’ and then explaining where he was when the whole mess started. Once he get’s to “was I a troubled kid?” the screen fades from older Percy to 12 year old Percy getting in a fight with Nancy and her gang, and the voice over says the ‘Yeah, you could say that’ part as we see him get threatened by the principal to behave on the field trip. Boom, we’ve got an opening. Lowkey….I’m seeing Jordan Fisher as older Percy, but I’m not 100% married to the idea. 

And before anyone tries to argue that showing an older Percy would spoil he’s not gonna die in last olympian- like, reading the books, we all knew he wasn’t going to die. It was a first person narrative and he was consistently speaking in past tense lmao like we Knew he was gonna make it. We still enjoyed the series. It won’t ruin anything.

I want part of the score of the adaptation to be instrumental versions of songs from the musical, I think that could be a sweet nod to that team. 

They really need to nail camp halfblood. I know that goes without saying, but in order to keep the pacing of the story decent we can’t spend as much time falling in love with it like we got to with the book. The book is like, 24 chapters and the quest starts at chapter 12- for a movie or tv show, that’s just gonna feel like it’s dragging. So, the insanity of the camp needs to smack you in the face right away, and then it needs to endear itself to the viewers quickly after that. Don’t try to ease the viewers (or Percy) into the mythology is real thing, rip it off like a bandaid. He’s on his way to meet Chiron and Mr. D for the first time and even if he’s not comprehending what he’s seeing, there’s nature spirits and harpies all around going about their day. Hestia waves at him and then disappears into the flames. Hecate kids can be seen casting a spell on the porch of the Hermes cabin. The Stolls are seen pranking some Aphrodite kids. He sees someone surely die on the climbing wall but then you hear a faint ‘I’m okay!’. The Apollo kids put a rhyming curse on another cabin. Pure chaos all before he gets the ‘so, gods are real’ speech. And then after that…show how warm Luke is to him at the cabin and at dinner. Show the kids all goofing off at the campfire and really make it clear that they’re children. Show the strawberry fields rolling in the wind and Percy sitting on the beach. The whole couple weeks where he’s searching for powers and learning greek and latin with Annabeth can be a montage. Make it clear how hurt and scared he is when he finds out he needs to leave.

It needs to really get you feeling how Percy’s feeling, every laugh, every tear, every moment of fear or confusion needs to shine clear through. Like…think of Spider-Man Homecoming, the Washington monument scene. All things considered, it’s not the most high-stakes scene we’ve ever seen in that franchise, and when it cuts to the kids in the elevator, they’re worried but not quite freaking out, but that scene feels very high stress to watch because the movie is good at getting the viewers to feel what Peter feels. A Percy Jackson adaptation needs a touch like that, because Percy’s a very emotional kid and that’s what a lot of the scenes hinge on.

Lowkey- I’d love it if the casts of both the previous movies and the musical had cameos or bit parts (the movie cast did Nothing Wrong, it was the rest of that team). It’d be hilarious to see, like, Jake Abel as the owner of the poodle, or Logan Lerman as Older Percy and the reporter’s waiter that keeps trying to get in on the conversation, or Brandon T. Jackson as a satyr who’s still stuck grooving out in the Lotus Hotel and Casino. Kristen Stokes as a nature spirit, Chris as one of the ghosts stuck in the waiting room of DOA Records, just like any of those casts having small parts would be fun and sweet. 

There should be a lot of easter eggs for the bigger riordanverse. Promotions in the background for the new Tristan McLean movie. Gabe’s got a true crime documentary about the missing Grace children playing during his poker game. Mr. D is reading a paper about Rachel Dare’s father’s newest project. At some point while they’re still in New York they pass the Kane family’s mansion or whatever it was called. Annabeth keeps a picture of little her and Magnus on her nightstand. The barest of hints about the Triumvirate. Seeing kids in camp jupiter gear in some background shots, just out of notice of our main characters but implying the camps are going through similar problems (BITCH….if we got a titan’s curse adaptation…and we had a shot of Thalia in the foreground….but in the background we saw a blond boy in purple with a golden sword….well I would simply loose my Goddamn mind).

And show us how easily the mist lets things blend in, too- like, everyone thinks ‘Monster Donuts’ is just a normal chain, it’s just on an average street block, but if Percy looks through the window he can see who’s behind the counter. Show someone swindling some guys in a park and you have to look twice to realize he’s a gegeines. Like…how people are still trying to find all the background ghosts in haunting of hill house. I would LOVE to see a bunch of background monsters and mythical beings just going about their day as much as the mortals are while the gang’s questing. 

The effects need to be fun. The whole story needs to be fun, but one weird thing about the past movies are that like…in their attempt to make it gritty, none of the fantastical things happening on screen actually felt that exciting. We need bright colors and interesting choices, consistently cool action shots, a liveliness that makes you feel like you’re in the center of the action. I have absolutely no doubt Disney easily has enough funds to pull off great effects.

The characters need to be….in character lmao. Annabeth needs to be cocky and bratty with the skill set to justify it. Percy needs to be a sweetheart who pretends to be hardened because that’s what people assume he’s like. Grover needs to have dry humor and a Too Old For This Shit attitude whenever percabeth start bickering. Luke needs to be nice and friendly but in a specific way that you can look back after the betrayal and see he was trying to groom everyone. Sally needs to be loving, protective and strong. Chiron needs to feel defeated and determined at the same time. Mr. D needs to….be Stanley Tucci lmao

Also, I’d love if the adaptation could expand more on things that got brushed along in the books- Percy and Beckendorf’s friendship, Silena and Clarisse’s dynamic, make Nico’s crush on Percy a little more obvious, give Rachel some more development. One thing that haunts me about the books is Sally never found out that Gabe hit Percy. Absolutely they don’t need to make the abuse explicit, but I also personally feel like a lot of Percy’s mindsets throughout the series are somewhat a result of Gabe, and I’d like if that got, you know, acknowledged. Maybe in the scene where he figures out Gabe abuses Sally he could say ‘does he hit you too?’ or something to that effect. They could also go more into detail about Annabeth’s family, give Zoe some more depth….like the possibilities I’m screaming.

Okay this is already long and I’m getting tired but I can so clearly see a great adaptation in my mind….Disney please come through….It’s what we deserve…. 

[seattlesea]

Why is Piper McLean Annoying?

So, I see a lot of people saying that Piper McLean is annoying for a variety of reasons like ‘She’s too obsessed with Jason’, ‘She complains too much’, ‘She’s too jealous’, etc. (and I agree), but I also realize that barely anyone really explains why, which I think is a bit unfair to the Piper fans, cause I’m sure they want to see our reasonings. So, I thought it was only fair to explain why Piper McLean is annoying. 

First off, her obsession with Jason. I get that she likes the guy, but thinking about him every single paragraph gets really tiring after a while. It dragged the books and made them seem less of a hobby and more like a chore, like we had to get through the boring, tedious romance parts to get to the good stuff (which ended up disappointing). Of course Piper likes Jason, but her priority issues are what made her obsession with him so annoying. Like, doesn’t she have much more important things to do than sulk in her room whining about a boy? Like, I don’t know, train (which she only did in The House of Hades after Hazel told her to), plan for the final fight with the giants and Gaea, talk to her past friends and family in case she didn’t make it out alive, etc.? While all the other demigods were fighting for their lives, training their butts off, and working hard to make sure everything went smooth, Piper was sulking and whining about Jason in bed then complained that she was useless 💀 And I see a lot of arguments about why Piper’s obsession with Jason was fine, but let me make a counter-argument for each one- ‘She’s a daughter of Aphrodite’- You mean the daughter of Aphrodite who constantly claimed she hates Aphrodite and her children, is supposed to be the chill, down-to-earth one, and tries extremely hard to not be a typical daughter of Aphrodite? That one? I think the readers tend to forget that Aphrodite is the goddess of all love, not just romance.  ‘She’s a high school girl’- A high school girl who was given the responsibility of helping save the world, and yet her boyfriend is the number one thing on her mind? I can guarantee you high school girls do not only think about their boyfriends. That’s actually quite a rude stereotype that Riordan fell right into. ‘She wants normalcy’- And of course she’s going to get that with the guy who can shoot lightning from his hands and fly. If she really wanted normalcy, she would’ve gotten together with a mortal guy, not another demigod whom she’s questing with. ‘The people who claim she’s annoying for her crush on Jason are the same people who’ve had crushes on a million fictional characters’- But do those people let those crushes define their whole life, get in the way of their morals, and are the only thing they ever think or talk about? Liking multiple people and being creepily obsessed with another are very different things. 

Second, her jealousy over Reyna. I get that liking a guy and finding out another girl who’s known him for much longer also likes him is pretty jealousy-evoking...for a regular high school girl. But Piper isn’t a regular high school girl, she’s a demigod who’s supposed to concentrate on saving the whole world. Even in The Lost Hero, her jealousy and obsession was annoying (and creepy and honestly stalker-ish, like- wanting a guy all to yourself despite knowing your relationship with him was fake and completely dismissing the chances of any girl he might’ve known without ever getting to know him is pretty creepy) because even though she had just gotten introduced to the demigod world and had to adapt to it- she had just gotten introduced to the demigod world and had to adapt to it. How many people who just learned that gods, monsters, and myths were real and that they have to save their dad from a blood-thirsty giant and free a goddess from captivity or the world would end is going to think exclusively about a guy? That’s what makes it annoying. And even after The Mark of Athena when Jason and Piper were dating and Jason promised he wouldn’t leave her, Piper was still constantly worried about Reyna. Like, girl, don’t you have more important things to worry about? Like World War III between the Greeks and Romans? Or the literal end of the world? Or like, Armageddon? This also impacted the overall writing. During The Blood of Olympus, Frank and Piper were at a cave and Frank went in to get an ingredient for the Physician’s Cure, and the point of view was Piper’s, who sat outside waiting for him daydreaming about Jason and her friends. Frank was talking to his legendary shape-shifting ancestors and we got to read about a little girl complaining and sulking. That’s what makes Piper so annoying. 

Third, her complaining. Piper fans often argue that everyone is allowed to complain about their trauma and you shouldn’t compare it to others...but there is none for Piper. She’s literally complaining for nothing. ‘Oh, but her dad was neglectful and didn’t care about her!!!’ ????are we reading the same book??? Piper has had multiple flashbacks of her and her dad hanging out like going surfing, watching Tristan’s movies, reading Greek myths, discussing Cherokee stories, etc., and it’s obvious Tristan loves Piper very much. Everything he does is for her. It’s not even his choice to be busy, it’s his agent’s, and even though he’s super busy, he always makes time for Piper even though Piper constantly makes his life harder by getting herself in trouble despite knowing his job and life is already stressful enough. Plus the fact that no matter how much bad Piper did, Tristan never punished or got mad at her for it. The fact that she’s complaining about her private chef making her a gold-wrapped sandwich while a lot of the other characters spent their childhood having to wonder where their next meal was going to come from and complained about having things they didn’t have 5% of was what was annoying. There’s a difference between ‘comparing traumas’ and being flat-out insensitive (as Piper was). If I saw some spoiled rich kid complaining about their peanut butter-jelly sandwich being wrapped in fake gold by their personal chef right in front of a starving homeless kid, I probably would’ve thrown a rock at them. 

The last and most annoying part- the genre. The number one reason people think that Piper is annoying is that we didn’t read this story for romance. We didn’t pick up a Rick Riordan book to read about romance and jealousy, we did so to read about slaying monsters and saving the world. The entire Heroes of Olympus series was 80% dragged romance and 10% super-rushed, unrealistic, and horribly-written fights that mostly consisted of dialogue that never took longer than five pages but should’ve taken up a whole chapter or more. I- and multiple other readers- couldn’t care less about who gets in the way of whom and who gets together with whom and who likes whom, I care more about the battles and superpowers. Readers pick up action/fantasy/adventures stories to read about action, fantasy, and adventure, not romance. Piper ripped the readers from the fantasy world just to pine over her boyfriend, and the fact that that was what made up the majority of the books (along with other dumb, rushed romances) and Riordan spent like two pages- again, most of which consisting of dialogue- on the final battle against the second most powerful deity in all of Greek/Roman mythology (only surpassed by Chaos himself) after spending a whole book on just the Titan lord is what makes Piper so annoying. In Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the romance wasn’t even a subplot. It was a minor add-on, but all throughout HoO the romance was the main point, and Piper was the center of that. Plus she’s the center of a lot of racism and misogyny in the series. That’s what makes her annoying, my friends.

And yeah thanks for coming to my TED Talk.