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weebsinstash · 2 years ago

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On my platonic yandere Batfam bullshit again thinking about, like, deliberately dramatic scenarios because I crave emotional tension

-imagine if Bruce gets called in to regressed!Reader's school because you got in a fist fight with another kid, and this kid is the son of one of his prominent business partners and Bruce, uh, doesn't immediately believe you when you state for him and the principal why you got into a fight because, hey he knows that boy, he isn't THAT bad! And Bruce scolds you and makes you apologize and even grounds you once you two are in the car alone and you're just noticeably extremely angry and quiet to the point you won't even come out of your room for dinner. And after some time has passed, days even, a couple members of the fam are in a room together with you and someone cracks a joke about you losing your temper over a misunderstanding and you just, stare directly at them as you pull out your phone, press play on a video, and walk away as they watch where you had been trying to take a photo of something like idk a flower or the weather and began accidentally filming after Selina helped dropped you off at school and the footage caught the boy outright calling her a slut for what she was wearing

And of course Bruce is upset because that kid insulted Catwoman and also got some swings back at you (he's probably proud to a certain degree that you defended Selina and shes absolutely delighted when she hears about it) but he asks "well why didn't you tell me you had proof im the first place" and you just spit at him "oh so I need PROOF for you to BELIEVE ME?" And extra bonus points if Reader has their old memories back and hits him with "after everything you've done to me, I finally ask for your help and ACTUALLY needed you this ONE TIME and you couldn't even believe me? Wow, my hero 🙄" so now he knows he's broken your heart AND you're back to the "old you" that he wants to, father all the depression and trauma out of

-since Dick, Barbara, and Reader would all be going to a prestigious school I think of like, what if your class got kidnapped for ransom while on a field trip. And Robin and Batgirl look over to you thinking you're going to panic and freak out but you're suspiciously calm, or, calmer than the anxiety stricken adopted 'sibling' they've had this whole time, and maybe despite being kidnapped by like, idk, Babyface or Black Mask or Two Face, and maybe you even just outright insult them and it becomes horribly obvious to them "oh not only do you have your memories back, they've unintentionally turned you into an explosive powder keg of repressed anger and frustration because they betrayed what little trust you had left"

You just look at Two Face and start fucking with him, this criminal looking down as a teenager starts roasting him way too casually and maybe with facts you shouldn't even know, things you remember from your time as a hero before. "Hey Harvey, what's hanging, it's been a while. Hey can I ask a question? You ever think about just outright asking someone like I dunno Bruce Wayne to fix that fucked up meat gristle face of yours? Like, I'm sure having half your body resemble the same consistency of a breakfast sausage has its uses in intimidation, but, like, I'm sure if you just walked up to Batman and said 'hey if you make me look less like a rotisserie chicken I'll quit crime' and he would probably just like, HAND the money for the sugery to you, like, do you think Batmobile money falls out of the sky, he's clearly fucking loaded"

And of course the follow up/alternative of "the stress triggers Reader's metagene or old memories or both and you just start whooping ass unapologetically and Barb and Dick are sweating because they're trying not to break incognito but like you're significantly hurting these dudes, you're clearly really angry and upset and taking it out on them" and tbh I imagine Batman already has contingencies for this possibility. He shows up in costume and Two Face has already fled but you're standing there in your preppy school uniform now dirty and torn, blood on your knuckles, about to beat a man unconscious while your classmates either cower or cheer or fear you. If Reader has some sort of magic, then he just has to get Nth metal from Hawkgirl or Hawkman, maybe he'll make it a cute bracelet, just a nice gift from Dad. Bodily autonomy to use your own powers and be an adult again, what's that? He's disappointed in you for caving into the darkness and also? you're grounded >:(

-Reader becoming a mugging/gun violence victim and now you're never allowed to leave the manor, period. I can only imagine like the projection of trauma from Bruce if, after losing his parents, he has to watch you weak and recovering from a gunshot, wheezing in bed struggling to breathe properly because a bullet went through one of your lungs. You're put in a total bubble to recover in absolute peace and sterility, but, even far after you've recovered, your "guardian" is still convinced someone will leap out of the bushes to hurt you, so, no leaving the manor unless he's with you. Like. Imagine him being so scared he doesn't even want to trust your safety with the other Batfamily members, and maybe he even cracks down on several of the other younger members because he doesn't want them to get shot too (also like, resulting trauma and overprotectiveness if one or multiple of them saw you get shot and are like, still fucked up over having to apply pressure to your bullet wound as your warm blood leaks all over their fingers and they can't do anything to stop you and-- like do you see how that would send some of them into borderline psychosis when theyve already got So Many Many Issues)

-all of them try to exert control over what you're exposed to and consume in terms of entertainment. You have spyware on your phone and any member of the Batfam who can use the Batcomputer can see your past and current browsing history and I will die on this hill. Bruce and Alfred are rigorous in making sure you don't ruin your mental health. Like you know how I talked about "what if you had a yandere that was in tech and he gave you a phone that he occasionally spies on and remotely disables if he thinks you're spending too much time on it/seeing something you shouldnt"? Bruh that's like half of the Manor, Bruce especially. He has to "make sure nothing bad happens to you". All it can take is 'one bad day', after all...

-obsessed with the idea of them getting jealous of you spending time with other alternate universe versions of themselves, in concepts where Reader is a JL member/vigilante and has the power/tech to multiverse travel anyways. Batman hasn't seen you in a couple weeks and, actually maybe he's a little concerned about you, you've kind of just vanished off the face of the earth, and he bumps into you on a Gotham rooftop with. Another Batman, and getting along much better and being more casual and friendly with the stranger than with him. Broody fucking "I am darkness, I am the night, I am vengeance" Bruce catching you like. smoking weed on his couch with the hilariously weird version of him from the Harley Quinn cartoon universe and God forbid if anyone shows signs of having feelings for you

(also could you imagine how ballistic he and or Jason would go if they caught you hanging out with, you know, one of the super violent "murder is ok" Jasons/Batmans and you tell them straight up "actually I agree with what he's doing, I want to help him, in fact maybe I'll work with HIM now instead of you" like, y'all, I think Batman would permanently never let you work as a hero or sidekick ever again because he's genuinely worried you'll fall down the slippery slope and make a mistake that ruins your life. Like depending on the depiction of Batman you're looking at, some of them admit straight up that they don't kill Joker because they know they're legitimately filled with so much anger and hatred that if they kill even one person, that'll break the barrier to killing tons of criminals outright and they won't be able to stop)

-all I'm saying is that if they ever caught you like being cordial or mildly friendly with an alternate universe version of a villain, no matter how good they are, they shut that shit down immediately. "Y/N who is that" "oh this is my bud The Jester from the universe where the Joker is actually really good and a superhero and--" *jester proceeds to be grappled back through a multiverse portal* "wait no don't freak out this poison ivy is actually really chill and she's married to Harley and she sells me really good weed and she only does a liiiiiitle bit of ecoterrorism and--" immediately thrown in Arkham

-I just genuinely think it's funny that they're probably either smoking weed with you bc trauma and stress or are vehemently anti drug. Can you imagine just in general like, regressed reader, batfam member, either way, just being an actual adult just minding your business and smoking weed and Bruce reacting like he just caught you with a loaded gun in your pocket "y/n is that a weed" "yeah its for my chronic pain--" "I'm calling commissioner gordon" like, Bruce practically acting like you need to go to rehab

-I kinda love the drama of Bruce or Dick or Barbara or just any of the Batfam members accidentally basically ruining your social life and social reputation. You were at a house party one night and eventually pics start getting texted around of Nightwing confronting you in the yard and pulling you away and now there are rumors you're a criminal on parole. You get invited to smoke weed at a friend's and suddenly Batman is in the house and suddenly everyone's parents are there to pick up their kids as he lectures about the dangers of drugs and now absolutely NO ONE from school wants anything to do with you "because what if Batman shows up and gets us in trouble"

-I feel like, as one of those vaguely morally gray areas, that Bruce would make you take medication and get treatment for, like, really anything that needs it, but more specifically anxiety and depression and just overall psychological issues. And as a dark twist what if you aren't really naturally anxious and don't even have an anxiety disorder or anything but he puts you on pills to mellow you out because you're freaking out at him for completely valid and understandable reasons like, you know, being confined in his home against your will. "What, you aren't mad about being kidnapped and controlled and lied to, you clearly just have pre existing emotional issues that keep you from reacting properly, but don't worry I'm here to help" 🙄🙄🙄

#sometimes i put readmores if things are hella long but like the dashboard does that automatically now #yandere x reader #yandere stuff #sinprompts #yandere batman

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practically-an-x-man · 7 months ago

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Prompt, if you'd like...

"How do I get down from here?"

"Scared of heights?"

"More afraid of falling, but yeah."

Okay, I think I've got something!! I've been wanting to start writing Kate and Gia, anyway...

(I did cut out the first line of the prompt but it worked better for the scene)

____ Bird's Eye View

Content Warnings: Depiction of heights Word Count: 1.5k

____

"Kate?"

"Hm?"

"You know my balance is shit, right?" She'd tried for humor, but humor didn't work so well when her voice wavered like a leaf in the breeze.

Gia took another hesitant step forward, curling the toes of her right foot into the concrete shelf below her as if she could cling to it like a gecko. Her left foot was much less helpful. Maybe if she had some flashy tech like she saw on TV...

No. She wouldn't go there. Flashy tech made her think of HYDRA, and that made the trembling worse. She'd stick with her safe, ordinary aluminum.

"You'll be fine. It's not as hard as it looks." Kate called back to her, already ten steps ahead, "And it's worth it, I promise."

She managed another step, forcing herself not to look down. She couldn't tell which was worse: the moment where she stepped with her right foot and all her weight was briefly put on her prosthetic, where she couldn't feel the security of the concrete below her, or the way she had to shift her hips to get her other leg caught up and momentarily lost the wall at her back.

This was, in no uncertain terms, a terrible fucking idea.

Gia shuffled along, trying to urge herself just a little faster so she could catch up with Kate ahead of her. Instead, the toe of her prosthetic caught the concrete funny - she wasn't sure if that was a rough patch on the ledge or just her own lack of kinesthesia - and her balance lurched.

The ground veered and loomed below her, apartment windows glinting like the eyes of wolves seen deep in the forest. Her breath caught in her throat, and she threw her weight back hard enough that her spine slammed into the wall behind her. Her heart thundered in her ears, so fast it made her a little dizzy.

Her fingers scraped at the wall behind her, about the only thing still holding her upright. This was why she didn't leave the house. This was why she especially didn't go climbing along the skyline a hundred feet up, with only one good leg and absolutely zero climbing skills, following a woman whose principal skill was getting herself into trouble...

Gia fixed her eyes on the sky, forcing a breath through her seizing lungs. It helped a little. The sky never really changed, she thought. It always looked the same distance away. She could almost pretend she was still on the ground.

"G? You okay?"

She shook her head, still clinging to the wall with everything she had.

"Scared of heights?" Kate's voice had grown a lot closer, but Gia couldn't bring herself to pull her eyes away from the clouds above her.

"More- more afraid of falling," she stammered, having to chew the words like a tough hunk of gristle just to get them past her throat, "But yeah."

And what would happen if you did fall, hm? a voice reminded her, way off in the back of her mind, You'd scare the shit out of Kate, yeah, but the clover would put you back together. It's not like this would kill you. HYDRA tested heights, remember? Wouldn't want another one of their little projects sinking to the bottom of a river.

But it would hurt, she told that voice, I could lose another limb. And how do you know it would put me back together the right way this time?

You're right, the voice ceded, It would hurt. But you've been through worse. Really, you should be worried about Kate. She wouldn't survive a fall like that if she slipped. You would.

Gia couldn't tell if that was meant to console her or not. It only really served to make things worse. Her mind had a very bad habit of doing that.

"Gia?" Kate asked from beside her, concern wavering her voice almost as much as Gia's own, "Hey, look at me."

"I'm good here."

"It's only like ten more steps. You can do it."

"Kate. I really, really don't think I can."

That drew a sigh from her, a tangle of frustration and concern, and then she found warm fingers coaxing her death-grip off the wall. Gia's eyes finally left the clouds, though it took a Herculean effort to find Kate's face instead of the dizzying landscape around her.

"Think of it this way, right?" Kate tried, offering her a shadow of a smile, "It's ten steps if you go forward, but twenty steps to get back. So it's easier to keep going."

"But then- then we have to get back." she pointed out, "Which makes it forty steps." Gia spared a second glance at the sky, its blue gradually deepening above her. "In the dark."

"There's an easier way down," Kate promised, giving her hand a gentle squeeze, "I promise. We just can't get up that way."

"How easy?"

"It's an elevator. So... 'stand and push buttons' easy." she said, "We just can't get up that way because of the bouncer in the lobby. But he's there to stop people from getting in, not getting out."

"I think they're called security guards."

"Same thing." Kate shot back, but there was the faintest glimmer of relief in her tone. She turned her head, surveying the concrete shelf ahead of her, then looked back at Gia. "Ten more steps, G. Then we're there. You can do it. I won't let you fall."

And how would she stop you? that traitorous corner of her mind chimed in, right on schedule, Either you fall alone or you pull her down with you. Which one's worse?

Or I just don't fall, she thought back, Or I make it ten more steps and see whatever Kate has for me on the other side.

It was about the closest she could ever come to telling that little voice to shut up, but it worked well enough for her to manage a nod and another step. Kate moved along with her, keeping a loose grip on her hand and matching the glacial pace she set.

One slow, careful step. One little kip of the other leg - an almost unconscious maneuver on solid ground, but terrifying at this height - to get her prosthetic caught up. Repeat ad nauseam.

She didn't know how long it took her, but the sky had darkened another two shades by the time she reached the end of the ledge. Kate stepped down first, hopping past a railing and onto a simple balcony below her.

"You can sit down and kinda shuffle forward - that's what I did the first couple times," Kate said, looking up at her, "Or step down and I'll catch you."

Sitting down was a lot of the same process walking was, these days: simple, next to unconscious, while she was in an ordinary environment, but much more of a challenge when standing on a thin concrete shelf far too many stories in the air. It involved shifting her balance, working around the rigidity of her prosthetic and the same lack of kinesthesia from a leg that wasn't there, and it wasn't always the most graceful maneuver.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Gia stepped off the platform. Kate's hands caught her waist just as she started to feel the pull of gravity, and then her feet were on the balcony below. Kate held on for an extra moment or two, making sure she was steady (though how could she be steady with a beautiful woman barely a foot away?) then released her with a quick step back.

"And we're here." she said, waving a hand at the balcony around them, "You did it."

Gia took a look around, simultaneously trying to will her heart to slow down. The balcony was both upscale and strangely desolate, like it was the penthouse of a millionaire who'd died before he could move in. There was a hot tub built into the far corner, or the bone-dry husk of what looked like a hot tub, but no other furniture in sight. The glass door into the building was broken, patched with duct tape and a black trash bag.

"We didn't just break into somebody's apartment, did we?"

"Nah, this place has been abandoned for like two years," Kate replied, utterly casual as she draped her arms over the balcony railing, "Don't know why they'd give up a view like that, though."

It was a spectacular view. Almost worth the terror of getting up here- almost. The sun had begun its descent below the horizon, wreathed in the silhouettes of skyscrapers and painting the sky in swathes of coral and gold. Far below, Gia could see cars and people bustling along - the view that had been so terrifying minutes before was now close to enrapturing, now that she had a railing to hold onto.

"What do you think?" Kate asked, with a not-so-subtle slide up to her side, "Worth it?"

"Worth it." Gia agreed, and summoned up the last few threads of her courage to lean her head onto Kate's shoulder. That, if not the view itself, made the whole struggle worth it. Mostly. "But don't make me do that again."

#my friends!!!#answered asks #my writing #my ocs #gia pantazis #oneshot #shortfic #tw heights #oc x canon #kate bishop

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the-killer-kirby · 2 years ago

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Algo asi. 🤣

#Trolls #Mike Mitchell #Walt Dohm #DreamWorks Animation #20th Century Fox #Universal Pictures #Bridget #Lady Brillantina #Annie Rojas #Principe Gristle #Emilio Treviño

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dustedmagazine · 3 years ago

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Invultation — Unconquerable Death (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Unconquerable Death by Invultation

The phrase “Unconquerable Death” may be just a little bit on the nose for a death metal band, but as a title for a song (and the record it’s on), it fits the music of Invultation. On cursory listening, the Ohio-based, one-man project makes (spoiled) meat-and-(blighted) potatoes Metal ov Death, distributed in thick and burly, three-to-four-minute chunks. And “chunks” is definitely the right word: you can just about feel the bone-grinding, muscle-chopping intent of songs like “Insatiable Cruelty” and “Cathedral of Impaled.” Nuthin fancy, just old-school, aggro blasts and guitars down-tuned enough to make the riffs slap your cheeks with palpable menace. Grim, grotty and tough. Unconquerable death, indeed.

Repeated spins of the record won’t reveal anything like philosophical depth. But there is an artistic interest to Unconquerable Death, for listeners engaged with death metal as a genre. The music sounds great — unpleasant and loud enough to powder molars but great. A lot of recent death metal this grounded (buried, really) in the music’s horrid sonic traditions has gravitated toward production that actively participates in the ugliness; see some excellent releases from Fossilization, Exsul and Antediluvian. Thick and cavernous, all. Crisp, slick-sounding death metal tends to be encountered on the proggy end of the continuum, or on big-budget records by established and Official-culture-endorsed acts. Luckily Unconquerable Death isn’t anywhere near that polished and refined. But given the band’s small scale and decidedly underground profile, it’s clear that a lot of effort has been expended on making the songs sound clear and resonant.

N.B., that’s underground death metal’s version of “clear” and “resonant.” What’s principally effective about Invultation’s new record is its ability to sound rich and unclouded while retaining the genre’s requisite celebrations of gristle and undifferentiated abdominal goo. Somehow the relatively clear properties of Invultation’s music intensify its alarming, perturbing qualities. Sort of like the unmistakable quality of David Cronenberg’s cinema when things take their inevitably foul and appalling turn: you know there’s any number of filtering and lighting tricks at work, but the melting, suppurating or otherwise violated forms reveal themselves with the immediacy of raw experience. Raw? Maybe seared and medium rare, and as Invultation asserts, “All Flesh Falls into Dust.” Listening to Unconquerable Death will certainly burn away a few layers of skin. Use at your own risk.

Jonathan Shaw

#invultation #unconquerable death #sentient ruin laboratories #jonathan shaw #albumreview #dusted magazine #metal #death metal

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physiotherapyathomeinkolkata · 4 years ago

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Is it Safe to Squat Deep? By the Best Physiotherapist in Kolkata

There aren’t several topics that divide physios quite squat depth and its relationship with injury. During this post I would like to give an Associate in Nursing evidence-based perspective on this subject for you. I’ve set out to separate it up by trying to understand the impact of squat depth on the areas of the body that individuals unremarkably complain about throughout squats according to the best physiotherapist in kolkata.

KNEE:

Squatting past ninety degrees is dangerous for your knees right?? For the big majority of individuals, this is often utterly false said by the best physiotherapist in kolkata. Forces on the ACL really peak at partial squat depths so cut back as squat depth will increase and compressive forces increase to scale back shear force on the ACL.

But what concerning the gristle and also the patellofemoral joint (joint between your knee cap and your femur)? whereas compressive forces on the gristle and PFJ increase as depth will increase, if you don’t have any previous injury to those structures there's no proof that squatting deep can cause injury to those structures.

However, if you are having a meniscal tear or PFJ pain, it's a wise plan to limit your depth to painless ranges, and most of the time this can be higher than parallel (at least initially). If you've had problems with these structures within the past however area unit painless currently, i'd merely progress towards deep squatting however listen closely to your body and check out conveyance the depth keep a copy if knee pain develops, and see if that helps.

What concerning those folks with sesamoid bone connective tissue issues? As squat depth will increase, the compressive load on the sesamoid bone connective tissue additionally will increase. This could definitely worsen the connective tissue, thus it's worth modifying squat depth for a definite amount of your time, whereas finishing your rehab exercises if you've got sesamoid bone tendinopathy.

However, whereas finishing this rehab, exercises like box squats, low bar back squats, and reverse lunges will give a lot of of a similar advantages of gymnastic apparatus back squatting with way less anterior knee stress as they shift a lot of the employment to the hips. provide them a go and see however they feel. may be an excellent thanks to maintain your squat strength whereas giving your tendons a touch of a prospect.

HIP (femoroacetabular impingement):

Ever felt a pinching sensation deep in your hip at the lowest of your squat? this is {often|This can be} often because of impingement between the bony surfaces within the hip. And this impingement usually becomes worse the deeper the squat. If this is often you, then it's going to be value conveyance the depth up a touch bit and dealing among your painless vary till you've got resolved the cause.

FAI may be cause by structural abnormalities within the hip (in that case there's very little you'll be able to do), suboptimal stance dimension and foot turnout for your hip structure (experiment with completely different widths and foot turnouts however typically a rather wider stance and a touch a lot of foot turnout will work wonders for this), or problems with gluteus activation (the glutes will facilitate to tug the limb head posteriorly to scale back the impingement).

I'd additionally suggest folks with FAI strive front squatting for a touch whereas, as there's less probability of impingement because of the reduced quantity of hip flexion that happens throughout this exercise.

LOW BACK:

Ever racked the bar when squats Associate in Nursing felt an ache across your low back, or had low back pain for hours/days when squatting? It’s attainable that you simply might have squatted too deep and irritated the discs in your body part spine.

Once the pelvis posteriorly girdle tilts (tips back) at the lowest of the squat as you run out of hip flexion vary, this is often normally mentioned as ‘buttwink’. currently whereas this could sound uproarious, it's related to body part flexion (lower back rounding), which may place the discs underneath undue stress if the buttwink is excessive and hundreds area unit high.

This is often why I like to recommend squatting to the purpose when a alittle quantity of buttwink happens, and not pushing any longer. To delay the purpose at that buttwink happens, i like to recommend functioning on your ankle joint and hip quality as this is often doubtless the foremost common reason behind early onset buttwink.

Wait a second, however will your ankle joint have an effect on your girdle tilt?? Let American state justify – if you run out of place your ankle joint once squatting, your body may need to realize movement from encompassing joints to achieve the required squat depth. thus ankles run out of vary > hip has to give a lot of vary > hip runs out of vary > girdle posteriorly girdle tilts to make a lot of hip flexion vary > body part spine flexes > probably problematic issue underneath high hundreds.

Therefore, if your knee to wall (measure of ankle joint vary of movement) is a smaller amount than 10cm on either leg, take care to figure on your ankle joint quality to permit yourself to squat deeper before the buttwink happens.

TAKE-AWAYS:

Optimal squat depth for injury prevention/management is extremely dependent upon your individual quality and injury history. A depth that's applicable for one person might not be for one more, thus DON’T APPLY BLANKET RULES TO everybody,it is suggested by the best physiotherapist in kolkata.

If you're injury free, squat to a depth wherever you'll be able to maintain a minimum of a principally neutral girdle position (i.e. enable alittle quantity of buttwink, however not too much). If the buttwink happens well before your thighs area unit parallel to the ground, work on your ankle joint and hip quality to assist reach this depth, as there are some advantages to squatting this low over partial squatting.

#Best Physiotherapy Services in Kolkata #Best Physiotherapist in Kolkata #Best physiotherapy centre in kolkata #Top certified physiotherapist in kolkata #Physiotherapy at Home in Kolkata

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felinevomitus · 7 years ago

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Bites: Neutral Disintegration Loops

Swedish duo Neutral dig repetition with their reel-to-reel version of blasted psychedelia. Photograph by Erik Gustafsson.

In 1843, Søren Kierkegaard published Repetition, an essay on experimental psychology that argued for the importance of recurrent actions and events. The essay opens with the Danish philosopher stating that “repetition and recollection are the same movement, only in opposite directions”, but that, unlike recollection, which is symbolised by an ill-fitting garment from your youth, repetition is reality itself. Repetition is an imperishable garment: not too tight, nor too loose; serious and life-affirming. He who masters repetition, suggests Kierkegaard, is not only courageous and “matured in seriousness”, but also en route to pure happiness.

Neutral, the Swedish noise duo composed of Sofie Herner and Dan Johansson, occupy the no man’s land between Kierkegaard’s existentialist polarities of repetition and recollection. Their work employs a reel-to-reel tape machine as the principal recording medium. The sonic characteristics of tape, for better or worse, are closely associated with notions of nostalgia, longing and domesticity. The sounds that Neutral commits to this tape, however, are layered and repetitive, sometimes looping until the tape disintegrates. They pull the listener into a constructive psychological space that avoids navel-gazing, but doesn’t dispense with existentialism altogether.

This idea is most evident on Neutral’s eponymous second LP, which has themes of repetition and return running throughout. Released in 2016 by Omlott, the Gothenburg-based free jazz and improvised music label, Neutral contrasts repetitive bursts of guitar noise, organ and industrial rhythms - what Johansson refers to as “deep listening difficult music“ - with esoteric field recordings and Herner’s hushed confessional vocals.

Taking into consideration the staunchy Sterling Morrison-like guitar weaving its way through Andas, the album’s first track, you could be forgiven for thinking that Neutral were attempting to resurrect the heady days of late-’60s psychedelia.

“It’s interesting that you hear it that way,” Herner tells me over Skype. “When I record more song-like stuff, sometimes it sounds like something I like. It just happens that way, but it’s not intentional.” Neutral’s influences are a combination of no wave, post-punk, Harry Pussy-style noise rock and Swedish electroacoustic music by composers such as Rune Lindblad, but elements of Kluster, Harmonia and Throbbing Gristle can also be said to exist in the mix.

Herner and Johansson met in Gothenburg in 2007. Together with a mutual friend, Matthias Andersson, they formed Källarbarnen, before releasing an untitled cassette on the Gothenburg Blood Cult label two years later. The thirty minute composition is duplicated on both sides of the tape, an early experiment in which the repetition of form mirrors the repetitive nature of the music. Although Källarbarnen produced only one release as a trio, the band’s members would continue to collaborate on various projects, including Enhet För Fri Musik, Heinz Hopf, Leda and Sewer Election.

In 2008, Johansson and Andersson founded Utmarken: a hybrid venue, rehearsal space and record shop housed in a former car repair garage. Utmarken served as the bedrock in which ideas for Neutral took root, being Herner and Johansson’s main hangout, but it wasn’t until late 2013 that the band made its first recordings. The result was the Neutral’s debut, Grå Våg Gamlestaden, a noise music ode to an area of Gothenburg where both Herner and Johansson lived at the time.

“When we record, we can do anything,” says Herner. “We have a very instinctive way of working. We don't discuss concepts in too much depth. I have very clear conceptual ideas for all of our recordings, but since I don't explain my ideas to Dan, he will work with the sounds and voice from his perspective. It's a good way of making sure that we use what is good, instead of stuff that fits the concept, but doesn't sound very good.”

Unlike traditional bands, Neutral do not use drums (save for a single track, A-B-C, which appears on their untitled 7” single, released by I Dischi Del Barone in 2017), rehearse or record their material in the same room. Even prior to Herner’s relocation to Malmö, in the autumn of 2014, the duo recorded independently. Ideas would be sketched out onto reel-to-reel tape, or audio cassette, added to, looped and amended before being mixed down digitally. “I only have basic computer skills, when it comes to music,” admits Johansson during our interview. “And we’ve been working with the analogue format for so long. [Tape] catches the atmosphere of the aesthetics that we aim for. We are not really interested in going into a studio.”

The sense of intimacy that seems essential to Herner and Johansson’s working relationship is apparent on all of Neutral’s recordings, but really comes to the foreground on their latest 12”, När. Released by Omlott last October, songs on this 8-track mini album, were crafted in Herner and Johansson’s home studios, in between one-off shows in the US, Belgium and a micro tour with Lydia Lunch.

Neutral prepared foundation recordings before taking the songs on the road. “We used to bring a reel-to-reel to our gigs, but we stopped out of convenience.” says Johansson. “The foundation [recordings] are put on another device that doesn't weigh a ton.” Neutral then developed the compositions by layering improvised guitar feedback over the recordings, a technique that allows for deviation, but keeps the music firmly grounded.

Herner and Johansson have also collaborated in the guise of their respective solo projects, Leda and Sewer Election, most notably for the Maar LP. Commissioned by the Belgian B.A.A.D.M. label, and released in 2015, the record attempts to soundtrack a still photograph with two twenty-minute compositions. The image, which also adorns the record sleeve, shows a writhing dog fossilised in Vesuvian ash. The dog’s eternal pose, and apparent discomfort in the face of the inevitable, brings to mind the ouroboros: an ancient symbol depicting a serpent eating its own tail. By way of its repetitive nature, Neutral’s music echoes this emblem of destruction and creation. It also suggests that, unlike the brittle and unfortunate canine, Neutral’s reality is solid and imperishable. ⏭ Neutral’s När is released by Omlott.

Originally published by The Wire, March 2018 Ilia Rogatchevski

#erik gustafsson #the wire magazine #neutral #band #sweden #noise music #reel-to-reel #interview #bites #gothenburg

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gabi-trollastic · 3 years ago

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*They nodded Pearl placed it on her hands making her smiled, she walked to principal gates, she turn back seeing all her dear family and friends giving her sweet warm smiles, Gristle gave her thumbs up making her smiled them back and watched the gates again, she remembered when she got her gift when she touched doorknob, she took deep breath and placed the doorknob in their place.*

Magic House(Encanto Au)

Narrator:”Ouce upon a time long ago, a man and woman fell in love and had three beautiful daughters, but a terrible fate separated the husband and wife leading to the woman fleeing for her and their children’s lives far from her home.”

#magic house

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lebouffondelataverne-blog · 7 years ago

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SAMEDI 24 MARS 2018

JAD WIO (CH) Extravagance and Metamorphoses, Artifice and Mirror Play, Sex and Rock and Roll.

http://www.jadwio.fr

Extravagance et métamorphoses, artifice et jeux de miroirs, sexe et rock and roll : voilà trois décennies que Jad Wio, loin des chapelles et des cénacles, dessine une trajectoire d’OVNI dans le ciel du rock and roll hexagonal. De disques mémorables en performances scéniques spectaculaires, l’étrange, charismatique et très élégant Denis Bortek n’a jamais suivi d’autre voie que celle-là : scruter à travers le prisme du bizarre la galerie de ses avatars afin de les mieux dévoiler. Des origines à aujourd’hui, bref survol de l’histoire de Jad Wio. * « Notre esthétique est glamour, stonienne. Nous sommes des enfants qui avons hérité de l’élégance et de la fantaisie héroïque du glam rock. Quand il est question d’inventer sa vie pour en faire quelque chose qui échappe à la règle des conformismes : une œuvre personnelle excentrique. » – Denis Bortek * Bortek invente Jad Wio à l’aube des eighties. D’un projet de roman il retient le personnage principal – Jad Wiolensky – dont il abrège le nom et revêt le masque. Une première cassette autoproduite en solo, L’un Seul, est distribuée avant que le groupe ne trouve son équilibre avec l’entrée en lice de Kbye : Jad Wio sera une hydre à deux têtes. Dès les premiers concerts – 1983, 1984 : guitares, voix, bandes et machines – le duo décadent frenchy impose son style peu commun et ameute hordes batcave et oiseaux électriques en tout genre. Obsession pour le bizarre et pour les marges : d’emblée, Jad Wio est un groupe inclassable. * Entre 1985 et 1986 sortent trois maxis – The Ballad Of Candy Valentine, Colours In My Dreams et Aubade A Simbad – que l’on trouve réunis sur Cellar Dreams, anthologie de Jad Wio première époque. S’y mêlent, dans les relents cold & dark d’alors, fascinations rock and roll et réminiscences orientales. Sans relâche, Jad Wio s’exhibe sur toutes les scènes de France et – à l’étroit dans l’hexagone, le groupe chante essentiellement en anglais – à travers toute l’Europe. Des expériences qui inspirent les ambiances et le thème du disque à venir : Contact. * Celui-ci paraît en 1989, sous une pochette d’après un photomontage de Pierre Molinier. Premier véritable album, il donne à Jad Wio ses lettres – SM – de noblesse. C’est une virée dans un demi-monde interlope que Bortek et Kbye orchestrent en une grande mêlée où se rencontrent fétichisme, bondage et sexe équivoque. Avec, cette fois, des textes en français. Contact est un manifeste pervers et délicieux fidèle à ces trois principes : sexe, rock and roll et sens de l’esthétique. Le duo se mue en groupe à part entière pour porter sur scène les thèmes salaces du disque : avec Nicolas Mingot d’abord puis Alice Botté à la guitare, Gangster à la basse et Charlie Doll à la batterie. Jad Wio promène partout son peep-show hot et sexy et marque sérieusement les esprits. Au point qu’aujourd’hui encore, l’estampille sado-masochiste colle à la peau du groupe. * Pourtant, dès 1992, l’esthétique SM cède le pas à une rêverie cosmique et romantique aux accents swedenborgiens : c’est Fleur de Métal, réalisé sous la houlette électro-pop et délicate de Bertrand Burgalat. On pénètre dans ce disque comme en un boudoir de science-fiction dans lequel nous est contée – en français, toujours, et à mots très choisis – la quête interstellaire d’une chimère de l’espace, d’un amour idéal. Bortek crée pour la tournée un spectacle total, exubérant et plein d’audace où intimisme, narcissisme, onirisme, exhibitionnisme et transformisme règnent en maîtres : soutenu par ses acolytes costumés et perruqués façon Warhol – Christophe Kbye, Alice Botté et les nouveaux venus Arnaud Dieterlen à la batterie et Serge Cortin à la basse – il incarne son Beatnik de l’Espace en digne héritier des sex stars du glam rock. Des backrooms terrestres aux bordels de l’espace, il n’y a pas loin : les concerts et leur débauche d’artifices sont là pour le rappeler. Un album live, Cosmic Show, témoigne du succès de l’entreprise... mais sans Kbye, qui quitte le groupe fin 1992. * 1995 voit surgir Monstre-toi, troisième volet du triptyque initié avec Contact. Bortek y développe un de ses thèmes fétiches : les freaks. Dans sa galerie des horreurs très personnelle, vampires, zombies et morts vivants mènent une danse où se mêlent sensibilités anglo-saxonnes et continentales, où les travestis, déviants et monstres divers du Berlin décadent de Weimar croisent ceux du rock électrique, ambigu et outrageux. C’est Le Baron – homme-orchestre mystérieux et nouvel alter-ego de Bortek – qui compose et arrange la bande-son de ce bal des monstres. Des shows fantasques et théâtraux mettent en scène le cauchemar, entre Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Alice Cooper et Rocky Horror Picture Show. * Trop d’extravagance à l’échelle de la France ? En 1996, Jad Wio fait partie ici des derniers tenants d’une esthétique glamour et raffinée que les foules hexagonales ne semblent pas encore prêtes à admettre. Le temps est venu pour Bortek de mettre en sommeil l’aventure jadwiesque. Hormis quelques shows à tendance électro en 2001, avec Christophe Schwob aux machines, Jad Wio s’efface. Jusqu’au printemps 2004 : deux shows inespérés – et sold out – à la Boule Noire scellent les retrouvailles et démontrent que le groupe n’a pas disparu des mémoires. La machine est remise en branle. * En 2005, l’album Nu Cle Air Pop est dans les bacs. Une jouvence merveilleuse qui voit le retour de Christophe Kbye, et celui du duo original sur scène pour une tournée française au printemps 2006. Le périple tient le pari de combler les fidèles et de subjuguer nombre de novices. Les énergies réveillées et l’envie d’en découdre conduisent alors naturellement Bortek et Kbye à l’écriture et l’enregistrement de nouvelles chansons, exclusivement en français. * Sex Magik est publié en 2007 : un écrin de pur rock and roll qui passe en revue la mythologie jadwiesque et décline en treize titres, à la façon d’un roman noir, la véritable histoire de Lilith Von Sirius, égérie underground et courtisane de luxe. Une nouvelle page de l’histoire de Jad Wio s’écrit alors, qui confirme la profonde singularité du duo Bortek-Kbye, obstinément en marge des tendances. Les concerts – en groupe ou à deux – sont à la mesure des promesses du disque et partout battent le rappel des aficionados. Jusqu’en 2009, où Jad Wio se produit à la Maison des Métallos le temps deux concerts à guichets fermés, concerts en forme de rétrospective qui laissent penser que le groupe tire sa révérence... * De fait, de 2010 à 2014, Denis Bortek se consacre à son nouveau projet, Mr. D & the Fangs. Mais en 2015, puis 2016, le monstre Jad Wio se réveille, pour des concerts qui font la part belle au répertoire historique. Tantôt accompagnés par les Fangs, tantôt à deux, comme au début de l’aventure, Bortek et Kbye demeurent, envers et contre tout, fidèles à leur légende. P R E SSE « Jad Wio reste l’un de nos plus fameux contre-exemples du retard musical tricolore. Ils ont de la classe et la culture idoine, le sens de la pose donc, du goût et du culot dans les mots. Bizarre et rare ! » – Patrick Scarzello « On peut saluer la constance d’une inspiration et d’un parti pris esthétique qui n’ont pas d’équivalent dans le rock hexagonal. » – Les Inrocks « Bortek s’impose en tant que poète de plus en plus inspiré, et grand excentrique de la chanson d’ici qui veut croire que tout n’est pas musicalement perdu. De l’espoir pour la soif. » – Rock & Folk « Au fil des ans, le cabaret fétichiste électro-glam-psycho-érotique de Jad Wio s’est fait une place à part dans le rock français. » « Jad Wio, l’un des duos les plus décalés de la scène hexagonale. » « La voix nerveuse rappellerait un Marc Bolan en visite chez les vampires ou un euphorisants, mais Bortek est aussi et surtout un compositeur. » – Télérama – Elegy Gainsbarre sous – X Roads « Bortek, chaînon manquant entre les brûlures punk-indus de Throbbing Gristle et les visions novö d’Yves Adrien. » – A Nous Paris

Concert 21:30, 16.-

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v66mx · 7 years ago

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Carter Tutti y el fenómeno de la sonoluminiscencia

Chris Carter y Cosey Fanny Tutti, dejando de lado su mítico legado para la música industrial que comenzara con Throbbing Gristle, son dos figuras trascendentales para el desarrollo de la música electrónica y la cultura ahora extinta del underground artístico, esta pareja desde hace más de 40 años no ha cesado de producir y experimentar; Chris & Cosey, Carter Tutti Void y CTI son sus tres proyectos que los mantienen activos, además de las múltiples colaboraciones con músicos y artistas de otras ramas.

Recientemente Cosey lanzó a la venta su libro de memorias “ART SEX MUSIC”, donde el tema principal al parecer son las diferencias con Genesis P-Orridge, por su parte Chris se mantiene ocupado con experimentaciones sonoras creadas por encargo de varios institutos de investigación tecnológica.

Uno de sus colaboraciones más interesantes como Carter Tutti fue para el proyecto “Camera Lucida” una instalación audiovisual que funciona como un observatorio sónico tridimensional, creada por los artistas visuales Evelina Domnitch y Dmitry Gelfand.

¿Cómo funciona?

Es una cámara transparente llena de ácido sulfúrico infundido con xenón donde las ondas sonoras se transforman en emisiones de luz debido a un fenómeno conocido como sonoluminiscencia; el ultrasonido que se propaga dentro de un líquido, desencadena la formación e implosión de microburbujas que alcanzan temperaturas tan altas como las que se encuentran en el sol, y emiten luz en forma de ondas sonoras.

Camera Lucida fue lanzado en DVD en 2007, y el tracklist cuenta con reconocidos nombres del universo musical.

TAYLOR DEUPREE + RICHARD CHARTIER – specification.sixteen ALVA NOTO – sonolumi (for camera lucida) EVELINA DOMNITCH + DMITRY GELFAND – xenon wind ALEXANDER KALINE – analyzing turbulence ASMUS TIETCHENS – camera lucida KENNETH KIRSCHNER – august 19, 2006 MATMOS – photisms COH – not sweet without honey

Disfruta la pieza “The Noise of Chance” creada por Carter Tutti aquí.

vimeo

#Art Syndicate #V66 #Carter Tutti #Tecnología #video art

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trevorbarre · 5 years ago

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Thomas Leer and Robert Rental and the Origins of Electro-Punk

My own mental algorithms bear me inexorably back to the modest, yet important, work of two of the pioneers of DIY electronic post-punk, Glaswegians Thomas Leer and the late (died 2000, of lung cancer) Robert Rental (Robert Donnachie). These founding fathers moved to London at the height of punk, their leather jackets in full evidence, and hauled their cassette machines, effects pedals, guitars and electric bass and primitive synthesisers into their north London bedsits, and produced some of the most memorable music from that most memorable of periods (1978-80). It is said that Rental introduced both Chris Carter and Whitehouse’s William Bennett to the EDP synthesiser. He met Daniel Miller (The Normal at that time) at a Throbbing Gristle gig, which kick-started another connection - Rental went on to make a mini-album with Miller (on Rough Trade) and a single on the latter’s newly-formed Mute Records, both in 1980. He and Leer released the joint album The Bridge in 1979 on the Gristle’s Industrial Records (IR0007). It was a very close-knit scene,

Leer made Private Plane/International and Rental created Paralysis/ACC in 1978, and both were era-defining, in that they were completely independently produced in small amounts (Private Plane emerged in a batch of 650), with self-designed, photocopied and hand-stamped sleeves, and on their own, twinned labels. Leer had Oblique Records and Rental had Regular Records (a parallel to Frank Zappa and Herb Cohen’s ‘opposition’ of Bizarre and Straight Records in the late 60s perhaps?). At the time, these felt like genuine messages from the front line, a combination of ‘regular’ punk, through distorted ‘normal’ instruments and the more ‘oblique’ sounds of cheap (ish) analogue keyboards, which, particularly in Rental’s case, made for a cut-up Burroughs-ian sound field (William S, being the key literary influence, along with Ballard, of experimental post-punk.) Like the other members of the ’canonical six’, these sharp shocks to the system were, at least initially, also very short, and delivered in vinyl-single form. They both remain utterly of their time and yet timeless at the same ‘time’.

The unforgettably-titled Robert Rental and The Normal Live at West Runton Pavilion remains my personal favourite product of these brief moments of artistic collaboration, a one-sided, 25 minute ‘electro-punk symphony in six parts’ (my title) and sounds like a partly-written, mostly-improvised juggernaut of analogue keyboard mischief and mayhem. The background audience noise is priceless as an aural enhancer to the whole experience. The Bridge stays closer to the ‘punk’ side, rather than the ‘post’’, and is a curate’s egg, but does feature the opening two onslaughts, the brattish Attack/Decay and Monochrome Day, which gave the Cabaret Voltaire of Nag, Nag, Nag and Silent Command a run for their money, We had to wait for nigh-on a mere forty years, for the eventual release of early Leer tracks on 2017′s 1979, to hear the cousins of these electronic-thrash numbers, on numbers like Semi-Detatched Suicide. It was an absolute delight to finally hear this hardly-rushed release. Crouch End (a tribute to the north London patch where his early material was made), on the other hand, sounds more like Boards of Canada. Leer might have garnered more kudos if this stuff had been released when it should have been?

Leer went on to become a minor electro-pop figure in the 1980′s (but was soon dwarfed by the likes of Soft Cell, Depeche Mode and The Human League) and even attained the upper reaches of the (indie) charts with All About You (number 11) and the double 12-inch mini-LP, Contradictions (number 8), both in 1982, and he’s still musically active and hopefully well, at the age of 66. But he and Robert Rental will be surely best remembered principally for their innovative role in the first couple of years of post-punk, at the inception of a genuine ‘movement’ (as opposed to stand-alone’s) which genuinely popularised electronic music.

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amstrupthomassen6-blog · 6 years ago

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Whenever you employ a plumbing service, it might price lots of money for a very simple maintenance that one could did yourself with a bit of basic plumbing understanding. Don't squander cash on skilled plumbers once again! Please read on for a few recommendations on resolving your own plumbing related problems with equipment you might have at home. When selecting a plumber make sure he is covered with insurance and registered. This is extremely crucial. If you have a pipes emergency, you would like to ensure the plumbing service has achieved the training specifications of the status. If he is covered by insurance, this addresses any unintended damage carried out whilst repairing your plumbing related. Don't forget to get in touch with an experienced. Don't handle tasks to economize, in the event you aren't sure the way to fix them. Calling a professional plumbing service saves you dollars, the knowledge and know-how do resolve your issue earlier together with much less hassle. 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ezatluba · 6 years ago

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The Humanification of Pet Food Is Nearly Complete

Jerky, cookies, cheesy toppings—animals’ meals are out of the can and into the uncanny valley.

JOE PINSKER

OCT 26, 2018

To succinctly capture the strangeness of how Americans feed their house pets in the year 2018, there are perhaps no better five words than pumpkin-spice lattes for dogs. If there’s room to use a few more qualifiers, then non-GMO, American-made goat’s-milk pumpkin-spice lattes for dogs would probably be more evocative.

That is a real product, sold by a real company—“Just add warm water!” the label says—and it would not feel too out of place on the shelves of many pet-food aisles, where these days one is almost just as likely to encounter labels boasting “grass-fed beef” and “high-protein” recipes as anywhere else in the store.

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As these aisles indicate, pet food—particularly high-end pet food—is edging ever closer to human food, and the overlaps between the two categories can be uncanny. “People are putting whole berries in there, whole cranberries, whole blueberries,” says Don Tomala, the president of Matrix Partners, a pet-products branding firm. “They’re putting kelp in there, they’re putting turmeric in there, they’re putting apple-cider vinegar in there … These are all trends within the human-food side.”

Tomala, who helped launch the dog food Kibbles ’n Bits in the early 1980s, remembers that back then, “it was food for your dog—that was about as far as it went.” Ingredients weren’t fussed over, and the packaging was playful; he remembers cartoonish labels, say, with “a bubble-faced dog on it smiling.” That wouldn’t fly today. Tomala says packages now are more likely to display “a serious-looking dog … It looks nutritious and healthy—it looks like something I’d buy at Whole Foods.”

This transformation of pet food reflects a broader trend, in which people go to ever-greater lengths to address the human needs they project onto their pets, almost as if the animals were their children. Some Americans buy silicone testicular implants so that their pet might “retain its natural look and self-esteem” after being neutered, or make provisions in their wills for their horses; a friend recently told me that she discovered, when picking up a new prescription, that she and her dog had been put on the same anxiety medication.

Marketers often attribute the treatment of pets as little humans in part to Millennials waiting longer to have children, which frees them up to channel their energies toward their “fur babies,” a term people sometimes (unfortunately) use for their pets. With that in mind, it makes sense that some people would want to buy the finest foods for their animals. Another factor behind the rise of high-quality pet food is the increased concern many shoppers have about the environmental and social impact of all sorts of consumer goods.

“One of the main things that we’ve seen in the past five-plus years is that the parents, the shoppers, of the pets, they’re looking at pet food in the very same way they’re looking at the food they buy for themselves,” says Steve Rogers, a principal consultant at the firm Clarkston Consulting who advises large food and beverage companies, many of which have pet-food divisions. Non-GMO, gluten-free, no preservatives—these are what many consumers are after, and, Rogers says, “any trend that you almost see in consumer purchases or consumer food, pet food is basically a lagging indicator.”

These trends, of course, do not apply to the entire pet-food market, but they do apply to a significant, fast-growing chunk of it. Based on market research and conversations with clients, Rogers estimates that about half of pet owners could be potential buyers of these more expensive, ethically sourced, and organic varieties. And Tomala says there’s plenty of demand for regular old dog food, but “it just isn’t what’s driving the pet industry as much—the growth is coming from higher-end products,” the ones that cost twice as much, or more, per pound. Indeed, Americans’ spending on pet food has increased from $18 billion in 2009 to $30 billion in 2017, which far outpaces the rate at which pet ownership rose during that period. In other words, people are spending more on food per pet than they did a decade ago.

One company that has benefited from this increase is the Honest Kitchen, a San Diego–based firm founded in 2002 that makes the aforementioned pumpkin-spice lattes for dogs as well as a range of other “human-grade” pet foods. “That just means the ingredients are from the human food chain and are manufactured inside a human food facility and follows all of human food regulations,” as opposed to the regulations for pet food at the state and federal levels, explained Carmen Velasquez, the company’s marketing director. The Honest Kitchen makes dehydrated products, which, with the addition of warm water, achieve “almost like an oatmeal consistency. You can still see cranberries, pieces of apple, little banana chips,” Velasquez says.

“We definitely pull inspiration from the human food chain,” she told me, citing her company’s “instant bone broth” and “seasonal instant eggnog.” It also sells beef jerky for dogs. Mike Steck, the company’s chief marketing officer, who was also on the phone, said, “We have to be careful. Part of what we have to do with the brand is make sure that it can never be confused as human food.”

Read: Why is buying pet food so hard?

Dana Brooks, the president of the Pet Food Institute, a trade group representing pet-food makers, has taken note of the humanification of pet food as well. “We’re trending more into the space of having our pet food look a little more like our food,” she said.

She mentioned a company called Freshpet, which in its own words makes “real pet food, fresh from the fridge.” In explaining the appeal of “real” food, Brooks said, “Maybe you can provide your pet something that looks similar so you feel like you’re sharing your meal with your pet.” She told me about a recent visit she’d made to a Freshpet facility: “I mean, I was hungry when I was touring it—it smelled like hamburgers and roasted chicken and beef stew.”

The history of pet food as a consumer good has not always been so appetizing, as Katherine C. Grier, a historian at the University of Delaware and the author of Pets in America: A History, told me. Grier walked me through pet food’s past, starting in the mid-1800s, when housewives would cook a separate “dog stew” that consisted of leftover meat, bones, gristle, or vegetables mixed into potatoes or rice or cornmeal. The first consumer pet food, Grier said, hit the American market in the 1870s: A British company, Spratt’s Patent Ltd., sold biscuits that claimed to improve the performance of hunting dogs and show dogs.

Over the years, Spratt’s and other companies started selling to more casual dog owners, but what really launched dog food into the mainstream was canned food, which started appearing on shelves around the 1910s. The first canned food was made up entirely of horsemeat—something that humans generally wouldn’t eat but that was left over after worn-out workhorses were killed and turned into soap, fertilizer, or other products. Some meatpacking companies, following the success of horsemeat pet food, realized they could package their own unused animal bits and started entering the market as well.

The Great Depression, ironically, is when canned food started to really catch on. In tight times, households scaled back their meat purchases, which often meant less in the way of leftovers for the family pet. So households started turning to canned food, which allowed them to keep feeding their pets protein more cheaply. Human-quality meat was also hard to come by during World War II, and according to Grier, after the war was over, pet food got its own aisle in the supermarket.

This was the beginning of the pet-food market that today’s cat and dog owners would recognize. While the food was generally nutritionally adequate, it was still kind of gross; horsemeat still made it into cans for decades after the war, but disappeared over time. Even today, pet food can include, in the words of the independent organization that helps establish industry standards, chickens’ “heads, feet, [and] viscera.”

When I referred to some pet-food ingredients as “unsavory” in my conversation with Brooks of the Pet Food Institute, she said, “The only thing I would caution is when you hear ‘unsavory,’ it may be unsavory to you as a human consumer … [but] also provide the minerals and some of the vitamins that pets need.” There are animal parts, she noted, that many Americans prefer not to consume, but are “considered delicacies in other countries.”

American pet owners’ ambivalence about these ingredients is part of what high-end food manufacturers are responding to. They are also catering to the pet owners who worry about contaminated food and (probably too much)about grain allergies.

But the sorts of products that some of them are buying—see: jerky—seem unlikely to address health concerns, and blur the line between human and pet indulgences. The concept of that line is something I talked about with Molly Mullin, an anthropologist who lectures at North Carolina State University and studies human-animal relationships. “These categories, people have to, to a certain extent, make them up as they go along,” she says. “People are always revisiting them and thinking about them and playing with them.”

Food is just one category that’s getting played with. And that’s probably a good thing: As upscale pet foods become more environmentally friendly and more ethically sourced, those trends can trickle down into the mainstream market as well and shape the way more American pets are fed.

Still, the contribution to the greater good seems modest, given that the majority of pet food is ultimately just the feeding of some animals to others—not to mention that some people pay to pamper their pets while other people go hungry. And besides, who can tell how much a pet actually likes human-grade bone broth? Humans are not always good at reading dogs’ emotions—the canine expression that humans interpret as a smile actually can indicate fear or worry. For the most part, pet food isn’t getting more human-like so that pets can feel better—it’s so humans can.

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mysteryshelf · 7 years ago

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BLOG TOUR - Bones to Pick

Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Partners in Crime Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

Bones To Pick

by Linda Lovely

on Tour October 16 – December 16, 2017

Synopsis:

Living on a farm with four hundred goats and a cantankerous carnivore isn’t among vegan chef Brie Hooker’s list of lifetime ambitions. But she can’t walk away from her Aunt Eva, who needs help operating her dairy.

Once she calls her aunt’s goat farm home, grisly discoveries offer ample inducements for Brie to employ her entire vocabulary of cheese-and-meat curses. The troubles begin when the farm’s pot-bellied pig unearths the skull of Eva’s husband, who disappeared years back. The sheriff, kin to the deceased, sets out to pin the murder on Eva. He doesn’t reckon on Brie’s resolve to prove her aunt’s innocence. Death threats, ruinous pedicures, psychic shenanigans, and biker bar fisticuffs won’t stop Brie from unmasking the killer, even when romantic befuddlement throws her a curve.

Book Details:

Genre: Humorous Cozy Mystery Published by: Henery Press Publication Date: Oct. 24, 2017 Number of Pages: 266 ISBN: 9781635112597 Series: Brie Hooker Mystery, #1 Get Your Copy of Bones To Pick by Linda Lovely at: Amazon Barnes & Noble Goodreads

Read an excerpt:

ONE

Hello, I’m Brie, and I’m a vegan.

It sounds like I’m introducing myself at a Vegetarians Anonymous meeting. But, trust me, there aren’t enough vegetarians in Ardon County, South Carolina, to make a circle much less hold a meeting.

Give yourself ten points if you already know vegans are even pickier than vegetarians. We forgo meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. But we’re big on cashews, walnuts, and almonds. All nuts are good nuts. Appropriate with my family.

Family. That’s why I put my career as a vegan chef on hold to live and work in Ardon, a strong contender for the South’s carnivore-and- grease capital. My current job? I help tend four hundred goats, make verboten cheese, and gather eggs I’ll never poach. Most mornings when Aunt Eva rousts me before the roosters, I roll my eyes and mutter.

Still, I can’t complain. I had a choice. Sort of. Blame it on the pig—Tammy the Pig—for sticking her snout in our family business.

I’d consorted with vegans and vegetarians for too long. I seriously underestimated how much cholesterol meat eaters could snarf down at a good old-fashioned wake. Actually, I wasn’t sure this wake was “old fashioned,” but it was exactly how Aunt Lilly would have planned her own send-off—if she’d had the chance. Ten days ago, the feisty sixty- two-year-old had a toddler’s curiosity and a twenty-year-old’s appetite for adventure. Her death was a total shock.

I glanced at Aunt Lilly’s epitaph hanging behind the picnic buffet. She’d penned it years back. Her twin, Aunt Eva, found it in Lilly’s desk and reprinted it in eighty-point type.

“There once was a farmer named Lilly

Who never liked anything frilly,

She tended her goats,

Sowed a few wild oats,

And said grieving her death would be silly.”

In a nod to Lilly’s spirit, Aunt Eva planned today’s wake complete with fiddling, hooch, goo-gogs of goat cheese, and the whole panoply of Southern fixins—mounds of country ham, fried chicken, barbecue, and mac-and-cheese awash in butter. Every veggie dish came dressed with bacon crumbles, drippings, or cream of mushroom soup.

Not a morsel fit for a vegan. Eva’s revenge. I’d made the mistake of saying I didn’t want to lose her, too, and hinted she’d live longer if she cut back on cholesterol. Not my smartest move. The name of her farm? Udderly Kidding Dairy. Cheese and eggs had been Eva’s meal ticket for decades.

My innocent observation launched a war. Whenever I opened the refrigerator, I’d find a new message. This morning a Post-it on my dish of blueberries advised: The choline in eggs may enhance brain development and memory—as a vegan you probably forgot.

Smoke from the barbeque pit permeated the air as I replenished another platter of shredded pork on the buffet. My mouth watered and I teetered on the verge of drooling. While I was a dedicated vegan, my olfactory senses were still programmed “Genus Carnivorous.” My stomach growled—loudly. Time to thwart its betrayal with the veggies and hummus dip I’d stashed in self-defense.

I’d just stuck a juicy carrot in my mouth when a large hand squeezed my shoulder.

“Brie, honey, you’ve been working nonstop,” Dad said. “Take a break. Mom’s on her way. We can play caterers. The food’s prepared. No risks associated with our cooking.”

I choked on my carrot and sputtered. “Good thing. Do you even remember the last time Mom turned on an oven?”

Dad smiled. “Can’t recall. Maybe when you were a baby? But, hey, we’re wizards at takeout and microwaves.”

His smile faltered. I caught him staring at Aunt Lilly’s epitaph. “Still can’t believe Lilly’s gone.” He attempted a smile. “Knowing her sense of humor, we’re lucky she didn’t open that epitaph with ‘There once was a lass from Nantucket.’”

I’d never seen Dad so sad. Lilly’s unexpected death stunned him to his core. He adored his older sisters.

Mom appeared at his side and wrapped an arm around his waist. She loved her sisters-in-law, too, though she complained my childless aunts spoiled me beyond repair.

Of course, Lilly’s passing hit Eva the hardest. A fresh boatload of tears threatened as I thought about the aunt left behind. I figured my tear reservoir had dried up after days of crying. Wrong. The tragedy—a texting teenager smashing head-on into Lilly’s car—provoked a week- long family weep-a-thon. It ended when Eva ordered us to cease and desist.

“This isn’t what Lilly would want,” she declared. “We’re gonna throw a wake. One big, honking party.”

Which explained the fifty-plus crowd of friends and neighbors milling about the farm, tapping their feet to fiddlin’, and consuming enough calories to sustain the populace of a small principality for a week.

I hugged Dad. “Thanks. I could use a break. I’ll find Eva. See how she’s doing.”

I spotted her near a flower garden filled with cheery jonquils. It looked like a spring painting. Unfortunately, the cold March wind that billowed Eva’s scarlet poncho argued the blooms were false advertising. The weatherman predicted the thermometer would struggle to reach the mid-forties today.

My aunt’s build was what I’d call sturdy, yet Eva seemed to sway in the gusty breeze as she chatted with Billy Jackson, the good ol’ boy farrier who shod her mule. Though my parents pretended otherwise, we all knew Billy slept under Eva’s crazy quilt at least two nights a week.

I nodded at the couple. Well, actually, the foursome. Brenda, the farm’s spoiled pet goat, and Kai, Udderly’s lead Border collie, were competing with Billy for my aunt’s attention.

“Mom and Dad are watching the buffet,” I said. “Thought I’d see if you need me to do anything. Are you expecting more folks?”

“No.” Eva reached down and tickled the tiny black goat’s shaggy head. “Imagine everyone who’s coming is here by now. They’ll start clearing out soon. Chow down and run. Can’t blame ’em. Especially the idiot women who thought they ought to wear dresses. That biting wind’s gotta be whistling up their drawers.”

Billy grinned as he looked Eva up and down. Her choice of wake attire—poncho, black pants, and work boots—surprised no one, and would have delighted Lilly.

“Do you even own a dress?” Billy laughed. “You’re one to talk.” Eva gave his baggy plaid suit and clip-on bowtie the stink eye. “I suppose you claim that gristle on your chin is needed to steady your fiddle.”

He kissed Eva’s cheek. “Yep, that’s it. Time to rejoin my fellow fiddlers, but first I have a hankering to take a turn at the Magic Moonshine tent.”

“You do that. Maybe the ’shine will improve your playing. It’ll definitely make you sound better to your listening audience. After enough of that corn liquor even my singing could win applause.”

A dark-haired stranger usurped Billy’s place, bending low to plant a kiss on the white curls that sprang from my aunt’s head like wood shavings. Wow.

They stacked handsome tall when they built him. Had to be at least six-four.

Even minus an introduction, I figured this tall glass of sweet tea had to be Paint, the legendary owner of Magic Moonshine. Sunlight glinted off hair the blue-black of expensive velvet. Deep dimples. Rakish smile.

I’d spent days sobbing, and my libido apparently was saying “enough”—time to rejoin the living. If this bad boy were any more alive, he’d be required to wear a “Danger High Voltage” sign. Of course, Aunt Lilly wouldn’t mind. She’d probably rent us a room.

I ventured a glance and found him smiling at me. My boots were suddenly fascinating. Never stare at shiny objects with the potential to hypnotize. I refused to fall under another playboy’s spell.

“How’s my best gal?” he asked, hugging Eva. “Best for this minute, right?” my aunt challenged. “I bet my niece will be your best gal before I finish the introductions.” Eva put a hand on my shoulder. “Paint, this young whippersnapper is Brie Hooker, my favorite niece. ’Course, she’s my only niece. Brie, it’s with great trepidation that I introduce you to David Paynter, better known as Paint, unrepentant moonshiner and heartbreaker.”

Eva subjected Paint to her pretend badass stare, a sure sign he was one of her favorite sparring partners. “Don’t you go messing with Brie, or I’ll bury you down yonder with Mark, once I nail his hide.”

Paint laughed, a deep, rumbling chuckle. He turned toward me and bowed like Rhett Butler reincarnated.

“Pleased to meet you, Brie. That puzzled look tells me you haven’t met Mark, the wily coyote that harasses Eva’s goats. She’s wasted at least six boxes of buckshot trying to scare him off. Me? I’ll gladly risk her shotgun to make your acquaintance. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Eva gave Paint a shove. “Well, if that’s the case, go on. Give Brie a shot of your peach moonshine. It’s pretty good.”

“Peach moonshine it is,” he said and took my arm. A second later, he tightened his grip and pulled me to the right. “Better watch your step. You almost messed up those pretty boots.”

He pointed at a fresh pile of fragrant poop, steaming in the brisk air inches from my suede boots. “Thanks,” I mumbled. Still holding my arm, he steered me over uneven ground to a clear path. “Eva says you’re staying with her. Hope you don’t have to leave for a while. Your aunt’s a fine lady, and it’s going to be mighty hard on her once this flock of well-wishers flies off.”

His baritone sent vibrations rippling through my body. My brain ordered me to ignore the tingling that remained in places it didn’t belong.

He smiled. “Eva and Lilly spoke about you so often I feel like we’re already friends. ’Course head-shaking accompanied some of their comments. They said you’d need to serve plenty of my moonshine if you ever opened a vegan B&B in Ardon County. Here abouts it’s considered unpatriotic to serve eats that haven’t been baptized in a vat of lard. Vegetables are optional; meat, mandatory.”

Uh, oh. I always gave relatives and friends a free pass on good- natured kidding. But a stranger? This man was poking fun at my profession, yet my hackles—smoothed by the hunk’s lopsided grin— managed only a faint bristle.

Back away. Pronto.

Discovering my ex-fiancé, Jack, was boffing not one, but two co-workers the entire two years we were engaged made me highly allergic to lady-killers. Paint was most definitely a member of that tribe.

“What can I say? I’m a rebel,” I replied. “It’s my life’s ambition to convince finger-lickin’, fried-chicken lovers that life without meat, butter, eggs, and cheese does not involve a descent into the nine circles of hell.”

Paint released me, then raised his hand to brush a wayward curl from my forehead. His flirting seemed to be congenital.

“If you’re as feisty as your aunt claims, why don’t you take me on as a challenge? I do eat tomatoes—fried green ones, anyway—and I’m open to sampling other members of the vegetable kingdom. So long as they don’t get between me and my meat. Anyway, welcome to the Carolina foothills. Time to pour some white lightning. It’s smoother than you might expect.”

And so are you. Too smooth for me.

That’s when we heard the screams.

TWO

Paint zoomed off like a Clemson running back, hurtling toward the screams—human, not goat. I managed to stay within a few yards of him, slipping and sliding as my suede boots unwittingly smooshed a doggie deposit. Udderly’s guardian dogs, five Great Pyrenees, were large enough to saddle, and their poop piles rivaled cow paddies.

I reached the barn, panting, with a stitch in my right side. I stopped to catch my breath. Hallelujah. I braced my palm against the weathered barn siding.

Ouch. Harpooned by a jagged splinter. Blood oozed from the sensitive pad below my right thumb. I stared at the inch-plus spear. Paint had kept running. He was no longer in sight.

The screams stopped. An accident? A heart attack? I hustled around the corner of the barn. A little girl sobbed in the cleared area behind Udderly’s retail sales cabin. I recognized Jenny, a rambunctious five-year-old from a nearby farm. Her mother knelt beside her, stroking her hair.

No child had produced the operatic screams we’d heard. Maybe Jenny’s mother was the screamer. But the farm wife didn’t seem the hysterical type. On prior visits to Udderly, I’d stopped at the roadside stand where she sold her family’s produce. Right now the woman’s face looked redder than one of her Early Girl tomatoes. Was the flush brought on by some danger—a goat butting her daughter, a snake slithering near the little girl?

I walked closer. Then I saw it. A skull poked through the red clay. Soil had tinted the bone an absurd pink.

I gasped. The sizeable cranium looked human. I spotted the grave digger, or should I say re-digger. Udderly’s newest addition, a Vietnamese potbellied pig named Tammy, hunkered in a nearby puddle. Tiny cloven hoof marks led to and from the excavation. Tell-tale red mud dappled her dainty twitching snout. The pig’s hundred-pound body quivered as her porcine gaze roved the audience she’d attracted.

A man squatted beside Tammy, speaking to the swine in soothing, almost musical tones. Pigs were dang smart and sensitive. Aunt Eva told me it was easy to hurt their feelings. The fellow stroking Tammy’s grimy head must’ve been convinced she was one sensitive swine.

“It’s okay,” he repeated. “The lady wasn’t screaming at you, Tammy.”

Tammy snorted, lowered her head, and squeezed her eyes shut. The pig-whisperer gave the swine a final scratch and stood, freeing gangly limbs from his pretzel-like crouch. Mud caked the cuffs and knees of his khaki pants. Didn’t seem to bother him one iota.

The mother shepherded her little girl away from the disturbing scene, and Paint knelt to examine the skeletal remains. “Looks like piggy uncovered more than she bargained for.” He glanced at Muddy Cuffs. “Andy, you’re a vet. Animal or human?”

“Human.” Andy didn’t hesitate. “But all that’s left is bone. Had to have been buried a good while. Yet Tammy’s rooting scratched only inches below the surface. If a settler dug this grave, it was mighty shallow.”

“Probably didn’t start that way.” I pointed to a depression that began uphill near the retail cabin. “This wash has deepened a lot since my aunts built their store and the excavation diverted water away from the cabin. The runoff’s been nibbling away at the ground.”

Mom, Dad, and Aunt Eva joined the group eyeballing the skull. Eva looked peaked, almost ill. I felt a slight panic at the shift in her normally jolly appearance. I thought of my aunts as forces of nature. Unflappable. Indestructible. I’d lost one, and the other suddenly looked fragile. Finding a corpse on her property the same day she bid her twin goodbye had hit her hard.

Dad cocked his head. “Could be a Cherokee burial site. Or maybe a previous farmer buried a loved one and the grave marker got lost. Homestead burials have always been legal in South Carolina. Still are.”

For once, the idea of finding a corpse in an unexpected location didn’t prompt a gleeful chuckle from my dad, Dr. Howard Hooker. Though he was a professor of horticulture at Clemson University by day, he was an aspiring murder mystery author by night. Every time we went for a car ride, Dad made a game of searching the landscape for spots “just perfect” for disposing of bodies. So far, a dense patch of kudzu in a deep ravine topped his picks. “Kudzu grows so fast any flesh peeking through would disappear in a day.”

Good thing Dad confined his commentary to family outings. We knew the corpses in question weren’t real.

Mom whipped out her smartphone. “I’ll call Judge Glenn. It’s Sunday, but he always answers his cell. He’ll know who to call. I’m assuming the Ardon County Sheriff’s Department.”

Dad nodded. “Probably, but I bet SLED—the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division—will take over. The locals don’t have forensic specialists.”

Mom rolled her eyes. “You spend way too much time with your Sisters in Crime.”

It amused Mom that Dad’s enthusiasm for his literary genre earned him the presidency of the Upstate South Carolina Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Mom didn’t fool with fictional crime. Too busy with the real thing. As the City of Clemson’s attorney, she kept a bevy of lawyers, judges, and city and university cops on speed dial. However, Udderly Kidding wasn’t in the same county as Clemson so it sat outside her domain.

“Judge Glenn, this is Iris Hooker. I’m at the Udderly Kidding Dairy in Ardon. An animal here unearthed a skull. We think it’s human, but not recent. Should we call the sheriff?”

Mom nodded and made occasional I-get-it noises while she clamped the cell to her ear.

“Could you ask them to keep their arrival quiet? Better yet, could they wait until after four? About fifty folks are here for my sister-in- law’s wake. I don’t want to turn her farewell into a circus.”

A minute later, Mom murmured her thanks and pocketed her cell. “The judge agrees an old skull doesn’t warrant sirens or flashing lights. He’ll ask the Ardon County Sheriff, Robbie Jones, to come by after four. Since I’m an officer of the court, his honor just requested that I keep people and animals clear of the area until the sheriff arrives.”

Andy stood. “Paint, help me bring some hay bales from the barn. We can stack them to cordon off the area.”

“Good idea.” Paint stood, and the two men strode off. No needless chitchat. They appeared to be best buds.

I tugged Dad’s sleeve, nodded toward his sister, and whispered, “I think Aunt Eva should sit down. Let’s get her to one of the front porch rockers.”

Dad walked over and draped an arm around his sister’s shoulders. “Eva, let’s sit a while so folks can find you to pay their respects. This skeleton is old news. Not our worry.”

Eva’s lips trembled. “No, Brother. I feel it in my own bones. It’s that son-of-a-bitch Jed Watson come back to haunt me.”

THREE

Jed Watson? The man Eva married in college? The man who vanished a few years later?

Dad’s eyebrows shot up. “Eva, that’s nonsense. That dirtbag ran off forty years back. You’re letting your imagination run wild.”

Eva straightened. “Some crime novelist you are. You know darn well any skeleton unearthed on my property would have something to do with that nasty worm. Nobody wished that sorry excuse for a man dead more than me.”

“Calm down. Don’t spout off and give the sheriff some harebrained notion that pile of bones is Jed,” Dad said. “No profit in fueling gossip or dredging up ancient history. Authorities may have ruled Jed dead, but I always figured that no-good varmint was still alive five states over, most likely beating the stuffing out of some other poor woman.”

Wow. I knew Eva took her maiden name back after they declared her husband dead, but I’d never heard a speck of the unsavory backstory. Dad liked to tell family tales, including ones about long- dead scoundrels. Guess this history wasn’t ancient enough.

Curiosity made me eager to ask a whole passel of none-of-my- business questions, though I felt some justification about poking my nose here. I’d known Eva my entire life. So how come this was the first I’d heard of a mystery surrounding Jed’s disappearance? Was Dad truly worried the sheriff might suspect Eva?

I was dying to play twenty questions. Too bad it wasn’t the time or place.

I smiled at my aunt. “Why don’t I get some of Paint’s brew to settle our nerves? Eva, you like that apple pie flavor, right?”

“Yes, thanks, dear.”

“Good idea, Brie,” Dad added. “I’ll take a toot of Paint’s blackberry hooch. Eva’s not the only one who could use a belt. We’ll greet folks from those rockers. Better than standing like mannequins in a receiving line. And there’s a lot less risk of falling down if we get a little tipsy.”

Aunt Eva ignored Dad’s jest. She looked haunted, lost in memory. A very bad memory.

I hurried to the small tent where Magic Moonshine dispensed free libations. A buxom young lass smiled as she poured shine into miniature Mason jars lined up behind four flavor signs: Apple Pie, Blackberry, Peach, and White Lightnin’.

“What can I do you for, honey?” the busty server purred. I’m still an Iowa girl at heart, but, like my transplanted aunts and parents, I’ve learned not to take offense when strangers of both sexes and all ages call me honey, darlin’, and sweetie. My high school social studies teacher urged us to appreciate foreign customs and cultures. I may not be in Rome, but I’m definitely in Ardon County.

I smiled at Miss Sugarmouth. The top four buttons of her blouse were undone. The way her bosoms oozed over the top, I seriously doubted those buttons had ever met their respective buttonholes. No mystery why Paint hired her. Couldn’t blame him or her. Today’s male mourners would enjoy a dash of cleavage with their shine, and she’d rake in lots more tips.

“Sweetie, do you have a tray I can use to take drinks to the folks on the porch?”

The devil still made me add the “sweetie” when I addressed Miss Sugarmouth. She didn’t bat an eyelash. Probably too weighed down with mascara.

“Sure thing, honey.” I winced when the tray slid over the wood sliver firmly embedded in my palm. Suck it up. No time for minor surgery.

As I walked toward Eva’s cabin, crunching noises advertised some late arrivals ambling down the gravel road. On the porch, Dad and Eva had settled into a rhythm, shaking hands with friends and neighbors and accepting sympathy pats. Hard to hug someone in a rocker.

I handed miniature glass jars to Eva and Dad before offering drinks to the folks who’d already run the gauntlet of the sit-down receiving line. Then I tiptoed behind Dad’s rocker.

“I’ll see if Mom wants anything and check back later to see how you and Eva are doing.”

“Thanks, honey.” He kissed my cheek. I returned to Paint’s moonshine stand and picked up a second drink tray, gingerly hoisting it to avoid bumping my skewered palm. Balancing the drinks, I picked my way across the rutted ground to what I worried might be a crime scene.

Mom perched between Paint and Andy atop the double row of hay bales stacked to keep the grisly discovery out of sight. The five-foot-two height on Mom’s driver’s license was a stretch. At five-four, I had her by at least three, maybe four, inches. My mother’s build was tiny as well as short—a flat-chested size two. I couldn’t recall ever being able to squeeze into her doll-size clothes. My build came courtesy of the females on Dad’s side of the family. Compact but curvy. No possibility of going braless in polite society.

Mom’s delicate appearance often confounded the troublemakers she prosecuted for the city. Too often the accused took one look at Iris Hooker and figured they’d hire some hulking male lawyer to walk all over the little lady in court.

Big mistake. The bullies often reaped unexpected rewards—a costly mélange of jail time, fines, and community service.

Mom spotted my tray-wobbling approach. “Are these Paint’s concoctions?”

I nodded. “Well, Daughter, sip nice and slow. Someday I may file charges against Magic Moonshine. Paint’s shine is often an accomplice when Clemson tailgaters pull stunts that land them in front of a judge.”

Paint lifted his glass in a salute. “Can I help it if all our flavors go down easy?”

Mom turned back to me. “Have you met these, ahem, gentlemen?”

I suddenly felt shy as my gaze flicked between the two males. “I met Paint earlier. This is my first chance to say hi to Andy. I’m Brie Hooker. You must be the veterinarian Aunt Eva’s always talking about.”

Andy rose to his feet. “Andy Green. Pleased to meet you, ma’am. Your aunts were my very first customers when I opened my practice.”

He waved a hand at Tammy, the now demure pig, wallowing a goodly distance away. “I’m really sorry Tammy picked today to root up these bones. I feel partly to blame. Talked your aunts into adopting Miss Piggy. It aggravates me how folks can’t resist buying potbellied pigs as pets when they’re adorable babies, but have no qualms about abandoning them once they start to grow.”

Andy’s outstretched hand awaited my handshake. I held up my palm to display my injury. “Gotta take a rain check on a handshake. Unfortunately, I already shook hands with the barn.”

Andy gently turned up my palm. “I’ll fix you right up, if you don’t mind a vet doing surgery. Give me a minute to wash up and meet me at my truck. Can’t miss it. A double-cab GMC that kinda looks like aliens crash landed an aluminum spaceship in the truck bed. I’m parked by the milking barn.”

As Andy loped off toward the retail shop’s comfort station, Paint called after him. “Sneaky way to hold hands with a pretty lady.”

Andy glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “You’re just mad you didn’t think of it first.”

Paint chuckled and focused his hundred-watt grin on me. “Bet my white lightning could disinfect that sliver. Sure you don’t want me to do the honors?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Somehow I doubt honor has anything to do with it.”

The moonshiner faked an injured look. Mom rolled her eyes. “Heaven help me—and you, Brie. Not sure you’re safe with the wildlife that frequents this farm. Forget those coyotes that worry Eva, I’m talking wolves.” She looked toward the porch. “How’s Eva holding up?”

“Better.” I wanted to grill Mom about Jed Watson, but I needed to do so in private. “Guess I should steel myself for surgery.” I took a Mason jar from the tray I’d set on a hay bale. “Down the hatch.” My healthy swallow blazed a burning trail from throat to belly. Before I could stop myself, I sputtered.

“Shut your mouth,” Paint said. Yowzer. My eyes watered, and my throat spasmed. I coughed. “What?”

“Shut your mouth. Oxygen fuels the burn. You need to take a swallow then close your mouth. None of this sipping stuff.”

“Now you tell me.” I choked. Mom laughed. “That’s the best strategy I’ve heard yet to shut Brie up.”

I wiped at the tears running down my cheeks. “Your moonshine packs more punch than my five-alarm Thai stir fry.”

Paint’s eyebrows rose. “My shine is smooth, once you get used to it. You want a little fire in your gut. Keeps life interesting.”

A little too interesting. I’d been at Udderly Kidding Dairy just over a week, and I already felt like a spinning top with a dangerous wobble.

***

Author Bio:

Over the past five years, hundreds of mystery/thriller writers have met Linda Lovely at check-in for the annual Writers’ Police Academy, which she helps organize. Lovely finds writing pure fiction isn’t a huge stretch given the years she’s spent penning PR and ad copy. She writes a blend of mystery and humor, chuckling as she plots to “disappear” the types of characters who most annoy her. Quite satisfying plus there’s no need to pester relatives for bail. Her newest series offers good-natured salutes to both her vegan family doctor and her cheese-addicted kin. She served as president of her local Sisters in Crime chapter for five years and belongs to International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America.

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