#Rough Casting Glasgow

[petercapaldi-press]

INTERVIEW

Peter Capaldi: ‘I was relieved the Tories lost. But it’s not that simple’

The Glasgow-born actor started out playing easy-going buffoons. Then along came ‘The Thick of It’. He talks to Craig McLean about how the Tories killed political satire, the divisive nature of the culture wars, why he found ‘Doctor Who’ fandom difficult, and what it’s like to be cast as malevolent characters

Sunday 20 October 2024 06:00 BST

Recently, whenever Peter Capaldi has been shown rough footage of himself acting in scenes, he’s done a double-take. “I’m horrified,” he says. “I go: who is that old, weird, gaunt guy with the white hair? Oh, it’s me. That’s what I’ve become. But that’s OK,” adds the 66-year-old with a shrug. “I always loved Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price. Playing those villains, all those horror movie types, is great fun.”

Capaldi has certainly made a speciality out of sulphurous ne’er-do-wells with something of the night about them. On Friday, the crepuscular character actor who was more Doctor What? than Doctor Who returned to our screens in Prime Video’s twisty, time-bendy, supernatural thriller The Devil’s Hour as Gideon Shepherd, a mysterious criminal with a biblical name who may or may not be a serial killer. Meanwhile, details are scant on who or what he’s playing in the upcoming series of Black Mirror, but it’s a reasonable bet it’s a role with a whiff of the devil. Capaldi is happy with his run of malevolent characters – broadly. “I used to do voiceovers for Anchor butter. One day they said to me: ‘Could you try and sound a little less sinister?’ I thought: ‘I don’t know what’s happened, I’ve suddenly gone sinister.’ But sinister is good. I’ve always been a great fan of the sinister.”

Leaning in close over our lunchtime minestrone, eyes bulging, Scottish brogue bewitching, the Glasgow-born actor and Oscar-winning director is head-to-toe in black at a tiny table in a private members’ club in central London. Conversation turns to Criminal Record, this year’s low-key hit for Apple TV+ that is about to begin production on its second series. Capaldi plays an old-school copper with old-school values. You know, a bit of casual misogyny here, a bit of institutional racism there. All of which, naturally, rubbed up his counterpart, played by Cush Jumbo, an exemplar of “woke” modern policing. In a knotty drama developed by Capaldi’s producer wife Elaine Collins, the fact that DCI Daniel Hegarty was a barely likeable character was part of the attraction.

“Absolutely,” he affirms. “But also that he was complicated. That he wasn’t so simple to understand. We wanted to engage the audience in some sympathy for him. And understand that people are complex. He’s not black and white. But, yeah, in essence his role was to carry that darkness. That was appealing.”

Capaldi and Collins are both executive producers on Criminal Record. But he defers to his wife of 33 years – they met in 1983 on a touring theatrical production in Scotland but have long been based in north London – as “the boss, the creator”. While employed at the BBC, Collins developed Vera and Shetland – cosier police procedurals for sure. “Eventually she left, and went out on her own, and was keen to do a show that was maybe a bit harder.”

By “harder”, does he mean challenging woke sensibilities? “Well, I don’t know what woke sensibilities are. It’s trying to tell a story that’s interesting, arresting and makes people think – and is responsible. I’ve got the general picture [of what woke is]. It’s used all over the place. I don’t think half the people who use it know [what it means]. It’s just another word. This constant polarisation is not useful. It’s another tool to keep people apart.”

When I ask whether that’s what cancel culture is partly about, too, he professes confusion. “I don’t know – seriously. There have been points where there has been definite political motivation to cause [division]. To place people on the other side of the fence to each other. And it was contingent – it was more useful to the Tory party to have these wars than to try and find out what could bring people together.”

What he means is: it’s easier to foment a culture war than it is to tackle the problem of, say, social exclusion. “Yes. It’s all complicated, and simplifying it to black and white doesn’t help anyone.”

Capaldi leaning into the sinister in ‘The Devil’s Hour’ (Amazon)

Now in late middle age, and a grandfather of two, Capaldi admits to feeling a bit surprised at the way his career has turned out. “When I started off, I was an easygoing buffoon – a gangly youth in a Bill Forsyth gentle comedy,” he says of his breakout role opposite Burt Lancaster in the great Scottish director’s beloved Local Hero (1983). “But The Thick of It changed everything for me.”

Armando Iannucci’s excoriating political satire, which ran for four series between 2005 and 2012, rebranded Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker: the sweary spin doctor extraordinaire, a machiavellian operative who simultaneously oozed no-f’s-given superiority and radiated all-the-f’s rage. It exposed the inner machinations of government as both farcical and toxic. But this workplace comedy now feels very much of its time. Because surely post-get-Brexit-done, post-Parytgate and post-Liz-the-lettuce, politics today is beyond satire?

“We all felt that. I’m constantly asked by the press if I would do a new one,” he says of a show that won him a Bafta in 2010. “But [under the Tories] things were just too serious. The corruption was too deep. We’d be letting them off the hook by being funny.”

"David Tennant told me that, after ‘Doctor Who’, I wouldn’t be able to walk down the street without people knowing me"

Capaldi was raised in a working-class household in Glasgow and it’s not hard to divine his political sensibilities. But while he’s “glad, obviously” that the Tories lost the election, he insists that he’s “not politically engaged”. Why not? “I was forced to be politically engaged," he answers, presumably a reference to the demands placed on him by Iannucci’s typically nuanced scripts. “I’m not interested in it. In fact I hate it. I don’t want to spend my life thinking about all this stuff. Of course I was relieved the Tories lost. But it’s not that simple, is it?” He pauses and twitches a salt-and-pepper eyebrow. “Sorry, I sound mournful, don’t I?”

It’s that mournful demeanour that made him find some elements of his three-series run as the Time Lord difficult. He recalls talking to his predecessor-but-one, David Tennant, before his casting was announced in August 2013. “David said: ‘Is this true, you’re going to be the Doctor? Well, let’s go have a talk.’ It might have been here actually,” says Capaldi, gesturing round this clamorous room beloved of film and telly folk. “And he said to me: ‘What will change is your visibility. You won’t be able to walk down the street without people knowing who you are.’ I was like: ‘OK, we’ll see how that goes…’”

Capaldi ultimately found having to be nice to fans all the time “a bit of a stress… My [personal] character leans more to the melancholic and cynical. The daily good-heartedness of it all is quite a leap for me. But that’s what I was paid to do. But that’s exhausting… And that’s one of the things I’m glad to have left behind: I’m not responsible for the endless cheerfulness [of] little kids.”

He’s watched Ncuti Gatwa, yet another Scottish Time Lord, as the 15th Doctor and pronounces him “fantastic. I met him and thought he was lovely.” Add in the fact that original reboot showrunner Russell T Davies is back, and that Disney – and their money – are partners on the show, and it all makes for a show that, on paper at least, should feel very different. But as a corollary of that, some viewers feel that the world’s longest-running sci-fi show, a cornerstone of British culture, has been Disney-fied. Does he agree?

“I think that the show is... whatever those who love it want it to be,” he replies, carefully. “I come from [seeing] it in 1963. So even the show, when I came into it, was different from the show I remember. And I loved the show that I remember. I loved the show that we did, but it was different.”

Can he, though, imagine being in Gatwa’s shoes, as the brand ambassador for this new Doctor Who, one with demanding American audiences (and producers) to please?

“It must be tough,” he concedes. “That’s one of the hardest things about the job. Apart from the day-to-day business of delivering those lines, and you’ve got to have lots of ideas and energy, there’s always a knock at the door at lunchtime: ‘Can you come and talk to these visitors we’ve got onset?’ ‘Can you look at these new toys?’ ‘Can you sign these things?’ ‘Can you go to this meeting with so-and-so who’s selling this in South Korea?’ There’s always a [request]. It’s a big brand. So it’s quite a demanding job. It takes its toll.”

Capaldi as the Time Lord (BBC)

Capaldi also experienced the demands of geek fandom and blockbuster IP during his brief foray into the superhero world, with his role in James Gunn’s 2021 film The Suicide Squad. He found filming alongside an all-star Hollywood cast on huge sets in Atlanta, Georgia a blast; the endless promotion less so.

Still, the three-month shoot allowed him plenty of him to reconnect with his first passion: music. In the long hours in his Suicide Squad trailer, Capaldi wrote a bunch of songs that were eventually released as an album, 2021’s St Christopher.

It was a debut that was a long time coming. While at Glasgow School of Art in the early Eighties, Capaldi was in a band, The Dreamboys. “Bizarro punk” was Capaldi’s estimation at the time. Or “showbiz Bauhaus” according to their drummer Craig Ferguson, who went on to become a stand-up comic, actor and American chatshow titan (James Corden inherited his chair on The Late Late Show).

What kind of frontman was Capaldi? “I was OK,” he demurs. “I’m sure I jumped about a lot. You’d have to ask somebody else, really.”

So I do. “Oh, spectacular!” Ferguson tells me. “My girlfriend at the time was in another band and she said: ‘Your band are rubbish, but you’ve got a really good actor as the frontman.’ Peter was very charismatic – he still is – and onstage had that ineffable presence I’ve seen in a few people. Your eye goes to him. He was a star player from the word go.”

Capaldi has since completed a second album, Sweet Illusions. It’s a robustly melodic set, with Capaldi’s voice a cross between Leonard Cohen and The Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan. Quelle surprise, the songs have a touch of midnight, too. “All the songs hanker back to that time,” he says of early Eighties, glad-to-be-grey Glasgow. “To an eternal, dark, synthesiser, guitar-y kind of vibe. Because I’m picking up where I left off.”

The first single is out now. It’s called “Bin Night”, a lullaby that’s a tribute to his infant grandchildren, to the “ticking clock” of his own mortality and to the domestic concerns of a Muswell Hill grandpa.

“I love bin night. It’s the one night when I can control the chaos of the world. The one night when I can restore some order to the entropy. Everything goes out on bin night.”

Even if Peter Capaldi’s borough, like my neighbouring borough, only takes recycling weekly but waste is fortnightly and garden refuse God knows when?

He splutters and straightens up. “They might only take one of them. But then I’ll just take the other one back in. That’s my rules. Bin night is my rules.”

‘The Devil’s Hour’ is on Prime Video from 18 October. The single ‘Bin Night’ is out now, and the album ‘Sweet Illusion’ is released on Last Night From Glasgow in March 2025

[vivisectedvitality]

"i don't believe in god, so you're the only one to whom i can pray"

cw: prior mcd, brief suicidal ideation

ghost sits in the front pew of a tiny catholic church in russia. his skin prickles underneath his gear, rifle sat next to him on the bench. he shouldnt be here. he shouldnt be sticking his neck out like this when theyre so close to catching makarov. practically at his front door price had said. or was it gaz. he cant remember very many small details right now.

the church has all the same fittings as the one they held johnny's service at. it's much less ornate though. he thinks johnny might have liked this one better. less frills, much simpler than the drawn out affair they'd had in glasgow. ghost sticks his hand in one of the pockets of his tac vest and figets with the warped bullet fragments in it.

his eyes are drawn to a statue to the side of the altar. its of a woman, eyes looking skyward. she's got swords encircling her, something like a halo over her head. he can't remember her name. something about wounds and sorrow. ghost scoffs, fist tightening in his pocket. the shards of metal dig into his palm.

there's a shift in the constant cloud cover outside, and a solitary beam of sunlight shines through a small window behind the altar. it filters perfectly through the stained glass, casting the pew ghost is on in muted reds and blues. he releases his grip on the metal pieces in his pocket and removes his hand from it, slumping in his seat. blessed sunshine. there's something he could worship. after all these weeks, either holed up inside or underground or living under steel grey skies he felt like some kind of prayer of his had been answered.

it gives him an idea. a bad one, but those seem to be the only kind he can come across these days.

ghost pulls off his gloves, one finger at a time, and sets them on the pew. he flexes his fingers and puts them together like he'd seen people do when they were in church, like he'd seen johnny's mother do after he'd told her that her boy would be coming home in a body bag. he shuffles forward and down until creaky knees make contact with creaky wood, and he waits for the words to come.

but they don't. he sits there for long minutes and nothing comes out. the small beam of sunlight dissappears back into the constant grey, leaving him in the half light of the abandoned church again. he drops down to sit on his calves. the backs of his shoes are digging into his ass and the edge of the pew is jabbing into his vest. he should get up. but he doesn't. he can't. if this is it, the end of makarov, what may be the end of ghost himself, he's going to get through to johnny one way or another, even if he has to sit here on his knees for hours to believe in his god.

another idea occurs to him. it's worse than the first. but he's sick of failing, so he tries anyway.

ghost reaches up and pulls his mask off, tossing it into the seat behind him. he regains his earlier posture, kneeling with his legs straight, hands clasped together, looking up through the window like the statue was.

simon opens his mouth. closes it again. shuts his eyes.

"johnny."

his voice is rough with disuse, breaking on the word. he clears his throat, purses his lips. starts again.

"johnny. dunno if you can hear me. all i know you're just dust in the wind now."

he flexes his interlocked fingers, trying to soothe their urge to pull his mask back on.

"i can't pray for you, can't bring myself to. seems selfish, sure but its facts. cause if theres someone up there watchin' then why the fuck wasn't it me instead'a you. man like me ought to croak before a man like you. bloody fuckin' waste otherwise."

simon knocks his forehead to his knuckles and sighs.

"but now i guess. guess i'll trust you to do that. watch my six. always did johnny, always."

he squeezes his hands together.

"we're going after him, soap, no fuckin about this time. we'll get him. i'll get him for you."

his trigger finger twitches.

"help me get him for you. don't let me fall until he does. don't let me breathe my last until his goddamn skull's caved in. please."

part of the weight he's been carrying since that cold day in november slides off him.

"all the shit i do now is for you johnny. woulda left if price hadn't kept chasing the bastard. woulda gone to meet you off the side of that cliff. everything i do is for you now."

he thinks about the mountains of bodies they've gone through to get this close, the rivers of blood that have stained his shoes so badly he's replaced them twice in four months. he thinks about torture sessions that lasted days, men screaming for their mothers in the pitch blackness of underground cells.

he thinks of fights with price he had to be physically dragged away from, about gaz clocking him across the face after simon had said they didn't care their sergent was gone.

"we'll finish the job. whatever state we're in."

" 'n when i blow his brains out i'll think of you."

he blinks his eyes open to find the whole church bathed in sunlight.

[scotianostra]

Happy Birthday filmmaker Gillian Berrie, born on September 8th 1967 in Glasgow.

In 1996 Gillian co-founded Sigma Films with director David Mackenzie, writing and producing serial award-winning shorts, 'California Sunshine' and 'Somersault'.

Alongside, Gillian gained experience in numerous film and television roles, ie Casting Director on Ken Loach's 'My Name is Joe' (for which Peter Mullan won the Palme D'or in Cannes) and Lynne Ramsay's legendary 'Ratcatcher'.

Casting experience on the aforementioned led Gillian to create the charity, 'Starfish' which then became 'Jumpcut', which morphed into 'Short Circuit', and 'Big Fish Casting' which segued into Kahleen Crawford Casting

Gillian then produced many of David Mackenzie's films including: Last Great Wilderness, Hallam Foe, Young Adam, You Instead (aka Tonight You're Mine), Perfect Sense, Starred Up and the biggest film ever to be make in Scotland, Outlaw King. She was also heavily involved in the post-production, festival, UK/US theatrical release and Oscar campaign for Academy Award Nominee 'Hell or High Water'.

Sigma's films regularly premiere at A-List festivals and have received over 150 awards internationally, including the Prix de Jury in Cannes for Red Road, and the Silver Bear in Berlin for Hallam Foe, as well as numerous BIFA and BAFTA nominations and awards.

At the Scottish BAFTA New Talent Awards in 2002 Gillian won the BAFTA for Outstanding Achievement.

In order to create a vibrant hub for the film community in Scotland, Gillian founded the 65,000 square ft state of the art, Film City Glasgow in 2004. Since then it has been a full house of productions and film-makers.

In 2012 she founded 'Jumpcut', the UK's one and only, intensive, mentor-led Summer School to provide a fast-track for youngsters into working in the film industry. This project was a runaway success. Over 75% of the participants went onto working in the industry. It ran for two years and won several awards.

She also co-produced the multi-prize winner 'Dear Frankie' and Jonathan's Glazer's 'Under the Skin' (which won 23 awards and received 110 nominations).

Gillian also produced several features for first time feature film directors, including David Mackenzie, Colin Kennedy, Andrea Arnold, Morag MacKinnon and Ciaran Foy, as well as numerous additional shorts including the lauded I Love Luci.

Gillian continues to contribute to the next generation of Scottish film-makers through Short Circuit, which is in its 3rd year and has so far given the first opportunities in film-making to hundreds of new-comers and produced dozens of short films and is developing a number of feature films.

Short Circuit is Scotland's hub for filmmaking talent, supporting the creative and professional development of new and emerging writers, directors, and producers.

Over three years, Short Circuit's film commissioning strand ‘Sharp Shorts’ will award over £400,000 in funding across 27 filmmaking teams, creating opportunities for Scotland's most exciting emerging new screen talent.

‘Sharp Shorts’ has become one of Scotland's most diverse creative initiatives, with an overwhelming majority of female filmmakers as well as significant representation across the LGBTQ+, non-white and disabled communities.

The first batch of short films are screening internationally at festivals such as SXSW, BFI Flare, EIFF, Dinard, LSFF, Berlin, with multiple awards. In particular, Sean Lionadh's short Too Rough has won 11 awards to date.

The ‘First Features’ strand, with a fund of over £300,000, will support 30 new writers, directors, and producers, enabling Scotland-based filmmakers to take a career-defining step towards making their debut feature.

In 2022, Berrie exec-produced the critically acclaimed Pilot and 2nd episode of the Disney/ FX series Under the Banner of Heaven for which Andrew Garfield was nominated for an Emmy .She also produced Taron Egerton's feature, Tetris, which I was impressed with.

Relay, about a broker of lucrative payoffs between corrupt corporations and the individuals who threaten them breaks his own rules when a new client seeks his protection to stay alive. is the latest film she has produced, it actually premieres today at the Toronto International Film Festival. Next up is a thrilled called Fuze where construction workers in London unearth an unexploded WWII bomb, forcing evacuation. Opportunistic thieves use the chaos as cover for an elaborate heist.

[deejayisms]

the law has never been a friend of mine || self-thread

WHO: Patrick Flanagan featuring two Scottish gang members

WHERE: UCLA Campus & Patrick's apartment

WHEN: 22nd of November

WHY: Patrick's past catches up with him.

WARNINGS: TW: Violence and mentions of crimes

SONG INSPIRATION: Royal Deluxe - I'm A Wanted Man

Patrick Flanagan's day started the same as it had for the past three months: early, quiet, and reflective. The California sun filtered through the blinds of his modest apartment, far from the lavish penthouses of his past life in Las Vegas. He rose from bed, his muscles still tight from the boxing workout the day before - a habit he’d carried over from his time in prison. It was one of the few things that kept him grounded.

After a quick shower, Patrick dressed in his typical work attire: a button-up shirt with rolled-up sleeves, dark jeans, and leather boots. He had a rugged, approachable look that contrasted with his sharply intelligent eyes and his thick Scottish accent. He still carried the weight of his old life, though, and the reflection in the mirror showed a man who had been through the wringer - both by his own doing and by circumstances beyond his control.

He poured himself a cup of strong coffee and looked at the framed photo of his mother on the kitchen counter. She was smiling, standing outside their Glasgow flat, back when life seemed simpler, even if it wasn’t. The thought of her made his chest tighten, and his grip on the mug faltered. Her murder still haunted him, even though he’d tried to bury it deep. His mother had done everything for him, and in the end, it wasn’t enough to keep the darkness away.

Patrick left the apartment, heading to the college where he now worked. As a professor of business management, he lectured to bright-eyed students who had no idea about his past. Some days he felt like an imposter, teaching them about business ethics and success strategies when he’d spent years manipulating systems for criminal gain. But he’d learned the hard way that legitimate success meant something different - and it was what his mother would’ve wanted for him.

His lecture today was on leadership. Irony wasn’t lost on him as he talked about integrity and trust in business relationships. "A true leader knows when to walk away," he told the class. "Not out of fear, but because they see the bigger picture." His students scribbled notes, eyes wide as they absorbed his every word. To them, Patrick was an expert in the field, a businessman with real-world experience. They didn’t need to know about his time running a casino as a front for laundering money and dealing drugs, or the years he spent in a federal prison for it.

By the time the afternoon rolled around, Patrick was tired. Teaching was more exhausting than anything he’d ever done. He stopped by a local diner on his way home, ordering a plate of shepherd's pie - one of the few things that reminded him of home. As he ate, his thoughts wandered back to Kat. He hadn’t heard from her since the day she testified against him in court. He didn’t blame her, though. She’d been doing her job, and in the end, he couldn’t hate her for it. He loved her, still did, but that was a closed chapter in his life.

When he finally arrived back at his apartment, the sun was setting, casting a golden glow through the windows. He kicked off his boots and sank into the worn leather armchair by the window. For the first time in years, he was trying to live a quiet life, one his mother would’ve been proud of. He closed his eyes, letting the stillness wash over him.

The knock on the door shattered that peace. Patrick’s eyes snapped open, and a chill ran down his spine. He stood, crossing the room in a few quick strides. When he opened the door, his stomach dropped.

Two men stood there. Big, rough-looking Scots with hard faces, the kind of men Patrick knew all too well. They had the unmistakable look of old gang members, the kind of guys who didn’t just stop by for a friendly chat. “Patrick,” the taller one said, a crooked grin on his face. “Long time, mate.”

Patrick didn’t answer, but his jaw clenched. He knew why they were here. The shorter one stepped forward, his eyes cold and predatory. “We’ve got a problem, Pat. Seems you’ve been out of the game a bit too long. Some of the boys back home are startin’ to wonder if you might’ve become... well, a liability.” Patrick felt the muscles in his neck tighten. “I’m done,” he said, voice low and controlled. “You know that.”

“Aye, that’s what they all say,” the tall one chuckled, though his eyes were hard. “But you see, we can’t afford you running your mouth. Too many secrets. Too much to lose.” The shorter one’s hand hovered near his jacket, where Patrick knew a gun was probably tucked away. “You’re coming back with us, Patrick. Or...” He didn’t need to finish the sentence.

Patrick’s heart pounded, but his face remained calm. “I’m not coming back. If you think I’m a rat, you’d already be dead. I didn’t say a word in court, and I won’t start now.” The tall one leaned in, his breath hot and sour. “We don’t care. You know too much. Either you come with us, or we settle this here.” Patrick’s mind raced. He’d walked away from that life. He’d paid his dues, served his time, but these men - they didn’t care about redemption. The only way out was either back into the pit or to fight his way out.

“I’ve got nothing left to give you,” Patrick said softly. “If you want to settle this, then let’s finish it right here.” For a moment, there was silence, thick with tension. Then, with a quick, brutal motion, the shorter man pulled his gun.

But Patrick was faster.

In a flash, he grabbed a heavy lamp from the nearby table and swung it with all his strength. It smashed into the man’s wrist, sending the gun clattering to the floor. The taller man lunged at Patrick, but he sidestepped, driving his elbow into the man’s throat. He didn’t stop to think, just let the old instincts take over - instincts he thought he’d buried.

The fight was brutal, fast, and messy. But in the end, both men lay unconscious on the floor, and Patrick stood over them, breathing hard. He looked down at them, feeling the weight of his past crashing back into him. No matter how far he ran, how hard he tried to live a different life, the darkness would always follow.

Patrick dialed a number he hadn’t called in years. When the voice on the other end answered, he spoke quietly, but with authority in his voice. “I need a favor.”

[sarenhale]

Howdy there! If you don't mind me asking, could you tell us more about The Order? Either about the OC's and where they come from or what they're doing, or what the Order itself is? Honestly, anything about it, I'm very curious.

👁_👁 my time has come...

"The Order" is an original story setting I'm currently working on, inspired a story I wrote when I was in high school!

It's the story of this secret order of exorcists called "The Right Hand of God". They fight demons and demonic entities/corruption everyday in the world. Their order has existed since the beginning of time, through the middle ages, the renaissance, the two world wars, and now where the story is set, around 2030 ish.

The people that get recruited in the Order are called Exorcists, they're all military trained to fight demons and perform as best to their abilities in various missions, and work together in groups. Each one has a different speciality and strong/weak points, and they generally work worldwide and get employed in the many different Order bases that exist all around the globe.

Here's a picture of the possible logo I made for the Order. 'In Deus Nomine' means 'In god's name' in latin.

The main story is set in the Glasgow base in the UK!

Most of the characters you see me drawing work in that base and eventually meet and work together, even if they originally come from other bases around the world.

Exorcists use military weapons/training, but there's A LOT of magic fuckery involved- they're all reactive and compatible with this mysterious substance called Essence, that is used during the sacred rites and rituals to ban Demons. Every Exorcist knows how to channel it to at least perform the base banning and purifying rites.

However, those rare individuals that have a higher affinity with Essence, are called Mages: they're able to go beyond the simple ritualistic use, and use Essence to their will to aid their teammates during fights, heal injuries, and perform actions that would be impossible for normal human beings.

Not every Exorcist is receptive to Essence, and this makes Mages rarer, and highly valuable in the Order. For example, Hannes is a Mage, and a pretty powerful one!

There's also a lot of implications of what using this mostly unknown essence and being in contact with demonic energy everyday does to an Exorcist... and some were literally changed from it, going through physical and psycological changes, that some define 'loss of humanity'. Wolfgang and Jacek are an example of two Risen Exorcists.

"You stared at the black abyss that is death, and the abyss stared back. But then, you came back.

Something has shattered within you, and your connection to your humanity has been forever damaged.

The Order allows you to live and gives you tools to control your impulses, but you’re painfully aware that you’re living a life forever on the balance of oblivion."

Aand I think that's a pretty good summary of the current setting and story! There's still a lot to add and say, but I didn't want to make it overwhelming in this answer. If you're interested in something more specific like a character, feel free to ask me about it! I love answering questions about my oc projects, honestly!

I'm currently working through fleshing out the main cast, their stories, their designs and also slowly work my way through the main story! It's based on the very rough draft I had in high school, but with a lot of things changed/improved (i had good ideas but i was a little scrub that got stuck on stupid tropes too much lol), and generally trying to have a very slow but studious approach to it- I really love this project and I want it to be the best it can be, with no rush at all. It's a product of love and my interest for the supernatural, religious history, history of art, different cultures and countries and their stories, and I want all of this to shrine through my work, and not feel rushed. I don't want to leave anything to chance, I'm taking my time to study as much as I can about all these different countries the main characters come from, their histories and cultures, and getting inspired by them.

I LOVE travelling so ideally I'd also like to explore many of the places in Europe these characters are from myself, to really get a chance to see these settings I'm writing about first hand. For now, I'm lucky to have a lot of international friends that come from different European countries and being able to shoot the shit with them and ask them questions and things about these countries to have a better idea of where these characters come from. It's honestly one of the things I enjoy the most about this project!

I'm really glad you're interested in it and decided to ask more about it- it makes me really happy to share any information with people. It's been really fun and liberating to share my drawings and ideas for this project here, and I couldn't be happier about it :>

[bibabodesign2]

#Blog 14: Observation

2023.2.26

Scar:

Whilst I was wandering in a park near Glasgow, I found many trees with marks that people had carved on their bark. Over time these imprints slowly became part of the trees. These scars don't heal in the same way. Some scars are raised and some are sunken. Some are chapped and rough, while others are round and smooth.

The scars on these trees heal in much the same way as the scars on the human body. Depending on the cause of the wound, wounds heal in different ways.

Tire marks:

Imprints in the Grass was the subject of my personal craft book project last semester. At that time, my research on the imprints on the grass was limited to the walking paths of people in The Meadows. So there are many interesting grass markings that have yet to be discovered. If I want to study the imprints on the grass, I can use the cast method to make a mold with cement to record. I can also record through ipad 3D scanning.

Tree Barks:

The lines on the bark look a lot like the growth lines on the human body. The white lines are sparse and dense, and at the same time they are stretched at the raised positions. (p1) The bark texture in the second image is very similar to the effect of dry skin being stretched and twisted. (p2) The gradation in the third bark is very similar to the effect of black paint in water. (p3) The folds in the bark at the end reminded me of a C-section scar. Also like the loose skin of a thin old man piled together. (p4)

Microorganism:

Vitiligo on the stone steps is very similar to freckles, age spots and leukoplakia in a patch on the human body. (p1) Layers of fungi on the stump form an interesting honeycomb-like state. (p2)

[wgbbuildersltd-blog]

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[ncutigatwafans]

Ncuti Gatwa made the top of The List Hot 100 - a list celebrating the 100 most important cultural contributors in Scotland in 2022

The article reads: You may know him as the gregarious Eric Effiong in Netflix's 'Sex Education' or perhaps as the next incarnation of the legendary Time Lord, but Ncuti Gatwa is aslo a proud Scot, with his performing roots deeply embedded in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Fife.

'My Dad was studying at Edinburgh University so I grew up in Black Avenue, which was like accommodation for international families because we had just come from Rwanda.' But it was a move to Fife at the age of 14 that started Gatwa's love affair with performing. 'My drama teacher at Dunfermline High School was like, you really. need to consider going to the Royal Conservatoire. And she gave me David Tennant's Hamlet and said "watch this. This is an actor." I was like "oh my God".' What, then, could more full circle than him stepping into his shoes at the next Doctor Who? 

In September, the BBC broke the news that Gatwa would be taking on this iconic role, making him the first ever Black actor (and fourth Scot) to do so in the shows' 59-year history. 'I've known since about February so it's been tricky keeping this under wraps: I have a very big mouth!' he said on the red carpet folowing the announcement. 'But it's a true honour. This role is an insitution. It means a lot to so many people, including myself. It makes everyone feel seen as well.'

Reflecting on the casting process, Gatwa recalls 'prepping for the role of the Doctor and watching all the episodes again and watching Russell T Davies and David [Tennant]'s work. I was overcome with the need to get the job! I was like "I want to work with Russel". His writing is so clever. I just feel very honoured that he saw something in me that he likes. He's going to take me to the universe, around the stars and galaxies.'

Gatwa may be over the moon now, but the road to get here was rough. While relentlessly attending auditions in London, Gatwa found hmself homeless for several months before one booking would change his life forever. 'It was turbulent, you know? But I feel so grateful that Sex Education came into my life.' A month after its release in 2019, the first season had been streamed over 40 million times, shooting its stars to international fame overnight. 'In this streaming age, a show drops across 150 countries in a second so it took a long time to figure out what the hell was going on in my life. I'd be in Tesco and someone would ask for a selfie and I'd have no idea why!' 

Three seasons in, he still has a lot of love for Sex Education and Eric, a character he's lifted with side-splitting one-liners such as 'you detty pig'. But how does he find returning to Moordale High? 'Playing a teenager, especially as a 30-year-old man, is getting trickier as the days go on, let me tell you,' he cackles. 'But it's lovely to return to that cast. They are like my children.' 

Among these co-stars is Emma Mackey who will appear alongside Gatwa in Greta Gerwig's upcoming Barbie. 'I remember the casting director telling me "Greta's seen your tape and she really likes it". Well, that wasn't good enough', he deadpans. 'No stone must be left unturned! So I did about tne other takes and like "SEND THEM ALL TO GRETA!" His tenacity paid off and he now describes Gerwig as 'a creative kindred spirit'. 

Gatwa finds himself on the brink of A-list stardom, his strong grasp of what's important shows grace and conviction. 'It's just about learning to be really grateful,' he insists. 'And also to take the work seriously but not yourself seriously. It's an amazing job that we get to do but it is just a job. I'm slowly learning how to take it in my stride.'

[whatdoesshedotothem]

: Thursday 20 April 1837

7 35

11 ½

Slept in K.C. as since the 11th A- much better her cousin come fine but morning but no sun and F41° now at 8 ¾ - cast off this morning my woollen sock (worn under my black worsted stockings) and one double black silk handkerchief from round my throat – now wearing 1 double black silk and 2 thicknesses of coarse flannel – went into the hall cellar for wine – no! called down to Thomas Pearson 1st who came like John Bottomley yesterday to buy hay – 11d. per stock – none to sell – then in the hall cellar – out about (after) 11 – with Booth the mason about 1 thing or other – he in his greatcoat – I came in again for my 2nd double silk handkerchief about my throat – at the meer – with Robert Mann + 4 puddling about the meer-clow stone pen-trough – Mr. Husband had ordered Booth to drill into the face of it on iron grating contrary to my orders to Mr. H- himself and to Booth – I had said it should be put 2 or 3ft. back into the pen-trough so as not to be seen from a boat on the meer – annoyed – said I would not have Mr. H- or anybody else contradicting my orders – came in about 1 – sat with A- at her luncheon and had 4 oranges I have been feverish ever since my taking Mr. Jubb’s pills – Mr. Harper about 2 – waited for Mr. Gray laid up with a putrid sore throat somewhere in the east riding and could not come – H- had luncheon – with him from about 2 ¾ to leaving him at the proposed new engine Platform at the top of the bank at 7 25 – talked over Mr. Husband – Mr. Harper behaved exceedingly well about him – he would not be wanted at Northgate after June, and the mill etc etc could go on quite well without him – could send me plenty more in his place but they would be a speculation like Mr. Husband and might or not answer better – Mr. Harper gave me a rough draft of advertisement of the hotel – I thought it could not be improved - I merely crossed out the 3 words (in the centre) of the populous town etc leaving the sentence in the town of etc etc H- at last agreed for the advertisement to appear immediately – we mentioned the following newspapers London Times, Morning Herald, ditto Post and Examiner Edinburgh North Britain advertiser – 1 Glasgow paper 1 Manchester –

1 Liverpool

1 Leeds

2 H-x

Galignani?

Mr. Husband had made 2 mistakes in the great room (Casino) the door from the kitchen part should have opened into the middle of an archway (9?in. out of the centre) and the room (9in.) shorter than marked on the plan – the kitchen fire-place (too) so low not room to set a good proper fireplace apparatus – But, on the whole, Mr. Harper never had [fewer] mistakes made in a building of that magnitude – Braithwaite of the George Inn York thought well of the hotel – if he wanted a place would be glad of it and to pay a very good rent – H- had had no time to think of the mechanics Institute – as to my plan of giving the ground conditionally, he agreed with me that an actuary (I mentioned Morgan) should be consulted – the mechanics Institute at York falling off – they probably all would bin 10 years – could not pay the salaries now – wanted to bring in the subscribers (H- gave £50) as answerable for these but H- resisted said I should merely say in answer that I should not like to run any risk of the building being appropriated to any purpose that I might not like in case of the failure of the Institution and that if this matter could not be settled to my satisfaction I should decline selling or letting any part of my ground for the projected building – shewed H- over the outbuildings – the laundry brewhouse coach house (laundry court – he approved my plan) all to be settled about tomorrow then explained my plan about the front of the house – no banking up according to Mr. Gray’s plan at the low end of the front – H- agreed with me when I shewed him the very pretty point of view down the valley we should narrow and spoil – then down to the meer-clow – thinks the stone pen-trough will not answer – the water will ooze thro’ the joints at the top – I proposed a drain on the top of the pen-trough – then to raise the present covers – then walked round the meer and thro’ the wood and pointed out the place for a Dutch barn – much approved – H- did not reckon quite 1 yard cube of space per ton of hay – I said this at least would be required – then climbed up the wood looked into the Lodge-well, and went to the top of the bank – H- could not so well carry off the smoke from Walsh land – recommended the other side of the road (in John Bottomley’s field) – had meant to propose a straight line of Incline – satisfied with the present plan – the engine would have had double work before – would not have answered – useless wheels in the plan – the engineer not quite knowing perhaps what he was about – now all would be simple and easy – Mr. H- to look at A-‘s water Lane mill and cottages and be here between 1 and 2 tomorrow – all the people to come here to meet him – left him about 7 35 – returned as fast as I could – dressed – dinner at 8 – Had Joseph Mann from 9 to 10 – then coffee – A- poorly and went to bed at 10 ½ - JM- had come about the Whiskum road (whether Nelson to cart down toll-free flags for the Northgate – no!) and about a turn for Listerwick pit – JM- to do all about the meer-drift clow (the remainder of the puddling and the passage down to it) and to begun to finish the Little field cistern immediately – Light rain showers frequently during the day F48° at 10 40 pm

[phantomtrader19]

Les Miserables UK tour REVIEW

Theatre royal Glasgow 16/12/2021

Finally after 3 years I got to see the touring production of Les Mis and wow it did not disappoint I was in tears for the whole thing 😭

I got to see Will barratt as valjean and haven’t really listened to him in the role so was very intrigued. He was absolutely breathtaking he had amazing acting and such a clear and soulful voice he reduced everyone in the audience to tears with Bring him Home, extremely lucky to have been able to see him as Valjean!!

Nic Greenshields as Javert ... I haven’t heard brilliant things about his portrayal and I can see why tbh other than himself I’ve only seen Bradley Jaden as Javert and they are VERY VERY different I can’t emphasise that enough. I absolutely by no means hated his performance but I didn’t get much from him he was just kind of there, however his voice seemed to be on good form today so that was nice.

Katie Hall as Fantine was I think one of the highlights of the show she absolutely broke me. From audios I’ve heard her before covid she sings ‘I dreamed a dream’ quite differently a lot more pain and you can totally tell she’s so fed up of her life it was just wonderful. Her acting was out of this world she was so raw and it felt so real it was gut wrenching. Loved her!!

Ian Hughes and Helen Walsh as the Thénardiers, they were good and delivered the jokes and funny parts how they should be but other than that I wasn’t too fussed about them. They both didn’t seem rough and nasty enough.

Nathania Ong played Eponine and had a gorgeous voice she was fantastic. She really played the Tom boy part of the character amazingly. Was devastated when she died even though I knew it was coming.

Will Callan as Marius I was really impressed at his portrayal for being literally the same age as me I was like oh.... 😶 lovely voice and fantastic acting especially in Empty chairs you could feel his agony. Definitely a rising star

Paige Blankson as Cosette seemed to breathe a bit of life into the character which was nice to see. She slightly struggled to hit the high notes but was by no means bad. I’m sure she’ll go on to do great things.

Samuel Wynn Morris as Enjolras was just unbelievable his voice was stunning and wasn’t bad to look at must I say ahhaah. I noticed he wasn’t wearing a wig and had his own hair which was cool as I’m not a massive fan of the beach wave blonde surfer dude wigs tbh.

Ensemble we’re fantastic and lovely to see ex phantom swing Rebecca Ridout again!

And of course brilliant to see Earl as the bishop again

Fabulous show would love to see this cast again!!

[magnoliasinbloom]

Lie To Me - 17

AO3 :: Previously

“You must stay close, Fraser.” John Grey’s tone is stern, clipped and anxious.

“I didna intend to let her out of my sight.” Jamie breaks away from the phone for a moment to shove his head through a shirt neckline, and checks his mobile for the hundredth time.

It has been a tense two weeks, while the SCD gets their paperwork and warrants in order. There cannot be any mistakes, or the MacKenzies and their company will get away scot-free, no pun intended. Jamie had returned to the office with little fanfare, but was well aware that he was being watched again. His decision to send Claire away had been a good one.

There had been certain buzz about the upcoming event, but Jamie hadn’t received an invitation himself—for obvious reasons, he thought. He had appraised Murtagh of the fundraiser so he could contact Grey, but no one knew anything; purposefully orchestrated, but no specific details beyond that. Wheedling Louise to add his name to the list to no avail, he’d had to come up with an alternative plan to be close to Claire and protect her as he’d promised.

Grey prattles on in Jamie’s ear, and he looks at the screen once more. No new messages from Claire; the last had been an hour ago, a racy selfie of Claire in her barely-there underwear as she dressed for the fundraiser. Suddenly, a certain word brings him crashing back to Earth.

“What? Ye can’t!”

“Of course I can’t, Fraser,” Grey says irritably. “I only said I wished I could arm you. But you’re a civilian, so that’s a no-go. I’ll have a detail there to help out.”

“I wouldna ken what to do with a gun even if ye did.” Jamie swallows hard, fear in his throat. “Ye dinna think it will come to that?”

“I’m hoping it won’t be. Keep your eyes open and stay alert, Fraser. If you see anything untoward, anything suspicious, call Murtagh.” It would be a very public takedown, and Jamie is equally excited and apprehensive. The videos SCD had discovered apparently show Bonnet’s face clearly, exculpating Jamie from Alexander McGregor’s death.

With a final warning to be careful, Grey ends the call. Almost immediately after, Jamie’s phone beeps with a new text. It’s Claire, in a beautiful yellow gown, blowing a kiss to the camera. Jamie’s confidence is renewed and his spirits lift, to see his Sassenach so beautiful, so brave, so irrevocably his.

X-x-X

The venue is sumptuously decorated, as befits Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art. Claire grips her coat as she hands her invitation to the guard at the door and is admitted. Geillis walks beside her, already looking for the servers with drink trays.

“Here ye go, get ye properly soused.” G hands her a flute of champagne. Claire sips slowly, looking around for a tall head of red hair. It’s not noticeable, and she doesn’t know if it’s a good thing that her Viking Scot is well-concealed; she desperately wishes Jamie could be at her side. Claire watches as her co-workers mingle and laugh, eating and drinking. She chats with a few of her colleagues, and while talking to Joe Abernathy, she spots a bright mop of curls skulking behind a set of cubicles acting as the servers’ station. Excusing herself to the loos, she sidles close to the station and faces the room, grabbing another glass flute as she senses Jamie at her back.

“Mo nighean donn, ye look beautiful,” he breathes on her neck, leaning in as close as he dares. He has spent his time hiding out behind the flimsy cubicle walls. Blending in with the servers, he’d made his way through the back-entrance gangway, pretending to be working with them tonight. No one had batted an eye or asked him anything. Donning a white jacket a bit too tight across the shoulders and at least three inches too small at the wrists, he pretended to sort through the champagne glasses and handed full trays out for servers to parade around the museum.

A sudden commotion near the entrance has her craning her neck to see Colum MacKenzie arrive maneuvering in an electric wheelchair, followed closely by Dougal. Claire sees Tom Christie, the hospital director, rush over to greet and flatter them. She can feel Jamie tense behind her.

“Claire, the MacKenzie…”

“I see them, Jamie. Don’t worry.” His hand slips into hers for a moment, warm and strong. She doesn’t dare turn to look at him. His mere presence at her back bolsters her courage, as she downs the rest of the champagne and prepares to walk back into the fray, with Jamie’s parting words in her ears and heart:

Ye need not be scairt, so long as I’m wi’ ye.

They resonate in her mind, steadying her. Claire finds Geillis and they nurse another glass of champagne. Geillis senses her nerves and Claire steers her far away from the gaggle of chiefs and important hospital administrators fawning over the fundraiser sponsors.

“Hey, there you are, ladies!” Joe saunters up to them, clinking glasses together. “What do you think of all this? Pretty swanky, huh?”

“Only the best for Queen Elizabeth’s,” Claire smiles, smoothing a hand down her dress. Her heels are starting to pinch her feet, and she fidgets, wishing she could be in her pajamas cuddled up to her big red Scot. She folds her coat and lays it on the table along with her gold clutch; no chairs have been provided, apparently to force people to stand around and mingle.

“Gowan wanted to see you, Geillis. He wants the donors from Nexus—you know, the hospital beds—to meet you. Can I steal her away from you a bit, Beauchamp?” Joe smiles easily and guides G with a hand at the small of her back. She looks back helplessly at Claire as she’s swallowed up by the crowd.

Claire is trying to find a glimpse of Jamie again at the servers’ station when she feels a strong, callused hand grasp her arm at the elbow. She tenses, fear skittering up her spine—this hand is unfamiliar, rough, and definitely not Jamie’s. She whirls to find Dougal’s grizzled face leering at her, teeth bared into a grin that resembles a snarl.

“Miss Beauchamp—we meet at last.”

Claire tries to wrench free, but that only makes Dougal tighten his grip. She wants to scream, but her throat is dry and she finds they are surrounded by two burly men who block the rest of the attendees from seeing what is going on.

“Let me go.” Her voice aims for strength but there is a tremor of fear.

“I dinna think so, sassenach.” The word takes on its intended meaning, an insult, a slur of sorts. Dougal begins walking her away from the table. “Jamie will heed us, one way or another.”

“Jamie is a good man,” Claire hisses, “not that you know anything about that.” She tries to cast about for Jamie, but they’re heading in the opposite direction from the servers’ station; Dougal yanks her arm again to make her keep up, causing her to stumble. Too late, she realizes she left her clutch—and her mobile—on the table.

“He overplayed his hand. Do ye think we dinna ken about his relationship wi’ ye, what he’s been tryin’ to do these past few months? He broke faith wi’ us, and his wife. Our contract, we willna honor it either.”

“Honor? What do you know about the word?” Claire spits out with as much venom as she can muster

“Honor or no, I ken I always win, lass.” With that, Dougal releases her, but Claire feels another hand descend, this time on her shoulder, gripping, and a small but insistent push at her back. She’s never felt anything like it, but immediately realizes what it is: a gun. Quietly, she is steered away from the crowd, into the exhibits. After hours, there is only emergency lighting barely bright enough to see.

The last thing she hears from Dougal before being swallowed up by the dark is, “I’ll wait in the car.”

X-x-X

Jamie can’t find Claire. He’d spotted her bright gold purse laying on the table where he last saw Claire, and he rips it open; her mobile is in it, and his wame sinks. He has no way of contacting her now, and he fears the worst.

He spots Geillis flirting with an older man, tipping her head back and shaking out her long red hair.

He hurries to her and with a curt, “Excuse us,” takes Geillis’s arm and leads her off to a corner away from the noise.

“What is it, Jamie?”

“Have ye seen Claire? I left for a minute to go to the loo and now she’s gone.”

“I saw her the last time ye did. Do ye think she might have left?”

Jamie’s heart pounds double-time. “Not on her own. I specifically told her not to, not tonight.” He holds up the purse. “She wouldna have left this behind.”

Geillis pales. “I can head home, see if she’s there anyway, or wait for her.”

“Yes, please, do that.” Jamie pulls out his phone, and dials Murtagh. “Uncle?”

“Lad, ye ken ‘tis not safe for ye to—”

“Claire’s gone. They’ve taken Claire.” He knows this with a certainty that shocks him. A series of expletives on the other end before he continues. “Call Grey, tell him to move in now.  We canna afford to wait.” Jamie ends the call; he’s on the move now, headed towards the main entrance so he can call a car.

Briefly, he glimpses a broad muscular man in the distance. There is a large black sedan blocking one of the nearby side streets. There is a sense of déjà-vu when he hears a muffled yell, and then he’s racing towards the sound, racing towards his life.

[scotianostra]

On February 2nd 1987 the Scottish novelist Alistair MacLean died.

Born on April 21st, 1922, in Glasgow, MacLean was originally named Alasdair MacGill-Eain in Scottish Gaelic, the son of a Scottish minister and a singer. His mother tongue was the Gaelic, so he learned English as a second language. He spent his early years in the Scottish Highlands as his family relocated to Daviot.

Upon his father’s demise, the family moved back to Glasgow with his mother. He attended Hillhead High, studying English, History, Science and Latin.

At the age of eighteen Alistair was drafted into the Royal Navy, in 1941. He was responsible for firing torpedoes during World War II and saw action in Mediterranean and Eastern Fleets. His novels drew heavily from his marine experiences.

Once the war was over he returned home in 1946.Subsequently, he enrolled himself at Glasgow University and earned an English degree. He then began teaching at a secondary school in Rutherglen and in his spare time he took up short story writing.

In 1954, Glasgow Herald announced a short story competition in which he participated and won the first prize for writing ‘Dileas’. The story vividly presents the picture of the relentless roughness of the sea. It rendered MacLean to write a novel on the request of a publishing house, Collins. The debut novel, titled H.M.S. Ulysses, was highly inspired by Maclean’s experiences of escorting merchant vessels while serving Royal Navy and also drew on his brother’s insight into marine life. As the novel instantly became a bestseller, Maclean invested all his creative energy in writing spy, war and adventure stories.

His highly acclaimed The Guns of Navarone follows the story of a sabotage team sent to eradicate two giant guns. It was later adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 1961. The sequel to the book, Force 10 from Navarone, came out in 1968. My favourite book and subsequent film was Where Eagles Dare, which had a stellar cast including Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and our very own Mary Ure.

MacLean then turned hi hand to spy thrillers,The Last Frontier follows a rescue mission operated by an agent to retrieve an English scientist from the clutches of enemy.

MacLean wrote his next two novels under the pen name, Ian Stuart, so as to prove that it is the subject matter rather than his popularity that sold his books. However, his readers recognized him for his unique Scottish literary style, the books led him to be compared to his fellow ScoIan Fleming, who was also enjoying success with his James Bond novels.

Alistair MacLean continued to write and produced 29 successful novels. Despite his remarkable contribution, MacLean’s rank on the popularity chart took a nosedive posthumously and his books went out of print. However his books are estimated to have sold over 150 million copies, making him one of the best-selling fiction authors of all time.

Alistair MacLean’s last years were afflicted by alcoholism. According to one obituary, "A master of nail-chewing suspense, MacLean met an appropriately mysterious death: when he died in the Bavarian capital after a brief illness, no one, including the British Embassy, knew what he was doing there." His body was buried a few yards from Richard Burton's grave in Vieux Cemetery at Céligny, Switzerland.

[hallowed-be-thy-username]

Clothing Is Custom, No Labels: Part One

“No matches on prints, DNA, dental. Clothing is custom, no labels. Nothing in his pockets but knives and lint. No name, no other alias.”

Summary: You’re one of the last bespoke tailors in town, making suits and custom clothing for Gotham’s elite. Business men and women, well known lawyers, the Wayne family, and... the Joker?

Genre: Self-insert

Pairing: Ledger!Joker x fem reader 

Warnings: Some cursing

Word count: 1,667

Authors Note: Here comes part one! I recommend reading the Introduction first if you haven’t 💜

Inspirational Music: Beat the Devil’s Tattoo by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

                                    - Part One -

Sleep did not come easily to you last night. You tossed and turned, worry about this cryptic meeting flooding your dreams and stirring you awake throughout the night. The lack of good sleep left you feeling hazy and distracted. So hazy that you didn’t see the uneven patch of sidewalk beneath your feet. Your hands shot out in front of you to catch yourself, the rough pavement scraping your palms.

You huffed as you stood up and brushed off your sore hands on your pants. Fucking sidewalk. You pass that patch of sidewalk every day and every day, you walk around it. But not today. Today has decided to be different.

Your keys jingled as you unlocked the back door to the shop, yawning with coffee in hand. It was going to be rough, staying here late tonight. After you opened the front curtains and switched on the lights, you reached behind the desk to turn the news on in the background while you readied the shop to open.

“Several Gotham city banks have been robbed within the last week. This string of robberies has left many dead on the scene at each location, all of whom are assumed to be accomplices, as reported by eye witnesses. If that wasn’t strange enough, all of them have been wearing clown masks,” you heard the GCN anchor say from your little tv.

What did he just say? You left the mannequin you were preparing to dress in the window and took long strides back to the desk.

“It is estimated that over sixty million dollars has been stolen thus far. Police have had few leads as their investigation continues but one man appears to be the driving force behind the robberies. Gotham PD has released this photo, captured by security cameras at Gotham National Bank just yesterday,” the anchor continued before an image flashed on the screen.

Your eyes widened and your breath hitched in your throat at the sight of a man in ghostly white makeup with black around his eyes, a blood red smile over his lips and two jagged scars curling up from both corners of his mouth, staring straight at the camera.

“Nothing else is known about this man other than that he goes by the alias, ‘the Joker’, leaving a Joker playing card behind at many of the crime scenes. If you have any information on the man pictured, please contact the anonymous tip line listed at the bottom of your screen.”

You switched the tv off, a shiver running down your spine. That image was burned into your eyes, as clear as it was on the screen moments ago. You blinked a few times but it was still there, staring at you. The Joker. Those eyes just gazed straight through the screen and locked with yours. It was unsettling but you couldn’t help but feel something else. Overwhelming curiosity. Who was this guy? Why did he paint his face? Where did he even come from? This was the first you’d heard of him. Not to mention those scars. Flesh viciously sliced apart, torn clean through, leaving behind a macabre permanent smile. A strange feeling tugged at your stomach as you thought about the pain he must have felt. They were so… terrifying.

The sound of the door opening jolted you out of your trance as you jumped and whipped around to face the door.

“Oh, sorry about that. Didn’t mean to scare you. Where do you want me to leave these?”

A delivery guy stood just inside the doorway with a handcart stacked with boxes. You shook your head and answered with an embarrassed smile, “It’s ok, I guess I’m a little jumpy today. You can leave them anywhere back there, thanks.”

You pointed toward the back room and he nodded on his way to drop them off. Shit, maybe you shouldn’t drink that coffee.

The afternoon crawled by at a frustratingly sluggish pace. The ticking of time made you impatient for the day to be done but simultaneously anxious about the very same idea. A particularly needy woman with perfume that burned your nose picked up an altered dress and a man looking to get his pants hemmed to fit his unfortunately short stature took up some of your time but it was still an hour before closing time. Your stomach fluttered for a second. Tonight it wasn’t really closing time. You decided to preoccupy yourself with a book you’d meaning to read, sitting down and leaning back in your chair, getting comfortable at the desk. Maybe you’d run out to grab a bite to eat soon.

Your eyelids flew open as you suddenly awoke with a start. The shop was dark. You scrambled from your chair to find the clock, grabbing it from the counter and turning it around. 9:40 pm.

Your heart started pounding in your chest, the meeting with your new mystery client was dangerously close. You cursed under your breath and rushed to close the front curtains, hoping to avoid anyone else trying to come in. It was a miracle you weren’t robbed in the first place.

Reality rushed over you and your hands started to shake with unease. Why were you so nervous? Well, this has never happened to you before. Men bringing you that much money ahead of time, in cash no less. Asking, no, telling you to stay open late for them. It was just weird. Weird in a way that made the little hairs on the back of your neck stand up. And now it was here.

A few deep breaths did something to calm your nerves a bit, at least until the hands on the clock reached 9:58. 

Headlights illuminated the maroon velvet curtains over the windows, sending your heart rate soaring once again. He’s here.

Suddenly, an urge to hide made your legs twitch as you stood in front of the desk but you resisted it, fighting to keep yourself from running to the back room. Your heart continued to pound and was joined by a shudder down your spine as you caught sight of two silhouettes, figures cast in shadow over the curtains that were moving toward the door.

You held your breath when the door opened. It was the bald man from yesterday. He made eye contact with you and blinked. You tensed up, waiting for him to say something, but instead he let go of the door to disappear back outside.

What?

Before you could react, the door opened again and a different man stepped into the shop.

You halted in place, staring at him. His hair was stringy and tinted green. His face. His face was covered with a layer of white paint, black smeared around his eyes, that devilish red smile that had been floating around in the back of your mind all day. It was him.

You couldn’t move. You willed your body to do something, anything other than stare at the man with the Glasgow smile in front of you. But that’s all you could do. Blood rushed in your ears as you stood there, trapped in your own body, for what felt like far too long.

He took a few steps toward you, thawing your muscles instantly for you to back up and bump into the desk, your eyes still on him.

“What’s the matter, hm? You look nervous. Is it the scars?” he spoke as he gestured toward his face.

His voice was peculiar. Somewhat high and nasally but deep and gravelly at the same time.

Your mouth opened to speak before you had any words in mind to say. “Uh, um. N-no. I, um, I just recognized you from the, the news,” you sputtered, trying not to visibly tremble.

His eyebrows shot up and he grinned as he replied, “Ahhh, little old me? Well I’m, uh, flatter-ed.”

The only thing you could do was nod as you continued to gaze wide-eyed at him, your hands gripping the edge of the desk behind you like a vice. The way he pronounced words was hypnotizing. They were spoken so deliberately, so carefully chosen.

“Well, as much as I’d love to continue with this, uh, ban-ter of ours, I believe you can make me a suit, yes?” he continued.

You suddenly stiffened to attention after his statement registered in your mind, your already hammering heart flipping uncomfortably in your chest.

“Oh, um, yes. Y-yes I can,” you managed to stutter.

He clapped his hands together, making you jump slightly. “Fan-tastic! Shall we?” he said enthusiastically, extending his arm out toward the mirrored area of the shop.

He waited a moment for you to move, only to watch you continue to stare like an antelope caught in a  lion’s gaze before flicking his tongue out over his scarred lip and sauntering over on his own.

Deep breaths. You took deep breaths, so quickly that they were making you nauseous. You had to try to relax. What if you made him angry? He’s killed people. What would he do if you messed up? It’s too late to back out. You swallowed hard against the lump growing in your throat. You can do this, you can do this, you can do this…

He started thumbing through the books of fabric swatches on the nearby table, scrutinizing each with his eyes and occasionally raising an eyebrow as you slowly approached with pins and needles buzzing in your hands. He suddenly flicked one of the books shut and raised his eyes to meet yours once again, making you stop in your tracks and hold back a gasp.

“Now, what do I call you, doll?” he asked, his dark eyes fixed on yours.

Your words tumbled out, responding all on their own, “Y/N.”

His gaze had captured you again and this time it was drawing you in. The room around you seemed to dissolve and all you could focus on were his spellbinding eyes.

“Y/N, call me Joker,” he purred.

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

@amethystmoonprincess @call-me-harley-quinn @paev 💜

[texastheband]

Texas V Wu-Tang Clan

Interview by Steven Daly Photography by Peter Robathan Taken from The Face - December 1997

It’s the pop story of ’97, the most unlikely end to a weird year: TEXAS collaborating with the WU-TANG CLAN. First, a Scottish rock band on the verge of slip-sliding away into a tasteful obscurity was reborn via a slew of hit singles and a glut of stylish imagery. Now, in New York, their Brit-cool meets hip hop in a mutually beneficial deal. For everyone concerned, it’s all they need to get on…

Sharleen Spiteri took the call in her front hall. "Yo, Peach," growled a strange voice over transatlantic wires. The gentleman caller was none other than Ol’ Dirty Bastard, court jester of New York hip hop dynasty the Wu-Tang Clan. Apparently Mr Bastard fancied working with Spiteri and her band, Texas. It all started in August, with one of Texas’ managers discussing Land Rovers with someone called Power in New York, who turned out to be the manager of the Clan. A video of Texas’ "Say What You Want" was dispatched, and prodigiously gifted Wu-Tang chieftain RZA signed on to do a re-recording of the single for a prospective single project. Original rapper OI’ Dirty Bastard was replaced by Method Man, the next Clan member with a solo album scheduled.

The hook-up with the Wu-Tang Clan is the perfect climax to a year that’s seen Texas rise from a tumbleweed-strewn grave to grab the pole position in British Pop. A year in which Glasgow’s Sharleen Spiteri has stared out, defiantly remade and remodelled, from every magazine cover and TV show. From a media point-of-view, Texas’ – Spiteri’s – reconfiguring of music and fashion has been the year’s dream ticket. Ever since Bryan Ferry took the innovative step of getting Anthony Proce in to design Roxy Music’s wardrobe in the early seventies, successive phases of pop’s history have thrown up performers who use the fashion photographers, stylists and designers du jour to present The Package. It is these performers who most often capture the youthful mood of their time: that’s why you can see the vulgar glamour of the Seventies in the cut of Ferry’s sleazy lounge-lizard jib; the naive aspiration of the early Eighties in the box-suited and pixie-booted "style" of Spandau Ballet; and the onset of the late-Eighties mixing and matching of different cultures in Neneh Cherry’s Buffalo Stance. When we look back at 1997 we will see in Texas’ sound and vision a new mix, all to do with living the high life but keeping it real. Catwalk and street, the designer and the understated, Prada and Nike; the slick and the cred. Ten years’ gone Scottish guitar outfit and this season’s bright young labels (in both senses). The setting too, has helped. Fashion, again, is big cultural business. Clever pop stars (Goldie! Liam!) want to be seen by the runway and hanging out at fashion parties; young designers yearn to be visible on the stage or the podium (viz. Antonio Berardi’s autumn London show at Brixton Academy). Factor in a paucity of self-motivating, button-pressing, songwriting, photogenic women in British music, and you have a ready-made media phenomenon.

Sharleen Spiteri is holding court at a New York restaurant with a gang of Calvin Klein employees who’ve just accompanied her to the VH-1 Fashion Awards. The annual ceremony is a mutually convenient arrangement, a TV cluster-fuck where the music and fashion industries exchange credibility and cachet. Texas are contemplating just such an exchange themselves, having recently been given the OK by CK. (Tommy Hilfiger has also made overtures.) Spiteri is to have an audience with Klein himself; she’s already been bribed with a trunkful of CK merch, including the streaked black dress – "inspired by [the artist] Brice Marden" – she’s wearing tonight.

Someone suggests that Texas would be perfect for Fashionably Loud, an MTV special where models strut on stage as the hot bands of the moment rock out. "Forget it," quips Spiteri. "there’s only room for one star up where we play." If Spiteri were to join Kate Moss and Christy Turlington on the Calvin Klein payroll it would not, as she sees it, detract from Texas’ music. "Fashion and music have always been connected, and now more than ever," says the singer. "You couldn’t have one without the other. If there’s shit music at a runway show it just doesn’t work."

Meanwhile, there’s the songs. With "White On Blonde", Texas’ fourth album, the music takes care of itself. Radio-friendly unit-shifters abound, helped on their way by producers Mike hedges (manic Street Preachers) and Manchester’s Grand Central. The singles have been, in sequence, nu-soul fresh ("Say What You Want"), springy pop ("Halo"), Motown-sunny ("Black Eyed Boy") and winter warming ("Put Your Arms Around Me"). The B-side remixers have covered all bases in these dance-savvy late Nineties, ranging from of-the-moment talents like the Ballistic Brothers and Trailerman to old stand-bys like Andy Weatherall and 808 State. Texas, patently, lost their dancefloor cherry by cherry-picking the brightest and the best.

Of course, while the singles have all enjoyed heavy airplay and gone top ten, and while "White on Blonde" has sold two million copies (more than its two predecessors put together), the remixes haven’t necessarily helped those sales. As the go-faster stripes of credibility on the solid saloon car, though, they’ve still been essential to The Package; all part of the thoroughly modern mix.

So now, the Wu-Tang Clan. To many, though, this latest development could smack of opportunism. One group are renegade roughnecks who mythologise themselves in epic hip hop anthems; the others are fastidiously tasteful Scots with an eye for perfectly modern consensus-pop. The Wu-Tang Clan are certainly among the aesthetically correct names that Texas always drop in interviews, but can there possibly be a legitimate connection between the two? "A lot of the Wu-Tang backing tracks have the feel of soundtracks, and we’ve always gone for a cinematic sound," says Johnny McElhone, Spiteri’s genial songwriting partner and bass player. "And I’ve always liked Al Green, and they use a lot of Willie Mitchell, Al Green, that whole Hi Records sound, and make it modern. And Marvin Gaye: Method Man, in that duet with Mary J. Blige, used ‘You’re All I Need To Get By."

Having dominated the charts in Europe this year, Texas are now, logically, turning their attention to America: the country that has always inspired them, whether it’s the dusty, pseudo-roots sound of their first three albums, or the iconic-soul and post-soul sounds of Memphis and Staten Island that they give props to now; the place where success has always eluded them. Yet given the commercial momentum of "White on Blonde", their approach to the Wu-Tang Clan is surely not driven by desperation. They are, then, viewing the collaboration with a combination of fan-like wonder and disbelief.

"Method Man is just a wicked, wicked rapper," enthuses Spiteri. "I can’t wait to hear the combination of my vocals and his – I‘m really excited about it. I have a kind of sweet, virginal thing going on, and he’s got this dirty sex vibe. It could be the perfect marriage."

It’s a Saturday night in Manhattan, and ten storeys above Times Square, Sharleen Spiteri sits on the floor of a recording studio, tinkering with her latest high-tech gadget, a Philips computer about the size of a TV remote. Across the street, three ten-foot high electronic ticker-tapes provide testimony to Monday’s stockmarket crash. No matter how much Spiteri plays with her new toy, there’s still that nagging worry: what if the Wu-Tang Clan won’t show? They’re supposed to be on a tour bus returning from a gig in Washington, DC today, but these, after all, are the original masters of disaster. The crew whose normal modus operandi seems to be chaos. The band that recently quit a national tour because only five of the nine members could be relied upon to turn up.

The studio has been booked since six, so Spiteri and McElhone breathe signs of relief when RZA and his posse finally roll in around ten. Among the dozen-strong throng, they’re surprised to see Wu-Tang member Reakwon, a stout fellow with a Mercedes cap and a Fort Knox of gold dental work. Several cigars are hollowed out, their contents replaced with weed; bottles of Cristal champagne and Hennessy are passed around as the air grows thick with smoke.

Half an hour later, method Man makes his entrance. Stooped over, he looks deceptively short – maybe only six-four in his Hilfiger fleece hoodie. "I’m John-John," he tells Sharleen, referring to his alias, Johnny Blaze. Pulling out the big blunt from behind his ear, Method Man considers the job at hand. "She got a nice voice," drawls the laconic giant. "This band not exactly my type of listening material, but they going in the right direction, if you ask me, by fucking with us. I’m waiting for RZA to put down a beat, hear how the vocals sound melded with the track before I come with ideas. I’m one of those guys."

As his friends get on with the serious business of partying, RZA goes to work, feeding a succession of sample-laden discs into a sampler. He has a diffident, genius-at-work charisma about him as he sits with his back to the room, keyboard at side. With a flick of his prodigiously ringed hand he reaches out and conjures up a brutal bassline. The speakers pulse violently. RZA takes a sip of Hennessy. "Record this, right here!" he tells the bewildered-looking engineer.

RZA has decided to dispense with the original master tapes, shipped over from Britain. He wants a completely new version, recorded rough-and-ready without the standard safety net of a time-code. This convention-trashing, wildstyle approach to recording elicits some consternation from the studio’s engineer, a central-casting white guy who warns RZA: "You won’t be able to synch to this, you know." RZA waves him away and turns to Johnny McElhone. "This riff is in E," McElhone tells RZA. "Maybe we should try it in the original key, D." "What are you saying? I understand no keys," says RZA. "You want me to sing the whole song straight through?" asks Spiteri, trying to divine RZA’s intentions. He orders the lights turned down, and offers Sharleen some herbal inspiration. She politely declines and walks to the vocal booth. "What’s her name? Sheree?" asks RZA as Spiteri warms up. The engineer wants to know if he should maybe start recording. "Always record everything!" exclaims RZA. "Ready, get set, go! Play and record, play and record!" Spiteri rattles of a perfect new version of ‘Say What You Want’, grooving along by herself and passionately acting out every word, even the ones borrowed from Marvin Gaye’s ‘Sexual Healing". Now it’s time for Method Man, who at this point is so herbally inspired that he can hardly open his eyes. He jumps up and lopes around the main room, running off his newly written rhymes and clutching a bottle of Crystal. Method walks up to the mic and opens his mouth, and that treacly baritone sets a typically morbid scene: "Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest…" The Texas duo just look at each other, shaking their heads in awe.

The hours and the rhymes pass. Around 6am, things are starting to get a little weird. As Method Man snoozes on the sofa, RZA bounces off the walls, dancing like a dervish. "These are the new rhythms," he yells. "These are the new dances from Africa. I learned them when I was there last week!" McElhone and Spiteri crack up. The engineer probably wishes he were in Africa right now; he further draws RZA’s ire by making a mistake as he runs off some rough cassettes. As everyone says goodbye, RZA decides that he’s taking the studio’s sampler – he already has two of the $3,500 items, but at this point it’s all about the wind-up. The engineer, though, having last seen the end of his tether a good few hours ago, has had enough. By the commencement of office hours that morning, the rest of the session will have been cancelled and the band and Clan banned from this studio.

After a few frantic phone calls later that morning, a studio is found that is prepared to let the Wu-Tang Clan through the door. With one precondition: only two of them are allowed in the studio. Now it’s midnight, and four-fifths of Texas watch a trio of RZA-hired session men go through their paces. They shift effortlessly through a handful of soul and funk styles, and the Scots mutter approval. These are the kind of players that are so good they can get away with wearing questionable knitwear.

Soon, another couple of Wus pop in. Then another couple. In the control room RZA orders up a bottle of Hennessy and talks about hearing "Say What You Want" for the first time. "I didn’t fully understand the sound of it," admits the soft-spoken maestro. "It was obviously a popular song, a radio song, and my sound is the total opposite. But I thought that the artist had something, so I thought: "Let’s take her and rock her to my beat."

"Sweet soul, that’s what her stuff sounded like to me. Smooth. It reminded me of the Seventies: in those days, they did songs that would fit anywhere. If you went to a club getting high it would fit; if you was cleaning up your house it would fit. That’s when you’ve got a real great song right there." Whether or not "Say What You Want" is a great song, it’s not quite coming together tonight. Despite the best offers of the studio management, a full complement of Wu posse members ended up in the house. As the night drags on the trio of musicians don’t get with the track, and by eight the following morning there is little in the way of usable material. But everyone stays upbeat. Texas will work on the track in Glasgow, and send it back to RZA to finish, along with a new song based around one of his samples. After vowing to stay in touch, everyone stumbles out into the Manhattan morning light together, the Scots with an American name, and the Clan without a tartan.

From a distance the collaboration will continue. But it’s only a different kind of distance. Culturally, creatively, the gap between the Wu-Tang Clan and the old twang clan is considerable. Yet so it goes, this cross-cultural exchange programme. Whether it’s The Stones copping blues movies, Bowie digging the Philadelphia Sound, Lisa Stansfield getting soulful with Barry White, Sting getting doleful with Puff Daddy… Whether it’s Todd Terry reviving Everything But The Girl or Armand Van Helden making Sneaker Pimps the unwitting jumpstarters of speed garage, naked opportunism and risk-taking innovation have always been confused. Now, with genres blurred and tricknology proceeding apace, anything is possible and everything is permitted. Perhaps it is this, the sheer unlikeliness, that makes the Texas-Wu experiment the most illuminating collaboration of the year. Whether it works or not.

"If you play her stuff in a club, everybody be dancing, but it’s a clear room and you can see everybody’s face," RZA reflects on the departing Sharleen Spiteri. "But if you play mine, the room is smoky." And perhaps it is here, among the clouds and the clarity, between the smoke and the mirrors, where a new sound and vision lies.

Text originally posted on texasindemand.com

[dustedmagazine]

Michael Rosenstein 2020: Seeking Sojourn

What was I doing in 2010? What was I listening to? Honestly, without doing some digging, nothing springs immediately to mind. I’m guessing that ten years from now, thinking back on 2020, that won’t be the case. In mid-March, my wife and I took off on our annual winter/early spring sojourn to Provincetown, Cape Cod. When we headed out, the state of the world was tenuous. But over the course of four days, we split our time between idyllic, cold walks on the Outer Cape beaches and tracking the pandemic slide into lockdown and mayhem. We came back home to an entirely different world which has continued to spiral and swirl. This was a year where I spent far more time walking in a woods near my house, searching out a pair of barred owls and their four fledglings than I did listening to music. Focus for listening has waxed and waned and online video streams just haven’t resonated with me. But still, music has brought me some sense of solace over the course of the last year.

AMPLIFY 2020: quarantine

Without a doubt, most of my listening over the year was spent following the AMPLIFY 2020: quarantine festival. Organized by Jon Abbey, who runs the Erstwhile record label along with musicians Vanessa Rossetto and Matthew Revert, the online festival kicked off on March 20 and ran through September 20, presenting 240 newly-recorded pieces and 80 hours of music by musicians from across the globe. Most were solo contributions, with seven “blind overdubs” where two musicians with established working relationships chose track lengths in advance and submitted their recordings which were superimposed with some light mixing by Taku Unami. While the pieces are all available as free downloads on Bandcamp, that only reveals part of the story. Over the course of six months, the Facebook group grew to 3000 members, acting as a virtual gathering place for online conversations and musings with countless posts a day. Additionally, Abbey tirelessly posted an ongoing playlist which he dubbed “atmosphere” with cuts that ran the gamut from Albert Ayler to Funkadelic to Keith Hudson to Al Green with an extra-heavy helping of DJ Screw. Just tuning in to those choices and jumping on conversations was enough to save some days.

While anyone following the Erstwhile label caught some memorable submissions by expected participants, the organizers and some guest curators had more in mind than that and sub-threads developed early on. Yan Jun recruited fantastic submissions from little-known musicians from China while also contributing two pieces of his own. In addition to delivering three strong pieces, Revert brought in an Australian contingent. Rossetto delivered a festival highlight with her piece “perhaps at some time you have acted in a play, even if it was when you were a child” while also inviting a wide network of sound explorers constructing intimate sonic investigations. Abbey himself cast a wide net, probing for both established and little known musicians who had caught his attention over the years. (I’ve known Jon for a long time and was honored to be amongst those invited, contributing a piece assembled from field recordings from my Cape Cod trip.)

A number of musicians who hadn’t put out solo recordings in years, some who hadn’t had any recent releases at all, were lured back, with highlights by Greg Kelley, David Kirby, Joe Panzner, Annette Krebs and Sean Meehan. There was also a somber thread of homages to musicians who died over the last year, starting with a dedication of the entire festival to Australian percussionist Sean Baxter as well as a stirring tribute to bassist Simon H. Fell by Rhodri Davies, a dedication to Keith Tippett by Mark Wastell, and pieces commemorating Cor Fuhler by Dale Gorfinkel, Marcus Schmickler, Jim Denley, Nick Ashwood (recorded with Fuhler shortly before his death), Clare Cooper and Reinier van Houdt (whose six monthly missives delivered throughout the duration of the festival are all well worth spending time with.)

I find myself still catching up on the overwhelming array of contributions but here are a small sampling that caught my ear, though if I were to assemble this list a week from now, the choices would certainly be different.

Zhao Cong – “Homework”

homework by Zhao Cong

Yan Jun’s choice of musicians from China was uniformly superb and all are worth checking out. But Beijing-based Zhao Cong’s entry, in particular, has continued to hang with me. Her piece, constructed from two bass guitars and objects with its scrabbled detail of electronic hum, grit and glitch shot through with ringing bass strings popped out on first listen and continues to deliver.

Rie Nakajima – “carpet”

carpet by Rie Nakajima

Nakajima’s approach to sound-making, utilizing motors, mechanical devices and found objects proved the perfect tonic for pandemic listening. Her piece for AMPLIFY was recorded in her home in London “with all familiar objects I have been using at home.” The percussive piece is shot through with timbral depth, clattering along with a barely-contained momentum. Her release Karu Karu for Café Oto’s digital Takuroku lockdown series is also well worth checking out. And while I tended not to connect with online video over the course of the year, I found myself returning to Nakajima’s seven days bird songs which unfolded over the course of a week, multiple times.

Ivan Palacký – “Sanctuary”

Sanctuary by Ivan Palacký

Czech-based Ivan Palacký’s “Sanctuary” hit early on in the fest and remained a favorite. Palacký spent the first day of quarantine exploring his flat with an electromagnetic sensor, capturing the buzzes and tremors of everyday electronic devices. A few weeks later, he pulled out three knitting machines which he contact mic’d and used to improvise with the electromagnetic recordings. Palacký deftly interleaved percussive patter with wafts of static, grit and crackles, creaks and sputters and resonant thrums into an immersive piece.

Martin Kay – “Bath Time (2nd Edit)

Bath Time (2nd Edit) by Martin Kay

Through the festival, a thread developed of the pieces constructed as sonic response to the physical surroundings of isolation. Moniek Darge's gutting “Quarantine Child,” assembled from interior recordings and the desperate wail of a child, Mark Vernon's “The Dominion of Din,” woven together from field recordings from outside his Glasgow flat, cataloging exterior sounds that have annoyed him over the years and Kate Carr’s haunting “on every stair another stairway is set in negative” recorded using an old reel to reel tape and instrument recordings captured in her bathroom are three. Martin Kay’s four-part “Bath Time” delves in to that personal, interior realm, composed from recordings made in and around his bathroom during the routine that developed with his daughter’s nightly bath. The use of shifting focus, natural resonances of the room, the tub and underwater recordings transform the private, domestic activity into an increasingly abstracted aural study.

Distant Duos

The Distant Duos project that Mary Staubitz and Russ Waterhouse embarked on was also instigated by a sense of lost community. But here, the strategies employed were markedly different. The two are immersed in the DIY noise/improv New England community, spearheading shows in basements, bars, galleries and ad hoc venues and collaborating with musicians from New Haven to Portland, Maine, with all stops in between. They’ve also been instrumental in developing a network of like-minded musicians and bringing travelers through, some who have become frequent visitors. Unlike the duos in AMPLIFY, Staubitz and Waterhouse curated the 78 sessions, inviting pairs of musicians with a simple strategy. “Two remote artists record five minutes of sound while thinking about the other artist, unable to hear each other. The two tracks are combined into one.”

Released in sets of five on Bandcamp, the first on April 30 and the last on December 9, these bursts served as vital postcards. For those of us based in New England, these were both bittersweet reminders of the pre-COVID world we frequented and exultant celebrations. As someone who organized shows with the two and often played on the same bills, these really connected. (I was asked to participate, paired with Worcester-based Abdul Sherzai.) Some of the duos were longstanding partnerships (Greg Kelley and Vic Rawlings have been working together for over a decade). Some were pairings of musicians who knew each other but had likely never played together. Some participants were drawn from the deep field of regional musicians while others were recruited from across the US and Europe. With only five minutes at play, these served as sketches, vignettes or rough drafts. But keen curation and Waterhouse’s astute mixing and mastering made these hold together. Like AMPLIFY, these periodic missives kept me going through the last year.

Flip through any of the contributions and you’ll find plenty to encourage further listening. This batch, culled from the October 28th releases, provides a glimpse into the broad crew of musicians pulled in and the diverse strategies they came up with.

Adam Kohl and Mickey O’Hara

Adam Kohl and Mickey O'Hara by Distant Duos

Western Massachusetts-based Kohl (better known musically as Arkm Foam) and Worcester-based O’Hara have been performing together for a while now, and experiencing their mix of low-fi cassette manipulation and laptop generated deconstructed clatter and glitch inhabit a performance space is enthralling. This brief snapshot serves as a succinct snapshot of one of their sets.

J​.​P​.​A. Falzone and Hali Palombo

J.P.A. Falzone and Hali Palombo by Distant Duos

This mashup between J​.​P​.​A. Falzone (part of the ensemble Ordinary Affects) and composer and visual artist Hali Palombo comes across as quavering pulsations dialed in from some ethereal transmission. Listening feels like one is tuning in to an hours-long broadcast of hovering tones and fluttering waves which fuse together into shuddering oscillations.

Henry Birdsey and Mary Staubitz

Henry Birdsey and Mary Staubitz by Distant Duos

Birdsey has been developing his micro-tonal musings as part of the duo Tongue Depressor as well as his solo releases under his own name and as S.T.L.A. while Staubitz jumps from the solo sonic onslaughts of Donna Parker to a wide-ranging array of ongoing and one-off collaborations. Here field recordings of rippling water and electric pops and crackles mix with shuddering overtones of bowed metal for an engulfing sonic snapshot.

Lexie Mountain and Angela Sawyer

Lexie Mountain and Angela Sawyer by Distant Duos

Baltimore’s Lexie Mountain and Boston’s Angela Sawyer have known each other for years, so it’s no surprise that their distant connection of broken electronics and found objects clicks so well. Here, everyday detritus is elevated to a compact improvisation imbued with skittering percussive tumult, whirrs and clatter.

New Releases

When I did carve out time to listen, here’s a few that stuck with me through the year.

Toshiya Tsunoda & Taku Unami – Wovenland 2 (Erstwhile)

Wovenland 2 by Toshiya Tsunoda/Taku Unami

Working from basic field recordings, Tsunoda and Unami use the studio as an alchemical laboratory, delving into mixing and mastering tools to explore, process and transform environmental sound. In their hands, the digital artifacts of that process are as intrinsic to the results as the source material they have deconstructed. They sum it up succinctly. “Our goal is to focus on acoustic experiments. No more and no less.”

Here are some more that stuck with me in no particular order:

Rhodri Davies – Telyn Rawn (Amgen Records)

Judith Wegmann – Le Souffle Du Temps II - Reflexion (ezz-thetics)

Clara de Asís & Mara Winter – Repetition of the same dream (Another Timbre)

Takuji Naka/Tim Olive – Minouragatake (Notice Recordings)

Magnus Granberg – Come Down to Earth Where Sorrow Dwelleth –Revised version for sho, koto, prepared piano and electronics (Ftarri)

Tasting Menu – Mueller Tunnel (Full Spectrum Records)

Simon H. Fell & Mark Wastell – Virtual Company (Confront)

Xavier Charles & Bertrand Gauguet – Spectre (akousis)

Pierre-Antoine Badaroux, Seymour Wright, Jean-Luc Guionnet – Solos (Remote Resonator)

Archival Releases and Reissues

Reissues continued to pour out from record labels. Some applied studio wizardry to revive and restore previously issued material and others dug out material from the vaults that rightfully deserves to be heard. But with touring opportunities gone, the ability to collaborate in person evaporated and the monthly boon of Bandcamp Fridays, many artists also took the opportunity to dig in to their personal vaults.

Gentle Fire – Explorations (1970-1973) (Paradigm Discs)

Explorations (1970 - 1973) by Gentle Fire

This one just hit in December but quickly shot to the top of my listening pile. Working in London in the early 70s, this little-known quintet of electro-acoustic pioneers worked at the edges of composition and improvisation, putting out a single, now impossible-to-find, LP performing graphic scores of by John Cage, Earle Brown and Christian Wolff (which, in itself deserves a reissue.) If they hit listeners’ radar at all, it was due to the fact that Hugh Davies was part of the group. This 3-CD box of previously unissued material is comprised of one disc of works by Wolff, Stockhausen, Brown, Cage and Ichiyanagi, another of their own compositions and a final disc capturing an extended improvisation. Five decades later, this stuff is still essential listening.

Rhodri Davies – Archif Series (self-released)

Archif #13: BMIC 17/09/1997 by IST

Currently at number 28 and counting, Davies dug in to his archives and unearthed a passel of gems, documenting live performances and studio experiments from 1995 through 2000. From solos to various group sessions, this is all music well worth spending time with. Particularly welcome are two releases by IST (Davies, Mark Wastell, and Simon H. Fell) and one by Assumed Possibilities (Davies, Wastell, Chris Burn and Phil Durrant). One hopes there is more to be unearthed.

Cor Fuhler Conundrom label

SLEE by Cor Fuhler

The sudden passing of Cor Fuhler was a tough one in a tough year. Whether as a pianist, instrument inventor or ensemble leader, Fuhler was always bristling with ideas. As part of a group effort, the discography of his Conundrom label is now available on Bandcamp with proceeds going to his estate.

Here are some others of note in no particular order:

Albert Ayler reissue series (ezz-thetics)

Phillip Wachsmann – Writing In Water (Corbett vs. Dempsey)

Charles Mingus – @ Bremen 1964 & 1975 (Sunnyside)

Voice Crack – Glasgow 20/11/1999 (scatter)

John Butcher – On Being Observed (Weight of Wax)

Derek Bailey and Mototeru Takagi – Live at FarOut, Atsugi 1987 (NoBusiness Records)

Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley – Birdland, Neuburg 2011 (Fundacja Słuchaj)

[betsypaige22]

This is such a great interview....god, I miss Bobby. I’ve posted this because otherwise you need to be a subscriber...

I have to be honest, picturing Bobby doing this particular yoga pose makes me need to take a cold shower, lol. The part about his kids asking if he’s going to leave them is heartbreaking ....😭😭. I do love that he’s still baking...

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Every Sunday morning the actor Robert Carlyle grabs his mat and heads off for a session of “restorative yoga” in the Canadian port city of Vancouver, where he lives. There is one particular pose — called a “chest-opener”; you lie back, arms supported by bolsters, and release stress and feelings through the abdomen — that has produced remarkable results.

“You hold the pose for up to nine minutes and it releases emotions,” he says. “Out of nowhere I remembered this old lady leading me through the streets of Drumchapel in Glasgow when I was about seven years old, to go to see some wrestling. I hadn’t remembered her since I was a kid. I just lay there crying.”

Carlyle was brought up by his father, Joe, after his mother, Elizabeth, walked out to be with another man when he was four. His father was a painter and decorator, and the pair lived an itinerant existence around the UK in communes, shared houses and even tents. They lived in almost 100 homes. The old woman was his grandmother, Jean, who stepped in to help sometimes.

“That’s what set me off,” Carlyle says. “The realisation that this old woman was my dad’s mum, born in 1895 and survivor of two world wars. And here she was in her seventies, looking out for me when my dad was struggling to get to work.”

Carlyle left school at 16 and followed his father into painting and decorating. Aged 22, he discovered acting and, without formal training, appeared in The Hard Man, Tom McGrath’s play about the notorious Glasgow gangster Jimmy Boyle. After this he was encouraged to enrol at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).

In the early 1990s he made a name for himself in the ITV detective series Cracker, as well as playing Begbie, the charismatic psycho in the screen adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting. Carlyle was lauded as a raw talent able to articulate a new “dirty realism”, although it was his role in the 1997 stripper comedy The Full Monty and as James Bond’s ex-KGB nemesis Renard in the 1999 film The World is Not Enough that catapulted him to international stardom.

“I went through a stage of being very angry about my mother, and that helped to fuel some of those roles,” he says. “As for Begbie in Trainspotting, that was partly me and partly the odd genuine psycho I had encountered in Glasgow.”

At the height of his fame in the 1990s Carlyle was at the centre of Cool Britannia and simultaneously friends with Damon Albarn from Blur and Noel Gallagher, then in Oasis (Carlyle appeared in the video for the single Little By Little). Tony Blair even recommended him for an OBE in the 1998 new year’s honours list. And yet, while at drama school Carlyle feared he might never get work because he wasn’t “posh”.

Now he has come full circle because he is about to play the fictional British prime minister Robert Sutherland in the new six-part Sky drama series Cobra. “Before I opened the script, I actually thought it was about a snake,” he says. “That’s what living away from home does to you.”

Cobra in fact refers to the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, the government’s crisis centre where national emergencies from terrorist attacks to natural disasters are handled. In this case the threat comes from a geomagnetic storm resulting from a solar flare that is threatening the worldwide electrical infrastructure. Kettles stop boiling. Cities go dark. Planes drop from the sky.

Carlyle is rigorous in his preparation for roles. When cast as a bus driver in Ken Loach’s 1996 film Carla’s Song he qualified as one. “For a working-class guy from Glasgow, being a prime minister was always going to be challenging,” he says. “I listened to tapes of posh Scottish MPs like [the former foreign secretary] Sir Malcolm Rifkind. He’ll sound like a Scot most of the time, but there are certain turns of phrase when you think, ‘Are you sure this guy is for real?’”

Keen-eyed viewers will have seen Carlyle in the BBC’s adaptation of HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds as the “potentially gay” astronomer Ogilvy. But perhaps only true aficionados will have spotted him as John Lennon in the Beatles tribute film Yesterday. He appeared as a counterfactual, 78-year-old Lennon enjoying his dotage in a bungalow by the sea. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr approved, but Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono wasn’t happy. “She didn’t like the idea of people seeing John get old, which I understand, but [the director] Danny Boyle argued that John is revered public property,” Carlyle says.

Carlyle wouldn’t accept a credit for the role. “That felt like too much. The chance to play a hero was enough. I don’t think it hurts to occasionally do things for love.”

Lennon’s relationship with his mother, Julia, was fractured too of course, and after a turbulent adolescence and having reached the top of his professional game, Carlyle came to yearn for a family. “I could go anywhere and have anything. [The 1990s] were an extraordinary time. But even then, I was quite a shy person, and I wanted kids and a home and a wife. Every day I am thankful that I found the most fantastic woman to do that with.”

Carlyle met his wife, the make-up artist Anastasia Shirley, while working on Cracker, and they have three children: Ava, 17, Harvey, 15, and Pearce, 13. After ten years in Vancouver, where Carlyle was making the US series Once Upon a Time, his children consider themselves Canadian. Sometimes they ask about his upbringing, an era referred to as his “black and white years”. “‘Dad, tell us about the black and white years,’ they say. It’s pretty heavy telling children about your mother leaving because they look frightened and say, ‘Are you going to bugger off as well?’ When I’ve reassured them, they just look sad. So I say to them, ‘Don’t be sad for me, I got all the love I ever needed. I don’t feel angry or aggrieved. It was her that missed out.’”

Carlyle’s father died of a heart attack in 2006, and in an attempt to work through his grief Carlyle embarked on a tour of the homes they shared together. “That tour was about confirming I had lived that life,” he says. “I’ve been honoured at Buckingham Palace. I’ve done a Bond movie. But I’ve also slept rough with my old man under Brighton pier. It can mess with your head. Going back reminded me where I’m from. I sat in the car weeping.”

For now the family remain in Canada while the children complete their schooling. At weekends he takes them to football, bakes bread (Carlyle taught himself after discovering that Lennon was an accomplished home baker) and the family sometimes go for walks in a local forest.

He celebrated New Year’s Eve in Scotland with his old friend Robert del Naja from Massive Attack and, sooner or later, the family will return for good. It’s striking that Carlyle has not lost his accent. “You don’t lose the accent unless you want to,” he says with a smile. “I love our life in Canada. It’s a beautiful country with beautiful people. But I only have to do a couple of yoga poses to know I’ve got a lot of Britain still inside of me.”

All episodes of Cobra are available from January 17 on Sky One and NOW TV

ROBERT CARLYLE’S PERFECT WEEKEND

Trainspotting or stamp collecting?

Neither — football

Independence or unity?

Unity and collaboration, always

Glasgow or Sheffield?

Glasgow

Green juice for breakfast or the full monty?

Full monty

Night in or night out?

Night in

Last film you saw?

Joker

Country walk or personal trainer?

Country walk

How many unread emails in your inbox?

Around 2,000

What’s your signature dish?

Pasta

I couldn’t get through my weekend without . . .

Football