#Stranger Things: The First Month of the Trump Era | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thekillerssluts · 4 years ago

Photo

Will Butler explains how his Harvard degree developed into his second solo album

“Yeah, it’s terrifying,” Will Butler says, pondering how it feels to be releasing music away from the umbrella of Arcade Fire.

“It’s the classic thing about all writers,” he continues. “The creative process makes them wanna puke the whole time they’re writing something, then they read something back and it makes them feel worse, then a year later they read it and think ‘yeah, it’s okay’. It’s a glorious experience, but it really makes your stomach hurt.”

On the one hand Will Butler is well accustomed to this writing process, being a multi-instrumentalist in the Canadian indie-rock band fronted by brother Win - Arcade Fire. But on his own terms, it’s an entirely new process. Butler’s second solo album Generations arrives five years after his debut Policy, a collection that rattled with a ramshackle charm and what he describes now as a ‘consciously very unproduced’ sound. Arcade Fire wound down from their Everything Now tour in September 2018, leaving Butler with the last two years of playtime. Most musicians, particularly those accustomed to big album cycles, set aside their downtime for family or other musical projects. Somehow Butler’s managed to do both while also completing a masters degree in Public Policy at Harvard.

“I went to school for a variety of reasons but there was an artistic side to it too,” he says. “I have always tried to let music and lyrics emerge from the world that I’m in; you fertilise the soil and see what grows. It was a way to better understand where we are, how we got here and what's going on. You know, ‘where am I from? What's going to happen?’” Both of these questions explored in his degree are used as fuel for Generations.

It’s easy to imagine an album by somebody who’s just pursued a Public Policy MSt to form in reams of political commentary, probably set to an acoustic guitar. However, Butler instead engages character portraits soundtracked by a broad range of thrilling sonics. Opener “Outta Here” is shrouded by a monstrous bass that lurks beneath the depths of the instrumentation before bursting out midway through. “Got enough things on my plate without you talking about my salvation,” he screams.

While the cage-rattling “Bethlehem” is mania underpinned by a thrashing guitar and bubbling synths that help lift the track to boiling point.While there’s no current world leaders namechecked or any on-the-nose political commentary across the LP, the angst of its contents is instantly tangible, backed by the intellect of somebody who’s spent the past few years studying the ins and outs of government processes. A perfect combination, you could say.

This fuel was partly discovered through Butler reconnecting with the music that defined his teenage years: namely Bjork, The Clash and Eurythmics. While these influences certainly slip into frame across Generations, they were paired with something of an unlikely muse: “I got into this habit of listening to every single song on the Spotify Top 50 every six weeks,” Butler explains. “So many of them are horrible, terrifying and just awful but there’s something inspiring about how god damn avant garde the shittiest pop music is now. Just completely divorced from any sense of reality - it’s just layers upon layers upon layers - it’s amazing. It’s like Marcel Duchamp making a pop hit every single song.”

We turn from current music to current events. Navigating Covid-19 with his wife and three kids in their home of Brooklyn, a majority of 2020 has been caught up in family time for Butler. “The summer’s been easier because everybody’s outside, whereas in spring it was like ‘it’s family time because we have to lock our doors as there's a plague outside.’” While being surrounded by the trappings of lockdown since his second solo album Generations was completed in March, the album itself wriggles with the spirit of live instrumentation, which at this point seems like some sort of relic from a bygone era."I think eventually rediscovering this album back in the live setting would be amazing - we’re a really great live band, it’s a shame to not be in front of people."

The source of this energy can be traced back to the way the songs came together; they were forged and finessed at a series of shows in the early stages of the project. “It just raises the stakes. You can tell how good or how dumb a lyric is when you sing it in front of a hundred people,” he reflects. “It’s like ‘are you embarrassed because what you’re saying is true?’ or ‘is it just embarrassing?’ It’s a good refiner for that stuff. I think eventually rediscovering this album back in the live setting would be amazing - we’re a really great live band, it’s a shame to not be in front of people.”

Like his day job in Arcade Fire, Butler’s solo live group is something of a family affair - both his wife and sister-in-law feature in the band, alongside Broadway's West Side Story star, and the student of the legendary Fela Kuti drummer, Tony Allen. Together this eclectic mix of musicians conjures an infectious spirit through the raw combination of thundering synths and pedal-to-the-metal instrumentation; an apt concoction indeed for lyrics that are attempting to unhatch the bamboozling questions that surround our current times.

The timing for Butler’s decision to study Public Policy couldn’t have been more perfect, with his course starting in the Fall of 2016. “I was at Harvard for the election which was a really bizarre time to be in a government school, but it was great to be in a space for unpacking questions like ‘my god, how did we get here?!’” he reflects, with a note of mockery in the bright voice.

“I had a course taught by a professor named Leah Wright Rigueur. The class was essentially on race in America but with an eye towards policy. The class explored what was going to happen in terms of race under the next president. The second to last week was about Hilary Clinton and the last week was about Donald Trump. We read riot reports - Ferguson in 2015, Baltimore in 2016, the Detroit uprisings in the ‘60s and Chicago in 1919 - it's certainly helping me understand the last 5 years, you know. Just to be in that context was very lucky.”

As we’ve seen with statues being toppled, privileges being checked and lyrics of national anthems being interrogated in recent months, history is a complex, labyrinthine subject to navigate requiring both ruthless self-scrutiny and a commitment to the long-haul in order to correct things. The concept of Generations shoots from the same hip employing character portraits to engage in the broader picture.

The writing, at times, is beamed from a place of disconnect (“had enough of bad news / had enough of your generation”), from a place of conscious disengagement (“I’m not talking because I don’t feel like lying / if you stay silent you can walk on in silence”) and from a place of honest self-assessment (“I was born rich / three quarters protestant / connections at Harvard and a wonderful work ethic”).

“I’m rooted in history to a fault,” he says. “My great grandfather was the last son of a Mormon pioneer who’d gone West after being kicked out of America by mob violence. He wanted to be a musician which was crazy - he got 6 months in a conservatory in Chicago before his first child was born. He always felt like he could have been a genius, he could of been writing operas but he was teaching music in like tiny western towns and he had all these kids and he made them be a family band and they were driving around the American west before there were roads in the deserts - literally just driving through the desert! He would go to these small towns and get arrested for trying to skip bills and just live this wild existence.”

Butler’s grandma, meanwhile, was just a child at this point. She went on to become a jazz singer with her sisters and married the guitar player Alvino Rey. “The fact that me and my brother are musicians is no coincidence,” he smiles. “It’s not like I decided to be a musician, it’s down to decisions that were made at the end of the 19th century that have very clearly impacted where I am today. The musical side of it is very beautiful, it is super uncomplicated and a total joy to have a tradition of music in our family...but also in the American context - which is the only context I know - it's also these very thorny inheritances from the 19th century and beyond that influence why my life is like it is.

“For me it’s like, ‘I made my money because my grandpa was a small business owner’ or ‘my grandpa was a boat builder and got a pretty good contract in WW2 and was able to send his kids to college’. Both of which are so unpoetic and unromantic but it is an important thing to talk about, that's a personal political thing to talk about; there's horrifying and beautiful aspects there.”

The lament of “I’m gonna die in a hospital surrounded by strangers who keep saying they’re my kids” on “Not Gonna Die” could well be croaked by somebody on the tail end of a life lived on the American Dream. At times, Butler plays the characters off against each other, like on “Surrender,” which chronicles two flawed characters going back and forth played by Butler’s lead vocals and his female backing singers that undermine his memory; “I remember we were walking” is cut up with the shrug of “I dunno” and “maybe so”. “I found having the backing voices there gave me something to play with,” he explains. “Either something threatening to the main character or something affirming to the main character, just providing another point of view.”

Elsewhere, “I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know” explores the feeling of being unsuitably equipped to unravel the complexities that surrounds us day-to-day. “The basic emotion of that song is very much ‘I don’t know what I can do’ which is an emotion we all have,” he ponders. “There’s also the notion that follows that, like ‘maybe don’t even tell me what to do because it’s going to be too overwhelming to even do anything’.”

Some of these portraits materialised in the aftershows Butler began hosting while on Arcade Fire’s Everything Now tour which found him instigating conversations and talks by local councilman, politicians and activists on local issues. “On some of the good nights of the aftershow town halls, you’d feel that switch away from despair and into action,” he says smiling. “The step between despair and action is possible, that sentiment isn’t spelled out lyrically on the record but it’s definitely there spiritually.”

“I learned anew what a treasure it is to have people in a room. Getting humans in a room can be absurd. And we were having from 5,000 to 15,000 people in a room every night, most of them local. I’m very comfortable with art for art’s sake; I think art is super important and it’s great people can like music that's not political. It was sort of like ‘well we’re here and I know a lot of you are thinking about the world and you’re thinking about what a shit show everything is. You want to know what we can do and I also want to know what we can do!’ So I put on these after shows.”"The dream lineup would be to have a local activist and a local politician talking about a local issue because that’s the easiest way to make concrete change."

Butler would find a suitable location near the Arcade Fire gig through venue owners who were often connected to the local music and comedy scenes to host these events. “The dream lineup would be to have a local activist and a local politician talking about a local issue because that’s the easiest way to make concrete change. Arguably, the most important way is through the city council and state government. The New York state government is in Albany, New York. The shit that happens in Albany is all super important so I wanted to highlight that and equip people with some concrete levers to pull.

“In Tampa we had people who were organizing against felon disenfranchisement, like if you’ve been convicted of a felon you couldn’t vote in Florida, and something absurd like 22% of black men in Florida couldn’t vote and there were people organising to change that - this was in 2018 - and you could just see people being like ‘holy shit, I didn't even know this was happening!’

“These were not topics I’m an expert in - it’s like these are things that are happening. The thought was trying to engage, I’m sad to not be doing something similar this Fall, I mean what a time it would have been to go around America.”

Understandably the looming 2020 election is on Butler’s radar. “It doesn't feel good,” he sighs. “I’ve never had any ability to predict, like 2 weeks from now the world could be completely different from what it is today. There was always a one-in-a-billion chance of the apocalypse and now it's like a one-in-a-million chance which is a thousand times more likely but also unlikely. It’s going to be a real slog in the next couple of years on a policy side, like getting to a place where people don’t die for stupid reasons, I’m not even talking about the coronavirus necessarily just like policy in general. Who knows, it could be great but it seems like it's going to be a slog.”

There’s a moment on the closing track “Fine”, a stream-of-consciousness, Randy Newman-style saloon waltz, where Butler hits the nail on the head. “George [Washington], he turned to camera 3, he looked right at me and said...I know that freedom falters when it’s built with human hands”. It’s one of the many lyrical gems that surface throughout the record but one that chimes with an undeniable truth. It’s the same eloquence that breaks through as he touches on the broad ranging subjects in our conversation, always with a bright cadence despite the gloom that hangs over some of the topics.

The live show is without a doubt Arcade Fire’s bread and butter. While Butler questions how realistic the notion of getting people in packed rooms in the near future is, he reveals the group are making movements on LP6. “Arcade Fire is constantly thinking about things and demoing, it's hard to work across the internet but at some point we’ll get together. It probably won’t be much longer than our usual album cycle,” he says.

You only have to pick out one random Arcade Fire performance on YouTube to see Butler’s innate passion bursting out, whether it’s early performances that found him and Richard Reed Parry adorning motorbike helmets annihilating each other with drumsticks to the 1-2-3 beat of “Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)” or the roaring “woah-ohs” that ascend in the anthem of “Wake Up” every night on tour. It’s an energy that burns bright throughout our conversation and across Generations.

https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/interviews/arcade-fires-will-butler-new-solo-record-generations

#Arcade Fire #generations #will butler #interview #hq

43 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

Text

Jake Reviews Stuff: Star Vs: Friendenemies

Happy pride all. I’m getting ahead of this one for a number of reasons: 1) It’s pride month and this episode is one of the most shiptastic things i’ve seen with two male characters since Robochris from bravest warriors. I mean it dosen’t quite reach “Creating a skull robot of your best friend because he won’t touch you a lot to make him jealous enough to do that” levels of romantic tension but it tries.

2) My good friend @jess-the-vampire is a tomco shipper, and with things being rough for her I figure she could use this sooner rather than later. 3) Shows are actually coming back with Amphibia emerging from it’s year long odinsleep the same week Close Enough finally escapes from it’s dumpster after 10,000 years to conquer earth before it gets put back in there then escapes again and marries lord zedd.. I lost the metaphor the point is I want to keep Tom train, and other star arcs I have planned, moving at a steady clip.

So with all of that yeah, i’m ready to go. No real exposition to dump again, come on let’s go after the cut!

We open with Marco at his laptop nervous about something and Star coming into his room tangled in christmas lights... so normal day at Casa Diaz. Anyways Marco can’t help star out of her latest self made prison because he’s preording tickets to a Mackie Hand Film Festival. Mackie Hand is Marco’s faviorite martial artist and movie star, who died performing a stunt on himself.. accidentally.. did he give himself a death punch? Is this the same universe as regular show.. please say yes. Anyway as is natural for Marco in the first two seasons as god apparently hates him, the tickets sell out instantly and he dosen’t get them, banging his head against his laptop as Star TRIES to comfort him , saying he might still be able to get them. Marco also says “Good things don’t happen to me”

I mean just look at Season 3. Anyways tom comes in licking a rainbow snowcone for no explained reason other than they wanted to make it obvious this was the Tomco episode. Tom asks to hang out and after Star, understandably at this point given you know, the horrible date where he tried to murder her best friend and the gaslighting a few weeks back, tells him a million times no, Tom explains he’s not here for her.. he’s here for Marco. Marco, given tom’s threatned to kill him twice now and tried to at least once, isn’t biting. Tom naturally has tickets to the festival as a trump card, and assumes that time he kidnapped marco and played him in ping pong for his freedom counts as a friend hang out, and geuinely apologizes for his behavior promising not to get angry. Really while as you probalby know we DO get the reveal later he was partly doing this whole thing to finish his anger managment... I do get the sense this apology, and a lot of this is GENUINE. We’ll get more into the why in a bit, but he does seem to genuinely want to bury the hatchet. Marco pulls star aside and, given the last two times he saw Tom, the boy had some horrible scheme up his ripped sleeves, he understandably, and as it turns out correctly, thinks Tom is once again up to some sort of scheme, star is fully on board. I have. mixed feelings about this. On the one hand STar did forgive tom for the previous episodes mess and Ponyhead for much worse and it does set up the tiny plot curnel of corn that would grow into an entire corn field of her still having some friendly feelings toward tom. But it just feels weird, even with how cahotic star can be to have her flip flop from “Stop calling me” To “You should totlaly go on a date with the guy who harassed me and tried to kill you twice now. “. Especially since next time she has an episode with Tom, She’s fully resentful of him and a bit snarky and spends and episode, in part thanks to aformentioned magical severed ponyhead, suspicious of him playing games with her head again. We’ll get there soon obviously, i’m just saying it feels mildly off.

So Marco decides, much like bart simpson that getting where he’s going’s worth it even if he has to ride with the devil himself and reluctantly agrees. We see the inside of Tom’s carriage for the first time, and see my good personal friend dead horse again on the outside, and it’s really nice.. lit by torches because mood lighting, but similar to his room it’s plushly decorated and even has two serious speakers and according to Tom 6 flatscreens. Damn I wish I had one of those.. that and I wouldn’t have to drive since I can’t due to my anxiety. Plus who wouldn’t want a firey horse skelton sidekick? Anyways Tom offers Marco cold cereal and Marco is frank with tom, pointing out he’s suddenly being nice to Marco after never being nice to him before and understandably isn’t sure he’s even a mackie hand fan but a bit of banter and trivia shows Marco that no, Tom really seems to be telling the truth. Tom then confides in marco that he gets why Marco didn’t belivie him: Most people dont’ get past their preconcived perceptions of him. And here the series does flesh tom out a bit: Tom admits to not having many friends.. which frames the previous two episodes in a diffrent light. Sure his actions to Star are still very much not okay... but you at least see WHY he was so obessive about her: She was probably the first real friend he had that wasn’t a casual aquantince, his own family member, or a pet. Most Mewman kids his age probably weren’t too keen to hang out with what to them was a monster, rich or not, little raicst shits. And in the underworld most people probably just did whatever he asked because they were afraid of his temper or his parents fury, even if his parents are the nicest people in the underworld. So when he lost her, Tom didn’t know how to properly react and while his first attempt to win star back was genuine, it was marred by his refusal to adress his anger or control issues that likely lead to Star dumping him in the first place. While Star’s forgivness HERE is a bit werid, her willingness to give him another shot wasn’t: Tom was SEEMINGLY genuinely trying. He was in therapy, he’d been anger free for several days and most glowingly, when a stranger karate chopped his hand off in a misguided attempt to protect star.. he got upset but instnatlly went into his coping mechanisms. The problem was as I covered in that review.. Tom didn’t WANT to change. That’s the thing about changing: you need to both know there is a problem and WANT to fix it. And even then, as we’ll see sometimes i’ts hard. I know, i’ve had my own personal issues i’ve had to change up as years went on. It’s a slippery slope you have to constnatly climb up. And BMB era tom.. just didn’t WANT to change he just wanted to do what he thought star wanted that would get her to take him back, and couldn’t understnad why she wouldn’t just listen to him and obey, two things not in star’s vocabulary for anyone much less her ex.

So , much like I did, rather than blame himself for screwing things up, he just saw it as Marco being in the way and tried to fix that. And so he sunk to rock bottom.. but it didn’t fix their relationship and it took Marco having an honest conversation, as someone who was also very close to her and knew her well, to get him to see that Star wasn’t going to take him back unless she wanted it.. what he was doing was selfish and self destructive.. and Tom probably realized in that moment he had to stop. He let her go, and thus as I put al ot of emphasis on last time, made his first step to being better. And to me that’s why this makes sense as his next step: While it’s partly to fufill a checklist... you get the sense he really DOES like marco on some level. They hung out, which I do feel tom did genuinely feel was like friends hanging out instead of you know the second highest stakes game of ping pong i’ve ever seen.

The first if your curious. So while part of this is Tom just wanting to get through anger managment for likely his parent’s sake, part of it is also him genuinely wanting to be somebody’s buddy, anybody but a bumbling butler. It’s just being Tom, he dosen’t know HOW to make friends or get them to see past who he is surface wise; a spoiled angry boy and see the inside, a nice kid who just has no idea how to talk to people beyond a surface level or understand them and we’ll see that more both in this episode and as we go. Speaking of going back in the episode proper, two bros drive up and insult Tom’s carriage also wondering if he’s going to his grandpa’s funeral. Fuck you both.. both on general principal and becaause his grandpapapapapapaaaaaaaaaaaa is alive and magnificent.

Satan bless you Relicor. Anyways, Tom is naturally pissed at this and Marco challenges them to a race.. but eases tom off actually following them as, since this isn’t a fast and the furious movie, the police immidelty arest them and we get the blessed image above. Let’s see that again.

NOGODWHY

Not right but it’ll have to do I fear what may happen if I try again. ONE BALLON DICK GIRAFFE LATER, our boys are on a high, as Tom finds there are things more fun than obletarating people. #tomhaskilledmultiplepeopleandisstillthebestboy. Marco is reminded of a song from his faviorite band Love Sentence, and Tom, suprisingy given his My Chemical Romance with a splash of metal astetic, is not only a huge fan but has a giant Helga Patiaki esque shrine to them complete with a cd player with shuffle. Fancy.

We then get a wonderful, shiptastic montage of the two just hanging out, hanging out with a white tiger. Having themselves a party. And given the song itself, sung by 98 Degrees and horrible realtiy show Newleywed’s alumnus Nick Lachey, even says “we used to be enimies but now we have chemistry” yeah I think this is intentional and they are a good ship. Are they my prefered ships for the characters? No tha’ts kelly and flame princess... the last one was recent and I love a good crossover ship sue me. But I do headcanon both as still Bi and still find the ship great, it’s just not my main one.

However the good times can’t last as it is film time... but Tom refuses to let marco leave befor eblowing his top off... dude that’s not how you build a suppportive relationship, you know this by now. Turns out the white tiger I haven’t mentioned to now is actually Brian, vocied my boy Stephen Root who apparently just.. lives at DIsney’s animation studios now as he has a tendency to show up in every other animated disney show. You may know him from Gravity Falls as Bud Gleeful, THe Mayor from Amphibia, or , in non disney voice work, Bill Dautrive. Turns out as I haven’t even tried to hide, Tom was in the final stage of his anger managment class and to get out of it had had to spend 3 hours with the person he hated most. As I said I do think part of it was GENUINE on tom’s part, that he was trying to be what he thought friends were... it’s just he didn’t get that Marco, if grumblinignly, probably STILL would’ve agreed if he were honest. However.. it’s still a step up. While i’ts still a scheme, and his LAST on the show.. it’s more benign after the last two; Instead of being harmful his scheme this time is just “Bribe my worst enemy into hanging out with me and get out of anger managment” it’s still not quite right, but compared to the things he’s done with star, it’s an improvment and a sign he is changing despite himself. He could’ve just kidnapped marco again and forced him to spend the three hours.. granted this might’ve just been Brian saying, obviously no tha tdosen’t count, but still, instead he tried being nice and giving an apology. Even if it was for personal gain on some level, Marco’s words clearly got to him and he’s now trying genuinely unselfish tactics. It’s also notable since he spent the three hours with marco, and at least half an hour of awkarndess before it got all fun, WITHOUT getting angry or falling back on old stratgies and only beefing it at the end because, as i’ve established, he dosen’t get people. So naturally tom gets mad.. while it is a sign he’s getting better he dosen’t do his trademark horrifying demonic EXPLOSION of rage... he’s still being petulant and sore over his failure is mad at marco for pritoritzing the tickets nad destroys them. Marco naturally calls him out, angry over him manipulating him to get some badge , as he puts it, calls him a jerk and a liar, accurate and the worst part to marco? “I WAS DUMB ENOUGH TO FALL FOR IT”

Credit where it’s due while I may not LIKE adam mcarthur as a person...as a voice actor he is excellent and his delivery here is perfect as you do get the pain in Marco’s voice as he genuinely ahd grown to care for tom. Wethere it was friendship or wanting to make out... probably wanting to make out, you get the pain in his voice. Tom admits the love sentence hting wasn’t a lie.. but too little too late.. whcih is marco’s second faviorite love sentence song and leads to another moment of shippy goodness. Seriously I see why this ship exploded in popularity after this. Also I will say both Adam and Rider have damn pretty voices. So Tom does what any romantic lead faced with a third act breakup would do.. say a demonic chant and bring Mackie Hand back from the dead. This is also the first time we see just how fucking powerful tom is. Before we’ve seen him summon his carriage and immolate some stuff and easily reattach a hand.. but this is the first time that we see he’s every pit as powerful as star, who probably could raise the dead she just dosen’t want to. Granted I don’t know why this sort of undead stuff hasn’t been used on say, Moons assitnated mother, but presumibly anti-monster stigma combined with the fact that we don’t know HOW she died or how much was left, and are probably better off that way solve that. It goes a long way to explain why Tom’s family are allies instead of the conquered like most monsters: They have equal , if far diffrent and spookier, magic power and are the only kingdom with this trump card besides the butterfly kingdom.

So as we close Marco tries to use Mackie to get in, the usher dosen’t buy it and a fight insues, but Marco and Tom patch things up, Tom becoming a fan of Mackie now he’s seen what the guy can do and Marco forgiving tom since, evne if his actions were still a bit greasy, he immidetly did his best to try and fix what he broke. The two are friends again despite them both saying they hate each other... but they clearly mean it playfully. The End. Final Thoughts: After the Slog that was last episode this one is a fan faviorite for a reason... well okay 2 reasons. One...

youtube

And two.. it’s excellent. I feel bad it took me years to see this one, but it’s one of season 2′s finest. It’s funny, has great character stuff for both boys, introduces a new ship that’s fantastic and a great new dynamic between Tom and Marco that would carry for the rest of the show. It also beliviebly advances Tom’s character arc: He’s TRYING a bit but he’s still got a bit of the scheming and selfishness that defined his earlier outings, but it’s telling that after this episode, and hurting marco, he stops. This episode REALLY gets him to change that and for the better. Sadly Tom would only make one more apperance this season in Naysaya, an episode I will cover when I cover Jackie and Marco at some point, but has him show up for a cameo when it turns out the episodes antagonist, a curse that takes the form of a sentient head that spills the target’s worst secrets and insecurities when they try to ask someone they like out, is Tom’s fault from back when he was a baddie, and Tom genuinely apologizes and tells him how to vanquish it, if ribs marco a bit since he cast that curse presumibly sometime between BMB and MCC and is delighed and suprised that Marco seriously hadn’t asked anyone out in that time. But it’s a nice bit that shows their not only still friends but Tom is genuinely sorry for some of his earlier behavior. We’ll see more of that as we go and more of tom trying to be better.. he’s made up with Marco, next time we come back to tomtrospective, we’ll see how it goes with Star.

Coming up besides the obvious, as Pride Winds down I’ll have my first steven unvierse coverage, one of the first openly gay couples in western animation, and some asexula pride as we take our first look at Bojack Horseman..’s loveable rommate todd. Until we meet again, stay safe, black lives matter and later days.

#star vs the forces of evil #tomco #marco diaz #tom lucitor #tomtrospective #freindenmies #brian #star butterfly #98 degrees #newlyweeds #love sentence #mackie hand #martial arts #pride month #lbgtq+

51 notes · View notes

momtemplative · 5 years ago

Text

MASKED.

In a house with two young kids, our quickest sanity-stabilizer in this COVID era was to head outside and go for a walk, or a bike ride, or to roller skate. We’d pay close attention to the proximity of passers-by, but typically the grassy fields by the bike paths were an open canvas for the kids to blow off some steam. And we’d all return home a bit winded and slightly more stable.

Then, a little more than two weeks ago, a strong recommendation came from Governor Polis for everyone to wear masks in public. But what, pray-tell, was “public” referring to?

Here’s what the CDC endorsed: wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.

So that’s what we assumed Polis recommended as well. That night we even had a happy hour gathering with our neighbors, all at least 6-feet-away, but without masks. We didn’t feel like we were being sneaky or non-compliant, we were simply following the guidelines as we understood them.

But then we started seeing people in their yards wearing masks, and on walks wearing masks— in addition to 6-feet! There was an eerie infiltration of mask-wearers, and, with that, the non-verbal communication of an abrupt change of protocol. Our sacred, oft-traveled, 1,000-step bike path that loops around the block started to feel unfamiliar, as if it were a movie set peppered with strangers, wearing homemade cloth curtains over their cheeks.

We quickly felt like a minority out there with our bare faces.

An afternoon walk was once a favorite time of day—quarantine or not. Quickly though, in light of the current mask situation, and before I began to wear one, my brain started to get stuck in a grinding pattern of managing everyone else’s whereabouts in accordance with my own. I noticed that I was judging those who were masked, at least in part because I was sure they were judging me.

Their judgment and my judgment felt cut from the same cloth: judgement as a way of controlling the uncontrollable. There is so much confusion about protocols. So much fear of the radio broadcast of white noise and speculation that is to be our future. All these feelings get lumped together into just trying to do it right. I returned from one particular walk stiff as a board and deeply grumpy.

“Jesse,” I said, “I’m not going on a walk again without a mask.”

I opted out of any domestic sewing of masks at first, and started with my old-lady cardigan tied around my face like a waist. I then upgraded to a bedazzled bandana that I bought to fill Opal’s Easter basket last year. I love the happy fabric, but it wouldn’t stay up over my nose for anything beyond the liquor drive-through (my singular biweekly errand). Store-bought masks are not an option. They’ve been back-ordered for weeks and if the stock is replenished, it needs to be saved for the blessed healthcare workers.

By the next weekend, Jesse and Opal wore masks that they made from a YouTube video, using mustard-yellow t-shirts and rubber bands, while on a bike ride. That ride turned out to be very brief because, according to Opal, it was so hard to breathe.

The solidarity and confidence that come from wearing a mask are helpful and significant, sure. But the act of wearing a mask changes the experience entirely.

On a purely physical level, it muddles your peripheral vision, steams up your glasses, makes it hot and very hard to breathe.

On a social-emotional level, the masks create a real separation between people. It feels similar to being at a costume party—even if the invite list includes most of your friends, everyone is suddenly anonymous.

I walked behind two people (in masks) and a dog from a block away that I thought were my beloved next door neighbors. I even hollered at them. (They didn't hear me.) Then I got closer and realized it was a different dog and very much not my neighbors. It’s all very disorienting.

One week in, and Opal has taken Polis’s suggestion as gospel. Of course, I don’t blame her. Sometimes when we are out and about, so is the rest of the neighborhood. During those times, the mask feels safe and dare-I-say comforting. (Like we are good, complaint citizens. Go us.) But other times, there is nobody outside. I tell Opal, “Sweetie, we can keep our masks around our chins until we see someone (dozens of feet away!) and then put up our masks.”

Opal’s reply: NOT A CHANCE.

I try to imagine what it would be like to experience all this at age ten. What other such details has her system become accustomed to over the last month? Zoom call playdates, online school, little sister around all-the-effing-time. Maybe some feelings come out sideways? Maybe everything seems overwhelming and busy even though very little is happening?

In the olden days, before COVID, any sort of outdoor trek was soul-nourishing for all of us. It ticks a lot of boxes: sunshine, fresh air, exercise for me and the dog and the kids, a brain reset. Now, masked, such an activity is beyond taxing. Ruth has no desire to keep her mask on and she’s a runner. We can bribe her with a lollipop to stay in the stroller, but the girth of the BOB, along with the leashed (80-pound) dog requires skill and intentional footing on an average day. Trying to juggle it all through a face-drape is the emotional equivalent of walking through tar. A guaranteed headache.

Returning to our backyard, with its creaky swingset and patchwork yard, and removing our masks (along with the associated invisible constraints) is beyond restorative.

“That’s the best part about a mask,” Opal said. “Taking it off and having the air taste so fresh and cold again.”

On Sunday morning—a few days ago and two solid weeks into the mask-in-public rules of conduct—the kids were scattered on the floor watching Frozen while I folded laundry and Jesse tinkered away at the sewing machine. Project: to sew face-masks that fit each of us properly. It was a lovely scene of the times. I would imagine Norman Rockwell painting such an episode if he were alive during COVID. A family of four (plus cat, plus dog) in their natural weekend habitat. Slow to dress, sipping juice or coffee, and, sewing face masks.

“Ruth,” Jesse said, “Come on over here and try this on to see if it fits.” Ruth scurried over to him to try on her mask like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Later that day, I walked our dog wearing the mask Jesse so lovingly crafted for me (after three fittings). It was exquisite, hands-free, spacious around the mouth. He even used the sweetest yellow-petal, summer dress fabric. When I returned, I kissed him straight through the mask.

In spite of a good fit, it still takes exponentially more effort to greet someone while masked—you have to yell or over-gesture to compensate for the fact that both of your faces are completely erased. Because we wear ours primarily outside, most people are in sunglasses with their masks. But if not, they are far enough away where eye-reading is not an option. It’s all a straight-up guessing game.

More often than not, for the sake of simplicity, it’s just me and the dog these days. Typically, I have my dog’s leash in my left hand, and a steamy bag of his shit in my right that gets carried for countless unpleasant blocks. This is due to the lack of public trash facilities on the neighborhood routes I find are easier to navigate within the guidelines of 6-feet-between. Bike paths are pretty tight if there isn’t open space to veer off on either side. And now I’ve got my mask on, and fogged-up sunglasses. The uniform is similar to that of someone on Halloween in a last-minute ghost-sheet costume, with just the eyes cut out, cobbling along with both hands full. This is not a “path is the journey” sort of moment. I’m lucky if I can twitch out a head-nod or an elbow-wave to a passer-by.

It feels important to counteract the separation that has become synonymous with health and life. But I’d be lying if I said I was able to muster a greeting every time.

In our culture, masks (when not worn in a medical setting) often represent sinister actions—bandits or bank robbers or the KKK who want to hide defining features.

For many Asian countries, mask-wearing was a cultural norm even before the coronavirus outbreak. In East Asia, many people are used to wearing masks when they are sick or when it's hayfever season, because it's considered impolite to sneeze or cough in public.

The 2003 Sars virus outbreak, which affected several countries in the region, also drove home the importance of wearing masks, particularly in Hong Kong, where many died as a result of the virus. Says the BBC news: “One key difference between these societies and Western ones, is that they have experienced a contagion before—and the memories are still fresh and painful.”

I recently read a story about two black men who were wearing masks at Walmart—fully in compliance and trying to keep themselves safe—when they were accosted by police. It hit me like a whip how individualized each of us are experiencing this pandemic. I skoff at my mask because it’s a pain-in-the-ass. But I’ll never be faced with also having to weigh the risks of racial profiling.

Delving further, I read that to-mask-or-not-to-mask has become a way to take a political stance. Trump supporters carrying “My body, My choice” signs, with an illustration of a crossed-out mask—this is a common image to see in the media right now.

The Washington Post said: “Even as governors, mayors and the federal government urge or require Americans to wear masks in stores, transit systems and other public spaces to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, the nation is divided about whether to comply. And it is divided in painfully familiar ways — by politics and by attitudes about government power and individual choice.”

So, clearly, it is about so much more than just a mask.

This just in.

In a press conference that took place a few days ago, April 20th, Governor Jared Polis and state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy outlined how life may change in Colorado as soon as next week, when “shelter-in-place” shifts to “safer-at-home.” They are essentially the same, just with a select few businesses opening with strict distancing rules and incremental shifts toward less physical distancing over all. Polis mentions nothing different about mask-wearing. Meaning, still wear them in public, especially if you can’t get 6-feet-between, especially if you’ve been exposed or have symptoms.

I noticed an immediate difference on my walk following his announcement. There was a family of four playing frisbee in an open space without masks! My initial feeling was wait, WTF? (And yes, I realize we are living in a strange state of affairs for my initial reaction to a beautiful family frolicking in a field to be contempt.) There was a man throwing a ball for his dog in a park that still had many visible CLOSED signs—also NO MASK. (Again, WTF??) I then gave a wide, grassy birth to a group of mask-free bike riders.

I notice my mask feels more like a burden on my face without the unifying solidarity of everyone doing it. We all seem to be getting different memos.

There’s a huge relief that people are back to having faces, to be sure. I miss people. I love faces. But I have to admit that in spite of my hemming and hawing, I’d gotten used to feeling protected. It’s impossible to make sense of any of it. Even little Ruth came in yesterday and gave a tiny cough. “I’m sick,” she said, “Since I didn’t wear a mask today.”

Circling back to the facts, the only thing worth grasping at right now, I am challenged to find any bit of news to suggest that our household need to be wearing masks while out on walks—under any level of regulation thus far. Neither Jesse nor myself are working outside of the house. We don’t visit with friends or family. (Big sigh.* We miss everyone terribly.) The odds of us being silent carriers are beyond slim. We are not immuno-compromised. So wearing masks these last few weeks—while still on socially distanced walks—could probably be categorized as an act of cultural alignment, an act of doing everything we can for the cause.

As of right now, this moment, I do not see our mask-wearing as being impactful to our macro OR micro community. So, for the sake of preserving the sanity of our tiny culture for the long haul, I vote that we wear our beautifully-Jesse-crafted masks on our chins, like flattened feathers at the ready.

“As it (the “safer-at-home” regulations) rolls off April 27, we need to figure out how to run the marathon now that we’ve run the sprint,” Governor Polis said in his most recent press conference. “I hate to break it to you, but the easy part was the sprint.”

#momtemplative #HeatMamaWords #mindfulparenting #COVIDwords #masked

2 notes · View notes

isslibrary · 5 years ago

Text

New Library Material December 2019 - April 2020

Bibliography

Sorted by Call Number / Author.

155.9 T

Turkle, Sherry. Life on the screen : identity in the age of the Internet. New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, c. 1995. Introduction : identity in the age of the Internet -- pt. 1. The seductions of the interface -- A tale of two aesthetics -- The triumph of tinkering -- pt. 2. Of dreams and beasts -- Making a pass at a robot -- Taking things at interface value -- The quality of emergence -- Artificial life as the new frontier -- pt. 3. On the Internet -- Aspects of the self -- TinySex and gender trouble -- Virtuality and its discontents -- Identity crisis.

230 L

Lewis, C. S. (Clive Staples), 1898-1963, author. The C.S. Lewis signature classics. First Harpercollins Paperback Edition published 2001. Set contains 8 vols: 1)Mere Christianity; 2)The Screwtape Letters; 3)Miracles; 4)A Grief Observed; 5)The Great Divorce; 6)The Problem of Pain; 7)The Abolition of Man; 8)The Four Loves.

302 G

Gladwell, Malcolm, 1963- author. Talking to strangers : what we should know about the people we don't know. First edition. Introduction : "Step out of the car!" -- Part I. Spies and diplomats : two puzzles. Fidel Castro's revenge ; Getting to know der Führer -- Part II. Default to truth. The queen of Cuba ; The holy fool ; Case study : The boy in the shower -- Part III. Transparency. The Friends fallacy ; A (short) explanation of the Amanda Knox case ; Case study : The fraternity party -- Part IV. Lessons. KSM : what happens when the stranger is a terrorist? -- Part V. Coupling. Sylvia Plath ; Case study : The Kansas City experiments ; Sandra Bland. In this thoughtful treatise spurred by the 2015 death of African-American academic Sandra Bland in jail after a traffic stop, New Yorker writer Gladwell (The Tipping Point) aims to figure out the strategies people use to assess strangers-to "analyze, critique them, figure out where they came from, figure out how to fix them," in other words: to understand how to balance trust and safety. He uses a variety of examples from history and recent headlines to illustrate that people size up the motivations, emotions, and trustworthiness of those they don't know both wrongly and with misplaced confidence.

305.42 G

Gates, Melinda, 1964- author. The moment of lift : how empowering women changes the world. Introduction -- The lift of a great idea -- Empowering mothers: maternal and newborn health -- Every good thing: family planning -- Lifting their eyes: girls in schools -- The silent inequality: unpaid work -- When a girl has no voice: child marriage -- Seeing gender bias: women in agriculture -- Creating a new culture: women in the workplace -- Let your heart break: the lift of coming together -- Epilogue.

306.3 A

Anderson, S. E. (Sam E.). The Black holocaust for beginners. Reprint ed. Danbury, CT : For Beginners LLC, c1995.

306.36 H

Hurston, Zora Neale, author. Barracoon : the story of the last "black cargo" First edition. Foreword : Those who love us never leave us alone with our grief: reading Barracoon: the story of the last "black cargo" / by Alice Walker -- Introduction -- Barracoon : Preface -- Introduction -- The king arrives -- Barracoon -- Slavery -- Freedom -- Marriage -- Kossula learns about law -- Alone -- Appendix : Takkoi or Attako: children's game ; Stories Kossula told me ; The monkey and the camel ; Story of de Jonah ; Now disa Abraham fadda de faitful ; The lion woman -- Afterword and additional materials / edited by Deborah G. Plant -- Founders and original residents of Africatown -- Glossary. "In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States. In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo's past--memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War. Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo's unique vernacular, and written from Hurston's perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture."--Publisher's website.

342.73 C

The Founding Fathers & Paul B. Skousen. The Constitution & The Declaration of Independence. Salt Lake City, UT : Izzardink, 2016; 2017.

342.73 P

The Know your Bill of Rights book. First edition. United States : Oculus Publishers, Inc, 2013.

364.1 H

Hate crimes. 1. Hate as part of society : -- Defining hate -- What we investigate -- FBI releases 2018 hate crime statistics -- Learn more about hate crimes -- The U.S. finally made lynching a Federal crime -- Hate-crime violence its 16-year high, FBI reports -- Mail bombs, hate crimes, and he meaning of terrorism -- 2. Causes and responses : -- Entering an era of rising hate crimes -- Trump and racism: what do the data say? -- American Islamophobia in the age of Trump: the global war on terror, continued? -- Steve Scalise: don't blame Trump for mass shootings -- Did counties hosting a Trump rally in 2016 see a 226% spike in hate crimes? -- "We need to evolve": police get help to improve hate crime tracking -- The FBI's new approach to combating domestic terrorism: straight talk -- Congressman Serrano and Senator Casey introduce the Stop Hate Act to address the rise in hate crimes through social media -- 3. Hate laws and the Constitution : -- The limits of Free Speech -- Is the cure of censorship better than the disease of hate speech? -- The limits of Free Speech for White Supremacists marching at the Unite the Right 2, explained -- Hate speech and hate crime -- the El Paso shooting revived the Free Speech debate. Europe has limits -- Portland considers Antimask Law aimed at Antifa violence -- Free Speech can be messy, but we need it -- Should we treat domestic terrorists the way we treat ISIS? -- 4. Prevention, outreach, and training : -- Schools as safe places for learning -- Hate crime in America policy summit -- Hate in schools: an in-depth look -- Political correctness and anti-Jewish bias mar first draft of California's Ethnic Studies curriculum -- Justice Department commemorates 10th anniversary of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act -- 5. The role of the media and big tech : -- The connected society -- How Journalists cover mass shootings: research to consider -- In Congressional hearing on hate, the haters got their way -- A campus murder tests Facebook clicks as evidence of hate -- The media botched the Covington Catholic story -- Hate speech on social media: global comparisons -- How Big Tech can fight White Supremacist terrorism: it has the tools- it just needs to use them.

364.15 K

Kantor, Jodi, 1975- author. She said : breaking the sexual harassment story that helped ignite a movement. The first phone call -- Hollywood secrets -- How to silence a victim -- "Positive reputation management" -- A company's complicity -- "Who else is on the record?" -- "There will be a movement" -- The beachside dilemma -- "I can't guarantee I'll go to DC" -- Epilogue: The gathering. For many years, reporters had tried to get to the truth about Harvey Weinstein's treatment of women. Rumors of wrongdoing had long circulated. But in 2017, when Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey began their investigation into the prominent Hollywood producer for the New York Times, his name was still synonymous with power. During months of confidential interviews with top actresses, former Weinstein employees, and other sources, many disturbing and long-buried allegations were unearthed, and a web of onerous secret payouts and nondisclosure agreements was revealed. These shadowy settlements had long been used to hide sexual harassment and abuse, but with a breakthrough reporting technique Kantor and Twohey helped to expose it. But Weinstein had evaded scrutiny in the past, and he was not going down without a fight. He employed a team of high-profile lawyers, private investigators, and other allies to thwart the investigation. When Kantor and Twohey were finally able to convince some sources to go on the record, a dramatic final showdown between Weinstein and the New York Times was set in motion. Nothing could have prepared Kantor and Twohey for what followed the publication of their initial Weinstein story on October 5, 2017. Within days, a veritable Pandora's box of sexual harassment and abuse was opened. Women all over the world came forward with their own traumatic stories. Over the next twelve months, hundreds of men from every walk of life and industry were outed following allegations of wrongdoing. But did too much change -- or not enough? Those questions hung in the air months later as Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court, and Christine Blasey Ford came forward to testify that he had assaulted her decades earlier. Kantor and Twohey, who had unique access to Ford and her team, bring to light the odyssey that led her to come forward, the overwhelming forces that came to bear on her, and what happened after she shared her allegation with the world.

512 A

Lead authors: John A. Carter, Ph.D., Gilbert J. Cuevas,Ph.D., Roger Day, Ph.D., NBCT, Carol Malloy, Ph.D.; Program Authors: Dr. Berchie Holliday, Ed.D., Ruth Casey, Dinah Zike, Jay McTighe; Lead Consultant: Viken Hovsepian. Algebra 2. Glencoe/McGraw-Hill Education, 2012. Columbus, OH : McGraw-Hill Companies, c. 2012.

612 B

Bryson, Bill, author. The body : a guide for occupants. First U.S. edition. How to build a human -- The outside: skin and hair -- Microbial you -- The brain -- The head -- Down the hatch: the mouth and throat -- The heart and blood -- The chemistry department -- In the dissecting room: the skeleton -- On the move: bipedalism and exercise -- Equilibrium -- The immune system -- Deep breath: the lungs and breathing -- Food, glorious food -- The guts -- Sleep -- Into the nether regions -- In the beginning: conception and birth -- Nerves and pain -- When things go wrong: diseases -- Then things go very wrong: cancer -- Medicine good and bad -- The end. "Bill Bryson, bestselling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, takes us on a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body. As compulsively readable as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best, a must-read owner's manual for everybody. Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body--how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Bryson-esque anecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular. As Bill Bryson writes, "We pass our existence within this wobble of flesh and yet take it almost entirely for granted." The Body will cure that indifference with generous doses of wondrous, compulsively readable facts and information"--. "From the bestselling author of A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING, a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body"--.

801.95092

Barish, Evelyn, 1935-. The double life of Paul de Man. First Edition.

812.54 K

Kushner, Tony. Angels in America : Part One and Two. 2007. London : Nick Hern Books, 2007. Reprinted 2015. pt. 1. Millennium approaches -- pt. 2. Perestroika.

812.54 W

Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983. The glass menagerie. New Directions Book. New York, NY : New Directions Publishing, 1999. The embattled Wingfield family: Amanda, a faded southern belle, abandoned wife, dominating mother, who hopes to match her daughter with an eligible "gentleman caller;" Laura, a lame and painfully shy, she evades her mother's schemes and reality by retreating to a world of make-believe; Tom's sole support of the family, he eventually leaves home to become a writer but is forever haunted by the memory of Laura. The only single edition now available of this American classic about a mother obsessed with her disabled daughter.

812.6 B

Barron, Clare, author. Baby screams miracle. A freak storm knocks down all the trees in town and brings a prodigal daughter rushing home. But has she come for reconciliation? Or as an angel of vengeance? A comic new play about love, forgiveness and family struggling to operate in a relentlessly chaotic and violent world.

812.6 D

DeLappe, Sarah, author. The wolves : a play. 1st ed. "The Wolves follows nine teenage girls as they warm up for their indoor soccer games. From the safety of their suburban stretch circle, the team navigates big questions and wages tiny battles with all the vim and vigor of a pack of adolescent warriors. As the teammates warm up in sync, a symphony of overlapping dialogue spills out their concerns. By season's and play's end, amidst the wins and losses, rivalries and tragedies, they are tested and ready--they are The Wolves." -- Back cover.

822.914 B

Butterworth, Jez, author. The ferryman. Revised edition. Rural County Armagh, Ireland, 1981. The Carney farmhouse is a hive of activity with preparations for the annual harvest. A day of hard work on the land and a traditional night of feasting and celebrations lie ahead. But this year they will be interrupted by a visitor.

940.54 L

Larson, Erik, 1954- author. The splendid and the vile. First edition. Bleak Expectations -- The Rising Threat -- A Certain Eventuality -- Dread -- Blood and Dust -- The Americans -- Love Amid the Flames -- One Year to the Day -- Epilogue. "The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers a fresh and compelling portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz On Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold the country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally-and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless." It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it's also an intimate domestic drama set against the backdrop of Churchill's prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports-some released only recently-Larson provides a new lens on London's darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents' wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela's illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the cadre of close advisers who comprised Churchill's "Secret Circle," including his lovestruck private secretary, John Colville; newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook; and the Rasputin-like Frederick Lindemann. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today's political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when-in the face of unrelenting horror-Churchill's eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together."--.

940.54 P

Purnell, Sonia, author. A woman of no importance : the untold story of the American spy who helped win World War II. The dream -- Cometh the hour -- My tart friends -- Good-bye to Dindy -- Twelve minutes, twelve men -- Honeycomb of spies -- Cruel mountain -- Agent most wanted -- Scores to settle -- Madonna of the mountains -- From the skies above -- The CIA years. "The never-before-told story of one woman's heroism that changed the course of the Second World War In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent command across France: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." This spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman--rejected from the foreign service because of her gender and her prosthetic leg--who talked her way into the spy organization dubbed Churchill's "ministry of ungentlemanly warfare," and, before the United States had even entered the war, became the first woman to deploy to occupied France. Virginia Hall was one of the greatest spies in American history, yet her story remains untold. Just as she did in Clementine, Sonia Purnell uncovers the captivating story of a powerful, influential, yet shockingly overlooked heroine of the Second World War. At a time when sending female secret agents into enemy territory was still strictly forbidden, Virginia Hall came to be known as the "Madonna of the Resistance," coordinating a network of spies to blow up bridges, report on German troop movements, arrange equipment drops for Resistance agents, and recruit and train guerilla fighters. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped with her life in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown, and her associates all imprisoned or executed. But, adamant that she had "more lives to save," she dove back in as soon as she could, organizing forces to sabotage enemy lines and back up Allied forces landing on Normandy beaches. Told with Purnell's signature insight and novelistic panache, A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war"--.

943.086 B

Bergen, Doris L., author. War and genocide : a concise history of the Holocaust. Barnes & Noble, 2007. Preconditions : antisemitism, racism, and common prejudices in early-twentieth century Europe -- Leadership and will : Adolf Hitler, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, and Nazi ideology -- From revolution to routine : Nazi Germany, 1933-1938 -- Open aggression : in search of war, 1938-1939 -- Experiments in brutality, 1939-1940 : war against Poland and the so-called euthanasia program -- Expansion and systemization : exporting war and terror, 1940-1941 -- The peak years of killing: 1942 and 1943 -- Death throes and killing frenzies, 1944-1945.

946.9 H

Hatton, Barry, 1963- author. Queen of the sea : a history of Lisbon. "Lisbon was almost somewhere else. Portuguese officials considered moving the city after it was devastated by what is believed to be the strongest earthquake ever to strike modern Europe, in 1755, followed by a tidal wave as high as a double-decker bus and a six-day inferno that turned sand into glass. Lisbon's charm is legendary, but its rich, 2,000-year history is not widely known. This single-volume history provides an unrivaled and intimate portrait of the city and an entertaining account of its colourful past. It reveals that in Roman times the city was more important than initially thought, possessing a large theatre and hippodrome. The 1147 Siege of Lisbon was a dramatic medieval battle that was a key part of the Iberian reconquista. As Portugal built an empire spanning four continents, its capital became a wealthy international bazaar. The Portuguese king's cort©·ge was led by a rhinoceros which was followed by five elephants in gold brocade, an Arabian horse and a jaguar. The Portuguese were the world's biggest slavers, and by the mid-16th century around 10 percent of the Lisbon's population was black, imbuing the city with an African flavour it has retained. Invasion by Napoleon's armies, and the assassination of a king and the establishment of a republic, also left their marks. The city's two bridges over the River Tagus illustrate the legacy of a 20th-century dictator and Portugal's new era in Europe."--Publisher's description.

955.05 I

Iran. Detroit : Greenhaven Press, 2006. Presents all sides to several issues concerning Iran, including debates about global security, human rights, and nuclear weapons.

973.092

Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. Prologue: The Oldest Revolutionary War Widow -- The Castaways -- Hurricane -- The Collegian -- The Pen and the Sword -- The Little Lion -- A Frenzy of Valor -- The Lovesick Colonel -- Glory -- Raging Billows -- A Grave, Silent, Strange Sort of Animal -- Ghosts -- August and Respectable Assembly -- Publius -- Putting the Machine in Motion -- Villainous Business -- Dr. Pangloss -- The First Town in America -- Of Avarice and Enterprise -- City of the Future -- Corrupt Squadrons -- Exposure -- Stabbed in the Dark -- Citizen Genet -- A Disagreeable Trade -- Seas of Blood -- The Wicked Insurgents of the West -- Sugar Plums and Toys -- Spare Cassius -- The Man in the Glass Bubble -- Flying Too Near the Sun -- An Instrument of Hell -- Reign of Witches -- Works Godly and Ungodly -- In an Evil Hour -- Gusts of Passion -- In a Very Belligerent Humor -- Deadlock -- A World Full of Folly -- Pamphlet Wars -- The Price of Truth -- A Despicable Opinion -- Fatal Errand -- The Melting Scene -- Epilogue: Eliza. Ron Chernow tells the story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America. Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Chernow's biography argues that the political and economic greatness of today's America is the result of Hamilton's countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time. Chernow here recounts Hamilton's turbulent life: an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, he came out of nowhere to take America by storm, rising to become George Washington's aide-de-camp in the Continental Army, coauthoring The Federalist Papers, founding the Bank of New York, leading the Federalist Party, and becoming the first Treasury Secretary of the United States. Historians have long told the story of America's birth as the triumph of Jefferson's democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power. His is a Hamilton far more human than we've encountered before -- from his shame about his birth to his fiery aspirations, from his intimate relationships with childhood friends to his titanic feuds with Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Monroe, and Burr, and from his highly public affair with Maria Reynolds to his loving marriage to his loyal wife Eliza. And never before has there been a more vivid account of Hamilton's famous and mysterious death in a duel with Aaron Burr in July of 1804.

973.921 W

Wicker, Tom. Dwight D. Eisenhower. First edition. New York : Times Books, 2002. An American hero at the close of World War II, General Dwight Eisenhower rode an enormous wave of popularity into the Oval Office seven years later. Though we may view the Eisenhower years through a hazy lens of 1950s nostalgia, historians consider his presidency one of the least successful. At home there was civil rights unrest, McCarthyism, and a deteriorating economy; internationally, the Cold War was deepening. But despite his tendency toward "brinksmanship," Ike would later be revered for "keeping the peace." Still, his actions and policies at the onset of his career, covered by Tom Wicker, would haunt Americans of future generations.

976.1 K

Kennedy, Peggy Wallace, author. The broken road. The bridge -- In the beginning -- Romance in the air -- Coming home -- The race -- Into the darkness -- The broken road -- You got what you wanted -- The victory is ours -- 1963 -- Picture perfect -- A storm's a-comin' -- Success is to succeed -- Dynasty -- For you -- Stand up -- Things just change -- Buckle my shoes -- The book of lamentations -- 'Til death do us part -- In tents -- Testify, brother Wallace! -- Stepping down -- Benched -- The end of an era -- Doors -- Letters from Baghdad -- Back to the bridge. "From the daughter of one of America's most virulent segregationists, a memoir that reckons with her father George Wallace's legacy of hate -- and illuminates her journey towards redemption. Peggy Wallace Kennedy has been widely hailed as the 'symbol of racial reconciliation' (Washington Post). In the summer of 1963, though, she was just a young girl watching her father stand in a schoolhouse door as he tried to block two African-American students from entering the University of Alabama. This man, former governor of Alabama and presidential candidate George Wallace, was notorious for his hateful rhetoric and his political stunts. But he was also a larger-than-life father to young Peggy, who was taught to smile, sit straight, and not speak up as her father took to the political stage. At the end of his life, Wallace came to renounce his views, although he could never attempt to fully repair the damage he caused. But Peggy, after her own political awakening, dedicated her life to spreading the new Wallace message -- one of peace, penance, and compassion. In this powerful new memoir, Peggy looks back on the politics of her youth and attempts to reconcile her adored father with the man who coined the phrase 'Segregation now. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever.' Timely and timeless, The Broken Road speaks to change, atonement, activism, and racial reconciliation"--.

977 McC

McCullough, David G., author. The pioneers : the heroic story of the settlers who brought the American ideal west. First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. The Ohio country -- Forth to the wilderness -- Difficult times -- Havoc -- A new era commences -- The Burr conspiracy -- Adversities aplenty -- The cause of learning -- The travelers -- Journey's end. "Best-selling author David McCullough tells the story of the settlers who began America's migration west, overcoming almost-unimaginable hardships to build in the Ohio wilderness a town and a government that incorporated America's highest ideals"--.

92 O'Connor

Thomas, Evan, 1951- author. First : Sandra Day O'Connor. Prologue -- Lazy B -- Stanford -- The golden couple -- Majority leader -- Arizona judge -- The President calls -- Inside the Marble Palace -- Scrutiny -- FWOTSC -- Cancer -- A woman's role -- Civil religion -- Bush v. Gore -- Affirmative action -- End game -- Labor of love. "Based on exclusive interviews and access to the Supreme Court archives, this is the intimate, inspiring, and authoritative biography of America's first female Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor--by New York Times bestselling author Evan Thomas. She was born in 1930 in El Paso and grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona. At a time when women were expected to be homemakers, she set her sights on Stanford University. When she graduated near the top of her class at law school in 1952, no firm would even interview her. But Sandra Day O'Connor's story is that of a woman who repeatedly shattered glass ceilings--doing so with a blend of grace, wisdom, humor, understatement, and cowgirl toughness. She became the first-ever female majority leader of a state senate. As a judge on the Arizona State Court of Appeals, she stood up to corrupt lawyers and humanized the law. When she arrived at the Supreme Court, appointed by Reagan in 1981, she began a quarter-century tenure on the court, hearing cases that ultimately shaped American law. Diagnosed with cancer at fifty-eight, and caring for a husband with Alzheimer's, O'Connor endured every difficulty with grit and poise. Women and men today will be inspired by how to be first in your own life, how to know when to fight and when to walk away, through O'Connor's example. This is a remarkably vivid and personal portrait of a woman who loved her family and believed in serving her country, who, when she became the most powerful woman in America, built a bridge forward for the women who followed her"--. At a time when women were expected to be homemakers, Sandra Day O'Connor set her sights on Stanford University. When she graduated near the top of her class at law school in 1952, no firm would even interview her. She became the first-ever female majority leader of a state senate, a judge on the Arizona State Court of Appeals, and arrived at the Supreme Court in 1981 to begin a quarter-century tenure on the court. Thomas provides a vivid and personal portrait of a woman who loved her family, believed in serving her country, and built a bridge forward for the women who followed her. -- adapted from jacket.

ACT Manual

Stern, David Alan. Acting with an accent : a step-by-step approach to learning dialects. Lyndonville, VT : Dialect Accent Specialists, c1979-1987. [v. 1.] Standard British -- [v. 2.] Cockney -- [v. 3.] New York City -- [v. 4.] American Southern -- [v. 5.] Irish -- [v. 6.] Scottish -- [v. 7.] Spanish -- [v. 8.] Italian -- [v. 9.] French -- [v. 10.] German -- [v. 11.] Russian -- [v. 12.] Yiddish -- [v. 13.] Texas -- [v. 14.] Boston -- [v. 15.] Down east New England -- 16. Upper class Massachusetts or "Kennedy-esque" -- [v. 17.] Chicago -- 18. Mid-west farm/ranch -- 19. Polish -- [v. 20.] Arabic -- [v. 21.] Farsi (Persian) -- [v. 22.] Norwegian & Swedish -- [v. 23.] West Indian & Black African -- [v. 24.] British north country -- [v. 25.] Australian. Step-by-step instruction and practice in learning to speak English in various domestic and foreign dialects.

DVD For

Forbidden Hollywood collection. Turner Classic Movies Archives. Burbank, CA : Turner Entertainment Company and Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc. Disc 1: Other Men's Women; The Purchase Price. Disc 2: Frisco Jenny; Midnight Mary. Disc 3: Heroes for Sale; Wild Boys of the Road. Disc 4: Wild Bil: Hollywood Maverick; The Men Who Made the Movies: William A. Wellman. Other men's women: Grant Withers, Regis Toomey, Mary Astor, J. Farrell MacDonald. The purchase price: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Lyle Talbot. Frisco Jenny: Ruth Chatterton, Louis Calhern. Midnight Mary: Loretta Young, Ricardo Cortez, Franchot Tone, Andy Devine. Heroes for sale: Richard Barthelmess, Aline MacMahon, Loretta Young, Gordon Westcott. Wild boys of the road: Frankie Darro, Dorothy Coonan, Rochelle Hudson, Edwin Phillips. Wild Bill: Hollywood maverick - narrator, Alec Baldwin. Disc 1: Other men's women: Bill and Jack are railroad men. When Bill comes to stay with Jack and his wife, Bill and Lily fall in love. Jack confronts Bill about his suspicions and the two fight, leaving Jack seriously injured. The purchase price: Joan Gordon is a singer tiring of her relationship with Eddie. She flees to North Dakota to become a mail-order bride. Happiness is threatened by her stubborn husband, a lecherous neighbor and the appearance of Eddie. Disc 2: Frisco Jenny: Jenny was orphaned by the 1906 earthquake and fire and has gone on to become the madame of a prosperous bawdy house. After putting her son up for adoption, he becomes a district attorney dedicated to closing down such houses. She kills an underling who wants her son dead and is now facing execution. Midnight Mary: A mistaken arrest, a prison term, and lack of employment leads to a young woman's involvement with gangsters. In a brothel she meets a wealthy lawyer who falls in love with her. He helps her turn her life around, but her past catches up with her. Now she is on trial for murder. Disc 3: Heroes for sale: A man stands up during a WWI battle and becomes a hero, but he doesn't get the credit. He becomes injuried and soon gets hooked on morphine, causing him to fall apart when he returns home. He eventually marries, but soon the Depression hits. Wild boys of the road: Tom and Ed are high school students whose parents, thanks to the Depression, have lost their jobs. Wanting to help make money, they set off on the rails looking for work. They finally end up in New York and Ed thinks he might have foud a job. Disc 4: Wild Bill: Explores the life and directorial times of William A. Wellman. The men who made the movies: Wellman shares many stories and speaks bluntly of the producers with who he has worked and describes his remarkable star-making and star-spotting abilities. He was responsible for helping actors win Oscars and discovered such notable actors as James Cagney and Gary Cooper.

DVD Gra

The grapes of wrath. [DVD version includes: commentary by Joseph McBride and Susan Shillinglaw; prologue from British version; Biography. Darryl F. Zanuck : twentieth century filmmaker; 3 drought reports from 1934 Movietone news newsreels; outtakes; still gallery; featurette entitled Roosevelt lauds motion pictures at Academy fete; restoration comparison; English and Spanish tracks and subtitles]. Henry Fonda (Tom Joad); Jane Darwell (Ma Joad); John Carradine (Casy); Charley Grapewin (grandpa); Dorris Bowdon (Rosasharn); Russell Simpson (Pa Joad); O.Z. Whitehead (Al); John Qualen (Muley); Eddie Quillan (Connie); Zeffie Tilbury (grandma); Frank Sully (Noah); Frank Darien (Uncle John); Darryl Hickman (Winfield); Shirley Mills (Ruth Joad); Roger Imhof (Thomas); Grant Mitchell (caretaker); Charles D. Brown (Wilkie); John Arledge (Davis); Ward Bond (policeman); Harry Tyler (Bert); William Pawley (Bill); Charles Tannen (Joe); Selmar Jackson (inspection officer); Charles Middleton (leader); Eddie Waller (proprietor); Paul Guilfoyle (Floyd); David Hughes (Frank); Cliff Clark (city man); Joseph Sawyer (bookkeeper); Frank Faylen (Tim); Adrian Morris (agent); Hollis Jewell (Muley's son); Robert Homans (Spencer); Irving Bacon (Roy); Kitty McHugh (Mae); Arthur Aylesworth (father); Norman Willis, Lee Shumway, Frank O'Connor, Tom Tyler, Harry Cording, Ralph Dunn, Paul Sutton, Pat Flaherty, Dick Rich (deputies); Mae Marsh (Muley's wife); Herbert Heywood (gas station man); Harry Strang (Fred); Walter Miller (border guard); Gaylord Pendleton, Ben Hall, Robert Shaw (gas station attendants); George O'Hara (clerk); Thornton Edwards (motor cop); Russ Clark, James Flavin, Philip Morris, Max Wagner (guards); Trevor Bardette (Jule); Jack Pennick (committee man); Walter McGrail (leader of gang); William Haade (deputy driver); Ted Oliver (state policeman); Gloria Roy (waitress); George Breakstone, Wally Albright (boys); John Wallace (migrant); Erville Alderson, Louis Mason, Shirley Coates, Peggy Ryan, Georgia Simmons, Harry Holden, Hal Budlong, John Binns, Harry Wallace, L.F. O'Connor, Cliff Herbert, Joe Bordeaux, Tyler Gibson, Leon Brace, Harry Matthews, Frank Newberg, Jack Walters, Bill Wolfe, Delmar Costello, Bill Worth, Frank Atkinson, James Welch, Charles Thurston, Jules Michaelson, Waclaw Rekwart, Sidney Hayes, E.J. Kaspar, D.H. Turner, David Kirkland, C.B. Steele, Frank Watson, Al Stewart, Henry Barhe, Scotty Brown, Charles West, Dean hall, Walton Pindon, Charles W. Hertzinger, W.H. Davis, Scotty Mattraw, Chauncey Pyle, Walter Perry, Billy Elmer, Buster Brodie, Barney Gilmore, Cal Cohen, Nora Bush, Jane Crowley, Eleanor Vogel, Lillian Drew, Cecil Cook, Helen Dean, Pearl Varvell, hazel Lollier, Emily Gerdes, Rose Plummer, Mrs. Gladys Rehfeld, Edna Hall, Josephine Allen.

DVD It

It happened one night. Full screen. [Culver City, Calif.] : Columbia Pictures ;, c2008. Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, Jameson Thomas, Alan Hale, Arhtur Hoyt. When her father threatens to annul her marriage to a fortune-hunting playboy, spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews hops a cross-country bus to New York, where she plans to live happily ever after with her handsome new hubby. Romantic complications soon arise, however, when she's befriended by fellow passenger Peter Warne, a brash and breezy reporter who offers his help in exchange for her exclusive story.

DVD Mar

The Marx brothers collection. Warner Brothers Home Video. Set includes: 1) A Night at the Opera; 2) A Day at the Races; 3) A night in Casablanca; 4) Room Service; 5) At the Circus; 6) Go West; 7) The Big Store.

DVD Sca

Scarface. Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Pergkins, C. Henry Gordon, George Raft, Vince Barnett, Boris Karloff, Purnell Pratt. "An exciting story of organized crime's brutal control over Chicago during the prohibition era. This compelling tale of ambition, betrayal and revenge is a groundbreaking masterpiece that influenced all gangster films to follow."--Container.

DVD Swi

Swing time. DVD special edition. Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Victor Moore, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore, Betty Furness, Georges Metaxa. "In this irresistible musical, the legendary dancing duo Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are at the pinnacle of their art as a feckless gambler and the shrewd dancing instructor in whom he more than meets his match. Director George Stevens laces their romance with humor and clears the floor for the movie's showstopping dance scenes, in which Astaire and Rogers take seemingly effortless flight in a virtuosic fusion of ballroom and tap styles. Buoyed by beloved songs by Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern--including the Oscar-winning classic 'The Way You Look Tonight'--Swing Time is an exuberant celebration of its stars' chemistry, grace, and sheer joy in the act of performance"--Container.

DVD Wil

Wild boys of the road. Warner Bros., Home Video, 1950s. In the depths of the Depression, two teenage boys strike out on their own in order to help their struggling parents and find life on the road tougher than expected.

EQUIP

Digital Voice Recorder : Multi-function stereo recorder. Olympus Model WS-852. Tokyo: : Olympus Corporation; Olympus America, Inc., PA, 2015.

F Cum

Cummins, Jeanine, author. American dirt. First U.S. edition. "También de este lado hay sueños. Lydia Quixano Perez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. Even though she knows they'll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with four books he would like to buy-two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia's husband's tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same. Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia-trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier's reach doesn't extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to? American Dirt will leave readers utterly changed when they finish reading it. A page-turner filled with poignancy, drama, and humanity on every page, it is a literary achievement."--.

F Fre

Freudenberger, Nell. The dissident. 1st ed. New York : ECCO, c2006.

F Fre

Freudenberger, Nell, author. Lost and wanted. First Edition. "Told from the perspective of a female physicist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a story that explores the nature of friendship, romantic love, and motherhood"--.

F Gla

Gladstone, Max, author. Full fathom five. First Trade paperback edition. "On the island of Kavekana, Kai builds gods to order, then hands them to others to maintain. Her creations aren't conscious and lack their own wills and voices, but they accept sacrifices, and protect their worshippers from other gods--perfect vehicles for Craftsmen and Craftswomen operating in the divinely controlled Old World. When Kai sees one of her creations dying and tries to save her, she's grievously injured--then sidelined from the business entirely, her near-suicidal rescue attempt offered up as proof of her instability. But when Kai gets tired of hearing her boss, her coworkers, and her ex-boyfriend call her crazy, and starts digging into the reasons her creations die, she uncovers a conspiracy of silence and fear--which will crush her, if Kai can't stop it first"--.

F Gla

Gladstone, Max, author. Last first snow. First Trade paperback edition. "Forty years after the God Wars, Dresediel Lex bears the scars of liberation--especially in the Skittersill, a poor district still bound by the fallen gods' decaying edicts. As long as the gods' wards last, they strangle development; when they fail, demons will be loosed upon the city. The King in Red hires Elayne Kevarian of the Craft firm Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao to fix the wards, but the Skittersill's people have their own ideas. A protest rises against Elayne's work, led by Temoc, a warrior-priest turned community organizer who wants to build a peaceful future for his city, his wife, and his young son. As Elayne drags Temoc and the King in Red to the bargaining table, old wounds reopen, old gods stir in their graves, civil blood breaks to new mutiny, and profiteers circle in the desert sky. Elayne and Temoc must fight conspiracy, dark magic, and their own demons to save the peace--or failing that, to save as many people as they can"--.

F Gla

Gladstone, Max, author. Three parts dead. First Trade Paperback Edition. "A god has died, and it's up to Tara, first-year associate in the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, to bring Him back to life before His city falls apart. Her client is Kos, recently deceased fire god of the city of Alt Coulumb. Without Him, the metropolis' steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot. Tara's job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who's having an understandable crisis of faith. When the dou discovers that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb's courts--and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb's slim hope of survival."--from publisher's description.

F Gla

Gladstone, Max, author. Two serpents rise. First Trade paperback edition. "Shadow demons plague the city reservoir, and Red King Consolidated has sent in Caleb Altemoc--casual gambler and professional risk manager--to cleanse the water for the sixteen million people of Dresediel Lex. At the scene of the crime, Caleb finds an alluring and clever cliff runner, crazy Mal, who easily outpaces him. But Caleb has more than the demon infestation, Mal, or job security to worry about when he discovers that his father--the last priest of the old gods and leader of the True Quechal terrorists--has broken into his home and is wanted in connection to the attacks on the water supply. From the beginning, Caleb and Mal are bound by lust, Craft, and chance, as both play a dangerous game where gods and people are pawns. They sleep on water, they dance in fire ... and all the while the Twin Serpents slumbering beneath the earth are stirring, and they are hungry."--.

F Gla

Ruin of angels. First edition, 2017. New York, NY : Tor, c.2017. "The God Wars destroyed the city of Alikand. Now, a century and a half and a great many construction contracts later, Agdel Lex rises in its place. Dead deities litter the surrounding desert, streets shift when people aren't looking, a squidlike tower dominates the skyline, and the foreign Iskari Rectification Authority keeps strict order in this once-independent city--while treasure seekers, criminals, combat librarians, nightmare artists, angels, demons, dispossessed knights, grad students, and other fools gather in its ever-changing alleys, hungry for the next big score. Priestess/investment banker Kai Pohala (last seen in Full Fathom Five) hits town to corner Agdel Lex's burgeoning nightmare startup scene, and to visit her estranged sister Lei. But Kai finds Lei desperate at the center of a shadowy, and rapidly unravelling, business deal. When Lei ends up on the run, wanted for a crime she most definitely committed, Kai races to track her sister down before the Authority finds her first. But Lei has her own plans, involving her ex-girlfriend, a daring heist into the god-haunted desert, and, perhaps, freedom for an occupied city. Because Alikand might not be completely dead--and some people want to finish the job."--Amazon.com.

F Gri

Grisham, John, author. The guardians. First edition. In a small Florida town, a young lawyer, Keith Russo, is shot to death as he works late. A young black man, a former client, named Quincy Miller is charged and convicted. For 22 years, Miller maintains his innocence from inside prison. Finally, Guardian Ministries takes on Miller's case, but Cullen Post, the Episcopal minister in charge, gets more than he bargained for. Powerful people murdered Russo-- they do not want Miller exonerated, and will kill again without a second thought. -- adapted from info provided and jacket info.

F Hil

Hilderbrand, Elin, author. Summer of '69. First edition. Welcome to the most tumultuous summer of the twentieth century. It's 1969, and for the Levin family, the times they are a-changing. Every year the children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic home in downtown Nantucket. But like so much else in America, nothing is the same: Blair, the oldest sister, is marooned in Boston, pregnant with twins and unable to travel. Middle sister Kirby, caught up in the thrilling vortex of civil rights protests and, determined to be independent, takes a summer job on Martha's Vineyard. Only-son Tiger is an infantry soldier, recently deployed to Vietnam. Thirteen-year-old Jessie suddenly feels like an only child, marooned in the house with her out-of-touch grandmother and her worried mother, each of them hiding a troubling secret. As the summer heats up, Ted Kennedy sinks a car in Chappaquiddick, man flies to the moon, and Jessie and her family experience their own dramatic upheavals along with the rest of the country.

F Jen

Jenoff, Pam, author. The lost girls of Paris. Library Exclusive Edition. "From the author of the runaway bestseller The Orphan's Tale comes a remarkable story of friendship and courage centered around three women and a ring of female secret agents during World War II.1946, Manhattan. One morning while passing through Grand Central Terminal on her way to work, Grace Healey finds an abandoned suitcase tucked beneath a bench. Unable to resist her own curiosity, Grace opens the suitcase, where she discovers a dozen photographs--each of a different woman. In a moment of impulse, Grace takes the photographs and quickly leaves the station. Grace soon learns that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a network of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during the war. Twelve of these women were sent to Occupied Europe as couriers and radio operators to aid the resistance, but they never returned home, their fates a mystery. Setting out to learn the truth behind the women in the photographs, Grace finds herself drawn to a young mother turned agent named Marie, whose daring mission overseas reveals a remarkable story of friendship, valor and betrayal. Vividly rendered and inspired by true events, New York Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff shines a light on the incredible heroics of the brave women of the war and weaves a mesmerizing tale of courage, sisterhood and the great strength of women to survive in the hardest of circumstances"--Publisher's description.

F Jen

Jenoff, Pam, author. The orphan's tale. Sixteen-year-old Noa, forced to give up her baby fathered by a Nazi soldier, snatches a child from a boxcar containing Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp and takes refuge with a traveling circus, where Astrid, a Jewish aerialist, becomes her mentor.

F Maa

Sharon Maas. The Girl from the Sugar Plantation. 23 Sussex Road, Ickenham, UB10 8PN, United Kingdom : Bookouture.

F Maa

Sharon Maas. The Violin Maker's Daughter. Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment London EC4Y 0DZ : Bookouture, 2019.

F Maas

Sharon Maas. The Lost Daughter of India. 23 Sussex Road, Ickenham, UB10 8PN United Kingdom : Bookouture.

F Mak

Makkai, Rebecca, author. The great believers. "A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris, by the acclaimed and award-winning author Rebecca Makkai. In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster"--.

F McC

A Peirogon : a novel. First Edition. New York, NY : Random House, 2020.

F Mic

Michaelides, Alex, 1977- author. The silent patient. First International Edition. Alicia Berenson's life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London's most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Alicia's refusal to talk or give any kind of explanation turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the spotlight of the tabloids at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His search for the truth leads him down a terrifying path and threatens to consume him.

F Ng

Ng, Celeste, author. Little fires everywhere.

F Old

Older, Daniel José, author. The Book of Lost Saints. First edition. "The spirit of Marisol, who vanished during the Cuban Revolution, visits her nephew, Ramon, in modern-day New Jersey, and her presence prompts him to investigate the story of his ancestor, unaware of the forces driving him on his search"--.

F Rem

Remarque, Erich Maria, 1898-1970. The road back. Random House Trade Paperback Edition, 2013. New York, NY : Random House Publishing, 2013.

F Ser

Rebecca Serle. The Dinner List. First U.S. Edition, September 2018. New York, NY : Flatiron Books, 2018.

F Ser

Serle, Rebecca, author. In five years : a novel. First Atria Books hardcover edition. "A striking, powerful, and moving love story following an ambitious lawyer who experiences an astonishing vision that could change her life forever"--. "When Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Cohan is asked this question at the most important interview of her career, she has a meticulously crafted answer at the ready. Later, after nailing her interview and accepting her boyfriend's marriage proposal, Dannie goes to sleep knowing she is right on track to achieve her five-year plan. But when she wakes up, she's suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. The television news is on in the background, and she can just make out the scrolling date. It's the same night -December 15 -but 2025, five years in the future. After a very intense, shocking hour, Dannie wakes again, at the brink of midnight, back in 2020. She can't shake what has happened. It certainly felt much more than merely a dream, but she isn't the kind of person who believes in visions. That nonsense is only charming coming from free-spirited types, like her lifelong best friend, Bella. Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind. That is, until four-and-a-half years later, when by chance Dannie meets the very same man from her long-ago vision."--Publisher website.

F Van

Vanderah, Glendy, author. Where the forest meets the stars. First edition. A mysterious child teaches two strangers how to love and trust again. After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. When a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin, barefoot and covered in bruises, Joanna enlists the help of her reclusive neighbor, Gabriel Nash, to solve the mystery of the charming child. But the more time they spend together, the more questions they have. How does a young girl not only read but understand Shakespeare? Why do good things keep happening in her presence? And why aren't Jo and Gabe checking the missing children's website anymore? Though the three have formed an incredible bond, they know difficult choices must be made.

F Vuo

Vuong, Ocean, 1988- author. On earth we're briefly gorgeous : a novel. "Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity"--.

F Whi

Whitehead, Colson, 1969- author. The nickel boys : a novel. First edition.

[Fic]

Gladstone, Max, author. Four roads cross. First edition. "The great city of Alt Coulumb is in crisis. The moon goddess Seril, long thought dead, is back--and the people of Alt Coulumb aren't happy. Protests rock the city, and Kos Everburning's creditors attempt a hostile takeover of the fire god's church. Tara Abernathy, the god's in-house Craftswoman, must defend the church against the world's fiercest necromantic firm--and against her old classmate, a rising star in the Craftwork world. As if that weren't enough, Cat and Raz, supporting characters from Three Parts Dead , are back too, fighting monster pirates; skeleton kings drink frozen cocktails, defying several principles of anatomy; jails, hospitals, and temples are broken into and out of; choirs of flame sing over Alt Coulumb; demons pose significant problems; a farmers' market proves more important to world affairs than seems likely; doctors of theology strike back; Monk-Technician Abelard performs several miracles; The Rats! play Walsh's Place; and dragons give almost-helpful counsel."--Syndetics.

R 943.086

The Holocaust chronicle. Lincolnwood, Ill. : Publications International, Ltd, 2009; 2017. The Holocaust Chronicle, written and fact-checked by top scholars, recounts the long, complex, anguishing story of the most terrible crime of the 20th century. A massive, oversized hardcover of more than 750 pages, this book features more than 2000 photographs, many of which are in full color and most are published in book form for the first time. The 3000-item timeline of Holocaust-related events is unprecedented in its scope and ambition and detailed caption-text is rich with facts and human interest.

SC Rus

Russell, Karen, 1981- author. Orange world : and other stories. First edition. The prospectors -- The bad graft -- Bog girl: a romance -- Madame Bovary's greyhound -- The tornado auction -- Black Corfu -- The Gondoliers -- Orange world. "From the Pulitzer finalist and universally beloved author of the New York Times best sellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, a stunning new collection of short fiction that showcases her extraordinary gifts of language and imagination"--.

SC Rus

Russell, Karen, 1981-. Vampires in the lemon grove : stories. 1st ed. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.

SC S

Smith, Zadie, author. Grand union : stories. The dialectic -- Sentimental education -- The lazy river -- Words and music -- Just right -- Parents' morning epiphany -- Downtown -- Miss Adele amidst the corsets -- Mood -- Escape from New York -- Big week -- Meet the President! -- Two men arrive in a village -- Kelso deconstructed -- Blocked -- The canker -- For the King -- Now more than ever -- Grand union. "A dazzling collection of short fiction, more than half of which have never been published before, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and Swing Time Zadie Smith has established herself as one of the most iconic, critically-respected, and popular writers of her generation. In her first short story collection, she combines her power of observation and inimitable voice to mine the fraught and complex experience of life in the modern world. With ten extraordinary new stories complemented by a selection of her most lauded pieces for The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Granta, GRAND UNION explores a wide range of subjects, from first loves to cultural despair, as well as the desire to be the subject of your own experience. In captivating prose, she contends with race, class, relationships, and gender roles in a world that feels increasingly divided. Nothing is off limits, and everything--when captured by Smith's brilliant gaze--feels fresh and relevant. Perfectly paced, and utterly original, GRAND UNION highlights the wonders Zadie Smith can do"--. In her first short story collection, Smith combines her power of observation and inimitable voice to mine the fraught and complex experience of life in the modern world. She explores a wide range of subjects, from first loves to cultural despair, as well as the desire to be the subject of your own experience. In the stories Smith contends with race, class, relationships, and gender roles in a world that feels increasingly divided. -- adapted from jacket.

5 notes · View notes

jewish-privilege · 6 years ago

Link

Over the past month, the Democratic and Republican parties have battled over the subject of anti-Semitism, in a protracted, exhausting, and phenomenally unproductive war of words, with a bunch of tired Jews in the middle. Freshman Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s tossed-off tweets about AIPAC and Israel provoked a furious backlash dripping with Islamophobia and misogynoir. From these unpromising ashes, a slick, gaudy phoenix has raised its thirsty beak—the fledgling political movement known as “Jexodus.”

The first thing to know about Jexodus, an initiative to draw Jewish votes away from the Democratic party, is that the J is superfluous. There was already a Jewish exodus, and it was called Exodus—you know, the one where the Jewish people fled slavery in Egypt. There’s a book of the Bible named after it. (To be fair, I suppose “Jexodus” rolls more neatly off the tongue than “Jgenesis,” or “Jdeuteronomy.”)

The second thing to know about Jexodus is that it’s a nakedly grasping, cynical, and hypocritical gambit by the contemporary GOP. Like many such gambits—“Blexit,” attempting to woo black votes from the Democrats, comes to mind—it’s an operation entirely engineered by conservative flacks, doing its best to masquerade as an authentic grassroots movement.

On Tuesday morning, “Fox & Friends” did a segment on this newest faux-movement, which in turn led the President of the United States, a huge fan of that TV show’s chipper racism, to tweet about it at length. Jexodus was embodied by the doe-eyed Elizabeth Pipko, a 23-year-old former Trump campaign staffer, Jexodus’s “national spokesperson.”...

The president tweeting about Jews raised my stomach acid level by approximately 300%, causing me to need to pop an alka-seltzer like an emasculated father in a Philip Roth novel. Then I got angry, not just seized with Ashkenazi agita. The president lumbering wetly into this discussion—this particular president, with his long history of cozying up to anti-Semites; his public, infamous embrace of neo-Nazis; his adoration of conspiracy theories, which so frequently feature shadowy Rothschilds…the very thought brought my bile up. It was like picking your way through dog shit, only to be crapped on, stealthily, by a pigeon: very white, and thoroughly unwelcome.

All in all, Jexodus is a whole lot like Blexit. Besides being hideous portmanteaus, they serve primarily to insult the populations they purport to seduce. Each uses slavery (or “the plantation”) as a metaphor for fealty to Democratic politics, as if Nancy Pelosi is poised with a cat-o-nine-tails at the doorstep of Jewish and Black homes across America. Each features a young, attractive woman as its primary face—Pipko being the Jexodus answer to Blexit’s Candace Owens. Each has somewhat opaque finances (Owens is also a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, a conservative group that aggressively seeks to woo college students, which was initially financed by 78-year-old ultraconservative billionaire Foster Friess). And each desire to absolve the Republican Party of its naked embrace of racism in the Trump era by co-opting members of marginalized populations.

There are hard-right enclaves within the Jewish population in the United States; a majority of Orthodox Jewish voters lean Republican. But the overall Jewish population is one of the most consistently Democratic groups in the country. According to Pew Research, seven in ten Jews identify or lean towards the Democratic party. This figure has remained stable for decades, and shows no sign of budging, “Jexodus” or no. Jews are also a vanishingly small population numerically—less than 2% of the US population overall.

...Per conservative news site the Daily Wire, Jexodus is the brainchild of 56-year-old Republican strategist Jeff Ballabon, a longtime operative who, among other dubious achievements, lobbied the RNC to include language in its 2016 platform that dropped support for a two-state solution and rejected “the false notion that Israel is an occupier.” (On the website for his firm, B2 Strategic, Ballabon quotes none other than Watergate-burglary mastermind G. Gordon Liddy to cast himself as a samurai for Israel: “If Akira Kurosawa did a movie about Israel, Jeff would play one of the leading roles.”)

Ballabon is mentioned nowhere on Jexodus’s website... Pipko stands alone as the face of the movement, a pretty young face transparently picked to lure as many Jews over the line as possible.

And that’s the game: line up as many black faces, as many yarmulkes as you can, to window-dress the white nationalism that has come to define the Republican party in the era of Trump. Demonize the stranger and the outcast; let white nationalists swarm cities; and for every swastika drawn on a synagogue or school, find a Jew to shove to the front of the crowd. The protracted condemnation of Ilhan Omar served to gin up the racist sentiments of Fox News viewers, and the saccharine, philosemitic condescension of those Christians who embrace Israel but regard diaspora Jews with contempt.

Like so much else in this era, Jexodus is a shabby farce, an affront wrapped in asinine and gaudy trappings. But as absurd as Jexodus and Blexit are, one should not lose sight of their essential purpose, which is abhorrent: to weaponize tokenism, and use it to drape a little gauze over a raw, gaping national wound.

[Read Talia Lavin’s full piece at GQ.]

#antisemitism #anti black racism #tokenism #tokenization #jexodus #blexit #white supremacy #white nationalism

48 notes · View notes

siouxempirepodcast · 8 years ago

Text

Stranger Things: The First Month of the Trump Era

I wanted to complete and turn in this article more than two weeks ago, but I’ve been struggling. Struggling to understand, struggling to accept what is happening in our country. In fact, it seems like every time I wrap my mind around what is happening and sit down to chronicle it, it all blows up with the latest press release, the most recent executive order, the newest accusation, the latest Twitter war. In Part One of this Blog Series (Orange is the New Black: The First Week) I listed, by day, what the Trump Administration had done during those first seven days. This blow-by-blow account began on the Saturday after the Inauguration, when Trump went to CIA headquarters, stood at the wall that bore 117 stars (for each intelligence officer killed in the line of duty) and claimed that attendance at his swearing-in was the YUGEST ever. It ended with the following Friday, Holocaust Remembrance Day where Trump failed to mention the word “Jews” at all in his tribute. I knew, for the second installment of this series, that I wanted to talk in broader terms about the first full month of Trump’s presidency but that’s where I’ve been stymied. Instead, my mind is going to some pretty dark places. Areas of confusion and disorder, anger, and dismay. It’s been nearly impossible to navigate my way through this. We can joke about how dystopian fiction has become ALL the rage again. Stories like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Stand,” “1984” and Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” (which I am currently re-reading). In “The Stand,” novelist Stephen King wrote: “Afterward Larry felt as if he had been through a long pillow fight in which all the pillows had been treated with a low-grade poison gas.” That, my friends, is how I feel. There are times I can clearly see what is happening and how to fight it and other times that I feel like I’ve lost my everloving mind. I’m beginning to think that is the intention. When we are confused, we do not fight. When we are uncertain, we do not protest. And this administration has been masterful at inciting doubt in the most fundamental of certainties: Truth itself. Truth has always been a wascally wabbit. Just ask any married couple what happened on any given night, and you’ll get two wildly different answers. But usually, you can find the full truth somewhere in between. In between our account of what is real and what we’re being told is a dark and murky place. A land of “Alternate Truths.” A place where somewhere around half of all Americans are quaking in fear and the other half are gleefully celebrating. And if you want to feel like your half is somehow losing this battle, somehow much smaller in numbers than you believe, just start looking closely at your neighbors. This past Saturday night on a random search on Twitter for #rapidcity (hey, I’m a writer and a blogger – I just try to stay apprised of what’s happening around my community…) I discovered the other half. They were triumphant. They were determined. And they are Neo-Nazis. Yes, real Nazi’s. Not just the kind of derpy-derp redneck, backwater, ignorant white folk who think black people and Jews and Muslims are inferior. I mean the kind of individuals who say this: “ROFLMAO it’s going to get very very bad for #jews & sooner than they think. You’ll be licking Goyim boots very soon Kikes.” Yes. This “human being” lives amongst us. He follows people like David Duke, Richard Spencer, the Europa Project and other white supremacists. He also follows a bunch of dominatrix-related profiles. I was surprised that he didn’t have a frog picture on his Twitter profile (in fact he doesn’t have a pic at all – he’s got the ubiquitous, anonymous, chickenshi… egg). And no, I’m not going to name him. It’s like someone poked a sleeping beast and awoke it. It’s like someone opened up the tar sand pits and poured some black and foul substance on the ground. It’s like we’re living in the Upside Down. “You swear, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth – so help you God?” – statement of Sworn Testimony, American Justice System. What is truth? Remember when, in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, nearly 16 years ago we declared that perhaps Irony was dead? We also thought back then that truffled macaroni and cheese and Foie gras hamburgers were going to become the norm, but both ideas proved unsustainable. Today we have to ask the question “Is truth dead?” Like the understanding that this administration believes that the American public will develop “protest fatigue” I believe that they think they can continue to manipulate the facts and steer us toward the conclusions they wish us to have and that eventually we will tire and give in. If nothing else that many fighting so hard on the left will stop their public gatherings and head home, leaving those in power to tinker with our freedoms willfully. To have our national media sources declared “the enemy of our people” is a shocking statement. We are nothing without an impartial, even hostile media. There are Republicans who have made statements to the contrary. That even some of our previously most-divisive GOP leaders understand that key to a free society is a free press. Last week on “The Today Show” former President George W. Bush responded “I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. That we need the media to hold people like me to account. I mean, power can be very addictive, and it can be corrosive, and it’s important for the press to call to account people who abuse their power, whether it be here or elsewhere.” Other presidents, throughout history, have spoken at length about the need for truth and transparent democracy. Our first President, George Washington, said: “Truth will ultimately prevail where there are pains to bring it to light.” “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom” – Thomas Jefferson “All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse” – John Quincy Adams “Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth” – Franklin D. Roosevelt “I would rather the man who presents something for my consideration subject me to a zephyr of truth and a gentle breeze of responsibility rather than blow me down with a curtain of hot air.” “Honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my Guide” – Andrew Johnson “Tell the truth, work hard and come to dinner on time” – Gerald R. Ford Cleveland’s flowery language aside, each of these men spoke to the notion that the truth is a fixed and inflexible reality. Facts are what support the truth. Perceptions are the way that each sees and accepts the reality. Beliefs are the underlying structure that impacts how we perceive the reality. Experiences mold our views, making us lean in one direction or another, but truth is still truth – right? Trump is a President and an administration that is desperately trying to control the perceptions of the public and their reactions. It’s hard to comprehend how a man who spent 13% of his first month in office Tweeting (actual statistic, from the Wall Street Journal) fails to understand the transparency and connectivity of the modern world. This administration’s attempts to manipulate, debunk and deceive the public come off so laughably bad and yet every mouthpiece representing the president is so deeply convinced and entrenched in their unwavering determination that it leaves you feeling a bit befuddled. I’m not the only one who feels like I was treated with a low-grade poison gas. I’m not the only one living in the Upside Down. Am I? The first installment of this series was about what Donald J. Trump and the Trump administration had done in the first week. This second installment is what is happening to us. When we cannot see the truth, can we fight for it? Will we know when our friends, family, neighbors may be in peril? Will we even know when we are? Do we check out? Turn off the 24-hour news cycle (of all stripes) and sign out of Twitter and just focus on what is right in front of our noses? Is it better to simply NOT know that there are Nazi’s in our midst? Do we turn back to the fiction of yore, reading of make-believe dystopias while chuckling at the resonance, the reflections in our society? Do we only gather around our televisions on Saturday Night, in our Snuggies, and laugh at what is no longer satire but straight-up, the straight-forward fact (albeit with hilarious actors)? Is there a sane way to experience the Trump Era? If so, can you share it with me?

The post Stranger Things: The First Month of the Trump Era appeared first on TheSiouxEmpire.com.

from Stranger Things: The First Month of the Trump Era

#Stranger Things: The First Month of the Trump Era

0 notes

upalldown · 3 years ago

Text

Low - Hey What

Thirteenth studio album from the indie rock duo from Duluth, Minnesota produced by BJ Burton

9/13

Low seemed a singular band from the outset. They were a married, practising Mormon couple, devoted to playing as quietly and slowly as possible, in the teeth of the early 90s grunge era. In fact, Low stood out so much that people felt obliged to invent a new subgenre to describe what they were doing: slowcore. It was a label the band disliked and quickly outgrew; it turned out they could move at quite a clip when it suited them.

Then, 25 years into their career, Low became more singular still. Their sound had always shifted and changed, occasionally in unpredictable directions, and electronic percussion had crept into 2015’s Ones and Sixes. But nothing could quite prepare listeners for 2018’s Double Negative, which took the kind of studio processes commonplace in modern mainstream pop – pitchshifted vocals, digital manipulation, the sidechain compression that causes the rhythm tracks on pop-dance hits to punch through everything else – cranked all of them up to 11 and applied them to a rock band. The end result was an album that genuinely sounded like nothing else. Low weren’t the only alt-rock artists thinking along roughly similar lines – Double Negative was produced by BJ Burton, who had worked on Bon Iver’s technology-fractured 22, A Million – but the sheer extremity with which the band’s sound was altered shifted Double Negative into a category of its own.

Moreover, it was released 18 months into the Trump presidency, as his campaign managers were jailed for fraud, and Rudy Giuliani informed NBC that “truth isn’t truth”. Its lyrics seldom addressed American politics – dealing instead with everything from Mormon attitudes to same-sex marriage to mental health – but its short-circuiting bursts of unidentifiable sound, warped vocals and overwhelming mood of dread still seemed to fit the moment, feeling like a transmission from a country disastrously on the fritz, “dissolved into a state of awful inverse” as its closing track put it.

Album of the year acclaim duly followed, but the shock of Double Negative also seemed to raise concerns for the band who’d made it. It sounded like music literally pushed to the limit, and once you’ve pushed everything to the limit, the question of where you go next becomes pressing. Happily, that’s a query that Hey What answers perfectly by refining and adapting its predecessor’s sound.

The first thing you hear on opener White Horses is a guitar transformed into a kind of heaving, stuttering moan, followed by a rhythm track made up of crunching digital distortion. The latter sound might once have been produced by a guitar, but it’s impossible to say for certain. The song ends with an unadorned minute and a half of its unflinching pulse, which speeds up and becomes the basis of the second track, I Can Wait. Next, when you encounter the spongy sonic textures of All Night – you eventually give up trying to work out what instrument was originally involved – it’s hard not to be struck by the thought that on anyone else’s album, this might constitute the weirdest track; on Hey What, it feels like a kind of breather, before you’re plunged into the increasingly scourging soundworld of Disappearing.

Notice is thus served that Low are not interested in dialling down Double Negative’s confrontational experimental edge, but that isn’t the whole story. Hey What is also a far more melodically driven album than its predecessor. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s beautiful harmony vocals are largely unadorned with processing, and are louder, which seems to give the songs – or at least the listener – a little more space to breathe.

This chimes with the tone of the album, which couldn’t be characterised as optimistic, but at least hits a note of stoicism. The strength of Sparhawk and Parker’s partnership as bulwark against the former’s struggle with depression informs Don’t Walk Away and The Price You Pay (It Must Be Wearing Off). The lyrics of Days Like These consider the world lurching from crisis to crisis, but there’s something really stirring about the melody, which strides through the backing’s explosions of frazzled sound, while the extended instrumental coda feels calm and resolved. At other points, juxtaposition of the voices and the music is more unsettling: Hey boasts the album’s loveliest tune, but it’s set against a backing that keeps changing from delicate, flickering ambience to something far darker and creepier. Stranger still, in its own peculiar way, Hey What rocks, not least on the fantastic More, based around a riff that seems equal parts Led Zeppelin and My Bloody Valentine, if you squint.

A lot of bands have been compared to My Bloody Valentine over the years, largely because they were trying desperately to sound like them. Low really aren’t, but they feel an appropriate name to raise nevertheless. The music Low are currently making carries a similar, head-turning, where-the-hell-did-this-come-from air to Isn’t Anything and Loveless; as with those albums, the people behind Hey What are redefining how a rock band can sound. It says something – about Low and about rock music – that you have to delve back 30 years to find something with those qualities.

youtube

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/09/low-hey-what-review

#low #hey what

0 notes

xtruss · 4 years ago

Text

Elections 2020

‘People Are Going To Be Shocked’: Return of the ‘Shy’ Trump Voter?

In 2016, pollsters Arie Kapteyn and Robert Cahaly saw Trump coming. In 2020, they see polls again underestimating his support.

— Politico.Com | By Zack Stanton, Digital Editor of Politico Magazine | October 29, 2020

POLITICO illustration/Getty Images

With Nov. 3 racing toward us, it can be tempting to see the 2020 election as a done deal. For months, Joe Biden has consistently and convincingly led Donald Trump in polls. Swing states in the industrial Midwest and Sun Belt appear to be heading Biden’s way, and if you trust the polls, it’s not a leap to imagine him winning 330+ electoral votes.

But what if you shouldn’t trust the polls?

In 2016, months of national polls confidently showed Hillary Clinton ahead, and set many Americans up for a shock on Election Night, when the Electoral College tilted decisively in Trump’s favor. Two pollsters who weren’t blindsided by this are Arie Kapteyn and Robert Cahaly. Kapteyn, a Dutch economist who leads the USC’s Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, oversaw the USC/Los Angeles Times poll that gave Trump a 3-point lead heading into election day—which, Kapteyn notes, was wrong: Clinton won the popular vote by 2 points. Cahaly, a Republican pollster with the Trafalgar Group, had preelection surveys that showed Trump nudging out Clinton in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida and North Carolina—all of which he won.

This year, both men believe that polls could again be undercounting Trump’s support. The reason is “shy” Trump voters—people reluctant to share their opinions for fear of being judged. Though the “shy voter” idea is thrown around a lot by both Trump supporters and Democratic skeptics, Kapteyn and Cahaly have specific insights into why, and how, Trump support might be going undetected.

For Cahaly, those votes are likely to make the difference again. “There’s a lot of hidden Trump votes out there,” he says. “Will Biden win the popular vote? Probably. I’m not even debating that. But I think Trump is likely to have an Electoral College victory.”

As an illustration, Kapteyn described what his team at USC sees in its polls. Beyond simply asking voters whether they support Biden or Trump, USC asks a “social-circle” question—“Who do you think your friends and neighbors will vote for?”—which some researchers believe makes it easier for people to share their true opinions without fear of being judged for their views.

“We actually get a 10-point lead, nationally, for Biden over Trump” when asking voters who they personally plan to support, says Kapteyn. “But if you look at the ‘social-circle’ question, Biden only gets like a 5- or 6-point lead. … In general—and certainly on the phone—people may still be a little hesitant to say to that they’re Trump voters.”

“We live in a country where people will lie to their accountant, they’ll lie to their doctor, they’ll lie to their priest,” says Cahaly. “And we’re supposed to believe they shed all of that when they get on the telephone with a stranger?”

This year, conventional pollsters say they’ve learned their lessons, and are accounting for factors that skewed their results last year. Kapteyn and Cahaly aren’t so sure, as they explained to POLITICO this week via Zoom. A transcript of that conversation is below, condensed and edited for length and clarity.

Election Day is next week. National polling averages show Biden leading Trump by around 9 points. In 2016, averages had Clinton up by around 3 points, but you both ran polls that showed Trump winning the presidency. What do you see this year?

Robert Cahaly, the Trafalgar Group: Well first, we don’t do national polls, and that’s for the same reason I don’t keep up with hits in a baseball game: It’s an irrelevant statistic. But the battleground-state polls are a little closer [than the national polls], and there’s a lot at play. People are going to be shocked. A lot of people are going to vote this year who have been dormant or low-propensity voters. I think it’s going to be at an all-time high.

The models of who’s going to turn out this year are very flawed. What type of person comes out for Trump? They’re not a normal election participant. They’re a low-propensity voter. We included them in all of our surveys in fall 2016, and we are including them now.

“People are going to be shocked. A lot of people are going to vote this year who have been dormant or low-propensity voters. I think it’s going to be at an all-time high.” — Robert Cahaly

Relying on live callers for polls is especially bad in this modern era, where “social desirability bias” is in full play. People avoid awkward conversations. So when a person you don’t know calls and asks how you feel about Donald Trump—and you don’t know how they feel—you tend to give them an answer that you think will make them look at you in the best light. We’ve seen it year after year, and I think it is very much at play this year.

Polls are undercounting the people who don’t want to give their real opinions. If they had corrected anything, why didn’t they see Ron DeSantis winning in his 2018 race for governor in Florida? They made the exact same mistake with his opponent, Andrew Gillum. [The final RealClearPolitics polling average in that race had Gillum up by 3.6 percentage points. DeSantis won by 0.4 percentage points.] This wasn’t some random state’s race; this was the hottest, meanest—neck-and-neck races for governor and senator in Florida in an off-year election. Every single major player was polling that state. And 100 percent of them got it wrong; we got it right.

Arie Kapteyn, USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research: First, let me start with a qualification about our results four years ago. It looked as if we did a good job because our national poll had Trump winning. But that, of course, was wrong: In the popular vote, Trump actually lost. So we didn’t do that well, and the reason why was our sample had an overrepresentation of people in rural states. Even though we weighted by education and past voting participation and all of that, we simply had too many Trump voters in the sample.

We have about 9,000 people in our panel [this year], and they answer questions every two weeks. And we ask them a number of things. We ask the probability that they will vote. We ask them the probability they’ll vote for Biden or Trump or someone else. But we now also ask them a question I think you’d always asked, Robert: “Who do you think your friends and neighbors will vote for?” We call it a “social-circle” question.

“We actually get a 10-point lead, nationally, for Biden over Trump. But if you look at the “social-circle” question, Biden only gets like a 5- or 6-point lead.” — Arie Kapteyn

Now, we actually get a 10-point lead, nationally, for Biden over Trump. But if you look at the “social-circle” question, Biden only gets like a 5- or 6-point lead. One explanation for that may indeed be “social desirability.” In general—and certainly on the phone—people may still be a little hesitant to say to that they’re Trump voters.

Cahaly: I have many problems with polling today. It’s outdated. Part of it is they can’t concede that this model of long questionnaires, small sample sizes and exclusively live callers—I mean, they’re attacking the guys putting up telegraph wires, but they’re running the Pony Express.

People are busier than ever, and long questionnaires reduce the ability of average people to participate. Who has time to answer 22 questions on a Tuesday night when you’re trying to fix dinner or put your children to bed? Nobody. You end up with people on the ideological extremes—either very conservative or very liberal—or, worse: people who are bored.

“They’re attacking the guys putting up telegraph wires, but they’re running the Pony Express.” — Robert Cahaly

We give [respondents] lots of different ways to participate—online, by text or email. You get one of our text polls at 7 p.m., and you can flip through it while watching TV, or answer Question 1 at 9 p.m. and answer Question 2 the next morning. That’s fine! We give you the time to participate on your schedule. We make it very easy. It takes less than three minutes if you do it all at once.

Kapteyn: We have an Internet panel, but it’s a little different from most others. We recruit our respondents by sending them letters. We buy addresses from the post office—or from a vendor—draw randomly from addresses in the United States, invite people to participate in our studies and we pay them really well. We pay them join, and then $20 for a 30-minute interview. We have a relationship of trust with them.

I agree that telephone polling in the traditional way, as far as I can tell, is pretty close to death. You get extremely low response rates, and there is this issue: Who is still answering the phone?

That’s a thing [our surveys] don’t really suffer from as much, because these people typically answer questions that aren’t about politics. We ask them about their health or their finances. We give them cognitive tests. We do all sorts of scientific work. We get them to wear accelerometers and we measure their physical activity. Because they participate in all of this, they’re probably less likely to be extreme—although if they had no interest in politics, they might not participate.

You both spoke with POLITICO after the 2016 election. Back then, you said that one of the big things polling missed was “shy” Trump voters. In retrospect, do you still think that’s the case, or was there something else at play?

Kapteyn: We actually did a little experiment during the 2016 election: If you get called for a survey, and a live person asks who you’re going to vote for, do you answer that question differently than if you’d received the question in a letter and mailed it back, or answered the survey online?

We found some evidence that being called up by someone you don’t know makes people more hesitant to reveal their voting preference. And if you looked at whether these were Trump or Clinton voters, you did see that those people who told us they were Trump supporters were more likely to say they would not share their preference if they got called on the phone. So that at least suggests that there was a “shy Trump voter” phenomenon in 2016. Whether that’s the case this year, I really have absolutely no idea. We haven’t looked at that, and I just don’t know.

Cahaly: I believe it was prevalent. In 2016, the worst being said about Trump voters is that they were “deplorable.” 2020 is a whole different ballgame. It is worse this time—significantly worse. This year had more things where you can get punished for expressing an opinion outside the mainstream than almost any year I can think of in modern history.

I’m finding that people are very hesitant [to share their preference for Trump], because now it’s not just being called “deplorable.” It’s people getting beat up for wearing the wrong hat, people getting harassed for having a sticker on their car. People just do not want to say anything.

“In 2016, the worst being said about Trump voters is that they were ‘deplorable.’ 2020 is a whole different ballgame.” — Robert Cahaly

We talk to lots of people in our surveys. And I hear things like, “Yeah, I’m for Trump, my neighbors are for Trump, but there’s one neighbor who just hates Trump. And when he walks his dog, he kind of wrinkles his nose by those houses, and I don’t want him to do it at my house, so I don’t put a Trump sign. I like the guy, and I don’t want him mad at me.” I hear stuff like that all the time. People are playing their cards close to their chest because there’s a stigma to being for Trump. What happens when the stigma rolls away from people who hide their vote, and they start admitting where they are? This is what I think is going to happen on Election Day.

Now, there’s certain people who are vocal Trump supporters. To me, it has more to do with your personality. Are you the kind of person who avoids awkward conversations, or are you the kind of person who enjoys them? If you enjoy them, and you’re for Trump, you’ll tell everybody. You’ll be in a boat parade! But if you’re the kind of person who’s quiet and non-confrontational, you aren’t going to say anything. And a lot of those people live in the Midwest. They’re very regular, down-to-earth folks who are kind and deferential.

Robert, I’m from the Midwest—Macomb County, Michigan, the home of the “Reagan Democrats,” which voted for Obama twice then flipped to Trump. When you go there, you see tons of Trump flags in people’s yards or waving from their trucks, reading, “Trump 2020: No More Bullshit.” It’s difficult for me to believe that people who are not shy about expressing their support for Trump in pretty much every other instance are shy when—

Cahaly: But they’re different people! Think about what you just said, because that’s the reason why other Trump supporters are shy: The soccer mom doesn’t want to say she’s for Trump because she doesn’t want you to think she’s one of them. You just made my point for me! That’s exactly it! [Laughs]

This is probably a horrible example, but there are a lot more people who like professional wrestling than admit it. There are lots of fans who don’t want you to think they’re like the other people who like professional wrestling.

“There are a lot more people who like professional wrestling than admit it.” — Robert Cahaly

Kapteyn: The only point I would make is that it seems that over the years, increasingly, political preferences are localized. One county, one area is safe Democratic; the other area is Republican. If you’re in the minority—you’re a Democrat in a Republican area, or a Republican in a Democratic area—civil political discussions have sort of ceased to exist. People become careful in expressing their political preference if they feel that their whole neighborhood has a different opinion.

In that sense, I think there will be some symmetry in shyness, at least in sort of day-to-day conversations. It’s not the same as answering the phone to someone you have never talked to, but there is a lot of evidence that suggests people are careful expressing their opinions if they feel they are in the minority.

Cahaly: Absolutely true. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in a family or a company, people do not like talking about politics when they feel like their opinion is in the minority.

“There is a lot of evidence that suggests people are careful expressing their opinions if they feel they are in the minority.” — Arie Kapteyn

Robert, after the 2016 election, you told POLITICO that you didn’t buy the idea that there were shy Clinton voters.

Cahaly: I don’t.

Do you believe there are shy Biden voters?

Cahaly: No. And not because it’s just for Republicans. For example, had Bernie Sanders been the nominee and been beat up every day as being socialist, there would be a tremendous “shy” vote among moderate-to-conservative Democrats who would vote for him as their nominee, but who may not want to tell people.

It depends on the polarization of the figure. Nobody looks at Joe Biden and says, “Oh, it’s toxic to be for him. People say Biden supporters are pond scum.” Nobody says that. Nobody does that. It’s really about the stigma you get for supporting the person.

Kapteyn: This is why I feel that using the Internet [for surveys]—in the way we do it—may help us a little bit. If someone on the Internet checks the box for Trump, no one is going to yell at them.

If someone is shy about their views, how do you measure that? You mentioned using online surveys rather than live phone calls. But how do you actually measure the existence of a group of people who won’t give you their opinions? How do you know they exist?

Kapteyn: Partly, you ask, “What do your neighbors think?” or “What your friends think?” That’s an indirect way of eliciting opinions.

Generally, if you do surveys, people give you all sort of wrong answers. In cases where you can verify it, you’ll find that there are very systematic biases. For example, one of the things we do at USC is we measure people’s physical activity—how active they are, how often they do sports. And I’ve done international comparative work on this. If you ask about it, Americans are just as active as the Dutch or the English. But if you measure it—

Cahaly: [Laughter] I love it.

Kapteyn: —you get a Fitbit, and sure enough, you notice an enormous difference. This is not unique to political polling; there is a general issue with asking questions and what to do with the answers.

Cahaly: I couldn’t agree more. We live in a country where people will lie to their accountant, they’ll lie to their doctor, they’ll lie to their priest. And we’re supposed to believe they shed all of that when they get on the telephone with a stranger and become Honest Abe? I cannot accept that.

Now, how we measure it is a little different. We find questions that are less confrontational. We brought the “neighbor” question into the mainstream, but I got that from a man named Rod Shealy, who’s since passed. I learned a lot from him doing politics in South Carolina. He always said that people are real polite, so when you need to know what they think about something that’s not pleasant to talk about, ask them what their neighbors think, because they’ll give you their real opinion without you judging them for it.

“We live in a country where people will lie to their accountant, they’ll lie to their doctor, they’ll lie to their priest. And we’re supposed to believe they shed all of that when they get on the telephone with a stranger and become Honest Abe?” — Robert Cahaly

This year, we’re asking a series of other questions that are easy and don’t seem like you’re going to get judged harshly for answering them. Our first goal is to minimize the social desirability effect. And you do that by giving them a great sense of anonymity. The more anonymous they think they are when giving answers, the more honest they tend to be.

It’s kind of like the people who have two Twitter accounts—the one where they tweet out pictures of their pets and children, and one where they just go give everybody a fit. Well, that “troll” account is their real emotion. And the persona that runs that troll account is the one in the ballot booth. That’s who I’m trying to get to.

The results in 2016 really hurt people’s willingness to trust polls. You’re seeing it now: Democrats say, “Biden is leading, but the polls showed Clinton winning in 2016, and she lost.” Among Republicans, it’s sort of the opposite: “The polls in 2016 didn’t reflect Trump’s strength, but he won and will win again.” So how should people look at the polls over the final days of this campaign?

Cahaly: One, they should ask themselves these questions: Do you know someone who is going to vote for Trump—someone who maybe confided that fact in a few people, but didn’t share it widely? Do you think that person, if called on the phone by a stranger—a live person who knows who they are—would tell them? If the answer is yes, then you should be skeptical of polls that are given with a live person.

And ask yourself, would you answer a survey that took 20 or 25 minutes on a Tuesday night when you’re feeding your family? If the answer is no, then you should look with skepticism at polls with long questionnaires.

Kapteyn: I think it’s good to add some nuance to the idea that polls didn’t do so well in 2016, because after all, if you look at the national polls, they actually weren’t very far off when it came to the popular vote.

Another thing that may be a little underappreciated: One of the things that was quite clear just from looking at the data is that there were events late in the election season in 2016 that had an effect—for example, [FBI Director James] Comey’s announcement that he was reopening the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. That moved the needle by, like, 2 percentage points or so. I could see that in the data. And that’s a big number, given how tight the election was. So I think there were some reasons why the polls seemed worse than they perhaps were—and why they couldn’t be more accurate, because some major events happened very late.

Cahaly: I’m a little different on that one, because we saw the Trump numbers the whole time. Nothing was new about them to us.

Did the gap between polling in 2016 and the results affect the way either of you think about polling?

Cahaly: I became fascinated with why there was denial that social desirability bias was in play and important. It made me realize just how critical the assurance of anonymity is to getting an honest answer.

Other people started using our “neighbor” question, as Arie pointed out. And that caused us to think of some new questions we thought would be more revealing. And this time, we decided we weren’t going to share them with the world.

Kapteyn: In that sense, we are at opposite ends of the spectrum. We [USC’s Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research] are not a polling firm; we’re a research firm. We happen to have this Internet panel where we ask people all sorts of questions, so why not also ask them about politics? For us, this is largely an experiment. That’s why we ask about this in different way: We want to see what works best.

“Frankly, if I were in the business of trying to forecast who’s going to be elected, then a national poll is a pretty poor instrument for doing that.” — Arie Kapteyn

Frankly, if I were in the business of trying to forecast who’s going to be elected, then a national poll is a pretty poor instrument for doing that, because it has become increasingly clear that the battleground states are really what matter. As far as I can tell, there are many more state polls than four years ago—for good reason. You see them in all the battleground states.

My model is more this: Try to understand what works, get into these social desirability or other questions as, frankly, a scientific exercise. And then, in the process, I will be happy if my estimate is right on the mark. But if it isn’t, we have probably learned something, too.

Last question: The election ends on Tuesday. National polling has consistently shown a substantial lead for Biden. What is your message to people who think that this thing is done?

Cahaly: I don’t think it’s done. Some of these national polls are not even taking into consideration the fact that Republicans have closed the gap with voter registrations. I don’t think they’re taking into account the number of low-propensity voters who are voting and who will vote on Election Day. I don’t think they’re measuring people’s genuine opinions. And I think [pollsters] are just not going to see it coming.

There’s a lot of hidden Trump votes out there. Will Biden win the popular vote? Probably. I’m not even debating that. But I think Trump is likely to have an Electoral College victory.

Kapteyn: I will be really surprised, given our own numbers, if there isn’t a very sizable gap between Biden and Trump in the popular vote—in favor of Biden. But in the states? I don’t know.

Cahaly: I like your skepticism.

0 notes

hopelesschromantic · 7 years ago

Text

2017 Songs of My Year

2017 was traumatic for everyone, wasn’t it? And I was no exception. I learned a lot about myself in 2017, formed new relationships and suffered some collateral damage along the way.

In a way, this list is more personal than the years since I started this tradition in 2010, maybe in part because 2017 cut me deeper than a lot of years I’ve had. The highs were high, the lows were real low, and the learning curve was steep indeed.

January

Frankie Knuckles, I’ll Take You There (ft. Jamie Principle)

The night of January 1, 2017, I sat in a loose state of undress on my living room floor, high and over-warm, in a state of mounting, spiraling dread. We listened to a Frankie Knuckles Boiler Room on Youtube and I struggled to find to words to explain that, eleven days after tying the knot, I knew something was very wrong and I didn’t know how to put it right. I missed my family at the ceremony. I missed the ocean. I missed feeling healthy and vital; the disease in my gut and the medication for it was already starting to exact a brutal toll on me. I missed not feeling afraid. Trump was about to be inaugurated. Christmas vacation was already over and the post-holiday and party slump was hitting me hard. The only thing that soothed me in those late hours were the synesthetic sunshine yellow chords from Frankie Knuckles promising that maybe it wasn’t as bad as I feared.

February

Just Us, Cloudbusting

February was a slight upturn with only patches of stomach churning horror and my mind turned to future training and projects as I took on new challenges at work and tried to ignore the continued dread that seeped into the edges of my life. The best thing about February was undoubtedly taking a trip to Edmonton to see one of my best friends, Eric. A dark mood hung over me that I couldn’t disguise but this old and faithful cover of one of my favorite Kate Bush songs buoyed me during the schlep from Saskatoon to Edmonton. Like the sun coming out, I just know that something good is going to happen echoes the audacious, sparkling optimism of the Frankie Knuckles track above. Despite the reality that it wasn’t *just us* I sang along to this song like a mantra. Just us, just us. Bust those clouds open and let in the sun.

March

Goldfrapp, Ocean

I opened the month by drunkenly having sex with someone I shouldn’t while I was blacked out and the self-sabotage only continued. I learned I was capable of twisting myself in knots to belong, just like I’d done as a little girl and later a teenager. Don’t leave me behind. Take me with you. Once a passenger, always a passenger. As I fell for someone who never cared for me, I found myself unable to sleep, in a constant state of panic and dread, waiting for a confrontation I knew would never come, all the while terrified I would be quietly edged out of my own life, replaced by someone who didn’t even want my life. The intensity I felt was misdirected at the woman who became the object of my fascination, not because of anything about her but because of the lengths I’d go to participate in my own life as it went further off the rails. No boundaries. Let your love consume you and burn you to the wick.

Goldfrapp’s “Ocean” reminds me of both the woman and myself; I’m the titular ocean, vast and mercurial and she’s the narrator of the song, the people collector, the one who wouldn’t lie. But of course she would.

April

Yaeji, Passionfruit

April was more tranquil, for me at least. I’ve learned I overcome pain and humiliation quickly, and that’s a blessing at least. This tranquil remix of Drake’s Passionfruit played a lot during the month of April, with it’s cold lyrical indictments, muted vocals, deep, ebbing beats, all delivered in distant, minimal space. It echoed my emotions well. Numb, healing, detached. I still hadn’t felt the return of my sense of safety, the seismic sense that my love life and my health could change at any moment would stay with me for months to come.

May

Joe Goddard, Music is the Answer

By May I had enough distance from the misery of March and April that I could catch my breath. My world had shrunk over the past few years and I felt a powerful need to expand it, to connect with people outside my small circle, with the hopes of establishes more people in my life who wouldn’t take my energy and warmth for granted, people who wouldn’t be compelled to compare me unfavorably to my partner. I was missing the kind of intimacy that comes from having someone in your life beyond your partner, people who care deeply about you and is warm and caring and intimate. May was a month of burgeoning connections and false starts, like a false spring, but a spring nonetheless. Joe Goddard’s video heightens the track, the lost war satellite in search of its target, not unlike my nascent forays into finding a connection to someone far, far away.

June

Kaityn Aurelia Smith, An Intention

In June we went to Calgary to visit one of my best friends, Alan, and managed to see Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith at Studio Bell, a cavernous and breathtaking cathedral of music in Calgary’s East Village. KAS stood in front of us with her analogue synth and her trippy light show and for the length of her show I was suspended in this psychedelic pastoral wetland, all shimmering tadpoles and dividing cells. I came away from the experience euphoric, feeling like I’d transcended something immense, learned important secrets of creation.

July

Brandon Flowers, Never Get You Right

I revisited this song when I was feel particularly alone as my attempts to connect to different people around me crumbled before me and I heard some bad reviews of my behavior through the grapevine. Was it worth it, trying to be known and understood? Is that all I wanted? Or was I asking for too much? Was there anyone I could connect with enough that I trusted their review or was I really at sea? They’ll turn you into something whether you are it or not. Yes of course, a worthwhile reminder that this misunderstanding, this feeling of being unknowable and isolated isn’t particular to me but instead a universal.

August

Carly Rae Jepson, Cut to the Feeling

August long weekend started with one of my best friends Chris coming to Saskatoon. We had an amazing time, the highlight of which was Brock’s DJ set at Pink. CRJ reminds me of Chris and when Brock played this song, the room lit up and I had the rare and glorious feeling that I was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

September

Galantic - Hey Alligator

It’s sugary and gay and over the top as all Galantis is want to be but this song soundtracked the last of lonely Saturday nights at home, flitting about the kitchen cooking or chatting up veritable strangers on the internet, which was not ultimately a particularly gay activity but this track makes me feel like the last word in gay. Some of the relationships I’d formed online at that time had started to go septic and I started wondering what it was about me that lead me to seek out such unsatisfying and ultimately destructive connections. My introspection started with this song and continued over the coming months.

October

Shura, White Light

If I had a single song that spoke to my personal process and internal conflict this year, it was this one. Morgan put me on to it, indeed put it on me, and I became addicted to it, playing it literally dozens of times and in every mood. Shura’s sweet, breathy voice purrs intimately on the track while electropop burbles around her. Her lyrics speak to a blinding intensity, a seductive and almost alien nature or for my purposes a fictive personality manufactured to elicit validation but ultimately flimsy. But at the same time I felt like a part of me that had never been properly seen was given space to flourish. Intense and intimate, this aspect of myself could give with abandon because the people I was giving to were many miles away, sometimes on different continents, a safe distance for my heart and body and real life, practically in space. You're from another planet/And I'd like you to take me there/You can fly your alien spaceship

November

Miguel, Told You So

November swam by so quickly. In the first couple weeks Eric came to visit completely by surprise and we had the most ideal, chill time and I’ve been craving it ever since.

Miguel’s War and Leisure is without a doubt one of my favorite albums of the year and Told You So was my favorite track. The song is pure romance, sunlight, promises of fantasy and romance and escape and yet we from Miguel that the video for this track is a protest video, shot in the desert, missiles falling in the sky just as others launch. There’s an air of dread and voyeurism to the video, meant to refer to the political world in the Trump era but it felt true of my life too. Did I really understand all the changes I’d undergone in 2017? For good and for ill? The practice I’d had setting boundaries but also the increasing social anxiety? The strain that living more truthfully had put on my closest relationships?

December

Sasha ft. Poliça, Out of Time

I don’t usually have much to say to trance as a musical genre but this track is a common thread throughout my 2017. Brock played this track to great appreciation at the rainy and isolated little Solstice Festival back in June and reprised it, mostly for me, at a miserable, failing Saskatoon club called Eclipse in the first week of December.

This track is airy, cavernous, with juicy, acidy beats throughout and Channy Leaneagh’s throaty, disembodied voice haunting the track. Yes, we are out of time. Out of time for Christmas. Out of time to change, to do better in 2017. Time moves so much faster than I handle and it scares me.

Song of the Year:

The 1975, Somebody Else

I’ve listened to this song with all my friends, Brock and Morgan most of all. Definitely most played in 2017.

Ignore if you want the three minute Lynchian introduction that carries on from where Change of Heart leaves off, but I can’t. Twin Peaks was a part of my year and the Lynch references with the doppelgangers and rabbits on the wall were impossible to ignore. Matty Healy splits himself into twos, threes, fours, and more as he mourns what he’s lost and revels in self-pity, excess and self-destruction. It all seems terribly familiar.

In the video for this track, Matty Healy wanders through the ugly concrete cityscape that I think is Manchester, surrounded by green-blue twilight, neon lights, reflective surfaces and gathering storms. He undersings all but the bridges, were his gently screwed and chopped voice hits registers beyond his range, translating on the track to keen and visceral pining interspersed with chilly ambivalence--my entire process of untangling my mind, my desires from someone else’s.

Over the course of the song I lose track of Matty Healy’s gender and orientation, mostly because he invites it, but in that moment it’s easy for me to assume his perspective--something I usually find impossible in bands with guitars fronted by men. In that moment I’m thinking about who I am with and without love in my life, how I choose to define myself in and outside of relationships and my role in shaping them. This year has seen huge growth and painful realizations for my heart and head but the way forward is through.

#2017 #songs of my year #music #the 1975 #shura #edm #music journaling #personal

13 notes · View notes

greensparty · 7 years ago

Text

Best TV Shows of 2017

Here is a somewhat existential question: what is television viewing today? Is it turning on the TV set and viewing shows as they air? Is it ordering shows from iTunes and watching them on any device that is able to stream iTunes (Apple TV, computers, tablets, mobile devices)? Is it streaming original programs on services like Amazon, Hulu or Netflix? Is it catching up on shows months later once they are available on DVD? In 2017, all of these were television viewing for me. There were some shows I caught as they were airing. Some I caught online. Some I caught up on during a brief window I had HBO Now for. But in the age of Peak TV, where there was almost 500 original scripted TV programs, there were just too many I didn’t get around to watching for one reason or another. Even though I’m a big fan of the original Twin Peaks, I didn’t buy Showtime to watch the 2017 reboot, hence its omission. Also I didn’t catch season 3 of Better Call Saul, Ozark, or SMILF even though I wanted to. I saw season 7 of The Walking Dead, but haven’t seen season 8, hence it making the list, but based on what I saw of these series in 2017. The highest-rated TV program of 2017 was NBC Sunday Night Football. Here are my pics for best TV shows of 2017:

10. Halt and Catch Fire AMC

9. Master of None Netflix

8. Friends from College Netflix

7. The Walking Dead AMC

6. Love Netflix

5. Saturday Night Live NBC

ties Late Show with Stephen Colbert CBS

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver HBO

Late Night with Seth Meyers NBC

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee TBS

In the Trump era, TV comedy has become the voice of reason! Thank God for these comedies!

4. Glow Netflix

The 1980s female wrestling series was the best new show of 2017!

3. Curb Your Enthusiasm HBO

In the first new season since 2011, Larry David’s social assassin returned for even more awkwardness!

2. Stranger Things Netflix

The It show (no pun intended) of 2016 returned and went bigger and better in 2017!

1. Veep HBO

Who would have thought the series about a female VP, who becomes President and then leaves public office, would actually have one of their best seasons yet when Selina Meyers and her team aren’t even in the Oval Office? Laugh till it hurts! I’ve said it before, we are so lucky to be living in the Veep era!

#halt and catch fire #master of none #friends from college #The Walking Dead #love #snl #late show with stephen colbert #last week with john oliver #late night with seth meyers #full frontal with samantha bee #Saturday Night Live #glow #curb your enthusiasm #stranger things #Veep #best of 2017 #tv #lists

3 notes · View notes

normanisource · 7 years ago

Link

Ally Brooke Hernandez, 24, has a two-tone thing happening, with a black leather hat and skirt paired with a fuzzy pink sweater and pumps. Normani Kordei, 21, has accented herself with huge chrome hoop earrings and silver-dipped nails. Lauren Jauregui, 21, wears a lacy boho-chic blouse and carries her puppy, a rescue mutt named Leo. Then there’s Dinah Jane Hansen, 20, who peels off a trippy floral jacket to reveal a bright yellow tee that reads, in big block letters, “I’M A RAY OF FUCKING SUNSHINE.”

Fifth Harmony used to tour malls like this: shopped from town to town, crammed between kiosks for tchotchkes and lit by department store signs. That was in 2013, less than a year after its lineup was now-famously chosen by Simon Cowell and Antonio “L.A.” Reid flipping through the headshots of X Factor contestants on the verge of washing out. The teens twice tried to christen themselves, but the first name (LYLAS, for “Love You Like a Sister”) was already in use, and the judges hated the second (1432, pager code for “I love you, too”), so Cowell asked viewers to submit ideas online. Rebranded Fifth Harmony, they took third place and stepped off the show into a joint deal with Reid’s Epic Records and Cowell’s Syco Music.

But those are all tales of an earlier era, before 2016, the group’s biggest year yet -- and the one that ended in shambles when, exhausted and unfulfilled, 5H lost Camila Cabello to a solo career. Last year’s 7/27 debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, propelled by “Work From Home,” the first top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hit from a girl group in nearly a decade. But the acrimonious December split made even bigger news, with 5H accusing Cabello of quitting through her reps, and Cabello denying the accusations. It was... awkward.

“Try experiencing it,” retorts Jauregui when I volunteer as much. The rest of the group, as it so often does, rushes in to complete her thought. “I was literally going to say that,” Kordei quickly adds. “I get to sleep at night knowing we did everything in our power as friends, bandmates and human beings” to make it work. Then Hernandez: “You can’t change people.” And finally, Hansen: “Let’s just say we’re in a better place now -- there are no secrets in this circle.”

Jauregui admits she nearly threw up from anxiety before the downsized 5H’s first performance, at the People’s Choice Awards in January. But today, the members are quick to (literally) high-five each other as they talk about their ongoing 7/27 Tour, the first in which they’ve built in real downtime, and a third album, due later this year on Epic. “Honestly, in this very moment, we could not be happier,” says Hernandez with more assertiveness than the Pollyanna-ish cheer that’s her trademark. Their first new single as a foursome, “Down” -- a neon-edged dancehall bubbler featuring a warmly romantic verse from Gucci Mane (“Got me showing off my [engagement] ring like I’m Jordan”) -- reached No. 42 on the Hot 100. Meanwhile, Cabello’s “Crying in the Club,” which entered the charts two weeks earlier, peaked at No. 47. Both are still active on the Mainstream Top 40 list.

“Crying in the Club” is a wide-screen, Sia-style ballad and “Down” is an airy dance track, but the two have more in common than just a chart trajectory: They’re both grown-up songs for longtime professional “girls” now expected to be seductive women. The 5H video, which racked up 21.6 million views in two weeks, even seems to offer some sly commentary on this, with the group pulling up to a seedy motel and writhing on beds in separate rooms. But the women have come up with their own narrative for the lyrics, which came to them from “Work From Home” co-creators Ammo and DallasK, and include “You the type that I could bake for/’Cause baby, you know how to take that cake” -- as well as the chorus, “Long as you’re holding me down/I’m going to keep loving you down.”

“We dedicate it to each other,” says Hansen. “We’ve been together five years, so that message is powerful to us. We’ve been there for each other through ups and downs.” Hernandez hits her with an “Amen.”

The single is only a slice of what’s to come, because for the first time, 5H is co-writing its songs -- over half, in fact, of those destined for the new album. Since January, it has been holding songwriting camps between tour stops, mostly at Windmark Recording, just two miles from here. The group typically breaks into pairs, then takes turns with that day’s writers and producers like 5H alums Monsters & Strangerz and pop and R&B producers Harmony Samuels (Ariana Grande) and Sebastian Kole (Alessia Cara).

“It’s not like they came in at the end and started riffing,” says Leah Haywood of Dreamlab, which has two songs on the album. “We sat and wrote verses together, because they’re empowered women who want to be pushing the agenda.” Justin Bieber’s go-to hook man Poo Bear, who worked with Skrillex on a 5H session, adds, “I was pretty blown away. They were hungry and excited and seemed like they had a serious new point to prove.”

Those collaborators create “safe spaces,” says Jauregui, where they can try ideas without fear of judgment. But the world outside isn’t so cushy. Plenty of popular girl groups have lost members and carried on, but none have found more success. En Vogue withered commercially without Dawn Robinson. Destiny’s Child hit peak sales just before LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson were ousted. And the one Spice Girls album that followed the departure of Geri Halliwell was an abject flop.

One Direction provides a hopeful example -- Made in the A.M. handily outsold its predecessor even without Zayn Malik. But the industry is perhaps kinder to boy bands. As much as its music (and videos) might be maturing, 5H is dedicating itself to an idea almost radical in its innocence: that four pop stars are better off as a single group -- albeit with a name that, at this point, feels a bit silly. “The fans,” quips Hernandez, “are our fifth member.”

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, whose 15-year-old daughter Simone is “pretty tight” with Hansen, says 5H is “aspirational to so many young girls around the world.” He adds, “Once the drama [of Cabello’s exit] settles, instead of looking at it as a devastating loss, I look at it as an amazing opportunity for growth.”

We’re now inside, aprons on, at The Gourmandise School of Sweets & Savories. The women chat about how much they love SZA’s Ctrl as they pioneer new ways to Snapchat themselves, chopping scallions for quesadillas, charring tandoori-style chicken wings and deep-frying homemade potato chips. Overseen by a chef named Jamie, they share kitchen duties with an almost psychic ease -- except for the cookies. The plan is for everyone to pitch in on a batch of the classic chocolate-chip variety, and that’s how it starts. But then Jauregui asks for white chocolate, Hansen requests pretzels, and Hernandez wants her Texas pecans (she’s from San Antonio). Soon one mixing bowl becomes four, and Kordei is in the pantry foraging hazelnuts, Rice Krispies and almond extract.

It’s a cute metaphor for how 5H’s members are cultivating their independence not only from their corporate minders but from one another. It’s also woefully inadequate in addressing Jauregui’s personal journey during the last few months, starting with a declaration she defiantly slid into an open letter to Trump voters, which she wrote for Billboard in November: “I am a bisexual Cuban-American woman, and I am so proud of it ... I am proud to feel the whole spectrum of my feelings, and I will gladly take the label of ‘bitch’ and ‘problematic’ for speaking my mind.”

In March, Jauregui shared photos from a November “coming-out” shoot, as photographer Nicole Cartolano characterized it to MTV, with her then-girlfriend Lucy Vives (daughter of Colombian singer Carlos Vives). Her sexual identity has since cropped up in her music. Jauregui briefly made an appearance on the Hot 100 as a guest on Halsey’s “Strangers,” which, as a duet about an it’s-complicated same-sex romance, has inspired more than a few think pieces.

Jauregui’s openness speaks not only to the accepting nature of 5H but also to the potential for a mainstream girl group in an era where many minorities feel under attack. 5H is still a place for purity rings. Hernandez is wearing a “TRUE LOVE WAITS” band. She and Kordei identify as Christian, while Hansen is Mormon. But all insist Jauregui’s expression is “supported.” And Jauregui, who believes in “the universe and a god source, like an energy,” seems content with this. But asked if she would be comfortable singing about a relationship with a woman in a 5H song, she says she doesn’t know, “because it has to do with me personally. It doesn’t speak for everyone in the group, which is its own entity as an artist. That’s the whole reason for doing your own thing.”

Kordei has recently added a new chapter to her story, too. She competed on Dancing With the Stars this past spring, returning to a childhood passion. “I grew up dancing competitively and being in pageants, and my grandma made all my costumes and dresses. I remember watching the show on the couch with her, and she’d pause the TV to create sketches based off what she saw,” she says. Kordei and her partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, finished third, which is all the more impressive when you consider that for the first three weeks she flew to the Los Angeles tapings direct from 5H’s Asia tour, popping melatonin on the plane and chugging coffee (a new habit) before doing the cha-cha.

Hernandez recently dropped a summery song with DJ duo Lost Kings and A$AP Ferg. She also clocked a writing session with Christian country-folk singer Cindy Morgan and touts the acting career she plans to launch this year. Hansen has an unreleased RedOne cut featuring Fetty Wap and French Montana, and she loves tennis and jokes about becoming a volleyball star. “I’m at a place where I’m continuing to identify myself,” she says. In other words: find her part in what could become a multidisciplinary 5H empire.

“Last year, we all learned a lesson about mental health and making sure you step away from something. It just makes this stronger,” says Jauregui. “Fifth Harmony is the home base,” offers Kordei, “where we always come back.” “Yasss,” says Hernandez.

Of course, when your break from work is more work, there isn’t much room for, like, life. They all describe their days as a “blur,” and Hansen says she doesn’t know “what vacation means.” For those who keep asking: No, Kordei still hasn’t had a chance to go on that date with DWTS’ Bonner Bolton. And in a quiet moment in the kitchen, Hernandez confesses that there’s nothing she wants more than to get married. But the women don’t even have homes apart from their families -- the houses would sit empty.

It was only 14 months ago, in the middle of my interview with the group for its first Billboard cover, that the same four sitting here broke down in tears detailing the extent of their fatigue and stress. “Jesus Christ, dark times,” recalls Jauregui, and they didn’t let up. The same day Cabello’s exit was announced, there was a leak of what seemed to be a recording of Jauregui telling Hernandez the band was treated like “literal slaves.” “I don’t know where that [audio] came from,” says Jauregui, “but that’s what the game does to you sometimes: runs you dry.” But it was a bit more than that.

“We were little girls coming off of a TV show and had a team of people trying to sculpt us into something we weren’t,” says Hansen. “They took advantage, like, ‘Get in there and record this, you thing,’ ” says Jauregui.

“If you’re told you can’t do something when there’s a creative desire to do it, that’s depressing,” says Geri Horner -- nee Halliwell, aka Ginger Spice -- who just released her first single in 12 years. “Spice Girls always wrote our own stuff, but I can relate to that.”

The long road to liberation began with 5H hiring outspoken music lawyer Dina LaPolt at the end of 2015. “I sat the girls in a hotel conference room and for five hours educated them on trademarks, copyrights and rights of publicity,” says LaPolt, who soon helped secure them new management with the preeminent firm Maverick (Madonna, U2, Miley Cyrus). “Then I educated them about every agreement they signed, which [were] the worst I’ve ever seen in the music business.”

LaPolt successfully transferred the Fifth Harmony trademark from Cowell to the group, meaning the women now own the name, along with the right to control how it is used and to profit from any deals. (The agreement -- signed in April 2016, months ahead of Cabello’s exit -- doesn’t name Cabello in the “Fifth Harmony Partnership.” “I don’t represent Camila,” is all LaPolt will say.) She then renegotiated 5H’s contract with Epic, which she characterized as “a very adversarial” process.

LaPolt and 5H stress that the group’s relationship with Epic is now good. The women count among their “saviors” the label’s senior vp A&R Chris Anokute, who came onboard near the end of making 7/27. (Reid left Epic in May amid sexual-harassment allegations.) “We raised our voices,” says Hansen, “and to have someone in our corner like Chris, who believes in us, is the most important element to make the wheels go.”

Which allows 5H to meet the challenges of being Women of Pop in the late 20-teens. Rihanna, Katy Perry, Selena Gomez and Lorde have all shown how much artistry, agency and album-building matter. Basically, the band needs to pursue the authenticity Cabello secured by going it alone. The challenge is not only doing that in a group, but also while relying on familiar themes, like girl power, diversity, body positivity and inclusion.

Jauregui is the first to admit she was scared about 5H’s future without Cabello. “We’d put blood, sweat and tears -- and birthdays and funerals we missed -- into this thing,” she says. “It’s our livelihoods and our families.’ This is the train, and now you’re like, ‘Is the conductor going to come through with the coals, or are we left here to die?’ ”

Hernandez says there were “many therapy sessions.” Hansen, at least, quit worrying when they released their first press photo as a quartet and everyone, including Ellen DeGeneres, started editing themselves into the frame, “trying to recruit themselves into the squad.” Which raises the question: Have they considered bringing in a new member? They answer in unison: “Heeeell naaaw!”

#normani kordei #normani hamilton #fifth harmony #5h #all #billboard article #dinah jane #lauren jauregui #ally brooke #2017

485 notes · View notes