#There is never any pressure to make content whether it be writing art or recordings

[commander-hanji-zoe]

Do you have any advice for a new blog?

🌸 Oh this is such an interesting ask, I’ve been thinking about it for a few days now, sorry it’s taken a while to get back to you but I was thinking how best to answer it! While this blog has only been around for 3 years and I’ve only really started posting in it recently, I have had my main tumblr blog for 10 years and several side blogs with quite a few followers so I’m hoping I can provide some insight! I do apologise as this turned into a bit of a ramble that I feel is about tumblr but beings to overlap into life advice lol - I blame my age. 🌸

1.) I would say firstly, enjoy it. I feel sometimes there’s a lot of pressure to get loads of followers, create new content etc. and you can forget why you’re here. I got tumblr to reblog photos of things that made me happy from bands to tattoos, movie stuff, art etc and occasionally I would forget that and end up getting bogged down in comparing stats and myself to others. So yeah, enjoy it and remember why you joined ^_^

2.) If you love work that others create (writing/art/gif sets etc.) show your appreciation not just with likes but with comments and reblogging where you can/feel comfortable doing so. Likes are great and always appreciated but comments help to inspire and reblogging means more people will see their work. It encourages content creators to continue creating, it’s also a really good way of gaining followers and make friends. If you support others they will likely support you in return. 

3.) Share the art/fan art/cosplay photos you love as per above - but don’t repost work. This was something I wasn’t really aware of when I first joined tumblr, a lot of people would just save photos from google or deviant art (it was a very different place back then) and post them on tumblr to show appreciation. But often there would be no artist detail or link to the artist, instead if you find something you like reblog it from the creator. If it isn’t on tumblr and you’d really like to post it here, contact the creator and ask their permission to post - then include a link in the post and explain you have the artist’s permission. 

4.) Talk to people :) - Okay like Alice in Wonderland here’s some advice I could really use sometimes! Through tumblr I have met some of the most amazing friends. When I first started out I started chatting to a girl who went to the same Uni as me, we met up to go for coffee, browse record shops and saw The Vaccines together. I’ve also met numerous people who encouraged me to go to Hobbit Con in Germany - I had the most amazing time, remained friends, one of them came to my wedding. I guess the message here is that internet friends are great and you never know what a friendship can blossom into. If there’s someone whose work you admire or blog you love, don’t be afraid to reach out and send a message, even if you feel a bit silly (I often do!). 

5.) Tags - My take on tags is pretty simple, tag correctly. I often tag things quite heavily but I make sure that I only tag characters that feature in a post or fandoms that feature in that post etc. You often come across posts where every character in the show has been tagged, I get why people do it, it means the post will come up in more results but it is rather infuriating when you’re looking for something specific. It also looks messy and can make things hard to find on your own blog. So yeah tag the show/film/book etc, tag the relevant characters, add whatever tags you want regarding your feelings/emotions about the post or thoughts on it. But ideally keep it relevant. On that note, tag ships (people often blacklist ships they dislike or that they find problematic) so doing this helps everyone. Anything that’s only really suitable for people 18+ tag however you see fit (due to Tumblr’s changes last year we had to revert to tagging things on the citrus scale again so I tag anything like that as lemon as well as nsft) Finally Trigger/content warnings - I do use them, some people put warnings on everything, some people don’t do at all. Again like with shipping it is helpful for people who have  

6.) Remember to take breaks - tumblr can be a little addictive and easy to pass time (like social media) so remember to take breaks, when you get back they’ll be loads of new stuff on your dashboard to look at ^_^

7.) Follow loads of blogs! I probably should have put this higher up. But have a think about the kind of content you want to see and spend some time searching for blogs that fit that, I also find it’s nice to follow some more aesthetic blogs or blogs that are calming/relaxing, seeing things like that on my dash is always a reminder to have a breather!

8.) Enjoy playing around with themes - decide what you want your blog to be about (and remember there’s nothing wrong with having a main blog that’s a little bit of everything you love as well as personal stuff!) and then have fun with the settings. There’s a lot of free tumblr themes, some of which are pretty neat and user friendly in terms of customisation. Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you’re stuck. 

9.) Side blogs are also really great. I begun to create side blogs because I didn’t want to spam my main blog with Game of Thrones, The Hobbit, Red Dead Redemption 2 or Attack on Titan, so I created side blogs. I still post about all these things on main but not as frequently. A side blog can also be good if you want to create a blog you can share with employers - I have a side blog for my photography and one for my writing. Sideblogs are also a good way of keeping certain material away from the blog where people in real life are most likely to find you. Generally I won’t post 18+ material on my main blog, so smutty fan fiction etc. goes on the side blogs. As a side note, when you have a side blog you cannot like posts or ask questions as that side blog - it will be from your main blog. 

10.) Try not to get disheartened if you create original content and it doesn’t get a lot of attention at first. When you create a blog it can take time to gain followers/traction. But remember as per point 1, that Tumblr should be fun and creating content should first and fore mostly be for you and your enjoyement. But if you continue to create, tag appropriately but also show appreciation for fellow creators there’s no reason why in time you won’t flourish. And as per point 3, if you reblog others work there’s a chance they in return will reblog your art. 

11.) There’s extension kits you can get for tumblr, I know some people use them and find them helpful. I’m not sure they’re as poplar/needed now as they used to be. I used to use one but don’t feel the need now, however might be worth a google or asking someone more knowledgeable to see if it’ll work for you.

12.) You can blacklist tags through settings, if there’s any ships, characters, things you’d rather not see on your dash or that you find upsetting or triggering I’d recommend blacklisting them. If people tag correctly you shouldn’t much/if any of it. 

13.) Under blog settings you can also choose whether you want your blog to be searchable via the email address you registered with and on google. I switched this off pretty much as soon as it became a feature! My blogs, even my main blog are a piece of me which is only shared with a select few people in real life. I really do not need my colleagues, employers, certain family/friends finding this! 

14.) Use Queues! I adore a queue.... Once I discovered they were a thing I try to have around 100 posts in my queue on main at any time. You can amend how many times you post a day (mine is around 8-12 times, I change it when i go away). It just means your blog remains active even if you can’t really log on for a week or two or if you’re on holiday. Occasionally I’ll add original posts into my queue with writing, it can be nice to come back and see the feedback. A lot of people put ‘queue’ in the tag, but you’ll realise most people have a quirky tag. For example on main mine is - one does not simply queue their way through tumblr. And on my red dead blog it’s - I had a god damn queue! Sadly on here I haven’t got one yet! 

15.) Finally I would say engage in discourse as little as possible. It can be tempting and while drama can be fun for a while, even just to watch from the outside it can quickly escalate into something nasty and toxic. At first you might want to join in but tumblr can be, well it can be a lot at times and very noisy with everyone screaming their opinions and trying to be louder than the person before. I would say no fandom is inherently toxic, but it happens. A fandom I was heavily involved in last year had so much discourse and there was so much drama that even though I wasn’t involved in it my anxiety was through the roof, I had a panic attack over it and felt paranoid. After speaking to other older members in the fandom I felt much better (they too were annoyed with what was happening) and we realised that essentially a lot of it boiled down to a real lack of critical thinking. I’m not saying don’t get involved at all, sometimes I have seen things where I’ve felt things need to be said/action taken especially when it comes to intolerance and hatred. But I would say when you do engage - pick your battles. (I hope this last one makes sense). I started writing a lot more and going into the politics of it and ranting about bigots and then thought that’s probably enough! 😁

I hope this post helps! Like I said I’ve never been asked something like this so it took a bit of thinking but these are some of the key thoughts I had. 

edit - I meant to add that obviously the above is just my opinion and based on my experiences on tumblr/thoughts about things.

[fansplaining]

so... are you going to do a thing about tumblr's dumbass move of banning all sex content? And what is your prediction on where fandom will migrate to next?

So! As you might imagine, we have some feelings. 🙃 This is Elizabeth writing, by the way—I always mention this because I think it’s weird when entities speak in one unified ~brand voice~. Some links:

Flourish’s post yesterday, which concludes with the phrase “EITHER LEARN FROM THE PAST, OR GET OFF MY LAWN,” is now updated with some practical information in addition to the general message we both still stand by: “This is why the OTW owns the servers.” 

I wrote two Twitter threads yesterday—1 and 2—that spawned some great discussion about fandom, platforms, social media contracts, archiving, and the recent AO3 ~debacle~.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, if you somehow missed my recent piece on the OTW, speech, censorship, and fandom:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/8/18072622/fanfic-ao3-free-speech-censorship-fandom

Which goes hand in hand with our recent DISCOURSE TRILOGY: 

1) Purity Culture 2) Age in Fandom 3) The Money Question

But perhaps you are very clued into our various social media presences lol and have listened to all of this already. WELL. We don’t have plans to devote a full episode to it immediately, because our next guest will be Rukmini Pande (!!!) and the one after that will be our year in review. It will certainly come up! But we’re also planning on having @cfiesler back on for a proper full episode in January. She’s probably one of the best people to talk to about this specific topic—it’s one of her areas of expertise—and hopefully by then we’ll be able to dig in with a little more perspective than immediate reactions. In the meantime, she’s been gathering resources in this great thread, definitely check it out.

I think anyone familiar with our work, especially in the past year, talking about how the structures of fandom intersect with the structures of capitalism, will be aware that we are going to have Some Thoughts and Feelings about all of this. A few quick notes, under the cut: 

1) The history of fandom online is a history of purges, pure and simple. Whether it’s pressure from rights holders, pressure from ~concerned citizens~, pressure from the actual law (people get hand-wavey about this but they shouldn’t), fans, like all other users, are guests on any given platform. No social media site has promised to archive your stuff, forever, or to post whatever you want, forever. We’re aware that doesn’t make this suck any less! But it remains that Tumblr, a difficult to monetize or scale commercial platform owned by a very large corporation, was a bit of an outlier amongst big commercial social media sites, and now their policies are lining up with the rest. I’d argue this is a business decision, not a moral one, though then we get into whether capitalism’s amorality is inherently immoral, and life is short and I cannot do this right now.

2) But that brings me to the OTW, which was founded around the same time as Strikethrough—and around the same time that some fans, having seen what happened with LJ, still chose to migrate to Tumblr. The OTW does not have a social network and has actively resisted calls to shift in that direction. Nearly all of its projects are archival. The OTW is not the answer to questions of “what about my fannish conversations” right now, but it is an answer to “who will record our things if this platform won’t.” The answer is you, on AO3, which, they repeatedly stress, is not just for polished fic but also drabbles, meta, fanart, comics, etc, and on Fanlore. (Here’s Fanlore’s new user portal and a tutorial.) 

2a) Archiving will not capture the full extent of a conversation. It will not allow you to continue the conversation, either. But it also asks the question: what do I want to save? What should be preserved? Current social media structures build us limitless repositories for content, and rarely ask us to make these choices. But it might be worth thinking about these choices before they’re made for you.

3) While a lot of fannish activity is on Tumblr, we need to stress that LOTS OF FANS DO NOT USE TUMBLR. So we need to really pump the brakes on the “where will fandom go from Tumblr” line of discourse. Aside from barreling over the fact that lots and lots of fans never use Tumblr, it also presumes that your entire life on Tumblr is fandom, and for many people, myself included, it’s not that easy to pull it apart. Yesterday when people asked the “where do I go” question I asked them about behavior: what does fandom mean to you right now? Is it talking with a few friends? Is it making new friends? Is it discovering new art, or new meta, or new fic? Is it reblogging gifs from your 19 favorite TV shows? Plenty of people are fandoming elsewhere, so we really urge people to not treat “fandom on Tumblr” as some kind of monolith, from any angle.

4) Finally, take this one with a grain of salt, but I really urge people to think about their language a little in this conversation, and try not to conflate marginalized identities with “fan as marginalized identity.” Lots and lots of fans have marginalized identities, and obviously those identities are often integral to how they engage with fandom. But I really don’t know what to do with language that equates the oppression of fans with the oppression of peoples’ actual identities. It’s really messy! Which is why I’m suggesting that people take a look at how they frame things, rather than saying “DON’T SAY X, SAY Y.” (Also, lots of people do not do this, but I’ve seen enough of it in the past day that I just needed to say something about it.) FLOURISH ADDENDUM: One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of people are feeling very despairing and very disempowered. It’s true that no individual can just be like, “OK, Tumblr, fuck you, I’m gonna start my own Tumblr.” BUT, there are some things that one can do to empower oneself on the internet more. This is a good wake-up call to remind people that they can and should learn to do some of these very low-level technical things, like buying a little server space and hosting their own images (not very expensive, and much more reliable than Tumblr, if not 100% un-takedown-able). Learning to do these things doesn’t solve the problems with Tumblr, but it definitely makes me feel more secure and empowered, personally—so I really want to encourage people to believe in themselves and learn how to take these baby steps towards owning their own online presence!

ELIZABETH ADDENDUM: Thank you, Flourish, that was a very positive note to end on. More TK. :-)

[youknowmymethods]

Content Creator Interview #2

In this week’s interview, fandom friends @lilsherlockian1975 and @mrsmcrieff talk about whether they found Sherlock hot or not at first sight, how publicly sharing their work changed their writing, and the hardest thing about writing smutfic (pun fully intended).

And for those who don’t know, today is Lillian’s Birthday, so m’dear, Many Happy Returns!!!!

Hey, so Lilsherlockian1975 and myself, MrsMCrieff, have decided to interview each other for Aine’s challenge. We’re going to try to answer each other’s questions but there is always the danger of us going massively off piste. Our conversations in the past have been eclectic and very wide-ranging not to mention M rated.

 Anyway, I thought we could start by saying how we came into the fandom and more than that writing in the fandom. Lil, do you want to start?

Lil: All right, my sister on another continent, here’s how it went: As I’ve explained about finding The Full House on Pinterest, let’s explore what came before that moment, then just after... I was working third shift at a hotel (I had to as Mr Lil and I didn’t really have any childcare options at the time, so we just worked opposite shifts). The hotel was in a very small town - we were never busy, some nights we sold maybe 2 rooms - I usually spent my time watching Netflix. After making my way through Doctor Who, Star Trek Next Gen, Voyager then (God help me) DS9, Farscape and Firefly, I’d finally run out of anything to watch. You’d be surprised how quickly you can burn through a series binge watching for 8 hours at a time (and getting paid for it!).

 Then… then I found Sherlock. Well, that changed things… a bit.

 “Good Lord, who is the Cumberstud chap and why won’t he have all the sex with me!?” was my first thought, my second was, “Maybe I have a chance with the dishy DI?” and third? “Oh… what fresh hell is this ‘Mycroft’? Yummy!” Then finally, “Ahh, did the casting director somehow read my diary? Creepy but… all right.” To my defense, it was late and I usually worked on very little sleep. Also, I’m a kinky bitch.

 I’d never been involved in a ‘fandom proper’, I suppose. That’s not to say that I wasn’t a fangirl. I am and always have been. I was hugely into the Kevin Smith movies, going as far as visiting the Quick Stop and RST Video in Lenardo, NJ, respectively, as well as The Secret Stash, in Red Bank. I was a comic book geek in my youth, Marvel mostly, but some DC as well.

 After reading The Full House, I desperately needed MORE Sherlock and luckily enough, there was more to be found.

 At first I was just reading, then I wrote and posted a couple of (horrible) fics and met this fellow writer named MrsMCrieff (I might have had a little ‘writing crush’ on you, Mrs!). We chatted on FF.net and struck up a friendship.

 So, for me, writing came before fandom. Mrs was doing some betaing for me, but I didn’t ask for help often; I hated bothering her all the time for the multitude of stories I was turning out. At some point around here, I got an elusive invite to AO3 from sherlockian87, bless her soul, because I kept trying to join and couldn’t get a blessed invitation. Also around this time, I had written a prompt and got a PM from MizJoely asking if she could fix some of my mistakes (she was very sweet about it, even though I totally flipped - half fangirling, half losing my shit because ‘Crap, I screwed up so bad, here was The MizJoely asking if she could edit out my mistakes!’) but she wasn’t being critical at all, of course, just helpful as I soon found out. Shortly after, now having formed a friendship with MIz, she suggested that I start a Tumblr blog. And that’s how it all started.

Yes, sorry… I, um, tend to be a tad loquacious. Writing out my answers doesn’t help one little bit.

 Okay, Mrs, right back atcha!

 Mrs: OK, shall I try to be more concise? I’ll probably fail as I’m terrible as writing short fics they always seem to end up spread over multiple chapters.

 I’m another one who had always been a fangirl, Doctor Who, Buffy, Twilight, vampire Diaries (yeah, I love my vampires) but I’d also been a Sherlock Holmes fan. I’d read all the books in my teens, watched the Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett adaptations and even stayed at the Sherlock Holmes hotel on Baker St so when a new series was advertised it was an easy sale.

 I was late to the cumberobsession though. I have to admit watching the first two series as they came out and I remember thinking I like them but it’s a shame Sherlock isn’t that hot. I know, I know, I’m embarrassed even as I write that.

 It all changed after watching season 3 and I blame the Sherlolly kiss 100%. I watched the series, DELETED the records!! And then realised I was spending a lot of time thinking about Sherlock and Benedict...that turned into looking him up online and from there it was a short step to reading Sherlolly fics on fanfic (I was already reading fics for other shipping obsessions). Anyway, it didn’t take long before Sherlolly took over all my other ships and Benedict was my number one hottie.

 As for writing, I hadn’t written anything fiction based since school and school was a long time ago...almost thirty years. But one day I was looking for a specific fic, I wanted to read about Sherlock and Molly having to share body heat and I just couldn’t find anything that satisfied me. I’m not sure why but in that moment I decided to write it myself and in half an hour I’d written Frozen...my first ever fic. It took another couple of hours to pluck up the courage to post it and I clearly remember feeling a bit sick and my hand shaking as I pressed the final button to post.

 Thankfully, I almost immediately started to receive positive reviews and feedback and it wasn’t long before I started to write more...the rest as they say is history. Lil got in touch soon after and it was fun chatting to another writer just starting out. We soon found we were not dissimilar in age and both had two sons and the friendship started there.

 We’ve been through quite a lot over the last few years Lil and written some fab stories. Wouldn’t you agree?

 (I should let on that we are now faffing about trying to find the original list of questions...we are trying to be professional).

 Ok Lil, so I’ve looked at Aine’s questions and they look really hard. Any preferences on which ones you want to answer :).

 Lil: I think a great follow up to that first one is this: How did posting your first story change your process of writing? So I’m shooting it back to you, Mrs, and you can send me that one or select a new one for me. Tag, you’re it!

 Mrs: I can tell you quite simply how it changed my process of writing...given that it was my first piece of writing in 30 years I was starting from scratch when it came to any process. One thing that I started with that’s held true for me ever since is that my stories are fully mapped out and written before I even start posting the first chapter. I will edit and make refinements but the bones of the story are there.

 I know lots of people post a chapter and then write the next chapter but that would put me under too much pressure. The downside is that if someone gives me a prompt they could be waiting months before they see it posted. The upside is if I’ve started posting a fic you will get the end of it as it’s already been written.

 There have only been two exceptions to this method: Sherlock Holmes, Vampire which I worked on over a year or so posting four chapters every so often as I wrote them...it was stressful. And the other is Never Have I Ever which was/is more of a collection of one shots woven together into a fic.

 How about you Lil? How did it change for you?

 Lil: So, I’d been writing little stories and whatnot for years and years but, having no idea that there was such a thing as ff.net or AO3, I had no place to put them. Writing was always a very, very distant dream of mine. I have loads of notebooks filled with stories, story ideas and my own personal ramblings (unfortunately, my Tumblr followers now have to read the ‘ramblings business’). I stopped for many years after my roommate/best friend since childhood found some of my writing in college that I’d carefully hidden under my bed. I came home to find her in my room, sat on the floor, on the phone with our Art History professor (whom she was sleeping with), as she read him my story and laughed hysterically at its awfulness.

 I was devastated and vowed never to write again.

 But that changed, of course. Those first maybe ten stories were just me letting my mind go and getting out what I wanted to say (aided by liberal amounts of wine). Since then, however, my ‘process’ has changed drastically. I don’t always write an outline (never for one shots, which I write often) but I generally do for long fics. If not, it’s easy for me to get lost and miss critical points. My writing has become more about ‘layering’ for lack of a better word.

 I found after those first few posted fics, that in going back and re-reading them I wanted to make changes. I didn’t re-edit them (because I’m lazy), but it made me realize that my writing required more time and proofing before posting; that first draft is just the start for me - a thin layer of primer paint on a canvas, if you will. I then read over it and add more details and more and more until I get the desired effect. Again, much like oil painting, I have to build things up, layer by layer. This works for me; I have no idea if it’s a proper method of writing. So, posting my first fic(s) helped me learn that I shouldn’t be so trigger happy about posting if the story wasn’t ready.

 Okay, Mrs, this one is geared specifically towards you. I don’t think anyone would argue with me about your supernatural ability to write ‘case fics’, so let me ask: Which do you prefer writing, case fics or fluffy smut-filled romps? And why?

 Mrs: Oh God, ask me something easy why don’t you. Both, I like writing both. I love the depth of a case fic, the idea, the research, plotting it out and working out the characters and detail but it’s so time consuming and I often write a bit, leave it, come back to it etc. etc. so a detailed case fic can take six months.

 Fluff on the other hand is less satisfying but quicker (my minds already in the gutter with an analogy).

 Woohoo I kept is fairly short for once. So, here’s one that’s good for you. I’m endlessly envious of how easily you make friends and how you know so many people in the fandom whereas I’m the introverted hermit. Which other authors are you friends with, and how have they help you become a better writer?

 Lil: Goodness! You make me sound like a social butterfly (Mr Lil calls me that all the time!). I like people, plain and simple. Other than you, I am close to MizJoely and Darnedchild, that’s no secret, so I’ll talk about them first (you included, because you’ve made me a better writer, I’m sure of it - have actual proof!)

 I cannot count the ways Miz has helped me improve my writing. She figuratively took me by the ear and said “okay, you don’t suck but do you even know what a comma is used for?” No, not those actual words, she was much kinder about it, but I got the hidden meaning and I needed it, trust me. She also challenges me and is not afraid to be honest with me when I’ve written something that isn’t good or perhaps doesn’t fit. I know I’ve improved since she started betaing for me, like a 1000%. And Child… When I volunteered to beta for the Big Bang Challenge, I had no idea what I was getting into, but man… she’d written and enormous fic. Good, amazing really, but it was longer than anything I’d ever worked on before. It scared the shit out of me but I really think it was exactly what I needed. Betaing someone else’s work can really make you see your own mistakes from a new perspective. I feel like I jumped ahead after working on the BBC with Child. As for you, MrsMCrieff, just the other day I had The Best compliment… someone actually thought I was British! Yes, that happened. I can only attribute that little feat to you, my friend. You’ve taught me when to add a ‘u’, when not to zed and about many different terms like pavement, taps, hob, loo, trousers (we really don’t say that here!). Not to mention the fact that most European men aren’t circumcised. Who knew?! It’s pretty common in the US.

 But that’s just a few. I cannot count the number of fandom friends who have helped me and all the ways that they’ve done so. That doesn’t mean I won’t try…

 There’s likingthistoomuch who always listens to my ideas and encouraged me to post my first Harry Potter fic. OhAine has been a true friend from the very beginning, always insightful and supportive. Mellovesall who is just too sweet for words and always helps with edits, no matter what’s going on in her life. Kendrapendragon who let me bounce ideas for my Mirror Has Two Faces AU off of her for like a whole day! the-sapphiresky who has helped me with this historical AU that may or may not ever see the light of day. Allthebellsinvenice who answered about a dozen questions (over two years!) for Dig Down Deep when I’d panic about some D/s situation I’d written myself into. o0katiekins0o who backs me up when I’m in the middle of a sensitive subject. I can always depend on her to help me when I’m afraid I’m crossing a line. Broomclosetkink, Lord help me! She’s pinch hit for me when I’ve written a fic for Miz or if I just need a good laugh. She’s the best. Sweets… it’s very hard to talk about sweet-sweet-escape. I still cannot even bring myself read her stories or the ones I wrote for her without breaking down, but no one was more supportive or kind to me than Sweets. I miss her so much.

 Then there’s all the love and support I received from everyone during The Fic That Shall Not Be Named debacle. That’s when I knew how much this fandom (well, this ship, really) had my back! I will never forget how much love and support I received. Bless you all!

 I’m forgetting people and I hate that. But I really do love all my fandom friends as if I see them and hang out with them every day. I mean that.

 Okay, Mrs, here’s one for you (I’m going back to the list for this one because I like it and I think it’s interesting): What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters of the opposite sex?

 Mrs: See, see I said you knew loads of people!

 As for your question that’s easy to answer...knowing what it feels like when they get aroused and orgasm. I’m more than happy being female but it would be kind of interesting just to be a guy for one day. It would improve my writing no end.

 On a wider note when it comes to writing characters I don’t think any of us made it easy on ourselves when we decided to try to write being a high functioning sociopathic genius. I think I can speak for most of us when I say he’s not the easiest person to try to write authentically. I just wish I had half his knowledge then I wouldn’t feel like such an idiot when I’m writing him.

 I gave my youngest son the option of any number between 1 and 40. He chose 7 so does writing energise or exhaust you?

 Lil: It absolutely energises me! I do get frustrated trying to find time to write, but actually writing does amazing things for my mental and physical self. I find that I’m much more productive around the house when I’m in the middle of a writing jag. I’ll sit and write for a while, then get up and pound out some chores (usually more quickly as to get back to my computer). Somehow, this works for me. Frankly, it’s probably got to do with my ADHD. I’m the kind of person who needs to do multiple things at once. I’m the same at work; I cannot just stand behind the registrar for 8 hours. I practically beg my managers for extra work, which they’re happy to give me.

 I have an original question for you, love: How does a bad review affect you?

 Mrs: I’ll be honest I don’t react well to a bad review but it does depend on whether I think it’s valid or not. You probably know each and every time I’ve had one because I will probably have sent you a screen shot and asked your opinion. Thankfully they have been few and far between, occasionally they have made me think...especially if I’m being accused of using a tired old trope and I’ve made the effort to up my game in future fics but often they are just being nasty for the sake of it.

 Writing is such a personal thing though, we give a piece of ourselves in each and every fic so it’s hard to not take criticism very personally.

 Same question to you Lil.

 Lil: Oh, I’m a giant baby about a bad review and have been known to take it very personally. At first I brood… like really hard, thinking on the entire thing much longer than necessary. I suppose it depends on the nature and tone, for the most part though. If it’s attacking and spiteful, I’ll attack right back but if it’s coming from a ‘goodish’ place, I do try to look at my writing a bit more objectively (I don’t always succeed). Anonymous bad reviews get to me the most. The fact that I cannot reply drives me up the wall!

 Okay, we’re wrapping this up (else we could go on forever!) Thanks so much and a big thanks to Aine for organizing this as well!

 Mrs & Lil

Next Week:

Posting on Friday 01 March it’s @ohaine ‘s turn (eek!) to interview @ashockinglackofsatin

[recentanimenews]

INTERVIEW: Open Mike Eagle Talks About Anime, Hip Hop, and Mental Health

    In celebration of Black History Month, Crunchyroll is releasing interviews with prominent Black figures across the anime world! Stay tuned for more announced features, or donate to Black Girls Code, which educates young girls of color to encourage careers in computer science and technology!

  As anime fandom has grown in the US, more and more celebrities and high profile artists have become open about their connection with the medium. Hip hop artist Open Mike Eagle has taken it a step further and made anime the central through line in his newest album. I had the pleasure of speaking with Mike over a Zoom call last October about the album, the anime that it references, and the importance of taking your mental health seriously. Here's that interview.

  Content Warning: This article contains frank discussions of mental health. We have included a list of mental health resources at the end of this article. Never be afraid to ask for help. We're all in this together.

    Crunchyroll: All right, so for any of our readers on Crunchyroll News who aren’t familiar with you or your work, could you just give us a brief introduction? 

  Open Mike Eagle: I’m Open Mike Eagle, I’m known primarily for being a rapper in the independent sphere. Also known for being kinda comedy adjacent, had a couple shows on TV. Uh … I don’t know what else to say.

  I think that’s perfect.

  Okay, good! Fantastic.

  I listened to Anime Trauma and Divorce. It’s really something. I wanted to ask about how it got started. Did you come up with a fully formed idea for the album first, or did it just sort of organically come together as you were writing songs?

  I was originally going to make an album about the magical link between anime and Black people in America, but in the midst of that process, life kinda happened to me. A lot. So I started writing about what was going on with me and ended up using anime as a coping mechanism, in a certain sense. And while I was exploring the stuff I was going through, the album started becoming more about me and my therapy journey.

    That’s super interesting because it feels so intentional all the way through, so it really does feel like a concept album. But that is an interesting point. I do think hip hop has been in conversation with anime for like, forever. I think Lupe Fiasco’s Lupin the Third line (from his verse in Kanye West’s “Touch the Sky” -ed.) was the first time I had ever heard Lupin the Third mentioned outside of Adult Swim. 

  I knew about Lupin the Third beforehand, and I was shocked to hear that line!

  What do you think it is about anime that really speaks to hip hop artists as well as marginalized people?

  I think it’s a power fantasy. I think that when you’re in situations that feel dire or circumstances that feel high pressure — bleak — it can be inspiring to see characters that often come from equally negative circumstances finding the power within to overcome. And feel like that’s what people end up connecting to. 'Cause I really don’t know, I really ... I’m fascinated by the question, but I don’t quite know the answer yet. 

  Yeah, I mean I’m sure there’s like a degree of it’s different for each person, but I really think you’re hitting on something there with ... there’s so many of these Shonen Jump protagonists who come from just broken, broken lives, but they’re able to find family and succeed. It really is empowering in a lot of ways.  

    I know that power fantasies are something you talk about a lot in the album, especially on “I’m a Jostar.” But so much of the album is so rooted in reality and confronting things. It’s not about escapism. What do you think the link is between like escapism and power fantasy and drawing strength in order to confront the very real things that people are going through?

  I think that it’s a reflection of my coping mechanisms which are increasingly based on trying to use tools based in therapy to just be able to sit with stuff and deal with it. I come from a lifetime of dissociation, so I think there’s a place on the album where I’m sitting. I’m sitting, and I’m very uncomfortable, and I’m trying to make healthy choices, but that becomes very overwhelming for me at times, because it’s very difficult, it’s very challenging. So I find myself hungering for the sort of escape that dissociation can provide. And in a way, that is kind of a comfort to me. And I find myself at a couple of places on the record, trying to invoke that. 

  Totally. Very different circumstances, but I, as a trans person, also come from a lot of dissociation, and anime’s really helped me build that space between the pain and where you are right now, and it gives you enough space to exist and not feel really bad for a minute, so I totally feel that. 

  Yeah, exactly that. The space to just exist for a second and not feel the weight of all the things that you’re trying to push through. 

  I know you’ve described this album as recounting, in large part, the worst year of your life, and I imagine there must’ve been a lot of personal catharsis from writing these songs. Is there something specific or special about rap that makes it suited to addressing pain and trauma?

  I do think that is inherent in the form, I think it’s underutilized that way, though. I think that the well-worn uses of it are for a kind of escapism. And in a sense, I had spent my career doing that, too, in a different way. Not in an escapism toward materialism or consumption; my escapism had always been using rap as a tool to “hold a mirror up to society” and like, you know, social commentary and that sort of thing. So I had to be reminded by my therapist that I have an outlet. A real, fully formed and developed outlet to deal with a difficult moment in my own life. That I have a vehicle. And a lot of people don’t. So she was trying to encourage me to use it, and in a sense, I found that space in hip hop to sit with it and it was new for me, too, even though I’ve always been a supporter of that kind of thing, I’ve never really done it myself. 

  That's super interesting to me. I think it sometimes feels like confessional art is restricted to white, well-to-do creators. There's this sense that the only people who are allowed the space for that are creators who are already privileged enough to afford therapists and already feel okay taking up that space publicly. 

  Yeah, I mean, putting out this project in the middle of a global pandemic, I’ve been challenged on that level, internally. I would think, “Is this the time to put out an album talking so directly about me and my stuff?” For me, the pressure wasn't about feeling like I didn't have the space — because my whole career has been about being confident that I can use a space to rap about whatever I feel like. My only boundary when it comes to the content I put out is that I never want to harm anybody else or denigrate anyone else. Beyond that, anything is permissible. It was never about feeling restricted for me, it was just about giving myself the permission to actually cross that line.

  I've tended to not like rap music that feels too personal. When I hear someone confess something in a rap song, I have the thought, "I don't feel like I should know about this. This sounds like something between you and this other person." Like when songs are explicitly about someone's dad or their ex. It feels like something I shouldn't be able to listen in on. When I encounter that in rap music, it's sort of off-putting to me, in that sense. But I feel like that's just a reflection of my own level of discomfort with vulnerability. That's something I've had to sit with — and I'm still sitting with — through the course of putting out this album, too.

    For what it’s worth, I think there is a masterful balance between being honest and confessional and being relatable and universal. I think there are a lot of people who are going to listen to this album and see themselves through it. It seems like when creating confessional art, there are these competing needs to be honest and vulnerable but also to be meaningful to your audience. 

  Yeah, I totally feel that. the interesting part about that for me as a writer is that I can never allow myself to think about that too much as I'm writing. I've learned that you can never predict who you're going to reach. You can never predict how people are going to interpret what you say and how it will resonate with them. You can never control it. When I've tried to in the past, I found it got in the way of my process because I was trying to quantify something you can never know ahead of time. I have to shut that train of thought down completely. I have to make the content that resonates with me, and it will always end up resonating with other people in ways I could never predict.

  That's such an interesting insight. I dunno, I feel like if I was creating art like this, I would get so caught up in my own head about things like, "Is this going too far? Am I not going far enough?" I think you really nailed it.

  Thank you, but I experienced that too. I have a history of having that sort of internal argument over whether I've gone too far or not far enough. Typically, what I've done in the past is if I thought a song was too much, I'd take it off of my album before it came out. But since this album was serving a specific therapeutic service for me, I couldn't do that. I had to move that line of what I felt was appropriate for public consumption. I had to pull it way closer in one direction, to the point where I felt like I was really putting everything out there. But then when I was listening to the demos, I got to one song where I realized, "Oh, this is ... this isn't even a song! This is literally just me saying that I feel bad in different ways, over and over again." I ended up rewriting that song. I certainly had to adjust my process going into this album. I had to really think about what constituted "too much."

Did the bones of that discarded song make it into any of the other ones that are on the album?

  I'd have to go back and give it a real thorough listen. As soon as I heard it come on, I got this really bad feeling, so I just went to something else. I remember that exact day, y'know? I was glad I didn't put it out. If you're saying that the album has a certain kind of balance, that would've tipped the scale! (laughs) That song may have tipped the scales, so I'm glad it didn't make it out into the world.

  It’s really cool that things can make themselves clear like that when you’re in the revising stage. 

  Yeah, and what that reflects for me is my learning to trust my instincts. I've learned through the course of putting out multiple albums that, when I hear something back, there's always this little voice saying, "This is really good. Keep working on it," or, "This is not that good, try something else." Sometimes the voice is really quiet, sometimes it's really loud. I've learned to be in tune with it, even when it's really quiet. If I ignore it, I end up with something on my album that irritates me beyond belief. At that point, the voice gets too loud about that particular thing and there's nothing I can do about it.

    That makes total sense to me. I noticed when I was looking at the album cover of Anime Trauma and Divorce there's a little bit of kanji on the side. It says 壊れた (kowareta), or "broken." Was that something you asked to be put on there? Because it's perfect.

  No, and I’m very afraid of messing stuff like that up. My graphic designer had to assure me that it said whatever he said it said, because that type of thing really frightens me deeply. So far I haven’t been told that it means something insane yet, so I still feel pretty okay about it.

  Well, I asked a fluent Japanese speaker what it meant, and they said “Oh, it means 'broken.’” So hopefully we’re doing good.

  That is appropriate. I didn’t want it to be like, “I love doughnuts,” or something. I was just very afraid, because I have no orientation in the language at all. 

  I understand that fear. That’s why I’m never going to get a tattoo of anything in a language that I don’t speak. There’s just that sense of like “I don’t know …”

  It happens to people, you know? People permanently get some terrible message on them. 

  Yeah, like I don’t want to get like “I’m a little peepee boy,” tattooed on my arm, or–

  RIGHT? Cause you’re NOT a little peepee boy! Y’know?

  Thank you! Neither are you!

  We’re not peepee boys.

    We don't want society to give us that label. Well, I wanted to get into a few of the specific songs. I think “Headass” is really, really striking. It’s like this embrace of your own flaws, in a way. And I wanted to hear about the connection between the song’s subject matter and Shinji from Evangelion, who’s referenced.

  Um, yeah man. “Headass” is about living in your head and that’s something that I have been guilty of for a lot of my life and it manifests itself in my life in different ways. I didn’t get a chance to watch Evangelion until it came out on Netflix, and he just struck me as the ultimate headass. I saw so much of myself in him and how he goes about life and yeah, I felt like he’s a great mascot for the headass.

  Yeah, I’m so interested in the anime that get drawn up in this album. Because you have these things like Jojo’s, which takes place in a super heightened, crazy reality, but then you also have Evangelion which is like … that’s not escapist at all. It's taking your dreams of being in a robot and turning them into like horrible realistic psychological trauma nightmare. 

  And I would say that the trauma in his life caused his own version of escapism and he kinda paints the world we see through that lens. So I think in some way I think that those are like, Evangelion on one side, Jojo's on the other side, those are kinda the two different side of the escapist coin. 

  Man, I never would’ve thought of that connection. But yeah, I think Evangelion’s just sort of the perfect thing to bring up in an album about so much pain and trauma. 

  Absolutely. Ultimate trauma anime. 

  via Netflix

  Seriously. It’s super interesting to me, too, that you brought up Shinji as someone you could relate to. I know that back in the '90s when it first came overseas and people were watching it on VHS tapes, there were all these guys who were like, “The show would be perfect if Shinji wasn’t in it.” 

  [laughs] That is hilarious. I mean, well to me, I would say that’s a bunch of people who don’t get it. But also, it’s art, so people can interpret it however they see fit. 

  Well, I think more than a fair few of them probably saw a little bit too much of themselves in Shinji to be comfortable with. Cause I don’t know, I think Shinji’s relatable to everyone. 

  I do, too! I mean, to me the show is Shinji. But I was one of the people who was perfectly satisfied with the end of the original show and didn’t need the movie, because to me what that end showed was like, “Oh, Shinji’s unprocessed trauma is pretty much creating this entire world. This is how he sees things, this is how he frames everything, because of all the stuff he’s been through that he hasn’t dealt with.”  So when he starts to deal with it, then suddenly we can be transported into a world where he sees these relationships in a more normal way, a more even-handed way. And to me, that’s the key to the show, so I didn’t need resolution of the fighting robots, I didn’t need that, cause to me the resolution was Shinji learning to see the world differently. 

  That’s exactly what it was. And I think that going back to the song, Shinji’s so perfect to bring up here because, I mean it’s that old therapy adage that you can’t start to fix all of your problems until you can love yourself, or at least be okay with yourself. And when you’re in a really dark place or you have a lot of unprocessed stuff, feeling like you need to love myself can feel like you’re being headass. But you can’t stop being headass until you learn to love yourself. 

  Yeah, it’s rough. I mean, you can be, when you live in your head there’s a lot of reasons not to stop doing that. There’s a lot of fear and trepidation in allowing your consciousness to inhabit your entire body. It’s easier to feel protected by staying up here and overthinking everything and not doing anything and analysis paralysis and that sort of thing.

  To quote Shinji: “I wanna run away.” 

  Yep. 'Cause it’s easy to do that, y’know?

  It is. 

    So I have to talk about “Everything Ends Last Year.” It was so, so sad, but so beautiful. And it comes at sort of like the midpoint of the album and it feels like this nexus point that everything else circles around. 

  Sure, 100 percent.

  There’s this line you say, and everyone’s been writing about it, “it’s October and I’m tired,” and I saw that you wrote that literally a YEAR ago, in 2019. And it just feels like the gravity of that line was so real in 2019 that it just echoed into this year and it’s more relevant than ever. 

  I mean yeah. If I thought I was tired last year, you know what I’m saying [chuckles]. I couldn’t’ve imagined the world we’d be in, a year later. Where I wrote that line, it’s very personal to me, and how I was feeling, and we’ve now entered a world where that is the most relatable and accessible line probably on the entire project. 

  Definitely. “Everything Ends Last Year” is so sparse compared to everything else, and I think there’s a lot that people can infer from that. But I wanted to hear from you about the choice to make that a way more low key, way more empty-sounding track. 

  I think for me, I don’t think about it as empty, I think about it as playing with emptiness and fullness. Because I think that it keeps starting and stopping in different ways, and to me, that’s a reflection of the content of the song. Like each verse is about things that are starting and developing, and then they kinda end suddenly, and the toll that that’s taking on me, psychologically, all these stops and starts. And so each time the arrangement kinda gets differently lush, one time its drums, another time it’s a big horn arrangement, I think there’s a bass that comes in at one point, but every time it completely ends and then starts over again. 

  For sure. So is it really important for you for the production, like the form of the song, to match what the content is, lyrically?

  To me, that’s when things are at their strongest, but y’know you’re not always able to create that synergy. But when it’s available I love to make something that works both of those ways. 

  Yeah, I hadn’t considered the start and stop nature of the song, but that really does reflect the lyrics.

    So, “I’m a Jostar” f--king rules. It is so celebratory and cool and like you start the song by saying … I’m trying to remember the line, it was something like “don’t take this away from me.” And then it becomes this like, you are a part of this lineage of hyper-powerful dudes, and I wanted to hear like what about the mythology of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, why did you want to choose that one for this song?

  I think the mechanism in Jojo's that each chapter has a different protagonist, that’s so different from shonen anime where it’s usually about one character getting stronger over time. And it took me a lot of getting used to when that second chapter started. I was like, “Wait, what? Now we have Joseph, who’s this little rude guy? I don’t know if I like him, I really liked Jonathan.” It threw me for a loop at first. But then over the course of the chapters of following him I was like, “Oh, what this gives me, psychologically, is the room to genuinely put myself in the show as a protagonist. Let’s say Chapter 39. THAT could be me.” you know what I’m saying? Like I could be in the story, the show can be about me in a way that you couldn’t say that about a Dragon Ball or a Bleach or a Demon Slayer, cause those are about following one character, where this is about — it’s kinda loosely about a family, but really it’s about just whatever personality type Araki wants us to root for in that season. 

  That is so cool. There really is this huge amount of possibility in the world of Jojo’s, it can literally just be about anyone. I also saw that you called it a "prayer song" on Twitter, and that is a pretty amazing term.

  Yeah, I have a category of songs on my catalogue that are like invocations, and that’s one. It’s just trying to invite a certain sense of empowerment. And I’ve done that song on stage a few times, and it just feels like a powerful ... like a power stance to take while I’m performing. So yeah, that’s like one of my incantations to try and invite power. And it’s not like a literal thing so much as an energetic thing. 

  For sure, yeah. I think there’s something really powerful about, in this song, in particular, aligning yourself with this lineage of amazing, strong, powerful, beautiful people. And yeah like, you do belong there. Just as much as everyone else.

  Im a Joestar can sound like a shallow song but it really comes from a deep need to find an external source of strength. its one of my prayer songs like 'celebrity reduction' or 'neighborhood protection' produced by @Thefrankleone

— Open Mike Eagle (@Mike_Eagle) October 18, 2020

  I know talking candidly about mental health is really tough, and you tackled that stuff super directly here. During a really tough time in my life, I listened to your episode of The Hilarious World of Depression, actually.

  Ah, John Moe.

  Yeah, that podcast has gotten me through a lot. But I wanted to ask how important is it for you to talk really openly about mental health stuff and what importance do you think it has?

  I think it’s important to talk about … to talk about the fact that, from my opinion, this is a fact that it’s almost impossible to deal with mental health challenges on your own. I feel like a lot of us do self-soothing, self-medication, all types of potentially harmful dissociation, compartmentalization, and I’m guilty of all of those things. And those are the things that stuff bad feelings temporarily, but they don’t address core issues of anything. And I feel like that’s a lot of us trying to deal with pain but without any real tools for it. And so I think the important thing to talk about is that if one feels like they’re in a bad spot, that it’s like really, really, really important to try to get some assistance. And of course, that can be restrictive based on income, based on access to resources, based on all sorts of very real stuff, but sometimes that can be just reaching out to a friend, it could be a school counselor, it could be a relative if there’s a safe relationship there, just encouraging people not to attempt to always try to go it alone. That, to me, is the important part to say out loud. Everything else is personal and private, but that part, it’s one of the closest things to a universal fact that I can really stand on. That it’s incredibly difficult to try to go it alone. 

  Yeah. Thank you for saying that, I think it’s really important to get that message out to people, especially right now. So I only have like one more thing to ask — if you had one thing to say to black anime fans, marginalized anime fans, any anime fans who feel like they don’t belong, what would it be?

  Man, f--k what they think. That’s what I’d say. 'Cause I guarantee whatever it is that you are connecting with in the work, in the art, the creators want you to have that. They put it out there for everybody, not just a certain kind of person. So if it’s doing something for you, embrace it, hold on to it, claim it, and don’t let nobody tell you you can’t have it.

    If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, here is a list of resources that may help:

  National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: Text "HELLO" to 741741

The Health Resources and Services Administration may be able to connect you to mental health resources.

By: Cayla Coats

[ectoflowermaid]

Rainy Days Homestuck Headcanons

John: of course whips out every single goddamn one of his favorite movies who are y'all kidding!! The trolls haven’t seen them, he has to enlighten them. Karkat leaves the room the second John says, “hey guys! What if we-” because he knows what’s coming and he will not be here for it no sir. For reasons beyond any and all comprehension, Terezi becomes absolutely obsessed with the Ghostbusters. Whether she likes the way they handle “ghost justice” or she just likes licking the screen when the ghostly baddies show up, even John regrets showing them to her and everyone admits that it was a grave mistake.

Jade: on her island she used to like going out into the puddles and hunting for frogs. Um. She doesn’t want to do that anymore or possibly ever again. She still likes to take a rain slicker and some boots and go for walks in the rain tho, she’ll find a nice place to sit and be alone with her thoughts. Sometimes Jake will go with her and they’ll sit and listen to the wind in the trees and the roar of the rain together, but more often than not she makes the trek alone. Once Jane realizes this, Jade always comes home to a nice cup of hot cocoa waiting for her on the counter. She warms right up before even taking a sip because this, this is what having a family is supposed to feel like. Not some taxidermic guardian staring her down.

Dave: Uses the time to work on his sick beats which have, surprisingly for everyone but him, become extremely popular with the citizens of Earth C. They don’t know what the mysterious “Obama” creature is that the Knight of Time references so often, and conspiracy theories grow by the thousands. Was he an ancient deity? A fallen ally? A worthy foe? Entire websites are dedicated to putting the pieces together. Dave will also build blanket forts with Karkat in which they watch only the worst and cheesiest of romcoms, no one else is allowed in. Except the Mayor. Cuddles may or may not ensue.

Rose: knits way too many scarves in an attempt not to think about the rain because she is 1000% Done With Rain. She has zero good memories associated with this goddamn precipitation. It reminds her of her drunken mother and of the unfinished quest that still haunts her. To keep her mind off things, she spends rainy days obsessively poring over ancient tomes, writing drafts for “Complacency of the Learned”, and more often than she would care to admit, reading Roxy’s wizard fan fiction. It’s very good and she’s extremely proud. When the power goes out and Rose can no longer see the pages, Kanaya is always there, ready to light the room with her skin and her smile.

Kanaya: shares a similar aversion to frogs as Jade, but can’t help but be fascinated by the rain because she’s never seen it before. Rain on Alternia was extremely rare, even more so for her because she lived in a desert region. It takes her a very long time to get used to thunder, and the first time she heard it her chainsaw was out in record time and she was running around trying to figure out just what the fuck was happening. Once it had been explained to her by a patient, trying her best not to break down into hysterical laughter Rose, Kanaya felt pretty embarrassed but admitted that her reaction had been funny. She loves seeing lightning in the distance, and sometimes tries to light up at the same time.

Karkat: Dave and Roxy show him earth musicals and boy howdy does he fucking love musicals. He was very skeptical at first, but after being assured of romantic content succumbs to the intense peer pressure. Dave’s favorite is Hamilton because anything that can combine rap and history (aka dead things and presidents) is truly the highest form of art. He may or may not know every word to every rap. Karkat, however, latches on to Wicked and does. Not. Let. Go. He relates immensely to the off-color mutant human who stands up for what they believe in and faces incredible odds to become the best!! And she gets a love interest in the end! Karkat argues the entire time that Elphaba and Glinda had a million times more chemistry than Fiyerwho Gives A Fuck, but still cries every time at the end because he’s so happy that Elphaba is happy. Dave often catches him humming the soundtrack and teases him mercilessly for it, but is secretly glad that he helped Karkat find something he cares so much about.

Terezi: Thanks to John, now screams “WHO YA GONNA CALL” every time a ‘crime’ is committed and Justice™ needs to be served. John accuses her of debasing a classic, to which she responds by licking his face and telling him that nobody listens to losers who taste like blueberries. Likes to catch raindrops in her mouth and LOVES the sound of thunder, sounds like sweet, sweet music to her ears. Loves “watching” (smelling) the humans trip all over when the lights go out because cmon just smell your way through it! Trolls have night vision and do not trip, which Terezi finds massively disappointing.

Jane: Cooks the entire time. Raining out? Guess we’re having more cake, everyone! She tries a new flavor combination every time, so far the favorite is lemon cake with raspberry frosting, and the least favorite was carrot cake with mint frosting. Not a good time. She also likes to try out Alternian recipes for the challenge, not to mention because the troll kids are a little sick of human food. After a few months Jane manages to produce a close approximation of grubloaf and it was the happiest cry Karkat had since the time Dave told him they should probably date or something.

Jake: watches the storm through the window, sometimes goes and sits by the ocean to watch the wind stir up the waves. Something about growing up on the island makes Jake and Jade more in tune with the weather, they can feel it deep in their bones whenever a big storm is coming. It also gives them a strange sense of melancholy. Dirk tries to comfort him but there’s something ancient in Jake’s eyes whenever the clouds roll in. Sometimes it’s best when they sit quietly, watching the storm together.

Roxy: makes her own blanket fort suck a dick, Dave!! No boys allowed!! She and Callie built it using a combination of blankets that Rose has knitted for her and generic objects used as building blocks. No Dave, that’s not cheating, maybe if you could make building blocks out of your time powers you wouldn’t feel so inferior to us and our amazing blanket fort which is better than yours. Knows every word to every musical (she had a lot of spare time before the game) and Karkat vaguely idolizes her. Teach me your ways, oh great musical goddess. Watches movies with John and they weave in their own witty commentary, she helps slowly rebuild John’s faith in his shitty, shitty movies.

Callie: has lived underground her entire life and doesn’t know what rain is? Why is water falling from the sky I don’t understand? Also, still getting used to actually being able to see the sky. Finds thunderstorms therapeutic, she likes the constant thrum of the rain, the deep boom of thunder, and the sharp crackle of lightning in the distance. Her favorite place to be is snuggled up in blankets between Roxy, Jane, and Jade, all doing various things but it doesn’t matter because they’re together.

Dirk: will sometimes sit with Jake during his Rain Moods™, other times will watch Hamilton with Dave and they rap along to the entire thing. A lot of the time it will devolve into a rap battle and everyone chooses sides, bets pass along boonbucks like it’s the goddamn horse races up in here. There’s never a real actual set of guidelines that decide who the winner is, the only judge is the Mayor and he is a righteous and fair judge, Dirk and Dave both win equal amounts and no one (mostly) goes deep into debt. Dirk also likes to go running in the rain, he’s never had so much space to just *move* before, and rain was scarce down in post-apocalyptic Texas, so it’s like killing two birds with one stone.

Sollux: The static in the air from lightning messes with his psiionics and it makes for some sicknasty hijinks. Think of a balloon when there’s enough static, every time it thunders Sollux’s hair starts standing on end and if he’s too close to a wall he gets sucked in and stuck. The Great Storm Disaster ensued one day when Sollux decided to rub his feet along the carpet and shock the next person he saw which was, unfortunately, John. It was unfortunate because John, in an attempt to up his pranksters gambit, had a buzzer on his hand. No witness can accurately describe what happened on that horrible, horrible day, only that the blast of cheap buzzing, static electricity, and wackass psiionics threw Sollux and John in opposite directions where they got stuck to the walls and couldn’t move until the storm was over. It also singed John’s eyebrows off. Dave wouldn’t let it go for months.

[quentinquaadgras]

118 --- An Educational Manifesto

Preface

I know there is no image this post, I spent all my time writing it this evening and I could not think of a good image for this. If you have a view on education in NZ, please read this through. It is an important topic and I would love to hear some input/contrast on my ideas. There is a TLDR (too long didn’t read) at the bottom.

Introduction

The current education system in New Zealand is inadequate and old-fashioned, students are not taught how to think, they are taught how to pass tests. The system needs to be built upon principles of purpose, engagement, creativity and productivity so it is prepared for the future. Preschool and primary schools start off well, I do not have any critique for that sector of education but when children get to intermediate school and high-school, issues arise. At a time of their lives when students should be preparing for what they will be doing in life, they are pressured by the expectations from school and their peers.

I have heard from too many students who find it difficult in High School, bullying, peer pressure and expectations plague our students. Instead of learning how to become productive people with creative skills, hobbies and interests. Students spend too much of their education “studying” for their next test. This is not real “studying”, students are disengaged from the subjects that they are being required to learn. 

This is not the fault of the teachers, they are doing the best job they can do with the policies and structures in place, in fact the current high-school education system is almost as much of a burden on teachers as it is on students. This is not a financial issue, it is not an issue of under-funding, throwing money at schools will not resolve the issues being outlined here.

The majority of the education system in New Zealand is still based on the industrial era style education, where students are put through like products on an assembly line. In this system, each student is tested for quality control and then stamped with a level of competence.

I cannot believe that with all this time spent on discussing progressive policies, climate change and social equality and equity. Nobody is talking about progressing the education system. Sure, there is plenty of talk that the education system needs to be improved but I do not see any real substance of how to actually do it.

Maybe this is because the majority of the people in this country have gone through the education system, it is normal, they cannot think of how it could be any different. This is where I may have an insight, I am one of the small percentage of people in the country who was homeschooled. I had a very different sort of education than what is found in school. This allows me to look at the high-school education system as an outsider, as someone with a fresh perspective.

A good education system needs to be based on principles. These are the principles I think an education system should incorporate.

Purpose Students need to have the opportunity to discover their purpose at High School.

Engagement Students do not learn what they are forced to learn. They need to be given the chance to learn by doing what motivates them.

Creativity All subjects involve creativity. It is essential for innovation. Mathematics and STEM would be picked up by many more students if they were given the opportunity to be creative within these subjects at school.

Production Being productive starts at school, students need to work on projects, hobbies and become producers of wealth rather than consumers. With the internet, being a consumer has never been so easy, people can watch any movie at a touch of a button. Production, creating content and solving problems is also essential for the healthy emotional state of a person. I would argue that a lack of production and purpose are two of the factors for increasing rates of depression and anxiety in young people in this country.

How to do it

I am not going to explain how to build an education system from scratch, I understand that any change to the education system needs to be built on top of what already exists. The steps outlined below explain how I would change the education system.

Redefine Tests Tests should not be something students prepare for, this sounds like a crazy idea but its not. The purpose of a test is to measure a student’s progress. It’s not a target or goal for a student to reach. The culture of exams and the pressure that they impound on students is incredibly unhealthy for a student’s well-being. It contributes to the rising Anxiety and Depression rates in this country.

Redefining tests is easy, tests can be changed so they surprise students and they should not be based on the ability for a student to recall information like a computer. They should be either open-book or based on measuring the understanding of a student and not their short-term memory. End of year external exams need to be removed and replaced with reoccurring tests throughout the year (these already exist, they are called internals).

The tests do not need to be radically different, the infrastructure is already there, it boils down to a change of process. To clarify, national standards should not be removed, they should simply be used as a measuring tool instead of a target that students aim for.

Replace credits with CV/Portfolios The credit system in schools is a bit like the tax system, it is complex. One of the problems with the school system is that it does not reflect adult life. Credits do not exist after students leave school, companies do not give people credits when they change job. It doesn’t make too much sense.

Students don’t get it, they almost need professional advice in order to navigate the credit system. What can happen is that there is a portfolio system where students are able to keep a record the skills they gain from their education. Whether this is done on an NCEA web-platform or on a personal level can be decided upon.

The important aspect here is that with a portfolio/CV system, students will be getting ready for work, they will be learning how to present themselves, they will be keeping a record of their achievements. They will know where they stand. Depending on the method of record keeping, this may or may not need some infrastructure changes (such as a government website).

Compulsory Productivity Taking numeracy and literacy is compulsory and this is a very good thing. There is another thing which needs to be compulsory (there is an upside to this one as it does not require more teachers). Projects should be compulsory at school. Students should be required to complete personal projects and be given allotted time to spend on these projects. 

There shouldn’t be any restrictions on these projects, for example students may wish to create a game or a movie. They may wish to create a robot or experiment with electronics. They may wish to compose a song and complete a performance. These projects will inspire the students, give them a direction, a purpose and look great on their CV’s. It will encourage individual learning and students will have the resource available on the internet in order to educate themselves on their projects. Again, this change will not need major infrastructure changes, I am sure most highschools have internet availability and/or areas where students can work on projects either together or as an individual, it will require students to have the time at school to work on such projects. Encourage Creativity & STEM Out of the all the modifications which have been proposed in this manifesto, this is probably the most difficult to implement. There is a reason why students are losing interest in STEM and it is not because the subjects are boring. It is because the way they are taught is. One of the most common misconceptions about STEM fields is that they are not creative fields. This could not be any further from the truth. Creativity is an essential part of STEM, in fact without it, there would be no STEM, scientific innovation is based upon creativity and exploration. Although the type of creativity is different to what is commonly referred to such as Art, Music, Literature and Film. A person who is passionate about STEM can be just as creatively brilliant as individuals in the more traditional arts. The only reason this is difficult to see is because such creativity is hidden behind jargon and specific knowledge of the subject. STEM subjects in schools need to be taught in a way which encourages exploration of the subject without sacrificing the facts and knowledge which is required for them.

Conclusion

Education is the foundation of our society, with better educated students, they will grow up and fix the problems we are currently stuck with. Significantly improving the current education system in New Zealand is not difficult. The changes here do not require significant investment, all they require is a change of policy.

I do not proclaim to be an expert on education, I only proclaim that I am lucky to have had a great, meaningful education and I wish that every other New Zealander can have one too. I want young people to have the opportunities I had, the opportunity to personally explore, discover, create and develop. 

I mean DIY, it’s in our DNA [1].

TLDR

I outline the issues with the New Zealand education system and four simple steps on how to improve it. Footnotes [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVwYnPge8wQ

[tuckinpodcast-blog]

EPISODE 5: EVERYONE WANTS TO BE CARY GRANT

LISTEN: SOUNDCLOUD / iTUNES / GOOGLE PLAY

NOTES: None of any real consequence, except that this week, I’m going to try and start some new features on the blog this week, including a movie and book recommendation and some extra information pertaining to episodes.

SOURCES: listed at end of transcript

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, I'm Jack, and this is Tuck In, We're Rolling: Queer Hollywood Stories. This week, we're going to be talking about Cary Grant and his husband. I think I've mentioned before that I've been in love with Cary Grant for most of my life – the funny thing is that after I had to watch To Kill A Mockingbird in high school I thought he was Gregory Peck, but then I realized my mistake. I don't remember what I saw him in first or why I even ended up so fixated on him, but I very vividly remember watching Arsenic and Old Lace and just being completely captivated. Maybe I'm just sort of into tall, dark, and handsome, but for whatever reason, I collected information and little tidbits about him for forever. Like the bit about how he and Clark Gable would swap monogrammed presents if they didn't like what they had gotten, or that he had once been married to the girl from City Lights.

I really started this podcast for two reasons. The first one is that I'm totally and unbelievably in love with Montgomery Clift and when David Thomson talked garbage about him in The Whole Equation, I wanted to set the record straight, and I'll get to that in a future episode. The second reason is that, as I've talked about before, when I decided to get angry at David Thomson and write a massive rant on my personal tumblr, I mentioned that I had only recently learned that Cary Grant was gay. Someone replied to my post correcting me that he was actually bisexual, and kind of a shitty person. I'm not the type to accept things at face value, and I also like to look at famous people as real, complex people who might be twenty stories tall in our memory, but were really just actual human beings, out in the world making terrible decisions and drinking too much wine when they were supposed to do something important.

So, I went digging. I went digging and I didn't really stop. I read everything I could find about Cary Grant – I read the things that denied that he had same-sex relationships, I read the things that said he was exclusively gay, I read the things that said he was bisexual. I watched his movies – mostly for entertainment, but also as an excuse to try and peel back the persona. My favorite thing about Cary Grant has always been his face and the way he could contort it. He actually got his start as a tumbler and acrobat, and he's this very tall, gangly thing – but somehow, even with all the physical acting he did, it's still the way he expresses his emotions on his face that I like the best. It's pretty well-known that he put on the Cary Grant persona deliberately. He almost considered “Cary Grant” to be someone entirely different and apart from his real self.

At the end of all this digging, what did I come up with? As I'm sure you're not surprised to hear: the content of this podcast.

Cary Grant was born Archie Leach in Bristol on January 18, 1904. His parents, Elsie and Elias, were working-class, and dysfunctional as hell. When he was nine, Elias told Archie that his mother had gone away on holiday, then changed the story to say that she had died. He didn't find out until he was 31 that he had been lied to, and his father had in fact put Elsie away in a sanitarium. Eventually, Elias abandoned Archie and moved away to marry someone else and start a new family. Archie ran away from home at one point to join the Pender Troupe of acrobats, but when they found out that he was seriously underage, he was dragged back to school. At that point, he did a pretty good job of being a very poor student, until he was thrown out of school. He toured with the troupe full-time starting in 1918 at the age of fourteen.

I think here I'd like to pause and reflect on Grant's childhood. It's very clearly a messed up situation, with his father running off and the whole thing with his mother. It's been said that the way his mother was very standoffish and selective with her affection directly contributed to the way Grant handled his relationships with women in his adult life, and I think that's true. I also think that the kind of pain of a childhood like this really directly impacted his acting. I'm not terribly familiar with the things he did with Hitchcock in the 50's and 60's, but I am familiar with his screwball comedies of the late 30's and early 40's. That old line about depressed people being the funniest really rings true in this case.

So, in 1920, Archie gets on the RMS Olympic to come to America to tour with the Pender Troupe. There's been some biographers who claim that Dougie Fairbanks Sr and Mary Pickford were on the boat and took a shine to Archie, but accounts vary. He wouldn't star in any movies until 1930, and he wouldn't become really famous until about 1937. That's a lot of years touring – whether he was tumbling or acting in plays – between his arrival and his big break. So you know, what was he doing in that interrim?

Cary Grant met Orry Kelly – who went on to become a very famous costume designer – in 1925. Still Archie at the time, he was twenty-one, broke, and had nowhere to go. Orry-Kelly took Archie in, and so the rumor goes, they became romantically involved. In Cary Grant: A Biography, Marc Elliot talks about this relationship quite a bit, mentioning the drama and the arguing that went on. Elliot says that the two had a row at a party and the host sniffed and asked if everyone was just going to sit there and let this blatant homosexuality continue in front of them. In Kelly's lost autobiography, he mentions that he was annoyed with Archie's penchant for blonde women, but proudly said that Archie “always came home to me.” While I was researching this podcast, I also came across some information that pointed to Grant as being abusive towards Orry-Kelly. And the things that I came across were pretty shocking – Grant supposedly knocked Kelly out several times and threw Kelly out of a moving vehicle once. This isn't entirely out of character for Grant, I'll admit – it was well-known that he was abusive towards his wives, going so far as to fly into a blind rage and crash his car into Virginia Cherrill's parked one while she visited an ex of hers. But the things he did to his wives was well-documented. I had never heard of him acting this way towards Kelly, and even though I shouldn't be surprised and it didn't take all that much digging to find out about it, I wanted to take this moment to sort of talk about how domestic violence in queer relationships really is a problem that people don't like to talk about or look into. At least at the time, two men being in a relationship with one another – it's been said that physical violence was almost expected, just due to the nature of the times and the nature of the toxic masculinity of the time. There's a part of me that kind of just thinks that's a bullshit excuse for queer abusers, but if we go back to our Valentino episode and remember the way that the general public reacted to a man just being pretty, and even if we look at the pressures of traditional masculinity and how violence is a supposedly “masculine” trait – maybe, at least, back then, it's half bullshit excuse and half explanation. It might be an explanation, but it doesn't have to be forgiven. You can be expected to do something and still know that it's wrong. I don't want to come off as apologizing for Grant's behavior, because it was unacceptable then and it's unacceptable now, but at least we can look at the times and the environment and get a better picture of the entire situation.

Cary Grant was a very famous man, a very neurotic man, and I think also, a very lonely and scared man, but the fact remains that he was abusive towards his partners, and I'll admit that this has changed my overall picture of him and dimmed my crush on him – and there's a whole other discussion to be had about supporting people who were known to be abusers or even just not very nice people after they've been dead for a long time, you know, things that maybe weren't known or at least well-known while they were alive, or supporting someone's art versus condemning their personal behavior, but I think it's a thought for another time.

So, Archie and Kelly, despite their tumultuous relationship, are more or less together through 1932. When Archie goes to Hollywood in 1930, he stays with Kelly until he gets his feet under him. In 1931, he changes his name at the urging of Paramount studios. Archie Leach becomes Cary Grant – or I think maybe I should say, Cary Grant becomes the persona that Archie Leach could slip into comfortably, allowing him to kind of become someone else and minimize the anxiety that existing in the world gave him. In 1932, Cary Grant meets Randolph Scott, and the two move into a beautiful house by the beach together, known in the press and to their friends as “Bachelor Hall”.

As with Garbo and Dietrich, Randolph Scott was the polar opposite of Cary Grant. He was born into a well-off Virginian family and wanted for nothing when he was growing up. He went to private schools, had a large family, and went off to serve in the Army during World War 1. He returned home in 1919 after attending an officer's school in France, and went to Georgia Tech with dreams of becoming a football star. He transferred to the University of North Carolina after a back injury put his football dreams on hold, but he eventually dropped out of school altogether to go and work as an accountant at a textile firm where his father also worked.

It was around 1927 that he went to Hollywood. His father was friends with Howard Hughes, and sent Scott along with a letter to meet the millionaire. Hughes plays into our early Hollywood stories quite a bit, as I'm sure you've realized by now, and he eventually gave Scott a part in a romantic comedy. Scott did a lot of stage work as bit characters, and eventually got a deal at Paramount – where he met Cary Grant on the set of Hot Saturday. At this point, a lot of biographers start to differ. The two certainly did meet on the set of Hot Saturday, but Orry Kelly's autobiography itself points to Kelly being the one who introduced the two. They moved in together almost immediately, by some accounts to “save costs” and by others because they legitimately cared for one another.

The two would live together on and off for twelve years. Scott became a point of contention in Grant's first marriage – the one to Virginia Cherrill, of City Lights fame. Grant refused to move out of the house on the beach at first, and Cherrill was furious over it. The marriage itself was rushed and was basically the studios putting the squeeze on Grant to marry someone, anyone, lest the gossip columnist Heda Hopper call him “not normal” in another one of her rags. The marriage would last less than a year, when Cherrill would claim that Grant had no sexual interest in her whatsoever, and he was drunk and sullen throughout most of their time together. She also claimed that he hit her – and we've already talked about that a little bit in this episode, but I want to share with you a thought I had while I reading the Elliot biography of Grant.

So, let's pan back and look at Grant's life for a second. He was abandoned by his father, had a troubled relationship with his mother, and basically made his own way in the world without any real influences to base his life and actions on. The way he acted with Cherrill, flying into jealous rages and acting possessive, was, in my opinion, Grant's caricature of a straight man and how a husband was supposed to act. I'm going to talk a lot about the way that queer men internalize misogyny and homophobia in the Monty Clift episode, but I think this is a good jumping point. Again, this isn't an excuse for the way that Grant acted towards his wives and partners, but I think that it's interesting to look at the way that society shapes a person's perceptions. Grant acted like a jealous lunatic because he thought that's how a man should act. He should have known that it was wrong and he should have been better than that, but he didn't and he wasn't.

Getting back to the story, it's very interesting to me that a lot of the articles on Randolph Scott that I find cast doubts on a romantic relationship between him and Grant. Scott's son flat-out denied the rumors, and Bud Boetticher, who directed Scott in seven films over the course of his career, called them “bullshit”. Even Scott's biographer says that there's no evidence that Scott and Grant were ever romantically involved. But, when you go on over to source material on Grant, they're very much on the other side. And, now, I'm going to try and get a link up to a series of photographs that were shot of Grant and Scott at the Bachelor Hall – they document a sort of “day in the life” of the two men, swimming in their pool and running lines while Scott reclines in a chair and Grant lays with his head at Scott's feet. There's one of them in the kitchen together cooking, both of them wearing aprons. There's one of them just looking at each other lovingly.

So, maybe the rumors are true, and maybe they aren't. The pair lived together through at least one marriage each, until the studios finally pressured them into moving out in 1940. They made a movie together the same year – the only movie they would make together – called My Favorite Wife, and instead of choosing separate hotel suites for the location shots, they roomed together, raising more than just a few eyebrows. Most of the first-hand material I've found says that they weren't intimate partners, which – okay. Fine. Even Grant's daughter claims they weren't true, but adds that Grant liked to let the gay rumors fly, so that when he bagged a woman, they felt “special” – gross. Gross, and a little creepy. And honestly, not out of character for Grant, knowing what we know about him now. There are people who claim to have caught Scott and Grant holding hands in a semi-private moment late in their lives, and there are people who claim to have been involved with both of them in the menage-trois sense of the word.

So, where does this leave us? As with most early Hollywood queer stories: we're in gay limbo. Were they, weren't they. There's evidence that goes both ways. Is this just a story about two men who were very close, very good friends, but in American society, we can't view that as anything but gay? Marc Elliot posits that Grant's same-sex attraction goes back to his school days in England, when boys just messed around like that. Maybe it's that. I think I've done an okay job of explaining what a complicated man Cary Grant was – abandoned, neurotic, hypochondriac. He had an addict's personality – first with smoking and drinking, and then later in life, he micro-dosed with acid to keep his anxiety and depression in check. I personally think that Grant is one of the best examples of stars being, ultimately, human. He was deeply flawed and seriously insecure – famously, he sued Chevy Chase for calling him a “homo” in the 80's. Me, personally? I think Grant was a confused, lonely person who took solace from the people that gave it to him, no matter their gender. Regardless of the stories, the rumors and even the truth, what we're left with is: the story of Cary Grant. A man with a charming smile, a devastating personal life, and the acting chops to be named the number two actor of the twentieth century, sliding in right after Humphrey Bogart.

A quick aside before I leave you: I'm going to try and do something a little new starting this week, and that's posting up little blog entries on our tumblr called “Things We Missed This Week”. Basically, it's the parts of a story that ended up cut out of the episode for time or clarity's sake in blog post form so you can have a little extra information. There's a lot I didn't talk about on our last episode, and there's enough information about Cary Grant to fill several books, so I thought that maybe it would be a nice way to give you guys a better picture of what I'm talking about here. This week, I'm also going to start leaving book and movie recommendations on the blog so you guys can maybe get a chance to watch some of my favorites and we can open up some discourse there.

Thank you so much for listening to Tuck In, We're Rolling: Queer Hollywood Stories. This episode was written, researched, edited and recorded by me, Jack Segreto.  I wanna take a minute to pause here and give a special shout out to tumblr users amiddleearththemedbarinhogsmeade and detectivejoan for saying nice things about the podcast and blowing up my head a little bit. Thanks, folks. It really means a lot to me. You can find a transcript of this episode and all of our episodes, along with facts, photos, and recommendations, on our tumblr, tuckinpodcast.tumblr.com. You can also give us a like on Facebook at facebook.com/tuckinpodcast. We accept messages on both of those platforms, so feel free to shoot us any suggestions for show topics or comments you might have. We put out new episodes every Wednesday, and you can listen to us on SoundCloud, iTunes and Google Play, so don't forget to rate and subscribe to us! We'll be back next Wednesday to discuss Marlon Brando, gay rumors, and his impact on Hollywood masculinity. See you next time!

SOURCES:

Cary Grant: A Biography, Elliot, Marc ()

Cary Grant & Randolph Scott: A Gay Hollywood Romance

Inside Cary Grant’s Secret Life With Men

Was Cary Grant Secretly Gay?

Cary Grant & Randolph Scott: A Love Story

Wikipedia. You guys know I only use it for biographical facts and pertinent details, right?

[abbyahmadvocal]

The Courtship of Creative Ideas

Some “Dear Abby”-esque relationship guidance for all your creative suitors…

SEDUCING AN IDEA

Dressing the Part - You wouldn't show up for a date in your pajamas, right? Working on creative projects deserves the same degree of gussying up. Shower, brush your teeth, get dressed. Then, set the scene. Create mood lighting with candles or open the shades for natural sunlight. Light incense or burn oils to get your senses stimulated. Let your work space be clean and clear, not cluttered with the contents of your distractive everyday life. Or, why not take yourself out on a date and do your work at a park, coffeeshop, or bar? Romance your realization! 

Foreplay - Begin to stimulate your idea with journaling and free-associative writing. Create a slam page. Highlight general thoughts on a subject with bullet points. Jot down every phrase or half-phrase that comes to mind. Make an adjective list that you can associate with your subject. Prime yourself for creativity by getting the juices stirring. And DON’T EDIT YOURSELF! Censorship, at this stage, is detrimental. Stockpile all your thoughts and sort them later. 

Press the Buttons - Record everything! Documenting the process is essential. Whatever your form, document ideas using multiple mediums. Utilize hand-written text, computer or typewriter, video, audio, photography, etc. (However, turn off email notifications and shut down social media on all devices to prevent being sucked into a vortex of distractions.) Research references that emphasize your themes. Make look-books, collages, and archives using images and quotes from your work or others’.

BURNING HOT / BURNING OUT

Steamy Start- So things are moving fast. You’ve got yourself firmly nestled around the hips of a great idea. The inspiration is flowing. Ride it wild. Do a ton of research. Immerse yourself in the process. Review your work as part of your morning routine and before you fall asleep. Let it seep into your subconscious and waking life. 

The Advice Column- To keep momentum moving, it is wise to extend the conversation. Engage in discussion with friends about their creative techniques and tricks. Get opinions and suggestions about other people’s work methods. Reach out to teachers, mentors, trusted peers. Everyone has a unique tool in their kit regarding the creative process. By sharing experiences, you may discover the impetus to your continued success and inspiration. Chat it up.  

Getting Rubbed The Wrong Way - There reaches a point in any new relationship where fantasy yields to reality. We will ultimately encounter struggle, misunderstanding, and road blocks along our path to guiding an idea into fruition. You may find that you have the endurance and passion to move through these hardships. You also may feel that a temporary break is needed for clarity. In some cases, the temporary break may showcase that permanent break is in order. Some ideas are just not ready for commitment. But ALL ideas, whether realized, stunted, or abandoned will influence new ideas to come. 

IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL

Finding The One - So, you’ve found it. That creative love that continues to excite and expand. There may have been hiatuses from active involvement, but your desire never ceased. You may have broken up and gotten back together. Or maybe your relationship persisted without truncation. Remember that long-term love succeeds by consistent demolition and reconstruction. You may have to completely decimate an initial concept, impulse, line, or foundation in order to give way to an idea that creates long-lasting support to your vision. Try not to grasp too tightly to stability or expectation. Recognize that change is an essential component to longevity in art. You are constantly shifting and evolving. Allow your ideas to do the same. 

Keeping the Spark Alive - All successful long-term relationships need attention, respect, and spontaneity to keep the fire burning. Try to spice up your patterns. If you have a specific time/place that you tend to work, change the schedule. Or try an exercise where you flip the perspective. For example, if you are working on songs for an album, write something musical that is completely contrary to your theme. If you play bluegrass, write in the style of hip-hop. Shaking things up creatively is essential to staying fresh with perspective. Then when you return to the task at hand, there won’t be so much pressure attached.

  POLYAMORY 

Wandering Eye - When your interests and creative inclinations cross mediums, it can seem difficult to get individualized goals achieved. Logical thought would suggest that we should focus on singular subjects and tasks in order reach our objectives. However, “crossing the streams” creatively is a wonderful way to stay stimulated across the board. Think of it as useful ADD. The moment your creative attention to a project wanes, hop over to a different interest. If you have reached capacity for the day learning lines for a play, take a break and doodle a drawing. Whatever your mixed mediums are, try devoting smaller chunks of time to ALL of them in a given work session. This way, your blossoms of thought receive equal watering, which yields a larger crop! 

Branching Out - Extend yourself into other creative disciplines that you are NOT actively interested in! Take up photography, poetry, pottery. You can gain insight in the most unexpected places. Keep stirring the pot and the flavors will broaden and explode. 

Keep Your Dates Straight - Buy separate journals and notebooks for all your individual creative subjects and ideas. Organize them in a way that feels helpful and fun. Give them the individualized attention they deserve. You can’t adore them equally if one is at the forefront and the others lie dormant. If you prefer digital to analog, use bright colors and photos to spice up your work files on the computer. 

THE CASUALTIES OF LOVE

In art, as in relationships, not everything survives. There will always be casualties of love. Whenever we put ourselves out there to romance an idea, whether it succeeds or fails, there is something to be learned. We can’t know what we want, how to evolve our ideas, or how to express ourselves without experiencing failure. Allow your defeats to inform and inspire new desires and dreams. 

“Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.” Jalaluddin Rumi

[mathematicianadda]

A Few Thoughts about Deep Fakes

Someone from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence recently contacted me about a hearing they’re having on the subject of deep fakes. I can’t attend the hearing, but the conversation got me thinking about the subject of deep fakes, and I made a few quick notes….

What You See May Not Be What Happened

The idea of modifying images is as old as photography. At first, it had to be done by hand (sometimes with airbrushing). By the 1990s, it was routinely being done with image manipulation software such as Photoshop. But it’s something of an art to get a convincing result, say for a person inserted into a scene. And if, for example, the lighting or shadows don’t agree, it’s easy to tell that what one has isn’t real.

What about videos? If one does motion capture, and spends enough effort, it’s perfectly possible to get quite convincing results—say for animating aliens, or for putting dead actors into movies. The way this works, at least in a first approximation, is for example to painstakingly pick out the keypoints on one face, and map them onto another.

What’s new in the past couple of years is that this process can basically be automated using machine learning. And, for example, there are now neural nets that are simply trained to do “face swapping”:

In essence, what these neural nets do is to fit an internal model to one face, and then apply it to the other. The parameters of the model are in effect learned from looking at lots of real-world scenes, and seeing what’s needed to reproduce them. The current approaches typically use generative adversarial networks (GANs), in which there’s iteration between two networks: one trying to generate a result, and one trying to discriminate that result from a real one.

Today’s examples are far from perfect, and it’s not too hard for a human to tell that something isn’t right. But even just as a result of engineering tweaks and faster computers, there’s been progressive improvement, and there’s no reason to think that within a modest amount of time it won’t be possible to routinely produce human-indistinguishable results.

Can Machine Learning Police Itself?

OK, so maybe a human won’t immediately be able to tell what’s real and what’s not. But why not have a machine do it? Surely there’s some signature of something being “machine generated”. Surely there’s something about a machine-generated image that’s statistically implausible for a real image.

Well, not naturally. Because, in fact, the whole way the machine images are generated is by having models that as faithfully as possible reproduce the “statistics” of real images. Indeed, inside a GAN there’s explicitly a “fake or not” discriminator. And the whole point of the GAN is to iterate until the discriminator can’t tell the difference between what’s being generated, and something real.

Could one find some other feature of an image that the GAN isn’t paying attention to—like whether a face is symmetric enough, or whether writing in the background is readable? Sure. But at this level it’s just an arms race: having identified a feature, one puts it into the model the neural net is using, and then one can’t use that feature to discriminate any more.

There are limitations to this, however. Because there’s a limit to what a typical neural net can learn. Generally, neural nets do well at tasks like image recognition that humans do without thinking. But it’s a different story if one tries to get neural nets to do math, and for example factor numbers.

Imagine that in modifying a video one has to fill in a background that’s showing some elaborate computation—say a mathematical one. Well, then a standard neural net basically doesn’t stand a chance.

Will it be easy to tell that it’s getting it wrong? It could be. If one’s dealing with public-key cryptography, or digital signatures, one can certainly imagine setting things up so that it’s very hard to generate something that is correct, but easy to check whether it is.

But will this kind of thing show up in real images or videos? My own scientific work has actually shown that irreducibly complex computation can be quite ubiquitous even in systems with very simple rules—and presumably in many systems in nature. Watch a splash in water. It takes a complex computation to figure out the details of what’s going to happen. And while a neural net might be able to get something that basically looks like a splash, it’d be vastly harder for it to get the details of a particular splash right.

But even though in the abstract computational irreducibility may be common, we humans, in our evolution and the environments we set up for ourselves, tend to end up doing our best to avoid it. We have shapes with smooth curves. We build things with simple geometries. We try to make things evolvable or understandable.  And it’s this avoidance of computational irreducibility that makes it feasible for neural nets to successfully model things like the visual scenes in which we typically find ourselves.

One can disrupt this, of course. Just put in the picture a display that’s showing some sophisticated computation (even, for example, a cellular automaton). If someone tries to fake some aspect of this with a neural net, it won’t (at least on its own) feasibly be able to get the details right.

I suspect that in the future of human technology—as we mine deeper in the computational universe—irreducible computation will be much more common in what we build. But as of now, it’s still rare in typical human-related situations. And as a result, we can expect that neural nets will successfully be able to model what’s going on well enough to at least fool other neural nets.

How to Know What’s Real

So if there’s no way to analyze the bits in an image to tell if it’s a real photograph, does that mean we just can’t tell? No. Because we can also think about metadata associated with the image—and about the provenance of the image. When was the image created? By whom? And so on.

So let’s say we create an image. How can we set things up so that we can prove when we did it? Well, in modern times it’s actually very easy. We take the image, and compute a cryptographic hash from it (effectively by applying a mathematical operation that derives a number from the bits in the image). Then we take this hash and put it on a blockchain.

The blockchain acts as a permanent ledger. Once we’ve put data on it, it can never be changed, and we can always go back and see what the data was, and when it was added to the blockchain.

This setup lets us prove that the image was created no later than a certain time. If we want to prove that the image wasn’t created earlier, then when we create the hash for the image, we can throw in a hash from the latest block on our favorite blockchain.

OK, but what about knowing who created the image? It takes a bit of cryptographic infrastructure—very similar to what’s done in proving the authenticity of websites. But if one can trust some “certificate authority” then one can associate a digital signature to the image that validates who created it.

But how about knowing where the image was taken? Assuming one has a certain level of access to the device or the software, GPS can be spoofed. If one records enough about the environment when the image was taken, then it gets harder and harder to spoof. What were the nearby Wi-Fi networks? The Bluetooth pings? The temperature? The barometric pressure? The sound level? The accelerometer readings? If one has enough information collected, then it becomes easier to tell if something doesn’t fit.

There are several ways one could do this. Perhaps one could just detect anomalies using machine learning. Or perhaps one could use actual models of how the world works (the path implied by the accelerometer isn’t consistent with the equations of mechanics, etc.). Or one could somehow tie the information to some public computational fact. Was the weather really like that in the place the photo was said to be taken? Why isn’t there a shadow from such-and-such a plane going overhead? Why is what’s playing on the television not what it should be? Etc.

But, OK, even if one just restricts oneself to creation time and creator ID, how can one in practice validate them?

The best scheme seems to be something like how modern browsers handle website security. The browser tries to check the cryptographic signature of the website. If it matches, the browser shows something to say the website is secure; if not, it shows some kind of warning.

So let’s say an image comes with data on its creation time and creator ID. The data could be metadata (say EXIF data), or it could be a watermark imprinted on the detailed bits in the image. Then the image viewer (say in the browser) can check whether the hash on a blockchain agrees with what the data provided by the image implies. If it does, fine. And the image viewer can make the creation time and creator ID available. If not, the image viewer should warn the user that something seems to be wrong.

Exactly the same kind of thing can be done with videos. It just requires video players computing hashes on the video, and comparing to what’s on a blockchain. And by doing this, one can guarantee, for example, that one’s seeing a whole video that was made at a certain time.

How would this work in practice? Probably people often wouldn’t want to see all the raw video taken at some event. But a news organization, for example, could let people click through to it if they wanted. And one can easily imagine digital signature mechanisms that could be used to guarantee that an edited video, for example, contained no content not in certain source videos, and involved, say, specified contiguous chunks from these source videos.

The Path Forward

So, where does this leave us with deep fakes? Machine learning on its own won’t save us. There’s not going to be a pure “fake or not” detector that can run on any image or video. Yes, there’ll be ways to protect oneself against being “faked” by doing things like wearing a live cellular automaton tie. But the real way to combat deep fakes, I think, is to use blockchain technology—and to store on a public ledger cryptographic hashes of both images and sensor data from the environment where the images were acquired. The very presence of a hash can guarantee when an image was acquired; “triangulating” from sensor and other data can give confidence that what one is seeing was something that actually happened in the real world.

Of course, there are lots of technical details to work out. But in time I’d expect image and video viewers could routinely check against blockchains (and “data triangulation computations”), a bit like how web browsers now check security certificates. And today’s “pics or it didn’t happen” will turn into “if it’s not on the blockchain it didn’t happen”.

from Stephen Wolfram Blog http://bit.ly/2X3fQzD from Blogger http://bit.ly/2IEJ0f1

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/catastrophically-stupid-plot-to-smear-robert-mueller-exposed-by-trail-of-online-evidence/

Catastrophically Stupid Plot to Smear Robert Mueller Exposed by Trail of Online Evidence

Special counsel Robert Mueller.Photo: J. Scott Applewhite (AP)

Conspiracy theories are almost always bullshit, but actual conspiracies are often easy to identify because one of the parties with knowledge of a plot cracks under the pressure or leaks information about it to others. For example, the Watergate plot fell apart largely because of the testimony of Mark “Deep Throat” Felt, an FBI associate director who told investigative journalists details of President Richard Nixon’s coverup of his role in the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in DC.

On Tuesday, another much sloppier and stupider conspiracy involving the FBI—an apparent attempt to smear former FBI director and current special counsel Robert Mueller as a rapist—fell apart in record time due to the women the conspirators allegedly intended to bribe and the mind-blowing trail of digital evidence left behind.

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On Tuesday, the Atlantic reported that Mueller, who is running an investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 elections and its possible links to Donald Trump’s campaign, had referred a plot to pay off women to make up false claims of sexual misconduct against him to the FBI. Two women, who identified themselves as Lorraine Parsons and Jennifer Taub, told journalists and media figures including Twitter celebrity Ed Krassenstein of the Hill Reporter that they had been offered large sums of cash for accusations against Mueller.

“When we learned last week of allegations that women were offered money to make false claims about the special counsel, we immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation,” the special counsel’s spokesperson, Peter Carr, told the Atlantic.

Krassenstein told NBC News that while investigating the women’s claims, he had received threats, including a text message with his home address saying “You’re in over your head…. Drop this”. Yet the plot seems to have continued to proceed regardless, despite the fact the crucial element of secrecy had already faded. NBC News wrote that GOP lobbyist Jack Burkman, a well-known conspiracy theorist, was openly advertising he had supposed proof that Mueller was an abuser on Facebook:

Around the same time reporters began to be contacted about the misconduct allegations, Jack Burkman, a Republican lobbyist and radio host, began promoting, via his Facebook page, that he is investigating sexual misconduct and alcohol-related allegations against Mueller. On Tuesday morning he tweeted that he would hold a press conference two days later to “reveal the first of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s sex assault victims.”

Over the past two years, Burkman has peddled a separate, evolving conspiracy theory that has blamed several different wild plots for the death of Democratic staffer Seth Rich, who was shot on a Washington street in 2016 during an apparent botched robbery.

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Emails obtained by the Atlantic showed that the woman identifying herself as Parsons told reporters she had been offered complete clearance of her credit-card debt, as well as an additional $20,000 payment by a firm called Surefire Intelligence, “to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller.” Parsons said she was also asked to sign a “sworn affidavit” attesting to the accusations’ accuracy.

Though Parsons said she had worked at a law firm with Mueller in 1974, the firm in question denied any records of that to NBC News, and no one seems to have otherwise tracked this person down. Burkman now insists she’s fictional. But Taub, a Vermont Law School professor who says she has never met Mueller, also told the Atlantic she had received emails from a Surefire account proposing a similar arrangement. (No one has alleged money actually changed hands, if it was ever seriously on the table in the first place.)

Per the Atlantic, Surefire Intelligence advertises itself as “a private intel agency that designs and executes bespoke solutions for businesses and individuals who face complex business and litigation challenges.” Yet it quickly became clear one of the persons behind Surefire was Jacob Wohl, a D-list celebrity Trump supporter mostly known for annoying people on Twitter.

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Some context here: Wohl is best known as the number one @realDonaldTrump “reply guy”—i.e., rushing to be the account with the top sycophantic reply to any given Trump tweet. Virtually every day, he’s lining up to post #MAGA tweets flattering the president and touting whatever hot BS will grow his conservative following.

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As the Daily Beast noted, he’s also a conspiracy theorist whose past includes stints as a hedge-fund manager. Years ago, Wohl fell afoul of regulators with the National Futures Association and Arizona Corporation Commission after clients accused him of fraud. (The latter entity barred him from its membership for life, while Wohl attracted additional scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission.) So he is not exactly the most trustworthy character.

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Wohl has repeatedly denied having any links to Surefire, which the Daily Beast reported posted advertisements boasting its elite Israeli intelligence credentials on Craigslist. Surefire also seems to have seeded blogging platform Medium with “suspiciously vague” posts touting how good it is at the art of spycraft, the Beast wrote:

Surefire is a bit of a mystery. Since-deleted Craigslist advertisements for the company said it “was founded by two members of Israel’s elite intelligence community.” The ads billed services including “counter intelligence,” “private spies,” and “ethical hackers.”

… Among the little public information available on the company is a pair of suspiciously vague posts on the publishing platform Medium. Both posts were written to appear as journalistic exposes of the company but neither does much beyond extolling its supposed expertise and impressive client list—without naming any of the clients. Both the posts were written by self-described journalists whose Twitter accounts were created in the last three months, and neither has done much beyond promote their Medium posts on Surefire.

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According to the Beast, Wohl told them that Burkman had hired Surefire’s “managing partner” Matthew Cohen to assist in his quest to find accusers against Mueller. But the trail of evidence linking Wohl to the firm now includes contact numbers leading to his mom’s phone and a photo of “Matthew Cohen” that appears to be… Wohl, just poorly doctored to black out his face.

Again, this is a face that is instantly recognizable to many of the millions of people who read the president’s tweets.

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Domain records for Surefire Intelligence’s website also listed Wohl’s email (jacob.wohl@nexmanagement.com), according to NBC News.

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So either Cohen exists and cleverly set up Wohl as his fall guy, or Wohl was LARPing as an international super-spy using his mom’s phone number and personal email. (It’s not clear whether Burkman was aware of the second possibility.)

OK. Still with us? Because this is already very, very stupid.

It’s about to get stupider.

For one, Surefire’s list of intelligence experts included similarly poorly doctored photos ripped off the web, including models and celebrity actor Christoph Waltz:

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As all of this inane scheming began going viral Tuesday following the Atlantic’s report, someone apparently forwarded one of the accusations to the Gateway Pundit, a far-right website known for both its popularity with Trump supporters and wild-eyed credulity. Wohl, who had repeatedly denied any involvement with Surefire, posted news of the resulting story to his Twitter account. Perhaps he was under the impression no one would draw the connection.

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The Gateway Pundit’s story (which Gizmodo has chosen not to link to) cited documents from a firm with an “International Private Intelligence” tagline. Those documents alleged that “on or around” Aug. 2, 2010, Mueller—then the director of the FBI—was reeking of alcohol at Manhattan’s St. Regis Hotel when he identified himself to an unnamed woman as “a cop” attending a conference in the city. When Mueller asked her to join him in his room and she refused, the story went, Mueller told her “I work for the FBI” and “I’m not the guy that you say no to.” The documents then accused Mueller of intimidating her into coming to his hotel room before sexually assaulting her.

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As NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny noted on Twitter, “International Private Intelligence” is Surefire’s tagline. Hmmm.

The holes in the Gateway Pundit’s story are obvious, and too many to list in full. But here’s one: Gizmodo found that on Aug. 2, 2010, Mueller was reported by the Washington Post to have attended and been dismissed from jury duty in DC Superior Court while in the company of an “ear-pieced security guy.” So for this incident to have occurred on the listed date, the FBI director would have needed to leave jury duty, and instead of finishing his interrupted work day, ditch his security detail to undertake a multi-hour journey to get drunk in New York and sexually assault a stranger. (By the way, a 2009 report noted Mueller was under such constant guard while head of the FBI that four armed guards stood outside a barbershop where he was getting a haircut.)

The Gateway Pundit has since retracted its story, writing “We took the documents down and we are currently investigating these accusations. There are also very serious allegations against Jacob Wohl. We are also looking into this.”

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So, to recap, it looks an awful lot like a bunch of conspiracy theorists got together and tried to launch their own conspiracy, showing in the process they were nowhere near competent enough to actually organize a conspiracy. And despite the fact that said plot blew apart faster than a blackout drunk mishandling fireworks at a Fourth of July barbecue, and the key players involved were very likely being monitored and investigated by the FBI as of Tuesday afternoon, they seem to have decided to move forward with it.

It is also entirely possible, as various sites have suggested, this was never about Mueller per se and instead some kind of long-winded attempt to troll the media—or maybe pull a supposed gotcha on the #MeToo movement, which emphasizes believing accounts of sexual violence. Either would stretch the definition of “trolling,” seeing as only the alleged conspirators look stupid here. (For example, the only media outlet to report the Mueller accusation as anything other than a hoax appears to be the Gateway Pundit, which is one of the president’s favorite news sites.)

Wohl, who a lawyer might advise to stop talking, is continuing to tweet about the hoax. Specifically, that he’s not owned.

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To quote the ending of Burn After Reading:

“Jesus fucking Christ. What did we learn, Palmer?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“I don’t fucking know, either. I guess we learned not to do it again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m fucked if I know what we did.”

“Yes sir, it’s hard to say.”

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Gizmodo has reached out to Wohl for comment, and we’ll update this post if we hear back.

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[The Atlantic/NBC News/The Daily Beast]

Source: https://gizmodo.com/catastrophically-stupid-plot-to-smear-robert-mueller-ex-1830115833

[brittanyinterviews]

Lyka Sethi, Director and Producer of “Moving In Place”

Lyka Sethi, director and producer of Moving In Place

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This interview was conducted via email in August 2018.

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Brittany: Can you tell me a bit about yourself?

Lyka: I’m a first gen Indian-American, born, raised, and educated in the Bay Area. After college I lived in NYC, where I spent five years learning how to be an adult. I said farewell to it earlier this year and am currently based in Germany. I pay the bills as a freelance editor and writer and am excited to be carrying out a lifelong dream of being a documentary director. My first film, set to be screened by the end of the year, is a feature doc called Moving In Place. It’s about the experiences of young Puerto Ricans as they navigate life on and off the island, amidst its ongoing crises and diaspora. Hurricane Maria ultimately plays a huge part in the film, as it intensified the ever-present question that young Puerto Ricans face: to stay on the island that they call home, or to leave in search of a more secure life? And once they make that decision, what does that mean for their futures and the future of Puerto Rico?

Brittany: How did you get into documentary filmmaking? Have you always been a fan of the genre?

Lyka: Funnily enough, I tend to skew more toward consuming fictional content, but I have seen a lot of gripping, emotionally-stirring docs that I think can be classified as works of art -- and entertainment. And I think that has actually worked in my favor. I keep a focus on storytelling and impact, in addition to sharing realities.

I always had documentary filmmaking in the back of my mind (see above re: lifelong dream), but honestly never thought it would happen. Not attending film school and not having any professional filmmaking experience made me feel like an imposter from day one!

More than anything, Moving In Place stemmed from a need to do something to spread awareness about Puerto Rican issues and experiences. As an Indian-American with my own set of identity crises, I felt drawn to the subject matter (which I discussed in more detail in my Medium post). I chose documentary as the platform, but fundamentally I just wanted to share stories to ensure that this slice of history is not forgotten, and it felt like the right medium. I did tons of research and had conversation upon conversation about everything from what format to shoot in, to how to build a crew, to how to consciously share Puerto Rican stories as an outsider and how to comprehend my role in this. It took months to get to a point where we felt ready to even discuss picking up a camera.

Brittany: Can you discuss the origin of the film's title, Moving In Place?

Lyka: So glad to be asked this question! We wanted the title to encapsulate the experience of being simultaneously stuck and in flux, having a choice but not really having a choice. This feeling came up throughout our conversations with everyone who is featured in the film.

In terms of identity and political status, for example: Puerto Ricans are US citizens, but are viewed as a separate class, are exposed to American culture and alienated from it at the same time, and while they feel a strong attachment to the island and to their own culture, they feel a pressure to be “American.” There’s a strong will to gain autonomy, but also a movement for statehood.

In terms of physical place: there’s a constant push and pull that the young Puerto Ricans we spoke to experience. Our subjects grapple with the decision of whether to stay on the island and work to make it a better place, or to migrate to the States in order to build stable careers and lives.

This is a bit of a simplification, but essentially the title is a reflection of these constant questions and obstacles, that in many ways are actually quite relatable: Who am I? Where am I and where am I supposed to be?

Brittany: According to the film's website, you fell in love with Puerto Rico when visiting in 2013. Can you share a memory that stands out most from your first time there?

Lyka: It’s hard to answer this knowing that the island looked and felt so different the last time I was there, two months after Hurricane Maria hit. The first time I visited, I was beginning to understand the complicated relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. I loved everyone who I met there, the spirit of the island, all of the little details. Having breakfast at Kasalta, a staple in the Ocean Park neighborhood of San Juan. Listening to the sound of the coquís, Puerto Rico’s native frogs. The list goes on.

When we were filming last December, I saw so much more of the island, talked to so many more people, and saw firsthand how resilient Puerto Ricans are -- and have always had to be. The subjects featured in our film opened up their lives and homes to us, even if their water wasn’t running or their electricity was out. Almost everyone who we approached on the island from Ponce to Salinas to San Juan was eager to share their perspective. The island’s beauty still shone through post-Maria, but was very much changed and with pockets of extreme desolation. The sorely lacking governmental response to the hurricane was apparent and visceral immediately upon leaving the airport; downed telephone poles, tangled wires, street closures, shuttered businesses, debris.

Brittany: Some of the issues Puerto Ricans face that are touched on in the trailer and the Medium post you mentioned include the region's status as a US territory, Hurricane Maria, and high rates of unemployment, all of which contribute to the larger Puerto Rican diaspora. Can you elaborate on this a bit more?

Lyka: There’s so much to say here. First off, the Puerto Rican diaspora certainly isn’t a new phenomenon. The island has been steadily losing residents over several decades, and most significantly since World War II. Puerto Rico’s status as a US territory plays a leading role in fueling its cyclic economic crises as the US has inflicted a series of damaging policy decisions on it.

Back in the late 1800s, Puerto Rico had a large, local, diversified agricultural economy. The United States came in and basically turned it into a cash crop economy, shifting production entirely to sugar cane. Eventually, this industry collapsed as it became highly competitive, leaving Puerto Rican farmers with, essentially, nothing. That’s not a great starting point, is it?

As I mentioned in the Medium post, Puerto Rican municipal bonds were deemed tax exempt by the US government in 1917, at the same time Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship. This has been attractive to investors, even as they realized PR likely would never be able to pay them back. If that wasn’t bad enough, the US-written constitution mandates that these bond obligations take precedence over funding social service programs like infrastructure, education, and healthcare.

American corporations also received major tax exemptions for setting up shop in Puerto Rico, which led to an economic boom on the island for several years. Ultimately those tax breaks were dismantled in 2006, which caused -- you guessed it -- an economic crisis. Poverty and unemployment skyrocketed. The island is still reeling from this, over a decade later. On top of that, the island’s own local government is riddled with corruption.

As a result of Puerto Rico’s mounting debt over the years, the government has had to slash funding for social services. There’s little job security for anyone in any field, really -- and notably much-needed professions like doctors and teachers. So, as you can imagine, people have been leaving the island in droves for a while. Hurricane Maria, of course, exacerbated all of these issues and created new ones. And now the island may lose even more of its population in record time.

Brittany: This film was a collaboration between yourself and your partner, Geoffrey Iwata. Both of you have varied backgrounds: you have a degree in business and have worked in branding, editing, and writing, while Geoff is an experimental physicist. Did you derive knowledge, skills, and experiences from these disciplines to create the film?

Lyka: Absolutely. My background lent itself well to developing a vision, figuring out how to best execute it, and building and organizing a team. Geoff picked up complicated technical know-how incredibly quickly, he’s a great budgeter, he has an eye for detail, and his analytical mindset helped us tackle difficult questions. We both have an affinity for storytelling, myself from a brand identity standpoint -- turning ideas and feelings into compelling narratives, and Geoff from an academic standpoint -- making sense of complex topics and making them digestible. We were luckily able to blend skill sets quite well.

(Fun fact: Geoff and I got married in the midst of the film’s production. Great timing, right? Thankfully we were both on board with having a City Hall wedding.)

Brittany: What were some of the biggest challenges you've faced as a first-time filmmaker? Did you receive any helpful advice on your filmmaking journey?

Lyka: One of the things I’m most glad that I did early on in the process was to attend a massive documentary festival called DOC NYC. There, I was able to get a sense of what being in the community actually feels like and learn things that people only understand after years of being in the field. I met awesome people of different backgrounds; some early career filmmakers, some more seasoned. It was basically a week of nonstop learning, watching films, and connecting with wonderful people (including some really inspiring female filmmakers). This experience helped me dodge a lot of bullets. The downside, though, was realizing that getting a film out there in this insanely competitive landscape is immensely challenging. There are so many different possible routes to success (and many actually end up in failure), and only a few really make it. That was hard to swallow.

I always say that every successive part of the process has felt harder and more mistake-ridden than the last.

When we were first developing the project, it seemed so daunting to imagine that this idea could become a real film. Setting up our initial meetings and pre-interviews felt surreal, truthfully.

Then, during production, challenges became more tangible. Navigating the daily struggles of scheduling, having only a 3-person crew, equipment management, media management (we shot most of the film in 4k, which is notoriously difficult to deal with due to large file sizes), power availability on the island, you name it. We actually were about to head from Florida to Puerto Rico the day before the hurricane hit, and had to cancel everything and turn back. Two months later, we luckily were able to head to PR, but for a much shorter stay. That meant that what we were originally planning to spread out over about eight days had to be squeezed into five. We just had to roll with the punches.

In post-production, staying on timeline was immensely difficult. Being overseas and far away from the rest of our team meant we did all of our editing remotely. It was kind of insane.

Now here we are with a finished film, trying to wrestle the ins and outs of getting the film out to people as soon as we can because of how time-sensitive these issues are. Right now, this feels like the hardest part. It’s all relative! Having wonderful, open-minded subjects and a team of resourceful, driven individuals who care so deeply about the project has made it all easier and more rewarding.

Brittany: How did you go about finding the crew for the film and the interviewees depicted?

Lyka: We were lucky to have a good network. One thing sort of led to another, it was a ripple effect. We knew some Puerto Ricans who had relocated to New York, who then introduced us to others who were in different places both on and off the island. We talked to everyone we could until we had a core group of subjects (who are all amazing people who we’ve become great friends with).

For the crew it was a similar process. One of our advisors at Columbia University, Dr. Frances Negrón-Muntaner, had a connection to the Director of Photography we eventually brought on, Indio Martinez. He then connected us to our editor, Dilila McDonagh, who later referred us to our Graphics Lead Katy. One of our subjects introduced us to our talented Puerto Rican composer Camilo Pentzke, and he eventually brought on our Sound Designer, Francisco Rios. Lots of serendipity and good timing were involved!

Brittany: What are some of the biggest takeaways you'd like viewers to get from the film?

Lyka: One of our biggest goals is to help build empathy toward members of the Puerto Rican diaspora. As people inevitably continue to move from the island to the States, we need to ensure that they are understood and welcomed. I also hope viewers walk away with a bit more of an understanding of Puerto Rico’s history and current situation, and a desire to learn more and speak out about America’s role in creating the island’s current crises. While these deep-rooted historical mistakes can’t be corrected, if we as citizens educate ourselves, we can pressure our politicians to do better, and we can make a difference.

We really feel that compassion is the root of change. So if people walk away feeling or thinking about any of the above, then we’ve made a contribution.

Brittany: How can readers keep up with the goings-on in Puerto Rico? Do you have any favorite news sources or important voices you'd like to highlight?

Lyka: David Begnaud of CBS News has done incredible work surrounding the island during and post-Maria. He is actually putting out a documentary as well sometime in September I believe… He’s one of the few reporters that has kept talking about Puerto Rico, long after the headlines faded. I’d even recommend following him on Twitter to get updates.

The book War Against All Puerto Ricans by Nelson Antonio Denis provides a solid understanding of everything the island has been through as a US colony, contextualized through the life of Pedro Albizu Campos who led the Puerto Rican independence movement from the ‘30s through the mid ‘60s.

Naomi Klein is an academic and writer who just put out a book called The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists, also about Hurricane Maria and its aftermath. It’s short and digestible but gives a clear overview of the challenges the island faces.

I’d also just like to mention here that all of our voices are powerful. Use your platforms not only to learn, but also to talk about Puerto Rico’s current situation. (We’re almost at the one-year anniversary of the hurricane and things are still looking bleak.) Even if you make just one person pay attention, you’ve helped spread the word.

Brittany: What can readers expect to see from you in the future? Do you have any documentary work on the horizon?

Lyka: I’m really focused on getting Moving In Place out into the world right now, since the message is so important and timely in this moment. We’re planning to host community screenings at least in NYC and on the island before the end of the year. If any readers have a desire to see the film screened in their communities, don’t hesitate to reach out!

I am currently in the super early stages of developing a documentary short. I can’t say too much about it yet, but it relates to my family history in India. I’m also working on some small personal projects to hone my craft. Hopefully I will be able to share more exciting updates soon!

The trailer for Moving In Place

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Photos provided by Lyka Sethi.

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Special thanks to Lyka for discussing her documentary with us. You can learn more about Moving In Place on their website (where you can sign up for their e-newsletter, which they send out sporadically with updates about the film), Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Feel free to reach out to their team directly at movinginplacefilm@gmail.com

[haulix]

Remember to save some art for yourself

Music writing can be a double-edged sword as far as fandom is concerned. The fact you’re in a position to influence a group of consumers makes it possible for you to get closer to your favorite artists than you probably would otherwise, but it also means you have to continue following those artists’ every move long after your initial interest in their work has begun to fade. This is honestly a best-case scenario because more often than not writing about music means you have to not only know but learn to appreciate the works of many artists whom you would otherwise not make time to experience. Establishing a career in writing requires that you be engaged with the wide world of music, and that entails keeping tabs on far more artists than those you personally enjoy. Over time this can make the joy of writing feel a lot more like work than most would care to admit. But that’s because writing is just that — work.

This is not a complaint, per say, but rather a matter of fact. You cannot make it in music writing simply by covering the artists you enjoy when you enjoy them. You need follow-through, and more importantly, you need to engage the fans of artists regularly to ensure people continue to care about your writing and/or publication exists.

When I began writing about music I did so because I felt there were artists I knew and enjoyed that most of the world had yet to recognize. If you could find my first hundred articles, I can almost guarantee every single one would be based on an artist or group I admired at the time, and if I'm completely honest, I would also wager most of those posts are fairly similar. They each praise a group I loved at the time, and they each argue others should feel the same. I built my initial following by covering bands like A Day To Remember, Chiodos, Secret Secret Dino Club, and The Wonder Years whenever possible, and I made it a point to interview someone from the band every time a new piece of news presented an opportunity for discussion. As word of my work grew, so did interest from others bands and labels about having their talent promoted through my channels. I was completely blown away by these requests, so of course, I agree to almost everyone that hit my inbox, and as I began to network with the industry at large my writing began to encompass more and more bands. Some acts I enjoyed, but most were perfectly average in my mind, and looking back now I know the only reason I covered them is that I felt that it is what my (arguably non-existent) audience wanted. Whether or not that was true is something I’ll never truly know, but I do know that covering a wide array of talent helped me navigate the industry and secure full-time work in the business I love the most. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Do I continue to cover any and everything that comes my way as a result? Hell no.

It’s incredibly difficult to land a job in music that allows you to share everything you love all the time. Most jobs are far more focused than that, be it covering solely alternative music or perhaps just hip-hop. Finding a paid position that covers everything is rarer than a Morrissey performance that goes off without a hitch, and they are becoming increasingly hard to come by as the demand for specific content curators continues to rise. I used to have a big problem with this because I felt, and still do believe, that everyone is able to enjoy a little bit of everything. I might not love country music, but there are several country artists I enjoy. The same goes for musicals, top 40 radio pop, and obscure shoegaze bands. None of these areas of music are where I spend the majority of my time, but they each are filled with wonderful talent that is deserving of exposure and praise. Just because this is true however does not mean I am the person to tell you these acts exist. I can tweet about it, sure, but I cannot dedicate every minute of my day to telling you about everything I love as I once did. That is not my job.

At first, the need to separate the work I am paid to do the work I would like to do was incredibly frustrating. I felt as though my initial mission to help more people discover great music had been compromised by the need for a paycheck, but over time I came to realize that was not true. Having full-time employment gave me more freedom than I had ever had before as far as creative pursuits were concerned, and though I couldn’t argue the need to cover everything I could do more to help a specific set of artists and bands than ever before. Instead of writing about 40 or 50 acts a week I wrote about 10 at most, but I made sure to make each piece released as good as it could be. Having fewer artists to cover made it possible for me to dig deeper into my coverage and, ultimately, provide higher quality content to my readers.

But what about all that other stuff I loved? Did I turn my back on a world of talent just because they didn’t fit my 9-5 lifestyle?

Of course not.

I still love a wide array of bands as I always have, but these days I keep some things I love to myself if for no other reason than the ability to enjoy certain songs or records without turning that enjoyment into work. Before I had full-time work in music, I viewed everything I enjoyed as something I would eventually cover, which in turn made everything I enjoyed some form of work. Maybe it wasn’t hard work, but it was work nonetheless, and as a result, my relationship with music began to change. The idea of listening to music for the sake of simply enjoying it became an absurd concept, as I hadn’t purely enjoyed music for years on end. I liked it, and I wouldn’t know what to do without it, but at the end of the day I was trying to put food on my table based on what I was listening to, and that put a lot of undue pressure on myself, as well as the talent.

When I speak to aspiring writers and music professionals today, I encourage them to experience as much music as possible. As soon as I do this, I immediately tag my comments by adding that not every great song or record needs to become the sole focus of their work moving forward. It’s not only perfectly acceptable, but it’s also needed. If you lose your ability to simply enjoy music, you will be unable to accurately critique it. The reason anyone begins chasing after a career in music in the first place is based on their love of enjoying music in their youth, and when you lose the ability to appreciate music in that way you begin to lose track of why you work in music. It’s not about clicks, and it’s certainly not about being the first person to hear the next buzz-worthy release. It’s about celebrating art and the appreciation of art, as well as making others aware of undiscovered talent. You can only do this to the best of your abilities if you too are still able to be wowed by music. If you’ve lost that passion, or even if you believe it has begun to fade, take a step back from writing and unplug from everything except your stereo. Put on the records that first inspired your career aspirations and reconnect with the source of your drive to succeed. Never lose your passion.

[loycereiber]

Hidden Assets in Divorce

A good, healthy marriage is based on trust. We all have secrets. But when those secrets affect your relationship, they can often come back to haunt you later. As a divorce lawyer, I’ve seen this happen before. Marriage is a partnership where both parties are making a commitment to share their life together.

DOES YOUR SPOUSE HAVE HIDDEN ASSETS?

And one of the biggest components is sharing your finances and assets. But when a marriage falls apart, many people resort to hiding many of the most valuable assets from their partners. Fortunately, there are ways to track down any hidden income and other assets.

DETERMINING THE DIVISION OF ASSETS

Divorce can often get complicated. One of the most complex issues is the division of assets. The first step is to consult with an experienced and knowledgeable divorce attorney When determining the full financial inventory of each spouse, assets are separated into three different categories:

Marital Assets:These are assets acquired strictly during the marriage.

Commingled Assets:These are a mixture marital assets and separate property. The most common examples are retirement funds and bank accounts.

Separate Assets:These are assets that were acquired prior to the marriage or after a separation. They can also be any inheritance or gift.

ARE YOU THE “OUT SPOUSE”?

In many marriages, one spouse is often in charge of handling most of the financial decisions and bookkeeping responsibilities, whether it is filing taxes or balancing the checkbook. Divorce attorneys often refer to the spouse who does not participate in most of the financial decisions as the “out spouse”. In these instances, the out spouse generally does not have the same level of access to the couple’s financial situation. If you are the out spouse, the first step is to ask your partner to make copies of all marital financial records. A cooperative spouse can make the process much easier. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case–especially when there is tremendous acrimony in the fractured relationship. The good news is most financial records can be found online. If you are unsure of any accounts, contact any banks, mortgage companies, retirement plan advisors or any relevant financial institutions during your marriage.

A DIVORCE ATTORNEY CAN HELP WITH THE DISCOVERY PROCESS

If you have made the difficult decision to file for divorce in Utah, it is vital to know all of the assets acquired during your marriage. If you have any suspicion your spouse is hiding any assets, it is important to contact a Salt Lake City divorce attorney with a track record helping clients through the discovery process. The attorney can make requests of several important types of financial documentation from your spouse, including tax returns, loan applications, bank account records, financial statements and much more. By utilizing the discovery process, you spouse will also have to answer specific questions in writing. It is the most effective method to gain financial information from an uncooperative spouse.

WHY DIVORCE IS MORE DIFFICULT FOR MEN

Divorce can be a bitter struggle. Anytime a long-term relationship comes to an end, it can be devastating both emotionally and financially. When it comes to divorce, it is often said there are no winners. But there is definitely plenty to lose. But who stands to lose more–men or women? More often than not, the answer is men. The lazy argument is men generally make more money and have more to lose financially. But that is only part of the equation. There are some other overlooked factors many people do not take into consideration.

Here are some scary statistics. Did you know divorce can affect your health? According to a study conducted by the Journal of Men’s Health, divorced men are more likely to contract heart disease, high blood pressure and strokes than their married counterparts. They are also 39 percent more likely to commit suicide or engage in risky behavior. Although popular opinion suggests women tend to be more emotional, there is more scientific evidence that suggests it may be the opposite when it comes to divorce. Here are some reasons why.

THE LOST SENSE OF IDENTITY

Many men fall into the trap of letting marriage define who they are. When a marriage comes to an end, men often get a sense of losing their identity. For years, they have spent much of their lives with a partner to provide emotional support and sexual fulfillment. One solution is to work on rebuilding confidence by joining an organization or getting involved in a new activity. It not only allows men to branch out and meet new people, it also gives them the opportunity regaining a sense of fulfillment by accomplishing new and different goals.

PATERNAL INSTINCT IS CHALLENGED

For many men, the sense of family is the backbone of their relationship. It can be a difficult transition to go from being the head of a household to being completely out on your own. It is important for men to remain a major part in the lives of their children. Although women typically are awarded primary child custody, the bond between a father and their children can be very therapeutic.

MEN DO NOT GRIEVE PROPERLY

Divorce and death are two completely different things. However, both can cause a huge void that is seen as irreplaceable. Because men have a tendency to bottle up their emotions, it can lead to deeper feelings of depression. Psychological issues can often become powerful triggers for high blood pressure. Depression involves much more than just feeling depressed. It can also lead to physical issues, including pain and less physical activity leading to obesity and heart disease.

Free Consultation with a Divorce Lawyer

If you have a question about divorce law or if you need to start or defend against a divorce case in Utah call Ascent Law at (801) 676-5506. We will help you.

Ascent Law LLC8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite CWest Jordan, Utah 84088 United StatesTelephone: (801) 676-5506

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Source: http://www.ascentlawfirm.com/hidden-assets-in-divorce/

[luciegould-blog1]

Unit Evaluation

General Feeling

I wasn’t expecting such a big step up from first year and man was it a big step. I found the three back to back one week projects very stressful due to how much work we had to do in such a short time. The first two one week projects were difficult as I felt that I had to do all of the work and struggled to realise that I was able to allocate work for the rest of the group to do, this is due to the fact that I usually put too much on my plate and feel that I need to do everything. However, by the third group project, I had figured out how to work well within a group and was able to be okay with other people doing some of the work. I found the exhibit project quite daunting at first due to the number of deliverables that we had to produce. I also didn’t fully understand the brief and was very confused about what a brand identity meant and therefore struggled for the first week of the project, however, once this got cleared up, I found the project enjoyable. I initially felt really worried about doing a process book on top of the other projects that we had, however, it turned out that I found the process book the most enjoyable part of the unit and did a lot of work on it to produce something that I’m proud to show.

 Ideas generation

To generate ideas for all of the projects, I first did some initial research and then started producing mind maps that contained some potential pathways that I could go down. I generally find the ideas generation quite hard, however, I feel that I’m getting better at thinking up ways to solve the problems that the briefs pose. To gain some more information about my briefs, I like to look at articles and news stories surrounding the subject and then also look at visual examples on the internet as well as in books so that I can get an idea of what would work and further develop my understanding of the content of the briefs. I found researching for the series and systems project interesting as I really like infographics and have researched a lot of different designers during my art foundation and first year and so knew which sources would be best to look at. The spatial communication project, however, was not as smooth sailing as I didn’t quite know what I was looking for. I find writing things down really beneficial in generating ideas as when I see them on paper I can start making links and further my ideas. I found, especially in the exhibit project, that I had a very broad range of ideas which needed refining so that I could follow a more focused path. I found generating ideas for the group projects much easier than when I have worked on my own since we could bounce ideas off of each other and work together to develop an idea that I probably wouldn’t have thought of on my own.

 Project Development

During the three one week projects, I found it essential to stay in contact with the rest of the group so that we could develop our project together. I found that when there hadn’t been good or clear communication, that our designs suffered which was very apparent I the Moving Brands project where I felt that we hadn’t worked on the outcomes as a pairing and instead did our own thing due to lack of communication and group work. During the exhibit project, to develop my designs, I used advice from the tutorials and interim critique as well as additional research to see how other designers had solved similar problems. I found the interim critique especially helpful as it gave me a chance to see my peers work and to see how they had begun to solve the problem posed by the brief. Throughout the unit, I’ve found it really helpful to talk to everyone as it usually gave me a chance to look at the brief from a new perspective and come up with solutions that I may not have come up with if I hadn’t interacted. I also worked from my gut feelings and made changes that I thought were better which I feel is so important because, at the end of the day, I feel like you don’t gain anything if you don’t like your work, regardless of whether others think it’s successful.

 Time Management

Throughout the unit, I feel that I’ve managed my time well. During the three one week projects, it was hard to fit in times where everyone was available to work on the projects, however, I feel that in each individual project, the group managed to make it work which led to us producing content that we were all happy with. I found the exhibit project a lot easier to time manage as I didn’t have to take into account other people’s schedules. Saying this, it was still stressful and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to fit everything in. I found making lists and plans of what I needed to do and by when, really helpful and it made me keep up with the demands of the project. I also made sure that I was blogging regularly so that it was always up to date with where I was at with each project. I made a rule for myself that all of the body text for each project that I was going to include in my process book had to be complete the day after the project deadline. This meant that I could then just import it into InDesign and start to produce the layouts for the individual pages. I found that this worked really well for me, however, I think next time I could become a bit more efficient at it by taking a more formal approach to my blog so that I can just copy the text and use it in my process book, rather than creating a separate document.

 What I’ve learned

Throughout this unit, I’ve learnt about myself as a designer, as well as about myself as a person. The seminars really helped me to start thinking about why I design and what messages I want to convey in my work. I’m a very morally driven person, and through the seminars, I’ve decided that I want this to be portrayed in my work as I want it to show who I am. I’ve also continued to discover what my strengths and weakness are (animation is definitely not my thing) as well as what I enjoy doing the most. I’ve learnt that I get highly stressed and anxious when put under pressure and most of this pressure is put on me by myself, it’s my perfectionism coming out to play and I’ve learnt that I need to be able to manage this if I am to develop as both a person and a designer. I’ve learned how to work well within a group - to let people take some of the workload and to not be controlling over what we produce. I’ve also learned how to prioritise and time manage successfully and effectively so that I’m producing work that is to the best of my ability and is work that I’m proud of. I’ve also learned how to develop and follow a system successfully and this has been highly useful when creating my process book and exhibition deliverables as without a system, the design of both of these would have probably been all over the place. The way a brand identity works and looks is something that I’ve also learned, as before this unit, I had never even considered it or thought about it and didn’t exactly know what it was, however, I now find the whole concept really interesting and once I had figured out what a brand identity was and how to create one, I really enjoyed the process. Finally, I’ve learnt that G. F. Smith is way too expensive for my student budget so will be taking advantage of their free samples in the future.

 What I thought was successful

I felt that throughout the series and systems project we developed a successful system to work with and produced final outcomes that worked both as a set and individually. We worked well as a group and thought up a way of presenting our posters that wasn’t your standard piece of paper. During the spatial communication project, I feel that we represented our word “pose” successfully in the town centre by creating two experiments which we recorded. I feel that our experiments were successful and managed to communicate the definition that we chose in a way that wasn’t obvious. I think that throughout the exhibit project, I was able to use what I had learnt from the series and systems brief and apply a system to my brand identity that was able to be rolled out across all of the deliverables. I feel that I researched thoroughly into my chosen theme and chose a topic that I was interested in conveying. I found that I developed my work from the feedback that I was given and took the advice of the tutors as to how to improve my work. I think that in the end I chose an appropriate typeface and colour palette to base my system around and was successful in creating a brand name/logo that I could use for my exhibition. My wayfinding and signage was produced from research and I feel that it portrays a sense of the inspiration that I got from this research.

 What I would improve

If I were to do it again, I would definitely have done more research for the moving brands project as I feel that I didn’t grasp what exactly an ident/bumper was and therefore didn’t produce something that adhered to the brief. I would have also made sure that we worked on both idents together rather than doing one each as there wasn’t any consistency between the two in terms of the message that we were sending and the style. I think, as a group, we could have pushed the experiments that we did for the Spatial Communications project a bit further, however, due to the time limit, I feel that we did the best that we could do given the circumstances. Throughout the series and systems project, I probably would have communicated a bit better and discussed my ideas more as I felt that our final outcome wasn’t as strong as it could have been. If I were to do the Exhibit project again, I would have made sure I understood the brief, especially what it means to create a brand identity, before I started to develop my brand identity and deliverables as I feel that I could have saved a lot of time and could maybe have produced a more successful brand identity as I would have been able to experiment more with how the brand identity was conveyed. I would have also made sure that I asked one of the tutors for help when I didn’t understand something rather than stressing out about it on my own. For the next project, I will make more of an effort to make my blog more formal so that I can just copy most of it to put into my process book rather than typing out a whole new document and hopefully save myself some time.

[northshoregadgets]

15 Creative Hacks for Coming up With Blog Ideas (Even When Your Brain is Fried)

Why is that sometimes you’re bursting with more amazing ideas than you can even contain, and at others you can’t come up with an original thought to save your life?

The secret to having a constant arsenal of fresh ideas is to make your life your art. Instead of viewing content creation as a separate, contained activity, look at it as a 24/7 effort. This effort, incidentally, will make your job more effortless. If this advice seems a bit abstract, I’ve listed 15 ways that I keep the creative juices flowing in my own life.

The truth is you won’t always be brimming with inspiration, but by adopting these regular habits and constantly keeping tabs on your thoughts, you’ll never be faced with absolutely zero idea what to write about.

1. A trip to the bookstore.

Just 15 minutes flipping through books and magazines in your area of interest will breed new discoveries. Bring a notebook and leave with at least 25 leads to explore. Browsing through books in areas outside your normal interest is also a great way to make new connections and stimulate curiosity. Keep in mind, you can downsize and browse your own personal library as well–it’s bound to contain hidden gems.

2. Repurpose your content.

Get creative with different formats for the content you’ve already created. Play the opposite game with your work: If you have a listicle, pick an item from the list to explore further in an in-depth post. If you have a long-form article, make it short and sweet. Create infographics, e-mail series, SlideShares, Ebooks, or simply update old work and make it new (art is born in the re-write, right?). Work smarter, not harder, by reviving content you’ve already put work into.

3. Tap into social media.

Search trending Twitter hashtags and see what people are talking about. Browse relevant forums, LinkedIn and Facebook groups, Reddit feeds, Quora categories…you get the point! Social media gives you the power to know what people really care about.

4. Take notes religiously.

You know all those random nuggets that float through your head all day? Don’t let them drift away any longer! Become an obsessive note-taker, or all those seeds for content will never sprout. Whether you’re an old fashioned pen-and-paper person or prefer tools like Google Keep, record it all. Sometimes you’ll have epiphanies, and sometimes you’ll realize it’s nothing–either way, you’ll always have food for thought.

5. Doodle aimlessly.

Doodle, draw, or grab a coloring book. It’s like meditating, but without the pressure. Informal scribbling has proven cognitive benefits and sparks creativity no matter how unartistic you are.

6. Answer a question that’s always plagued you.

Time for a random example: Every single time I used to pass a graveyard since I was a little girl, I’d wonder, “What’s going to happen when there’s no more land?” Exploring this question led to a story in Earth Island Journal about the rise of the green burial industry. Looking into those questions you just can’t let go is a surefire way to write about something you find interesting.

7. Take a shower!

Hands down, I have my absolute best ideas in the shower. If nothing occurs to you, at least you’ll be re-energized and smell good.

8. Crowdsource from the comments section.

The comments section of any article or YouTube video is a goldmine of ideas. People post (and get extremely in-depth, as you know) about their opposing viewpoints. They ask questions and outright request future content. Why not be the one to step up and give the people what they want?

9. Look at other people’s stuff.

Analyze other people’s articles that are doing really well. Not to say that you should copy or imitate their style, but do you see a theme or something you can borrow to apply to yours? What kind of content is your audience eating up? Another trick is to look through quotes on sites like Quotery or BrainyQuotes–they’re great fodder for inspiration.

10. Live an adventurous life.

Being stuck in a rut in your daily life also impacts your ability to think creatively, whereas doing things differently gives you a new perspective. Take simple steps outside your comfort zone; write at a different time of day in a new coffee shop, talk to strangers, take a new class, get off at a random subway stop. Enjoying new experiences like travelling, learning, and meeting people translates to fresh ideas and more material.

11. Engage with a different generation.

Not saying I steal article ideas from my Nana, but she does clue me into so many things I would never otherwise be aware of. Kids are equally great sources of interesting ideas, and looking at things from their perspective will lift your spirits if nothing else. Conversations with different generations are especially good for uncovering stories about culture and human behavior that wouldn’t have occurred to you just speaking to peers with similar ways of thinking.

12. Work it out.

Get moving! I don’t mean hopping on a treadmill either–do something active that you find fun, whether it’s a hike, dance class, or yoga. The blood flow and endorphins will boost your mood and mind-power, plus combat the effects of slouching over a computer all the time.

13. Look through old photos and videos.

Taking a trip down memory lane makes you ruminate on your own stories…and readers always want to know more about your personal experiences. Give them a look into your own life to connect on a different level, as well as allow others to learn from your own trials and triumphs.

14. Keep a dream journal.

If you’re hitting a brick wall trying to think of a blog post, take a nap. You’ll be A) refreshed, and B) inspired by some potentially crazy dreams. Get in the habit of keeping a dream journal. Sometimes our subconscious provides breakthrough ideas–just ask Einstein and Edison!

15. Ask your audience.

This idea is almost too easy. It’s a win-win: you don’t have to come up with the ideas, and you’re bound to create something your readers care about.

Have you ever heard the quote, “There is no such thing as an original idea?” Well, there’s a ring of truth to that, but the point is that it’s a positive thing. The world is brimming with inspiration and places to look for material; creativity is a collaborative effort. Besides, no one besides you can truly see from your unique vantage point. All of the people, places, secrets, memories, and sights you’ve experienced give you the ability to spin a story that no one else quite can.

Now, I’m going to follow tip #8 and ask you: What are your favorite techniques for thinking of blog posts? Do you have any secret tips that help you in your content creation process?

Hannah Chenoweth is a conference producer and freelance writer based in Hoboken, NJ. She is a passionate storyteller who also also enjoys reading, yoga, travel, roadtrips, meeting new people, and adventures. Feel free to check out her past work at http://ift.tt/2p15BGK or say hi on Twitter @hannahchen2!

Image: PhuShutter/Shutterstock.com

The post 15 Creative Hacks for Coming up With Blog Ideas (Even When Your Brain is Fried) appeared first on BlogPaws.

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[jesicajparksuk]

15 Creative Hacks for Coming up With Blog Ideas (Even When Your Brain is Fried)

Why is that sometimes you’re bursting with more amazing ideas than you can even contain, and at others you can’t come up with an original thought to save your life?

The secret to having a constant arsenal of fresh ideas is to make your life your art. Instead of viewing content creation as a separate, contained activity, look at it as a 24/7 effort. This effort, incidentally, will make your job more effortless. If this advice seems a bit abstract, I’ve listed 15 ways that I keep the creative juices flowing in my own life.

The truth is you won’t always be brimming with inspiration, but by adopting these regular habits and constantly keeping tabs on your thoughts, you’ll never be faced with absolutely zero idea what to write about.

1. A trip to the bookstore.

Just 15 minutes flipping through books and magazines in your area of interest will breed new discoveries. Bring a notebook and leave with at least 25 leads to explore. Browsing through books in areas outside your normal interest is also a great way to make new connections and stimulate curiosity. Keep in mind, you can downsize and browse your own personal library as well–it’s bound to contain hidden gems.

2. Repurpose your content.

Get creative with different formats for the content you’ve already created. Play the opposite game with your work: If you have a listicle, pick an item from the list to explore further in an in-depth post. If you have a long-form article, make it short and sweet. Create infographics, e-mail series, SlideShares, Ebooks, or simply update old work and make it new (art is born in the re-write, right?). Work smarter, not harder, by reviving content you’ve already put work into.

3. Tap into social media.

Search trending Twitter hashtags and see what people are talking about. Browse relevant forums, LinkedIn and Facebook groups, Reddit feeds, Quora categories…you get the point! Social media gives you the power to know what people really care about.

4. Take notes religiously.

You know all those random nuggets that float through your head all day? Don’t let them drift away any longer! Become an obsessive note-taker, or all those seeds for content will never sprout. Whether you’re an old fashioned pen-and-paper person or prefer tools like Google Keep, record it all. Sometimes you’ll have epiphanies, and sometimes you’ll realize it’s nothing–either way, you’ll always have food for thought.

5. Doodle aimlessly.

Doodle, draw, or grab a coloring book. It’s like meditating, but without the pressure. Informal scribbling has proven cognitive benefits and sparks creativity no matter how unartistic you are.

6. Answer a question that’s always plagued you.

Time for a random example: Every single time I used to pass a graveyard since I was a little girl, I’d wonder, “What’s going to happen when there’s no more land?” Exploring this question led to a story in Earth Island Journal about the rise of the green burial industry. Looking into those questions you just can’t let go is a surefire way to write about something you find interesting.

7. Take a shower!

Hands down, I have my absolute best ideas in the shower. If nothing occurs to you, at least you’ll be re-energized and smell good.

8. Crowdsource from the comments section.

The comments section of any article or YouTube video is a goldmine of ideas. People post (and get extremely in-depth, as you know) about their opposing viewpoints. They ask questions and outright request future content. Why not be the one to step up and give the people what they want?

9. Look at other people’s stuff.

Analyze other people’s articles that are doing really well. Not to say that you should copy or imitate their style, but do you see a theme or something you can borrow to apply to yours? What kind of content is your audience eating up? Another trick is to look through quotes on sites like Quotery or BrainyQuotes–they’re great fodder for inspiration.

10. Live an adventurous life.

Being stuck in a rut in your daily life also impacts your ability to think creatively, whereas doing things differently gives you a new perspective. Take simple steps outside your comfort zone; write at a different time of day in a new coffee shop, talk to strangers, take a new class, get off at a random subway stop. Enjoying new experiences like travelling, learning, and meeting people translates to fresh ideas and more material.

11. Engage with a different generation.

Not saying I steal article ideas from my Nana, but she does clue me into so many things I would never otherwise be aware of. Kids are equally great sources of interesting ideas, and looking at things from their perspective will lift your spirits if nothing else. Conversations with different generations are especially good for uncovering stories about culture and human behavior that wouldn’t have occurred to you just speaking to peers with similar ways of thinking.

12. Work it out.

Get moving! I don’t mean hopping on a treadmill either–do something active that you find fun, whether it’s a hike, dance class, or yoga. The blood flow and endorphins will boost your mood and mind-power, plus combat the effects of slouching over a computer all the time.

13. Look through old photos and videos.

Taking a trip down memory lane makes you ruminate on your own stories…and readers always want to know more about your personal experiences. Give them a look into your own life to connect on a different level, as well as allow others to learn from your own trials and triumphs.

14. Keep a dream journal.

If you’re hitting a brick wall trying to think of a blog post, take a nap. You’ll be A) refreshed, and B) inspired by some potentially crazy dreams. Get in the habit of keeping a dream journal. Sometimes our subconscious provides breakthrough ideas–just ask Einstein and Edison!

15. Ask your audience.

This idea is almost too easy. It’s a win-win: you don’t have to come up with the ideas, and you’re bound to create something your readers care about.

Have you ever heard the quote, “There is no such thing as an original idea?” Well, there’s a ring of truth to that, but the point is that it’s a positive thing. The world is brimming with inspiration and places to look for material; creativity is a collaborative effort. Besides, no one besides you can truly see from your unique vantage point. All of the people, places, secrets, memories, and sights you’ve experienced give you the ability to spin a story that no one else quite can.

Now, I’m going to follow tip #8 and ask you: What are your favorite techniques for thinking of blog posts? Do you have any secret tips that help you in your content creation process?

Hannah Chenoweth is a conference producer and freelance writer based in Hoboken, NJ. She is a passionate storyteller who also also enjoys reading, yoga, travel, roadtrips, meeting new people, and adventures. Feel free to check out her past work at https://www.clippings.me/hannahchenoweth/ or say hi on Twitter @hannahchen2!

Image: PhuShutter/Shutterstock.com

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