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naturecoaster · 11 months

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FIRE UP CITRUS! brings Great Ideas to the Valerie Theatre

by Tom Craig, co-author of Treasures of the Trails A crowd of people anxiously awaited the 2023 FIRE UP CITRUS!, a Citrus County Chamber of Commerce event produced as part of their October Business Appreciation Month since 2014. Ardath Prendergast, Chamber VP and creator of the Fire Up Citrus! events wore her signature red dress. Where does she find a unique new red dress for every event? Again we weren’t disappointed. We were FIRED UP! to see the 12 creative thinkers make their presentations about what they would like to see happen in Citrus County. The event is held bi-annually at the Valerie Theater. Josh Wooten, President/CEO of the Chamber, kicked off the event with a video explaining the event rules and highlighting past presentations. Originally scheduled for October 12 FIRE UP CITRUS! was re-scheduled to November 1 due to the tornado that hit Crystal River. Tom Ryan, Chair of the Chamber Board of Directors. introduced Dale McClellan, principal of M&B Dairy, who is fresh off hosting this year‘s BAM BBQ event with his son, Leon. Dale talked about how he moved his dairy farm from Hillsborough County to Citrus County as the best decision he could’ve made. Starting with a dilapidated building “from almost nothing” in his words, with the help of the Chamber and especially Josh Wooten, he built his empire to over nine figures in sales annually! While working on financing and getting the building and his milk business up and running, he began by selling orange juice. Tom Ryan, the MC asked, “How do you get orange juice from cows?“ Dale replied, “We feed them orange pulp,“ to big laughs from the audience. Dale said he has never liked speaking to groups. You couldn’t tell by this speech. The audience was entertained by Dale’s anecdotes about his humble beginnings and his efforts to be the best milk producer he and his family could be. He talked about his new product, A-1 protein milk, created to bring a new kind of milk to those people who mistakenly believe they are lactose intolerant. Dale expressed his thanks to Citrus County, now his favorite place on earth. Dale’s message to the FIRE UP CITRUS! presenters and the audience is “Never give up“ when it comes to your dreams and your passion. He told us that if you pursue your dreams and keep going no matter what, you will be rewarded with success. Dale likes the FIRE UP CITRUS! Event, because he likes to be around people who have new ideas and people who inspire him. As MC for the evening, Tom Ryan spoke with grace and humor. Throughout the evening, he introduced the presenters and recapped the important and interesting points of their concept wishing them well with their passionate presentations about what they believe would be great ideas for the citizens of Citrus County. Tom outlined the procedure for the night’s event and the first presenter. The rules of the FIRE UP CITRUS! are unique. The rules are as follows: Presenters are required to make a 20-image slide show presentation and present it in 5 minutes. There are no restrictions on the idea just so long as it is positive (no negativity or criticism). Sounds easy? It’s not. Especially if you are passionate about the idea you are presenting. The program was divided into three rounds. - Round One: Empowering Our Citizens - Round Two: À Votre Santé (To Your Health) - Round Three: Feeding the Entrepreneurial Spirit. Elisha Belden presents at Fire Up Citrus! promoting arts funding in Citrus County. Images courtesy of the City of Inverness. The Twelve Presentations at FIRE UP CITRUS! 2023 Reviewed The first presentation, A ROAD-WORTHY CITRUS, by Harold Walker Harold discussed how there could be a better way for the County to explain the state of the roads. He thanked County Administrator Howard for addressing the issue. Harold outlined a better way to explain where the money for roads comes from and how much goes to actual paving, encouraging the County to give better notice regarding what roads are being paved and when. Howard explained how the roads that get paved are in direct relation to the percentage of roads in poor condition for each voting district. He suggested that we ask the pavement companies if there is a better way to save money on paving, like a 5-year contract, rather than bidding each road project individually. The second presentation, THIS IS CITRUS COUNTY JEOPARDY, by Kristen Coble & Katie Lucas, suggests a better forum for getting answers to questions. They suggested that an alternative to the local newspaper’s Sound Off would entertain questions from citizens and then get the real answer from the local person or organization who has the truth. They made a tongue-in-cheek parody of a few choice responses to Sound Offs and offered the citizen’s answers, then compared them with the truth as they know it. Katie Lucas was a former Citrus County Chamber Board Chair. The third presentation, PORT CITRUS: AQUACULTURE BUSINESS INCUBATOR by Michael Czerwinski brought back his previous presentation with an update. He reiterated that the Port Citrus land is sitting fallow and can be repurposed to be a home for an alternative Agriculture initiative. He highlighted successful aquaculture businesses around the world dedicated to aquaculture for nationally known companies. Mike says that Citrus County and other Florida counties have land spaces close to fresh and saltwater that can support a thriving aquaculture cooperative. He envisions educational institutions like the University of Florida and the Academy of Environmental Science would benefit from having on-site laboratories. A county-sponsored facility could include leasable open land for tenant use for research, education, and a business park. The fourth presentation, THE HUB IN CITRUS, by Rhonda Allen, envisioned a 25-acre multi-purpose retail entertainment attraction. Like the Island in Pigeon Forge, Rhonda imagines this should be Citrus County’s next big thing with stores, restaurants, and a hotel surrounding a central park area with water features and amusement rides. The fifth presentation, A MOVEABLE FEAST TRAIL, by Max Schulman who passionately believes that the Withlacoochee State Trail is the perfect venue for an interpretive museum with 10 or more stations along the way from Dunnellon to Brooksville. Each stop would highlight a unique historical perspective of life in the County. Some of the stops would display our cultural heritage from cattle ranching and the equestrian life to the phosphate and turpentine industry that helped form who we are in Citrus. Not only would the displays educate our citizens, but also entertain tourists as they walk or bike along the trail. Similar to how the display in Pineola is a time capsule of the Great Train Wreck of 1956, other displays would stimulate interest to visit more places in and around the County like Fort Cooper, Floral City, the Tsala Apopkas, or the Cross Florida Barge Canal. Displays could be sponsored by companies or social organizations. The sixth presentation, CITRUS COMMUNITY / FAMILY + WILDLIFE RESCUE, by Alyssa Clossin proposes transitioning her successful animal rescue business to help support battered women who need a place to shelter and make a living to transition out of an abusive environment. The seventh presentation, MR. MARK'S GOURMET PUREE, by Kelly Scoville. Kelly was empowered by the loss of her husband, who suffered in his later years from dietary challenges, to create food that tastes great and can be swallowed easily. She has created many pureed recipes that she cans for local retail consumption. She used her presentation to educate people about the needs of aging and ailing populations that are underserved in Citrus County and across America. The eighth presentation, DREAM, BELIEVE, ACHIEVE, by Betsy Schwartz. The philosophy espoused by Betsy’s presentation fits in well with the meme of the event. She chronicled her efforts to create a community of like-minded people who want to improve their lives and those of others. Betsy enlightened us with healing modalities that others may not be familiar with. The ninth presentation, ACCESS TO THE ARTS: A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT, by Elisha Belden. Elisha made an eloquent presentation about the importance of The Arts in making a well-rounded individual and community. She talked about art as the right of all people, not just those with means. She also says expanding The Arts in Citrus County brings economic benefits by attracting people outside of the county to see our shows and festivals. Elisha proposes that we need a dedicated Arts Center to encourage young people to pursue viable careers in the arts. A Center for the Arts in Citrus County would also bring the opportunity to engage with professional artists and to contribute or participate in activities that suit their skills and interests. In the tenth presentation, CORE MAKERSPACE, by Jim Green, Jim wants a maker space for people to make products that require access to large expensive equipment like 3-D modelers. He discussed his progress so far in establishing the CORE business plan and securing financing to seed the facility. CORE is the Citrus One-Stop Resource and Entrepreneurial Business Center. The Makerspace should be the next big thing for Citrus County. The audience liked his proposal, giving him one of the loudest approvals of the night. The eleventh presentation, CITRUS ACTORS THEATRE, by Charles Niski showed us an updated presentation now highlighting the County's need for a private theatre to be built to attract theatergoers from a larger drawing area than is currently offered by public venues in our area. He showed us a picture of the logo for the new theatre that would be named CAT, Citrus Actors Theatre. Charles presented a video that showed the time-lapse construction of a theatre house, explaining that smaller shows can be produced while most of the building is under construction to pay for the construction before the building is finished. Unfortunately, one presenter, Hope Haag, with an idea for a LOCAL GROWTH CO., was unable to be at Fire Up Citrus! that evening, but we understand that the Chamber will allow her to film her presentation so that it may be included on the Chamber’s website with those of the other presenters. This historic Valerie Theater hosted FireUpCITRUS! where the latest ideas to improve the County were presented to an enthusiastic audience. Image by Diane Bedard. An Educational and Entertaining Evening at FIRE UP CITRUS! Closes with Encouragement to All Closing comments were made by Dr. Jim Harvey, the retired President of the College of Central Florida and a member of the Chamber Board of Directors. Jim wrapped up the evening with some wise entertaining advice and an analogy. He asked the audience what were the three most important developments of mankind as revealed by a questionnaire that reached around the world. The audience would probably unanimously say the SmartPhone, but Jim gave a few clues that were not the answer. He astounded us with visual props of a hammer, a screwdriver, and duct tape! Jim said, ”All of the presentations here tonight carried one common theme which is, ‘No dream is too small to become the Next Big Thing’.” He praised the presenters for their forward-thinking and passion for our community. Like Dale McClellan earlier in the evening, Dr. Harvey encouraged the presenters and the entire audience to never give up. You never know when that one good idea will make a difference for so many people. Read the full article

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mattved · 4 years

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On new jobs

A story of my six-month journey from working for a company I no longer identified with, through rocky paths of the job market, toward a great opportunity.

Things had been okay half way into the summer. Then, I had a five month long career hiccup triggered by denied aspirations.

Exposition

Driving progress through research and contribution has been my thing, I am obviously more suited for academia than commerce. Turns of events however forced me away from that path - dealing with the aftermath of experiences like that from On Cancer takes enough time, effort and substitutions in life plans. Restarting Master's at 25 with not much in terms of social insurance, physical need for settling down, and earning enough to sustain myself was out of question.

So I went ahead and got hired and deliver. Am I passionate about it? Only slightly. I still do all I can to pursue my passions, even though time is limited. I keep updated on my field of study and hope to maybe save up once to be able to return to academia. I also enjoy filming and editing video in the proper way, planting another potential skill of trade.

Angel investor

Working for a business moving its product from question mark into star stage of life had me all excited and optimistic. What I wish to have had understood is how all stars inevitably turn into cash cows, of which investors are cautiously aware and re-staff in preparation for that. They now need cash cow kind of people, to hold rather than drive market share, impose cautious pace on development, and protect their passive income for at least a decade.

In case of my then employer, the angel investor placed their own HR manager in to "help out" with growing workload, later taking position of HR lead because "there was no other suitable candidate." Product lead, who made the product a star, was demoted for safety, I suppose. And most importantly, the computer scientist of a CTO was driven to submitting his position to prince Charming from Shrek 2.

Their reasons are legit but I scowl at how unfair towards the people who worked toward something great under significant budget constraints. Significant portion of their legacy was sold to a cash addict who hits them with a glass ceiling.

Personally, I asked for the extra budget required to provide analytics solution that would employ my entire skillset and benefit the venture, rather than pretty charts with far outgrown backend. Regardless, the scenario from other departments came for me. Miss me with that shit - I am 25, not 60.

Slip-up

Because I saw it coming, I took precautions by interviewing ahead. CoViD pandemic obscured the process, though. Interviews took form of conference calls, driving expectation disparity. I got to see my opportunities, came to understand that employers are much more to be dissected than applicants, and made a wrong choice at the end.

It was Wunderman Thompson, a consulting company with surprisingly decent reputation that fills skill gaps in businesses looking for creative solutions. I had some achievements presented to me but the experience itself was dreadful.

The first interview was a recorded one-on-one with the voice of my boss to be. With my camera on, I outlined my skills, said what I am good at, outlined my expectations, and did my skill demonstration task. I was given name of their client the work was for and got excited.

Week later, a display of red flags I did not see was on. The data science lead and my future duo colleague were in, the former on camera. After feedback on the previous call, I asked questions and lay down expectations such as a requirement of a decent computer.

After the onboarding, I got a laptop with i5-6200U, 8 gigs of ram, and one hour of battery life. Two weeks of asking for upgrade yielded me extra 8 gigabyte, but the processor was no fit for the JavaScript based tools I was given to work with. The client I was excited to work did not show up either, there was an intermediary in form of another consulting company from The hub. They created a lot of communication noise but seemed keen to cooperate - few meetings with them and their project management colleagues cleared things out.

Most disappointing was my duo colleague, a 35ish woman with an attitude who drove an Audi and used Windows Server VM to run scheduled scripts in Python. Some worked, alright, but her legacy database I was assigned contained obsolete, redundant, incomplete, or scattered mess with no documentation whatsoever. Asking for help, which she encouraged, caused me more confusion. Requesting access to the load scripts, I was told her previous colleague never needed that, later even that I was likely to steal the know-how and leave.

I lasted two months, asking superiors for help and trying to be constructive, before being profane in a recorded meeting. I confronted her before hanging up, wrote a farewell e-mail, and navigated to LinkedIn. My boss or the skill group manager never met me in person. And the latter had the audacity to require in-person meeting to discharge me.

The Search

That was not quite the way to go. And because it was early in the month and employers onboard new people on the first day of month, I was left with little over two weeks of mental health leave and a job to find. At the beginning, it felt easy - I would do three consecutive interviews every other day. There was no need to to leave my table and there was a with substantial amount of time left for reflection, learning, and gaming.

My ability to detect the red flags of job market transaction negotiations had developed throughout the period. And so had that of understanding my own priorities. I spoke to headhunters, middle managers, HR operatives, friends, former colleagues, even self-proprietors. I had responded to fiveish job ads a day, whatever showed up, but still hoped to hit the bull's eye and be finally satisfied with my job after six months.

I had also came to identify with the story of Chandler Bing - I am good at what I do and I enjoy it, but there are things I enjoy more. There needs to be work-life balance - productivity and leisure generate utility, which an agent seeks to maximize. And that is where one must start when assessing potential employer.

The Englishman interviewing me for position in centre of excellence of a Fortune 500 company said that my story is all disappointment and lack of resilience. The first was true, the second was nonsense. Resilience is a great character, not a realistic job requirement, though. Yes, one must resolve difficulties without breaking down, but there is a threshold beyond which no job is not worth it. His lack of acknowledgement here does not play well for any Fortune 500 company. Care for yourself first.

Contrasting opportunity was Dolphin Consulting who have amazing teambuilding activities, car pool to share, and even mentioned a dolphin wedding. It all sounds great and I agree that working with friends makes good experience. But I have friends I wish I had more time for, which would only be made more difficult, should I try to blend in.

Turns out the handful of interviews I attended in person was relatively more productive, exposing the employer and their culture beyond choice of videoconferencing software and views of employees' living rooms. The interviewers seemed more humble and honest with respect to their activity. Besides, the caution to see candidate in person in spite of having to wear a face mask and taking other precautions is a good sign, right?

The one I thought was it (updated 2023)

By the end of the month, I had three offers that I considered on hand. Two from in-person interviews, one from an online call. And I picked the one that offered some diversity, felt most familiar in its description, and seemed to be accounting free.

I was a web analyst at online marketing department of nation’s largest news publisher. The portfolio of sites I got to work was great, the technology behind them alright, and the team consisted of cool people I had plenty in common with.

Trouble was, the boss turned out to be a bully, putting more pressure on his team than was fair. He thoroughly probed me throughout the trial period and I did my best. He wasn’t satisfied, though only now do I understand the reasons.

The funny bit is, he called on the last week of my trial period at an employer I have been working for two years now, saying he was firing a colleague, really the only one that I found being real nuisance, and incompetent at that, while working there, asking me whether I would be willing to come back. Lolz.

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goboymusic · 2 years

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Listening to “Bring Me To Life” by #Evanescence yesterday, I can confidently say it’s one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard, and it deserves every bit of praise that it has received.

Go for it. Screw what they think. You, everyone that knows you, and everyone that knows everyone that knows you will be dead in a few decades. If you want to try something outrageous, like posting songs about dicks on the internet, relax and give it a shot. Just don’t be stupid about it and get yourself fired (use an alias and don’t tell your acquaintances or whatever). That’s what “#GhostGirl” is about.

Maybe publicly humiliating yourself on a continual basis requires some masochism. Internet commentary is one thing. Posting non-satirical creative work for people to commentate on is another (YouTube videos, podcasts, music, artwork, writing, etc). You go into it with the understanding that people who are smarter than you are going to shred you with accurate criticisms, but you do it anyways, hopefully because you love it. If you post content with the expectation that people are going to regularly tear you a new asshole, you’ll never be surprised when they inevitably do.

The songwriting of “Ghost Girl” is a love letter of sorts to @blink182, my favorite musical group. The chord structures and melodies are meant to sound like something they’d use.

Seven months after the original version of “Ghost Girl” was completed, I reopened the old Logic Pro file for the song, deleted about 50% of it, and wrote new segments to fill those empty spaces. The original version had verse vocals that I couldn’t bear listening to, and the structure made my ears bleed, so the new version was well warranted in my mind. Overall, including production of both versions, the song took about 2.5 weeks to complete. Not bad, considering each song on GoBoy 6 took 30 days to complete, even without any hiccups.

I was dabbling in a raspy pop-punk vocal style for this song, something that would become more prevalent on GoBoy 6 and 7.

Watched #TheQueensGambit on #Netflix while mixing the vocals. Holy cow that show is amazing. During production, something entertaining is always playing in the background for extra brain stimulation, whether that be a movie, tv series, a video game play through, podcast, etc. Anything but music, because I can’t mix music while listening to other music (excerpts from post 87).

Beat + bass + melody. That’s the style of GoBoy 5. While I’ve appreciated this minimalistic style for years, “Tell My Mama (Song 42)” was the first time trying it. I went whole-hog with GoBoy 5, in which most songs primarily consist of a beat, bass and melody (excerpt from post 80).

For GoBoy 5, instead of creating for the sake of creating, like I did for GoBoy 4, I wanted to make poppier songs that would appeal to a larger audience. Was that goal accomplished? Well, maybe, I guess. It resulted in the song “In Love (Song 82),” which everyone and their mother seems to like (excerpt from post 79).

GoBoy 5 ragdolled me. I remember wondering if I’d live to see the completion of the album. While the style is minimalistic, the writing and production processes were chaotic, akin to throwing darts with a blindfold on. Most songs turned into a puzzle once they reached the mixing phase, with a portion of the pieces being destined not to fit. It required constant compromising - discarding segments, restructuring, rewriting, etc. The combination of the difficult production process and temporary chaos at work left a blood-soaked trail behind me (excerpt from post 80).

In April, 2021, almost all of GoBoy 3, 4 and 5‘s songs were restructured to be under 3 minutes (preferably under 2m 30s), including this song. I became okay with releasing songs around the 2 min mark after realizing The Beatles and The Beach Boys had some songs around that length. In an attempt to increase replay value in this streaming era, most of GoBoy’s songs are now purposely around 2m 20s (excerpts from post 37).

A bass boost was added to songs 37-99 in Nov, 2021, while I was stuck at home with covid. As a result, this song feels more powerful. The bass boost isn’t a simple plugin nonchalantly added to each song. It’s a process that took about 3.5 hours per song, or one whole month to complete all songs. Admittedly, I pushed the bass boost a little too far for some of them. The bass in some songs sounds like a freaking earthquake (unnecessarily pronounced low frequencies 20 - 50 Hz). Might dial that back someday. The bass boost was also applied to every song on GoBoy 6 and beyond (excerpt from post 37).

#GoBoy #Ghost #GhostGirl #88

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cyclicalaberration · 3 years

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Listen. Listen. Are you looking for new hermits to watch? No? You should be! Hermits are all great and there's not too much to backlog this season, so you want to get on that!

Welcome to a Semicomprehensive list of hermits by someone who watches (almost) everyone. I will not be including welsknight, xisuma, hypnotizd, Mumbo or Grian in this post as I do not watch Wels, hypno or X and Grian is Grian and Mumbo is Mumbo, and the chances are that you've probably heard about them.

Do you want insane builds and some of the Noises ever made from a human mouth? Try bdubs! Bdoubleo100 uses a lot of experimental editing in his videos, with strange camera angles, cuts with transitions that are just him sneezing, or experimental zooms in his intros. He's an incredible builder and has mastered the art of small interiors, and his redstone is compact, pretty, and functional, even though he once spent a very long time on a complex farm before his daughter pointed out he could change which pickaxe he was using.

Cubfan is the hermit for you if you want wacky technical Minecraft, unusual ideas and off the walls grinds for difficult to farm materials. Last season he made a dripstone, red sand, raw iron and rooted dirt custom biome, and he often does speedruns over on his twitch. This season he's teamed up with Ren, building a house in his basement.

Do you want game breaking technical skills? Farms you wouldn't think possible? Weird taste in what farms are normal and sane to build? As long as your brain can process deep voices, Docm77 is the hermit for you! He's got a hive mind of technical Minecrafters behind every farm and is racing against Mojang to exploit glitches before they're patched. Who knows, maybe dinnerbone will take his other arm for this.

Etho hasn't yet returned to hermitcraft, as he's on hiatus to take care of his parents, but when he's back he's full of wacky hyjinks, strange farms and builds with insane palettes. He's been doing Minecraft since the very beginning, giving many their start and teaching many a Minecrafter a thing or two.

Falsesymmetry is a PVP powerhouse, and being the queen of heads, hearts and body parts she can and will go head to head with the best of the best. She's also an incredible builder, organics and massive digs comprising many of her recent projects. She's witty and cool and her builds are often out of this world.

Do you like your Minecrafters sweet and terrifying? Geminitay keeps ravagers as cows and doesn't blanch at taking on a woodland mansion on day one. She freehands statues, bonemeals custom trees into existence, and stays upbeat and positive through it all.

You've probably heard of goodtimeswithscar, with his improv prowess, incredible terraforming and absolutely insane, detailed builds. He's absolutely hilarious, taking the bit to the extreme, but don't let the bumbling exterior fool you, the man is scarily competent when he remembers to check his elytra durability.

Ijevin is a mix of technical and beautiful, with detailed builds and fascinating ideas, but he's also one of the more prolific farm builders of the hermitcraft server. While he may not invent quite as many farms, he almost always builds scarily productive farms with hours of work put into them.

Impulsesv is an incredibly creative technical YouTuber, known often for his mob wrangling and creative theming for his builds and inventions. When it comes to interactions he's not lacking either, fitting into any group with laughter and ease.

Another super, mega, dare I say Omega YouTuber is Iskall, whose infectious laugh and creative time lapses never fail to brighten up a day. He's chill, and he often builds whatever comes to mind, be it a carrot hill or a villager encampment, and all of them look incredible.

Coming to you as he always does from Nashville Tennessee, joehills spends much of his time on the server on community projects, teaming up with Cleo, or simply making the Joehills difference. His videos aren't as fast-paced as some other hermits, but he streams frequently and is simply a joy to watch.

Do you like your family friendly YouTubers toeing the line? Do you like your guys to know what a house looks like? Then keralis is the guy for you! His builds remain grounded while at an incredible scale, and each time he makes an innuendo, his voice is so calming you can almost believe he doesn't do it on purpose. Almost.

Pearlescentmoon makes building an art form with gorgeous colors, organics with incredible detail and the small tendency to rotate her builds 90° if she's not happy with them. She's energetic, off the walls bouncy, and she never fails to bring a smile to the face and awe to the server.

Do you want lore with that? Get your lore with rendog, the official Lore Guy of the hermitcraft server. His lore carried over, landing gigapods and making gigapies after the disaster that ended the last server, with instructions from his alien compatriots and a significant amount of yes, and.

Stressmonster has earned her rightful place in the hermitcraft hall of chaos, full of giggles and excitement, not a moment of her videos are ever dull. She's in awe of it all, excited by everything in the game and incredibly creative in all of her builds. Who else builds a teapot as a starter base?

Do you want ravagers? You can get ravagers with tangotek, builder of insane farms, with off the walls redstone and an affinity for one of the game's most dangerous mobs. He's best known for inventing the iron farm, creating a new version of it each season, and for Decked Out, the mini game he's revamping this season with Even More Ravagers, Wardens, and who knows, maybe a captured wither or two.

Tfc is like when you're watching your friend or family member play Minecraft, just doing the every day tasks, mining, mining, more mining. He puts the hermit in hermitcraft, but as the server's resident grandpa, he's allowed to take it slower than the crazy kids around him.

Vintagebeef is like when you take a man who is absolutely Not normal and wrap him up in a veneer of Just Some Guy. His videos are calmer and chiller than many of the hermits, but his projects are by no means small... I'm not going to spoil anything, but if you're a fan of map art, you should absolutely check him out.

Xbcrafted deserves his spot in the Hermitcraft Hall Of Should Absolutely Cuss. He is straining at the confines of the family friendly content, and when he and keralis are together, only good things happen. Being one of the shyer members of the server, he's also fairly calm, but he and keralis also make up the flirting quota of the server.

Zedaph lives up to his mad scientist base of season eight, making the game interesting with insane challenges submitted by viewers for him to complete for retextured pumpkins and bragging rights. He's into automation in the most inefficient method, because redstone is meant to be funny, not maximum output.

And finally, last but not least, zombiecleo themself! They're a master at armor stands, a skill few can claim, and also a stunning builder. Going for a mythological type of vibe for this season, they've recently changed their hair to snakes, all the more ways to terrify bdubs. They're sarcastic and witty, and I thoroughly recommend their videos for a good time.

As always, every hermit has something to enjoy, and don't limit yourself! Poke your head in a video, check it out, even if you're not sure you'll like it! Who knows, you could find your new favorite!

#hermitcraft #im not tagging all of them #hermitcraft propaganda #watched xb today. he's So fun.

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the-celluloid-correspondent · 2 years

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Why I am very cautious about The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

I have been a fan of Tolkien's work since I was a little girl. I have been completely captured by his work, and his work has helped me through a lot. I love the Jackson films, even with their flaws. With that said, I am very worried about the Rings of Power series by Amazon. I will go ahead and state that I am not a book purist. I understand that in adaptations, not everything will perfectly adapt to screen, and stuff will be added and changed to make the story work visually. I understand certain aspects of the novels will be cut due to runtime and budget. I am open to adaptations and fanfictions; however, I do have conditions. You must respect the source material. The story you create must follow the themes, the worldbuilding, the characters, the aesthetics, and the lore that the author wrote. I am incredibly lenient about the story, but you must follow what is stated above. From what Amazon has released thus far, Rings of Power does not match any of these criteria and is only Tolkien in name. I do not want to see the Professors' work turn into mindless entertainment and a cash cow, like Marvel, Star Wars, and so many other IPs. All the fandom is asking is to respect his work, and Amazon seems to be doing the opposite.

So I am going to break this down into different aspects of the series. I will start by talking about the showrunners of this series, Patrick McKay and John D. Payne. What might be a surprise to you is that the two showrunners of this series have no experience with any Hollywood production, even though they have been in the industry for over 15 years. They are not ghostwriters in Hollywood; they literally have no experience and were recommended for the series by J.J. Abrams. To me, this seems like they are going to be used as puppets for executives swaying creative decisions. This is a widespread practice today with big-budget Hollywood movies. Small indie directors are brought in to direct a big-budget film, but they have no creative control over the story nor the overall direction of the film; they are puppets to the executives. I feel it will be the same with these two gentlemen because they have very contradicting views of how the executives of this series view Tolkien, based on interviews. On the positive side, from what everyone has stated, they do know their Tolkien lore. However, my big question is can they show it? Because thus far, they have only talked about how much of Tolkien they know but have not demonstrated it. If you are going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk.

Another concern I have with this series is how poor the marketing campaign has been. Amazon, with billions of dollars at its disposal, is showing a very mediocre campaign for this series when they have marketed some series perfectly. So there are two routes this could go, either Amazon has hired the worst marketing team for this series, or the material is as bad as the marketing. I am guessing the latter because Amazon has a history of doing a terrible job of covering up bad material. What also adds to the layers of this series is that we are less than 2 months out, and there has not been a full trailer released yet, only teasers. No plot has been revealed, only pretty cinematography and some first-age flashbacks. For new television series, generally, 2 months is when the first main trailer is released with plot details. Amazon not doing this tells me they are not confident with the story. Furthermore, what has to be the cherry on top of the disaster is the marketing campaign, which was the Superfans disaster. If you are unaware, Amazon hired these fake Tolkien fans and did a staged reaction video, where they all called it the "best thing ever." The backlash was so bad that they deleted the video. In reaction to this disaster, Amazon brought Tolkien fans to a small screening in England, where they received an all-paid vacation, tours of Oxford, Tolkien lectures, free swag, and a Q&A with the showrunners. Like the previous Superfans, everysingle person who went to this came back saying the same thing, down to the wording. Out of the over 20 people invited to this, all of them praised the series, with some even calling it "the greatest tv series of all time," after watching only 20 curated minutes from the series. Not a single criticism was made. Many in the fandom called bull because Amazon has done this before with the Wheel of Time, and we all saw how much of a disaster that series was. So by the looks of it, Amazon is buying positive reviews for their series because they know it will be a disaster.

Now let's talk about the actual show rather than what Amazon is doing with Tolkien. As previously stated, not much of the story is known, and only those familiar with the lore know what the series will be about. However, what is known is that it's going to be a very compressed version of Second Age, with some First Age flashbacks, with a lot of fanfiction. The writers compressing the timeline is very understandable. However, by the looks of it, they are cramming the entire second age into a single lifespan. I believe this is wrong because they will sacrifice some of the most prominent themes within the Second Age. The writers should have let a significant event in the Second Age be its own season and slowly built up the themes, the lore, and the conflicts of the Second Age. What further concerns me are the First Age flashbacks. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see a proper adaptation of the Silmarillion. However, I feel that these flashbacks will be used as fan service to cover up shakey storytelling. My last most significant concern with the story is the fanfiction that is going to be within this series. What has been presented thus far feels like they have copied stories from Tolkien they don't have rights to and put their own spin on it. They do this by changing the names and the story slightly, then throwing it into their fanfiction. For example, they are telling a forbidden love story between an Elf and a human in this series. This directly responds to the fact that they don't have the rights to the three elf-human romances in Tolkien's work. So what will probably happen is they will take elements from all three and put them into their story. You think they would have learned from the Hobbit Trilogy why this is a bad idea. Furthermore, they are throwing Hobbits into this series, not because they will add to the story, but because of nostalgia.

The next major issue with this series is going to be its characters. I know that there are going to be a lot of non-canon characters in this series, so I am going to focus on the canon characters because, thus far, they don't resemble their book counterparts. The first character up is Elrond, who is described as a politically ambiguous politician and architect in the series. However, to those familiar with his book characters, he is none of this. He is a politician, but not ambiguous; he was focused on peace and alliance-making. Furthermore, he is not an architect but a scholar. What I find to be interesting is that the show does not describe him as a military leader because he is one. Another red flag is how the series tells the relationship between Tar-Miriel and Ar-Pharazon. In the series, they are described as close to one another. However, that is very far from the truth. The pair are cousins on opposite sides of the Numenorian political spectrum. Tar-Miriel is part of the "Faithful," and Ar-Pharazon is part of the "Black Numenorians." The show's description of them so wrong is that Ar-Pharazon eventually usurps Tar-Miriel and forces her to be his bride. So the show describing them as "close" is very wrong. Now the biggest red flag for characters is Galadriel. What appeared to have happened is that they have taken a very feminine, wise, and powerful sorceress and turned her into the damaging trope of the strong female character. Galadriel uses her wisdom and magic to fight off the forces of evil, not a sword. As a woman, they are defeminizing her and making her " a hothead ... filled with piss and vinegar" (now my words, the producer's words for describing Galadriel in the Second Age) is one of the most sexist things they can do. Even more concerning is that based on the trailers, it looks like Galadriel will be correct, and everysingle man is wrong, which insults me. Don't even get me started with writers gender-bending Anarion.

So far, the worldbuilding/aesthetics within the Rings of Power series has been a very mixed bag. I know I am very attached to the aesthetics Peter Jackson and Company brought to life in his respected adaptations. He set a bar for fantasy adaptions that no one else has been able to reach, with only Game of Thrones hitting that bar. So far, from what I have seen, the production design is starting to look like Middle Earth. Furthermore, I am confident that the music for this series will be fantastic, with Bear McCreary and Howard Shore scoring the show. However, for the rest of the series, it does not scream Middle Earth. The costume design looks incredibly cheap for a multimillion-dollar show. The costumes look like they came from the tailor and don't look lived in. I like the overall aesthetics they are going for, but it's missing the mark by looking like generic fantasy. Furthermore, some costumes don't look like they are correctly fitted to their actors. The character design also has been a very mixed bag. Getting used to the short-hair elves is going to be very difficult. To me, the elves lose their angelic nature by doing this. Furthermore, they are not even given the female dwarves' beards, which is a must for a Tolkien adaptation. Now let's talk gently about the most sensitive topic of this series, which is its race-bending of characters and people. Here are my two cents on the matter. Changing the race of established characters and people in the name of checking boxes is incredibly wrong and racist. When a series does this, they tell me a couple of things. They are telling me they don't think stories with the representation they want can succeed. They are also telling me they only brought this person in for money because they want viewership from a specific demographic. Lastly, the actors are sadly going to be used to deflect criticism by calling the fandom toxic, racist, etc., for not liking the changes, which the creators are already doing. What has to be the irony of the creators changing this is that if they had stuck to the lore, they would have had the representation they were looking for. Instead, they resorted to Tokenism.

So here are my final predictions for this series. I have a feeling that this series is going to be incredibly mediocre. It will be another product in the line of corporate-made entertainment. I am confident that this series will have great scenes and sequences in it, and it will be spectacular to watch. I am convinced that this series also has a lot of horrible scenes and sequences within it. Finally, the remainder will just be mediocre, corporate content. However, my biggest concern is what this will do to the Tolkien fandom. As we have seen over the past couple of years, so many fandoms and IPs have been destroyed by talentless corporations. Star Wars, Star Trek, Halo, Resident Evil, The Witcher, Marvel, and DC Comics, have almost entirely been destroyed by these corporations who alienate the fanbase from the material. They call the fandom toxic, racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., if the fandom does not like what the corporation puts out. The fandom is shattered, and the IP is left creatively empty. The IP has nowhere to go because the fans have left. The only people left cheering for these series is a loud but small vocal minority on Twitter. This is why the majority of the Tolkien fandom is against this series. They don't want Tolkien's work torn apart by a greedy corporation. They don't want to see the fandom shattered due to modern politics. All that the Tolkien fandom is asking for is to respect the material, and that's it.

Sincerely,

A Tolkien fan since she was 3 years old.

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simssimi · 3 years

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Cottage living Legacy challenge

I have been playing #thesims4 for years and I really like the community that the game has created. However, when I searched for a legacy challenge for the new pack, I couldn't find any. So I tried my own hand at creating one. Here are the rules:

The main goal for the legacy challenge is that you start a farm, make it successful and keep it successful throughout 10 generations.

Main rules: 1. Each generation must be raised on the farm. 2. Every generation will have a specific goal, however the first five generations must quite their job and move back to the farm when their first child is born or when the previous generation dies, which ever comes first.

Lot challenges: Wild foxes, Simple living

With that let's get into the challenge:

Generation 1: The Founder

You are tired of city life and want to start fresh, so when you heard that your aunt left you her land in Henford-on-Bagley, you packed your bags and moved straight away. However, when you got there, you see that it is really just a piece of land. Now you have to start from scratch to make it a nice looking farm.

Packs needed: Cottage living

Aspiration: Country caretaker

Traits: Animal enthusiast, loner, vegetarian

Rules:

Move into the empty lot in Old New Henford.

Marry a sim with the outgoing trait.

Have four children (two sets of twins).

Complete the aspiration.

Have a good relationship with a cow, a llama and three chickens.

No jobs allowed! Live on the money the farm makes, or what you can make from your farm (Knitted things, soda, candles etc.).

Generation 2: The Artist

This generation must be a female heir.

You grew up on a farm, struggling to get by on the funds the farm makes, but during all the chaos, you found a love for painting. Your parents and siblings were very encouraging of you pursuing your dream, and with their blessing, you moved to the city to become a successful artist. However, one drunken night, you had a one night stand and got pregnant. You decided that you want to move back to the farm, so that your child can have the same loving childhood that you had.

Packs needed: City living

Aspiration: Painter extraordinaire

Traits: Creative, art lover, outgoing

Rules:

Complete the aspiration.

Master the painting skill.

Move to the city when you reach young adulthood.

Join the painter career when you move out.

Have a one night stand with a friend and get pregnant.

Move back to the farm when child is born.

Quite job.

Never get married.

Generation 3: The Jokester

You grew up without a father. To hide the hole in your heart you make jokes. People find you hilarious and you start to feel that this is what you were meant to do. Your mom, however, doesn't think that you should follow this path, because other comedians struggle to get by. You move to Willow Creek anyway. However, soon you realize that your mom was right and you move back with your new spouse.

Aspiration: Joke star, Successful lineage

Traits: Hot-headed, goofball, clumsy

Rules:

Move to Willow Creek when you are a young adult.

Master the comedy skill.

Meet and marry a sim with the gloomy trait.

Fail as a comedian.

Change the aspiration when you move back to the farm. (DO NOT COMPLETE THE JOKE STAR ASPIRATION.)

Quite job.

Have two children (have second child when the first child is a teen)

The next heir must be your first born.

Generation 4: The Academic

Your parent is a failed comedian and because of that you decided that you want to be prepared for what life gives you. So you decide to work hard and go to university. However, your roommate doesn't take university seriously and throws a party every single night. After a while your anger turns into love and you end up marrying the sim.

Packs needed: University

Aspiration: Academic

Traits: Bookworm, genius, perfectionist

Rules:

Master the research and debate skill.

Attend the University of Britechester.

Have a roommate with the bro trait.

Argue with roommate at least once a night.

Fall in love with roommate and marry him.

Complete half of the aspiration.

Move back to farm when you have your degree.

From here on, some generations would have outside businesses. These generations stay on the farm.

Generation 5: The Chef

You loved to cook together with your family and would love to become a world renown chef. With that, you practice your cooking skill everyday, in the hopes that one day you will have your own restaurant. You succeed, and your restaurant is the best in the world. Things could not be more perfect, but you feel very lonely. You worked so hard that you never stopped to look for a soul mate.

Packs needed: Dine out

Aspiration: Master Chef

Traits: Foodie, glutton, proper

Rules:

Cook together with your family every night from childhood.

Master the cooking and baking skill.

Meet a sim at the restaurant.

Have one child.

Have a successful restaurant.

Generation 6: The Serial Romantic

You know your parents met only after the family restaurant reached the top. You don't want that, however you also don't want to be tied to a sim for the rest of your life. You set out to be unmarried for the rest of your life. You start on your heartbreak journey when you are a teen and when you become a young adult it intensifies.

Aspiration: Serial romantic

Traits: Noncommittal, romantic, self assured

Rules:

Complete the aspiration.

Master the charisma skill.

Have three children with three different sims.

Let the children live with you.

Neglect your children.

Never get married.

Generation 7: The Animal lover

Your parents were never around while you were growing up. The only family that you had was your half siblings and your family pets. This is what makes you decide to become a veterinarian. You are thrilled when your grand parents restaurant is left to you and your siblings when they die and you decide to turn the rundown, once loved restaurant into an animal hospital.

Packs needed: Cats and Dogs

Aspiration: Friend of the animals

Traits: Gloomy, good, family orientated

Rules:

Complete the aspiration.

Master the vet skill.

Turn your grandparents' restaurant into a vet clinic when they die.

Marry a childhood friend.

Have twins.

Generation 8: The Photographer

You have always loved photography. When their was a photo opportunity, you were always there to snap the camera. So it would make sense that you become a photographer.

Packs needed: Moschino stuff pack

Aspiration: Friend of the world

Traits: Outgoing, active, cheerful

Rules:

Complete the aspiration.

Master the photography skill.

Join the freelance career as a photographer.

Fall in love and marry a model from one of your photoshoots.

Have two children.

Capture important moments in your family's lives and put it on the photo wall.

Generation 9: The Simstube Sensation

You grew up with a photographer as a parent and you love the way you can edit a photo to make it look perfect. Then you are introduced to the world of vlogging and you know that is what you want to do.

Packs needed: Get famous

Aspiration: World-famous celebrate

Traits: Jealous, self-absorbed, ambitious

Rules:

Complete the aspiration.

Master the media-production skill.

Start vlogging when you are a teenager.

Marry a sim that you met while out vlogging.

Post a video everyday.

Have one child.

Retire from vlogging when you become an elder.

Write an autobiography when you are an elder.

Generation 10: The Actor/Actress

You grew up with a famous parent and from really early on you knew you want that too, but you don't want to be a vlogger. You are going in with a bang. You decide to become an actor/actress. You also want to leave this farm life behind. It has been in your family for generations and it is time for a new start. You want to own the biggest house, best clothes, newest electronics etc. Materialistic much?

Packs needed: Get famous

Aspiration: Master actor/actress

Traits: Materialistic, snob, neat

Rules:

Complete the aspiration.

Master the acting, singing, guitar, piano, violin and charisma skill.

Start drama classes when you become a child.

Enter the acting career when you become a young adult.

Marry a fellow actor that is materialistic.

Move to Del Sol Valley with no looking back.

Own the biggest mansion.

I really hope that you enjoy this challenge. Share your families with me if you decide to do this challenge. ❤

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vinylanswer · 3 years

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I love gimmicky records and this set of UK 7” singles for Duran Duran’s “The Wild Boys,” which debuted this week in 1984, is an excellent example—but gimmicks don’t happen by accident. They happen to make money, period. In this case, it was to ensure a song that the band spent a month recording and more than $1 million on its video would become a hit, despite the fact that it is unconventional compared to most top-40 of the era and relatively tuneless. In the UK, that meant they released the single with a new cover five weeks in a row so that teenagers would go buy it again each time, artificially helping keep it at the top of the charts. Accordingly, the covers are unabashed pin-up fare, no matter how well art-directed they were. There was a lot riding on this song—not merely the cost of recording it—as the track was the lynchpin of a massive marketing campaign. The group was at the zenith of its popularity and had just finished a US tour, so the single was tacked on to a live album, Arena, released for fall, 1984. The single would power sales of Arena, which in turn would power home video sales of a concert film, as well as a documentary on the film’s making, plus a documentary on the tour itself, a board game (of course), and other memorabilia. No stone was left unturned in finding products to milk the proverbial cow just a little more. This was an amazing bit of marketing, but it all hinged on the single doing well—and the single, though well-known even today, simply isn’t very good. You can hear the band’s creativity running on fumes due to them being overworked; the song is really an exercise in production rather than songwriting. They had done better in the past and they would again soon enough (their James Bond theme, released the following spring and similarly recorded in the clutch, is far better), but to make this a hit, gimmicky records were as close as their record label could get to insurance—and clearly the gambit worked.

#duranduran #simonlebon #nickrhodes #johntaylor #wildboys #eighties #mtv #vinyl #vinyls #record #records #recordcollector #recordcollection #vinylrecords #collection #collector #music #vinylcollection

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onestowatch · 3 years

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JW Francis Follows the Feeling on ‘WANDERKID’ [Q&A]

Following a summer on the Appalachian Trail and a string of blissful singles, New York's very own JW Francis has finally released his sophomore album WANDERKID. The artist's unapologetic persona shines through as he tells candid stories of the people who come in and out of his life, even if just for a moment.

The tracks on WANDERKID were written before Francis hit the trail. Opening with "John, Take Me With You," listeners are met with warped, pop guitar layers and heavily saturated vocals singing, "John, take me away! John, take me with you!" The melodic theme from the opening track seeps into the second, a looping and lighthearted song called "I Love You." The percussion transforms into a tight snare, tom hits, light percussive sounds, and a kick you feel in your gut. There are also pulsating analog synths layers that carry the melodic theme forward.

The rest of the album is full of sonic twists and turns that ultimately lead to the record's finale "Cars," easily a personal favorite. "Cars" is a downtempo, reflective closing track that uses a fast tremolo on the guitar lines, picking out a captivating melody. Supported by guest vocals provided by rising indie darling Margeaux, Francis ends the album with a soft fade-out, leaving listeners wanting more.

Overall, with its thematic tone, complex structure, and Sahil Ansari's impeccable production and mixing, WANDERKID is a cohesive body of work that should be on everyone's radar. We had the opportunity to discuss the record further with the artist and gain further insight into his inspirations and creative journey.

Ones to Watch: Do you feel like the record is one story with a beginning and end, or do you feel like it's more of an anthology, with each telling song its own story?

JW Francis: I feel like as an emotional ride, the record is one story with a beginning and an end. Hopefully, you can feel it in the energy of the first track and the emotional send-off of the last track. Sahil (my producer) and I always try to make it one cohesive ride that you can close your eyes and float to.

Were all of these songs written and recorded before or during the pandemic?

All the recording was done pre-pandemic, actually! We were very lucky in that respect. All the mixing and milling over the record was done during the pandemic. It was a very nice distraction to escape into.

What or who inspires you, and how did that manifest in this album?

NYC is inspiring. My mom and dad are inspiring. My friends are inspiring. Everything in my life is always pulling me towards the next thing, and I'm just trying to keep up with the feeling. For this record, I felt pulled towards another life, away from the comfort of my job and living with my best friend. So I recorded the record, then quit my job and left NYC. You have to follow the feeling.

Each of your music videos has this vibrant energy that retains a sense of novelty. How did you develop the concepts for your music videos, and do you have a favorite shoot from this album cycle?

A lot of the music videos are collaborations with friends where we bounce ideas off of each other. For the first record, I had specific ideas for nearly every song. For this one, I wanted to know what other people were seeing when they heard the track. For example, Clayton McCracken, who did the "WANDERKID" video, had the idea of filming with a 360 camera and plopping me into all the places I've lived. My favorite shoot, though, would have to be "Holy Mountain," which I made with my cousin Ryan because it features so much of my family.

Which video was the most challenging to shoot or conceptually execute?

Definitely the "WANDERKID" video. Not that it was challenging for me, Clayton just asked me to get a 360 camera and gave me a list of shots to get. When I saw the finished product, though, I was like, "Holy cow, he put a lot of work into this."

youtube

What song is your favorite and your least favorite on the record? Why?

My favorite song on the album is usually the last one because that one is always different. This time it's "Cars." It's a little duet with one of my favorite artists, Margaux. It's such a sweet song.

I don't really have a least favorite, but it would be "Holy Mountain" if I had to choose it, because it's the oldest song on the album. It used to be a song about strawberries. I still love it, though.

What's your process like when it comes to songwriting? Is it a tried-and-true method or something that developed over time?

I tend to accumulate lots of musical ideas in the voice memos on my phone. A lot of them in the middle of the night. Eventually, I sit down at a computer and try to figure what I was singing about.

Do you have a favorite lyric or a line from the album that resonates with you when you sing it?

There's a line on "Cars" that goes, "I cannot drive." Which is something I actually cannot do. Never driven in my life. I didn't think it was a big deal until I went out on the Appalachian Trail and thought about all of the things I've never done. As soon as I got back, I booked a driver's test.

Can you tell me why you went with WANDERKID as the album's name?

It actually was one of those "all of a sudden" moments I can't explain. I wrote WANDERKID on a piece of paper, looked at it, and was like, "Yeah, that's it."

#jw francis #interview #wanderkid #album reviews #indie #indie pop

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technobladetimestamps · 4 years

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Dec 3 Stream Timestamps

Timestamps from Technoblade’s “a new home [dream SMP]”

Link to my youtube comment with all of the timestamps x

Timestamps with hyperlinks below

01:26 “I just did a 70 second intro with my mic off” / “It’s ya boi Technoblade” 05:14 “Philza joined the server! What a fortuitous coincidence” 07:22 server looked good for a week 8:56 Tommy joining vc and being annoying / “Dream owns this server. I’ve never said I have the most subscribers” / “You’re speaking a lot of trash for someone who is 99% getting exiled tomorrow” 10:21 really wants to kill Tommy / kills Tommy / “Mexico is now canon” / wall is so ugly / “I find you so annoying” “Hearing that from you Tommy is the best” 11:53 Tommy trying to roleplay but getting every fact wrong / “We made the crater 5% deeper I am the true criminal of that stream” / “You go ahead and prove me wrong about that speech Tommy” / Tommy is Phil’s new neighbor / “My condolences” 14:00 “If I could kill you I would...maybe I could talk you into killing yourself” “In a video game” / recruiting Phil to help him move 16:57 “God I look good in that photo though” 18:17 agreed to take a plot break / “I take a week of and suddenly they’re on the brink of war” / Tommy starts problems 19:31 Ghostbur joins vc / makes a string axe / “They’re gonna put me in the failed crafting compilation” / “The server is cursed” / “The amnesiac is flexing his memory on me” 22:00 4/4 sleepy bois / “Me and Ghostbur go way back” 25:08 “You’re telling me [government] isn’t coming between you and all of your friendships right now” “That’s because of Dream” “Blame someone else” 30:47 “Tomminnit is only like 700k subscribers away I’m getting scared” 34:41 sneaking into L’Manberg for blaze powder 43:55 “WE have natural predators, everything wants to kill us” 47:19 “I think the reason people picked glowsquid is because they were afraid of another annoying mob getting @dded like phantoms” / “Hubert is off limits 48:50 vc with Tubbo / “I stay up all night thinking of cool things I can do on Dream SMP and then I realize I have to do a stream in 5 hours” / lying about not moving / wanted posters 52:44 “Not everyone hates you, they just want you dead or alive” / rain is back / Jesus could walk on rain / “My career is over” 56:17 Tubbo trying to explain how leap years interfere / “mmm 5 hours of sleep mmm” / Ghostbur joins vc / Mexican L’Manberg / “We have to ban some people...from building” 59:09 “We’re making you drugs” “He’s going back to his roots” / explaining the sellout timer / Tubbo is not aware of what his cabinet does 1:03:59 his brother named the cow Bob 1:07:32 “I’m a tactical genius! I’m so wise” / barely used his palace in smp earth so he decided to go smaller this time / compass for Phil 1:11:44 "The start of a new era... I could not control the hearts of men" 1:15:11 Tubbo's pickaxe 1:21:54 Bedwars nostalgia and potential reaction video 1:25:47 Plot summary 1:27:32 Second monitor 1:28:40 Unopened packages 1:29:51 Sony Vegas free trial 1:31:42 Plot video/video integrity 1:37:54 Tommy and endscreen statistics 1:38:02 Tommy character development 1:40:15 Ten-noblade 1:42:30 Not a traitor just an anarchist 1:44:39 "I'll save you Ph1lza!" 1:46:22 "There was a lot of killing" 1:47:59 TECHNO WRITER 1:56:01 Second monitor and new desk 1:57:00 manager/no breakfast/sleep 1:58:40 subscriber statistics 2:01:07 YouTube should sign Techno/eat IRL 2:06:35 3 foods a year / restaurants should be using streamers to advertise 2:09:10 asking for the emeralds back / putting the art back up 2:11:42 don’t insult anime Techno or art twitter will cry 2:13:47 Fossilnet’s love of Carl / exclusive Carl video 2:15:44 complaining about Puffy returning his horse / secret collaborator 2:18:31 hungry / “No one has it harder than us...Dream SMP streamers” 2:20:01 “boring writer” / “Tommy is getting exiled so hard” 2:26:54 tnt collection / chat spa.mming E 2:29:04 exp farm / spiders killed stats / not using creative mode 2:31:26 trying to stop Tommy from catching up / being more productive / Tommy’s twitch viewerbase is too big 2:33:04 SBI streamer house / Kristen can join / ideas for more streams 2:35:18 “If the turtles had netherite armor they’d be wearing it too” / “Masterchief fishing”

#technoblade #technoblade timestamps #a new home [dream SMP]#dream smp

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imaginariumpod · 4 years

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For the defense of slowing down: a study of slowness in cinema.

Leisure - Poem by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

For the defense of slowing down: a study of slowness in cinema.

This article is one that I have been meaning to write for a while and that is very important to me in a lot of ways, but also I feel like with the amount of people staying at home and who have had to slow down their pace of life one way or another in the past months, it just feels oddly relevant. A lot of people have been forced to ease the pace of their lives, and have had the time, maybe for the first time in years, to spend on things they couldn’t before. People who have been trying to take care of themselves in any way they can, by maybe learning how to cook or bake bread, maybe finally having the time to just take a nap and not feel any guilt because they aren’t productive.

This might be more personal than usual because I feel like I really do need to put this subject in perspective to myself first, and then in perspective to the general context and climate that is shaping our world. We live in a culture where productivity is valued more than anything, where you are expected to go above and beyond, and to run yourself to the ground in the pursuit of success, of money, of efficiency. If you don't have a side project or four, it might feel like you are a bit of a failure because don’t you know you have to take advantage of every opportunities out there to make a name for yourself ? This hustle culture that is becoming predominant everywhere, but especially in western culture, is definitely a byproduct of capitalism in a way it never have been seen before. You only have to take a look in the self-help section of a bookshop or a library to feel exhausted : The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, or Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done.

While I think being a hardworking person and trying to be productive in order to achieve your goals, there’s definitely a point where it’s too much for one person to handle, and when this constant stress of needing to be successful all the time and to always go above and beyond what is needed becomes a societal expectation placed on all of us, that’s when it becomes dangerous. There’s a certain climate that is saying that we need to be constantly productive to be valuable to the system, or else, what is the point of you existing.

And my friends. the only point is you being alive. And being content. and that’s what matters in the end.

The point isn’t to further a corporation’s agenda, the point isn't to exhaust yourself trying to play the game of a system that is designed to fail you. The point is that, maybe, someday, you wake up a bit earlier than usual, and you drink your tea in a world that is still quiet and peaceful. The point is, maybe that you feel safe, that you feel content, that you feel loved, and you have the time to just breathe.

And to just be.

Take a breath.

So most of my friends know this, but I feel like I need to share this to give my proper perspective on this subject. Before finishing my Bachelor’s degree in Art History, I had previously done two years in architectural design. It seemed like a good idea at the time, it was a creative endeavor that seemed fulfilling and yet also a smart move practically speaking. I wanted to be able to find a job after finishing university, and maybe continuing on to grad school to eventually become an architect. That was the initial plan when I was 20 and started university. Fresh-eyed, full of hope and determination.

Those two years were a nightmare.

To sum up really quickly, I was so stressed and anxious, I ended up having constant panic attacks and breakdowns for a whole month, every single day of that month, which made me take the difficult decision to give up on that degree. I had an actual burnout before my 22nd birthday and had to take a full year off to recover from this.

I think it’s then, that I truly was hit by how dangerous fatigue and exhaustion could end up being, both mentally and physically. How, when pushed by the constant pressure to perform and to catch up to a standard that keeps rising, and to a speed that keeps getting faster and faster, one is bound to crack at some point. The stress and anxiety that this puts on people can easily get to be too much to handle. That year off, being forced to slow down, to reconnect with myself and with who I am and with what I wanted from life really was one of the most beneficial things to me and I just wanted to give a bit of my story to make you understand where I am personally coming from, when it comes to slowing down, and to slowing the pace of life. Unfortunately, most of us have a story that resembles this in some way shape or form. I know I was incredibly lucky to be able to take that year off, and it's a privilege many of us might not be able to have.

So this is why I think i can say, that for a lot of us, we are just tired. We are so tired. I know I am exhausted. Life can just be so tiring, there’s this really fine line between being productive and having an active life and being run to the ground. It’s a fine line that a lot of us thread, and it can get overwhelming very easily. Indeed, «life has become fast-paced, as people try to live up to these expectations. Yet, while many people might be materially affluent, their quality of life and work-life balance are often unsatisfactory, and potentially lead to stress and burnout (Schor, 1998).» I feel that especially for the current modern life experience, a lot of us can relate to that, in ways it may not have been felt before in previous generations. Time has always been precious, but it just feels like there’s never enough hours in the day to be able to finish all the things you want to do.

The luxury of time. Time to do nothing.

It might seem that we have more time, but «that free time is used to cram more activities into the day and to travel further to work». Which means that we are all trying to manage to do everything at once, whether it’s working, and trying to continue learning, and needing to keep yourself in shape, and to keep your space clean, and also needing to keep a social life, and sleeping well, and etc and etc. It feels like you always have to do this and that and the list of expectations and goals to meet is never ending and constantly adding up. Indeed, «it is not just free time that people desire, but more time for meaningful things». You are just one person, and there’s only so much one can do before it gets to be too overwhelming. And in those moments, I think it’s important to just. Take a deep breath and Slow down.

We need rest. we need fulfillment. I think there’s a lot of disenchantment toward modern life, by the dream that have been sold to us since we were young. Just work harder and you’ll make it. Work more hours, do more things, put yourself out there, run yourself ragged to the ground and then you will finally get what you deserve (money ! fame ! success ! love ! Family ! Friends! ) and yet all we have is exhaustion and stress and anxiety and pain. I think this whole context has made it so that there’s a resurgence lately of an appreciation for slower media, whether we are talking about movies, books or something else.

I think it can be really interesting to mention the newest Animal Crossing game (Animal Crossing : New Horizons) that has been played by a lot of people since its release, which has been considered like «the video game equivalent of a relaxing getaway — and we could all use that kind of respite right now.» Those kind of slower paced games where you have to build your own life and take care of a city, village or, in this case, island (slow-life simulation games) let players exerce control in their island in a way they feel they might not be able to in their own live. This is a very wholesome game that players can get really engrossed into, and that can provide them with much needed relief and escapism from the troubles of real life, when things get really hard. Those type of games also need you to take things slowly, one step at a time, which I think is very interesting when we think about low-stress sources of entertainment.

«In this, the game forces you to take it one day at a time. You can bypass this by "time traveling," or setting your Switch system clock ahead of time to advance quicker than the game intends for you to, but this isn't how it's meant to be played. You're supposed to feel a sense of slow, but meaningful progression throughout the course of your island adventure, and artificial time changes take away from that»

I could also mention the growing popularity of the cottagecore aesthetic on various social platforms such as tumblr, Instagram and twitter. While being predominantly a visual and aesthetic trend, cottagecore does reflect a growing desire by younger people in their teens and early 20s to have simpler and slower life. Dreams of just living in a tiny house, with maybe a vegetable patch, and all of the time in the world to just bask in the sun. As «[a]n obvious backlash to the hustle culture embodied by Fiverr ads, cottagecore attempts to assuage burnout with a languid enjoyment of life’s mundane tasks.» This aesthetic trend then seems an answer to the growing consumerism and rapid pace of life.

This seems like an unattainable fantasy to most of us, which is why I think a lot of people have been gravitating toward those aesthetics and ways of thinking and living. «It’s a romanticised idea that we could leave behind all the stress and craziness in our lives to go live off-the-grid, where emails can’t reach us and our only task is baking bread or making jam. » I know this isn’t something that everyone longs for, but to me, this sounds like a dream and something that seems like a distant hope. I do wish I could take some time off in a small cottage or mediterranean house, maybe not forever, but maybe spend a few months with the freedom of having the time to myself and using that time the way I desire. Just so one can breathe, reconnect with oneself and have enough energy to keep moving on. «Cottagecore is the perfect escape, it’s soothing and calming but it’s also relatively attainable. Maybe we can’t all go live in a cabin in the woods, wearing nothing but flowy dresses while tending to our garden of wildflowers. But we can learn to cross stitch, we can bake bread, we can buy some watercolours, we can have a picnic in our backyard.»

I am always so anxious about so many things and the only thing I want at any given moment is to have a small house and no responsibilities greater than doing the groceries and watering the plants in my garden. I think that life has gotten very hard and difficult to handle, what with the climate crisis, the political unstableness, the economical unstableness, the rise of the alt-right, and now the whole global pandemic going on, it’s easy to understand why people would feel drawn toward comforting things : « Rebecca Jennings ties a push for coziness in branding (and trends like cottagecore) to the feeling that "things are bad, and people are anxious about whatever ongoing horrors are metabolizing in geopolitics, the environment, and capitalism." »

I want to be safe financially and fulfilled. I want to have the time and space to do the things I really want to achieve instead of giving my time away to a system that does not care about me.

I want to have the calm of heart that I have lost years ago and that I yearn to regain.

nostalgia & aesthetic

There's an aesthetic of nostalgia that is really present in a lot of slow living content and slow media. I don't think ANY of us want to go back in time where things weren’t better for any of us unless you maybe are a white straight cis man, and even then.... In my opinion, slow living and wanting to slow down is not a rejection of technology or modernity in itself, but inherently a rejection of capitalism. You do not have to be productive to be valuable, and to be deserving of happiness, of peace, of love and of dignity. You deserve all of that no matter how useful or not you are to the capitalist system. It’s not about going back to oppressive social norms, but moving forward from them.

I also feel like slow living brings a self care as deeper than the shallow superficial and capitalist self care that's being sold to us. I’m not going to deny that it feels nice to do an extensive skincare routine before sleeping, but there’s a lot to be said about a nightly ritual that makes you feel more grounded in yourself and taking care of yourself and the body you inhabit versus the gigantic capitalistic machine that is the Beauty Industry™. The same way the simple acts of taking of yourself and taking the time to slow down can be a revolutionary act of self-love, they can also be taken advantage of and capitalized on by the huge capitalist industries that use wellness, self-care and self-love as marketing tactics. In our era, it feels simply impossible now to get away from the “treat yourself” campaign. Industries have tapped into the real desire of people to live a more meaningful and happier life by making it mostly into a trend, and not an intentional change to someone’s lifestyle to make it better.

I am of the opinion that slowing down shouldn’t be a trend, but a very deliberate act taken in order to take care of ourselves, of our mental health and our physical health. I think it’s a very essential need that we have to not feel burnt-out and to not feel trapped and stifled by our own lives, and having the space and energy to pursue our dreams and desires.

(Not to say the culprit is capitalism … but the culprit is capitalism) (also not to advocate for revolution on a public platform but revolution)

What I mean by slow media, and slowness in media is that content that tends to be more of the slice of life genre. They are peaceful, quiet. Maybe nothing much happens at all, but it rings very true and very real. Those moments of calm are soothing when maybe the rest of my life really is not. The way someone relates to art and media is very personal and can vary a lot, but the escapism that this sort of stories provides and I feel that with the faster pace of life that has become the norm, it might become something that we seek more often than not.

To me, this sort of media feels like relief.

slow cinema

Cinema has long been a medium that is very efficient at communicating epic and grandiose stories. Movies that are jam packed with action and drama and heightened emotions and tension. And while those movies can be very good and entertaining, I think there’s also a place in the world of cinema for movies that are slower. In fact, there’s a distinct genre of movies where the focus is not on a very fast paced plot or extravagant action scenes and dramatic events, but where the importance is placed on the mundane. Where the slow moments of everyday life and the quiet emotions that we all feel take precedence. It’s possible to name filmmakers such as Yasujiro Ozu or Agnes Varda.

We could also talk about movies such as the Before Trilogy by Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), Before Midnight (2013)), where each movie spans a very short period of time and consists entirely of conversations between two people. Those movies are slow, ordinary and yet extraordinary in the sense that it’s two people who have found each other and are speaking and connecting. There’s nothing much that’s happening in those films, and yet it’s impactful.

The movies made by those directors who tend to favor slower cinema often showcases a simpler plotline, but a more complex emotional arc. They are full of slow and quiet scenes, which makes those movies soothing, calming and nostalgic.

What is slow cinema though ? in the academic sense, slow cinema is often defined as «a modern cinematic production trend that emphasizes slowness and duration of time» Even though there’s a lot of more contemporary cinematic examples of slow cinema in more experimental movies such as directors Abbas Kiarostami or Tsai Ming Liang whose movies are very much in line with what is slow cinema. When it comes to slow movies, «Flanagan writes that the stylistic features of ‘slow films’ are “the employment of (often extremely) long takes, de-centred and understated modes of storytelling, and a pronounced emphasis on quietude and the everyday,”» The techniques used in slow-paced movies will often communicate a romanticization of everyday life, of routine, of moments that are quiet and peaceful.

There’s a lot of emphasis put on the passage of time, whether it’s a slow drag of time, with nothing much to do, the quiet moments that punctuates our daily lives or the years passing by and the plotlines in those movies spanning years, generations and even lifetimes. I think this is one of the reason why this kind of cinema can be really relevant in our times, where we feel that time is a precious commodity that isn’t ours anymore, and where time is filled with the pressure of being constantly productive, slow cinema poses itself as the antithesis of that.

«Slow Cinema situates itself solidly within art cinema both in aesthetic and methodology: it is defined by authorship that hinges on the representation of reality. It carries with it a disposition towards the consumption of time that forces the audience to labour through and critically engage with the film itself.»

It’s possible to see that this type of cinema is something that’s very sought after lately, as proven by this letterboxd list The Absolute Beauty in Everyday’s Mundanity, which has been liked by a total of 6,092 people at the moment of writing this article (including me). Containing 209 movies that fit into what the list maker considers as being slow movies that showcase the beauty of everyday life, this list demonstrates that there’s a very definite space for movies that have a more deliberate pace and who, instead of trying to heighten the stakes and action constantly, do take the opportunity to just. Slow down.

An enchanted month.

Elizabeth Von Arnim (1866-1941) was a english author active during the early 20th century. She wrote both fictional and non-fictional books, and the ones I have read from her are very in this vein of slow living, taking the time to just sit in a garden, and let time heal you. It's from her book Enchanted April (1922), which is one of my favorite books and that I wholeheartedly recommend, that the consequent 1992 movie, released by the BBC, was adapted from.

Von Arnim made a point to give a prevalent place in her books to the spaces where one could feel at ease and free from the constraints dictated by social norms and what people might expect from you : «In the garden, Elizabeth von Arnim could think, reflect, and distance herself from the oppressions and duties of the highly rigid and strict German culture that she had adopted through her marriage to Count Henning von Arnim. In observing the varying seasons of nature in conjunction with an active pleasure in literature, she perceived the garden as a metaphor of her life in terms of the development of her soul, and in this context, she believed herself to be in "the process of becoming".» I think it’s possible to draw a parallel between the demands of life that are growing increasingly harder to handle. While Von Arnim puts is mostly in relation to the social norms that were in place during the 1920s, it’s possible to see that the desire for slowing down during the 2020s stem mostly from a tiredness of the ultra-capitalistic world we live in.

The story of Enchanted April starts during a dreary month of march. Grey. Tiring. We have all went through months like these where the responsibilities and list of things to do, and slow drag of the days gets to be unbearable. Mrs Lotty Wilkins sees an a journal advert to rent a castle in Italy for a month, and under the grey drizzling London skies. And she yearns for that moment of respite. Far from her obligations, from her nagging husband and being able to take time for herself for the first time in years.

Eventually, four immensely different women will end up in this castle in San Salvatore, Italy, for a whole month. Each of those women have a distinctive purpose in this book, but they all seem to be looking for something similar: an escape from their frantic and boring daily life, a relief from routine, from the lack of connection and intimacy that they feel. In the midst of those charmed italian gardens, you feel like they can finally take a breath, loosen up and rest.

«She moved about with quick, purposeful steps, her long thin body held up straight, her small face, so much puckered at home with effort and fear, smoothed out»

And just reading that, or watching the movie, gives me a similar respite. The sun lits all the shots, the wind blows gently in the tree leaves, and the clothes that are worn are looser, more comfortable. This movie is charming, humorous and delightful. But most of all, it’s slow paced and soothing. You have drawn out scenes where nothing much happens but the moments are peaceful and reassuring. I rewatch it every april, because while I cannot take a month off to spend it in an isolated italian castle, oh god I Yearn So Much For It.

Even though, this story is set during the 1920s, thus being a contemporary story written by Von Arnim, I cannot help but feel that this story is one that is still deeply relevant today, in the 2020s. The thoughts of the characters seems very familiar and relatable : «For Lady Caroline Dester, the process of change is longer, more involved, and more isolated. She approaches San Salvatore with a “dream of thirty restful, silent days, lying unmolested in the sun, getting her feathers smooth again, not being spoken to, not waited on, not grabbed at and monopolized, but just recovering from the fatigue, the deep and melancholy fatigue, of the too much”»

In Enchanted April, this month in Italy is a moment of quiet rest for these four women, bt also a time dedicated to oneself and to introspection. «Initially, each woman desires to be alone for long stretches of time: Mrs Fisher in her room, Lady Caroline in a chair in the top garden, and Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot in the gardens and hills. Each is free to reflect on her life and begin to have a clearer understanding of herself in relation to others. »

A late afternoon:

Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963) is one of the prominent filmmakers in Japan during the first half of the XXth century. His movies had a very distinct style and technique to them that made his work really unique to himself. A lot of filmmakers tried to replicate or imitate the stylisation of his work, but there was something in Ozu’s work that was very particular to the period of cinema he lived in. He was active from the later half 1920s until his untimely passing on his birthday in 1963. This means he lived through the Second World War as well as through a time of great change and evolution in the world.

It’s possible to write a hundred pages on Yasujiro Ozu alone because there’s a lot to say about him and his movies, whether it’s about the narrative and the story he chose to portray or the techniques and stylisation that characterize what is an Ozu movie. I thought it was relevant to mention him when talking about slower movies and slower paced media, because of the impact that he had on film, especially when it comes to using the medium to tell stories of lost and quiet moments.

With the increased modernity and a rapidly changing world, Ozu’s films, such as Tokyo Story ( 1953), Late Spring (1949) and Floating Weeds (1959) tried to capture the very modern life he and his contemporary were experiencing and the way they dealt with these changes. Even though Ozu’s movies were particularly specific to a certain period and country, it’s indeed impossible to disassociate Ozu’s movies from the fact that they were made in Japan, and that Ozu went through the pre-war, war and post-war era and continuously made movies during these times.

Which means that his films do reflect a certain time in Japanese history which makes them incredibly specific and contemporary to the society he lived in. «However, I believe that the film is less about articulating the value of modernity against the challenge of tradition than observing the subtle state whereby the former unknowingly pervades the latter. In this sense, rather than the overt manifestation of free movement outside of the home, the trivial motion inside the confined domesticity are a more essential element in Ozu’s films. In other words, in Ozu, modernity exists within the everyday, a stable flow that undulates but hardly overflows.» Nonetheless, the issues and subjects tackled in those movies, such as intergenerational conflict, the difficulty that people have to catch up with a world with values that are rapidly changing, and modernity. Those problems are a universal experience, but were communicated in a unique lense through Yasujiro Ozu’s movies.

The focus of most of Ozu’s films is centered around the familial unit, and the conflicts and moments that arise between them as life moves forward. The everyday moments in a world that gets harder to navigate each day. The story of a daughter who is pressured to married, and the dilemma and conflicts between the societal expectations that people have of her, her own wants and needs and also the desire to be able to strike a balance between those two elements. I think that this, while not being necessarily being a universal experience, can still be an incredibly relatable one.

Once she gets married, she needs to move forward with her life and leaves her widowed father to live alone, which really showcases the simple and universal realities of real life. The plotlines of Ozu’s movies focus on simple and universal conflicts and problems, the stories he tells through those movies are nonetheless things that are universal and. the way he presents them are beautiful, quiet and, most importantly, real. «More broadly, Ozu’s omission of important events also speaks to his interest in the mundane, his desire to uncover the emotional nuances within small talk, daily routines, and other “boring” details of everyday life.»

There are quiet moments of silence, of rain falling while someone is folding clothes or eating. Laughter and companionships. Tears and pain and love and hurt and all of the very important emotions that compose the human experience. «the great filmmaker used to evoke a sense of melancholy and poetry in everyday existence.» which is something that truly is a balm to the soul in my own humble opinion. There’s a lot of vulnerability in this slowness, a very real sadness and emotionality that is very raw and yet mundane in its encompassing universality of the human experience.

The stylistic choices that Ozu decides to take all tend toward this one goal of showcasing the quiet movement of life, while hinting at the tumultuous feelings that people might feel, and the world around them. His movies were simple and slow but very meaningful as well. «Ozu’s films often violate the stylistic conventions of mainstream filmmaking. For example, one “rule” in classical Hollywood cinema is that every shot should clearly and obviously advance the narrative. Yet Ozu’s films frequently feature what commentators call “pillow shots” – namely, shots of landscapes, objects, or interiors that have no apparent connection to the protagonists and what they’re doing plotwise.»

His movies focus on the relationships between people and the world they inhabit, and the growing modernity, and also capitalism, of it. «As you’ll quickly come to see, Ozu is hardly a fan of modernity. In films like The Only Son, Late Spring, Late Autumn, and An Autumn Afternoon, he suggests, among other things, that economic modernization has engendered inequality, feelings of alienation, empty consumerism, and the Americanization of Japanese life.» Those feelings of alienation that we currently feel toward our own lives, our own time and our own time are very relevant for us in 2020. While I do think that those movies represent a certain time and a certain context, and you cannot talk about Yasujiro Ozu without really contextualizing both him and his work, I think it can be really relevant to today. Ozu made movies for himself and for the society he lived in but that doesn't mean that those movies can’t still be important today.

Ozu did impact international cinema, as can be seen for exemple with the movies of Wes Anderson, as seen in this visual essay that compares their body of work. both narratively and stylistically. I won’t go into more details about Anderson here, because he is one of my favorite directors and i hope to write an entire article on him soon, but i thought it was relevant to mention this. Most importantly, Yasujiro Ozu left an imprint on japanese cinema that can still be seen to this day in contemporary movies. I could mention filmmakers such as Naoko Ogigami, with movies such as Rent-a-cat (2012), Close-Knit (2017) and Kamome Diner (2006), all movies that have a decidedly slower pace and kinder vibe to them. Hayao Miyazaki and the movies Studio Ghibli produced also are an example of that slower cinema, but we’ll touch upon this a bit further down the line.

(rent-a-cat [2012] d. Naoko Ogigami)

a little world of our own

With this in mind, it’s easy to see that there’s a sub-genre of japanese cinema that really make a concerted effort at incorporating the concepts of slowness in their stories, whether it's the slower pace of the story or actual slow living principles. Those movies often address the fantasy of leaving everything behind (your work, your problems, your issues, your sadness) to go live in a small town or quitting your job to follow your dreams, or simply to feel like your time is yours again. This list on letterboxd which showcases many movies of that genre in japanese cinema (currently 157 movies on date of writing this article)

A good example of this type of stories would be the duology of the Little Forest movies, as well as the subsequent korean adaptation in 2018. These movies were both adapted originally from a manga by Daisuke Igarashi. Little Forest : Summer/Autumn (2014) and Little Forest : Winter/Spring (2015) follow the story of a young woman who leaves her busy city life to go back to her hometown and decides to live in a slower way, taking care of her vegetables and living according to the seasons. The two movies are infinitely slow, focusing on the main character cooking, resting, eating, and eventually resolving the conflict that she has with her mother. The life she lives in these secluded parts seems uneventful but happy and calm which seems all that she desires. She doesn’t need to contribute to the capitalist system of society to be deserving of being able to live in peace, and this makes her feel less alienated from the world she lives in.

Spirited away

I also don’t think it’s really possible to mention slower moments of everyday life in cinema without talking about the movies that probably were the first introduction to this for many of us. The movies of Studio Ghibli, with Hayao Miyazaki at the helm of it, are little masterpieces of animation. The movies are intended for a younger audience but can be appreciated by everyone. Studio Ghibli movies are another example of filmmaking that manages to capture this slower pace in media. Between all of the adventures and events that are happening in those movies, there are moments of slowness. Of calm. Of quietness.

As Robert Ebert told to Miyazaki, during an interview with him « I told Miyazaki I love the "gratuitous motion" in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are.» Miyazaki proceeded to explain what this concept was for him «"We have a word for that in Japanese," he said. "It's called ma. Emptiness. It's there intentionally."» Those slow moments between the action are very deliberate, to slow down the story and to slow down the pace. Contrary to the generally accepted school of thought in modern Hollywood cinema, which is that every single scene needs to move the story forward, Miyazaki lets his story and movies breathe. This way of building the story gives it an added sense of calm and soothingness, but also it gives it another sense of realism. Instead of following a strict narrative outline, this fluidity makes the story feel more real and relatable.

Despite being an animated movie set in a very obviously fantastical universe, Studio Ghibli movies tend to be very realistic in the way they portray the characters, their complexity, and also what are the real underlying conflicts. For example, in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) «The primary conflict isn’t about magic—it’s internal and invisible and wholly human: Kiki’s brief period of lost motivation and artist’s block. She gets it back when she wants to help Tombo, whom she loves. Simple as that. She doesn’t have to wage an epic battle to prove her worth» The stakes might seem lower in this movie, very mundane and ordinary but I think this is what makes it so special.

The quiet moments and details that might seem innocuous and useless at first and slower the pace of the movie in itself, are ultimately what gives it this feeling of genuineness. It lets the characters and the plot have the space to evolve and to grow.

« Although these scenes may seem slow or unimportant, they give space to develop the characters and to heighten dreams or feelings the characters are having such as feelings of isolation, wonder, or anxiety. It is in these moments of stillness that the audience can contemplate with the characters and feel what the characters are feeling. These moments remind the audience the importance of stillness in such a fast paced world and highlights the beauty of a slower paced life»

Studio Ghibli movies insert those slower moments in between more faster paced and action packed scenes but also in the midst of world-changing events such as wars, as shown in Howl’s Moving Castle (2004). This demonstrate how people still live on during those crises, even with the danger looming over their heads. Which is something that I think can be very relevant in today’s time where the past twenty years have been increasingly more unstable and the … few months of 2020 were a Shit Show in itself, if you want my opinion. So this kind of media gives me hope that we can live through this, that moments of happiness and peace are still to be found.

A charmed life

Slower cinema is something that has existed for as long as cinema existed, but I do think that it’s a very current feeling to want to be able to slow down the pace of our lives, and be able to enjoy time in a more meaningful way. Personally, I know life has gotten ridiculously hectic for me in the past two years, and while there’s a lot I always want to be doing and I’m very happy about how my life is coming together, this doesn’t mean that sometimes, it doesn’t feel Very Overwhelming and alienating to constantly feel the need to be productive. What we can bring to the capitalist system isn’t what determine the worth and value of who we are as people. «"As speed is seemingly equated with efficiency and professionalism, however, slowness can become a way of signaling an alternative set of values or a refusal to privilege the workplace over other domains of life.”» I hope to be able to live my life on my own term and to be able to spend time on things that are important to me and feel like my time is my own.

Slow media is everywhere lately, whether it’s in cinema, books, games, but also in a more broader sense with the slow life movements, the minimalist trends, but also a general awareness of sustainability, the amount of mass production and mass consumerism in our modern world.

In order to sustain that fast pace of constant production of things, you inevitably have to sacrifice on either the quality of the product, the work conditions or on the materials in order to be able to keep up with the extremely high rhythm sustained by capitalism. It can also be compared to the fast work pace imposed on people who work on the sets of movies or video games for example. I think we all heard of the debacle with the Sonic (2020) movie as well as Cats (2019) and the pressure that was put upon the vfx artists to re-do the movie and complete it extremely fast, which brought poor working conditions on them.

Slowing down is, in my opinion, of the utmost importance for us to be able to live better, but also to be able to do better things. To have better working conditions, to be able to have a better craftsmanship, people having more time to do things and do them better instead of scrambling to constantly catch up to a production rhythm that is just simply way too fast. This ties in with the environmental aspect of slowing down, because if you take more time to make things that are of a better quality and that will last for a long time, there won’t be such a need for a constant production of those things but unfortunately that’s capitalism Babey.

a quiet respite

Ultimately, the act of slowing down and taking a stand against the fast pace imposed on us by the constraints of capitalism is a very personal one, but I think it's worth considering. And when it’s not possible to actually slow down, I hope those movies and these slower medias can give you a respite even if life isn’t giving you much of one. I do think that having the opportunity to meaningfully slow down the pace of your life, and taking the time to think, breathe, and reconnect with the more mundane parts of your life can be beneficial, especially when there’s a constant pressure to perform and to excel in this fast-paced modern life.

I just hope we can try to take care of ourselves deeply, connect with ourselves but also with each other. We need time to feel, breathe and actually live and not just beat to the drum of a corporation and of this sadistic capitalist system who will never care for you. Corporations do not want you to slow down and they want to get your money by any means necessary, which we have obviously witnessed a lot during this Global Pandemic. Which is why I think there's a real pushback against this fast pace of life and the mass consumerism, by slowing down,

On this note, i hope you appreciated the article, i hope you are taking care of yourself during those hard times and i hope the media you are consuming is something that makes you feel better, and i hope you don't put too much pressure on yourself.

please just breathe. hopefully it will be okay.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Slow Life & Slow Cinema :

Matthew Flanagan. 'Slow Cinema': Temporality and Style in Contemporary Art and Experimental Film. University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in October 2012.

ZEESTRATEN, J. Strolling to the beat of another drum: Living the ‘Slow Life’, Master’s Thesis, Lincoln University, 2008. <https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e0c6/f533e7d8f9254eddbadc0fe6dbb7d4a5ea8c.pdf >

SCREENING BOREDOM THE HISTORY AND AESTHETICS OF SLOW CINEMA Orhan Emre Çağlayan. A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film Studies University of Kent February 2014

ELSON, Logan. Slow Cinema Modality: Applying Bordwell to Tsai Ming-Liang, Trent University, JUST, Vol. V, No. 1, 2017

LAVIN, Mathias. Prolonger Ozu, avec Kiarostami, Akerman, Hong Sang-Soo.

FLANAGAN, Matthew. Towards an Aesthetic of Slow in Contemporary Cinema, 16:9, 2020 <http://www.16-9.dk/2008-11/side11_inenglish.htm>

RASSOS, Effie. Everyday Narratives Reconsidering Filmic Temporality and Spectatorial Affect through the Quotidian, A Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Media, Film and Theatre University of New South Wales August 2005

LETTERBOXD. The Absolute Beauty in Everyday’s Mundanity. Hungkat, 2020. <https://letterboxd.com/kun/list/the-absolute-beauty-in-everydays-mundanity/>

LETTERBOXD. A Slice of Japanese Life. Seraphimjc, 2020. <https://letterboxd.com/seraphimjc/list/a-slice-of-japanese-life>/

Enchanted April:

BOLLARD, Jennifer Jane. The Felicitous Space of Elizabeth von Arnim, Master’s Thesis, University of Canterbury Christchurch, New Zealand, 1995 , <https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/11887/Bollard_thesis.pdf;sequence=>

VON ARNIM, Elizabeth. Enchanted April, Waking Lion Press, 2008 (first published 1922)

YOUNG, Katie Elizabeth. More than "Wisteria and Sunshine": The Garden as a Space of Female Introspection and Identity in Elizabeth von Arnim' s The Enchanted April and Vera, Master’s Thesis. Brigham Young University, 2011. < https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4032&context=etd>

Yasujiro Ozu:

The Cinema Cartography, Yasujirō Ozu - The Depth of Simplicity, Youtube video, 2015 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G7oeyOsfSg>

JOO, Woojeong, The flavour of tofu : Ozu, history and the representation of the everyday. PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 2011.

BETH, Suzanne. Destruction, puissance et limites du cinéma dans les films d'Ozu Yasujirô, Doctorate Thesis, Université de Montréal, 2015. <https://papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1866/13600/Beth_Suzanne_2015_these.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y>

EMERSON, Andrew. The Beginner’s Guide: Yasujiro Ozu, Director, The Film Inquiry, 2019

<https://www.filminquiry.com/beginners-guide-yasujiro-ozu/>

Criterion. The Signature Style of Yasujiro Ozu. On film. 2015 <https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3836-the-signature-style-of-yasujiro-ozu>

Thompson, pp. 19-20, 327-331; David Bordwell, Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 73-74.

CATLEY, Anna. Wes Anderson & Yasujiro Ozu: A Visual Essay, Youtube, 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbXRpiVO1po >

Little Forest:

SREEKANDAN, Nikhil , Little Forest: Film Review , The Inkline, 2018. <https://the-inkline.com/2018/06/17/little-forest-film-review/>

https://snackfever.com/blogs/magazine/a-refreshing-cool-breeze-found-in-the-little-forest

Studio Ghibli:

EBERT, Robert. Hayao Miyazaki interview. 2002. <https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/hayao-miyazaki-interview>

The Magic and Artistry of Studio Ghibli’s Films, The Artifice, 2017 <https://the-artifice.com/magic-artistry-studio-ghibli-films/>

JAREMKO-GREENWOLD, Anya. The Low-Stakes Pleasure of Kiki’s Delivery’s Service. on Birth, Movies, Death, 2017. <birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/07/18/the-low-stakes-pleasure-of-kikis-delivery-service>

STEY, George Andrew.. Elements of Realism in Japanese Animation, Master’s Thesis, University of Ohio, 2009. <https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1250700496&disposition=inline>

Cottagecore:

SKELLEY, Jemima. Cottagecore Is the Soothing Online Aesthetic We All Need Right Now, The Latch, 2020. <https://thelatch.com.au/cottagecore-aesthetic/>

HAASCH, Palmer. People online are flocking to 'cottagecore,' an online aesthetic that idealizes agricultural life, to calm their hyper-stimulated nerves, The Insider, 2020. <https://www.insider.com/cottagecore-isolation-aesthetic-tumblr-explained-social-distancing-2020-4>

SLONE, Isabel. Escape Into Cottagecore, Calming Ethos for Our Febrile Moment, New York Times, 2020. < https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/style/cottagecore.html>

animal crossing:

VINCENT, Britanny. Find fulfillment in Animal Crossing New Horizons' slice-of-life gameplay, CNN underscored., 2020https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/cnn-underscored/animal-crossing-new-horizons-review/index.html

WEBSTER, Andrew. ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS IS A CHILL, CHARMING LIFE SIM THAT PUTS YOU IN CONTROL, The Verge, 2020. <https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/16/21179238/animal-crossing-new-horizons-review-nintendo-switch-features>

#slow living #cottagecore #slowness in cinema #cinema #film

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