#a new creation by alison

[asthecrowcrafts]

🧶 Weekly WIP 🧶

2023 Week 38

Here is everything I have been working on in the past week. 🧡

🔸 PJ Alterations - I recently bought another amazing pair of Printfresh pajamas (in the print Unicorn's Garden - green) during their big end of summer sale. If you're a fancy PJ girlie (or a gorgeous maximalist print girlie) then save up and wait for their big bi-annual sales because these things are to die for. My one complaint with their button up tops is they have big floppy button plackets that basically require pressing if you don't want them to crumple up constantly. So with my new top I just did a quick little whip stitch to keep things in place.

🔸 'It is Finished' Cross Stitch - Recently a friend of mine reached out and asked if I would teach her how to embroider. I figured that cross stitch was probably the best place to start since she's never really done any fiber crafts. I found this lovely little pattern on Etsy by 'A New Creation By Alison' and I thought it would be a great starter project since it is relatively small and only three colors.

🔸 Woolen Sweater Alteration - I got this beautifully embroidered sweater at the thrift store a few years ago, and I finally decided that i would prefer if it was a sweater vest. So I trimmed off the sleeves, cut down the length to make it cropped, and then got scared of actually sewing it so I put it down for 6 months. haha Now that it is getting cold again I really want to finish it, so I pulled it out and I hope to get it finished in the next few weeks.

🔸 Commissioned Beyoncé Tour Tank - Last by not least, this piece that I am making for a friend of mine who is going to the Beyoncé Renaissance World Tour. He wanted a top that evoked her custom Loewe bodysuit. Stretch fabrics are definitely outside of my wheelhouse (not to mention sequins) so this has been a really fun learning experience. I will probably have a dedicated post going into the details around the project.

🔸 Other Weekly WIPs:

Katuscia Tank - top half is mostly finished, I just need to add the straps. May not add the bottom panel as I am considering using this as a night shirt.

Medieval hood - fully finished other than the hem

Lillian suit jacket - need to purchase lining fabric and start on the mock-up

Happy sewing ✂️🧶✂️🧶,

Mrs. Crow

[atelieralison]

Snow Days Scrapbooking Kit

[and-her-saints]

Hey sorry idk if you'd know this but I quite literally don't know where to turn about this so I'm sending this ask to every queer+catholic blog I can find

Are there *any* resources out there for queer/trans Catholics that go beyond affirmation and show how to pursue a religious life that goes beyond the laity (e.g. priesthood, joining a convent/monastery, something similar) without having to brush your queerness aside. I feel like if I don't find something soon I might go insane

years ago, i attended a Zoom event with Fr. James Alison as a keynote speaker, and something he said has been glued to my brain ever since. he said it in Spanish, so i'll try to remember, paraphrase and translate: "while they try to get us to stop being queer, what we must try to do is to be better queers."

i love what you said about "beyond affirmation" and that is precisely why i got reminded of the quote and WHY this quote resonated with me to begin with.

imho, there is a fundamental issue with a lot of queer theology and it's that it doesn't go beyond apologetics. it's not pragmatic nor does it seem to engage critically with the material conditions that work with or against queerness. and it's truly such a shame, because living "religiously" to me, as a queer catholic, it's infinitely more a matter of coherence, love, devotion and solidarity, than learning how to "reconcile" gayness/transness with the Bible.

it's a journey, of course. the apologetics were and are necessary for many of us to unlearn the hatred that might've been instilled in us through religious education and upbringing. however, here are some resources that, in my opinion, show how to pursue queer-religious-life.

💌 catholic/christian resources:

[book] The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus by Dorothy Day. Unlike larger collections and biographies, which cover her radical views, exceptional deeds, and amazing life story, this book focuses on a more personal dimension of her life: Where did she receive strength to stay true to her God-given calling despite her own doubts and inadequacies and the demands of an activist life? What was the unquenchable wellspring of her deep faith and her love for humanity?

[book & account] Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human by Cole Arthur Riley. Black Liturgies is a digital project that connects spiritual practice with Black emotion, Black memory, and the Black body. In this book, she brings together hundreds of new prayers, along with letters, poems, meditation questions, breath practices, scriptures, and the writings of Black literary ancestors to offer forty-three liturgies that can be practiced individually or as a community.

[book] Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor by Leonardo Boff. Focusing on the threated Amazon of his native Brazil, Boff traces the economic and metaphysical ties that bind the fate of the rain forests with the fate of the indigenous peoples and the poor of the land. He shows how liberation theology must join with ecology in reclaiming the dignity of the earth and our sense of a common community, part of God's creation. To illustrate the possibilities, Boff turns to resources in Christian spirituality both ancient and modern, from the vision of St. Francis of Assisi to cosmic christology.

[book] Undoing Theology: Life Stories from Non-normative Christians by Chris Greenough. The fundamental issue with ‘queer’ research is it cannot exist in any definable form, as the purpose of queer is to disrupt and disturb. Undoing Doing generates a process of ‘undoing’ as central to queer research enquiries. Aiming to engage in a process which breaks free from traditional academic norms, the text explores three life stories

[podcast] The Magnificast. "A weekly podcast about Christianity and leftist politics. The Magnificast is hosted by Dean Dettloff and Matt Bernico. Each week's episode focuses on a unique or under-realized aspect of territory between Christianity and politics that no one taught you about in sunday school."

💌 non-christian but still excellent resources:

[book] Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H. A memoir by a butch hijabi that follows the experiences of the author through stories and figures from the Qur'an.

[book] Lean on Me: A Politics of Radical Care by Lynne Segal. Questions of care, intimacy, education, meaningful work, and social engagement lie at the core of our ability to understand the world and its possibilities for human flourishing. In Lean On Me feminist thinker Lynne Segal goes in search of hope in her own life and in the world around her. She finds it entwined in our intimate commitments to each other and our shared collective endeavours.

i don't think these are precisely what you were looking for. but i hope these resources bring you as much peace and hope as they have brought me.

[tayloralisonswiftnetwork]

With another leg of the Eras Tour now being over, the Taylor Alison Swift Network is happy to announce our September event: Eras Tour Celebration!

For this event, you are welcome to create anything from the list of prompts below!

September 2nd - Day 1: Favorite new outfit

September 3rd - Day 2: Favorite performance from the TTPD era

September 4th - Day 3: Favorite behind the scenes moment

September 5th - Day 4: Favorite special guest

September 6th - Day 5: Favorite surprise songs mashup

About the event:

The event will take place from September 2nd to September 6th!

Anyone can participate!

How to participate:

Reblog this post!

Create something based on the prompts!

Caption your post with @tayloralisonswiftnetwork Eras Tour Celebration | [prompt] and tag #taswiftnet so we can reblog it! We will reblog late creations as well!

We look forward to everyone’s creations!

[transmutationisms]

do you have any reading recs (books, ~scholarly articles, whatever) in the same vein as this post? (doesn't need to be a super long list, i'm content to branch off with the works cited of whatever you come up with...) as always, love your blog!! :-)

yes :3 split roughly by subtopic, bolded some favs

Evolution in England prior to (Charles) Darwin

Cooter, Roger. The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organisation of Consent in Nineteenth Century Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1985).

Desmond, Adrian. The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1989).

Elliott, Paul. “Erasmus Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and the Origin of the Evolutionary Worldview in British Provincial Scientific Culture, 1770–1850.” Isis 94 (1): 1–29 (2003).

Finchman, Martin. “Biology and Politics: Defining the Boundaries.” In: Lightman, Bernard (Ed.). Victorian Science in Context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1997), 94–118.

Fyfe, Aileen. Steam-Powered Knowledge: William Chambers and the Business of Publishing, 1820–1860. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2012).

Harrison, James. “Erasmus Darwin’s View of Evolution.” Journal of the History of Ideas 32 (2): 247–64 (1971).

McNeil, Maureen. Under the Banner of Science: Erasmus Darwin and his Age. Manchester: Manchester University Press (1987).

Ospovat, Dov. “The Influence of Karl Ernst von Baer’s Embryology 1828–1859: A Reappraisal in Light of Richard Owen’s and William Benjamin Carpenter’s ‘Palaeontological Application of Von Baer’s Law.’” Journal of the History of Biology 9 (1): 1–28 (1976).

Rehbock, Philip F. The Philosophical Naturalists: Themes in Early Nineteenth-Century British Biology. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press (1983).

Richards, Robert J. Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behaviour. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1987).

Rupke, Nicolaas. Richard Owen: Biology without Darwin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2009 [ 1994]).

Secord, James. Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2001).

van Wyhe, John. Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism. London: Ashgate (2004).

Winter, Alison. “The Construction of Orthodoxies and Heterodoxies in the Early Life Sciences.” In: Lightman, Bernard (Ed.). Victorian Science in Context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1997), 24–50.

Yeo, Richard. “Science and Intellectual Authority in Mid-Nineteenth Century Britain: Robert Chambers and Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.” Victorian Studies 28 (1): 5–31 (1984).

Edinburgh Lamarckians and Scottish transmutationism

Desmond, Adrian. “Robert E. Grant: The Social Predicament of a Pre-Darwinian Transmutationist.” Journal of the History of Biology 17 (2): 189–223 (1984).

Jenkins, Bill. Evolution Before Darwin. Theories of the Transmutation of Species in Edinburgh, 1804–1834. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (2019).

Secord, James. “The Edinburgh Lamarckians: Robert Jameson and Robert E. Grant.” Journal of the History of Biology 24 (1): 1–18 (1991).

Corsi, Pietro. ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians? The Authorship of Three Anonymous Papers (1826–1829)’, Journal of the History of Biology 54 (2021), pp. 345–374.

Darwin and Darwinism

Desmond, Adrian and James Moore. Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist. New York: W. W. Norton & Company (1994).

van Wyhe, John. “Mind the Gap. Did Darwin Avoid Publishing his Theory for many years?” Notes & Records of the Royal Society 61 (2007), 177–205.

Sloan, Philip R. “Darwin, Vital Matter, and the Transformation of Species.” Journal of the History of Biology 19 (3): 369–445 (1986).

Phillip R. Sloan, “The Making of a Philosophical Naturalist.” In: Hodge, Jonathan and Gregory Radick (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2009), 17–39.

Sponsel, Alistair. Darwin’s Evolving Identity: Adventure, Ambition, and the Sin of Speculation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2018).

Young, Robert M. “Malthus and the Evolutionists: The Common Context of Biological and Social Theory.” Past & Present 43 (1969): 109–45.

Young, Robert M. “Darwin’s Metaphor: Does Nature Select?” The Monist 55 (3): 442–503 (1971).

Bowler, Peter J. The Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (1988).

Bowler, Peter J. The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades Around 1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (1983).

Hale, Piers J. “Rejecting the Myth of the Non-Darwinian Revolution.” Victorian Review 41 (2): 13–18 (Fall 2015).

Lightman, Bernard. “Darwin and the popularisation of evolution.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society 64: 5–24 (2010).

Richards, Robert J. The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin’s Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1992).

Ruse, Michael. The Darwinian Revolution: Science Red in Tooth and Claw. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1979).

Lamarck and Lamarckism

Barthélemy-Madaule, Madeleine. 1982. Lamarck, the Mythical Precursor: A Study of the Relations between Science and Ideology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Burkhardt, Richard. 1970. Lamarck, Evolution, and the Politics of Science. Journal of the History of Biology 3 (2): 275–298.

Burkhardt, Richard. 1977. The Spirit of System: Lamarck and Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Corsi, Pietro. 1988. The Age of Lamarck: Evolutionary Theories in France, 1790–1830. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Corsi, Pietro. 2005. Before Darwin: Transformist Concepts in European Natural History. Journal of the History of Biology 38 (1): 67-83.

Corsi, Pietro. 2011. The Revolutions of Evolution: Geoffroy and Lamarck, 1825–1840. Bulletin du Musée D’Anthropologie Préhistorique de Monaco 51: 113–134.

Jordanova, Ludmilla. 1984. Lamarck. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Spary, Emma C. 2000. Utopia’s Garden: French Natural History from Old Regime to Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[vintageaurelia]

knitting club (Thomas Thorne x Reader drabble)

note: hi fellas. this is my first time writing something like this and POSTING it. I'm a little nervous ngl! But just bear with me I swear I'll improve 😊. anywho! feel free to shoot some silly little requests my way!

Also! apologies if you don't have any clue about knitting, I personally do and I based this off a singular Thomas quote LOL.

------

The club meetings Alison was hosting in the home proved to be bothersome for some of the ghosts, annoyed at how many people were visiting the house every day. Between the AA meetings and just the most random topics you could ever think of being discussed, it was something not everyone was entirely interested in. Though everyone loved to tune into the AA meeting every once in a while, for some juicy stories. 

You on the other hand? You stuck around for all the art based clubs, it reminded you of when you were alive and could do all this work with your hands.

The knitting club proved to be one that you could watch for hours, it's one of the hobbies you missed a lot. Looking around at all of the cute creations everyone was making and talking about their families and different stories they had from the day filled your soul with a sort of warmth. 

As this week's meeting began, you sat on the old beat up couch, watching all the young, old, women and men fill the seats, excited about what progress they made over the week. Unbeknownst to you though, a certain poet was walking past the room to see you sitting in there alone, with the group that had no idea you were there.

Thomas was never really fond of the knitting club, he felt it was boring and it wasn’t worth his time to sit and watch other people knit while talking about their grandkids or their in-laws. But maybe he could learn to like it? Maybe just for you?

He walked into the room silently as you were enchanted by all the people getting ready to start the meeting. “Good evening dear (Y/N),” Thomas greets you with a slight bow and a polite smile on his face. You light up and wave to him “Hi! Are you here for the knitting club? I thought you didn’t like them?” Thomas freezes up before responding with a quick agreement. “I just thought I might’ve judged them a little too hard at first, so I thought I would give them another chance,” this makes you smile and you go back to watching the group. 

He had to admit it's not as boring as he remembered, but it still wasn’t super enjoyable for him. But boy did it make him gleam seeing you get up and tell him what everyone was making and why.

By the end of the meeting, he learned one of the older women was making a blanket for her new grandson, and a young man was making a hat for his wife as a Christmas gift. Part of him wished he could do something like that for you, just because he realized how excited you get about this stuff.

“Say (Y/N), did you know how to knit when you were living? You seem to know quite a bit.” You nod, “It was a big hobby of mine. I spent a lot of time and money on blankets and hats, which now thinking about it, probably paid off. Because now my family has something handmade to remember me.” You smile, but it hurts to think about sometimes. 

Thomas reads you like a book, he realizes how emotional you are getting. He places a supportive hand on your shoulder. 

You both lock eyes, getting lost with one another. Thomas soon breaks eye contact to glance over at the people knitting mindlessly.

“I know that being stuck here isn’t ideal, and not being able to do the things you love isn’t ideal either. But isn’t it splendid you can still appreciate it? Even if you cannot do it, isn’t the true gift appreciation?” He states, so matter of factly you can’t even begin to argue. “That was actually very poetic.” Both of you smile at each other. 

“I also appreciate you, Thomas.” 

“I feel the same exact way, my dearest.”

-----

I hope you all enjoyed! Probably not the best work ever, but I thought it was cute :)

[open-hearth-rpg]

Hearts of Wulin Now at Age of Ravens

Hearts of Wulin, a PbtA game of wuxia romance and melodrama is now at Age of Ravens Games. Written by Joyce Ch*ng and Lowell Francis (me). This game and its expansion, Hearts of Wulin Worlds, offers a range of playstyles by focusing on the powerful heroes trapped by a web of obligations and personal desires. 

It’s pretty awesome IMHO. It draws on the literature of writers like Jin Yong and Gu Long, in particular adaptations of those stories in dozens and dozens of TV series (Laughing in the Wind, The Proud Twins). It also works to include things like more recent web novels and their adaptations, with rules for xianxia and the fantastic. The core book includes ideas for various genres, narrating fight scenes, building entanglements, and handling historical/courtly games. 

Hearts of Wulin: Worlds includes several settings: 

Shadow of Joseon, set during the Korean Joseon Dynasty. (Yeonsoo Julian Kim)

1905: San Francisco, presents a Chinatown just emerging from the shadow of the Chinese Exclusion Act. (Banana Chan)

Cour de l'Eppee transports Hearts of Wulin to swashbuckling France. (Cat Evans)

Academy of the Blade offers a dueling academy inspired by Revolutionary Girl Utena. (Alison Tam)

Fight Me IRL is a unique take on cyberpunk. (James Mendez Hodes) 

Silk & Steam gives you a wondrous silkpunk setting. (Kienna Shaw)

It also includes two major rules add-ons:

The Villain, a new playbook. Not all wulin "Heroes" are heroes with a capital H. Some start in a darker place... 

Numberless Secrets, a new set of rules for telling mystery/investigation stories in Hearts of Wulin. 

These can be found on Drivethrurpg– both are part of the ongoing GMs Day sale happening right now. 

Personally I’m really excited about the future for Hearts of Wulin. Though I never learned the print run, I do know that the last of the physical copies recently sold out at Indie Press Revolution. I have a short list of things I’m hoping to accomplish. 

Get it up on itch.io. I know some folks prefer to get their ttrpg pdfs via that site. 

Figure out how to get Print-on-Demand versions up on Drivethru. I’ve been told this is a challenging process to get right, so I’m hoping to talk to some folks who have done it before. 

Publish the Names & Entanglements deck. This was a self-print add-on for Hearts of Wulin. It's a useful resource for character creation and I’m hoping to have physical copy available for sale. 

I’ve always said folks should feel free to hack and rework Hearts of Wulin as they wish. But I’d like to get a clear Creative Commons license out there for everyone and encourage folks to play around with the system.

Eventually I might do a 1.5 version bringing some of the HoW: Worlds material over into the main book, as well as a couple of rules updates.

I want to publish a collection of Numberless Secrets mysteries along with guidance for running detective wuxia games. I love the series Ancient Detective and this is the best way I get to play out those kinds of stories. 

Get an online keeper which has easy to use set ups for all of the expansion worlds. We have a solid one– newly automated thanks to Agatha– but it doesn’t have all the expansions. 

Some folks have done from amazing things with HoW so far (inspired by media like Scott Pilgrim, Cobra Kai, Star Wars and beyond). It would be great if I could assemble a collection of new hacks and settings, maybe with some additional play options.

Finalize the one translation agreement I’ve been offered. 

I want to thank everyone who has read and/or played Hearts of Wulin. It remains a game I love to run and it would be amazing to have more people try it out.

[lewbertsn00tles]

Alison Rings ✨

New Mesh

16 swatches

Teen - Elder

Disabled for random

Custom thumbnail

Female tags

Base Game Compatible

HQ Textures

[Download]

Please do not re-upload, copy, modify or claim my creations as your own. Give credit where credit is due, that is all I ask.

Thank you! ENJOY!

@maxismatchccworld @sssvitlanz @coffee-cc-finds @lanaccfind @mmoutfitters @mmfinds @ccsimsfindss4 @cccorner @kittiesccfinds @wastelandwhispererfinds @retro-plasma-finds @whitepxlllsfinds @capsimfinds @servegrilledcheese @public-ccfinds @cottagefinds @simbfinds @lilgracesimmer @magic-bot-cc @desireccfinds

[dzthenerd490]

File: OC 20

SCP#: AFM 

Code Name: Christine the Motorcycle

Object Class: Prodosa/ Keter

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-AFM unfortunately is under the protection of Group of Interest: The Black Queen's Insurgency. This was the result of the sudden containment breach at Site-AA. As such no Containment Procedures have been made. All efforts are directed to finding SCP-AFM and bringing it into containment. 

Description: SCP-AFM is the result of SCP-AFN and SCP-AAP fusing together during a containment breach of Site-AA back in 2014. SCP-AFM resembles a red motorcycle but has no resemblance to any known model in the world. Like its predecessors, the anomaly is sentient, homicidal, and enjoys making anything it targets explode psychically with its non-existent mind. Unfortunately, SCP-AFM is much stronger than either able to ride itself at a speed of 300 MPH and able to make anyone and anything it comes across explode. SCP-AFM is able to process information as fast as it drives meaning it can slaughter hundreds in a matter of minutes. 

SCP-AFM is not indestructible but is able to repair itself from any form of damage. It's even possible for the anomaly to temporarily give other motorcycles or bikes life and its anomalous abilities to act as its bodyguards or soldiers. It is believed that SCP-AFM gains power the more it kills as its abilities expand in range as a result to its increased death. 

SCP-AFM was created in 2014 during a containment breach caused by Group of Interest: The Black Queen's Insurgency. A janitor within the site was revealed to be an agent of the GoI and directed the infiltrators to both SCP-AAP's and SCP-AFN where they forced the anomalies together resulting in the creation of SCP-AFM. The janitor then rode SCP-AFM out of the site killing everyone he came across. The site suffered a 2% population loss that day and all forces from the Black Queen's Insurgency got away without suffering a single casualty. This marks yet another of our most embarrassing failures. 

"So that's why they created SCP-AFN, they wanted to use it as a piece to create a stronger SCP. I just wasn't expecting them to use an SCP already in our containment as the other half of the puzzle. Death has always been commonplace within the Foundation, but the Black Queen's Insurgency really finds ways to make it happen in the most horrific and frustrating ways possible. Still though, I like so many others can't help but be confused, we don't know much about the Black Queen's Insurgency other than the fact that it's ruled by the many dimensional iterations of Alison Chao, same with the original Black Queen group. But why is this new group so militaristic all of a sudden and why does she attack our reality when [data expunged] nor his daughter have ever existed in this reality because of The Reset. She should have no reason to hate us... so why does she?" - Dr. Bones

.

SCP: Horror Movie Files Hub

[reluctantjoe]

Mathew Baynton on life after Ghosts

Shilpa Ganatra interviews Mathew Baynton, who explains why it’s time to end the BBC One sitcom and how new voices are improving TV comedy

“What have we done?” bemoans the decapitated head of Sir Humphrey Bone, after the nation’s favourite spectres make a defining decision in the final episode of Ghosts, which goes out as a Christmas special on BBC One. “We did the right thing,” Julian Fawcett, the trouserless MP ghost, says confidently.

The exchange nicely reflects the sentiment of the show’s creators, the Them There collective, in deciding to exorcise the BBC supernatural sitcom after five series – despite notching up several RTS nominations and maintaining an audience of around 4 million throughout its run.

The Christmas special was co-written by Them There’s Mathew Baynton, who also plays the romantic poet Thomas Thorne in the series.

“From an artistic point of view, I’ve never been in any doubt that ending Ghosts now was the right thing to do and the right time to do it,” he tells Television. “From a personal point of view, we feel a sense of loss that we’re not going to be getting together in that place at the same time of year, every year. But nothing can go on for ever.”

“That sadness tells you it was the right thing. If we carried on for another five seasons and we were all bored of it, bored of each other, and it wasn’t as good as it used to be, we wouldn’t miss it afterwards.”

The series follows in the tradition of British domestic sitcoms, centring on a young couple, Alison and Mike (Charlotte Ritchie and Kiell Smith-Bynoe). They inherit Button House, a country manor haunted by a disparate crew of spirits from across the ages, played by the Them There collective: Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond, plus Lolly Adefope.

The show is a logical leap from the troupe’s first multi-award-winning TV creation, Horrible Histories, which re-enacted the curiosities of yesteryear in comedic skits. Horrible Histories’ success made it “shockingly easy” to get Ghosts commissioned – the only bump in the road was discussions between the group and the BBC about the pilot.

Recalls Baynton: “They wanted to do a pilot that would go out with other pilots. We wanted to do one to figure out the idea and road test the special effects, but we didn’t want it to be aired, because then there would be a pressure to not change it.”

The compromise was to make a 10-minute taster pilot that wasn’t for broadcast. This taster tried out their initial idea of having a house full of different ghosts and playing multiple characters (as with Horrible Histories and Them There’s Sky One series, Yonderland). But the result proved this set-up didn’t create the character friction necessary to sustain a sitcom, so the band stuck to the small group of ghosts we know today, from a prim and proper Edwardian matriarch to a caveman.

As Ghosts meets its end – on British TV at least, as the US adaptation is still going strong and about to enter its third season – Baynton, who turns in a high-octane performance as Fickelgruber in the film Wonka, is turning his attention to the other strings in his bow.

At the end of January he’ll step into the role of Bottom in a new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

He’s also writing a comedy film (details are being kept under wraps) and will show off his more serious acting side in the upcoming BBC Three series A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, a crime thriller based on the bestselling novel.

As a student, Baynton initially studied directing, earning a first-class degree at the Rose Bruford drama school in south-east London. After being drawn towards comedy, he attended Philippe Gaulier’s famously idiosyncratic clown school in Paris. “We used to say half of the fee is like a ticket just to watch him, because he’s hilarious. He plays the persona of a curmudgeonly, philo­sophical, French sort of half-wizard,” he recalls, adding: “Philippe’s got an incredible ability to help you learn what the audience sees in you.”

“If people tried to act up an idiot character, he’d say, ‘Don’t pretend to be more of an idiot than God already made you. He did a good enough job’. You don’t need to exaggerate it or pretend to look stupid. What you need to be is honest about the thing about yourself that people find funny, and then access that and allow people to laugh at it.”

This advice helped Baynton climb his first rungs in TV comedy to play Deano in Gavin & Stacey, a work colleague of Smithy (James Corden). He would go on to co-create and write the RTS award-­winning The Wrong Mans with Corden, the co-author of Gavin & Stacey. By the time Ghosts began, he had worked in TV comedy – featuring in Peep Show, Spy and The Armstrong and Miller Show, among others – for more than a decade.

“You’ll hear people saying, ‘Comedy was best when I was young’. I always think, ‘Well, you’re just not paying attention, then’. There will always be great stuff and if it doesn’t speak to you, it’s probably because it’s for people younger than you.”

While being a dad of two has limited the amount of competitor benchmarking he’s doing, he’s impressed with the greater breadth of voices in contemporary TV comedies.

“Bridget Christie’s The Change springs to mind, with menopausal women as the central characters, and the specificity of the location of the Forest of Dean. You couldn’t say that’s like any sitcom that’s come before,” he says. “We Are Lady Parts is another one, so is Stath Lets Flats.”

“I don’t know why I’m only naming Channel 4 shows, seeing as the BBC has been so good to me…”

Making comedy inclusive is no constraint to a writer, Baynton believes: “I’ve read the odd interview where people have said that creators are self-censoring to the point where they can’t be as instinctively funny. And some people see comedy’s function as being able to say the unsayable.”

“I can only speak for myself, but I know that my best work comes from writing and rewriting. What emerges is always something cleverer than I am, because in life you only get a first draft when you’re having a conversation. It’s not a bad thing to realise that a joke could maybe hurt someone, and it sounds like a better idea that I should rewrite if my intention could be misconstrued.”

As the curtain falls on Ghosts, commissioners are clamouring to find out what’s next for the Them There collective. Happily, they still have the same personnel and are mulling over their next project.

“We’re mindful that we can’t just do a modern sitcom where we’re wearing jeans and T-shirts. It just isn’t our tone,” says Baynton. “When we look for ideas, we’re thinking, what’s the playground that we can put ourselves in? Where we can do something with a heightened silliness, where potentially we play more than one character, and where there is a costume element to it.”

With this tried and tested formula as the base, their continued success seems assured. The legacy of Ghosts is preserved, too, persisting in the corridors of Button House and, indeed, TV history.

[atelieralison]

Glue & Post It Note Holder - Support pour Colle et Post-it

Is your desk always a mess? Can you never find a Post-it or your glue? Here is a quick and easy solution to have everything to hand. I have used one of the new colours ‘Petunia Pop’ but why not make one in the Colour of your craftroom. Votre bureau est toujours en désordre ?  Vous ne trouvez jamais de Post-it ou votre colle ?  Voici une solution simple et rapide pour tout avoir sous la main. …

[granulesofsand]

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA programming

We’ve had a group of us annotating Becoming Yourself by Alison Miller. There’s a lot to take from it, but the language makes it hard for us to read and we’re already dissociated to the moon and back.

I’m reading our copy, and I could’ve sworn some of that text wasn’t there the first time. It’s the same print, it hasn’t magically updated itself, but I can retain more of it. Eventually we’re gonna go through the whole thing again and really add as many notes as we think of, but already it’s been a huge difference.

But that’s not what I learned. What I learned is that

a) a lot of our subsystems have been hiding littlies

b) not all of the ones that are obviously young, internally look and externally act young, have been taught not to be children. I know that’s not new information, but that they never changed their appearance or developed by fronting, it knocked the breath out of me

c) some groups are subsystems with mixed opinions about their shared form. As in the beasties have submembers who enjoy their nonhumanness, who are healthy and happy, and submembers who were tortured into that identity and they hate it.

And all these young ones who we didn’t have access to before are showing up, and they’re all ambivalent and terrified. A bunch have subsystems with no mature members, and it’s like teaching an outside child how to hold system meetings and respect their insiders.

Also, I’d bet money the higher ups on that side found out we were deprogramming the first time we read that Miller book, and since then they’ve been hiding behind alter-creation programs. It would make sense that the forming would continue for the years we were unaware of it, but damn are they organized. I don’t imagine our handlers would’ve spent so much time doing it themselves after they taught us to do it for them.

Anyway I hate healing and I would like to fire our therapist and go sit in a patch of sunlight instead /hj

[normally0]

"Architectural Lexicon: Unveiling the Brutalism of SOURCES and QUOTES in the Language of Smithson's Creations"

In the realm of architecture, SOURCES and QUOTES are akin to the foundational elements shaping the new brutalism of language and architectural drawing, particularly in the context of visionaries like Alison and Peter Smithson.

SOURCES, in architectural terms, embody the roots and origins of design inspiration. They are the raw materials, both tangible and conceptual, from which architectural ideas arise. In the brutalism of language, SOURCES act as the concrete from which the structure of meaning emerges. Alison and Peter Smithson, pioneers of the New Brutalism movement, drew inspiration from diverse SOURCES – be it industrial landscapes, utilitarian structures, or urban textures. These SOURCES served as the point of origin for their bold architectural statements.

On the other hand, QUOTES can be seen as the direct expressions, the exact words, drawn from the SOURCES. In architectural drawing, QUOTES are the lines and shapes directly transcribed from the architect's vision to the blueprint. Alison and Peter Smithson, in their pursuit of a new architectural language, quoted elements from the urban environment, creating a dialogue between the existing fabric and their innovative designs.

While SOURCES and QUOTES share a symbiotic relationship, they differ in their nature. SOURCES are the wellspring of creativity, the origin of architectural thought. In the new brutalism of language, SOURCES are the rough textures and unfiltered inspirations. QUOTES, on the other hand, are the refined expressions, the articulated forms that emerge from these SOURCES. The Smithsons' architectural drawings, akin to a carefully composed quote, encapsulate the essence of their vision with clarity and impact.

In essence, SOURCES lay the foundation, while QUOTES construct the narrative. Together, they form the brutalist language of architecture, speaking a raw and unapologetic dialect that challenges conventional norms, much like the ground-breaking work of Alison and Peter Smithson.

🏢📐✨

[tayloralisonswiftnetwork]

With summer ending soon, the Taylor Alison Swift Network is happy to announce our September event: Cruel Summer!   

For this event, you are welcome to create anything from the list of prompts below! 

September 11th - Day 1: Favorite lyric from Cruel Summer 

September 12th - Day 2: Favorite song that mentions or reminds you of summer

September 13th - Day 3: Imagine the Cruel Summer music video 

September 14th - Day 4: Taylor's summer fashion

September 15th - Day 5: Cruel Summer performance

About the event: 

The event will take place from September 11th to September 15th!

Anyone can participate! Our discord server will always be open to new members. 

How to participate: 

Reblog this post!

Create something based on the prompts! 

Caption your post with @tayloralisonswiftnetwork Cruel Summer Event | [prompt] and tag #taswiftnet so we can reblog it! We shall reblog any late creations as well!

We look forward to everyone’s creations!  

[goodbysunball]

The weight off

One last missive before list season consumes us and 2023 is vacuumed up by time.

The Lewers, 518A (Lulu's Sonic Disc Club)

Yet another new supergroup from the endless expanse of Australia's underground, this one featuring Yuta Matsumura (Orion, Low Life, solo, many others), some folks from Itchy Bugger and Rapid Dye, and more. The Lewers douse these seven tracks with loads of reverb and a couple great Itchy Bugger-style guitar lines worming under the surface. Think 4AD: gauzy, dreamy excess best paired with a juicy red wine, topped with deceptively catchy vocals. "Postcards for Terrorists," a big winner in the song title contest of 2023, is probably the poppiest number, the intertwining vocals of Yuta and (I think) Sarah Davis driving the chorus home. The songs led by Davis ("Kalopsia," "Specter Vermillion") and others like "Sin Tonight" have a 70's English folk-like quality, lilting and haunting, performances that seem inspired in part by the soundtrack to The Wicker Man. While every track on here sounds good, and I keep returning to the record during the gray days and long nights, most don't register in my memory after the record's done, with the exception of "Postcards" and "O Karina." The latter is almost an instrumental song, with Matsumura singing well beneath the shroud of guitars, and when that second, sharp guitar line that slices through about two-and-a-half minutes in, it trickles in through the brain and down the spine every time. This kind of lush, textural music often benefits from a little length, but the Lewers keep things trim, maybe to a fault, as a couple tracks could have been teased out like "O Karina." Likely I just wish the record was a bit longer; even if it isn't anything new, 518A's confines, most definitely outfitted with a white faux-fur area rug, are a fine place to sprawl in contemplation.

The Native Cats, The Way On Is the Way Off (Chapter Music)

Long-player number five from Hobart's finest, many years removed from their last, John Sharp Toro. In the interim, the Native Cats released two of the best singles in recent memory - Spiro Scratch and Two Creation Myths - so expectations were high. Their core sound remains Chloe Alison Escott's spoken-sung vocals and incisive, biting lyrics grounded by Julian Teakle's bass, but they're joined by live drums on a number of tracks here, and there are even points when Escott cedes control of microphone to backing vocals (The Last Gang Vocal on Earth, according to the credits). Over the past ten years, Escott's lyrics have shifted from fictional scenes to the semi-autobiographical, incorporating more personal details in the songs, sporting ferocious tenacity or tender self-affirmation depending on the song. Her queer and trans identity is inseparable from the Native Cats' evolution, including all the frustration, self-doubt and pockets of joy involved in coming out and being out. She hardly sounds defeated; given the spots of violent imagery across The Way On Is the Way Off, I wouldn't bet against her in a fight.

The record begins in fits and starts, and while the first three tracks are undeniably in the now-recognizable Native Cats style, I think the action really begins after the "Former Death Cult" interlude. "Small Town Cop Override" roars into action with a drumroll and features one of Escott's sharpest lyrical performances ("I strive for victory or hallucination" and "I've seen the future, it's a chain of tricks/Come 'round and watch me turn a crisis into six") atop pounding live drums and blaring chords, burning bright and out in 80 seconds. It bleeds right into "Vivian Left Me," a slow, plodding number with a bass line ripped from David Sims' playbook. Escott has free reign to prowl over the buzzing, ominous terrain, and drops one of my favorite lines of the year with "When your dreams come true, they feel/distressingly like dreams." The track sears and bubbles without cresting, endless tension floating exhaustedly into the haunting "Dallas," a spare, solemn ballad. The lyrics are opaque, tangled; it feels like a meditation on what has changed for Escott, and what can't be changed or outrun, all wrapped up in the album of the same name released ten years ago.

"Suplex" kick-starts the B-side, a mean bass line and Escott's sneering vocals competing for the first minute and a half, and then the song's taken over by keyboard and piano, a pillowy landing from the body blows of the first half. "Rain on Poison," like "Dallas," is moody and restrained, pounding toms and a single piano note ratcheting up the tension along with Escott's powerful vocals, and as the song progresses, elements are stripped back until it's just Escott in your ear: "Time is running out/At a rate I can handle." It's an almost absurdly powerful affirmation, implying some mastery over the passage of time, but such is the confidence espoused by the Native Cats across The Way On Is the Way Off. It ends the world-beating five-song stretch, and while the rest of the record is good-to-great, even including some of Escott's solo piano work at the end, the middle section is so rich that it feels excessive to have more music outside of it. Yeah, "Tanned Rested and Dead" is a burner, and the NYC-in-the-early-aughts bounce of "Battery Acid" is a good look, too; those tracks might be my favorite part of the record next week. That's the innate joy of a Native Cats record, now more than ever: still harshly resistant to snap judgement and best lived in, seeping into your skin like a sauna and pulling lost memories or feelings or chemicals to the fore. And yet, The Way On Is the Way Off remains endlessly listenable despite the weight of dreams or expectations, the band fully in control of their sound, as comfortable as ever in it. I don't know if it's their best yet - ask me in another few months - but it definitely feels like it might be. Stunner.

Howard Stelzer, oh calm down you're fine (No Rent)

Great tip from my brother to check this one out, he being an effective filter for No Rent's endless release schedule. Howard Stelzer is not a new name, but new to me, and oh calm down you're fine is a sterling example why digging for new music remains my favorite pasttime. Stelzer layers tape loops here, of anything and everything; during the impromptu Bandcamp "listening party," which Stelzer "attended," he revealed that samples include that of making an omelette and the school band warming up next to the classroom where he teaches, the latter featured prominently on "Everybody Thinks So." He's in the league of artists like Joe Colley or Jeph Jerman to my ears, though less wracked with anxiety than the former and more interested in the noise made by humans (as opposed to nature) than the latter. What makes Stelzer's work so exceptional here is the subtle sense of composition; the hard-to-follow logic in the way the sounds are paired, or layered, reminds me of how Philip Jeck would compose and arrange his music. One could mistake "Reconsider From Memory" for something by Jeck with unfocused ears, reminiscent too in the unhurried pacing across the tape. The results are decidedly much more abrasive in Stelzer's case, more smart aleck than somber, though like all experimental noise music worth its salt, what's being communicated is in the hands/head of the listener. As the somewhat disarming "Proportional" appears to wind down, Stelzer introduces some dizzying drum loops, conjuring some sort of ritual where you're at the stake, until the laugh track hits. Better luck finding the thread next listen. My favorite tape of the year, and lucky for you, still available from the label. Dig into more of his work on his Bandcamp.

Water Damage, 2 Songs (12XU)

2 Songs is my first proper run-in with Water Damage, and that is something I've committed to fixing after living with this LP in constant rotation for a month. The ensemble, running eight members deep, creates a thicket of psychedelic repetition, playing with tenets of noise, jazz, krautrock, and hip hop across two side-long tracks, appropriately titled "Fuck This" and "Fuck That." The former rips into action after a false start, a dense, throbbing miasma anchored by a tireless bass line and squalls of guitar noise and feedback circling each other. The band takes a quick breather after six minutes, coming back even noisier, and then inexplicably does the same thing again thirty seconds later - and somehow it all works, the two intentional hiccups swallowed by the aural equivalent of The Blob over the track's barely registered, but deeply felt, ebbs and flows. "Fuck That" is comparatively lighter, roomier, allowing room for a maddening circular xylophone (?) line and keyboards to float atop the distorted bass line and agile drums. Stick around until the bass line becomes loose and rubbery, the whole song submitting to its own weight, like the ghost of DJ Screw just took over your turntable. It's really difficult to do this record justice with words; it feels like it consumes the room, your house, then you when it's on. The density of the record is rendered in sharp relief through the high quality recording and the combined power of the players here, combining as one pulsating mass or frictionlessly bobbing and weaving. That they're an octet likely means I'll never have the pleasure of getting to see them do it live, but it's a consolation that 2 Songs is the best-sounding record of the year; it'll peel your scalp back plenty, and I recommend that you grab the LP and let it rip.

[burlveneer-music]

John Metcalfe - Tree - a modern classical suite with both chamber and orchestral arrangements.

Tree is eight immersive compositions that take the listener through twenty-four hours in the life of one of nature’s most majestic creations The Durutti Column viola-playing master - a composer and arranger for the likes of U2, Coldplay, Peter Gabriel and Blur, as well as co-founder with Tony Wilson of the Factory Classical label – had been composing music spontaneously, instinctively, when the idea of Tree arrived. The album came from a desire in John Metcalfe to write at scale – perhaps a natural reaction for a composer writing out of the silences and solitude of our recent pandemic years. “The pieces I was writing were big and trying to be bigger, so I knew they had to be to do with something – and then I thought about one of the most profound experiences of my life.” He is referring to seeing Tāne Mahuta as an adult, the largest known living kauri tree in the world. Set in an ancient subtropical rainforest on the North Island of Aoreatoa / New Zealand, John had spent his early childhood living in that part of the world after his British father had "escaped there as a ten-pound Pom". Having emigrated to England as a child, he went back to New Zealand with his wife when he was 26. He explains, “…we thought we’d tick something off the tourist list, and I thought we're going to see trees, which is great – but we weren’t prepared for what happened.”. They both cried when they found Tãne Mahuta, and Metcalfe is still amazed at the reaction he had: “… as an atheist, it was the closest I’ve ever got to a spiritual moment… there was something extraordinary about the atmosphere in the forest and the size of this tree, and the sense that it had been there a long time. It was about the protection it gave, and the sense of connection we had with that protection.” Written for live players and recorded in Abbey Road Studios to convey human connection at scale, Tree imagines what it would be like to be sat completely still under a tree that you love, being alive to the ever-shifting interplay of light, colour, weather and sound. Shimmering pulsating layered tracks take the listener on a voyage that takes in the dawn chorus, depicted by conversations between chirruping woodwind and staccato strings, through to the solemnity of dusk and into the playful night. The album at times summons up the folkloric power of ancient forests through an emotional crescendo in emotion and sound, before bringing us back to sunrise, and a reflection on the journey we’ve taken. Tree isn’t just about Tãne Mahuta, explains Metcalfe: “It could be about any tree – they’re all very magical.” This record isn’t a political statement, but it's clear to him that as science progresses, and as climate breakdown progresses, people are trying to find deeper ways to understand and cherish nature. "It’s about the music that people are trying to create to connect with things that are huge and beautiful and inexplicable around them." Tree is John's beautiful, emotional attempt. "My album's about describing our relationship with something as every-day and extraordinary as a tree, and how it can be an incredibly important part of who we are.”  All tracks written, produced and performed by John Metcalfe Additional Strings on Tracks 1,3,5,6,8 Violins Everton Nelson (leader), Natalia Bonner, Charlie Brown, Emil Chakalov, Alison Dods, Louisa Fuller, Richard George, Raja Halder, Marianne Haynes, Rick Koster, Oli Langford, Steve Morris, Charles Mutter, Tom Pigott-Smith, Cathy Thompson, Debbie Widdup Violas, Peter Lale, Reiad Chibah, Gillianne Haddow, Kate Musker, Andy Parker, Rachel Robson Celli Richard Harwood, Adrian Bradbury, Ian Burdge, David Daniels, James Douglas, Julia Graham, Sophie Harris, Tony Woollard, Double Basses Stacey Watton, Roger Linley, Richard Pryce, Lucy Shaw Woodwind on Tracks 3,4,5,6,7,8 Oboe Alun Derbyshire Bassoon Sarah Burnet Strings fixed by Jenny Goshawk for Isobel Griffiths Ltd. Cover Design; Marc Bessant