#a show from 2009 is having profound effects on me

[bagel-with-creamcheese]

I’m watching being human for the first time and I’m on the season one final “but there was this” ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!! The supernatural is a metaphor for love actually.

[gardenwalrus]

Thelma Pickles, John Lennon’s first girlfriend at Liverpool College of Art, on her relationship with John 

My first impression of John was that he was a smartarse. I was 16; a friend introduced us at Liverpool College of Art when we were waiting to register. There was a radio host at the time called Wilfred Pickles whose catchphrase was "Give them the money, Mabel!". When John heard my name he asked "Any relation to Wilfred?", which I was sick of hearing. Then a girl breezed in and said, "Hey John, I hear your mother's dead", and I felt absolutely sick. He didn't flinch, he simply replied, "Yeah". "It was a policeman that knocked her down, wasn't it?" Again he didn't react, he just said, "That's right, yeah." His mother had been killed two months earlier. I was stunned by his detachment, and impressed that he was brave enough to not break down or show any emotion. Of course, it was all a front. When we were alone together he was really soft, thoughtful and generous-spirited. Clearly his mother's death had disturbed him. We both felt that we'd been dealt a raw deal in our family circumstances, which drew us together. During the first week of college we had a pivotal conversation. I'd assumed that he lived with his dad but he told me, "My dad pissed off when I was a baby." Mine had too – I wasn't a baby, I was 10. It had such a profound effect on me that I would never discuss it with anyone. Nowadays one-parent families are common but then it was something shameful. After that it was like we were two against the world.

I went to his house soon after. It seemed really posh to me, brought up in a council house. We were alone, he showed me round and we had a bit of a kiss and a cuddle in his bedroom. Paul and George came round and we all had beans on toast, then they played their guitars in the kitchen. I had to leave early because Mimi wouldn't allow girls in the house. She was very strict. She wouldn't let him wear drainpipe trousers so he used to put other trousers over the top and remove them after he left the house. We used to take afternoons off to go to a picture-house called the Palais de Luxe where he liked to see horror films. I remember we went to see Elvis in Jailhouse Rock at the Odeon. He didn't take his glasses. We were holding hands and he kept yanking my hand saying, "What's happening now Thel?" John was enormous fun to be with, always witty, even if it was a cruel wit. Any minor frailty in somebody he'd detect with a laser-like homing device. We all thought it was hilarious but it wasn't funny to the recipients. Apart from the first instance, where he mocked my name, I never experienced it until I ended our relationship. We were close until around Easter of the following year, 1959. At an art school dance he took me to a darkened classroom. We went thinking we'd have it to ourselves but it was evident from the din that we weren't alone. I wasn't going to have an intimate soirée with other people present. I refused to stay, and he yanked me back and whacked me one. He had aggressive traits, mainly verbal, but never in private had he ever been aggressive - quite the opposite. Once he'd hit me that was it for me, I wouldn't speak to him. That one violent incident put paid to any closeness we had. I took care to not bump into him for a while. I didn't miss drinking at Ye Cracke with him but I missed the closeness we had. Still, we were friendly enough by the end of the next term. Because he did no work, he was on the brink of failure, so I loaned him some of my work, which I never got back. I've never wondered what might have been. It sounds disingenuous, but I wouldn't like to have been married to John – that would be quite a gargantuan task! He would've been 70 next year and I just cannot imagine a 70-year-old John Lennon. I'd be fearful that the fire would've gone out.

- Interview within Imogen Carter, ‘John Lennon, the boy we knew’, The Guardian (Dec 2009)

Thelma also briefly dated Paul McCartney and later married Mike McCartney’s bandmate, Roger McGough, in 1970.

Thelma also gives more detail of her relationship with John in Ray Coleman's 1984 John Lennon biography. Just to note, she mentions towards the end of the section that their romantic relationship just petered out, and John was never physically violent with her - it's likely the case that by the 2009 Guardian interview above, she would've felt more free to speak about John hitting her as the reason for the relationship's end, rather than this being two contrasting stories.

A year younger than John, Thelma was to figure in one of his most torrid teenage affairs before he met Cynthia.  Their friendship blossomed in a spectacular conversation one day as they walked after college to the bus terminus in Castle Street. In no hurry to get home, they sat on the steps of the Queen Victoria monument for a talk.  ‘I knew his mother had been killed and asked if his father was alive,’ says Thelma. ‘Again, he said in this very impassive and objective way: “No, he pissed off and left me when I was a baby.” I suddenly felt very nervous and strange. My father had left me when I was ten. Because of that, I had a huge chip on my shoulder. In those days, you never admitted you came from a broken home. You could never discuss it with anybody and people like me, who kept the shame of it secret, developed terrific anxieties. It was such a relief to me when he said that. For the first time, I could say to someone: “Well, so did mine.”’ 

At first Thelma registered that he didn’t care about his fatherless childhood. ‘As I got to know him, he obviously cared. But what I realised quickly was that he and I had an aggression towards life that stemmed entirely from our messy home lives.’ Their friendship developed, not as a cosy love match but as teenage kids with chips on their shoulders. ‘It was more a case of him carrying my things to the bus stop for me, or going to the cinema together, before we became physically involved.’ John, when she knew him, would have laughed at people who were seen arm in arm.’ It wasn't love's young dream. We had a strong affinity through our backgrounds and we resented the strictures that were placed upon us. We were fighting against the rules of the day. If you were a girl of sixteen like me, you had to wear your beret to school, be home at a certain time, and you couldn't wear make-up. A bloke like John would have trouble wearing skin-tight trousers and generally pleasing himself, especially with his strict aunt. We were always being told what we couldn’t do. He and I had a rebellious streak, so it was awful. We couldn't wait to grow up and tell everyone to get lost. Mimi hated his tight trousers and my mother hated my black stockings. It was a horrible time to be young!’ Lennon's language was ripe and fruity for the 1950s, and so was his wounding tongue. In Ye Cracke, one night after college, John rounded on Thelma in front of several students, and was crushingly rude to her. She forgets exactly what he said, but remembers her blistering attack on him: ‘Don't blame me,’ said Thelma, ‘just because your mother's dead.’ It was something of a turning point. John went quiet, but now he had respect for the girl who would return his own viciousness with a sentence that was equally offensive. ‘Most people stopped short,' says Thelma. ‘They were probably frightened of him, and on occasions there were certainly fights. But with me, he met someone with almost the same background and edge. We got on well, but I wasn't taking any of his verbal cruelty.’

When they were together, though, the affinity was special, with a particular emphasis on sick humour. Thelma says categorically that John and she laughed at afflicted or elderly people ‘as something to mock, a joke’. It was not anything deeply psychological like fear of them, or sympathy, she says. ‘Not to be charitable to ourselves, we both actually disliked these people rather than sympathised,’ says Thelma. ‘Maybe it was related to being artistic and liking things to be aesthetic all the time. But it just wasn't sympathy. I really admired his directness, his ability to verbalise all the things I felt amusing.’ He developed an instinctive ability to mock the weak, for whom he had no patience.  He developed an instinctive ability to mock the weak, for whom he had no patience. In the early 1950s, Britain had National Service conscription for men aged eighteen and over who were medically fit. John seized on this as his way of ridiculing many people who were physically afflicted. ‘Ah, you're just trying to get out of the army,’ he jeered at men in wheelchairs being guided down Liverpool's fashionable Bold Street, or ‘How did you lose your legs? Chasing the wife?’ He ran up behind frail old women and made them jump with fright, screaming 'Boo' into their ears. ‘Anyone limping, or crippled or hunchbacked, or deformed in any way, John laughed and ran up to them to make horrible faces. I laughed with him while feeling awful about it,’ says Thelma. ‘If a doddery old person had nearly fallen over because John had screamed at her, we'd be laughing. We knew it shouldn't be done. I was a good audience, but he didn't do it just for my benefit.’ When a gang of art college students went to the cinema, John would shout out, to their horror, ‘Bring on the dancing cripples.’ says Thelma. ‘Perhaps we just hadn’t grown out of it. He would pull the most grotesque faces and try to imitate his victims.’ 

Often, when he was with her, he would pass Thelma his latest drawings of grotesquely afflicted children with misshapen limbs. The satirical Daily Howl that he had ghoulishly passed around at Quarry Bank School was taken several stages beyond the gentle, prodding humour he doled out against his former school teachers. ‘He was merciless,’ says Thelma Pickles. ‘He had no remorse or sadness for these people. He just thought it was funny.’ He told her he felt bitter about people who had an easy life. ‘I found him magnetic,’ says Thelma, ‘because he mirrored so much of what was inside me, but I was never bold enough to voice.’  Thel, as John called her, became well aware of John's short-sightedness on their regular trips to the cinema. They would ‘sag off’ college in the afternoons to go to the Odeon in London Road or the Palais de Luxe, to see films like Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock and King Creole. ‘He’d never pay,’ says Thelma. ‘He never had any money.’ Whether he had his horn-rimmed spectacles with him or not, John would not wear them in the cinema. He told her he didn’t like them for the same reason that he hated deformity in people: wearing specs was a sign of weakness. Just as he did not want to see crutches or wheelchairs without laughing, John wouldn't want to be laughed at. So he very rarely wore his specs, even though the black horn-rimmed style was a copy of his beloved Buddy Holly.  ‘So in the cinema we sat near the front and it would be: “What’s happening now, Thel?” “Who’s that, Thel?” He couldn’t follow the film but he wouldn’t put his specs on, even if he had them.’

[...] It was not a big step from cinema visits and mutual mocking of people for John and Thelma to go beyond the drinking sessions in Ye Cracke. ‘It wasn't love’s young dream, but I had no other boyfriends while I was going out with John and as far as I knew he was seeing nobody except me.’  On the nights that John's Aunt Mimi was due to go out for the evening to play bridge, Thelma and John met on a seat in a brick-built shelter on the golf course opposite the house in Menlove Avenue. When the coast was clear and they saw Mimi leaving, they would go into the house. ‘He certainly didn’t have a romantic attitude to sex,’ says Thelma. ‘He used to say that sex was equivalent to a five-mile run, which I’d never heard before. He had a very disparaging attitude to girls who wanted to be involved with him but wouldn’t have sex with him. ‘“They’re edge-of-the-bed virgins,” he said.  ‘I said: “What does that mean?” ‘He said: “They get you to the edge of the bed and they’ll not complete the act.” ‘He hated that. So if you weren’t going to go to bed with him, you had to make damned sure you weren’t going to go to the edge of the bed either. If you did, he’d get very angry. ‘If you were prepared to go to his bedroom, which was above the front porch, and start embarking on necking and holding hands, and you weren’t prepared to sleep with him, then he didn’t want to know you. You didn’t do it. It wasn’t worth losing his friendship. So if you said, “No”, then that was OK. He’d then play his guitar or an Everly Brothers record. Or we’d got to the pictures. He would try to persuade you to sleep with him, though.  ‘He was no different from any young bloke except that if you led him on and gave the impression you would embark on any kind of sexual activity and then didn’t, he'd be very abusive. It was entirely lust. 

[...] Thelma was John’s girlfriend for six months. ‘It just petered out,’ she says. ‘I certainly didn’t end it. He didn’t either. We still stayed part of the same crowd of students. When we were no longer close, he was more vicious to me in company than before. I was equally offensive back. That way you got John’s respect. Her memory of her former boyfriend is of a teenager ‘very warm and thoughtful inside. Part of him was gentle and caring. He was softer and gentler when we were alone than when we were in a crowd. He was never physically violent with me - just verbally aggressive, and he knew how to hurt. There was a fight with him involved once, in the canteen, but he’d been drinking. He wasn’t one to pick a fight. He often enraged someone with his tongue and he’d been on the edge of it, but he loathed physical violence really. He’d be scared. John avoided real trouble.’

- Within Ray Coleman, John Winston Lennon: 1940-66 vol.1 (1984)

[howtolistentomusic]

He once complained that the scene sleeps on him so here's a deep dive

2008 was memorable year for local music. At the time the historic Woolworth space in downtown Oxnard housed the Experimental Café, and it was the place to see live music in Ventura County. There was Delaney Gibson and her classically-trained brilliance. There was the Volume Knockers and their charmingly goofy, School of Rock-esque traditionalism. There was the Ashtray Life and his busker chic. And so many more, including End Transmission.

Consisting of Hunter Cook on drums, Jordan Brunner on the guitar and Zeke Berkley on the keyboard and lead vocals, End Transmission was a power pop band with shades of Weezer, Blink-182 and local brethren Army of Freshmen. The closest comparison is probably Ozma, an underrated band that Zeke has cited as a huge influence.

Start Transmission

I saw End Transmission play many times at the Experimental Café and it was always a blast. Songs like "Fences Make Good Neighbors" and "Make Like a Tree and Get Outta Here" were catchy as hell, and Zeke and Jordan would often banter between songs, playfully antagonizing each other & quipping back and forth in a way that was often as entertaining as the tunes themselves.

In 2009 End Transmission released Devour, their debut full-length album. It's so good that it instantly dated the band's previous tracks. Granted, the Head Over Heels EP did a poor job of recreating their contagiously joyful live energy (the slog they turned "Fences Make Good Neighbors" into is particularly frustrating). Still, Devour finds End Transmission leveling up by leaps and bounds.

Album opener "Talking in Circles" goes through two distinct sections before vocals kick in. Mutations like this find their way onto many tracks on Devour; it's a welcome tendency as the band excels at extended instrumental passages. "Wow, Really?" displays a newfound grittiness, and it's a sound that suits them extremely well. “Outer Space, Inner Sinner” unfurls with patience and confidence but still manages to rock. "Right Side of the Bed" is Axis of Awesome fodder but there's a reason why that formula endures. 

Devour is one of my favorite albums of all time, locally-based or otherwise. It's fantastic.

***

In 2013, End Transmission drummer Hunter Cook passed away. Jordan and Zeke decided to discontinue the band, and End Transmission was no more. Zeke would eventually rebrand as a solo artist, pivoting from rock to something more akin to bedroom pop.

Berkley I arrived in 2013 and its follow-up, Berkley II, was released in 2016.  "Garbage/Ears" is a fucking journey. The song evokes marching band drum lines, the Fright Night soundtrack, Lana Del Rey, and a million other ingredients to effectively produce a profound sense of sadness. I love that song. "Calling Your Name" is little more than the titular phrase and a bassline but it's extremely catchy. "HBT (Hatred Burning Through)" ends with an amazing and complex piano section.

These are some of the highlights of Zeke Berkley's solo output. For the most part, however, both Berkley I & II underwhelm. As a solo artist, Zeke is more cerebral, more concerned with the little details than End Transmission ever was. "You're a musician's musician," our old pal Chris Jay said of Zeke when he was a guest on episode 63 of the Fresh Talk podcast. Translation: dude got boring.

On There's No Time to Explain with Brain Parra, another local podcast, Zeke said:

"On my first record everybody said ‘oh man, it's really cool but, couple things,’ and they'd always hit me with a couple criticisms and one of them that I heard consistently was 'all the songs sound the same.' And so I was like, 'ok.' And for me that's a personal challenge.

[...]

“When multiple people tell me that, that means I have to listen. So what I start doing is thinking about, okay, how can I really really make this a versatile record where I show my range so people know what I'm capable of here?"

Now the songs on Berkley I definitely blur together, though I'd argue that this has more to do with a general lack of adrenaline than it does with instrumental monotony. But the haters have to be proven wrong, so on Berkley II Zeke makes a conscious effort to expand his sound. He largely succeeds. The album is indeed interesting and unique in terms of sonic texture. But other elements of his craft fall by the wayside. His vocals are particularly bad. Berkley II finds Zeke developing an unfortunate tendency to stretch his syllables beyond their breaking points. After a great intro that sounds like deceased rock gods creating a thunderstorm from their perches in heaven, the vocals for opening track "Clouds" begin like this:

Cloooooouuuuuds aaaaaabooooooove theeeeeeey liiiingeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer Traaaaaace theeeeeem wiiiiiith yooooouuuur fiiiiingeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer

"Nightshade" finds Zeke hilariously devoting 4 entire bars, at 97 beats per minute, to the mere two syllables of the titular word before he bothers with any sort of storytelling. What about the nightshade, Zeke? What about the nightshade?!

And then there's "Better Than You". Jesus fucking Christ, this stupid song.

***

An important note about Zeke Berkley: he's full of himself. Don't worry; he freely admits as much. "I think I'm probably one of the most egotistical people," he said on Fresh Talk. It's a statement that comes in the midst of an epic rant against the evils of the local music scene. It began innocently enough. Prefacing the podcast's premiere of "Better than You", Zeke said:

"It's a caricature of a personality type that I believe exists amongst music scenes particularly across the United States but more specifically in this general area. I feel like there's this attitude that exists, and I've certainly embodied it myself, and in fact I am embodying it by even writing a song about it, but you know, I think everybody thinks they're better than everyone else and everybody thinks that they have this thing that no one else does or this hidden knowledge of what actually is real and what constitutes being a band and it's kind of disgusting but it hits everybody I think."

Ok, sure. Fair enough. But as Zeke continues, he becomes angrier, more impassioned: 

"What people fail to realize particularly about me is I think some people fucking sleep on me because I've been writing songs for about 12 years now seriously and I’ve been playing just about every instrument on my own stuff for quite a while and so it's just kind of disgusting when I hear someone think that they're better than me."

Caricature clearly doesn't do his feelings on the matter justice. "I'll probably alienate myself hugely here but the truth is I'm not really interested in playing a show with anybody here," the future replacement bassist for Anchor & Bear said. He continued:

“You have this Mumford feeling seeping into this and you get these folk people who realize the fifth folk revival's happening again and it allows them to dictate it and become these people dressed as farm workers or something and I don't get it. I dress like an average person. When you hear my music you're actually hearing what my voice sounds like when I talk. You're not hearing some accent or some impression of anyone else and that's particularly what this song is about. I hear these people do impressions of their favorite singers in these songs.”

It’s certainly true that the range of notes the human voice can hit varies among individuals, and a common issue with aspiring singers is that they imitate other vocalists that they like and never learn to calibrate to what they’re actually capable of. But Zeke conflates this with other criticisms so general that they scan as grudges against the very concepts of genre and style, which is absurd. It’s also a rather disingenuous argument to make after the specific schemas he embraced as a member of End Transmission lost their power to benefit him. Aging! It sucks.

***

"Better Than You" is a terrible song about how supposedly terrible the rest of the local scene is. It begins with drum fills that sound like that boring thing a band does live when the vocalist needs to take a breather. Then Zeke sings:

You think you're better than me You think you're a staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Well you're not better than me Cause I know exactly who you aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrre

There's that elongation thing again. Zeke gives us all this time to anticipate his next move only to reward us with nursery-rhyme-level craft, forcing us to dwell in his predictability. And he has the audacity to do this while calling out other bands for weak songwriting. "And I know every rhyme / that you're about to use", he later sings in the song's first prechorus. Welcome to the club, dude. I saved you a spot.

Speaking of that prechorus, the preceding lines go like this:

And I know the type of thing you compromise on I've heard your shitty rock band

"Band" lands hard, on a one beat, the king of the rhythmic hierarchy because it bears the weight of keeping our ears properly oriented. Important things happen therein, but Zeke pivots away into a distinct vocal section before giving us the closure or resolution the word demands, leaving the listener unsatisfied. And Zeke doesn’t bother to work out a proper outro for the song, merely offering a modified take on its main refrain that misplaces its syllabic emphasis and ending with an unresolved “you,” imbuing the titular phrase with uncertainty when the entire point should be its brashness.

"Better Than You" pits Zeke's ego against his sense of quality control and the latter loses big time. It is, however, one of the few songs on Berkley II that’s convincingly about something. According to Zeke and Brian Parra, heart-on-sleeve songwriting is played out. On There’s No Time to Explain, they have this exchange:

Zeke: “It’s something to be personal and that's definitely a style of songwriting but I think another style of songwriting is being ancillary. Get secondary and then find how to inject yourself into it instead of saying, ‘this is what's going on with my life.’

[...]

“So make yourself about the other thing as opposed to just like, ‘this is me baring my soul’ ‘cause everyone has already done that.”

Brian: “But that gets boring!”

Zeke: ”It Is!”

Brian: “It's like, alright, how many times -”

Zeke: “‘Another soul?!’”

Brian: “Yeah! Right!”

On Fresh Talk, Zeke further explained his approach:

Zeke: “Lyrics are different on this record than my previous stuff.”

Chris: “Is it personal stuff or is it more-”

Zeke: “I’d say my last record was more personal whereas this record was more, I wanna say words and phrases that I like and that sound natural and that I enjoy hearing more than sharing a piece of myself like I did on my first record.”

Chris: “So you let the music dictate the words more?”

Zeke: “That’s exactly right, Chris.”

Of course, any decent musician should be singing phrases that sound good within their musical contexts whether they’re baring their soul or not. Zeke is creating a false dichotomy borne of his deep-rooted desire to separate himself from his peers. That said, his outside-in approach to songwriting isn't necessarily a bad one, and Berkley II’s “Sink” is proof. It’s damn good. But Zeke’s eagerness to justify its existence is telling. Discussing the song on There’s No Time to Explain, he said:

Zeke: “It’s a jaunt. And you’re absolutely right it’s ragtimey because I was thinking, you want me to be versatile? You’re telling me I need to be more versatile? Who the fuck has a ragtime old time black and white movie train tracks rescue, you know what I mean?”

Brian: “It is a little like that, yeah!”

Zeke: “Who’s gonna have that?”

Tough one! Regis, how many lifelines do I have left?

Aping a style of music that peaked in popularity a century ago is a distinctly Zeke-ian take on versatility. Surely even the butterfly Scott Joplin was reincarnated as has Taylor Swift set to repeat by now. Don't get me wrong; to reiterate, "Sink" is great, ragtime intro and all. But it also exemplifies Zeke's performative, try-hard posturing, striking me as an anti-gimmick gimmick that conveniently allows him a certain peace of mind regarding his continued efforts to carve a space for himself as a musician by creating distance from the grind of trend chasing and the attention economy as a shortcut to originality. 

Of course, you're currently reading How to Listen to Music, sworn enemy of originality.

Wait. Shit.

***

“Music is exclusively a challenge to me. I approach it in the same way that I would approach basketball or I would approach your golf swing or something like that and I think for a lot of people it's like ‘oh yeah, music’s life’ and all this stuff and no, music’s work. It's supposed be hard work. You're supposed to work really hard on it and you're supposed to get better at it every time you do it.”

Zeke said this on There's No Time to Explain with Brian Parra. It's bullshit, of course. There are no laws dictating how every person on the planet needs to approach the art and craft of creating music. Nonetheless, it's a quote that has stuck with me.

Zeke Berkley may be the most narcissistic musician in Ventura County. But his public battle with the contradiction between creativity and community is fascinating, his palpable disdain for mediocrity admirable and refreshing. I may not like Berkley I or II all that much but I’m glad they exist.

*quotes edited for length & clarity

[brooklynmuseum]

The Brooklyn Museum mourns the loss of Dr. David C. Driskell, whose scholarship, teaching, and curatorial work were instrumental in defining the field of African American art history. His landmark, traveling exhibition Two Centuries of Black American Art, which made its final stop at the Brooklyn Museum in 1977, featured work by more than 200 artists and transformed the ways in which American museums framed and presented histories of African American art. An artist himself, his work was included in the Museum’s recent presentation of Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power.

Reflecting on Two Centuries of Black American Art in 2009, Dr. Driskell recounted how he wanted to bring “patterns of exclusion, segregation, and racism to the attention of the art public. [. . .] But it was also about engaging the establishment in the rules of the canon, so as to say, ‘No, you haven't seen everything; you don't know everything. And here is a part of it that you should be seeing.’”

We are grateful to Dr. Driskell for his immeasurable contributions to the field of art history, and will continue to carry his scholarship and his lessons with us.

***

“When Dr. Driskell spoke at the Brooklyn Museum last year as part of the programming for Soul of a Nation, he told me backstage how he had been on our stage in the 60s with civil rights heroes such as James Baldwin. He was so happy to have returned and could not have been more full of grace. Dr. Driskell has left a profound mark on the Museum’s history. While we mourn his passing, we also celebrate the ways that he shaped a history of African American art and advanced both the field and our institutions with clarity and conviction.”

– Anne Pasternak, Shelby White and Leon Levy Director

“An artist, educator, art historian, and curator across at least five decades, Dr. Driskell’s impact was not only field defining but field generating. When we talk about the ongoing project that is the writing and presentation of black art history against its erasure and/or dismissal, we must keep close what it meant for scholars like Driskell who began this work with few blueprints, summoning the great courage and clarity necessary to name and advocate for the importance of black art history – in the face of so many cynics and detractors. I live with gratitude for that fortitude. It was my absolute honor to include Dr. Driskell in the Brooklyn presentation of Soul of a Nation, and an even bigger honor to meet him and to welcome him to the museum for an unforgettable conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Alexander in the fall of 2018. I will hold that memory close.”

– Ashley James, Associate Curator, Guggenheim Museum, and former Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum

Two Centuries of Black American Art, June 25, 1977 through September 05, 1977 (Image: Brooklyn Museum photograph, 1977)

“Dr. Driskell's 1977 exhibition Two Centuries of Black American Art intended to, in his words, engage "the establishment in the rules of the canon, so as to say, 'No, you haven't seen everything; you don't know everything. And here is a part of it that you should be seeing.'" Museums are still catching up to this proposition today, and we can all benefit from acknowledging how much there is to learn from each other. And we learned so much from him!

In the New York Times review of that exhibition, critic Hilton Kramer dispraised the show, asking "Is it black art or is it social history?" Dr. Driskell responded: "All art is social history; it's all made by human beings. And, consequently, it has its role in history."

Rest in power Dr. Driskell.”

– Carmen Hermo, Associate Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art

“When I was an undergrad art history student at the University of Maryland, I ran the student art gallery and while this was between the time when Dr. Driskell served as Chair of the Art Department and when he was named Distinguished Professor, he was always interested and supportive of the clique of young artists and future art historians who hung out at the West Gallery. His generosity made a real impression on me and every time he walked in the gallery I would become completely tongue-tied.”

– Catherine Morris, Sackler Senior Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art

“Although I never got to know Dr. David C. Driskell personally, I did have the opportunity to hear him speak several times. When I first began studying African American art in college, I understood that David Driskell was a pioneer in the field. But, when I tucked into seats in buzzing lectures hall to hear Dr. Driskell speak as a grad student or subsequently as a museum professional, I heard about conversations with Aaron Douglas or summer at Skowhegan--Dr. Driskell painted a picture of a life lived with the people that made up the history I was devoted to studying. With the passing of Dr. Driskell, a connection to the past has been irrevocably severed.”

– Dalila Scruggs, Fellowship Coordinator, Education

“David Driskell’s life took him from a one-room segregated schoolhouse in North Carolina to the White House. Under the Clinton administration, Driskell, acknowledged as a leading expert on African American Art, worked with Mrs. Clinton to acquire a great landscape by Henry Ossawa Tanner, who became the first Black artist to enter the White House collection. This is only one example of the many doors Driskell opened in his quest to tell a more truthful and complete story of American history and culture.”

– Eugenie Tsai, John and Barbara Vogelstein Senior Curator, Contemporary Art

“I did not have the opportunity to meet Dr. David C. Driskell, but I fondly recall seeing him speak at a CASVA symposium, The African American Art World in 20th-Century Washington, D.C., at the National Gallery of Art in 2017. There, he participated in a panel discussion with other artists (moderated by Ruth Fine) regarding the city’s impact on his own artistic development. He spoke with such passion about James A. Porter and the legacy of his teaching at Howard University.

Driskell has also left an indelible imprint on the Brooklyn Museum and its own exhibition program, most recently with his inclusion in Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power. In 1976, he curated Two Centuries of Black American Art, which opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1976 and subsequently traveled to the Brooklyn Museum in 1977. In this groundbreaking exhibition and publication, he defined the “evolution of a black aesthetic” and called attention to such important eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artists as Joshua Johnson, Robert S. Duncanson, and Henry Ossawa Tanner, among many others. Driskell has significantly shaped my own thinking on American art and, in my own research, I am reminded of his rediscovery of the landscape painter Edward Mitchell Bannister who, after his death in 1901, remained largely forgotten.

Edward Mitchell Bannister (American, 1828-1901). Untitled (Cow Herd in Pastoral Landscape), 1877. Oil on linen canvas. Brooklyn Museum Brooklyn Museum Fund for African American Art, 2016.10

A tireless advocate for Black artists, Driskell led the charge in redefining the mainstream art historical canon. He forever changed the discipline and paved the way for so many, and for that I am grateful.”

– Margarita Karasoulas, Assistant Curator of American Art

Clips from Two Centuries of Black American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art © Pyramid Films, 1976. Brooklyn Museum Archives.

“One of the greatest treasures in the Brooklyn Museum Archives are the five videos that document the Symposium Afro-American Art: Form, Content, and Direction that occurred on June 24th and 25th, 1977 that was organized by David Driskell, the Schomburg Center, and Brooklyn Museum Staff in conjunction with the Two Centuries of Black American Art exhibition. In the afternoon of the first day, Romare Bearden, Selma Burke, Jacob Lawrence, John Rhoden, Ernest Crichlow, Vincent Smith, Bob Blackburn, Roy De Cavara, Valerie Maynard, and William T. Williams talked on stage for three hours about their artistic practices within the context of twentieth-century art traditions. It’s staggering to think of all those brilliant artists in conversation together—watching the footage, hearing the artists in their own words is profoundly moving.

When researchers are looking into the exhibition or are curious about the Museum’s history of exhibiting Black Artists, I’m always excited to share the material produced for, by, and of the exhibition. The archival material includes visitor comment books, the press kit, 22 folders of correspondence, the film produced for the exhibition, and the aforementioned symposium videos. The programming built around the exhibition was legendary, and the breadth is rarely seen today: seven artist studio visits (Howardena Pindell!), six supplemental exhibitions at other venues (The Abstract Continuum at Just Above Midtown Gallery!), twenty-two gallery talks (Dr. Rosalind Jeffries on the Harlem Renaissance!), dance performances (Sounds in Motion Dance Company!), concerts, and the list goes on. Driskell’s vision had a deep seismic effect on the art world. The people brought together at these events and programs, the knowledge shared, learned, and passed on to subsequent generations, none of this can be quantifiably measured or completely comprehended, especially from a remove, but its incredible magnitude can be felt when conducting research into the exhibition. Dozens of researchers have come to look into this history, and I look forward to welcoming future visitors to the Archives to learn more about David Driskell, hopefully inspiring them to perpetuate his monumental legacy.”

– Molly Seegers, Museum Archivist

[dweemeister]

Soul (2020)

2020 dashed the best-laid plans, disrupted dreams, and brought disease. For almost one full year now, COVID-19 has upended society the world over, and taken the lives of almost two million as of the publication of this review. The pandemic, as contemporary readers may notice, has taken its toll on the film industry too. If you are reading this in the distant future, Soul is the first film that I have written in which its release date was delayed and its distribution altered because of the pandemic (from June 19 to Christmas). Pete Docter’s first directorial effort since becoming the chief creative officer of Pixar is part of a phenomenon which may or may not last past the pandemic. Soul, like a few other high-profile releases in 2020 and early 2021, debuted simultaneously in reduced-capacity theaters and streaming, via Disney+. The film itself is middling Pixar. But given the studio’s high quality – albeit sullied over the last decade with underwhelming sequels and glaring missteps from some non-sequels – it is still something worth celebrating.

Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx) works part-time as a middle school music teacher in New York City, but quietly harbors dreams of pursuing his dream of becoming a jazz pianist. Taking an opportunity to audition for professional jazz saxophonist Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett), Joe receives an offer to play with Dorothea’s band. Ecstatic, speaking giddily on his cell phone on the musical adventure that awaits that evening, Joe has forgotten to look wherever the hell he is walking. As a result, he falls down a manhole, Looney Tunes-style. He awakens as a fluorescent blue-green blob, his soul on a stairway to heaven. No, not yet, Joe says. He runs backwards, but ends up in the “Great Before” – a place where unborn souls are endowed the traits (in the form of a badge) that will direct, but not predestine, the course of their lives. In a case of mistaken identity, the Great Before’s leaders assign Joe to 22 (Tina Fey) as her counselor. 22 has been stuck in the Great Before for eons, fostering a cynical view of human existence that has confounded her previous counselors (“You can’t crush a soul here. That’s what life on Earth is for.”). If you are asking whether or not Joe will be the one that shows 22 life’s beauty, you clearly have never seen a Pixar movie before.

The English-language film’s voice cast also includes Graham Norton as a sign twirler extraordinaire, Rachel House, Alice Braga, Richard Ayoade, Donnell Rawlings, Questlove, and Daveed Diggs. Veteran actress Phylicia Rashad plays Joe’s mother (who disapproves of his dreams of playing jazz professionally). This is the first Pixar movie without a character voiced by John Ratzenberger.

22 and Joe will prematurely escape to Earth, but the plot is unnecessarily complicated by a body swap and a tired trope of modern animated features: a non-white character accidentally spending more than half the film in the body of an animal. The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) and The Princess and the Frog (2009) are among the highest-profile examples of the trope. Like Cuzco and Tiana in those past films, Joe is not white – and, automatically, is someone the likes of whom has very little history of starring in a mainstream American animated feature. To see him lose his bodily agency for almost the entirety of the film is frustrating. The screenwriting team (Docter, Mike Jones, and Kemp Powers) declines to explore Joe’s racial identity, instead favoring the hero’s journey (Pixar has never deviated from this template, but that has not prevented them from making great films) and the predictable pratfalls often present in Pixar’s movies. Soul’s body-swapping comedy not only brushes away any such exploration of racial identity, but relegates the film’s jazz (an African-American creation) as ornamentation, overcomplicates the narrative structure, and interferes with its messaging. None of these issues existed in Coco (2017) – an unabashedly Mexican glimpse into the culture surrounding Día de Los Muertos and Mexican regional folk music all while retaining its primary themes.

Soul shares the introspective spirit of Docter’s previous film, Inside Out (2015). The lack of external adversity in both films allow us to better understand the passions of the main character. Joe’s conflict stirs from within – his dreams and expectations against practicality and unexpected realities. More prevalent than in Inside Out, Soul’s moments without dialogue poignantly depict those contradictions and unmitigated thrills. In Joe’s case, his near-total dedication to jazz is celebrated – never excessively mocked by 22 or any other character. But his passion, the film says (and as revealed through 22’s temporary occupation of his body), cannot alone quench the fullest expression of his humanity. The film is at its best in two types of contradictory moments. The first type occurs while Joe is playing his piano; the other appears when the film stops for several seconds to admire a minor detail, overlooked by everyone passing by except 22, along New York’s streets. In the latter, the film is allowed to take a breath, allowing just the ambient noise to play in the sound mix – the rustling foliage in the wind, the light traffic of one-way streets, the whoosh of passing subway cars. It is the closest Pixar has ever come to refuting Alfred Hitchcock’s flawed, oft-quoted statement that the movies are, “like life with the dull bits cut out.” For it is in some of life’s mundanities that 22 sees life as worth living. It is life’s mundanities that lie at the heart of Soul’s most powerful moments.

With the assistance of a legion of cultural consultants, Soul is, in spurts, a casual, intentionally unremarkable foray into New York’s black community and a faithful depiction of jazz performance. Animation history has long caricatured black roles in various ways, so the Pixar animators took pains to faithfully render hairstyles and varying skin tones to highlight the diversity of appearance in African-American communities. Many reviews of Soul will justly extol the background art, but plaudits must also go to the character design of the numerous African-American supporting figures across the entire film. It endows the film with an authentic vitality that I cannot envision happening in a film released by a studio concentrating on CGI animated features. A short scene to a barbershop underlines this laudable attention.

As a pianist and violinist, one of my personal pet peeves while watching movies is when an actor is fake-playing an instrument – it can be comically, pathetically obvious. I am certainly not the only one, as I’m sure some orch dorks, band geeks, and other instrumentalists might attest. Animated movies are not spared our eyes and ears. Soul, however, represents a glorious break from expectation. In a film already boasting photorealistic backgrounds and uncanny lighting effects, Joe’s piano playing is some of the most “realistic” I have seen in an animated film. His posture and muscular movement made me forget, momentarily, I was watching an animated movie. Perfectly rendered, too, are his fingering patterns (for the sake of consistent character design, Joe has elongated fingers). This musical accuracy extends to all other musicians in the film, too. It is glorious to behold as a musician. Soul could easily have cracked jokes at the expense of Joe’s passion. That the film affirms his love for jazz, all while tempering his desires (through 22, his mother, and other factors), is a high-wire balancing act that triumphs.

Soul’s score is split in two: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails fame (2010’s The Social Network, 2020’s Mank) compose for the scenes in the Great Before and jazz pianist Jon Batiste composes for the scenes in New York. Anyone who has read in my past reviews about my thoughts about film music are probably guessing that I dislike Reznor and Ross’ compositions for film. They would be correct. So far in their nascent film scoring careers, Reznor and Ross’ ominous synths for David Fincher’s movies sound too much like background droning, minimalist aural wallpaper. Their scores – all texture and little else – have no life outside the contexts of the movies they appear in. In Soul, Reznor and Ross develop a soothing synth sound that is some of their most melodic film music yet. It sounds like Jerry Martin’s music for the less interesting moments from the early Sims and SimCity soundtracks. Still, the score – even in its best moments, such as the lustrous cue “Epiphany” – suits the portions of the film it appears in. Perhaps Reznor and Ross are finally making progress towards understanding how melodic structure can dramatically reshape a film’s drama.

Down on Earth, Soul plays the music of Jon Batiste, perhaps best known as the bandleader of his band Stay Human on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Not all of Stay Human’s members were selected to perform for the score, as Batiste chose a handful of musicians from outside his band. The jazz score is mostly original, but includes variations on four pre-existing songs: “Space Maker” (Walter Norris), “Cristo Redentor” (Duke Pearson), “I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart” (Duke Ellington), and “Blue Rondo à la Turk" (Dave Brubeck). Batiste’s jazz influences are too many to name for a review not solely dedicated to the score, but suffice it to say that Batiste intended his part of the film score to serve as a soft introduction to viewers who might not be accustomed to jazz. In this half, Batiste captures the bustle of New York City with his signature floating piano solos. Backed by tremendous saxophone lines, percussion, and double bass, this is a decidedly acoustic affair in marked contrast to the music of Reznor and Ross. The musical contrast is profound, easing the viewer into Soul’s occasionally chaotic narrative structure. By film’s end, though, despite Batiste’s end titles cover of The Impressions’ “It’s All Right” (a wise selection in no small part due to its lyrics), I wanted more from the jazz half of the score and wished it was held greater prominence in the film. Am I unashamedly asking for someone to hire Jon Batiste and give him the freedom to compose an unconstrained jazz score? Of course!

In a year where straight-to-streaming movie releases have dominated the American film industry, Soul ranked third in viewership behind Thomas Kail’s live stage filming of Hamilton (2020) and Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984 (2020). Has Pixar righted its inconsistent form apparent over the 2010s decade? Can they ever recover the alchemy that reeled off consecutive pop culture touchstones and wondrous films for fifteen years (1995’s Toy Story to 2010’s Toy Story 3, excluding Cars)? Soul might not be the fair winds needed to steer Pixar from its worst habits, and it is unfair to place such a burden on this film. That fifteen-year run might also never be matched again. For what Soul represents to Pixar’s rather monochromatic leadership and narrative groupthink, it is a fascinating step outside the familiar.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[theoriginalladya]

28: any scene/line you wrote that you didn’t expect to write/that surprised you once it was written?

Simple answer:  ALL OF IT!  

Longer answer/explanation:  No, seriously, I first started getting interested in writing when I was in high school.  I’d go to every writer’s workshop they had whenever I could get out of class, and I really enjoyed it.  But then college hit and any/all creative juice I had just .. vanished.  WRITER’S BLOCK.  That lasted through college and on through grad school and even through my teaching years.  That didn’t mean I didn’t read or do research for potential story ideas - I did, but nothing ever got written but the notes.

After ten years or so, after I left teaching and moved to where I live now, after I got away from academia and started my life ‘over’, the muses started to poke at me.  Slow at first, but it started trickling out.  (I look back now and shudder at those pieces - which I still have, some 25 years later)  I found encouragement in unexpected places (my now Ex, for starters; I sure wasn’t going to get it from my family, even if they knew I was trying to write), and it kept on going.

The biggest push was when my Ex got me Dragon Age for Christmas in 2009.  That changed my whole world!  Story ideas started to flow.  Mass Effect created a TIDAL WAVE, and it hasn’t stopped yet.  My fandoms are relatively limited (DA, ME, Horizon Zero Dawn (maybe), Werewolf: The Apocalypse), but I’ve now ventured back toward writing original fiction too, and so ... yeah.

ALL OF IT.  

But, if you want something more specific, hmm ...  *rolls d20 ....*

~~~~

(taken from my WIP, Mari’s Men; this is the initial draft and needs editing, but it’s a story I am incredibly invested in and will some day be satisfied with)

“Someone approaches.”

Little John’s whispered warning was just loud enoughto catch Marian’s ears.  Carefully, sheeased her way far enough out onto the tree branch to glimpse the figureapproaching them.  From this height andstill distant, all she could determine was that he was dressed in darkclothing.  It was several minutes beforeshe could narrow it down to the black robes of a priest.  He stood tall, broad shouldered, and had thegeneral shape of a man who might be a soldier, she thought.  

“Black canon,” Much mumbled from below.  The shrubs surrounding him showed only theslightest hint of movement as he altered his position, resembling that of abreeze blowing through.  

Her gaze turned again to the man approaching.  Much, as a hunter, had excellent eyesight andcould see more detail than she or even Little John from further away.  She quickly considered her options.  She had inherited Robyn today, so thedecision was hers to make.  There weredangers in approaching men of the cloth and incurring their wrath or the wrathof the good Lord above was not on Marian’s list of duties this day.  “I will speak to him,” she murmured beforescurrying backwards on the limb.  Shecarefully lowered herself to the ground behind the base of the tree andadjusted her hood.  Drawing her bow andnocking an arrow into place, she took a deep breath before stepping out ontothe path.

Robyn’s timing was, as always, excellent and thepriest, now near enough to recognize as a black canon as Much suggested, wasbrought up short.  “Why do you block myway?” he demanded irritably.

Robyn, bow still lowered, stood casually before him,hood drawn far enough forward to hide the upper half of his face fromonlookers.  “You travel through my landswithout permission,” he replied.  “Paythe tax and you shall be free to continue.”

The priest scowled, eyes narrowing as if trying topeer beneath the hood.  “These are theking’s lands.”

“And I am caretaker for good King Richard,” Robyncountered.  “Know this, you will pay oneway or another before we are through. Either the tax with coin, or with your life for trespassing on theking’s land.  What say you?”

The canon straightened, rising to his full heightwhich was substantially taller than Robyn. “And you expect to enforce this law of yours?” he scoffed.  He took a step forward towards Robyn.

Robyn, quicker than it took to blink, had his bowraised, aimed at the man’s heart, pulled the bowstring to its fullextension.  The canon wore no armor; thepiercing would go straight through.  “Ido,” Robyn replied, “and I should think you would see that.  I wish no quarrel with you, canon.”

“No,” the prior replied, “you wish only to rob me ofwhat I do not have.”

Robyn’s head tilted slightly to the side.  “The nearest priory is that of Thurgarton,”he decided.  “Do not tell me you aredestitute.  The conditions of the canonsthere are well known among the rest of the world.”

“I am a prior of Fiskerton,” he said.  Another scowl, darker this time, marked hisface.  “I was banished from Thurgartonbecause I opposed Prior Thomas.”

“Don’t believe him, Robyn!” shouted Little John fromthe left.

“Aye,” Much called out.  From the way his voice carried, he had workedhis way around the priest without notice. “They tax us as heavily as the king and his family!”

“We don’t!” the canon insisted.  Sighing, he pinched the bridge of hisnose.  “Or, rather, I don’t.  I was banished fromThurgarton was because I protested the deviation from the traditions of ourorder: poverty, chastity and obedience.”

“Banished?” Robyn challenged.  “I find that difficult to believe!”

“He lies!” Much shouted, now further to Robyn’s rightbut still behind the canon.  Robyn had nodoubt the man’s bow was aimed and ready.

“My disagreements with Prior Thomas run deep,” heinsisted.  “We both were in the runningfor the position.  Unfortunately for me,Thomas has a better relationship with Prince John.”

Betterrelationship.  They acerbic tone he used left no doubt thatthis prior was, like many others within the church, expecting to be brought upthrough the ranks along with the future king.

“And if you had succeeded instead of Prior Thomas?”Robyn asked.

His eyes were dark to begin with and the slits theynow became were enough to hint at anger, deep and profound.  “Thurgarton would be a better community,” hereplied, “and one not so closely tied to a spoiled prince.”

It was that last that caught Robyn’s attention and thepure hatred (??) in his tone that made the final decision.  Carefully relaxing hold on the bowstring andlowering the weapon, Robyn said, “If you are from Fiskerton, why are you notthere now?”

“Even that has now been denied me,” he replied.  “Prior Thomas, with Prince John’s support,has relieved me of my duties.”  Hesighed, eyes looking upward toward the tree-filled sky.  “I was heading north and considering myoptions.”

“Why north?”

“It is where the road leads?”  He shrugged, eyes falling to settle uponRobyn again.  “I have little but what Iwear,” he admitted.  “I have no coin forlodging or food.  Kill me if you must, butI leave nothing behind.”

Stepping forward, Robyn waved a hand so Little Johnand Much could see it.  “What if I wereto offer you a cathedral beneath the skies, canon?” Robyn asked.  “According to those in positions of power, weare nothing but a group of misguided souls. But we are more than that, and we could use spiritual guidance, if youare of a mind.”

He drew back a step or two and the startled expressionwas easy to identify.  “To what end?”

“Chastity. Poverty.  Obedience,” Robynreplied.  “The poverty we can provide,the chastity, well, I wouldn’t hold your breath on that count.”  Both Little John and Much chuckled.  They were nearer now, but still remained outof easy sight.  “The obedience would beup to you and your skills of persuasion. Do you search for a challenge?”

The canon blinked a few times, looked around them fora moment, then back at Robyn.  “Acathedral under the skies, you said?”

Robyn nodded. “Our camp is in the forest.  Yourcongregation among those most persecuted. This is the only home they have. They come to us willingly, each aiding according to their ownabilities.  We have bakers and tanners,blacksmiths, armorers, seamstresses and ….”

The prior nodded, cutting off Robyn’s speech.  “And outlaws,” he concluded in a voice loudenough for Much and Little John to hear, “in desperate need of Divineintervention.”  Taking a deep breath, hesaid, “I will gladly take on the duties of spiritual advisor, master outlaw,but with one stipulation.”

“That being?”

“I get to speak to you face to face and see you eye toeye.”

A moment of stunned silence rippled around the area,and Robyn heard sputtered protests rise from Much and Little John.  Raising a hand, they silenced.  “I am but a name, priest,” Robynreplied.  “A rumor, a legend among thelocal folk.  I am nothing but --”

“You are their leader, are you not?” hecountered.  “I will give my pledge toyou, and you alone, but I would do it face to face.”

Sighing, Robyn nodded. Shouldering the bow, gloved hands rose and carefully eased the hoodback, settling it around Marian’s neck. She looked up at the priest, green-grey eyes meeting stark brown for along moment and not flinching.  Offeringher hand, she told him, “Welcome to Sherwood, prior.  Have you a name we can call you?”

Unfazed by the appearance of a woman beneath thearcher’s clothing, he extended a hand and took hers.  “Tuck,” he replied.  “I am called Prior Tuck.”

Marian smiled, full recognition settling in.  “And you might have heard of me as LadyMarian FitzWalter,” she told him, “if you have been in these parts for anylength of time.  But these days I am LadyMarian of Loxley.”

His eyes widened in surprise.  “Lord William’s sister?”  She nodded. “I was sent to Fiskerton just after your brother’s return as lord,” heexplained.  “I heard that you came withhim to visit his lands.”

“It has been a long time, and things are certainlydifferent than I hoped,” she said.  

“I thought you were governing in your brother’sabsence?”

“I am,” she agreed, “but Providence has given me anotherpurpose as well.”  Little John and Muchjoined them then and Marian introduced them. “The legend of Robyn and his hoode has taken on new meaning these days,and we try to put it to good use.”

“The Lord has truly guided me then,” he murmured.  “In all honesty, once I was relieved of myduties at Fiskerton, I had no idea where to go. I thought perhaps to York or other points north, but I know no onethere.”

Smiling, Marian nodded towards the north andeast.  “Come with us, prior,” she encouraged.  “We have just what you need.”

[kudamomo]

Top 10 Favorite Anime 

*Doesn’t contain spoilers (ㅅ´ ˘ `)♡

1. Michiko to Hatchin (2008-2009)

“Michiko to Hatchin,” may appear slightly flawed to the eyes of others, but I have fallen completely in love with this show for a plethora of reasons, both personal and critical. First and foremost, diversity is theme I am particularly fond of, fictionally and in the real world, so seeing an anime that takes place in South America was like a much needed breath of fresh air. On top of that, the soundtrack was completely on par with the gunslinger vibe the show gave off while still keeping the setting of South America in mind. Typically, in 24 episode long shows, such as “Michiko to Hatchin,” the show will begin to drag at some point during the middle. However, the director, Sayo Yamamoto, skillfully switches the show from being story driven to episodic as to keep the viewer entertained and when the time came, picked the story right back up where it left off. Ultimately, I bestow this show with the first 10 out of 10 on this list for its unique setting, characters, and adept pacing.     

2. Cowboy Bebop (1998-1999)

Arguably, not only Shinichiro Watanabe’s greatest creation, but one of the greatest anime shows of all time, is the iconic “Cowboy Bebop.” As to why this show is ranked so high up in this list, as well as any other top anime list, is fairly self explanatory. But to reiterate basically the entire anime community’s opinion on “Cowboy Bebop,” first, it takes place sometime in the far future and hubs on the misadventures of the bounty hunter, Spike Spiegel, and his partners as they search for criminals. Essentially, every aspect of the show is nearly or truly is perfect. The smashing soundtrack to the wonderfully cultivated characters to the attractively sculpted ending, everything, and I mean everything, about “Cowboy Bebop,” screams a 10 out of 10. 

3. Barakamon (2014)

“Barakamon,” is a light hearted, genuinely funny, comedic slice of life anime. It pivots on Handa Seishuu, a calligrapher with a tremendous ego and severe anger issues. After punching another renowned calligrapher, after he criticized Handa’s work for being comparatively lifeless and ‘textbook,’ essentially boring, he is exiled to Gotō Island to better himself and his works. In his duration on Gotō Island, he encounters outlandish Japanese village folk, such as a little girl named Naru Kotoishi. Sooner or later, Handa soon finds himself changing for the better as a result of his stay on Gotō Island. Personally, comedy anime have never been my cup of tea for the sole reason that they fail to make me laugh, but evidently “Barakamon,” came along. I mean, I fell so hard in love with this series that I own the first nine volumes of the manga for it is astoundingly beautiful and hilarious. “Barakamon,” is a soon to be classic for the next generation of anime fans and a simple 10 out of 10 that will surely get laughs out of any person to come across it. 

4. Mind Game (2004)

Made by the man, the myth, and the legend himself, comes debatably Masaaki Yuasa’s greatest work, “Mind Game.” “Mind Game,” is in fact a film not a single person could ever explain to you what it’s about. If anything could describe the film, is that it’s about the mind boggling experience of second chances and rebirth. If that doesn’t seem to have enough substance for you, then keep in mind, based off of Masaaki Yuasa’s track record of finely tuned character development and crazy animation, you’ll have to trust me when I say this, “Mind Game,” is a must see for it is nothing short of cinematic, surreal, masterpiece for I myself even own a copy of this movie. Conclusively, the irrefutable rating this film deserves is an obvious 10 out of 10.  

5. Mononoke (2007)

“Mononoke,” no, not the movie, is a spinoff of the 2006 horror series “Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales.” “Mononoke,” is an episodic series that focuses on a mysterious demon vanquisher, respectively disguised as a medicine seller, and the trials and tribulations he must go through in order to save the demoniac and surmount the demon itself. The first notable feature of “Mononoke” is its usage of color and perspective(s) that make each story within the show all the more captivating and exciting to watch. To go along with that, each story goes in massive depth with its characters, successfully inducing a very emotionally powerful relationship with the viewer almost every time. Yet, as the ending isn’t necessarily sub par, it leaves you hungering for more. Nonetheless, this show deserves nothing but a 10 out of 10.

6. Ping Pong the Animation (2014)

This being Masaaki Yuasa’s second appearance on this list, the only other work this position could've been gifted to is his masterful “Ping Pong the Animation.” Masaaki Yuasa, once again, is notorious for his stellar character development and this is it in its prime. Somehow, each character, no matter how insignificant, has a profound effect on the show and everlasting impact on the viewer. It’s almost unbelievable how a show about ping pong could be so relatable with the main characters inner struggles and their escapist hobbies whilst remaining an intense an interesting sports anime like any other. A facile 10 out of 10.

7. Kekkai Sensen (2015-2017)

“Kekkai sensen,” is definitely one of the more light hearted series on this list in which it’s about the supernatural monsters that now live alongside humans in places such as Hellsalem's Lot, formerly known as New York City. The main character soon finds himself leading out an extraordinary life in the said city as he joins the estranged group Libra after attaining the All-seeing Eyes of the Gods at the expense of his sister's eyesight. “Kekkai Sensen,” is a fun and witty show that any anime fan would enjoy. The visuals are eye-catching as well as the music being funky, making it quite the delightful series. Even so, as the finale approaches, it becomes unexpectedly emotional furthering the show’s greatest and superiority as well as establishing a great sense of character depth. Final rating, 9.6 out of 10. 

8. In This Corner of the World (2017)

“In This Corner of the World,” is a film that takes place in Hiroshima during World War II, which focuses on a young woman by the name of Suzu and her daily struggles during this time period. This seemingly drab movie in fact blossoms into something tragically beautiful and easily one of the greatest anime films ever composed, alongside the aforementioned “Mind game.” It unexpectedly tugs at your heart strings with magnificently animated pieces of Suzu’s art to display her interpersonal feelings when faced with particular situations, topped with an equally wondrous soundtrack. This film executes all the components, such as character development, pacing, and directing, of a good anime perfectly, making it optimal for critical and personal enjoyment. Final verdict, an easy 10 out of 10.

9. Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996)

“Neon Genesis Evangelion,” is another iconic franchise that effected the anime community as well as the mecha genre itself as we know it today. “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” takes place in a post-apocalyptic era whereas humanity’s last hopes is in the hands of Nerv, a special agency ran by the United Nations. Nerv was founded in order to combat Angels, the species responsible for the destruction of Earth, using Evangelions. The show specifically focuses on the youth, Shinji, Asuka, and Rei, who pilot the Evangelions and their emotional reactions as a result of the responsibility being forcibly left on their shoulders. Although “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” is nothing apparent to reality, it feels exactly like real life. The emotional responses of the characters are ones you would witness in real people or rather experience yourself. The realism and psychology this show implements is absolutely groundbreaking and proved extremely influential on future mature anime. Thus, “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” is so deservingly awarded with a 10 out of 10 for the emotional levels throughout each episode. 

10. Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis (2014)

Based off the “Shingeki no Bahamut,” card game franchise comes “Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis,” as created by Studio Mappa. The show centers on a world of demons that are in constant war against angels and humans, but as the ancient dragon Bahamut appears before them and lays waste to their planet, the aforementioned races combined their forces in order to expel Bahamut and preserve life. However, thousands of years later, a mysterious woman by the name Amira appears in front of two bounty hunters, Favaro and kaiser, who ironically holds half of the key that is sealing Bahamut away. Simply, this show is nothing short of badass paired with a rock and roll soundtrack combined with quirky characters who you will fall in love with as they fall in love with each other. Final rating, 9.8 out of 10.

[preserving-ferretbrain]

One Man's Burning Hatred for Anime

by Rude Cyrus

Friday, 10 July 2009

Cyrus displays something that looks suspiciously like masochism.

Uh-oh! This is in the Axis of Awful...~

Dear god in heaven. I’m not prepared for this, but the rage and hatred have built to a point where I must let it out. There are some things I hate in this world, but none more so than pretension, especially pretension that is accepted by the masses as tortured genius. It’s frustrating to point out that something is obviously a dog turd wrapped in shiny foil, only to be met with derision, defensive bootlicking, and cries of “WELL, THAT’S JUST YOUR OPINION.”

The subject I’ll be talking about today is a well-known anime (if you don’t know what anime is, go look it up on Wikipedia or something). A fair warning: there’s going to be a gratuitous amount of cussing and spoilers – that is, if you consider a dead fly in the middle of a feces lollipop to be a spoiler.

A bit of background first, so I can delay this thing as long as possible: when I was an innocent, starry-eyed larva, I was exposed to anime by way of Speed Racer. The show is about racing and cars, or some such shit; frankly, it’s a poorly animated mess that’s interesting only as an experiment to see how much footage the animators recycled. I was left with the impression that all anime was shit, at least until a few years later when I discovered Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon– the former catered to my violent fantasies of burly dudes beating the crap out of each other, while the latter indulged my masturbatory dreams of teenage girls in short skirts. Look, I was 13 at the time, okay? Oh, and I got caught up in something called Pokemon, although I don’t think too many people watched that show.

Eventually I matured (kinda sorta) and began yearning for something that appealed to my awesome intellect. My first taste of a “real” anime was Akira, a fun little jaunt into a post-apocalyptic Japan inhabited by shriveled, psychic children and motorcycle gangs. The film fell apart at the end and generally felt slipshod; it wasn’t until years later that I found out that it was an adaptation of a manga, and quite a bit of content had to be cut.

Then I watched Ghost in the Shell, another movie that takes place in the Future! This time, it’s about 100 times more confusing and talky, with characters standing around, pondering what it is to be human, blah blah blah. Interspersed throughout are scenes of the lead character, Makoto, running around bare-ass naked and kicking butt. The thing that stuck me is that Makoto has no genitalia – no pubic hair, no vulva, just a blank area of flesh. It disturbs me to this day.

I think I caught a few episodes of Gundam Wing, but the only thing I remember is how two of the characters confused the enemy by kissing. I thought it odd.

After that, I went through what I call my Hayao Miyazaki period: Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro – if Miyazaki made it, I watched it. This was followed up with Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (which I found to be superior to the film). Finally, I stumbled upon a series called Neon Genesis Evangelion, something considered by the anime community to be a complex, profound examination of human nature, combined with awesome giant mech action.

This series is the subject of this article.

A brief synopsis: in the year 2015, Earth’s population has decreased dramatically, thanks to a cataclysmic event called “Second Impact” that occurred at the turn of the century. To make things worse, monstrosities called Angels are threatening to destroy the remnants of humanity – the only things that stand in the way are giant, biomechanical creatures called Evangelions (or EVAs for short), piloted by three 14-year-old teenagers. The main characters are:

Shinji Ikari – a shy, introverted boy that was abandoned by his father after his mother died (said father being the commander of the organization that created the EVAs), Shinji wants nothing more than to be liked by his deadbeat dad. He’s a coward as well, something that puts him at odds with the enormous responsibility of piloting an EVA. He becomes a bit braver and more self-assured as the series goes on, before collapsing into a whiny, spineless piece of shit.

Rei Ayanami – this strange girl is almost emotionless and wholly dedicated to Shinji’s father, which is somewhat creepy when you realize that he’s twice her age; we later find out that she’s a partial clone of Shinji’s mother. Her interactions with Shinji lead her to become more in touch with her emotions and thus more “human”, at least until she starts fostering a death wish.

Asuka Langley Soryu – a half-German/half-Japanese redheaded girl that serves as the show’s LOUD WESTERN STEREOTYPE. Asuka is opinionated, bossy, overconfident, and thinks poorly of Shinji. She softens towards him a bit after he fishes her out of a volcano and the two are forced to train in unison (don’t ask). She becomes an emotionally shattered shell after being forced to relive childhood memories of her insane mother’s suicide.

Whee.

To be fair, it doesn’t start out too bad. The best parts of the series dealt with the interactions between the three main characters (when they were three-dimensional human beings and not cardboard cutouts, that is). As time went on, the tone became darker, the characters became suicidally depressed, and a somewhat coherent storyline devolved into madness. Episode 24 (out of 26) introduced Kaworu Nagisa, an Angel in human form that became insanely popular due to his homoerotic interactions with Shinji, and ended with a two-minute static shot of an EVA holding Kaworu’s body in its hand while music played in the background – no speech, no movement, just this single shot. Go stare at a picture for several minutes and you’ll get the same effect: mind-numbing boredom.

The final two episodes were bullshit from start to finish. In them, an unseen party questioned every major character on their motivations, which the characters responded to, all with bowed heads so the animators didn’t have to draw mouths. In between these interrogations, we were assaulted with still images and words and nonsense. The ending had all the characters standing around, clapping their hands and saying “Congratulations!” As if they were praising the viewers for making it through this festering garbage.

I would’ve purged this crap from my head and moved on, but then I learned that the creator, Hideaki Anno, was forced to give the fans that shameful ending due to time and budgetary constraints, and there was a film called The End of Evangelion that acts as the true ending to the series. So, I hunted down a copy and watched it.

Let me tell you something: the movie makes the series ending look like fucking Citizen Kane in comparison. I have never, ever seen such a bloated, pompous, insulting, nasty, manipulative, incoherent pile of monkey shit like End of Evangelion. I hear that Anno received death threats over the series ending, and after seeing the kind of petty drivel this man is capable of, I can understand why. Not that I’m condoning death threats or anything.

How bad is this film? Here’s a scene from the opening moments: Shinji is in a hospital room, standing over Asuka, who has been sedated following the mental trauma she endured at the hands of an Angel. Shinji, desperate to get her to respond, pulls at her and accidentally rips open her gown, revealing her breasts. Shinji, naturally, takes action by masturbating over her comatose body and ejaculates into his hand.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

This is sick! What’s the fucking point of this scene, to establish Shinji as a future serial rapist? It’s disgusting, vile, inexcusable, and every other synonym for “bad”. Why? I have about a dozen other questions, like “Who thought this was a good idea?” and “What the fuck is wrong with Hideaki Anno?” but the best query right now is: why?

Later, Shinji spends about three-quarters of his screen time –

I’m sorry, I can’t get over this. WHY?! I’ve heard fans say that this is an example of Shinji hitting rock bottom, and besides, he expresses his contempt for himself immediately afterwards. Look, I’ve been clinically depressed at times too, but I don’t jerk off over unconscious girls. Know why not? Because that would make me a SEX OFFENDER.

Fuck.

Shinji spends about three-quarters of his screen time cowering in a ball in the corner, alternating between screaming and sobbing. Asuka is revived, but she and her EVA are literally ripped to pieces. Rei becomes a sort of god-monster and dies. Whee.

The second half of the movie is filled the same mind-fuckery and nonsense imagery that ruined the series ending, only it’s a billion times worse here. There’s also some well-written dialogue on display too:

SHINJI: Where is my dream?

REI: It is where your reality ends.

SHINJI: Then where is my reality?

REI: It is at the end of your dream.

That’s not a 100% accurate quote, but it’s pretty damn close. It’s deep, man.

And if you don’t hate Shinji enough, here he comes to bitch endlessly about how everyone hates him and he hates everyone. Gee, with that sunny disposition, I can’t imagine why he’s so miserable. Then Asuka steps in and tells him he’s a worthless turd, so he chokes her. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kill a fictional character so badly in my life.

Then there’s some live-action footage of people getting on a train while Rei and Shinji continue to babble about human nature, all for our benefit, of course. After what seems like fucking days, the movie ends with Shinji and Asuka on a beach, the only two humans left on the planet. Shinji starts choking Asuka AGAIN, but is stopped when she caresses his cheek. Her oxygen-deprived brain must’ve mistaken him for someone else. Shinji stops choking her and, what else, starts crying. Asuka looks at him and utters a most appropriate line: “Disgusting.”

In case you don’t get it, let me spell it out: I HATE THIS MOVIE. I hate it to a degree I didn’t think was possible. Most of my anger is directed towards Hideaki Anno, who was the writer and director for the series and the movie. He strikes me as a pretentious, antisocial, petty person, and everything he does oozes contempt for his fans. From creating this giant middle-finger of celluloid to stating “Too bad” in English when a fan said he was dissatisfied with the original ending, he’s a man who has no idea how to relate to people.

*deep breath*

Here’s why I can’t stand him: he created characters that I related to, characters that had nuanced personalities (even though they would be pigeonholed at times), characters that I wanted to see happy, characters that I sympathized with…and then he slowly, gleefully tore them apart. He forced them to go through absolute hell, and they all came out as broken individuals, and that’s how they stayed to the end – alone and unloved. Whenever there was a glimmer of light, Anno snuffed it out. I have no idea why he was so cruel to his own characters, but I have some theories:

1. He started out liking what he did, but ended up hating it, so he tried to make it so no one else would be able to revive the series (this one appears to have been disproven – see below).

2. He planned this from the beginning, making him a sadist as well as a hack.

3. Something in his life caused him to become extremely depressed, so his work reflects that.

I’ve heard a lot of evidence (and by evidence I mean conjecture) to support C, but if that’s the case, why not just put things on hold until he got better? On the other hand, his “too bad” comment indicates that he didn’t really give a shit about the whole thing, so who knows?

The fans deserve a tongue-lashing as well. If I had a dollar for every comment that called him a “genius”, a “visionary”, or any of the things that he isn’t…I’d be able to buy out Microsoft. I suspect that because much of the series and movie is inexplicable, the fans have deluded themselves into thinking this balderdash is somehow insightful.

Hilariously, Anno has decided his masterpice wasn’t good enough, or something, because he’s now remaking the series into four movies with witty titles like You Can (Not) Advance and You Are (Not) Alone and You Can (Not) Go Fuck Yourself. The ending to all of this is supposed to be totally new, which means it’s probably going to be even more frustrating and ambiguous. From the pictures I’ve seen and the reviews I’ve heard, it looks awful. Asuka’s last name has been changed to Shikinami, for some nebulous reason, and the body suit she wears is now translucent – she wears a bra underneath, but there are only a few inches of opaque fabric covering her cooch, so I’m guessing the design was built around fanservice. Which is always a great consideration, right? Plus, she’s supposed to wear an eyepatch in the third film, like a goddamn pirate.

On top of that, Anno has shoehorned in the loathsome Kaworu from the beginning, and added a new character named Mari, who is from the UK, I think. He’s packed 100 tons of shit into a 10-ton bag, in other words. Naturally, the fans are eager to fall all over themselves defending their messiah, bleating variations of “IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN” or “WE JUST NEED TO WAIT UNTIL THE END”. I don’t need to poke myself in the eye to know that it hurts, and I don’t need to watch these films to know that they’ll end just like the original series: no resolution, no closure, no catharsis, no satisfaction. The whole experience has left a bad taste in my mouth, and no amount of brushing will get it out. The only way these movies could be more insulting is if they consisted entirely of Hideaki Anno flipping off the audience with both hands, pausing occasionally to grab his crotch and sneer.

Actually, that would be less insulting.Themes:

TV & Movies

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

~

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Wardog

at 12:26 on 2009-07-10Oh good God.

I don't know what to say. My knowledge of anime is pretty much restricted to shows in which princesses turn into ducks and do ballet (or is that the other way round). I guess we need to get Jen along here as she's the closest thing we have to an anime expert.

Shinji, naturally, takes action by masturbating over her comatose body and ejaculates into his hand.

Well ... at least he didn't do it over her unconscious body? Right?

I feel generally a bit ambivalent about a creator's attitude to fans. I mean, I don't think he's under obligation to be "nice" or, even, to provide a text that "satisfies" his fans - since what satisfies fans isn't necessarily the same as what's actually good. In fact, the more consciousness of fandom there is, the worse texts seem to get. Although this seems like a really confused amalgamation of fan service and fan contempt. Weird.

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Arthur B

at 13:23 on 2009-07-10I'm personally quite fond of

Evangelion

the series, at least the first 24 episodes. There is, as you point out, character development, gradual growing of a backbone on the part of Shinji and Rei, an interesting mystery revealed at a reasonable pace, and so on. I even like the way Episode 24 ended, with Shinji poised in a choice between killing a friend and letting the Angels get away with whatever it is they're trying to do, although to be fair I've only seen the expanded/tidied up version of the episode where they put in extra scenes and the last shot might not be so ridiculously long.

Then, as you point out, you have the different endings, neither of which fits what's gone before. I did enjoy

End of Evangelion

for the sheer trippy sadism of it all, but at the same time I couldn't really relate the characters we see in it to the characters from the TV show; there's this weird sort of inconsistency about it. Asuka is psychotic, Rei is even more autistic than she's ever been, and Shinji loses the balls he's been carefully growing over the course of the series; it's as if the TV show never happened. At a guess, I'd say the film is more about Anno's thoughts on the end of the series, and the experience of making the show, than it is about actually ending the story; the characters seem to be spoofing the fan conceptions of who they are rather than continuing the development shown throughout the series.

It's a fun ride, but it's fun partially because I think it's hilarious how Anno's trolled anime fans for years over this, and because I enjoy watching characters get raked over the coals and suffer for their most irritating personality traits. I'm interested in seeing the new movies because they're promising a proper ending this time, and even if they break that promise the results will probably be mad enough to be worth a look. I even think it makes sense to put Kaworu in from the beginning; the one thing I dislike about Episode 24 is that they insert Kaworu, have Shinji make friends with him really surprisingly quickly (exacerbating the homoerotic angle), and then have him betray everyone and have to get taken down. It would make far more sense if he were in it from the start. Even if the ending resembles David Lynch directing

Final Fantasy VII

again, I'd still watch it.

That said, my attitude to

Evangelion

probably stems from how I was introduced to it: at an SF all-nighter thrown by a local cinema, which incorporated a preview showing of

28 Days Later

(which is a

much

more effective movie if you go into it genuinely not knowing that it's a zombie film, as we did), hopped up on soda, watching

The Death of Evangelion

on the big screen. Watching 8 hours of TV series crammed into 90 minutes is hilarious, to the point where I could never take the show seriously after that.

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Rude Cyrus

at 19:51 on 2009-07-10

I mean, I don't think he's under obligation to be "nice" or, even, to provide a text that "satisfies" his fans

From what I've read, his fans are satisfied enough to try to unravel the mess he's made. I'm not asking him to be all happy-go-lucky, but his attitude comes off as spiteful.

I guess I'm just overreacting, but I still have an intense dislike for the man; he's my own JK Rowling.

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Wardog

at 22:38 on 2009-07-10He sounds like a worthy target of your bile :)

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Rude Cyrus

at 23:20 on 2009-07-10This may sound silly, but I still like the general idea behind the show and the characters (when they aren't being emo or one-note).

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Guy

at 04:42 on 2009-07-11I only watched a bit of Evangelion, but my impressions were coloured by the lengthy scenes displaying static scenery with loud cicada noises in the background. At first I thought they might be in there for atmospheric reasons I didn't quite understand, then decided they were in there for financial reasons (animation ain't cheap) and shortly thereafter gave up on the show. I love Miyazaki's films and would like to see more anime of that quality which isn't exclusively about plucky young heroines growing up and discovering their strength and independence... but I guess I'll take what I can get. :)

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Robinson L

at 18:00 on 2009-07-14I used to be a fan of

Dragon Ball Z

and

Sailor Moon

because for an early (and even not-so early) teenager, they seemed pretty cool. Then I noticed how stupid and repetitive they were and kinda lost interest.

At this point, I'm struggling to think of any Anime I know of that I actually think was any good. Well, the first season of

Digimon

, and at least one episode from the second. And Miyazaki's version of

Howl's Moving Castle

. And I suppose

Princess Monoke

, although it never particularly appealed to me.

Anyway, I've been hearing a lot about

Neon Genesis Evangelion

for a while, but nothing that's really excited me after the series. This review, I think, clinches my decision not to subject myself to it.

Personally, I tend to empathize with main characters even if most people dislike them. Apart from Mal, I can't think of any main characters I know of who I think I'd enjoy seeing put through that kind of torture. Maybe not even him.

I suspect that because much of the series and movie is inexplicable, the fans have deluded themselves into thinking this balderdash is somehow insightful.

This may be just me fishing for an excuse to pull out my own pet hate, but it seems to me from the description that an alternate or complementary explanations might be that

because it's so dark and depressing, fans (and critics) have deluded themselves into thinking this is somehow insightful.

This is a trend in popular entertainment I've noted and lamented for a couple years now.

Last night my younger sister and I were discussing the contemporary

Battlestar Gallactica

(of which I've seen a couple episodes, they've seen the first three seasons). At one point, one of them said that "if the character only lost about twenty pounds of emo they'd be all right."

While this may be true, I suspect it's the current vogue for death, despair, doom and gloom which made the 2004

Galactica

so popular. To take an even more contemporary example (and borrow a metaphor from my sister's upcoming review) witness Kirk's and Spock's and Nero's Inigo Montoya Syndrome in the latest

Star Trek

movie.

For a while,

House

did a pretty good job of balancing its angst, but it seems like circa Season Four the writers began seriously to crank it up. After the one-two-punch finale (Amber dies and right afterward Thirteen discovers she does indeed have Huntingdon's) I was asking "Geez, you think you could lay it on any thicker? Maybe find a way to reveal that Cameron really did contract HIV in Season Two after all?"

I've yet to see Season Five, but from what I've heard of the spoilers (don't read this if you haven't seen it and mind spoilers), Wilson is broken up over Amber's death for a long period of time, which means House is going to be even more miserable than usual; Cuddy goes through a whole lot of crap before finally getting a baby of her own, and that only when the mother ups and dies; and Kutner commits suicide/gets murdered/somehow ends up shot dead. What fun.

The new

Doctor Who

started out pretty emo, but it feels like Davies and the rest of the team take every possible opportunity to twist it in just that little bit more.

And being the Star Wars fan that I am, I have to say the stuff that the Expanded Universe went through during and especially after the prequels ... let's just say most of it is not pretty. Not in the slightest.

There's probably more, I just don't pay much attention to what's popular at the moment. Anyway, my point is that I suspect anything as depressing as

Evangelion

is by all accounts in the current tragedy-obsessed atmosphere is bound to be considered deep and meaningful and insightful and all that simply because it puts its characters through so much crap.

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Cressida

at 04:16 on 2009-11-18

I love Miyazaki's films and would like to see more anime of that quality which isn't exclusively about plucky young heroines growing up and discovering their strength and independence...

Guy:

Try

Porco Rosso!

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http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 23:05 on 2009-12-18

I suspect that because much of the series and movie is inexplicable, the fans have deluded themselves into thinking this balderdash is somehow insightful.

I think you're onto something here, but as someone who enjoyed Evangelion, let me propose a more charitable version of the psychology.

I'm a student of ethical philosophy and religious history at college, so I spend a lot of time thinking about the "deep" issues that fans will tell you Evangelion (, Donnie Darko, The matrix, ...) addresses--Destiny, choice, purpose, hope, knowledge, or whatever the hell.

Let me be clear and say up front that I don't think Evangelion makes a coherent statement about any of these issues. I'm not going to claim that you're "not getting it" if you don't see any "there" there, and I'm not saying that Hideaki Anno is some kind of visionary genius.

BUT

I'm a very visual, fictionalizing person. I do a lot of free association, and try on ideas by putting them in the mouths of imagined characters. Something like Evangelion is, for me, excellent raw material. It gives me a *context* to think about these issues. the incoherence of the actual show forces me to go to a lot of effort to try to figure out "what is this show trying to say?" and since that question is, I think, largely unanswerable, this also becomes an exploration of what *I* have to say.

Something similar happens because I write fiction. I'll eat up many stories--Evangelion, The Matrix, Harry Potter, even some of Star Wars--that have, in my opinion, glaring flaws, because they *make reference to* ideas I find interesting, even if they don't do them justice. Frequently, while watching the show even for the first time, my mind drifts to possibilities and alternate timeliness, with the result that I am actually watching a movie that exists only in my head, that (I like to think) *does* say something coherent. for this reason I consider Revenge of the Sith, for instance, to have been worth the price of the ticket even though it was (IMO) absolute shit, because by about a third of the way in I had stopped watching what's on the screen and started watching the movie *I* would have directed.

I mention this because before I became really conscious of what I was doing, I would frequently walk away with the impression that a movie was in fact "deep" when is fact it was just thought-provoking, and then only for people with preexisting interest in the issue who are prone to free association. I don't know how many people like me there are, but there's a strong tendency in all humans to assume that they're "normal," and that may be where some of the "you just don't get it" responses are coming from.

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http://luna-glass-wall.livejournal.com/

at 23:31 on 2010-10-12//I think I caught a few episodes of Gundam Wing, but the only thing I remember is how two of the characters confused the enemy by kissing.//

...What? o.O There's no kissing in Gundam Wing. There are barely any established romances.

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http://cammalot.livejournal.com/

at 19:02 on 2010-10-13That was Macross/Robotech. Similar giant-robot-thingies-piloted-by-superteens plot -- possibly the originator of the entire trope. The giant-size humanoid enemies of Earth didn't have sex to reproduce, or something, and so this display of humanity was too much for them and made them stop fighting. Until one or two of them discovered that they liked it.

Aw, that was my very first anime. I'm all verklempt now.

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Gamer_2k4 at 22:41 on 2010-10-13Neon Genesis Evangelion is actually my favorite anime series, but I think that's more because of the concept and because of what it did to me personally than anything else. I mean, I've taken a look at some of the episodes recently and they look OLD. A lot of the content is boring or unnecessary filler, the animation switches between "pretty alright" and "did they not pay you or something?", and overall, there's a lot not to like.

However.

I've had a very limited exposure to media (besides the some of the popular stuff), and NGE completely changed the way I looked at storytelling. I had never seen a character like Rei before, and I loved her. The idea that the mechs were actually giant feral humanoids barely restrained by their armor blew me away. The fact that the Hallelujah Chorus was played as an Angel mind-raped Asuka, and it WORKED, stunned me. The cast and plot are both remarkably tight; EVERYONE is involved, somehow. But finally, the thing that struck me the hardest, was the idea that a big giant robot action show DIDN'T HAVE TO HAVE A HAPPY ENDING.

Consider Asuka. She's this hotshot pilot, showing up a third of the way into the series reading to kick some butt. Her first appearance is quite dramatic as she handily and elegantly dispatches an Angel. However, her next victory requires the complete support of Shinji, and she barely plays a part from that point on. Battle after battle happens with this pilot, the one who was literally genetically engineered (in the manga, anyway) to be perfect, just failing with every attempt. Nothing goes right for her.

Rei's an interesting character, too. Generally you'd think the stoic, silent character would play the support role, ending up as the person the others always rely on. But she's not that great of a pilot! If memory serves, her Eva spends half the show out of commission, and in the other battles Rei plays a very minimal role. For as much popularity as she has among fans, you'd think that she had done a lot more in the series than she actually did.

And let's not forget Shinji. Here's a kid whose dad runs an organization that sends out giant robots to fight the bad guys, and HE gets a chance to be a pilot! In any other show, Shinji would've jumped in and started owning face for the rest of the series. But you know what? He acts like a kid could be reasonably expected to act: he's scared, and doesn't want to do it at all. But more than that, he wants love from his father, and realizes this might be his only chance to get that.

Right away it's clear that these aren't cookie-cutter stereotypes, but real characters with real problems. I personally found it refreshing that someone decided to make something where the good guys don't necessarily win. I was so familiar with "happily ever after" stories that I was shocked when this wasn't one of them. I like NGE, not because "true art is angsty," but because "holy balls, this is what a show can actually be like!"

Anyway, that's the anime series; let's get to End of Evangelion (you know, the subject matter of this article). It really did feel like some tacked-on supplement to the real thing. Furthermore, Shinji was infuriating, and the battle scene was just the opposite of what I'd come to expect from NGE: rather than an original conflict, it was just a beat-em-up royal rumble.

The second half of the movie left me in shock, and I went away from it thinking that was a good thing. I had never been exposed to the stream-of-conscious approach before, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. I think Anno was trying to convey just what Instrumentality (the merging of all souls and minds) would feel like, and it SEEMED like he did a good job. I didn't understand it, so I assumed it was beyond my understanding, so I assumed it was good. That's probably not the right mindset, though.

Oh. In the first scene, Shinji sneezed into his hand. He just didn't have a tissue. Never mind that you can't hear the sneeze. He's allergic to nudity. Yeah. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

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Melissa G.

at 22:53 on 2010-10-13*Shameless self plug alert!*

A certain Ferretbrainer debuted with her first article by

defending Evangelion

. It was written late at night and not researched (by which I mean I hadn't seen the series in a while) or proofread much, but an article in favor of Eva does exist on this site! ^_^

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Fin

at 19:02 on 2010-10-14Ooh, I remember reading that article a while ago. It made me really interested in checking Eva out, which given my general scepticism of animé is pretty cool. If I like it I'll have to remember to thank you. :D

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Melissa G.

at 19:29 on 2010-10-14

Ooh, I remember reading that article a while ago. It made me really interested in checking Eva out, which given my general scepticism of animé is pretty cool. If I like it I'll have to remember to thank you. :D

:-D

They are actually remaking the series as a bunch of movies. The first two (?) have come out already. I've only seen the first one, but I liked it a lot. I just don't know how much one would like them without having seen the series first. But the animation quality is way better so you could always try watching the first new movie (You are (not) alone, I think it's called) as a taste test type of thing.

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Gamer_2k4 at 22:51 on 2010-10-14I agree that the first movie was pretty much spot on. They left out the stuff that could be left out, played up the stuff that could be played up (most notably the battle against the third Angel), and everything just felt right. (My only complaint, actually, is that in the English dub, Rei is played by a new voice actor. I thought her old one was perfect, and it was a real shame for that voice to be missing.)

However, the second movie just seemed a little...off. It was darn COOL, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching Evangelion without all the stuff that made Evangelion special. Maybe it was just that I was so familiar with the story that there wasn't quite that sense of wonder. You know, the sort of "sure it looks nice, but it's been done already" feeling. Yes, that's ridiculous, because the only reason it's been done before is that it's a freaking remake. I don't know.

Perhaps the thing that really did it was all the seemingly unnecessary changes they made. New pilot, changed surnames, different (and missing) Angels, a LOT of new scenes...It's possible I just felt that the makers were trying to do more and ended up with less.

Anyway, Melissa, you should still check out Rebuild 2. Remember when they had to catch that falling Angel? The weirdly shaped flat brown one with all the eyes? IT'S FREAKING AMAZING IN REBUILD 2. Like I said, the movie is still very, very cool, and the ending actually has traces of EoE in it. It's nuts. Watch it.

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Melissa G.

at 05:06 on 2010-10-15I definitely want to see the second remake movie, I've just been lazy and haven't gotten around to it. I saw the first one in theaters in Japan because I happened to be living there when it came out. Seeing it on the big screen was something special. ^^

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TheMerryMustelid

at 18:37 on 2012-04-21I am a terrible animation snob. When it comes to anime, there isn't much I like outside of Miyazaki, save the studio that did

Tokyo Godfathers

.

What puts me off most anime is it's obsession with mecha, robot girls, and post apocolyptic premises. Yes, Miyazaki sounds the environmental apocalypse gong in practically all of his films, but at least he puts Nature above the usual anime love affair with all things machine and keeps the damn robots to a minimum. How I hate this obsession with the ensouled machine.

On the American side, that includes

Transformers

up to

Wall-E

. I just find it sad that the idea of emoting robots is considered more 'cool' or even more

realistic

than emoting animals.

Say what?!

So teens 'outgrow' cartoons with talking animals while anything with a chrome surface is just friggin' AHW-some, man.

(what's that? what's that I hear in the background? Is it my axe grinding? Why yes, it is!)

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http://kitsune9tailed.livejournal.com/

at 02:57 on 2015-07-28@TheMerryMustelid

Unfortunately, it sounds like you have had a very slim experience with anime and are using it to make a blanket assumption of the whole medium. Remember, animation is just a storytelling method, it's not a story in and of itself. Mecha and machine anime are actually a very small slice of the whole. Unfortunately, this is the slice that is made especially for 6-12 year old boys, and as such, is the primary genre exported to the US (since the American public feels cartoons are generally only for young boys, they freak out over any anime that doesn't settle nicely into that demographic).

But, you can still seek out other genres. You've already seen Miyazaki (almost a genre in and of itself), but you have high-school romance, film noir action/mystery, artsy (you might like Paprika if you haven't seen already, it's from the same studio as Tokyo Godfathers), magical girl, drama, slice-of-life, comedy, etc.

So, I'd definitely sample the waters a bit and find anime in a genre more to your tastes before swearing off altogether :)

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Orion

at 08:03 on 2015-07-28I think you've been mislead by the headline, which really should be "one man's burning hatred for an anime." It's pretty clear from the text that he likes a decent amount of anime and is open to more.

[doomedandstoned]

Swedish Sci-Fi Fuzz Freaks Skraeckoedlan Drop Third Single Ahead of ‘Earth’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Hot damn! This put me in a really good mood today. It's so good to hear new tunes from SKRAECKOEDLAN, the fuzz-drenched progressive stoner-doom outfit from Norrköping -- a city nestled in northeastern Sweden, about an hour-and-a-half's drive from Stockholm. Heavily rooted in the distinctives of their native soil, this three-piece sings entirely in Swedish, presenting a bit of a challenge to English-speakers, but no less an adventure in uncovering the backstory and interpretation of their songs...for nothing is at it seems.

A longtime favorite of Doomed & Stoned readers, the band has been wowing us with some of the most exciting songwriting on God's green earth since 2009. Now, a decade of dedication to anything is an accomplishment, but for a band with talents so laser-focused on their craft as Robert Lamu (guitar, vocals), Henrik Grüttner (guitars, vocals), and Martin Larsson (drums), it's a god damned milestone. The band, aptly named after an enormous prehistoric monster, has treated us to a pair of hefty long-plays already and now they brace for their third, 'Eorþe' (2019) on the esteemed Fuzzorama Records label.

The new record is a dense Lovecraftian tale by science fiction author Nils Håkansson, which he in fact wrote with the intention of having Skraeckoedlan bring to life over the course of these eight songs. It's a remarkable collaboration that is not only literary and musical, but visual, as well. The band worked once again with longtime artist Johan Leion to aid us in unlocking these mysteries of the faded past.

Today, Doomed & Stoned gives you a first listen to "Tentakler & Betar," which catches the narrative of Eorþe as it is nearing its end. The song is characterized by urgent beats, soaring vocal harmonies, weird effects, arpeggios that crawl like agitated spiders, and spirited riffs that fly and sing like the fowls of the air. Let me not fail to mention, too, that the sound is absolutely brilliant. The band tells us this about the number:

"This, the penultimate track of the album, takes us down into the darkness of the earth, as well as the mind. It explores what is left at journey's end and what to do when ambitions have been reached. Standing face to face with your obsessions, where do you go? As the cosmic clock relentlessly ticks, nothing will remain but tentacles and tusks."

February 15th is the date to watch for Skraeckoedlan's triumphant new album. It can be pre-ordered on some delicious looking vinyl variants here.

Give ear...

Some Buzz

Heavy riff power trio Skraeckoedlan are telling tales draped in metaphor. Fuzzy stories buried in melody are cloned into a one of a kind copy of an otherwise eradicated species. Previously found only in Sweden, this cold blooded lizard have once again started to walk the planet that we know as earth. The extinct is no longer a part of the past. Skraeckoedlan is the best living biological attraction, made so astounding that they capture the imagination of the entire planet.

The dinosaurs are believed to have made their first footprints on our earthen floor some 240 million years ago, during what is now known as the Triassic period. Indisputable behemoths and apex predators amongst them, they wandered freely and soared sovereign, ever evolving as the impending Jurassic and Cretaceous eras unfolded. Then, 65 million years ago, it stopped. Be it by asteroid or volcano, the dinosaurs’ fate became one shared with most species ever to inhabit our pale blue dot, extinction.

While Skraeckoedlan translates into something like dinosaur, an analogy better drawn is perhaps one to the great lizards’ descendants, the birds. In their flight there is a, quite literal, escapism to be found. A vital ingredient, encapsulating the bands very being. Although escape, it should be said, not necessarily in the sense of shying away but rather as a recipe for observation and introspection. A kind of fleeing of everyday worries in benefit of larger and hopefully more profound queries A bird’s-eye view, if you will.

"A prelude to the end. The moments of bliss before the imminent doom. We have journeyed to the place where it all unfolds, where the unseen rests and the secrets of the past lay buried. Here we too will become shrouded in mystery, riddles to be solved by those not yet granted a time and place in existence. Whatever the answers, one naked truth stands absolute. None shall leave the Ivory Halls."

Quite a few million years later than their reptilian namesakes, Skraeckoedlan is leaving their own footprints in earth’s soil, albeit not as physically grand. Their self-proclaimed fuzz-science fiction rock is an homage to the riff, vehemently echoing throughout the ages like that of a gargantuan Brachiosaurus striding freely. Equal in weight to the deafening heaviness of a Skraeckoedlan melody, these long-necked colossals further possess in their very defining feature the weapon needed for a complete experience of such melodies. Although strong neck or not, once in concert heads will, regardless of intent, be moving along.

Through their natively sung lyrics Skraeckoedlan invites us to partake in a world of cosmic awe inhabited by mythological beings and prehistoric beasts, like the immense havoc wreaking reptilian awakening from its slumber in the polar ice caps, featured on the debut full-length Äppelträdet (The Apple Tree), or the reclusive great ape Gigantos, solemnly wandering his mountain as one of several entities on the follow-up, Sagor (Tales). Against backdrops like these, underlying themes of the aforementioned big picture-nature are being explored, much in the spirit of, and hugely inspired by, great minds such as Alan Watts and Carl Sagan, fantastic creatures in their own respective rights.

"This song is, more than a part of the concept that is Eorþe, a story about life and the feelings of utter hopelessness our seeming oddity of an existence can often give rise to. It is a song about letting go and leaving behind. It’s about shattering the societal mirror and its reflection of illusionary demands and expectations, leaving your unhindered gaze looking ahead, to where your true calling lies. In short, it is a song about becoming truly free."

Formed in the city of Norrköping in 2009, Skraeckoedlan -- a reference to ‘Godzilla’ in Swedish -- are one of the most ambitious, original and multidimensional bands to emerge from Scandinavia in recent years.

Live shows with the likes of Orange Goblin, Kylesa, Greenleaf and other giants of the genre followed in the wake of Äppelträdet’s success and in 2015, with production underway on their follow-up album Sagor (Translated; ‘Tales’) Skraeckoedlan worked with a number of acclaimed producers including Niklas Berglöf (Ghost, Den Svenska Björnstammen) and Daniel Bergstrand (Meshuggah, In Flames, El Caco).

It wasn’t however until they met producer and technician Erik Berglund that they really found what was missing. Lifting the band to entirely new levels of musicianship, under his tutelage the creative process for Sagor not only left the band with an album they were immensely proud of, but one that sat deservedly at number two in the national Swedish vinyl sales chart in August of 2015.

"This song depicts the now submerged Doggerland as seen from the perspective of one of the mammoths who the continent used to house. In fact, we see through the eyes of Doggerland’s very last mammoth as its time amongst the living draws to a close. We occupy its head as thoughts of death and liberation mixes in a flurry of emotion and contemplation. Its destiny shared with the land upon which it walks, our traveler of tusk and wool journeys towards its final resting place while the North Sea rises ever higher, soon to swallow it all."

Like Galactus-in-reverse, their talent for constructing new worlds from the building blocks of heavy psychedelia and progressive rock is simply awe inspiring, and this February will see the release of their most accomplished vision yet: Eorþe (translated, "Earth").

In collaboration with sci-fi author Nils Håkansson who wrote the story behind the album specifically for Skraeckoedlan, Eorþe is set in the 1920s amid a mystery heavy with Lovecraftian influence and philosophical nuances. As the band explains, “This is by far our most ambitious work of art yet. It’s been a real challenge to do someone else’s story justice whilst making the songs cohesive as well as standing strong on their own. It took a lot of effort, but we’ve done just that.”

Having loyally served as heralds to Nordic folklore and science fiction since their inception, following the release of their early EPs in 2010 the band gained the kind of attention that could only lead on to the creation of a much-admired debut album in Äppelträdet (2011, translated; ‘The Apple Tree’) produced by Oskar Cedermalm from the legendary fuzz band Truckfighters.

Earth by Skraekoedlan

Heading into 2019 with the help of Fuzzorama Records, Skraeckoedlan steer a course to Eorþe, their first album in over three years and undoubtedly their most progressive. With the big metal riffs of ‘Kung Mammut’ riding shotgun alongside the more introspective and explorative moments of songs like ‘Mammutkungens Barn’ and ‘Angra Mainyu’, the trio have cut a definitive and spellbinding record of light and dark.

In addition to the CD and standard vinyl editions, Eorþe will also come in a limited-edition box set which sees the album split across two gatefold vinyl records: Earth: Above and Earth: Below. The set will come packed with pieces of merchandise that revolve around the story and feature alternative artwork.

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

[peckhampeculiar]

A Peckham visionary

Words by Luke G Williams; Photo by Paul Stafford

In the world in which we live, the theoretical and the practical are often mutually exclusive.

Individuals who view the world through a theoretical prism can often diagnose the flaws in our society, but struggle to remedy them.

The reverse also often holds true: namely that those of a practical bent struggle to underpin their actions with a coherent view of the mechanics of human existence.

Eileen Conn – the visionary founder and co-ordinator of local community action group Peckham Vision – is one of that rare breed of human beings who combines a formidable theoretical intelligence with the practical ability to mobilise, engage and inspire social change at a grassroots level.

She is also one of the most remarkable and intellectually stimulating people I have ever encountered.

Eileen and I meet on the second floor of the Bussey Building on Rye Lane, on a grim December evening on which rain is being emptied from the sky as though from buckets.

It’s here that Peckham Vision is based, an apt location if ever there was one considering Eileen’s key role in the 2005-2009 campaign to save the building from being demolished and replaced by a tram depot. The fact the Bussey Building is now such a hub of vibrant community activity is due in no small part to her.

Eileen greets me warmly with the welcome offer of a cup of tea but beyond that, superficial pleasantries are not the order of the day.

Instead our one-and a-half-hour interview ends up resembling an exhilarating combination of a life lesson and a university lecture. Eileen speaks throughout with conviction and passion, but always underpins her theories and ideas with a keen sense of humanity. It’s rare that an encounter with another human being can challenge the way you view the world, but meeting Eileen was just such an experience for me.

Despite Peckham Vision’s many successes, Eileen is initially disappointed to hear that – despite my status as a longtime Peckham resident – I am not particularly familiar with Peckham Vision’s work.

“That’s so frustrating!” she sighs. “At Peckham Vision, like most organised community action, we’re often written out of the story, and so it’s as if things just happened.

 “That’s why we have this on the wall,” she adds, gesturing towards a sign upon which is written four simple but profound words: ‘Things don’t just happen.’”

 The path that eventually led Eileen to Peckham – where she has made more things happen than most – began on Tyneside where she was born in 1941.

 “I’m a Geordie,” she says. “I grew up in a provincial town, left school at 16 and went into the civil service in a very junior administrative and clerical role.

 “I came to London in my 20s as the first step in a planned trip around the world because I needed to understand the world from a different perspective.

 “I didn’t get beyond London, to start with anyway! Instead I went to evening classes, not because I wanted to pass exams, but because I was lonely and needed to find some way of getting to know people.

“As a consequence of that I ended up going to Oxford University at the age of 25 because I had a thirst for understanding the world.

“Why did I need to understand the world? Two things drove me: one was because I grew up as a proselytiser of a Protestant Christian sect but I then realised the world wasn’t as black and white as I’d been taught.

“The other thing that influenced me was that the job I had involved contact with people who were financially unable to look after themselves. I watched people fall into debt, lose their houses and eventually end up in prison and thought there was something very odd about the way in which this happened. Why had people come together to create such a crazy system that kept people in debt?

“After university I went back into the civil service, this time in Whitehall. By this time I understood more and I thought I could change things!

“It was the late 1960s and the civil service was undergoing great reforms under Harold Wilson. My job was mainly concerned with the way government operates, and reforming the civil service so it was fit for the 20th century.”

In the mid-80s, Eileen fell in with the Business Network working for a holistic approach to business and “stumbled into lots of new thinking about the human species and the planet”.

However, she admits that her quest for human understanding has never – and will never – be complete.

“I’ve answered a lot of the questions I formed in my teens and 20s but it’s been a slow, long process,” she says. “It’s a bit like getting to the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, only to discover there are more rainbows with pots of gold to look for.”

As for Eileen’s connection with Peckham, that began in 1973 when a promotion in the civil service enabled her to buy a house. 

With her office in Whitehall being on the number 12 bus route, Peckham was a perfect place for her to settle and she has been here ever since.

“I felt really attracted by Peckham,” she recalls. “I liked the size of the houses and the fact that unlike Hampstead where I had a bed-sit lived the streets weren’t full of cars! Of course it’s very different now!

“Peckham also had a human scale which really appealed to me. I wanted my own space, with no one above or below me, where I could have my own garden and a cat. And I found it in Peckham in the house I still live in today!”

Eileen has been fascinated to observe the changes in the topography and demography of Peckham over the last few decades.

“What we see in Peckham today is a microcosm of the global community,” she says. “Many of the people who live here have come from countries with terrible conflicts, or places with economic and environmental problems. So Peckham is an extremely rich place to understand the 21st century dynamic of human society.”

Eileen’s entry point into community activism in Peckham came in 1975 when she teamed up with a group of neighbours to express concern about the noise and disruption caused by a local industrial site.

“We went to see our then MP Sam Silkin who earnestly told us that what we should do is a set up a residents’ association. 

“One night not long after a knock came on my door from a man called Bob Smyth and I was invited to join the Peckham Society. I attended meetings every month for about two years – that proved a huge education in civic affairs.”

It’s an education that Eileen has put to good use, with Peckham Vision being one of the direct results of her community work and activism.

A resident-led group of local citizens who live, work or run businesses in Peckham, the organisation’s stated aims are to promote and encourage citizen action to help Peckham town centre become thriving and sustainable, as well as to create and nurture ways of connecting people in Peckham who want the area to realise its potential.

“The roots of Peckham Vision started when I discovered how exciting email was as a way of connecting people,” Eileen explains. “I’m instinctively interested in connecting people. Then I began to take an interest in how the council was planning on turning this vast area of land in Peckham town centre into a tram depot.

 “Soon I had a network of contacts and people and email addresses which I could put to good use. Our strap line since the beginning has been ‘for an integrated town centre’ – that has never changed and all our work is informed by that idea.”

Over the years Eileen and others in Peckham Vision have been involved in community campaigns and activities too numerous to mention, from helping save the Bussey building and its surrounding area from being demolished and redeveloped, to challenging redevelopment plans around Peckham Rye train station, Peckham cinema and the multi-storey car park. 

“In each of our big campaigns, we relentlessly exposed and publicised the potential of these spaces in a way which the big institution [i.e. the council] in the end couldn’t ignore,” Eileen explains proudly.

“I think we have achieved something through several of our campaigns by enabling spaces we inherited from our predecessors – I get emotional about this – to show their life again!

“And how much better is that than these soulless and expensive 21st century buildings which we otherwise would have been left with?

“Peckham town centre is like a living museum, we’ve got buildings from the end of the 17th century right through to now and it’s beautiful. If you look up in Peckham it’s amazing what you see above the noise and bustle and shop fronts.”

If one quality of Eileen burns brighter than others it is undoubtedly her passion, most significantly her passion for changing the way the world works, and improving the outcomes of interactions between large institutions and local communities.

“The dominant experience of all the people that work in corporations and institutions is a form of organisational relationship that is very different from that in organised community action in groups like Peckham Vision,” she explains.

“What has kept me going and motivated is the feeling that there is often something not right about decisions that have been made at a higher level. For example, the real lived economy is being neglected across London.

“I’m also passionate about good order and organisation. When people come together to do things they’re more likely to achieve what they want. Helping that to be more effective drives me.”

Given the wealth of her experiences and her long and unending journey towards human understanding I wonder whether Eileen believes if the battle for more productive connections between local residents and their institutional overseers, can be won.

So I conclude with a simple question: “are you an optimist?”

With a rebellious twinkle in her eye, Eileen tells me: “I don’t like the work optimist, I prefer to say hopeful.

“I have no doubt whatsoever that many things are possible. I’m certainly hopeful there can be change and I’m a great believer that we can change things if we understand them better.

“But you might say I’m an emotional optimist and an intellectual pessimist!”

For more information about Peckham Vision visit peckhamvision.org, follow on @peckhamvision on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or visit the Peckham Vision shop in Holdron’s Arcade, 135a Rye Lane, 2-5pm on Saturdays and 7-9pm the first Thursday of each month

[fmpseenandnotheard]

Artist Research...

(1) Boogie-Street & Documentary Photography...

Boogie will blow your mind.

The native of Belgrade, Serbia got his start began documenting rebellion and unrest during the civil war that ravaged his country in the 1990s, and the experience seemed to have a profound effect not only on him, but on his work as well. Though Boogie now resides in New York – he arrived in 1998 – all of his work still carries the urgency and thought-provoking depth of a war-torn country.

Perhaps it’s because Boogie’s latest photographs focus on lives torn apart – from the runaway smoking crack in a drug den that used to be a hospital to the gang member caught in a moment of tenderness while cuddling his newborn child. Boogie appears to have shot everything, everywhere. Beggars on the streets of Caracas, Skinheads in Serbia, birds caged by power lines in Tokyo – the world looks more moody, evocative and meaningful through Boogie’s lens. Every detail takes on a life of its own.

Unsurprisingly, the photography world has taken notice – Boogie has published five monographs and exhibited around the world. He shoots for high end clients, renowned publications and countless awe-struck eyes worldwide.

Daniel: Tell us about yourself, where did the name Boogie get picked up and what’s the story behind it?

Boogie: I’m 40 years old, born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia, moved to NYC in 1998 after winning a green card lottery; I’ve shot a lot, published 5 monographs so far, had some interesting solo exhibitions. My nickname was given to me by my friends some 20 or so years ago after a character from some scary movie.

Daniel: You do a lot of “candid” or better yet documentary photography. Are you always geared with a camera where ever you go?

Boogie: Of course, I’m a photographer, that’s what I do

Daniel: Lots of Gangs, Drugs, Skinhead photography. That screams trouble, are you not afraid meeting with these people, taking their photographs? Have you ever encountered trouble? – How do you approach these people at first?

Boogie: While I was photographing gangsters, skinheads, junkies, it never crossed my mind to be afraid. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get those photos. People can sense fear easily – plus, I don’t think any photo is worth risking your life for. I encountered some minor problems, but nothing serious, after all I’m still here. I always listened to my instincts, they kept me safe.

There is no recipe for approaching people. You either have it in you or you don’t. Usually if you treat people with respect they’ll be OK with you.

Daniel: You’ve recently signed a deal with HBO’s new show “How To Make It In America” what were your feelings when you first heard HBO was interested in featuring your photography, and what do you think about the show?

Boogie: It was a great gig, I met some very interesting people and got to know how the movie industry works. I haven’t seen the show, just the pilot, which I liked.

Daniel: Here’s a funny question wrapped around the HBO show – so When did you know you finally made it, as a photographer in America

Boogie: ‘Making it’ is very relative. I made it as a human being cause I have a great family and get to do what I love.

Daniel: Have you ever thought of shooting film?

Boogie: You mean moving picture? If so, while working on this HBO show, I realized that being a director of photography is an amazing job. Maybe the only job in the world I would trade for mine.

Daniel: What is your connection with photography, your personal life, and your photographs of poverty?

Boogie: Maybe the way I grew up led me to see things the way I do? I guess so, everything you go through in life has a purpose and influences what you become in the end.

Daniel: Tell us about the shoot in Brazil Sao Paolo, how was it?

Boogie: It wasn’t ‘a shoot’, I just packed my bags and went there for a week. very intense, I shot in some scary neighborhoods, I published a book after, all good.

Daniel: What was Mexico like, where did you visit?

Boogie: I was in Mexico City with a friend of mine Adrian Wilson … it’s an amazing city, great energy, great people. Al these horror stories they tell you before you go there are bullshit. Although I’ve been in some neighborhoods where I was afraid to shoot even from the car. But you have areas like that wherever you go.

Daniel: I know you’ve visited Cuba, Istanbul, Tokyo in addition, what is it that you learn from these trips?

Boogie: Travels are always great experiences, seeing how other people, other cultures live is priceless. It humbles you in a way, makes you appreciate what you have more.

Daniel: Lots of black and white, lots of flying birds. What is it that you like the most about Black & White?

Boogie: No idea, lately I also shoot a lot of color.

Daniel: Which gallery is your personal favorite?

Boogie: You mean on my website? everything there needs an update …

Ref: bloginity.com

Robert Frank

Influential photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank has died at the age of 94. He died of natural causes on Monday night in Nova Scotia, Canada. His death was confirmed by his longtime friend and gallerist Peter MacGill.

He was best known for his 1959 book The Americans, a collection of black-and-white photographs he took while road-tripping across the country starting in 1955. Frank's images were dark, grainy and free from nostalgia; they showed a country at odds with the optimistic views of prosperity that characterized so much American photography at the time.

His Leica camera captured gay men in New York, factory workers in Detroit and a segregated trolley in New Orleans — sour and defiant white faces in front and the anguished face of a black man in back.

Photographer Robert Frank holds a camera in 1954. His photo book, The Americans, changed the way people saw photography and the way they saw the U.S. Frank died on Monday at the age of 94.

Fred Stein Archive/Getty Images

Influential photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank has died at the age of 94. He died of natural causes on Monday night in Nova Scotia, Canada. His death was confirmed by his longtime friend and gallerist Peter MacGill.

He was best known for his 1959 book The Americans, a collection of black-and-white photographs he took while road-tripping across the country starting in 1955. Frank's images were dark, grainy and free from nostalgia; they showed a country at odds with the optimistic views of prosperity that characterized so much American photography at the time.

His Leica camera captured gay men in New York, factory workers in Detroit and a segregated trolley in New Orleans — sour and defiant white faces in front and the anguished face of a black man in back.

Trolley – New Orleans, 1955.

Robert Frank/National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Maria and Lee Friedlander

The book was savaged — mainstream critics called Frank sloppy and joyless. And Frank remembered the slights.

"The Museum of Modern Art wouldn't even sell the book," he told NPR for a story in 1994. "I mean, certain things, one doesn't forget so easy. But the younger people caught on."

Eventually, the photographs in The Americans became canon, inspiring legions. Photographer Joel Meyerowitz remembered watching Frank at work early on.

"And it was such an unbelievable and powerful experience watching him twisting, turning, bobbing, weaving," Meyerowitz said in 1994. "And every time I heard his Leica go 'click,' I would see the moment freeze in front of Robert."

Restaurant – U.S. 1 leaving Columbia, South Carolina, 1955.

Robert Frank/National Gallery of Art, Washington, Robert Frank Collection, The Robert and Anne Bass Fund

Ginsburg was a friend and photography student of Frank. He also starred in Frank's first film, 1959's Pull My Daisy. It was based on part of an unproduced play by Jack Kerouac and featured the author as narrator.

Pull My Daisy, and the other experimental, autobiographical films Robert Frank made, were his reaction to a restlessness he felt around still photography.

"In still photography, you have to come up with one good picture, maybe two or three," he told NPR in 1988. "But that's only three frames. There's no rhythm. Still photography isn't music. Film is really, in a way, based on a rhythm, like music."

Yet Frank's films shared a lot with his photographs. They were personal; they evoked emotions as much as they told stories. They're like home movies, and he made more than 20 of them before returning to photography. By then, he was a legend, acknowledged as an inspiration by such noted artists as Ed Ruscha, Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand.

What comes through in all of Frank's work is his ability to catch a moment. And that came from truly looking.

"Like a boxer trains for a fight, a photographer, by walking the streets, and watching, and taking pictures, and coming home, and going out the next day — same thing again, taking pictures," Frank said in 2009. "It doesn't matter how many he takes, or if he takes any at all. It gets you prepared to know what you should take pictures of.

_______________________________________________________________________

(2)  Weegee (1899 - 1968)

Biography

Weegee, born Usher Fellig on June 12, 1899 in the town of Lemburg (now in Ukraine), first worked as a photographer at age fourteen, three years after his family immigrated to the United States, where his first name was changed to the more American-sounding Arthur. Self-taught, he held many other photography-related jobs before gaining regular employment at a photography studio in lower Manhattan in 1918. This job led him to others at a variety of newspapers until, in 1935, he became a freelance news photographer. He centered his practice around police headquarters and in 1938 obtained permission to install a police radio in his car. This allowed him to take the first and most sensational photographs of news events and offer them for sale to publications such as the Herald-Tribune, Daily News, Post, the Sun, and PM Weekly, among others. During the 1940s, Weegee's photographs appeared outside the mainstream press and met success there as well. New York's Photo League held an exhibition of his work in 1941, and the Museum of Modern Art began collecting his work and exhibited it in 1943. Weegee published his photographs in several books, including Naked City (1945), Weegee's People (1946), and Naked Hollywood (1953). After moving to Hollywood in 1947, he devoted most of his energy to making 16-millimeter films and photographs for his "Distortions" series, a project that resulted in experimental portraits of celebrities and political figures. He returned to New York in 1952 and lectured and wrote about photography until his death on December 26, 1968.

Weegee's photographic oeuvre is unusual in that it was successful in the popular media and respected by the fine-art community during his lifetime. His photographs' ability to navigate between these two realms comes from the strong emotional connection forged between the viewer and the characters in his photographs, as well as from Weegee's skill at choosing the most telling and significant moments of the events he photographed. ICP's retrospective exhibition of his work in 1998 attested to Weegee's continued popularity; his work is frequently recollected or represented in contemporary television, film, and other forms of popular entertainment

[raygoodwinmajournal]

101 - Social Media, its use in the Zeitgeist and Personal Reflections

It is no secret that I have had a rocky and turbulent relationship with social media over the years. I have been through all emotions with it, from loving it to completely loathing what it is and what it can do to a person. The idea of being connected to many people digitally seems like a good idea, but it brings up a multitude of emotions which cannot be ignored. Surely the idea of being connected to people you know, and people you don’t would be a fantastic opportunity to network and share experiences? For me, this hasn’t entirely been the case.

To see where I am coming from, I must talk about my own social media history and where it started for me to be where I am today. The first social media site I signed up for was Facebook, all the way back in 2009 when I was 14 years old. It was amazing, I was able to talk to people that I knew in primary school which I hadn’t seen since I moved to the other end of the country a few years prior. And, as a teenager, most things in life are new and exciting - I had no idea how it would come to affect me at the time. Not long after in November 2009, I signed up for Twitter. This was a different kettle of fish, with Twitter being a lot more open to different people, even celebrities and people of a certain notoriety. At the time, these were massive deals and social media was really up and coming as something that most people didn’t really have. Even at this time it was in its infancy. I think I also signed up for Bebo, but that was as useful as a chocolate teapot. Having these sites are all well and good, only if you have people to know and add. At 14, I didn’t really have any friends and even then, felt alienated from my contemporaries because I didn’t feel that I fitted in amongst the crowd - I had ‘friends’, but they never felt true. This carried on for many years throughout my teens, using Facebook and Twitter and even thinking then why on earth I was doing what I was doing. Around 2011/2012, I signed up for Instagram which became the biggest bugbear in my time on social media, which went through multiple iterations and accounts. 

Eventually, I deleted my first Facebook account but was quickly resurrected. I wanted to break free from the digital shackles but never could pluck up the courage, which looking back at that way of thinking is completely absurd. How can one not have the courage to not use a particular website, unless they are addicted to it? This brings into question the very reason why one would use social media. Are they keeping in contact with friends and family they don’t have immediate access to, or are they intentionally manipulated to keep them on the site? Social media websites are intentionally created in such a way to increase time on site, so that they can create more money and keep afloat. These sites are made so that you become addicted to refreshing the page and hoping that a little red circle pops up with a number on it displaying how many notifications are on it. It starts to turn into a digital slot machine, pulling the lever and anticipating a winning number. They are essentially digital Skinner Boxes. For years, I did this because unbeknownst to me, I was addicted to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I was wasting time by flicking through feeds, looking at people’s status’ whom I didn’t care for, but did it anyway, for hours. Then I would switch to Instagram and fall into the abyss that is the explore page, which is just a chasm of useless flashy images relating to what you react with. Then I’d switch to seeing people’s stories and seeing what they were up to or sharing. Twitter would rear its head and I’d see what was happening in the world. 

This went on for too long and I started to become listless and filled with malaise. This was the start of me becoming wary of what social media was doing to me, which was only around 2016/2017. Even though that was a number of years ago now, it still went on until rather recently when I would uninstall all social media apps from my phone to ease my TOS and not waste so much time. But, I kept hanging on by a thread because I had become so dependent on scrolling and endlessly scrolling uselessly. I hated the fact that I detested these sites yet still crawled back to them and not using them to my advantage. Instead, I was wasting my time by ingesting images and information that was of no use to me such as people from school I hadn’t seen in years having children, estranged friends showing their new car modifications and sunny beach photos. Why do I need to see this? I don’t care about these people and what they’re doing with their lives, especially when they are doing much better than me. For most of my life, I have had to deal with depression and anxiety, which would often lead to derealisation from my surroundings and depersonalisation. Scrolling for hours made me feel even less of a human than felt before logging on - something had to change.

Eventually, I gradually weaned myself off of social media by deleting apps from my phone, and not allowing my browsers to save my login details so that I had to type everything out, acting as a form of deterrent. This partly worked, but I still relapsed for a lack of a better term. But the only way that I could stop using it is to completely deactivate and eradicate these accounts and apps from my life. It wasn’t until November 2020 that I was able to do it properly with Instagram, deleting my personal account and not looking back. I decided to keep my professional account because it is a platform where my work is shown and can be used for my career. But more on that in a later paragraph. Twitter was also next to go, firstly deleting all tweets, profile picture and cover photo just in case I needed the account for something. Twitter had become a dangerously caustic cesspit of political opinions and grossly misinformed ideas. I didn’t want that kind of negativity in my life whilst I was taking action and bettering my mental wellbeing, so it had to go. This for me was my most bittersweet encounter with deleting any social media account, as it had survived over 11 years with being relatively active. Yet the cons out weighed the pros, so it was laid to rest in February 2021. Facebook was revived for me after many years of not using it, but this was because I had to participate in the third year closed group during Lockdown in March 2020. This is still live, and mainly used for SU work. Reddit is also a site that I use from time to time, with an account I made 2015. This is a site I don’t view as social media and is a good resource for helpful information and communities. There are areas to avoid such as the Tik-Tok filled subreddits containing useless videos and pictures, but for the most part are useful in the right instances. 

My professional Instagram account is the only account that survived my social media purge because of the ability to share my work, network with industry professionals and follow people who are of key interest. I haven’t posted on this account since November 2020, but occasionally post a story about recent happenings such as being included in the Photograd Conjunction zine and to generally check in. My recent project work hasn’t been shared on this account yet, and will be once I am ready to show what I have been doing. It has been rather nice not to have any pressure and thinking I should be creating work for my followers instead of myself, because for a time I did think that. I was hung up on how many likes a post would get and how the audience was engaging, and if it was bad I would think again about what I was doing. I soon realised that it didn’t matter and I wasn’t happy with what I was creating, so I focused on myself rather than the audience on ones and zeros. 

I think that social media is inherently bad, and can have profound effects on one's mental health which can be extremely dangerous to the right, or wrong person. Whilst I do think that social media is terrible, and not having any access to it is massively freeing, it can certainly be useful in the right application. Professionally, I feel that is a must in the day and age, with everything becoming more digitally connected and employers potentially seeing what you are up to in the digital world. I feel that the way of using social media is very important, and should be used as a tool instead of a time wasting method and mindlessly scrolling the hours away. I was unhappy for a long time, and some of that can be attributed to social media and its use in my life. By cutting the chain from myself to the anchor which was social media, I feel less like a scrolling robot with a blank stare into a screen and more like a human being - as much as I can in this digital landscape. As we have become more digitally connected, I felt more disconnected from the people around me, which has been heightened since the pandemic and not being able to see family and friends. The added benefit of not having any personal social media accounts, there is so much free time for me to do what I like with. 

Instead of looking blankly at the screen at things that I cared zilch for, I can get on with more important things such as doing work for my MA, cleaning the house, walking, listening to music and doing mindfulness activities. In this strange digital wasteland of a landscape, I think it is a good idea to take a step back and think about how social media affects one’s life. If it is negative, then it is possibly time to either have a break, or completely cut ties with it. If it is of no use and only contains negativity, then why keep it? If you can’t use it to your own benefit and get something positive, then it is of little use. Just like a lot of things, it is a tool, such as the mobile phone. I don’t think that smartphones are bad, it is just how they are used by the majority. They are incredibly powerful tools which are pocket computers, which used correctly can be invaluable. It took me a long time to realise that they aren’t a bad thing, it is just how they are used. If things are too complicated and messy, forms of digital minimalism is a good route to take. By keeping phones free of mess, social media apps and old documents, they can be powerful tools which can be very useful in a multitude of settings. The fact that I have a handheld camera, notepad, encyclopedia, music player, video player which can also take phone calls, text messages and emails still blows my mind. Instead of using the phone as a time wasting tool, make use of its abilities and improve workflow and benefit oneself. The only downside is that we are still slaves to technology which is so deeply ingrained in society now that it cannot be undone unless something catastrophic happens which renders all technology useless. 

In short, social media can be extremely caustic and to be used with caution. If one wants to blindly keep scrolling autonomously with no thoughts - be my guest. But, if you want to use it to your advantage, you can change how it is used just by taking the plunge and not looking back. For now, my professional account will be just so and the app shan’t be on my phone and only accessible via my browser needing my login details. It allows me to have a place where I can show work, talk to certain people and potentially have clients find me or vice versa. Yet, social media is where some of my alienation stems from for me, as people blindly stare into their phones giving short grunted answers to questions as their thumbs manoeuvre them through an arid wasteland of memes and cultural detritus. I used to be one of those people, and it is horrible to see people become so distant and withdrawn looking at lolcats and dancing imbeciles. In the end, I felt like I wasn’t a human being and something had to change, as I became withdrawn from my very being on this rock hurtling through the void. But who is to blame: The person for being suckered into the app with little to no ability of self control, or the developers for intentionally creating the app in such a way that a person can’t look elsewhere and has to come back?

[howtohero]

Time travel was invented in the year 4 ever when Crodunk the Clumsy accidentally set a mysterious meteor on fire. Time travel was invented in the year 5349 Post Reconstitution when it was the only thing left to invent. Time travel was invented in 1985 CE when a disgraced nuclear physicist drove a car too dang fast. Time travel was invented in 6495 Before Reconstitution when scientists built a time machine through very careful and meticulous trial and error and a strict following of the scientific method and then some punk named Connor James showed up, stole their machine, and spiked it like he’d just scored the final touchdown in a Super Bowl. Time travel was invented in 54 BCE when a wizard looked into a crystal ball and saw that in the future we’d have skateboards and he thought that was rad. Time travel was invented in 2018 CE when the psychic fish looked into the future to see how it’d be invented and directed modern day scientists to invent it first. Time travel was invented in Year Zero when Dr. Bill Timetravel DDS discovered the blueprints for a time machine mysteriously tattooed onto the roof of one of his patients’ mouth. Time travel was invented in 2497 CE when Mason Starr read about Stephen Hawking’s 2009 time-traveler party and thought it sounded like a good time. Time travel was invented in 2007 CE when the spirits of dead dinosaur mages bestowed a magical amulet onto Leon Von Iguanodon which gave him the power to summon time-displaced dinosaurs. Time travel was invented in 2017 CE when the Very Angry Very Confused Time-Displaced Pirate was examined by scientists and the time-stream residue he was covered in was reverse-engineered. Time travel was invented in 1600 CE when somebody used the first time machine to travel back in time and invent time travel earlier.

If any of this sounds confusing to you it’s because the nature of time travel is that it doesn’t make any goddam sense. Once time travel is extant at some point in time the rest of time pretty much just turns into jelly. All of a sudden this rigid, structured, sequence of events can be molded and altered any which way by any bozo with a flux capacitor. It’s really stressful actually. But, just for you guys, in celebration of both our birthday and our 100th post Howtohero presents: 

#100 The Essential Guide to Time Travel!

Time Machine The first thing you need when you plan on zooming through the time stream is a time machine. Sure, there are plenty of ways to travel through time without a machine (running really fast, running really slow, magic, inborn metahuman abilities, freak lightning storms, certain types of birds {or certain types of Bat-Fish-Giant-Bird-Wing People}) but for the average person on the street, you’re going to need an actual time machine if you want to be able to practically ponder philosophical quandaries or cheat the lottery. Some of these time machines are nothing more than large portal generators and traveling through time is presented as no different from traveling through space. The only major difference is the color of the swirly vortex. Space vortexes are generally various shades of red or black while time portals are usually made up of an assortment purples or blues. Both kinds of portals though, make for very cool backdrops for Instagram photoshoots. Other time machines are more akin to vehicles (though usually they have more room inside) that the time traveler flies, drives or sails through the time stream in. When designing a time machine you’re going to want to make it look super mundane. I understand that your gut extinct will be to make it look super cool and flashy but that is dumb, you will get caught. Time machines should resemble things that would not look out of place in the era you plan on traveling to. Things like large shrubs or trees are pretty good templates, as they can commonly be seen in a variety of time periods and a variety of locales. Other common time machine templates include telephone booths, police boxes, and old cars, all of which are only practical for certain time periods. If you can get some kind of cloaking doohickey fitted onto your ship then you can pretty much make it look like whatever you want! Just make sure to remember where you’ve parked. Maybe write it down on your arm or something. If you forget where you’ve left your invisible time machine, you’ll be left stranded wherever you are unable to return home. Unless you’re stuck in the past in which case you can just wait until your home time comes around. You can also try etching a message into something you think your friends are likely to come across in the future/present. Then they can try to come get you. (Note: Most time travel navigation apps come with a “remember where I parked” feature so this may be a problem only for time travelers from time periods that still had to use time maps to get around, or time periods from after this whole apps fad faded away.) Other time machines come in the form of handheld devices or can be worn in some manner. Time machines that resemble watches are especially common. And there’s not really any reason for it beyond “haha watches are how you tell time!” Ok, I guess it could also be for easy carrying, access and disguise, but let’s be honest, it’s probably because “haha watches are how you tell time!”

Proper Time Travel Decorum When you arrive in a new time period do not run over to some random passerby and ask them what year it is really loudly. First of all, they can hear just fine, there’s no need to shout. Second of all, you should know what year it is, you’re the time traveler. Presumably you had a destination in mind. It’s not like when you disembark from a plane you run over to someone and start shaking them by the shoulders while asking what country you’re in. Third of all there are plenty of discrete ways of ascertaining when and where you are without announcing to the world that you’re a time traveler. Just pick up a newspaper or something. And if there are no newspapers in your time period, try looking it up online, or hey, maybe check the timometer on your time machine. Again, you should know where you traveled to. Generally, you want to keep the fact that you’re a time traveler on the DL (that’s “down low” for all you abbreviation junkies). If that news gets out you know a bunch of people you never met are going to ask you for time traveler favors. Or they might try to burn you at the stake. Or they might use that information to blackmail you into breaking into Hell and stealing a soul for them. So make sure you’re dressed appropriately and are aware of the relative current events and slang people are using. You should also come up with a fun codename for yourself. This doesn’t really have anything to do with hiding the fact that you’re a time traveler, it’s just a fun thing you can do. Try going for something subtle like Mr. Tyme or Dr. Timetravel or Clocky Clockerson. Something that will get a smirk out of people who are in the know but that won’t immediately out you to random civilians. If you’re planning on taking up permanent residence in another time period -for example, some people go back in time in order to become powerful superheroes or supervillains using their futuristic technology in lieu of actual powers- then you also want to not broadcast that. If you’re going to be a superhero in an earlier time period, then you need to keep both the fact that you’re a time traveler and your true identity a secret. If your enemies uncover that information, then they can defeat you simply by going after one of your ancestors and killing them. And by “defeat” I mean completely erase you from the timeline, which brings me to my next point…

Paradoxes When traveling through time you need to avoid causing any paradoxes at all costs. Some general rules for avoiding paradoxes are as follows:

Don’t sleep with anybody: Time travel makes people super fertile so you’re pretty much guaranteed to end up siring a time travel baby. These babies are almost always going to cause some pretty major paradoxes no matter which time period you place them in. Also, an astounding number of time travelers end up having sex with one of their ancestors. Making them their own ancestor. Which is a paradox. And also probably not great for the genepool. So let’s try to keep time stream excursions business only.

Don’t kill anybody: If you kill someone in the past you could irreversibly alter the future to the point where a paradox is formed. Some time traveling bounty hunters are equipped with special scanners that can determine a person’s significance to the time stream. If you have one of those then I guess you can kill someone if they don’t matter to the rest of time. But don’t tell them that that’s why you’re allowed to kill them! That’s a super disheartening thing to hear.

Don’t interact with yourself: Interacting with yourself is the easiest and quickest way to cause a paradox. Our interactions with the people around us always affect who we are as people so of course an interaction with yourself from a different time is going to have profound effects on your past and future. Obviously you should never go back in time to try to change your own past. You’re almost definitely going to make things worst for yourself. Our old pal Half-Face McGee tried it once, to save the other half of his face, and when he came back to his home time period he discovered that he was now No-Face McGee. Which is worse. He had to go back in time like eighteen different times to fix that mess. This rule is also especially important to keep in mind if a past version of yourself travels to the future and wants to talk to you. You need to avoid them at all costs. You should never meet your past self. They might think you’re lame or a jerk and resolve never to become like you. Which in all honesty might be great for them (past you) they’ve probably learned an important lesson about friendship and love or something. They’ll go back to their time and change their ways and everyone will be happier for it. Everyone except for you! The grumpy future version of you! Who will now cease to exist. So just never meet yourself. It’s just a headache waiting to happen. 

Paradoxes are the best way to get yourself wiped from existence, so it’s best to avoid that. Thankfully, the time travel vacation industry (which allows patrons to spend a relaxing couple of days in the time period of their choice, though honestly, their aim isn’t great and a lot of people accidentally end up on the Titanic or in inside Tyrannosaurus stomachs) has actually developed a clever workaround to the whole paradox issue. Paradox-locks, or Paralox™ as some goon in marketing came up with, allow a time traveler to travel back in time without the possibility of irreparably messing with the timeline. When a time traveler travels using paradox-locks they can do whatever they like and anything that results from it will have already been destined to happen. But be warned you might end up accidentally becoming responsible for something you hate. Like you’ll accidentally compose that annoying commercial jingle you’ve always hated. Or perhaps you’ll be the one who gave your fiancé that stupid hat that inspired him to become a hat-themed vigilante as a child. Or maybe the massive influx of accidental time travelers will cause the Titanic to sink... Only you haven’t really caused anything, these things had all already happened before you went back in time. It’s like a perfectly closed loop. All novice time travelers should travel with paradox locks their first few times. They’re like time travel training wheels. Remove them only when you know how to carefully manipulate time without erasing anybody from existence or shattering the whole shebang.

Breaking Time Every couple of days a time traveler irreparably damages time. That’s a fun little statistic we had our interns crunch the numbers for (we don’t have interns, please stop sending us job applications). “Breaking time” is the catch all term for any catastrophic damage a time traveler causes to time and it includes (but is not limited to): creating alternate universes as a result of branched timelines, creating aberrations or anachronisms across time and accidentally causing an apocalypse. Then there’s stuff like trapping yourself in a time loop or accidentally causing time to reverse itself, both of which are more accurately described as spraining time and can easily be reversed by a more experienced time traveler. Breaking time can be caused by even the simplest action on the part of an unwitting chrononaut so you always need to be super careful. The tiniest action can cause a crazy ripple effect all across time and space and completely alter your world. It’s something scientists I like to call the “Butterfly Effect” because the example I always give is that if you punch a butterfly in the face in the past when you eventually journey back to the future that very same butterfly will be there only now it will be called Evil Butterfly and it will take a preschool hostage [I don’t think that’s how it goes]. If you’ve found that you’ve accidentally broken time (great going by the way, I just love this barren hellscape that we all live in now) we’re going to help you fix it. If you’re smart you’ve taken a copy of this blog, or at the very least this post on time travel, with you when you traveled through time. So even if you’ve broken time so badly that I haven’t written it, it should remain unaffected. You and the things you have on your person or in your time machine will remain unaffected by the shattering of the time stream for a short period of time. See, like we said before, once time travel enters the picture time becomes kind of… gooey? It can be changed and sculpted and this mean it can take a bit before it solidifies into any given shape, even if that shape is a bunch of broken apocalyptic shards. So for a brief time you’ll be able to remember everything from your old timeline. You can also remember what you did to break time and when you did it. This is about the only time you’re allowed to go and interact with yourself during these excursions. You need to go back to before you decided to unleash a time demon or have a gun fight in the time stream and stop yourself from doing it. This will definitely cause a paradox but that’s ok, that’s just where we’re at now. You need to weaponize that paradox and use it to undo whatever you did and set the timeline back. This will probably cause you to be erased from the timeline but the past you will survive and not make the mistake that caused time to splinter or implode which will save quintillions of lives. So that’s something.

Oversight Due to the massive amounts of time travelers mucking about through the past, present and future at any given time there needs to be some kind of oversight (uch lame). Some type of council or parliament (an alarming number of time travelers are British; I don’t know why that is. Personally, I think most of them are faking it because they like the accent,) of scientists, historians and time masters should be formed to monitor time travelers and intervene if anything sketchy is going down. A group of watchmen so to speak. There should also be a special time-police division set up and run by this council. These agents of time can be sent to different time periods to collect future tech that was left behind or erase people’s memories of things they shouldn’t have seen. They can also track down and capture rogue time travelers intent on going back in time to become rules of the universe or to kill a superhero in their infancy. This organization should operate outside of the constraints of time by setting up shop within the time stream itself. Just beware that there are other creatures and characters who reside their too and whom you’ll need to make arrangements with for a peaceful coexistence. There are old-timey robots and temporal-phantoms and more British people??? My god did the British Empire set up a colony in the temporal zone??? What’s going on here?

[Disclaimer Potential side effects of time travel include but are not by any means limited to: disjointed and disorganized syntax, backwards walking, visions of alternate timelines, rapid aging, rapid deaging, speaking a different language, new memories, missing memories, being your own grandparent, exploding head syndrome, blinking out of existence every Groundhogs Day, having only six days in a week, being able to taste sounds, extreme sweating, emotional trauma, incontinence, déjà vu, Presque vu, jamais vu, déjà vu, sleep apnea, the bubonic plague, velociraptor flu, extreme nostalgia, the uncontrollable urge to burst into song and heart failure. Time travel is not for the faint of heart or the megalomaniacal. Pregnant people, amnesiacs and infants are advised against time travel. Please consult with a medical professional and ask them if time travel is right for you.]

So there you have it! Now you have everything you need to go out and start collecting temporally inconsequential knick knacks and ignoring everything here to try and drastically and unilaterally change time. Stay tuned for a master post of links for the past 100 posts as well as a few other big announcements that should be coming later today. Special thanks to my editor and girlfriend @empresschana (don’t bother checking out her tumblr, it’s empty, she made it only to be my first follower because she’s the best) for all your help and support and inspiration. Thanks to Ian Schafer for letting me use Connor James’ story in the intro, check him out on YouTube and subscribe to The Jimmy Network. I’ll be starring in one of his videos later this year. And last of all thank you to all my fans for all the likes and reblogs, if there’s something you’d like to see here or if you just wanna chat hit me up in my inbox. Here’s to another hundred posts of sagely advice, wacky adventures (But none more wacky than Jerry’s Homegrown Condiment Jars! Please think of Jerry Jarman for all your wacky adventuring and jarring needs! {Ok, what the hell!}) and general tomfoolery!

[orbemnews]

Larry King, legendary talk show host, dies at 87 King hosted “Larry King Live” on CNN for over 25 years, interviewing presidential candidates, celebrities, athletes, movie stars and everyday people. He retired in 2010 after taping more than 6,000 episodes of the show. A statement was posted on his verified Facebook account announcing his passing. His son, Chance, confirmed King’s death Saturday morning. “With profound sadness, Ora Media announces the death of our co-founder, host and friend Larry King, who passed away this morning at age 87 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles,” the statement said. “For 63 years and across the platforms of radio, television and digital media, Larry’s many thousands of interviews, awards, and global acclaim stand as a testament to his unique and lasting talent as a broadcaster.” The statement did not give a cause of death. He battled a number of health problems King had been hospitalized with Covid-19 in late December at Cedars-Sinai, a source close to the family said at the time. He battled a number of health problems over the years, suffering several heart attacks. In 1987, he underwent quintuple bypass surgery, inspiring him to establish the Larry King Cardiac Foundation to provide assistance to those without insurance. More recently, King revealed in 2017 that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and successfully underwent surgery to treat it. He also underwent a procedure in 2019 to address angina. King also suffered personal loss last year when two of his adult children died within weeks of each other: Andy King, 65, suffered a heart attack and daughter Chaia King, 52, died after being diagnosed with lung cancer. King is survived by three sons, Larry, Jr., Chance and Cannon, who released a statement following their father’s death. “The world knew Larry King as a great broadcaster and interviewer, but to us he was ‘Dad.’ He was the man who lovingly obsessed over our daily schedules and our well-being, and who took such immense pride in our accomplishments — large, small, or imagined,” their statement said. “Through it all, we knew without a doubt in the world that he loved us more than life itself. He was an amazing father, and he was fiercely loyal to those lucky enough to call him a friend. We will miss him every single day of our lives.” The sons asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the American Heart Association or the Beverly Hills Fire Department EMS. He interviewed every president from Ford to Obama In an era filled with star newsmen, King was a giant — among the most prominent questioners on television and a host to presidents, movie stars and world class athletes. With an affable, easygoing demeanor that distinguished him from more intense TV interviewers, King perfected a casual approach to the Q&A format, always leaning forward and listening intently to his guests, rarely interrupting. “I’ve never learned anything,” King was fond of saying, “while I was talking.” CNN founder Ted Turner, in a statement, said news of King’s death “felt like a punch to the gut.” “Larry was one of my closest and dearest friends and, in my opinion, the world’s greatest broadcast journalist of all time,” he said. “If anyone asked me what are my greatest career achievements in life, one is the creation of CNN, and the other is hiring Larry King. Like so many who worked with and knew Larry, he was a consummate professional, an amazing mentor to many and a good friend to all. The world has lost a true legend.” Jeff Zucker, CNN President, on Saturday acknowledged King’s role in raising the network’s profile around the world. “We mourn the passing of our colleague Larry King,” he said in a statement. “The scrappy young man from Brooklyn had a history-making career spanning radio and television. His curiosity about the world propelled his award-winning career in broadcasting, but it was his generosity of spirit that drew the world to him. We are so proud of the 25 years he spent with CNN, where his newsmaker interviews truly put the network on the international stage. From our CNN family to Larry’s, we send our thoughts and prayers, and a promise to carry on his curiosity for the world in our work.” For that quarter century, King hosted “Larry King Live” on CNN, a span that was highlighted by more than 30,000 interviews, including every sitting president from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama, and thousands of phone calls from viewers. Wendy Walker, his longtime executive producer on the show, said King treated all of his interview subjects the same — from heads of state to ordinary Americans. “The one thing he loved was being in front of that camera,” she said. “He was a very interesting man but that one hour a day, when those lights came on, he was just perfect. He treated every guest the same. It didn’t matter if it was a president or somebody just off the street.” King was known for not spending time preparing for interviews, preferring instead to let his natural curiosity guide the conversations, Walker said. “Probably that was the hardest part of our job — trying to prepare him because he never wanted to be prepared,” she recalled. “He read all day long and watched news, so he was really informed but he really just wanted to hear his guests talk and then come up with his questions.” The show made King one of the faces of the network, and one of the most famous television journalists in the country. His column in USA Today, which ran for nearly 20 years until 2001, showcased King’s distinct style in print, inviting readers down a trail of non-sequiturs that served as a window into his mind. “The most underutilized player in the NFL this year was Washington’s Desmond Howard…Despite what you think of Lawrence Walsh, we will always have the need for a special prosecutor because a government cannot investigate itself,” King wrote in a 1992 column. Those musings, combined with his unmistakable appearance — oversized glasses, ever-present suspenders — made King ripe for caricature. In the 1990s, he was portrayed on “Saturday Night Live” by Norm MacDonald, who channeled the USA Today column with a spot-on impersonation. Jokes aside, King’s influence is evident today in the generation of podcasters who have mimicked — whether deliberate or not — his conversational approach to interviews. “A good interview — you know more than you do before you start. You should come away with maybe some of your opinions changed,” King told the Los Angeles Times in 2018. “You should certainly come away entertained — an interviewer is also an entertainer.” He started his media career as a disc jockey Born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger on November 19, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, King was raised by two Jewish immigrants. His mother, Jennie (Gitlitz) Zeiger, was from Lithuania, while his father, Edward Zeiger, hailed from Ukraine. Edward died of a heart attack when King was 10, a memory King said he mostly “blocked out.” Left to raise King and his younger brother Marty alone, Jennie Zeiger was forced to go on welfare to support her children. The death had a profound effect on King, and his mother. “Prior to his death, I’d been a good student but afterwards, I just stopped being interested,” King told The Guardian in a 2015 interview. “It was a real blow to me. But eventually I channeled that anger because I wanted to make him and my mother proud.” King said his father had enormous influence on him, instilling in his son a sense of humor and a love of sports. And no sport drew more of King’s affection than baseball. He grew up a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and continued to support the team after its move to Los Angeles. He was a fixture at the team’s home games in Dodger Stadium, often spotted in the high-priced seats behind home plate. In 2004, King wrote a book aptly titled, “Why I Love Baseball.” “He was a voracious Dodgers fan, baseball fan,” said longtime friend and Dodgers sportscaster Charley Steiner. “And we would fuss and fight about what the Dodgers were doing. He was terribly frustrated year after year when the Dodgers would win the division, fall short in the World Series. But this year he got to see the Dodgers win the World Series. It made him enormously happy.” King’s career in media began in earnest in 1957, when he took a job as a disc jockey at WAHR-AM in Miami. It was then when he made the decision to drop his surname. “You can’t use Larry Zeiger,” he recalled his boss at the station saying. “It’s too ethnic. People won’t be able to spell it or remember it. You need a better name.” “There was no time to think about whether this was good or bad or what my mother would say. I was going on the air in five minutes,” King wrote in his 2009 autobiography. “The Miami Herald was spread out on his desk. Face-up was a full-page ad for King’s Wholesale Liquors. The general manager looked down and said, ‘King! How about Larry King?'” His CNN show premiered in 1985 It was around this time that King entered what would become a string of failed marriages. His union with Frada Miller was annulled, and the dates of his second marriage with Annette Kaye are publicly unavailable. From 1961-63, King was married to Alene Akins, whom he married again from 1967-71; before they re-married, King tied the knot with Mickey Sutphin in 1964 before they divorced in 1966. He had two more divorces — with Sharon Lepore, with whom he was married from 1976-82, and Julie Alexander, with whom he was married from 1989-92 — before marrying his seventh wife, Shawn Southwick in 1997 at UCLA Medical Center, as he was about to undergo cardiac surgery. King filed for divorce from Southwick in 2019, citing irreconcilable differences. King remained in Miami for years, eventually getting hired as a columnist for the Miami Herald in 1965. In 1971, he was arrested in Miami on charges of grand larceny, which led to his suspension from the station and newspaper where he was employed. Although the charges were dismissed the following year, King was not re-hired, prompting him to decamp Florida and head to Louisiana, where he worked as a freelance journalist. By 1978, King returned to Miami and to WIOD, the station where he was employed at the time of his arrest. The same year, “The Larry King Show” launched as a syndicated late-night radio show. It originally aired in 28 cities; within five years, it had spread to 118 cities, serving as the springboard to fame. The show won a Peabody Award in 1982. In 1985, “Larry King Live” premiered on CNN, beginning a long and storied run that included a number of high-profile interviews. Throughout its more than two decades on air, the show was routinely CNN’s most-watched program, and King was arguably the network’s biggest star. King left CNN in 2011, a move he expected would amount to retirement. But he kept working until his death, hosting “Larry King Now,” a program that aired on Ora TV, Hulu and RT America. King, it seemed, just never wanted the interview to end. “I just love what I do,” he said, “I love asking questions, I love doing the interviews.” CNN’s Sonia Tucker and David J. Lopez contributed to this report. Source link #Dies #dies-CNN #host #King #Larry #LarryKing #Legendary #legendarytalkshowhost #Show #talk #us

[dipulb3]

Larry King, legendary talk show host, dies at 87

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/larry-king-legendary-talk-show-host-dies-at-87/

Larry King, legendary talk show host, dies at 87

King hosted “Larry King Live” on Appradab for over 25 years, interviewing presidential candidates, celebrities, athletes, movie stars and everyday people. He retired in 2010 after taping more than 6,000 episodes of the show.

A statement was posted on his verified Facebook account announcing his passing. His son, Chance, confirmed King’s death Saturday morning.

“With profound sadness, Ora Media announces the death of our co-founder, host and friend Larry King, who passed away this morning at age 87 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles,” the statement said.

“For 63 years and across the platforms of radio, television and digital media, Larry’s many thousands of interviews, awards, and global acclaim stand as a testament to his unique and lasting talent as a broadcaster.”

The statement did not give a cause of death.

He battled a number of health problems

King had been hospitalized with Covid-19 in late December at Cedars-Sinai, a source close to the family said at the time.

He battled a number of health problems over the years, suffering several heart attacks. In 1987, he underwent quintuple bypass surgery, inspiring him to establish the Larry King Cardiac Foundation to provide assistance to those without insurance.

More recently, King revealed in 2017 that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and successfully underwent surgery to treat it. He also underwent a procedure in 2019 to address angina.

King also suffered personal loss last year when two of his adult children died within weeks of each other: Andy King, 65, suffered a heart attack and daughter Chaia King, 52, died after being diagnosed with lung cancer. King is survived by three sons, Larry, Jr., Chance and Cannon, who released a statement following their father’s death.

“The world knew Larry King as a great broadcaster and interviewer, but to us he was ‘Dad.’ He was the man who lovingly obsessed over our daily schedules and our well-being, and who took such immense pride in our accomplishments — large, small, or imagined,” their statement said.

“Through it all, we knew without a doubt in the world that he loved us more than life itself. He was an amazing father, and he was fiercely loyal to those lucky enough to call him a friend. We will miss him every single day of our lives.”

The sons asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the American Heart Association or the Beverly Hills Fire Department EMS.

He interviewed every president from Ford to Obama

In an era filled with star newsmen, King was a giant — among the most prominent questioners on television and a host to presidents, movie stars and world class athletes.

With an affable, easygoing demeanor that distinguished him from more intense TV interviewers, King perfected a casual approach to the Q&A format, always leaning forward and listening intently to his guests, rarely interrupting.

“I’ve never learned anything,” King was fond of saying, “while I was talking.”

Appradab founder Ted Turner, in a statement, said news of King’s death “felt like a punch to the gut.”

“Larry was one of my closest and dearest friends and, in my opinion, the world’s greatest broadcast journalist of all time,” he said. “If anyone asked me what are my greatest career achievements in life, one is the creation of Appradab, and the other is hiring Larry King. Like so many who worked with and knew Larry, he was a consummate professional, an amazing mentor to many and a good friend to all. The world has lost a true legend.”

Jeff Zucker, Appradab President, on Saturday acknowledged King’s role in raising the network’s profile around the world.

“We mourn the passing of our colleague Larry King,” he said in a statement.

“The scrappy young man from Brooklyn had a history-making career spanning radio and television. His curiosity about the world propelled his award-winning career in broadcasting, but it was his generosity of spirit that drew the world to him. We are so proud of the 25 years he spent with Appradab, where his newsmaker interviews truly put the network on the international stage. From our Appradab family to Larry’s, we send our thoughts and prayers, and a promise to carry on his curiosity for the world in our work.”

For that quarter century, King hosted “Larry King Live” on Appradab, a span that was highlighted by more than 30,000 interviews, including every sitting president from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama, and thousands of phone calls from viewers.

Wendy Walker, his longtime executive producer on the show, said King treated all of his interview subjects the same — from heads of state to ordinary Americans.

“The one thing he loved was being in front of that camera,” she said. “He was a very interesting man but that one hour a day, when those lights came on, he was just perfect. He treated every guest the same. It didn’t matter if it was a president or somebody just off the street.”

King was known for not spending time preparing for interviews, preferring instead to let his natural curiosity guide the conversations, Walker said.

“Probably that was the hardest part of our job — trying to prepare him because he never wanted to be prepared,” she recalled. “He read all day long and watched news, so he was really informed but he really just wanted to hear his guests talk and then come up with his questions.”

The show made King one of the faces of the network, and one of the most famous television journalists in the country. His column in USA Today, which ran for nearly 20 years until 2001, showcased King’s distinct style in print, inviting readers down a trail of non-sequiturs that served as a window into his mind.

“The most underutilized player in the NFL this year was Washington’s Desmond Howard…Despite what you think of Lawrence Walsh, we will always have the need for a special prosecutor because a government cannot investigate itself,” King wrote in a 1992 column.

Those musings, combined with his unmistakable appearance — oversized glasses, ever-present suspenders — made King ripe for caricature. In the 1990s, he was portrayed on “Saturday Night Live” by Norm MacDonald, who channeled the USA Today column with a spot-on impersonation.

Jokes aside, King’s influence is evident today in the generation of podcasters who have mimicked — whether deliberate or not — his conversational approach to interviews.

“A good interview — you know more than you do before you start. You should come away with maybe some of your opinions changed,” King told the Los Angeles Times in 2018. “You should certainly come away entertained — an interviewer is also an entertainer.”

He started his media career as a disc jockey

Born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger on November 19, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, King was raised by two Jewish immigrants. His mother, Jennie (Gitlitz) Zeiger, was from Lithuania, while his father, Edward Zeiger, hailed from Ukraine. Edward died of a heart attack when King was 10, a memory King said he mostly “blocked out.”

Left to raise King and his younger brother Marty alone, Jennie Zeiger was forced to go on welfare to support her children. The death had a profound effect on King, and his mother.

“Prior to his death, I’d been a good student but afterwards, I just stopped being interested,” King told The Guardian in a 2015 interview. “It was a real blow to me. But eventually I channeled that anger because I wanted to make him and my mother proud.”

King said his father had enormous influence on him, instilling in his son a sense of humor and a love of sports. And no sport drew more of King’s affection than baseball.

He grew up a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and continued to support the team after its move to Los Angeles. He was a fixture at the team’s home games in Dodger Stadium, often spotted in the high-priced seats behind home plate. In 2004, King wrote a book aptly titled, “Why I Love Baseball.”

“He was a voracious Dodgers fan, baseball fan,” said longtime friend and Dodgers sportscaster Charley Steiner. “And we would fuss and fight about what the Dodgers were doing. He was terribly frustrated year after year when the Dodgers would win the division, fall short in the World Series. But this year he got to see the Dodgers win the World Series. It made him enormously happy.”

King’s career in media began in earnest in 1957, when he took a job as a disc jockey at WAHR-AM in Miami. It was then when he made the decision to drop his surname.

“You can’t use Larry Zeiger,” he recalled his boss at the station saying. “It’s too ethnic. People won’t be able to spell it or remember it. You need a better name.”

“There was no time to think about whether this was good or bad or what my mother would say. I was going on the air in five minutes,” King wrote in his 2009 autobiography.

“The Miami Herald was spread out on his desk. Face-up was a full-page ad for King’s Wholesale Liquors. The general manager looked down and said, ‘King! How about Larry King?'”

His Appradab show premiered in 1985

It was around this time that King entered what would become a string of failed marriages. His union with Frada Miller was annulled, and the dates of his second marriage with Annette Kaye are publicly unavailable.

From 1961-63, King was married to Alene Akins, whom he married again from 1967-71; before they re-married, King tied the knot with Mickey Sutphin in 1964 before they divorced in 1966.

He had two more divorces — with Sharon Lepore, with whom he was married from 1976-82, and Julie Alexander, with whom he was married from 1989-92 — before marrying his seventh wife, Shawn Southwick in 1997 at UCLA Medical Center, as he was about to undergo cardiac surgery. King filed for divorce from Southwick in 2019, citing irreconcilable differences.

King remained in Miami for years, eventually getting hired as a columnist for the Miami Herald in 1965. In 1971, he was arrested in Miami on charges of grand larceny, which led to his suspension from the station and newspaper where he was employed. Although the charges were dismissed the following year, King was not re-hired, prompting him to decamp Florida and head to Louisiana, where he worked as a freelance journalist.

By 1978, King returned to Miami and to WIOD, the station where he was employed at the time of his arrest. The same year, “The Larry King Show” launched as a syndicated late-night radio show. It originally aired in 28 cities; within five years, it had spread to 118 cities, serving as the springboard to fame. The show won a Peabody Award in 1982.

In 1985, “Larry King Live” premiered on Appradab, beginning a long and storied run that included a number of high-profile interviews. Throughout its more than two decades on air, the show was routinely Appradab’s most-watched program, and King was arguably the network’s biggest star.

King left Appradab in 2011, a move he expected would amount to retirement. But he kept working until his death, hosting “Larry King Now,” a program that aired on Ora TV, Hulu and RT America. King, it seemed, just never wanted the interview to end.

“I just love what I do,” he said, “I love asking questions, I love doing the interviews.”

Appradab’s Sonia Tucker and David J. Lopez contributed to this report.

[newstfionline]

Friday, January 1, 2021

Happy New Year!

New Year’s revelries muted by virus as curtain draws on 2020 (AP) This New Year’s Eve is being celebrated like no other in most of the world, with pandemic restrictions limiting crowds and many bidding farewell to a year they’d prefer to forget. As the clock struck midnight across Asia and the South Pacific, the New Year’s experience mirrored countries’ responses to the virus itself. Some canceled or scaled back festivities, while others without active outbreaks were able to carry on like any other year.      Australia was among the first to ring in 2021 because of its proximity to the international date line. In past years 1 million people crowded Sydney’s harbor to watch fireworks. This time, most watched on television as authorities urged residents to stay home. In South Korea, Seoul’s city government canceled its annual New Year’s Eve bell-ringing ceremony in the Jongno neighborhood for the first time since the event was first held in 1953, months after the end of the Korean War. The ceremony normally draws an estimated 100,000 people.      Cities and countries that have managed to control the virus got to celebrate. New Zealand, which is two hours ahead of Sydney, and several of its South Pacific island neighbors that also have no active COVID-19 cases held their usual New Year’s activities. Taiwan also hosted its usual New Year’s celebration, a fireworks display by its capital city’s iconic Taipei 101 tower. The island has registered only seven deaths and 700 confirmed cases. Much of Japan welcomed 2021 quietly at home, alarmed after Tokyo reported a record daily number of confirmed coronavirus cases, topping 1,000 for the first time. Many skipped a chance to return to ancestral homes for the holidays, hoping to lessen health risks for extended families.      In many European countries, authorities warned they were ready to clamp down on revelers who breached public health rules, including nightly curfews in Italy, Turkey, Latvia and the Czech Republic. Many around the world looked toward 2021 with hope. In Israel’s coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv, flower shop owner Billie Heyman reflected on how 2020 taught people to be “more friendly and gentler with each other.” “Because, when we don’t have this, we have nothing,” she said. 

COVID-19 shook, rattled and rolled the global economy in 2020 (Reuters) When 2020 dawned, the global economy had just notched its 10th straight year of uninterrupted growth, a streak most economists and government finance officials expected to persist for years ahead in a 21st Century version of the “Roaring ‘20s.” But within two months, a mysterious new virus first detected in China in December 2019—the novel coronavirus—was spreading rapidly worldwide, shattering those expectations and triggering the steepest global recession in generations. The International Monetary Fund estimates the global economy to have shrunk by 4.4% this year compared with a contraction of just 0.1% in 2009, when the world last faced a financial crisis. Government-mandated shutdowns of businesses and any non-essential activities in much of the world unleashed a wave of joblessness not seen since the Great Depression. Still, unemployment levels varied dramatically across the globe. Most economists expect it to take a year or more for labor markets to return to something resembling the pre-pandemic era.

Canada to require negative coronavirus test for air travelers entering country (The Hill) Canada will require air travelers to present a negative COVID-19 test in order to enter the country, officials announced Wednesday. Travelers coming into Canada by plane will have to get a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test within 72 hours of boarding, which Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc said will likely be in place within a week, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Canada currently mandates that those who enter the country quarantine for 14 days, which Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said during a press conference would not be affected by the new restrictions. “This is not an alternative to quarantine,” Blair said, according to the CBC. “It’s an additional layer.” Disobedience of the quarantine period could result in up to six months in prison or up to $750,000 in fines.

Virus aid, police reform dominate new US laws for 2021 (AP) Responses to the coronavirus pandemic and police brutality dominated legislative sessions in 2020, leading to scores of new laws that will take effect in the new year. Virus-related laws include those offering help to essential workers, boosting unemployment benefits and requiring time off for sick employees. A resolution in Alabama formally encouraged fist-bumping over handshakes. Legislatures also addressed police use of force against Black people and others of color after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis led to widespread protests against police brutality. Among other things, new laws will mandate oversight and reporting, create civilian review panels and require more disclosures about problem officers.

Louisiana residents struggle months after storms (AP) Well after Hurricanes Laura and Delta ravaged southwest Louisiana, the state and its people are still far from recovered, with many living in tents and cooking their meals over open fires while they slowly work to rebuild their destroyed homes. Ricky and Cristin Trahan are among those still struggling, months after Hurricane Laura roared through the region as a Category 4 storm in August, followed by Category 2 Hurricane Delta in October. From a relative’s house where they had taken refuge, the Trahans watched as Laura flipped over and destroyed their mobile home. When they returned, any possessions that hadn’t been looted were strewn about their property. Since then, they have been living as a family in tents, only recently acquiring a camper for their son, Ricky Jr.; his fiancée, Katelyn Smith; and their 1-year-old boy; and a propane water heater that has allowed them to take hot showers. Eventually the Trahans expect to receive a trailer from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but they don’t believe it will arrive for some time. In the meantime, they do their best to survive in the cold, often rainy nights, improvising as they go along to survive in the rubble that was once their home.

She’s young, has no serious health conditions—and hasn’t left isolation since March (Washington Post) On the 265th day of her isolation, Barbie Furtado woke with a migraine. Outside, millions of people were getting on with the business of their days. Fortaleza, the Brazilian city of 2.6 million where Furtado shares a three-bedroom apartment with her mother and brother, was reporting fewer than 30 daily coronavirus cases. People were back on the streets. Shops and schools were open. Friends and family were urging her to join them. But Furtado, a 32-year-old woman without any serious health conditions, hadn’t been outdoors since March 18. Not even to take a stroll. “I’m not ready to go out,” she said. In Brazil, a country of profound inequality, where delivery services are extremely inexpensive, the comfortable can afford to order in virtually any service or product: groceries, medications, wine. The hairdresser makes house calls. So does the manicurist. Friends send home-cooked meals via mototaxi. Want a coronavirus test? The lab will send over a technician. Brazil’s deliver-anything culture has enabled a minority of people to achieve an extraordinary degree of isolation. In August—six months into the pandemic—surveys showed that 8 percent of Brazilians still hadn’t left their houses. In October, amid the lull between the first and second coronavirus waves, 1 percent of people still weren’t leaving. Now, as cases and deaths rise once more, people are retreating back into complete isolation, or are grateful they never left it. “It’s not just the wealthiest classes,” said Gessuir Pigatto, an economist at São Paulo State University who studies the delivery economy. “It’s all classes. We have the opportunity to always stay home.”

Scores Missing, Hundreds Evacuated After Clay Landslide Strikes Village in Norway (Daily Beast) At least 26 people are unaccounted for and more than 200 people have been evacuated after a massive sheet of clay caused a devastating landslide in the Norwegian village of Ask, in the municipality of Gjerdrum about 10 miles north of Oslo, at around 4 a.m. Wednesday. At least 10 people are being treated for injuries in a local hospital and several homes were swept away. At least one person is in critical condition, authorities said. “The situation is very dramatic. There has been a major landslide and we are in the process of evacuating residents from the area,” the local mayor, Anders Østensen, said Wednesday morning. “Several of them have lost their homes, and they are of course having a tough time. There are many who are very upset and scared.” The area around the village is known for its soft clay terrain that suddenly turns to liquid with fluctuating temperatures. Authorities are assessing whether it is safe for rescue crews to access the area.

Pandemic made my last year in office the hardest, says emotional Merkel (Reuters) Angela Merkel said in her last New Year’s address to the nation as German chancellor that 2020 was by far the most difficult of her 15-year leadership. “Let me tell you something personal in conclusion: in nine months a parliamentary election will take place and I won’t be running again,” said Merkel, 66. “Today is therefore in all likelihood the last time I am able to deliver a New Year’s address to you.” She added: “I think I am not exaggerating when I say: never in the last 15 years have we found the old year so heavy and never have we, despite all the worries and some scepticism, looked forward to the new one with so much hope.”

In new playground Dubai, Israelis find parties, Jewish rites (AP) It was a scene that just a few months ago would have been unthinkable. As Emiratis in flowing white robes and headdresses looked on, the Israeli bride and groom were hoisted on the shoulders of skullcap-wearing groomsmen and carried toward the dance floor, where dozens joined the throng swaying and singing in Hebrew. Noemie Azerad and Simon David Benhamou didn’t just throw a somewhat normal wedding bash in the middle of a pandemic that has shut down their country and ravaged the world. They were reveling in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which—like most of the Arab world—had been off-limits to Israeli passport holders for decades. The pair was among tens of thousands of Israelis who had flocked to the UAE in December after the two countries normalized ties in a breakthrough U.S.-brokered deal. Scores of Israeli tourists, seeking revelry and relief from monthslong virus restrictions and undeterred by their government’s warnings about possible Iranian attacks in the region, have celebrated weddings, bar mitzvahs and the eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah with large gatherings banned back home. “I expected to feel really uncomfortable here,” said 25-year-old Azerad, the Israeli bride, from the hotel ballroom, bathed in the glow of Dubai’s glittering skyline. “I feel like it’s Tel Aviv,” Azerad said of Dubai. “I hear Hebrew everywhere.”

Saudi-led coalition strikes at Yemen capital after attacks on Aden blamed on Houthis (Reuters) Saudi-led coalition warplanes struck targets in Yemen’s Houthi-held capital Sanaa on Thursday in retaliation for attacks in the southern port city of Aden the previous day that took place as officials in a government backed by Riyadh arrived there. Thursday’s coalition air strikes hit Sanaa airport and several other sites in and around the city, residents said. Loud blasts were heard and warplanes flew overhead for several hours, they said. Houthi-run Masirah television said the planes hit at least 15 locations in different districts in the capital. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Coalition air strikes have killed thousands, including many civilians, over the course of the war.