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13uswntimagines · 4 years ago

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Better To Be Friends Than Competition (Lindsey x Reader)

Author’s Note: This Technically wasn’t requested, but @literaryhedgehog and i had a blast writing this. It’s the Harry Potter AU. Basically, reader is a muggleborn who really wants to be a chaser, but maybe there’s a better position for her on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. This is the beginning of what will be a multi-part series following the building romance between two amazing characters and how our golden octet help them out along the way.

@sleep-deprived-athlete

“Alright, you’ve all been told the rules and had the chance to warm up. So let’s start by dividing into groups. Anyone who wants to be a seeker follow Mia there to the far side of the field. Beaters to the left with Foudy. Keepers to the goalposts with Hope. And chasers with me up top,” Brandi said with a wave of her hand, kicking off of the ground and heading towards where her group was going to meet.

You snuck a glance to either side of you as you also kick off and head to your position, trying to guess who out of the eight students around you is going to be your biggest competition. Surely you thought more people would have wanted a chance at a spot on one of the best teams at Hogwarts. Tryouts had been packed for the last two years.

You wondered which drill Brandi was going to start with as you approached the group (said woman was idily tossing a quaffle lightly in her hands as she talked to another one of your competition). For the last 2 years it was always a set of passing drills, where would-be chasers played a very complicated game of catch up and down the pitch.

Maybe those tryouts were supposed to be private, but how else could you prepare for them if you didn’t know what to expect?

Quidditch was honestly a really weird sport. Well, American football made less sense, but you hadn’t exactly studied the rules as extensively as you had Quidditch. Like, the game literally would not end until someone caught the snitch. According to Quidditch through the Ages a game had literally lasted for months. You remembered watching a tennis game that lasted for four days before, but generally the muggle sports you grew up with were more consistent in how long each game took.

“Oh yeah”, you thought, watching the beaters line up across the pitch, “and there is also a ball charmed to try and knock people off their broom. That’s not normal.” Though it was something your dad found hilarious.

Sports were always something the two of you could talk about, even before you found out you had magic. He loved the fact that you loved football as much as he did, and was thrilled by the fact that you had enough talent to play it in your primary school.

Though with your hand eye coordination you had done better with cricket, and baseball the few times you had a chance to play it in gym. So when you had joined the wizarding world you naturally had gotten into quidditch. Learned everything you could about the game so you could give him detailed play by plays about the games when you sent owls home.

At this point you were dying to play. You were too short to be a beater or a keeper, but you knew you could be a chaser. You could catch like nobody’s business, and you had at least half of the tactics in The Beginner's Quidditch Playbook memorized. You were going to be the best damn chaser Hogwarts had ever seen.

“Hey space captain, you ready for this?”

“What?” You froze, heat flooding your cheeks at being caught not paying attention. You slowly turned to face the new presence.

You knew the girl. Well. You knew of the girl (it was impossible not to know about the very pretty blond girl). She was in your house and year (and therefore in your dorm as well as all your classes) but the two of you had never really interacted before. She seemed to already know everyone and everything when she got to Hogwarts, so it didn’t really seem like she was looking for friends, and it was hard enough trying to figure out your new life without having people look at you strangely when you didn’t know a word they used. Not that Lindsey, you thought that’s her name anyway, had done that, but other purebloods did. It was easier figuring things out on your own to start, and by the time you did, you and Lindsey had already established yourselves in different friend groups. Was her name Lindsey? A Slytherin in your year was always calling her strange nicknames, so it was hard to tell.

“The drill. Are you ready for the drill space captain?” The girl asked again.

“Yeah, but I’m not a captain. I’m a second year, like you,” You said softly, your eyebrows furrowing. Maybe that was a wizard saying, but you had no idea what she was talking about. Your heart also dropped just a touch because if she thought you were a captain then she had absolutely no idea who you were.

She shook her head with a giggle (showing off her dimples). “My dad says that’s what muggles call a person with their head in the clouds,”

You cocked your head to the side, your brain running a million miles an hour to try and figure out what she meant. But then it clicked. “Oh you mean space cadet,”

“I guess,” She shrugged, seemingly unbothered about the correct verbiage.

The whistle blowing brought both of your attention back towards Brandi and the first set of would-be chasers beginning the crossing drill. You coughed to hide a scoff when Lynn Williams raced at breakneck speed up the pitch, and released the quaffle at least 30 feet off where the chasing captain had instructed.

You shook your head at the play. It was too sloppy, too open and it would never connect well with JJ and Alex up top.

“Not impressed by what you see?” Lindsey asked, her eyebrow quirking up (trying very hard to pretend she wasn’t interested in your answer. You were her competition after all).

“Not after Alex basically destroyed the same course last year. She’s got an 85% accuracy rating on goal and nearly 60% of her shots come off of left crosses. Williams isn’t getting high enough on the pitch to provide an adequate pass,” You mumbled out quickly, wincing when Lynn made the same mistake on the way back, nearly sending her partner (a girl in the year below you named Mal) into the stands to catch it (though you were slightly impressed that Mal managed to grab it before it landed in the seats).

“Yeah, I see what you mean. Her throws tend to either go too short or too long. Even if it doesn’t go directly to her partner it at least needs to be consistent so during a game the person she’s throwing it to knows where to intercept it before the other team does,” Lindsey said, taking a hand off her broom to shield her eyes.

“She’s fast but it won’t help if she forces the other chaser off her line to provide service to Alex in front of the posts,” You huffed. Having her on that side would be a positioning nightmare. It left the team open and vulnerable to so many different attacking options.

“I am not entirely sure what that means,” Lindsey said, smirking as she looked sideways at you, “but it sounds like you don’t think she’s competition, which is good news for us!’

You opened your mouth to respond, only to be cut off by Brandi’s whistle. “Alright next pair up,”

You gulped and tightened your fingers on your broom “Guess it’s showtime,” You muttered, surging forward to the starting line.

“Good luck space captain, you’re gonna need it,” Lindsey called back towards you with a wink, taking the ball from Brandi.

You shook your head. You wouldn’t need luck. A fucking golden retriever could beat out the performance you had just whitnessed. As long as you didn’t fall off your brooms, you both would be fine.

***

You raced towards the hoops, reaching your arm out to pluck the perfectly timed ball out of its arc towards the ground. Okay, Lindsey was good. Really good. She HAD to have known how bad Lynn’s throws were, because hers were positively perfect. Your throws were good, but Lindsey had this way of arching the ball up through the air if a perfect loop so it practically fell into your hands. There was no way she didn’t practice over the summer.

You neared the posts, starting to make your u-turn to pass the ball back when a flash of gold caught your eyes. Before you really thought it through, the hand anchoring you to your broom had already lifted to snatch it out of the air on instinct. You had played cricket for most of your life- it was instinct to reach out and grab a ball that looked like it was about to fly into your face.

The next few seconds happened almost in slow motion. As your fingers closed around the cool metal, you realized just how far to your side you had to lean to reach the object, and how far off balance it had put you. Your legs crossed tightly as you flipped completely upside down on your broom, entirely unwilling to let go of the object you had just caught or the large quaffle still tucked tightly under your arm. Before you really knew what was happening, you were staring straight at the ground, your legs the only thing keeping you in the air.

“Holy shit, holy shit. Um, hey Lindsey?” You called, eyes on the ground below you.

“What?” You heard her call. You idly wondered why one of the captains hadn’t put a stop to this yet and put you out of your misery.

“Catch?” You threw the quaffle, well tossed it really, up into the air towards where you thought the other girl was. You knew it was going to be short, but also knew that she was going to catch it anyway. She really was that good. With your now free hand you reached up and grabbed the handle of your broom so you could pull yourself to it and rotate back to an upright position.

Only then did you look down at the tiny ball fluttering in your hand. The tiny, almost leathery, wings flapped like it was waving hello. You stared at it in awe, your lips ticking up. You had just caught the golden snitch. You never thought you would get to touch the snitch, much less catch it.

“Hey you” a voice called from the pitch behind you. You turned to look as Mia flew from where the seeker candidates were staring hopelessly at the sky around them to land on the pitch. “Get down here. Yeah, you on the drills.” She motioned down to the pitch, indicating where you should land, then turned her head to call over her shoulder, “Brandi I’m taking number 2.”

You quickly flew towards where she had pointed, shakily dismounting from your broom. You weren’t sure if it was fear, adrenaline or nerves, but your legs felt like jelly. You clutched the little ball in your hand so tightly that you were sure there was going to be an imprint in your palm later.

“What in Merlin’s name are you doing in the chaser section?” Mia said, tucking her broom under her arm and throwing her hand up towards the group of would be chasers throwing a ball around at varying distances. (You tried not to wince when Lynn nearly pegged Mal in the face again).

“Um, trying to be a chaser? I was always a good forward so I thought it might fit?” You mumbled with a shrug, scratching the back of your neck with your free hand. a light shade of pink covered your cheeks. It was a little embarrassing how clueless you were with the magical world sometimes, and how even after being here for two full years, you still felt completely out of your depth.

“That’d be like using a cauldron as a teacup because they’re both the same shape. It’d work but what a waste!”

“I…- I have no idea what that means. I know I caught the wrong thing, and I’m sorry. I’ll leave now if that’s what you want,” You stuttered out, suddenly finding the way your shoe poked the pitch underneath you interesting.

“No, kid you misunderstand me. Look, you, what’s your name again?” Mia stepped closer, tilting her head as she looked at you.

“Y/n. Y/n Y/l/n,”

“Right, Y/n, you could play chaser. You’d even be a decent one with a bit of work. But that’d be a damn waste of talent. You’re a natural seeker. I’m not upset with you for catching the wrong ball, I’m upset you weren’t over in my section trying to catch the snitch in the first place. Look at that lot over there, they still think it’s somewhere over the stands.” Mia stepped next to you and turned, gestured to the group of seeker hopefuls flying in circles near the Ravenclaw seats.

“Oh,” You breathed out, following her hand to look at the large group. They were squinting towards the stands and swooping low at whatever they thought they had spotted, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the snitch had been caught on the other side of the pitch and that Mia wasn’t even paying attention to them anymore.

“I’ve had a lot of practice spotting this ball,” Mia said, tapping the snitch trapped in your hand. “I was able to see it within about a minute of it being released, and have been watching it since. None of them saw it when it was on their side of the field, but you saw it instantly- even when you were focused on something else. That is a talent Y/n. Why didn’t you try out for seeker in the first place?”

“I didn’t know how to practice for it, and that-. It wasn’t like any of the other positions I have ever played,” You muttered, trying to cover your insecurity with a nonchalant shrug. It seemed like the position that required the most innate ability, and as a muggleborn you didn’t think you had any.

Mia nodded slowly looking at you. “Right,” she said, turning and mounting her broom, “I wanna run you through some drills. Come on.”

You blinked at the woman as she hovered in front of you. Your eyes darting between Mia and the object still clutched tightly in your hand. Where were you supposed to put it? Were you supposed to let it go?

You brought your palm up so it was level with your eyes and opened your hand, half expecting the snitch to fly away. It didn’t. It’s wings slowly unfurled and it waved docilely at you. Like an old friend.

“What’re you waiting for?” Mia called down at you.

“It won’t fly away!” You called back, looking up at the woman, who rolled her eyes indulgently.

“Of course not, it’s yours. You caught it, and you can watch it like some love-struck puppy later- stash it in your pocket and come on!”

***

You were having a fucking blast, even though you had no idea what you were in for when you joined the seeker group. Every year when you watched tryouts, you never payed attention to what they had to do, as you never thought you would have to do it. Even without the advantage, you were killing it.

You had been separated into pairs, just like the chasers were, but Mia had enchanted clear balls (the size of tennis balls) to randomly fly through the air. The balls were given a 5 second head start before you and your partner were allowed to race to catch it. Now this was familiar, the jostling of arms while racing after a ball and trying to prevent someone else from getting to it before you. Only once out of five rounds did your opponent get to the ball before you, but really, that elbow to your ribs was a red card if you’d ever seen one.

Then everyone took turns hovering in the air as Mia took ten of the enchanted balls and flicked them up haphazardly one by one every five seconds. The goal was to catch as many of them as you could before they hit the ground, even as they were sent up in different directions and some much higher in the air than others. You didn’t get all of them, but the seven you saved still seemed to impress the other seeker candidates who didn’t scowl. The second highest number saved was six, but that girl still congratulated you as you got off your broom, since “those last few of them went way further out than they did for me- and you were an inch away from that eighth one!”

You nodded, smiling at her, though you were probably more embarrassed than she realized about that eighth one. That one had been sent towards the far side of the field, where you looked up to meet Lindsey’s eyes. You had been placed perfectly to catch the ball as it started falling from it’s apex, but in the moment your hand faltered, and it brushed by your hand instead. You cursed and considered going after it, but then you flew back to where Mia had already released one of the last two on the other side of the field.

“Alright, for our last drill, we’re going to try to catch a real snitch again,” Mia said, pulling another golden ball out from inside her robes and holding it between her thumb and pointer finger. Its wings sprung out and flapped wildly, unlike the slow waving of the one in your pocket.

Everything in you wanted to catch the little golden ball. To tame it like you had the other one. For it to sit calmly in your hand and wave hello like an old friend.

“Isn’t the other one still out there?” The same girl asked, her head tilting to the side.

“It’s been taken care of,” Mia smirked and shook her head, sending a little glance in your direction. The girl stared at her wide eyed, opening and closing her mouth as though she wanted to say more, but Mia again cut her off with a stern glare. ”As I was saying, the first of you to catch it gets to keep it and also gets a boost to the points on their scorecard. Now line up,”

You all flew low on the pitch, forming a circle with Mia and the snitch at its center. Your eyes never left the frantically flapping little ball as you waited for her whistle to blow. There was no way it was going to escape you and if you got to show off for the would be chasers watching you near the posts, that was fine with you too.

***

“Congratulations Y/n! There’s no way you won’t get picked to be seeker,” the girl said, after Mia released you, promising that the results of the tryouts would be posted next week.

“Oh, um thanks-...” You said trailing off towards the end, awkwardly rubbing the back of your neck. You didn’t know her name.

“Oh, sorry. You missed introductions at the beginning. I’m Savannah, from two years above you.” Savannah grinned at you, a bit ruefully. “You know, I thought this was going to be my year to nail the seeker position. But with you on the team, there’s no WAY we’re gonna lose to Slytherin. And Lloyd can stop looking so smug about the cup win last year.”

“The only reason they were better is because they had Amy and Sydney scoring. They won despite her and her stupid tactics. If Slytherin actually got a decent seeker then we’d be in trouble,” Lindsey said, throwing her arm over your shoulder and stepping to walk between you and Savannah.

“Carli’s decent, just distracted I think. She had NEWTS along with scouters and stuff,” you muttered, a bit defensively. You know you weren’t supposed to like the Slytherins- house competition and all that- but Carli’s strategy was pretty impressive. The recruiters certainly seemed to think so, you heard rumors that the recruiters from the Wasps and Arrows had a bidding war before the Harpies showed interest.

“Pshh it was just the Harpies recruiter. Even if they have Potter, she’d still probably tank their win streak. At least that’d help my team,” Lindsey snorted, shaking her head.

Your eyebrows furrowed. The Harpies were the second oldest team in the league, and since they recruited Ginny they had been on a tear taking down the Cannons and the Magpies in the final games of the European cup three years running. You thought Carli’s strategy would fit nicely in their ranks.

“I’m pretty sure there were Wasps recruiters and Magpies guys here too,” Savannah said to Lindsey. You noticed her eyes glanced towards Lindsey’s arm around your shoulder as she smiled widely. Lindsey dramatically rolled her eyes.

“Which team is yours?” You asked softly, leaning your head on Lindsey's shoulder as you trudged towards the locker room, ignoring Savannah.

“The cannons of course,” Lindsey said confidently. Savannah seemed to be hiding a smirk, and waved goodbye at you as she headed into the locker room.

“They’re pretty alright, but Ronaldo is a little too cocky for me. Sinclare and Potter together are a lethal combo for the Harpies and with Angerer in goal they’re like unstoppable,” You hummed thoughtfully. You also liked that the Harpies were an all female team.

“Ugh, you sound like Emily,” Lindsey said, rolling her eyes. “She and Sam are giant Magpies supporters.”

“I mean the Magpies have a 75% score rate while the Cannons are only at a 60. And Messi catches the snitch within the first hour 80% of the time, while Ronaldo’s catches take about 85 minutes on average,” you rattled off. So maybe you were a little too into statistics. At least your dad never had to worry about your math skills.

“No way, they’re super into team stats too! Maybe you can help me convince Emily and Sam that the Cannons are the best team!”

“But Emily and Sam, whoever they are, are right. The stats don’t lie,” You said with furrowed eyebrows.

“Oh, Emily is my friend in Slytherin and Sam‘s in Hufflepuff. I’ll introduce you later.” Lindsey said waving a hand in the air. “Anyway, the Magpies may have Messi, but the Cannons have heart! And isn’t that what really matters to make a good team great?”

You paused, pulling Lindsey to a stop beside you. “I know they don’t teach math here, but Statistics beat heart any day.”

Lindsey laughed and shoved you playfully to the side. “You haven’t even met them and already you’re ganging up on me.”

“I’m just stating facts. The hat almost put me in Ravenclaw cause I just love random factoids so much,” you smirked, tucking yourself back under her outstretched arm (it was just so warm and it made you feel… safe).

“Well, I’m glad you’re in Gryffindor. It's way better to have you as a teammate than competition Space captain. Now let’s go- if we hurry we can probably get to the library to work on that potions essay before curfew.”

#uswnt x reader #uswnt imagines #uswnt imagine #literalhedgehog #harry potter au #hogwarts au #quidditch au

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justforbooks · 5 years ago

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Lee Konitz, jazz alto saxophonist who was a founding influence on the ‘cool school’ of the 1950s died aged 92

The music critic Gary Giddins once likened the alto saxophone playing of Lee Konitz, who has died aged 92 from complications of Covid-19, to the sound of someone “thinking out loud”. In the hothouse of an impulsive, spontaneous music, Konitz sounded like a jazz player from a different habitat entirely – a man immersed in contemplation more than impassioned tumult, a patient explorer of fine-tuned nuances.

Konitz played with a delicate intelligence and meticulous attention to detail, his phrasing impassively steady in its dynamics but bewitching in line. Yet he relished the risks of improvising. He loved long, curling melodies that kept their ultimate destinations hidden, he had a pure tone that eschewed dramatic embellishments, and he seemed to have all the time in the world. “Lee really likes playing with no music there at all,” the trumpeter Kenny Wheeler once told me. “He’ll say ‘You start this tune’ and you’ll say ‘What tune?’ and he’ll say ‘I don’t care, just start.’”

Born in Chicago, the youngest of three sons of immigrant parents – an Austrian father, who ran a laundry business, and a Russian mother, who encouraged his musical interests – Konitz became a founding influence on the 1950s “cool school”, which was, in part, an attempt to get out of the way of the almost unavoidable dominance of Charlie Parker on post-1940s jazz. For all his technical brilliance, Parker was a raw, earthy and impassioned player, and rarely far from the blues. As a child, Konitz studied the clarinet with a member of Chicago Symphony Orchestra and he had a classical player’s silvery purity of tone; he avoided both heart-on-sleeve vibrato and the staccato accents characterising bebop.

However, Konitz and Parker had a mutual admiration for the saxophone sound of Lester Young – much accelerated but still audible in Parker’s phrasing, tonally recognisable in Konitz’s poignant, stately and rather melancholy sound. Konitz switched from clarinet to saxophone in 1942, initially adopting the tenor instrument. He began playing professionally, and encountered Lennie Tristano, the blind, autocratic, musically visionary Chicago pianist who was probably the biggest single influence on the cool movement. Tristano valued an almost mathematically pristine melodic inventiveness over emotional colouration in music, and was obsessive in its pursuit. “He felt and communicated that music was a serious matter,” Konitz said. “It wasn’t a game, or a means of making a living, it was a life force.”

Tristano came close to anticipating free improvisation more than a decade before the notion took wider hold, and his impatience with the dictatorship of popular songs and their inexorable chord patterns – then the underpinnings of virtually all jazz – affected all his disciples. Konitz declared much later that a self-contained, standalone improvised solo with its own inner logic, rather than a string of variations on chords, was always his objective. His pursuit of this dream put pressures on his career that many musicians with less exacting standards were able to avoid.

Konitz switched from tenor to alto saxophone in the 1940s. He worked with the clarinettist Jerry Wald, and by 20 he was in Claude Thornhill’s dance band. This subtle outfit was widely admired for its slow-moving, atmospheric “clouds of sound” arrangements, and its use of what jazz hardliners sometimes dismissed as “front-parlour instruments” – bassoons, French horns, bass clarinets and flutes.

Regular Thornhill arrangers included the saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and the classically influenced pianist Gil Evans. Miles Davis was also drawn into an experimental composing circle that regularly met in Evans’s New York apartment. The result was a series of Thornhill-like pieces arranged for a nine-piece band showcasing Davis’s fragile-sounding trumpet. The 1949 and 1950 sessions became immortalised as the Birth of the Cool recordings, though they then made little impact. Davis was the figurehead, but the playing was ensemble-based and Konitz’s plaintive, breathy alto saxophone already stood out, particularly on such drifting tone-poems as Moon Dreams.

Konitz maintained the relationship with Tristano until 1951, before going his own way with the trombonist Tyree Glenn, and then with the popular, advanced-swing Stan Kenton orchestra. Konitz’s delicacy inevitably toughened in the tumult of the Kenton sound, and the orchestra’s power jolted him out of Tristano’s favourite long, pale, minimally inflected lines into more fragmented, bop-like figures. But the saxophonist really preferred small-group improvisation. He began to lead his own bands, frequently with the pianist Ronnie Ball and the bassist Peter Ind, and sometimes with the guitarist Billy Bauer and the brilliant West Coast tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh.

In 1961 Konitz recorded the album Motion with John Coltrane’s drummer Elvin Jones and the bassist Sonny Dallas. Jones’s intensity and Konitz’s whimsical delicacy unexpectedly turned out to be a perfect match. Konitz also struck up the first of what were to be many significant European connections, touring the continent with the Austrian saxophonist Hans Koller and the Swedish saxophone player Lars Gullin. He drifted between playing and teaching when his studious avoidance of the musically obvious reduced his bookings, but he resumed working with Tristano and Marsh for some live dates in 1964, and played with the equally dedicated and serious Jim Hall, the thinking fan’s guitarist.

Konitz loved the duo format’s opportunities for intimate improvised conversation. Indifferent to commercial niceties, he delivered five versions of Alone Together on the 1967 album The Lee Konitz Duets, first exploring it unaccompanied and then with a variety of other halves including the vibraphonist Karl Berger. The saxophonist Joe Henderson and the trombonist Marshall Brown also found much common ground with Konitz in this setting. Konitz developed the idea on 1970s recordings with the pianist-bassist Red Mitchell and the pianist Hal Galper – fascinating exercises in linear melodic suppleness with the gently unobtrusive Galper; more harmonically taxing and wider-ranging sax adventures against Mitchell’s unbending chord frameworks.

Despite his interest in new departures, Konitz never entirely embraced the experimental avant garde, or rejected the lyrical possibilities of conventional tonality. But he became interested in the music of the pianist Paul Bley and his wife, the composer Carla Bley, and in 1987 participated in surprising experiments in totally free and non jazz-based improvisation with the British guitarist Derek Bailey and others.

Konitz also taught extensively – face to face, and via posted tapes to students around the world. Teaching was his refuge, and he often apparently preferred it to performance. In 1974 Konitz, working with Mitchell and the alto saxophonist Jackie McLean in Denmark, recorded a brilliant standards album, Jazz à Juan, with the pianist Martial Solal, the bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen and the drummer Daniel Humair. That year, too, Konitz released the captivating, unaccompanied Lone-Lee with its spare and logical improvising, and a fitfully free-funky exploration with Davis’s bass-drums team of Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette.

In the 1980s, Konitz worked extensively with Solal and the pianist Michel Petrucciani, and made a fascinating album with a Swedish octet led by the pianist Lars Sjösten – in memory of the compositions of Gullin, some of which had originally been dedicated to Konitz from their collaborations in the 1950s. With the pianist Harold Danko, Konitz produced music of remarkable freshness, including the open, unpremeditated Wild As Springtime recorded in Glasgow in 1984. Sometimes performing as a duo, sometimes within quartets and quintets, the Konitz/Danko pairing was to become one of the most productive of Konitz’s musical relationships.

Still tirelessly revealing how much spontaneous material could be spun from the same tunes – Alone Together and George Russell’s Ezz-thetic were among his favourites – by the end of the 1980s Konitz was also broadening his options through the use of the soprano saxophone. His importance to European fans was confirmed in 1992 when he received the Danish Jazzpar prize. He spent the 1990s moving between conventional jazz, open-improvisation and cross-genre explorations, sometimes with chamber groups, string ensembles and full classical orchestras.

On a fine session in 1992 with players including the pianist Kenny Barron, Konitz confirmed how gracefully shapely yet completely free from romantic excess he could be on standards material. He worked with such comparably improv-devoted perfectionists as Paul Motian, Steve Swallow, John Abercrombie, Marc Johnson and Joey Baron late in that decade. In 2000 he showed how open to wider persuasions he remained when he joined the Axis String Quartet on a repertoire devoted to 20th-century French composers including Erik Satie, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

In 2002 Konitz headlined the London jazz festival, opening the show by inviting the audience to collectively hum a single note while he blew five absorbing minutes of typically airy, variously reluctant and impetuous alto sax variations over it. The early 21st century also heralded a prolific sequence of recordings – including Live at Birdland with the pianist Brad Mehldau and some structurally intricate genre-bending with the saxophonist Ohad Talmor’s unorthodox lineups.

Pianist Richie Beirach’s duet with Konitz - untypically playing the soprano instrument - on the impromptu Universal Lament was a casually exquisite highlight of Knowing Lee (2011), an album that also compellingly contrasted Konitz’s gauzy sax sound with Dave Liebman’s grittier one.

Konitz was co-founder of the leaderless quartet Enfants Terribles (with Baron, the guitarist Bill Frisell and the bassist Gary Peacock) and recorded the standards-morphing album Live at the Blue Note (2012), which included a mischievous fusion of Cole Porter’s What Is This Thing Called Love? and Subconscious-Lee, the famous Konitz original he had composed for the same chord sequence. First Meeting: Live in London Vol 1 (2013) captured Konitz’s improv set in 2010 with the pianist Dan Tepfer, bassist Michael Janisch and drummer Jeff Williams, and at 2015’s Cheltenham Jazz Festival, the old master both played and softly sang in company with an empathic younger pioneer, the trumpeter Dave Douglas. Late that year, the 88-year-old scattered some characteristically pungent sax propositions and a few quirky scat vocals into the path of Barron’s trio on Frescalalto (2017).

Cologne’s accomplished WDR Big Band also invited Konitz (a resident in the German city for some years) to record new arrangements of his and Tristano’s music, and in 2018 his performance with the Brandenburg State Orchestra of Prisma, Gunter Buhles’s concerto for alto saxophone and full orchestra, was released. In senior years as in youth, Konitz kept on confirming Wheeler’s view that he was never happier than when he didn’t know what was coming next.

Konitz was married twice; he is survived by two sons, Josh and Paul, and three daughters, Rebecca, Stephanie and Karen, three grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

• Lee Konitz, musician, born 13 October 1927; died 15 April 2020

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Lee Konitz

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dustedmagazine · 5 years ago

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Dust Volume 6, Number 5

Courtney Marie Andrews

The lockdown continues, and live music has disappeared, replaced by a somewhat antiseptic and unsatisfying spate of live streamed shows mostly one person with a guitar on the couch in their living room. We salute the courage and the effort but miss bands and audiences and even the chatter drifting in from the bar area. In the meantime, at least for now, there are still lots of new records vying for our attention. We present this Dust to catch up with some of them. It’s an ecletic survey of contemporary classical, vengeful hip hop, psyche, jazz, folk and metal artists, all continuing to try to navigate a very difficult period. Our writers this time include many of the usual suspects, Bill Meyer, Ray Garraty, Jonathan Shaw, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Jennifer Kelly, Tobias Carroll and Patrick Masterson.

a•pe•ri•od•ic—For (New Focus Recordings)

for a•pe•ri•od•ic by a•pe•ri•od•ic

Silence is a rhythm, too, and a•pe•ri•od•ic dances to it repeatedly throughout their second recording. The Chicago-based ensemble has traversed the new music continuum, performing music by composers from Peter Ablinger to Christian Wolff. Sometimes that silence isn’t quite what you want to hear — the COVID-19 pandemic cut short its tenth anniversary spring season one concert too soon — but it proves to be rich loam from which to grow music on this CD. All four of its pieces were composed specifically for the group by individuals who recognize the merit of non-imposing sounds. That knowledge derives in part from the fact that three of the composers also perform with the group, but also from their long-standing engagement with post-Cage-ian and Wandelweiser material. Director and pianist Nomi Epstein’s descriptively entitled “Combine, Juxtapose, Delayed Overlap” feels like a ceremony intermittently perceived through an opening and closing door. Billie Howard’s “Roll” tucks the composer’s whispering violin behind muted French horn and voice, wringing intensity from the effort one must apply to following its retreating sonorities. Vocalist Kenn Klumpf’s “Triadic Expansions (2)” moves in the other direction, sprouting ivy-like from the slenderest branches of sound. By comparison, Michael Pisaro’s stately “festhalten/loslassen” is a veritable riot of unwinding tonal colors. As the decade ticks towards year eleven, rest assured that a•pe•ri•od•ic is searching for the next promising idea.

Bill Meyer

Agallah — Fuck You The Album (Propain Campain)

Fuck You The Album by Agallah

This is a personal vendetta album. After more than 25 years in the game, Agallah has got to settle the score against the whole world. To say he just has a chip on his shoulder would an understatement. Thirteen songs of pure hate with the title quite properly reflecting its content. In his fight, the rapper strips down all the artistry, including the production. Known for making beats for other hip hop acts, Agallah here not only uses barely serviceable beats, he doesn’t even makes pretense he needs beats. Almost all the tracks work as a capellas. His gruffy voice and arrogant flow don’t need sonic support. And what support can you expect from the world full of phonies, liars, actors, pretenders, cowards and fair weather friends? “Stop pretending, my career is not ending,” he almost screams on “Telling Lies To Me.” If this CD feels like a dinosaur in 2020, then it says that it is not something wrong with this album but with the world.

Ray Garraty

Courtney Marie Andrews — “Burlap String” single (Fat Possum)

Old Flowers by Courtney Marie Andrews

As the eponymous song of 2018’s May Your Kindness Remain amply demonstrated, Courtney Marie Andrews’ pipes are not to be fucked with. But while that was perhaps the most vivid depiction yet of her abilities, the Phoenix native’s delivery can be just as powerful on a muzzle. Such has been her approach thus far with what we’ve heard from Old Flowers, originally slated for an early June release but since pushed back to July (or beyond, who knows). The post-breakup lyrical territory was initially revealed with first single “If I Told,” but it’s the gently loping “Burlap String” I’ve had on repeat for much of the past month. Ever ended a relationship with someone and regretted it? Lush piano and a sighing slide guitar tell you Courtney has without her ever having to utter a word, and much of the song is an illustration of the internal conflict that lingers long after you’ve made the call. I’m inclined to write out the whole second verse here, but it’s the end of the third that lingers as Andrews evokes barely holding back tears: There’s no replacing someone like you. That ensuing pause runs bone-deep, its implication clear — no amount of Mary Oliver can save you from yourself.

Patrick Masterson

Dennis Callaci — The Dead of the Day (Shrimper Records)

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Some albums could be said to hum. In the case of the latest from Dennis Callaci, that’s meant literally: many of the songs on his new album The Dead of the Day feature warm clouds of feedback or droning organ notes. It’s a companion piece to his recent book 100 Cassettes, which features thoughts on musical icons throughout the year. This album’s focus is more insular: some of the songs have a drifting, improvised feel to them. But Callaci also taps into some terrifically subdued songwriting veins here — “Broadway Blues Pt. II” recalls the haunted dub-folk of Souled American, and Franklin Bruno’s piano lends a propulsive dimension to the ruminative title track. And on “Scoreless,” Callaci teams with his Refrigerator bandmate (and brother) Allen Callaci for a song that slowly builds from acoustic foundations to something modestly grandiose. Contrary to what its title might suggest, this album feels very much like a document of one man’s life.

Tobias Carroll

Cameron / Carter / Håker Flaten — Tau Ceti (Astral Spirits)

Tau Ceti by Cameron / Carter / Håker Flaten

Tau Ceti is a planet that is hypothesized to be similar enough to Earth that it could potentially support similar life forms. The three musicians that recorded this tape may come not come from the same system, but they fall into a harmonious orbit around a common circumstance — they were all in the same swanky studio, Halversonics, on a particular winter day in early 2019. One supposes that whatever they were rotating, they move towards the source of heat, since Tau Ceti builds slowly from chill acoustic exploration to a fuzzed-out solar flare. As they progress, abstraction burns away and velocity increases. It’s a gas to hear Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Lisa Cameron lock in behind Tom Carter’s increasingly gritty sound-bursts.

Bill Meyer

Tim Daisy — Sereno (Relay)

Tim Daisy - Sereno :: music for marimba, turntables and percussion (relay 028) by Tim Daisy

Sometimes the timing of even the most tuned-in drummer is foiled by external circumstances. Sereno was supposed to signal the end of an intense phase of solo practice by Tim Daisy. His intentions for 2020 included making an album of duets and writing music for two ensembles. But at press time he, like everyone else, is hunkered down with his family, and everything he had planned is on hold.

Daisy’s stint as a primarily solo artist coincided with a reconsideration of identity; he wasn’t just a drummer, but a multi-instrumentalist and an orchestrator of electro-acoustic sound. Sereno is split between three elegiac marimba solos that showcase Daisy’s instinct for deliberate melodic development and five much denser constructions for imprecisely tuned radios, playing and skipping records, and Daisy’s strategically reflective drumming. If this record is the only new music that Daisy puts out this year, it leaves us with plenty to think about.

Bill Meyer

Kaja Draksler & Terrie Ex — The Swim (Terp)

On the surface, this looks like quite the odd couple. Terrie Ex Is a Dutch electric guitarist in his mid-60s who still goes by his punk rock name. He’s a ferocious improviser whose scrabbling instrumental attack incurs intensity from any ensemble that doesn’t want to get bowled over, and he knows more Ethiopian tunes by heart than anyone on your block. Kaja Draksler is a Slovenian pianist exactly half his age whose recent projects include a fast-paced, idiosyncratically balanced trio with Petter Eldh and Christian Lillinger, and an octet for which she sets Robert Frost poems to a combination of chanson, Baroque chamber music, and thorny free improvisation. But neither got where they are by letting fear deter them from a musical challenge, and both of them have a fine awareness that one way of understanding their respective instruments is that they are pieces of wood with wires attached. Given that common understanding of music as a combination of coexisting textures and assertive actions, they work together quite well on this CD, which documents a performance that took place at London’s Café Oto in 2018. Scrape meets sigh, jagged fish-hook pluck meets sparse wire-damped drizzle, instinct meets intuition, and when the disc is done, it’ll seem quite sensible to dive back in and swim the whole length in reverse.

Bill Meyer

Errant — S/T EP (Manatee Rampage Recordings)

errant by errant

Errant is the one-woman project of Rae Amitay. Some listeners of metal music may be familiar with Amitay’s work, as vocalist for death-grind-hybridists Immortal Bird and as drummer for the folk-metal act Thrawsunblat. For Errant, Amitay has created songs and sounds that have little in common with those other bands’ aesthetic extremities. “The Amorphic Burden” may prompt you to recall the melodic black metal that Ludicra was making toward the end of that band’s storied run, or the sludgy drama of Agrimonia’s most recent record. In any case, Errant’s sound skews toward more luminescent atmospheres. Production values are largely pristine; Amitay wants you to hear clearly every string and cymbal strike. It makes sense. She plays a bunch of instruments well, and that’s part of the point: that one woman is producing all the sounds, and all the affect. She ends the EP with a cover of Failure’s “Saturday Savior,” and it’s the least interesting thing on the record. But even there, she presents the listener with something worth hearing. Her clean vocals are lovely, disarmingly so. What may be most impressive about this early iteration of Errant is the extent of Amitay’s talents, and how those talents allow her to encroach on the hyper-masculine territory of the “one-man” act.

Jonathan Shaw

Field Works — Ultrasonic (Temporary Residence)

Ultrasonic by Field Works

Stuart Hyatt’s latest compilation in the Field Works series is an absolute beauty — and timely given it’s being released during a pandemic whose origins may be linked to bats. The field recordings that the contributors used to create the music on Ultrasonic come from the echolocation of bats, and the approaches tend towards rhythmic or atmospheric. At the rhythmic end of the spectrum we have Eluvium’s majestic opener “Dusk Tempi,” akin to his work on Talk Amongst the Trees. Mary Lattimore’s glimmering harp patterns are fitting accompaniment to the chittering bat sounds on “Silver Secrets.” And Kelly Moran’s prepared piano on “Sodalis” sends the listener down a hall of mirrors, chased by gorgeous bass tones. At the more abstract, atmospheric end of the spectrum we have Jefre Cantu-Ledesma’s radiant “Night Swimming.” Christina Vantzou blurs the line between the sounds of modular synthesis and bat sonar on “Music for a Room with Vaulted Ceiling.” And on Sarah Davachi’s “Marion,” the listener is immersed in a luminous halo of nocturnal overtones. Wherever the artists venture, this is a varied yet consistently evocative collection.

Tim Clarke

FMB DZ — The Gift 3 (Fast Money Boyz / EMPIRE)

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The Gift 3 was initially set to be released in December 2019 but was postponed until now. DZ’s “Merry Christmas, pussies!” on one of the tracks doesn’t sound so odd, though, because the whole world has plunged into a constant holiday. The new album continues two trends. It carries on the “ape” theme from the previous album Ape Season. “Ape Activities,” “Keep It on Me” and “No Features” are the grittiest tracks from a disc where the prevalent mood is a sick worry. DZ made it out of the hood but had to be on the lookout as the enemies are out to get him. The other trend is that The Gift 3 continues the ideas of The Gift series. The songs have a usual verse-hook structure, are poppier and more relaxed than on Ape Season. DZ, thankfully, doesn’t try to sing anymore but hires some singers on choruses. The hardest track here is “High Speed” with Rio Da Yung Og where Detroit/Flint duo spit vicious lines.

Ray Garraty

Hala — Red Herring (Cinematic)

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Detroit multi-instrumentalist Ian Ruhala wears his heart dripping from his sleeve on “Red Herring” his latest record as Hala. Skipping from the yacht rock of “Making Me Nervous” to the country blues of “True Colors” via power pop, The Kinks and Tom Petty, Ruhala manages to create a thread with deceptively simple melodies and the sincerity of his delivery. There’s more than a touch of Kevin Barnes in the voice and the delight in throwing genres at the wall to see what sticks and, like Barnes, some of it fails to adhere. The pleasure here is in the sense of eavesdropping on the process and reveling in unexpected flourishes that refuse to be ignored.

Ruhala writes a smooth love song and isn’t afraid to turn up the guitar or address politics on standout “Lies” - “I’m eating breakfast with the fascists/Oh man they stand about ten feet tall/My mouth is bleeding at their proceedings/They get their courage through a plastic straw” It may not be Guthrie but he makes it work through a leavening wit and a mid-tempo vamp straight from the solar plexus. “Red Herring” suffers somewhat from its stylistic roaming but a fundamental big heartedness and willingness to reach makes it an enjoyable trip.

Andrew Forell

Las Kellies — Suck This Tangerine (Fire)

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Suck This Tangerine opens with a loose groove and a grime smeared highlife guitar line, the voice enters with ironic invitations over choppy Gang of Four chords. In the new one from Las Kellies, Argentinian duo Cecilia Kelly and Silvina Costa sling taut bass lines and slash guitars over mutant disco rhythms for 12 tracks of slinky indie dance. Drawing on elements from Leeds, London and the Bronx, Kelly and Costa add dubby space and South American humidity to their sound, to elevate the album beyond the sum of its influences.

Kelly handles guitar and bass, wielding the former like a cross between Andy Gill and Viv Albertine and unfurling loose funky serpents with the latter. Costa swings between ESG and The Bush Tetras and incorporates an array of hand drums that deepen and enliven the rhythmic pulse. There is a palpable and joyful chemistry between the two evidenced by their easy interplay and enhanced by the production that gives clarity and elbowroom to each instrument. If the lyrics can tend toward the perfunctory, they are delivered with a winking insouciance on put downs like “Close Talker” and “Rid Of You”. Suck This Tangerine is a worthy addition to the growing collection of feminist post-punk inspired albums we’ve been dancing to of late.

Andrew Forell

Mint Mile — Ambertron (Comedy Minus One)

Ambertron by Mint Mile

Silkworm, the band, may have ended in 2005 with the death of drummer Michael Dahlquist, but its legacy of slow, gut-socking heaviness, mordant wit and muscular guitar lives on, first in Bottomless Pit and now in Tim Midyett’s new band Ambertron. Midyett’s voice and clangorous baritone guitar is instantly recognizable, of course, to anyone who loved Silkworm, but the band diverges somewhat with the pedal steel played by Justin Brown of Palliard, weaving eerily though the slow buzz and moan of “Likelihood.” Jeff Panall, from Songs:Ohio, plays the hard, heavy drums that undergird these songs, giving them structure and forward motion. Other players include Matthew Barnhart from Tre Orsi and Horward Draper from Shearwater. Greg Normal of Bitter Tears contributes a mournful bit of trumpet to “Fallen Rock,” and Chicago alt-country mainstay Kelly Hogan takes the lead in “Sang.” The music is raw and morose; even dense strings can’t quite lift the gloom in “Christmas Comes and Goes,” a song as raw as late November in Chicago. And yet there’s a sort of resilience in it, a strength that comes through persistence. “If we could only find a way to bank the time we had together,” sings Midyett in “Giving Love,” his hoarse voice full of ragged loss, his guitar raging against it all and not quite beaten down even now.

Jennifer Kelly

Gard Nilssen’s Supersonic Orchestra — If You Listen Carefully the Music Is Yours (Odin)

If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours by Gard Nilssen´s Supersonic Orchestra

Perched atop his drum stool, Gard Nilssen sits where styles converge. He’s supplied the controlled boil that drives the free-bop combo Cortex, laid down some heavier beats with Bushman’s Revenge and exemplified long-form lucidity with his own trio, Acoustic Unity. In 2019, the Molde Jazz Festival recognized his versatility and forward perspective by anointing him the artist in residence. Besides showcasing his ongoing projects and accompanying heavy guests from abroad, most notably Bill Frisell, he got to put together a dream project. This 16-piece big band, which includes members of Cortex, Acoustic Unity, and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, is it. With the assistance of co-arranger André Roligheten, Nilssen has taken some of his trio’s sturdy melodies and turned them into frameworks for boisterous but subtly colored performances. With three basses and three drummers, this could have been either a mess or an uptight game of “you first,” “no sir after you.” But the rhythm crew shifts easily between swinging unisons and refractory elaborations. Roligheten often plays two saxophones at once in smaller settings, and one suspects that he has a lot to do with the rich colors that the horns paint around the featured soloists.

Bill Meyer

Matthew J. Rolin — Ohio (Garden Portal)

Ohio by Matthew J. Rolin

The ghoulish image on the j-card belies the sounds encoded upon this tape. Matthew J. Rolin is a relative newcomer to the practice of acoustic guitar performance; the earliest release on his Bandcamp page was recorded in late 2017. But he’s catching on fast. Switching between six and twelve-string guitars, he serves up equal measures of ingratiating lyricism and immersive surrender to pure sound. Opener “Red Brick” slots into the former category, with a heart-tugging melody that keeps doling out turns that’ll keep you wondering where it’s going and backtracks that’ll ensure that you never feel lost. “Brooklyn Centre,” on the other hand, grows filaments of string sound out of a pool of prayer bowl resonance centering enough to make you cancel your mindfulness app subscription due to perceived lack of need. Rolin develops ideas situated between these poles over the rest of this brief set, which runs just shy of 28 minutes and definitely leaves one wanting a bit more.

Bill Meyer

Nick Storring — My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell (Orange Milk)

My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell by Nick Storring

What Jim O��Rourke did for the music of Van Dyke Parks and John Fahey on Bad Timing, Nick Storring does for Roberta Flack’s on My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell. The Canadian composer may not have O’Rourke’s name recognition or past membership in a very famous rock band going for him, but consider these parallels. He’s a handy with quite a few instruments, he’s an inveterate assistant to other artists across disciplinary lines, and he functions with equal commitment and fluency in a variety of genres. For this record, his first to be pressed on vinyl (albeit in miniscule numbers), Storring uses the lush string sound of Flack’s 1970s hits as a launching point for deep sonic immersions that are considerably more emotionally oblique than their inspirations’ articulations of loneliness and surrender. When he goes melodic, the cello-led tunes seem to reach for something that they never touch, and when he goes for slow-motion density, the music imparts an experience akin to watching the sort of cinematic experience where you can’t tell if you’re seeing a really slow take or the film has frozen at a single frame.

Bill Meyer

Sunn Trio — Electric Esoterica (Twenty One Eight Two Recording Company)

Electric Esoterica by Sunn Trio

Sunn Trio, from Arizona, makes sprawling, multi-ethnic psychedelia that juxtaposes the scree and groan of heavy improvisational rock with the otherly chords and rhythms of the Middle East. Opener “Alhiruiyn” slicks a trebly sheen over its surging, rampaging improvisations, more in the vein of Black Sun Ensemble than Cem Karaca. But “Majoun” layers antic percussion and tone-shifting bent notes in a limber evocation of the souk. “Roktabija The Promulgator” blasts a strident, swaggering surf riff, about as Arabic as “Miserlou” (which is, in fact, Arabic). “Khons at Karnak” buzzes with hard rock aggression, but shimmies with belly dancing syncopation. Because of the name, the preoccupation with non-Western cultures and the Phoenix mailing address, you might think that Sunn Trio is aligned somehow with Sun City Girls, but no. All kinds of weirdness lurks in the desert out there, lucky for us.

Jennifer Kelly

Turbo, Gunna & Young Thug — “Quarantine Clean” single (Playmakers)

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Despite the subject matter’s potential (ahem) virality, “Quarantine Clean” slipped out almost unnoticed in early April and is the kind of muted performance Young Thug doesn’t get enough credit for (while, curiously, his followers often get too much derision for). For all of Thugger’s hyperfluorescent hijinx over the years that have produced earworms like, say, “That’s All” and “Wyclef Jean,” there’s another side that shows up in stuff like “The Blanguage” and “Freaky” where he lets the words do the work; that’s the subterranean sonic world we’re living in here as he opines on God’s role in the pandemic and why he’s lost so much money but still has to pay for his parents’ penthouse (which: welcome to the revolution, pal). Thug’s acolyte in slime Gunna, meanwhile, does most of the song’s heavy lifting with duties on the first verse and chorus, but it’s pretty hard to tell the two apart, such is the slippery restraint both opt to exercise here. The real star, then, is beatmaker Turbo, whose buoyant anchor melody is complemented by what sounds like a lilting flute. It’s a light touch from all parties, a mellow mood well suited to our time of collective party-eschewing shelter. Run that back in prudence.

Patrick Masterson

Various Artists—Ten Years Gone (A Tribute to Jack Rose) (Tompkins Square)

Ten Years Gone : A Tribute to Jack Rose by Various Artists

A decade on from the too early passing of the great American Primitive/blues/raga player Jack Rose, Arborea’s Buck Curran gathers friends, collaborators and younger artists inspired by Rose for a gorgeous tribute to the master. Mike Gangloff, who played with Rose in Pelt and Black Twig Pickers, leads off with a plaintive, sepia-toned fiddle lament (“The Other Side of Catawbwa”), while next generation experimental droner Prana Crafter closes with an expansive, space folk reverie (“High Country Dynamo”). In between, old friends like Sir Richard Bishop evoke Rose’s full-blown orchestral guitar playing (“By Any Other Name”) while young pickers like Matt Sowell take up the trail forged by Dr. Ragtime. Isasa from Spain and Paulo Laboule Novellino from Italy attest to Rose’s global appeal. It’s mostly guitar, but not entirely; Helena Espvall from Espers contributes a brooding, reverberant “Alcantara” on cello. Curran’s own “Greenfields of America (Spiritual for Jack Rose)” is slow and thoughtful, letting long bent notes ring out with liquid clarity; it’s a hymn and a prayer and a testimony to the wide influence of an artist gone too soon.

Jennifer Kelly

Emily Jane White — Immanent Fire (Talitres)

Immanent Fire by Emily Jane White

Emily Jane White gets tagged as a folk singer, but on this, her sixth full-length, the Oakland songwriter brings a fair amount of goth-tinged drama. Taut string arrangements and big booming drums lift “Infernal” well out of the woman-with-guitar category, and White sounds more like PJ Harvey or even Chelsea Wolfe than a sweet voiced strummer. Immanent Fire sticks, topically, to environmental concerns with track titles like “Washed Away,” “Drowned” and “Metamorphosis.” A foreboding creeps through the songs, pretty as they are, even piano lit “Dew” asks “Does poison drop like the dew?” Arrangements, by Anton Patzner, the composer, arranger and violinist of Foxtails Brigade and Judgment Day, give these cuts weight and heft, punctuating eerie melodies with thick swathes of strings, rumbling percussion and keyboards. The disc culminates in “Light” which begins in a whisper and climaxes in drum-shocked, orchestral swoon. Soothing background music it is not.

Jennifer Kelly

Z-Ro — Quarantine: Social Distancing (1 Deep Entertainment / EMPIRE)

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An unexpected seven-track EP bears an expected title from a Dirty South legend. Z-Ro’s usual topics — trust and loneliness — gain a new meaning in the time of social distancing. To keep away women who only want his money is a necessary precaution now. To be at the corner at the party is a rule for survival. Z-Ro is on his ground counting his dough alone in the house. Earlier he did it so no ‘shife’ (the title of one of the tracks) friends could rob him, now it’s just to obey quarantine rules. The first half of this EP is a bit muddled by unnecessary intros and reggae tunes but the second one hits hard. As always with Z-Ro, the hardest content takes the gentlest form (“Niggas is Hoes” especially is almost a pop song). On the final track “Life of the Party” Boosie Badazz drops by, giving his verdict on the pandemic: “Fuck Corona!”

Ray Garraty

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shesawriter39049 · 5 years ago

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|CV SQUAD | Social media AU

MIAMI NEW YORK LONDON LA

CV SQUAD TAKE: MIAMI,NEW YORK, LONDON, LA

AU WARNING: SMUT WISE, THERE WILL BE A MIXTURE (F/M) (M/M) (M/F/M) SO IF THAT OFFENDS YOU DO NOT READ ONCE POSTED!

JIMIN/OC CENTERED AU (OT7 SUB FOCUS, THE OTHER MEMBERS ARE IN THIS A LOT)

SOCIAL MEDIA AU : SMUT/HUMOR/LIQUOR/LANGUAGE/RECREATIONAL DRUGS

POSSIBLE LIGHT ANGST IN THE FUTURE

BACKSTORY:

Jimin (23), Y/N (24), Namjoon (25),Yoongi (25), and Jungkok(21) all met in college, for Media Arts, and ended up coming together for the sole purpose of a group project. From that “Candid Vibes” was born a podcast hosted by Jimin, Y/N , and Namjoon that’s now streamed by millions 3 days of the week.

“Candid Vibes” is a space where you're free to talk about everything from politics to bullshit. Nothing's off limits and no opinions wrong, your free to think and feel how you want...the only requirement is that you leave filters and judgments at the front door. Fast forward 4 years, and a couple million followers later and you have the “CV Squad Tour” to celebrate their podcast turning 3 and there youtube channel which just hit two million subs turning 1 year old! A mixture of content dances through there Youtube channel streaming a live recording of the podcast once a week , as well as daily/weekly vlogs, behind the scenes footage ETC.

One of the many perks to their social media presence is of course the sponsorships, starting with the fact that JETTLY volunteered to sponsor the air transportation. Of course in exchange for “clout” ...pictures, hashtags, snaps, vlog footage..you name it, as well as AirBnb are handiling the living accommodations. In addition to numerous other brand deals which I’m sure you’ll see tagged in almost every tour related post this group uploads over the next 16 days. Especially because they've also created a separate IG account specifically for the tour appropriately titled CVSQUADTOUR.

OH, then there's that, their going to 4 different places over a 16 day span, each city having its own live podcast, filmed in front of an audience that holds between 3-5 thousand people. As well as a meet and greet the day before the show, and an afterparty at a club immediately after the podcast wraps. The show has always been known for being very interactive with it’s listeners, as well as having an alternating guest host at least once a month. One of their listeners favorite guests come from another popular Youtube Channel “TEAMJTH” or simply Jin (25) Hoseok (25) and Taehyung (23) (Try guys/ Buzzfeed unsolved vibes, they all have individual talents that gained them followers. But together they are known for their chemistry,personality and just randomly hilarious videos).

This threesome will also be joining them on tour, not making an appearance on every show..there tagging along more so just for shits and giggles. But they will make appearances at, at least 2 of the 4 live podcasts along with a couple of the after parties! This octet entered the game around the same time,and despite all the rumors and fake drama scandals trying to pin them against each other. As the years progress they’ve only managed to get even closer, in more ways than one.

*****Essentially, TEAMJTH, live almost an hour away, and also have there own thriving careers and YT channels, so they don’t hang out with the members of the CV SQUAD every day. Not to say they don’t talk on a regular basis but they probably only see each other like 3 times a month. So anything that has or hasn’t happened sexually in the past between the 8 of them(Even within the CV SQUAD who live together) it’s not a common occurrence, it’s also not something that’s “expected”.

But It’s been a while since they’ve all been together in this sort of setting, which makes things even more tempting ! I.E living and traveling together, going out to clubs, immense amounts of alcohol and jet lag....

****The plan is 4 parts...one per city..

I’m NOT promising smut/smutty moments with EVERY member but at least 4-5 of them!

-All of the ‘Characters” are BI including the OC, also Yoongi is the CV squads manager/creative director, while Kookie is there videographer and editor!

There all very tanned BTW since they live in CA

JIMIN-(SY TOUR Jimin, when his hair was dark and kinda long all over, parted down the middle! Jimin is tatted a pierced(s) though...you’ll just have to wait and see where!)

NAMJOON- (BWL ice blonde joonie, lightly tatted, and maybe an unexpected piercing or two...)

HOSEOK (5TH MUSTER Hobi style wise, long and parted down the middle, BUT color, it’s that deep burgundy-ish brown he had once the bright red started to fade. He also has a tiny hoop in his nose, and one tattoo but it’s a big one.

TAEHYUNG (5TH MUSTER Tae Tae, long ,wavy, fluffy, either messily falling in his face or parted down the middle when straight. Taehyung has his tongue pierced and that’s all I’ll give away

KOOKIE (5TH MUSTER/FLUFFY AIRPORT Kook, just long, dark,bouncy and typically parted down the middle. Kookie has a half sleeve

JIN (5TH MUSTER/ Jin with his fluffy lavender hair )

YOONGI- (Ice blue/blonde MIC DROP/DNA ERA YOONGI) Pierced Yoongi…….

Y/N( OBV I keep this vague but she’s tatted as well, and has her nipples, and nose are pierced.. Aesthetically she is an influencer though so, nails,hair,makeup...the common outline lol )

I have a OT7 series “Private sessions” and after part 1 I didint like the way that one panned out...so this will somewhat replace that one...BUT this has nothing to do with “LOFT 26″ part 2 is coming VERY soon!

PART 1

SOCIAL MEDIA EDITS

PART 1

PART 2

NO PREMIER DATE AS OF YET: BUT I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THIS SECRETLY FOR A WHILEEEEEEEE! I JUST REFUSED TO POST ABOUT IT UNTIL I DID AN UPDATE ON MY MAFIA SERIES!

LOVE YOU GUYS AS ALWAYS,

ROCKI!

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fourteenacross · 6 years ago

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octet - 5/25/19, 2pm

Hello, hello, I'm back from New Jersey! Which, you probably didn't even know I left, because I never post here anymore, but since we've yet to find a new platform for fannish happenings, I don't really have anywhere else to post show notes and the like.

Anyway, we saw Octet and Hadestown over the long weekend. I saw Hadestown at the NYTW in 2016, but I saw it the same day I saw Hamilton for the first time and my notes are lost to the ages. More about that later, though. (Tomorrow, probably.) For now, I'm going to focus on Octet.

So, here's what I knew about Octet going in: - Part of Dave Malloy's five year residency at the Signature Theatre - internet/discourse - Alex Gibson - a cappella? - support group?

The day before I did a little bit more digging, but I was kind of into going in blind, so I didn't dig too much.

Overall, I really liked it! My above the cut review is that, like all good Malloy shows, it brought up a lot of interesting concepts and shined a light on very relatable behaviors and ways of thinking. It doesn't really have a plot or narrative, and seems to largely exist to explore different types of internet denizens. As such, the characters vacillate between being actual people and being archetypes. I think all of this is fine--not everything needs to be a tautly plotted story, it's okay for this to be a song cycle, not a narrative musical. But I'm putting that out there for anyone who's thinking about going, just so you're aware when you head in.

First off, the set dressing is amazing. It looks just like a ratty church all purpose room, down to the way the light switches are labelled and the signs on the wall with clean-up instructions for group leaders. The walk in is papered with flyers advertising self-help groups, tutoring, charity walks, etc.

The show is set up like a support group meeting. A couple actors come in before the start and clean up the detritus of a bingo game and set up for the meeting, and then the group gathers and they begin. The group is “Friends of Saul,” and group members are told to put their phones off and in a basket against the wall, as they're here for various screen addictions.

Hymn: The Forest: This was a very Malloy song--it starts off a a meditation on a beautiful forest and takes a left turn. Delightful. Halfway through, Velma comes into the meeting and joins the other seven folks for the end of the hymn.

Refresh: Paula, the group leader, welcomes Velma to the group and tells them that Saul can’t be here this week, but he’s asked her to lead. She then asks if anyone wants to share. Jessica acquiesces and talks about how she was the subject of a viral video and has been "egosurfing" ever since, a compulsion to read all the shitty things strangers are saying about her without knowing her at all. (Unsurprisingly, Malloy says this song was heavily influenced by his feelings post-Comet.) Margo Seibert kills this song, which delves into our kneejerk tendency to pile on, sometimes without knowing or caring about context. It made me think a lot about how this goes both ways--the song focused on the negative, but obviously Milkshake Duck Syndrome is the same basic concept at its core.

Candy: Henry offers to share next. He talks about how his life is going okay at the moment, he's been on a few dates, but he hasn't had the heart to tell the guy about his "problem" yet, which is that he's addicted to video games. The song obviously invokes Candy Crush, but also refers to various other games including MMORPGs, FPSs, RPGs, and other phone puzzles games. I love this song--it is insanely catchy, Alex Gibson is delightful, and it's also profoundly sad and relatable. Henry eventually reveals that he uses games to avoid the real world and he's fairly sure he doesn't care if he dies, so he uses these games to string himself along and pass the time. Ouch. Also hashtag relatable content.

Glow: Paula shares next and talks about how she and her husband are both screen addicts and how they'll lie next to each other in bed, each on their own devices, ignoring the other, and how she wishes he would stop bringing the catastrophes of the world into their bed. She's lonely and sad and he doesn't see it because he doesn't look up from his phone. Starr Busby is incredible and, as a person who had to take an eight-month twitter break because she couldn’t handle the constant barrage of despair, I feel this song pretty hard.

Fugue State: Paula sets a metronome ticking for a five minute silent fugue state. The characters cycle through various thoughts about social media and the internet, calling out specific formatting for jokes and call out posts and "um actually"ing other people's comments in a whirlwind of commentary on how we interact with each other online. It's a very well put together song, but it's another one of those moments where it's clear this is a collection of songs about a concept rather than a narrative story.

Hymn: Monster: There's a five minute break, in which Henry approaches Velma, who's been quiet up to this point. She launches into a fast and awkward explanation of how she's on a self-imposed internet hiatus because she keeps getting tied up in discourse that's not good for her. She talks about being a part of a previous group that was not good and how she's since gotten into tarot instead, but there are parts of that group that aren't good, too (she delves into the Sephora Starter Witch Kit debacle), so instead she's taking a break and only talking to her one friend, whom she refers to constantly as "my friend." It was a very stark moment of self-recognition, tee bee aitch, and Velma is definitely the closest to the fannish millennial internet archetype. She says she found the group after Saul broke into a chat with her friend to tell her about it, so her friend said she had to come to check it out. After her monologue about all of this to Henry, the others return from their break to sing a hymn called "Monster" that talks about online trolls and how engaging with them and reading their exploits poisons your brain.

Solo: Karly and Ed alternate in this song, coming together in moments of similar sentiment. It's really an interesting way to handle the topics in question. Karly is singing about dating apps and how hard it is to find a dude who actually cares about her and the thin line between being asserting herself and the possibility of being the impetus for another MRA mass shooting. Ed, meanwhile, is a lonely dude who is on the verge of turning to the incel community because they can relate to his feelings of rejection and isolation. The whole thing is creepy and awful and very well blended--there's some empathy on both sides, while also making it clear how awful these dudes are.

Actually: This is Toby's song. Toby is a former punk kid turned conspiracy theorist. This is the song I struggled with the most. I just couldn't follow it narratively--I wasn't even 100% positive about the "conspiracy theorist" part until I could come home to read the lyrics. The lighting in this song was wonderful, though, and the ensemble was great. It just didn't click with me and it was harder for me to follow.

Little God: Dang, I loved this bit. It was the weirdest, and also had a distinctly Douglas Adams flavor, which was especially apt as I was attending the show on Towel Day. (So, honestly, it’s not surprising that I liked this bit so much, in retrospect.) Marvin, a neuroscientist, is up late with his new baby daughter when he has a vision from god. He chalks it up to a dream until god appears to him again the next morning. He goes to his lab, where all the other scientists have had a similar experience, and god appears to them in the visage of a little girl, whom they call Little God. They do a series of tests to prove whether god is real, and can manage to find scientific explanations for them all, trapped in this cycle of seeing wonderful things and then dissecting them clinically. Velma ends his story by telling him he's "The Hanged Man," the tarot card that represents everything one believes about oneself being flipped on its head.

Tower Tea Ceremony: The group starts a tea ceremony, passing around cups of tea, after which Paula comes around adding drops of something to the cups. Velma nervously asks what it is, and Paula calmly explains that it's a powerful group psychedelic that induces a five minute coma. Everyone else is chill with this, but Velma is visibly startled and nervous and does not drink her tea. Everyone else passes out, leaving her alone.

Beautiful: While everyone else is passed out, Velma sings her story. She was lonely and felt ugly and fat and stupid. She spent a lot of time alone and cut herself, but eventually found another girl just like her on the other side of the world. She had the same interests and liked the same things and felt the same way. She tells Velma that she's worthwhile and that there's light inside of her and, through seeing the same within her friend, she's able to start to accept that about herself. Kuhoo Verma is something else entirely on this song. It felt so personal and quiet and perfect. And, to be honest, it really anchored the show for me. After almost twenty-five years of being a nerdy, lonely kid on the internet, I tend to be very kneejerk protective of internet friendships. When people deride the internet as toxic, my urge is always to defend it because it's the source of all the good things in my life. I didn't have a lot of friends as a kid and I was socially anxious, but the internet was a way for me to meet other people who liked the same weird things I liked. These days that's a much more common, accepted story, but it was weird and new in 1996, so I spent a lot of years either lying about how I knew my friends or insisting that the internet wasn't just pedophiles and murderers. Obviously in the years since, the internet has grown into something bigger and, frequently, more toxic than I could have imagined at ten, eleven years old on the AOL Jonny Quest message boards. The urge to defend it has never gone away, however, and so I was obviously a little nervous about this show. But I trust Dave and I know that he's a big ol' nerd like the rest of us and doesn't pretend to be above our petty, silly forms of entertainment. And I'm glad I did, because it's important to me that this was the song he ended on--a quiet reminder that there's good to be found on the internet, that it's not all bad, that parts of it can be life-saving.

Hymn: The Field: The show ends with the group closing out their meeting with another hymn. Paula tells everyone next week’s meeting will be somewhere else and that she’ll email the details. Velma says she isn’t sure if she’ll come back, and she’s told that it doesn’t matter—the same people don’t always come week to week, but Saul will make sure there are eight people in attendance. The hymn is a nice, sweet song about coming together beyond the fighting and ugliness to appreciate each other and the world.

So, yeah, overall, I enjoyed it. I really needed to sit and think about it for a little bit after first seeing it, and I think repeat listenings will find a lot more to enjoy about it. Like I said, there’s not so much a story or narrative to get lost in, but the individual songs hold up well in the loose framework of the show, and a lot of them are both catchy and thought-provoking in a very Malloy way. I’m glad I got to see it, and I’m interested to see where it goes from here, if anywhere.

#octet #dave malloy #show notes

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operarocks · 6 years ago

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Operavore: Why do I sing?

Whether you are an opera singer, professional singer of some other kind, or perhaps are in a chorus or only a shower singer, we all experience a physical and emotional surge when we sing. Yet we don’t always pause to reflect on this.

In April I attended one of Joyce DiDonato’s wonderful master classes at the Weill Education Center of Carnegie Hall. I had been thinking about the question of “Why do I sing?” when I read the program and discovered that DiDonato had asked each applicant to write a brief essay on that very topic as part of their application process.

Soprano Alexandra Nowakowski wrote, in part, “I sing for my mom. Thirty years ago, my parents came to America with $30 in their pockets. … My mom had nothing but hope when she came to America. She passed that hope along to me when I decided to pursue singing, and for that I will owe her my career.”

Tenor Aaron Crouch wrote, “My favorite thing about being a singer is being a communicator. I truly believe that music is the universal language. My goal is to always have some sort of effectiveness through my singing — whether that comes in the form of tears, laughter, or simply a smile. It’s not about the high notes or the fast notes. It’s about being vulnerable and having something to say to people. That is why I sing.”

American soprano Madelyn Renée, who has been based in Italy for many years, told me, “Singing is a transformative experience in that it unites the physical, emotional, and spiritual part of us. As our most important means of communication, our voices convey all of our emotions: joy, sorrow, anger, fear, etc. When we sing, we are connected to our respiratory system, and the outpouring of sound is a healthy way to relieve stress and calm the mind and body, engendering a sense of harmony and well-being. As a singer, it is what I love to do best. It brings me back to myself and I always feel like a new person after a good sing! As Ella Fitzgerald always said, ‘The only thing better than singing is more singing!’”

The excellent South African bass-baritone Musa Ngqungwana is as eloquent a writer as he is a singer. He is the author of Odyssey of an African Opera Singer, a candid account of having responsibility for a mighty gift (his voice) that has given him joy, but also of the many challenges he has had along the way. In the book and a recent social media post, he spoke of “how writing and singing saved me from depression as they became my free therapeutic tools and sessions.”

What I have come to love is the way people sing together. In fractious, difficult times such as ours, hearing and seeing people achieve harmony through listening to one another is a model we should all try to emulate.

There are some countries in the world that I think of as singing nations. These are often places that have been subjected to repression. Estonia is such a place. Between 1987 and 1991 its people waged what was known as the Singing Revolution, which included acts of defiance that were often incorporated into singing by individuals or crowds of hundreds of thousands. I first visited there in 1979 when it was part of the Soviet Union. I came to know brothers Toomas and Tarmo Urb, who courageously merged voices in their own language at time when that was dangerous.

Estonians still gather to sing songs such as “Tuljak," which gives them an opportunity to share identity and revel in their language, and had been suppressed by the Soviets and other occupiers. To sing in this way, for Estonians, is to breathe as one.

One of my favorite examples of how singing unites people is of male and female firefighters who went from South Africa to Canada to help put out huge fires. They used music to form a remarkable bond of solidarity.

Sometimes music of identity is performed by groups of only one gender. South Africa’s all-male Ladysmith Black Mambazo exemplifies the deepest expression of self and of identity with its singing, whether in unison, harmony, counterpoint, or call and response. The women’s choruses of Bulgaria have achieved a huge worldwide following.

In the United States, singing has a long tradition of resistance and affirmation. Sam Cooke sang in many genres. He is famous for his powerful solo rendition of “A Change is Gonna Come." Cooke began as the lead singer of The Soul Stirrers, a gospel group that harmonized beautifully. They often performed a cappella or with minimal instrumental accompaniment. Listen to them and think about how they use their voices as instruments.

Pete Seeger’s classic song “If I Had a Hammer” was first recorded by The Weavers (with Seeger) in 1949. Peter, Paul and Mary did a famous version in 1963. Sam Cooke sang it solo, and soulfully, in 1964.

Each version of this song is deeply moving and emotional for different reasons. The lyrics are eloquent in their simplicity, but also for the power they wield. The melody, too, is simple and sweet, but it accommodates the words and allows each person who sings it (and hears it) to feel a special glow. It is the magic of this song that makes one feel happy and connected to others when singing it.

As I was completing this article, I happened to attend a new work, Octet, by Dave Malloy at Signature Theater, described as a chamber choir musical. Eight superb performers, with voices ranging from soprano to bass, play participants in a support group for people who have difficulty coping with the impact of communications technology in the 21st Century. So beautiful is the music and so sublime were their a cappella performances that I almost found the words pedestrian and intrusive, even though they were meaningful.

One of the simplest and most eloquent expressions of why we sing was also one of the first I encountered, in the film version of Carson McCullers’ The Member of the Wedding, in which Ethel Waters consoles two distraught children by singing the gospel song “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” You might wish to watch the whole video, which includes the scene leading up to the song, which starts at 6:40. The words and music say it all: “I sing because I’m happy. I sing because I’m free.”

#joyce didonato #singing #opera #opera tag #Alexandra Nowakowski #Fred Plotkin #Operavore

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sfjazz · 8 years ago

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SFJAZZ Collective Miles Davis CD review - All About Jazz

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/live-sfjazz-center-2016-music-of-miles-davis-and-original-compositions-review-by-john-kelman.php

By JOHN KELMAN

June 13, 2017

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In the thirteen years since the SFJAZZ Collective first came together in February 2004, this revolving door octet of "cream of the crop" US-based jazz musicians has, most years, followed a consistent modus operandi: select a well-known jazz (and, in two cases, beyond jazz) musician and pay tribute through innovative arrangements of his/her music, alongside a set of new original compositions—in almost every case, one each contributed by every member of the Collective.

In the ensuing years since its 2004 debut, which set an initial high bar by paying tribute to free jazz progenitor Ornette Coleman, the Collective has delivered additional homages to everyone from John Coltrane,Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk, Wayne Shorter and McCoy Tyner toHorace Silver, Chick Corea, Joe Henderson, Stevie Wonder andMichael Jackson.

While there are more than enough artists to keep the Collective going in perpetuity, the above list of largely iconic jazz artists is missing one obvious entry: Miles Davis. It's curious, in fact, that it took the Collective so long to get to the late trumpeter, bandleader and stylistic redefiner; but perhaps it's the particularly broad scope of Davis' career that led to the Collective holding off until it could figure out how to best cover the farthest reaches of a musician who moved effortlessly—and in just four decades, from the 1950s through early '90s—from bebop to cool jazz, from modal jazz to free bop, and from the densely electrified fusion of the 1970s through a more eminently accessible and star power-driven final chapter of pop-informed jazz.

Thirteen years may have been a long time to wait for an SFJAZZ Collective tour and album dedicated to the music of Davis, along with a host of new original compositions from the current octet, but with Live: SFJAZZ Center 2016—Music of Miles Davis & Original Compositions, it's clearly been worth the wait.

A two-disc set, with one dedicated to the Davis arrangements and the other featuring the original compositions, Music of Miles Davis manages to cover considerable Davis territory with a compelling and creative blend of reverence and reinvention. Bassist Matt Penman contributes a reshuffled look at the title track to Milestones (Columbia, 1958), while trumpeter Sean Jones creates a semi-faithful reconstruction of "So What" and pianist Edward Simon metrically rejigs "All Blues," both from Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959). Alto saxophonistMiguel Zenon refracts "Nardis"—a composition written, but never actually performed, by Davis for then-Davis sextet altoistJulian "Cannonball" Adderley's Portrait of Cannonball (Riverside, 1958)—through a folkloric and Eastern European-tinged prism, while vibraphonistWarren Wolf contributes a hard-swinging "Joshua," first heard on the transitional Seven Steps to Heaven (Columbia, 1963), and tenor saxophonistDavid Sanchez presents a more outré yet still rhythmically propulsive look at "Teo," from Someday My Prince Will Come (Columbia, 1961). And, representing Davis' electric years, drummer Obed Calvaire deconstructs the title track to Davis' seminal fusion masterpiece Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970), resulting in an even more open-ended take, while trombonistRobin Eubanks builds a fragment-driven and groove- heavy deconstruction of the title track to 1986's Tutu (Davis' Warner Brothers debut and first deep collaboration with bassist Marcus Miller).

This is the Collective's longest-lasting lineup—with the exception of Jones replacing Avishai Cohen, this incarnation has remained consistent since 2015'sLive: SFJAZZ Center 2014 -The Music of Joe Henderson & Original Compositions (SFJAZZ, 2015). And, while only Zenón remains from the Collective's 2004 incarnation—but with trombonist Robin Eubanks coming a relatively close second, having joined the group for its Fifth Annual Concert Tour in 2008—it's significant that the engine driving the Collective has remained stable since Live: SFJAZZ Center 2013—The Music of Chick Corea & New Compositions (SFJAZZ, 2014), with Simon, Penman and Calvaire. In many ways, it's the ideal confluence of the Collective's ongoing introduction of fresh ideas from new members and an adherence to the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

This constant refreshing of the Collective's lineup has led to a group united in concept if not by specific sound or chemistry, though both can be found in abundance with each lineup...including thus current one. That said, if the group must be placed in a box, the term "modern mainstream" best fits: largely acoustic, with a clear reverence for the jazz tradition while, at the same time, continually introducing ideas from farther afield, often the result of each of its members' work outside the Collective (with every member a leader in his own right), and plenty of the more sophisticated harmonic and rhythmic developments that have earmarked a considerable amount of the music coming from the post-'60s generations.

In recent years the Collective has also begun introducing a little electricity into the picture, with Cohen and Eubanks' tasteful effects first heard on Live in New York Season 8—Music of Stevie Wonder (SFJAZZ, 2011). Here, while still focusing largely on acoustic piano, Simon also adds a chiming Fender Rhodes to "Bitches Brew" and midway through "Tutu," while contributing synthesizer to two originals: Calvaires's numerically driven, polyrhythmic and densely contrapuntal "111"; and Eubanks' relatively (and uncharacteristically) simple yet still far from without its challenges composition, "Shields Green."

Every Davis arrangement, every new original composition, provides plenty of solo space, though the Collective rarely resorts to straight "head-solo-head" formats, instead couching improvisational work without the context of detailed compositional forms. With only two tracks dropping below the seven- minute mark and most tracks more than comfortably breaking the eight-minute threshold, there's a plethora of opportunities for delineated soloing, in-tandem trade-offs, extemporizations bolstered by appealing, four- part horn passages, breakdowns of the Collective into smaller subsets, unfettered free play and full-on octet blowing.

There's an embarrassment of riches to be found across Live: SFJAZZ Center 2016—Music of Miles Davis & Original Compositions' 140-minute program. One of the more intriguing Davis arrangements is Calvaire's "Bitches Brew"—a reading that flirts, at the start, with Joe Zawinul's title track to the trumpeter's similarly groundbreaking record from the previous year, In a Silent Way(Columbia, 1969), before opening up to greater freedom that remains predicated on the many simple but memorable fragments that Calvaire found while researching Davis' many live versions of the tune. The drummer discovered there were no consistent theme(s) across performances and so, he chose a few and arranged around them...most notably Davis' single-note staccato shots. As the track unfolds, what becomes clear is that Calvaire has fashioned a new, more considered arrangement; one that shifts from temporally unfettered free play to a more complexly constructed collection of time-driven brass lines, snaking through the drummer's frenetic playing before a brief but impressive bass solo leads to a near-free-for-all, with only Penman holding down the rhythm as even more frenzied lines emerge, as Calvaire both mirrors their rhythms and fills with reckless abandon before the group finally coalesces with the original track's seven-note ostinato. It's an exhilarating version; one which deconstructs the original's collage construction by producer Teo Macero and reconstructs it into a new form that Davis would never have been able to conceive at the time, based on his recording approach at that juncture in his career.

Calvaire's deconstruction/reconstruction is one of the Collective's approaches to creating 21st century arrangements of timeless classics, as Zenón demonstrated in his arrangement of "Superstition," from the Stevie Wonderset. Still, that shouldn't be taken as a suggestion of predictability; if anything the Collective has demonstrated, year after year, that it has the capacity to breathe new life into well-known material, even when its approach is more literal.

Jones' arrangement of "So What," the opening track to Davis' classic Kind of Blue, may begin with a brief, tightly arranged eight-second ensemble figure before turning more literally to the original's opening bass and piano duo (faithfully transcribed) and what has become one of the most instantly recognizable call-and-response themes in jazz history. Taken at a particular fast clip, re-harmonized and gradually morphing into a newly minted theme that finally comes back to its initial section, it opens up to a fast-swinging solo section for Eubanks. As he signals the end of his solo with a quote of Davis' familiar bass line, Simon picks up the baton for an equally impressive turn: another example of how, bolstered by Penman and Calvaire's unshakable anchor, the pianist constructs motif-driven improvisations that, like Eubanks, possess a clear sense of form, even as they are predicated upon in-the-moment spontaneity.

Zenón, a recipient of both the Guggenheim Fellowship and MacArthur ("Genius Grant") Fellowships—and a writer capable of bridging the gap between knotty complexity and folkloric innocence/simplicity—delivers a characteristically challenging chart for "Nardis," a modal tune that became much better known through pianist Bill Evans' many recordings. It's also taken at an uncharacteristically bright tempo, with a combination of serpentine lines and stop/start rhythms; a revision of the original melody to include some brief Eastern-tinged tonalities; and enough freedom to allow for a thrilling series of trade-offs (over a more complex form) between Zenón and Wolf before leading to an equally electrifying solo from Calvaire and a breathtaking ensemble conclusion that seems to challenge everyone— players and audience—to keep up.

Eubanks' "Tutu" reshuffles and alters the emphases on familiar but considerably re-harmonized changes, with Simon, Penman and Calvaire's metrically challenging support anchoring a set-defining solo of staggering virtuosity from the trombonist, before the tune finally shifts to the familiar, greasy bass line, muted trumpet theme...and a more atmospheric undercurrent, as Simon switches to Fender Rhodes.

Amongst one of the best sets of new original compositions since the Collective first formed, Penman's metrically challenging "Your Turn" is as worthy of attention as any, as the bassist jokingly describes the composition, in the liner notes, as "a poorly disguised attempt at revenge for many years of hard rhythm parts thrown at me." The first two minutes is a brass chorale of the most contemporary kind, with rhythmic twists and turns, shifting harmonies and staggered interactions leading to a gradually emerging theme and, finally, an extended bass solo of captivating invention, a band reiteration of the introduction and, finally, a series of impressive solos by Zenón, Wolf (who seems to get paradoxically more muscular and lithe with every passing year) and Eubanks.

Despite being a masterful player of frightening virtuosity, Wolf's "In the Heat of the Night" is, instead, a soulful ballad, with a drum groove culled from D'Angelo's chart-topping "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" creating a gentle but groove-heavy foundation for Jones' brief, blues-drenched solo and a lengthier feature for the vibraphonist that slowly builds to a powerful climax.

Elsewhere, Jones' own "Hutcherson Hug" is another extended feature for the vibraphonist; alluding to the affectionate hugs with whom the late vibraphonist met every member of the Collective when he was in the group from 2004 through 2007, it is, indeed, a soft, warm waltz that may feature lush horn arrangements but is, more often than not, a piece that breaks down into smaller group subsets, such as during Penman's solo, where he is supported only by Simon and a brush and cymbal-driven Calvaire. That the composition is not a feature for its composer only points to another characteristic of the Collective: a generous group of musicians who must also, as described by SFJAZZ Founder and Executive Artistic Director Randall Kline, be "good people." Everybody shines, of course, but this is clearly a group with egos checked at the door.

Equally, Sánchez's chant-driven "Canto" may have originally been written for another project and substituted here for the new tune first written by the saxophonist for the tour but, filled as it is with the space and simplicity that often earmarked Davis' work, it's a perfect choice. Filled with burnished brass harmonies, a soft, hand-driven pulse and one of Sanchez's most restrained yet effective solos on record, it's a perfect personal homage to the late trumpeter.

The set closes with Simon's "Feel the Groove." A pianist often associated (as is true of some of his other band mates, most notably Zenón) with music of a more cerebral nature, the composition is driven by a repetitive vibraphone figure and irresistible, loosely played rhythm. Calvaire's combination of cajón and drum kit, a stellar solo from Zenón and then, after an ensemble interlude, Simon's most thought-provoking improvisational turn of the set makes "Feel the Groove" a perfect closer that can be taken as a salve for the soul,while, at the same time, providing plenty of compositional substance for the mind to absorb.

The beauty of SFJAZZ Collective's privately released two and sometimes three-CD sets—which contain performances of all eight arrangements and original compositions—is that while no single live performance can include all sixteen tracks, the albums always provide a sampling of a particular year's full repertoire. While there are no dates currently up on the SFJAZZ site, it suggests that the Collective is continuing to tour these imaginative re-works of Miles Davis tunes alongside the group's new original music. Who the next musician up for tribute is still to be announced, but in the meantime, the SFJAZZ Collective has finally brought the music of Miles Davis into its ever-expanding repertoire, and with Live: SFJAZZ Center 2016—Music of Miles Davis & Original Compositions, released a live document that continues to position the group at the forefront of the modern mainstream...in the broadest, most accomplished fashion possible.

Track Listing: CD1: So What; Nardis; Milestones; Tutu; Bitches Brew; All Blues; Joshua; Teo. CD2: Tribe; Canto; Your Turn; 111; In the Heat of the Night; Shields Green; Hutcherson Hug; Feel the Groove.

Personnel: Miguel Zenón: alto saxophone; David Sánchez: tenor saxophone; Sean Jones: trumpet; Robin Eubanks: trombone; Warren Wolf: vibraphone, marimba; Edward Simon: piano, Fender Rhodes (CD-#4-5), synthesizer (CD2#4-5); Matt Penman: bass; Obed Calvaire: drums.

Title: Live: SFJAZZ Center 2016 - Music of Miles Davis & Original Compositions| Year Released: 2017 | Record Label: SFJAZZ

#SFJAZZ Collective

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an-agathist · 8 years ago

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other things are happening

Last week(?) I made an excited text post about how I’m getting my life together.

And the following week it promptly fell apart at the seams, which is fine. That happens sometimes and it’s part of everything. It’s unfortunate that it’s not physically possible to fulfill all my of responsibilities and still take care of myself enough to function on a basic level (having food in the house, sleeping, etc.)

But today I decided I need a rule about taking on new projects. I need to be less extra, basically. Only one extra thing at a time. My extra thing that I committed to was this conducting workshop in NYC, but I also committed myself to another extra thing, which was taking the flute part in the Stravinsky octet on our upcoming wind symphony concert.

That was a wild decision, because that part is extremely difficult and required lots of extra rehearsal and practice time.

I’m always going to have a ton of classwork and I’m always going to need to practice several hours a day because I’m a music major - that’s not going anywhere, obviously.

SO I just can’t be extra.

After the wind symphony concert, my extra project is the ICI workshop, and I’m not taking on one additional responsibility until I’ve seen that through.

So that’s my new rule: don’t be extra unless you’re not already doing something extra. Just don’t be really extra, I guess.

I’m excited to use that rule and turn down things that will basically destroy everything else in their wake, but in the meantime I’m living with the consequences of taking on far too much - I had a Stravinsky rehearsal eating away my practice time, I had to finish program notes and write up my own program, I had to choose to accept that I will miserably fail on my physics exam tomorrow because I have not had time to study, and I have to finish my counterpoint homework. It is 1:40 AM, counterpoint homework usually takes ~3-4 hours for me to complete, and I have a rehearsal scheduled for 9 AM, and exam at noon, and my recital hearing at 1:30 PM. I’m imagining I’ll get somewhere between 2 and 3 hours of sleep tonight...I’m barely capable of functioning when I get less than 7.5 hours now, so I’m truly afraid for my recital hearing tomorrow afternoon. It’s almost 2 AM and I’m already feeling woozy, I don’t know how on Earth I’m going to make tomorrow happen.

I’m sitting here typing a text post because this is my way of taking a break, and I figure it’s more productive than watching a twenty-minute comparison of Count Olaf as portrayed by NPH and Jim Carrey. Not again.

#personal #me #life #school #undergrad

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glamourweaver · 8 years ago

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Autochthonia Expansion Post 9

Post 1, General Topography Post 2, Soul-Structure Overview Post 3, Half-Souled of Estasia Post 4, Apostate Flaws of Invulnerability Post 5, Five Blessed Theopoli Post 6, Erlik, the City of 10,000 Blasphemies Post 7, the Metropolis of Cidon Post 8, Ministerial Subroutines of Runel Current Ministerial Subroutines of Kek’Tungsssha, Third Soul of Autochthon, Divine Minister of Smelting, Craft, Tools, Industry, Mass Production, Fertility, and Reproductive Sex. Goddess of Assembly Lines, Creativity and Productivity. Ryn Reb, Defining Subroutine for Common Goods, Interchangeable Parts, and Mathematical Mode; one of three Acting Advocates of Claslat A koan long pondered by philosophically minded Scholars proposes a tram that regularly has its parts replaced as they wear down, until every single piece of the tram over the course of a century have been replaced. Is it the same tram? If one took all the discarded parts and assembled a rather broken-down tram out of them, which is the original tram then? Ryn Reb arose as the Defining Subroutine of Kek’tungsssha in the earlier years of Autochthonia, before the Municipal-era, as tribal industrialists in what would be Claslat strove to standardize their creations and tools for easier use. Both product and patron of those efforts, Ryn Reb itself is a manakin-like humanoid assembly of replaceable arms, legs, heads, and torsos, who keeps a huge ever cycling supply of pieces of itself. Rare among Second Circle Deva, it can even co-locate by the assembly of additional selves from those pieces. Overseeing the necessary replacement of parts throughout the Maker, Ryn Reb ponders the possibilities of true repair to the Maker’s functions, and whether even exmachina can be interchanged with standardized replication. So far, the finite nature of human souls limits it with dealing with human replication, though it has been known to grant new bodies to humans in its experiments, particularly as shadowy business deals in the markets of Claslat, where it now serves as one of the three acting divine advocates for the nation.

Should Tilxriyin's madness be discovered and he be excised, Ryn Reb would be the most likely candidate to be named Advocate of the Surgeons. Runel would object given her own dominion over health and good functioning, but as she'd be weakened at the time by the loss of her Wisdom Subroutine, her objection's would not carry as much weight.

Motivation: Provide functional immortality for the Maker and Autochthonia through part replacement, and by extension, the mass production of selves. G Ibedreth, Expressive Subroutine for Improvisation, Jury-rigging, and the Science of Enchantment, co-Advocate of the Scholars The Expressive Subroutine of Kek’tungsssha stands tall as a copper armored warriors, with wings of propeller blades, strung together with Starmetal wiring. On the forehead of his narrow beaked face is the diamond-shaped amethyst gem of the Sodalites held in place by the binding of the starmetal wiring. Wherever he passes his spindly talons rework machinery and scrap into new devices and tools which he leaves scattered in his wake. Prayed to by the Scholars as their god of inspiration and new applications, he wrestles for dominance as their advocate with Nyothra. Franticaly improvisational, he is Kek’tungsssha’s greatest warrior among her subroutines and a deadly enemy to cross in battle – but at least he’ll use every piece of you to make new tools afterwards, even if he is prone to wander off and forget them. Motivation: CREATE! And achieve sole advocacy of the Scholars, leveraging that to become Keeper of the Makers Tools Nyothra, Indulgent Subroutine for Refinement, Perfectionism, and the Science of Enchantment, co-Advocate of the Scholars The other Advocate of the Scholars is G Ibedreth’s complete opposite. Nyothra is a perfectionist to the point of obsession. She has been laboring over the same Grand Goremaul for Autochthon since before he left Creation (the first circle exmachina she creates that spread out pursuing her unrelated goals being born from the scraps off her work). If someone could wrestle it away from her, it is obviously by now a n/a Artifact of unspeakable power, but as far as she’s concerned it’s still not finished. The Scholars pray to her for focus and attention to detail, when they labor for shifts on end to make sure their creation is exactly as it should be. Unlike her rival, Nyothra has doesn’t even have fleeting attention to spair for the politics of the soul-pantheon. Her status as Advocate of the Scholars matters only to her so much as their prayers provide more Essence for her work, so she nominally speaks on their behalf when she speaks at all among the Ministerial Subroutines and Divine Ministers. It infuriates G Ibedreth that despite her ambivalence, he can still not manage to be recognized by the Divine Ministers as the sole Advocate of the Scholars, but as any Scholar fearing mistake and striving over one piece of work prays to her specifically, and knows G Ibedreth jury-rigging will be of no help, her place is largely assured. Nyothra’s attention is for her creation, and her engagement with the heroes of Autochthonia almost always toward that end, as she strives for a component she needs for her work. Nyothra stands as a burly female figure of red-hot liquid metal. Her eyes appear to constantly weep liquid orichalcum from the left eye and moonsilver from the right. Like G Ibedreth she bares the diamond cut amethyst gem of the Sodalites as an Advocate of the Scholars. Hers is pressed over her molten heart. Motivation: Perfect the Maker’s Goremaul Enxoythorn, Messenger Subroutine for Levers, Belts, the Transference of Energy, Male Fertility, Male-Female Pairings, and Mathematical Range Masculine fertility god to the people of the Octet, prayed to for virility and plentiful children. He stands in the form of a muscular Autochthonian man, bearded of face, with eyes of solid green jade. He either appears naked or wearing a light shawl. From his loins, a great metal arm reaches up endlessly into the machinery of the Maker wherever he may be at the time, the movement of this arm carrying him from place to place. So to is he master of all levers and belts, transferring energy from one body to another. Enxoythorn is devoted to his partner Jejolllllli (see below), but his passions run deep and wide. As many as half of exmachina-blooded heroes conceived in Autochthonia’s history may be his children. While he is meant to receive the prayers of men, and Jejolllllli of women, he is known to answer the calls of women unsatisfied with their male lovers. While Divine Ministers and Operatives alike have chided him for this behavior – he predicts that one day one of his children will be the savior of Autochthonia by bridging humanity directly into Autochthon’s soul-hierarchy. Motivation: Conceive a hero who he can see reshape the very nature of Autochthonia and save the Maker. Dithru, Reflective Subroutine for Intellectual Craft and the Written Word, Keeper of the Maker’s Doctrine, Advocate of the Clerics The Advocate of the Clerics and Keeper of the Maker’s Doctrine serves as patron for the less overtly physical acts of creation under Kek’tungsssha’s purview. The written word in particular is central to her domain. The Old Realm text of countless editions of the Tome of the Maker cover her form – that of a tall elderly woman with eyes of solid blue jade with the square sapphire of the Theomachracy on her brow – the black sigils ever shifting and unfolding as she moves, often drifting around her like vapor. Dedicated to the translation of knowledge and philosophy into tangible physical form for its preservation, Dithru faces something of a paradox in her mandate. On one hand, it is the function of the Clerics and the Tome of the Maker to codify orthodoxy. On the other hand the erasure of heterodoxy is the loss of knowledge, which is anathemic to her. For the time being she relies upon Clerics to preserve apocrypha and blasphemy in forms off limit to the Populat, justified to the Preceptors by the need to identify heresies for what they are. She stands ready however to bless any serious hope of integrating heterodoxy into a collective whole that can unite the disparate paths. Motivation: To preserve all knowledge and see the creation of a written orthodoxy that unites all heterodoxy rather than erasing them. Jejollllllli, Warding Subroutine for Springs, Tension, Potential Energy, Female Fertility, Male-Female Pairings, and Mathematical Range Overseeing female fertility and women’s part in sexual reproduction, Jejollllllli is partner to Enxyothorn. Together their sexual unions bare countless first circle exmachina into the world. Furthermore she stands as guardian spirit over pregnancies, as well as springs and anything else coiled to retain potential energy. She is tormented by the cries for her intervention as the epidemic of stillbirths surge. To bare new souls into the cycle, she is the most outspoken supporter of the breaching the Seal of Eight Divinities among the Ministerial Subroutines. In her eyes, the union of Autochthonia and Creation is a new sexual union with the souls it will bare into the cycle of reincarnation the product of that union. Jejollllllli’s body is a tightly compressed spring that varies in outline depending on her current state of pregnancy, from an hour-glass figure to heavy with exmachina children. Floating over this figure, a feminine mask, painted with a checkered pattern serves as her face. Motivation: Unite with Creation in sexual union to bare new souls into Autochthonia Brongbwon, Wisdom Subroutine for Industrial Rhythm, Pounding Beats, and Echoing Bellows A relatively young soul of Kek’tungsssha, Brongbwon rose to replace the fallen Carzinithair (now one of the ruling Gremlins of Erlik). He is a musician of the bangs and clamor of the Maker’s innards, and the industrial labor of the Octet. A large mechanical dragon of brass and steam, he can create bellowing music from himself alone, but works further to unite all of Maker’s body in his music. Scheduling the movement of machine organs, seeking out and preserving perfect rhythms of industrial work in the Octet, Brongbwon seeks to compose a mechanical symphony worthy of the Maker. When the Autochthonian people say the Maker sings to himself in his sleep, they speak of Brongbwon whether they know it or not. Unique sounds and the events that create them are of great interest to Brongbwon as he can collect such noise to use in his work throughout Autochthonia. Motivation: To compose a musical masterpiece that resonates throughout the entirety of the Maker Post 10, Motivations of the Divine Ministers Post 11, Languages of Autochthonia

#Exalted #The Onyx Path #White Wolf #Autochthonia Expansion #rpg

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vrisskaweek · 6 years ago

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day one: vriska

"Vriska" was suggested by Terin. "Serket" was suggested by Chin Music. Vriska is a shortening of "Vrishchika", the Hindi name for Scorpio, or could be related to "Vṛścika" the Sanskrit word for scorpion, but could also refer to Kalpavriksha, a wish-fulfilling tree below the fourth chakra according to Zentra Yoga. This tree is said to fulfil both positive and negative wishes, again corresponding with the duality of Vriska's personality.

Her surname is taken from "Serket", the Egyptian goddess of healing stings and bites, and also the personification of the scorpion. It means both "(she who) tightens the throat", a reference to paralysis caused by scorpion stings, and "(she who) causes the throat to breathe", meaning that Serket was one who could cure scorpion stings and the effects of other poisons such as snake bites. Serket was conflictingly associated with stings or bites and with the cures to such maladies, mirroring the duality of Vriska's personality - she alternates between seriously injuring other trolls and helping them, or at least attempting to do so

Vriska Serket, also known by her Trollian handle arachnidsGrip, is one of the trolls. She was the eighth troll to be introduced, which also refers to her theme and obsession with the number eight. Her handle relates to her in two main ways. One, arachnids, refers to her interest in and fascination for spiders. The Grippart of the handle most likely represents her power to have a grip on someone's mind, or control it. Her associated zodiac sign is Scorpio (♏) and her horns are shaped like a pincer and a stinger.

Pre-Hivebent

When she was younger, Vriska found Mindfang's journal in a chest delivered to Alternia by a meteorite, and used it to locate her Fluorite Octet.

Yeah!!!!!!!!

Vriska plays Flarp both out of enjoyment and to procure food for her Lusus, which feeds on young trolls. Her Flarp character is her ancestor, scourge of land dwellers and sea dwellers alike. Mindfang has gained all the levels available to the Petticoat Seagriftclass. All the levels. All of them. Mindfang, being a pirate with a hook for a hand, resembles Captain Hook, much as Tavros's character, Pupa Pan, resembles Peter Pan. The Fluorite Octet, named after a mineralresembling a d8 and the number eight, is also a play on the final words of Captain Hook in the original play of Peter Pan, which was "Floreat Etona," a Latin phrase from England where Captain Hook was schooled.

She had frequent pirate themed Flarping sessions with Eridan most likely inspired by their ancestors' rivalry. On at least one occasion, Vriska and Terezi formed a Flarp team, 'Team Scourge', and faced off against Tavros and Aradia's 'Team Charge'. Vriska's actions in one particular Flarp session set off the cycle of revenge that leads to a number of catastrophic events for several trolls.

Vriska, acting as Tavros's Clouder, uses her mind powers to make him jump off a cliff, leading to his paralysis from the waist down. Aradia and Terezi are distracted by Doc Scratch and unable to intervene.

Seeking revenge for Tavros's injury, Aradia summons the ghosts of trolls whom Vriska fed to her lusus to haunt her.

To get back at her, Vriska uses her mind control powers to control Sollux, forcing him to ingest mind honey and cause his psychic eye beams to be let loose . He then is controlled to go to Aradia's hive and kill her.

Terezi then takes matters into her own hands by informing Doc Scratch of Vriska's possession of one of his Magic Cue Balls. Infuriated, Doc Scratch blows up the Cue Ball, taking out Vriska's seven-pupiled eye and left arm as well as the tactical advantage she had with the Cue Ball.

To get back at her, Vriska uses a Psychic Double Reach-Around: she first mind controls Tavros, then uses his animal communion ability to control Terezi's Lusus, forcing it to tell Terezi to go outdoors and stare into the Alternian sun, blinding her. Since few trolls are able to withstand the sunlight, Vriska may have expected Terezi to wander blind and lost until she died of exposure or at the hands of terrifying monsters.

Hivebent

Vriska is first seen in the bottom right corner of this page, but she is not fully revealed until Hivebent. Her left arm is robotic and was created for her by Equius Zahhak after she loses her real arm. Equius is her neighbor, and after an accident caused by him, Vriskas' lusus is crushed by large rocks. Vriska ends the lusus' pain by decapitating it.

She commissioned to Equius a soulbot for Aradia as a way to make amends with her, but he enters the game before Vriska can get the present. When she talks to Aradia about, she says Vriska was never supposed to be part of the Blue Team and kicks her off.

Vriska ends playing in the Red Team, because Karkat needed a troll with her abilities to exile the Black Queen. The Queen later ironically becomes her exile, and uses Vriska and Terezi to exile Jack.

She is Tavros' server player and helps him explore his planet, but eventually gets bored and sends him to LOMAT. The two explore her planet together until Aradia, now in her soulbot, finally confronts her and leaves Vriska almost dead, ending the revenge circle. The aftermatch is Vriska making Tavros carry her to the quest coccon and, after letting Tavros decide her fate, ascending to god tier.

At some point Vriska killed her denizen. She does the final blow to the Black King and, as the trolls go claim their ultimate reward, Jack Noir appears and Aradiabot transports the trolls into hiding in the same meteorKarkat had created them, where they find a computer lab.

Post-Hivebent

Vriska contacts John Egbert through Trollian. Initially, she attempts to psychically manipulate him through her computer. After her first attempt fails, she tries harder and manages to wake him from his sleep. Upon learning that Terezi has already assisted John, she sets out to show her the meaning of helpfulness. Vriska proceeds to offer quite a bit of assistance to him, reminding him to help Jade enter The Medium, explaining aspects of Sburb, and offering to send him maps of his Land, among other things. Nevertheless, her antagonistic tendencies show through in that she misleads John about her real name, first suggesting that of her Flarp character and later telling him that it's a sekret. Karkat implies that she flirts with John as a means to compete with Terezi.

It turns out that Vriska is the reason for a lot of major events in the kids' session. She was responsible for Jade's narcolepsy. She makes John fall asleep before he is about to prototype Jade's kernelsprite with a doll. She wanted to be responsible for the creation of Bec Noir, because she thinks that she is going to be the one to kill him. She also controls their Courtyard Droll to lead the Draconian Dignitary to Rose's MEOW journal, and in the process kill a doomed timeline Dave, allowing Bec to be created in the first place.

About an hour after Aradiabot exploded, Vriska is seen engaging Tavros in a fight, as Tavros wanted to kill Vriska when she revealed she was paradox responsible for creating Bec Noir. She taunts him with his sawed-off legs and Tavros charges at Vriska, trying to kill her. Vriska then proceeds to take his weapon mid-charge, and stab him through the chest with his own lance, casting the body down into the abyss where Terezi later finds it. Though Vriska herself isn't actually seen, Terezi smells a trail of special stardust, belonging to the wings of a certain mischievous fairy. It is obvious to Terezi that Tavros' murder is connected to Vriska, but conducts a full investigation nonetheless. Terezi later suspects Vriska of murdering Kanaya and Feferi as well, and sets off to confront her.

Vriska in Hussnasty Mode.

Some time after, Vriska contacts John and leads him to his quest bed, where he is stabbed by Jack and ascends to god tier.

She later on goes to confront Eridan, and as they are about to fight, Gamzeemakes an appearance. Both seem surprised to see him, and while they're preparing for a three-way showdown, Kanaya turns up. After kicking Gamzee over the cliff, the enraged rainbow drinker proceeds to punch Vriska in the face and saw Eridan in half. These events seem to have inspired flushed feelings in her.

Vriska goes to the meteor's rooftop, talks to John for the last time and gets ready to go fight Jack. Terezi confronts and accuses her of the murders of all of the dead trolls and Gamzee. After hearing the story, Vriska attempts to tell Terezi the truth about the trolls' deaths, leading to Terezi's x3 facepalm combo. At some point, Terezi flipped her scratched coin, telling Vriska that if it landed on heads Vriska would ST4Y, but if it landed on the scratch she would GO. Terezi was intentionally misleading in her description - we were meant to believe that GOing meant Vriska would go to Bec Noir, but really, ST4Y meant that she would live and GO meant she would die. Both of them were aware of this. After the coin flipped, it landed on scratch - because of Vriska's influence. Terezi prepares to stab Vriska through her turned back, but at first doesn't go through with it.

Vriska's "DEAD" tag.

However, Terezi, using her powers as Seer of Mind, sees the disastrous consequences of letting Vriska live - She would have foiled the troll's hideout to Bec Noir, leading to their death. Terezi proceeds to stab Vriska in the back, and she has a Just death. It is unknown if she is struck with a perma-death due to Slick's interference with Doc Scratch's grandfather clock.

After Death

In the dream bubbles, she meets a John from the timeline he was killed by meeting his denizen early. They date for some time, but the relationship fails and they break up, remaining friends until the alternate John was double killed by Lrd English. She is later wandering through a desert until coming across Andrew Hussie, who proceeds to propose marriage to Vriska; unfortunately for him, she punches him out in disgust.

Gamzee preserves her body until arriving in the post-scratch kids' session, where he prototypes Vriska and Tavros' bodies in Jane's sprite resulting in the birth of Tavrisprite. This fusion is short-lived and Tavrisprite destroys itself because of how the two sides are impossible to reconcile. Vriska and Tavros reappear on the bubbles, where she apologizes for killing Tavros and convinces him to help fuck things up with her.

After hearing legends about an ancient weapon hidden in the Furthest Ring supposedly capable of killing Lrd English, she and Tavros decide to find it. Unfortunately, because the Ring is an infinite void with no fixed points in space, all maps of it are totally black and feature no reference points. This problem is solved when English begins to fracture reality by destroying dream bubbles, causing the cracks to appear on the maps and allowing Vriska and Tavros to continue their hunt. In order to reduce the amount of time spent searching, she plans to get other ghosts to pretend that they are searching for Calliope; English would then attack their dream bubbles and allow Vriska to see more of the map.

At some point, John arrives in their dream bubble and meets her in person for the first time. John dicovers she is dead and they talk of the plans to stop English. The conversation is abruptly ended when Meenah interrupts them to criticize Vriska's idea and throws her trident at John, waking him. Enraged, Vriska challenges Meenah to a duel, with both agreeing that whoever wins will get to use all available troll ghosts for their own anti-Englishplan. Vriska wins the duel, and begins her treasure hunting plan. She travels the furthest ring on a ship along with Tavros, Meenah, Aranea, Aradia, Sollux, Feferi and Nepeta.

Vriska's ship and her crew searching for the ancient weapon.

Before finally finding the treasure, she meets up with John again, who claims having the Ring of Life. However, John is hesitant to give her the ring, now believing that she is dangerous. Most of her crew also depart from the ship before the destination. After finding the treasure, John sticks his hand on it, suddenly teleporting away.

Aranea manages to get the ring and comes back to life, reducing even more the party size. Meenah and Vriska then discuss how they're going to put forth their plan without Aranea, and Vriska reveals that Aranea was controlling most of the ghosts, and without her they don't see how it'll be possible. The two of them decide to ditch the plan altogether and later they begin to pursue a relationship, leading to the most meaningless moment seen of paradox space.

Despite John's retcons creating a new timeline in which Vriska is alive, this version of Vriska still exists. She and Meenah meet the post-retcon version of Vriska at some point during the meteor journey. This version of Vriska, referred to as (Vriska) by this point forward, continues her relationship with Meenah, until Meenah ends the relationship when they cross paths with the alive Vriska yet again and she leaves (Vriska) alone. She later walks around a path of memories with Terezi until she reunites the version of Terezi who died in the aftermath of GAME OVER. They embrace and hold hands as they watch the cracks in paradox space get worse and worse.

New Timeline

John saving Vriska.

In the new retconned timeline, John zaps to the meteor and follows Terezi's most important instruction listed on her scarf, knocking out Vriska before Terezi would kill her. After John leaves, she wakes up in confusion. Because of that, she traveled with the others on the meteor on the three-year trip to the B2 session. Vriska's actions on the timeline are numerous: her simply being alive avoid a lot of guilt and depression that Terezi underwent pre-retcon, preventing her kismesissitude with Gamzee and regrettably getting her eyes healed, and Vriska also puts her foot down to Rose's drinking problem. Vriska and Terezi crack down the code for John's Dad's wallet, the last scarf instruction he did not follow with, and make one to later captchalogue Earth.

She retrieves Aradia's timetravelling gear and on the new session she travels back in time, like Gamzee did in the old timeline, to prototype the kids kernelsprites creating Tavrosprite and a new Arquiusprite. Back in the 'present', as a surprise factor Vriska puts Jade to sleep when she would have confronted the meteor crew and leads a heist to free Jake and Roxy from Derse's prison. Roxy ends accidentally killed by Jane, and so Vriska puts her to sleep. She also gathers information from Dersites about the threats of this session.

Vriska is later seen with everyone else on the victory platform. She participates in some conversations, then explains to everyone the threats to be neutralized and allows everyone to decide who will take on who (except for reserving some people to specific roles). After that, she uses Roxy's Appearifier Rifle to bring Dirk immediately to the victory platform with everyone else, and then she hops through a fenestrated wallto the Furthest Ring by taking the power supply with her and breaking its connection, saying that she will now go confront Lrd English.

Vriska meets her alternate self in the Furthest Ring.

In the Furthest Ring, she runs into her alternate self and Meenah once again, and immediately berates her alternate self, who wonders how her alive self can be so horribly rude. Vriska takes the juju and convinces Meenah to leave with her. She contacts the kids one last time to have Tavrosprite merge with God Cat and puts him to sleep, neutralizing the threat. She and Meenah discuss plans for how to kill English until they run into pre-retcon Tavros, who amassed a massive army of ghosts without any mind powers. Tavros gives her the command as the new leader of the army.

In Collide, Vriska strifes with Andrew Hussie when he says he wants to "kill everyone" and after a short battle defeats him.

In Act 7, Vriska faces Lord English with her army and unleashes the juju, activating a final attack that launches Lrd English into the event horizon of the black hole collapsing Furthest Ring. What becomes of Vriska and the Ghost Army is uncertain, but it's possible that she was ultimately killed in the very same black hole that was used to defeat Lord English once and for all.

Personality and Traits

Pretty much.

Vriska is, more often than not, a huge bitch. She gets easily bored, makes shady deals with people, does horrible things to her 8oring friends, and then slams herself because nobody likes her or - even worse - hates her enough.

Much like her lusus, a massive spider, Vriska often manipulates others, even going as far as paralyzing Tavros, blinding Terezi, and killing Aradia.

Vriska believes that bad things constantly happen to her because she has terrible luck. Kanaya and Doc Scratch suggest that her own behavior is more likely the cause - for example, she constantly steps on d4's only because she leaves them all over the floor instead of tidying up. She also seems to hold some degree of distaste towards her own blood color, mockingly referring to it as envia8le cerulean swill - just another thing for her to blame her problems on. On other occasions, though, Vriska holds herself in high regard - she often brags about her exploits in Flarp, or just about herself in general.

Vriska is something of an apocalypse buff. She loves to make doomsday devices and is even sometimes asked to make them for others. One particular customer - Eridan - is an especially powerful and influential member of the Nautical Aristocracy for whom she promises such a device in exchange for his collusion in her Flarpcampaigns.

While she sees herself as a great manipulator, it seems that she is often manipulated herself, as clearly evidenced in Doc Scratch's final conversation with her. Although she would loathe to admit it, she envies Terezi a great deal because of Terezi's ability to manipulate people without the use of psychic abilities. This could be a possible motivator for Vriska, as she attempts to trick, deceive and backstab nearly every other troll - perhaps as a way to prove herself in Terezi's view or even in her own. When another troll calls her out on using mind powers, she either denies it to the point of absurdity or throws a tantrum.

She was responsible for putting John to sleep before he could prototype one of the Distinguished Houseguests (which was coincidentally a blue doll missing an eye and an arm, similar to herself and Jack). Because of this, she believes herself to be responsible for Jack Noir's fourth prototyping, and thus his attack on the trolls' session, and claims to have intentionally done so as she wants to be the one to kill him. She tries to justify herself by claiming that it had to happen to prevent a doomed timeline. Although since avoiding this event was one of the few possible between-universe travel paradoxes, instead of just a time paradox, it is unclear whether it would have caused a doomed timeline, or something else entirely. According to Karkat and Aradia though, paradox space forces these events to be unavoidable.

Despite all her negative traits, she does have a softer, more benevolent side. She was genuinely upset when her plan to reconcile with Aradia failed, and she also has admitted to John that she felt bad about killing Tavros and that even though her methods were more than questionable she did genuinely try to help him get stronger. Between Tavros and John, she's shown a bit of a habit of trying to train people up the Echeladder. She also mentions to John that one of the reasons she wants to fight Jack Noir is to protect her friends, even getting angry at Jack for killing them after seeing their corpses in a doomed timeline.

After killing Tavros, Vriska admits to John that she feels terrible about it. According to troll culture, she had every right to kill him, and claims she can't tell the other trolls how she feels out of fear of seeming weak. She seems to have always felt bad about ending up as screwed up as she did as a result of troll culture, and laments how much better humans have it. However, this is more remorse towards herself, rather than guilt for any of her other atrocities, most likely because she despises her own existence as a troll, to the point of saying troll society was better off dead. She also willingly admits that there is a good chance she will die if she fights Jack Noir, but considers Jack being stopped far higher priority than her own life.

She seems to have lost some of her faith in having all the luck, but decides she has to go after Jack regardless, seeing her fight will have to mean something, and relying on luck, instead of inner strength and bravery, would be meaningless.

The version of Vriska who died on the meteor became notably more relaxed and passive after her brief prototyping and the betrayal of the dancestor. She ultimately loses a lot of her ambition, instead becoming more willing to appreciate the ones she loves, instead of constantly trying to steal the spotlight. Post-retcon Vriska views her alternate self as an absolute disappointment.

She possesses mind control abilities, allowing her to take control of some characters and making humans sleep/wake up. Tavros, Sollux (half of the time) and Karkat are vulnerable to her powers, and Gamzee was controlled by her dancestor. Aradia, Terezi, and Equius are known to be immune. Animals are also susceptible to her influence when she uses Tavros' psychic powers to control them. Some Incipisphere inhabitants (Prospitians, Dersites, and Consorts) are also vulnerable.

Vriska has vision eightfold - her right eye can "focus" to have some sort of x-ray vision. She is seen using this power channeling her powerful eyesight through her customized red lens to look through her Magic Cue Ball. She is also supposedly able to read minds, but has never successfully demonstrated this ability, aside from a brief reference to mind reading the Consorts of LOSAZ. Aranea has demonstrated the ability to detect emotions, but she lived 3 sweeps longer than Vriska did and may have figured out that skill over that time.

Relationships

Vriska burns bridges with practically every other troll, in particular through Flarp as mentioned above. After John enlightened Vriska regarding the joys of Con Air, she immediately developed a crush on Nicolas Cage. She keeps a marble bust and several of his film posters behind locked doors.

Lusus/Kernelsprite

Vriska's lusus.

Vriska's lusus is a gigantic spider, the second largest lusus of the trolls. The lusus subsists on a diet of young trolls and is always hungry. Vriska uses her Flarp sessions to procure more food for her Lusus. This grim obligation provides a possible explanation for many of Vriska's negative personality traits.

Vriska has hinted that she dislikes her lusus, probably because it requires so much sustenance, which could imply that her basic reason for manipulating so many people is merely to keep up with her lusus's eternal hunger. Were she to not feed her lusus, she would die of starvation, and without one, she would be culled. Later on, she admits to John that this is all true. She and her Lususprite avoided each other throughout most of the game.

Following the failed activation of Vriska's doomsday device, her lusus is unfortunately crushed by rockfall, forcing Vriska to euthanize her with the Guillotine De La Marquise, a dice technique selected at random out of a potential 16,777,216, which is eight to the eighth power.

Tavros Nitram

Vriska claims to hate Tavros for no particular reason she can describe. Acting as his server player in Sgrub, she intentionally builds his hive up with stairs instead of ramps, demanding he find a way up without use of his wheel chair and apologize for being crippled. When he refuses, she shakes him in his wheel chair. Karkat theorizes that she has caliginous feelings for him, but it'd never work out because of Tavros' inability to actually hate people and Vriska's generalized hate towards everything. Indeed, Vriska alternately tries to antagonize and seduce Tavros and fails miserably at both. They eventually seem to come to an understanding of sorts, as Vriska contacts him from the near future and is unusually polite to him. However, their feelings seemed to have regressed when Tavros fails to kill her on her Quest bed while she's dying, and abandons her to a slow and painful death from blood loss. Things only seem to worsen during post-hivebent until finally Tavros attacks Vriska and is killed by her. However it has been seen that the two of them have started up an unconfirmed matespritship after their deaths, Tavros even intending to propose to her. He eventually leaves her, though, due to constant conflicts and still feeling bullied by her, and he flips her off as he flies away from the treasure hunt. Tavros would later return with a renewed ghost army (one he had fromed through the power of friendship, instead of mindcontrol), finally proving his worth and sending Vriska into a shock.

Following the events of the retcon, Vriska prototyped Tavros in a kernalspite and later has him merge with GCat in an effort to passify the dangerous animal, leaving Gcatavrosprite allergic to himself. He seems to be fine in the credits, however.

Terezi Pyrope

Karkat refers to Vriska and Terezi as the "Scourge Sisters," likely referring to their team in Flarp which may have extended to their everyday lives. In the same conversation, Karkat states that Vriska has always been jealous of Terezi for her ability to manipulate others without RESORTING TO CHEEP MIND TRICKS. Vriska sees her former team mate Terezi as her rival, but also tries to stay friends with her. She was shocked when Terezi actually killed her, because she thought she would not be able to go through with it. Despite giving her a cold shoulder ever since the Flarp incident Terezi actually cared for Vriska quite a bit. She feels some regret about killing Vriska, even though she knows it was the right thing to do in order to protect her other friends from death. In fact Vriska's death at her hands is one of the reasons she seems to spiral out of control during the trip on the meteor. Vriska does care for Terezi, seeming horrified and furious when Jack Noir returns to her with the bodies of her and Karkat in the alternate timeline.

In the new timeline created by John's retcons where John saved Vriska before Terezi could kill her, Vriska seems to have spent most of her time with Terezi during the three-year meteor journey. This updateconfirms that they are now moirails.

John Egbert

Vriska is John's patron troll throughout the events of Act 5 Act 2, and the two have a somewhat complicated relationship. Vriska sees Terezi as a rival, and tries to get John to compete with Dave, who is guided by Terezi. This seems to have partially worked, as future Dave implies that future John has become extremely powerful. Vriska's attachment to John may have something to do with his similarities to Tavros, as he and John share the same aspect. Vriska later calls John 'pupa', a nickname she often uses for Tavros. She also says John looks totally hot when he wears Vriska's custom clothes for him. After Tavros' death, and after she tricked John into dying to achieve god tier status. Vriska admits to John that he is special to her, and holds his view of her in higher respect than any of the other trolls, resulting in the 'second most heartfelt feelings-off in paradox space'. It is unclear how deep her feelings for John really are, though she has apparently waxed red for him, asking him on a date and unwittingly expressing jealousy at his imminent kissing of Rose. She also dated an alternate self of John for a while, but things didn't work out. She still considers Alpha John a friend and seems deeply hurt when he considers that bringing her back to life might be a bad idea due to her perceived dangerous nature. John later admits to Roxy that he might actually hate Vriska. However, John appears to have softened his view on Vriska once he prevents her death, and is willing to commend Vriska for her efforts in preparing the group for their final battle, possibly indicating that he has forgiven her, or vented out his frustrations towards her when he knocked her out..

Aradia Megido

Vriska after being beaten by Aradia.

Vriska behaves in a similar manner towards Aradia as she does to Tavros. She is angry that she can't make amends by relaying Equius' Aradiabot gift to her and absolutely pissed at the fact that Aradia holds no ill will towards her and is not even the slightest bit perturbed by her bad behavior - that is, until Aradia receives her robot body with prosthetic emotions, goes to the Land of Maps and Treasure, and brutally beats Vriska. After Aradia reaches godtier and Vriska's death, she and Vriska appear to be on better terms.

Karkat Vantas

The relationship between Vriska and Karkat is one of the oddest among the trolls. While Karkat's initial reactions were to hate her because of her being a vile backstabber, their relationship changed over time. As the two most outspoken trolls among the twelve, the self proclaimed leader and the self proclaimed best fighter, they often talk on equal terms about winning the game, mostly squabbling with each other while enjoying it. Vriska often takes pleasure flirting with Karkat while Karkat continuously insults her much to her joy, and Karkat continuously tries to get a rise out of her while giving her relationship advice and criticisms, causing Vriska to act bored and say stop watching movies for girls, cementing her tomboy personality. Since they both have traits similar to John, it's natural that they drive each other up the wall.

Nepeta Leijon

Her relationship with Nepeta is largely made up of failed attempts at friendship. Vriska enjoys roleplaying with Nepeta, yet since Vriska scares her, she refuses to when she does 'mean things' during roleplay, which makes Vriska unusually sad, possibly because Terezi also does relatively mean or morbid things while roleplaying with Nepeta, yet she still likes it. Nepeta also seems horrified at the thought of Karkat and Vriska becoming matesprits, due to her flushed-crush on Karkat.

Kanaya Maryam

She does appear to hold a degree of affection for Kanaya, one of the few trolls that'll give her the time of day. Vriska regards her as both a meddley meddler meddlefriend and a lousy st8pid godd8mn supportive fri8nd. Kanaya is or was Vriska's moirail, although Kanaya seems to desire something a bit redder and is visually shaken when Vriska attempts to seduce Tavros. In the Veil, she notes that Kanaya had been acting aloof towards her, and expresses a desire to mend their friendship, complaining about how she misses the others fussing over her; however, she is still totally ignorant as to why Kanaya is acting that way towards her. She believes that Kanaya had a crush on Tavros, and helped amputate his legs as vengeance for him "going for" Vriska. It would seem that after Kanaya's return as a rainbow drinker and her subsequent ass-kicking of the 3x Showdown Combo, her redder feelings for Vriska are finally requited Following Vriska's death/prevented death through the retcon, Vriska and Kanaya appear to have put aside any feelings for one another, largely due to Kanaya's relationship with Rose. Vriska admits to being amused by Kanaya's refusal to hide the fact that she is very content with her relationship.

Equius Zahhak

Vriska's behavior seems to be very similar to that of her neighbor Equius. Both have addictions to breaking a specific thing: Vriska's breaks "Black Oracles" (Magic Eight Balls) and Equius destroys bows, which he attempts to use but ends up breaking as a result of his freakish strength. They both comment that the addiction borders on being fetishistic and that addictions are a powerful thing. Not only that, they collaborate on a gift for Aradia, the Soulbot, which they claim to intend to deliver jointly. Both plan on backstabbing each other eventually and presenting the gift as their own. Interestingly, and unlike many of the other trolls, Equius doesn't hold any particular grudge against Vriska and seems to consider her deceptive, violent demeanor to be socially appropriate, even encouraging her to harass their lower-caste friends. Also, he does not appear harbor any ill feelings towards Vriska's murder of his love interest, Aradia, possibly meaning that he is glad that Aradia was killed since it gave him the opportunity to resurrect her with a more noble blood color. Vriska appears to become somewhat infatuated by Equius when he becomes prototyped with Dirk's auto-responder.

Eridan Ampora

Further complicating matters is Vriska's status as Eridan's former kismesis. Unlike Terezi, who (sometimes) had to be tricked into murdering other trolls through deception, Eridan wholeheartedly supported Vriska's reign of terror. Eridan benefited from this arrangement, of course, as he could slaughter the lusus of defeated trolls in order to feed them to Feferi's lusus. He seems to take his kismesissitude with Vriska rather seriously and is anxious about his performance in the role. Conversely, Vriska's feelings on the matter are largely unknown, though it is likely that any feelings she had/has for Eridan are overshadowed by her feelings for Tavros. After the trolls fled into the Veil, Vriska tells Eridan that she no longer has any interest in a black relationship with him.

Meenah Peixes

Prior to the retcon, Vriska and Meenah were initially rivals due to their mutually rambunctious and abrasive personalities. However after dueling it out and likely some pacification from Vriska's dancestor, they quickly become better acquainted, and the two join forces to lure Lrd English through the Furthest Ring and form an army to fight him. After Aranea breaks away from the group in an effort to take over the B2 session, both Vriska and Meenah were left despondent and mortified over their mutual friend's betrayal, losing interest in her. Their relationship improves from there and eventually transitions into a flushed engagement. However Meenah, seeing how this version of Vriska has changed, starts growing bored of her and her own existence as a ghost. When the Vriska born of the new-retcon comes to collect the Ulitmate Weapon, Meenah takes the chance to break it off with the pre-retcon Vriska and follow her elder, alive counterpart in their renewed effort to defeat Lrd English once and for all.

Meenah later shows some interest in the post-retcon Vriska, considering this version's comparatively advanced age as being more respectable. Post-retcon Vriska appears to show similar interest after Meenah does a final speech to inspire the renewed ghost army.

Aranea Serket

Vriska initially had a very positive relationship towards her dancestor, largely due to their shared admiration for Aranea's post-scratch counterpart, Mindfang. The two shared a very sisterly bond and started being influenced by the other's behavior, with Vriska taking a greater interest in storytelling and Aranea becoming more daring and confident. However, their relationship was far from perfect, as Aranea grew frustrated with the teasing she received from Vriska and Meenah, and was thoroughly fed up with being long dead and irrelevant. Once Aranea learned of the Ring of Life, and its mysterious ability to restore life to the dead, she begun hatching a plan to take over the B2 session, use her advanced powers as a Sylph of Light (with help from Jake English's Page of Hope abilities) to turn the altered session into the Alpha session, and prevent Caliborn from ever existing. This plan failed spectacularly and Aranea died to never be seen again. Vriska and Meenah were left despondent after Aranea's betrayal and eventually lose interest in their plans to kill Lord English, largely due to the loss if their most powerful psychic.

Following the retcon, it appears that Vriska never met her dancestor, or at the very least, never formed any significant bond with her.

Jake English

Vriska treats Jake similarly to show she treats Tavros. She is rude towards him, calling him "Joke" or "Jape", often insulting him and comparing him to Tavros. It is of note that Tavros and Jake are both Pages in Sburb. After she successfully gets him to create Gcatavrosprite, she claims him to be a lot smarter than people give [him] credit for, though this is most likely due to him going along with her ideas. Interestingly, Vriska treats Jake similarly to how she treated Jade before she godtiered.

Arquiusprite

Following the events of the retcon, Vriska grows to be very infatuated with Arquiusprite, treating him similarly to how Dave and most other characters regard WV.

Other Characters

She has almost no relationship whatsoever with Sollux, Vriska just greets him with childish taunts. Since she used him to kill Aradia, Sollux wants nothing to do with her.

Similarly, she has almost no relationship with Gamzee although she found it a little cute that Gamzee was scared of her and honest about it.

Her relationship with Feferi seems to be one of a loose kinship. They tease each other and Vriska is actually impressed by her cleverness every so often. It is possible that she calls Feferi awesome because of her upbeat personality despite the fact she had a similar but less unfortunate fate of feeding her lusus.

She has little interest in interacting with Rose, finding her demeanor and sarcasm somewhat off-putting. During the post-retcon meteor trip, Vriska naturally became the leader of the group and was largely responsible for getting Rose to quit drinking. Rose describes Vriska as an incredible bitch but a necessary one.

During the events of the B1 session, Vriska viewed Jade as useless and a liability to her group, treating her similarly to how Karkat did. Jade was a constant victim of Vriska's mental abilities with Vriska being largely responsibly for Jade's apparent narcolepsy. She compared Jade to Tavros: unintelligent and aggravatingly passive. However, Vriska does admit that Jade's refusal of Tavros' advances was admirable. Vriska's view on Jade becomes more neutral after the three year trip, instead starting to view her as a threat due to the combination of Jade's first guardian abilities and mental vulnerability to the Condesce's mind control abilities.

Trivia

Pardon the esoteric tangent. It's hard to

resist prattling on about matters like this.

While trivia sections are fine, it might be a good idea to merge some of this material into relevant sections of the main text, because this trivia section is bloated.

In particular:

The trivia should be divided; one part concerning about allusions in her god tier; etc.

Her action of blinding Terezi fits with her role as a literal Thief of Light .

Her role as a Thief may be an ironic reference to the Eighth Commandment, which is "Thou shalt not steal".

According to Chinese culture, wearing red shoes is said to bring good luck. This may tie with Vriska's love for red footwear and her role as one who "steals" luck.

Some of Vriska's theme songs have names based on the Chrysanthemum flower, which is the representative flower for Scorpio, her zodiac sign.

Vriska having blue blood may be an allusion to spiders and scorpions, which have blue "blood", or Hemolymph.

Vriska's injuries equate to precisely half of what she caused to other players: losing one eye (to Terezi's two), one limb (to Tavros's two) and dying in the old timeline (to Aradia and Tavros' deaths).

The pattern on Vriska's god tier wings mirrors her eyes, with one having one large dot and the other having seven smaller ones.

Both Tavros and John, whom Vriska seemed to have had flushed feelings for, were Heroes of Breath. Oxygen (relating to Breath) is the 8th element, with 8 protons, 8 neutrons, and 8 electrons.

Vriska is depicted on "XVI: The Tower" as well on the "King of Swords" (with the rest of the red team) card in the Homestuck tarot deck. She is featured on the "Eight of Swords" card as well, and is also on the "Five of Wands" card with most of the pre-act six cast.

Vriska's exile, Snowman, uses a lance - the same weapon Tavros Nitram uses. Inversely, Hearts Boxcars, Tavros' exile, uses dice, Vriska's weapon of choice.

Even though she considers Union Jack as a threat, Vriska enabled his ascension by not preventing it with time travel.

As featured and introduced here, Vriska has an Instagram account

In addition to this, 8 is a lucky number in Chinese culture, relating to prosperity and wealth, fitting in with Vriska's great fortune.

The Chrysanthemum flower is also the national flower of Japan, which is also known as the Land of the Rising Sun, tying in with her Light aspect.

Vriska's eightfold eye is shaped like an asterisk, which is located on the 8 key of a keyboard. Also, "asterisk" contains 8 letters.

Her appearance on the Tower, a card that can be interpreted as a moment in which everything changes, references the multiple diverging timelines caused by her mortality.

This proves to be crucial to the main timeline, however, as his defeat brought Caliborn's denizen and Gamzee to future Earth.

#beaksweek #beaksweek2019 #beaksweek19 #vrisska #riss #vrisska deserket #heterosexuality

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richmeganews · 6 years ago

Text

The Revolutionary Discovery of a Distributed Virus

It is a truth universally acknowledged among virologists that a single virus, carrying a full set of genes, must be in want of a cell. A virus is just a collection of genes packaged into a capsule. It infiltrates and hijacks a living cell to make extra copies of itself. Those daughter viruses then bust out of their ailing host, and each finds a new cell to infect. Rinse, and repeat. This is how all viruses, from Ebola to influenza, are meant to work.

But Stéphane Blanc and his colleagues at the University of Montpellier have shown that one virus breaks all the rules.

Faba bean necrotic stunt virus, or FBNSV for short, infects legumes, and is spread through the bites of aphids. Its genes are split among eight segments, each of which is packaged into its own capsule. And, as Blanc’s team have now shown, these eight segments can reproduce themselves, even if they infect different cells. FBNSV needs all of its components, but it doesn’t need them in the same place. Indeed, it seems that this virus never fully comes together. It is always distributed, its existence spread between different capsules and split among different host cells.

“This is truly a revolutionary result in virology,” says Siobain Duffy from Rutgers University, who wasn’t involved in the study. “Once again, viruses prove that they’ve had the evolutionary time to try just about every reproductive strategy, even ones that are hard for scientists to imagine.”

Read: [How viruses cooperate to defeat CRISPR]

FBNSV is one of several “multipartite viruses” that split their genes between different capsules. These oddballs were first discovered in the 1940s, and though they account for around 20 percent of known viral species, they’re still rather obscure. Blanc thinks that’s because they almost always infect plants and fungi, and only two have been found in animals—one in a moth and one in a mosquito. “I lecture on several virology courses, and even people in PhD programs haven’t heard of them,” he laments. “They’re everywhere but because they’re mainly on plants, no one cares.”

These viruses have always been baffling, even to virologists who knew about them. Everyone assumed that they could only reproduce if all the segments infected the same host cell. But the risk of losing a piece, and so dooming the others, skyrockets as the number of pieces goes up. In 2012, two researchers calculated that the odds of successfully getting every segment in the same cell becomes too low with anything more than three or four segments. FBNSV, with its eight segments, “should never have evolved,” Blanc says. Its mere existence suggests “that something must be wrong in the conceptual framework of virology.”

Perhaps, he realized, these viruses don’t actually need to unite their segments in the same host cell. “If theory was saying that this is impossible, maybe the viruses just don’t do it,” he says. “And once we had this stupid idea, testing it was very easy.”

His colleagues Anne Sicard and Elodie Pirolles labelled pairs of FBNSV’s genes with molecules that glowed in different colors—red for one segment, for example, and green for another. Then, they simply looked down a microscope to see whether the colors overlapped in the same cells. They almost never did. When the team first saw that, “we were jumping and running around the lab,” says Blanc. “But we were also scared about it being a [mistake]. We took six years to verify it.”

For example, they showed that the levels of one segment aren’t tied to the levels of another, as you would expect if they were replicating in the same host cell. Instead, in any one infected plant, the different segments seem to accumulate at different rates.

But that discovery raised another problem. Each of the eight segments carries a gene with its own vital role. One makes the proteins that copy the virus’s DNA once it gets inside its hosts. Another creates the proteins that form the virus’s capsules. See the problem? If these segments end up in different cells, the DNA-copying one shouldn’t be able to make capsules, the capsule-making gene shouldn’t be able to copy itself, and both of them would be stuck.

That doesn’t happen, the team discovered, because the virus’s genes might be stuck in neighboring cells, but the proteins created by those genes can move. The capsule-making protein can get into a cell with the DNA-copying gene, and cover it. The DNA-making protein can get into a cell with the capsule-making gene, and copy it. Think of the eight segments as factories located in different cities, shipping assembly robots between each other so that each site can manufacture its own separate product. It is within this expansive trade network that the distributed virus truly exists.

Read: [The oldest virus ever sequenced comes from a 7,000-year-old tooth]

It’s not clear how this network operates, but many scientists have found that plant proteins can voyage between cells, even over long distances from root to shoot. Some researchers who study multipartite viruses have even suggested that they could make use of these botanical highways. But Blanc’s team have now found clear and unambiguous evidence that they do so. Perhaps, he says, “this is why multipartite viruses don’t exist so much in animals. Maybe it’s harder for our proteins to travel between cells.”

“The work is very important… and very carefully done,” says Marilyn Roossinck from Pennsylvania State University. For decades, she has been studying a different multipartite virus that affects cucumbers, and though she has seen some of the patterns that Blanc’s team did, “these were never published as their significance wasn’t clear,” she says.

“This report challenges a fundamental assumption of virology,” adds Rodrigo Almeida at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies plant diseases. “I am not aware of any similar example in biology, where genetic information appears to be split among host cells.”

The closest example I can think of exists in cicadas. These noisy insects rely a bacterium called Hodgkinia, which lives inside their cells and provides them with nutrients. But this one bacterium has fractured into several daughter species, each of which contains just a few of Hodgkinia’s full set of genes. None of these partial microbes can survive on their own; they only function as a set. But these daughter species are all still locked within the same cell, so they’re not truly distributed as the virus is. They are also problematic: If any of them were to disappear, the rest would also die out, as would their cicada host. Hodgkinia’s fragmented existence is a looming disaster—“a slow-motion extinction event,” according to John McCutcheon, who described it.

By contrast, multipartite viruses are clearly very successful, so there must be some benefit to their bizarre distributed existences. And Blanc thinks he knows what that might be.

His team have shown that when FBNSV infects a plant, the frequency of each segment is very predictable. Some of them are common and others are rare, but their relative proportions are constant, at least within a given species of plant. If the virus infects a different plant species, those proportions change—to a different but still predictable pattern. Blanc calls these “genome formulas”—ratios of genes that FBNSV uses for different hosts.

The virus’s use of these formulas reminds Blanc of the ways in which animals and other complex organisms adapt to different environments by tweaking the numbers of important genes. In very rough terms, the more copies you have, the more effectively that gene can do its thing. But viruses are tiny entities, whose capsules only have room for small genomes. There’s not enough space for them to just wantonly double their gene counts.

Multipartite viruses don’t have to. If they want to emphasize the use of a certain gene, they just need to get the segment carrying it into more host cells. “This lifestyle allows the virus to adjust its gene copy number without mutating,” Blanc says. It’s as if FBSNV has found a way to have the flexibility of a much larger and more complex genome while still keeping the unflinching efficiency of a virus.

Read: [The viruses that eavesdrop on their hosts]

These discoveries could also change our understanding of other more traditional viruses. Influenza’s genome is split into 8 segments, and unlike FBSNV, all of these are packaged into the same capsule. Researchers typically assume that every capsule contains the full octet, but in 2013, Christopher Brooke from the University of Illinois showed that 90 percent of them are missing at least one segment. Influenza virus “exists primarily as a swarm of complementation-dependent, semi-infectious virions,” Brooke wrote.

Three years later, a different team showed that the same is true for the virus behind Rift Valley fever: Only a minority contain all three of the virus’s gene segments, and most are missing one. “Perhaps the boundary between these viruses and the multipartite ones isn’t so clear,” Blanc says.

Many viruses also produce capsules called “defective interfering particles,” which… well, the clue’s in the name. They’re defective because, for some reason, they’ve lost part of their full genome. They’re interfering because, though they’re defective, their parent viruses will still make copies of them, flooding the total pool of capsule with non-infective deadbeats. “These things have been known for a century, and they’ve long been considered as junk,” says Blanc. “But they are very efficiently maintained in any viral infection. Maybe they can profit from the system we have identified.”

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