#also reminds me of a certain young kennedy boy

[strryhaze]

young jackie also having the same contemplative, remote, almost fey, expression on her face.

makes me think of when jfk asked her, “penny for your thoughts?” and jackie wittily replied back by saying, “if i told them to you, they wouldn’t be mine, would they, jack?”

a queen lol.

At the time of this 1957 Frissell photo, Jackie was seven months pregnant. Jackie and John’s first pregnancy had ended in stillbirth one year earlier (a daughter), and the photographer seems to have captured Jackie in a moment of quiet if enigmatic, reflection. Happily, two months later, Jackie gave birth to Caroline, now the only still-living member of the John F. Kennedy family.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 08/05/2021 (Billie Eilish, DJ Khaled)

Whilst this is slightly busier than last week, I am genuinely surprised with how little is actually going on here on this week’s chart, a lot less than I expected or predicted. With that said, the top of the chart is where our biggest story comes from and that is “Body” by Russ Millions and Tion Wayne taking advantage of a weak chart with its star-studded remix and peaking at #1 for its first week, replacing Lil Nas X’s “MONTERO (Call Me by Your Name)”. Not only is it the biggest hit for both of these guys and their first #1s, but it’s the first #1 for the entire UK drill genre, which kind of came out of nowhere for me since I think the song’s pretty worthless but with a TikTok challenge and streaming numbers that have even placed it in the American Spotify chart, it’s gearing up to be one of the biggest British rap songs ever. Let’s hope maybe this one doesn’t stall out as badly as “Don’t Rush” outside of the UK. With all that out of the way, let’s start REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

Our only new arrival from last week’s UK Top 75 (which is what I cover), “Come Through” by H.E.R. featuring Chris Brown, is gone on the next off of the debut. Well, at least we have more than one new song this week, as well as some interesting chart nonsense lower down, but also some notable drop-outs for “Mr. Perfectly Fine” by Taylor Swift, “Mercury” by Dave and Kamal., “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” by Drake featuring Rick Ross, “All You Ever Wanted” by Rag’n’Bone Man (which will rebound next week as that album makes its impact) as well as “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles finally making what seems to be its last exit. Our only return is in the form of “Confetti” by Little Mix getting a massive surge back at #15 after its Saweetie remix and the attached music video, though Saweetie doesn’t happen to be credited here.

We do have an interesting selection of gains and losses, as with the notable fallers – dropping five spots or more down the chart – we have “Titanium” by Dave at #23, “Wellerman” by Nathan Evans and remixed by 220 KID and Billen Ted getting ACR’d down to #29 (it had a surprisingly great run), “The Business” by Tiesto having the same happen to it at #32, “We’re Good” by Dua Lipa at #40, “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo at #43, “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd at #45, “Don’t Play” by Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals at #51, “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay and 6LACK hit hard to #54, the same with “Up” by Cardi B at #59, “You” by Regard, Troye Sivan and Tate McRae shaking off the gains #63, “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd at #60, “Heat” by Paul Woolford and Amber Mark at #66, “Solid” by Young Stoner Life, Young Thug and Gunna featuring Drake at #69, “Paradise” by MERDUZA and Dermot Kennedy at #71 and, sadly, “How Does it Feel” by London Grammar at #75.

Where it gets a bit more telling about how the charts are going to adapt into the Summer is in our climbers as we have solid gains for “Another Love” by Tom Odell making another run at #60, “Sunshine (The Light)” by Fat Joe, DJ Khaled and Amorphous inexplicably at #57 and now we get into the top 40 where we have more potential future hits. “Way Too Long” by Nathan Dawe, Anne-Marie and MoStack is at #38, “Don’t You Worry About Me” brings the Bad Boy Chiller Crew their first hit at #37 (although the song is only ever worth hearing for that chorus) and “WITHOUT YOU” by the Kid LAROI returns to the top 40 at #30 thanks to a remix with Miley Cyrus who is again not credited by the Official Charts Company. Boney M. are granted their first new top 20 hit since the 1990s, even if it is just a remix of a song that went #2 in 1978, as Majestic’s remix of “Rasputin” is at #18. Our final gain is for a song first entering the top 10 thanks to the remix with Ariana Grande finally making an impact – yet once again not given the official credit by the OCC – as “Save Your Tears” by the Weeknd makes its way up to #8, becoming his tenth top 10 hit here in Britain. That’s not the only song to first enter the top 10 this week but we’ll get to that in due time with our... odd selection of new arrivals this week.

NEW ARRIVALS

#73 – “EVERY CHANCE I GET” – DJ Khaled featuring Lil Baby and Lil Durk

Produced by DJ Khaled and Tay Keith

Two of our new entries are from DJ Khaled’s most recent album Khaled Khaled, an album much like any Khaled album I found cheap and just dull. This record especially is just mixed horribly, with a budget spent exceedingly on getting big-name features instead of any worthwhile engineers to actually mix and master this 50-minute trainwreck. The album doesn’t have many highlights at all but if I had to choose some they would be the two debuting this week, the first of which is basically a Lil Baby cut, “EVERY CHANCE I GET”, with a verse from Lil Durk. Okay, so, yes, first of all, much like the rest of the record, this mix is compressed and just weak, with bizarre bass mastering and drums that sound like garbage, before we get to Lil Baby himself sounding even froggier than ever. I do think that gives the song part of its charm, though, as with a Tay Keith beat, it’s definitely going for a hardcore, old-school Memphis rap atmosphere, and with Lil Baby’s flow switches disguising paranoid lyrics about the typical gunplay and flexing, it does effectively make a pretty intimidating listen... okay, well, it would, if DJ Khaled didn’t have to pop in to convince Lil Baby to “keep going”. We also get a single verse from Lil Durk here, mixed like he recorded his vocals in his bath to the point where it’s clipping against the bass, but delivering a King Von-esque flow that sounds pretty great, and admittedly more detail than you’d expect. I also love that silly “mmm-mmm” flow he uses at the end. I do wish a song like this, clearly supposed to be menacing, did not have the ludicrous personality void that is DJ Khaled on it, and it’s not like they need Khaled to collaborate together – or with Tay Keith for that matter – so I don’t really see why the dude doesn’t just shut up and promote his albums as compilations instead. I understand it comes from his mixtape days, but if this is going to be a studio album, treat it like one and just be quiet for once.

#72 – “Oblivion” – Royal Blood

Produced by Royal Blood

Royal Blood got the #1 album this week for Typhoons and admittedly, whilst I am interested in this band, I haven’t gotten around to listening to it, so I’ll take this album cut as a preview of what to come. If I am doing that, I hope to be surprised by whatever else that album has in store as I’m not really a fan of this. That eerie choppy guitar loop being immediately crushed by this heavily distorted riff and stiff percussion just does not sound unique or interesting, especially if Mike Kerr is going to sound this soulless. The build towards the chorus feels pretty pathetic and unwarranted, and said chorus is just not catchy, before we get to content about how he knows his fate through how arrogant he’s been and he deserves what’s coming to him. I mean, sure, but there’s nothing that makes it obvious that these guys don’t care about what’s coming to them given the pained vocal delivery and monotonous instrumental. It doesn’t feel exciting, rebellious or whatever emotion this tries and fails to capture, just stiff and staggered in its execution. This does make sense for Royal Blood but seems to me like they’re resting way too heavily on ideas ran through the soil at this point. With all that said, this isn’t bad at all, just not as great as those other singles have been from the record. I think I’d be more forgiving if it didn’t come off as a Queens of the Stone Age tribute act writing “originals” that bomb at their shows.

#56 – “love race” – Machine Gun Kelly featuring Kellin Quinn

Produced by Jeff Peters, Jared Gudstadt and Travis Barker

I guess this might actually be a rock-heavy week – not that I’m complaining about more of a rock presence on the chart but God, I wish it wasn’t coming from MGK. I’ll have some choice words to say about this guy’s last attempt at a pop-rock hit by the end of the year, probably, but at least for this song he brought on someone with some kind of legitimacy. Kellin Quinn is the frontman of post-hardcore band Sleeping with Sirens, one of the most successful bands in their genre but not one unlike others that grew out of the metalcore-infused pop rock to anything more unique or experimental. With that said, Quinn is barely here and other than Travis Barker’s typical explosive drums, MGK is the biggest presence here in his raspy but borderline unlistenable vocal tone that I just can’t stand, especially if it’s going to stretch out “run” as long and as far as he did in that longing, desperate chorus. MGK barely even lets Kellin Quinn have his own verse, registering him as backing vocals throughout the entire song, dampening his vocals that sound a lot more unique and enthused, especially when he starts screaming. That bridge did give me trancecore flashbacks – not that I’m complaining if I’m fully honest – so I’ll admit the part of me that eats up emo-pop garbage did let this grow on me a bit, but, man, without a guitar solo to distract from pretty awful lyrics (not that I’d expect much more from this artist or genre) and without really letting Quinn loose on the vocals, it’s lacking a certain grit and punch I expect from post-hardcore. The song did, however, indirectly remind me of New Found Glory, for which I am thankful for.

#53 – “I DID IT” – DJ Khaled featuring Post Malone, Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Baby and DaBaby

Produced by Ben Billions, Joe Zarrillo, DJ 360, Tay Keith and DJ Khaled

You wouldn’t expect an artist line-up like this to continue this trend of rock in this week’s new arrivals, but you’d be surprised, and personally I’m pretty happy with how much rock seems to be creeping up back into the public consciousness as if there’s one thing I got back in touch with the most over lockdown, it was the rock music I was raised on and it led to me even further appreciating a genre I had kind of lost touch with over the years out of just a lack of interest. With that said, this isn’t a rock song per se, but it does heavily and lazily sample a classic like much of this Khaled album, going for “Layla” by Derek and the Dominos. I’m not going to lie, either, it sets up a pretty effective back-bone for a trap banger about being awesome, especially with those squealing riffs in the chorus. Oh, yeah, and the mixing is horrible as expected, but to be honest to me it does not dampen the boasting, anthemic nature of this track, especially with Post Malone being a perfect choice to croon that infectious chorus. Megan Thee Stallion has a pretty embarrassingly by-the-numbers verse over a switch in the beat that makes it sound oddly stunted, but she does have that swinging rock charisma that people like Lil Baby do not have. With that said, I think I’m at the point where I eat anything Lil Baby says or does, because the flow switches combined with his frog-throat delivery is just impeccable. Content-wise, I think everyone here realises they’re being squashed by the clipping beat as they just go off about complete nonsense that goes in one ear and out the other apart from Lil Baby’s misguided but still pretty funny line about how he contemplated going vegan but sees no point in it because he’s got ten karats in both of his ears. Sure. At least DJ Khaled as something to do as he... harmonises, I guess, with Posty on the chorus. DaBaby is as distant as possible from the microphone to the point where I can barely hear him, not that it matters when his verse is that basic and short. This is kind of a trainwreck in all honesty, but with four choruses and a beat this heavy, it’s hard to be annoyed by it. Overwhelming maybe but these performers are all characters by themselves and throwing them in this three-minute chaos of squealing guitars and trap skitters just fascinates me if anything. Does it count as a posse cut? I don’t know. Either way, this is hilarious.

#5 – “Your Power” – Billie Eilish

Produced by FINNEAS

Decidedly not hilarious is this new single from Billie Eilish looking to be a smash from that upcoming album which now has a track listing and release date, with this functioning as I suppose the true lead single and her seventh top 10 here in the UK. It’s a brave choice too considering the lyrical content which is a pretty scathing attack on her ex-boyfriend and their abusive relationship, making several references to the gap in age and power dynamic that played into something really distressing for the both of them but especially a young, vulnerable Billie Eilish who found herself helpless in this relationship because of that “hero” quickly revealing himself as little more than his projected insecurities. The song’s detailed enough not to detach itself from Billie’s personal struggles but also works as what I suppose is a warning, as it’s retelling a story all too familiar with many girls of her age at the time who end up in these really scary situations. It does help that the song itself is great, relying on these layered acoustic guitars to form some kind of dejected groove behind Eilish’s vocals, whispery and cooing as always but in this case way too loud in the mix for my taste to the point where it kind of takes me out of the song as a whole. With a better master that blends her vocal take a lot better into the guitars, maybe going for a fuzzier, dream-pop angle, could work a lot better but with that said, I do understand the purpose of making it feel this intimate and minimal because Billie’s honest songwriting calls for a delivery like this, even if she ends up sounding shakier or even mumbling at times as a result. This is a big debut for Billie for a song not prepared to do as well as it did given its content and sound that is not exactly radio-friendly and oftentimes requires more heavy of a listen than a pop song would otherwise. I do love that final outro as her humming careens off the gentle guitars with just enough scratch but I do question how abrupt the ending is. Hopefully when the album’s out, we’ll have a bigger picture to as where this single in particular fits in.

Conclusion

With only five new arrivals and not much in the way of anything bad, I guess Worst of the Week goes to “Oblivion” by Royal Blood but giving a Dishonourable Mention would just end up as dishonest. Therefore, Best of the Week goes to Billie Eilish for “Your Power” but – and I cannot believe I am saying this for a 3/10 album with only fluke hits – but DJ Khaled – and Lil Baby for that matter – get a tied Honourable Mention for both of their songs, “EVERY CHANCE THAT I GET” with Lil Durk and “I DID IT” with Post Malone, Megan Thee Stallion and DaBaby. Now to distract from the fact I just did that, here’s this week’s top 10:

I can’t really make any healthy predictions for next week. Maybe we’ll get some songs from Lil Tecca, Rag’n’Bone Man or Bebe Rexha? Maybe we’ll end up with some fluke Weezer smash hit, who knows? Regardless, thank you for reading and I’ll see you next week.

[inmyarmswrappedin]

Could you give your opinion in al the Noora’s adaptations? I was really interested in what you wrote about Zoe and Manon. My personal favorite is Nora from Spain, Liv from NL could have been a second... but that wedding dress scene is so bad.

Another anon:  Since I’m sure you definitely want to keep talking about the Noora’s, haha, just curious if there is a remake of her that you’d say was your fave?

Third anon:  Ardi, have you ever ranked the nooras? Because I would love to read all your opinions lol

ಠ_ಠ

I can’t say I was expecting this lol, like I thought I’d reflect on the first anon’s ask for a bit, but then I got two more. I find it a bit surprising that people still want to discuss the original characters and their remakes in this the year of the lord 2021. Especially Noora of all characters lol. (Like I said elsewhere, I’m pleased because there are some orig gen topics I want to pick back up this year, so I’m glad people aren’t tired of all this yet.)

I do have to say as a disclaimer that I find Noora’s season very upsetting to watch, so I didn’t bother watching most of their remake seasons. I watched eskam because they got rid of the major issues I had with Noorhelm in s1, such as the pregnancy scare and William coercing Vilde into not using a condom. Then I watched Grace’s season because I wanted to give them views and ensure a renewal. 😭

As a result I’m not going to rank the Nooras, because I feel a bit weird about ranking characters whose seasons I didn’t watch, you feel? I do have opinions on the characters of course, because they show up in other seasons, and I know the gist of what happened in most their seasons because of the typical dashboard watching. I also like... Look, I know the Nooras are very much you either hate or love them, and I generally don’t mind being blunt about the characters I don’t like, but somehow all this Noora discourse made me feel like I was taking shots at a bunch of teen girls (fictional, but still). 

(I had to cut this because it was so much.)

Noora - The thing about Noora is that I was never the intended audience. I’ve never really been into the tropes that make up her love story, like the good girl who says no when she’s actually dying to say yes, the bad boy with the fridged sister, the pregnancy scare, the pathetic friend/jealous shrew who’s only there to make the good girl feel bad, etc. These story elements don’t titillate me or make me interested, they turn me off a story completely. And I just never saw it coming that Noora’s endgame would be the asshole who had stepped so thoroughly over Vilde’s self-esteem. So like... I spent Noora’s whole season (every season after hers, even!) wishing something would happen that made Noora realize she deserved better than William,

Also, one thing about Noora that many of her remakes inherited is that she just doesn’t seem like a regular part of the show. Her friends’ problems don’t affect her in the slightest, she isn’t an actual part of the squad like the others. After her season she takes off for London or the US or to build houses for Habitat for Humanity or whatever, and she only drops by to break up and reconcile with William some more. Like I can’t buy her as a high schooler when after a certain point she’s just like, “I came back from Manhattan and I need a place to stay because Henry is too busy with the stock market to fulfill my needs.” I’m sorry what???? Is this a high school show or Desperate Housewives.

Manon - already talked about her here.

Mia - I’m going to try to be brief because there’s so much to say about her lmao. I feel like the reason Mia is bisexual is because Alex Lindh watched Skam and felt betrayed that Eva and Noora didn’t get together. Making Mia bi was his way to make it make sense that Hanna and Mia would kiss in the end. Unfortunately, I don’t think he put any further thought on how Mia being bi would impact her character.  💔 I don’t think Mia and Alex make any sense as a couple, and I’m not so much surprised they broke up but more like how did they even manage to last that long? Also, I just kinda resent the way Alex Lindh made Alex such an asshole in s1 and the beginning of s2, that it necessitated a looooot more face time to make him likeable to the audience, so that s2 is more the Alex show than for any other William, to the point he gets the panic attack scene instead of Mia. I can’t really say for sure, but it feels like Alex is the most developed Druck LI and for what!!!

Elenonora - Look..... I know I said I don’t think of the Nooras as feminists, but like, Skam itself at least normalizes the idea that feminism is a good thing, you know? And yet, Skam Italia s1 makes such a concerted effort not to have Eleonora say anything too politically charged that I’m just like, okay, we don’t have to go all the way to the other extreme either. (I get the feeling this changes a bit in s3, but imo it was too thoughtlessly implemented.) All that said, the costume and makeup for Eleonora reminds me of Laura Pausini in her first era, so Bessegato has appealed to my 90s nostalgia lol. 

(I can’t be the only one who sees it, right??)

Grace - Grace is one of the few Nooras who does give me the vibe that she’s a full part of the squad. The Austin s2 writers were really good at incorporating the other girls in the squad into her season and involving Grace in the other girls’ problems. I actually really disliked Grace’s season when it started, but unlike a lot of other Skam seasons (and certainly a lot of Noora seasons), it kept getting better every week. I don’t care much for Grace (and Kennedy as a person didn’t help matters), but I do like how big a role the other girls play in her season.

Nora - Sooo I’m biased as fuck, but Nora is the only Noora for me. I think the eskam team did such a good job with the research into the young feminist movement that resulted from the Manada gangrape case. There are just so many Spanish teen girls like Nora, and giving her an older sister who was a SA victim herself was just such a great addition that made Nora even more in tune with the zeitgeist. Now, Nora did tend towards the performative, esp in s4, but I think even that is an accurate portrayal. I don’t think these young feminists are all activists, but they interiorized feminist discourse and applied it to their lives, and while woc were also part of this movement, I’m not sure that in the end they were actually listened to. (And the eskam team failing Amira when they did so right by the other 4, and even Inés and Lara, is certainly indicative of the kind of “feminists” they are.) All in all, I think Nora perfectly reflected 2016-2020 Spanish feminism, and for me she’ll always be a bit of a time capsule of this period, as well as a character I’d be ecstatic were she to become synonymous with Spain in foreign fans’ minds. Flaws in her feminism and all.

Liv - I have to say I don’t have many thoughts about Liv. I feel like, as a character she could’ve been such a game changer, on part with Nora Grace or Ava or Fatou, but the writing just wasn’t there. As in, I don’t think the Skam NL writer was particularly interested in the things Julie Andem did to break Noora out of the playing-hard-to-get mold, which is fair enough since it’s not like I love Noora myself, but then she didn’t substitute it with anything else either. I don’t think it’s on Zoë Love Smith, because the girl has charisma coming out of her pores, and I think she’s the only remake Noora who truly sold Noora’s introduction scene. I just feel like in the end Skam NL was more interested in making music videos than saying anything of substance, unfortunately. 

Zoë - already talked about her here. One thing I have to say about her is that I watched 7 versions of Noora calling William a cliche, but it didn’t hit me until wtfock’s take on the scene that Noora is as much of a cliche as William is. And that’s because Julie Andem’s writing elevated Noora to more than that, so that I didn’t think of Noora as a cliche. But the writing for Zoë never really did. I think that might be one of the reasons why Zoë and Senne are one of the most popular versions of Noorhelm, because they’re very much characters, they’re not really developed in a way that you feel like they could be real people you could know irl.

[notbemoved-blog]

Books, Books, Books

Lists are all the rage at the end of any year and this plague year is no exception. Since I’ve read a fair number of books by friends this past year or so, I thought I’d send out my “Goodreads” reviews of all three books that I’ve enjoyed with the hope of giving each a bit more recognition (and perhaps a bump in sales) in the New Year. The reviews are presented in the order that I reviewed them. All three books are available on Amazon or through your local independent bookstore. Also try IndieBound, the online independent bookseller. 

[End of Year Note: My apologies for not being more active on social media lately. I’m working on my own follow up to “We Shall Not Be Moved” and have tried to stay away from all forms of distraction, including social media. With any luck, my next project, the story of the Tougaloo Nine Library Sit-In, will be on its way to the publisher at the end of 2021.]

And now, for our 2020 BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS!

Wave On: A Surfing Story by Michael E.C. Gery

(Amazon Digital Services, 2018, 432 pages, Autobiographical Fiction)

[Reviewed August 2019]

"A wonderfully adept stoner’s diary for the boomer generation."

I was thoroughly enchanted with “Wave On” from beginning to end. Even when I wasn’t sure exactly where we were going, the ride was exhilarating. Perhaps it was because I knew many of the places where the action takes place: Williamsburg, the Outer Banks, Annapolis, Ocean City, College Park, and even The Who concert back in 1971 [or was it ’70?] at Merriweather Post Pavilion, which I also happened to attend!! I read very little fiction but a fair amount of biography and memoir, and I must say that I rarely find a work of fiction that is as engaging and heart-driven as “Wave On.”

Part One is a pure, lovely, romantic love story that is contemporaneous with our early adulthood and, thus, easy for me to put myself in the shoes of Cro as he tries to navigate the strictures of young adulthood in a laissez-faire new world of the mid-1960s. The fact that he has been schooled at an Episcopalian Boys school and loves all of those old hymns and prayers makes it all the more real for me, having attended a 4-year Catholic high school seminary. Cro’s goofiness, uncertainty, and (initial) shyness around women also resonated.

What I loved about Part One is that Gery establishes a voice for Cro, the Narrator, that is immediate, engaging, alive, and consistent throughout the entire novelization of what I believe is Gery’s young adult life. (A new term I just picked up--“autofiction” i.e., autobiographical fiction--seems to apply here.) Cro is so normal in his struggles to understand how the world works, so honest in his mistakes, so in love with his environment—the ocean, the waves, the shore—that he makes us love them, too, perhaps a bit more than we already do. But it is that voice that intrigued me throughout. No matter what kind of scrape Cro and his interesting band of friends and lovers gets into, there is a confidence that they are up to the challenge. [I must admit that Cro’s drift during Part Two with regard to his professional aspirations and even his family life was a bit baffling, but I came to think that the weed had a lot to do with his lack of ambition and direction.]

Part Two, of course, gets a bit more complicated as real life intervenes and our little Love Couple begins to encounter troubles from within and without. I hated to see that and was certain that Cro was going to lose his wonderful Ella and Adam and couldn’t see my way through to how it all might resolve, particularly when Maryanne enters the picture and the Neil Young Concert kiss betrays a problematic (if not fatal) flaw in our hero. But I suffered through all of that, wanting to see how it all came out in the end. Although there was no deus ex machina, the surprising turn of events that helps resolve these dramatic arcs is shocking yet consistent. It all made narrative sense and helped explain why we were taken on so many to such a happy ending.

“Wave On” is a wonderfully adept stoner’s diary for our boomer generation. I can’t wait for Gery’s next work of autofiction to continue the journey with him. 

 Hard Road South by Scott Gates

(Blue Ink Press, 2020, 254 pages, Fiction)

[Reviewed, May 2020] 

“A little jewel box of a novel.”

 “Hard Road South” is a little jewel box of a novel set during the early days of Reconstruction Virginia. This beautifully rendered tale imagines a naïve Connecticut Yankee—a former Union soldier—who travels South to visit and potentially settle in some of the lush foothills of the Shenandoah Valley where he once engaged the Confederate “enemy”. Hoping to find peace while helping to reform a culture that wishes to be left alone, our hero, one Solomon Dykes, finds fast friends but also fast enemies amidst the verdant pastures of his would-be Old Virginny Home.

An early scene sets the tone: A down on her luck woman is stopped in the town of Middleburg—the place that would become the enclave of the likes of millionaires John and Jackie Kennedy and Jack Kemp Cooke a century later—by some Union soldiers still on the scene occupying this “foreign” land to ensure compliance with Union directives. Her transgression? Wearing the Confederate uniform jacket of her dead husband. The three Confederate buttons on the jacket must be removed or she will be arrested and charged with treason. Such is the over-reach of conquering heroes.

Our damsel in distress is aided by the swift thinking of one Jeb Mosby, a local farmer, who pulls out his knife and gently removes the buttons so as to spare his life-long neighbor the embarrassment of arrest. “Such was life now,” Mosby observes. “Filled with reminders—small as they may seem—that life would not soon be returning to how he’d left it before the war.” It is small observations such as this that gives this book its charm and its weight. Representations of what life must have been like for the conquered South are constant reminders that the likes of Solomon Dykes were not at all welcome and most likely would be rebuffed should the opportunity arise. Scott Gates is new to novel writing, but you wouldn’t know it from his sharp eye for detail and his pacing. Gates gives his story and his characters plenty of room to breathe and develop while providing the reader with glimpses of the specifics of their war-torn lives. A Southerner by birth, Gates offers a sensibility of one trying to bridge the great divide while not shying away from the difficulties building that bridge might require. This is a tale for our time, as well, as our nation is once again fraught with deep divisions perhaps not seen since the ending of that great Civil War more than 150 years ago. We are stuck and unable to move forward until some fundamental rift gets settled. “Hard Road South” is a highly readable, thoroughly enjoyable yet cautionary tale for our time. Perhaps we can learn from the past and this time get things right. Perhaps … 

 Small Business Big Heart: How One Family Redefined the Bottom Line by Paul Wesslund

(Highway 61 Communications, 2020, 242 pages, Nonfiction)

[Reviewed, August 2020]

“Big-hearted Book Teaches That Care for Others = Good Business”

In the midst of a global health crisis—the worst we’ve seen in generations—and while we struggle as a country, as a people, to find our footing morally and culturally during a reductio ad absurdum political creep show, Small Business BIG HEART lands as a corrective, a balm to soothe frayed nerves and intemperate minds. That is not to say that this big-hearted book is pablum. No, the stories it brings are all too real—people who often have lost their way through drugs, alcohol, and bad choices; refugees who have fled horrific circumstances and are looking only to start a new life but can’t due to the stigma of being different; and one family in particular that is faced with its own dissolution as well as the loss of its dream of a thriving family business. The high-stakes rollercoaster ride that journalist Paul Wesslund takes us on is dizzying not only for its incredible highs and sometimes tragic lows, but also because it introduces a concept too often forgotten … no, disregarded … in modern business life—what corporate governance experts would call “the duty of CARE.”

Sal and Cindy Rubino are two hard-working business owners who, through the course of their trials and tribulations, manage to hold on to the dream of a creating their own business from scratch while also enduring the inevitable personal strains that such a dream exacts. The two met and fell in love while working toward Hospitality Management business degrees in Miami, but the real story starts when they try and apply the lessons of their training in the difficult day-to-day drudgery of actually running their own restaurant—simply named “The Café”—in an offbeat, run-down section of Louisville, Cindy’s hometown. It is here that their skills and wills are tested to the limits and each will have to adjust their visions to fit the realities not explored in textbooks. And it is here that their hearts will be broken, and then opened to the truths that adaptability and innovation can be applied not only to recipes and business models, but to the very people you employ and the methods you use to build a team for success.

Along the way, we meet all manner of broken individuals. The restaurant business is notorious for laying waste to lives due to its thankless dawn-to-dusk hours and the constant requirement to please the customer at all costs. Wesslund has an expert’s eye for the telling detail and the wrenching story line. [I found myself tearing up at any number of stories throughout this engaging, nonfiction tale.] His twenty years as editor-in-chief of Kentucky Living, the largest circulation monthly magazine within the state, shows in the well-drawn portraits of individuals from as far away as Bhutan and as near as Pricilla’s Place, a half-way house just a few blocks from the Café, where Cindy and Sal would find some of their best employees. Perhaps Wesslund’s (not to mention the Rubinos’) refusal to judge people by the standards of upwardly mobile middle-class values but instead, with extraordinary discernment, to look deeper into their souls to spot their special sparks and unique talents is the hallmark of this extraordinary book.

It is rare outside of evangelical circles to find a book that so openly espouses Christian principles, but Sal and Cindy make no bones about the fact that their faith community helped to save their marriage as well as their business, and Wesslund recounts the strength of those relationships and the power of religious inspiration with rare delicacy. Yet the book is not all seriousness and drama. We get, of all things, recipes (!) at the start of nearly every chapter—a creative way of introducing a new topic or the next development of this constantly churning story. And we are introduced to Cindy’s creative cooking style, to Sal’s winning smile and to their gracious, open approach to hospitality.

Small Business BIG HEART runs the gamut of the small business life cycle. It is a soup-to-nuts (literally) primer on the ups and downs of small business management. As such, it is tough medicine for anyone daring to think of creating their own start-up. Given that, however, it provides a deeply affecting microcosm of how we as a society—as a culture—might live if we, indeed, saw everyone we encountered as a member of our own family. It does not skimp on the tough decisions that must be made to keep a business afloat—the “tension between compassion and the bottom line”—but it provides a template on how to “run a business with heart”—where everyone can be a winner.

Wishing you a New Year full of new books, new ideas, new opportunities, new promise. 

[poetryandnightmaress]

Why I love... #1 Leon Scott Kennedy

Welcome to my first part of this series, in which I countdown reasons why I love my Romantic F/O’s. I’ll start with le baby-

(You can find all parts of this with the tag WhyILove )

This part will be divided into RE2, RE4 and REVendetta Leon, just so you know

RE2:

Have you seen this baby? I mean- HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BABY?

He’s so innocent, especially at the beginning of the game

He sees blood and is like “Something is wrong”.... Ye, baby, maybe somebody got hurt- is that bad?

He has such a beautiful face, ok? I wanna touch those cheeks sadkjsdjsa

He’s a good police boi. Any questions?

Young and baby, but has good muscles DAMN

Can and will protect everyone. I love that-

Fights for the good, has a golden heart and eskfjdesd

HE’S JUST PRECIOUS

AND HE IS INNOCENT

I LOVE HIM

Ok Akumu calm down

I bet his spirit animal is a cute dog

really calm and sweet, maybe a bit dorky sometimes but I luv-

Those eyes. He has pretty eyes-

Is strong enough to lift me up YES

RE4

Leon, can you tell us how you turned from baby to HOT HOT A FIRE BROKE LOOSE

Also he learned how to be sassy. I LOVE that.

Also also, beginning scene of Leon in the car. I WANNA SEE THE SCENE AGAIN DAMNIT

Strong boi with boo.bie straps and muscles. Defined. Muscles. AAAAAAAAAA

He just needs to mention he got “Special training” and I will faint

I mean, imagine this training. Then you know why this boi became so strong and WOAH

Is still pretty calm and tries to keep his cool

But sometimes, his sassyness is too strong and I’M IN FOR THAT

Can do awesome fighting stuff

Is always epic in every situation

Is a tiny bit baby, but it’s almost completely gone. His transformation to badass mfer, you know?

Probably knows more then one language (at least he knows spanish)

Has still a golden and pure heart

REVendetta

Just look how happy this badass mfer is to drive a bike!! LOOK AT THIS GRIN!!!

Friendly reminder he is now a badass mfer

He can beat up zombies easily and it’s hot-

He’s a fast fighter and knows how to use a gun!

This cruel world made him so “cold” he even pulls now jokes about all that stuff

(Capcom, why did my baby had to suffer so much? I mean come on.)

Still the same haircut, still very hot looking uwu

Even though he is more tough, he has still a golden heart

I’m certain he is still a bit baby inside. But he can hide it because of his emotional control (which got a bit weaker over time) and his training

That one scene, where he heard the family of that one guy...it makes me cry still

It shows that even though Leon suffered so much, he is still willing to safe people.

Like I said. Boi with golden heart

He’s such a great inspiration for me (not the whiskey part, ofc, but his good stuff) since he fights for good even though he suffered so so much. He still fights on and is so strong. I wanna make him proud and fight on as well

Damn. That got emotional- eh- how to safe this-

Him on a Ducati

ok thanks bye- 

[putthison]

Way Down in This: Subcultural Cachet in Cool: Style, Sound, and Subversion by Greg Foley and Andrew Luecke (part I)

I grew up listening to a lot of punk rock, and sometimes I take it for granted that everyone I know is at least passingly familiar with the Dead Kennedys and Black Flag. I have to remind myself that, although some music breaks through to the monoculture, most of that stuff is niche, familiar to a relatively small group, and patched onto denim vests mostly by true believers. On the other hand, I know very little about jam band culture, or Juggalos (although I learned a lot from Nathan Rabin). While today you can pull up a ton of music across genre, subculture, and era on streaming services or Youtube, finding out the origins, aesthetics, and relationships among the groups--often young, often trying to forge an identity through music and clothing to stand out--can be tough.

Andrew Luecke and Greg Foley connect those dots with Cool: Style, Sound, and Subversion, their recently published book that serves as a chronological field guide to subcultures, with illustrated two-page spreads on groups from flappers to new age travellers (all of them are real, allegedly). Greg’s illustrations provide a great shorthand for the styles each subculture developed, and facts and essays place each in context of the broader culture and each other. Pictured above are Greg’s illustrations of the Miyuki-Zoku (early adopters of the Ivy League look in Japan) and punks.

The book rewards both casual flipping through and a full read, as threads and lines of influence emerge across time and geography. The authors and some special contributors also compiled playlists that vibe with the relevant eras and groups--contributors include Glenn O’Brien (no wave), A$AP Ferg (trap), and Peter Saville (glam rock).

I talked with Andrew and Greg about where the book came from and what subcultures, in their research, were the most interesting. Part II will post later in the week.

Pete Anderson: I was really impressed with the book. It's like an encyclopedia for subcultures, giving the origins and time frames, music, and a really helpful and artful visualization.

Andrew Luecke: We did want to make it more than an encyclopedia, but at the same time we understand that’s part of the appeal of the book. Doing spreads for each subculture is just an efficient way to organize things and fit the maximum amount of information. And we wanted the book to be a real reference too. An encyclopedia is an efficient collection organized in a very specific way, from A to Z. COOL is organized in linear time. And I think one thing that works well for the book is that it serves as a number of different kinds of encyclopedias. It’s a visual encyclopedia where one can reference all these different looks, but at the same time, one can read deeper into the histories of these cultures, so it’s a written encyclopedia as well. And then of course, it’s a musical encyclopedia.

Greg Foley:  Since we’re streaming those playlists in partnership with Apple Music, the musical encyclopedia becomes a living thing, for people to interact with. I think, hopefully, when you combine all the different layers it adds some real depth. Also, with the infographic fold-out in the book, we made sure that the subcultures connected to one another in as thorough a way as possible, showing ins and outs, and long-term influences. Really trying to show a web of shared meaning. Infographics are an efficient visual reference, but if you want to really look at it, there’s some depth there.

AL: Plus we included some essays to try and tie everything together. But yeah, the encyclopedia thing is cool for me. I’ve always loved encyclopedias and textbooks and annotated things. So I like that aspect of the book.

Greg Foley’s illustration of teddy boys.

PA: How did you team up for the work?

AL: Well, Greg is married to one of my best friends, and we were all at a fashion week party hosted by Esquire back when I worked there. Greg asked me what kind of book I would do if I could do anything, and I was like, “Well, I have this idea to do a comprehensive book on subcultures. I have a big list of like 100 I’ve been collecting for years.” And he was like, “I was thinking the same thing. I’d love to do an illustrated history of subcultures.” So it almost felt like it was meant to be, at least to me. I’m not sure why he asked me that, though. Maybe his wife Shannon urged him to? But, yes, we had very similar ideas separately. But yeah, that was about two years ago and I’d been making a list of subcultures for maybe two years before that with the serious intent of trying to do a book.

GF: Having helped start Visionaire and V Magazine as well as writing my own children’s books, I’ve developed a passion for publication. It’s something I enjoy sharing with others. I posed the question to Andrew because he’d never done a book before. So when he mentioned his list, I had a sense we could team up to pull off what neither of us might be able to do separately.

PA: Since many (but not all) of the subcultures are documented only lightly (there’s plenty out there on punk but maybe less on, like, new age travellers) how did you research this stuff?

GF: That’s one of the reasons we thought it was worth doing. Because most of the books on youth subcultures cover a few well worn groups.

AL: It’s funny that you mention that, because new age travellers was one of the toughest to research. I pieced that one together from like English government reports on the welfare of traveller children and, like, eight-year old set lists on some blog about a summer solstice gathering from, you know, 2008. Government sources like that can be hard to find, but are authoritative at least. I mean, there were some books too, but that one was hard. So we used a ton of online sources, both journalistic and less traditional.

GF: As we revised our list, we made a real effort to include international subcultures, especially beyond Western Europe and even Japan to some extent. But again, that only increased the challenge.

AL: Luckily, we also had full access to Parsons’ and NYU’s libraries since Greg teaches at Parsons. So we could access academic journals and harder-to-find books too. Because we were dealing with some non-traditional source materials sometimes, I triangulated the information for anything in the text. If three sources confirmed the same thing, that made me feel confident about including it.

GF: We did that with the photo research for the illustrations too—made sure we had multiple sources.

Greg Foley’s illustration of mods.

PA: How did you determine who made the cut?

AL: Well, one thing we found in researching this thing, is that defining what exactly a subculture is, can be tough. They all have blurry borders and overlap with other cultures and all sorts of other things. We did have a few rules though.

GF: We didn’t include religious or cult groups, though religion obviously played a part in some subcultures we included. We also didn’t want to feature, say, a specific gang, like the Hells Angels or something.

AL: But we included bikers, so another criteria was that these things had to be broad and extend beyond individual cliques or groups. They also had to have some subversive element to them—even the American college kids of the 1920s—who might not seem subversive on the surface, were redefining the rules for dressing, totally rebelling against their parents’ formalities, which were really rooted in a pre-World War I Victorian thing and bringing athletic wear to the streets and stuff. And throwing keggers and being a bit wild.

GF: Also groups had to have visually cohesive elements. They had to look like a subculture when I grouped up the reference images.

AL: Lastly, we started in the 1920s, because the overlap with mass media was so important. Particularly the record industry and radio, but also magazines, movies, and later TV. Even advertising played a role in this push-pull of rebellion and marketing. That stuff really exploded in the 1920s, and really fueled and interacted with these subcultures.

PA: Are there any you left out you would've liked to include?

AL: Yes, bike messengers and that punk-hippy tall-bike culture. I couldn’t believe we left them out. I think I did it subconsciously because I had some negative run-ins with bike messengers when I was a younger man.

GF: At certain points we considered how many of our groups revolved around vehicles. I’m sure bike messengers would have looked great but ultimately it’s a job, and maybe vocational uniforms are another book.  

Stay tuned for more from Andrew and Greg in part II. Greg designs and creative-directs Visionaire, and Andrew is a professional trend forecaster and style editor.

[igsy-blog]

BBC 100 books (with commentary)

thanks for the tag @thegreatorangedragon  As an English major I was compelled to read a lot of these, and I may only have skimmed/read chunks of some of them if I could get away with it....

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen: not my favorite Austen, actually (Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility are 1 & 2) The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - OMG, SO many times. My siblings and I had rituals around the reading of LOTR.

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte.  Yes - it’s OK Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - Yes!  My kids grew up to them and the experience was almost as good as the books.  But I also really enjoyed watching Rowling mature as a writer over the course of the series.  I don’t ask for perfection from my writers, but warmth and growth.  :-)  Also, they got my stubborn non-reader sons to READ. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee  - like probably every other person who went to MS/HS in the US. The Bible - yes, and twice all the way through.  once at about 10, and then more recently along with Slate’s Blogging the Bible (ok it was just the Old Testament).  That was a stage on my journey to my current fallen-catholicness 
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - yes, but prefer the Pat Benatar song :D Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - yes and really need a re-read 
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - No, keep meaning to. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
.  Yes, and can I say I love Dickens - LOVE Dickens - but I hate this book.  I think it’s always assigned because it’s shortish.  I regularly reread the glorious messes that are Pickwick Papers, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, and my fav, the insane Our Mutual Friend (but ONLY the Lizzie Hexam/Eugene Wrayburn segments). Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - and the sequels.  I think Jo’s Boys might actually be my favorite. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
.  yes - I am pretty sure??? Catch 22 - Joseph Heller.  read enough of it to count Complete Works of Shakespeare - William Shakespeare; yes! my mom was a Zefferelli Romeo & Juliet junkie - we had the album of the film - and I must have heard it 3 dozen times before I was 7.  She bought a complete works and I read all of it over the years. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier. No 
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - Yes.  My husband’s favorite book.  And I really liked the Rankin-Bass film, when I was young.  Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk  No Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - yeah The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger  Realllly?  This is a good book but I’m not sure it belongs on this list.  First novel and feels fresh out of an MFA program.  My other complaints I won’t say here because I tend to get very snarky about this book. (Another book I read around the same time [mid-oughts] was Then We Came to the End, the debut novel of Joshua Ferris - much better, like DeLillo without the air of self-importance.) Middlemarch - George Eliot; love me some Eliot (but prefer Silas Marner, mainly because of a very good tv adaption). Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - Again: really?  I read this book because I spent the summer between HS and college in a really small town with a teeny library and I basically read my way through the fiction stacks.  Won’t say more than that, because I would get political. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald Yes, but not a favorite. Bleak House - Charles Dickens. A great, great book for which two amazing miniseries have been done in my lifetime.  But rightly criticized, IMO, for the annoying tone of its first-person narrator, Esther.  Dickens was dazzlingly, spectacularly wrong in writing about women.  Not to mention other groups.  But my god did he skewer institutions on behalf of the (British) poor - none better. This book wins for the Jo’s death scene and its sweeping, bitter, critique of church and state and society and everything - and so human.  “Dead!  And dying thus around us, everyday.”  I was 12 when I first read that, recovering from chicken pox, and I sat straight up in bed.  This is the book that made me a socialist. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy This is so horrible, but I haven’t! The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams.  Yes, fun, but not a favorite. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - No.  I started to and have a copy at work, for some reason I don’t even remember.  But not enough to county Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky  No :( Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck.  Yes, oh and my grandma’s family were Okies.  Everyone in my family has a copy of the Sacramento Bee front page story sneering about the dust bowl immigrants arriving in town and my great-grandmother is mentioned by name (though they mistakenly think she is her widowed father’s wife).  I love Cali, and Sactown, but we have a long history of being not-so-welcoming to everyone at certain times (was it in the 80s where the “Welcome to California, Now Go Home” bumper stickers were everywhere?).

Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - yes The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - yes but so long ago I don’t remember it at all Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy yes. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens.  Yes, not his best by far.  Another “easy” read like Great Expectations Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - and many other of his works, when I was trying NOT to be an atheist - Mere Christianity, his sci-fi trilogy and Til We Have Faces, a retelling of my favorite myth, Psyche and Cupid.  I like the more obscure books in this series best - The Silver Chair and The Horse and his Boy. Emma - Jane Austen Persuasion - Jane Austen - oh, here it is!


The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis .... uh, yes The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - was a group read at work a couple of years ago.  recommend. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - yes Animal Farm - George Orwell - another book I want to re-read. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - nope 
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez; YES A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving 
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ... did I?  I’m pretty sure. Or was it The Moonstone? Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery.  YES.  Anxiously awaiting the new adaption.  Why is it so hard to get Anne of Windy Poplars on kindle?  That is the funniest one.  And Rilla of Ingleside so heartbreaking 
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood, yes and ever so long ago.  Another book to re-read soon (haven’t started watching the series yet) Lord of the Flies - William Golding Atonement - Ian McEwan; LOVE this book and his writing in general.  He also wrote the screenplay, and the movie and the book are a perfect match in tone. 
Life of Pi - Yann Martel No, but on my list Dune - Frank Herbert - no Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - yes, Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - yay! 
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 
A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - my intro to Dickens, though not his best Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - starting to get depressed at all this dystopian fiction that needs to be re-read as a primer for the present times 
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - lives at my desk at work.  Not even a favorite book of mine, but I love diving into his words every once in a while Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov The Secret History - Donna Tartt The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold  - when I saw the movie it reminded me why I wasn’t into reading the book Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - plot better than the story 
On The Road - Jack Kerouac Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy - yeah, I had to read so much Hardy Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie - no, want to though 
Moby Dick - Herman Melville; I can’t even think about this book without remembering our class discussion of the “circle jerk” chapter.  I remember literally nothing else. 
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - meh Dracula - Bram Stoker 
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett  - an ALL-TIME favorite Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson Ulysses - James Joyce; all hail the master, and the bastard responsible for my sick dependence on the em-dash The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome Germinal - Emile Zola Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - unfortunately, yes Possession - AS Byatt A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens; of course Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell The Color Purple - Alice Walker - excellent The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry Charlotte’s Web - EB White: yes The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes.  I prefer Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter series hands-down, but despite her association with Tolkien, Lewis, et al, she got squashed between Conan Doyle and Christie.  Her Gaudy Night is one of my top five books.

The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - yeah The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery heck, yeah The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks Watership Down - Richard Adams yes A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - my kids read this book in HS, so I have a copy lying around, but have never read it A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas Hamlet - William Shakespeare - yes, probably too many times.  What are my favorite Shakespeare dramas?  Maybe King Lear, Richard III? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl. yes 
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

[davidastbury]

2020 c

Heart To Heart

In the gentlest way she was reminded of how life can upset the most careful plans and how our affections and wishes sometimes change. It is difficult for young people to appreciate this. There can be massive personal changes when careers and locations and ambitions are being settled. It needs to be carefully thought over. As if to consolidate these important points it was also mentioned (again in the gentlest way) that the commitment to love doesn’t always survive physical impairment or the loss of features that may have played a big part in that love.

She replied - ‘I would never, never give up someone I loved. It wouldn’t matter what happened to him; I would love him the same as I always did. It wouldn’t change my feelings at all - nothing like that would change my feelings - I would love him just as much - I would love him more!’

Young people eh?

Skill

I like watching snooker, particularly the drama of the opening shots. This comes over on TV, but there is nothing like being in the atmosphere of a sports hall and seeing it live. I particularly like the opening shots when the strict formation of the balls is shattered and multiple patterns of possibilities flash across your eyes. And then you marvel at the mastery of the player’s plan - at his skill and intelligence.

It was similar to when Ian terminated his contract with us. We didn’t understand what was happening. One eye closed to avert distraction, he sent off a perfect screw-ball curling around a delinquent red and knocked a pink on a straight run towards the cushion - where it wobbled deliciously and then plopped into the pocket.

‘Engineering Mechanics’ by Timoshenko and Young - 4th. edition

(Тимошенко Степан Прокопович)

In the 1960s it was unusual for girls to study engineering - but I do remember one! She came into the bookshop quite regularly, lingering in the sections marked - ‘Engineering, Civil and Structural’, ‘Reinforced Concrete Methods’, ‘Materials Management...’ and so on. My colleague Frank, gazing at her in wonderment, would sidle up and ask if she needed help.

If thinking about someone continuously, and being disinterested in nearly everything else - and if the focus of each day is the possibility of seeing that person is an indication of being ‘in love’ - then Frank, poor susceptible Frank, was truly in love.

At the start of the new academic year I would set up tables and load them with titles on the student’s book-list - many published in the International Student Editions of John Wiley and McGraw-Hill. Frank’s dream-girl would leaf through certain ones, sometimes smiling to herself, sometimes frowning. Once she came to the desk and spoke to Frank - I moved away.

After she had left the shop I went across to him.

‘If only you had heard her!’ He said.

‘Heard her - what do you mean?’ I asked.

‘If only you’d heard the way she said “Timoshenko”’.

American Literature

A friend invited me to go along with him to an open lecture at Manchester University. The subject was ‘The Modern American Novel’ - my friend was actually studying fluid mechanics but wanted to ‘broaden his outlook’.

About twenty of us turned up - bunched together on the first three rows of the lecture theatre - mostly students but also a few lost souls needing to pass a few hours somewhere warm. The lecturer gave a long introduction of the area to be covered - lots of names - Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck and so on. And then he asked us to name the writer who had done most to create our understanding of the American psyche and the American way of life.

Working along the line the names were trotted out - mostly what you would expect - but a girl near me said ‘William Burroughs’ and the chap with her called out ‘Jack Kerouac’. I tried to be honest - after all I was only eighteen years old - I didn’t want to sound pretentious and I was prepared to be laughed at.

I called out ‘Grace Metalious’.

This Morning

Dead fox lying at the side of the road. Hit by a vehicle but had somehow made it to the pavement. Hated by everyone - hunted by toffs on horses, shot at by farmers, gassed by the men from the ministry - living a life of hiding by day and searching for food at night.

I once fed a fox all through a winter. Every night I put food in a dish and every night the fox came. One day, in springtime, this same fox came to the garden with her cubs. She let me get near but wouldn’t allow me to touch them. Friends thought I was being fanciful when I said that she had come to show off her family, but I didn’t mind. They sometimes tried to cut through my illusions by asking - ‘Do you know what happens when a fox gets into a hen-house?’ My only reply was that hens should not be crammed into sheds like that - you cannot blame the fox - it’s not likely that he would take a single portion as if in Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Anyway ... it’s all over for this one. Lying on his side, eye open, lips pulled back in a snarl. That snarl says it all - his final comment on the whole rotten lot of us.

K.

She keeps busy - supporting many social issues - animal welfare, children in central Africa. She attends all sorts of committees, and being competent in bygone office skills, takes minutes and types reports. An active church member, skilful and good humoured In ecclesiastical politics; she has served a long line of encumbents and keeps contact with many of them. She achieved newspaper prominence in the 1960s as a champion for coeducation - speaking of the benefits of educating boys and girls together. Perhaps she was remembering her own mixed schooling - the creative aspects of competitiveness - the happy knockabout for those who didn’t have brothers or sisters - the blossoming confidence in dealing with the opposite sex - the buzz and thrill in remembering those wonderful years, all neatly packaged in her memory. But one aspect she keeps to herself - (but who am I to say that?) - is how quiet the school was within minutes of the final bell - the noise of her shoes on the corridor - the sunshine - the smell of polish - the boy waiting for her in the bicycle sheds.

Summer ... 1958

A hot afternoon. Unable to decide whether to stay or go. Russell looking at me - those eyes - as biologically close to Caroline’s as it was possible to be. And she was in the next room practicing at the piano. I could actually hear the thud of her thumbs and imagined her splayed fingers - stabbing through the octaves - wrists arched, skin stretched. And the noise - it couldn’t be called music - the noise made my head spin until I had no thoughts at all - just the start of a strange, painless ache that would never get any worse - and would never go away.

Old Photograph

The photograph is from the winter of 1963. Two young people standing in the snow. That winter was one of the coldest on record; the snow came and the snow stayed. The photo shows the two of them, smiling, holding hands, with snowflakes in their hair and icicles dripping on the railings behind them.

It’s interesting and rather dramatic; the couple are in dark coats - creating a sharp contrast to the absorbing white everywhere else. They have a strong presence - you cannot stop looking at them.

So what happened? The snow eventually stopped. The ice thawed. The two young people no longer held hands and smiled at each other ... everything melted away ... back in 1963.

Then

She had been his girlfriend for a few weeks and the boy decided to introduce her to his parents. They liked her instantly and soon she was frequently calling at the family home. More than that, they got along so well with her that the girl visited when her boyfriend was away - working in other cities and sometimes overseas.

When he was home, he invited his dad to meet up with the two of them in a nearby bar. They spent the evening talking - talking about everything. And then, this became a fairly regular thing; the three of them at a little table, drinking and endlessly talking.

Once, he said to his dad - ‘We’ll see you later as usual’ - and his dad replied - ‘No, you don’t want me around. Let it be the two of you’.

The son replied - ‘Of course we want you to be with us!’

And so the dad did as he was told.

Sorrento ... 2016

Sabrina is our new friend - she is taking a break from singing opera in Naples. She strides along the cafe jetties waving to everyone and everyone waves back - she waves to the men in the boats, flicks off her sandals and spreads her arms to embrace the world - what a magnificent exhibitionist.

Everything with Sabrina is 'Che bello!'

As she jumps into the sea she calls out 'Che bello giorno!'

As she splashes a waiter she laughs and calls out 'Che bello ragazzo!'

And when nothing at all is happening she calls out 'Che bello - Che bello - Che bello!’ so loudly that everyone smiles.

Carly Simon has written a book telling of her friendship with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Carly, as a rock star, a famous person with famous friends, acknowledged that Jackie was ‘on a different level altogether’. However they developed a warm relationship and appear to have been good for each other.

Once Jackie showed her a huge leather-bound book. She had copied the entire Odyssey in Greek - with its English translation on each facing page. ‘There must have been a hundred pages of Jackie’s own ink drawings of Ari as Odysseus, depicting his long siren-filled excursion home’... Carly continues ... ‘I can imagine her doing it when he was away on his tankers and she was on the island of Scorpios, making her drawings’.

I can take this one step further! How amazing that this woman - perhaps the most celebrated of the twentieth century, was working on the most celebrated book of any century - and like the beautiful Penelope in that book, nervous and fearful, enduring endless separation, endless longings.

Something Wrong

I once saw a rabbit hit by a speeding car - it was thrown up in the air; then rolled; then settled at the side of the road. A few seconds later I saw his/her mate - ears raised, looking back, confused, aware something was wrong.

And then the realisation that he could not get up, or move - and their world was broken, as broken as the sharp bones in that scrap of warm fur.

[everythingsfantastic-blog]

The Best Films of 2016, by Derek Leidig

I kind of hate writing about movies. I am not a film critic, with no aim to be (Lights Camera, Jackson! stole my shtick anyway). I once dropped a college course for asking me to write a review of Rebel Without a Cause.  I can talk about this until you are blue in the face, but writing is another matter entirely.

Firstly, my brain breaks down at the synopsis part. Maybe it was me bombing on a college placement writing test because I couldn’t read an article and write a concise synopsis—my English teacher in high school taught us how to read, think and write, not just chew, swallow and boot. Second, having worked on films and all the toil and compromise that goes with it, as well as being somewhat removed from my younger film school dickishness, I don’t take joy in ripping the shit out of things at length(although Passengers, your time is coming.)

I have wanted to put together a list like this every year, but I have only done it once or twice, because its a lot of work and I rarely know what it is I truly love in the moment. I also quickly realized that a simple, “top ten” would not work, as this had been a stellar year. I also don’t see the point in specific numeric rankings, because I’m frankly bad with numbers. Waiting until the Oscars to post this  is not because of any special hot takes about any awards, but I needed the time and I didn’t get my screeners this year (or any other).

For everything I saw, there was something I wanted to see but did not (yet), so this is a at best a work in progress. Time and opportunity kept me from Silence, Certain Women, The Witch, Swiss Army Man, Train to Busan, The Wailing, The Treasure, The Neon Demon, A Bigger Splash, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Triple 9, Patterson, The Childhood of a Leader, The Love Witch, Patterson, I, Daniel Blake, Neruda , a whole battalion of documentaries and yes, Gods of Egypt. And all the others I forgot.

2016, shit year it, was also when I decided to stop watching trailers pretty much altogether, something I will get into, self-righteously, at some other date. It has been transformative. It is as if someone was playing a game, then stopped, then started playing another, different game and enjoys it even more. If only there were an over-used term for that phenomenon.

So, proud to love all below, even if to varying degrees. Gives me hope that 2017 will contain way too many films and thus will

BECAUSE

I liked these fine, but really loved them specifically for…

OTHER PEOPLE

For Molly Shannon. I saw her on TV the other day and actually was relieved that she was feeling better.

MORRIS FROM AMERICA

For Keith Robinson driving his son home from Berlin.

NOCTURNAL ANIMALS

For being pretty and for Michael Shannon doin’ stuff.

CHRISTINE

No, not that one. This one is another horror story about Christine Chubbuck, a Florida news reporter who shot herself in the head live on-air in 1974. I liked other films more, but boy if Rebecca Hall doesn’t dominate the world in this— her eyebrows alone.I couldn’t quite get into the unofficial non-fiction counterpart, Kate Plays Christine, however. Maybe I’l give it another chance sometime.

WEINER DOG

For bringing me back into the Todd Solondz camp after a long absence, and for reminding me when someone asks me for a recommendation, why I also say, “If you think you won’t like it, you won’t. But don’t blame me.” It is slow, uneven, and terrible for humanity (and dogs) and it actually makes diarrhea operatic. It’s the movie that had me laugh the hardest, because frankly I am awful.

THE ACCOUNTANT

For reading ahead of time, a blog post that stated: “The Accountant is Ben Affleck’s best Batman movie.” In that mind-frame, I loved the stupid thing.

THE COMFORT FOODS OF 2016 (THE ONES I SAW THE MOST)

DEADPOOL

A blockbuster that made lemonade. I can see the budget cuts, the studio apprehension, the let’s-figure-out-a-structure every time I watch it, but it works like a motherfucker. Good luck on the sequel.

POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING

Funnier than you. My only complaint is that I liked Hot Rod more. Which is a dick thing to say.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

Age of Ultron with breathing room. I don’t know how they make any of this comic book movies  make sense, but they do. Sure, it might kill the industry, but that fight scene was TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES LONG.

THE NICE GUYS

It does not stick the landing, but like the The Departed, I will watch this over and over to find more jokes. It will take decades. Russell Crowe is also the most unlikely winner of spit-take of the century.

AND IN NO ORDER

KRISHA

They finally made a horror film about Thanksgiving. A one-location wonder, where you, the viewer, are trapped in house, on Thanksgiving, with that aunt we don’t talk about. And she probably wasn’t a Trump voter either.

JACKIE

For me, this one probably had the largest span between initial interest and ultimate reaction. It’s not a history lesson, although there is much to be learned. It is also wisely not a straight biopic, instead focusing on a small pivotal few weeks in Jackie Kennedy’s life. From the faded Kodakchrome (Super-16mm) palette to the career-best work of Natalie Portman, I loved the whole damn thing. And to think this is director THIRD American release this year (after The Club and Neruda).

EVERYBODY WANTS SOME

How does this even work? Bros and philosophy. And baseball. And Austin. And LP’s.

MOONLIGHT

This might be the best in the lot. Or at least the one I feel the most grateful that it successfully ran the awards gauntlet and thus found an audience. Masterful stuff.

THE LOBSTER

Of course John C. Reilly is in it.

ARRIVAL

This is one hit me hard. Maybe because I saw it in December and I kept thinking that the real-life incoming new government’s response to “the Arrival” would not be patient or curious. I’m glad this found an audience. I’m glad that Forrest Whitaker is still on movie posters. I’m glad it introduced me to composer Max Richter, whose music I now use as a lullaby. I’m not glad the Academy felt that Meryl Streep needed to be recognized again as a national treasure instead of Amy Adams.

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

The first of his two releases this year (LOVING is damn good too) and a film that apparently would turn into a giant flesh-eating monster if it played in too many theaters at once (Thanks, Warner Brothers, you saved us). This was the film that made me decide not to watch trailers anymore. I saw this pretty much dry, on recommendation and I am glad I did. Kirsten Dunst has put together a pretty damn great body of work, i must say.

EDGE OF SEVENTEEN

I love the thought that there are going to be (young) people who are going to watch this like SAY ANYTHING… over the next decade and beyond.

LA LA LAND

The greatest of all films of all of times of ever. Or maybe less than that.  Wished I had seen it on a bigger screen. Launcher of crap op-eds.

HELL OR HIGH WATER

My kind of movie. I want to see this again and soon. I’m glad it is still in the conversation. As much as I love Jeff Bridges, I would have liked to have seen Ben Foster get the same awards attention.

GREEN ROOM

My friend watches a horror film every day during the month of October. I watched this one, although I didn’t know it was a horror film. This is expert stuff.

AMERICAN HONEY

It’s almost 3 hours, so watch it in chunks as I did. I booked Arnold’s FISH TANK years ago, and was so glad I did. This build the same magic from scraps.

TONI EARDMANN

I want to see this again because (like ELLE) I simply did not see the same movie that the critics did. But I did like what I saw enough that I will put in the additional three hours. Was it a two hour windup to a  series of punchlines? I will find out.  At some point. I also did not see nearly enough foreign films in 2016.

SING STREET

Worth it. It’s right there on Netflix. Worth it.

HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE

Somewhere, someplace, somehow it is Ricky Baker’s birthday.

THE FITS

A little girl and her brother are in a community center. It’s an hour and ten minutes. All you need to know. Holy shit is this strong.

THE HANDMAIDEN

A period piece by Park-fuckin-Oldboy-Chan-Wook that cooks with gas. And oh, so very very naughty.

20th CENTURY WOMEN

One of the things I don’t like about awards season is the ”quality glut” Too much good stuff all at once, jammed at end of the year, fighting for gold attention to further their life span in theaters.

Everything about this clicks, from cast to setting to time period (1979—NO cell phones). And that soundtrack. I want all movies to contain at least some Bowie, Rudy Vallee, Suicide, Fred Astaire and/or the Buzzcocks. I secretly hope that they decide to re-release this one.

THE RED TURTLE/KUBO & THE TWO STRINGS

Two animated films better than ZOOTOPIA, by eight Yao Mings and three Robert Waldows (search—you are already on the internet). KUBO is a one of those things where every shot is, “how the hell?” mixed with a great story. See it. THE RED TURTLE is a Belgian film given Studio Ghibli”s blessing. It’s about a man who is stranded on an island and during his many attempts to leave…something happens. Beautiful, grown-up and like, way existential, the film is better than most of us really deserves.

SO NOW THEN

My answer to the question, “What’s the best film of the year?” is usually, “I haven’t seen it yet”. It makes me sound above it all and it keeps me from having to think, but the truth is I usually don’t know until some time has past. For example, I now know that Mad Max:Fury Road was the best film of 2015, because I watched it about ten more times in 2016 (and wept, frequently). Some years I know that Let The Right One In or In the Loop i is  the greatest  damn thing I ever damn saw. So right now, the best film of this year was when I watched Walkabout, from 1971 for the first time in 10 years. I done cheated.

Somehow, I didn’t see ROGUE ONE.

[childrensliteratureworld-blog]

Blog Post #4, Topic #1 by Sam Milder

Political children’s literature can be thought of as children’s books that address various social and political issues in a way that is appropriate for children. Some examples of topics that could be included in political children’s literature include LGBTQ+, environmental, or racial issues. Many times, some of these books become banned or challenged due to the opinions about the book’s content by a person or group of people.

After educating myself on the topic of Politics in Children’s Literature, I believe it is important for these issues to be introduced to children. In one of the articles, Should Books for Children Be Political, the writer Jabair Asim, mentions a couple of points that match my beliefs. I think exposing my future children and/or students to this type of literature is an important aspect of their education. This content will assist them in growing up to be well-rounded individuals. Many children grow up following the opinions of their parents rather than creating their own, but it is important to me that my students or my own children have their own beliefs. By exposing them to these various relevant issues and continuing to build on that information as they get older, the youth will become more educated on certain issues allowing them to take their own stance on different issues. With all of this being said, I do think it is important for parents to have an overall say of the content and the amount of it that their child is being exposed to. As a teacher, if you are choosing to include these types of books in your lessons it is important to keep your students’ parents informed. This could help keep your relationship with them positive and help them understand your stance on why sharing this literature with their children is important.

In the article, The Value of Picture Books, Alexandra Kennedy discusses the benefits of using picture books to help portray certain issues to children. One of her beliefs she discusses is the importance for each child to see their self in the books they read. I agree that it is important for children to see characters in books that remind them of themselves, but I also think it is important to see diversity as well. In class, we had a discussion about the lack of diversity in children’s books. The statistics presented were shocking, but it made me think about the responsibility I have as a teacher to provide diverse literature to my students.  

On our class’s Pinterest board, we have been sharing a variety of children’s books which examine many different political and social issues. Some of these books I consider to be quality picture books include The Family Book by Todd Parr and Keep Climbing, Girls by Beah E. Richards. The Family Book explains to the reader that not all families have the same dynamics. I found it interesting that Parr’s illustrations do not depict any particular races, but instead their skin is a bright, abstract color. Parr sometimes uses animals as well, which also shows the innocence of the message he is trying to convey to his young audience. The other book I believe is quality, Keep Climbing, Girls, promotes equality between genders and also uses an African American main character which we discussed in class to be unusual. This book promotes the idea of acceptance and equality by showing young readers that girls are able to do anything boys can do. These two books would be a good addition to my classroom library because they touch on some of the more important and growing issues in our society, but are also relevant to lessons students should be familiar with.

Sources:

Asim, J. (2015, July 28). The New York Times Company. Retrieved February 24, 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/09/should-books-for-childrens-be-political/dont-shy-away-from-books-about-tough-issues

Kennedy, A. (2014, July 9). The New York Times Company. Retrieved February 24, 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/09/should-books-for-childrens-be-political/picture-books-illuminate-the-world-of-young-children

Picture:

Keep Climbing, Girls. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24, 2017, from http://www.amightygirl.com/keep-climbing-girls

[hypertagmaster]

5 Writing Techniques that Stir Your Audience to Action

We all want a positive response to the content we work so hard to create. Not all positive responses, however, are created equal.

I’m reminded of this David Ogilvy quote from Ogilvy on Advertising:

“When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip.'”

In other words, if you’re looking for something more than “Great post!” comments, then you’ve got to prompt action. And that means you’ve got to stir something in the audience before they’ll do something.

Now, before we get to that, one easy way to get someone to do something is to simply ask. I’m assuming you’re already using calls to action, but if not, click that last link to read about those first.

Otherwise, let’s focus on what must happen before the ask. What we’re trying to stir is an emotional response.

It’s emotion that moves us to act. In fact, the Latin root for the word emotion means “to move,” because emotions motivate what we do. We don’t necessarily want to make them seethe with anger or burst into tears, though.

The goal is not necessarily to get someone to feel, but rather to want — and to act on that want. Here are several ways to accomplish that.

1. Vivid storytelling

Emotional responses come when we experience a message that corresponds with our existing beliefs. Appealing to the core values of your audience, how they view the world, and their expectations for the future is incredibly powerful — if you truly create an experience.

Dating back to the time of Aristotle, skilled persuaders understood the power of a detailed narrative. The key is that the story must be so vivid that it prompts a vicarious experience in which they can see the outcome of the story happening to them.

Here’s the beginning of a story that fueled a $2 billion(!) subscription promotion for The Wall Street Journal:

“On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both — as young college graduates are — were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently, these two men returned to college for their 25th reunion.”

Do you see the setting in your mind’s eye? Click here to read how the story progresses and see why it succeeded so wildly.

2. Ramp it up

Sometimes when we’re eager to prompt action, we’re tempted to come out of the gate swinging. High energy, high emotion — that’s what will cause the audience to latch on to our contagious enthusiasm and take action, right?

Not necessarily.

Skilled presenters, ranging from politicians to stand-up comics, know that it’s better to start low-key and build momentum as you go.

Persuasive content and copy are often referred to as a slippery slide. The goal of each and every sentence of your message is to keep people engaged the whole way down, gaining momentum along the way to the call to action.

And although the context is different, there might be no better example than Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech from 1963:

The speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century in a 1999 poll of oration scholars. More importantly, it inspired the huge crowd at The March on Washington to the point that the Kennedy administration felt compelled to advance its civil rights legislation in Congress.

3. Hold a unity rally

We all belong to various groups, ranging from nationality, to college alma mater, to favorite NBA team. Appealing to the tribal nature of an audience that’s part of your group naturally invokes emotion, while you also benefit from the powerful influence principle of unity.

Unity goes beyond simple similarities and liking, and instead reaches the point of shared identities. It’s inherently an “us against them” scenario, and if you want to mobilize the choir instead of just preach to it, you’ve got to communicate how “the others” present a problem.

It could be about how a competitor has chosen not to serve the needs of your group. Or how outsiders are belittling your tribe in a way that inspires action. It doesn’t have to be ugly, but it does have to motivate the group to stand together and move.

Sometimes, you can even use unity to inspire others to join the group. This happens because of another powerful, fundamental influence: social proof.

For example, one of our core values is that we believe that building your business or content marketing engine on someone else’s virtual property is unacceptably risky. When we rail against digital sharecropping, website owners flock to the comments to agree — providing powerful social proof for others to get on board with owning their own platform.

4. Be like Mike

Group identity is powerful thanks to our strong need to belong. Emulation works on the same emotional level when you position yourself as a role model to your audience.

Now, that might sound a bit arrogant, and it certainly can be. But if you’ve done the hard work of becoming a likable expert, your audience will naturally choose to emulate you in certain ways, or even desire to be like you.

Think of the whole “personal branding” movement. Everywhere you look, people are becoming micro-celebrities hoping to charge you money so you can be like them — and in many cases, it works.

That’s a little bit too on the nose for me. A smarter approach is to inspire your audience to do something with you, such as join a cause, contribute to a charity, or act in some other way that deepens the broader influence factors of unity, authority, liking, commitment and consistency, and social proof.

5. Show, don’t tell

This last technique is more of a “what not to do” tip that relates to the other four. It comes down to one of the oldest bits of writing advice around, which is to refrain from “telling” them why they should do what you want them to do while making your case, and instead letting the audience experience the realization themselves.

The story should be so vivid that they see themselves achieving the outcome.

The “ramp up” should spark the emotional response without explicit direction.

The realization that “they’re wrong, we’re right” should come from the group.

The audience should decide that they’ll emulate you before you ask.

On a related note, never telegraph the emotional response you’re seeking up front, or a natural psychological defense mechanism may arise.

Emotions are best triggered without revealing an upfront expectation.

It’s dangerous to proclaim a joke as hilarious before telling it, and it’s likewise bad form to lead with “Boy, is this going to tick you off.” In other words, don’t tell people you’re going to go on a rant, just begin and build to the rant.

Stir the win-win

None of these techniques are going to make anyone do something they don’t want to do. In fact, more often than not the desired action has to be in their best interest first and foremost, and yours secondarily.

In other cases, you may get some action thanks to the previously unmentioned principle of influence — reciprocity. If you selflessly and unconditionally give away something useful, perhaps they’ll do a favor for you in return.

You know, like sharing this article on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you!

The post 5 Writing Techniques that Stir Your Audience to Action appeared first on Copyblogger.

via marketing http://ift.tt/2lBgguu

[marie85marketing]

5 Writing Techniques that Stir Your Audience to Action

We all want a positive response to the content we work so hard to create. Not all positive responses, however, are created equal.

I’m reminded of this David Ogilvy quote from Ogilvy on Advertising:

“When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip.'”

In other words, if you’re looking for something more than “Great post!” comments, then you’ve got to prompt action. And that means you’ve got to stir something in the audience before they’ll do something.

Now, before we get to that, one easy way to get someone to do something is to simply ask. I’m assuming you’re already using calls to action, but if not, click that last link to read about those first.

Otherwise, let’s focus on what must happen before the ask. What we’re trying to stir is an emotional response.

It’s emotion that moves us to act. In fact, the Latin root for the word emotion means “to move,” because emotions motivate what we do. We don’t necessarily want to make them seethe with anger or burst into tears, though.

The goal is not necessarily to get someone to feel, but rather to want — and to act on that want. Here are several ways to accomplish that.

1. Vivid storytelling

Emotional responses come when we experience a message that corresponds with our existing beliefs. Appealing to the core values of your audience, how they view the world, and their expectations for the future is incredibly powerful — if you truly create an experience.

Dating back to the time of Aristotle, skilled persuaders understood the power of a detailed narrative. The key is that the story must be so vivid that it prompts a vicarious experience in which they can see the outcome of the story happening to them.

Here’s the beginning of a story that fueled a $2 billion(!) subscription promotion for The Wall Street Journal:

“On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both — as young college graduates are — were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently, these two men returned to college for their 25th reunion.”

Do you see the setting in your mind’s eye? Click here to read how the story progresses and see why it succeeded so wildly.

2. Ramp it up

Sometimes when we’re eager to prompt action, we’re tempted to come out of the gate swinging. High energy, high emotion — that’s what will cause the audience to latch on to our contagious enthusiasm and take action, right?

Not necessarily.

Skilled presenters, ranging from politicians to stand-up comics, know that it’s better to start low-key and build momentum as you go.

Persuasive content and copy are often referred to as a slippery slide. The goal of each and every sentence of your message is to keep people engaged the whole way down, gaining momentum along the way to the call to action.

And although the context is different, there might be no better example than Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech from 1963:

The speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century in a 1999 poll of oration scholars. More importantly, it inspired the huge crowd at The March on Washington to the point that the Kennedy administration felt compelled to advance its civil rights legislation in Congress.

3. Hold a unity rally

We all belong to various groups, ranging from nationality, to college alma mater, to favorite NBA team. Appealing to the tribal nature of an audience that’s part of your group naturally invokes emotion, while you also benefit from the powerful influence principle of unity.

Unity goes beyond simple similarities and liking, and instead reaches the point of shared identities. It’s inherently an “us against them” scenario, and if you want to mobilize the choir instead of just preach to it, you’ve got to communicate how “the others” present a problem.

It could be about how a competitor has chosen not to serve the needs of your group. Or how outsiders are belittling your tribe in a way that inspires action. It doesn’t have to be ugly, but it does have to motivate the group to stand together and move.

Sometimes, you can even use unity to inspire others to join the group. This happens because of another powerful, fundamental influence: social proof.

For example, one of our core values is that we believe that building your business or content marketing engine on someone else’s virtual property is unacceptably risky. When we rail against digital sharecropping, website owners flock to the comments to agree — providing powerful social proof for others to get on board with owning their own platform.

4. Be like Mike

Group identity is powerful thanks to our strong need to belong. Emulation works on the same emotional level when you position yourself as a role model to your audience.

Now, that might sound a bit arrogant, and it certainly can be. But if you’ve done the hard work of becoming a likable expert, your audience will naturally choose to emulate you in certain ways, or even desire to be like you.

Think of the whole “personal branding” movement. Everywhere you look, people are becoming micro-celebrities hoping to charge you money so you can be like them — and in many cases, it works.

That’s a little bit too on the nose for me. A smarter approach is to inspire your audience to do something with you, such as join a cause, contribute to a charity, or act in some other way that deepens the broader influence factors of unity, authority, liking, commitment and consistency, and social proof.

5. Show, don’t tell

This last technique is more of a “what not to do” tip that relates to the other four. It comes down to one of the oldest bits of writing advice around, which is to refrain from “telling” them why they should do what you want them to do while making your case, and instead letting the audience experience the realization themselves.

The story should be so vivid that they see themselves achieving the outcome.

The “ramp up” should spark the emotional response without explicit direction.

The realization that “they’re wrong, we’re right” should come from the group.

The audience should decide that they’ll emulate you before you ask.

On a related note, never telegraph the emotional response you’re seeking up front, or a natural psychological defense mechanism may arise.

Emotions are best triggered without revealing an upfront expectation.

It’s dangerous to proclaim a joke as hilarious before telling it, and it’s likewise bad form to lead with “Boy, is this going to tick you off.” In other words, don’t tell people you’re going to go on a rant, just begin and build to the rant.

Stir the win-win

None of these techniques are going to make anyone do something they don’t want to do. In fact, more often than not the desired action has to be in their best interest first and foremost, and yours secondarily.

In other cases, you may get some action thanks to the previously unmentioned principle of influence — reciprocity. If you selflessly and unconditionally give away something useful, perhaps they’ll do a favor for you in return.

You know, like sharing this article on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you!

The post 5 Writing Techniques that Stir Your Audience to Action appeared first on Copyblogger.

[nathandgibsca]

5 Writing Techniques that Stir Your Audience to Action

We all want a positive response to the content we work so hard to create. Not all positive responses, however, are created equal.

I’m reminded of this David Ogilvy quote from Ogilvy on Advertising:

“When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip.'”

In other words, if you’re looking for something more than “Great post!” comments, then you’ve got to prompt action. And that means you’ve got to stir something in the audience before they’ll do something.

Now, before we get to that, one easy way to get someone to do something is to simply ask. I’m assuming you’re already using calls to action, but if not, click that last link to read about those first.

Otherwise, let’s focus on what must happen before the ask. What we’re trying to stir is an emotional response.

It’s emotion that moves us to act. In fact, the Latin root for the word emotion means “to move,” because emotions motivate what we do. We don’t necessarily want to make them seethe with anger or burst into tears, though.

The goal is not necessarily to get someone to feel, but rather to want — and to act on that want. Here are several ways to accomplish that.

1. Vivid storytelling

Emotional responses come when we experience a message that corresponds with our existing beliefs. Appealing to the core values of your audience, how they view the world, and their expectations for the future is incredibly powerful — if you truly create an experience.

Dating back to the time of Aristotle, skilled persuaders understood the power of a detailed narrative. The key is that the story must be so vivid that it prompts a vicarious experience in which they can see the outcome of the story happening to them.

Here’s the beginning of a story that fueled a $2 billion(!) subscription promotion for The Wall Street Journal:

“On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both — as young college graduates are — were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently, these two men returned to college for their 25th reunion.”

Do you see the setting in your mind’s eye? Click here to read how the story progresses and see why it succeeded so wildly.

2. Ramp it up

Sometimes when we’re eager to prompt action, we’re tempted to come out of the gate swinging. High energy, high emotion — that’s what will cause the audience to latch on to our contagious enthusiasm and take action, right?

Not necessarily.

Skilled presenters, ranging from politicians to stand-up comics, know that it’s better to start low-key and build momentum as you go.

Persuasive content and copy are often referred to as a slippery slide. The goal of each and every sentence of your message is to keep people engaged the whole way down, gaining momentum along the way to the call to action.

And although the context is different, there might be no better example than Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech from 1963:

The speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century in a 1999 poll of oration scholars. More importantly, it inspired the huge crowd at The March on Washington to the point that the Kennedy administration felt compelled to advance its civil rights legislation in Congress.

3. Hold a unity rally

We all belong to various groups, ranging from nationality, to college alma mater, to favorite NBA team. Appealing to the tribal nature of an audience that’s part of your group naturally invokes emotion, while you also benefit from the powerful influence principle of unity.

Unity goes beyond simple similarities and liking, and instead reaches the point of shared identities. It’s inherently an “us against them” scenario, and if you want to mobilize the choir instead of just preach to it, you’ve got to communicate how “the others” present a problem.

It could be about how a competitor has chosen not to serve the needs of your group. Or how outsiders are belittling your tribe in a way that inspires action. It doesn’t have to be ugly, but it does have to motivate the group to stand together and move.

Sometimes, you can even use unity to inspire others to join the group. This happens because of another powerful, fundamental influence: social proof.

For example, one of our core values is that we believe that building your business or content marketing engine on someone else’s virtual property is unacceptably risky. When we rail against digital sharecropping, website owners flock to the comments to agree — providing powerful social proof for others to get on board with owning their own platform.

4. Be like Mike

Group identity is powerful thanks to our strong need to belong. Emulation works on the same emotional level when you position yourself as a role model to your audience.

Now, that might sound a bit arrogant, and it certainly can be. But if you’ve done the hard work of becoming a likable expert, your audience will naturally choose to emulate you in certain ways, or even desire to be like you.

Think of the whole “personal branding” movement. Everywhere you look, people are becoming micro-celebrities hoping to charge you money so you can be like them — and in many cases, it works.

That’s a little bit too on the nose for me. A smarter approach is to inspire your audience to do something with you, such as join a cause, contribute to a charity, or act in some other way that deepens the broader influence factors of unity, authority, liking, commitment and consistency, and social proof.

5. Show, don’t tell

This last technique is more of a “what not to do” tip that relates to the other four. It comes down to one of the oldest bits of writing advice around, which is to refrain from “telling” them why they should do what you want them to do while making your case, and instead letting the audience experience the realization themselves.

The story should be so vivid that they see themselves achieving the outcome.

The “ramp up” should spark the emotional response without explicit direction.

The realization that “they’re wrong, we’re right” should come from the group.

The audience should decide that they’ll emulate you before you ask.

On a related note, never telegraph the emotional response you’re seeking up front, or a natural psychological defense mechanism may arise.

Emotions are best triggered without revealing an upfront expectation.

It’s dangerous to proclaim a joke as hilarious before telling it, and it’s likewise bad form to lead with “Boy, is this going to tick you off.” In other words, don’t tell people you’re going to go on a rant, just begin and build to the rant.

Stir the win-win

None of these techniques are going to make anyone do something they don’t want to do. In fact, more often than not the desired action has to be in their best interest first and foremost, and yours secondarily.

In other cases, you may get some action thanks to the previously unmentioned principle of influence — reciprocity. If you selflessly and unconditionally give away something useful, perhaps they’ll do a favor for you in return.

You know, like sharing this article on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you!

The post 5 Writing Techniques that Stir Your Audience to Action appeared first on Copyblogger.

from SEO Tips http://feeds.copyblogger.com/~/270433776/0/copyblogger~Writing-Techniques-that-Stir-Your-Audience-to-Action/

[soph28collins]

5 Writing Techniques that Stir Your Audience to Action

We all want a positive response to the content we work so hard to create. Not all positive responses, however, are created equal.

I’m reminded of this David Ogilvy quote from Ogilvy on Advertising:

“When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip.'”

In other words, if you’re looking for something more than “Great post!” comments, then you’ve got to prompt action. And that means you’ve got to stir something in the audience before they’ll do something.

Now, before we get to that, one easy way to get someone to do something is to simply ask. I’m assuming you’re already using calls to action, but if not, click that last link to read about those first.

Otherwise, let’s focus on what must happen before the ask. What we’re trying to stir is an emotional response.

It’s emotion that moves us to act. In fact, the Latin root for the word emotion means “to move,” because emotions motivate what we do. We don’t necessarily want to make them seethe with anger or burst into tears, though.

The goal is not necessarily to get someone to feel, but rather to want — and to act on that want. Here are several ways to accomplish that.

1. Vivid storytelling

Emotional responses come when we experience a message that corresponds with our existing beliefs. Appealing to the core values of your audience, how they view the world, and their expectations for the future is incredibly powerful — if you truly create an experience.

Dating back to the time of Aristotle, skilled persuaders understood the power of a detailed narrative. The key is that the story must be so vivid that it prompts a vicarious experience in which they can see the outcome of the story happening to them.

Here’s the beginning of a story that fueled a $2 billion(!) subscription promotion for The Wall Street Journal:

“On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both — as young college graduates are — were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently, these two men returned to college for their 25th reunion.”

Do you see the setting in your mind’s eye? Click here to read how the story progresses and see why it succeeded so wildly.

2. Ramp it up

Sometimes when we’re eager to prompt action, we’re tempted to come out of the gate swinging. High energy, high emotion — that’s what will cause the audience to latch on to our contagious enthusiasm and take action, right?

Not necessarily.

Skilled presenters, ranging from politicians to stand-up comics, know that it’s better to start low-key and build momentum as you go.

Persuasive content and copy are often referred to as a slippery slide. The goal of each and every sentence of your message is to keep people engaged the whole way down, gaining momentum along the way to the call to action.

And although the context is different, there might be no better example than Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech from 1963:

The speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century in a 1999 poll of oration scholars. More importantly, it inspired the huge crowd at The March on Washington to the point that the Kennedy administration felt compelled to advance its civil rights legislation in Congress.

3. Hold a unity rally

We all belong to various groups, ranging from nationality, to college alma mater, to favorite NBA team. Appealing to the tribal nature of an audience that’s part of your group naturally invokes emotion, while you also benefit from the powerful influence principle of unity.

Unity goes beyond simple similarities and liking, and instead reaches the point of shared identities. It’s inherently an “us against them” scenario, and if you want to mobilize the choir instead of just preach to it, you’ve got to communicate how “the others” present a problem.

It could be about how a competitor has chosen not to serve the needs of your group. Or how outsiders are belittling your tribe in a way that inspires action. It doesn’t have to be ugly, but it does have to motivate the group to stand together and move.

Sometimes, you can even use unity to inspire others to join the group. This happens because of another powerful, fundamental influence: social proof.

For example, one of our core values is that we believe that building your business or content marketing engine on someone else’s virtual property is unacceptably risky. When we rail against digital sharecropping, website owners flock to the comments to agree — providing powerful social proof for others to get on board with owning their own platform.

4. Be like Mike

Group identity is powerful thanks to our strong need to belong. Emulation works on the same emotional level when you position yourself as a role model to your audience.

Now, that might sound a bit arrogant, and it certainly can be. But if you’ve done the hard work of becoming a likable expert, your audience will naturally choose to emulate you in certain ways, or even desire to be like you.

Think of the whole “personal branding” movement. Everywhere you look, people are becoming micro-celebrities hoping to charge you money so you can be like them — and in many cases, it works.

That’s a little bit too on the nose for me. A smarter approach is to inspire your audience to do something with you, such as join a cause, contribute to a charity, or act in some other way that deepens the broader influence factors of unity, authority, liking, commitment and consistency, and social proof.

5. Show, don’t tell

This last technique is more of a “what not to do” tip that relates to the other four. It comes down to one of the oldest bits of writing advice around, which is to refrain from “telling” them why they should do what you want them to do while making your case, and instead letting the audience experience the realization themselves.

The story should be so vivid that they see themselves achieving the outcome.

The “ramp up” should spark the emotional response without explicit direction.

The realization that “they’re wrong, we’re right” should come from the group.

The audience should decide that they’ll emulate you before you ask.

On a related note, never telegraph the emotional response you’re seeking up front, or a natural psychological defense mechanism may arise.

Emotions are best triggered without revealing an upfront expectation.

It’s dangerous to proclaim a joke as hilarious before telling it, and it’s likewise bad form to lead with “Boy, is this going to tick you off.” In other words, don’t tell people you’re going to go on a rant, just begin and build to the rant.

Stir the win-win

None of these techniques are going to make anyone do something they don’t want to do. In fact, more often than not the desired action has to be in their best interest first and foremost, and yours secondarily.

In other cases, you may get some action thanks to the previously unmentioned principle of influence — reciprocity. If you selflessly and unconditionally give away something useful, perhaps they’ll do a favor for you in return.

You know, like sharing this article on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you!

The post 5 Writing Techniques that Stir Your Audience to Action appeared first on Copyblogger.

from Copyblogger http://www.copyblogger.com/stirring-content/

[annegalliher]

5 Writing Techniques that Stir Your Audience to Action

We all want a positive response to the content we work so hard to create. Not all positive responses, however, are created equal.

I’m reminded of this David Ogilvy quote from Ogilvy on Advertising:

“When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip.'”

In other words, if you’re looking for something more than “Great post!” comments, then you’ve got to prompt action. And that means you’ve got to stir something in the audience before they’ll do something.

Now, before we get to that, one easy way to get someone to do something is to simply ask. I’m assuming you’re already using calls to action, but if not, click that last link to read about those first.

Otherwise, let’s focus on what must happen before the ask. What we’re trying to stir is an emotional response.

It’s emotion that moves us to act. In fact, the Latin root for the word emotion means “to move,” because emotions motivate what we do. We don’t necessarily want to make them seethe with anger or burst into tears, though.

The goal is not necessarily to get someone to feel, but rather to want — and to act on that want. Here are several ways to accomplish that.

1. Vivid storytelling

Emotional responses come when we experience a message that corresponds with our existing beliefs. Appealing to the core values of your audience, how they view the world, and their expectations for the future is incredibly powerful — if you truly create an experience.

Dating back to the time of Aristotle, skilled persuaders understood the power of a detailed narrative. The key is that the story must be so vivid that it prompts a vicarious experience in which they can see the outcome of the story happening to them.

Here’s the beginning of a story that fueled a $2 billion(!) subscription promotion for The Wall Street Journal:

“On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both — as young college graduates are — were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently, these two men returned to college for their 25th reunion.”

Do you see the setting in your mind’s eye? Click here to read how the story progresses and see why it succeeded so wildly.

2. Ramp it up

Sometimes when we’re eager to prompt action, we’re tempted to come out of the gate swinging. High energy, high emotion — that’s what will cause the audience to latch on to our contagious enthusiasm and take action, right?

Not necessarily.

Skilled presenters, ranging from politicians to stand-up comics, know that it’s better to start low-key and build momentum as you go.

Persuasive content and copy are often referred to as a slippery slide. The goal of each and every sentence of your message is to keep people engaged the whole way down, gaining momentum along the way to the call to action.

And although the context is different, there might be no better example than Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech from 1963:

The speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century in a 1999 poll of oration scholars. More importantly, it inspired the huge crowd at The March on Washington to the point that the Kennedy administration felt compelled to advance its civil rights legislation in Congress.

3. Hold a unity rally

We all belong to various groups, ranging from nationality, to college alma mater, to favorite NBA team. Appealing to the tribal nature of an audience that’s part of your group naturally invokes emotion, while you also benefit from the powerful influence principle of unity.

Unity goes beyond simple similarities and liking, and instead reaches the point of shared identities. It’s inherently an “us against them” scenario, and if you want to mobilize the choir instead of just preach to it, you’ve got to communicate how “the others” present a problem.

It could be about how a competitor has chosen not to serve the needs of your group. Or how outsiders are belittling your tribe in a way that inspires action. It doesn’t have to be ugly, but it does have to motivate the group to stand together and move.

Sometimes, you can even use unity to inspire others to join the group. This happens because of another powerful, fundamental influence: social proof.

For example, one of our core values is that we believe that building your business or content marketing engine on someone else’s virtual property is unacceptably risky. When we rail against digital sharecropping, website owners flock to the comments to agree — providing powerful social proof for others to get on board with owning their own platform.

4. Be like Mike

Group identity is powerful thanks to our strong need to belong. Emulation works on the same emotional level when you position yourself as a role model to your audience.

Now, that might sound a bit arrogant, and it certainly can be. But if you’ve done the hard work of becoming a likable expert, your audience will naturally choose to emulate you in certain ways, or even desire to be like you.

Think of the whole “personal branding” movement. Everywhere you look, people are becoming micro-celebrities hoping to charge you money so you can be like them — and in many cases, it works.

That’s a little bit too on the nose for me. A smarter approach is to inspire your audience to do something with you, such as join a cause, contribute to a charity, or act in some other way that deepens the broader influence factors of unity, authority, liking, commitment and consistency, and social proof.

5. Show, don’t tell

This last technique is more of a “what not to do” tip that relates to the other four. It comes down to one of the oldest bits of writing advice around, which is to refrain from “telling” them why they should do what you want them to do while making your case, and instead letting the audience experience the realization themselves.

The story should be so vivid that they see themselves achieving the outcome.

The “ramp up” should spark the emotional response without explicit direction.

The realization that “they’re wrong, we’re right” should come from the group.

The audience should decide that they’ll emulate you before you ask.

On a related note, never telegraph the emotional response you’re seeking up front, or a natural psychological defense mechanism may arise.

Emotions are best triggered without revealing an upfront expectation.

It’s dangerous to proclaim a joke as hilarious before telling it, and it’s likewise bad form to lead with “Boy, is this going to tick you off.” In other words, don’t tell people you’re going to go on a rant, just begin and build to the rant.

Stir the win-win

None of these techniques are going to make anyone do something they don’t want to do. In fact, more often than not the desired action has to be in their best interest first and foremost, and yours secondarily.

In other cases, you may get some action thanks to the previously unmentioned principle of influence — reciprocity. If you selflessly and unconditionally give away something useful, perhaps they’ll do a favor for you in return.

You know, like sharing this article on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you!

The post 5 Writing Techniques that Stir Your Audience to Action appeared first on Copyblogger.