#also the theater is STILL playing Speak Now over the speakers which is SO REAL | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

heyyyharry · 6 years ago

Text

My Girl Series: Chapter 9 - Bambi

…in which the little girl next door isn’t so little anymore.

Series description: Y/N falls in love with the older boy next door who doesn’t feel the same, years later they meet again at a funeral.

AU: actor!harry, older!harry, younger!y/n; (4-year age gap)

Chapter 8: Without The Love - Harry wants what he shouldn’t, and now he cannot leave.

Warning: smut (yes guys, finally), and also mistakes because my eyesight got blurry after going through 7k words lmao.

wattpad link

"But boys don't like little girls."

"That's not true. I'm a boy and I like you."

"You do?!"

"Of course I do. You're my girl."

With a faint smile, fifteen-year-old Harry headed back to his front porch. He thought about the look on Y/N's face when he called her his girl, oh how happy she must've felt, and that made him feel special too. As the boy sat back down with his study group, his eyes still followed the girl until she was finally out of sight.

"Are you dating an eleven-year-old?" The fat kid named Brian said, pulling Harry's attention back to the skeptical stares everyone in the circle was giving him. They all cracked up at that one question, causing the poor boy to shift uncomfortably in his spot.

"She's just my neighbor," he said, but nobody seemed convinced.

"I think she has a crush on you," said the pretty blonde sitting right in front of him. When she pressed her lips into a smile, Harry swore that his heart might've just skipped a beat.

Her name was Kathy — the most beautiful girl in school. Earlier that year, there had been rumors going around that she secretly liked Harry a lot, but she hadn't found the courage to ask him out yet. And frankly, who wouldn't want to receive attention from such a beautiful girl? So when she assumed that his little friend might have a crush on him, he couldn't let her believe that was true, not even for a second.

"I think she only sees me as her big brother," he reassured Kathy.

Another smile formed on her lips as she combed her fingers through her golden locks.

"Trust me, I know when a girl likes a boy," she said, batting her eyelashes at Harry, who could only hope it wasn't obvious how red he had become.

"Dude," another kid spoke up, gaining everyone's attention at once, but he was only talking to Harry. "That kid was so excited to tell you about her first period. Talk about being obsessive! I can see her hanging your photos everywhere in her bedroom."

Everyone burst out laughing at what that boy had just said, everyone including his crush. So even though Harry didn't find any humor in the mean joke, he cracked a nervous grin. He felt so guilty afterwards though; if his Bambi had been there and they had said those words to her face, he might've reacted differently. But she wasn't there, Kathy was, leaving him no other choice but to play along.

When Harry looked up and met Kathy's blue eyes, she gave him a shrug as if to tell him to just ignore his friends. But how could he when they were all laughing at him? For a teenage boy, having a good reputation mattered a lot; and without a doubt, having a lot of friends was more important than having a real one. So those simple words the other kids had said caused him to overthink for the rest of the day. And from that day, the way he saw his little neighbor had also changed.

All of a sudden, he felt like it was inappropriate for a fifteen-year-old to spend that much time with an eleven-year-old. First off, people would make fun of him. Second, girls like Kathy would assume he wasn't mature enough for them. It was such a shame that both of those reasons were about him, and not Y/N. He didn't bother to think about how it would make her feel when he decided to keep his distance with her.

At that point, Harry didn't know how much he would regret it later on.

Checking his watch for the third time or so, Harry leaned back against the car, sighing as he looked up. He tried to find the window on the fifth floor that was Y/N's bedroom only to see if her light was on. It showed just how impatient he was getting. Fifteen minutes more and he began to fear that she might've forgotten about their "date" to the musical. So he decided to send a quick text to make sure she remembered. It didn't take more than a second for the word seen to appear and three dots to pop up in the chat box.

⌲ Bambi: The show starts at 9. It's only 7PM now?

Shit. He thought to himself and quickly opened the photo of the tickets she'd sent. She was right. He was too excited to see her that he thought the show started one hour earlier. Embarrassed, Harry quickly wrote her another text.

⌲ Sorry. But I'm here anyway so can I come up?

⌲ Bambi: Wait. I'll be right down with you.

⌲ Bambi: Btw, park your car somewhere. We'll walk.

Y/N suggested that they go for a drink first and then to the theater. He hadn't seen her so excited in a long time, she talked and laughed a lot. It wasn't her everyday personality but he thought he liked that side of her, he liked it a lot.

They walked side by side, two meters apart, him having both hands in his pockets and her with her arms folded to hold onto herself. Those defensive gestures might keep them from running into each other's embrace, yet it didn't stop their thoughts from wandering way too far from reality. He took a glance at her and turned away as she did the same. They had been walking for five minutes without exchanging a single word, and the silence had become way too suffocating.

"Why is this street so dark?" Harry finally spoke as he looked around and realized there was no one else but the two of them. The moon was nowhere to be seen, and the only source of light there was a dim streetlamp which went on and off every second.

Harry had checked the weather forecast before leaving his house and it said there was a 70% chance of rain that night. No wonder the stars in the sky were nonexistent, same as the moon, they were all hidden under thick blankets of dark clouds.

Not answering Harry's question, Y/N walked fast forward, taking a turn into an alley as she nodded her head, giving him signal to hurry along. She told him they couldn't take the direct route to the bar because it would be suicidal to walk down the street together at London's most busy hour. When they went out for dinner with her father and Marcy, they had tried to be as lowkey as they could've, but somehow still ran into his fans. This time, they had to be even more secretive, though it was admittedly tiring to literally hide in the dark.

"Do you always walk that far when you're out with a girl?" Y/N pointed out, making Harry realize he was keeping a considerable distance from her.

"Yeah, well, I don't even hold hands on a date unless it's for PR."

"Sucks to be you." She laughed. But he agreed. It sucked to be him sometimes.

In silence, Harry followed the girl as they walked along the rough cobbled road that caused his feet to ache. The abandoned blocks on both sides were tight together and loomed over the pair, creating an illusion that the alleyway was longer and more narrow than it actually was. The sounds of their footsteps ricochetted from one wall to the other, somehow causing his heart to beat in sync with his steady paces.

In the half light of the alley, his Bambi appeared so small. To answer the question in his head, she broke the silence, "I don't usually take this route when I go out alone at night."

"Good." He breathed out a heavy chuckle, feeling relieved. "I meant to ask."

They carried on walking, taking a few more turns. All those narrow streets looked almost the same, all dark and grey, causing Harry to think if Y/N had left him there to walk back on his own, he would've spent the rest of his life searching for the way out.

"We're almost there," she assured him.

Soon he noticed the yellow beams of the only lamppost ahead, and Y/N sighed in relief as she pointed to the metal door at the end of the road, saying that was the back entrance of the bar. She walked in without hesitation, pulling Harry along, so he assumed she had been there plenty of times before.

The place was hundreds of conversations told in loud voices, all mixed up with the loud rock song blasting on the speaker which nobody really paid attention to. Y/N made her way through the sweaty bodies, making sure her fingers stayed locked around Harry's wrist as they headed straight towards the counter to order some drinks.

"Andrew!"

"Little girl!" The big fat bartender laughed loudly when he spotted her face in the crowd. "I can hardly recognize you when you're sober."

Y/N rolled her eyes as she huffed and pulled a chair to sit down, telling Harry to do the same. It took the actor a moment to figure out why Andrew and everything there looked so familiar. That was the same bar he'd come to pick her up when she was shit-faced on that counter and threw up all over his shoes. He opened his mouth to speak, yet was interrupted by the loud bearded man.

"Glad to see you two back together again," said the man while looking at Harry. "The last time you broke up, she literally turned my bar into her second home."

"But we never dated."

"Don't fool me, little girl." Andrew scoffed, pointing a finger at Y/N. "If your pretty boyfriend hadn't come save your ass, I would've tossed you out on the street that night."

Harry and Y/N exchanged funny looks in silence. Instead of trying to explain, they just let Andrew believe what he wanted to believe and ordered a pint of beer for each.

Most of the people at that bar were blue-collar workers and middle-aged men who'd had too much to drink to remember who they were, let alone recognize movie star Harry Styles sitting just a few feet away from them. For the first time in the longest time, Harry finally felt like he was invisible and he actually loved the feeling of it. It seemed like Y/N was the only one there who knew him, and he felt free to drink as much as he liked and laughed as hard as he wanted. They sat and talked about life, his movies, her job at the library, and many other things that mattered to them. Then it was finally 8:30, they paid for the drinks and said goodbye to Andrew so as to get to the show on time.

Once again, the pair took the same dark route they had before, but this time instead of walking far apart, she had her arm around his waist and his on her shoulders. They were singing random songs out loud, knowing the only creatures they might disturb on that abandoned street were the rats and cockroaches in the sewers. But their ignorance didn't get to last for too long. As they took the final turn to get back to the main street, Harry immediately spotted a familiar face.

Under the lamppost stood a man, tall and slim, with a cigarette between his lips. He was too busy talking on the phone with someone to notice them. So Harry grabbed Y/N by the arms and pulled her back into the dark alleyway. She intended to ask when he pressed her against the wall, but with a finger to his lips, he signaled her to stay silent. Slowly, he poked his head out to check on the stranger, making Y/N frown in confusion.

"That man out there works for an online magazine that write gossip about celebrities," he whispered, now turning back to her, one hand resting on the wall by her head, the other on her neck. "Maybe we should wait a bit for him to leave. Can't let him see us together."

Y/N pressed her lips into a firm line, nodding her head to let him know she got it. She fought him a lot, so it was nice to see her listen to him even just for once. And she looked too cute for him to feel unfortunate that they got stuck in that situation.

For a moment, he got lost in the hues of her eyes. He told himself to stay calm, still couldn't fight the urge to caress her lips with his thumb. He thought about chewing on them if she would just let him kiss her. But knowing her, he didn't have much hope for getting a taste of those lips anytime soon.

Just as a drop of crystal-clear water appeared on his skin, Harry quickly lifted both hands above Y/N's head to shield her from the raindrops coming down. She gave him a smile, as if the thought of a rain excited her as it used to when she was a child. He watched her beam grow, unable to stop one from forming upon his face. However, the drops became heavier really soon. Harry poked his head out of the alleyway once again, but the annoying reporter was still standing there because he was safe with the roof above his head. Harry sighed in frustration, but Y/N only giggled. The sound of her laugh eased his mind as he stepped closer, almost sandwiching her between his body and the brick wall so the rain couldn't drench all of her, at least not as much as it was doing to him.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, their faces so close that even with the sound thunder, he could still hear her breath get caught in her throat. Y/N cupped his face, wiping the wet strands out of his forehead. Her eyelids flutter as she stared at the droplets running down his pink lips.

"Why are you sorry?" She asked, laughing nervously when her body shivered from the cold. Even though it was pointless at this point to shield her from the downpour, Harry still kept one arm above her head, his other tightened the grip on her waist.

"I ruined our date."

"Our date?"

"Oh, fuck...I mean..." He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head and laughing lowly. "Shit. Never mind."

Y/N said nothing. The girl couldn't come up with anything to speak so she pulled him in. The water ran down their faces to where their lips collided. Neither seemed to care as they tasted the cold drops against the tips of their tongues. Harry pushed his lips in more firmly, and the intoxicating wave running through him caused his head to spin in circles. There was something so heavenly about a kiss in the rain, a tender yet intense moment that just wouldn't wait. The couple melted into each other, letting the water soak through to chill their skin, like a rebellion act against nature.

The universe could bring the storm, but the sunshine within could come through just as strong.

When Harry pulled his car over in front of his house, his first instinct was to look up at the highest window next door to check if Y/N had gone to bed yet. It was almost midnight then but he could still see her shadow pacing back and forth inside her room, and so he assumed she must've waited until the last minute to prepare for an exam again.

"What is it?" Spoke the girl sitting in the passenger seat, as she leaned over to see what her date was looking at, and why he was smiling. Harry just straight off told Kathy that it was nothing, and got out to come open the door for her. His mum was already asleep, so he asked Kathy to be quiet as he took her hand and led her into his house. The teenagers headed straight to the backyard, where they could be alone and didn't have to worry about waking up Anne.

Turning on the fairy lights on the porch, Harry set up two chairs looking out to the garden, and asked his date to sit down with him. But that wasn't what Kathy had in mind. Her attention was on something else. With a smile she pointed to the big tree standing right by the fence, and asked him, "is that your treehouse?"

"Yeah. My dad built it," he answered.

Harry almost included 'before he left', but he didn't think Kathy was ready to hear about his family drama when it was just their first date.

"Let's go up there."

"Go up there?" Harry widened his eyes at her suggestion, yet the girl already seemed so excited.

"Yeah. I wanna see your treehouse." She giggled and leaned in to study his facial expression, probably wondering why he seemed so unsure. "Do you have secrets that you don't want me to know?" Kathy joked, laughing slightly, but Harry only shook his head as a response. "Or am I not special enough?"

"You are, you are special," he said fast, laughing nervously.

Without a doubt, he liked Kathy very much. He would be insane if he didn't, because she was the definition of perfect. She was beautiful, and sweet, and smart, like the main girl in those romantic movies he'd watched and books he'd read. And to have someone popular and pretty like her as a girlfriend was certainly a dream come true. However, nobody else had entered that treehouse but him and Y/N. It wasn't just his treehouse, it was theirs. So even though Y/N was studying in her room and wouldn't be able to see him bring Kathy to their fort, he felt guilty about it still.

"I'm too exhausted to climb all the way up there," he lied. But Kathy just breathed out a laugh and took his wrist as she told him he was just lazy.

"Come on, Harry. Let's go," she urged him, pulling the boy with her before he could come up with another way to say no. And Harry didn't make an effort to stop her then. He let her get on the robe ladder first and followed right after to make sure she didn't fall. When they finally got up there, he switched on the lightbulb and stepped aside for his date to enter the world that was initially just his and Y/N's.

"Wow, 'do not enter'. Trying to be badass, huh?" Kathy giggled as she read the messy handwriting on the door. Little did she know, it wasn't Harry's.

The girl took a look around the tiny space, observing every little corner that belonged to her date's childhood, everything that used to matter a lot, or still mattered to him. It didn't take her too long to spot four simple words carved onto the back entrance.

"Y/N and Harry only?" She squinted her eyes, and turned to give Harry a questioning look. "Is Y/N that little girl who lives next door to you?"

"Yup." He shrugged, shoving both hands into his pants pockets. "This used to be our treehouse."

Used to. Harry couldn't believe he'd said that. If Y/N was there, she would be so upset, and the thought of it made him feel terrible.

"Our?" Kathy playfully stuck out her bottom lip, pouting as she said, "so I'm not the first girl you brought here?"

"She's just a kid." He chuckled, shaking his head, and the smile soon returned to Kathy's face. Slowly, she walked up to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and Harry felt his heart racing faster as his arms finally tightened around her small waist. Their foreheads rested against each other; and he let himself get carried away by the deep blue of her eyes.

"Sit. I have something for you." He sat down on the floor, pulling her down with him and reached out to grab the dusty guitar he'd left in the corner for too long. The last time he picked it up was when his Bambi asked him to play her a song. Of course he didn't mention it to Kathy, so the girl assumed she was the first and only girl he'd ever sung to.

The sad truth was, she wasn't even his first love, or even his love. She was just a girl he had a crush on at seventeen, the age at which not everyone could tell the difference between love and physical attraction. Harry and Kathy had their first kiss that night in the treehouse, but a few months later, they called it off because their feelings just weren't the same anymore. After the breakup, they never spoke to each other again, and it didn't take Harry too long to erase most memories he had with her.

But somehow, he couldn't do the same to the little girl he had abandoned.

The rain came in waves, splattering across the pavement and beating down on every hard surface. Soon the entire city had been hidden by silver sheets of water. As pedestrians dashed for cover, the hiss of car tires on glistening roads was competing with the wild howling of the wind. The scene was pure madness. But right there, in Harry's car, was the opposite of what was happening outside in the pouring rain.

He kissed her and the world fell away. Their heavy breaths had fogged up all the windows, obscuring the movements of two soaked body in the backseat of the steamy vehicle. She was sitting on his lap, grinding against the hard bulge under his wet jeans, earning a heavy groan that got stuck in his throat when he tossed his head back. His fingers pressed hard onto the exposed skin above the waistband of her tennis skirt.

"That man took too long to leave," she moaned into his mouth, hands hiking up his shirt as she was desperate for some skin contact. The thin fabric of her panties didn't really do its job because he could feel her heat burning through all those layers and knew she wasn't just dripping from the rain. It was killing him to not tear off her clothes and take her right there. He desperately wanted to, he knew she wanted him to. His mind tried to reason with him that once they'd had sex, they could never go back. But now she was moaning his name non-stop as he was sucking on her neck, it was impossible for them to stop at this point.

"We can't...not here." His breath hitched up as he clung to her hips, trying to push her away, but she grasped his neck harder, forcing him to open his eyes and look into hers. The look she was giving him could melt him into the puddle that had already formed on the leather seat because of their drenched clothes.

"Want you now," she begged, hot mouth sucking the spot right below his ear, causing him to moan out, and the sound to Y/N was just like a ballad made from heaven.

"Bambi-" She cut him off by kissing his lips. He kissed back, both hands moving to her neck and hair.

"Want you to fuck me," she whispered, pouting like a little girl, but now he knew she wasn't one anymore. "Don't you want that? To fuck me?"

"I do, fuck, I do." Harry loved and hated her dirty mouth at the same time, but he still managed to use a fraction of self-control he'd got left to reason with her, as well as himself.

"Just...don't want our first time to...god...to be like this. Not here." He tossed his head back when she kissed his jawline, neck, and collarbone. "Let's get you home." He shook his head, one arm squeezing her torso, but she only kissed him harder, leaving him breathless. "Baby, be good."

Y/N's lips curved into a smile as she heard that nickname. That was the first time he'd ever called her "baby" and she almost begged him to never stop repeating that word.

"Shh." She brought her finger up to his lips and kissed them again, before pulling away a bit so she wouldn't forget to breathe. "Don't worry about me. I've done this before."

"Fuck. No need to remind me that." He released a rough groan when she bit his earlobe, trying not to think about all the other men who had felt what he was feeling then. Their breathing then became rough and fast as she tugged on his shirt, and finally pulling it over his head to do the same to her sweater. She didn't have her bra on, so Harry's eyes nearly fell out when he saw her bare chest for the first time.

There was a vulnerability in Y/N's eyes as she felt him gazing at her naked form. With that look on his face, it almost felt like Harry had just seen a woman's breasts for the first time in his life, so she couldn't help but giggle lowly. His eyes didn't linger too long there, just enough for her to know how beautiful she was to him. She was literally trembling when she took his hand and placed it on one breast. He squeezed it gently, feeling the softness of her skin which was turning warm under his palm. One hand at the back of his neck, she urged his face down. Soon he opened his mouth and gently suckled, causing his name to spill out from her mouth, mixing up with wet moans that got his jeans tightened even more.

She was his drug. All it took was one touch and the intoxication was instant. Her scent became more prominent in the tiny space of his backseat and the fragranced hot air got all the blood in his body rushing to one body part.

Before they knew how it happened, they were both naked and their bodies were moving softly together as if they were one. Their tongues entwined in a sloppy kiss when he was finally inside, changing her breathing with every hard thrust as if her moans fueled him to go harder and deeper.

"No...don't...Bambi, look at me." He held her face to demand eye contact, not slowing down as she begged him not to. She struggled to keep her eyes open but never gave into the temptation to get carried away all at once. He watched her face twist with pleasure as his lips parted, hands guiding her hip to move her faster ontop of him.

"Feels good."

"Yea—Yeah? " He furrowed his brows as she did the same, clutching his hair a bit tighter.

"More." She moaned, nodding fast, not to look anywhere else but his green eyes.

"Such a good girl for me. Almost there, baby. C'mon," he coaxed her, capturing her mouth with his own and she caught him by surprise by nipping his bottom lip between her teeth. He was weak for her, entirely defeated under her. If she wanted him to beg, he would, as long as she promised to never stop until they both came undone.

When it happened, Y/N almost forgot how to breathe. She slammed one hand against the foggy window on her side, arching her back when he pounded into her. She couldn't care less if her scream could break the glass as she tossed her head back and dug her nails into his back. Harry released into the condom just a few seconds after her as he finally slowed down and kissed her hard on the lips. The stayed there, panting until they caught our breaths, sweaty foreheads against one another.

It was insane how they managed to get back to her flat, let alone strip each other down again once they had entered the living room. This time, he took her hard against her bedroom wall, still in their dripping clothes, too aroused to care or even make it to the bed. After the third orgasm that followed right after her second, Harry had to catch Y/N's limb body before she collapsed and carried her to the shower. They just stood there leaning onto each other for support, her head on his chest as he washed her hair, letting the warm water run down their flushed skin to wash the rain water, sweat, and the smell of sex all down the drain.

It wasn't until they had returned to the bedroom and began drying off that realization sank back in for both. They just stood there, staring at one another in silent. Harry had only a towel wrapped around his waist now that his clothes were all wet. And Y/N was wearing just a t-shirt big and long enough to look like a dress on her. The feeling was strange, yet new, and exciting.

It was Y/N who took the first steps forward, closing the distance between them two to hug him tight. Without saying a word, he did the same, sniffing in the apple scent of her still soaked hair.

"Stay the night," she said at last. And he happily nodded, squeezing her warm body tight.

Harry had been pacing back and forth for nearly a minute before he finally gained enough courage to ring on his neighbor's doorbell. The boy blew air through his mouth, hollowing up his cheeks as he heard footsteps coming his way. And when the door opened, it wasn't the fourteen-year-old he was there to see, it was her mother. Tam Y/L/N greeted the boy next door with a casual, yet heart-warming smile.

"Harry, look how grown you are! I haven't seen you around in so long," she said. He already knew that it'd been a while since he last came here, but to hear it from someone else made him feel worse somehow. "I heard you got the scholarship that you wanted. Your mother must be so proud."

"Thank you, Mrs. Y/L/N...Is Y/N home?"

"Yeah, she's upstairs. Want me to call her for you?"

"No." He stopped her just as she turned away. "Uhm...I'm leaving tomorrow. I think I should let her know. Can you tell her that for me?"

"Sweetie..." The corners of Tam's lips sank into a frown. "She doesn't even know about the scholarship."

Right. Of course she didn't know. The last time they talked was a year ago when she asked him to take her to that concert but he refused. He couldn't believe it had been that long. They had been two strangers for a year now, so to see her again and tell her he was gonna leave Holmes Chapel and wasn't sure when and if he was ever coming back would make him seem like a jerk. So even though Harry's initial intention when he rang the doorbell was to talk to her in person, but now the thought of it scared him a lot. Harry stood there, stuttering in front of her mother, trying to come up with an excuse so she would help him out by breaking this news to Y/N.

But the woman spoke before he could, "Harry, you know her. If she hears this from me she'll assume she doesn't matter to you." Then came a pause. "Do you care about her?"

He didn't answer that inquiry. But he didn't have to.

"Then I think you should tell her yourself. She really misses you," Tam said, giving the eighteen-year-old boy another smile.

She was right. Even though he had been keeping distance with Y/N for that long, he couldn't walk away knowing she would hate him and think she didn't mean anything to him. After all, she was still the girl he'd got into a fight for and risked getting sick as he walked in the rain to keep her safe. Even if his head told him she didn't matter, his heart knew she did.

After a moment, he finally nodded, and Tam didn't hesitate to turn her head and shouted upstairs,"Y/N, Harry is here to see you!"

"Wait," he spoke after a second thought. "Can you...can you tell her to meet me at our treehouse?"

"Sure, love," the woman said without asking why.

Harry thanked her and walked away quickly before Y/N came down and saw his face. He needed time to think about how to break the news without breaking her heart, and maybe his own.

It had been so long since he last visited their treehouse, and it was quite embarrassing how he had to struggle at first because he'd forgotten how to climb. He sat there on the floor like the night they first met, but this time he was nervous because he knew she was coming.

Harry turned his head as soon as he heard Y/N's voice at the entrance. He got up from the dusty wooden floor, smiling at the girl. Her eyes were still as bright as he remembered. He'd never told her, but all the emotions she was trying to hide always showed through her big eyes and gave away what she was actually feeling. But this time, it was hope that he saw in them. And he knew the goodbye was gonna be twice as hard as how he'd imagined it would be.

They sat down side by side on the edge of their little house with bare feet dangling in the air, listening to the cricket singing their summer song. He knew he was going to miss this, he was going to miss Holmes Chapel, and mostly he was going to miss her. Y/N seemed pretty quiet that night, so Harry had to initiate a conversation, asking her about school, about Celine, about her parent's constant fights. He also filled her in with most of the things that had happened to her in the past year, and kept her updated on his sister and his mum.

But eventually, he must say what he was there to say, "I'm leaving tomorrow morning. To London."

From the way her body stiffened as she heard those words, Harry had expected a different reaction from his little neighbor. However, she only laughed and asked him if he was joking. He wished it had been a joke, then it wouldn't have killed him to say it out loud. He told her about the scholarship, about being accepted into his dream school, and now he could finally follow his dream to become a famous actor. But she was quiet the whole time. He didn't know what she was thinking, he never did.

"I'll come back and visit you next summer," he said, not even sure if he could stay true to those words. But at least they would ease her mind. "I wanted to see you one last time before I left...Bambi, say something."

His Bambi turned to look at him with glistening eyes, and he silently begged her not to dissolve into tears because he wouldn't know what to do. But knowing Y/N, he was sure that she wouldn't allow herself to cry in front of him now that he was basically just a familiar stranger.

"I'm really happy for you, H," she said at last, putting on a smile. So he smiled back at her, reaching out to tuck a strand behind her ear. He told her to be strong when he wasn't around, and take care of herself, though she'd been doing just fine without him in the past year. And deep down, he hoped she would find a boy who wouldn't mind getting a black eye to make her happy. He couldn't be that boy, not anymore.

"This treehouse is all yours now," he told her. "Please look after it?"

"I will," she gave him her words. From the determination written on her face, he knew she would keep her promise, and somehow that made him happy. Maybe because he knew she didn't hated him like he assumed she would.

It was getting late, and he had to catch a train before sunrise. So Harry said his last goodbye to his little neighbor, telling her that they both should get some rest. But instead of letting him go, she cut him off just as he tried to say something else. "Harry...Can I ask you for one last favor?"

"Anything, kid. Tell me."

"Can you...Uhm...Will you..." She exhaled deeply and took his hand in hers. "Will you be my first kiss?"

The grin slowly faded from his face when he realized she was actually serious. "I don't think I should be your first kiss, Bambi. You should save it for the boy you like."

"But you...are the boy I like."

Harry was surprised to hear those words, yet not really. A part of him had always known she'd had a crush on him, but he assumed it would just disappear into thin air real soon. But after a year of acting like they didn't know each other, how could she still call him the boy she liked?

He wanted to lighten up the mood without hurting her feelings, yet he struggled to come up with what to say. But Y/N was impatient as always. She couldn't wait for a reply, probably because she knew she would never get one. So she just followed her instinct and cupped his face to bring her lips to his, only to pull away a second later. It was barely what one would call a kiss, but Harry was in shock and he couldn't even flinch. A fourteen-year-old had just kissed him on the lips. How could he possibly react in this situation? So he chose not to react.

He just sat there and watched her run back to the rope ladder. And the next moment she was gone, for good this time. He didn't think too much about the kiss even though it did put him in shock. But maybe it was for the best if her last memory of him was their moment on the treehouse and not him leaving her without saying goodbye. At least now he knew she wouldn't hate him forever.

She had been a big part of his childhood, and would always be a part of him. So as Harry watched her run back to her house, he truly hoped if they never met again, she would keep him in her memory if not in her heart.

For him, he would also do the same.

Harry woke up in the middle of the night, reaching for the warm body lying next to him, only to find the bed cold and empty. In an instant, he became frantic, thinking Y/N had gone. But it took him a second to calm down and remember he was at her place, not his. The girl hadn't even left the bed. She was just sitting up, holding her knees to her chest and staring at the window. She stayed very still when he crawled to her side.

"Bambi?" His voice was dreadfully quiet. "Are you...Why are you crying, love?" The left side of his chest ached when he saw a tear running down from the corner of her eyes. Slowly she turned to look at him, her lips trembled and her shoulders heaved with emotion when he pulled her to his chest.

"Is it because of me?" He sadly questioned, assuming it must be him. Maybe he shouldn't have been too rough when they had sex, maybe she regretted sleeping with him, maybe she was gonna tell him to leave and never see her again. His whole body tensed up in fear thinking all of those maybes could be true. But eventually, she shook her head no.

"I forgot my cup of tea," she whispered.

That answer left him confused. "Your cup of tea?"

Y/N nodded, staying utterly lifeless in his arms. "It keeps me from having nightmares."

"Is that why you always drink tea before bed?"

"Hmm," she hummed and buried her face into his chest, inhaling his cent as if to remind herself that she'd still got him. After a moment of silence and ragged breathing, she told him, "I saw my mum. She was standing right by a car. But before I could get to her, the car exploded, and all that was left was fire and smoke and the sound of my own screams..."

"Shh." He stroked her hair, pressing butterfly kisses to her forehead. It was then that he realized she was clinging to the locket he'd given her, somehow it put him at ease knowing his birthday gift could lend her some kind of emotional support when she felt afraid. "Want me to make you a cup of tea, love?"

"No. Just...don't let me go."

"Alright."

Harry laid her back down, this time with her back to his chest. When they clasped each other in a warm hug, Y/N could finally be calm enough to listen to the sound of the gentle night rain outside, feeling his chest rising and falling against her back, their breaths in unison.

For a second, Harry wished they could share their hearts as easily as sharing their body heat. He couldn't remember the last time he let another get close to him like this, but Y/N was special; though at the same time, being with her felt like carrying a time bomb. One wrong move and he was a goner, yet every time she tried to leave, it was him who convinced her to stay.

"I'll go to the wedding with you." Her voice pierced right through the silence of the room, causing his eyes to fly open. Y/N thought he didn't hear her, so she repeated the sentence once more, adding, "if your offer still stands."

"It does." He chuckled hoarsely. "What changed your mind though?"

"Thought I should stop running away from reality." That was her answer, nothing more. He didn't really get what she actually meant, but he didn't think she wanted him to ask, so he decided to let it go.

"When are you gonna leave?" She asked.

"Not tonight. I'm staying tonight."

Harry wasn't sure if when she said "leave", she meant him leaving her flat before she woke up, or him leaving her for good. But it didn't really matter. That answer would do for both meanings. Because no matter what happened to them in the future, he knew it wasn't gonna end tonight.

"Good," Y/N murmured with a tiny sigh, making Harry chuckle. His eyes gradually slipped closed, and a few minutes later, he went limp.

#my girl series #harry styles #harry styles smut #harry styles writing #harry styles imagine #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagines #harry styles fanfics #harry styles fanfictions #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry styles series #actor!harry #older!harry #younger!y/n

766 notes · View notes

maelaola · 5 years ago

Text

Away and Under the Weather: Part 3

This is it. My final and, in my opinion, WORST illness-related experience abroad. It actually involves a few different illnesses and was spread out over at least a month. It was painful, exhausting, and just bizarre. Enjoy! #1 It started with the flu... It started with the flu. Nothing special, just the flu. When you live in another country AND work with children, you're going to get sick now and then. It was around this time of year (April) in 2007. I don't even remember how bad a flu it was. I probably had a fever, some body aches and a runny nose. That's usually what I get. I taught lessons through it (as usual) and it was over. I didn't need to go to the doctor until later. The flu ended but the crap in my lungs never really went away. After a week or two of wheezing and coughing, I went to get checked out. At the hospital, I was shown around by my own English-speaking nurse to see two specialists and got an x-ray of my lungs. It cost less than US$50. (I miss Korea.) I had acute bronchitis. The flu had slightly inflamed my bronchial tubes and there was a little infection. They gave me antibiotics, pain pills, something for the mucus, and anti-inflammatory medicine. Getting treated in Korea by western medicine is different than at home. Korean hospitals also treated people using eastern medicine and I took advantage of that more after this experience. Eastern medicine is about treating the delicate balance that exists in your body and allowing your body to function at its peak potential. Western medicine works more like a band aid. You're hurt here; fix here. Western medicine in Korea takes this metaphor even further. Sick? In pain? Appendages double in size? Okay! What can we do to patch you up and get you back to work? On top of that, we really do blindly trust doctors a lot. Which is fine for the complicated stuff. But in Korea, you barely even know what medicine you're taking. They give me the list but there's a lot on there and it's hard to tell the pills apart. They prepare all the pills for you and separate them by dose in these long strips of vacuum sealed plastic baggies. Swallow the cocktail and get back to work. No need to wait for the effects to kick in. I can tell you that I took my first baggie on a Wednesday night or Thursday morning. I remember that because by Friday I was calling the nurse and taking the only sick leave I ever took in 3 years in Korea. I felt a little off on Thursday. Not sick, just off. So it took me (and my head teacher/neighbor who was walking home with me) completely by surprise when I randomly puked on the street Thursday night. I barely made it to the storm drain let alone even thinking about trying to find a toilet. Living abroad, I've had my share of food poisonings so the idea that my body was rejecting something was not foreign to me. But there was no food. It was like a hangover without the bliss of being an idiot the night before. Since it wasn't food, I assumed pills and called the nurse. I stopped taking all of them since I didn't know which was which in my poison cocktail. I didn't feel any better the next day as I started to have stomach problems come out the other end. Great. And remember how I couldn't have sick days? That was especially true my first year when our numbers were already small and there were teachers fleeing the country in the middle of the night every other week. Fortunately, though, through some luck--and a lot of pity from my head teacher and principal who watched me try to teach my 4pm-7pm elementary class from a chair when I wasn't running to the bathroom--my head teacher had her second three-hour slot free and taught my 7pm-10pm middle school class. So I went home and proceeded to have my worst weekend ever. I was supposed to be at a wedding. Instead, every three hours (like clockwork!) I crawled the three feet from my bed to the bathroom and then tried crawl back, dragging what was left of my tattered stomach on the floor. Eventually that was too much and I brought a pillow and blanket into the bathroom to sleep on the floor in between sessions. I didn't leave the house until Sunday afternoon. I limped across the street to get some saltines and electrolytes with some hope that I would be better before Monday. And, surprisingly, I was. My stomach was convinced everything was out that it didn't like and it stopped trying to kill me. On Monday, I was exhausted, soar, and really cranky but I was mobile enough to go down the hill to my work. I settled in my chair to be a white-faced, native speaker in front of 15 Korean kids for 6 hours. The kids were extra nice and the next few days went fine. Although, it still amazes me that the kids never viewed this behavior as strange. I could not stand most of the time and could barely speak but I was still there. Even now in Hong Kong, I often teach while wearing a doctor's mask when I have a cough or runny nose, and I have some kids come to EVERY class in a mask. Sick? Wrap it, cover it up, take a pill. But do it at work. In this case though, the pills were the problem. I talked to my mom on Skype later and she told me that it was probably the anti-inflammatory medicine. She used to work for a doctor and patients often called and complained of stomach problems when the doctor prescribed anti-inflammatory medicine. So that was it. The weekend was more than enough to learn my lesson. The body is connected, beware of pills, listen to your mother, work somewhere with sick days, bla, bla, bla... Teacher, finishee?? Anio. I got better and started to regale my friends with gross stories of the worst weekend ever. Around midweek, I decided that I was better enough to not cancel my rafting trip for the coming weekend. It was rafting in Korea, after all, which is only slightly more intense than floating down a lazy-river. It was mostly an excuse to drink somewhere else and also to watch a traditional Korean mask performance. Rafting was scheduled for Sunday so we watched the mask dance on Saturday. It was in a very cool theatre-in-the-round, and--despite not understanding a word they were saying--it was really funny! There was an ajumma character which is always a riot and at one point a guy pretended to cut off the fake bull's penis. It was an outdoor theater, and it was really hot, so most people sat in the shaded section. About 30 of us came on the trip and showed up late so a few of us sat in the sun so we could watch from the front row. It was really bright when I first stared down at my feet so I just thought I was seeing things. They felt a little strange and warm, but so did the rest of me. And I was wearing larger flip-flops so I wasn't uncomfortable. I felt a little stupid but I turned to my friend and said it anyway, "Do my feet look bigger to you?" I'm not sure if she could see or if she was just a little worried about the question I just asked but we needed a closer look. We walked around the edge of the seating and went outside to where it was shaded and we could see better. And there they were: cankles. I grew cankles in an afternoon! There was a weird fluster next as three of my friends and I tried to figure out what to do for a case of instant-fat-feet. I lay down on the ground and elevated them, someone put a cold water bottle on them, but mostly we just poked them a lot as if we were suddenly going to able to diagnose the problem. I freaked out for a while as they seemed to get bigger in the heat. Fortunately, they grew to certain size and stopped. They didn't hurt and I could walk. I didn't go to a doctor because I was where I usually was when stuff like this happens: in a village in a foreign country. The play ended and after some shopping we all got on the buses to go back to the place we were staying. A few more people got to see my exciting new development. Most of the theories tossed around that day had to do with the bus going up and down the hills and something with altitude. I kept them elevated and took some allergy pills or something. I even went rafting the next day. (Seriously, easy rafting.) I just kept showing people my fat feet hoping someone could tell me what was happening to me. Monday I went to work, fat feet and all. I got a kick out of freaking out the kids with my cankles. (It actually freaked out the other teachers and staff more.) They were still there a week later when my parents arrived in Korea. I'm sure it was a great sight for my mother, who hadn't seen me in nine months. Because that's what you want to see when your oldest child is all alone for the first time and on the other side of the world. That she's becoming deformed. My dad made me sleep in his special airplane socks that are supposed to give you even circulation and they started to really go down. Mom cleaned my apartment which was not in an acceptable state (is it ever?). I took my first real vacation since I arrived in Korea and relaxed in Jeju-do. It took some time but they went back to normal and I was all better. Finally, we sat down together with the Internet and tried to figure out why my feet blew up. (Mom is an experienced hiker and didn't buy the 'altitude' theory.) And there, at the bottom of the list, on some medical website under possible causes for swollen feet it said, "...may be caused by anti-inflammatory medicine." So that was it. I got the flu which gave me bronchitis that led to the worst weekend of my life followed by one of the weirdest. The lesson for all this is very simple and not at all original: Stuff happens. I did what I was supposed to. I was sick so I went to the doctor. Usually that's the end. Take the pills, drink some liquids, all better. Only this time the pills poisoned me, my stomach tried to kill me, and my feet doubled in size. The good experience that came out of this was that the next time I was sick, I was really willing to try acupuncture and Korean traditional medicine. Also, I try not to suck down pills like candy. My feet are big enough already. Unfortunately, I know this is not the end. Despite Hong Kong being more western than Korea and having more resources than Buenos Aires, I know it will happen again. You get sick, you fall down; drink your fluids, pick yourself up. It's just different when you don't speak the language.

**********

Again, this is old content I wrote about nearly 10 years ago for another blog (http://laurabusan.blogspot.com/). It’s time I start writing again and bringing everything together.

#cultureshock korea teachingabroad funnyillness

9 notes · View notes

creative-poptart · 5 years ago

Text

Long Rant Incoming

If you don’t want to read this, that’s fine, just keep on scrolling and your life will remain as it is in the moment. What I have to say caters to very few people, but if you’d also like some insight on a personal topic of mine, keep reading. I can’t promise it’ll be fantastic, great, or even exciting, but it is informative.

That being said, if you’re still interested, let me tell you a little something about theater.

This is inspired by a neighbor of mine, one I’ve known since my childhood. He’s pretty nice, used to babysit me for my parents, and overall a great dude. He’s a lot older now, and his wife is no longer with us, may she rest in peace, but that’s just a little backstory. The real reason I write this is not only because of him but because of so many people doing the exact same thing he did.

I happened to come across him walking through the neighborhood, and he stopped to talk to my dad, so I thought I’d say hi. We chatted for a bit about the usual stuff, how’s life, what are you doing for work right now, do you have a boyfriend, etc. etc. Then he asked me if I’m still in school (I am), and then asked where I’m going to school. I tell him the name, and he asks what I’m studying, so I tell him: theater.

He gives me the look.

You all know exactly what I’m talking about when I say that, the one face that someone makes when they don’t want to say anything, but they do. The look that practically screams, ��I’m too polite to outright diss you, but I’m very clearly questioning your choices in life.”

I don’t like to be questioned a lot, because it makes me challenge myself, and I am trying to stay out of a mindset where I don’t know things about myself. This face got me thinking, and I am pissed.

On to the actual meat of the topic, then, the theater. When most people hear the word theater, they automatically think “actor” as the next word. That’s about the extent of their thought process, and I don’t blame them for that, I used to be the exact same way. All theater is, is just a bunch of people on stage, singing or talking their way through a show while wearing fancy clothes and prancing around under hot lights with a set-piece or two behind them, right?

Wrong.

I mentioned in that last sentence three jobs that have nothing to do with the actors themselves. Clothes, lights, and set-pieces. Those three things are all jobs that have nothing and everything to do with the people on the stage. Let’s take a closer look.

First off, clothes, more specifically costumes. That seems simple enough, right? The purpose of the costume is to clothe the actor/actress in a way that they aren’t just naked on the stage. Another use of costumes that people often forget is that it’s supposed to put you in the world on the stage. A shoddy, two-dollar outfit from the party store down the street is going to look terrible under the lights of the stage, and people will automatically be able to tell that it’s cheap. So when you don’t want that to happen, what do you do?

You make them. Sewing’s super easy right? Not for the theater.

Like any average amount of sewing, you have to know how to piece together fabrics and work a sewing machine or needle and thread. There’s more to that though when it comes to theater. The colors have to give the intended effects to the audience that the director wants to portray. Is the character supposed to pop when they make it on the stage, standing out? Are they more of the invisible type, blending in better with the crowd? Are they clean and rich or broke and dirty? All of those and more have to be factored into the costume design.

When the costume is put together, you also have to make sure that actors can move in it as needed. A stiff suit in a physical fight scene may need to be modified so that the actor can actually move around accordingly. The costumes also have to be sensitive to what era/time the show is taking place. Are we in the 1930′s or the modern-day? What sort of thematics are we going for, sci-fi or hyper-realism? There are several other categories of course, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to theater.

What about the lighting on the stage? Is it soft, harsh, blinding even? Are we going for a pattern on the floor? What color is it? How many colors are there? Is it dim and low for dramatic effect, or are we going full brights to illuminate the stage? Is there a spotlight highlighting a certain actor? That has to be designed and crafted for the stage to look its very best and set the mood for a scene. When the lighting is off, it can throw the entire thing into utter chaos and make the stage and the actors terrible. No matter how good your acting is, if your audience thinks you’re looking awfully yellow and sick when you’re not supposed to, they won’t focus on what you’re doing.

Lighting technicians are a huge part of the theater, and wouldn’t you know it, but there’s actually other jobs that require lighting. The best example to go for: concerts. Think about it, if you can’t see your favorite band on the stage, what’s the point of listening to all the music? Part of the experience at a concert is getting to see the musicians working live, in action. If the lights suck, then you have an issue right from the get-go.

Another thing, while I’m on the topic of concerts, is sound designing. Sure, your musicians are playing the music, but they have to set up microphones, speakers, wires, the whole shebang. Theater also requires a lot of sound design. Do you have a door slamming sound effect for an off-stage door? What about a musical interlude between scenes? Is a television playing cartoon sounds? What about a radio with a cue to cut off at a particular time? All of that has to be carefully cued up and ready to go before a show starts. Who else uses sound design? Music studios. This is not a singular skill just made for the theater.

Now the third job that I mentioned way back in the wall of text above set pieces. Someone has to make those, and sure, while there are people who just buy certain things in, most of the theater stuff is made nearby in a scene shop. Any stairs, platforms, windows, seats, walls, etc. that are made for a show can be made in the scene shop. The funny thing about the building of stuff in a scene shop, though is that all the tools, equipment, and materials that are used in there are things that you can find at any hardware store. The same techniques that you use to build a platform in a scene shop, or a wall, are the same kinds that are used in construction work for building houses. The dimensions, purposes, and durability of these things are far different, but they are all made the same way. Wouldn’t you know it, but there’s also a whole lot of options in construction, and that’s a “real job” in the world.

But sure, I get it. Some of these things aren’t that great to think about, and they don’t make a whole lot of difference. Let’s take a step back from the actual theater though, and take a breather. What about using the acting side of it somewhere else? Is there anywhere else?

I’m glad you asked.

The courtroom.

What? There’s no way that acting can be done in a courtroom, right?

Think about this: what’s the job of a lawyer in the courtroom? They have to present their cases to the jury and the judge, give the evidence, and hopefully, they’ll win the jury over to thinking that they’re right and give the verdict in their favor. That’s the bare basics of it, but also consider this.

Is a lawyer genuinely effective in their job if they don’t convince the jury that they’re telling the right side of the story?

A lawyer has to learn how to capture the attention of the room to make sure that everything they give is compelling evidence. They have to make use of their bodies, their facial expressions, their tonality when they speak, all to get the answer that they want to see in the courtroom come to pass. Do you think law school teaches them how to do that? Not really, they’re focused more on giving them the appropriate laws and regulations they have to follow.

Theater does that.

When they act on a stage, a good actor/actress will captivate you. Every single word that comes from their mouth will compel you to want to know a little more. That’s how it should be. A lawyer’s job is much the same, but instead of having an audience of a few hundred, they have an audience of twelve to convince. One of my friends is gearing up to be a lawyer, and he told me that a theater degree in law school is more desirable than a criminal justice degree. Theater also teaches improvisation, which is handy to have when your opponent brings up a point in their case that you didn’t prepare for.

If none of that has convinced you that theater degrees are not totally worthless, then I just have one last piece for you to chew on mentally. Actors and actresses have one of the hardest entertainment jobs that we know of. They have to be able to remember what to say, where and when to say it, where they stand, how they move, where they’re moving to, what’s coming up next, and they do it for hours on a single night, not including all the prep work in rehearsal. On top of that, there’s no do-overs if something goes awry.

If one actor forgets their line and they can’t get back on track, the other actors have to improvise, or basically make something up on the spot, to try and get themselves and the other actor back on track. If something physically goes wrong, like an actor getting hurt or a set-piece breaking mid-show, they can’t stop everything and start again. The show must go on, and they all have to do it with a smile on their face and keep everything running as smoothly as possible.

Additionally, actors have to believably portray emotions and feelings to an audience all night long. This is done, mind you, before a live audience who watches their every move, analyzing whether that actor feels the emotion. It can be exhausting to do, and many actors train for so long just to be emotionally open enough to get one or two feelings on the stage.

To summarize: theater contains so much more than just people standing on a stage and acting. My school makes me experience all the backstage stuff, working in the scene shop, helping to build costumes, learning about the lighting, and set designs. All of that says nothing about props, actual furniture pieces, who’s actually running the freaking show mid-performance. Theater is more extensive and more diverse than people really think.

To all of you who say that theater isn’t a real job, or that I’ll never get anywhere with this degree, read this first. Read this, do some digging, talk to people who work in the backstage areas of actual productions.

Then come talk to me. My degree is not useless, but until you at least take a look at some of the other facets of theater, I really don’t care what you have to say about my degree.

#long rant #im sorry for the wall of text #this isnt aimed at anyone here #im just upset about this #people keep telling me this degree sucks #and i know it doesnt #there's a lot more here #poptart speaks #tarts speaks #tarts rants #theater

8 notes · View notes

rebeccaseattle · 6 years ago

Text

Stand and Deliver

I am, practically speaking a math teacher. Technically speaking, I am a mild/moderate special ed teacher, but I teach math, to special ed kids, mostly.

Growing up, one movie I saw over, and over, and over again in school was Stand and Deliver. It was played almost every day we had a sub or the teacher didn’t have a plan, etc, etc etc. Then, my senior year my school theater program (of which I was highly involved) decided to do the play version. I essentially memorized that film. If you don’t know the movie, is carefully based off a true story of the famous math teacher, Jaime Escalante, an immigrant from Bolivia, whose teaches/coaches/mentors a handful of underserved high school students from a gang-ridden Garfield High School in LA into taking and passing the AP Calculus exam. These students success is so impressive, that they naturally are accused of cheating and the students have to retake a harder version of the test to indeed prove they do know math that well.

Anyway, now that I am working math students, I asked myself, should I show the movie to my students? Somehow no one in my school seemed to know about the film. I’m sure things have changed in the 15 years since my own high school experience, and I’m in a different demographic. So I researched the movie carefully and how different educators felt about it.

I ended up reading a lot about Jaime Escalante and the true story the film was based on. It was actually pretty close, a lot closer than your usual Hollywood films, it’s inaccuracies were few and not to dramatic.

I found one fascinating blog post all about why teachers should not show this film to their students. One major point was, while Jaime Escalante was clearly an amazing educator who lead his kids to success, he was very controversial. Not only at Garfield high school as is portrayed in the film for pushing his kids so hard and setting high expectations for him, but also for later in life as he supported “English Only” movement in education. Many had the opinion that such an outlook is oppressive to students learning English as a second language. Most of the blog readers I read who said this, were like me, white, and native English speakers. I found this fascinating. I don’t necessarily agree with the English only movement, I don’t have an opinion and don’t think it’s my place to form one at this time. However, I think it’s possible to separate one person’s endeavor from another and appreciate one without the other. For example, I do in fact like Einstein’s general theory of relativity, however Albert was a huge jerk to his first wife, Meliva (whose name appears on one of the early drafts as its often said she helped with the math involved) and left her penniless with 3 children he refused to support for over a decade. Still Albert Einstein did do an amazing job of figuring out, testing, and working on this theory and that’s still amazing and inspiring. So I don’t think that was a valid reason to not watch it.

Another educator wrote that Stand and Deliver was in the same spirit of “Dangerous Minds” which is definitely a movie about white saviorism. That movie, whose title alone offends me, also based on a true story, is about a white lady who comes to a gang-ridden high school and teaches English to underserved populations and like reduces gang violence or something (it’s been a while). That of course is a theme I need to avoid at all costs, savorism is a horrifying myth I seen projected onto my job, more on that later. For more fun we can watch the SNL skit “Pretty White Lady.”

However, Stand and Deliver is not the same as Dangerous Minds. The teacher is not a white person, but an immigrant himself who is technically classified as Latino. Okay, yes Bolivia is a very different country than say Mexico, or the other countries my students, or his, may come from. And I’m sure they don’t speak the same type of Spanish is Bolivia then say other countries, but still he’s an immigrant literally speaking the same language as his students.

Also, the other factor I had to point out, is the math in Stand and Deliver, is actually very real math. In college I learned an excellent short cut to integration by parts, that my professors learned from the movie. Today things are a lot better, but in that era, the math in movies, was actually quite fake, and bad. The math that is done in SD, is actually quite accurate. It’s real calculus, algebra, and trig. I figured if nothing else I could show it to my kids purely for them to try to recognize the math happening in the movie.

So I played the movie for my students and kept an open mind. I tried not to lecture or get to preachy toward them, I just wanted to be open to how they responded and then figure out if this was an advantageous movie for them to see. I did tell them to be aware of the various math tricks that happened in the movie.

Also it was my first time watching the movie since I learned calculus and was very excited to revisit these scenes and examine the math.

So here is the results:

1. My kids loved the movie. If for nothing else, they liked watching a movie in their math class. They would much rather watch movies then do math. It didn’t matter that the movie was nearly half a century old, still better than doing a worksheet or something.

2. One thing that I noticed is that a number of my kids liked that the movie was about latina/latino students. A number of my students have a lot of pride in their ethnicity. While there are a number of white people in the movie, they show up in minor supporting roles. Much like the reverse of what we see in Hollywood today. The movie really is about Latin Americans and they seemed to appreciate that they were in the foreground. The minute it started, one of my students who had never spoke to me before then, told me about one of his favorite old movies, that was casted completely by latino actors.

Furthermore, while Escalante is central, and he is portrayed as a hero, the real heroes of the movie are actually the high school students. It was very much a movie about kids in high school that delved into their family lives, dating issues, career decisions, conflicts with friends, etc. So it’s also a movie about high school kids.

3. In addition, despite the movie being around 40 years old, there were a couple of cultural elements my students seem to relate to. For example, the way my students greet each other and their particular hand shake (which I can’t do, but am learning, growth mindset) was done in the movie by adults. In the scene when Guadalupe was putting her brothers and sisters to bed, one of my students, who identifies as Mexican, called out, “That’s a Mexican household there. That’s my cousins” My students commented on what food was being cooked in scenes and compared it to their friends and families’ cooking. In the conflict scene where Escalante confronts the college board representatives about the accusations, they were super engaged, predicting, accurately what Escalante would say next and how they would have handled it. They pointed out to me we have the same desks as the students in the movie (facepalm here). They even explained to me, the subtext of the gang violence around Angel in the movie. This is something I didn’t see or understand when I was a kid. Of course this wasn’t the whole movie. A lot of the scenes culturally didn’t make sense to them, they were outdated, not relatable, or relevant.

4. They liked that the movie talked openly about racism. Going back to that scene where Escalante confronts the school board, they were super engaged. They got very excited when Escalante confronts the college board representatives, and the fact that they were sent out because of their distinct ethnic backgrounds. They liked that the racism was being called out rather than everyone turning a blind eye and closed mouth. Most of my students, regardless of ethnicity were engaged in that part.

Some of the kids though just spaced out, or were on their phones. I still have mixed feelings about the film, and would welcome other’s opinions about showing stand and deliver as a math teacher. It could be they were just grateful for a chill day.

For me, I noticed a few things.

1. The math is very accurate, and there are a couple of really cool math tricks happening in it. Namely integration by parts and the trick to multiply by nines using the fingers.

2. I liked that Escalante pointed out the Mayans understood the concept of zero long before europeans did. I personally also like pointing out white people did not invent algebra, middle easterners did. I think the history of math is important, but is often whitewashed to be just about the Greeks and Romans. Often in history, only white history is told and the accomplishments of groups is silenced.

3. The only math flaw I saw in the movie was when Escalante read ln(x-1) as the words L N. Any Calculus teacher worth their weight would of course read it as “The Natural Log of x minus 1.

4. There are all sorts of subtext I understand now as an adult, that I didn’t as a kid. The fact the Ana leaves the test early so others won’t be accused of cheating off of her, or that Guadalupe doesn’t have a place or time to study when she’s at home.

5. There is a honestly, the kids are clearly treated unfair by society and the movie points out this truth. The kids rise above by having to work extra hard to retake the test. I don’t know about the message of having the kids to work extra hard, I don’t want to get to preachy in my profession. But at least it acknowledges the unfair, racist elements the kids deal with, rather than be in denial or victim blaming I often see. It does have the message that the the kids are up to the challenge. They may have to work harder, but they are certainly underestimate by those in power over them. That makes an interesting point, but I’m not sure what it is yet.

Anyway, I showed the movie this year, and I would love other’s thoughts about it.

#stand and deliver #Jaime Escalante Math Class White privledge

1 note · View note

writeturnlove · 7 years ago

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), James Buchanan Barnes - Fandom, Bucky Barnes - Fandom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Bucky Additional Tags: The Winter Soldier - Freeform, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes Summary:

Bucky Barnes is your friend. He's been your friend as long as you can remember, which is why he rests comfortably in the "Friend Zone." You, however, are no longer comfortable with this arrangement, but you don't ever plan to tell him. But sometimes the best things in life aren't planned.

You take a sip from the champagne glass sitting to the right of your mostly full dinner plate and hope the night doesn’t to drag on for too much longer. You invested much of that evening trying to advance your career a little by attending the Chamber of Commerce dinner meeting. In doing so, you promised yourself you’d hand out all of the 75 business cards nestled in your tiny clutch purse, but so far at least 50 cards remained and if you were being honest with yourself, your feet had begun to hurt after handing out the first 15.

A soft vibration catches your attention and you realize it’s your phone. You discreetly pull it from your purse and look at the display. It’s your friend Bucky. You excuse yourself and head outside to answer it. The cool night air brushes against your legs, but you ignore the shivers it causes in order to respond to his call. He’s always there when you need him. You promised yourself you’d always be there for him as well.

"Hey, what's up?" you ask, thankful that your friend has given you a break from the boring meet-and-greet function.

"Hi, y/n, you busy?" he asks.

You look back at the entrance to your office building and note that no one seems to be looking for you. You see your co-workers milling about inside, but you haven’t been followed. You’ve completed your introductions for the evening. There’s no real reason to stay. The promotion you want is pretty much in the bag.

“Not really. Why?” you ask.

“Look: Do you think you can sneak out of there? Mali broke down again. I’m stranded and I left all my tools in the back of your car,” he explained.

“You really need to get rid of that thing,” you tell him, knowing that the black and grey 1970 Chevy Malibu will never leave his possession.

“Shhh. Don't talk like that: she might hear you!” he teases, “We've had this discussion and she's not going anywhere.”

You roll your eyes as if he's actually there to notice your frustration. He won't part with the car even though he's been stranded six times over the past year due to its never-ending problems.

“Fine. Text me the address and I'll grab my things and head your way,” you say.

You hear a sigh of relief on the other end of the line. You heart melts, then you frown for allowing yourself to think of him like that, if only for a brief moment.

“Y/N, you are a lifesaver,” Bucky asserts. He then blows a kiss into the phone and hangs up.

You shake your head and return to the party to politely excuse yourself.

You connect your phone to the car speakers and listen for the text message with Bucky’s location. Once you hear the familiar street name, you shake your head.

You pull up behind his car, which is parked safely at the back of his house.

Bucky faces away from you. He's kneeling on the ground and removing the hubcap. You pop your trunk and exit your car, but he still hasn't turned around. You try not to be distracted by the tight blue jeans he always seems to wear, or the t-shirts that hug him in all the right places. (Then you realize that there are really no ‘wrong’ places on Bucky.)

After grabbing the toolbox, you walk up behind him, nudging him slightly with your knee. He takes out his earbuds and turns to face you as you place the toolbox on the ground next to him.

You're wearing a short red dress with high heels. Your hair is still in place and your makeup is flawless. You probably shouldn't have worn something so sexy to the work event, but you wanted to stand out and you figured that you had.

Bucky examines every inch of you as he stands up slowly. He starts at your feet, then his gaze traces up your legs, to your waist, then to your cleavage, and finally settles on your face. The heated stare he gives you sends your thoughts to forbidden places.

His hair falls in his eyes and he runs his fingers through it. You've always found that simple motion the sexiest thing you've ever seen.

You see him blush slightly and you stand up straighter because he knows you caught him staring.

He doesn't speak immediately, so you talk instead.

“I thought you were stranded,” you say, crossing your arms over your chest.

“I am,” he says, still looking you over, “I can't go anywhere.”

You playfully swat at him, but he catches your hand and squeezes it. He then brings it up to his mouth and kisses it briefly before letting it go. You feel the moisture from his lips on your skin. You try to form words, but it has always been difficult in his presence.

You finally figure out what you want to say, remembering that focusing on the innocuous topics is best.

“I was worried about you,” you point out.

“Thanks for coming to my rescue,” Bucky says with a smile.

“Your driveway is not a rescue,” you tell him with mock annoyance.

He laughs. Your heart stops. He pulls you into a hug. You've hugged him countless times, but this time feels different. He holds on tight and strokes your lower back. You try to ignore the butterflies in your stomach. You fight the urge to breath in his cologne and enjoy the feel of his arms around you. You want to bury your face in his neck and never come up for air.

No, you tell yourself, don't think of him that way.

You slowly regain your composure as he steps away from you. The absence of his warmth makes you shudder. You wrap your arms around yourself to keep from shaking.

“So, what's wrong with the thing now?” you ask.

“Brakes and rotors,” he answers.

You nod. He bites his bottom lip, which is the second sexiest thing you’ve ever seen.

“I don't know why you keep this heap of metal when you can buy a new one,” you state, looking up at him with curiosity and still wondering why he hasn't gone back to working on his car.

“Sentimental reasons: this car has a history. Besides, if it weren't for this heap of metal, we never would have met,” he says.

You nod silently as you run your hand over the trunk of the Malibu.

“True, and she’d be mine if someone hadn’t outbid me and charmed his way behind the wheel,” you point out.

Bucky raises an eyebrow, pretending to be offended at the accusation.

“I earned it fair and square,” he asserts, knowing it was mostly the truth.

“Fair and square? You promised to take the owner’s daughter out on a date and upped your offer another $100,” you note, furrowing your brow.

“Worst date ever, by the way,” he points out, stooping down to open up the toolbox and remove a few items.

You stifle a laugh.

“There’s also a lot of good things associated with this car,” Bucky continues, “I got my license in this car. You flunked your driving test in this car.”

“You made me nervous,” you insist, leaning against the Malibu, “And I got it the second time around.”

He chuckled softly. It made you heart skip a beat again. His effect on you intensified with each second you spent in his presence.

“Remember when we snuck out of senior prom and went joyriding down Pleasant Valley Road,” he pointed out.

“Remember how we got pulled over because someone was speeding?” you remind him, “Lucky for you, my sad face stopped the officer from giving us a ticket.”

“Oh, that had nothing to do with your sad face,” Bucky said, “It had more to do with that cop being distracted by your boobs in that dress.”

You shrug your shoulders, doubting that was the reason, but glad he noticed something feminine about you – at least back then.

Bucky stands back up to face you. He wipes his hands on the towel again, looking in your eyes as if he’s hesitating. He licks his lips and you momentarily stop breathing.

“Come on, get in. I want to show you something,” he says after a few seconds.

You walk around to the passenger side, but he beats you there, opening up the door for you then closing it after you sit down.

The Malibu faces the back of his house and you realize that there is a white sheet hanging over the clothesline in the back yard.

Bucky walks over to the picnic table and turns on a LCD projector perched on top. He’s starts one of your favorite movies and then sits down in the driver’s seat just inches from you. He reaches into the backseat and pulls out a bag of popcorn, placing it between the two of you on the front seat.

“Help yourself,” he says, sitting back casually as he watches the moving playing in his makeshift backyard drive-in theater.

“What is this?” you ask.

“Movie night,” he says, “It is Thursday after all.”

You smile, not realizing that you'd been so busy with work that you'd forgotten your Thursday ritual of Movie Night with Bucky.

“I’m sorry,” you admit, “I didn’t mean to bail on you for work.”

“I know you’ve been busy,” he says with a hint of sorrow in his voice, “I get it.”

Guilt washes over you because you always promised yourself you wouldn’t let work keep you from the things you truly enjoy. Yes, the job was nice and paid well, but becoming a workaholic just wasn’t your style.

“Still, Buck – I’m sorry,” you tell him, giving him a small smile then turning back to the movie.

Bucky reaches over and pats your left knee, but he leaves his hand there. The heat from his skin touching yours sends jolts of electricity through you. You feel an intoxicating warmth spread up your leg to the apex of your thighs.

His fingers begin to make slow circles on the inside of your knee and you debate just how much of this you can handle before bursting into flames. You stop breathing and pretend to watch the screen when you know that a part of you wants him to slide his hand further up your leg and …

You need to say something. You need to say anything to get him to stop because he doesn’t realize how much his friendly contact is creating so many non-platonic thoughts in your head.

“Well, this is another first in this car, I guess,” you point out, “Watching a drive-in movie.”

Bucky nods. He takes a drink of his soda and places it back on the floor of the car. He doesn’t look at you, which makes you a little nervous.

“Have you done anything else in this car?” you ask him, not really wanting to know the answer.

“Such as?” he questions as he faces you, the intensity of his blue eyes seeing through to your soul.

Crap, you think.

“I don’t know,” you lie.

He shrugs.

“Well, I did get into my first accident in this car. Remember when I backed into that light in the mall parking lot?” he asks.

You think back, trying to remember and realize he’s talking about an incident that happened during Christmas time and when the weather was bad.

“Well, that wasn’t too terrible,” you insist, “Besides, there was black ice on the ground. It could have happened to anyone.”

You tear your gaze away from his. He can see through you. You’re certain of it now more than ever before.

“Nevertheless, it has more good memories than bad,” he points out, wiping his hands on a napkin he retrieved from the dashboard.

After a few minutes of staring mindlessly at the screen, you hear him speak again and it breaks you from your thoughts.

“I’ve got one more thing I want to with in this car,” he says, staring at the screen.

“What’s that?” you ask, “Sell it?”

He chuckles briefly while shaking his head.

“No,” he states with a smirk, “I think I need to christen the back seat.”

You roll your eyes in disgust. Fire burns through your veins because the sexist comment breaks your heart a little. Sure, you understand that he’s a guy and that he has dirty thoughts like the rest of them, but the idea that he felt saying that to you would be acceptable pisses you off because you know he’s not talking about doing anything with you in that ‘virgin’ back seat.

The thought of another woman kissing, touching him, in your car – his car, is too much for you to take. You don’t hear anything else he says. You yank on the door handle and get out of the vehicle as fast as your heels will allow you.

As you start to walk away, you hear his door open, but refuse to look in his direction. You’re already fuming and looking in his eyes would dissipate your anger much more quickly than it deserved to leave.

Bucky’s movement is swift, but not threatening. He quickly rushes in front of you, then pins you to the side of the car with his chest. He places a hand on each side of you so you can’t get away. You don’t feel trapped. You feel aroused and it ticks you off a little because you want to stay mad at him.

He lifts your chin.

“Look at me!” he demands. There is no anger in his voice, but he’s serious. You have to look at him.

“What?!” you snap at him.

“You are the most stubborn, frustrating woman I’ve ever known in my life,” he starts. You try to pull away, but he presses a little harder into you. His cologne makes you dizzy. The heat of his breath against your face is turning you on and you hate him for making you want him – even when you’re angry.

“Thanks!” you snap back at him.

“You’re also the sexiest, funniest, sweetest, and smartest woman I’ve ever met,” he says, “So, why the Hell don’t know that I’m in love with you?”

Before your brain registers his words, he slips his hand around the nape of your neck and pulls you to him.

“Buck, I-,” you start saying.

He interrupts your words by pressing his lips against yours, probably harder than he expected. His kiss feels eager, as if he's been waiting almost as long as you have for this moment. You kiss him back while pulling him as close to you as possible; knowing you dare not let him go. You'd risk passing out from lack of oxygen just to be connected to him for a few moments longer.

Bucky’s lips are much softer than you expected. They soon begin to caress yours at a more relaxed pace as you both settle into a rhythm. You’re so distracted by the kiss, you barely notice that he’s wrapped his left arm around you and dragged you so close that you can feel the beat of his heart as it vibrates against your own chest.

He briefly pulls his lips from yours, nibbling a path from your chin down to your neck. You feel your nipples harden and each time he moves, it only stimulates them more. You can’t speak. You can only moan as you close your eyes and try to figure out if this moment is real or just another one of the many erotic dreams you have been having about him.

You run your fingers through his hair. Your legs part slightly as you feel the crotch of his jeans press against your heat.

“Hey, y/n?” he asks with his lips attached to your neck.

“Yeah, Buck,” you manage to groan, as his hands roam your body – driving you insane.

“Do you love me back, or what?” he says as he draws your earlobe between his teeth and flicks it with his tongue.

Your body responds on instinct, grinding against him.

“Bucky, you’re not playing fair,” you whisper. You tug at the belt loops of his jeans. He starts to pull up the bottom of your dress.

“I never play fair. Now answer the question,” he says.

You lean back, looking at him.

“Yes, James Buchanan Barnes, I love you back,” you tell him.

He bites his lip and looks between your eyes and your mouth.

Bucky steps back pulling you with him as he uses his right hand to open the passenger side door. You know what he wants, so you slide into the back seat and lie down. He follows you, shutting the door behind him as he climbs on top of you with a look that dampens your panties even before he bothers removing them.

“God I love your car,” you giggle into his ear.

Bucky brushes the hair from your face.

“Our car,” he says, and then kisses you again.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky imagine #bucky barnes fanfiction

22 notes · View notes

coldsoupy · 7 years ago

Text

Ugly Betty and Affirmative Action

Artwork by Jeremy Ferris

Step 1: Google Morgan Jaffe

This was not an intention, but it was something that I noticed myself doing, almost, as if it was an action out of my control. A fluid and seamless scroll over to a new tab while Jaffe’s (2017) voice introduced her podcast, Burst Your Bubble, in the background, “Ugly Betty, a U.S. interpretation of a Latin-American telenovela...” (Jaffe 2017). While the podcast continued playing, I was typing her name, my mind half-heartedly in two places at once. She’s in Boston? Is she my age? Is she younger than me? Did she really teach in all those schools? Should I being doing something, anything differently?

The questions were all there, a second layer while the podcast droned on. It is is within this impulse that I find a necessary place to reflect on where I found myself. In a simultaneous moment, I was consuming information, questioning the credentials of the information and then returning to the information with a different perspective, in under ten seconds. I did not approach the podcast wondering who Morgan Jaffe (2017) was, but, there was a definitive moment where the need to know credentials, status, background and there they were and then, click, the window was closed.

While not coming from any deep place, this ability to instantaneously question and receive a gratifying answer to said question is a hallmark of our digital age. It was a sense of power or at least a sense of gratification. I felt more comfortable listening, I trusted or at least didn’t completely disregard the voice that was speaking, I had some sense of a person speaking with a background. I felt a sense of peace with being able to react to what I was listening to, it was no longer an unsubstantiated voice.

Following the Podcast and a listen to some of Jaffe’s (2017) other episodes, I felt more comfortable knowing who she was as a person. I started to anticipate her cadences, her responses and her stances. Jaffe (2017) is a quintessential “millennial” voice. She has views she wants to express, she knows how to create a platform to express her views and she knows how to market her expression into a form of quantifiable consumption. She can see the weight of her opinions in views, comments and subscribers.

Jaffe (2017) describes her podcast in this way:

“Burst Your Bubble is a podcast that combines racism, sexism, homophobia, and all of the other -isms and -phobias within our society and looks at them through a pop culture lens. From music and movies to comic books and games, hatred, bigotry, and ignorance seep into our everyday lives. What is important is to dissect it and discuss it, and not just accept it as something we can not process or change” (Jaffe 2017).

Hobbs (2017) reflects this sentiment when she writes, "asking questions can activate and deepen critical thinking and the practice of close reading and close analysis can be a powerful tool to understand how media are constructed and how media text construct reality" (Hobbs 2017, p. 62). While only surface deep, my initial questions about Jaffe were necessary for me to consume what she was saying, whether I agreed or disagreed with what she was about to say, I needed to know the source of the opinions I was receiving in order to decide if the argument she was presenting was worth my time at all. Was Jaffe (2017) a voice worth agreeing with or challenging?

The small questions that plagued my mind at the top of the podcast about Jaffe (2017) gave me a sense of who she was as an author. With a background in education and communications, Jaffe (2017) works as the General Manager of Boston Community Radio. Being a supporter of public access media in all forms, this allowed me to listen to Jaffe (2017) as a authority on the subject matter. Some other aspects of the podcast, the uniform intro music and use of original artwork by Jeremy Ferris for each episode further lent credibility to the podcast in my mind. It had substance. While only image deep, the branding and the hook of “challenging” assumptions was enough to not only catch my attention, but intrigue me enough to listen.

Step 2: Maintain judgement-free Zone, listen, make coffee

As with all other podcasts I have come to enjoy (Love + Radio, Radiolab and This American Life to name a few), the listener is brought to a familiar place with theme music and a hook from a recognizable voice. These elements make the podcast a welcome place to relax and listen to something. Jaffe’s (2017) Burst Your Bubble is no different as she introduces what Ugly Betty (the show) meant to people, what it did right and then, the hook before cueing the music. After celebrating the grounding breaking nature of Ugly Betty and what it brought to marginalized voices on network television, Jaffe (2017) “pops” the bubble when she says, “but it still has some stereotypes and problems of its own. Like the episode where Ugly Betty puts affirmative action in a negative light. I’m Morgan Jaffe and this is Burst Your Bubble” (Jaffe 2017). This “burst your bubble” moment is a predictable element of Jaffe’s storytelling style and it serializes the podcast in a way that allows the listener to predict her inserted opinion after laying out a seemingly noble, altruistic or otherwise positive element of pop culture. It is this moment that holds the listeners attention and elicits a response that causes them to listen to Jaffe’s argument.

In itself, Jaffe’s podcast serves as a method of digital inquiry that the listener can follow along with and, at the same time, must perform a meta-inquiry about Jaffe’s (2017) own inquiry.

Jaffe (2017) focused her podcast on one particular episode of the show Ugly Betty that took on the issue of affirmative action. Throughout the course of the 30 minute podcast, Jaffe (2017) works in what Hobbs (2017) calls the “theater of the mind” as she delivers an opinionated de-construction of the episode using clips from the show to link together her ideas regarding affirmative action, what the show got wrong and what opportunities were missed. Hobbs (2017) writes, “storytelling’s inevitable and highly attractive approach to oversimplification, through the creation of a hero, villain and victim, may distort our understanding of history by contributing to the fictionalization of history” (Hobbs 2017, p. 125). In Jaffe’s (2017) case, she is working to poke holes and offer a more rounded, gray-area view of pop-culture as we know it. Through her storytelling, we are offered only her take on things and are left to debate outside and apart from the speaker, in the real world, while her views are left recorded and static.

I suppose one could always tweet her their take.

For this reason, I purposefully suspended judgement during the episode to fully absorb Jaffe’s take on the episode. In this way, I attempted to approach the media as an independent listener, but also an open listener. While I support Affirmative Action and agree with general atmosphere of what Jaffe had to say, I also find myself adopting opposing viewpoints as a default when confronted with opinions. Even if the opposing viewpoints are not necessarily ones I believe in.

I believe one needs to be comfortable with having their views uncomfortably challenged or adopting uncomfortable positions, even in a hypothetical sense. Namely, playing devil’s advocate in one’s own mind. That is a level of vulnerability that is needed now more than ever. Media simply must be met with a challenge.

In a kind of double kudos, I commend Ugly Betty for taking on the issue of Affirmative Action in such a direct way. I have never watched the show, but even given the clips that Jaffe (2017) provided, I feel like Ugly Betty did make an effort to confront an issue calling it by its name and allowing different sides a voice on the issue. Furthermore, I feel like Jaffe (2017) should be commended for holding the show accountable for not taking the issue far enough. People of color, disadvantaged people and other stakeholders in this issue might interpret Jaffe’s message as either a rallying cry or something disagreeable, but, it should be generally realized when listening to a podcaster, a vlogger, blogger or even fringe “newscaster,” that they are representative of one viewpoint. It is up to the listener to discern their own take on the matter using the voiced opinion as either a catalyst or opposing force to move their position to more solid ground based on reason, research and articulation.

Step 3: Dig deeper, ask questions, rinse, repeat

Pangrazio (2016) defines "critical digital design" as a framework to operate within in order to both consume and create digital media. She writes, "critical digital design can be thought of as a deliberately political model of digital literacy in which complex and detailed understandings of discourse, ideology and power in the digital context are scaffolded. It aims to analyse the specific multimodal features of digital texts, as well as the general architecture of digital technology and the Internet, so that a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of these concepts is developed in the learner" (Panagrazio 2016, p. 172). With this in mind, it becomes clear that what Jaffe (2017) is doing to Ugly Betty, one must also do to Jaffe herself. While Jaffe (as an admittedly white woman) stands up for Affirmative Action and what it has done for disadvantaged people of color, she does not offer understanding or empathy for the clips she played of white people who sued universities from not getting in. Jaffe’s (2017) values align with the plight of the “Ugly Betty’s” of the world, but she does not see a gray-area in such circumstances.

Furthermore, Jaffe (2017) fails to recognize the work and hard decisions the writers of Ugly Betty must have made to air an episode that dealt with Affirmative Action in such a head-on way and with care given to opposing sides of the issue. While “it was a different time” or “it was good for its time” arguments do not always apply, I think they do in this case. I feel like Jaffe omits an olive branch given to writers and producers of Ugly Betty in favor of doubling down on her own strong opinions, as right as they may be. Did Jaffe (2017) consider Salma Hayek’s work as producer of the series (Barreiro 2010, p. 34)? As a white woman does Jaffe (2017) have the right to push back on the work of people of color as not going far enough in serving social justice? Do all people have a stake in an issue such as affirmative action? Should Jaffe (2017) be singling out one episode of a show to “burst” the bubble of its appeal? Is that fair? Does fair matter?

With such pointed questions left unanswered, the fact that they came up in the first place meant that the work of a discerning listener was unfinished. A look outside of Jaffe’s (2017) podcast was in order. After all, is it fair as a listener to only focus on one view of one episode of one show? In research done by Barreiro (2010) on what audiences, particularly Latino audiences, look for in Ugly Betty, she offers this take on the Ugly Betty:

Although Ugly Betty’s text and its official Website seem to make efforts to include race

discourses, the audience’s perception seems to be far from focusing on racial or cultural matters as the series’ main point. Instead, viewers concentrate more on the entertainment nature of the text. Ugly Betty seems to unify culturally mixed audiences by acting as the connector between Hispanic and Anglo viewers. The series presents universal themes that allow multicultural audiences to relate to them, while acknowledging, but not concentrating on, the multicultural element of the text. While cast as an outsider, Betty becomes an intrinsic component of the society that surrounds her, providing an empowering Latino representation (Barreiro 2010, p. 39).

Thus, Barreiro (2010) offers a much larger scope view of Ugly Betty that can work to better frame and compartmentalize the microscopic look that Jaffe (2017) takes to make a macroscopic argument. Where Jaffe (2017) sees injustice due to an episode, Barreiro (2010) sees a show at large that indeed does depict multicultural representations in addition to bigger picture representations of image, self-worth and social status.

Does a platform come with responsibility? Perhaps it does, perhaps it doesn’t. But, the constant is the responsibility of the listener to discern their own feelings from media. One must be able to suspend opinions, upend them and amend them to fit a shifting view. This requires conscious research, a calm and accepting disposition and a desire to articulate and self-define one’s own view and standpoint on an issue.

Resources

Barreiro, Paula. (2010). Understanding ugly betty: negotiating race in a culturally-mixed text.

Divergencias. Revista de estudios lingüísticos y literarios. Volumen 8, número 1, 34 -39.

Hobbs, R. (2017). Create to Learn: Introduction to Digital Literacy. New York: Wiley.

Jaffe, M. (Writer, producer & editor). (2017, July 12). Ugly betty and affirmative action [audio podcast]. Retrieved from

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/burst-your-bubble/e/50764994?autoplay=true

Pangrazio, L. (2016). Reconceptualising critical digital literacy. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural

#morgan #jaffe #burstyourbubble #burst your bubble #podcast #ugly #betty #ugly betty #essay #digital authorship #EDC 534 #digital literacy #renee hobbs #morgan jaffe #boston

2 notes · View notes

sseastar-main · 7 years ago

Text

Suddenly . Jimin

topic: friends-to-lovers

genre: so much fluff

word count: 2,387

author’s note: This was entirely inspired by doing yard work with my parents over the weekend, no joke. I felt like this would’ve been cute if Jimin actually did yard work with you with a touch--or you know...ten cups--of fluff.

you and best friend Jimin were planning to hang out for the whole day before he leaves for vacation in two days because even though you see each other every day—like actually every day—you're gonna miss each other to bits when he's gone

but then your siblings who was were supposed to help your parents with yard work got called into work and the other twisted their ankle at practice the day before

so instead of going out and having fun, you and Jimin find yourselves in some old clothing, helping out with the front yard while your parents were in the back

you have some old converse on that always make you drag your feet when you walk but you honestly trip yourself nine times before you two even start to work and Jimin finds it the funniest thing ever

you end up hitting him on the head with a dustpan for him to stop laughing and he jumps

his reaction turns everything around and now you're the one laughing

he brings out your portable speaker and starts playing music that you obviously need so that working isn't all that boring

his favorite song was playing and he was all like

but then just to piss him off you changed it to something he hated

and you swear he almost fell over mid-spin

but then you changed it back because you remembered that the last time you did that, you ended up with your left shoe stuck up in a tree

(that he had to get back for you because you almost started crying and he hates seeing you cry)

eventually, like the little cling monkey he is, Jimin wanted to hug you

but you decided to be a little poop and he ended up chasing you

which was also a bad idea because whenever Jimin chases you, you always get cornered somehow

so eventually you just face him and try to get him to back off by pushing his arms away from you

but honeslty that boy moves so fast so somehow you end up in a hug after all that work

then when he lets you go, you keep a hold on his hands and start jumping around as high as you can and he's just like wth

but then you explain that your parents are probably gonna get you some boba if you guys get a break

and then he finds it so adorable how much of a boba addict you are even though it really is a problem

your parents have honestly loved Jimin to death since you two were children but the fact that he offered to help makes them want you to marry him and they're all "y/n, get married to Jimin later on alright?"

you and him get all flustered and turn red and everything because

before this today, you only saw each other as absolute best friends

but then something about Jimin—helping your parents, and doing what they needed, being obedient, constantly asking how everyone was doing in the heat, and all around just being a huge help and not complaining about doing chores when he was really supposed to be watching a movie in a nice air-conditioned theater right now....

had done something to your heart and you couldn't help but get flustered every single time he stopped you from pulling weeds or raking dead leaves to tip a water bottle to your mouth for you so you wouldn't have to take your gloves off

not to mention that even though you, your parents, and him were underneath the sun and heat and getting dirt all over yourselves, he still managed to look absolutely amazing–wait what OwO

but Jimin also couldn't believe just how much more hardworking you could be

and there was something about the way you would not stop pulling at that tough weed you couldn't get out of the ground that made him fall in love with the determination that you had

he also died every single time he looked at you and saw you sticking your tongue out to the side if you were doing something difficult

and seeing you crouched down looking like a little ball with your cheeks flushed from the heat made him want to protect you for the rest of his life

speaking of the heat

every single time he saw you start to take of your gloves to wipe off your sweat, he rushed to your side with a towel he seemed to have conjured out of nowhere and dabbed your sweat off for you

"here, y/n, hold on"

"what? oh thanks...."

don't even get started about how you would carry heavy things and drop them with a cute quiet little noise that would get Jimin so soft like this boy turns to mush honestly

poor guy didn't even get to prepare himself

but then you were close to killing him when you were immediately by his side with an umbrella if the sun was really bad at that area, helping him do whatever he was doing the best you could

and then whenever you noticed his hair get into his face or eyes you would just brush his bangs out of the way

"hey chim."

"yeah?" *he straightens up*

"hold on, stay still." *you brush the hair out of the way*

it's always been a normal thing you do for him but for some reason today he gets all mush and freezes when you suddenly touch his face and when you walk away he's still standing there like O.O

wWhen you finally finish the front yard and help your parents finish the backyard, your father tells Jimin to go shower and then he gives you some money to go and buy some boba or the four of you as a reward for finishing the cleanup

when you get back home, you pass out the drinks and Jimin is already lounging on the couch smelling nice and clean and you can't help but want to snuggle him

but you resist because you still smell like sun

Jimin somehow senses it and gets up from his spot on the couch and squishes your cheeks with his famous smile instead of a hug

then tells you to go shower cause you smell like dog crap

"I don't even have a dog"

"I know, what I don't know is why you smell like that"

when you're both fresh and clean, your parents let you spend the rest of the day together like you were supposed to and you end up catching an afternoon showing of the movie you were supposed to watch

and Jimin cannot help but sneak a couple glances at you whenever one part of the movie made you so happy

and he ended up smiling to himself—not because of the movie but because of you

don't forget though that when there was a suspenseful part of the movie, you purposefully grabbed his arm acting anxious just so you could be close to him even though Jungkook already told you what happened at this part

then afterward you went to go get some Mexican food for dinner at the taqueria you and he always go to

and he melts when you order for both of you guys, already knowing exactly what he wanted

when you get your food, you immediately dig in but you see him hesitate to pick up his carne asada burrito

"hey, what's wrong?

"you know my face gets puffy when I eat"

"you know that I don't think that. eat"

and when he still doesn't pick up his food, you cup his face and say "eat, please" with the most concerning eyes ever

this immediately gets him to pick up his food because he melts at your mom-like personality and how good you would be with your kids—CHIM, BUD, you got carried away

it's already getting dark when you start walking home and when Jimin notices you stiffen he remembers (of course) that you're still scared of the dark

then you hear a sound in a bush to your right and you literally jump, then Jimin sees your face and like knows that you just wanna start crying so he starts comforting you—oml this boy

"hey, hey, I know you don't like the dark, but I'm here, right?"

and you nod and just take the arm he was offering you, holding on to him tightly

you're thankful it's dark cause if it weren't, Jimin would tease you about blushing

but it's okay if it was dark or not because ok...let's be real, this boy would be blushing too

when you two get back to your house, your parents are sitting there all like "so how was the date–I mean the movie?"

and then you and him are just ???

but then you realize that you're still standing pretty close from when you freaked out and then you both subtly separate

and then your parents are like "anyway, we decided not to go to the ballet tomorrow so you two can have the tickets."

then you're just standing there like this isn't really Jimin's thing

but Jimin knows that you love to watch ballets so he's like "we'll take it"

and then you just snap your head at him like wow okay I love this guy...wait

since you have to dress up the next day you get all nervous because you are now aware of your feelings for your best friend

that he also had

so when he walks in and sees you laying on the couch in your sundress, he honestly wants to hide his face into his hands because

“wow you're really pretty. I mean not that you don’t always, but like–”

“oh, thanks, Chim. you look really nice too.“

then you both blush like crazy

and by this time you are both aware of each other’s feelings

and Jimin had sudden confidence as you sat at the kitchen table to do this as he was placing both your dinner on the table

*you are kookie*

and he was pretty sure he heard your heart beating so when he turned to go to his seat

he smirked

and you were still sitting there frozen with your fork in your hand

on the way to the ballet, you sat up so straight so he started to worry

“hey, you good?“

“huh? yeah, sure.“

but he thought it was so adorable how you were pretending that he didn’t know what you felt for him so he wanted to tease you

and casually put his arm on the back of the passenger seat

“Jimin, don’t do that. Both hands on the wheel.“

“Jimin?“

“I mean, uh...Chim.“

“you sure you want me to take my hand away?“

then you glare at him and he puts his hand back on the steering wheel

because he’s still scared of you sometimes

when you finally get to the theater he scolds you for getting out of the car instead of him opening the door for you

so in his mind he thinks that catching you off guard would be your punishment

so as you two are walking towards the entrance he

when you get to your seats, you realize that he is still holding your hand

your heart is still beating super fast but you don’t mind cause he’s freaking holding your hand

at the show he would usually be bored out of his mind

but he had the chance to watch you because you were so focused on the ballet that you didn’t notice this boy to your left admiring you

at intermission, after you went to go eat the free dinner at the restaurant at the theater, you went back to your seats and he unconsciously wrapped his arm around your shoulders

and at this point, you were so used to this unfamiliar skinship that you just leaned onto him

and then you two continued to watch the rest of the show like that

on the way back home it started to get windy

so you both ran to his car because of the lack of jackets he had

and then there you were, the two of you sitting in his car outside of your house in silence because though you two had already spent the whole day together, you still didn’t want to leave each other

and then, out of nowhere

he comes closer to you across the middle console

and he kisses you gently

and you’re completely surprised but then you end up closing your eyes and kissing him back

and when he pulls away you’re both wide-eyed

and then you guys just sit in silence again

but then as he’s about to scream because maybe you hadn’t actually felt that way about him

you start laughing

and he’s completely confused

until you give him another small peck

and you just get out of the car and he follows, grabbing your hand as you walk to your porch

and then you just look at each other and he pulls you into a hug

then you walk up the steps and wave to him before unlocking the door and going into your house

and then you quickly change into your pajamas

but then you look out the window and see that his car is still there and he’s doing some weird celebration dance

so you chuckle and dash down the stairs and out the door

then he suddenly turns and you jump into his arms

and give him one more kiss after he puts you down

“I love you, Chim.“

“I love you, too, dog crap.“

then you roll your eyes but he can’t help but give you a kiss on the cheek before he actually leaves

later on you guys are actually a couple after he finally musters up the courage to ask you to be his girlfriend, but you guys go back to normal doing all the things you used to do when you were still just 'best friends' (with the additional kisses, dates, etc.) so there's no wonder why the rest of the boys always considered you a couple already

07.21.17

8 notes · View notes

believermag · 8 years ago

Text

ELECTRIC BLUE

All photographs by the author.

Kim Wood on David Bowie

There are roughly ten blocks between the theater where David Bowie watched rehearsals for Lazarus, and the studio where he recorded Blackstar. In his last years, we both lived between them, on opposite sides of Houston Street.

My side is the Bowery, known in real estate speak as NoHo (North of Houston). On the street where I live—a two-block stretch of 3rd Street known as Great Jones—is a chandeliered butcher shop occupying the spot where Basquiat worked, and died, of a heroin overdose. Twenty years before his time, Charlie Mingus’ heroin-addicted presence on this corridor is said to have birthed the term jonesing.

I’ve passed a decade in Brooklyn, but never before now lived in Manhattan and love being a downtown kid, stepping through the door and onto crowded streets, passing CBGBs—now a skinny pants boutique I’ve never entered—on my way to buy groceries, or borrowing books from a library branch housed in the one-time factory of Hawley & Hoops’ Chocolate Candy Cigars—that Bowie lived above, in a modern penthouse perched atop the turn of the century brick building.

For twenty-four months, barring the occasional trip to Central Park, I’ve lived below 14th Street and in this time Bowie loitered here too, sipping La Colombe’s double macchiato, fetching chicken and watercress sandwiches at Olive’s, or dinner supplies at Dean & DeLuca. One day I’d catch him on the street, I figured, hailing a cab or taking out the recycling in his flat cap and sunglasses, and when I did my well-worn New Yorker discretion would be jettisoned as I tried, and likely failed, not to cry.

I didn’t, of course, know that for most of the time we were neighbors David Bowie was dying. Today I walk the familiar stretch of blocks to his building, eyes tearing, I tell myself, from the frigid, bone-dry air. At the front entrance, a group of fans stand gutted, surrounded by news trucks, generators, vulturing reporters.

A growing pile of daisies, tulips, roses, daffodils leans against the wall, along with a few photographs, a pair of silver glitter heels, a Jesus candle with Ziggy Stardust face. Tucked here and there are handwritten notes: Look out your window, I can see his light and We are all stardust and Hot tramp, we love you so.

Everyone here, news crew aside, feels known somehow, the mood is gentle, polite, quiet. Too quiet, I realize, when someone plays “Life On Mars?” from a tinny smartphone speaker. As the closing strings swell, a woman turns to me to say through tears, “I love this song!” All I can do is nod, “I know!” and take comfort among fellow kooks.

A pair behind me wonders aloud about a “world without Bowie,” and while I know what they mean—the way some people feel like a force and invincible—you could argue we’ve been living in such a world for a long while. David Jones-ing.

Three days earlier, on the night of Bowie’s 69th birthday, I danced in my kitchen to the foppish, falsetto, “‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore,” delighting in his rude lyrics and wild whooping. Later at a dinner hosted for the birthday of a friend, I commented on Bowie’s continuing fixation upon mortality, but also his energy, sly humor, return to form, exclaiming, not tentatively, “Bowie’s back!”

I was thrilled he’d finally slipped the ghost of what he called, “my Phil Collins years.” In one of the endless interviews now flooding my screen in text and video, he explains, “I was performing in front of these huge stadium crowds and at that time I was thinking ‘what are these people doing here? Why did they come to see me? They should be seeing Phil Collins.’ And then that came back at me and I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ It’s a certain kind of mainstream that I’m just not comfortable in.”

Like the divisiveness of fat and skinny Elvis, there were those of us who fancied ourselves glittering, androgynous, apocalyptic half-beast hustlers who bought drugs, watched bands and jumped in the river holding hands, and there were others, contentedly jazzin’ for Blue Jean.

When, in your Golden Years, your mentor of not only music but all things relevant—art, clothes, books, films—enters his Phil Collins Years, suddenly high-kicking in Reeboks and staring in Pepsi commercials, how not to feel betrayed?

I took it personally, coining the unforgiving term David Bowie Syndrome. As a burgeoning artist, I feared (a scaled-back version of) his creative arc with my whole heart—reaching the greatness of Bowie’s 1970s only to follow it up with Let’s Dance. To say nothing of Tin Machine. Like many old-school fans, I’d stopped tuning in to modern Bowie to keep my vintage Bowie flame flickering.

In my most youthfully caustic moment, I joked that Bowie’s personal Oblique Strategies deck—that famous stack of cards, creative prompts such as Ask your body, Abandon normal instruments, and Courage! allegedly used when Bowie and Brian Eno recorded Low and Heroes—should be made up of cards that all read, simply: Call Eno.

Unfair, untrue. Kindly allow this counterpoint mea culpa admission: I secretly love the ham-fisted, cringtastic video for Dancing in the Street.

On the third day after Bowie’s death I step outside, wondering if I’ll still hear his presence hum. Just feet from my front door I’m greeted by his face gracing one of two large posters advertising Blackstar. Well hey there, Mr. Jones.

They’re wet with wheat paste and like a teenage fangirl I consider stealing one, but then notice a smaller poster hung next to them, featuring the Sesame Street characters peering out joyously, encouraging me to attend an event entitled… Let’s Dance!

I accept Bowie’s cosmic joke, had it coming I suppose, and briskly hoof it to Union Square where at the farmer’s market I find apples, apple cider, cider doughnuts and not much else. My gloveless fingertips smart as I pocket change and consider the possibility that the visitation was an invitation to dance through the sorrow. A bit maudlin perhaps, but then, so was Bowie.

When I return home the Blackstar posters are gone. In under an hour someone has pasted them over with clothing and gym ads—leaving all the posters on either side for the length of the street untouched. Like Steppenwolf's Magic Theater, the message—whatever it was—had appeared and just as quickly vanished.

My feet walk me to Bowie’s memorial, which has exploded in a heap of bouquets, black bobbing Prettiest Star balloons, cha-cha lines of platform heels, disco balls, eye shadow, quarts of milk, British flags, drawings and paintings of Bowie’s many incarnations, fuzzy spiders, bluebirds, boas, vinyl copies of David Live annotated Forever in thick silver marker.

A giant orange tissue paper flower hangs from a nearby tree, electric blue eye at its center, petals edged in lyrics: Give me your hands, because you’re wonderful! Let the children lose it, let the children use it, let all the children boogie.

Here and there are tucked personal notes: You taught me that weird = beautiful, and: When I was a teenager I wished I could check off “David Bowie” for both my gender and my race. I still do.

“Taking away all the theatrics…” Bowie said, “I’m a writer. The subject matter…boils down to a few songs, based around loneliness, isolation, spiritual search, and a looking for a way into communication with other people. And that’s about it—about all I’ve ever written about for forty years.”

Perhaps, then, my “Let’s Dance” visitation was an anti-message, a warning against wasting creative juju by pandering for cash. Of course, Bowie made not a dime (relatively, and thanks in large part to shifty management) from his artistic era I find most inspiring. The seed of the fortune that brought him financial security was that very song. So what then?

When I return home, Bowie’s spot on the wall has been papered over yet again, all white this time, as though to say, as he has when pressed to interpret his lyric’s meaning, “nothing further,” “you figure it out,” “space to let.”

I rise before the sun, pull on bright turquoise tights and red clogs and walk the cobblestone of Lafayette Street in the dark. Collar up, breath ghosting, I feel as I secretly do in all such moments, like the cover of Low, or The Middle-Aged Lady Who Fell to Earth. Car headlights slide over me as I approach the memorial that is, it appears, being dismantled.

I quickly make the photograph I awoke imagining: my platforms meeting Bowie’s shore of flickering candles, cigarette butts, stray boa feathers, sea of glitter. Beside me a sweet lone man sorts out the dead flowers, shuffling handmade things to one side, candles to another, not tossing it all as I first suspected, but tidying up, preparing for another day.

What drew me into this frigid darkness, half dressed in pajamas? Perhaps a need to meet Bowie toe to toe, promise to honor the contract, all in, heart wide, funk to funky.

Put on my red shoes and dance the blues.

“I don’t think (the act of creation is) something that I enjoy a hundred percent. There are occasions when I really don’t want to write. It just seems that I have a physical need to do it...I really am writing for myself.”

Before Blackstar, the last time I know of Bowie creating under extreme duress is when making the album Station to Station—which coincidentally also opens with an epically long titular song wherein a man yelps from the darkness, singing with pride and pain about a fame that has isolated him beyond measure.

As the Thin White Duke, Bowie sings with bitter irony, It’s not the side effects of the cocaine! I’m thinking that it must be love! It’s well known that Bowie, living for a year (1975-1976) in his despised, self-chosen, wasteland of Los Angeles, had fallen victim to a kind of Method Writing, unable to escape in life the character he’d crafted to hide behind on stage.

Subsisting on a diet of cocaine, chili peppers and milk, he grew paranoid, hallucinating, allegedly dabbling in Black Magic and storing his jarred urine in his refrigerator. I was six years old at the time, living less than a mile from Cherokee Studios where Station to Station was in session, and smudging my mother’s brand new Young Americans vinyl with powdered sugar fingerprints.

He said of the following album, Low, “It was a dangerous period for me. I was at the end of my tether physically and emotionally and had serious doubts about my sanity. But I get a sense of real optimism through the veils of despair from Low. I can hear myself really struggling to get well.”

It’s the pale, shimmering hope that makes Low my favorite of all of Bowie’s offerings, but for Station to Station’s Duke of Disillusion it’s too late—for hate, gratitude, any emotion. It’s not, however, too late to lay himself bare in the work: there’s no reach for sanity, just a man collapsing while still directing, as the camera rolls.

Blackstar has been called a gift, and on “Dollar Days,” a song that describes his effort to communicate in the face of death, Bowie breaks the fourth wall to address this directly: Don’t think for just one second I’ve forgotten you/I’m trying to/I’m dying to(o).

I believe as an artist he had no choice, no other way to confront his circumstance other than to talk himself through it, put it in the work.

The profound generosity of Blackstar, and a vast swath of Bowie’s creative output, is that in this most intimate conversation with death, god, time, himself, we’ve been invited to listen in.

What makes a good death? Bowie withdrew from the public in the last decade and was characteristically silent regarding his illness, in this tell-all age (that owes him not a little for its status quo “tolerance” of Chazes and Caitlyns). He was also, in his time post-diagnosis, compelled to make his most raw and exposing work in years, and between the play and album, likely spent a long part of each day in their pursuit, while presumably also tending to his needs as a father, husband, friend, man.

In Walter Tevis’ book The Man who Fell to Earth—the basis of Nicholas Roeg’s film that inspired Bowie’s production Lazarus—stranded, despondent space alien Thomas Jerome Newton records an album called The Visitor: we guarantee you won’t know the language, but you’ll wish you did! Seven out-of-this-world poems! Newton explains it’s a letter to his family and home planet that says, “Oh, goodbye, go to hell. Things of that sort.”

Bowie’s seven-song swansong, Blackstar, is rather more generous, and from a writer notorious for lyrical slipperiness, layered meanings, a cut-up technique (copped from Burroughs) that spawned lines about Cassius Clay and papier-mâché, its text is frequently plain-spoken and direct.

Even my favorite frolic sounds a combative calling down of his illness, time: Man, she punched me like a dude/Hold your mad hands, I cried/She stole my purse, with rattling speed/This is the war. It would not be the first time Bowie referred to Time as a “whore.” (see: Aladdin Sane.)

In the title video’s most vivid sections, Bowie becomes god—less vengeful than dismissive—singing, from heaven’s attic, a swaggering takedown of Bowie himself: You’re a flash in the pan, I’m the great I am. (From Exodus: And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.)

His button eyes in both videos suggest a puppet, and so the presence of a puppet master, but I don’t read these images as signs of deathbed conversion. Bowie was a spiritual seeker who borrowed magpie style—in this case from Egyptian, Kabalistic, Christian and Norse iconography—to create a language to give voice to his fears and dark entries.

“If you can accept—and it’s a big leap—that we live in absolute chaos, it doesn’t look like futility anymore. It only looks like futility if you believe in this bang up structure we’ve created called ‘God’.”

In his last gestures Bowie answered not God, but himself, regarding the way he’d lived, and in particular, as an artist. The pulse returns the prodigal sons suggests that the characters he inhabited—some regrettable, but not irredeemable—are with him as he assesses the intentions behind, and perceived short-comings of, his creative offerings: Seeing more and feeling less/Saying no but meaning yes/This is all I ever meant/That's the message that I sent/(but) I can’t give everything away.

In his almost unbearably haunting last video, it seems we’re finally invited to meet David Jones, or Bowie playing Jones. Jones the man lies in bed, clutching a blanket with those mortal, frightened hands. Nearby the writer manically, fretfully reaches for immortality, while Bowie the performer, dutifully dances to the end.

“There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unspeakable, all those things come into being a composer, into writing.” “You present a darker picture for yourself to look at, and then reject it, all in the process of writing. I think that’s what’s left for me with music. Now I really find that I address things to myself. That’s what I do. If I hadn’t been able to write songs and sing them, it wouldn’t have mattered what I did. I really feel that. I had to do this.”

This morning I remembered where I'd seen the writer's austere, black and white striped costume before: the program for the 1976 Isolar tour, wherein Bowie self-consciously poses with a notebook or makes chalk drawings of the Kabbalah tree of life. Isolar is a made up word—and name of his current company—said to be comprised of isolation and solar.

I love this costume—a kind of artisan worker-bee uniform. There are satin kimono-sleeved ass-baring rompers for when its time to present the work, but when making it, roll up your revolutionary sleeves and get to it.

1976 saw the success of Station to Station, the premiere of The Man Who Fell to Earth and the recording of The Idiot and Low. It was not the most grounded time for Bowie personally (to understate it), but arguably his most vital creatively, and this nod to the continuum of creative spirit seems to suggest that the artist dies, but through the work, like Lazarus, rises again.

So what, then, is a Blackstar? Perhaps a marked man, a sly reference to Elvis’ song of the same name whose lyrics include, Every man has a black star/A black star over his shoulder/And when a man sees his black star/He knows his time, his time has come.

Although Bowie did not, as rumored, write “Golden Years” for Elvis, he did find (somewhat bashful) significance in their shared birthdays, took pains to catch his concerts, had his white jumpsuit copied to wear while performing “Rock and Roll Suicide,” modeled his own costume in Christiane F after Elvis’ ensemble in Roustabout, and perhaps his Aladdin Sane red/electric blue lightening bolt was inspired by Elvis’ signature gold one. Which is to say, he likely knew of The King’s “Black Star.”

Blackstar could also suggest the theoretical transitional state between a collapsed star and a singularity—a state of infinite value in physics, a metaphor for immortality.

I’m not a gangstar/I’m not a film star/I’m not a popstar/I’m not a marvel star/I’m not a white star/I’m not a porn star/I’m not a wandering star/I’m a star’s star/I’m a blackstar.

“Sometimes I don’t feel as if I’m a person at all...I’m just a collection of other people’s ideas.” Is Bowie simply claiming his right to throw off all mantles?

The car crash that is the documentary Cracked Actor opens with a reporter asking, “I just wonder if you get tired of being outrageous?” “I don’t think I’m outrageous at all,” Bowie throws back, miffed. The reporter persists, “Do you describe yourself as ordinary? What adjective would you use?” Bowie searches his brain for an appropriate response to the inane question and finally lands upon: “David Bowie.”

Or perhaps, as Isolar suggests, a Blackstar is someone hidden in plain sight. In an interview that seems more therapy session, with Mavis Nicolson in 1979, mostly drug-free and grounded Bowie speaks of the appeal of life in Berlin, whose physical wall seemed to mirror his psyche. Without referencing himself or the characters he’s inhabited, he describes an isolated figure who finds no home in the world, but instead creates “a micro world inside himself.”

When Nicolson suggests that as an artist Jones must keep himself from love, he rejects the idea outright, but when gently pressed about the demands of relationships in actual life and not “from afar,” he concedes, extending his arms before him like a shield, “No, love can’t get quite in my way, I shelter myself from it incredibly.”

The moment is so resonantly raw that the two break into manic humor, shifting to the story of his eye injury in a childhood fight over a girl, wherein he laughs and says, “I wasn’t even in love with her.”

In “Lazarus,” the dying Jones sings: everybody knows me now, and perhaps that is so, as much as it ever could be for a man who spent an artistic career in self-sustained exile.

And why shouldn’t David Jones have been—with the exception of a few deeply druggy years—free from the curse and blessing of being Bowie? What are we owed by our artists?

Blue, blue, electric blue, that's the colour of my room.

The Bowie song that forever circles my brain describes a writer waiting for the muse, describing the loneliness and blessing of the electric blue of creation. Vishuddhi, or the electric blue throat chakra of Hindu tantra, is associated with the vocal cords, communication, creative expression, one’s inner-truth.

For sixteen months I lived in Berlin’s Schöneberg quarter, around the corner from 155 Hauptstrasse and the apartment that song was composed in and of. I’d pedal my bike past and nod to the ghost Bowie inside, still wondering and waiting for the gift of sound and vision.

It’s the seventh day since Bowie’s death, the final day of shiva I’ve sat beneath his window. I’ve never much understood funerals, always felt they were for a “living” that didn’t include me, but this has been different.

Over this week I’ve shared glances with occasional bleary-eyed oldsters coming or going from where I’m headed or have just been–there have been no young folk to speak of and no platform boots necessary to recognize the kooks.

Today, from a block away, I spy a pair of women making the pilgrimage. The taller of the two—who for one moment I mistake for Patti Smith—has Smith’s hair, a floor-length bright blue shearling coat and an armload of exquisite orange, flame-tipped roses.

Trailing my comrades I think of Smith’s line in Woolgathering when, upon being given a dandelion, she asks, “What could I wish for but my breath?”

At Bowie’s door the energy feels less personal, dissipating. After the roses-bearers depart, a lone woman and I stand shivering before the diminished pile of offerings framed by narrowed police barricades: plastic-wrapped bodega flowers and a few handmade items, the most prominent being a cigar box shrine with a Halloween Jack eye patch and what seems a bunch of random stuff tossed in. The woman plays “Starman” on her phone, and rather than poignant, it’s just sad.

A years later follow-up to his first solo release, “Major Tom,” “Starman” takes the isolation of planet earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do and turns it into an anthem where a cosmic DJ messiah tells us misfits not to blow it, ‘cause he thinks it’s all worthwhile.

The 1972 Top of the Pops performance famously featured Bowie’s flirty finger wagging at the viewer, and casually intimate embrace of Mick Ronson, which blew the minds of much of Britain and beyond and marked Bowie as a more than a one-hit wonder. I silently give thanks to many, including Bowie, not to live in a world where a rock and roll arm thrown over a shoulder can cause a stir.

Over the song’s fade out the woman shrugs and says something about bears—at least I think that’s what I hear. I smile and nod remotely, then realize she’s drawing my attention to the carefully rendered Ziggy Stardust teddy bear—complete with lightning bolt and guitar—hanging from the police steel.

This bear abrades me for no good reason. A few young women pass by on their way into American Apparel. “That was David Bowie’s house,” one says over her shoulder, and the other makes an “awww” sound like she might at the sight of a teddy bear, or the memorial of that musician guy that died the way people do—other people, older people. As they pause to take a selfie in front of Bowie’s memorial offerings I turn and nearly sprint downtown.

I learned in this week of Bowie Internet inundation that he trailed these streets too, often at dawn, in solitude, but right now I need Chinatown’s chaotic, smashing life. I’ll buy those killer clementine from that vendor on the corner, I think, and eggplant, scallion and ginger for supper.

I weave among cardboard boxes of dried silver fish and lotus root, tourists linked arm-in-arm in matching New York pom-pom hats, Chinese grandmas pushing plaid shopping carts in (Harold and) Maude braids. A man exits a hallway, arms loaded with red-ribboned funeral flowers. A chef in a paper hat leans against a wall, smoking beneath a pumpkin-sized, spinning dumpling.

Beneath crisscrossing wires strung with giant, glinting snowflakes, I warm my hands on a cup of milky tea and wonder when we’ll get winter’s first snow. Glancing up to cross Mott (the Hoople) Street, I wonder when the city’s details will cease to conjure Bowie.

I tuck dragon fruit into my sack, humming “Starman”—whose chorus melody is plainly lifted from The Wizard of Oz’s “Over the Rainbow.” Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly/Birds fly over the rainbow./Why then, oh, why can't I?

In performance, Bowie sometimes coyly sung a mash-up of these anthems of longing for belonging. On “Lazarus” he sings, seemingly of his death, This way or no way/You know, I’ll be free/Just like that bluebird/Now ain’t that just like me.

Blackstar begins by naming the Norse village of Ormen. In Norse mythology, the rainbow bridge that connects this world to that of the gods is Bifrost, which translates as tremulous way. Tremulous—as in trembling—as Bowie does so heart-wrenchingly as he backs into the armoire and out of this world.

When he heard the call, David Jones, who could walk the streets of Manhattan undetected, slipped over the rainbow and into his own imagination.

But with generosity and courage it seems he did not fully recognize, David Bowie spent his life pulling back the curtain on the Great Oz, showing the man, his frustration and fallibility, questioning art-making and then making it anyway.

I fear in the end he imagined himself “a very bad man but a very good wizard,” when in fact the opposite was true. The droves of people gathered at his front door and around the world may have found the masks fascinating, but only as much as the man, and heart, behind them.

I imagine catching David Jones wandering past shop windows plastered with red New Year monkeys, beneath golden, swaying lanterns. I would thank him for Ziggy Stardust, whose hair my mother copied and Scary Monsters, whose poster graced my eleven-year-old bedroom wall. I’d say thanks for Low and Hunky Dory, which got me through hard times. Thanks for The Man Who Fell to Earth and The Hunger, Aladdin Sane and the Thin White Duke. Thanks for Diamond Dogs, Heroes, Lodger, Station to Station. Thanks for creating a soundtrack for my life and the lives of my favorite people.

Thanks for being a fierce, literate libertine, giving permission when I so badly needed it and inspiration always. Thanks, from the strange kids, for saying, No love, you’re not alone! You’re wonderful!

On the afternoon of January 10th, in what I later learned were the last hours of Bowie’s life, a double rainbow drew me from my desk and to the window. It arced across the skyline and ended at the Empire State Building, so strikingly that fire fighters in the station across the street took to the emergency dispatch microphone to exclaim to the neighborhood, “There’s a rainbow!”

As the first snow falls over Chinatown’s back alleys, I think: rainbowie!

There’s a Starman, over the rainbow, way up high, and he told me—let the children lose it, let the children use it, let all the children boogie.

Kim Wood's writing has appeared in Out Magazine, McSweeney’s, Tin House's Open Bar, and on National Public Radio. She has received grants from the Jerome Foundation and is a MacDowell Colony fellow. She is working on a book, Advice to Adventurous Girls, based upon the unpublished archive of a 1920s motorcycle daredevil. Her documentary film on this subject has screened internationally in festivals and museums including Sundance and the Guggenheim, where it double-billed with an episode of ChiPs.

26 notes · View notes

softplacepod · 5 years ago

Text

Episode 4: Mistakes and Monsters

Show notes & transcript below the cut.

SHOW NOTES:

Seventy Years of Sleep - https://cardiamachina.co.vu/tagged/seventy%20years%20of%20sleep

Critical Role - https://critrole.com/

“No One is Alone” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xaxP_kErTU

TRANSCRIPT:

EP 4: MISTAKES AND MONSTERS

Hello, bees. It's me, Sara, sending you light and love, and also a bunch of things I've been super into lately that I think might be your jam. Welcome to A Soft Place to Land.

Item the first: We deserve a soft epilogue, my love

Or, my Bucky Barnes problem

Everyone who knows me just groaned a little bit at that subtitle. If I’ve talked to you too much about anything, ever, it’s probably either Leverage or Bucky Barnes slash the Winter Soldier from the Marvel universe. Some of you may assume it springs from my decade-long angry crush on Sebastian Stan, who plays him in the movies, and that certainly didn’t help. But the real problem is that Bucky Barnes fits into the mold almost perfectly of “fictional characters to whom Sara will get overly attached very quickly.” Naomi Nagata from The Expanse. Donna Noble from Doctor Who. Duck Newton from The Adventure Zone: Amnesty. Bigwig from Watership Down. A million others.

For me, there is something very meaningful about a character with whom you initially click. You start a piece of fiction and something in you just resonates. It also, to be honest, sometimes makes engaging with fiction difficult. I want Bucky to be happy. I want Donna to be happy. I want my precious babies to be happy and I don’t want anyone or anything to hurt them ever again. I haven’t rewatched Captain America: Civil War in a long time, because I don’t want to watch what that movie show what it knows about Bucky, and I don’t want to watch what it chooses to do about it, and it’s not even that I’m mad about as that I don’t want to see it again.

There’s a poem that makes the rounds on Tumblr and in fandom circles often. That it comes from Seventy Years of Sleep, a fan-written poetry cycle about Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes is, I think, less well known, but makes it mean more, honestly, to me. The bit I’m thinking of goes,

I think we deserve

A soft epilogue, my love.

We are good people

And we’ve suffered enough.

And that’s what I want for my faves: a soft epilogue, loosed from their suffering. A time and a place to heal, to learn to live with the pain they have caused, and the harm they have done, and to find the next right thing to do.

Item the second: Venom in your veins

Or, I promise I’m not going to talk about Critical Role too much

It’s just that I have been rewatching the show during this time, and it’s been hitting me especially hard. It’s voice actors who play D&D together, basically. If you are an anime, video game, or internet person, you’ve almost certainly heard one or more of these voice actors in things. And if you’re a tabletop role-playing game person, you’ve almost certainly heard of the D&D game they play on the internet. And that’s all great, I’m happy to hit you up to explain the appeal, or to advise you where in the first campaign to start watching (it’s later than you think!). But lately I’ve been stuck on a line, a particular line, spoken in a particular way by a particular character. I’m struggling to give a little context without spoiling anything, so I’ll say: this speech, which I’m about to read to you, is by a character who has done horrible, horrible things in their past. They were manipulated into the choosing, but they still chose, and they believe without question that the choices they made have doomed them. They will never be forgiven, and they will never deserve forgiveness. Or at least, that’s what they believe - their friends have different beliefs. But anyway, this character is talking to another, who has recently come to light as having also made choices that, in the choosing, may have damned them forever to be unforgivable. And here’s the speech. It’s short, I promise, and I’ve cut out one instance where the speaker says the listener’s name. Okay.

You listen to me. I know what you are talking about. I know. And the difference between you and I, is thinner than a razor. I know what it means to have other people complicate your desires and wishes. And I was like you, was. I know what a fool I have been for years. And I am looking at him as if I am looking in a mirror. You didn’t account for us–good. That is life. Shit hits you sideways in life, and no one is prepared, no one is ready. These people…changed me. These people can change you. You were not born with venom in your veins. You learned it. You learned it. You have a rare opportunity here. One chance–to save yourself. And we are offering it. And I am pleading with you. To find your better self–he is still there. Maybe you and I are both damned. But we can choose to do something, and leave it better than it was before.

It’s important, I think, to note that “you were not born with venom in your veins” is in iambic pentameter, which always tickles the back of my mind when I hear it even if I don’t know why, thanks, theater. And it’s important to note, too, that this is an improvised show by voice actors, and that the character speaking is played by someone with a heavy background in theater, and that when the actor said that line as the character I personally burst into tears and then yelled about it for like fifteen minutes to a friend who’s also a big Critical Role fan and was also crying.

Item the third: it was learned

Or, all my faves are the same person for a reason

So, okay. This is getting a little heavier than I expected, but we’ve got one more place to look before we step back out into the sunlight. Me.

Hi, I’m Sara. Once upon a time, I was a person with a set of core, sturdy beliefs. They made me who I was. Every decision I made was based on them. Every action I took, every ripple I made, came from this core set of beliefs. And acting off of those beliefs, in the ways I was taught and shown, hurt people. I hurt people.

I was condescending and cruel, vicious, self-righteous. I insisted everyone live up to an example, and when they didn’t, I wrote them off as failures. I believed so hard and so loud and so much that everyone who didn’t believe the same rang as a liar or a bad person to me. I spent, let’s say, fifteen or sixteen years soaked in and taught and shown that belief, and then, in the space of about a year, it was ripped out of me.

Over the next couple of years, I began to collapse, slow but sure, as the cornerstone and entirety of the person I was dissolved away. When you are built around a belief, and then you don’t believe it anymore, and it’s gone - who the hell are you? Who do you become?

When you realize, as you’re terrified and grieving, as you’re brokenly trying to assemble shards into something like a person, that you hurt people before, when you were acting out of your belief, what do you do? How do you make amends? How to reckon with the pain you caused, and your at the time sincere belief that the pain was right and good, justified, that you were doing the right thing? That you did something terrible, many terrible somethings, out of intentions that were sincere and deeply held? That the people who taught you those beliefs, that the people who encouraged them, still hold those beliefs, and may or may not ever realize how deeply you held them, too, and how the damage you have done sprang so strongly from that core? How do you make friends now? How do you deserve them? How do you live with the things you’ve done and said, the chances you were given and ignored, the thousands of ways you could have seen the pain you were causing and just…stopped? And you didn’t?

There’s a reason Bucky Barnes is my favorite fictional character.

Item the final: No one is alone

Or, one another’s terrible mistakes

Into the Woods has been an odd sort of touchstone in my life. In high school speech class, reading through a huge filing cabinet full of scripts to chop into monologues and duets, I stumbled over it. I don’t know why it was in there, it’s a musical, and there wasn’t, at the time, a musical theatre program in my school. It didn’t, I don’t think, have the musical notation in with it, not that I can read music well enough to have done anything if it was there. But I, having grown up with fractured fairy tales, kept reading, and got to the lyrics for the song “No One is Alone.” It comes towards the end: two adults talking to two children about loss, and grief, and the ways they can shape our vision. In this little song, there are so many connected ideas about how fear and sadness and hurt can make us forget who we are. That everyone makes mistakes, that no single person has a handle on what’s right or good. That every choice has a consequence, and that every consequence leads to another choice. That our moralities are constructed around our histories and our choices. That most people are, most of the time, just trying to get through the world with the people they love. Witches and giants aren’t the enemy: the pain we cause out of our own pain is the enemy. It can be, in these times, in our interconnected world, so hard to choose. So hard to choose kindness over retaliation, so hard to choose justice over comfort, so hard to choose action over silence. And it can feel so alone. You, standing under a giant’s shadow, choosing to listen to what the giant is saying before you strike it down. You, staring a witch in the face, choosing to understand the decisions she made that led her here. You, looking into your own heart, seeing how every mistake you’ve made and hurt you’ve endured has built you. Your pain, our pain, makes us, in some ways. It tries to tell us what’s right and what’s wrong, but we still get to decide if we agree. No one is alone - not us, not you, not the people who are not on your side. And so, the song insists, since none of us are alone, we can shape the effects of our mistakes. We can make better mistakes. We decide what’s right. We decide what’s good.

[music]

Theme music for A Soft Place to Land is “Repose,” by Chase Miller, off his album Burnout. Chase’s music can be found at chasemiller.bandcamp.com. Show notes and episode transcripts are at softplacepod.tumblr.com. You can find me on Twitter @cyranoh_ and you can listen to me jabber on as the foil to my very good friend Anna on our parenting podcast, The Parent Rap, at parentrap.net.

I love you very much. Take care of yourselves. See you soon.

0 notes

mastcomm · 5 years ago

Text

Seeing the Oscar Challenge to Fashion Week and Raising It One

New York Fashion Week dribbled into existence just after President Trump’s impeachment acquittal victory lap, and in the shadow of the Bernie-Buttigieg squabbles over Iowa. Not to mention the Oscars.

It was not the optimum moment for the first fashion week of the third decade of the new century to start. It was too easy to consider the early shows, largely absent any globally recognized names, and think, “Who cares?” Easy, really, to look away.

So it was a good thing that one of those designers decided to seize the moment and make a convincing case for why that’s the wrong conclusion to draw.

Rachel Comey didn’t mean to be a spokeswoman for her industry. (She has always been pretty committed to doing her own thing, whatever the vicissitudes of fashion.) She wanted to support a cause, but it was women’s reproductive rights, not the existential crisis of American fashion. It just so happened that in doing the one, she provided a panacea for the other.

This season, as she has done occasionally in the past, she eschewed a formal show for a sort of dinner theater with clothes. She invited a group of friends, customers and hipster celebrities (for Ms. Comey they tend to be the same thing), plus a few fashion critics, to La Mercerie, a French cafe in SoHo, for an evening whose M.C. was Casey Legler, the restaurant’s manager, former Olympic swimmer and sometime men’s wear model.

In between the salad and seafood and chocolate mousse, the cabaret artist Justin Vivian Bond would get up from a table to croon, and models of all ages would sidle between the seats, dressed in Ms. Comey’s collection. Some guests got up to speak, including Lourdes Rivera, the senior vice president for U.S. Programs at the Center for Reproductive Rights, and Aminatou Sow, the podcast host.

Almost every speaker, whatever else they were discussing, also had a “Rachel Comey origin story” to tell: a moment when they realized that they felt, somehow, more themselves because of what they were wearing, which happened to be Ms. Comey’s clothing.

It began with Ms. Legler, who talked about her wife, Siri May, an advocacy adviser for the Center for Reproductive Rights, and how when she goes to speak at the United Nations on behalf of her organization and tells harrowing stories of women in extremis, she wears Ms. Comey’s clothes because they make her feel both powerful and feminine.

Leanne Shapton, the artist and writer, was wearing a black jacket, sliced up the arms so that they fell away from the body as she spoke, suggesting both protection and freedom. She wears it whenever she travels, she said, and people in the airline security line always ask her where she got it.

The last speaker was Molly Ringwald, who said that everything she was wearing was Rachel Comey and that she had actually bought it all (which in the current symbiotic marketing of Hollywood and fashion is practically unheard-of). By the time she was done and the last model had appeared, you kind of knew what all the fuss was about.

Ms. Comey’s clothes defy easy categorization. They check many boxes but fit neatly into almost none. For example, this collection included a thick cowl-backed camel tunic finished in a fringe of silver feathers at the thigh; wide, high-waist nubby tweed Katharine Hepburn trousers with a shell pink silk jacket tucked inside; and a woven burnished gold coat with two big black patch pockets and a high ruff of curly sheepskin hugging the chin.

These clothes do what fashion should do, which is frame the complexities of the wearer with grace but without oversimplification, so the person becomes more of who they are. The clothes don’t have an agenda of their own, but they facilitate the agenda of the woman who wears them.

That’s harder than it sounds. Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of costuming going on.

The current boy wonder of the New York fashion world, Christopher John Rogers, winner of the most recent Vogue/CFDA Fashion Fund, was having a 1950s couture-meets-C.Z. Guest-meets-Rita-Hayworth-by-way-of-the-fruit-bowl vision, in iridescent taffeta, plush velvet, silk shantung and Swarovski crystal, with balloon sleeves, blossoming “strawberry” skirts and football shoulders — all in shades of orange, lemon, grape and cherry.

Mr. Rogers can drape and pouf with great skill and exuberance, but there’s no tension in his clothes, no sense of past fantasy confronting present reality.

This is also the case with Brandon Maxwell, who has been progressively smoothing out his more interesting edges (he began his career as Lady Gaga’s stylist), smothering them in deep-pile cashmere knits, perfectly tailored high-waist flares, plush peacoats and sweeping shirtdresses that felt like an audition to be the next Ralph Lauren.

Once upon a time, this kind of plush East Egg sportswear contained in it the promise of a more sparkling life, but now it, and all it represents, feels mostly passé.

Rag & Bone, fall 2020.Credit…Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times

At least at Rag & Bone, Marcus Wainwright took his usual British-classics-meets-American-work-wear schtick and grew it up a little, so the houndstooth and leathers, the glam anoraks and throwaway tweeds, looked like the sort of thing you would wear in a post-apocalyptic C-suite, as opposed to a post-apocalyptic skate park.

And at Tory Burch, the push-pull between floaty prairie frocks in organza and Chantilly lace and sharp new Romantic velvet jackets and jodhpurs — inspired by the push-pull of the ceramic artist Francesca DiMattio’s morphing, multitextured sculptures — added a bit of oomph to an otherwise straightforward story of silhouettes and sensibility.

Tory Burch, fall 2020.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York Times

The past may inform the present, but it shouldn’t be a retreat. (That gets us nowhere except stuck.) It needs to be chopped up, picked apart, mined for information and then reshaped, literally, for relevance.

The troika of designers at Vaquera — Patric DiCaprio, Claire Sullivan and Bryn Taubensee — get that. They set their very short (only 18 looks) guerrilla show in Dover Street Market, where the store aisles were runways (viewers were crammed in on every side), and each model walked with a number, as in the department store fashion shows of old.

Then the designers played with essentially three elements — cabaret sequins; maroon and cream striped governess shirting; and camo — mixing and matching them in the tropes of historical grandeur and red-light districts. A cropped sequined black moto jacket/bolero with leg-of-mutton sleeves came matched with an olive drab corset atop a camo ruffled skirt. A camo baby-doll gown bubbled at the hem and ruched at the sleeves dipped low in front to reveal a lace bra and flounced out over skinny black leggings hemmed in silk-satin frills. Even the tuxedo G-string bottom wasn’t just a joke but part of the story.

Instead of show notes, Mr. DiCaprio and company created an elaborate script set in the year 2030 involving Liza Minnelli, a bar in a swamp and a flashback to impoverished designers in New York.

Whether lack of funds was in truth the reason for the show site and the brevity, the result was the most coherent, sophisticated work they’ve done. Who needs movie magic when you’ve got real characters like these?

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/seeing-the-oscar-challenge-to-fashion-week-and-raising-it-one/

#Life style

0 notes

lindyhunt · 6 years ago

Text

10 Augmented Reality Apps That Are Better Than Pokemon Go

During the summer of 2016, Pokemon Go revived countless amounts of people’s inner Ash Ketchum, making street corners, parks, and backyards look like an arcade from the 80’s. Over 100 million people lived their childhood fantasies of catching, training, and battling Pokemon in (augmented) real life that summer, and the app’s enourmous popularity stimulated public interest in augmented reality technology as a whole. In fact, since Pokemon Go's release, the number of AR app downloads has exploded by 366%.

If you want to see what all the augmented reality hype is about, but don’t want to download and test out the more than 2,000 AR apps on the App Store right now, we’ve got you covered.

We curated a list of the mobile AR apps that are better than the app that popularized augmented reality, helping you grasp and enjoy the technology's current capabilities.

10 Augmented Reality Apps That Are Better Than Pokemon Go

MondlyAR

Inkhunter

Star Chart

Housecraft

Roar Augmented Reality

GIPHY World

Holo

Just a Line

Splitter Critters

Euclidean Lands

1. MondlyAR

App Rating: 4.7/5.0

Available On: IOS & Android

Price: Free

youtube

Even though my parents are native speakers of Mandarin and I took a year-long Chinese course in college, I’m still terrified to speak the language. My American accent and lack of fluency is personally too embarrassing, so I just don’t speak Mandarin -- ever.

But one of my goals in life is to become fluent in the language, and the only way to accomplish this is by constantly conversing with native speakers. I can’t seem to muster enough courage to reveal my weak speaking abilities to them, though.

If you’re in similar situation, you might feel like you’re trapped in a vicious cycle, where your embarrassment leads to inaction, which leads to decline and, ultimately, more embarrassment.

Luckily, Mondly, a language learning platform, created an AR app to help you practice your speaking abilities with your very own virtual language assistant.

Your digital assistant can converse with you in seven different languages -- Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, British English, and American English -- and with MondlyAR’s advanced features like speech recognition, chatbot technology, and artificial intelligence, she can also give you feedback on your pronunciation and make your lessons as engaging as possible by summoning virtual animals, instruments, and other objects to your room.

2. Inkhunter

App Rating: 4.7/5.0

Available On: IOS & Android

Price: Free

youtube

Getting a tattoo can be one of the most stressful decisions of your life. If you get the wrong one, it’ll stay with you forever -- until you opt for laser tattoo removal.

Fortunately, though, Inkhunter leverages augmented reality to take the guesswork out of getting a tattoo. After you upload your own art to the app or choose designs from Inkhunter’s gallery, all you have to do is mark the potential area for your tattoo and hover your phone over the mark to see how it’d look on your body, letting you think before you ink.

3. Star Chart

App Rating: 4.5/5.0

Available On: IOS & Android

Price: Free

youtube

Stargazing has been a pastime for thousands of years. Who doesn’t love admiring a bright, dusty sky full of stars and learning about the wonders above? Unfortunately, if you didn’t study astronomy, the heavens can be quite challenging to understand.

With Star Chart, though, you can identify any star, constellation, meteor shower, comet, and planet in our solar system. All you have to do is point your phone to the night sky, and the app will automatically follow your movements, chart the sky, and teach you some cool tidbits about space.

4. Housecraft

App Rating: 4.5/5.0

Available On: IOS

Price: Free

youtube

Designing a room is just like getting a tattoo. If you buy the wrong furniture, it could ruin the room’s entire aesthetic. And you’d have to deal with the embarrassment of living in an eye-sore -- unless, of course, you shell out more money on some new furniture. But even if you buy the most expensive furniture, it still might not fit your room’s look. The same thing could happen all over again.

To avoid this regretful situation, consider downloading Housecraft before you buy any new furniture. The app uses augmented reality to place fully rendered 3D models of a variety of furniture in your home. And all the furniture is resizable to fit your room’s dimensions, observable from any angle and in any light, and you can even save specific room designs for future reference.

You can also use Housecraft just for your own amusement. With the app’s video recording feature, you can document your dream home or something utterly absurd, like a room filled with potted plants, and send them to your friends and family.

5. ROAR Augmented Reality

App Rating: 4.3/5.0

Available On: IOS & Android

Price: Free

youtube

ROAR is like Shazam, but for food and beverages. The app lets you can scan over 10,000 different products to learn about their prices, nutrition facts, ingredients, reviews, and relevant promotions.

You can also compare any product’s price in ROAR’s database by retailer, buy select items within the app, and even scan movie posters to buy tickets for the next show at certain theaters.

With all this valuable information at your fingertips, ROAR is like your personal shopping advisor.

6. GIPHY World

App Rating: 4.6/5.0

Available On: IOS

Price: Free

youtube

GIFs are already one of the most popular and lovable ways to communicate through messaging and social media, but Giphy didn’t want to end their empire there. After the viral success of Snapchat’s dancing AR hot dog, they developed an AR app called GIPHY World, which arguably makes AR communication just as fun and engaging as Snapchat does. The app lets you record AR GIFs and stickers directly into your videos, post them to the internet, and share them with your friends who also use the app.

Nowadays, not a lot of people complain about the amount of GIFs they receive -- they usually rave about them. And since AR GIFs are novel, unique, and hilarious, their popularity will most likely soar.

7. Holo

App Rating: 4.4/5.0

Available On: IOS & Android

Price: Free

youtube

Similar to GIPHY World, Holo lets you place AR visuals into your photos and videos. But the main difference between the two apps is that Holo’s AR visuals, or holograms, are of celebrities and famous fictional characters. Taking a selfie with Spider-Man is entirely possible on Holo, and regardless if your friends believe you’re tight with Peter Parker or not, the AR app is still an incredibly unique and fun way to interact with people.

8. Just a Line

App Rating: 4.6/5.0

Available On: IOS & Android

Price: Free

youtube

As one of Google’s flagship AR apps, Just a Line is surprisingly simple -- the only thing you can do on the app is make simple drawings.

But Just a Line can actually be just as fun and engaging as a more sophisticated AR app, if you’re creative. To draw things in the app, all you have to do is doodle on your phone’s screen. Then, you can press record to document your AR masterpiece.

Just a Line can also sync your phone with your friend’s phone, letting you both share the same drawing space and potentially play the most engaging Tic-tac-toe game of your life.

9. Splitter Critters

App Rating: 4.8/5.0

Available On: IOS & Android

Price: $2.99

youtube

Splitter Critters is an AR game that projects aliens who are lost in a forest onto a white box the game’s developer sends to you. By slicing the forest with your finger, your goal is to lead the aliens back home to their UFO. Splitter Critters might seem simple and straightforward at first, but there are a whopping 57 levels, so it’s definitely a challenge to beat the entire game.

10. Euclidean Lands

App Rating: 4.7/5.0

Available On: IOS

Price: $3.99

youtube

Euclidean Lands is like the 3D version of the popular mobile phone game 2048. To win, you need to hone your spatial awareness, geometry skills, and perspective taking. Thankfully, you can play the game in any wide-open space, making it easier to devise a strategy that will help you beat each level.

0 notes

stacymolter · 6 years ago

Text

So much excitement came from the Ant-Man and the Wasp press conference in Pasadena, California, last weekend, but what stood out the most for me was Evangeline Lilly’s message to her 7-year-old son who loves violent movies. Her message was how we can all be true heroes by showing a little kindness and compassion towards each other, even our offenders.

There really is no such thing as bad guys. There are only good guys who had made so many bad choices they have forgotten how to make good choices. A true hero’s job is to remind them of their goodness. Not to annihilate them or kill them, it’s to help them redeem themselves.

Alongside this important message was, of course, lots of laughs from the cast of Ant-Man and the Wasp. Did Paul Rudd give himself more lines than the other characters when writing this film? Or was this going to be the day Kevin Feige would finally say something he shouldn’t at a press conference? (Boy, I hope so). And who knew Evangeline could explain the Quantum Realm so perfectly. (She truly is a badass!) Check out the highlights from the Ant-Man and the Wasp press conference below, along with some of our favorite event photos!

Ant-Man and the Wasp opens in theaters this Friday!

Ant-Man and the Wasp Press Conference

Q: For Paul and Peyton. Paul, this is actually the third time you’ve played Ant-Man. How did you and Peyton approach, not only as the sequel to Ant-Man but a sequel to Captain America: Civil War?

Peyton Reed: It is a sequel to both movies, and what was cool about Captain America: Civil War is we could not ignore what had happened to Scott Lang in that movie, in this movie. It gave us an organic jumping off point because my first reaction was… what would Hank Pym and Hope Van Dyne think about Scott taking the suit and getting involved with this and fighting with the Avengers? Well, they’d be pissed off. So it really gave us this whole… starting point where it’s like, well, what if they were estranged at the beginning of the movie, as a result of this? You know, there are ramifications of the Sokovia Accords and Scott being on house arrest, and it really gave us a natural starting point.

Paul Rudd: One of the things that was nice is it gave us, I felt, a little bit of leeway, to lean into something maybe a little harder than we would have been able to at first because now the character has been established and we’ve seen Scott in two other films. People buy the abilities. They buy me in the role. They understand the rules. So it felt as if we had a little bit more freedom to… you don’t play into the humor. Would Scott do this? Would he make this, would he say this kind of thing? Would he make this kind of choice?

Whereas I think the first time around we were still modulating and so that was one of the really fun parts about this. I feel like we kind of went into it with a… let’s try it. Let’s go, let’s go. People… people know who this guy is already.

Q: Since Mr. Rudd helped to write the first movie and now this movie, do you all feel that he gave you guys as many good lines as he gave himself?

Peyton Reed: I’ve said this before. Paul’s as generous a writer as he is an actor. Paul could easily say, I’m getting all the lines. You’re not going to say this or do this, but you know, Paul always has the whole picture in mind when he’s writing and acting. Is that correct, Paul? Because that’s my perception.

Paul Rudd: I try and think of the film as a whole and I think of every character — but I will say this. This has been a collaborative effort, more than anything I’ve ever worked on and to think that I actually wrote it would be a gross overstatement. The truth of the matter is, Peyton has been working on this for a long time. Same with our producer, Stephen Broussard. Same with Kevin. But in particular, two writers, Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna, who did a lot of the heavy lifting and those guys are great. I tip my cap to them.

Q: Peyton Reed, what in this movie was the most daunting sequence, and you were happiest to have finished when you filmed it?

Peyton Reed: There were a lot of daunting sequences because we really wanted to set out and go nuts with the Pym-Particle technology in this movie, and it occurred to us at some point, well, maybe it’s not just ant-man and wasp who can shrink maybe grow. What if it were vehicles, buildings, and other things, and we really wanted to go nuts with it. But what that did was create some real technical challenges.

We did a whole car chase that took us through the city of San Francisco and we wanted to do a chase that you just simply wouldn’t see in any other movie because of all the size changes. So that was probably the biggest challenge.

Q: Michael Peña is not here, but we have to talk about Luis. Mr. Peyton, how much fun was it for you to kind of expand his role and for Paul and Evangeline, the chance to play in his storytelling, flashback, something?

Peyton Reed: I think it was important. You know, I’d never done a sequel before, and I think one of the things I like in sequels is progressing the characters. In looking at the characters of Luis and Kurt and Dave, the ex-con guys, in the first movie, they’re ex-cons and they’re really trying to stay out of a life of crime and they discover what it feels like to be a hero. In this thing, it really felt like, let’s start them from a place where they’re on the straight and narrow now. They’re trying to start a small business. Scott’s involved in that business and he’s almost out of house arrest and are they going to make a go of this business?

I like the idea that this movie would have huge stakes, huge personal stakes, but also the success of their business also has huge stakes and particularly for Scott, I think that’s a thing he’s really wrestling with. In terms of the Luis storytelling, that’s always a fun thing to shoot and what we do basically is we shoot Michael telling the whole story, I’ll cut together, you know, the preferred takes and do basically what we call a “radio cut” and then, for example, if it’s Paul or Evangeline’s turn to do their lip syncing, we’ll take that little section on set, play it over and over through speakers so they can hear it and then just go at it multiple times, until we get a performance in it and something that syncs.

Q: Evangeline, since Wonder Woman, I get a little weepy any time I’m watching women kick ass in a movie. So I’m wondering, what was your favorite part of that wonderful fight sequence in the kitchen? Or just kind of on the whole what you loved doing with Hope and the Wasp in this film.

Evangeline Lilly: I loved getting to be a Bladerunner. That was pretty cool. The knife gag in the restaurant scene is very, very cool. I love the element of having somebody who’s completely in jeopardy, but also completely in control. As a superhero, that’s awesome. I saw that a lot like when the mallet comes down to hit her. You can see the oh, shit moment, but then she’s completely in control the next second. It was just fun to finally get to see her take on the mantle because this is something that she’s been ready and willing to do her, basically her whole life. Her parents are both superheroes and she was rearing to get in that suit for an entire film and we never got there. To actually see her fighting at that moment was, was wonderful.

Q: Is anyone comfortable explaining some of the quantum science that we play within the film?

Evangeline Lilly: I actually can answer that question because I really love quantum physics and always did before this happened, and that’s one of the reasons I was excited about this brand. I really dig quantum physics and, at one point, we thought the atom was the beyond all and end all; that everything ended at the atom. That was the smallest nucleus in the world, but actually, we discovered that the atom is kinetic and that atoms exist in multiple places at the same time. That was scientifically proven, and once you discover that, then you know that matter is kinetic and the matter is displacing all the time. If it can be displaced, it can be warped. If you can warp it then you can warp size. If you can warp matter and also, can you warp time? Can you warp reality? Can you warp universes?

Q: Kevin, speaking of the Quantum Realm and how we’ve been introduced to it and now in two films, three with Doctor Strange, what is the future of the Quantum Realm? Are we going to see it in future films?

Kevin Feige: Yeah, without giving anything away. These are all storytelling tools; new places, new things. In the first film, we got a glimpse of it for people who like to go through frame-by-frame, there was a little silhouette of Janet as the Wasp in there, which is a big story element in this movie. There are things that you see back there, that Peyton has put in there. Where and how they pay off in the near term, in the long term… remains to be seen.

Q: Hannah, there’s so many antagonists and villains in this role. I always ask the villain, was there a purpose and do they see themselves as the villain?

Hannah John-Kamen: Absolutely not. I definitely approach the character, not as a villain, at all. Definitely a threat to the characters and the heroes of the movie, but when you play a villain, you have to play it like you’re the good guy and everyone else is bad. The stakes are so high, she has such a clear objective in the movie and you know, every man for himself. Every woman for herself.

Q: Laurence Fishburn, as this the first Marvel role that came your way? And how come it’s taken so long for us to see you in the Marvel mode?

Laurence Fishburn: It is not the first Marvel role to come my way. In fact, years and years ago I ran into a guy named Tim Story who directed the movie Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and I said to him, “I am Norrin Radd,” and he said, “Who?” and I said, “I am Norrin Radd, and Norrin Radd is the guy who becomes the Silver Surfer and works for Galactus,” and all that stuff. So I voiced the Silver Surfer, Rise of the Silver Surfer and then I’ve been a reader since I was eight and a fan my whole life. I’ve really enjoyed the movies, and everything that they’ve done with MCU has been fantastic because what they’ve done is brilliantly braid the source material with, and bring it on into the now and so it’s amazing.

I realized that I was on the lot with Marvel, working at Blackish at ABC/Disney, and remembered that I had worked with Louis D’Esposito a hundred years ago. I thought I should go talk to them. Say, hey. What do I got to do? Who do I got to talk to, to be in the movies and they were kind enough to say, you know, we’ll think about that, Fish.

A couple weeks later they were like, you know about this guy? And oddly enough, it was a guy I didn’t know about. Although I was a Marvel reader and a D.C. reader, mostly Marvel, I did not know about Bill Foster. I knew about Hank Pym because I think, and you’ll tell me if I’m right or wrong, but Ant-Man and Wasp became Avengers at some point. Did they not? That’s why I knew about Hank Pym and I knew about the Pym article and all of that, but I never got to Foster because I was never an Ant-Man reader. So Peyton sat me down and was kind enough to allow me to join the family and I’m just, I’m a kid in a candy store, man. Just having a good time.

Ant-Man and the Wasp Photo Gallery

About Ant-Man and the Wasp

From the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes “Ant-Man and The Wasp,” a new chapter featuring heroes with the astonishing ability to shrink. In the aftermath of “Captain America: Civil War,” Scott Lang grapples with the consequences of his choices as both a Super Hero and a father. As he struggles to rebalance his home life with his responsibilities as Ant-Man, he’s confronted by Hope van Dyne and Dr. Hank Pym with an urgent new mission. Scott must once again put on the suit and learn to fight alongside The Wasp as the team works together to uncover secrets from the past.

Evangeline Lilly’s Message to Kids – Ant-Man and the Wasp Press Conference So much excitement came from the Ant-Man and the Wasp press conference in Pasadena, California, last weekend, but what stood out the most for me was Evangeline Lilly's message to her 7-year-old son who loves violent movies.

#Celebrity Interviews #Disney #Entertainment #Evangeline Lilly #Events #Hannah John-Kamen #Kevin Feige #Laurence Fishburne #Marvel #Michael Douglas #Paul Rudd #Peyton Reed

0 notes

cryptobitcointrading-whalea-blog · 6 years ago

Photo

Bobby Lee: Blockchain Only Suitable for Crypto, Not Real World Activities

Bobby Lee, co-founder and former CEO of the oldest Chinese bitcoin exchange BTCC, was one of the keynote speakers at BlockShow Europe 2018 in Berlin in the end of May. As he already did it on previous occasions in the past, Bobby Lee was expressing his exceptionally critical views on today’s financial system and the role bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could potentially play in the future. According to Mr Lee’s LinkedIn profile , previously he was the CTO of SMG BesTV New Media, the largest IPTV operator in China with the most subscribers globally. He moved to Shanghai in 2007 and started off at EMC’s China Center of Excellence, as Director of Software Engineering, with responsibilities for Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage. Since early 2010’s Booby Lee was a vocal speaker for Bitcoin also running arguably one of the biggest bitcoin exchanges on global level. Things changed last year when Chinese government announced a series of crackdowns on crypto activities in general. In his live Q&A session during BlockShow Europe 2018, where Forklog’s Andrew Asmakov was present, Bobby Lee discussed issues ranging from the Chinese government influence on the industry to more specific questions regarding blockchain as a conception. Thus, speaking about why Bitcoin should be taken into account by any shrewd investor and what is needed to enhance its mass adoption, Bobby Lee said: “Many people are asking what is crypto, why it is a new asset class, why it is an information based class, how it is different from bare assets like gold, how it is different from securities and traditional market. This is the book I am going to write later to address a more general audience and to give it an understanding what is Bitcoin, what is its impact and how it really gives you freedom. So that’s what is really important: education and knowledge.” According to Bobby Lee, this will take time, though. “We are now only in the tenth year and only a hundred million people understand it. So it will take time to get to one billion people and so on. And then there’s another aspect which is price and how it is forming. Today Bitcoin is over $7000, and there is around $150 bln worth in bitcoin in circulation, something that is known as market cap. So what is happening is that with only $100 to $200 bln worth in bitcoin you can’t do much. But when one day all the biggest companies all over the world will do the global commerce in crypto, like increasing this number to 1 per cent, 5 per cent, 10 per cent, 50 per cent, things will change. It’s already happening on individual level, I am personally doing my payments in crypto as do other people in companies in the industry. But the question is when traditional companies start, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a movie theater, or a doctor’s office, or an airline. It will happen in 5, 10 or 20 years, it is a big time range, but it is ok.” After that Booby Lee discussed a broader range of issues in the crypto industry Question: There was time when additional e-commerce payments were just becoming a thing and people were pretty afraid of putting their credit card details, and today we don’t even question it. And the same, I think, is with cryptocurrencies, it’s a financial step, and a lot of companies are trying to build an ecosystem of partners, not just other blockchain companies but rather traditional companies, companies that already have good market share or a good standing. So what do you think the community needs to do to engage further with traditional companies and to potentially overcome the negative narrative in the mainstream media towards cryptocurrencies? Bobby Lee: I don’t think about telling the traditional companies that they should be using crypto because the message never sounds genuine, it always sounds fishy. It’s all about having trust and ultimately they don’t have it, and everything just sounds wrong. But what I think will happen is that one day all these traditional companies will wake up and choose to use crypto because the alternative, which is the traditional money, is unbearable. As a businessman running a company, BTCC, for all these years I’ve encountered more and more trouble with existing financial system. I am talking about everything from personal accounts to suspicious activity reporting, and more and more innocent people are being trapped by these money laundering laws. The bankers are even asking you questions when you send money to your own account that happens to be in a different country. Listen, it’s my money, I should buy a house or a car there. Apparently, they are either jealous or they suspect me of doing something illegal, which I’m not doing since I pay my taxes. So when innocent people and innocent companies are being pressed by these high anti money laundering officials, it becomes all too inconvenient with all those payments not shown up because the traditional bank wires are so error prompt. So I think the traditional fiat money system is nearly at its few last breaths and more and more companies will realize that should have crypto on their balance sheet. Question: China has always been an important player the crypto industry but your government has been pretty tough in its approach to it in the past 18 months. ICO’s were banned , many companies left the country, and there are even rumours of mining operations being possibly closed down. Taking all this into account, what role China will play in the future of the industry? Bobby Lee: Yes, there was a crackdown since last September and the official policy today is that China doesn’t welcome any crypto activity like exchanges, payment providers or even conferences. The reason for this is that China is a central authoritarian society and they want to ensure peace and harmony. And it’s not just physical peace and harmony but also financial peace and financial harmony. They don’t want to lose money, they want people to have save investments, they don’t want any riots or street protests when people lose money in certain projects. So in order to minimize that, in order to reduce the potential society unrest they outlawed the ICO fundraising and did other things. However, there is nothing permanent under the moon, and it could be five years, it could be five months, it could be fifty years or several decades, but I think that one day China will reverse its course on this ban on crypto. There are two sides to the whole story: some people want this tough stance to last for long time, other people want it to be overturned. Question: Do you share the optimism expressed towards a possibility of the Chinese ICO ban being lifted at some point and exchanges going back home, as some of the local media reported? Bobby Lee: Once in a China we had one child per family policy, and forty years later it was lifted. Question: Recently it was announced that BTCC is about to launch a new exchange with its own token. What are the reasons behind this decision? Bobby Lee: I think I you are talking about BTCC Exchange so I need to clarify my role. I am a co-founder of BTCC and BTCChina and I’m very happy to have run them, but I am no longer CEO. We sold the company to the investment firm form Hong Kong in January this year. So there’s new management and they are the ones who are going to launch the new exchange. I hope one day I will be able to tell you more about this but today I cannot comment on this. Question: Still, there is an enormous amount of companies around running ICO’s and even exchanges issuing their own tokens simply anywhere it can be done. What do you personally think of this ‘tokenization’ model hype? Bobby Lee: Overall I am not supportive of this model, I don’t like this tokenization concept. I think it gives a wrong impression of the incentives of the founders of a company and the users, it sort of mixes the incentives. I personally prefer a more traditional model: I founded the company, I sold the company, I worked with investors and I am myself an investor. Unfortunately, I didn’t go in detail to see what each exchange, be it Binance or any other exchange, offers, but overall if it is a utility token I am not in favor of it, if it is true equity token then I think it can work. But as you know the challenge of equity tokens is regulation and jurisdiction because if, for example, I am an American citizen I cannot buy equity tokens. Question: What is the current situation with the bitcoin mining industry in China. Are fears that it will be a subject to more crackdowns justified? Bobby Lee: The thing is mining in China is still allowed by law, it’s not something that is forbidden at all. As everywhere else, In China there are things that are allowed by law and there are things that are not allowed by law, but there’s also a large grey area that is not specified. So Bitcoin mining is in that grey area, but at the same time something that is allowed by law is not enforced, and the same is true to things that are not allowed. So there are things that are illegal but people still do that sending things to the grey area. As for bitcoin mining in China there’s nothing against it written in the laws, but what isn’t allowed is stealing electricity. If you steal electricity it doesn’t matter what you actually doing, bitcoin mining or anything else, it’s illegal. If you steal electricity to put it into your mining machine someone will come and enforce the law. Question: If Chinese authorities find a reason to actually ban mining, does BTCC have a Plan B? Bobby Lee: At the moment BTCC is an international company based in Hong Kong, and as it was before, the company is not involved into actual mining activities. BTCC offers a mining pool, and people have to understand that running a mining pool and mining crypto is two different activities. When you are involved in mining you are investing in hardware, you purchase ASICs or whatever and just mine coins; with mining pool we just offer a software platform where miners can exchange information. Question: Let’s talk a little broader about the whole ecosystem. I guess there are plenty of people who consider starting their own projects and trying to bring something new and innovative. And even though things are changing pretty fast, there should probably be some general principles the people who launch projects should remember. What would be your advice to these people? Bobby Lee: Today, in 2018, there are too many founders both in crypto industry and non-crypto industry that are doing fundraising and trying to put blockchain wherever they can. And my opinion after having this experience for the last seven years is that blockchain is actually not suitable for any real world activities. This might sound like a very controversial statement, but what I’m talking about is that I am only negative for blockchain for real world. I am positive for blockchain for cryptocurrencies. Blockchain is great because it’s immutable, meaning that it cannot be changed, and decentralized. It is also a ledger containing a record of data, and what people often forget is that data has to publicly verifiable. If data can’t be verified publicly it is called private data, and most blockchain projects today, most ICOs, what they put on blockchain is just private data, a private database. I’m not against databases like airline miles which is great for customers, but that is not blockchain. So if you want to use blockchain with general data base that would mean that we’ve lost our ability to be intellectually honest, and I don’t want people to be intellectually dishonest with me. Question: Then, we all these statements about blockchain changing the future, how it can actually change the future? Bobby Lee: It can change the future through cryptocurrency when the information is purely mathematic and you don’t need to prove opinions and subjective data. So today when I see all these so called blockchain projects and people ask me to be their advisor I always say ‘No way’. Be intellectually honest with me, tell me that you are doing a database project, and maybe after that I will say ‘Yes’. Question: What’s your opinion on the so called stable coins like USDT and their recent followers? Bobby Lee: I haven’t studied stable coins too deep and I’m afraid I’m not educated enough to comment on this. Question: There was a recent study by some Chinese state authority, a kind of a cryptocurrency rating that saw Ethereum being placed on top of the list. Bitcoin, the first and the oldest, was at number 13. What was all that about, who actually needed this sort of thing and what for? Bobby Lee: To be honest I don’t know who did this, and I’m not sure about the possible reasons behind. Question: Some members of the community weren’t too happy with some of your views regarding Bitcoin Cash splitting off the original chain last year, and, since there’s always a certain rationale behind entrepreneurs’ motives, what side in this ongoing blocksize increase debate are you actually on? Bobby Lee: Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), they are both my children, I love them both.

http://forklog.net/bobby-lee-blockchain-only-suitable-for-crypto-not-real-world-activities/

0 notes