#apparently this is my 50th post

[s-h-sarah]

Denouement.

Happy b-day Sunny! I was plagued with a severe art block before I remembered it's his birthday today!

I drew this on a new tablet my brother gave for free. How nice! He usually charges secondhanded things for a quarter of the original price so I'm gonna count it as a positive sign for all things coming!

[gothyanki]

Find me crying over Kith'rak Voss in the designated Crying Over Kith'rak Voss corner.

[kiwikiswia]

yeag

[uty-ask-axis]

(OOC)

Tumblr: hey u got 26 notifs!

Me: how?? I didn't post for 4 days, and my last post that isn't a reblog was from 2 weeks ago

Tumblr: oh, 13 more!

Me: WHAT THE-

Tumblr:

(super long screenshot under cut)

[lunarthing159]

I think in a family au jimmy would be a Boy Scout that has a major ego boost after every meeting only to cooldown after a day or two but of course it’s starts up again the next meeting

I Can See That! (Also, In Relation To Your Last Ask Abt Your Family AU: Grian Def Pokes A Bit Of Fun At Jimmy If He Ever Brings Home Macaroni Art. However, This Shall Not Cripple The Pride Boost Of The Smol Jim)

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Jenna Coleman: The Audios

With the announcement of a new digital audio book read by Jenna Coleman coming soon, I thought it might be handy to give a quick list of her recorded works so far. This doesn't include commercial/documentary narration or video game voiceovers, obviously.

All these I believe are all available digitally in some form, too. (Officially or unofficially):

The Secret Garden - recorded in 2012-2013 for AudioGo, Jenna reads an abridged version of the children's story. The CD is hard to come by, since AudioGo went out of business soon after its release.

Doctor Who: Destiny of the Doctor - The Time Machine. Part of a year-long series of original narrated audio dramas produced by Big Finish in conjunction with AudioGo/BBC Audio for the 50th anniversary in 2013. This was the Eleventh Doctor chapter of the storyline, but incredibly and inexplicably it does not feature Clara but rather a one-off companion named Alice. Jenna nonetheless narrates the tale and plays both Alice and the Eleventh Doctor. My head canon is Alice is a Clara echo. AudioGo died almost immediately after its release, but Big Finish covered its distribution and I think you can still buy the MP3 version from them, along with the rest of the Destiny arc. Thus far it remains Jenna's only Big Finish-related audio work.

A Christmas Carol - Jenna's first audio drama involvement sees her playing a (relatively small) role in an all-star performance of the Dickens story, recorded while she was starring in Victoria (there were photos of her posted visiting Victoria showrunner/writer Daisy Goodwin at a book signing fresh from the recording session). Only released on Audible (apparently available for free in some places). I've never heard this myself.

"Pressures, Residential" - a short story recorded as a fund-raiser for Esquire UK magazine during lockdown. It basically reads like a story you might come across in something like Black Mirror or Inside No. 9. As a bonus, you get to hear Jenna utter a word we don't hear from her again until The Sandman. It's still available to listen to online from Esquire (it's an official page so I can link to it without violating a TOS).

"The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies." I don't know if this was recorded during lockdown or earlier, though it was released during. Jenna was one of a number of celebrity readers (including David Tennant among other Who veterans) contributing to the CD set "Beatrix Potter: The Complete Tales". I think this is still available on Amazon in CD form. Just the one story read by Jenna, though.

Iris Is More Than Okay by Natalie Cooper, a made-for-Audible original story, scheduled for release on May 16, 2024. Sadly, like A Christmas Carol, this will not be released to CD so it will be inaccessible to some. Not sure on length. This is not likely to be a full-length novel being an original so we're probably going to get something closer to 90 minutes-2 hours in length but I'm prepared to be corrected on that.

[pocket-deer-boy]

I just found out you're cis freedom a trans shit posting group on FB (wild seeing you there! I was like "I KNOW (of) THAT GUY!!"

Anyway, tl;dr congrats on busting out of the binary so hard that I assumed you were some form of genderqueer! (Genuinely! The post was about wanting to opt out of the binary despite being cis and you have met that splendidly!)

Also, I enjoy seeing you in my feed (here AND on FB apparently) and I thought you should know that c:

Leave your congratulations on the pile this is like the 50th time this has happened

Also what happened in that first sentence that is very hard to parse!

[saturnsocoolioyep]

I don't think ive ever posted about this online but I think it's pretty funny.

Today is my dad's birthday. April 1st. April Fools Day. Holiday for jesters and japers and fans of tomfoolery and mischief everywhere. My father was in fact born on this day, the Day of Clowns.

Now, this is already funny on its own. My dad's entire life, his birthday has fallen on THEE joke day. Its actually his 50th birthday today and the first thing I texted him was "how does it feel to be fucking ancient?" (This is not genuinely how I view 50 as an age but considering he's spent the entire 20 years of my life being a professional manchild, I need to get my jokes and shit in where I can.)

No, what's much much funnier about my dad's birthday being on the day of the pranksters gambit is that God or fate or whatever decides these things decided to have a little fun and fill up its own pranksters gambit on my poor grandmother. My grandma is a good woman, she tries her best to be progressive, she's unlearned a lot of things in her life. But in the year 1974, when she was pregnant with a child she simply could not have known would grow up to be the most unaware and undiagnosed autistic man of all time, she very much did ascribe to the gender roles of the time. That is to say, specifically, Pink Is For Girls and Blue Is For Boys and Boys Have A Penis and Girls Have A Vagina

I've been told, at the time, there was obviously no ultrasound equipment even close to what we have today for determining the sex of the baby. My grandma has told me that back then, they usually tried to determine (read: guess) the sex of babies in utero by gaging the speed of the heartbeat. The myth of the time was that boys had faster heartbeats than girls in the womb

Another fact about my father that's of note is that he has been diagnosed with ADHD a total of TWICE now in his life. Once as a kid, and then he was rediagnosed this last September upon having some focusing issues at work at the age of 49 years old. He, quote, "thought he had grown out of it."

😐😐😐

Anyway. My grandma, after determining the speed of the heartbeat at a checkup, happily threw a baby shower with loved ones and received tons of support and toys and supplies and lovely little pink clothes!

Pink? I hear you ask. But I thought you said she was very traditional?

Well, apparently my Grandma's belly mustve been the one and only place and time in my dad's entire life he ever slowed the fuck down and chilled out, because his heartbeat was slow

And so I'm happy to inform all the lovely clowns of tumblr that today marks the 50th anniversary of the greatest April Fool's prank God ever pulled: the day my Grandma was told she gave birth to a healthy baby boy

[fraeuleintaka]

Character Introduction (Investigations 2): Sebastian Debeste / Eustace Winner

This is the 50th post in the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Countdown: 31 days left until release!

Today's topic: Sebastian Debeste (Eustace Winner) Character Introduction!

Similar to Franziska, I also wrote my own character introduction for Sebastian in a previous countdown post because the website only now added an official one for him. Interestingly, that makes the amount of characters introduced for both games equal (7 per game), and even more interestingly, Sebastian's icon is added in immediately after Gumshoe (before Justine, Gregory and Ray) while Franziska and Ema are just added at the end. One would assume the order is roughly determined by the character's importance so it's a bit strange to see Sebastian before Justine (she is the primary rival, after all) and apparently considered so important but only included in the line-up at a later date compared to everyone else. Curious.

Coming to the introduction itself, it's kind of funny how similar it is to the one I wrote 😄 There's the mention of Sebastian only just having become a prosecutor, him being assigned to all of Miles' cases and his obsession with being the best or first at everything. Sebastian and his role in a nutshell! I especially love the very last part with "before anyone has a chance to say or do otherwise". It sounds hilarious, like he just bulldozes over people's attempts to correct him, but it also gives Sebastian's actions a desperate vibe, like he HAS to be first and not let everyone else interfere or he wouldn't stand a chance anymore which ends up being true and foreshadows how desperate he is to prove himself to his father.

Apparently, the nickname he gives himself is going to be "The Winner", so essentially just his surname with more emphasis. I definitely prefer the little more creativity of "Debeste" to "The Best" but it is what it is. What I do find interesting though is that the German translation uses "Der Gewinner", the German equivalent, instead of just the English variant. I was wondering about how they'd do that and if that really is the method they went with (maybe with him emphasizing "Der Ge-Winner" the first time he says it), I think I actually like it more than the English version simply because it plays around a little with his surname instead of just using it as is. It's exactly the kind of stupid pun that Sebastian would make and closer to what Debeste / The Best does (which, funnily enough, you could also easily do in German with "Der Beste"). Really hope that's the case, that'd be really cool!

I've already talked about Sebastian's full character artwork and also his chosen chibi sprite animation which is his dramatic pointing, just like the one we saw in the Direct Trailer. Not at all surprising, it is one of his best animations (and he has so many amazing ones) and I love seeing it in even greater quality and detail! Truly Debeste!

[caltropspress]

DEBRIEFING: 5 August 2023 | Brooklyn, NY | The Nursery at Public Records

Armand Hammer’s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips Pop Up Party, featuring Fatboi Sharif, Cavalier, and DJ Haram

On the helix approaching the Lincoln Tunnel I saw a Virginia plate that read PHUNKE—its occupants seemed anything but, but who am I to judge? Not since I saw EGO DETH on a Volkswagen Kombi in the artificial light of the Holland while driving in to see woods’ Church release show at Baby’s All Right in early June have I taken a license plate as a sign. Fred Moten writes that “the sign works its terrible magic precisely from within a radical non-isolation,” but it’s a bit too early in the everyday struggle for theory, wouldn’t you agree? What I’m focused on is the WE BUY DIABETIC TEST STRIPS signs plastered over walls and poles. A sight as common in NYC as POST NO BILLS and CA$H FOR CAR$. We close our eyes to these signs, oblivious to their ubiquity. We’ve become blind to them. But I saw the sign with “Armand Hammer” appended to it, and it opened up my eyes. Life is demanding without understanding. So I overstand the signs and signals sent through wires and cables when I dial 1-877-ARM-N-HMR. I focus. I fixate. I study Alexander Richter’s photograph from the forthcoming album of a lamppost covered in taped and torn flyers. The edges fray and flicker in city winds. Looks like the tendons and flesh rotting from the bones of Death in Hans Baldung Griend’s Der Tod und das Mädchen (1517) painting. Looks like some real litter-ature. Gathering on August 5th, just six days shy of hip-hop’s much-heralded 50th anniversary, I think of hip-hop flyers of the past, specifically Kool Herc’s Back to School Jam at 1520 Sedgwick. But MC Debbie D—a flyerologist of the highest order—tells us that the index card flyer is a phony, a fake, a fugazi replica, a forgery. Fifty years into this thing and we’re still searching for authentic experiences. Fifty people at a rap show and one’s an informant. I’m here to inform on what felt—brain to bone—like an authentic experience.

3PM in the sun. I lined up with the other RSVPs (the show was free, in every sense of the word) outside the venue. Summer summer summertime. Fresh Prince via Juice shit. The temp on my dash read 90°. Kids walked down Butler Street mantled with beach towels from the Douglass and DeGraw Pool. Spotted lanternflies dive-bombed my legs. Thank god I lotioned my pale neck. When the powers-that-be finally allowed us entry, the musk of maryjane and malignant body odor was thick. Now I knew (it hit me in the fucking face) what that PHUNKE license plate was all about. “Funk,” from the French dialectal funkière: “to blow smoke on.” I’m not complaining, though—it was a communal fumigation. We were funky technicians, one and all.

“The Nursery” that Public Records has built falls somewhere between greenhouse and Zen garden. The square space is essentially an urban enclosure where pine and plane trees and fresh lumber create a private performance patio, a paradise just beyond the concertina wire, as woods might say. The stage is bedecked with potted cacti, while I spied A. Richter across the way with his Fujifilm GA645Zi amongst the bamboo stalks. ELUCID’s green Champion mesh football jersey (the Bo Jackson jersey in the laundry, apparently) matched the soundsystem monitors, and I found what little shade there was to be had and huddled close to the soundman’s booth, a shed of glass. I almost managed to forget I was cordoned off by beige shipping containers. 

It wasn’t long before I was entertaining the idea of going full Fatboi Sharif, i.e., shirtless. Sharif himself only made it through half his set before shedding his garb—there wasn’t even a hospital gown in sight. The heat was on as soon as he came out to Can Ox’s “Scream Phoenix”—rising from flames. El-P’s Phillip Glass sample could’ve easily made a Sharif beat (we’re only talking a single generation removal, really). Sharif made quick work of some of his most recent altered realities. “Static Vision” included a call [I ain’t scared!] and response [Motherfucker, I ain’t scared!]. He ran through “Phantasm,” “Dimethyltryptamine,” “Designer Drugs,” “Think Pieces,” and “The Christening” like a buxom blonde through an abandoned building, revving chainsaw in pursuit. At times, his speech slurred into a makeshift Swahili (word to This Heat). It was strange to see Sharif in daylight, sunstruck, as I’m so used to seeing him in blood-flooded cellars or Joseph Conrad’s heart of darkness environs, like he alludes to on “Dimethyltryptamine.” He barreled through ventricles, riding shotgun in Sir Menelik’s Space Cadillac. DJ Boogaveli (who hypes up Sharif like it’s a pep rally at Springwood High) shouted about family at the start of “The Christening,” which sounded sincere compared to the tone Sharif takes on Decay—there the family must be of the Manson or Duggar milieu. He finished the track acapella, exhausting the last of his energy, only to reinvigorate and reanimate for a rioting rendition of “Smithsonian.”

I’ve yet to invest the necessary time into Cavalier’s work, though I know him from his association with Quelle Chris. With an album coming down the pike from Backwoodz, I found myself in the lucky position of witnessing his set incapable of discerning old material from new. He took centerstage, acting as his own hype-man and DJ (though he did high-five the invisible “DJ Light-skin” at one point), and his kineticism was immediately apparent. His floral button-down danced over his body as he rapped vitally. I felt vivisected by his exhortations and incisive observations. Keep in mind, my age prohibits me from becoming enthralled by any performer whose work I’m unfamiliar with—a sort of neuropathy of the soul. But he had me open and endeared by the time he implored, Put the tiger balm on it, put the tiger balm. As you wish, Cav. I lathered my chest.

“Y’all believe in magic? No? That’s okay.” Cav said it so quickly that he didn’t give anyone a chance to answer, but he assumed correctly, I think. Still, I was smitten by his conjurations—he made me a believer (no small task). “King me,” he rapped, “I’m trying to make it all across the board.” And, by the end of it, he had the entire crowd shouting “KING ME” back at him without a problem. MAKE SOME BLOODCLOT NOISE! he growled, and we didn’t need to be asked twice. IT’S VIBRATIONAL, AIN’T IT? With a seemingly innocuous phrase he was able to summon the spirit of the crowd. Over the course of his 25-minute set, I heard him rhyme epiglottis, brag of spitting a verse while performing cunnilingus, give a lesson on homophones, and regale us with stories of winking at cops in Whole Foods. “From the Tree of Life I smoke foliage,” he said, and the trees Betty Smith saw grow in Brooklyn circulated through his lungs. “We need to bring back weed spots—it’s not nostalgia.” Though he did rap nostalgically at times, letting us know he was born in BK, went to school not far from where we stood, and though he’s representing the 504 now, Brooklyn born-and-raised ossified his being into bone.

THIS IS CHURCH, YA FEEL ME? And I did feel him. I spent the week culling quotes about improvisation from Amiri Baraka’s Black Music (1967) for another self-assignment (I don’t work for anyone, son), and highlighted this passage: “...to go back in any historical (or emotional) line of ascent in Black music leads us inevitably to religion, i.e., spirit worship. This phenomenon is always at the root in Black art, the worship of spirit—or at least the summoning of or by such force.” [Peace to Kehinde Alonge—always at the ready with choicest recommendations.] Cavalier danced upon the altar and rapped his sermon relentlessly, tirelessly. I was raised up on tippy-toes, enthralled by the force of his spirit. THIS AIN’T JAZZ?! he asked. WHAT THE FUCK THEY TALKIN’ ABOUT MAN? I don’t know who’s doing that sort of talking, but they’d be hard-pressed to say such a thing in this public gathering. “Brooklyn, this is how it feels—all of us together: this is how it feels.” I believed in Cavalier’s magic by the end of his set. I was charmed by his satchel of High John de Conqueror. Let me know where to Venmo my tithe. 

The heat index had my vision tunneling. When Armand Hammer stepped on stage, sounds were moving in reverse, and the Class-A dynamite duo took us back (way back) in time, when ELUCID was in “fifth grade in [his] dad jeans” and he “played Game Boy in the backseat.” woods, with his first words of the afternoon, said he “rather be codependent than co-defendants.” This must’ve been “Landlines,” the lead-off from the new album, seeing as how they shouted-out JPEGMAFIA, ELUCID rapped “leave a message after the beep,” and a dial tone toned between verses. It was off the hook, as they say.

They seemed to be following the official We Buy Diabetic Test Strips tracklist, because next up was “Woke Up and Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die” (a song with a title so long that it must’ve come from the magnum mind of ELUCID). She replied, she replied, she replied… they repeated, but I didn’t quite catch what that chatbotbitch said. woods refashioned a line from “Remorseless” with “Life’s a blip, I’m swimming under the radar.” Life’s a blip and then you die, that’s why we puff lye. Further deepening the uncanny valley, their third offering to the musty masses included “fake trees in the Apple Store.” I’m sensing something about the excesses of tech after a cursory listen to these WBDTS tracks, the detritus and pollution it produces. To quote my damn self, something in line with “...a cell tower with evergreen branches: / …a drone with seagull feathers.” ELUCID revived “a double portion of protection for [him] and [his] niggas,” explaining he’s “trying to only say what’s necessary.” By any means, sir. 

Cavalier was welcomed back to the stage for “I Keep A Mirror in My Pocket,” another new joint with Preservation on production. We the audience felt, collectively, like we were in the belly of the beast—those shipping container walls (a real Season 2 of The Wire sensation)—as Cav chorused and signified about the Big Bad Wolf. A cautionary tale, indeed. I can see clearly how Cavalier fits within the Backwoodz cadre. 

The content of the next number left no question of its title. “Niggardly (Blocked Call),” if I was asked to predict, will be the cynosure of the new album. (Yeah, you heard me right dog, I said cynosure.) Produced by August Fanon (who was in the place to be—a rare appearance from an elusive mastermind who would humbly demur if you called him such, I’m supposing), the song has an R0 = 15 infectious hook: “Admittedly niggardly, I won’t even give these niggas bad energy.” woods, what with his penchant for scales and measurements, boils everything “down to the last red cent.” How does he do it? Well, MY HEART PUMP KETAMINE, he yells. We find woods in one of his ruthless, no Vaseline moods: “I eat knowing I’m starving my enemies.” Revenge is like the sweetest joy next to spending time with your kids, and woods picked up where his verse from “As the Crow Flies” left off. He closed his eyes and rapped to the rafters and the sky:

I write when my baby’s asleep, I sit in the room, in the dark, I listen to him breathe, I walk him to school and then the park,  Hold they little hands while we cross the street, I think about my brother who is long gone, And this is all he ever dreamed.

ELUCID and woods repeated admittedly niggardly back-and-forth at the end, delighted with the wordplay. 

They kept riding the August Fanon beatwork like Thomas Sankara in the Renault 5 as the killer chords from “Smile Lines” crept in. The crowd response was screw-faced sneers and shouted lyrics. One youngblood knew the song front to back, beginning to end—ELUCID acknowledged him from the stage: “Peace to the homie out there—he knew every word, man.” I watched the dude beam from the compliment. Even after writing profusely—profusely (fuck Caltrops and his non-existent editor, here comes the predator…)—about woods and ELUCID, I still can’t memorize their lines. Chalk it up to some neurological incapacity that arrived in my 30s. I envy those who commit songs like “Smile Lines” and “Smith + Cross” to memory. My not-so-supple gray matter just can’t cut it anymore.

My expectations for We Buy Diabetic Test Strips were upended by the tracks they debuted. I’d speculated an abrasive noise event; a Sheet Metal Music for the new millennium we’ll never reach; a kind of Schoolly D “P.S.K.” FML swagger. There’s certainly elements of that, just not as much as I was anticipating. (And who knows what noise the as-yet-unheard tracks might bring.) I assumed the shared space with Soul Glo over the past several years, the screechings zapped through the receiver on the toll-free number, and their recent appearance on Shapednoise’s Absurd Matter would be an indication of the Shape of Rap to Come. Speaking of which, woods sludged through his verse from “Family” before DJ Haram’s scrapyard percussion ushered in “Trauma Mic.” 

Haram was at the helm for the entirety of Armand Hammer’s set, and she reveled and felt every ounce of her own beat. The buzzsaw sounds were like Baraka’s description of Don Ayler’s trumpet: “long blasts…in profound black technicolor.” ELUCID’s traumatized mic draped over his shoulder for the opening anvil strikes. He needed his hands free to clap in rhythm. The gesture was reminiscent, again, of Baraka’s analysis of the saxophone held by Albert Ayler (the elder Ayler), “a howling spirit summoner tied around the ‘mad’ Black man’s neck.”

The “Trauma Mic” video had me thinking on thematics of refuse and rubbish—you best protect your dreck. I thought back to the garbology Aesop sifted through, where I saw Bakunin’s barricades in the city streets and revisited the actions of The Motherfuckers in the late ’60s—they stood in solidarity with striking sanitation workers and dumped garbage at the doorstep of Lincoln Center. Armand Hammer—outfitted as scrappers, pitching barrels and coiling skeins of copper wire—are of the same spirit. They propose a cultural exchange of garbage for garbage.

woods bodied “No Hard Feelings” and was joined by damn-near the entire crowd. Had it sounding like a tenant revolt as we all screamed, LIKE THEY STEALING! The Aethiopes track equals, if not outright overtakes, “Asylum” and “Remorseless” as most affecting in the past year’s blitz of performances. 

ELUCID stood on the precipice, at the edge of the stage, as he rapped through “Barbarians.” He went swimming into the crowd with his free arm, astro-spiritually. The refrain of “Who the fuck are you?” evolved from the accusatory tone heard on Rome to an existential “Who the fuck am I?” ELUCID and woods bandied the question between them like two college kids in the dorms at 2AM, faded as fidduck. The “intelligent fist” of woods and the “mysticism” of ELUCID (to use an equation Baraka applied to Milford Graves and Sonny Murray) working together to produce a manic mix. They kept the marriage going through “Mangosteen” before turning to the heliocentric worlds they invented in collaboration with the Alchemist on Haram. “Black Sunlight” and “Falling Out the Sky” had me thinking of Baraka (again!): “It only takes two to start a group. If the two are maturely strong, and have a oneness, then the others will feel it and touch their own sound, voice, or whatever.”

ELUCID’s last solo number was “Spellling,” and by then he was spent but still perseverating in the dopest way possible. “This is a physical experience,” ELUCID said as the song began, asking the soundman to turn the volume up higher. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII been spelling, he spoketh [an ever ever elongated I and a shot-to-the-dome of “been”]. The I Told Bessie opener became what Baraka calls “an antiphonal rhythmic chant-poem-moan.” ELUCID’s voice was ragged by this point, a metallic scrape as he shouted about being “your momma’s favorite, since about ’88, ’89.” The down in “just got to heaven and I can’t sit down” was made malleable in how he twisted it around in his mouth. Split tongue heavy lifting.

He had nothing left when the alarming squeal whistle warp of “Stonefruit” started to play. But the audience assisted, screaming with him I REALLY CAME IN ON A CYCLONE as his voice gave out. woods jumped in early when it was his turn, which proved a moment of levity. To err is human, and woods—despite the adoration he’s been receiving—is endearingly human. That humanity is probably why so many of Armand Hammer’s fans have become zealous collectors, showing up at the venue with cardboard boxes full of vinyl, willing to wait patiently for woods and ELUCID to write their names in metallic Sharpies on these their prized possessions. “First Armand Hammer show in the states in a while,” woods said at one point. “Small flex,” ELUCID noted, chuckling. But they brought it home on Saturday. It was “As the Crow Flies” made manifest. woods brought all the Backwoodz family on stage at the conclusion of their set. The family atmosphere afforded by the 3PM start time was embellished by the sight of children on shoulders. It had the feel of a triumphant affair. It’s winning, it’s winning, it’s winning…

Peace to the conversations that were had with Alex Richter, Willie Green, Max Heath, and Sharif.

Photos credit:  Rory Simms

AH setlist:

1.  Landlines 2.  Woke Up and Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die 3.  [???] 4.  I Keep A Mirror In My Pocket 5.  Niggardly (Blocked Call) 6.  Smile Lines 7.  Family 8.  Trauma Mic 9.  No Hard Feelings 10.  [???] 11.  Barbarians 12.  Mangosteen 13.  Black Sunlight 14.  Falling Out the Sky 15.  Spellling  16. Stonefruit

[foster-the-world]

In route

7 hours into our 14 hour flight to Japan. Cannot wait. Girls are being great. Currently quietly zoned out on TV. Let's hope it holds out.

Baby boy was perfectly happy saying goodbye this morning - thankfully. I've been warning him all week. I miss his sweet face already. While also appreciating how easy it is to travel with two 6yo.

I passed my nursing exam - so I have zero obligations hanging over my head. It's a dream. I was confident I failed but I guess you can get a lot wrong and still pass. So glad to have that behind me.

So helpful to have my Mom around. She got bad news that she has to do chemo along with radiation. She'll start two days after we get back. She'll do three rounds - finishing up a month before our Costa Rica trip for her 70th Birthday/50th wedding anniversary. Then she'll do a fourth round when she gets back. She refused to let it interrupt the trip. Which is understandable.

We arrive around 1:35 in the afternoon. People have been highlighting 3-4 hour immigration waits. Fingers crossed thats not the case for us. There is apparently a pull out line for young children/senior citizens. I'm not sure if 6 year olds are considered young children in Japan. We are staying near one of the most famous temples. Hopefully, will have enough energy to check it out + grab dinner. Then all crash. I'm sure will be up super early in the morning. Hopefully, that works in our favor. I've heard restaurants/activities open post-10am. We are staying across the street from a 24hr department store. Worse case we can check that out. So excited for all of the sushi coming my way. My Mom's the only non adventurous eater amongst us. The girls will be thrilled. So many snacks/street foods to try. Cherry Blossoms bloomed sooner then ever before. I think will still catch some. Fingers crossed.

[marietheran-archived]

LotR reread - book 1, chapter 0 - the (three!) Forewords

Note on the Text:

My, the textual history is complicated even taking into account just the works published in his lifetime.

Tolkien's publishers pampered him tho, letting him revise and revise the book again and again.

Mmm... I remember being very fascinated by all the mentions of the earlier versions as a child. Now, I know some of the information relied here by heart, but I miss the wonder

Yes, I was the sort of person who reads introductions even at ten years of age; I will admit I'm flipping through now, though.

Note on the 50th Anniversary Edition:

"Personally I have ceased to bother about those minor 'discrepancies', since if the genealogies and calendars etc. lack versimilitude it is in their general excessive accuracy: as compared with real annals and genealogies!" Apparently he had visibly not "ceased to bother", but it's still a helpful attitude to try out as concerns such minor slips in the legendarium.

Hmmm... I kind of get why "Dark Power", "Dark Lord" etc. instead of "dark power", "dark lord" buuut I'm still rendered uncomfortable by those capitalisations. My language does not capitalise "devil" and I'm likewise of the opinion that evil does not merit capital letters.

Foreword to the Second Edition:

Yes! LotR is "an account, as it were, of the end and passing away [of the older world] before it's beginning and middle had been told"

"Foresight had failed and there was no time for thought" - even when writing of his own life, Tolkien takes on an epic tone...

Just - the mention of Christopher being sent chapters of LotR when in the RAF and my recent learning that life expectancy for RAF pilots was measured in weeks :( How Tolkien must have felt...

^Just more evidence for my connection of "We shall laugh together yet" and "If you ever return to the lands of the living... laughing at old grief" but that's book 2

Allegory vs applicability!

"To be caught in youth by 1914 was a no less hideous experience than to be involved in 1939" - well, for Englishmen. But I have long ago realised that Western Europe views WW1 which gave us independence as a catastrophe near that of WW2, and possibly with some reason.

I thought to include the prologue with this post, but it seems it must be a separate one, because this one sprawled out very far.

[myimaginarywonderland]

Do you guys remember when the hate with Lance got so bad that he had to turn off his comments?

And then it was all like "Oh, this is unacceptable, people shouldn't do this?"

Yeah, we are right at the same fucking point with all comments regarding him being how he should lose his yet, how he is so dismissive of the sport, how he clearly doesn't care, how he should just switch to another sport, how pathetic and embarrassing it is that he is so far behind Nando, ...

That is the nice version. I am not including slurs, threatening violence or just normal hate.

F1 fans literally learn nothing.

You bullied Romain until he nearly died, you made Nicky a target until all of the grid had to speak up, you made Timo Glock get extra security because he was afraid for his safety.

This has nothing to do with a rise in social media (although that doesn't help.)

The fans are fucking vile and learn 0. They go in the same cycles looking for someone to blame, a punching bag because apparently it's so hard to just let drivers do their job and accept the fact that teams and drivers have different skill and development.

This will sound like a double standard because I have made plenty negative posts about drivers like Max, Lando etc. But the difference is that I am not going into a fandom space to spread that hate. I explicitly tag my opinions so that only people who share that same view will see it. I also don't wish harm or threaten violence to anyone. I have seen how F1 can take a life easily and I would never make a comment that someone should die because that is a human fucking being. When I say something negative, even when I say I hate a driver I would never wish that person to lose their seat or even to lose their life. That is fucked up. Drivers give so much to get to F1 and you what, just decide to ignore all their sacrifices and career to make one hate comment? Fuck you. The difference between me saying that I hate someone using a slur and a dude bro in his 50th calling for Lance to just have an accident is fucking glaring.

The fans continue to pick on rookies, to pick someone that they can joke about until what?

A driver starves himself like JEV because the pressure is so much?

A driver develops an eating disorder like Valtteri?

What do you expect to happen when you use someone as a human punching bag?

Does it take a driver to kill himself to finally get some of you to wake up and realise that these are all human beings? That while certain drivers might have build up a thick skin overtime, you literally went after a teen until he reached his breaking point? That while maybe drivers have learned to turn it out that won't make it better? Because what is some little kid who really looks up to Lance or anyone else reads it and then asks themselves what is wrong with said driver and maybe even themselves because they relate so much to that driver? What if you cause a kid self doubt already just because it gives you satisfaction to ask for someone to be hurt?

What is it that bullying, critizing someone so badly gives you? Validation that you aren't alone in your dislike? A sense of community by abusing a human being? A feel of what happiness that you could ask for someone to lose their lives work because you don't like them?

There is a difference between abuse and opinion and it's clear that F1 fans don't see that.

The human punshing bag, the "new Latifi" as you like to call drivers will literally have his entire self worth questioned because of some race results?

Is that what gives some of you satisfaction?

Tearing people down until what, they have no other choice but to leave for their own health and safety?

[wolfjackle-creates]

Who, me? Coming up with a new explanation for ectoplasm for every fic? It's more likely than you'd think!

Maybe I'll post that part this evening, maybe not. We shall see!

(Edit: and apparently this is my 50th post on this blog. Couldn't even be a fic or bit of writing. Oh well. Enjoy anyway. )

[flagbridge]

Shows I saw in 2023: Ragtime at the Signature Theater

My 50th musical ever!

I’ve lost track of how many of these posts I’ve done this year, but this is the finale for the DC edition of my shows this year. If you do a long weekend in DC, I can guarantee that you can fill it with as many shows as you’d see in New York.

At the moment, there are currently six musicals running in DC and the close suburbs: Frozen & Girl from North Country (Kennedy Center), Ragtime (Signature Arlington), Swept Away (Arena Stage), Fiddler on the Roof (Olney Maryland), and A Christmas Carol (Fords). As You Like it at Shakespeare Theater Company also apparently features a lot of the Beatles and The National is currently dark until mid-January when Annie will be in town.

I’d never seen Ragtime and I was transfixed the entire time (when I really started looking at my watch there was one song left). I took a singing-inclined young person in my life to see their first musical and in this person’s words it was, even at three hours long, “super awesome.” I had chills throughout the performance and having a 16-piece orchestra in such a small space, where you are frequently next to the actors because of how every theater entrance was used as a part of the stage—ends up feeling immersive.

I have few critiques of the production itself, although having never seen the musical I found it WAY too long, and I think there are songs in both acts that could have been cut and kept the momentum. The baseball song in act 2, for example, while fun, is totally unnecessary, and just ends up prolonging the show.

Longtime Elphaba Teal Wicks was a delight as Mother, but this is a true ensemble performance (and yes, we had an understudy for Tahteh, with a swing rolling into Houdini’s spot, so my understudy appreciation continues)

What I especially noticed listening to the soundtrack afterwards was how similar it often sounds to its contemporary (both in years the originals ran on Broadway and in era depicted) Titanic.

It runs through early January. Recommend the trip! The rest of my shows this year will be in New York. I’ve got at least three on the slate!

[days-until-potp-50th]

Hey! Weird Bird here.

I've changed the name of this blog and edited my posts because it's become apparent that this 50th anniversary event is being recognized as a separate entity from Phantompalooza.

I apologize for any confusion this might have caused.