#artistic partisan was peak | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

if-you-fan-a-fire · 6 months ago

Text

"But what, exactly, was the alternative? [Dwight] Macdonald’s politics, always ardently advocated, were an ever-evolving mess, but running underneath it all was a baseline of personalist idealism that connected him to Day, Muste, Rustin, King, and others he found sympatico, and that helps us see coherence in what might otherwise appear just a uniquely Dwight-ish tangle of moralism, anarchism, and aestheticism. Macdonald’s central concern was the dehumanization he saw as the product of modern mass society and the technologies that enabled it. Armed force, immensely powerful governments, religious dogma, mass media, kitsch in the arts—all conspired to erase individuality and turn people into things, the worst possible crime to this radical individualist and compulsive dissident. This is the lens that enables us to make sense of his animosity to both nuclear weapons and abstract art, and you can see as well that while his soon-to-be born little magazine would have exquisitely sensitive antennae for signals from the world of tomorrow, Dwight was nonetheless hostile to modernity and writing in a tradition of American dissent going back to Thoreau. Certainly Dwight’s anti-interventionism, which proved far more durable than his Marxism, is easily traced all the way back to the earliest days of the republic. It’s not for nothing that Michael Wreszin’s biography of Macdonald was entitled, A Rebel in Defense of Tradition.

Partisan Review may have been America’s biggest little magazine in all the ways that mattered, but it still wasn’t big enough to hold the compulsively provocative Macdonald and his cautious editorial partners. So during the war he started planning a journal of his own. In October of 1943, having consulted the lawyer and constitutional scholar Milton Konvitz (who was later Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s teacher and longtime correspondent), Dwight learned that what he’d already written against the war for Partisan Review was “not less ‘seditious’ than the statements in the court record” of the government’s successful 1941 prosecution of Trotskyists under the Smith Act. Despite the FBI’s recent interest and the various provocations he and his forthcoming journal were about to commit, Washington sensibly stood aside.

It was in 1944 that Macdonald launched the short-lived publication he called, at the suggestion of the radical sociologist C. Wright Mills, politics, always lower-cased, whose influence would extend far beyond the five thousand subscribers it managed to accumulate at its peak. Under the headline “Why politics?” in the first issue, Dwight laid out the magazine’s aims, which included teasing larger trends from the day-to-day noise of the news, bringing to the fore new, younger writers from a variety of disciplines, considering artistic works in various mediums “as social and historical phenomena,” and, not least, “to create a center of consciousness on the Left, welcoming all varieties of radical thought.”

One of these was pacifism. In the March 1944 issue, Dwight ran a potently condensed piece by the war resister Milton Mayer, reprinted from The Progressive, entitled, “How to Win the War,” which it proposes to do by dropping leaflets on the Germans telling them to emancipate themselves from the tyranny under which they live “and join us in the brotherhood of man.” In a prefatory comment, Macdonald, noting that “Mayer has been viciously smeared by Walter Winchell, “PM” and similar guardians of public morality,” says he nonetheless doesn’t think becoming a CO [conscientious objector] is the right choice because

it seems to me one can more effectively fight for one’s ideas if one does not isolate one’s self from one’s fellow-men, and that the Army is a better place to learn, and teach, than either a C.O. camp or a jail.

Characteristically for politics, the July issue carried a well-argued and informative response by a conscientious objector named Don Calhoun, who argues that COs have hardly retreated into some cloister. Calhoun wrote:

There is probably no situation in which a drafted man can place him self which brings him into closer identification with the elemental social struggle than in a prison.”

Nor are the war resisters indulging in mere moral vanity:

The potentiality present in conscientious objection is demonstrated by the utterly disproportionate nuisance value of our handful of C.O.’s…Today the conscientious objector, and the conscientious objector alone, stands out as the possible nucleus for the only movement which can shatter the confidence of the state in its ability to effectively make war if and when it wishes.

Despite his confident ferocity in argument, Macdonald was always open to persuasion, not only changing his mind frequently but annotating his own work and even writing critically about it in letters to the editor under an assumed name—what we might today call sock puppetry. Long before social media, he meant it when he said that he wanted his journal to be a place to thrash things out. Calhoun’s cogent missive, which cited a variety of CO protests in places like Danbury and Lewisburg and the reforms that resulted, struck a chord with an editor who was nothing if not open-minded. “Don Calhoun,” Macdonald began his rejoinder in the same issue, “has made out a much stronger case for Conscientious Objection as a political anti-war tactic than I should have imagined possible.”

Dwight doubts conscientious objection can influence large numbers of people or even that it bestows moral superiority if the CO is doing “work of national importance,” because doing that work in itself contributes to the war effort if only by freeing up men who would otherwise have to perform it. Dwight says:

The C.O. does have a moral advantage, however, over the man who submits to being drafted: that of refusing to cooperate in the war effort to the extent the State commands him to—even though, in an ultimate sense, he can escape cooperation only by taking to the hills. At least he puts limits on his obedience, at least he confronts the State power with his own conditions, at least he makes an overt gesture of opposition to the war…His day-to-day actions and his long-range convictions, if they do not wholly coincide, are at least on speaking terms.

Calhoun was back in the October 1944 issue, responding to Macdonald’s response, their exchange spirited but never spiteful and Macdonald, at least as judged by the journal he edited, palpably evolvingtoward the CO position. In the editions to come, the issue would be reported on, discussed, and debated time and again as Dwight began to see pacifism not as futile and self-deluding resistance but as the potential basis for many of the changes he was seeking."

- Daniel Akst, War By Other Means: How the Pacifists of World War 2 Changed America for Good. New York: Melville House, 2022. p. 210-212

#dwight macdonald #partisan review #magazine editor #politics #conscientious objectors #pacifism #world war ii #united states history #sentenced to prison #nonviolent resistance #nonviolence #research quote #reading 2024

1 note · View note

comic-bastards · 2 years ago

Text

The Place That's Farthest From: 'Andor' and the Star Wars Legacy

By Justin Wood

The key component to longevity and the near-universal appeal of the Star Wars franchise has always been its simplicity. A student of international artistic influence, George Lucas distilled richer, headier works down to a pastiche of oblique references and mythological constants and a critical focusing by undersung contributors Brian De Palma and Marcia Lucas resulted in a tight, perfectly-accessible adventure film that seismically redefined how popular media was packaged and presented. Beyond simply being a defining achievement in special effects, the polished gleam of binary morality at its core stood in as a radical contrast to the storytelling environment of the 1970s with its grim post-Vietnam ambiguity and despair. 'Star Wars' was the Happy Meal waiting to happen. Its hero plucky and apolitical, motivated by primal narrative impulses of thirst for adventure and romance beyond his station, his opposition unsubtlely dressed by John Mollo by way of Hugo Boss in Gestapo uniforms, pop narrative shorthand later reused by Lucas and Spielberg in their Indiana Jones films. Only a few decades removed from the very real Third Reich, Lucas needed little world building to immediately communicate the partisan lines the audience would be asked to sympathize on. Some distant conception of a Galactic Senate is mentioned to be finally dismantled. An instantaneous Holocaust is bloodlessly committed. We don't need to see the state of the galaxy beyond the barren, untamed Tatooine, our imagination and familiarity with very recent history can fill in atrocities for us, allowing guilt free catharsis at the film's climactic Boom. 'Empire', despite its reputation for its startling dramatic left turn into a twistier universe with its branching storylines and iconic twist, never challenged that moral simplicity. Dramatic heft was carried by a greater sense of consequence and the peak of the trilogy's character writing resulting in heroes we were more concerned with but complexity never surpassed the cheeky scoundrel hearts of Han and Lando. Bewilderingly, Lucas's original conceived ending for 'Return of the Jedi' was to take a wild turn with Luke succumbing to the Dark Side, discarded for the most telling moment of binary morality in the trilogy: the redemption of space Nazi enforcer Darth Vader, unwriting a supposed lifetime of evil acts through the breakthrough of an ambiguously meager kernel of 'goodness' that emerges in an act of self-sacrifice.

Light side. Dark side. Even with Lucas's wildly accomplished contradiction of somehow muddling the nature of the Jedi by defining its Order, the binary was retained, undercutting any potential moment of reflection on the kinds of story Star Wars could be in depicting the fall of Anakin to Darth Vader. Later, during the cataclysmically divisive 'Last Jedi', Riann Johnson and the executive class at Disney were accused of an inanely comprehensive battery of motivations for the the dissatisfaction of audience members but couched in all of them was a sense that whatever ambitions the director had they had come at the cost of disrespecting the capital-L Legacy. Simplicity had seemingly been stripped away from a functionally basic world of heroes and villains. After years of imagining a Goku-like Force God Luke Skywalker crushing Star Destroyers like Coke cans, the historically subversion happy Johnson gave them a spiritually broken hut-dweller, drinking unpasturized giraffe milk and lecturing against the very binary heroism that had made the series successful. It excited some, disappointed others, and impossibly enraged the most vocal remaining. However, Johnson's failure was always that for all of his cheeky ruffling of a narrative construct he was foolishly expected to uncontroversially maintain, it ultimately amounted to no genuine confrontation of the status quo. 'The Last Jedi' teased ambiguity, stepping up to the edge of challenging the nature of Star Wars stories and then baldly whipping back to the Millennium Falcon popping TIE Fighters, a restored heroic Luke, and a happy ending that managed to say nothing and viscerally satisfy few. For all of the accusations of Johnson not understanding the brand, he in reality did the most to suggest that at a certain scale Star Wars was never going to fundamentally grow beyond its mythological simplicity. His failures arguably had more to do with an overabundance of respect limiting the scope of the film's imagination, not a deficit of it.

Disney+'s 'Andor' doesn't suffer from this problem. Whether intentional or not, by intending a more grounded and adult approach to telling a war story in the Star Wars universe, creator Tony Gilroy and crew have managed to produce a show that serves as a refutation of the franchise's approach to storytelling and perhaps even the health of the brand's audience's preferred taste in narrative. Consequently, it effortlessly ranks as one of the most interesting things to be made with the Star Wars brand.

On its most basic quality, 'Andor' succeeds by not requiring any familiarity with the film it serves as a direct prequel to, Garth Edwards 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story', which featured reshoots by 'Andor's Gilroy. 'Rogue One' also dabbled in challenging the simplicity of the Star Wars universe's binary, with Rebel Intelligence Officer Cassian Andor desperately murdering a rebel contact to avoid exposure in the film's opening act, communicating that the film's grittier approach to the Rebel Alliance would be more in line with modern approaches to war espionage fiction and its grimly pragmatic operatives. In 'Andor' we meet the man behind the trigger in far more explicit detail but part of the reason why the show stands so confidently apart from the film it is leading up to is that Andor himself is only a wing of a larger story. As small events mutate into having larger consequences he unwittingly begins serving as a MacGuffin for distant powers with ambitions that only superficially are centered on him. While clearly part of the show fulfills the function of telling how a tribal scavenger from a forgotten moon became one of the unsung heroes behind the destruction of the Death Star, the show's real focus comes from depicting, for the first time on screen in detail, the texture of the galaxy in the claws of the Galactic Empire.

Indignant criticism has been mounted against 'Andor's pacing, accusing it of being intentionally boring to give it an artificial aura of maturity or padding for length. What is being felt is instead a deceleration of an adventure franchise to the speed of human life in a galaxy of dazzling intergalactic thrills. Characters eat breakfast cereal. They have casual late night hookups. They check in on elderly neighbors. They fret about their dysfunctional relationship with their daughters. In between very sparsely included set pieces of violent action the series keeps pinning moments of mundane existance to the spine of the show's central espionage plot. While frustrating for an audience raised on increasingly high bars for spectacle, these little moments fuel the heart of the show's tone. It gives character's with very little to begin with the last vestiges of agency they have to lose.

We meet Cassian Andor as he solicits a brothel trying to locate his long lost younger sister who he was separated from as a child. A simple and familiar cliché motivation for an antihero, Cassian is immediately knocked astray from this character goal by a corrupt back-alley police shakedown gone wrong that results in his priorities being reorganized to immediate survival. The vortex of escalating consequences he finds himself sucked into exposes him to a spectrum of ways in which the Empire's closing grip affecting the galaxy. Classically, the stories of Andor's adventures would all be morally instructive to the politically agnostic Cassian. The expectation is you'd see the puzzle pieces click in, that by witnessing the misery, despair, sacrifice, and the Empire's atrocities you'd see Cassian's moral rebirth, generating altruism and the construction of a heroic constitution in place of self-interest. You keep waiting for the thudding platitudes of hope and fighting for something greater and doing the right thing for its own merit but when they come they are only delivered by characters with ulterior motives or by characters distantly removed from the forces that actually influence their often bleak fates. Diego Luna, leading a comprehensively excellent cast, plays Andor as a survivor who has never known anything but the bootheel of malicious authority. His seething anger never fully overwhelms his cat-like instinct for self-preservation. 'Andor' slows down and shows us human life in a way Star Wars never felt obligated to before because it understands that the only way many people, especially those who already live on a knife's edge when it comes to resources and freedoms, can be pushed to confront evil is to truly be suffocated by it. In a brilliant turn midway through the season, Cassian participates in a heist of Imperial funds that gives him his escape from the boot-heel. Money, transport, luxury as long as it keeps his head low enough to avoid detection. His reward is a lengthy prison sentence but his arrest and conviction have nothing to do with his undiscovered participation in the heist; instead he is swept up as an innocent bystander by an viciously apathetic government for being on the wrong beach in the wrong moment. Not even money can save him from just not being Imperial enough.

Despite its grim and serious fantasy depiction of very real world expressions of authoritarianism, it is hard to argue that 'Andor' necessarily is a uniquely qualified piece of fiction to meaningfully speak on the perpetually relevant issue of real world fascism. Police oppression, prison labor, all represented with a with a seeming respect to its non-fictional victims. Regrettably however, the lingering Disney brand looming over the show's role, at the end of the day, as a product, will always hobble most of the ambition of the writers from being able to say what other qualified and personally invested artists haven't already on the subject. Despite this, with the many and thankfully not inappropriately included allusions to our global haunting by populist no-authoritarianism, 'Andor' does draw a stark and damning comparison to the brand that has come before it.

The realization comes when thinking about what story 'Andor' is leading up to. 'Andor's characters, across the class spectrums, are called on to make compromises, often awful personally devastating ones. The Rebels on the show do so out of the bleak knowledge that in one way or another they are seeing the galaxy become inhospitable to however they don't align with the monocultural Empire. Either through allusions to the present social climate or implicated through actions on-screen, characters are driven to sacrifice comfort, love, and humanity because the non-negotiable aspects of their birth, race, sex, and orientation will eventually doom them under the resource hungry and indifferent gears serving the Emperor. The struggle depicted here comes in stark contrast to the hero who is the eventual beneficiary of their grief: Luke Skywalker, a bored farmboy who dreamed of becoming an Imperial pilot before his magic genetics fated him to save the galaxy with all of the admiration and literal trophies involved. Contrasted with the cost incurred by rebelling inflicted on the characters of 'Andor', Luke's story reads like the propaganda film the New Republic would have made after winning the war to spin the way their victory was remembered.

The criticism here isn't necessarily that there is anything wrong with escapist entertainment or stories with non-comprehensive approaches to complex real world ethics. Entertainment and art is largely experienced as escapism and has a real role to play comforting, thrilling, and inspiring us in whatever way is most successful and demanding an instructive or social function from art as a justification for its existence is far more in line with the views of history's tyrants. Where the sting of 'Andor's portrayal stems from, intentionally or not, is that it is telling its story in a world that has always benefited from facism as trope without that portrayal taking any responsibility for the history it references. The work of Leni Riefenstahl and Adolf Hitler is used as props because of the inherit potency imagery related to the Nazis is, a result of their being one of the first autocratic beneficiaries of identity sculpting via modern media technologies making their personal branding uniquely iconic. For all of the language borrowed from the Nazis to depict evil, Star Wars was never going to make itself responsible for engaging with why the Nazis were a shorthand for evil. The victims of the Empire, unless immediately relevantly fridged for a specific character, are overwhelmingly vague. Star Wars couldn't be bothered to have anything to say about the evil it exploited the identity of. Star Wars, once again a fantasy toyetic pop brand, also didn't really have the right platform to stage any sort of ambitious criticism of real human evil either, but the present moment only exacerbates what was probably always the case: that exploiting the echos of dark history for escapist entertainment dilutes its meaning in exchange for comfort and profit.

As we creep into the 2020s, autocracies are presenting themselves again to the people of the world as a too quickly dismissed alternative to the unwieldy, hypocritical democracies that served as the scales of power during the post-World War II era. Appeals to traditionalism, renewing the sapped spirit of masculine vigor, sweeping away the complicated trappings of progressive identity politics and negotiation in favor of a binary world right at home in Lucas's original mythos. Disney, like most corporations operating at a scale akin to small nations, is inextricably complicit both in donations to candidates and causes aligned against oppressed communities as it is their cooperation with how their product is distributed abroad, clipped and censored to the tastes of despots. Its understandable that the anxiety surrounding this would encourage the appeal of escapist pop fiction, but when it dresses up in the same armbands as worn by the men at your door without asking any questions of itself, it dismisses its responsibility to the cruelty those allusions draw potency from in a way it has less of a right to. And when, bewilderingly, a show like 'Andor', that eschews self-referential brand building in favor of telling a more adult story in its comic book landscape does so, it can only reflect back at its foundation just how poorly and insubstantially the simplistic language of its world has served us. What began with George Lucas and crew crafting a film with bluntly simple allusions for the sake of storytelling convenience had his choices drawn out over multiple decades as a financially valuable franchise. Star Wars didn't have to point back to the source of its evil, it could just reference itself, turning the word 'stormtrooper' into a child's backpack, thinning the already fragile thread linking the history it exploits to its profitable use of it. With 'Andor', Tony Gilroy and team has crafted a story that put the Nazi back in the Imperial uniform and while it certainly can't be championed as brave it at the very least takes some responsibility for the story it tells in our present moment in history.

#Star Wars #Justin Wood #Disney #Andor #TV

4 notes · View notes

architectuul · 4 years ago

Text

Dignity Of Memory

After almost 30 years since the break-up of Yugoslavia, we can take a stroll through a part of the architectural history with the benefit of distance.

The heritage of Yugoslav architecture was taken on almost a decade ago by Croatian Architects Association in collaboration with Maribor Art Gallery with the regionally conceived project Unfinished Modernisations – Between Utopia and Pragmatism – Architecture and Urban Planning in the Former Yugoslavia and the Successor States, and last year with the global exhibition in New York City's MoMA Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980.

In the architecture and art of ex-Yugoslavia, the monuments to the victims of the People's Liberation War stand out. Through their artistic language, they remind us of the dignity of human life and death. They are powerful markers of the once-common state's public open space. Their unique architectural and artistic design has placed them on a field of timelessness, which is not constrained by geographic and cultural borders, age, race, or political views.

Memorial complex to the Battle of Sutjeska is an exceptional work by Miodrag Živković and one of the best sculptural memorials in the Yugoslav space. | Photo from the archive of Miodrag Živković

Monuments were built and designed by Yugoslav architects and sculptors of the highest profile, such as Bogdan Bogdanović, Edvard Ravnikar, Miodrag Živković, Dušan Džamonja and many others. Instead of the regime's symbolism, their creations combined the present, the past, the elements of antique necropolises, ethnography and spatial poetics.

youtube

Last and First Men by Johann Johannsson (2020) narrated by Tilda Swinton

The monuments are predominantly designed as sculptural-architectural structures, abstract architectural sculptures. Many were constructed in concrete, which was elevated to the status of noble material by virtue of shaping and finishing. They are sited in authentic spatial situations and historical settings, designed as a commemorative path. Every monument tells a story connected with the events and victims.

Memorial complex Korčanica is dedicated to the largest Partisan hospital, which was active in the liberated territory of the slopes of Grmeč between 1942 and 1943. | Photo from the archive of Miodrag Živković

In mid-march 2019, Gallery DESSA, ab-Architect's Bulletin magazine and Architectuul began the preparations for the exhibition and publication named Architecture. Sculpture. Remembrance.; The Art of Monuments of Yugoslavia 1945–1991. On the basis of high architectural and artistic value of the structures and the exceptional contemplative qualities of the spatial designs, the curators selected 33 monuments and memorial complexes from all the republics and autonomous provinces of ex-Yugoslavia. The exhibition was prepared in collaboration with authors, photographers, institutions from the ex-Yugoslav region, which has also laid the foundation for future co-operation. The exhibition will present and evaluate the exceptional architecture of the Yugoslav monuments, whose aesthetic and structural innovation is enhanced by their idiosyncratic artistic expression.

The memorial complex Kadinjača by is dedicated to the Partisan fighters of Workers' Battalion of Užice. | Photo from the archive of Miodrag Živković

Monument to the Revolution by Dušan Džamonja is located at the highest peaks of Kozara mountain. | Photo from the archive of Miodrag Živković

Monuments are also political art, they are an uncompromising tribute to humanity, to reverence towards the victims, conveyed by means of the authors' individual artistic expression. With the dissolution of Yugoslavia into individual independent states in 1991, it seems that the need for respecting the remembrance expressed by its memorials is waning. As a result, the present state of repair of the monuments and their treatment varies depending on the region. In some places, the past and the strivings of the previous generations are held in respectful memory while elsewhere, the monuments have been abandoned, left to ruin, or even desecrated.

youtube

“Beck’s Legendary - Croatia Infiltration” is a beer commercial, which exploits the Monument of Petrova Gora.

Due to their abstract nature, they may be used for very different purposes, such as shooting TV advertisements and music videos, or as fashion runways. Such use of monuments by individuals who have no appreciation or knowledge of the past and therefore cannot respect it represents misuse as well as contempt for the dignity of the victims and their memory.

youtube

The exhibition is planned to be shown in all the former Yugoslav republics. We wish to foster a sober and respectful assessment of the value of ex-Yugoslav monuments and draw attention to their cultural and contemplative significance, and thus lend support to the maintenance and preservation of the memorial areas. It will present the exceptional, progressive, and still-contemporary creative language of their artists and other creators, which transcends the superficiality of the quest for the different, the exotic, the picturesque, and the unknown. Monuments are ties to the past, they reminiscent of the dignity of human life and death. And remembrance.

The exhibition started to travel to different cities of the territory of Ex-Yugoslavia. Because of COVID-19 restrictions the project continues online. The next stop is co-hosted by the creative community Avtomatik Delovišče under the auspices of the Municipality of Koper. Together with Architectuul 33 monuments will be presented daily with a conclusion online webinar on 29. November 2020.

---

Architecture. Sculpture. Memory. The art of monuments of Yugoslavia 1945–1991 online webinar 29 November 2020

Dessa, AB, Avtomatik Delovišče Curators Boštjan Bugarič, Kristina Dešman, Maja Ivanič, Špela Kuhar, Eva Mavsar, Špela Nardoni Kovač, Damjana Zaviršek Hudnik Media partner Architectuul

*********** Program

10:00 Introduction Christian Burkhard, editor in Chief Architectuul, Berlin Boštjan Bugarič, senior editor Architectuul, Berlin Mara Ivanič, Dessa Gallery, Ljubljana

youtube

10:20 Spaces and Dignity Sanja Horvatinčić, Institute of Art History, Croatia Vladimir Deskov, School of architecture and design - UACS, N. Macedonia Ana Ivanovska, Faculty of Architecture Skopje, North Macedonia Kristina Dešman, Maja Ivanič, Špela Kuhar, Eva Mavsar, Špela Nardoni Kovač, Damjana Zaviršek Hudnik, DESSA Gallery, Slovenia Jelica Jovanović, Grupa arhitekata / Docomomo Serbia Boris Trapara, Bosnia and Herzegovina Bekim Ramku, Docomomo Kosovo Slavica Vučković, Faculty of Architecture Podgorica, Montenegro Moderator: Boštjan Bugarič

11:00 Yugoslavia Express Roberto Conte presenting the field photo trip

11:30 Presentation and Dignity Roberto Conte, Italy Relja Ivanić, Serbia Matija Kralj, Croatia Elena Chemerska, North Macedonia Donald Niebyl, Spomenik Database USA Andrew Lawler, Spomenici NOB, Serbia Moderator: Kristina Dešman

12:00 Embodied Experiences: Investigating the relation between architecture, landscape and symbolism in WW2 monuments of socialist Yugoslavia; a master thesis by Vida Rucli, Faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana, menthors Maruša Zorec and Luka Skansi

12:30 Culture Routes in Montenegro Slavica Vučković presenting the project

13:00 (In)appropriate Monuments: Interview with Miodrag Živković In loving memory of Miodrag Živković by Jelica Jovanović

youtube

#yugoslavia modernism #monuments #spomenik

62 notes · View notes

soundsof71 · 4 years ago

Note

So, considering you are a passionate fan of music released in 1971, I feel justifiably obligated to ask you what you think of Buffy Sainte-Marie's 'She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina' album. 😂 (Also, it would make me beyond happy if you could post more about Buffy, my friend! Thank you! ❣)

Buffy Sainte-Marie + Crazy Horse - what’s not to love? LOL I confess that it was the Crazy Horse connection that caught my attention first. I had a general idea who Buffy was, had seen her on TV a few times, but I was a big Crazy Horse fan. News that they were her backing band for this album was easily enough for me to scoop it up.

They weren’t doing anything much with Neil Young in 1971 (other than this album, on which Neil also appeared!), but they had released a tasty solo album in February 71, produced by Jack Nitzsche (who also produced this, and would later marry Buffy), and featuring Ry Cooder (also featured here, although did not marry Buffy).

(btw, the first place that Buffy, Ry, and Jack worked together was on the Nic Roeg film Performance, starring Mick Jagger. People obviously remember Mick in that, but musically, Buffy was the best part!)

She Used To Wanna... also features Jesse Ed Davis, a Native American guitarist and singer who was a frequent “usual suspect” at these sort of “sure, invite everyone!” jam albums of the era, and played a prominent role at 1971′s biggest concert (at least in the US), The Concert for Bangladesh on August 1.

(I know you know RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked The World, the documentary about indigenous music’s influence on rock and roll, which has chapters on both Buffy and Jesse Ed. I just watched it again recently, and love it! A reminder of Buffy’s pivotal role in classic rock history. Not mentioned in the film: she relentlessly championed the work of her fellow Canadians Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, helping them get their first record deals.)

youtube

I haven’t listened to She Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina for a while, so I definitely need to do that, along with posting more pictures of Buffy. (I can’t believe I’ve only posted two!)

But I’ll tell you what still stands out to me about that record years later. “Smack Water Jack” is an underrated track from Carole King’s Tapestry that got a ton of airplay at the time. Quincy Jones did an instrumental cover as the title track for his terrific 1971 album, too, but it has somehow faded to obscurity since then. Buffy takes a playful trifle, and turns it into a powerful fable of men of color who explode into violence in response to the violence visited upon them, and self-satisfaction of whites in authority who answer their demands for better living conditions by killing them on the spot.

No need for a trial when you can murder them in the streets, right? “You can't talk to a man when he don't wanna understand / And he don't wanna understand” hits different when Buffy sings it, and in 2020 for that matter.

It’s also just a terrific performance whose combination of soul and rock and roll and driving piano in a sort of Old West-sounding context would have made this sound right at home on a record like Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection or something by The Band. I’m limited to five video embeds per post so I can’t embed it here, so I'm linking instead: anyone who hasn’t heard this definitely needs to.

Her cover of Neil’s CSNY track “Helpless” has things I like even better than Neil’s original, including Merry Clayton standing in for CSN. Buffy’s version is more muscular (thanks again to Crazy Horse), and taps even more deeply into the isolation of the song that the star power of CSNY somewhat obscured.

Buffy’s version also made a brief but memorable appearance in the 2018 film Hotel Artemis, starring Jodie Foster. A weird little movie that I loved maybe more than it deserved LOL but I recommend nonetheless:

youtube

I know that this album gets attention because of the unusual number of covers, including one by Leonard Cohen, and a cover of a cover that Leonard had made famous on top of that, called "Song of the French Partisan” (hers is the far superior version imo, a song of French resistance to Nazi occupation from the perspective of a woman hiding a resister), but there are a couple of standout originals too.

I love the title of this record, and the title track is a delightful little stomper that playfully cautions against equating the intentions of grown women with the childhood fantasies they’ve grown out of. More Merry Clayton goodness here on backing vocals too.

youtube

“Soldier Blue” is a powerful song first written for the 1970 film of the same name, billed at the time as “The most savage film in history” -- and maybe it was. It used the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre as a metaphor for Vietnam, and it's still shockingly brutal. It was the third-highest grossing movie in the UK in 1971, though, and the single became a top-10 hit for Buffy there.

It didn’t do as well here, either the song or the movie. Perhaps not shockingly in retrospect, Soldier Blue was pulled from American theaters after a few days, the Vietnam metaphor not at all lost on the Nixon administration.

As horrifying as it was, this is about when I was reading Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (first published in 1970), and Soldier Blue resonated with me in a whole lot of ways. Here’s the song in the opening credits of the movie.

youtube

I was also really struck by “Moratorium”, which is the story of “Universal Soldier” (from her 1963 debut, but a bigger hit for Donovan in 1965), coming from the opposite direction. In the earlier song, she blamed war on the soldiers who think that fighting is honorable, but here, she has empathizes with the young men, boys really in many cases, who’ve been lied to by their countries, their parents, and even their friends. They’re not vainglorious. They’ve been duped by people they trusted.

(I don't think she takes enough into account how many men sign up to fight because they want to embrace and celebrate their worst, most violent impulses, which was of course an undercurrent of “Universal Soldier”, but I appreciate her empathy here. More than one thing is true at a time.)

Buffy goes even farther, though, calling on soldiers to support and validate demands for peace as explicitly supporting them, summed up in the unforgettable cry, "Fuck the war and bring our brothers home!"

1971 was the peak of antiwar demonstrations in the US, with the biggest crowds ever seen in this country until the 2017 Women’s March. The May 1971 demonstrations pretty much shut down Washington, culminating with Vietnam Veterans Against The War throwing back their medals on the steps of the US Capitol, incredibly powerful stuff to see on TV in my formative years, and Buffy was right there in it. Anti-war songs were a cottage industry for sure, but nobody was writing with the nuance and empathy that Buffy was.

Here’s a 1972 performance of “Moratorium”, Buffy and a piano, and more emotionally bare than that:

youtube

There’s obviously lots more to say about Buffy, far outside the realm of protest music that was actually just a small part of her musical palette -- her pioneering experiments with electronic music, her educational philanthropy starting in her 20s, Sesame Street, you name it. Her commercial peak was still in front of her, and while I can’t say that this is my favorite of her records, it does have some of my favorite songs of hers, and 1971 and She Used to Wanna Be A Ballerina is definitely where I went from knowing who Buffy Sainte-Marie was to being a fan.

I'll also note as I do now and again that while this blog started as an offshoot of a book on 1971 that I’d started but abandoned, I mostly listen to music released now. That’s always been my policy, including in 1971. When 1972 rolled up, I was mostly listening to music from 1972, music from ‘80 in ‘80, ‘91 in ‘91, 2018 in 2018, etc., to name just a few other favorites. (Plus The Beatles, okay? LOL I still listen to The Beatles every day. No apologies.) Honestly? It took me until 2011, in my fifties, when a whole bunch of 40th anniversary editions of 1971 albums got released all at once that made me think, “Wait a minute, this was maybe THE pivotal year in classic rock history!”

So yeah, the historian in me dug into 1971, but even though I happened to be alive and enthralled by music in that year, what I’m doing here has nothing to do with nostalgia, or any idea that that was the *best* year in music, even if for the narrow slice of music that is classic rock, yeah, it absolutely is. For soul/R&B too, and for the explosion of women artists outside the even narrower confines of pop as well. This is not subject to debate. No year like it, before or since. It's just that classic rock is a such a narrow slice, and I like my slices wide. LOL Which is also why my blog has less and less 1971 content as I go along.

While my general policy is that my favorite year for music is THIS year, this particular year hasn’t left me as much energy as usual for listening to music. Some of it is These Trying Times™, some of it is my bipolarity and schizophrenia getting the better of me in waves, as is the way with these, uhm, things. (Keep taking those meds, kids!) I listen to music and post about the people making it as a creative act, not a passive or reflexive one, and I just haven’t felt as creative as usual.

(This is also has everything to do with why so many Asks have been piling up unanswered. I apologize if you’re one of the many kind and indulgent souls who’s gotten in touch, but I swear I’m gonna get to ‘em all!)

To get an idea of what I’m ACTUALLY passionate about right now, my “to be edited later” running list of 2020 favorites randomly added to a playlist as I encounter them, to be properly curated later, is at Spotify, cleverly entitled “2020″ -- 94% women, which is about right. LOL

But since I do in fact listen to old stuff (by which I mean 2019 LOL), I made a list of mostly 2020 bangers from women rockers with some tasty treats from 2019 that I haven’t been able to let go of just yet, inspired by a post I saw at tumblr saying that punk music by women is just plain better (also beyond debate), called “Women Bangers: A Tumblr New Classics Jam”. I’ll be posting an essay with a YouTube playlist soon, because god forbid that I only talk briefly about anything LOL and most of these women need to be heard AND seen.

Like Buffy Sainte-Marie, whom you'll both see and hear more often on my blog soon. Thanks for the reminder! Always a pleasure to hear from you and be challenged by you. :-)

Peace, Tim

#ask #musicrunsthroughmysoul #buffy saint marie #women in rock #1971 #she used to wanna be a ballerina #1971 album #youtube #1971 single #crazy horse #essay #me

63 notes · View notes

soniapiwe · 3 years ago

Text

Artistic Partisan is just.... Aesthetic.. Peak aesthetic! And thanks for giving them spears!

#sonia's theory of happines #enstars #ensemble stars

1 note · View note

uriello-bello · 5 years ago

Text

"A historical chronological depiction from an imaginary Italy: a guess the reference game". 100th Anniversary

Unknown: Pdor Mythos Unknown: Appears the superheroes gene "Vip" 10'000 A.C: In the Mediterranean basin lives a society of amazoness 89 A.C: Marcus Aemilius Scaurus is born 71 A.C: Spartacus leads a slaves rebellion 55 A.C: Tros of Samothrace takes the parts of the Breton resistance against the Roman conquest of Britain 50 A.C: Julius Augustus Caesar's complete conquest of Gaul finds resistance against a village in Armorica 11 March 44 A.C: Julius Augustus Caesar is murdered 80: Barbarian Ardarico's conquest of Rome miserably fails; Flavian Amphitheatre is inaugurated and Timo becomes a gladiator 128: Architect Lucius Quintus Modestus repeatedly travels through time until the 21st century and visits the modern Japan 536: Martinus Paduei, a mysterious genius ahead of his time, leaves his mark in history as inventor, business owner, strategist and politician 569: King Alboin befriends and welcomes a sly and smart peasant to his court in Verona 726: Girolama Pellacani is raped by the Longobards 1050: Brancaleone of Norcia is born 1076: The saint hermit of Bismantova is sent to Aquileia in search of allies at the behest of Pope Gregory VII, but is hindered by the devil 1080: Brancaleone of Norcia takes part at the first crusade 1141: Baudolino is born 1150: Various supernatural events take place at the castle of Otranto 1249: The company of Selva Bella participates at the mission to free Enzo of Sardinia 1271: Marco Polo begins his travel toward the Orient 1280: Marco Polo reaches the court of Kublai Khan and tell him about the 55 cities 1295: Marco Polo returns to Venice Early XIV Century: To win the maritime war against Venice, the Genoese captain Luigi Gottardi builds the underground canal of Meloria 1300: Poet Dante Alighieri visits the afterlife in a week 1327: William of Baskerville is involved in a murder case sets in a benedictine abbey 15 April 1452: Leonardo da Vinci is born 1478: Takes places the quests of the "Company of the Gallows" 1506: Arte Spalletti becomes an artist 1534: Two english brothers find a passage for a subterranean world where the time flows more slowly and is populated by a society of pygmies 1537: During the battle of Turin a french soldier mysteriously survives to several deadly wounds 1570: To save her lover, war-prisoner at Famagosta in Cyprus, the duchess of Eboli wears an armor and under the alias of Captain Storm fights several battle against the Ottoman Empire 1595: The suicide of two lovers leads peace in a longtime feud between two Veronese families 1630: The black plague continues its killspread, Spanish local lord Don Rodrigo is found dead 1643: Nobleman Roberto de la Grive is presumed lost after a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean 1650s: Alchemist Girolamo Fumagalli develops the basic technique of thanatography 1660s: Viscount Medardo of Terralba returns changed and maimed in a strange and impossible way from the Ottoman wars in Bohemia 1686: After losing his brothers during the Franco-Spanish war at the hand of Duke Wan Guld, the Lord of Ventimiglia Emilio of Roccabruna promises to avenge them and becomes the notorious Black Corsair 1711: A group of alchemists evoke a demon to gain eternal life 1713: Sir Frances Varney commits suicide by throwing himself into Mt. Vesuvius 7 January 1730: In Siena is approved the Notice of Violante of Bavaria 1741: Antonio Salvatore "Totò" Sapore invents pizza to bring peace between French and Neapolitan armies 1750s: Armando "The Scorpion" Catalano seeks the Templar treasure 1762: Reverend Yorick, friend of Tristram Shandy, visits France and Italy for a health issue 1764: Father Schedoni is involved in a conspiracy 1767: Cosimo Piovasco of Rondò, future baron of Ombrosa, climbs up a tree and will live his entire life on the trees 18 October 1775: Carlo Altovivi is born 1790: Scandal of the fallen noble family Mazzini 1798: Nobleman and soldier Fabrizio del Dongo is born 25 March 1799: Jacopo Ortis dies 1801: Vampire Giovanni Nosferatu is born 1812: Soldier Lazzaro Scacerni is one of the survivors of the retreat from Moscow and, after returning in Italy, becomes a wealthy miller 1825: History professor Mercurio Loi disappears 1826: Dr. Weiss solves the Fritzheim case 1829: A frenchman discovers the Spada family's treasure located in Montecristo Isle 1850: Count Isidor Ottavio Baldassarre Fosco reaches England to plan a political conspiracy 1855: Princess Teresa Uzeda of Francalanza dies 1860: The wooden puppet Pinocchio becomes a real children 1863: Three persons, claiming to be part of a scientific expedition, are spotted been ejected from Mt. Stromboli 1864: Countess Marina Vittoria Crusnelli of Malombra gets possessed 1870: Enrico Bottini is born; Edwin Drood mysteriously disappears leaving a secret still unsolved 1874: As social experiment some prisoners are released in a deserted island to create a self-managed isolated colony; Arsène Lupin is born 1878: Rosso Malpelo dies 1885: A frenchman from Tarascon survive to a fall during an attempt to reach the peak of Mt. Blanc 1887: Professor Sandrelli develops a substance that cancels gravity 1888: Full of remorse, baron Carlo Coriolano of Santafusca admits of being a killer 1889: Masked hero "Hidden Face" and Ugo Pastore take part at the Treaty of Wuchale; Escorted by english explorer Adam Wild, Count Narciso Molfetta explores Africa 7 December 1891: Vito Andolini is born 1893: Marco Pagot is born 1895: Architect Emilio Varelli starts the construction of the Three Mothers' manors September 1897: Giannino "Gian Burrasca" Stoppani is born 1898: The suppression of Milan riots are sabotaged by Tommaso Reiner 1899: Vadim Vadimovich N. Storov is born 29 May 1899: Giuseppe "Peppone" Bottazzi is born 30 May 1899: Don Camillo Tarocci is born Early 1900s: Paolo Zeder hypothesizes the "K-Zone" theory; Actress Maria Sarti gains notoriety under the stage name Ninì Tirabusciò 1910: Architect Emilio Varelli finishes the construction of the Three Mothers' manors; Aldovino reaches the moon to marry the princess Yala; Count Emilio Ponticelli partecipes at the Daily Post air race 1911: Famous composer Gustav von Aschenbach dies during a holiday in Venice WWI: Flying ace Marco Pagot turns into an anthropomorphic pig and assumes the identity of the bounty hunter Porco Rosso; Aviator Luciano Serra, aviator Matteo Campini, Private Lazzaro Scacerni and Private Italino take part at the conflict; Baron Cesare Stromboli helps the Triple Entente; Private Piero dies 1915: Air piratess Filibus terrorizes southern Italy performing several thefts 15 October 1915: Emilio Largo is born 1919: A man dressed in red and constantly speaking in rhyme becomes one of the richest italian 1920: Famous film director Guido Anselmi is born; Pugilist Furio Almirante emigrates in America 1927: Dr. Artemio Zacchia founds a medicine and natural science academy and starts his studies on immortality March 1927: Detective Francesco "Ciccio" Ingravallo solves the Via Merulana mystery June 1929: Fascist militia suppression at Fontamara 1930: Dominetta Vitali is born; Scientist Pier Cloruro de' Lambicchi creates a substance that gives life to the images 1933: Gastone Uliani investigates the faun's case 17 July 1934: Ugo Fantozzi is born 1935: Italy's invasion of Ethiopia is obstacled by local spy Bara 1936: Lawyer Gino Motta is locked up in an asylum after claiming that in the sea near Levanto lives a colony of mermaids 29 September 1936: Lolito B. Lassica is born 1938: Benzino Napaloni signs an alliance with Adenoid Hynkel; The launch of hierarch Gaetano Maria Barbagli's expedition for Mars takes place; Primo Cossi chooses to undergoes at the EPRA experiment; Dr. Emilio Lizardo and Professor Tohichi Hikita build the oscillation overthruster, Lizardo trying to enter into the 8th dimension becomes insane; American archeologist Martin Padway travels through time until 535 1939: Count Zero becomes a fascist agent; Film director Salvatore Di Vita is born 10 May 1939: Hierarch Gaetano Maria Barbagli and his troop land on Mars WWII: Captain Alberto Bertorelli, Captain Antonio Corelli, Major Oscar Pilli, Sergeant Nicola Lo Russo, Lieutenant Gino Rossati, Marmittone and Galeazzo Musolesi take part at the conflict; Partisian Johnny loses his life; Partisan Natalino "Capellone" Tartufato saves the life of the english spy Charles Harrison, Private Antonio is considered as straggler in Russia 1940s: Marcella Valmarin becomes a famous actress under the stage name of Alba Doris 25 December 1942: Photographer Valentina Rosselli is born 1943: The Finzi-Continis family is exterminated in a German Nazi lager, along with other jews 1944: In a hidden palace in the Republic of Salò, tortures takes place by hand of four wealthy personality of the republic 1945: End of World War II in Europe and the prison camps are freed, Giosuè Orefice is among the survivors 3 March 1945: Nicola "Nico" Giraldi is born 6 July 1945: Roberto "Rocky" Balboa is born 1950s: Bianca Castafiore is recognized as one of the best soprano in the world; Amelia Bonetti and Pippo Botticella become two renowned tip-tap dancers 6 September 1950: Salvo Montalbano is born 1952: In a laboratory comes to life a creature made of rubber 1953: Michele Apicella is born; During a diplomatic visit in Italy a princess escapes through the streets of Rome 1955: Criminal and con artist Mr. Ripley lands in Italy 1956: Painter Buono Legnani commits suicide 1957: Exorcist Don Zauker lands in Livorno 19 September 1958: Renato "René" Ferretti is born 1959: Topo Gigio debuts and becomes a television star; Detective Nero Wolfe moves to Rome after some "problems" with FBI 1960: Authoress Enrica Valldolit wins the Nobel Prize in Literature 1961: A british spy agent kills the terrorist Emilio Largo; A cemetery man has a close encounter with the Death 15 August 1962: A young university student loses his life in a car accident caused by an overtaking 1963: Medic Duca Lamberti loses his license and is imprisoned for practicing euthanasia; Calimero is born; "The Alphabet Killer" is caught 1966: Criminal Mastermind "The Fox" evades from prison 4 October 1967: Deboroh La Roccia is born 1968: Diabolik is presumed dead; Primo Cossi wakes up from hibernation and becomes a hitman related to the events of the Years of Lead 1969: A british criminal gang robs the FIAT industry 1970s: A criminal uses the sewer of a metropolis as hiding place and house; At Milan a group of bounty hunters form the C.T Association 1971: Fumagalli's thanatography is used to solve the four flies' mystery; Alberto Valle becomes the new Avio Motor CEO 1972: Somewhere in northern Italy, inside the Military Area 36, Professor Endriadi and his research team build the first AI February 1973: Four men commits suicide through planteration in a villa near Paris 1 June 1973: A terroristic attack blows up the Madonnina statue atop Milan Cathedral 1974: Andrea Straniero is born; Approved the healthcare reform "C.M.G"; Camilla Cagliostri is born 1975: After months of shipwreck on a deserted island in the Mediterranean sea, the wife of the industrial Lanzetti and a sailor are saved; The corpses of the Crespi d'Adda cemetery are resurrected; At Rome, German psychic medium Helga Ulmann is brutally killed 1976: For having inflicts severe damages to the organized criminality all over Italy in just few years, mysterious killers murder the police commissioner Betti 1977: Virginia Ducci survives at a murder attempt thanks to her clairvoyance 1978: Science fiction writer Della Spigola is abducted by the martians of Phobos; Discovered a breed of talking dog with a particular white fur with red spots; Famous chef Fausto Zoppi is killed by drowning; It ends the Filippo Carducci's kidnapping case; Riccardo Finzi begins his career as P.I 1979: 1980s: The ministry of the Great Hunt is founded; 1980: "Caterina" an American brand of robotic housekeeper goes on sale; Neapolitan camorra boss "The Marseillaise" and his gang are killed after a showdown; Rocky Giraldi is born, so named in honour of the famous boxer 12 August 1980: The Matchstick Man is spotted near the Abruzzi countryside 3 October 1980: Leonardo Zuliani is born 1981: The criminal known as "The Human Beast" loses his life in a gunfight 1982: The "K-Zone" theory is confirmed and Paolo Zeder is resurrected as zombie 1983: For the first time, alive people witness the "Palio di Siena of the dead contrade"; It is archived the case of the serial killer known as "The Killer Dwarf"; Naples F.C pays three billion for the acquisition of Brazilian footballer Paulo Roberto Cotequinho, he'll lead the Naples to the victory of its first championship four years later. 1984: Two men inadvertently travel through time back the 1492 August 1988: The first issue of "Bloody Eye" is published 1989: During a conference in Rome, experts try to discover the truth behind the Edwin Drood mystery; Deboroh La Roccia becomes Rat-Man 20 March 1989: Commissioner Corrado Cattani is killed in a mafia ambush 1990: FIFA World Cup scandal, the Italy team hires two pornstars to win; Salvo Montalbano becomes a police commissioner 1991: 1992: Sicilian gangster Johnny Stecchino uselessly resort to a person exchange to avoid death; During the annual Milan Film Festival, mystery fiction writer and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher resolves a murder case; During the quadrennial pallastrada world competition the St. Catherine prophecy comes true burning up the entire state of Gladonia November 1992: Daria Marchesi is jailed for the Baldacci murder, thus Marino Strano becomes Bloody Eye's head writer 1994: "The Florence Monster" is finally arrested; A feud between two families ends with the use of a low-potential atomic warhead; After various vicissitudes experienced in India, Marco Donati is exposed at the Aquarium Berlin as "The boy with the gills" 1995: Marco Buratti aka "The Alligator" starts a new career as P.I. 1996: After his death Ugo Fantozzi returns to life until 1998 1997: Police agent Napoleone di Carlo abandons his profession and moves in Switzerland 1999: Ugo Fantozzi is cloned; "The Fish in Love" becomes an international bestseller 2000s: Jimi Dini works at the development of his videogame "Nirvana"; Dr. Bartolomeo Zacchia continues his father's studies 2001: A romanian vampire is sighted in Rome April 2001: Giorno Giovanna becomes the Gangstar of the mafia association "Passione" 2005: Police agent Rocky Giraldi enters in service 2006: Rise of nationalism in Italy brings to the birth of Captain Padania July 2006: Activist Leonardo Zuliani disappears 2007: Mater Lacrimarum is killed 2009: During a spiritual séance, Gualtiero Marchesi conjures the Emily Ann Faulkner's spirit 2013: Long Wei becomes a local hero for the chinese communities in Italy; Celestine VI becomes the new pope 2014: An amateur gang of smart drugs dealers is arrested; Michele Silenzi gains superpowers 2015: Low-grade criminal Enzo Ceccotti gets superpowers and becomes the superhero Jeeg Robot; Arsène Lupin's grandson is spotted in Italy 2016: Benzino Napaloni is cloned; Intellectual Mario Bambea survives at his suicide attempt, contemporaneously begins the rise of popularity of the comedian Fabrizio "Bizio" Capoccetti 2017: In Calabria a farmer befriends a rare specimen of unicorn 11 September 2077: An asteroid falls in northeast Italy sweeping away Padoa, Vicenza and Verona while Venice is half submerged

|Cities&Places| The Seven Cities Meloria Canal Gualdana Pine Forest Nepente Isle Stranalandia Island Desolation Isle Pescespada Island Malapunta Clerville Porcionia Bacteria Kindaor Gladonia Tristalia The Land of Toys Gerolstein Lotto Valentino Bassavilla Lancimago Vigata Montelusa Loquasto The 55 Invisible Cities Pratofungo Ombrosa Pineta Sagunto Pista Prima Frittole Sevalio Brigantes Sompazzo Monzurlo Salsiccia Acqua Traverse Buffalora Roccaverdina Nofi Norbio Solara Scasazza Ponteratto Idrasca Giancaldo Pieve Lunga San Michele Borgo Tre Case Borgo Dieci Case Accendura

|Fiction in Fiction| Urban X (Pope) Astrubal I (Pope) Pius XIII (Pope) Celestine VI (Pope) Luke I (Pope) Libero I (Pope) Teomondo Scròfalo (Painter) Dùdron (Painter) Amos Pelicorti (Sculptor) Jep Gambardella (Writer) Cornelio Bizzarro (Writer) Leo Cordio (Writer) Ulisse Isolani (Writer) Ubaldo Terzani (Writer) Vincenzo de Fabritiis (Writer) Thomas Prostata (Writer) Giovanni Pontano (Writer) Giuseppe Marchi (Writer) Morgan Perdinka (Writer) Antonio Casella (Writer) Enrico Puzzo (Writer) Arturo Vannino (Writer) Edoardo Lasagnetta (Writer) Ugo Redy (Writer) Carlo Sperato (Poet) Giancarlo Santini (Film Director) Lippini Bros (Film Directors) Gambalesta (Actor) Enzo Melchiorri (Actor) Franco Melis (Actor) Saverio Crispo (Actor) Marco Salviati (Actor) Sofia Barlow (Actress) Giorgio Fini (Tenor) Carlo "Vitalis" Balzani (Tenor) Tony Corallo (Singer) Pat Rubino (Singer) Luca Pappacena (Singer) Quartetto Basileus (Band) Martino Piccione (Guitarist) Mariottide (Songwriter) DJ Vomito (Rapper) Bud "Bomber" Graziano (Boxer) Franco Fibbri (Soccer Player) Antonio Pisapia (Soccer Player) Gli occhi del cuore ("The Eyes of the Heart") (Tv Series) Medical Dimension (Tv Series) La Bomba ("The Bomb") (Tv Series) Redenzione ("Redemption") (Movie) Paura d'odiare ("Fear to Hate") (Movie) L'usuraio licantropo ("The Werewolf Usurer") (Movie) Thor e le regine nude ("Thor and the Naked Queens") (Movie) Il vortice equestre ("The Equestrian Vortex") (Movie) La regina del pianeta nero ("The Queen of the Black Planet") (Movie) La palude del caimano ("The Caiman Marsh") (Movie) La vendetta del cobra ("Cobra's Revenge") (Movie) I ragazzi del Bronx ("The Bronx Boys") (Movie) Il caimano ("The Caiman") (Movie) Cataratte ("Cataracts") (Movie) Mocassini assassini ("Assassin Moccasins") (Movie) Maciste contro Freud (Maciste Versus Freud") (Movie) La mamma di Freud ("Freud's Mom") (Movie) Natale con la casta ("Christmas with the Caste") (Movie) La Febbra ("The Fever") (Movie) La polizia s'incazza (Movie) Sinite Parvulos (Movie) Margas (Movie) Il terrore di Parigi ("The Terror of Paris") (Play) Space Queen Vega (Videogame) Amedeo's Revenge (Videogame) Il codice indecifrabile ("The Indecipherable Code") (Novel) L'albicocco al curaro ("Apricot with Curare") (Novel) La paura del giorno ("Fear of the Day") (Novel) L'apparato umano ("The Human Apparatus") (Novel) Evoluzione digitale ("Digital Evolution") (Novel) Cortocircuito ("Short Circuit") (Novel) Folgore su Policastro ("Thunderbolt over Policastro") (Novel) La ninfa e il cadetto ("The Ninphe and the Cadet") (Novel) Il pesce innamorato ("The Fish in Love") (Children's Book) Bloody Mario (Comic Strip) Bloody Eye (Comic Book) Megaditta (Company) Nosferatù (Company) Finmor (Company) Centovetrine (Company) Auto Avio Motor (Company) SOFRAM (Company) Tekne (Company) Wondercomics (Company) Tondello Spa (Company) Digitex (Company) Sbav (Company) Famburgher House (Company) Trattoria Aldini (Company) Smack-O-Mat Corporation (Company) Partito Regressista (Politic) Partito Socialista Unificando (Politic) Italia in Marcia (Politic) Grande Destra (Politic) Longobarda (Football Club) Borgorosso (Football Club) Marchigiana (Football Club) Olimpia (Football Club) Eat it! (Product) Fido Uomo (Product) Io Cane (Product) Pandoro Sauli (Product) Cacao Meravigliao (Product) Cioccolato Spagnoli (Product) Marmellata Puffin (Product) Acqua pulita (Product) Coralba (Product) Sarchiapone (Animal) Colombre (Animal) Jaguar Shark (Animal) Tropelio (Animal)

16 notes · View notes

dustedmagazine · 5 years ago

Text

Dust, Volume 5, Number 12

Matthew J. Rolin

Ned Starke was right. Winter is coming, and maybe, for our Chicago and Eastern Seaboard contingent, it’s here. That’s a good excuse to find a big comfy chair near the stereo and dig into some new music. This time we offer some hip hop, some finger picking, some music concrete, some indie pop and, just this once, a Broadway musical. Contributors include Ray Garraty, Jennifer Kelly, Justin Cober-Lake, Jonathan Shaw, Bill Meyer and Andrew Forell. Stay warm.

ALLBLACK x Offset Jim — 22nd Ways (Play Runners Association)

ALLBLACK and Offset Jim have collaborated on a few tracks before, but this is their first release together. Their differences, which are significant, make the disc enjoyable through and through. Offset Jim has a poker face delivery that can fool anybody into thinking he’s deadly serious when he’s clearly having fun. ALLBLACK, on the other hand, is known for his goofy humor, but his goofiness is a mask that obscures a poetic psycho killer. Their combination of a healthy dose of humor and true-to-the-streets seriousness—seen here— makes a case for tolerating all kinds of oddball pairings:

“Don't leave the house without your makeup kit Diss songs about your real daddy just won't stick Hey, bitch, say, bitch, I know you miss this demon dick Please comb Max hair, take off them wack outfits”

Ray Garraty

David Byrne — American Utopia (Nonesuch)

youtube

If you live long enough, everything that seemed edgy and electrifying in your youth will turn safe and comfortable in middle age. You’ll buy festival tickets with access to couches, tents and air conditioning. Clash songs will turn up in Jaguar ads. Kids at the playground will run around sporting your Black Flag tee-shirt. You may even find yourself in a $250 seat, at a beautiful theater, with your beautiful wife, seeing “American Utopia,” David Byrne’s new jukebox musical, and, to borrow a phrase, you may ask yourself, “How did I get here?” And look, you could do worse. These are wonderful songs, still prickly and spare even now in full orchestral arrangements, still booming with cross-currented, afro-beat rhythms (Byrne got to that early on, give him credit), still buoyed with a scratchy, ironic, ebullient pulse of life. It’s hard to say what plot line stitches together “Born Under Punches,” “Every Day is a Miracle,” “Burning Down the House” and “Road to Nowhere,” or how absorbing the connective narrative may be. It’s not, obviously, as kinetic and daring as the original arrangements, stitched together with shoe-laces, stuttering with anxiety, bounced and jittered by the back line of Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, clad in an absurdly oversized suit. And, yet, it’s not so bad and if I had three big bills to spend on a night at the theater, I might just want to see it re-enacted. Because I’ve gotten safe and comfortable, too, and anyway, better that than the Springsteen show.

Jennifer Kelly

Charly Bliss — Supermoon EP (Barsuk)

Supermoon by Charly Bliss

Charly Bliss’ latest release Supermoon, collects five tracks written during the Young Enough sessions that didn’t make the final cut. The EP showcases the band transitioning from the grungy edge of their debut Guppy to the more polished pop sound of its successor. Eva Hendricks is one of the moment’s most distinctive voices, and these songs find her grappling with the themes so tellingly addressed on Young Enough. Although the songs here deserve release, the interest is in what they don’t do. More than sketches, they are less lyrically formed than those on the album, more guitar driven and without the big pop pay offs. The band, Hendricks on guitar and vocals, her brother Sam on drums, guitarist Spencer Fox and bassist Dan Shure still produce a hooky, engaging record which will appeal to fans. Newcomers might want to start with the albums but Supermoon is not without its moments.

Andrew Forell

Cheval Sombre — Been a Lover b/w The Calfless Cow (Market Square)

Cheval Sombre - Been a Lover b/w The Calfless Cow by Market Square Recordings

Cheval Sombre teamed with Luna/Galaxie 500’s Dean Wareham last year for a haunting batch of cowboy songs that found, as I put it in my Dusted review, “unfamiliar shadows and crevices in some very familiar material.” Now comes Cheval Sombre, otherwise known as Chris Porpora, with a brace of soft, dreamy folk-turned-psychedelic songs, one a gently sorrowful original, the other a cover of Alasdair Roberts. “Been a Lover” slow-strums through a whistling canyons of dreams, wistfully surveying the remnants of a long-standing relationship. It has the nodding, skeletal grace of Sonic Boom’s acoustic “Angel,” perhaps no coincidence since the Spaceman 3 songwriter produced the album. “The Calfless Cow” anchors a bit more in folk blues picking, though Porpora’s soft, prayerful vocals float free above the foundations. Both songs feel like spectral images leaving traceries on unexposed film—unsolid and evocative and mysteriously, inexplicably there.

Jennifer Kelly

Cigarettes After Sex — Cry (Partisan Records)

Cry by Cigarettes After Sex

Cigarettes After Sex’s 2017 debut album was a quite lovely collection of slow-core, lust-lorn dream pop. On the follow up Cry Greg Gonzalez (vocals, guitar), Phillip Tubbs (keys), Randall Miller (bass) and Jacob Tomsky (drums) double down on their signature sound with half the effect. The melodies are still here, the delicate restraint also, Gonzalez’ voice whispers seductively sweet nothings but this time around it is largely nothings he’s working with. It’s not that this is a terrible record, it’s more that the wreaths of gossamer amount to not much. Lacking the humorous touches of the debut, Cry suffers from Gonzalez’ sometimes witless and earnest lyrics which are mirrored in the lackluster pace which makes one desperate for the sex to be over so one can get back to smoking. Cry aims for Lynch/Badalamenti atmospherics and hits them occasionally but too often lapses into Hallmark sentimentalism. For an album ostensibly about romantic and physical love Cry is dispiritingly dry. There is only ash on these sheets. Serge Gainsbourg is somewhere rolling his eyes, and a gasper, in the velvet boudoir of eternity.

Andrew Forell

Lucy Dacus — 2019 (Matador)

youtube

Between Historian and boygenius, Lucy Dacus had a pretty memorable 2018. It makes sense that she'd want to document 2019. What she did instead was release a series of holiday-ish tracks over the course of the year and then collect them as the 2019 EP. The covers will likely get the most attention, whether her loving take on Edith Piaf's “La vie en rose” or the rocking rendition of Wham!'s “Last Christmas.” Dacus doesn't perform these songs with any sense of snark; she's both enjoying herself and invested. Counting Bruce Springsteen's birthday as a holiday might be silly, but she nails “Dancing in the Dark,” turning it to her own aesthetic. The weird one here is “In the Air Tonight,” which smacks of irony and whatever we call guilty pleasures these days, but she plays it straight, arguing for it as a spooky Halloween cut, and sort of pulls it off.

Focusing on the covers might lead listeners to forget how good a songwriter she is. The Mother's Day “My Mother & I” feels thoroughly like a Dacus number, opening with contemplation: “My mother hates her body / We share the same outline / She swears that she loves mine.” Holidays aren't easy. “Fool's Gold” (stick this New Year's track first or last) falls like snow, laden with regret and rationalization. Dacus works through holidays with care and concern. The covers might be fun (even the Phil Collins number works as a curiosity), but when she lets the more conflicted thoughts come through, as on “Forever Half Mast,” she maintains the hot streak. The EP might be a bit of a diversion, but its secret complexity makes it more surprisingly forceful. Justin Cober-Lake

Kool Keith — Computer Technology (Fat Beats)

Computer Technology by Kool Keith

Naming an album Computer Technology in 2019 is like calling a 1950 disc A Light Bulb. Ironic Luddite-ness is a part of the charm of the new Kool Keith’s album, his second this year. The record has a cyberpunk-ish (circa 1984) feel, thanks to wacky, early electronics-like beats that no sane hip hop artist today would agree to rap over. But who said Kool Keith was sane? He’s like a computer virus here, infesting a modern culture he views with disdain. His kooky brags could be written off as old man rants if he been in the rap game since day one. On “Computer Technology” he says: ‘You need to sit down and slow down’, yet he himself shows no signs of slowing down.

If Kool Keith’s 1980s science rap messed around in a high school lab, he’s now a tenured professor in hip hop science blowing up the joint.

Ray Garraty

Leech — Data Horde (Peak Oil)

Data Horde by Leech

Brian Foote’s work has a knack for showing up in slightly unexpected and subtly crucial places, whether it’s behind the scenes at Kranky and his own Peak Oil imprint, or as a member at times of Fontanelle or Nudge, or even just helping out Stephen Malkmus with drums. On Data Horde, his debut LP of electronic music under his Leech moniker, Foote works with his customary quiet assurance and subtly radical take on things, delivering a brief but satisfying set of bespoke productions that somehow evoke acid and ambient tinges at the same time, feinting towards full-out jungle eruptions before turning the corner and somehow naturally going somewhere much more minimal. Whether it’s the skittering, pulsing “Brace” or the lush and aptly-named “Nimble”, the results are consistently satisfying and the six tracks here suggest that we could stand to hear a lot more from Leech.

Ian Mathers

Midnight Odyssey — Biolume Part 1: In Tartarean Chains (I, Voidhanger)

Biolume Part 1 - In Tartarean Chains by MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY

Midnight Odyssey’s massive new record sounds like what might happen if Gary Numan’s Tubeway Army smoked up a bunch of Walter White’s finest product and decided that they must cover Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompei, complete with ruins and really big gongs. It’s interstellar. It’s perversely grandiose. The synths soar and rumble, the vocals come in mournful choral arrangements, the low end thunders and occasionally explodes into blast-beat barrage. It’s almost impossible to take seriously, and it’s presented with what seems like absolute seriousness. In any case, there’s a lot of it: seven tracks, all of which exceed the eight-minute mark, and most of which moan and intone and resonate well beyond ten minutes. You’ve got to give it to Dis Pater, the only identified member of Midnight Odyssey — he really means it. But it’s often hard to tell if Biolume Part 1 (Pater threatens that there are two more parts to come) is the product of an unchecked, idiosyncratically powerful vision or just goofball cosmological schmaltz. To this reviewer, it’s undecidable. And that’s interesting.

Jonathan Shaw

Nakhane — You Will Not Die

youtube

South African singer Nakhane Touré has a voice that can stop you in your tracks when he unleashes it, and a willingness to tackle uncomfortable topics (homosexuality, colonialism, and the way the imported Presbyterian church interacts with both) that’s seen him both praised and threatened in his homeland. You Will Not Die marks a shift in Nakhane’s music, both in terms of how directly and intensely he engages with those places where the sacred rubs up against, not so much the profane but the disavowed, even while sonically everything is lusher and brighter, whether it’s the slinky electroglam of “Interloper” or the bell-tolling balladry of “Presbyteria.” For once it’s worth seeking the deluxe edition, for the Bowie-esque Anohni duet “New Brighton” and the defiantly melancholy cover of “Age of Consent” alone.

Matthew J. Rolin — Matthew J. Rolin (Feeding Tube)

Matthew J. Rolin by Matthew J. Rolin

Matthew J. Rolin steps to the head of the latest class of American Primitive guitarists on this self-titled debut LP. He is currently a resident of Columbus, Ohio, but his main inspirations from within the genre are Chicagoan. Reportedly a Ryley Walker concert sent him down the solo guitar path, but the one time this reviewer caught him in concert, Rolin only made one substance-oriented statement throughout the set, and it was more of a shy assertion than an extravagant boast. His sound more than pays the toll. Bright and ringing on 12 strings, pithy and structurally sound on six, he makes sparing use of outdoor sound and keyboard drones that bring Daniel Bachman to mind. Like Bachman did on his early records, Rolin often relies upon the rush of his fingerpicking to draw the listener along, and what do you know? It works.

Bill Meyer

Claire Rousay — Aerophobia (Astral Spirits)

Aerophobia by Claire Rousay

To watch Claire Rousay perform is to see the process of deciding made visual. You can’t put that on a tape, but you can make the tape a symbolic and communicative object. To see Rousay repeatedly, or to play her recordings in sequence, is to hear an artist who is rapidly transforming. This one was already a bit behind her development when it was released, but that can be turned into a statement, too. Perhaps the title Aerophobia, which means fear of flying, is a critique of the tape’s essentially musical content? It is a series of drum solos, unlike the more the more recent t4t, which includes self-revealing speech and household sounds. If so, that critique does not reproach the music itself, nor should it. Even when you can’t see her, you can hear her sonic resourcefulness and appreciate the movement and shape she articulates with sound.

Bill Meyer

Colin Andrew Sheffield & James Eck Rippie — Exploded View (Elevator Bath)

exploded view by colin andrew sheffield & james eck rippie

Colin Andrew Sheffield, who is the proprietor of the Elevator Bath imprint, and James Eck Rippie, who does sound work for Hollywood movies, have this understanding in common: they know that you gotta break things to make things. The things in question don’t even have to be intact when you start; at any rate, the feedback, microphone bumps, blips and skips that make up this 19-minute long piece of musique concrete sound like the product of generations of handling. It all feels a bit like you’re hearing a scan of the shortwave bands from inside the radio, which makes for delightfully disorienting listening.

Bill Meyer

Ubik — Next Phase (Iron Lung)

Next Phase MLP (LUNGS-148) by UBIK

Philip K. Dick’s whacko-existentialist-corporate-satire-cum-SF-novel Ubik turns 50 this year, and serendipitously, Australian punks Ubik have released this snarling, tuneful EP into the world. There’s a whole lot of British street punk, c. 1982, in Ubik’s sound, especially if that genre tag and year make you flash on Lurkers, Abrasive Wheels and Angelic Upstarts — bands that knew how to string melodic hooks together, and bands that had pretty solid lefty politics. Ubik’s songs couple street punk’s populist (in the pre-Trump sense) fist-pumping with a spastic, elastic angularity, giving the tracks just enough of a weirdo vibe that the band’s name makes sense. The combination of elements is vividly present in “John Wayne (Is a Cowboy (and Is on Twitter)),” a hugely fun punk song that registers a fair degree of ideological venom as it bashes and speeds along. Somewhere, Horselover Fat is nodding his head and smiling.

Jonathan Shaw

Uranium Club — Two Things at Once (Sub Pop)

youtube

Uranium Club (sometimes Minneapolis Uranium club) made one of the best punk albums of this year in The Cosmo Cleaners. “A visionary insanity, backed by impressive musical chops,” I opined in Dusted last April, setting off a frenzy of interest and an epic major label bidding war. Just kidding. Hardly anyone noticed. Uranium Club was this year’s Patois Counselors, a band so good that it made no sense that no one knew about them. But, fast forward to now and LOOK at the heading of this review! Sub Pop noticed and included Uranium Club in its storied singles club. And why not? The bluntly named “Two Things at Once,” (Parts I and 2), is just as tightly, maniacally wound as the full-length, just as gloriously, spikily confrontational. “Part 1” scrambles madly, pulling hair out by the roots as it agitatedly considers “our children’s creativity” and whether “I’m too young to die.” It’s like Fire Engines, but faster and crazier and with big pieces of machinery working loose and flying off the sides. “Part 2” runs slower and more lyrically but with no less intensity, big flayed slashes of discord rupturing its meditative strumming. There are no words in it, and yet you sense deep, obsessive bouts of agitation driving its motor, even when the brass comes in, unexpectedly, mournfully, near the end. This is the good stuff, and no one wants you to know about it. Except me. And now Sub Pop. Don’t miss out.

Jennifer Kelly

Various Artists— Come on up to the House: Women Sing Waits (Dualtone)

Come On Up To The House: Women Sing Waits by Dualtone Music Group, Inc.

Tom Waits’ gravelly voice is embedded deep in the fabric of how we think of Tom Waits songs. You can’t think of “Come On Up to the House” without sandpapery catch in its gospel curves, or of “Downtown Train” without his strangled desolation; he is the songs, and if you don’t like the way he sings, you’ve probably never cared much for his recordings. And yet, here, in this all-woman, star-studded, country-centric collection of covers, you can hear, maybe for the first time, how gracefully constructed these songs are, how pretty the melodies, how well the lyrics fit to them. You cannot believe how different these songs sound with women singing. It is truly revelatory. Contributors include big stars (Aimee Mann, Corinne Rae Bailey), living legends (Iris Dement, Roseanne Cash), up-and-comers (Courtney Marie Andrews, Phoebe Bridgers) and a few emerging artists (Joseph, The Wild Reeds), and all have a case to make. Phoebe Bridgers distills “Georgia Lee” into a quiet, tragic purity, while Angie McMahon finds a private, inward-looking clarity in “Take It With Me.” Courtney Marie Andrews blows up “Downtown Train,” into a swaggering country anthem, while Roseanne Cash infuses “Time” with a warm, unforced glow. These versions transform weird, twisted reveries into American songbook classics, which is what they maybe were, under all that growling, all along.

Jennifer Kelly

5 notes · View notes

djemerald · 5 years ago

Text

My ‘sweetest’ Favorite 2019

もはやただのメモ！だけど、今年もやっぱりやっておこう。ということで、2019年のスウィートな音楽をずらりと。画像はアルバム・LP・EPのみの分をコレクションしてみました。去年書いた「過去最高のスピードで世界中の音楽が聴けるようになった」のは、今年も継続中。ただ、画面の中で自動的にレコメンドされるよりも、周りの友達に「これよかったよ〜」とか、「これ好きそう」とか教えてもらう方が、断然、うれしい。ジャンルは相変わらずいろいろだけど、ジャズ的な要素が増えた気がする。（dublab.jpの影響か、原雅明さんの影響かしら、どうかしら）あと、今年はアルバム通して聴く機会が多かった、というか、その方がフィットしてた。もともとCDを買っていたときの感覚に戻ったようで、なんだかしみじみしちゃう。そして、11月あたりからじんわりとミニマルハウス〜テクノに惹かれ中。シンプルがゆえに、好みを見つけるのがむずかしい、でも楽しい。新しい境地。 DJ MIXはほとんど聴かなかったなぁ。音楽の聴き方って、1年の間にこんなにも変わるものなのね。 dublab.jpでラジオ番組をはじめたことも大きいかな。ありがとう、グッドバイ2019年。 2020年は、審美眼を磨きつつ、軽快に。生身の肌で感じたい。 *アルファベット順です *今年リリース以外のものも多くあります *Vanessa Paradis、Marlene Dietrichは常時アイコンなのではぶきます＊ - My ‘sweetest’ Favorite 2019 - ▽▼▽ ALBUM / LP / EP ▽▼▽ AFK & Bludwork / Loyalty N Service [100% Silk] Akira Rabelais / CXVI [Boomkat Editions] Alexis Le-Tan & Jess present / Space Oddities [Permanent Vacation] Amazondotcom / Mirror River [SUBREAL] Ambien Baby / En Transito [FATi Records] Ana Roxanne / ~~~ [Leaving Records] Anna Homler ‎/ Deliquium In C [Präsens Editionen] Archie Shepp, Jasper Van't Hof ‎/ Mama Rose [SteepleChase] Bartosz Kruczynski, Poly Chain / Pulses [Into The Light Records] Basil Kirchin / I Start Counting [Trunk Records] Basil Kirchin / Primitive London [Trunk Records] Black Boboi / Agate [BINDIVIDUAL] C.Tappin / Ashes to Ashes [Melting Pot Music] Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny / Beyond The Missouri Sky [Verve Records] Chihei Hatakeyama(畠山地平) / Void XIX [White Paddy Mountain] Chocolate Lips / Chocolate Lips [Sony Music] Derric Gobourne Jr. / Supremacy [P-Vine Records] Deweekend / Deweekend [OutOfStock] Dome / Dome 2 [Editions Mego] Eberhard Weber / Encore [ECM Records] Eleventeen Eston / Delta Horizon [Growing Bin Records] Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou / Ethiopiques, Vol. 21 [Buda Musique] Eric Serra ‎/ Le Grand Bleu (Bande Originale Du Film) [Virgin] G.S. Schray / First Appearance [Last Resort] Giovanni Guidi / Avec Le Temps [ECM Records] h hunt / Playing Piano for Dad [Tasty Morsels] Helena Deland ‎– Altogether Unaccompanied Vol. III [Luminelle Recordings] Holdie Gawn｜Micawber ‎/ Gleech Huis｜Parsec Telemetry [Sylphe] infinite bisous / Period [Tasty Morsels] Ion Ludwig / A Better Future To Long [Metereze] J!N /pink stm & wite ptl [Hizz] JAB / Erg Herbe [Shelter Press] Jacqueline Humbert & David Rosenboom / Daytime Viewing [Unseen Worlds] Jai Paul / Do You Love Her Now｜He [XL Recordings] jan and naomi / Fracture [cutting edge] Jan Jelinek / Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records [~scape] Jeff Majors / Yoka Boka (For Us All) [Invisible City Editions] Joao Gilberto / Amoroso [Warner Bros. Records] Joe Tossini and Friends / Lady of Mine [Joe Tossini Music] Joseph Shabason / Anne, EP [Western Vinyl] Juan Hidalgo / Rrose Sélavy [Discos Transgénero] Kali Malone / The Sacrificial Code [iDEAL Recordings] Khotin / Beautiful You [Ghostly International] Kit Sebastian / Mantra Moderne [Mr Bongo] Leech / Data Horde [Peak Oil] Leonardo Marques / Early Bird [180g x Disk Union] Leonore Boulanger / Practice Chanter [Le Saule] Les Yeux Orange / Ghost Dog [Good Plus] Lifted / 2 [PAN] Liv.e / ::hoopdreams:: [Not On Label] Lloyd Miller / A Lifetime In Oriental Jazz [Jazzman] Loren Connors / Evangeline [Recital] Loving / Lately In Another Time [Last Gang Records] Lucas Arruda / Onda Nova [Favorite Recordings] Lunz / Lunz 3 [Curious Music] Mary Lattimore / Hundreds Of Days [Ghostly International] Mega Bog / Dolphine [Paradise Of Bachelors] Meitei(冥丁) / Komachi [Métron Records] melodiesinfonie / A Journey to You [JAKARTA] Molinaro / What The Future Was [Apron Records] Nadia Reid / Preservation [Basin Rock] Neu Balance / In My Life, I've Loved Them All [Budget Cuts] Nia Andrews / No Place Is Safe [rings] Nico Rico / Primitive Thinking EP [Not On Label] Nina Keith / MARANASATI 19111 [Grind Select] Nitai Hershkovits / Lemon the Moon [AGATE / Inpartmaint] Normal Brain / Lady Maid [Vanity Records] Olsen / Dream Operator [100%Silk] Operating Theatre / Miss Mauger [Allchival] Pejzaż / Pejzaż Remiksy [The Very Polish Cut-Outs] Powder / Powder In Space [Beats In Space Records] Priori & RAMZi / Jumanjí [FATi Records] Profit Prison ‎/ Six Strange Passions [Avant!] RAMZi / Multiquest Niveau 1: Camouflé [FATi Records] Regularfantasy /Sunsets & Sublets [Total Stasis] Repetentes 2008 / Galaxia Fini [Superconscious Records] Repetentes 2008 / Gelo Gerônimo [Gop Tun] RIP Swirl / 9TEEN90 [Public Possession] Robert Minden Ensemble / Long Journey Home [Otter Bay Recordings] Robert Minden Ensemble / The Boy Who Wanted To Talk To Whales [Otter Bay Recordings] Robert Minden Ensemble / Whisper in My Ear [Otter Bay Recordings] Robert Wyatt / Shleep [Domino] Rupert Clervaux / After Masterpieces [Whities] Santilli / Surface [Into The Light Records] Sarah Davachi / Pale Bloom [W.25th] Sebastian Gandera / Le Raccourci [Efficient Space] Simone De Kunovich / Mondo Nuovo Vol. 1 [Superconscious Records] Sipprell / I Could Be Loved [Sipprell] Sonia Sanchez / Full Moon Of Sonia [VIA International Artists] Sonny Sharrock / Black Woman [Vortex Records] Soundwalk Collective / What We Leave Behind | Jean-Luc Godard Archives [mAtter] Sparrows / Berries [flau] St. Joseph / Player Nr. 1 EP [Dokutoku Records] Stephen Steinbrink ‎/ Utopia Teased [Western Vinyl/Melodic Records] Takayuki Shiraishi / Missing Link [Studio Mule] Tamaryn / Dreaming The Dark [Dero Arcade] Teebs / Anicca [Brainfeeder] Teiji Ito / Music For Maya [Tzadik] The Caretaker / An empty bliss beyond this World [History Always Favours The Winners] Tim Hecker / Anoyo [Kranky] Tujiko Noriko / Kuro(OST) [PAN] Unknown Mobile / Daucile Moon [Pacific Rhythm] Vanishing Twin / The Age of Immunology [Fire Records] Various ‎/ I Am The Center (Private Issue New Age Music In America, 1950-1990) [Light In The Attic] Various / Visible & Invisible Persons Distributed In Space [Numero Group] Various / Wys! V&a Ep [WYS! Recordings] Various / زمان يا سكر = Zamaan Ya Sukkar - Exotic Love Songs And Instrumentals From The Egyptian 60’s [Radio Martiko] Various Artists / 4 Down [Deek Recordings] Various Artists / Turkish Hamam House Disco [Arsivplak] Viola Klein / A Passport And A Visa Stamped By The Holy Ghost [Meakusma] Violet / Togetherness [Togetherness] Voices In Latin / Voices In Latin [Morgan] Wilson Tanner / II [Efficient Space] Yasuaki Shimizu / Music For Commercials [Crammed Discs] Yohuna / Mirroring [fear of missing out records] Yoshiharu Takeda / Aspiration [METANESOS Records] Yoshinori Hayashi / γ [Smalltown Supersound] Zenit / Straight Ahead [P-Vine Records] 元ちとせ / 元唄幽玄～元ちとせ奄美シマ唄REMIX～ (Remixes) [Au(g)tunes] 孔雀眼 JADE EYES / 渴望 [香港商黑市音樂股份有限公司台灣分公司] ∞σ / DG Hadi [Hizz] ⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ / ⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლのʅ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡(ƟӨ)ʃ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡ ꐑ(ཀ ඊູ ఠీੂ೧ູ࿃ूੂ✧ළඕั࿃ूੂ࿃ूੂੂ࿃ूੂළඕั✧ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ɵੂ≢࿃ूੂ೧ູఠీੂ ඊູཀ ꐑ(ʅ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡(ƟӨ)ʃ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡ [༈೧ູ≢)ꐑʅ(Ɵↂↂ. l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡| ̲̲͡ π̲̲͡͡.̸̸̨̨ ఠీੂ)༼ू༈೧ູ࿃ूੂ༽(ଳծູ l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡| ̲̲͡ π̲̲͡͡ ɵੂ≢)_̴ı ̡͌ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ꐑ*:･✧(ཽ๑ඕัළඕั)ꐑʅ(Ɵↂ๑)✧*:･ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡| ̲̲͡ π̲̲͡͡.̸̸̨̨ ఠీੂ)༼ू༈೧ູʅ(ƟӨ)ʃ ꐑ(ཀ ඊູ ఠీੂ)༼ू༈೧ູ࿃ूੂ༽(ଳծູɵੂ≢ↂ. l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡.]

▽▼▽ SONG ▽▼▽ Akis / New Age Rising (Part VIII) [Into The Light Records] Anatolian Weapons / Ofiodaimon (Tolouse Low Trax vs Anatolian Weapons Remix) [Beats In Space Records] Anna Karina / Pierrot Le Fou-Jamais Je Ne T'Ai Dit Que Je T'Aimerai Toujours (いつまでも愛するとは言わなかった) [Barclay] Baba Stiltz / Showtime [XL Recordings] Bartosz Kruczyński / Pastoral Sequences [Growing Bin Records] Beatrice Dillon / Workaround Two [PAN] Bee Gees / How Deep Is Your Love [RSO] Bell Biv DeVoe ‎/ Poison [MCA Records] Betonkust, Palmbomen II / Rejected Demo Tape [Dekmantel] Blue Gas / Shadows From Nowhere [Archeo / Best Record] Bobby Hutcherson / Tranquillity [Blue Note] Bohren & und Club of Gore - Karin [[PIAS] Recordings] Cécile McLorin Salvant / One Step Ahead [Mack Avenue Records] Cigarettes After Sex / Heavenly [Partisan Records] Cleaners From Venus / Corridor of Dreams [Man At The Off Licence] De Beren Gieren / Broensgebuzze 8.2 [Sdban Ultra] Dolphins Into The Future & Lieven Marten Moana / Lava (Long Version) [Edições Cn] DOS / Need U [Nerang Recordings] Dove, Le Makeup / Angel Diaries [Pure Voyage] Duval Timothy / DYE [NTS Radio] Eliza Dickson, Braxton Cook, Lauren Desberg / Gold [Tokyo Dawn Records] Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch / End Scene [130701 (FatCat Records)] Empress Of / When I’m With Him (Perfume Genius Cover) [Terrible Records] Fafá de Belém / Aconteceu Você [Som Livre] Gary Burton / Las Vegas Tango [Atlantic] Hanne Mjøen / Sounds Good To Me [Spinnin' Deep] Haruomi Hosono (細野晴臣) / 薔薇と野獣(New ver.) [Speedstar] Jay Som / Superbike [Lucky Number] John Cameron / Half-Forgotten Daydreams [KPM Music] John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra / You Know, You Know [Columbia] Joni Mitchell / Shine [Hear Music] Karen Gwyer / Ian on Fire [Don't Be Afraid] Kelsey Lu / I’m Not In Love [Columbia] Klein Zage / Womanhood (DJ Python Remix) [Orphan Records] Kllo - Back To You [PLANCHA] Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal, Jesse Paris Smith / Lotus Born, No Need to Fear [Smithsonian Folkways] Laurie Spiegel / The Unquestioned Answer [Unseen Worlds] Leon Vynehall / I, Cavallo [Ninja Tune] Lucrecia Dalt / Tar (Jan Jelinek Remix) [Rvng Intl.] mabanua / Call on Me feat. Chara (Knxwledge Remix) [Lawson Entertainment] Madeline Kenney / Nick of Time [Not On Label] Marc Johnson, Eliane Elias / Swept Away [ECM Records] Marcella Bella / Nell'aria [CBS] Mary Lou Williams / It Ain’t Necessarily So [Jazzman] Matthew Halsall, The Gondwana Orchestra, Josephine Oniyama / Into Forever (feat. Josephine Oniyama) [Gondwana Records] Mehmet Aslan / Beat Two Chase [Highlife] Mehmet Aslan / Lobster Is Coincidence [Planisphere Music] Men I Trust / I Hope to Be Around [Men i Trust] Michael Andrews / I’m Not Following You [Everloving] millennium parade / Plankton [PERIMETRON] Murlo / Ferment (Yamaneko’s Flashback) [Coil Records] Noname / Self [Not On Label] Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan / Mustt Mustt (Massive Attack Remix) [‎Real World Records] O Terno / volta e meia [Risco] Octo Octa / I Need You [Technicolour] Ralph Tresvant / Sensitivity [MCA Records] Ratna Das / Rajuan Bulan [Rice Records] Roberto Musci / The Advent of Rose + Croix [Les Disques Victo] Ronald Langestraat / Lowdown [South of North] Salami Rose Joe Louis / Nostalgic Montage [Brainfeeder] Simon Hinter / Makros [Purveyor Underground] SKRS / Dub Shoulda Known [Ancient Monarchy] Smoke Trees / Man in the Moon [Urban Waves Records] Steve Hauschildt ‎/ Strands [Kranky] Tash Sultana / Salvation [Mom + Pop] Tei Shi / Even If It Hurts (feat. Blood Orange) [Downtown] The Golden Filter / Autonomy [4GN3S] Tyme./Tatsuya Yamada / Catch A Fire [astrollage] Unknown Mortal Orchestra / Hanoi 6 [Jagjaguwar] Will Saul / Room 9 [Aus Music] WONK / Sweeter, More Bitter [EPISTROPH] Yo La Tengo / Eight Candles [Verve Forecast] ギターウルフ / バッテラ惑星 [GuitarWolf Records] ちあきなおみ / 泣かせるぜ [TEICHIKU ENTERTAINMENT] んoon / Gum [Flake Sounds] 近田春夫 / 超冗談だから [Victor Entertainment] 佐藤千亜妃 / Lovin' You [EMI Records] 小沢健二 / 彗星 [Universal Music] 大貫妙子 / タンタンの冒険 [Dear Heart] 中原理恵 / ヒーローはあなた [CBS/Sony] 優河 / June [P-Vine Records] (Sandy) Alex G / So [Lucky Number] ▽▼▽ DJ / LIVE ▽▼▽ Sapphire Slows at SUPER DOMMUNE [28 Nov] Nia Andrews at Blue Note Tokyo [31 Oct] Julianna Barwick / Mary Lattimore / DJ Shhhhh at Shibuya WWW ［1 Jul］ Meakusma X dublab.jp at Shimokitazawa Cage LỒNG VÀ QUÁN [28 Apr] 東京楽所第12回定期公演「奉祝の雅楽」 at サントリーホール［2 Feb］ 12月25日のdublab.jpの番組《In Every Second Dream》内で、一部楽曲をON AIRしたのでそちらも是非◎ アーカイヴはこちらから↓

愛を込めてxxx DJ Emerald

#sweetest #2019

4 notes · View notes

dailybestiary · 6 years ago

Text

Patch Has Issues: Dungeon #1

Issue: Dungeon #1

Date: September/October 1986. (I was just entering 3rd grade—a dismal year for me—and hadn’t yet discovered D&D at this point. I had just watched Optimus Prime pass away on the operating table during The Transformers: The Movie, though.)

The Cover:

(Use of cover for review purposes only and should not be taken as a challenge to status. Credit and copyright remain with their respective holders.)

One of the notable things about Dungeon was that the covers were actually commissioned for the magazine, instead of just vaguely connected to the issue’s theme like Dragon’s were. The late Keith Parkinson’s “Into the Flame” shows off the star of the issue, the red dragon Flame. Its very humanoid posture recalls Parkinson’s time doing draconians for the Dragonlance line. I’m guessing he was very proud of being picked to launch the magazine—this image is the first that comes up on his website to this day. (If you’re curious, Parkinson’s work in general is great if you like knights in bad weather and big humanoids, but he definitely leans hard into the all-women-in-fantasy-are-bikini-wearing-sorceresses trope, a habit that—like many ex-TSR artists—only got more pronounced as his career progressed. It’s no wonder he moved into video games.)

The Adventures:

“The Dark Tower of Cabilar” by Michael Ashton & Lee Sperry, AD&D, Levels 4–7

Our very first Dungeon Adventure is...*drum roll*...a converted tournament module that is pretty rudimentary: Defeat the vampire in his stalagmite tower-and-dungeon combo (I’m already thinking a stalactite would have had more cinematic appeal), and retrieve the crown that can prove your employer’s godson’s noble lineage.

Right off the bat, this adventure features encounters with fire drakes and lava children! Yep, you read that right—lava children. (Pathfinder fans will remember them from Misfit Monsters Redeemed.) Clearly Dungeon is not afraid of Fiend Folio weirdness.

Beyond that, the module screams “I was written for a tournament” with the number of traps and cursed items and red herrings involved, and not in a good way. Once we get to to the dungeon levels, as a reader I’m just listlessly going room by room till we get to the Big Bad. Overall, a disappointing start.

“Assault on Eddistone Point” by Patricia Nead Elrod, AD&D, Levels 1–3

Our first adventure by a woman author is only our second adventure out of the gate! This bodes well for the rest of the series—wait. Hold on. Is that Patricia Nead as in P. N. Elrod? I’ve never read her work, but she’s helmed some anthologies that Jim Butcher’s short stories have appeared in. I’m guessing this is an early cut from her? And frankly the hand of an experienced author is all over these pages—a vast step up from the previous article (whose authors, to be fair, seem like they were still in college, according to their bios).

So first off, this is a tidy little adventure: Check out why the team sent to repair a signal tower hasn’t reported back. (Even Bryce likes it! We’ll talk about Bryce below.) The NPCs aren’t locked to one location (except the hostages), so once PCs get to the tower, it’s up to the GM to position them and assign reactions. But the cast is small enough this doesn’t seem daunting, even for new GMs, and you could run this thing in a single night.

But where it really shines, as I said, is the deft authorship. Elrod very quickly delivers a tight sketch of the location: two city-states vying for market advantage, dwarves under the mountain range in between minting the gold that moves said markets, some signal towers that exist as a compromise to keep the peace, and what the heck, also some elves in the valley between.

Now, this is basic stuff. And not even pumpkin-spice-latte basic...this is “I’ve only read The Hobbit” basic. Dwarves minting gold and elves in the woods and most of the villains are half-orcs? Even for 1986, this ought to be chucked in the bin as trite.

And yet...it’s not, because of Elrod’s deft pen. I suddenly want to find out more about these cities in the course of play—maybe one could be a good home base for the party? The interplay of politics and markets and signal fires and dwarf relations is just specific enough to feel real, while being sketchy enough it could be dropped into most game worlds. The clever chief antagonist is distinctive enough I don’t mind her stereotypical brute sidekicks, and trying to uncover her employer could lead to the next session’s adventure. It’s basic sure, but it’s Basic Rules-red-box basic. In other words, it feels classic. I wouldn’t put this in front of my grad school gaming group, necessarily, but if I got asked to run an afterschool session for some middle-schoolers wanting to learn the game? Hell yes!

At this point, I’ve probably oversold this adventure, so forgive me if you are underwhelmed by it. But I’m willing to risk a little overhyping to celebrate what can be constructed with such simple meat-and-potatoes ingredients.

And that’s not even counting the not-meat-and-potatoes elements, like the white raven who is already one of my favorite familiars ever, and the ticking clocking scenario the weather sets up (you need to beat the mercenaries before they can mess with the signals), and the names of the other watchtower peaks, each one slyly suggesting another adventure, and…yeah, I dig this.

“Grakhirt’s Lair” by John Nephew, AD&D, Levels 1–3

John Nephew wrote one of my favorite D&D supplements of all time, Tall Tales of the Wee Folk, which I won’t shut up about—I’ve even told him so on Twitter—so I don’t feel bad in saying that this entry is a total dud for me. Pretty much the only interesting thing about this adventure is that the humanoid antagonists are the Fiend Folio’s norkers, and they get the classic 1e AD&D humanoid treatment: that is, absolutely nothing sets them apart from any other humanoid out there aside from their stat blocks. You can skip this one without guilt.

(Admittedly, Nephew was also shockingly young when he did both this and TTotWF. Looking back, I really wish I’d made some different decisions re: my writing growing up—I was disengaging with the hobby just at the age when other people were hammering down the door to get published. Sigh. But hey, none of them held a Run-DMC concert or hung out with Rahzel at age 21, right? We all have our journeys.)

“The Elven Home,” by Anne Gray McReady, D&D, Levels 1–3

Our first D&D adventure! D&D, specifically BECMI D&D, was the neglected stepchild of the late ’80s and early ’90s, despite the earnest efforts of line champion Bruce Heard, Dungeon editors Roger Moore and Barbara Young, and a lot of talented freelancers. But I was a fierce D&D partisan, because it was what I was first introduced to and what I could afford, and because I loved the variety of classes and cultures the Known World allowed. For a line that often felt overlooked in terms of marketing and support, the love and talent put into the books that did exist were evident on almost every page.

So I wish I could find more to recommend “The Elven Home,” but it’s not even really an adventure or even a side trek—instead it’s a thoroughly fleshed-out NPC encounter that should lead to combat only if the PCs are particularly boorish. Like Bryce (again, see below) I could have used more whimsy and more weirdness to make these elves stand out just a bit more, though their twee personalities (more faerie than Tolkien) at least set them apart from most elves PCs run across these days. So your mileage may vary—some of you may be utterly charmed by this (I lean at least somewhat charmed), others of you very much not.

“Into the Fire,” by Grant & David Boucher, AD&D, Levels 6–10

I was expecting a lot out of this adventure—the cover dragon, Flame, was the closest thing Dungeon had to a mascot till the Adventure Path years under Paizo, and he wound up appearing in at least one or two more sequel adventures, if I recall correctly.

While I wasn’t blown away, I can see where the fondness comes from. The adventure isn’t particularly special at first. A necklace shows up that may hint at the fate of a lost prince, but following that lead means following the trail of a recently deceased knight, and—spoilers!—that trail leads back to a dragon. But then the combat with Flame is presented, and the brothers Boucher serve up a number of round-by-round tactics and dirty tricks for Flame to employ that wouldn’t feel out of place in 3.5...and I’m guessing were thrilling in 1986.

Remember, this is before dragons had varying power levels according to age—and were often asleep in their lairs to boot—so if DMs weren’t careful high-level characters would carve through them like butter. (Seriously, it was such an issue that every June Dragon Magazine would churn out articles about how to keep your dragons alive longer. They did this for decades.) It’s easy to ding the Bouchers—Bryce (see below) certainly does—for coming up with too many reasons why Flame is immune to PC powers and abilities throughout the adventure. But to me it just feels like an experienced red wyrm doing what an experienced red wyrm who wants to live would do. Flame is smart, more interested in survival than winning, and while he plans to ruin the PCs’ lives as thoroughly as possible, he’ll run if he has to. PCs who survive will be stoked to tell the tale, and that feeling will only be magnified by a massive treasure haul with a number of flavorful items and future adventure seeds of its own.

Other things to note: There’s a slanty tower that’s okay (I’m a sucker for slanty towers), but where it’s placed in the adventure, it will likely be an anticlimax. There are also some big wandering monster encounters—a score of ogres with an ogre magi, two dozen ghouls and ghasts, etc.—that I’d be interested to see how they rebalanced for Pathfinder/5e D&D. I think shows like Game of Thrones have put the fear back into random encounters with large groups of humanoids, so it would be fun to play that out even if the math says the PCs shouldn’t break a sweat.

Is this my favorite adventure? Not by a long shot. But I can see why readers were fond of it and why Flame’s legend persisted.

“Guardians of the Tomb,” by Carl Smith, AD&D, Levels 3–5

That...is some very boring architecture for a shrine. Also, why would a master thief even have a shrine? Especially in a swamp? And while I’m vague on the relative power levels of 3rd–5th-level characters in 1e AD&D, I feel like 2(x PCs+ y retainers) shadows+1d12 even more shadows = a whole damn lot of shadows to trap the PCs with behind an 18th-level wall of stone! Apparently Smith even worked for TSR at some point—did no one pull him aside and say, “Dude! Game balance!”?

I have questions.

Not only does this seem a bit extreme, at least for an unlucky 3rd-level party, it feels personal. This feels like Carl Smith had some players he wanted to teach a lesson. The bio says Carl Smith’s first love is Westerns; I’m guessing he likes the ones about the Alamo or Butch Cassidy or Unforgiven where pretty much everyone dies at the end.

Who hurt you, Carl Smith? Who hurt you?

Best Read: “Assault on Eddistone Point.”

Best Adventure I Could Actually Run with Minimal Prep: All but “Into the Fire” could probably be run after only a second read-through. But I actually want to run “Assault on Eddistone Point.”

Best Concept: As dungeon locations go, a leaning tower that’s leaning because a dragon decided the best way to kill the wizard inside was just to land on the dang thing and knock it over is a pretty good concept.

Best Monster: You always remember your first dragon. So of course, we have to give this accolade to the always-two-steps-ahead Flame.

Best NPC: I’m a fan of the crafty Vorona in “Assault on Eddistone Point,” but the tie goes to the titular elves of “The Elven Home,” who literally want to chat so badly that the party might get attacked by stirges for lingering too long. Don’t overlook the wolfwere in “Into the Flame” though— he sounds like a real a$$#ole.

Best Map: “Into the Flame”’s Lake Haven kinda-isometric hex map, though I also do like seeing the dragon’s volcano lair map with a boat right in the middle.

Best Thing Worth Stealing: A dragon’s volcano lair with a boat right in the middle.

Worst Aged: The magazine’s first adventure hadn’t even started yet and the text was reminding us to look up climbing rules and calculate the PCs’ weights. Yikes. I don’t miss 1e AD&D. Also, the term “magic-user.” Oy. So glad that’s gone. Oh, and alignment tongues! Ye gods, remember alignment tongues? No, you don’t, because they made no sense and no one over the age of 11 ever used one in their game.

What Bryce Thinks: “Wow. I had no idea that 1e adventures sucked ass so much.”

One of the only people who has done in-depth online reviews of old Dungeon issues is a dude named Bryce Lynch over at tenfootpole.org—which is hilarious, because Bryce hates old Dungeon adventures. An OSR (old-school renaissance) fan through and through, Bryce is super particular about what he considers an acceptable adventure. To his credit, he wants adventures able to be easily run at the table, but he also loathes boxed read-aloud text, long backstory, and pretty much anything he regards as fluff. Which means Dungeon, even at this primordial stage of the game, drives him around the twist (as our Brit readers might say)—and it’s only going to get worse. Even so, I’m going to check in on his reviews as we go along, because his laser focus on the GM’s experience at the table is a good yin to my all-about-the-fluff/inspiration yang.

But for what it’s worth...we pretty much line up on our faves for this issue. Go us! Ditto Adam Perdona, whose tastes also seem to line up with mine and who also liked “The Elven Home.”

So, Is It Worth It?: Okay so let’s say you play Pathfinder, 5e D&D, or some other contemporary system. Should you run out and try to find a physical copy of Dungeon #1?

Well...aside from the collector’s value (it is a #1 after all)...probably not. There’s nothing here that screams “Pull me off the shelf”—what pleasures are inside will also be in the PDF.

What this issue does offer is a back-to-basics approach to adventure construction and worldbuilding that I think we sometimes need. Sometimes all you need is some dwarves, some elves, and a dragon. Sometimes we need to forget secret societies and trade disputes and just help a king who’s lost his prince. Think of Dungeon #1—specifically “Assault on Eddistone Point” and “Into the Flame”—like one of those articles you sometimes see in GQ or Esquire: “How to Grill a Steak. No, put down the pesto, put down the chutney, put down the coffee dry rub and remoulade. You’re going to grab some salt and pepper and maaaybe some butter and We Are Going to Grill a Goddamn STEAK.”

If you want fusion sushi, look elsewhere. Are you in the mood for steak? Look for these two adventures.

Random Thoughts:

Editor Roger Moore’s voice in the intro is so stiff—he would be way more assured and relaxed in the ’90s.

It’s a huge nostalgia trip seeing maps in “1 square = 10’” after years of 5’ squares in 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder.

Speaking of maps, they’re still pretty rudimentary here—it is 1986, after all. But I’m pleased that we are immediately getting side or isometric views of some of these locations (especially the towers) to give us a better sense of what these structures look like. I’m a big fan of that.

One of the weird things about published D&D, AD&D, and Pathfinder settings is that, for an ostensibly Middle Ages-inspired hobby, most show surprisingly little interest in the standard medieval trappings. Kings and princes are rare, city-states are the norm rather than feudal kingdoms, and even knights and castles have largely given way to mercenaries and manor houses. I think there are tons of reasons for this—questing knight tropes feeling stale or immature, the gradual shift of the hobby’s default assumptions to early Renaissance and the Mediterranean rather than medieval England, more opportunities for political conflict but with more manageable stakes... (And let’s face it: high-level PCs just love regicide. Oligarchs don’t have targets on their backs the way kings do.) Anyway, I bring all this up because early Dungeon is clearly not afraid of kings, queens, princes, or knights. If your tastes are more King Arthur & Prince Hal than Diplomats & Doges, you might want to check these early issues out.

Comfy rooms that make you sleepy are an overdone trope in this era.

Leaning/slanty towers also get a lot of love in Dungeon—perhaps too much—but I will never not love them.

If a description, even if just meant for the GM, is going to use a simile that takes me out of the game world such as “like Spanish bayonet,” I’d prefer it walled off in parentheses.

A lot of the art inside this issue (especially James Holloway’s) would be reused again and again in the pages of Dragon, including for subscription cards, the No-SASE Ogre, and even “The Voyage of the Princess Ark.”

Notable Ads: An ad for Lankhmar, City of Adventure, for you classic sword & sorcery fans, and the Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide for AD&D.

(Any fans of the DSG out there? I’ve always heard it, like, laid the groundwork for what we think of as the Underdark. But every time I’ve seen a used copy on the shelf I’ve opened to pages and pages of rules about mining and smelting and I’ve closed it in horror.)

This Month in Dragon: Dragon #113 offers a cardboard dragon (assuming you have a physical copy or can get creative with the PDF), a tour of Hades, fiction by Harry Turtledove, and some nasty Gamma World robots. Dragon #114 serves up the witch NPC, the elven cavalier class, and Marvel’s Inhumans.

#daily bestiary #patch has issues #pathfinder #paizo #3.5 #dungeons & dragons #dungeons and dragons #d&d #dnd #dungeon #dungeon magazine #ad&d #becmi

101 notes · View notes

luceabc · 6 years ago

Photo

Hace unos días estuve en @culturplaza, con el periodista @alvarogdevis. Después de una mañana muy agradable, escribió el artículo " La Valencia de Luce". Me gustó mucho leerlo. Podéis leerlo aquí también: https://valenciaplaza.com/la-valencia-de-luce

A few days ago I was in @culturplaza, with the journalist @alvarogdevis. After a very nice morning, he wrote the article "La Valencia de Luce". I really liked reading it. You can also read it here: https://valenciaplaza.com/la-valencia-de-luce

...................................

From the centre to the peripheries, the artist analyses the geography of his works

5/12/2018 - VALÈNCIA: On the table, two maps: one tourist map that lists only the most attractive neighbourhoods in the centre for outsiders, and which can be obtained free of charge from the tourist office of the València Town Hall; the other, bought from a bookshop, shows neighbourhoods such as Sant Marcel-lí or La Torre, although it still hasn't been discovered that road on which, decades ago, cars would pass and latch with terror. València is a centre but also a periphery. It is aesthetic and unsightly, mural and urban art, alleys and avenues, welcome and hostility. This duality is well known by Luce, one of the artists who has left the most mark on the local urban ecosystem. He sits for Cultur Plaza around a table, and on top of it, two maps: one tourist and the other bought in a bookstore. The talk is relaxed, and seeks to understand the totality of the artist's work, and also his relationship with the city and the people who inhabit it.

Although it seems that the city is full of his name, in reality the map on which to find his works does not even cover a third of Valencia. Lucas, who is his real name and who is not disgusted but quite the opposite, grew up in Campanar and his life has made him spend a lot of time at El Carmen. When Lucas became Luce, his field was graffiti and his habitat the center of Valencia. At that time it was more a question of visibility than militancy. The spray paint was expensive, and if each firm exhausted it, at least you could see it. It was then when the four letters began to appear in the surroundings of the Central Market, by the district of El Carmen, in Viveros, or in front of the discotheque La 3. The price of sprays also provoked the change of support and experimented to pass from the painting to the wood for simple economy, picking up pallets that were being found. This would be a non-return point and reached its peak last year, when she decided to study Carpentry. The habit doesn't make the monk, the economy does, although it's fair to say that making the signature in volume was something that Lucas had already seen in artists from other cities. Luce then became one more element of the landscape of the center. First in walls and later in blinds. "Once, I did a wooden installation around the Town Hall square during the mascletà," he says.

Javier Abarca says in his explanation of the difference between urban and mural art, he explains that this first is a series of actions (and therefore decisions) that "make visible the determination and work ethic of the artist, and gives shape to a particular strategy for the propagation of works through the landscape and over time," thus taking distance from muralism, which seeks to make a piece itself the object of admiration and tourism. Luce discovered, in a kind of unintended but anecdotal play on words, the lampposts. They were an architectural element that plagued València: they were very high, they were distributed in series through the city, they released an orange light and above all, they were maintained in time by the disinterest they generated. The posters, the stickers and the neighbourhood ephemeris were maintained and Lucas saw there a way to stay, as well as economising (of course) the painting spray, which was no longer going to be used for a single signature but for dozens of them. "People didn't ask how I managed to sign on such a curved surface," he says, adding in detail, "but anyone who knows how a template works knows that it's very difficult to place it in spaces like this. I solved it through magnetic templates that stuck to the lantern, and that's why many signatures appear on metal surfaces. Again, experimentation and trial and error discovered an evolution that would be crucial for Luce.

In reality, and without sounding pretentious because in reality it is all about the opposite, the streetlamps have been the great element with which Luce has communicated with the city, because it has been this work that has managed to communicate with the artist back. How? Lucas, who València made it in Valenbisi first and then on motorbike, began to find signatures where he knew he had not put them. The lampposts were renewed and then they changed places, carrying that feeling of degradation with them, because of a lamppost it is important its excessive height and its way of giving light, and the support turns out to be the least. Then he began to introduce the name of the streets, or make series to tell something that at the time seemed to make sense, but whose transformation resignified it. From the beginning of this stage, the geographies had taken a 180-degree turn, and where before their walks ended in signatures in blinds at the Mercat Central or at Avenida Blasco Ibáñez, now the work is sought to be done on the periphery: Marxalenes, Ciudad Fallera, Sant Marcel-lí... The northern neighbourhoods, from Orriols to Campanar are his chosen settings, but neither Cabanyal nor Russafa, which have not "stimulated him so much". Those places where Valencians lived who felt the centre as another city, a cosmovision of the city polarised by the environment, where the sense of the civic and the illegal were "something else".

When the conversation focuses on his work outside the city, and serving with his work in the urban peripheries of Valencia, Lucas says that it is important to soak up the space because "there is a certain point of solidarity with the space when you place a piece of urban art there. And indeed, one of the objectives of Lucas' work, through Luce, is to contribute "to a flow of people from the centre who know, through the signatures, places that they would never otherwise discover, and to bring the urban centre closer to those people who in the street of San Vicente Ferrer saw more distance than a couple of kilometres in a straight line. Moreover, where people believe that "València is full of Luce", there is usually a partial vision of the city, which has a certain geographical logic if you move through certain neighbourhoods; however, the signatures are hidden in bridges, alleys and places that people do not feel like going through first.

Now the streetlamps begin to have a much more functional size and the light is whiter, and that is a political option that the artist applauds. In this way, the author takes responsibility for that city that he explores day by day, not in a sectarian or partisan way, but in a conscious and committed way. On foot, by bike, by motorbike or by car. It is a matter of searching the street with affection instead of treating it as a simple step from one place to another. That's why Luce has embraced València, and that's why he has embraced València.

In this continuous evolution and empirical exploration of how far his work goes, Lucas defines his relationship with the firm Luce "like a ball that you push and it gets so big that in the end you realize that you're running away from it with fear of being swallowed". And that's perhaps what happened with the four letters in black. Lucas wants to be Lucas, not the artist behind Luce's mask. That's why some time ago he proposed to stop signing like that, even made a promise of handshake. And although it was of little use, it is true that in recent years has been exploring other possibilities. Now he also leaves messages behind luminous advertising posters, which are as careful to like on his face as they are to forget his cross. He also began to sign with other variants, or has labeled some walls of shops with their own names. The next day, he likes to go and have a coffee or a beer there and find out what they thought of strangis. Most have chosen to keep it.

Beyond València and beyond personalisms, Lucas has also worked with other artists such as Eltono or Iván Pérez. He has also gone beyond the state territory, and just now he was coming from a small retreat in Switzerland. What do you think has been your contribution to the local urban art ecosystem? And the answer is so obvious that not even all the humility that surrounds the person manages to placate a generous summary of his career. A brand that has not sought to be, a network of works that are urban art and not murals, a vital exploration of the city that after eight years, now seems finite. It is the final touch of an hour and a half of conversation with two maps on the table, the tourist without scratching and the one bought in a bookstore with areas (perhaps) still to explore.

2 notes · View notes

noloveforned · 4 years ago

Audio

it's friday so time to wrap up our week with a fresh new episode of no love for ned on wlur at 4pm. tune in or catch up with last week's show below!

no love for ned on wlur – january 8th, 2021 from 4-6pm

artist // track // album // label elvis costello featuring iggy pop // no flag (en français) // no flag (en français) digital single // concord the cranium // watch who they beat, watch who they eat // a new music for a new kitchen // slowdime chubby and the gang // blue ain't my colour // speed kills // partisan * the chives // don't leave me alone // the chives cassette // super wimpy punch the lopez // hobby lobby // heart punch // skr permits // world in numbers // time permits cassette // tenth court chronophage // any junkyard dreams // th'pig'kiss'd album // cleta patra tiña // golden rope // positive mental health music // speedy wunderground * the high water marks // annual rings // ecstasy rhymes // minty fresh katy j. pearson // fix me up // return // heavenly * quivers // near wild heaven // out of time // turntable kitchen young guv // maybe i should luv somebody else // (bandcamp mp3) // (unreleased) little gold // friends are hard to bury // wake up and die right // science project * herman düne // la blues // notes from vinegar hill // bb*island adrianne lenker // heavy focus // songs // 4ad * matthew hayes and charlie perry featuring aarti jadu // you care i know // barricade // bedroom suck ana roxanne // suite pour l'invisible // because of a flower // kranky ashley paul // little butterfly // ray // slip black unity trio // birth, life and death // al-fatihah (remastered) // gotta groove miyumi project // dinner plate, diner dish // best of the miyumi project // fpe the art ensemble of chicago // one for jarman // certain blacks // America the blackbyrds // funky junkie // the blackbyrds // fantasy aesop rock // jumping coffin // spirit world field guide // rhymesayers * sault // i just want to dance // untitled (rise) // forever living originals shameika featuring fiona apple // shameika said // shameika said digital single // charmed life profligate // just a few things wrong // too numb to know // wharf cat the kitchenettes // engine driver // mummy, mummy please look at me- a tribute to the television personalities cassette // dandy boy anna mcclellan // raisin // i saw first light // father/daughter * sad eyed beatniks // west of twin peaks // places of interest // paisley shirt all ashore! // charlie's mast // stayin' afloat // jigsaw typical girls // girl like you // typical girls 7" ep // happiest place

* denotes music on wlur’s playlist

#wlur #radio shows

0 notes

chicagoindiecritics · 5 years ago

Text

New from Robert Daniels on 812 Film Reviews: 812filmreviews Best Documentaries of 2019

Last week, I released my list of the 25 Best Feature films of 2019. There, I explained that I typically do a separate rundown for documentaries. I have found that most who choose to include both forms of filmmaking in their end of the year lists tend to only include two or three entries for docs. The rest are naturally shortchanged in lieu of narrative features. Rather than make such a grave error, I made another rundown solely for documentaries.

And for good reason. 2019 witnessed stories covering a soul legend, space explorers, a honey maker, sexual predators, an ambulance chasing family, and a tragic death. I couldn’t imagine not highlighting every single one of these singular films. Here, are the Best Documentaries of 2019.

Amazing Grace

In 1972, Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa and Tootsie) was enlisted for a once in a lifetime opportunity. Accompanied by the Southern California Community Choir, the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin recorded her live album Amazing Grace at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Pollack came to record the event for a later concert film. However, technical errors caused the audio to separate from its images. Much as he tried, the famed director couldn’t rectify his mistake. It took decades before editor Jeff Buchanan to retool the footage. The result, transports us back into time to witness an artist at the height of her powers, and for us to shout “praise be.”

Where to watch: Hulu

Apollo 11

I caught Apollo 11 at the tail end of Sundance 2019. By that point, the festival was ablaze with excitement for the film. Usually I chalk up such enthusiasm as festival hype, but Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11 is far more. Another instance of salvaging and restoring footage, the 70mm film follows Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins on their journey from earth to the moon. Without interviews or recreations, the editing by Miller makes for an exhilarating journey and a triptych portrait of a time gone by: from fashions to hopes, to unbridled confidence.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime ($3.99)

Black Mother

With 2015’s Field Niggas, Khalik Allah seemed to rewrite the rules of cinema in a poetic rendering of Harlem street life. However, his follow-up Black Mother confirms the director as a visionary in the medium. Set in Jamaica, the highly personal film (Allah is of Jamaican descent) is as much an ode to the people of the island, than as an individual’s search for identity, and an immersive examination of the country’s history. Lyrical and spiritual, Black Mothers wanders through the travails of Jamaica’s Black women—some of them sex workers, as they negotiate prices and receive ultrasounds. Allah’s filmic essay documents a struggle against arduous economic circumstances, along with a deeply moving religiosity, which communes with gorgeous shots of the Jamaican landscape for an evocative yet powerful reconstruction of Black existence.

Where to watch: Criterion Channel

The Black Godfather

Kingmakers are rare today. Before partisan political maps, 24/7 news coverage, and the internet, influencers could raise unknowns to grand political and artistic heights. One of the rare remaining examples is Clarence Avant—founder of Sussex and Taboo records, concert promoter for Michael Jackson, and fund-raiser for Democratic politicians. In The Black Godfather, Reginald Hudlin follows the straight-talking expletive-spitting “Godfather of Black music” as he recounts his life and witnesses his influence. More than a profile of a behind the scenes legend, the film demonstrates the continual need and joy that comes from Black men and women raising each other up.

Where to watch: Netflix

The Cave

At AFI Fest, I declared the Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad (Last Men in Aleppo) the most important documentarian of his generation. With America interested in the region yet disinterested in its people, Fayyad has consistently provided one of the few eyewitness testimonials of a silent tragedy. This time, he profiles Amani Ballor —a female doctor and head of a hospital in Ghouta. With medicine in short supply, and constant air raids from Russia, Amani must also contend with a still-sexist and religious definition of a woman’s role. Her strength and devotion to her patients, doctors, and nurses forces her to make the most of what’s available. To these ends, the hospital also operates in a makeshift cave. The result shows courageous men and women trying to help those in the most dire of needs even as the world doesn’t seem to be listening.

For Sama

Like The Cave, Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts’ For Sama is a brutal unflinching look inside the Syrian War. An intimate documentary, Waad dutifully films herself over the course of five years: from marriage to the birth of her daughter, during the siege of Aleppo. A tale of resiliency, Waad captures moments of pure disrepair: the death of a child on an operating table, and instances of hope—the belief in a cause. She also documents a burgeoning revolution, passionate protests for freedom, and the final embers of its fire snuffed out through betrayal. Determined, touching, and sobering Waad elucidates how a country descends into horror—and the multiple ways its citizens try to hold their lives and their nation together.

Honeyland

In a remote village of North Macedonia exists Hatidze Muratova, a beekeeper living in another era. Between the ruins of homes, she lives with her 85-year old bedridden mother. Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov’s Honeyland sees Muratova’s way of life threatened as outsiders begin to encroach upon her tiny village. Human greed, loss, and an apathetic mother nature nearly break Muratova in this poignant film about surviving through perseverance—even when the honey turns sour.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime ($5.99)

Leaving Neverland

Revered as the “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson lived a life that seemed outside the bounds of reality. Wildly famous, incredibly rich, and extremely guarded, any peak into his existence felt performative. In this regard, there was no greater nor more horrifying stage than Neverland Ranch, a theme park and compound that espoused all of Jackson’s cruelly ironic fantasies. Even so, his secrets unraveled when he twice went through sexual molestation trials (1994 and 2005). Dan Reed through the testimonies of Wade Robson and James Safechuck exposes Jackson’s acts of grooming, manipulation, and statutory rape with two young boys in a two-part documentary that serves as an uneasy study of a sexual predator that’ll make you never want to listen to another Michael Jackson song again.

Where to watch: HBO Go

Love, Antosha

On June 19, 2016, Anton Yelchin’s jeep rolled down his driveway and unsuspectingly pinned him against a pillar resulting in the end of his life. While it might sound vacuous to say loss and grief are never easy, when tragedy strikes at 27 the statement rings devastatingly true. In this regard, Garret Price’s Love, Antosha is a thoughtful memorial to the young performer. Featuring interviews with friends and co-stars, the film recounts the actor’s struggles with cystic fibrosis as he crafted his promising career. While Price mines personal stories that reflect the unique and brilliant individual Yelchin was, the most poignant moments arrive through interviewing the performer’s still heartbroken parents. Love, Antosha isn’t just a film about a talented actor’s untimely death, it’s about the grief that accompanies the loss of a son and a friend.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime ($3.99)

Midnight Family

In Mexico City, there are many independent ambulance drivers, all racing to the next accident. If they’re lucky enough to find someone in need, they can take them to an independent hospital where they receive a reward. I had worried that Midnight Family would be forgotten after Sundance 2019. Thankfully, the Academy Awards shortlisted Luke Lorentzen’s harrowing but conflicting portrait of a family operating a private ambulance in the heart of Mexico City for their Best Documentary Feature category. The Ochoas are the perfection subjects for the film because they’re uniquely aware of how their precarious financial situation and business might be dangerous to their patients too. But in an economically desperate environment, which offers few alternatives, they work to survive to the next day. Heroes and profiteers at once, Lorentzen documents the difficult results of economic disparity through the Ochoas in an incredible moralistic crucible.

Where to watch: In Theaters January 8th

One Child Nation

From 1979 to 2015, in an effort to curb rampant population growth, China instituted the one-child policy. For fear of forced-sterilization by the government, families who conceived more than one child would either need to abandon or abort them. In a defiance of censorship and government intimidation with One Child Nation Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang interview family members, former-party officials, and parents affected by the decree. Graphic and distressing, Wang discovers lost generations hidden in the policy’s victims, for a startling picture of state-sanctioned murder.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime (with subscription)

Surviving R. Kelly

Leaving Neverland wasn’t the only film that exposed a molester. Like Jackson, R. Kelly’s history of grooming and statuary rape (in this case of underage women) was widely known. In 2002, the singer was charged with multiple counts of child pornography but it 2008 was acquitted on every charged. Moreover, in 2017 there were allegations of Kelly running a sex cult. It wasn’t until Nigel Bellis and Astral Finnie’s 6-part Lifetime docuseries that walls caved in on the singer. Multiple survivors spoke on record about Kelly’s abuses in a harrowing take down of a sexual predator. A flash point, Surviving R. Kelly demonstrates the power of a documentary to institute change,

Where to watch: Netflix

That’s it for my 2019 lists. Once again, thank you for following along. From here on out, it’ll only be 2020 movies. Look out for my Sundance coverage coming soon!

from 812filmReviews https://ift.tt/2umZs04 via IFTTT

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2QUndUI via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress #CIFCC #film critics #movies #film #Chicago

0 notes

mariatramp56-blog · 5 years ago

Text

The “R” in Notorious RBG Stands for “Realness”

The moment could hardly be riper, the stage better set for “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” a new multimedia retrospective based on the eponymous best-selling book, now on view at the Skirball Cultural Center. Several years after a Tumblr launched the Supreme Court justice’s alter ego, the ensuing media frenzy has yet to peak, with a feature biopic due in December. At 85, Justice Ginsburg is marking her 25th year on the bench, defying puny mortal conventions (you know — sleep, age) and embracing, at least nominally, her role as millennial superhero.

Her illustrious career and recent celebrity would be reason enough to be fascinated with RBG; but midterms are upon us, and indignation over the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is still fresh. That provides a certain urgency, and an electrifying lens through which to view the historical forces that shaped Ginsburg as a legal architect of the women’s movement, and a justice attuned to righteous understandings of equality and inclusivity. As Americans witness the erosion of fundamental human rights protecting minorities, workers, LGBTQ folks, immigrants, women and the environment, many look to Ginsburg for guidance.

Part civics lesson, part immersive biography, the Skirball exhibition moves chronologically through Ginsburg’s life and work, organized by titles and motifs borrowed from the book. “We wanted to speak to the visual language that the book created, so we’ve lifted some of those elements,” explained Skirball associate curator Cate Thurston, who created the show with Notorious RBG book authors Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik.

The exhibition also borrows a lace pattern from the book, modeled on one of Justice Ginsburg’s jabots — the decorative collars she uses both as accessory and mood telegraph. “This is my dissenting collar,” she told a CBS reporter in a TV segment shot in her chambers. “It’s black,” she said dryly. “And grim.” As Ginsburg moved away from quiet, congenial decorum and into notoriety as a vocal dissenter over the last decade or so, the jabots have become a charged symbol, tidily expressing certain complexities of female strength, and spawning marketable pop-feminist slogans.

EXPAND

Courtroom sketch of Justice Ginsburg’s dissent in Shelby County v. Holder, June 25, 2013. Sketch by Art Lien

Courtesy the Skirball

One particular RBG dissent, read aloud from the bench after the court took a vicious swipe at the Voting Rights Act (Shelby County v. Holder, 2013), inspired Knizhnik, then a law student, to create the Tumblr that would launch a thousand tote bags.

“She was sending a message to her fellow colleagues but also to all of us,” said Knizhnik, now a public defender in New York City. Beyond the outrage, she recalled an optimism in Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion, which informed the RBG Tumblr as “a place for both dissent and celebration.”

“I think Justice Ginsburg has a reputation for being a very serious person, and when Shana dubbed her the Notorious RBG that was perhaps part of the joke, that she was an unlikely person to be paired with a gangster rapper,” Carmon, a senior correspondent for New York Magazine, told L.A. Weekly. “But in fact Justice Ginsburg has a very impish sense of humor, and she’s totally loved being notorious.”

Ari Richter, RBG Tattoo II, 2018

Courtesy of the artist

Artifacts peppered among the simulations bear witness to systemic discrimination, coloring events that shaped the kind of career Ginsburg would pursue — as a young Jewish girl in Brooklyn known as Kiki, as one of a handful of women in law school, as a civil servant in Oklahoma, where she was demoted for being pregnant and where institutional discrimination against Native Americans provoked in her a sense of the broader injustices faced by minorities.

Love notes from her husband, Martin D. Ginsburg (“Marty”), and his glass-encased cooking utensils are tucked in the canary yellow kitchen, and there is a closet with black robes near an Instagram-friendly replica of the bench. It’s like the dollhouse version of one of the country’s most shrouded sanctums of power.

Knizhnik said she encountered Ginsburg’s warmth and generosity as she dug further into archival research. “That is something again that is just a part of her story — how much she didn’t act alone. She was part of a larger movement, a fight for equality that so many people had a part in. Her ability to keep in touch with all the people who have helped her achieve what she has is truly inspiring,” Knizhnik said.

To that end, a wall is dedicated to lawyer and civil rights activist Pauli Murray, along with ephemera situating her as Ginsburg’s ideological predecessor, working at the intersection of race and gender discrimination, and laying the groundwork for Ginsburg’s use of the 14th Amendment to argue for women’s equality.

In her first Supreme Court brief, as an ACLU attorney in 1971, Ginsburg prevailed in Reed v. Reed, in which the court struck down a state law automatically favoring males as estate administrators, and opened the door to challenging discrimination on the basis of sex. Although they hadn’t worked on it directly, she added Murray’s and ACLU colleague Dorothy Kenyon’s names to the brief, acknowledging their contributions, in an act curators posit as expressly feminist.

You can trace Ginsburg’s meticulous approach through detailed displays and listening stations illustrating pivotal cases, including several anti-discrimination cases she argued on behalf of men. And there is the one that got away: In Struck v. Secretary of Defense (1972), Ginsburg almost got to make a broader case about reproductive autonomy as a condition of equality, representing a pregnant Air Force Captain who did not wish to either have an abortion or quit, the two options available to her at the time. In her view, this made a far stronger foundation than the privacy argument that determined Roe v. Wade and spawned decades of tumult. Ginsburg’s structural critique of Roe initially made her unpopular among women’s rights groups.

Maira Kalman, Ruth as a Young Girl, 2009

Courtesy Julie Saul Gallery, New York

There is a collage of popular images, a costume from the forthcoming feature film On the Basis of Sex — and a few fine art pieces as coda: woven dissent collars by artist Roxana Alger Geffen and small portraits by Maira Kalman and Ari Richter, who is married to Carmon. Ginsburg officiated at their wedding.

Notorious RBG is super lovable on a plain human level, too. But as Jill Lepore recently wrote in The New Yorker, trivialization is not tribute: “Ginsburg was and remains a scholar, an advocate, and a judge of formidable sophistication, complexity, and, not least, contradiction and limitation. It is no kindness to flatten her into a paper doll and sell her as partisan merch.”

I asked Knizhnik and Carmon what they thought of that kind of commodification — mugs, pillows, pins, tote bags — going on at the Tumblr and in the Skirball gift shop. Slightly taken aback, both stressed that the phenomenon was spontaneous. “For us it was never about selling mugs. It was about telling the story of a life. And from the beginning Shana’s Tumblr was really substantive — it had jokes but also had archival and legal excerpts that introduced a broader audience to Justice Ginsburg’s work and life,” Carmon said.

“We took this really seriously as a project that was an opportunity to teach a broader audience about her work, about the women’s movement and about the court. So our opinion is that the court belongs to everybody, and we’re all affected by its work. And that if Notorious RBG is the way that people get drawn in, it doesn’t cheapen it, it makes it more inclusive,” Carmon said. But, Knizhnik added, “I think it’s better that people are [buying] cool feminist T-shirts and mugs and totes than not, or than something else. The fact that people are talking about the Supreme Court — that’s not something I remember growing up.”

Backsliding on civil rights can come incrementally — or in the sudden catastrophic blows to which we’ve grown accustomed. I share the curators’ hope that people will walk away with a sense of the long game, and an appreciation for Ginsburg’s polite persistence through obstacles and triumphs large and small. Through two bouts with cancer, the death of her husband of 50 years, and calls to step down while President Obama was still in office so he could appoint a liberal replacement, Ginsburg hasn’t missed a day in court. What better way to remind us what’s at stake, than a glimpse of how hard it was to get here?

“The Notorious RBG” is on view at the Skirball through March 10.

EXPAND

Roxana Alfer Geffen, Dissent Collar #11, 2016

Courtesy of the artist

Source: https://www.laweekly.com/arts/the-r-in-notorious-rbg-stands-for-realness-10016499

0 notes

i-see-everthing · 7 years ago

Photo

Kathy Griffin's art display was tasteless just like most of her comedy. I just want to know where were the angry conservatives when the tea party was displaying these signs & effigies of Obama. Where were the angry conservatives when Ted Nugent was spewing hatred towards Obama. Not too classy. Here are some of Ted Nugent's comments. Here Are 13 Other Repugnant Comments Ted Nugent Should Apologize For February 21, 2014 2:12 PM EST National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent has offered a disingenuous and tepid apology after being condemned across partisan lines for his description of President Obama as a "subhuman mongrel." The apology only came after Nugent attacked his critics on Twitter and elsewhere, at one point comparing CNN to a top Nazi propagandist. But while Nugent has taken some measure of responsibility for his "subhuman mongrel" remark, the comment is just a drop in the bucket compared to his long history of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, animus towards immigrants, and propensity to use violence-tinged language. Nugent's racist characterization of the president received widespread attention and created problems for the campaign of Republican Texas gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott after Abbott tapped Nugent to participate in campaign events. Appearing on The Ben Ferguson Show, Nugent apologized, though "not necessarily to the president" for his "subhuman mongrel" comment, then attacked the president as a lying, law-breaking racist who engages in Nazi tactics. Nugent said he "did cross the line" and "I do apologize, not necessarily to the president, but on behalf of much better men than myself" such as Gov. Rick Perry, Greg Abbott, Rep. Louie Gohmert, Texas Republican Sid Miller, and Sen. Ted Cruz. Nugent added: "I apologize for using the street fighter terminology of 'subhuman mongrel' instead of just using more understandable language such as 'violator of his oath to the Constitution,' the liar that he is." Nugent continued to attack Obama, claiming that the president -- as evidenced by the "Trayvon Martin situation" -- "judges by color of skin instead of content of character." Ferguson later asked Nugent if he was offering "a real apology" to the president. Nugent simply responded, "yes," and then moved on to claiming Obama is violating "so many laws" and has an "anti-American" agenda. Nugent also connected his opponents to the Nazis, claiming that the left is "such masters of smoke and mirrors, and deception and fraud and the Saul Alinsky, Joseph Goebbels, you know, propaganda ministry." Regardless of the sincerity of his apology for the "subhuman mongrel" remark, here are just a few examples of the worst comments that Nugent has yet to answer for: 1. Nugent On Then-First Lady Hillary Clinton: "You Probably Can't Use The Term 'Toxic Cunt' In Your Magazine, But That's What She Is." From a 1994 interview with Denver, CO music magazine Westword: About Hillary Clinton: "You probably can't use the term `toxic cunt' in your magazine, but that's what she is. Her very existence insults the spirit of individualism in this country. This bitch is nothing but a two-bit whore for Fidel Castro." [Westword, 7/27/94] 2. Nugent: "Piece Of Shit" Obama Should "Suck On My Machine Gun." From a 2007 concert where an assault-rifle-wielding Nugent also referred to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as "a worthless bitch": Obama, he's a piece of shit, and I told him to suck on my machine gun. Let's hear it for him. And then I was in New York. I said, "Hey, Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch. Since I'm in California, how about [Senator] Barbara Boxer [D-CA], she might want to suck on my machine gun. And [Senator] Dianne Feinstein [D-CA], ride one of these you worthless whore. Any questions? [Ted Nugent via LiveLeak.com, accessed 10/1/12] 3. Nugent: Deceased Florida Teenager Travyon Martin Was A "Dope Smoking, Racist Gangsta Wannabe." [Rare, 7/14/13] 4. Nugent's Reprehensible Commentary On The African American Community. During a 2013 appearance on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones radio show, Nugent claimed that African-Americans could fix "the black problem" if they just put their "heart and soul into being honest, law-abiding, [and] delivering excellence at every move in your life." [Genesis Communication Network, The Alex Jones Show, 7/16/13, via Media Matters] 5. More Inexcusable Commentary From Nugent On The African-American Community. In a WND column, Nugent wrote that his claim Travyon Martin was a violent person was evidence of "the same mindless tendency to violence we see in black communities across America." [WND, 7/24/13] 6. Nugent Compares Obama To A Nazi. During a March 2013 appearance on 9-11 truther Pete Santilli's radio show, Nugent compared Obama to a Nazi who kills his Jewish neighbors, stating the president is like "a German in 1938 pretending to respect the Jews and then going home and putting on his brown shirt and forcing his neighbors onto a train to be burned to death." [Media Matters, 3/22/13] 7. Nugent: Civil Rights Leaders Jackson And Sharpton Speak In "Ebonic Mumbo-Jumbo." In a column for birther website WND, Nugent claimed that if a Republican president had the same drone policy as the Obama administration, "Jesse Jackson and Al Not-So-Sharpton would be lisping their ebonic mumbo-jumbo that the policy and the president are racist and bigoted." [Media Matters, 2/11/13] 8. Nugent: "I'm Beginning To Wonder If It Would Have Been Best Had The South Won The Civil War." From a column for The Washington Times: Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I'm beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War. Our Founding Fathers' concept of limited government is dead. [The Washington Times, 7/6/12] 9. Nugent: Real Americans Are "Working Hard, Playing Hard, White Motherfucking Shit Kickers Who Are Independent." From a 1995 interview with Bob Mack of Grand Royal magazine: NUGENT: You know how many times I've watched MTV? Once in my fucking life. BOB MACK: You got to be on top of these things. NUGENT: I don't have to. You know what I'm on top of? I'm on top of a real America with working hard, playing hard, white motherfucking shit kickers, who are independent and get up in the morning. MACK: Aren't there any blacks? NUGENT: Show me one. Show me one. [Grand Royal magazine via YouTube, accessed 2/21/14] 10. Nugent: African-American Rappers Appearing On MTV Are "Big Uneducated Greasy Black Mongrels." From a recording posted on YouTube, supposedly "from his radio show [in] 1994": NUGENT: MTV is a liberal lump of hippy snot. They are embarrassing. Those big uneducated greasy black mongrels on there, they call themselves rap artists. Excuse me? During a bad bloody case of diarrhea, I got more soul than those guys do at the peak of their life. That's not music. What do you slap some electronic noisemaker and then grunt to it? And this is like soul? No, excuse me, you want to know what soul is? No wonder James Brown went to prison, no wonder Wilson Pickett went to jail, no wonder Chuck Barry went to jail. They're embarrassed by their black brothers. That's not soul. That's not cool. That's stupid. [Ted Nugent via YouTube, accessed 2/21/14] 11. Nugent: "If Islam Is A Religion Of Peace, Then I'm A Malnourished, Tofu-Eating Anti-Hunter." From a 2010 Washington Times column addressing controversy over the planned construction of an Islamic community center near Ground Zero in New York City: Killing more Muslim terror punks would make the world a more peaceful place to live -- and safer for more Muslims -- and we all know Islam is the religion of peace. Yeah, right. Let's call a spade a spade here. If Islam is the religion of peace, then I'm a malnourished, tofu-eating anti-hunter. [The Washington Times, 8/19/10] 12. Nugent On Homosexuality: "How Can We Offend Guys That Actually Have Anal Sex?" During a 2000 interview on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes: I got to tell you, guys that have sex with each other's anal cavities -- how can we offend guys that actually have anal sex? Don't you think that might offend some of us who think that's despicable?" [Hannity and Colmes via Nexis, 6/29/00] 13. Ted Nugent On Suspected Undocumented Immigrants: "I'd Like To Shoot Them Dead." From a 2008 appearance on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes: ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: You want to kill on sight anybody who illegally comes into the country. Just shoot them, right? NUGENT: If they're armed, and they're attacking our country, yes. COLMES: Well, they wouldn't be attacking. You don't know if someone coming over the border -- would you just shoot anybody coming over the border who you suspect of being illegal? NUGENT: In an unauthorized entry, armed, like they are right now, invading our country, I'd like to shoot them dead.

#donald trump #current president #president #conservatives #liberals #progressive #trump supporters #Americans

1 note · View note