#as my first major convention and solo trip

[screamingatmyfandom]

Y’know, I think the best celebrity interaction I’ve ever had was meeting Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon in Doctor Who) at a convention photoshoot.

He was so friendly and liked chatting with people during photos, so I think everyone walked away with at least 1 or 2 candid shots as well as the professional one. Later in the con he joined the cosplay crowds with his 2nd Doctor outfit. He cracked jokes with everyone and I felt completely comfortable talking with him, which is wild when you have social anxiety.

I hope when I’m that age that I have that much joy and life and mischief in me as he does, and that I also make people smile and laugh and relax. ^_^

[writingoddess1125]

Nerdy S/O 🎮 📖 🧛

The guys and their uniquely nerdy S/Os who they love!

Soap 🧼, Ghost 👻 , König 👑 x GNREADER

Soap + Cosplayer 🧛

• Johnny had met you when you were both at a bar, You typically werent too into the bar scene but it had lead you to meet the man of your dreams.

• Afterall who could resist that Scottish Charm?

• It had been 3 years of bliss shared between the two of you-

• Johnny knew from the beginning you were- quite the Nerd. He found it cute however! Even if he didn't understand it fully-

• Often getting back from deployment in the nice flat the two of you shared to see you dancing around listening to music while stitching some sort of fabric together.

• Johnny spent hours with you, Enjoying the craft of building your costumes and often wanting to join in the fun. Even if he knew nothing of the media this was involved in.

• "What is this costume for again?" He asked setting down the freshly cut foam to the side while you glued your peices down on some fabric-

• "This my Darling is a costume from the 1999 Mummy with Brendan Fraser" You say cheerfully as you stitch the costume.

• "Movie?-" He questions and you comfirm "Movie-"

• Will eventually start watching the Movies and TV shows with you. And gets really really into them as well- Turns into a big fantasy guy

• "Love- I want to cosplay with you at the next convention.. I wanna be a elf" He said shyly

• You damn near cry at this and hug him "Oh Honey I've waited to hear those words!"

• "I need to do the inseam-" You mumbled as you measured inbetween the man's leg to get the measurment.

• Will definitely want to roleplay in the bedroom. Feels like it has opened a new door for him and is more then excited-

• Comes in dressed like Han Solo with a wide grin- Fake gun and all on his hip as you laid on the bed in your own costume. "I do believe that you ruined my last smuggling trip- Sorry darling but you'll be paying for that another way"

• Will show you and his costumes off when he visits friends on base. Showing the last convention the two of you went to together- if anyone gives him shit he has no issue punching them.

Simon + Book Nerd 📖

• You and Simon had been married for years, the famed Lieutenant knowing from when he first met you that you were a book fiend

• It was a major part of you- And one he adored

• Simon was quite the reader himself but truthfully not as deep as you. Havibg seen you so engrossed in stories before that you forgot to eat.

• But books were also how you showed love.

• "Love, I know this is a long deployment for you.. so I want to send these with you so you don't get bored" You say softly, holding up a 3 book series to your husband as he prepared for his job.

• Of course he accepted and read them while on his missions.

• Enjoys whatever you give him, be it fantasy, sci-fi, historical fiction or what have you. He will always read them through and even take a note so he can talk to you about them later.

• Will also love when you read outloud to him

• "Honey I just got this series I want you to check out" You called out excitedly as you rush to your husband who is watching his Football (Soccar) game and sees you holding the collectors box. Calmly mutes the TV and gestures for you to sit and read out loud to him the new book.

• He had built you a library and Many shelves to store your hoard of books and got you a special couch to sit in and read.

• Does have a deep appreciation for Spicy Books and will happily warm up to prepare for your want to experiment.

• He had gotten you the book 'Den of Vipers' and had heard from the book store owner it was a spicy one- so he waited.. It took a few hours but you came into the bedroom flushed face. Simon having already stretched and was ready-

• He also knew about your fanfiction even if you were embarrassed and secretive about it. Occasionally you'd let him read over your work, which he would appreciate and genuinely enjoy the stories.

• Also will grab books while he is on his deployments or secretly read your fics on his phone.

• Buring a Mission he is stuck in a book store, as he is ready for the attack he spots one of the fantasy books you had wanted that had sold put before you got your little hands on it... so he slips it into the vest of his armor and goes on with his mission.

• Saved him 50£ anyway-

König + Gamer 🎮

• When you and König start dating he is a bit surprised by you playing video games.

• He was taught it was something children do- so to see his Partner playing is a big surprise for him.

• However you help him open his eyes to the media and introduce him to the fun interactive stories and escapism that video games help you with.

• This peaks his interest and ask to join your gaming adventure.

• "Schatz are you sure about this?" He ask softly as you get him to play some Mario Kart 8. He's nervous at first but after a round his competitive spirit comes out and gets very good quickly- Cheering loudly as he wins and gets first place.

• After this a massive gaming room is built in his home for the two of you to share. König now understanding why you love games so much and supports you hobby fully.

• Even if it's a very expensive one.

• The two of you having funny cute arguments over the games subtitles or language.

• "I want it in German with English subtitles so I can practice" You wine as König shakes his head- "Liebling I want English with German subtitles"

• This often ending with the two of you giggling together over it and a passionate session between the two of you.

• Will support you wanting to decorate the home with some gamer merchandise and even gets his own to throw in there.

• Will eventually start playing some other games without you. Something to help him relax and take his mind off things-

• Mainly Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing are his favorite at the moment. It helps him unwind after his deployments

• After the hardest of deployments will just want to relax with you and watch you.

• Will love to just have the two of you cuddle in a warm bed and watch game play videos if you guys aren't up to playing a certain game. YouTube being a wonderful addition

• Will download some games on a burner smartphone he keeps and play it in his bunks. If it's multi-player will invite you to join him so the two of you can spend this time together even at a far distance.

[cha-melodius]

Hiii, congratulations on your milestones! I am not very good at prompts buuuut how about Napollya + some creepy abandoned house? Or a cemetery. Idk, it's not Halloween but I'm feeling spooky loool Feel free to go paranormal with it <3

(Outsmarted tumblr to answer this lmao. You said go paranormal and my brain said 'what about rival paranormal investigators??' Mark this down as another AU concept I never thought I'd write. Hope you enjoy it!)

chamel’s fandom fest info | read all the fics

The Harrowed and the Haunted

(napollya, 2.7k, T; read it below or on AO3)

The tiny blue car is already there when they arrive, tucked off to one side of the gigantic, decrepit mansion, and Napoleon swears under his breath.

“How did he even know we were coming here?” he complains. “No one knows this place.”

“Everyone knows about this place, Solo,” Gaby sighs from the passenger seat. “It’s a local legend. And you weren’t exactly subtle when you teased it as our next location in the podcast.”

Napoleon twists in his seat to look at her. “You think he listens to the podcast?”

She levels a look at him that he doesn’t know how to interpret. “You two are hopeless,” she says instead of answering him, then unbuckles her seatbelt and gets out of the car.

She’s already elbows deep into the equipment by the time he walks to the back end of the car, so he elects not to push her on what she means. Besides, the one time he’d tried, she ended up on some long tirade about how they’re obsessed with each other and it would be funny if it wasn’t so frustrating and also if she didn’t have to listen to him all the time. To which he had responded that she’s his best friend and morally obligated to listen to him complain about his nemesis.

Also, he’s not obsessed with Illya Kuryakin.

Yes, Napoleon watches all the videos Illya posts and reads all the stories he publishes on his blog. Of course he does, Illya is the competition. Napoleon has to keep up with the locations he’s visiting and the kinds of footage he’s getting so that he knows how best to make his own superior content. Because Napoleon has a secret weapon that means his videos are always in better resolution, with wider shots so you can see that he’s not just using tricks, and his data are more robust. That secret weapon is Gaby and the completely bonkers ghost detecting equipment that she builds.

Napoleon had been a skeptic when he started doing paranormal investigation; his whole schtick was proving that there weren’t ghosts in the places where the other guys had recorded their sightings. Then he’d met Gaby at a convention and she’d bet him fifty bucks that she could show him a site that not only had ghosts, but also that she could prove it with hard science. He’d been intrigued despite himself, and their partnership was born. The friendship came about fifteen minutes into that first trip, when it became obvious that they shared a similarly sarcastic, dark sense of humor and brutally pragmatic outlook on life.

Together, they still spend the majority of their time proving that locations aren’t haunted, but occasionally things happen neither of them can explain. Not that he’s convinced that the explanation is actually ghosts, but it’s certainly something outside the realm of known science. With Gaby’s help, his business really took off: there’s the YouTube channel that he started with, but now they have a wildly successful podcast as well. The Discovery Channel has made overtures about a show. Things are good.

At least they are when Illya Kuryakin isn’t around.

Illya came out of nowhere with his blog Prizraki and a fledgling YouTube channel of his own. He shouldn’t have ever drawn an audience because he has zero camera presence, for all his good looks. He’s not even in his own videos all that much since he’s a one-man operation. But. The man can write. The way he crafts a story, the sheer atmosphere of it—he more than makes up for the shoddy camerawork and rudimentary editing. Napoleon had thought his work would be easy to discredit, but Illya is thorough. Meticulous. Irritating, especially when he anticipates Napoleon’s next move and makes it his job that much harder. Napoleon would swear Illya has it out for him specifically.

So yeah, they don’t get along. Their rivalry is well-known among the paranormal investigation community at this point. And if he spends an inordinate amount of time following Illya’s content, it’s only because he has to, professionally. He certainly doesn’t enjoy it.

They find the man himself on the second floor, apparently scanning one of the rear bedrooms. He’s hunched over his device, which is emitting a random-sounding beeping as he moves slowly across the room. Napoleon and Gaby had been led there by the readouts on their own equipment, although things start going all funny once they get into the room. Napoleon is pretty sure it’s just the interference from Illya’s shitty gear.

“Got tired of coming up with your own ideas, Peril?” Napoleon says as they walk in, the ancient floorboards creaking under their feet.

Illya doesn’t bother to look away from his scan. “Don’t know what you are talking about,” he mutters. He finishes a sweep of the far wall and pauses. “I have plans to investigate this property for months. Check my website if you don’t believe me.”

Napoleon doesn’t, because he’s read every word of that blog and he never mentioned this property. Not that he’s going to tell Illya this.

His nemesis finally straightens and turns toward them, his usual sour expression somehow failing to keep him from being ridiculously, irritatingly gorgeous. Napoleon would wager that at least half of his subscribers are only there for the occasional eye candy. And look, Napoleon knows his own looks bring him hits—leverages it, specifically—but Illya pretends to be above all that, which is annoying. After all, his numbers had shot up rapidly after that one video where he’d somehow ended up shirtless while investigating some kind of haunted bog (and if Napoleon had watched that one any more than the others, it was only because he couldn’t get over the idea of a haunted bog, that’s all).

“I take it you haven’t found anything yet,” Napoleon counters, looking around the room. It’s largely empty at this point, save for a massive wardrobe that’s probably too heavy to move, the florid wallpaper faded and yellowed by time and marked by no small amount of water damage. “Not that I fault you for that, given your equipment.”

“I have found plenty—”

“Solo,” Gaby interrupts. She’s across the room, and when he turns to look she’s tucking her own scanner away and sliding a hand over the seemingly featureless wall. “I think there’s something here.”

Jackpot. Napoleon quickly crosses over to where she stands and starts carefully inspecting the wallpaper, his competitor all but forgotten behind them. Well, almost. The seam is well hidden, but it’s there, and Napoleon feels out the secret panel within minutes. When a door pops open, he turns back toward Illya and smirks with immense satisfaction.

“What was that about finding things?”

Illya just about growls at him.

“Look, while you two have this little pissing contest, I’m gonna go get my auxiliary power block,” Gaby announces before they can get going again. “There are some really wacky readings going on here and I think I’m going to need the boost.”

With that, she disappears out the door, and a moment later they can hear the clunk of her boots on the wooden steps.

“So, you are planning on leaving, right?” Napoleon asks.

“I was here first,” Illya grits out, and then the asshole just storms right past Napoleon and into the secret passageway, like he has any right to it.

Napoleon follows him, because he can’t not. The passage is narrow, barely wider than the span of either of their shoulders, and nearly pitch black save for the illumination provided by their flashlights and the meager light that filters in from the main room. The house is enough of a labyrinth that it could go almost anywhere; it’s promising, for sure.

“Only because you knew we were coming here,” Napoleon calls after him.

Illya stops a short ways down the passage and turns to glare at him. “You cannot prove that.”

“And we found the secret passage,” Napoleon continues. “If we weren’t here you’d still be going around in circles, chasing your own tail.”

“The discovery was inevitable. Maybe you sped it along, but now you are just in the way.”

Jesus Christ, this is going nowhere. Fine, Napoleon can be the magnanimous one, especially if he can use it later to argue that Illya was unreasonable. “Look, you wanna investigate right now, be my guest, but you can’t be here when Gaby gets back. Your equipment causes too much interference.”

Illya hesitates a beat. “She said you were getting strange readings. What kind?”

“Like I’m going to tell you,” Napoleon scoffs.

“Did you have to learn to be this much of an asshole, or were you born this way?”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from the guy who—”

He doesn’t get to finish that thought, because suddenly it sounds like every door in the house slams at once, including the one to the bedroom that they’d left open. They both jump a mile, startled out of their skins, and Napoleon whirls to look behind him, though of course there’s nothing there.

“Wind gust?” he tries weakly.

He doesn’t even blame Illya for the exasperated look he gets in response. They both know there hadn’t been even a light breeze, plus, he can feel it. Illya probably can too. There’s something about the atmosphere that makes his skin crawl and his hair stand up on end, and as a professional ghost hunter, that’s not easy to do. He’s learned to trust his gut, and it’s telling him something is definitely hinky here. He walks back over to the door, but there’s no handle on the inside, which seems like poor design for a secret passageway.

“Not getting out this way,” he tells Illya. “Maybe the other side?”

“We don’t know where it goes,” Illya counters. “Should we not just wait for Gaby to return?”

He’s got a point, but Napoleon really doesn’t like being cooped up in here. He’s not claustrophobic, but there’s a closeness to the air that goes beyond what can be explained by the narrow space. Not that he’s going to let on what’s driving his decision.

“Wait if you like,” he says with a shrug. “I’m going to do what I came here to do.”

Except Illya is standing between him and the rest of the passage, which is really not large enough for the two of them to easily pass by each other. Still, there’s nothing for it; Napoleon starts walking toward him, assuming Illya will get out of the way, only when he’s less than a stride from the other man, he trips.

He’d like to pretend the floorboards were uneven, but it feels like something fucking winds around his ankle, effectively binding his legs and sending him sprawling into Illya. At nearly the same time, there’s a loud pop and the bulbs in both of their flashlights just about explode in a shower of sparks. The end result is that Illya is too surprised or too distracted to stay upright himself, and they tumble to the ground in a heap with none-too-few curses in both English and Russian.

“Get off of me,” Illya protests, trying to shove Napoleon away, and Napoleon would like to, truly, but one of Illya’s elbows caught him in the diaphragm and he can’t exactly breathe at the moment.

“Gimme a fucking minute,” he manages, trying to catch his breath while simultaneously ignoring how he’s managed to land pretty much astride one of Illya’s very muscular thighs. There’s not exactly a lot of room here for him to maneuver, anyway, and in the pitch dark the very last thing he wants to do is put a hand somewhere it shouldn’t go. He manages to fish his phone out of his pocket, hoping for an alternative light source, only to find it won’t turn on. “Damn. Phone’s dead.”

“Think it was an EMP,” Illya groans. “Will knock out—”

“I know what an EMP is,” Napoleon snaps, then he sighs heavily. “I don’t suppose you have a lighter?”

Illya doesn’t answer, but a moment later there’s a faint snick and a small flame flickers to life, washing the two of them and the passageway in a faint orange glow. It also reveals the deep scowl on Illya’s face. “Now will you get off?”

“Aw, but I was just starting to enjoy myself,” Napoleon teases. And then, because he can’t resist an opportunity to fluster the other man in any way possible, he gives his hips a little wiggle. 

Something flashes in Illya’s gaze, though he can’t quite read it in the flickering light. “Do not start something you do not intend to finish, Cowboy,” he growls.

Which is— Napoleon cannot have heard that right. He hit his head on the way down, maybe, except for the fact that he knows he didn’t; he landed on Illya’s ample chest, which he still hasn’t really moved from. Their faces are no more than a handful of inches apart. Illya takes a deep breath in and out under him, and the thigh between Napoleon’s shifts slightly. Napoleon licks his lips, and Illya’s eyes follow the movement.

“Who says I don’t?” Napoleon manages, his voice tighter than he’d like. “And what about you? I thought you hated me.”

“Too pretty,” Illya murmurs. “Annoyingly so. Anyway, you hated me first.”

Napoleon can’t help the soft puff of laughter that escapes him. “Gaby says I’m obsessed with you.”

“Is that so?” Illya asks with a smirk that Napoleon would kind of like to bite.

“I’m not,” Napoleon protests, but he doesn’t get a chance to get any more out because Illya tugs him down into a kiss.

Napoleon shocks himself by kissing him back, tilting his head until their mouths fit perfectly together, letting his arms go out from under him until his body is fully pressed up against Illya’s again. It’s hard and it’s fast and it’s filthy, and Napoleon can’t get enough of it. Illya’s hands go to his waist then slide down to his ass, which he grabs enthusiastically, pulling Napoleon’s hips closer as his rock up against Napoleon’s thigh.

He never thought— never let himself think— Fuck. He wants Illya Kuryakin so badly he can hardly breathe, which is a pretty fucking novel revelation right about now. He doesn’t even notice that Illya has dropped the lighter, plunging them into darkness, until there’s a loud creak outside the passageway and the door rattles in its frame.

They startle apart, or at least try to; Napoleon attempts a roll sideways, but there’s not really any place to go, so he just kind of ends up jammed next to Illya, his heart climbing into his throat because he’d maybe gotten so caught up in the moment that he’d forgotten that they’re in a fucking abandoned house that supposedly haunted, with actual weird phenomena happening around them, and he’d really rather not die—

The door rattles again, then swings open to reveal Gaby holding a lantern in one hand and her bag of equipment in the other. She takes one look at them and her eyebrows climb all the way up to her hair.

“Oh, thank god,” Napoleon exhales heavily. “You didn’t get hit by the EMP?”

Gaby frowns at him. “What EMP?”

“The one that exploded our flashlights and turned our phones into bricks.”

“That’s not how EMPs work,” she says flatly. “Care to explain how that relates to… literally any of this?”

Napoleon winces. “Not really?”

The look she gives him quite clearly says that he’s not getting out of any part of said explanation, even if she’s willing to let it go for the moment. “So. Ghosts?”

“Apparently so,” Napoleon groans as he attempts to extract himself now that he can actually see where he’s going.

“And we’re… collaborating?” she asks, looking pointedly at Illya.

Napoleon glances over to find Illya staring at him uncertainly, which is probably fair considering they’ve discussed precisely nothing about this. Still. He looks back at Gaby.

“Apparently so.”

~~~~~

(The Haunting of McAllister Mansion is their first joint video, published simultaneously on both channels; it breaks all their previous records for views, likes, and comments.

The latter are split between people confused because they were sure Napoleon and Illya hated each other, and those who just comment: called it.)

[myanxietydisorderhasanxiety]

a place further than the universe:

first off. I just have to start by saying, this animation style is so cute. the character design is mind-meltingly adorable. Particularly Kimari’s character design is just so wholesome and adorable. ok, now onto the content of this post!

Shirase’s backstory is legitimately so sad, and is what drives the trip to Antarctica more than anything. All of the girls have their own reasons for joining, but she is the linchpin, if she hadn’t wanted to go no one would have gone with her. She saves up a million yen to try and figure out what happened to her mom, all the while dealing with bullying and ostracism. No one even bothers to get to know her, because if they did, they’d understand why she has this self-appointed “quest”. All she wants is to go to this picturesque landscape and find out the truth about her mother, and she can’t do that without an enormous amount of effort (and money). When Kimari joins her, they both start working towards getting enough to go, and are joined by Hinata, Kimari’s new coworker. Eventually what gets them on the way to Antarctica is connecting with a child actress, Yuzuki. She’s been invited (read: TOLD) to go as an influencer.

I think one compelling thing about this story, other than Shirase’s backstory, is the quest to make your youth “mean something”. It’s something I can really relate to. As someone who spent half of high school in the peak of the pandemic, who never got a prom, who never saw half my friends again after March 2020 since they graduated, I understand the feeling of missing out on your youth. Most days I still don’t feel my age (21) and feel stuck much closer to 17, the age I was when the pandemic hit. 2023 was a banner year for me, I attended my first concert, I went on my first solo plane ride, visited my cousins by myself, went to a major convention in a brand-new-to-me city, and met my absolute hero. (Sometimes meeting your heroes is just as good as you dreamed it would be.) I feel like that finally made me feel closer to 18 or 19, to have these valuable experiences that make you feel like you will have something to look back on when you’re older. Not just that you’ve missed your chance, your youth is gone, and you can’t get it back.

One thing I noticed about the story is that in order to “escape” traditional routine society, the characters would need a lot of money. So to get away from capitalistic monotony, you in fact have to feed into capitalism, and even then there’s no guarantee. I notice the same thing with people my age, who just want to move somewhere relatively rural and own a house and live peacefully. In order to escape, you need money and resources, and that makes it nearly impossible for most people. In the end, the characters only wind up getting to go to Antarctica because they make a connection with Yuzuki, someone who is already well-connected. So sometimes getting ahead is a matter of who you know or the advantages you already have, not how hard you work or how long you plan for it, or how much you deserve it. It’s really inherently unfair, because most people want the same thing, to live peacefully being able to have leisure time and care for their loved ones with work that makes them feel valued. But because there’s a few people at the very top who want to stay on top, for most people it ends up being nothing but a pipe dream.

In the end, though, for this group it does end up happening, through a combination of hard work, dedication, connections, and a little bit of luck. Shirase ends up getting some closure about her mom, and the other characters all gain some perspective and important life experience. They’ve all formed new and meaningful relationships, and the meaning is found in the journey they’ve undertaken together. And that’s pretty cool. :)

[missguomeiyun]

I’m back from Korea

I feel like October didn’t happen at all .. but at the same time, it happened & it happened too quickly =/

I was away for 2.5 weeks in Korea, & then when I came back, it was a mini series of night shifts so I practically did nothing. .. & by the time I realized it, it was Halloween & I was working evening shifts so I didn’t go out. O_O it has been 1 crazy month. But November is here now, & things are returning back to normal: my vacation withdrawal is over, & I have some “normal” combo of shifts, & it’s time to say bye-bye to the hot weather. It’s gonna be great~

Okay, let’s be real: I’m never “over” a Korea trip lol the other day, I was really craving that budae jjigae. The struggle was real. So I made it for lunch ^^

For my 1st return post, I’ve decided to keep things simple & just share a brief summary of my 2.5 week-long trip with you!

Day 1-4: I stayed at my usual Seoul home, Namsan Hill Hotel. I was unable to book a longer stay at this place =( These 1st few days, I revisited some places in Seoul: Namdaemun (for hand-cut noodles called “kalguksu”); Sinchon/Ewha Womens Univ area/Hongik Univ area for shopping & ; Gyeongbokgung area for Tongin Market & some art museums; Insadong/Samcheongdong/Bukchon Hanok Village for some relaxing strolls around traditional Korean housing. Some new places I went to include:

- a cafe called “Kopi Han-yak-bang” (lit. trans.: “coffee Korean pharmacy”). Look it up! It’s super cool! The owner believes coffee has a healing power, just like traditional herbal medicine, so the cafe is like a vintage herbal medicine shop/pharmacy. It feels as if you’re entering a movie set rather than a cafe.

- The Skyfarm for brunch! Pretty place with amazing view of Seoul.

- Seongsu area for industrial warehouse cafes. It was a valuable & memorable experience bcos Seongsu used to be an area for large factories (making of leather products & shoes, & car-fixing shops), but it’s revitalizing & the large factory spaces are now being converted to hip coffeeshops. Many of which do collabs with local/emerging artists & fashion designers so there’s lots of artsy things to see in these coffeeshops.

- Seoul Forest. There’s like a picnic area, some basketball & tennis courts, walking trails, etc. .. I had a convenience store goods dinner in the picnic area, & watched the sunset there.

Day 5-8: I moved over to Savoy Hotel located in the heart of Myeongdong. It’s ~15min walk away from Namsan Hill Hotel. Great location but also quite loud. My options were slim when I was booking stuff, & I needed to stay close to Seoul Station bcos I arranged 4x 1-day trips! I didn’t realize it at first but then I was like, “I have 4 back-to-back day trips right now.” I was essentially out every day from like 0700h to 2100h.

Trip 1: Paju~ for Heyri Art Village & Provence. I have been to these places before & really liked it so I went back, esp Heyri Art Village. After the day trip, I met up with 2 of my coworkers for K-BBQ in the Hapjeong area.

Trip 2: Jeonju~ I only went to 1 place in Jeonju & that was the Jeonju Hanok Village. It was raining all day that day. However, it was still very enjoyable. The village was a beautiful place, & under the rain, it looked even more picturesque.

Trip 3: Incheon~ for Incheon Chinatown & Wolmido, which is an island connected to Incheon via a highway. Due to its close proximity to China, Incheon became a major port for trades back in the day, & the Chinese immigrants basically settled here, hence it’s the largest Chinatown in Korea. I met up with my friend Ji Yoon in Chinatown & we spent some time catching up.

Trip 4: Gangneung~ For the annual Gangneung Coffee Festival; its title was “Voices of Coffee” this year! It was held at the Gangneung Olympic Ice Arena. I can’t recall how many shots of coffee samples I had that day, but it was a lot. I also went to the Anmok Coffee Street, which is a line of cafes along Anmok Beach - all the cafes face the beach so the view is pretty. Even more so on the day I went bcos it was cloudy =]

Day 9: remained in Seoul today. Went to the Seoul Botanic Garden, which opened its doors in May 2019. Very pretty displays~ Huuuuuge space too. It was like Telus World x Muttart Conservatory x Devonian Botanic Garden. Lots to see, & if you go, allot more time for yourself here. & then in the evening, I camped out by Yeouido Hangang Park for the annual Seoul International Fireworks Festival, which was named “Life is Colourful” this year. So many ppl! I was expecting that before going but it was beyond my imagination. It was truly an experience- the streets were blocked off for pedestrian traffic & literally, it took like 10mins to move 5meters after the show as over! Then at the subway station nearby, there was a bottleneck, where apparently the capacity inside the underground station was reached so we needed to wait outside the exit.. . still, it was fun!

Day 10-12: 1 way train ticket to Busan. Yes, train to Busan ;) I was safe though hehe Busan was beautiful! In hindsight, I should’ve spent more time here but . .. NEXT TIME! I went to BIFF Square & Gukje Market, which was like across from my hotel, Stanford Inn Busan. Gamcheon Cultural Village was super cute; although I would hate being a resident there =/ The Busan Int’l Film Festival was happening then, & I visited the Expo & Convention Centre for the film market. Can’t go into the exhibition, but that whole area was filled with ads/posters of BIFF - it was a big deal! It was cool to witness such a big event & to experience the sheer scale of it. I then went to Shinsegae Centum City, which is the largest shopping complex in the world.  Haeundae Beach was also cool. I went on a cloudy day & it was awesome! That same evening/night, I checked out the Jagalchi Fish Market, which is the largest seafood market in Korea. It has 7 floors total, with 3 underground parking levels :O On the last day, bcos I only had the morning available to do stuff, I had Busan fish cake for breakfast & strolled in BIFF Square again.

*Note: I actually hit all the things on my itinerary EXCEPT for the Busan Museum of Art, which was closed on Mondays =( but the security guy let me in to see the lobby bcos he knew I was a tourist. Thank you!

Day 13-17: Flew from Busan Airport to Jeju Airport. I used more time than needed for the whole process- turned out foreigners have their own line at the Busan Airport, so it’s faster than locals. There’s also a domestic terminal & international terminal, so from arrival to being checked in & through security.. . it took less than 25mins. It was great! In regards to Jeju, I did the following:

- stayed in Jeju City for the arrival afternoon/evening, with my hotel being Astar Hotel. Had a street food dinner at Dongmun Market; they were having this night market/festival event so a bunch of street food stalls were open from 7pm-midnight. Smelled like heaven haha

- I did my 1st hike ever on Hallasan Mountain, specifically the Gwaneunsa Trail, & I reached the peak. It was.. . hard. I can’t say I particularly enjoyed it; however, it has proven to me that I am a land person, & I belong in museums, cafes, & street walking lol. Look up the details of the trail! Was it ambitious of me to go on this for my 1st hike ever. .. without any hiking gear? I went with what some ppl would consider gym shoes, a hoodie, leggings, & a backpack with water, juice, kimbaps, 2 bananas, 6 mandarins, & some snacks (cheese crisps & pineapple cream-flavoured crackers).

- The day after the hike, my legs were still okay. But it was my glut that was starting to get sore XD I went to Osulloc Tea Museum & Innisfree Jeju House. The aesthetics <3

- Went to Black Pig Street for black pig bbq. I was hoping a restaurant or two was taking solo-diners & thankfully, the 2nd restaurant I asked did! I ordered pork neck instead of pork belly - it was quite tender & kinda chewy, actually. Later that evening, I went to the Tamra Cultural Festival 2019. It was neat~ There was an outdoor night market, as well as a stage for cultural dance/play/music.

- Jeju Island is actually quite small, & it takes approx. an hour from 1 side of the island to the other side. Thus, for my 3rd (full) day, I went to the Jungmun (Jeju City is north of the island; Jungmun is south coast) & visited the Yellow Cafe, Chocolate Land, Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum, & Yeomiji Botanical Garden.

- From Jungmun, I took a local bus to Lee Jong Seop Street in Seogwipo, the next city over. The street is very pleasant & chill, with artwork along the street, coffeeshops & eateries, as well as little gift shops. Totally my thing! It reminds me Bukchon Hanok Village in terms of vibe, but minus the traditional housing look. The Seogwipo Olle Market is nearby, & is a great place to buy Jeju souvenirs. The pricing, I heard/read, is cheaper than Dongmun Market in Jeju City - it is true! There are also less tourists here, which was what made it enjoyable for me, personally.

- Only the morning on my last day was free for activities bcos my flight to Seoul was early afternoon. I visited the area around Jeju City Hall, which was ~20min walk from my hotel. It was a very leisurely morning, where I sat down & enjoyed coffee at Coffee Finder & had a build-your-own-ramen bowl at a place nearby. The architecture of Coffee Finder was unique; it used to be a 2-floor house, with like a driveway/sidewalk. But the ummm first floor ceiling/second floor flooring was knocked down so there’s a “hole” in the middle of the cafe. The cafe has very homely vibes as the placement of tables/chairs are in what was (at one point) rooms of the house. It’s open but also you can get some privacy at the same time.

Day 17-18: Back to Seoul, & stayed at Namsan Hill Hotel~ Itaewon is a must! I need to go to Passion 5 every time lol. & I also revisited the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art bcos I like it. & then I had my last day as a “free” day, where I didn’t plan ANYTHING. I’m a very intense planner & when I go on trips, I literally plan to the minute haha & guess what, I ended up in Hongdae. Honestly, it’s my kinda place. Sadly, the transportation situation there isn’t convenient for the rest of my itinerary, or else I would choose a hotel that’s in the vicinity. I nearly spent 2.5 hrs at Coin Su Noraebang haha I realized that if you score high enough, time gets added to your paid time :O I can’t let that go to waste =P

There ya go, Korea 2019!

PS: I haven’t decided what/how I’m gonna go about posting my trip. .. There are wayyyy too many photos & it will take me a million yrs to write/upload. Perhaps expect unexpected Korea posts scattered between my regular posts :P I will, however, share with you the coffees I’ve had in Korea. I tried diff ones, from franchise to small local cafes, adventurous flavours & the typical black Americano. I didn’t have any poor experiences but there was 1 particular one that I will likely never order again - tbh, I should’ve expected it but I still went for it anyway *shrugs* so I guess it was all my fault haha ok, I’ll ttyl~!

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 405: fIREHOSE Ragin’, Full-On

I’ve been both excited and apprehensive to talk about fIREHOSE. There was a decade in my life, starting in my mid-teens and lasting through my mid-twenties, where I would’ve put Ragin’, Full-On in my top ten favorite records. But the magic of fIREHOSE is something that is difficult to convey 30+ years after their formation. How do I do service to a band that meant so much to me but whose appeal is likely so rooted in the climate of the late ‘80s / early ‘90s that convincing the uninitiated of their genius at the end of the ‘10s is damn near impossible? I’m gonna try, but I’m not sure I’m going to succeed. 

If you’re going to talk about fIREHOSE, you have to start with Minutemen. As the first band signed to Black Flag’s SST record label, Minutemen became an institution in the American punk scene despite an almost thorough rejection of the scene’s nihilism, costumery, and sonic signifiers. They sang about history and politics in a lexicon that melded SoCal surfer slang, trucker speak, and James Joyce-esque wordplay. They dressed in simple working class clothes---jeans and flannels well before flannel became a grunge staple. And they drew more from Miles Davis, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and The Pop Group than from their hardcore peers. On the surface, their aesthetic was straightforward---their albums were often adorned with unflattering lo-budget shots of the band in candid moments---but it was also very layered and enigmatic, with cryptic Raymond Pettibon drawings in the layout adding some unsettling dimension to the group. They were childhood friends who began making music together before they even knew how to tune their instruments, but by the time of guitarist D. Boon’s death, they were all ferociously gifted players. Bassist Mike Watt was so distraught by Boon’s death that he was tempted to give up music forever, until a Minutmen fan from Ohio showed up unannounced on his doorstep and insisted on jamming together. And this is how fIREHOSE began.

There’s a lot of stylistic overlap between fIREHOSE and Minutemen. Watt and drummer George Hurley continue the tight rhythmic interplay they’d honed over the course of the ‘80s, channeling punk energy into these short, spasmodic bursts of jazz fusion, funk, and post-punk. Guitarist/vocalist Ed fROMOHIO adopted his compatriots’ strange dialect and found a way to harness Boon’s jerky, treble-blasted style with more conventional chordal riffs. The lyrics are still sung in a strange half-spoken manner, simultaneously urgent and enigmatic.

But this doesn’t really explain why fIREHOSE was such a great band in their active years or why they’re such a difficult band to understand in the modern context. Ragin’, Full-On didn’t sound like anything else in 1986, and it still doesn’t have an equal. A lot of that uniqueness is rooted in Watt’s prominent bass style. It’s unapologetically busy and heavy on the backbeat, and for that reason it probably conjures a lot of the bad white boy funk that came with the early ‘90s alternative explosion. But Watt’s style always seemed to owe more to jazz than to the slap-happy stuff that yielded Red Hot Chili Peppers and 311. There was a dissonance and expressionist vibe to it, further distanced from the cringe-inducing punk-funk of the ‘90s by Watt’s gruff lumberjack persona and beat poetry musings. 

In 1986, “alternative music” was still half-a-decade away from blowing up, and a song like album opener “Brave Captain” was a total head trip. Watt and Hurley lay down this skittish syncopated groove while fROMOHIO punctuates it with bursts of guitar chords and Kerouacian lyrics during the verses, but then the chorus is this big, triumphant pay off. It’s a simple song, a straightforward A-B-A-B-A-solo-A-B-C where the verses build tension and the chorus provides release, a quiet-loud-quiet-loud formula that would be popularized by The Pixies and, later, Nirvana, but a tactic that still felt disruptive and new in 1986.

I didn’t discover fIREHOSE until ‘91′s Flyin’ the Flannel album. It would be another five months before Nirvana ushered the underground into the mainstream, but something was already brewing. Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. had already been signed and somehow fIREHOSE got swept up in the major label speculation in the pre-Nevermind landscape. As a 14-year-old picking up a bass guitar for the first time, fIREHOSE was not only a source of inspiration, it was instructional. You could hear every component of their music. Instruments didn’t battle for the same frequency. It was all there, naked and unexposed. It had this exuberance in its execution and rebelliousness in its unorthodox approach that was fascinating and infectious. Ultimately, it wouldn’t be fIREHOSE’s blue-collar aesthetic or punk-jazz inclinations that would become a zeitgeist, but they were there on the front end of it. They were an anomaly, and that made them exciting in their active years and difficult to fully understand in the years following. 

Maybe there’s no way to fully explain the magic this album held for me and other punks back then. Maybe it’s too difficult to appreciate their weirdo funk in the wake of Primus and RHCP, even if fIREHOSE always had a bit more of a working-man-playing-free-jazz approach to their groove and a far scrappier aesthetic. But it still holds that same allure and mystique now that it did back then, and if I had to thin my collection down to 50 albums, this would definitely stay in the collection. 

[theonceoverthinker]

OUAT NJ: BEST WEEKEND EVER

Okay, so last year, I made a big post detailing the entire event and whileI might do something akin to that later, seeing as how I posted so many of my questions (You can find them under my ouatnj tag) and answers already and I’m between feeling like I’m gonna pass out from exhaustion and feeling like i want to bounce off the walls, I thought I’d just write down some highlights of my trip:

1. Meeting My Internet Friends!

After MONTHS and sometimes YEARS of following so many people, I finally got to! @the-girl-in-the-band-tshirt, @queen-mabs-revenge, @thesschesthair, @lillpon, @fraddit, @justmilah, @coaldustcanary, and @freifraufischer were just a few of the ones I spent a fair amount of time with! Also, shoutouts to @killianmesmalls, @dani-ellie03, and @captregina who I already knew beforehand AND to @agntreginaskywalker and @reginamotherfuckingmills who were completely new friends (The latter of whom was a fantastic seat mate)! Seriously, it was so fun and relaxing grabbing meals with you, watching episodes and panels together, and of course, swimming in the amazing Marriott pool!

Hanging out with you all was sincerely the best part of the weekend.

...Almost as much as...

2. BEING CALLED COLIN’S FAVORITE!!!!

I SHIT YOU NOT!

COLIN O’FREAKIN DONOGHUE CALLED ME HIS FAVORITE!

This all started with his solo panel, where I asked him about the development of Rumple and Wish Killian’s friendship (Check the 20-minute mark of his panel). That question was made in about ten minutes at the prompting of the lovely @queen-mabs-revenge and it went better than I EVER could’ve hoped! Colin said I “should be on TV” and had me give the question again!

That’s all well and good, but this story has a part 2.

I get on line for the Rose/Colin duo panel and I’m actually the first one to ask a question (See the first question asked here). 

Colin says -- and I quote -- “She’s my favorite. She’s like -- it’s like Michael Parkinson.” After requesting that I ask again (And quite jovially at that!), I ask and he’s just so excited!!!! There’s this look in his eyes and tone of his voice of wonder and Rose says it’s like PHD stuff. 

Look, I don’t mean to brag, but I will take pride in knowing that the effort that I put into making good questions brings Colin and Rose such joy! That feeling can never be taken away from me. It’s what some of their fans would kill for and it was an honor for me to have given them that.

I’ve got a few more, but I don’t want to be obnoxious so here’s more under the cut.

3. Witnessing Lillpon meet Colin for the first time.

@lillpon...that was simply beautiful! <3

4. Getting my Funkos!!!

I love @freifraufischer‘s custom OUAT Funkos and I knew I just HAD to have one! With the promise of free shipping for any NJ con goers, I knew I had to have one. After what I promise was an ARDUOS process of elimination choosing my favorite, I eventually settled on the Storybrooke Killian with the short coat (My favorite Killian). About a week and a half before the con, F3 messages me and says I’m getting ANOTHER Funko for FREE, this time a Season 1 Emma. Needless to say, I was floored with excitement!!!

And just LOOK at them!!!

THEY LOOK AMAZING!!! THEY’RE FLAWLESS! THANK YOU!!! <3 I LOVE THEM SOOOOO MUCH! I PROMISE YOU THAT I’LL TRY TO MAKE YOU SOMETHING EQUALLY AMAZING!

5. More Question Compliments!

Yeah, people apparently LOVED my questions! In addition to getting tons of nice compliments from my fellow con-goers, Rebecca Mader called my question “intelligent and eloquently put” at my photo opp with her and during my M&G with Beverly Elliott, she said I should be a writer! Again, my apologies for the bragging, but this is just too COOL not to tell everyone about! It felt like being a superhero: Question Girl!

6. It Felt Fucking Earned!

I’ve brought up my car accident on my page a fair amount, but the recovery from that was an actual nightmare and now follows me through a fair bit of PTSD. I was off weight bearing for six weeks, lost my job in the process, felt horrible amounts of grief the entire time, and anxiety over potentially missing the con. My recovery was a battle that was met with uncertainty at every turn, and the idea of going to this con kept my spirits and hope alive. So to come here and have the best weekend felt...well, as I said above, it felt earned.

7. Validation

This con really validated my sense of self as an OUAT fan in three ways.

First, it allowed me to explore just what I could do. This con made me feel more courageous. I not only asked questions (Something I did last year), but I talked to all of my internet friends, some of whom I used to be so nervous to approach because I simply felt they were in a higher league than me. But (After some blustering), I found that I did fit in and was able to have conversations with them and even about topics I thought I’d never be able to talk about. As someone who constantly worries over a lot of things (And for good reason), I can’t overestimate what a big step this was for me.

Second, it made me feel smart. I know I bragged a lot before, and I genuinely apologize for it, but I normally don’t get a lot of feedback on the things that I do, so to get such big praise from Colin, Rose, Rebecca, and Beverly put me over the moon. I have such pride and confidence now in my writing abilities and my thought processes.

Third, I want to be real with you. Sometimes, I question if I belong in this fandom. I came in on the later side, I don’t fully align with any of the major groups, I’m not especially salty, and aren’t usually part of the running jokes and what not. And those things can make you feel like you’re invisible. And despite having actual friends in the fandom, friends I honestly adore and who I am so thankful for every single day, I’d like to befriend more people!

And this weekend really helped like that. As @killianmesmalls pointed out a few days ago, it was like summer camp and left me with a warm feeling. I felt like I belonged and that’s because I did. It was...just utter bliss.

Extra: PHOTOS!!!!

I wanted to show you all my excellent photo opps!

@the-girl-in-the-band-tshirt and I trying to stop a fight between friends and falling even harder for our captains in the process!

Not a photo opp, but when your puppy makes the big screen, it is a moment worthy of being here!

Colin’s hugs are delightful!

My post-M&G selfie with the most lovely woman in all the realms! <3 Fun fact: she gave me some selfie tips because I’m not the most photogenic person! XD

As evidenced by...

Colin tells a dad joke and Rose just...can’t. 

The dad joke since it ended up being too small): When I was in pirate school, I always hated getting my report card. That’s because it always got the same thing every time... Seven Seas! (I actually gave the speech bubble to Rose!)

@fraddit and I stage a mutiny!

Peace may reign over the Mills family, but sibling rivalries never truly end!

So, I was originally gonna do a goofy photo, but I was so caught up with Rebecca’s kind words that I just went for a normal shot. Still, it’s probably one of my favorties of the set.

Thank you for reading this, if you got that far! I’m so sad that the official conventions are ending soon, butI can’t underestimate the fun I had here!!! If you’re going to Burbank, have the best time ever. Talk to people. Ask questions. Make some impulse purchases. Meet that account you’ve been following forever. And keep on smiling the whole way through. <3

[dustedmagazine]

Idil Biret — Concertos and Solo Music Edition (Idil Biret Archive/Naxos)

The tenth and final box anthologizing Turkish pianist Idil Biret’s studio recordings became available in the summer of 2018. This volume, and the huge set it concludes, has been an obvious labor of love to assemble and a joy to explore. I began listening to Biret’s playing in the middle 1990s, when only her then-recent recordings for Naxos were readily available, each of which presented a new and fascinating aspect of her broad repertoire and the stunning technique rendering it all convincing. She plays Chopin and Boulez with similar depth, precision and insight, no mean feat in a marketplace increasingly devoted either to specialization or glamour. If this volume seems to be a catch-all, gathering pieces and performances external to the other more thematically organized sets, its substance is not to be missed. As with every other entry, a bit of digging shows much more than at first meets the eye.

Before even taking stock of this final set on its own terms, a few contextual comments are in order. The completion of this mammoth project has been long and laborious in coming but not simply due to the material’s chronological disparity. For various reasons involving playing style, choice of repertoire and the resultant neglect by, and even downright hostility from, major labels and some in the critical establishment, a substantial part of Biret’s recorded legacy has been in need of recirculation. Now, her entire back catalog is housed under one roof, so to speak; in fact, while the ten sets do indeed contain all of Biret’s studio recordings, made for a variety of labels between 1959 and 2016, there are concert performances a-plenty; more on that presently. What unifies everything might also be the most difficult aspect of the set to describe. As a child, she could play adult works like Bach’s “Chromatic Fantasy” with an assurance and virtuosity any adult performer would envy. Like Alfred Brendel early on in his career, Biret had mastered a style of playing that exemplified and transcended convention, necessitating changes in articulation, phrasing and voicing as her art progressed that would bring the music to another level. The ten volumes cohere as related stylistic paragraphs and chapters rather than as a single overarching developmental narrative.

This final box brings together pieces from various countries and time periods, from Schubert through Ravel. If one descriptor could be used to describe Biret’s playing throughout, it is the potent but ultimately unsatisfying phrase “unostentatiously heroic.” Revel in the tempo flexibilities of her 2004 recording of Tchaikovsky’s first concerto, in collaboration with the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra under the direction of the still underrated Emil Tabakov, a Bulgarian composer, double bassist and conductor who brings a unique vision to everything he touches. His rendering of the first movement’s ubiquitous string melody is of a piece with Biret’s shaping of that melody in octaves, approximating molten granite, immutable in intent but fresh on every audition, while her subsequent arpeggios breeze by with liquid ease, and Tabakov’s reentry at 2:50 elicits some of the warmest and richest sonorities a string section can muster and tempo gradations as natural as breathing. Each pianistic and orchestral detail contains all this in microcosm. Biret’s low-register octaves, beginning at 15:12, gradually round and melt, merging with the sensual winds and succeeding solo oboe. All of the whimsy, tenderness and unadulterated triumph of the first movement are crystalized in the third. Any classical music aficionado has ridden the warhorse ad nauseam but never quite in this way!

Let a middle 1960s recording (no firmer date is provided) of Ravels Gaspard de la Nuit represent the compositions for solo piano. Its sonics are a little rough around the edges, but again, despite so many great versions in the catalog from players as diverse as Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Jacqueline Eymar, this one is unique. No aged and filtered recording can dim Biret’s take on Ravel’s interpretations of Bertrand’s evocative poetry. The accompanying booklet states that it is a studio production, though periodic coughs say otherwise. Whatever its provenance, the lonely siren in the heartbreaking Ondine has never shown her isolation so completely, save, perhaps ironically, in the version waxed by another Turkish pianist, Husein Sermet. Biret presents the initial melody as only slightly separate from its watery surroundings, repeated chords which morph gradually but definitely into the elements that are complicit in Ondine’s solitary fate, which Biret captures in the bitter laughter that ushers in the movement’s somberly anticlimactic conclusion. Only an unfortunate volume drop mars an exquisite and powerful performance. Biret’s Gibet is icily transparent, what Mark E. Smith encapsulated superbly in “Pat Trip Dispenser” as “clarity of nothing.” The tolling bell’s statement answers no questions in that existential moment of questioning images, and Biret depicts all regions of that ghostly landscape in diverse shades of stunning color in equally astonishing pianissimo. Her Scarbo, that fiendishly and notoriously difficult study in technical prowess in dance, is all contrast in the service of rhythmic unity as the monster, whimsically frightening but ultimately illusory, flits, stalks and romps, rearing up only to disappear with a slight but potent sting.

This set contains a remake of note in Franz Liszt’s arrangement of Hector Berlioz’s radical and programmatic Symphonie Fantastique of 1830. It was Liszt’s piano version that was published first, and Biret recorded it in the late 1970s. Here, we have a 1992 digital recording in a warmer and more reverberant acoustic, but her interpretation has also deepened. The symphony was conceived orchestrally, and, rising to a formidable challenge, Biret coaxes inner voices from Liszt’s dense writing that were overshadowed in her earlier version. Even a quick listen to the first movement’s introduction, with its volcanic shifts in tempo and dynamics, reveals a controlled freedom in which detail and emotion balance, like the best Furtwangler on record. Biret arrives at the first chord as at a summit, leaving it only reluctantly as the melody unfolds. Her second movement waltz, where the tortured artist attempts to drown his sorrows in a party atmosphere, is elegant and whimsical, especially the bass notes, which live as close to pizzicato strings as a piano can. She finds pathos in the artist’s final musings on his beloved as, on the scaffold, he faces execution, and the act itself is as sharp and cold as his reminiscences are tender and poignant. Biret takes obvious and slightly wicked delight in the last movement’s no-holds-barred harmonic complexities, constructing monoliths of stacked sonorities at top volume only to watch them disintegrate as the beloved, resurrected as a witch, greets the artist with bitter laughter so similar to Ondine’s in Gaspard. All recedes as the thunderous low-register octaves of the Dies Irae sweep all before them, foregrounding the cataclysm and capping a reading of Romantic scope and power.

 There is far too much to cover in a review. The Scriabin sonatas, while occupy a fair bit of my listening notes, didn’t get the space they deserve. They float lithely into focus, luminous but somehow light, ordered and almost academically figured while never losing their mystery. The closest proponent to Biret’s vision of this music is the still underappreciated Vladimir Sofronitsky, the Romantic who married Scriabin’s daughter, and there is the heart of the matter. Biret is a Romantic, maybe one of the last still playing. She is not in search of emotion, and she has no grand philosophical statements to make, though both the academic and the intuitive approaches come to her with grace and ease. Never striving to overaccentuate the music’s mythological or devotional qualities, a single chord can have the sonority of a church organ and can engender commensurate reactions. If her playing gains in introspection with age, it does not fall prey to the whims of fashion or even the whiles of self-parody that have diminished the work of higher profile performers. She confronts each piece with a balanced knowledge of interpretive history and inner vision, and in achieving both on multiple levels, her interpretations are ultimately patient, constructed on layers of sculpted narrative until they burst forth in that incendiary passion for the creative act that may be Biret’s legacy and most heroic accomplishment.  

Marc Medwin

[collection-crusade]

A review of the year previous:

Many, many things happened in 2018. I can actually vividly remember at least one major occurrence or significant event of some sort for each month.

January: I remember being scared. I remember having just received NAU's suspension letter. It shattered my world completely. That was when I decided that I needed to get a job. I knew I needed a backup plan. Moving back to Flagstaff after winter break was hard, because I had to fake my way through everything. I told no one about what had happened. My friends from high school wouldn't understand, it seemed, and I didn't have any close friends from college just yet. That happened later.

February: Job searching was proving to be difficult. It seemed that no one wanted to hire an inexperienced 20 year old. This was also when small group started finalizing official Catalyst West plans. It was becoming real, and it got me really excited. The girls and I were slowly but surely becoming friends.

March: "Spring Break," and an early birthday celebration. My 21st birthday was a shitshow. I had a smoothie with Brianna, and it was good. But naturally, my mom had to call and make a scene. My beautiful roommates picked up the pieces, and that's about the time I started to send stupid shit to Fuckboy Extraordinaire. I was certain that he had grown up. He had not.

April: Agustin. What more is there to say? He came into my life, guns blazing, and he's stayed since. Also, Catalyst West finally happened! We stayed in Newport, in a fucking beach house, and it was so totally awesome. Crystal and Brianna and I were actually really good friends now. Cool spokespeople, I got introduced to Bob Goff and Carlos Whittaker.

May: I went in to a job interview at a grocery store, Bashas'. They liked me, and I got a job! I moved back to Flagstaff later that month to officially start Memorial Day weekend. It was hot, hectic, and it was my very first job. I bagged groceries, brought in carts, and swept the store. Basic level work. But I was happy.

June: Officially summer. This meant a LOT of thunderstorms. Also, having to walk home in the dark was kinda sketchy, so I got in touch with my old high school boyfriend at times. He listened to me fall completely and totally in love with another guy. And I appreciate him for that, because I didn't really have anyone else at that point. I also got really sick at some point. Lemon juice and Gatorade, huh? Oh! Jamie and I went camping with some of the Phoenix church people!

July: The Wedding. Seeing Agustin in person for the first time in literal years was so weird, but it felt completely natural too. We hit it off, and that was that. Sneaking off to see my brother too. That was also a thing. Oh, and my lease with Skyview was terminated. Pretty sure this was also the time we drove go Barstow to catch the Amtrak.

August: I officially moved in to the Campos'. And I went to the Grand Canyon. It was unbelievable. I literally sat my ass down on a rock for like, 20 minutes and thought about my life. I had to make a phone call to one of my best friends and admit that I had feelings for the guy she had been in love with (read: infatuated with) since she was 15. Then I took the Amtrak to California, asked him to pick me up, walked up to him, and without saying a word, I kissed him. And that, well, that was the moment I knew I was super fucked. My parent's anniversary. His birthday. (Was this the month I got a promotion???)

September: Slide fucking Rock. The really good fucking day. Officially a cashier. I got a $0.70 raise. The school kids were back, so we went shopping a few times. Oh, and thrifting, like the hipster pieces of shit we are. Got back in the swing of things for church worship. And, of course, Las Vegas. Spent a few amazing days with the love of my life. Waking up next to him was, without a doubt, something I could very easily get used to. Families were met. Exchanges were made. Car.

October: The first solo drive to California for Camp Cedar Falls Pathfinder and Master Guide Conference. Also the first random snow of the year. PRESCOTT! The worship team was invited to an Arizona Conference convention type thing for new believers and it was awesome. We got to stay in their nicest rooms, and Brianna was flirted with at Dutch Bros, we had In-N-Out and Panera, Best Buy, and Tangled. Oh boy, that was most certainly A Trip. Made the decision to enroll in some classes at Rio Salado.

November: I got to see my love every day I was home. That was really nice. We went to Solvang with Newhall, and as a family, we deviated to Cachuma Lake, where I busted my finger open as a kid. Oxnard for a late lunch, and drive to pick up Jamie from her new boyfriend's place. Thanksgiving Dinner with him invited.

December: He had the fucking AUDACITY to give me a new phone. Unbelievable. Anyways, Christmas time is upon us. Oh, and my parents find out about NAU, so there was that shitshow to deal with. It's decided that I'm moving back home. 4th annual Secret Avengers get together. (And anotha one bites the dust...) LOTS of good food was consumed. Finally built a gingerbread house too. Tattoo with Landis on Wednesday @ 5 pm.

In fucking summation. Lots of ups and downs. This isn't even half of it, just shit I remembered and gathered from my Instagram posts. I'm glad Brianna and Crystal are in my life, they made Flagstaff a little more bearable. I'm super duper glad Agustin is in my life. He is the best thing about this past year, by far. I lost friends, I gained friends. I read new books, I listened to new music, watched new films. I got in touch with old friends, fell in love, grew closer to God. I went back to school, even if that was also a shitshow. I am so fucking proud of me. I think I handled this past year as best as I could possibly have. I'm so happy to have been surrounded by so many wonderful people. And so with that, we greet the new year.

Already, I'm quitting my first ever job, I've been accepted at a college back home, I need to find another job. So many things. But I'm positive that I can handle it. Here's to hoping.

[sportstrust]

Miro painter

#MIRO PAINTER FULL#

#MIRO PAINTER SERIES#

Such works illustrate the development of a personal style which challenges both traditional and vanguard artistic values. A number of Miró’s experiments with avant-garde pictorial styles, such as the Cezannist “La Publicidad” and Flower Vase (1917) and the Fauve-inspired Portrait of Enric Cristòfol Ricart (1917), are included in this section. Joan Miró begins in 1915, with paintings that predate the artist’s first trip to Paris. These paintings, of an often startling expressivity, have never been seen in the United States. Also included is a selection of works left in Miró’s studio at his death.

#MIRO PAINTER SERIES#

All twenty-three works of the Constellation series of 1940–41, a pivotal group of paintings on paper that shows the artist at the height of his career, are exhibited together for the first time. Among the many series represented is the group of so-called dream paintings from the 1920s, twenty-one of which are included in the exhibition. It comprises more than 150 paintings, as well as drawings, prints, sculptures, ceramics, and illustrated books, assembled from public and private collections from throughout the world. Joan Miró, which can only be seen in New York, is installed chronologically on both levels of the Museum’s temporary exhibition galleries.

#MIRO PAINTER FULL#

Joan Miró thus examines the full range of Miró’s oeuvre, offering an unprecedented opportunity to chart the development of one of the twentieth-century’s most innovative artists, as well as providing insight into the creative process itself. The exhibition is the first major survey to examine the artist’s pervasive tendency to work in series, and represents nearly all of his major cycles. The largest and most comprehensive exhibition ever held in the United States of the work of the Catalan master Joan Miró (1893–1983), Joan Miró celebrates the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth with some 400 works in virtually all the mediums he employed. Yes, indeed, one can speak of cycles in my painting.” -Joan Miró, Selected Writings and Interviews, 1970 After a series of calm austere pictures there will by colorful dynamic ones. When I am traveling, I am always on the move, but when I return home I spend twenty-four hours in bed, I eat nothing, I drink only water. Both my life and my work are governed by alternating phases. Inspired by Fauve and Cubist exhibitions in Barcelona and abroad, Miró was drawn towards the arts community that was gathering in Montparnasse and in 1920 moved to Paris, but continued to spend his summers in Catalonia.“One thing comes as a reaction to something else. He studied at the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc and he had his first solo show in 1918 at the Galeries Dalmau, where his work was ridiculed and defaced. To the dismay of his father, he enrolled at the fine art academy at La Llotja in 1907. He began drawing classes at the age of seven at a private school at Carrer del Regomir 13, a medieval mansion. His father was Miquel Miró Adzerias and his mother was Dolors Ferrà. The Miró surname indicates possible Jewish roots (in terms of marrano or converso Iberian Jews who converted to Christianity). Spanish Artist Miró Joan Painting Joan Miró Biographyīorn into a family of a goldsmith and a watchmaker, Miró grew up in the Barri Gòtic neighborhood of Barcelona. In numerous interviews dating from the 1930s onwards, Miró expressed contempt for conventional painting methods as a way of supporting bourgeois society, and declared an “assassination of painting” in favour of upsetting the visual elements of established painting. His difficult to classify works also had a manifestation of Catalan pride. He was notable for his interest in the unconscious or the subconscious mind, reflected in his re-creation of the childlike. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona in 1975, and another, the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, was established in his adoptive city of Palma de Mallorca in 1981.Įarning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Sur realism but with a personal style, sometimes also veering into Fauvism and Expressionism. Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona.

[thevalkyriesonline]

Nine Worlds; One Valkyries Trip To London’s Inclusive Fan Convention

Conventions appeal to different fans for different reasons, whether it be comic con, a game expo, YouTube/Blogger convention or whatever the medium but one common factor in all of these conventions is the possibility to meet other like-minded fans! As well as hopefully getting the chance to meet your idols! 

There is a Con though that really thrives on fans, it is called Nine Worlds (London’s Inclusive Fan Culture Convention). A Con with a difference – the difference being it is made by fans for fans to meet other fans and just enjoy and celebrate their fandom in all it’s crazy geekiness.

It has been going since 2013 when it was first set up but I only heard about it last summer (2017) when I discovered that one talk held there was titled “It’s research! Or Why it is ok to play over 100 hours of Dragon Age when you really should be writing.” This, as a huge Dragon Age fan since discovering Inquisition, spoke to me on a level that none of my immediate friends understood or appreciated. Unfortunately I was unable to attend Nine Worlds in 2017, but the fact that there was a time and place to have such a discussion on such a unique fan-based topic inspired me to endeavor to attend in 2018. So as soon as the Early Bird Tickets became available I put my money where my heart wanted me to and I began to plan and save for a big solo adventure to London for Nine Worlds 2018.

I also made another bold and brave and foolish decision to sign up as a Content Provider for Nine Worlds 2018!

Why? – because why not? I have been a mega reader, hoarder and fan of all fiction featuring, adapting or retelling Norse Mythology for years and Nine Worlds provided me with the ideal and probably only platform where I could take the chance to share my enthusiasm and passion for the genre of Norse Fantasy. The Nine Worlds Team accepted my proposal, so, on top of saving for the hotel room on-site and booking train travel I also had to plan a lecture/talk – I was both really nervous and really excited! The months, weeks and days soon dwindled down to departure day and then I was off down to London for what I hoped would be a fun and busy weekend.

Now on to the fun bit – the various sessions and events and panel discussions! These were the ones I attended but over 50 were held each day of the convention so this is just a small sample of what fandom and genres were covered.

Session One – LARP (Live Action Role Play). Speakers; Penny Jackson, Adam Dinwoodie, Mx RA Madgwick and Haplocke Spence

As I am attending my first ever LARP event, set in the world of Dragon Age in November this was a must for me! The panel was made up of experienced and new-ish LARP players and they gave a great insight into how LARP’ing works, the various types and systems involved, clothing and equipment, rules for both play and player protection and more.

Session Two – The Only Toilet in Thedas. Speakers; Sarah Gordon, Phil Dyson, Angela Cleland

Now who couldn’t resist that title? Especially when you are a Dragon age fan. This panel discussion was the most interesting because it covered not just the world of games but also of books, TV and Film. It made me realize how much in Fantasy the practical matters of hygiene from toilets to sewers to bathing are just not address yet in Sci-Fi it’s more visible. The panel discussed whether it was a taboo or simply a matter of too much detail on a very personal and private matter – for instance do you want to know how long the hero, heroine, villain or indeed any character takes on the toilet? If they wash their hands or not? – but then again social, religious and cultural practices exist even within the bathroom and so perhaps it should be represented more?

Session Three – Know Thy Enemy. Speakers; Adrian Tchaikovsky, Jeanette Ng, Ms Anna Stephens

This was a panel debate all about the nature and representation of Villains. I found it fascinating to discuss Villains and their nature, one panel member made the very good point on how it is wrong to see the Villain as the champion of Chaos and the Hero of Order for it is in fact the other way around. In many scenarios across all mediums it is the Villain that has established some type of order whether through politics, society, culturally or religious or just geographically or financially but it is the Hero who emerges to disrupt that form of order and thus bring about chaos. This made me instantly think of Katniss in the Hunger Games, she is rebelling against the ruling society and its cultural practice of the Games and thus brings war to the capital city and thus chaos. Another issue discussed was whether the viewer/reader must be sympathetic towards Villains. The panel debated hard on this topic and in the end agreed that sympathy isn’t necessary for a Villain to be a true villain or a good villain but what is necessary is that the viewer/reader gets a sense of the Villain’s journey to their villainy – they must see where, how and why the character has become the Villain, whether for good or bad, and so enjoy the Villain’s redemption or come-uppance by the hero.

Session Four – D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) for Young People. Speaker; Elizabeth Prais

In my day job as a college Librarian I had recently learned of a lunch-time Dungeons and Dragons group being set up by a teacher after some students expressed an interest. So, I was eager to learn more tips and tricks to either host such a group in the Library or pass on to my colleague. The lady who hosted this session hailed from America and was very open about how she ran her local residential D&D group for her daughter and some local children. She gave some great recommendations and advice on timing, kit, planning, preparation and how to adjust and adapt the large and complex set of rules for a younger more impatient audience.

Session Five – Philosophy and Mass Effect. Speaker; Michael Duxbury, Emily Marlow

Now this was the first session I wasn’t entirely clued up on as I myself am still stuck half way through playing Mass Effect 2 by Bioware so a lot of the moral/ethical dilemmas they talked about I hadn’t actually experienced yet, or I couldn’t remember what I chose in the ones I was familiar with. Yet it was interesting and food for thought on how the scenarios were portrayed, and the fixed set of options provided resulted in the moral and ethics becoming such a personal dilemma for players. It wasn’t always a case of choosing the lesser of two evils but how the player and indeed the character depending on their Renegade to Hero balance would pick. Some panel members and indeed people in the audience felt that more choices would improve and increase the dilemma levels instead of just A or B. The panel also discussed how often, at least amongst themselves, they would pick based on the benefit or not long term, not the short term and play with a view of working towards achieving success or a goal.

Session Six – Beyond Marvel and DC – What comics you should be reading. Speakers; Angie Wenham, Stephen Lacey, Kate Barton, Ram V

The panel mentioned a great many titles, artists, apps and webcomics that they recommended as alternatives to Marvel/DC and then invited the audience to contribute. I recommended Nimona* by Noelle Stevenson  and I Hate Fairy Land by Skottie Young.

* Interested in Nimona? Check out our review! 

I Hate FairyLand

Nimona

Session Seven – Disney Sing-A-Long

This was the true highlight for me as an eternal child thanks to the magic of Disney. I wasn’t the only adult in the room, it was a very popular event and there were children of all ages and their parents and even a few Disney cosplayers too. We were all able to sing-a-long via screen projecting the words, or handouts or follow a link online. A whole range of songs was sung and Frozen ‘Let It Go’ proved to be a major popular one with a member of Con Staff leading a friendly stage invasion and then everyone proudly showed off all the right moves to the lyrics. I honestly was in tears with joy as some of the most powerful songs were sung by young and old alike.

The final event I will review was the FABULOUS MMORPG SHOW. Speaker; Misha Anker, Paul Flannery

Which was a blend of audience power and D&D – we basically had the Game Master who set up a story, invited some members of the audience to join him on stage and fill in character sheets but they had to be as unconventional as possible and then he would invite the audience to provide character names, objects, powers etc. to the story narrative and the players would roll a giant D20 (20-sided dice) to determine the outcome. This was a whole lot of fun and silliness and the story involved a Bee with a Human Leg, a Swarm of Wasps and a Wizard whose greatest spell was making Jam, they had to find the Cheese Board for the Duck of Doom! You had to be there to believe the story and it was amazingly resolved within the 1 hour and a half session.

Norse Fantasy, My own presentation! 

Was scheduled bright and early on a Saturday morning the night after the first big disco (alas Becky did not go dancing due to a very painful wisdom tooth spoiling things) and yet the room quickly filled up much to my delight. Despite not having the colorful presentation I spent hours on, due to not having my own laptop to plug into the screen, I was still able to explain, explore and introduce so many of my favourite authors and titles to a new audience. Some of the audience also proved to be fellow fans of many of them and a good number took photographs of my favourite title list to go away with to look at later and thanked me for the session, which was an awesome feeling. I was even complimented on my choice of t-shirt for the session – my own Valkyrie t-shirt from Redbubble. It says, “Valkyrie of Odin – Midgard Original – Since 793”. If you are interested in my presentation, I am planning on doing a written version of it for the Valkyries Blog so stay tuned!

Last but not least was the fab mini Geek Market that was on all weekend and as it was also my birthday, I indulged myself in another t-shirt from Genki Gear, some D&D themed tea, tea strainer and mug, two new bookmarks, some funky acrylic necklaces featuring a book and a fox in a bin, some super cute little clay keyrings of Flynn Rider, Thor and Pizza and of course BOOKS! Each attendee got a surprise free book in their bag, but I got two based on libraries and books, The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman and Bookworm by Christopher Nuttall – expect a review on here once I have got around to enjoying them.

Now the managing team have recently stepped down to consult with attendees and invite new members, as they are reviewing their constitution to try and make it more inclusive and representative of those who attend. Although from what I witnessed their inclusive and equality practices were out of this world compared to other cons I’ve been too. I do hope the new organizers can continue what has already been established and continue to make improvements where they feel it is needed. I for one enjoyed it all – despite my wisdom tooth being a very literal pain throughout – for I definitely would attend again.

Did you attend Nine Worlds? What did you think? What was your favourite presentation?

  Purchasing through our amazon affiliate links earns us a small commission at no extra cost to yourself! Any commission earned goes to keeping the Valks in coffee!

A Valkyrie at Nineworlds! @london_geekfest #nineworlds Nine Worlds; One Valkyries Trip To London's Inclusive Fan Convention Conventions appeal to different fans for different reasons, whether it be comic con, a game expo, YouTube/Blogger convention or whatever the medium but one common factor in all of these conventions is the possibility to meet other like-minded fans!

[saltandrockets]

do you have any kylux fic recs?

I do! here’s a sampling of some of my favorite kylux fics(though this is by no means a comprehensive list – there’s so much greatcontent in this fandom). most of these writers have a whole catalog of fics,which I recommend you check out. enjoy!

aquarius by acroamatica – KyloRen is determined to experience all that the famed Joran bathhouses of ThamneenIV have to offer. Geothermal hot springs, secluded relaxing pools... andGeneral Hux's perfect white skin.

awareof his own halo by imochan – GeneralHux’s several not-very-graceful falls from grace.

bloom by icicaille – Huxis too quiet in bed. Ren devises a solution.

cinéma vérité by carnival_papers– GeneralHux falls for a camboy named Ben, unaware that Ben is his masked co-commander.

clean by gundamoocow – Tonight,Hux’s mind is not on military strategy.

heinous byllyn – Just as Hux settles in for a nightof uninhibited self-pity, Ren arrives at his door with a crisis of his own.

hux bea lady by polaris – Contactwith a mysterious artifact causes Hux to undergo… certain changes. Ren helpshim make the best of it.

idolsand dead men by sath – After thetruth about Kylo Ren's heritage is revealed to the galaxy, Snoke commands hisapprentice to destroy the New Republic from within. Ren finds an unexpectedally in General Hux.

in aplace where no one appeared by gefionne – Following the destruction of Starkiller Base, General Hux is ordered toremove a wounded Kylo Ren to a place where he can recuperate. Knowing nowhereelse to house him safely and discreetly, Hux takes Ren to his family’s estateon Arkanis.

intothe garbage chute by for_autumn_i_am – Techie and Matt are Star Wars fans who meetat a convention.

itdon’t come in a shot glass by cracktheglasses – Kylo hates his job, his life, his hotneighbor Hux, cats, turning thirty, and everything, not necessarily in thatorder. Well, maybe cats -- and Hux -- are OK. Whatever. Being thirty stillblows.

kyloand hux in the caves of mercury by [ orphan account ] – Marooned with his worst enemy/best fuckbuddyon a desolate and all but lifeless planet, General Hux makes the best ofthings.

littlebird by solohux – Hux goesmissing and Kylo finds him in a place that's extremely strong with the DarkSide. The consequences of Hux's captivity are nothing like Kylo could havepredicted.

magicto make the sanest man go mad by vadianna – Jedi Ben Solo, handsome hero of the New Republic, accompanies his uncleLuke on a memorial trip to Tatooine and meets local peacekeeper Major ArmitageHux. Ben falls hard.

meetyourself coming in the other direction by hollyhark – Just when everything is falling into placein Hux's life and career, Brendol demands to be housed aboard the Finalizer. Healso needs a room set aside for a mysterious 'passenger' who arrives with himand changes everything, including Hux's no-nonsense relationship with Kylo Ren.

openupby valda – Kylo Ren returns from afrustrating mission eager to give General Hux a piece of his mind. He ends upgiving him a lot more than that.

postphysical by kyloream – “There’ssomething I need to tell you.” Hux waits a moment, locks eyes with Kylo. “Youknow…you know that I'm not human, right?”

second-best bylinguamortua -- Hux's father never appreciatedhim and never understood him. Hux vowed never to turn into his old man, buteach year it seems a little more inevitable. His coping mechanisms - brandy,drugs, Kylo Ren - are barely adequate. He hates himself for all of it.

somethingabout volcanoes by betts – Benneeds a date to his cousin’s destination wedding. Hux wants a free vacation.They decide to fake a relationship. What could go wrong?

takeour hands out of control by stereobone – When Hux meets Kylo Ren, he knows exactly what kind of man he is.Until, as it turns out, he doesn't. And then Hux starts to wonder if he evenknows himself.

thefirst order army and navy club by verybadhedgehog – Kylo Ren has been commanded by the SupremeLeader to pay a visit to the First Order Home World for political and moralepurposes, and has been forced to accept General Hux's invitation to the FirstOrder Army and Navy Club.

my skinis theirs by claricechiarasorcha –Apparently, Lieutenant Mitaka has quitethe collection of saucy softcore Cadet Hux pictures. Apparently, Kylo Renthinks this is entirely inappropriate in men of their standing. Apparently,General Hux has an idea.

thineonly nurse by Arya_Greenleaf – Asparagus and Cadillac get together for abit of fun before a show. Upon returning, Kylo finds Hux in less than stellarcondition and insists on getting him help.

veridisquoby neon_bible – When Phasma calls insick, Hux is forced to attend a First Order Weaponry Summit on Corellia withKylo Ren.

wasteisolation by fluorescentgrey – Saltlands, Disputed Territory; 9421 CE. Assheriff of the Templum Flats, Hux prides himself on his irrepressible conniving- especially in dealing with the cultish Order and its feral lich mercenary,Ren.

whenall is said and done by Merizame– The First Order has fallen, and General Hux is sent into exile in a lonelycorner of the galaxy. Ren chooses to go with him, and somehow, over the courseof a few decades, they manage to make things work.

zerogeneration by kdazrael – Huxlowers his datapad and gives Ren a look of exasperated disbelief. “Are youactually jealous that I have a friend?”

[topiom]

Melania Trump CANCELS trip to rally with her husband tonight because of 'lingering cough'  | Daily Mail Online

Melania Trump canceled her trip to Pennsylvania on Tuesday night to campaign with President Donald Trump, citing a 'linger cough' after her battle with COVID.

'Mrs. Trump continues to feel better every day following her recovery from COVID-19, but with a lingering cough, and out of an abundance of caution, she will not be traveling today,' her chief of staff Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.

Tuesday's campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, was to be her first public appearance since her bout with coronavirus. 

The first lady is also scheduled to attend Thursday's final presidential debate in Nashville. 

Her last public appearance was at the first presidential debate, on September 29 in Cleveland.  

Melania Trump canceled her scheduled appearance with President Donald Trump on the campaign trail Tuesday, her office said she has a lingering cough from her COVID battle

Melania's last campaign appearance was on August 25, when she addressed the Republican National Convention from the White House Rose Garden - above her and the president leave after her remarks

Pennsylvania is a must-win state for the president. Democratic nominee Joe Biden leads Trump there by 4 points, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average of the state. 

Both campaigns are fighting hard for its 20 electoral votes. Vice President Mike Pence was there Monday, Jill Biden will be there Tuesday and former President Barack Obama will campaign for Biden in Philadelphia on Wednesday.

Melania Trump made her final campaign appearance of 2016 in Pennsylvania at a solo event in Berwyn, just outside Philadelphia. Trump became the first Republican in more than 20 years to win Pennsylvania in 2016. 

This cycle she has had a limited campaign schedule.  

The first lady spoke on the second night of the Republican National Convention from the White House Rose Garden but that was her last public campaign event. And she was at President Trump's re-election launch in Florida in June 2019. 

She was also diagnosed with COVID-19 as the same time as the president, but recovered in the White House residence, using rest and vitamins. 

Melania Trump announced last week she had recovered from the virus.

Unlike the president, Melania Trump didn't check into the hospital after her diagnosis with COVID. She said she had minimal symptoms but admitted it hit her like a 'roller coaster.'

First lady Melania Trump also attended Judge Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination ceremony with President Trump, which became a coronavirus super spreader event

She also said she treated herself with a 'natural route' - opting for vitamins and healthy food - indicating she did not take a heavy course of medication as the president did for his illness.

'I was very fortunate as my diagnosis came with minimal symptoms, though they hit me all at once and it seemed to be a roller coaster of symptoms in the days after. I experienced body aches, a cough and headaches, and felt extremely tired most of the time. I chose to go a more natural route in terms of medicine, opting more for vitamins and healthy food,' Melania wrote in an essay published on the White House's website.

Ahead of her return to public life, the first lady addressed some of the controversies that came out around the publication of her former best friend Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's memoir. 

Melania Trump slammed the 'salacious claims' in the tome and claimed Wolkoff wrote 'book of idle gossip trying to distort my character.'

The first lady also attacked the media for reporting on 'Melania & Me,' a memoir of Wolkoff's time working on Donald Trump's January 2017 inauguration and in the East Wing.

'Once again, outlets chose to focus their coverage on pettiness over my positive work. There are plenty of opportunists out there who only care about themselves, and unfortunately seek to self-aggrandize by knowingly taking advantage of my goodwill,' Melania wrote in an essay published on the White House's website on Friday.

Wolkoff's book - the first to come from a former member of Melania's inner circle - painted an unflattering portrait of the first lady. Wolkoff also recorded conversations with Melania that she played for the media during her book tour. 

Melania claimed the conversations that Wolkoff played only had portions that were designed to make her look bad. In one excerpt, Melania is heard complaining 'who gives a f*** about Christmas stuff' while talking about planning the holiday decorations for the White House.

She blasted Wolkoff as someone who 'secretly recorded our phone calls, releasing portions from me that were out of context, then wrote a book of idle gossip trying to distort my character.'

The essay marked the first time Melania Trump commented on the book and the tapes, which also revealed the first lady making disparaging remarks about immigrant children being separated from their parents.

In response, Wolkoff said she was puzzled why Melania Trump 'hardly knew me.'

'I find it puzzling that the First Lady of the United States asked someone she "hardly knew" to attend her nuptials, join her for countless lunches, help plan the presidential inauguration, stay over at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, and act as her senior adviser,' she said in a statement.

'I wrote this book to share with the public my experience of working with Melania, our fifteen-year-friendship, and her ultimate betrayal. This portrait is not all flattering but it's the truth and Americans deserve the true about the occupants of the White House,' she concluded.  

One-time friends: Melania Trump went after Stephanie Winston Wolkoff in a ferocious blog post Friday morning, slamming the 'salacious claims' in the memoir and claiming her former best friend wrote a 'book of idle gossip trying to distort my character'

In the nearly 500 word post, Melania touted her Be Best work - which promotes well-being, online safety, and opioid abuse - and then went on to attack her former friend.

She did not mention Wolkoff by name but her meaning was clear. 

'Information that could be helpful to children is lost in the noise made by self-serving adults,' Melania wrote. 'I have most recently found this to be the case as major news outlets eagerly covered salacious claims made by a former contractor who advised my office. A person who said she “made me” even though she hardly knew me, and someone who clung to me after my husband won the Presidency.'

'This is a woman who secretly recorded our phone calls, releasing portions from me that were out of context, then wrote a book of idle gossip trying to distort my character. Her “memoir” included blaming me for her ailing health from an accident she had long ago, and for bad news coverage that she brought upon herself and others. Never once looking within at her own dishonest behavior and all in an attempt to be relevant. These kinds of people only care about their personal agenda- not about helping others,' she added. 

'To push forward a personal agenda that attempts to defame my office and the efforts of my team, only takes away from our work to help children,' she concluded.  

The first lady has not been seen in public since the White House announced almost two weeks ago she and President Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus.  

This content was originally published here.

[mozgoderina]

Yue Minjun: behind the painted smile (The Financial Times)

One of the art world’s most bankable stars, the Chinese artist talks about capitalism, democracy and the legacy of Tiananmen.

Pale and weary from an exhausting promotional campaign in Hong Kong, Yue Minjun looks nothing like the “laughing man” of his celebrated paintings. As he works his way through signing a stack of catalogues in the fiercely air-conditioned boardroom of his sponsor, it is hard to imagine him breaking into the guffaw of his pink-skinned caricature, eyes tight shut and white teeth bared, which he has described as both a self-portrait and an alter ego. But there is often bitterness behind the Pagliacci smile, and his character is portrayed as the fool who, for better or worse, has become inured to Yue’s bleak version of the modern world.

“My work is to do with the fundamental agony of being human and the sense of confusion that comes with living in our society,” he says, speaking in September at the start of his first solo show in Hong Kong, “The Tao of Laughter”. It is rather a weighty message for visitors to the crowded shopping mall where the exhibition is being staged. But Harbour City – the vast collection of luxury waterfront outlets frequented by mainland Chinese tourists on shopping trips to the tax-free haven – makes, he thinks, a perfect backdrop. “The shopping centre is the heart of human activities in today’s world,” he says. “I want people to look at my art and then pause for reflection as they look for luxury handbags.”

The 50-year-old former electrician is among the biggest stars in Chinese contemporary art today. He belongs to a generation of artists who grew up during the cultural revolution and have taken the world by storm as they track their country’s radical transformation, escaping the limits of socialist realism under which most of them were trained and coming up with their own distinct styles. Yue’s repeated use of the same motif since the early 1990s and his prolific output – there are several hundred paintings featuring the “laughing man” – make his work highly recognisable and now highly desirable to international collectors and curators.

Yue has become a fixture in any survey of contemporary Chinese art, such as the inaugural show at the new Saatchi Gallery in London in 2008, which attracted more than half-a-million visitors. The previous year “The Execution”, probably his most famous painting, sold at Sotheby’s in London for £2.9m, roughly the same price as Cézanne’s “Maisons dans la verdure” sold for in New York a month later.

“The Execution”, which Yue finished in 1995, is widely seen as his most political work. A row of men is lined up against a scarlet wall, laughing, but also looking vulnerable in nothing but grubby briefs. A number of fully clothed men are about to shoot them with imaginary rifles and they, too, think the whole thing is a game, judging by the expression of the one executioner who faces the viewer. It is difficult not to associate this image with the 1989 massacre in Beijing: the wall in the picture is a similar colour to the real Tiananmen Gate and those who died in the military crackdown on a peaceful demonstration were mostly unarmed young students and workers. It also has obvious art-historical references to Manet’s “The Execution of Maximilian” (1868-69), and Goya’s “The Third of May 1808”, both paintings made in response to the political events of their times.

Li Xianting, a well-known Chinese art critic, counts Yue, along with other artists such as the painter Fang Lijun, as members of the “cynical realism” movement, formed partly in reaction to the trauma of 1989. But Yue refuses to be labelled and has always avoided making direct comments on politics. The closest he ever came to saying something negative about the Tiananmen massacre was in an interview with Richard Bernstein of The New York Times in 2007. “My mood changed at that time,” he commented. “I was very down. I realised the gap between reality and the ideal.”

Speaking about the subject in Hong Kong, he remains elusive. “There are many people who want Chinese artists to speak out for them,” he says. “They always have this need to look at my art through a political lens. It’s restricting.”

He ventures a little further: “I think all conflicts are not one-sided but a reflection of current conditions. I’m not saying [Tiananmen] was not important but the main thing is for the two sides to move beyond the conflict and find resolution.”

Compromise, however, does not sit well with the convention that artists speak up for justice and freedom of expression, particularly when there are plenty in China who do exactly this, such as Ai Weiwei, persecuted for his criticism of China’s authoritarian rule, and the jailed Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, who inspired many around the world with his courage. But Yue remains unapologetic. “I paint about the universal experience. Why do I have to be explicit all the time?”

. . .

Born in 1962 to two oilfield workers in north-eastern China, Yue was a child during the cultural revolution, but grew up in a country where Chairman Mao was still idolised. He studied at the fine arts department of Hebei Normal University, and was inspired by the works of another Chinese painter, Geng Jianyi, whose faces are more grimacing than laughing, representing a deep, internal anguish. In the early 1990s, soon after graduating, Yue moved to Beijing when the country relaxed its rules on internal migration, and shared a studio in a derelict farmhouse with other poor artists including Yang Shaobin. Today, he has two full-time assistants working for him in a custom-built studio and lives in a luxurious Beijing mansion.

There is no doubt that Yue and his fellow artists have done well out of the art market’s China fever in a way that their Russian counterparts never did. The changes to Yue’s personal circumstance parallel the nation’s own transformation.

“To me, capitalism can mean democracy, fairness,” he says. “It’s not all bad. At the same time, it has become the new God. Instead of going to temples, people in China pay their tribute to Mammon in the shopping mall. Religion has been replaced by this vacant materialism.”

Hong Kong, one of the most capitalist cities in the world, is, for Yue, the new China. His show of a dozen paintings, all featuring the laughing man in a variety of situations, is hung in a room tucked away between the luxury outlets. Each work is accompanied by a poem, mostly despondent in tone. “All these fools will probably perish trodden down, pulverised by an unspeakable and awesome apocalypse of which menace they are not even aware,” reads one. But what most visitors see are the five giant bronze versions of “the fool” on display in the mall forecourt. These might be viewed as a post-modernist deconstruction of the classical statue but they also form a cutesy backdrop for holiday snaps. The sunny, cartoon-like appearance of the laughing man also makes him perfect for an accessory line. The shopping mall is offering limited-edition Yue Minjun umbrellas and make-up pouches to those who spend over a certain amount, and he has also produced teapot sets in partnership with two galleries in Taiwan and Beijing.

Yue says his ultimate goal is to make the laughing man a household icon. Critics have said that it’s a clever way of debunking the tradition of Communist party mythologising. He says he just wants to spur the unthinking crowd into adopting a more philosophical approach to life. If commercialisation is what it takes, then bring it on. “Some artists are totally market-driven. Others are so supercilious they don’t want anything to do with it. I am somewhere in the middle,” he says.

Yue’s painting portfolio is more diverse than many art critics give him credit for. A recent retrospective at China’s Chengdu Contemporary Art Centre showed works which hark back to the Chinese ink landscape tradition, and a range of other pieces will be on show at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, where his first major European retrospective opens this month. Marcello Kwan, a specialist in Asian contemporary art at Christie’s, puts Yue’s importance partly down to his arrival in the early 1990s “when Chinese artists wanted to bring in a new era which challenges the rigidity left behind by the previous decades. His laughing man is his answer to Mao Zedong, who used to be the idol. Using himself as the basis for a new idol is a very interesting subversion,” he says.

Yue comes closest to saying something subversive when he describes the role of laughter in his works. “If you are faced with a situation you cannot change, then laughter may be the only possible reaction,” he says. “But if many people start laughing, it can become a proactive force for change.” His creature might lack the wit and wisdom of a Shakespearean fool, and any wry comment on the human condition is hidden behind the laughter. But maybe that’s the point in a country whose critics are silenced.

  Source: The Financial Times / Enid Tsui. Published: November 2, 2012. Link: Yue Minjun: behind the painted smile Illustration: Yue Minjun [China] (b 1962). 'Welcome', 2005. Oil on canvas (170 x 140 cm). Moderator: ART HuNTER.

[jazzviewswithcjshearn]

A deeper look at: Thana Alexa: ONA (Self produced, 2020)

This review is dedicated to my mother, my best friend, Bonnie Marino Shearn (July 9, 1948-August 9, 2016)

Thana Alexa: vocals; ROSA Vocal Group (Nicole Zuraitis, Sophia Rei, Claudia Acuna, Sarah Charles): vocals; Carmen Staaf: piano, keyboards; Jordan Peters: guitar; Matt Brewer: acoustic and electric bass; Antonio Sanchez: drums; with guests Staceyann Chin: spoken word; Regina Carter: violin; and Becca Stevens: vocals.

Women are the most powerful creatures on the planet, they have been the bedrock of society since time began, a stabilizing life force.  Yet, twenty years into the 21th century, despite paradigm shifts made throughout history from the likes of Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Indira Gandhi, and Malala Yusef among countless others around the globe, women are still fighting for basic human rights.  Vocalist Thana Alexa's sophomore album, ONA follows five years after her debut Ode To Heroes (Harmonia Mundi/Jazz Village, 2015). ��Not only is it a stunning, powerful statement on what it means to be a woman in all aspects: giver of life, friend, sister, daughter, lover, it is the most complete artistic statement to date from the PORIN (Croatian Music Academy) nominee and Downbeat Rising Star vocalist.  ONA, is Croatian for she, (coincedentally, onna no hito, is woman in Japanese) and the complete tale Alexa tells on womanhood from start to finish is riveting.  Her excellent group with keyboardist Carmen Staaf, guitarist Jordan Peters, bassist Matt Brewer, husband/co producer Antonio Sanchez on drums  in addition to the ROSA vocal group, spoken word from LGBT activist and poet Staceyann Chin and guests violinist Regina Carter and vocalist Becca Stevens, come together in a sparkling unified vision.

The title track is a rallying cry of sorts, both primal and unmistakably modern.  A drone of  voices fade in from the Rosa Vocal Group. Some of the voices utilizing striking use of quarter tones, setting the stage for a hypnotic chant in an equally so 11/8 meter.  Alexa's lead vocal assertively takes the center with arresting lyrics for the first verse:

I am Woman

My roots reach into the ground

Man wants to keep me down

But my Wolfpack won’t allow

They call us nasty when

We speak above the Man

Won’t teach our girls their version of

What they want as feminine

We must be better than

Just to be equal to

Even when we succeed

We don’t get paid like you

Stop all your staring, boy

Your disrespectful noise,

You’re wrong if you think

I Was born to be your toy

With these passionate searing words, the vocalist takes no quarter in expressing her stance as a human, an indictment on the political and social institutional sexism that is an unfortunate part of the modern culture.  Women are speaking up, and rising, making  so many waves, threatening the conventional power structure who are absolutely clueless as far as the struggles of people of color, LGBTQ, disabled, poor and mentally ill- the rhetoric of Alexa is challenging such forces and calling them out.  As the paradigm is finally starting to crumble,  those in power are using baseless fear tactics that are catering toward the current anti intellectual climate.  She also flexes her chops as a sensational improviser here who has grown by leaps and bounds since her work in Gene Ess' Fractal Attraction, Michael Olatuja's Lagos Pepper Soup, Antonio Sanchez & Migration and most recently SONICA.  Alexa glides over Sanchez' truly interactive comping and deep listening; his drums becoming more open and resonant from the t-shirt deadened tom colors found earlier in the track.  The vocalist's inventive improvisation punctuated with growls and wails calls upon the type of stylings found from Urzsula Dudziak and Meredith Monk, in addition to soaring high note swoops recalling Ella Fitzgerald.  

Women rising is a fitting motif continuing on to “The Resistance”  Sanchez's deadened toms, and an effects treated snare with tiny tambourine bells frame a stone groove as the singer puts forth more provocative lyrics inspired by her visit to the Women's March.  The gathering was the biggest single day protest in American history. Critics of the protest (as told in the documentary White Savior: A History of Racism In American Churches) argued that this protest, which has done so much to move women forward, was primarily a vehicle of white women-- however the impact it made was for all women.  It was an immediate mobilization of social justice, right after the election of Donald Trump, and one of the most heartening things to see in years.  Sanchez' deep pocket groove, Brewer's vamping bass and Staaf's Fender Rhodes  lay a wonderful cushion as Alexa moves through the verse, the drummer's Bonham cum Blakey bass drum triplets  add considerable momentum.  The spoken word from LGBTQ activist Staceyann Chin’s fiery invocation, appropriately places volcanic drums underneath echoing her scorching fervor.  The reprise of the chorus with it's marching snare is positively adrenaline pumping and the tune ends cathartically with layers of melodic development over attractive chords.

“Pachamama” is a moving lament to Pachamama, the goddess of the Andes, and is a deep reminder that Earth is a mother to us all.  Alexa sings with some of the deepest tenderness and maturity on the album, Matt Brewer's gorgeous melodic bass solo hangs the gentle caress of Sanchez' cymbals, and guest Regina Carter's violin solo drips with emotion and a deep cerulean hue that makes the 11 minute ballad more than engaging.

Alexa's second offering to her late brother and best friend Niki, “Set Free” is another treasure of a ballad.  The lyrical content explores the nature of the soul, and the concept of the soul as energy.  The track, a follow up to “Ghost Hawk” on the debut album is every bit as moving  and deeply emotional, the listener can imagine the kind of person Niki was, and how much a part of the ever present.  He lives through the vocalist, and through this touching piece, the listener truly gets to know him.  “Teardrop” a hit from trip hop group Massive Attack. has been a tour de force live staple for Alexa for years.

The piece is a vehicle for her voice as if it was a horn or drums, taking advantage of her interests in these areas.  Sanchez, with dead snare, faithfully stays true to the original rhythm, with a bit of extra seasoning, and Alexa's interpretation of the lyrics are nuanced, as to her, the line between reality and fantasy is blurred when one deals with, love, obsession, attraction desire and all the things that entails.  The expert use of multi tracking and her flexible rich alto voice are major contributions to the overall mood of the piece.  Themes of love, desire, and sexuality are followed up on with “Animal Instinct” . Alexa's comfort with her own sexuality in the poetic lyrics create a vivid, erotic soundscape for the listeners.  Aside from the extended technique aspect of Sanchez' drums, Jordan Peters contributes a sensual, smoky, distorted guitar solo heightening the sensuality. “He Said, She Said” is a wonderful paean to the marriage of one of Alexa's best friends, featuring guest vocalist, Becca Stevens.  The album closes with a truly inventive spin on Tears For Fears, classic “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”.  Alexa's arrangement begins with an ingenious vocal vamp intro in 7/4, with the familiar lyrics section being driven by Sanchez in that time signature, while the 6/4 shuffle is only explored at the tune's coda which one again brings back the previous layers to an immensely rewarding conclusion.

Sound:

ONA is leaps and bounds above Ode To Heroes on a production level.  Alexa's debut was produced  like your garden variety jazz record, everything sounding quite live in the studio with minimal overdubs.  Like the best pop, rock, jazz-funk and jazz-rock records, Alexa uses the studio as an instrument and explores it to the fullest capacity.  The record, largely cut at The Lab, Alexa and Sanchez's home studio,  took over a year to complete and the effort shows.  Her skills as a producer have increased ten fold as has her comfort level with technology. Antonio Sanchez, as co producer has lended his considerable chops, so those familiar with albums such as Bad Hombre, Lines In The Sand, and his work on Sargeant Pepper Revisited, will find some familiar sonic terrain.  Sanchez uses dampening techniques and additional percussion to expand the sound of the drum set, and some of his favorite production tricks appear here.  These techniques include the reverse drums on “The Resistance”, a wide stereo spread, pans, and little sub mix details.  Alexa's use of devices such as the TC Helicon and loopers from Boss have come in handy too, turning her voice into a virtual choir.  Everything is mastered nicely too without a lot of audio evidence of extreme brick walled, compression.  The album is a studio piece of art.  

Closing thoughts:

With ONA, Thana Alexa has established herself as the pre eminent vocalist of her generation.  Her deep conviction to her feelings as a woman and social change is a victory not just for biological women, LGBTQ women, women with disabilities, but ALL women, and humanity.  Alexa just doesn't sit on the sidelines talking about what's wrong, she actively (along with Antonio Sanchez) pursues social justice, and uses her art to create  positive change.  It is very early in the year, but ONA is already staking claim to being one of the best albums of the year, and her future development is going to be very interesting. Rise up! Rise up!

Music: 10/10

Sound: 9.5

[bolachasgratis]

Vodafone Paredes de Coura 2019: the review

Sometimes it’s hard to be objective and unbiased when writing about a festival that is such a big part of your life. Except for two (very) unremarkable lineups that made me stay home, since I was old enough to go to college all my summers involved a trip to Paredes de Coura (and a painful trip back, too). When you’re a kid, they say you’ll eventually get older and boring, in a process they call “becoming an adult”. This usually comes with amazing perks such as ceasing to listen to any new music whatsoever, stopping seeing your (also ageing) friends, having great conversations about changing diapers with your remaining friends (yes, the other couple with kids you always go vacationing with to some shitty beach full of other couples with kids and the odd mother-in-law). Obviously, a multi-day, non-kid friendly, rural music festival such as Festival Paredes de Coura seems like one of those things that are amongst the first to drop from your newfound “adult life”. Except you don’t have to be that person; and is there anything better to remind you of that than going there and finding all your friends in the same place, same month, year after year, all over again? (Well, other than imagining the smell of those diapers.)

That does not mean the festival itself is perfect. The lineup itself is arguably the best amongst Portuguese generalist indie festivals, with a carefully picked mix of artists that appeal to a young, college-aged crowd that is the heart and soul of the festival - although we have missed some of those fast, hard pounding guitars that were always amongst the top moments of the festival - and more contemplative, “adult” artists that appeal to an ageing demographic who has chosen Paredes de Coura to be the soundtrack to their summers for the past ten to fifteen years. And this seems to be the main issue for the organization to tackle in the years to come: How can they better accommodate a fanbase that is growing older and craves a level of comfort that is a few degrees above the needs of a camping 18 years old kid?

For starters, the beautiful green amphitheatre we can find on Wednesday – the real headliner of the festival, every year – is rapidly gone as soon as you get used to it, at least in some areas of the festival grounds where there is more movement, and especially after two sold out days. A less than ideal scenario, unless you love the feeling of having your nostrils taken over by dust. More frequent extreme weather conditions in the future will likely worsen this problem. As elitist as this sounds, and although this has not been a source of extreme queues for food and drinks, a cap on the number of tickets sold per day would be appreciated by most, even if a ticket price hike is needed as a trade off. The lack of sufficient, suitable accommodation in town (and nearby villages) may also become a problem in a scenario where more and more 30- and 40-somethings refuse to trade the highlight of their summers for a painfully boring conventional lifestyle. On the bright side, it is refreshing to see that the food options in the festival keep improving, with the traditional junk food slowly being replaced by tastier and/or healthier alternatives, in line with the excellent food lineup NOS Primavera Sound boasts every June; the press area has a great ambience and provides an excellent view over the stage, with an added sidescreen; the staff, and especially the security team, is miles ahead of any other festival we usually attend in the country.

KOKOKO!. Photo: Hugo Lima

As for the music, the first night was saved by the superb polyrhythmics of the Congolese ensemble KOKOKO!, who certainly deserved better than a 2am slot in an after-hours stage that, unfortunately, cannot comfortably hold enough people that can properly listen to and enjoy a show like this. Julia Jacklin’s songs are perfect in any situation, but they felt slower than usual and I wouldn’t hold it against people that thought it wasn’t the most attention-grabbing set of all times. For a festival set, we could have used a bit less slows and a bit more energy. Boogarins sounded unlike everything we think a tropicalism-inspired Brazilian indie rock band should sound like and their set was a major letdown; local rockers Bed Legs are not the most interesting band in the world, but at least they sound like they give a shit (in fact, they played their hearts out, and fair play to them). In a prime time slot, Parcels seemed to entertain those who could see past the idea that they are were brought up in a lab, tailor made for indie music festivals and commercials. The National were up next.

The National. Photo: Hugo Lima

We do not want to sound like people who advocate alcoholism, but it was a bad omen to see Matt Berninger entering the stage with some Coca Cola instead of the wine bottles we were used to in the golden days around the release of Boxer and their shows in the Sudoeste and Alive festivals and their shows in Lisbon and Guimarães. Berninger might look healthier than his younger self, but the 2019 version of the National is tamer, more predictable (how many new songs with the same drum beat can they possibly write?), less interesting, and equally anthemic, but in a worse way. It’s not during “Mr. November”, the only song rescued from Alligator that night, that Berninger does his typical first row freak out; that song sounds quite graceless now. (Yes, this isn’t a good pun at all, he did that trick during “Graceless”). “About Today”, one of the greatest songs the National have ever written, also sounded a bit dull. Or was it because we knew that the cheesiest moment of the night, that a capella “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” chorus was about to come next, and we were already dreading it?

It wasn’t all bad, though. Despite the shameful absence of two handful of great songs off their pre-2011 life, their top songs released in this decade are amongst the best they’ve ever recorded. “Bloodbuzz Ohio”, “Day I Die”, new tracks “Rylan” and “Light Years”, and especially “Pink Rabbits” were the highlights of the show. The other songs off the new album are competent at best, and the musicianship is certainly there. Deep down, we know we might still see some spark in this band in the future, but not now. Berninger might have seen Nick Cave (who told him to fuck off) in this very stage fourteen years ago, but apparently he learned nothing from him. The National is a pretty decent band in a desperate need of a long break.

Stella Donnelly. Photo: Hugo Lima

Shamefully, we were working during one of our most anticipated sets of this year’s edition of the festival, but we heard only good things about Khruangbin’s show on Thursday. Of course they had to steal everyone’s hearts. How could they not? Same as last minute replacement Stella Donnelly, who ended up being one of the major highlights of the whole weekend. Donnelly and her five piece band had the best energy, played some of the songs with the quirkiest and poignant lyrics, did the best synchronized dances, and she deserves to be crowned the undisputed queen of Vodafone Paredes de Coura 2019. At least for the diminutive crowd that was there at 7pm - was everyone else working, too? Only time will tell if this is the next case of a singer-songwriter who will start playing two shows in Portugal per year until everyone’s tired of her but we sincerely hope the first part of the sentence is true. Later on, Car Seat Headrest made up for their lukewarm show two years ago and provoked the strongest bursts of energy in a crowd that seemed thirsty for some guitars, singing along to every single song, from the new "Can’t Cool Me Down” to the absolute anthems “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” – one of the greatest songs added to the indie rock canon in the past few years – and “Destroyed By Hippie Powers”, off Teens of Denial.

Car Seat Headrest. Photo: Hugo Lima

But the night belonged to a New Order rare apparition in Portuguese stages. You just have to check a couple of 80s and 90s New Order live shows on YouTube and do the same for contemporary gigs to know they're a totally different beast, and in a good way. They may still not be the best live band ever, and Sumner's vocals sound quite hilarious at times. But, at this point, they're a very oiled machine - and some of the best sounding songs were the ones off their most recent LP, such as "Tutti Frutti", "Plastic", or opener "Singularity". We would prefer, though, a few forgotten New Order classics ("Ceremony", "The Perfect Kiss", "Age of Consent"...) instead of that four song long tribute to Joy Division ("She's Lost Control" and "Transmission" in the beginning, and "Atmosphere" and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" in the encore) that made them look as a band that would prefer to have never existed. The crowd didn't give a flying fuck about my eye-rolling reaction to that encore, as it provided the biggest sing along moment of the festival. 

New Order. Photo: Hugo Lima

Our Friday opened with a laidback, seemingly endless (in a good way, they should have gotten a 2 hour long slot anyway) Jonathan Wilson show. Featuring ex-The Mars Volta drummer Deantoni Parks on drums (what an amazing extended solo at the end of “Dear Friend”) and Jeffertitti Moon on bass guitar, Wilson’s band smooth sailed through the early afternoon. Playing mostly Rare Birds material, taking us straight to LA along with album art-inspired visuals in the background, there was still time for a single foray into Fanfare (the abovementioned “Dear Friend”) and two picks off his “official” Dead Oceans debut, Gentle Spirit: the classic “Desert Raven” and traditionally set closer “Valley of the Silver Moon”. Jonathan Wilson will be back in Braga for a solo show next November but he’s apparently only going to play Frankie Ray tunes in my dreams.

Jonathan Wilson. Photo: Hugo Lima

One of the most expected shows of the festival was Black Midi, the most likely band in the lineup to make the kids go wild. And they did. The London boys might be young and a bit inexperienced, but they’re already masters of the whole tension and release thing, to the point that they’re comfortable with not releasing at all at the most obvious moments for that grandiose firework effect. Doesn’t matter: the kids still won’t be quiet, the kids are hungry for movement, the kids are loving it. This band is a blessing, and we hope they stay with us for years to come.

Black Midi. Photo: Hugo Lima

Deerhunter played possibly their most interesting set of their long history of boring me around 9pm in every single festival I go to, but the moment we were waiting for (and we waited for some 15min longer than supposed - thank you Jonathan and your extra long set, we love you) was for Spiritualized to take the stage. In a format of a six piece band complete with a three voice choir, Jason Pierce refuses to take center stage – as always – and sits on his chair by the far left of the stage as the band bursts into “Come Together” and proceeds into a more gospel-y phase with Lazer Guided Melodies’ “Shine a Light” and the miraculous, anthemic “Soul on Fire”. The straightforward rock and roll Amazing Grace cut “She Kissed Me (It Felt Like a Hit)” gave way to an almost complete performance of their latest record “And Nothing Hurt”, with the song titles written in the big screen on morse code to keep with the album artwork. The combo “On the Sunshine” (complete with a long outro filled with strobe lights) and the post-rock-like crescendo of “Damaged” were amongst the highest points of one of the best shows Spiritualized have performed in the country in recent times, before closing off with an ecstatic “Oh! Happy Day” version where the choir shone even brighter than those strobes.

Spiritualized. Photo: Hugo Lima

It’s a very tough job to follow up a Spiritualized gig, but it’s simply impossible for Father John Misty and his band to play a bad show. With a heavy focus on latest record God’s Favorite Customer but especially 2015′s I Love You, Honeybear (the same record that fueled that marvelous show in this very stage four years ago), at this point, about five out of every five songs he plays live are above average, to the point that there’s really not much to say about it. I would like to use this opportunity to tell the kid that was singing all the words behind me during the whole set to frantically listen to Fear Fun, since those were the only moments (“Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings”, “This Is Sally Hatchet”, “Nancy From Now On”) I could hear Tillman’s voice – the kid didn’t know the lyrics. Thanks man, you can learn them now. Unfortunately for Peaking Lights, there’s really nothing we could do to pay attention after Spiritualized and FJM, but a few of us really tried to fit Macarena’s lyrics into your beats.

Father John Misty. Photo: Hugo Lima

There’s always a dark cloud looming above us in the last day of the festival, and this time it was threefold: a certain sadness because we knew it was time to go, a cloud of dust in certain parts of the festival grounds due to too many people walking above holy ground, and a proper giant cloud threatening us with that classic Paredes de Coura rain we all know and hate. The Lisbon six-piece Ganso opened the main stage with their slow, pastoral brand of indie rock reminiscent of Capitão Fausto, who closed the main stage after the New Order show two nights before. Elsewhere, Alice Phoebe Lou was experiencing problems with her mic (and her sore throat), and the audience celebrated like a goal the moment her voice finally echoed through the Vodafone FM stage. A crystal clear voice that we cannot help but think it was cloned off Angel Olsen’s vocal chords. The up and coming singer-songwriter was presenting her new album, Paper Castles, from which she drew two of the highlights of her set: the marvelous ballad “Nostalgia”, “Galaxies”, and “Fynbos”, a song evocative of her homeland of South Africa. Looking forward to explore a record that, somehow, fell through the cracks and did not cross our radar in the first half of 2019.

Mitski. Photo: Hugo Lima

"I played three songs”. Those sharply pronounced four words, said while laying on top of a table, were the only words uttered by Mitski Miyawaki in between songs, sending away the photographers from the pit. On one of her last shows before an already announced hiatus, the Japanese-American songwriter brought us the unusual stage antics we were still looking for in the shape of unsettling dance moves that might have come straight from a 90s instructional fitness VHS. And tons of great songs covering all her albums, with a focus on latest Be the Cowboy and the brightest jewel in her discography, Bury Me at Makeout Creek.

Sensible Soccers. Photo: Hugo Lima

But the biggest moment of the night, and probably the festival, started taking place before Mitski even left the stage. We had already pointed out that Sensible Soccers was our top pick for the day and our favorite Portuguese act in the lineup, and they did not disappoint. On stage, the trio turned into a five piece that sounded tighter than most bands with extensive continental and overseas touring, despite their touring consisting of shows far and between, and almost always in their home turf. We like to believe the only reason for them not to be consistently touring and playing sold out shows all across Europe is simply because they have their own jobs and don’t want to. Aurora is an absolute beauty of a record that needs to be listened to right now (we told you that a few months ago), and too bad you cannot find them on a stage near you. Oftentimes contemplative, ecstatic when we needed it to be, this show was one for the ages - and we didn’t even need the bonus that is them closing the concert with the fantastic “Sofrendo por Você” - complete with their mythical dancer on stage as it should be. Later on, Freddie Gibbs and Madlib would prove hip hop is in Paredes de Coura to stay (although the fifteenth “fuck police” chant was starting to bore us) and Jayda G’s set was on point until 5 am, but our festival was largely complete. See you next year.