#aside from me being new to the robot art gig

[payaso-gomi]

⚡ZAP⚡

someone wasn't watching their step and someone forgot to turn off their zapper bulbs

ratchet absolutely laughed when Bee told him what happened-

[ifuckinglovestvincent]

Switching Lanes With St. Vincent

By Molly Young

January 22, 2019

Jacket (men’s), $4,900, pants (men’s), $2,300, by Dior / Men shoes, by Christian Louboutin / Rings (throughout) by Cartier

On a cold recent night in Brooklyn, St. Vincent appeared onstage in a Saint Laurent smoking jacket to much clapping and hooting, gave the crowd a deadpan look, and said, “Without being reductive, I'd like to say that we haven't actually done anything yet.” Pause. “So let's do something.”

She launched into a cover of Lou Reed's “Perfect Day”: an arty torch-song version that made you really wonder whom she was thinking about when she sang it. This was the elusive chanteuse version of St. Vincent, at least 80 percent leg, with slicked-back hair and pale, pale skin. She belted, sipped from a tumbler of tequila (“Oh, Christ on a cracker, that's strong”), executed little feints and pounces, flung the mic cord away from herself like a filthy sock, and spat on the stage a bunch of times. Nine parts Judy Garland, one part GG Allin.

If the Garland-Allin combination suggests that St. Vincent is an acquired taste, she's one that has been acquired by a wide range of fans. The crowd in Brooklyn included young women with Haircuts in pastel fur and guys with beards of widely varying intentionality. There was a woman of at least 90 years and a Hasidic guy in a tall hat, which was too bad for whoever sat behind him. There were models, full nuclear families, and even a solitary frat bro. St. Vincent brings people together.

If you chart the career of Annie Clark, which is St. Vincent's civilian name, you will see what start-up founders and venture capitalists call “hockey-stick growth.” That is, a line that moves steadily in a northeast direction until it hits an “inflection point” and shoots steeply upward. It's called hockey-stick growth because…it looks like a hockey stick.

Dress, by Balmain

The toe of the stick starts with Marry Me, Clark's debut solo album, which came out a decade ago and established a few things that would become essential St. Vincent traits: her ability to play a zillion instruments (she's credited on the album with everything from dulcimer to vibraphone), her highbrow streak (Shakespeare citations), her goofy streak (“Marry me!” is an Arrested Development bit), and her oceanic library of musical references (Kate Bush, Steve Reich, uh…D'Angelo!). The blade of the stick is her next four albums, one of them a collaboration with David Byrne, all of them confirming her presence as an enigma of indie pop and a guitar genius. The stick of the stick took a non-musical detour in 2016, when Clark was photographed canoodling with (now ex-) girlfriend Cara Delevingne at Taylor Swift's mansion, followed a few months later by pictures of Clark holding hands with Kristen Stewart. That brought her to the realm of mainstream paparazzi-pictures-in-the-Daily-Mail celebrity. Finally, the top of the stick is Masseduction, the 2017 album she co-produced with Jack Antonoff, which revealed St. Vincent to be not only experimental and beguiling but capable of turning out incorrigible bangers.

Masseduction made the case that Clark could be as much a pop star as someone like Sia or Nicki Minaj—a performer whose idiosyncrasies didn't have to be tamped down for mainstream success but could actually be amplified. The artist Bruce Nauman once said he made work that was like “going up the stairs in the dark and either having an extra stair that you didn't expect or not having one that you thought was going to be there.” The idea applies to Masseduction: Into the familiar form of a pop song Clark introduces surprising missteps, unexpected additions and subtractions. The album reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200. The David Bowie comparisons got louder.

This past fall, she released MassEducation (not quite the same title; note the addition of the letter a), which turned a dozen of the tracks into stripped-down piano songs. Although technically off duty after being on tour for nearly all of 2018, Clark has been performing the reduced songs here and there in small venues with her collaborator, the composer and pianist Thomas Bartlett. Whereas the Masseduction tour involved a lot of latex, neon, choreographed sex-robot dance moves, and LED screens, these recent shows have been comparatively austere. When she performed in Brooklyn, the stage was empty, aside from a piano and a side table. There were blue lights, a little piped-in fog for atmosphere, and that was it. It looked like an early-'90s magazine ad for premium liquor: art-directed, yes, but not to the degree that it Pinterested itself.

Coat, (men’s) $8,475, by Versace / Shoes, by Christian Louboutin / Tights, by Wolford

The performance was similarly informal. Midway through one song, Clark forgot the lyrics and halted. “It takes a different energy to be performing [than] to sit in your sweatpants watching Babylon Berlin,” she said. “Wherever I am, I completely forget the past, and I'm like. ‘This is now.’ And sometimes this means forgetting song lyrics. So, if you will…tell me what the second fucking verse is.”

Clark has only a decade in the public eye behind her, but she's accomplished a good amount of shape-shifting. An openness to the full range of human expression, in fact, is kind of a requirement for being a St. Vincent fan. This is a person who has appeared in the front row at Chanel and also a person who played a gig dressed as a toilet, a person profiled in Vogue and on the cover of Guitar World.

The day before her Brooklyn show, I sat with Clark to find out what it's like to be utterly unstructured, time-wise, after a long stretch of knowing a year in advance that she had to be in, like, Denmark on July 4 and couldn't make plans with friends.

“I've been off tour now for three weeks,” she said. “When I say ‘off,’ I mean I didn't have to travel.”

This doesn't mean she hasn't traveled—she went to L.A. to get in the studio with Sleater-Kinney and also hopped down to Texas, where she grew up—just that she hasn't been contractually obligated to travel. What else did she do on her mini-vacation?

“I had the best weekend last weekend. I woke up and did hot Pilates, and then I got a bunch of new modular synths, and I set 'em up, and I spent ten hours with modular synths. Plugging things in. What happens when I do this? I'm unburdened by a full understanding of what's going on, so I'm very willing to experiment.”

Coat, by Boss

Jacket, and coat, by Boss / Necklace, by Cartier

Like a child?

“Exactly. Did you ever get those electronics kits as a kid for like 20 bucks from RadioShack? Where you connect this wire to that one and a light bulb turns on? It's very much like that.”

There's an element of chaos, she said, that makes synth noodling a neat way to stumble on melodies that she might not have consciously assembled. She played with the synths by herself all day. “I don't stop, necessarily,” she said, reflecting on what the idea of “vacation” means to someone for whom “job” and “things I love to do” happen to overlap more or less exactly. “I just get to do other things that are really fun. I'm in control of my time.” She had plans to see a show at the New Museum, read books, play music and see movies alone, always sitting on the aisle so she could make a quick escape if necessary. But she will probably keep working. St. Vincent doesn't have hobbies.

When it manifests in a person, this synergy between life and work is an almost physically perceptible quality, like having brown eyes or one leg or being beautiful. Like beauty, it's a result of luck, and a quality that can invoke total despair in people who aren't themselves allotted it. This isn't to say that Clark's career is a stroke of unearned fortune but that her skills and character and era and influences have collided into a perfect storm of realized talent. And to have talent and realize that talent and then be beloved by thousands for exactly the thing that is most special about you: Is there anything a person could possibly want more? Is this why Annie Clark glows? Or is it because she's super pale? Or was it because there was a sound coming through the window where we sat that sounded thrillingly familiar?

“Is Amy Sedaris running by?” Clark asked, her spine straightening. A man with a boom mic was visible on the sidewalk outside. Another guy in a baseball cap issued instructions to someone beyond the window. Someone said “Action!” and a figure in vampire makeup and a clown wig streaked across the sidewalk. Someone said “Cut!” and Clark zipped over for a look. It was, in fact, Amy Sedaris, her clown wig bobbing in the 44-degree breeze. The mic operator was gagging with laughter. It seemed like a good omen, this sighting, like the New York City version of Groundhog Day: If an Amy Sedaris streaks across your sight line in vampire makeup, spring will arrive early.

Blazer (men’s) $1,125, by Paul Smith

Another thing Clark does when off tour is absorb all the input that she misses when she's locked into performance mode. On a Monday afternoon, she met artist Lisa Yuskavage at an exhibition of her paintings at the David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea. Yuskavage was part of a mini-boom of figurative painting in the '90s, turning out portraits of Penthouse centerfolds and giant-jugged babes with Rembrandt-esque skill. It made sense that Clark wanted to meet her: Both women make art about the inner lives of female figures, both are sorcerers of technique, both are theatrical but introspective, both have incendiary style. The gallery was a white cube, skylit, with paintings around the perimeter. Yuskavage and Clark wandered through at a pace exclusive to walking tours of cultural spaces, which is to say a few steps every 10 to 15 seconds with pauses between for the proper amount of motionless appreciation.

The paintings were small, all about the size of a human head, and featured a lot of nipples, tufted pudenda, tan lines, majestic asses, and protruding tongues. “I like the idea of possessing something by painting it,” Yuskavage said. “That's the way I understand the world. Like a dog licking something.”

Clark looked at the works with the expression people make when they're meditating. She was wearing elfin boots, black pants, and a shirt with a print that I can only describe as “funky”—“funky” being an adjective that looks good on very few people, St. Vincent being one of them—and sipped from a cup of espresso furnished by a gallery minion. After she finished the drink, there was a moment when she looked blankly at the saucer, unsure what to do with it, and then stuck it in the breast pocket of her funky shirt for the rest of the tour.

A painting called Sweetpuss featured a bubble-butted blonde in beaded panties with nipples so upwardly erect they actually resembled little boners. Yuskavage based the underwear on a pair of real underwear that she'd constructed herself from colored balls and string. “I've got the beaded panties if you ever need 'em,” she said to Clark. “They might fit you. They're tiny.”

Earrings, by Erickson Beamon

“I'm picturing you going to the Garment District,” Clark said.

“There was a lot of going to the Garment District.”

As they completed their lap around the white cube, Clark interjected with questions—what year was this? were you considering getting into film? how long did these sittings take? what does “mise-en-scène” mean?—but mainly listened. And she is a good listener: an inquisitive head tilter, an encouraging nodder, a non-fidgeter, a maker of eye contact. She found analogues between painting and music. When Yuskavage mourned the death of lead white paint (due to its poisonous qualities, although, as the artist pointed out, “It's not that big a deal to not get lead poisoning; just don't eat the paint”), Clark compared it to recording's transition from tape to digital.

“Back in the day, if you wanted to hear something really reverberant”—she clapped; it reverberated—“you'd have to be in a room like this and record it, or make a reverb chamber,” Clark said. “Now we have digital plug-ins where you can say, ‘Oh, I want the acoustic resonance of the Sistine Chapel.’ Great. Somebody's gone and sampled that and created an algorithm that sounds like you're in the Sistine Chapel.”

Lately, she said, she's been way more into devices that betray their imperfections. That are slightly out of tune, or capable of messing up, or less forgiving of human intervention. “Air moving through a room,” Clark said. “That's what's interesting to me.”

They kept pacing. The paintings on the wall evolved. Conversation turned to what happens when you grow as an artist and people respond by flipping out.

“I always find it interesting when someone wants you to go back to ‘when you were good,’ ” Yuskavage said. “This is why we liked you.”

“I can't think of anybody where I go, ‘What's great about that artist is their consistency, ” Clark said. “Anything that stays the same for too long dies. It fails to capture people's imagination.”

Coat (mens), $1,150, by Acne Studios

They were identifying a problem with fans, of course, not with themselves. It was an implicit identification, because performers aren't permitted to critique their audiences, and it was definitely the artistic equivalent of a First World problem—an issue that arises only when you're so resplendent with talent that you not only nail something enough to attract adoration but nail it hard enough to get personally bored and move on—but it was still valid. They were talking about the kind of fan who clings to a specific tree when he or she could be roaming through a whole forest. In St. Vincent's case, a forest of prog-rock thickets and jazzy roots and orchestral brambles and mournful-ballad underlayers, all of it sprouting and molting under a prodigious pop canopy. They were talking about the strange phenomenon of people getting mad at you for surprising them. Even if the surprise is great.

Molly Young is a writer living in New York City. She wrote about Donatella Versace in the April 2018 issue of GQ.

A version of this story originally appeared in the February 2019 issue with the title "Switching Lanes With St. Vincent."

[thebigg-v3]

AI – Thoughts and Rants

This summer semester I decided to take Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, which the university I go to offers as an elective for CS majors. Which is awesome, I know! As a computer science student I had been curious for a while about the robots, talking computers that assist Iron Man, and even the “magic” behind things like Siri. Yes even I, someone who is in the “know” about a field like software engineering, which is intertwined with AI in more ways than one, fantasizes (or used to, maybe?) about a future where robots assist us on all kinds of tasks and make our lives better/easier, or in the case of I, Robot, a lot worse. All jokes and fiction aside, the fact is that AI exists already in our lives. In fact it is so infused with our day-to-day lives that we don’t even notice it. You ever look at the weather app on your phone? Do you ever go to Google Translate? Do you ever ask Google for directions? Do you ever ask Siri anything? All of these things use some technique that was born in the field of AI, or machine learning (which is a very close sibling to AI). I could go into all  kinds of impressive, and not-so-impressive, techniques that I learned about in the class. A-Star search; Informed Search; Probabilistic Reasoning; Markovian Models; Neural Nets, etc. But this is not the reason why I write this.

The reason why I write this essay/blog post is because a friend of mine, who is planning on taking the class next semester, asked me a very simple question, “How is AI?”. Well...the truth is that is not a simple question at all. It’s a tough question. Because I do have MANY reservations about AI. They range from the philosophical, technical and even reach out to my ethical concerns about Artificial Intelligence. Now, before I go on, I want to be clear about something: THIS IS A BIASED PIECE. As I go on, you’ll notice I have specific opinions about AI as a software engineer. I also want to state that this is NOT a piece meant to attack/offend anybody/anyone/ any organization that is researching AI or building products powered by AI/machine learning. I think you are all awesome people(a little crazy, but in a good way), and you have my utmost and sincere respect. Now that that is out of the way, let’s get down to business.

Before coming to this class I thought AI was an awesome/fascinating field(at the moment I still do). That with everyone—mainstream media, programmers, Google, Microsoft—hyping up AI, I thought to myself, there has to be reason for all the buzz and fuzz about this “AI thing” . And to be honest, MOST of it is undeniably granted. So...as a software engineer I was surprised by how mathematical AI really was. You’d think that a field that is, as stated before, so infused with our lives would be somewhere on the vicinity of software engineering in regards to practicality. But it’s truly not. The truth is that a lot of problems, rightfully so, have to be theorized/generalized in some way before they’re solved in an intelligent manner by a machine. And this makes sense. Think about it, if you want to talk about path-finding, “paths” aren’t simply cities A-F, and find the shortest path. This could be the surface of a new planet with a different landscape, New York, a colony in the moon or you might even have a case where you’re concerned about the cost of moving a piece on a chessboard. It’s also not just about making the algorithm fast. And it’s not that AI doesn’t welcome nice Big O notations like constant time and linear and logN—and these are becoming less central to any algorithm given all of the crazy-fast hardware we have today and the crazier-faster that is still to come. These are, like any algorithm, preferred over N^2 or something above that. However, AI’s top priority to my understanding(at least if I learned what I was supposed to learn), is to solve problems, or find answers, in an intelligent way.

But what the in the world does intelligent mean, anyway?

This is when AI becomes philosophical. And, if you ever take this class(or at least the specific AI class I took), you won’t be tested on the philosophical definitions of AI. But even though you won’t be tested on those when doing the projects, which is the most important part of the class, you won’t directly use anything philosophical, it’s worth keeping in mind that any algorithm in AI is trying to do things intelligently. This means that brute force is not welcome; that randomness, with some exceptions(like hill climbing), is not very welcome; most things that aren’t generalized(in an intelligent manner) are not very welcome. This is one of the reasons why AI is math-heavy: AI scientists need a way to generalize intelligence. But how general can intelligence really be? Can it really mimic the intelligence of a human to the point that it can compose songs, write an essay on the politics of the world and even make moral judgments? At the end of the day, not really. I mean you can take all of the songs recorded up to this day, and write a fancy neural net(don’t ask me how they work, they’re not super-complicated, but not a walk-in-the-park either) and it can classify and recognize some patterns and put something together….but it’s just re-mixing what we’ve already heard and listened to a million times. So no, AI is not that general. The AI of today is very narrow. This is not to say that it is useless. AI is very useful and will be in the future; speech recognition will get better; self-driving cars will improve; it will be able to write “better” songs. But AI won’t have a face; it won’t (and this is subjectively my opinion) have the ability to make moral judgments(and if we allow it to, then we are fools buying snake oil). As a software engineer I found the radical uses of Bayes Theorem somewhat interesting, but not very exciting. I found myself subscribing to the idea to program intelligence into the machine, rather than program it and tell it what to do. This, if I’m being frank, made me a little uncomfortable. As a software engineer I like tinkering with machines, I like to write programs that solve problems(rather than “program” intelligence and let It solve the problems for me). I felt as if I were being submissive to this idea—I know, it’s a stretch. And yes, I am probably romanticizing programming as a craft, but I’m sorry, I can’t help it. Speaking of programming machines, that reminds me, to the AI people(and I’m speaking about the specific people that guided me throughout the class—professors and TAs) the code did not matter. Which struck me as surprising, and a little unnerving. To them all that mattered was the theorems, excel charts and “report”. Which again, given the fact that the code itself in practice is the building block for the AI agent to do whatever it is that it needs to do, was unnerving—borderline frustrating. I don’t write code to plot charts, theorize formulas or see trends. That’s not to say, I write code without documentation. Documentation is not what we are talking about here. Indeed, self-documented code is a must. But to write code to satisfy Bayes Theorem? That itself is frustrating and, in my opinion, goes against the spirit of creativity in programming. It goes against the lemma I follow when I code—hack away. Hack the malloc calls to the point where all of the segments you allocate are continuous; trick the OS into caching at all levels only your processes; manipulate CPU priorities to make your process priority 1 because the game you’re building is over-bloated with physics calculations and unnecessary art, and that computer does not have a GPU. AI felt nothing like hacking computers. AI felt nothing like engineering solutions. It felt like forcing code to comply with some theorem—Bayes Theorem,  making informed decisions, Perceptron, etc. I seriously respect these techniques, because all of them are incredibly cool and quite impressive. And heck, software engineers do use these techniques today. But, in my humble opinion, an engineer doesn’t have to fully comply with a mathematical rule. They are nice because they make a bunch of assumptions that MOST of the time are true. But in engineering, when we have to directly sometimes interact with hardware and users, some of these assumptions are not very useful in practice. Sometimes as engineers, if we were building an OS, one might have to hard-code stuff with macros in C to make a specific architecture/piece of hardware faster. Sometimes in software engineering, one doesn’t have the luxury of just “throwing memory” at a problem—which is part of the idea of machine learning, along with some statistics. Throw memory at it, implement perceptron and you can classify pictures! Engineers have to keep in mind the cost of adding two gigs of ram—cost in terms of money and resources. As an engineer, when handling CPU scheduling, sometimes one doesn’t know what the best scheduling scheme is. Sometimes engineers have to wait till users actually use the software, and get a “feel” for what’s the best CPU scheduling scheme, given the different use cases. AI doesn’t like hard-coded macros, that’s not intelligent. AI doesn’t love edge-cases hacks, that’s not intelligent. AI doesn’t care about beautiful code that might be 10% faster because one follows good practices. AI, from the impression I got in this class, is almost programming-independent. One might even say it finds programming languages hindering because there isn’t a language that fully expresses how “great”(ahem, intelligent) It really is. I could be wrong about these assumptions. Because, heck, what do I know? I’m only a software engineer.

Despite my reservations about AI, I highly recommend taking the class as a CS major. Having said what I said, AI is not going away. For better or worse, it will stay in the lives of people, software engineers and not-software engineers. It is and will be a necessary evil of our present and future. Take the class, get a feel for what you think of it. And if you’re like me—you like to hack computers—you’ll survive in that jungle of probability and intelligence greatness. I honestly can’t tell you to stay or not, that’s your choice. In the meantime, I choose not to.

[sa2chaogarden]

#squad and lovenote! (i was actually meaning to ask you about a rundown on their dynamics for a while so im glad you reblogged that lmao)

#squad:who's friends with who? what are the squad dynamics like?

Since I only ever talk about the the main four, I’ll kinda break down the kids’  dynamics since they all sort of come to see Ramona from the point of view (a mentor/older sister figure), just a different points throughout the story.

So, Wheatley, Micah, and Esther, or as I like to call them, the MEW crew are all high schoolers who somehow all ended up landing a part-time gigs as a magical kids because some weird mystical agency thought they were outstanding enough in various leadership skills to be gifted various powers and the ability to transform and travel between the human realm and the realm of the Echoes. Echoes are essentially physical manifestations of fears people have and are currently polluting the world by trying to corrupt the human race to fall into an everlasting state of anxiety. Only magical kids are able to see Echoes, so it is up to them to essentially conquer the world’s fears.

Lore aside, these three are a pretty goofy group. 

(Jeez, I ended up typing way more than I thought I would so I’m just going to put this all under a read more ah)

Wheatley is the president of his school’s culinary arts club.  He’s fairly shy, but has enough drive (and a intense enough special interest in baking) to reboot a club that was long dead. It’s an awkward start since he doesn’t have a lot authority in him, but it doesn’t take long to learn who’s in the club just to dick around and who’s really in there learn and have a good time.

Micah has recently transferred to the same high school as Wheats and impulsively took up the role as robotics team captain as a way too meet new people, He did robotics at his previous school but it’s not a big enough interest of his to further pursue it. He just thinks it’s neat. Too bad, being the associated with robotics also pretty much makes you the go-to tech support/appliance repair guy when the school can’t afford an actual IT team.

Wheatley and Micah end up meeting after a blender breaks down in the home ec room and it don’t know how else to put it other than, the immediately find each other charming and start pining immediately for each other because teen love is just like that. It doesn’t help that they’re both magical kids end up crossing paths while both transformed and they do the whole “you’re just like me” ala Spiderverse and Wheats is like “doesn’t this suck?!” and Micah is like “no this is actually really cool, what are you talking about? we’re literally superheroes” and Wheats is like “ugh fine, tell me what you know” while secretly being jealous but the type of jealous that’s really like “god, how dare he know what he’s doing, be kind, and know how to talk to other people, I hate him and his stupid glasses on his stupid cute face.” Whereas Micah is kinda like, “oh sweet that cute baker kid is also a magic kid too.” Except they are both in denial and won’t admit they have a crush on each other while also being super obvious.

An thus begins a duo that’s full of friendly banter and teasing (because they are gay) and trying to learn how the hell to deal with they’re newfound powers and the Echoes they are up against. The both approach their powers differently so a lot of antics seem to ensue between the two of them.

Esther is the president of the art club and Wheatley and Micah’s rival school. She is also the head photographer for the school’s newspaper so she ends up getting an assignment to photograph the football game between the two schools. Wheatley is only there because a huge game like this equals a big crowd and a big crowd means lots of funding for a club centered around food. It wasn’t his idea, but the club advisor’s so he’s stuck running a bake sale in an environment he hates. Micah is there due to a robotics club meeting ending right before the game and he decided to stick around.

Turns out big social events are a good place for Echoes to gather. Man it sure is a good thing both Wheatley and Micah are here, oh wait, who’s that? It’s Esther! The boys are surprised to discover there's another kid just like them...way more agile too, like she was doing like back flips and shit and kicking major ass while they just sort stood their and beat up the smaller Echoes because wow, she really looked like she knew what she's doing.

Micah is the one to introduce himself and Wheatley, but Esther is the one that pesters and pries because she thought she was alone in all of this mess and it's really amazing that they are all close to each other in terms of location. Like neighboring towns and whatnot.

Esther’s the one to suggest they all team up since there's more power in numbers. Micah thinks it’s a great idea while Wheatley is a little apprehensive since they literally just met her, but she assures she knows what she’s doing and promises that together they’ll be a great team.

Except Esther pretty much self-appoints herself as leader and thinks she is best suited to manage the three of them as a team. Wheats doesn’t really mind since he believes he has a lot to still learn and actually enjoys the perfectionism Esther has because he himself is a perfectionist in his own ways, but the whole “in charge” thing doesn’t sit well with Micah. He would rather they all work together on the same level. Micah and Esther butt heads a lot at first because their ways of approaching responsibility, although they are both hard working and social kids, differ intensely. Esther’s frustrated at Micah’s lack of having a set plan or being indecisive and Micah is bothered by Esther’s constant need to insist her ideas are the best ideas out of all three of them.

They don’t actually fight each other, but there’s a lot of bickering that eventually gets on Wheatley’s nerves to the point he has to remind them they are all a team and it was those two that wanted to work together in the first place. But since the three of them end up around each other so much, they eventually learn what works between everyone and have really great synergy.

Micah and Esther now know how to poke fun at each other without actually crossing any lines because it turns out they have a lot more in common then they would like to think and come to behave more like close and caring siblings as time goes on.

They are all really good kids that form their own close knit friend group and I love them so much.

love note: who likes who? crushes? relationships? are they mutual or unrequited?

Well, I already talked about Wheatley and Micah. And I really can’t give the details on Rome’s love life because that involves [redacted] and there’s a whole bunch of spoilers that I don’t want to reveal just yet. Also Esther is gay and doesn’t know it yet, let her figure it out.

[iheartadverbs]

Expansively.

My wonderful warm dog is curled up beside me. We are in the process of retraining him with regards to furniture, after investing in rugs and ramps and of course, SURGERY, and since I hate not sitting next to my dog on the couch, I’ve pulled one of the couch cushions off and am slouched on the floor next to him. We are also training the “quiet” command, which is working at least fifty percent of the time.

Today was a glorious, solitudinous day. PY is in Boston as of 4AM this morning. I woke up without the aid of an alarm after a solid eight-hours of sleep. I am happy that I am, at long last, recalibrated. I spent so much of this summer recovering from the agonies of spring. I had all these grand plans of reading books and writing books, and I have only read poems since the middle of June. But the days have been full and busy, and today felt like an exhale.

I have been experimenting with new low-carb baking recipes, so this morning I started the day by whipping up some flaxseed muffins. Next time, I think I’d add more berries or more sweetener, but they exist and I ate two, so success! I love baking, new recipes, and good food.

After breakfast, I finished uploading the final photos for the wedding that I photographed last weekend. What, you didn’t know I do wedding photography? That’s because I don’t. But I did. And although it was an amazingly, unexpectedly stressful weekend, I am proud of the work that I did and the beautiful moments that I captured. I don’t know if this could ever be a side gig, but it’s something I’m happy to do in a pinch (in fact, the exact circumstances under which I was solicited). 

Aside from a quick jaunt back to the airport to pick up PY’s laptop (the perils of traveling with a foggy, tired brain), I spent the entire day completing the artwork for the children’s book that I was inspired to make based on a Pablo Neruda poem that I stumbled across while I was reading old journal entries. I am so incredibly pleased with this I can’t tell you. I mean, I feel like I’m constantly inspired to do beautiful, creative things, but I usually just think, “Oh, that would be awesome” and then I don’t do them. I decided to just embrace my inner dilettante and not obsess about it being perfect. So it isn’t perfect, but it exists, and it is beautiful. I can’t wait to make copies for all my friends with children who I think will appreciate a book based on a Neruda poem which only vaguely encourages children to climb ladders and use power tools (in a metaphorical sense, so it’s OK, I think).

I got so wrapped up in my project that I completely forgot to eat dinner, but because we had leftovers, I went ahead and microwaved a small portion and ate while I watched John Oliver being silly.

And obviously, I took a break making art when the new episode of GoT came on! I love this season, but I have a feeling that everyone is going to die really soon.

Today I’ve only talked to PY, Timmy (who is a dog), Alexa (who is a robot), and the nice lady at the Lost & Found who gave me PY’s laptop (and briefly, the man sitting in the front part of her office who told me that I should talk to her -- he seemed like he got interrupted a lot, being that his office is in the office in front of Lost & Found but was actually not the Lost & Found). 

I also cleaned everything that I made dirty, and also took a shower, and also listened to every song Gordi has ever published on Spotify over and over again on repeat.

I don’t know why I felt possessed to say something, but I feel like it’s just been a long time coming home to myself. Today I feel expansively like myself, and shockingly, I like it.

[garintzabar-blog]

Garin Tzabar

The First Lone Gunman Soldier

A household man and a soldier make for a lonely combine. Being away from your family at vacation time and particular dates like birthdays and anniversaries is dangerous enough. However if you find yourself used to the tastes of dwelling and are given rations which can be merely sustenance every day every chew can carry on a state of melancholy.

One lucky soldier serving in Bagdad lately acquired a welcome package from home. It appears that evidently his loving household, who're originally from Italy and now reside in America, have enjoyed the delicacies of My Little Style of Italy for generations. When the owner, often known as Mama Gloria, traveled along with her household to the previous country to go to her grandparent's villages, her ardour to bake and serve authentic cookies and desserts from her heritage was ignited.

The two families, from Italy, met in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania at an Italian-Presbyterian Church in the early 1900s. The pastor of that church, Italian himself, worked tirelessly to provide a haven for Italian immigrants the place they could hold on to their roots and traditions whereas studying the language and the ways of their new house in America.

When World War II broke out Gloria Mount's father became a baker and cook for the US Army. After which the household moved to Whittier, California, where in 1961 they opened D'Eliso's Bakery. The second family settled in Spokane, Washington. All through the years the families have remained shut and now the fourth generation Italian households have pulled together for the sake of their soldier son.

As a single father of a valuable 4 year outdated son, being away during the holidays is particularly tough. What Frank (as I shall call him to guard his complete platoon from begging him for a bite) obtained was a special, delicately wrapped, package deal of true Italian biscotti. When you've got by no means loved this earthly delight you've got by no means tasted true biscotti. Frank states that, "it is not the laborious cookie that American's know, but reasonably a agency, but comfortable, flavorful cookie.

While the unique taste is pine nuts and anise, together, Mama Gloria and her daughter Liz, have discovered a strategy to incorporate some extra Italian flavors in her mix. Once I contacted them to find out what they'd up their sleeve Gloria knowledgeable me that since Frank particularly enjoyed his previous country deal with, she has created two new flavors that she will probably be packaging in a very unique method for Valentine's Day supply.

This new providing is available in two flavors; the Grand Marnier dipped in wealthy, Italian chocolate, and their Spumoni flavored biscotti drizzled with the same. For those that wish to add a little bit spice to the combo, one more twist to an outdated favourite has been created. Florentine cookies have been given an entire new zing with the addition of chocolate chips, espresso beans and cayenne pepper to the usual slivered almonds. This various Valentine special has been aptly named "Sizzling Mommas" and is bound to spice up your loved ones life.

What units My Little Taste of Italy aside is not only the true outdated world recipes however the added contact created by their special presentation. Their Valentine bundle, I am advised, can be packed in with an assortment of fun gadgets like wedding favor bubbles and wax lips. "I'm sure this present pack will spark the fireplace in the one you love this Valentine's Day," states Gloria.

She further informs me that now that she has examined the waters with overseas transport she will likely be creating other special, soldier friendly, delicacies to delight our combating forces each at home and abroad. I'm sure that Frank and his soldier buddies will all admire hearing that reality. Not solely is My Little Taste of Italy creating such unique presents for our preventing forces, however they ease the burden on the family at home by together with the transport in the associated fee so that the family does not need to foot that further expense when transport to their members of the family serving overseas.

Plenty of troopers returning home from wars have become alcoholics. It's true that the loneliness as well as the pressure while out within the battle field makes soldiers resort to consuming sprees, alcohol dependency and sometimes drug dependency.

Soldiers should remember though that the abuse of alcohol as well as the misuse of medicines or medication may result to dangerous and risky behaviors that embrace however will not be limited to pub fights, spousal abuse, even unexpected deaths so it's a must to have interaction in responsible ingesting. Under are some suggestions that might help one drink responsibly:

Before consuming and in the midst of consuming, ensure that your stomach has meals as a result of eating food with starch and high protein will decelerate the speed of the effects of alcohol hitting you.

Drink slowly but certainly as quick consuming will make the drinker more intoxicated. Ingesting no a couple of drink every hour will outcome to the drinker not being drunk quick

Strive ingesting non alcoholic drinks in between your consumption of alcoholic drinks as this may end result to alcoholic drinks not having a better impact on you.

Keep in mind this HALT! That is simple to remember and stands for "Never Drink when you have the next emotions: Hungry, Offended, Lonely, or Drained."

And naturally, allow us to not neglect (although it could be a cliche, it may possibly save lives). Don't drink and drive. Always guantee that the one that can be driving the vehicle is sober, in any other case, simply take a cab or any other public transportation.

Following the following pointers will show you how to (soldiers) avoid alcohol abuse as well as symptoms or illnesses partnered with alcoholism similar to: PTSD. PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Dysfunction when coupled with alcoholism will robotically cause a lot of bother. It's a sort of tension disorder that normally results from trauma that comes from bodily damage, a serious risk of loss of life or the demise of somebody shut. As early because the sixth century BC, PTSD has been noticed in war veterans.

It has been noticed that folks with PTSD have a greater danger of developing alcoholism and most alcoholics are even diagnosed with the stated disease. Round eighty p.c of struggle veterans undergoing treatment for PTSD have been detected with alcohol abuse disorders. These individuals have a tendency to commit suicide as soon as they grow to be depressed especially if they're over the age of sixty five. Binge drinking can also be a frequent activity in soldiers/veterans as it's used as a instrument to overlook traumatic recollections for a brief time period.

Alcoholism additionally disrupts your relationship together with your partner and may lead to violence as it is evident in spousal abuse committed by intoxicated soldiers. Except for conflicts, problems in intimacy have additionally been observed. PTSD symptoms are stimulated extra with alcoholism. The results of Lone Soldier PTSD treatments are also lessened by alcohol abuse. Soldiers amongst all professionals have the great duty of avoiding alcoholism. It's a must to observe ideas in avoiding too much drinking not only for your safety but in addition for the security of your family members and the people who look as much as you.

Lone Star is one among my all time favourites from the New Wave of British Heavy Metallic era. Arguably not strictly NWOBHM nonetheless they had been around at the time and they rocked so that's good enough for me.

Heavy riffs, strong melodies, hovering keyboards, funky bass and rock strong drumming. Plus the emerging talent of Paul "Tonka" Chapman and John Sloman. Just a brief two album profession - however what fantastic two albums they were. Not a weak track on both and the Bells of Berlin/Ballad of Artful Jack opening salvo on Firing On All Six (second album) still makes the backbone tingle.

So who had been Lone Star? Nicely they came out of Wales in the mid-70s. Vocalist Kenny Driscoll, the dual guitars of Paul Chapman and Tony Smith, Pete Hurley on bass, Rick Worsnop on keys and Dixie Lee behind the drums.

That was the line-up who lower their debut self-titled offering produced by the legendary Roy Thomas-Baker and issued on CBS. Great stuff it was too - some notably crunching (yet melodic) riffs on cuts reminiscent of Spaceships, Lonely Soldier and Flying within the Reel for example. Completely top notch stuff though I never really took to Driscolls singing model. Approach too excessive. Nonetheless a 5 star album and I would wager their's by no means been a more unusual cover of a Beatles track than Lone Star's cover of She Said She Stated.

That debut saw some success making the UK album charts and a spot as support to Mott the Hoople and a tour with "Uncle" Ted Nugent.

Better was to comply with with Firing On All Six. This noticed the departure of Driscoll to get replaced by John Sloman. Such a powerful voice full of range. Not in contrast to Robert Plant in many ways for my part. And it was a positive launch.

As above, the Bells of Berlin/Crafty Jack opener is quite exceptional. Thumping drumming/keyboard lead intro when Sloman hits high gear for an epic. This melds in to The Ballad of Artful Jack and away we go. Eight basic cuts all a combination of the heavy, melodic and funky. Ahead of its time.

The success didn't arrive in the bucketloads it should have although regardless of main vital recognition. Chapman got the call from UFO when Michael Schenker wobbled and though work began on a 3rd album it never noticed the light of day and Lone Star was no more.

Chapman and Sloman loved excessive profile careers and the remainder gigged here and there with various bands though the basic Lone Star were lost. Chapman did "uncover" the demos of what was supposed to be the third album and this was released beneath the title of Using High.

Is it credible that a twelve year previous lady would be despatched to a reform faculty for aiding and abetting a warfare felony killed during an escape after having been harbored secretly in garage hideout? Is it conceivable that two parents could possibly be so hateful towards one daughter and not the other? Is it possible that grandparents could be so diametrically opposite the dad and mom of their grandchildren with no logical cause?

Is it believable that a mum or dad could so savagely beat his youngster with out struggling some repercussions even from a viciously repugnant small-city society identified for its close-knit household ties? Is it so acceptable for a twelve 12 months outdated to have the ability to lie so simply that the consequences of those lies are allowed to dictate patterns of habits? These situations are highly unlikely in any realistic depiction of life even within the early twentieth century.

The isolated emergence of the Boy Scouts as a viable force in such a important state of affairs dealing with nationwide security is laughable. Ms. Inexperienced must have thought so, too, as a result of they weren't talked about again. In the identical ludicrous vein, the concept of parading a troop of POW's right into a city already deeply sensitive and risky with roots replete with racial hatred seems actually inconceivable. Despite these issues, the story does clearly tackle the conflict Patty Bergen endures in attempting to find out whether she must be true to her personal emotions or acquire the a lot deserved consideration she craves from parents who seem incapable of being something however abusers.

Patty displays the natural tendency to love her youthful sibling, Sharon, and exhibits genuine anger from the frustration of understanding Sharon is extra cherished and appreciated than she is. However, love is stronger than hate. Even at her tender age, Sharon shows these traits true to the behavior of the manipulative child who knows the way to use her position to the greatest advantage. But, she is merely a supporting character as the main focus stays on Patty, her dedication to righteousness, and the seek for reality.

The irony is punctuated by the lies which get Patty into her difficulties in addition to out of them.

Ruth is the safety web with which Patty is ready to overcome the complexity of her difficulties. She is actual with the sensitivity that must be attributable to at the least one of many mother and father. Her deep perception guided Patty by ordeals to be expected solely of older kids. The proliferation of lies ought to have resulted in more extreme consequences thereby delineating the truth that lies, even when advised for noble purposes, mustn't result in beneficence. Such a lesson was never discovered.

It took seven chapters before prompting the escape of Anton via an unlikely ploy utilizing manifest greed for a supposedly precious nugatory bauble. However, the sudden transition Anton underwent to turn out to be a harbored POW instead of escapee under the spell of a pre-teenager baffles me. It is comprehensible why Patty desired Anton, however it is delusional to think that Mr. Reiker could presumably be persuaded by someone as young as Patty to place themselves in the type of hazard so grievous it killed him. It's apparent that Anton was created more to show Patty lessons of life somewhat than to profit from her indiscretions. It appeared such a waste to have Anton die without a resolution to Patty's emotional upheavals.

Charlene Madlee gave direction and purpose to Patty, however she only served as a refreshing sip where a stifling thirst demanded greater than the sporadic gems of sagacious epigrams that emerged nearly as if on demand and on cue. Patty miraculously survives the cruel beatings that permeate the text relentlessly begging for a respite not forthcoming. But, after eighteen chapters, the theme is lastly expressed too late to be effective. The truth that her loyalties induced her issues does not clarify how teenagers ought to deal with their difficulties. Too much time was spent beating the child quite than the child beating her problems.

Bette Greene had good intentions to address problems of unfounded hate learned by youth from their households and atmosphere. But, too much emphasis was positioned on parental abuse with out excuse and the benefits of mendacity for good reason. Patty's ethical fiber was too strong to must suffer by means of such a desolate denouement the place only wicked, immoral antagonists ought to be doomed to endure such lonely unfulfillment of the lack of household, mates, and future.