#brenner’s whole speech here about not being able to let go

[chirpsythismorning]

📝 💐 🛼 💔⏪️💭🧊🌄❤️‍🩹

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

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[gayofthefae]

He's crying. But it isn't just "please come back to me, I love you". It's more complicated than that. I'm currently in the space that he's faking the romantic bits like love at first sight and telling the truth about everything else.

Mike tells him "you're the heart". He's reminded by Will "your words can help" and he knows that the truth won't but he knows what Will, and he once said "If I had said that thing..." and he has the opportunity to say that thing now to save her.

I think these tears are more in the vein of "please work. God, please work." Because this was a strategic decision. A strategic decision made with love, but a strategic decision nonetheless.

That's why Will has to encourage them. It shifts the scene from organically and emotionally begging her to come back to consciously assisting her, although still emotional, of course.

It started "El, please come back to me etc." Then Will reminded him. And he turned around and said "El, I don't know if you can hear me..." He started something new. He wouldn't have said it otherwise because before he was just begging her to come back to him. But then, he was trying to help. Ever the personal-life curse of Mike Wheeler, he tried to help and in the long run it's going to make it worse.

This wasn't just Mike begging her to come back and it managed to help. This wasn't him taking the opportunity of knowing it would help to say it like in the shed with Will. This was choosing his words specifically to help as best he could to bring her back to him. He was just trying to keep her alive. He isn't thinking "I hope you can hear that I love you, even if it doesn't help I want you to know". He's only saying it so it helps. He's saying "please believe me please work please believe me please work".

Other posts have covered how he pulls from others' words - Eddie talking about finding him and Dustin, his own speech to Will in season 2 - that's because he's choosing his words carefully. Lovingly strategic. The ideal combo to give her the most strength. That's why it sounds forced. Because he's choosing his words, not pouring his heart.

In the shed, he told Will how he felt; he told Will a story. Because he knew that the truth was filled with so much love. But here, he knew the truth wouldn't help, would maybe make it worse, so he picked his words carefully crafted to be exactly what she wanted to hear, went bullet by bullet through their fight, quoted the words of more honest people in more earnest moments, and did his best to help. In the shed, he let his filter down; poured his heart out. In this moment, he tried. That's why it felt forced. He had to try.

Even GA and some Milkvans agree, even if you think it was the truth...he was saying it for her, not him. That's why he braces himself for the effort he's about to exert the moment right before he says it.

If it was really the culmination of his arc, since we already know Brenner was the culmination of hers, he would have done it for himself. The reason it feels forced is because it wasn't written to sound unfiltered. Watching this scene, I didn't feel relief on his behalf that he could finally say it, because I didn't see any transition from not being able to say it the whole season...because there wasn't one. I couldn't root for what I didn't know was about to happen because I didn't even know he could say it yet. Because he couldn't. He forced himself to.

I was not relieved on his behalf because he wasn't. I was not proud of him doing it for him because he didn't. He did it for her. But her arc wasn't about that either. So now we're just stuck.

In conclusion, he told her he loved her because he wanted her to survive and he isn't begging "please know that I love you" he's begging "please believe me and please let it help"

[screamingintosilence]

Heartbeats in the Quiet

Summary: It was usually just a cold, but this felt like the flu. Future Fic One-Shot of our favorite couple being their worry-wart selves. Nancy would be an amazing doctor.

Pairing: Mileven

Can also be read on AO3 here

December 9, 1994

Jane ‘El’ Wheeler (née Hopper) was worried.

That wasn’t anything new, Mike liked to tease her about being such a worry wart over everything. He understood that it stemmed from her days in the lab, of always feeling the pressure to please, so even though he teased, he also reassured. Mike was her God send and she still thanked her lucky stars every morning that he found her in the woods.

But El was worried more than usual. Winter seemed to have come early this and it felt like there weren’t enough layers or hot coffee and cocoa in the world to keep her from freezing. Even now as she sat bundle on their couch in their small one bedroom apartment with her favorite Christmas movie on and the biggest mug they owned filled to the brim with steaming hot Ovaltine clutched in her small hands, she was shivering.

She had even resorted to dragging their portable radiator from the bedroom out into the living area and putting it on the highest setting, something Mike was sure to be slightly annoyed at when he came home.

She had left her job as a speech therapist at the local elementary school early today, which worked out in her favor since she didn’t need to see anyone after noon on Fridays, which is what today happened to be.

For the past few days she had been waking up to nausea and puking out whatever they had eaten the night before, which given the time of year wasn’t completely strange, but she usually got the flu around mid-January.

Probably this stupid weather, she thought crossly, watching as George told Mary that he would give her the moon. El had always hated the cold, after everything she had experienced as a child, no one could blame her. But El adored Christmas. Their friends and family all laughed at her enthusiasm for the holiday, but they loved watching how giddy it made her.

This of course is why catching the flu this early was causing her to be downright miserable. She was used to the occasional sniffles that she had because of the weather changing drastically, but the flu tended to put her out of commission for days, a feeling that she loathed.

Her head snapped to the door as she heard keys rattling from the outside. She reached out with her mind to quickly unlock and open the door to see a stunned Mike on the other side, his hand looking like it was just about to put the key into the door.

He blinked in surprise as he saw his wife of 3 years curled up in the middle of their sofa with a blanket wrapped over her head and several others around her body, looking miserable as all get out.

“El, baby, are you ok? Why is it a sauna in here?” The heat of the room finally hit him as he quickly took off his outer layers all the way down to his undershirt as he stepped into the apartment, kicking the door closed behind him. He had no clue how she wasn’t dying from heat stroke. Once he was untangled from his clothes he strode around the couch, hands reaching out for her face to see if her temperature was off.

She let out a shriek as his hands made contact with her skin, “Mike! They’re freezing! Stop!”

He quickly pulled his hands away and held them close to the radiator. He took notice of how high it was set before turning back to the shivering woman next to him. “El, sweetheart, are you feeling ok? You look miserable.”

His words triggered something in her as tears started pouring down her cheeks and sobs to break from her lips. Panic overtook the young man as he scrambled to think of what he had done to set her off.

“I’m ugly?” she whimpered. The logic part of her brain was trying to tell her to get a grip, that she was overreacting, but the emotional part was all out of wack.

“What?! Baby?! Why are you crying?!” Mike was cradling her face and wiping her tears away as best he could but she just kept on sobbing.

“Be-because George would have given Mary the moon, a-and then you came home and I’ve missed you so much, and then you put your freezing hands o-on me, and then you said I look mi-miserable which means you think I’m ugly! And I’ve been feeling like crap every morning, and my boobs h-hurt and my whole body hurts, and I think I’m getting the flu early this year w-which isn’t fair because I love Christmas!” her blubbering rant ended when her sobs became too much and all Mike could think to do was pulling his tiny wife, blankets and all, into his lap after setting down her mug on the coffee table.

“Baby, shhh, it’s ok. You’ve seen this movie a million times and haven’t cry at it in years,” her sobs seemed to only increase as she took his statement as him pointing out a flaw. “Shit, baby, I’m sorry! That came out wrong. But I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the entire universe, I just thought you were looking sick, which you just said you feel like you might be!” His hands were running up and down her back trying to calm her as best he could. “If you’re getting the flu, we can go to the doctor and get medicine! I’ll nurse you back to health as fast I can so we can still enjoy all our Christmas traditions. It’ll be ok, I promise.”

Her sobs had slowed, finally quieting, and her tears had ceased as she tucked herself into her favorite place, under his chin. “I'm just so exhausted and ready for this to be over. And I already called Dr. Denebrough’s office, they said they can't get me in until Monday,” he could hear the pout in her voice.

“We could go to Nancy. I'm sure she could squeeze us in,” Mike offered as El simply snorted in response, still wiping her damp cheeks.

“Nancy is a ob-gyn, Mike. Besides, it's already 3:30, I doubt she's going to want us to come in this close to the practice closing.”

“El, it's Nancy were talking about, she loves you. Even more than she loves me! And besides, she'd be able to write you a prescription at least.”

El let out a sigh but knew that when Mike was determined to help, he was like a dog with a bone. Plus, he was probably right, and it would be wonderful to get better and be back to her happy holiday-joy-infused self as soon as possible.

“Fine,” she conceded while rolling off Mike's lap and back onto the couch so he could call his sister.

“Hey Miss Dawn, it's Mike Wheeler... Yeah, we're doing good. Hey, is my sister free right now by chance? Ok great!” Mike knew he always had speed through the greeting with the elderly receptionist that worked at the practice Nancy was established at. He was put on hold for a few minutes while they tracked her down for him.

“Hey Nance! Yeah, yeah, everything is good, well with me at least... Woah! Calm down, she's ok, she's on the couch... Look, she's actually why I'm calling... What? No! We talked about this, Nance,” he said the last part under his breath so El couldn't hear over the sounds of It's A Wonderful Life.

Nancy had freaked on the other end asking if El was pregnant, which was something that was actually a very hard spot for the couple. They had found out about three years ago that the chance of El ever getting pregnant were less than 0.01% because of what she had endured in the lab.

Dr. Brenner had been honest and upfront about it, refusing to sugar coat any of it, but none of it would have made the facts hurt any less.

The time right after had been the worst point their relationship had ever reached. After going through the counseling, however, they had become stronger than ever before. They had even started tossing around the idea of maybe adoption or fostering within the last few months.

“Look, El’s just feeling sick and we want to see if it's the flu or maybe something else because she's been feeling pretty crappy and our usually family doctor can't get her in till Monday... You're free?.. And you really don't mind?.. Great, you're the best, sis... Yeah, yeah, I'm not repeating that. See you in a bit.”

As he hung up the phone, he had already layering all his clothes back on and checking on his wife who was not too happy about having to leave their cozy apartment for the bitter Indiana weather. He handed her her boots and held her pile of blankets that she deemed mandatory to bring along as she tied up the strings.

Once they were piled into the car, El wrapped in blankets with the car’s heat on high and vents pointing all at her, they drove quickly to Nancy’s practice on the edge of South Bend. Thankfully for them they only lived a short 20 minutes away instead of the hour that Hawkins was.

They bustled inside with a quick “Hello” to Dawn as Nancy ushered them back into an examine room, a nurse quickly following behind.

“Ok, El, just to make sure we hit all our bases here, I’m just going to have to go through the usual routine,” Nancy told the younger woman as the nurse stood by with a clipboard, poised to take down all the stats. El agreed, hoping they could figure out if it really was the flu or hopefully something a lot less serious to calm her incessantly worrying mind.

So after all the height, weight, blood pressure, and temperature taking, El was already feeling even more tired than she had started out.

“So, you say that you’re feeling cold? Even with a heater and blankets?” Nancy was looking down at the clipboard while scribbling notes once the nurse had left. El nodded, words feeling like too much work. “That’s a little odd. I can’t fully rule out the flu quite yet, but you’re not showing any signs of a fever or cold. In fact, your body temperature is quite literally on the dot of normal.” Nancy’s eyes were slightly concerned, wishing she could find an easy solution for her sister-in-law. “I’d like to do a blood test, if you are ok with it. I know it’s not your favorite,” she stroked El’s arm as her eyes grew a bit panicked at the thought, “but it’ll be by far the most accurate way without getting too intrusive to try and see what might be wrong.”

When El finally conceded, squeezing all feeling out of Mike’s hand, Nancy called out to Jackie, the nurse, to bring in the blood test kit. When all was said and done, with an averted panic attack thanks to Mike, Nancy made sure to put a special rush request on the results to in the lab.

“It usually takes two hours for the results to come back, but I’m hoping with how slow today has been that maybe they’ll be able to get it done sooner,” Nancy wrote some more notes on the sheets before looking up to El biting her bottom lip. Mike was staring at his wife in worry, wishing there was something, anything to make her feel ok.

“What have you been feeling lately? Tell me exactly, don’t leave anything out,” Nancy was hoping that maybe she would be able to narrow down what could possibly be affecting one of her favorite people.

“Well,” El glanced at Mike who nodded reassuringly. “I’ve been waking up feeling nauseous for what feels like a few weeks now, but have only started throwing up this past week. And it hasn’t just been in the morning, sometimes my lunch smells weird which makes me nauseous. I’m always so tired and my body is sore, which might be from the vomiting but I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. My boobs especially, but it’s probably from my period coming. They’re always super tender,” El could see all the concern clouding Mike’s eyes since she hadn’t been telling him everything.

“And she’s been feeling like she’s freezing,” Mike added on for good measure.

Once Nancy had written it all down, she looked back over her notes, and then leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. She was wary of asking what she wanted to ask, but in her line of work, she felt it was something she needed to to cover all her bases.

“El, sweetheart,” she started out gently. “Just to check all my boxes, I need to ask. When did you have your last period?”

El was startled at the question since Nancy knew about her condition. But as El thought about it  more, she couldn’t think of writing on the calendar for the month of November when it started. She was meticulous about making sure to note it down, ever since she had started at 14 and Joyce told her to. Mike would make sure, but they had gotten so busy after Halloween this year with all the festivities, decorating, and prep for Thanksgiving and Christmas, she hadn’t even thought about it.

She worriedly looked to Mike to see if maybe he remembered, but he was slowly shaking his head, eyes wide as he looked back at her.

“I-I can’t, I can’t remember,” her worry was increasing tenfold, hoping desperately that wouldn’t mean that there was something more serious going on. “It might, it might have been the end of September. That’s when I remember for sure having it.”

Nancy sat thinking seriously for a few minutes, trying to consider everything. She knew how devastating the news of her brother and the love of his life being very unlikely to conceive was to them, especially taking into consideration of El’s and Mike’s love of kids. She really didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but she was desperately hoping for them.

“You know what? How about you guys go for dinner? I want to look through some stuff and it will give me enough time for your blood test results to come back,” Nancy suggested. She knew that El’s symptoms could actually apply to quite a few different things, especially her feeling cold being thrown into the loop, and wanted enough time to look through the medical books she kept in her office as well as be able to consult the results to be sure.

Mike and El were uneasy at the suggestion with so much uncertainty up in the air, but eventually they agreed and went on their way to a cafe just down the road from Nancy’s office, Mike doing his best to reassure his wife who he knew was internalizing everything.

Nancy was spending her time running through her books, not being able to place every single symptom of El’s into one thing. An hour since sending the blood work to the lab, a lab tech appeared at her door, a file folder in his hands.

Nancy quickly glanced over the sheet, her eyes growing wider as what it was trying to tell her sunk in, tears overtaking her as the reality of the news she was going to have to deliver hit her. She was just drying her eyes as Jackie stuck her head in to let the young ob-gyn know that her brother and sister-in-law had returned.

“Thanks Jackie. Can you show them into the exam room? Oh, and one more thing,” Jackie nodded in response to Nancy’s request as Nancy finished pulling herself together and made sure she had everything in order before she had to give them the life changing news.

She made her way back to the room were El and Mike were waiting for her. The minute she entered their eyes snapped to her, begging her to tell them good news. She gave a tight, small smile as she asked El to lay on the exam table.

“So I have the results from the blood test back-”

“And?” Mike demanded, cutting her off.

She held her hand up to keep him from attacking her, “And there is one last test, or rather check, I would like to do to just to be one hundred percent sure. Given, it might actually not show me anything this early in your condition,” El ears perked at ‘condition’ as every worst case scenario shot through her mind.

“Whatever you have to do, do it. I need to know,” El cut of any more explanation Nancy might have continued to give as Mike gripped her hand hard.

“If you wouldn’t mind unbuttoning your pants and pulling your shirt up a bit,” Nancy asked as she wheeled over the machine that had a small screen with keyboard and wand that had already been prepped for her by Jackie.

Mike’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline at his sister’s request as he also took in the machine. “Why, Nance? And isn’t that an ultrasound machine?”

“Well, yes. But ultrasound machines can be used for a great many things, not just to check if you’re pregnant,” she tried reassuring the young couple. “It’s less radiation and time than an x-ray, plus it’ll give me a chance to search for what I’m looking for.” Mike quirked an eyebrow at her but her face gave nothing away.

El, who was lying prone at an angle on the table, had already complied with Nancy’s request, willing to do anything her sister-in-law asked of her, as long as they could find out what was wrong.

“I’ll need to spread this gel so that the wand can pick up a picture. It will be cold, is that ok?” Nancy looked at her to make sure she had her consent and El nodded back. After the sharp intake of breath at first contact, Mike wrapped his arms around his love the best he could while staying out of the way.

The whole damn room is cold, he thought bitterly, hoping this wouldn’t take too long. His hands covered El’s as she reached up for them, trying to keep her as warm as possible.

Nancy had been fiddling around with the wand for a few minutes, slowly swiping it slowly across El’s abdomen by her pant line. After clicking a few buttons here and there, she donned a pair of headphones. At Mike’s questioning gaze Nancy gave a stern, “I just need you to trust me and let me do my job.”

After another minute or so, she slipped them off, giving the two people in front of her a small smile. “I’m not sure how to tell you this, but I think I first need to show you.”

Both Mike and El looked at her and each other completely lost as to what Nancy was trying to tell them. In their confusion, Nancy had replaced the wand to a certain area of El’s stomach before flipping a switch on the ultrasound machine, letting a loud whooshing sound flood the room.

“What is that?” bewilderment still prevailing through Mike. Nancy just smiled and turned the screen to them, pointing at a miniscule dot on the screen.

“It’s a heartbeat,” her smile growing wider as their confusion only grew.

“But my heart’s up here,” El was holding her hand over her chest.

Nancy moved the wand from El’s lower belly to over her heart, the sound changing to a low, steady heartbeat, slower than before. “That’s actually your heartbeat, El. This,” she moved the wand back to its original position, the swooshing, galloping sound playing through the speakers once more, “is a different heartbeat.”

As the reality of what she was saying to them finally seemed to sink in, El’s hand tightened on Mike’s, cutting off circulation. Mike, however, didn’t even register the feeling as his whole body seemed numbed, the shock overriding his nervous system.

“It’s still really early, you’re looking at about 10 weeks or so, so it’s imperative that you listen to your body and be careful about this. The first trimester is usually the highest chance of a miscarriage, but with you El, I’d be careful the whole time. I would say your coldness might have something to do with all your heat being pulled to your core to keep this little one safe and warm. It is a bit unusual, so I would definitely check in with Dr. Brenner soon, but congratulations! You guys are going to have a baby!” Nancy couldn’t contain the giant smile and small squeal of excitement over the thought of these two deserving souls getting something they had hung up as being impossible.

“Oh my god,” Mike finally managed to choke out just as sobs started coming from El’s direction. As his eyes turned to her, his heart felt like it was going to explode as massive amounts of fear and panic overtook him at his wife’s tears. He folded her into his arms, “Baby, it’s going to be ok. We’ll figure it out, we’ll make sure we’re safe. Everything is going to be ok.”

“I c-can’t believe it!” she was wailing. And while she knew that she should probably calm down to make sure her husband knew that she wasn’t upset, all her brain could think of was that there was a precious life growing inside of her and that it was made up of her and Mike.

Knowing there was no way for her to get words of reassurance out, she lifted her lips to Mike’s as she threaded her fingers through his inky locks, pouring everything she was feeling into the kiss.

When they finally pulled apart, Mike rested his forehead on hers, eyes staring into her chocolate browns, thumbs wiping away her tear tracks. “You’re absolutely amazing, baby. I love you so much, Ellie. We’ll make sure we do everything right and that we’re careful to make sure this little one is safe and warm and happy,” one of his hands dropped to stroke her lower belly which was still covered in the gel; he could care less.

Tears still in her eyes, she gripped him fiercely, “Thank you, Mike. Thank you for saving me and continue to save me. Thank you for being my miracle.”

“Thank you for being mine.”

As they drove home that night, Mike going well under the speed limit and El gave a small eyeroll, they thought back to everything they had gone through and ahead to everything they were about to go through. They knew it was going to be a very difficult journey and that no matter what they did or how they prepared, there would be something unexpected.

In this moment, however, with all the doubts and worries, they felt the one thing they didn’t realize they hadn’t felt for a while now...Hope.

[porcileorg]

Discussing 3 performances @ ‘Friendly Confrontations - Festival of Global Art and Criticism of Institutions,’ hosted by Münchner Kammerspiele (2020-01-16[-19])

Discussed performances: ‘Operation Sunken Sea’ by Heba Y. Amin; ‘Metabit:Metapixel:Metadimension’ by Onyx Ashanti; ‘Birding the Anthropocene’ by Nadir Sourigi Festival curated by: Julia Grosse and Julian Warner

Conversants: The Bensplainer and Victor Sternweiler

... sitting @ Kammerspiele’s Canteen.

The Bensplainer: We just saw the first two performances.

Victor: The first performance was by Heba Y. Amin, ‘Operation Sunken Sea,’ @ Kammer 3. She’s an Egyptian artist and lecturer living in Berlin. I once attended a performance of hers, which I found very interesting, so I was eager to be here today. The Kammer 3 was designed as follows. There was a rather large projection canvas in the centre functioning as a backcloth, and also two hanging banners from the ceiling, with a cheap logo printed on them, derived from the Mediterranean’s Sea cartography by the 10th century Persian geographer Al-Istakhri. In the foreground there was a simple speaker’s podium with a huge bouquet of flowers. On its side, two flags on poles, recalling the banners in the background. Apart from the bouquet, the scene gave an impression of a black monochrome. Between the audience’s seats, two cameras also stood there.

The Bensplainer: Isn’t it typical, I mean, for recording?

Victor: No, normally cameras are placed behind the audience at Kammerspiele.

The Bensplainer: So they were part of the set. Amin’s performance was divided into two main moments. During the first one, she was not present, instead some historical footage was projected onto the blank canvas in the background. It was a collection of different forms of speeches by 20th century political leaders, dealing with the Mediterranean Sea as a place for social, economical and war related issues.

Victor: The projection consisted of six audiovisual documents in a row, all in b/w, showing speeches by Italian Benito Mussolini, an Egyptian political activist whom I did not identify…

The Bensplainer: Me neither.

Victor: … Egypt’s Gamal Nasser, UK’s Robert Eden, US’s Dwight Eisenhower, and Turkey’s Recep Erdogan. Mussolini’s speech during a rally was about Italian Imperialism in the Mediterranean Sea. Nasser, Eden and Eisenhower’s speeches referred to the contemporary Suez Canal crisis. Specifically, Nasser addressed the theme of independence from US money. Eden addressed Nasser’s unreliability and stressed the economical relevance of the Suez Canal for Western interests.

The Bensplainer: I was quite impressed by Eden’s speech, as he seemed to threaten Egypt with war for a simple reason: oil. The Suez Canal was actually the way through which oil barrels could have been delivered to Western Europe. It made me think how today the threat of war is based on fictive ideology (defense of democracy or whatever), when it is actually a question of resources. That guy Eden was quite clear and paradoxically honest: we do war for economical reasons. On the contrary, a more ideological speech on the crisis was delivered by Eisenhower, I think at the UN in New York.

Victor: And finally, the Erdogan’s speech, more recent of course, but still in b/w, was about the construction of a new canal between the Black and the Mediterranean Sea.

The Bensplainer: This first moment, the projection ended, and the artist entered the stage, she went behind the speaker’s podium. Thus, HER performance began. All the set up—the stage design and the footage—suggested she was going to play the character of a political leader, dressed up in accordance with an official assembly’s speech. Then she started reading from her paper.

Victor: She adopted the character of a political leader from a North African country (it was not specified which one, again due to the fictive logos on banners and flags). Her speech was a collage of the previous speeches—using the exact propagandistic phrases and chunks as a vocabulary to formulated another speech—intertwined with pseudo-utopian statements by the German architect, Herman Sörgel, who in the 1920s developed Atlantropa, a colossal engineering project aimed at draining the Mediterranean Sea—that later info I got from the press release as he was not mentioned during the performance itself. Thus, uniting the European and African continents, for the sake of European survival. So, the character played by Amin shifts the perspective, proposes to drain the sea and to move it to Sahara.

The Bensplainer: At the very beginning of her speech I was very excited, because I was expecting a parodic function in her delivering speech. You know? You set the premises—the stage design and the actual words by political leaders—in order to play with them and somehow to try to estrange them too. But as a whole it somehow failed: in order to bring the issues, the material, to the point of absurdity, it would have been more insightful if she also parodied the charisma, the styles, the gestures, of the political leaders shown before.

Victor: Yes, the absurdity is very evident, but Amin didn’t act more or less then she usually would ‘act’ in her other (lecture) performances. She wasn’t really acting, thus transcending emotions, like those other leaders did. I think that stage in a house like that really demanded a better actor and I would have loved to see somebody from the Kammerspiele assembly doing her part. There one could see the inherent institution critique: you ‘have’ to literally perform your very own work yourself, or it is easier to make work which you can perform by yourself, because there are very few institutions which are able to inivite work that requires the invitation of several people. I think Kammerspiele initiatives have a bigger budget than at least half of the art institutions that invite her. At the end, it was a bit unconvincing as she was probably performing that piece for the 30th time.

The Bensplainer: On the other hand, Amin wanted to embody this character as a political stance and from the perspective of a non European artist. Just using her body as a statement. But ideas didn’t help the acting after all.

The Bensplainer: The second performance we attended was Onyx Ashanti, ‘Metabit:Metapixel:Metadimension,’ @ Workshop Kammerspiele. It was staged—if you could say it was staged—in the unconventional setting of one of Kammerspiele’s workshops. Onyx Ashanti took a portion of the space and made it very comfy, with seats, pillows, carpets, all around his station and working gears, computers, screens, beamers, a 3D printer. He wore his personal set of gadgets, sensors designed and produced by himself, able to fit onto his body. These were connected to an A.I., programmed also by him to produce music based on his body’s vibration.

Victor:I actually know his work from YouTube. So, he was sitting on the floor and around him, some small tables and created a place where he could work. People who just came in could sit on the pillows around the U-form table set. There was no start or an ending, you simply approached him, while he was working or interacting with his guests, answering questions and so on. A very comfortable situation, which made it more like a studio visit rather than a performance. And he had somebody bring him a beer.

The Bensplainer: Of course, there was a vast range of questions you could ask, especially about his ongoing practice with A.I.,the body and music. This was somehow the device that activated his ‘studio visit’ performance. On one hand, it dealt with personal issues and his DIY attitude of the moment. On the other hand, the way he did wasn’t really direct, and I loved it. For instance, his answers to our questions were often metaphorical. It was inspiring, because I felt active, even if only listening to him. Also his body language was intense, because the way he moved, the way he talked, was very energetic and insightful. So, in a way, it was a performance, but, as you said, he managed to make us feel we were participating in a studio visit.

Victor: It was a studio visit because he arranged the space so that he could have continued working, even if nobody would have interacted with him. I loved how he subverted the system of the hired artist, coming for a gig, being paid and then leaving. He was using Kammerspiele practically and the time slot for his gig as a working space and an opportunity to work.

The Bensplainer: Very efficient! Working on his stuff, interacting with visitors, and performing for the theater, all at once! And everybody was engaged. Apart from that, he showed us a video addressing the relationship between his A.I./bodily generated music and ‘natural’ music. As he's living in Detroit and owning a little garden, he decided to let it grow by itself. Thus it became a favorite spot for animals and insects. In this video, taken during the night, he and the crickets’ music intertwined their harmonies, with surprising effects. He stated that after some nights playing together, the crickets started to respond to his music, but I wasn’t really able to catch it properly from the video.

Victor: What’s charming is that he made music with the crickets for the sake of just doing it, only at a later point of time did he eventually documented it in the way you document a personal memory with your phone. How he described what happened, made me feel that it wasn’t important at the end, if it was believable or not: the storytelling was inspiring.

The Bensplainer: I know I’m always annoying bensplaining to all of you about Russian modernism. But still… the poet Velimir Khlebnikov’s father was a trained ornithologist and he was an expert too. In his last supersaga Zangezi (1922), Khlebnikov put in verse actual transliteration of birds’ songs. I don’t know if it makes sense to cite it here, but it came to mind simply by association.

The next day, The Bensplainer and Victor Sternweiler @ Brenner, having an espresso.

The Bensplainer: On a snowy Sunday morning, we went birdwatching. Spooky Khlebnikov!

Victor: It was Nadir Sourigi, ‘Birding the Anthropocene,’ @ Praterinsel. Literally birdwatching, with a ‘but.’ The New York based artist and an ornithology pedagogue Sourigi picked up the group at the Kammerspiele and then we all went together to the Isar, to the Praterinsel. The idea somehow theatricalized birdwatching tours.

The Bensplainer: I think that it is what Sourigi does, being an artist and an ornithologist, and prefers to do birdwatching with non-white communities in Harlem, those who are underpriviledged. His practice joins birdwatching to related historical and critical issues, the current state of environmental studies too. Of course, this tour was very active and people could freely interact with Sourigi.

Victor: At first he explained to us how urbanization had and has a strong impact on the bird population.

The Bensplainer: And while we were still on a bridge leading to Praterinsel, looking for birds, he also mentioned the catastrophic statistics that, alone in Germany, 75% of flying insects have disappeared in the last years.

Victor: All of a sudden, after introducing the attendees to some birdwatching techniques, Sourigi started to express his institutional critique: birdwatchers are basically white, and so are members of Life Preservation institutes. And then there were some people who really came for the birdwatching and had their binoculars. The educational system in itself poses barriers for non-white people to access this field of culture. At the same time, he initiated this birdwatching program with kids in Harlem, in order to make them aware of what’s happening near to their neighborhood: Central Park, even if near to Harlem, doesn’t belong to these kids’ spatial perspective.

The Bensplainer: Like as if it has invisible burdens—I think he used these words—at least some spots of the park.

Victor: But think about it: the Kammerspiele offers a birdwatching tour, so all participants are as white as in the US, as we learned. Instead of really doing birdwatching, he starts a conversation about racism, class, global capitalism and selective education. Issues hit you in the face. This estrangement rendered the tour artistic, if you want, not the facts in themselves. I also find interesting how he manages to increase non-white participation in ornithological tours, both in a social sense (as in Harlem) and in an artistic sense (as here at the Kammerspiele). Audiences and motivations are very diverse, but he somehow tries to get all together.

[milliebobbybrownfan]

New Post has been published on Millie Bobby Brown Fan #MillieBobbyBrown #StrangerThings

New Post has been published on http://millie-bobby-brown.com/pressphotosvideo-millie-for-variety-magazine/

Press/Photos/Video: Millie for Variety Magazine

Millie is to be featured in the new issue of Variety magazine. I will be adding digital scans soon.

  2017: Variety (Cover image) 2017: Photo Session #028

How ‘Stranger Things’ Star Millie Bobby Brown Made Eleven ‘Iconic’ and Catapulted Into Pop Culture

“I’ve never seen that in a child actor.”

It’s almost a mantra for anyone who’s worked with Millie Bobby Brown.

Whether it’s “Stranger Things” executive producer Matt Duffer praising her on-set technical knowledge, co-star David Harbour extolling her emotional intelligence or casting director Sarah Finn explaining why she selected her for the next installment in the “Godzilla” film franchise — even the most seasoned industry pro marvels at the young actor’s preternatural ability.

Brown, now just 13, has never trained professionally as an actor. Never gone to acting school. Never taken a class. She simply decided at age 8 she wanted to be on-screen, and her parents obliged, moving her and her siblings from Bournemouth in England to Orlando, Fla., to allow her to pursue her dream.

“It was like a bug,” she says. “I know this sounds crazy, but once I find something I want to do, nobody’s stopping me. If I don’t know how to sew, and I really had that passion to sew, that’s it, I’m going to sew. That’s also with acting. So here I am.”

Her path to stardom wasn’t immediate: She secured a few guest star spots here and there, in shows like “Once Upon a Time in Wonderland,” “Modern Family” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” She got turned down for “Logan,” which eventually went to Dafne Keen. But it was the role of Eleven in Netflix’s sleeper hit that catapulted her to fame.

“I felt at one point I couldn’t do it [anymore], but then I got this and everything changed,” she says over a mid-afternoon soda break at the London hotel in West Hollywood. Now, “acting is like breathing to me.”

To say the past year of her life has been a roller coaster would imply that there have been dips. In fact, it’s been nothing but a steady climb since the July 2016 bow of “Stranger Things.” Her Instagram followers ballooned from 25 to 4.2 million; the cast won best ensemble at the SAG Awards and best drama at the PGA Awards; and she claimed her own trophy at the MTV Movie & TV Awards for best actor in a TV show, with an emotional acceptance speech that won her even more accolades for its honesty. And with season two of “Stranger Things” now streaming (it debuted Oct. 27), she just wrapped production on the next installment of the “Godzilla” franchise opposite Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga and Thomas Middleditch. (“You’ll find out in two years,” she jokes about her secret role in the film, which is slated for a 2019 release.)

Then there’s that Emmy nomination for supporting actress in a drama. “It was a true honor and privilege to be representing the young generation,” she says. Although she went home on Emmy night empty-handed, she took things in stride, happy to simply enjoy the evening out with her merry band of co-stars.

“I’m leery of blowing too much smoke up her already well-filled smoke ass,” says Harbour, who plays Chief Hopper on the Netflix hit. “Because I do feel that when I’m in the nursing home, I would like to be able to watch movies with her in her 30s and have her become Meryl Streep. She has the potential for that to happen.”

It was all about the Look.

Fans of “Stranger Things” know it well: when Eleven lowers her chin and glares defiantly at whoever — or whatever — is in her path.

It was in her audition for the role that she came up with that intense laser-beam stare — and nailed the part. She was 11 at the time.

“I’ve never forgotten it, because it was so intuitive,” recalls executive producer Shawn Levy. “That this little person had such fierce power — that’s what took me aback. That same day the Duffers [brothers Matt and Ross, who created the show] and I knew she was the one.”

In the “Stranger Things” universe, Eleven — so-called because of the tattoo she wears — is a product of psychological experiments by Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine) that infused her with telekinetic abilities, among other supernatural powers. Because of her years of isolation under Brenner’s watch, her vocabulary is rather limited. (One fan counted: Her dialogue amounts to just under 250 words in the whole first season.)

Brown wasn’t intimidated by the role of Eleven being mostly nonverbal. “You can talk with your face,” she says matter-of-factly. “It’s very easy for someone to say, ‘I’m mad. I’m sad. I’m angry.’ I have to just do it with my face.”

Nor did she mind shaving her head. Brown’s parents were more against it than she was, but it helped that “Mad Max: Fury Road” was out at the time. Matt Duffer recalls persuading her with the argument “Doesn’t Charlize look badass? You’re going to look badass too.”

What did cause a bit of on-set drama was The Kiss — the moment when Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Eleven smooch in the season-one finale. For all of her remarkable self-possession, the little girl that’s still in Brown reveals itself when she recounts the moment — her first kiss ever. “It was a strange experience. Having 250 people looking at you kissing someone is like, ‘Whoa!’” she says.

Further complicating matters, it seems there’s some debate over whether it was Wolfhard’s first smooch as well. “He says I wasn’t, but I definitely think I was,” she says. “I think he was just trying to be cool.”

As for how those awkward teenage moments play out in the second season, “No comment,” say the Duffer Brothers. “My character’s just so, so perfect for me,” says Millie Bobby Brown. “I definitely think that we relate to each other a lot.”

The Duffers, who write, direct and executive produce the series, have gotten a front-row seat to Brown’s talents. The role of Eleven was always central to the show’s plot — it’s with her help that the boys rescue their friend who’s vanished into the Upside Down — but with Brown on board, the storytelling options have blossomed.

“We have yet to give her something that she’s unable to do,” says Matt Duffer. “I can throw this girl an incredible fastball, she’s going to hit it. It’s like a singer who can hit any note. Her range is just absolutely incredible. I have yet to see any limits to it.”

He compares her to Tom Cruise in her keen perception of how the camera works — and how to use it to her advantage. “She’s four years away from knowing what millimeter lens she’s on and how she should adjust her performance accordingly,” he says. “She’s not there yet, but it’s right around the corner.”

Ross Duffer recalls the scene in season one where Eleven is being dragged down the corridor shouting “Papa!” at Brenner. Even the crew stopped to marvel. “That was when we realized, as good as she is, she’s even better than we thought,” he says. “We can push her to all these intense and emotional places.” They take her even further in the second season (there’s an epic finale showdown), and report she “knocks it out of the park” every time.

And the critics agree: “Brown’s ability to summon emotion is as impressive as her character’s ability to walk between worlds,” writes Variety’s Maureen Ryan.

As Brown heads into her teenage years, the question is whether she can avoid that curse of child stardom that has plagued so many before her. “Everyone from Tennessee Williams to Sarah Paulson has warned of the perils of early success,” says Harbour. “There’s a piece of me that’s very protective of her and feels that we should all let her be brave and brilliant and turn our eyes away and not give her so much attention.”

Levy says her close family ties give her a “fighting chance.” She’s surrounded by her parents, as well as her 23-year-old sister, who’s usually on set with her and travels with her. And if all else fails, there’s Harbour: “I tell you what, she’s got me. And I’m the biggest curmudgeon around.”

Brown has purposely made her U.S. home in Atlanta, far from the crush of Hollywood, where she jokingly complains every waiter is an actor. “I feel like Hollywood is just a place where everything’s going so fast,” she says. Georgia, she says, is “calm, peaceful, beautiful.” There she can keep herself “grounded for my family and my home and my friends.”

She’s been flooded with advice, but the one thing she’s retained is this: “To live in the moment and to make mistakes is a big part of being a person,” she says. “I’m still just a kid. I’m 13, and making mistakes is OK.” So if a spoiler slips (no such luck!) or she says something wrong on Twitter, so be it.

She’s trying to hold on to some vestiges of her childhood and not rush headlong into adulthood, despite all the magazine cover offers coming her way. “I don’t like showing off my skin,” she reveals. “If I’m in a photo shoot and they’re like, ‘Can you wear a crop top?’ I’m like, ‘No. No, not yet.’ When that day comes I’m going to be, like, 18.”

She plans to spend her hiatus doing charity work. “I just want to focus on helping other people,” she says. “Working with Unicef is a really big dream of mine.”

And while she’s content to focus on acting, her other passion is singing — just watch her impressive rap to Nicki Minaj’s verse on “Monster” on YouTube. As with acting, she’s never trained. “It came to me naturally,” she says.

Even more remarkable, Brown is deaf in one ear — she was born with partial loss of hearing, and then her hearing faded away after years of tubes. So she can’t fully hear herself perform, but no matter. “I just started to sing, and if I sound bad I don’t care, because I’m just doing what I love,” she says. “You don’t have to be good at singing. You don’t have to be good at dancing or acting. If you like to do it, if you genuinely enjoy doing it, then do it. No one should stop you.”

Season one of “Stranger Things” ended with Eleven sacrificing herself to the Demogorgon who’s been terrorizing the town. But there was never really any question that Brown would return for season two. (And we did see Harbour’s Chief Hopper leaving those Eggos, her favorite snack, in the woods.)

“Once we realized [‘Stranger Things’] was going to be multiple seasons, Eleven was such the heart of the show we had to keep her,” says Ross Duffer.

Brown says she knew she was coming back and is relieved she finally gets to talk about it, since she had to keep it a secret even from her family. But she’s been well-trained in the art of avoiding spoilers (“I’m a pro at this now,” she says when her publicist hands her talking points for an upcoming panel), and ahead of the premiere, she refuses to reveal how or why Eleven returns.

“It’s really twisted and just perfect,” she says cryptically.

Season two, which picks up a year later in 1984, probes more deeply into Eleven’s backstory. “We wanted to delve more into her past and how she ended up where she ended up,” says Ross Duffer. “It’s an emotional journey for Millie and her character to see where she came from. The first season was a fish-out-of-water, ‘E.T.’ story for her. This season we wanted to give her more of an arc and a journey.”

Adds Matt Duffer, “I think people are really going to respond to her storyline.”

We find out more about not just her mother but her connection to Brenner, the man she calls her father. “Without Papa, Eleven wouldn’t be Eleven,” says Brown. “Everybody thinks he’s evil, but he was a big part of Eleven’s life. He was her Papa.”

But her true father figure is Harbour’s Chief Hopper. “They’re both such strong, oddball characters,” Harbour says. “We wanted to fit this feral cat of a little girl, wise beyond her years, who also has these supernatural abilities, with this very broken man who’s got issues about his own parenting abilities. There’s some connection that Hopper understands about the reemergence of Eleven that very much comes into play in season two.”

This time out, Eleven has more hair (“We let it grow out, as much hair as was able to grow from season one to season two,” says Ross Duffer) and more dialogue. (Among her new favorite words: “Mouth-breather.”) “She’s not speaking as if she was raised and lived in the regular world her whole life, but it’s a more verbal performance,” says Levy. “But in spite of more written dialogue in season two, Millie’s more powerful moments remain the ones without words.”

And there’s a new girl in town, challenging Eleven’s role as the lone girl in the gang of boys: Sadie Sink plays Max, a skateboarding tomboy with “a complicated history and a suspicious streak.” And though their characters may not exactly bond immediately, off-screen is a different story: Brown’s Instagram is filled with photos of her and Sink, whom she calls a “sister.” “I loved having a new girl on the show, because it’s nice not to be surrounded by boys,” Brown says. “One girl is just perfect.” Echoes Sink, “Me and Millie automatically clicked because we were the only girls in the group.”

Spoiler alert: There’s one moment this season that had Brown in tears. “I cried for hours actually after that, because it was just so sad,” she says.

All involved acknowledge the pressure of living up to the nearly impossible expectations of the sophomore season. “I don’t believe in resting on your laurels,” says Harbour. “I think the purpose of artistry in some degree as opposed to entertainment is to be one step ahead of your audience. Give them what they might not know they need as opposed to just rehashing the hits. So from very early on, the first scripts we were like we’re going to take some chances that hopefully will pay off. It might upset some people. But it was exciting to be a part of it.”

Brown’s ties to the boys — Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin — seems unbreakable. Their palpable on-screen chemistry translates off set, where they spend much of their free time together — at Six Flags, on sleepovers, on giant text chains that the Duffers occasionally get caught on. (“That’s not so fun,” sighs Matt Duffer.) “They’re close and they’re going to be bonded in some way for life, and I think they realize that,” he says.

At the London, Brown can’t resist looking over with a tinge of jealousy as the boys run around nearby, on a break from a tutoring session. “I know the true boys, and they know the true me,” she says. “We like to be as private as we can.”

Wolfhard calls her “one of the best actresses I’ve ever worked with.” “If you put something on her shoulders, something big or a big scene, she’ll figure it out,” he says. “She can handle pressure very well.”

Schnapp says he’s grown closer with Brown in the second season. They’ve become prank buddies — they called the show’s costume designer and told her her wedding had to be canceled — and he’s especially fond of her ATV. “We ride it all the time and watch scary movies together,” he reports.

As luck would have it, the production of “Godzilla” was in Atlanta. She bonded with director Michael Dougherty over a mutual interest. “I have such a passion about animals and he did as well, and I felt like we just immediately connected,” she says. “I was like, I need to work with him. I need to.”

She points out, though, that she’s going to be 15 when the movie finally comes out. “I’m going to see my 13-year-old self and be like, ‘Why did I do that? Why did I blink at that specific time?’” she says with a sigh. “I’m a perfectionist, so I don’t like to watch my work.”

Millions would beg to differ. – Source