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bbq-hawks-wings · 5 years ago

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I want to express an unpopular opinion. I hope for your understanding, because such things don't like to listen. Why does everyone think that Hawks is a bird? I couldn' fit my logical arguments into the askbox :( (about how he sits on a pole "like a bird", supposedly likes jewelry and so on). Even his quirk is called Fierce Wings, not a Hawk, not a Red Bird. Do you remember the names of the quirks of Hound Dog and Tsuyu-chan? We haven't evidence to believe that Hawks is behaves like a bird.

I do believe very much he’s a bird, and if you would let me friend, I would love to try and prove it to you because I think the evidence is overwhelming. I’ll make a TL;DR at the end but I’d really like to take the opportunity to perhaps teach others at least one method for literary analysis since it can be a really dry and boring subject to learn in school but is SO useful not only for getting good grades but getting into colleges as well as interpreting both entertainment and genuinely important information like the news, history, laws, and scientific papers. Using fiction - especially such a rich, engaging one like HeroAca - is a great way to try it out without the pressure of a grade. I don’t have the qualifications to teach in any formal capacity, but as a “peer” tutor I hope I can be helpful.

I’m going to put everything under the cut from here because this is going to get LONG, but I promise the TL;DR at the end will be very easy to read. If you liked this sort of unofficial tutorial please let me know. I’d love to help make “academic” skills like this more accessible for those who might benefit from it and enjoy it, but it doesn’t make sense to put in all that effort moving forward if I’m garbage at it.

Before we get too into things, I want to lay out a few notes to keep in mind as we go.

I will only be using the official translations from Viz’s Shonen Jump website when available. Fan translations are more than close enough to casually enjoy and follow the story, but professional translators are paid to know and get various nuances correct and some of the trickier cultural background behind certain phrases (for example, the phrase “where the rubber meets the road” might make zero sense in a foreign language if translated literally, so an equal cultural phrase should be used instead) that give more exact information. Rarely is this too important, but sometimes it helps, plus it supports the source material.

If you’ve followed my blog for a while you might know I’m very fond of doing this kind of thing in my spare time and that I’m a huge fan of YouTube channels like Game/Film Theory, Overly Sarcastic Productions, Extra Credits, and Wisecrack that do this kind of thing with popular media as well. If you like this sort of content, may I encourage you to check them out after this to see how else you can apply these kinds of analytical skills to things that aren’t homework.

My writing style tends to meander, but I do my best to cut out the fat and only include relevant information so even though there’s a lot of information here, please know that I’m trying to be thorough and explain things to the best of my ability. If I seem to go off on a tangent, I’m trying to set up or contextualize information to explain why it’s relevant and then come back to the point. In other words, please be patient and bear with me as I go.

Now, to start, I want to explain at least my method for analyzing a text/piece of media. There is a set order and number of steps to take, and it’s as follows:

Read the material all the way through.

Come up with a hypothesis about something you’ve noticed when reading it. (In this case, it’s “Is Hawks actually supposed to be a bird?”)

Collect as much relevant information as possible and test the evidence to see if it supports the hypothesis we’ve made.

Step back and look at everything again with those points in mind.

Determine if we were right or wrong with the evidence we have.

If we were wrong, go back to step 3 to figure out what fell apart and see if we need to go back to step 2.

If that sequence sounds familiar it’s because it’s the scientific method! Aha, didn’t think we’d be pulling science into all this, did you? Don’t worry, we won’t be putting numbers or formulas anywhere near this discussion - the scientific method is just a way we can observe something and test if what we thought about it is actually true; and it applies to almost everything we as humans can observe - from the laws of the universe, to arts and crafts, to philosophy and religion, and so on! When you think about it that way, whole new possibilities can open up for you when it comes to understanding how the world works.

So with that set let’s (finally) begin!

Steps 1 and 2 are already done. We’ve read the manga and want to prove that Hawks is a bird. (We’re going to try and prove he IS a bird because in the context of the series there’s a lot that *isn’t* a bird and less stuff that *is* which will make our job easier.) So now, we’re onto:

Step 3 - collect data and see what conclusions we can get just from our evidence.

Now, to pause again (I know, bear with me!) there’s a few different kinds of information and considerations we have to keep in mind as we collect. There are four kinds of information that are important to know about in order to determine if it’s good data that will help us with the testing phase in Step 4. The kinds of information to keep in mind are:

Explicit information - this is information that is directly spelled out for us. For example, Hawks says, “I like my coffee sweet.” and his character sheet says “Hawk’s favorite food is chicken.” That’s all there is to it, and it’s pretty hard to argue with. This is the easiest type of info to find.

Implicit information - this is info that isn’t directly spelled out but is noticeable either in the background or as actions, patterns, or behaviors that can be observed. For example, Hawks has mentioned in at least three very different places his concerns over people getting hurt while he tries to get in with the League:

Chapter 191 when confronting Dabi about the Nomu he says, “You said you’d release it in the factory on the coast, not in the middle of the damn city!”

Chapter 191 again in a flashback with the Hero Commission he asks, “What about the people who might be hurt while I’m infiltrating the League?”

Chapter 240 when discovering how much influence and power the League has gained, “If someone had taken down the League sooner, all those good citizens wouldn’t have had to die!”

Hawks never says in so many words, “I never want innocent people to get hurt under any circumstances!” but the pattern of behavior and concern is consistent enough to form a pattern and clue us in that this is a key part of his character to keep in mind.

Peripheral information - this is information that isn’t directly to do with Hawks or maybe even the series as a whole but is still relevant to keep in mind for his character and the questions we’re asking. This may include extra content that isn’t the “series” proper, but is still an official source like interviews with Horikoshi, etc. but it can go even further. For example, while we try to prove that he’s a bird, we should have some knowledge about what makes a bird a bird, some specific and notable birdlike habits/behaviors/features, etc. This is just to show how wide-ranging we need to cast our informational net.

Contextual information - this will be important when we get to Step 4, but it’s good to keep in mind now. This is when we compare evidence against the broader scope of the series and consider the circumstances under which we find the information. For example, if I told you, “Harry kicked a dog.” you might think “What a jerk! What decent person kicks a dog?”; but if I said, “Harry kicked a dog while trying to keep it from biting his kid.” suddenly it re-frames the story. “Is the kid ok? Why was that dog attacking? Harry put himself in danger to keep his kid safe - what a great dad!”

I’ll go chronologically to make it easier to follow my evidence as I gather and give references as to where I found that information. I’ll go through the manga first, and then any peripheral sources that are either direct informational companions to the series (like character books or bonus character information sheets) and interviews with Horikoshi. Please note the categories these details fall into may vary based on opinion/interpretation, but I did my best to list them out for reference.

Chapter 185 - Explicit Type: Feathered wings - regardless of the specifics of his quirk it’s undeniable his wings are made up of feathers which is a distinctly birdlike quality. There are many mythical creatures and even dinosaurs that also have feathered wings, but this is our first big piece of evidence.

Chapter 186 - Peripheral Type: Large appetite - birds have an incredibly fast metabolism because flying takes so much energy. They’re constantly eating. Plenty of young men are big eaters, but it was specifically pointed out and works towards our hypothesis so we’ll keep it in our back pocket for now.

Chapter 186 - Implicit/Peripheral Type: Fantastic vision - Hawks senses the Nomu coming before the audience even is able to make out what’s headed their way. It could be implied his wings caught it first, which might be the case, but he looks directly at the Nomu and brings Endeavor’s attention to it. Birds have fantastic long-range vision, especially birds of prey that mainly swoop in from high in the air to ambush highly perceptive prey. Also good to add to the pile.

Chapter 192 + Volume 20 Cover - Implicit/Peripheral type: Wears jewelry and bright colors - birds are well documented to be drawn to bright colors and are known for decorating their nests with trinkets. Scientists actually have to be careful when tagging birds with tracking bracelets because they can accidentally make him VASTLY more popular with the ladies by giving him a brightly colored band to the point they can’t resist him! Male birds are also known for having bright, colorful displays for attracting and wooing mates. While Hawks isn’t the only male character to wear jewelry in the series, he’s the only one (to my recollection) that wears as MUCH jewelry so often both during and outside of work. It may not be obvious, but the illustration on Volume 20 is actually an advertisement for his line of (presumably) luxury jewelry. In other words, Hawks on some level is synonymous with style and flair to the point he can make money by selling jewelry with his name on it.

Chapter 20 Volume Cover - Explicit Type: Hawk emblem on the watch face - If the name “Hawks” didn’t give it away, he’s very clearly trying to align himself with more avian qualities if his merch has bird motifs. In other words Hawk = “Hero Hawks” and “Hero Hawks” = bird.

Chapter 192, 244, clear file illustration - Peripheral Type: birdlike posture. Chapter 244 isn’t quite released yet on the official site as of writing this, but when Hawks swoops in and beats the kids to the punch apprehending the criminals trying to subdue Endeavor, his hands are clenched in a very talon-like manner similar to a swooping eagle. When walking with Endeavor in 192, he holds his resting hand in a similar fashion. On the clear file illustration he’s not only perched on his tippy toes in a pose that has been famously called “owling” (remember that trend/meme, y’all?) but his wings are slightly outstretched to catch the breeze to keep from falling over which a lot of birds can be seen doing when they don’t have great purchase on a surface in a place that’s a little windy. The fact that he seems to gravitate to high places like birds are often seen doing might also be a noteworthy indication.

Extra sources:

Hawks Shifuku: Horikoshi describes Hawks as a “bird person” and says that his initial design was based off of Takahiro from his old manga.

Takahiro’s design:

Current character design: The banner image on my blog was commissioned from a friend of mine who doesn’t follow the series. When I showed her reference images of Hawks, you know what she said? “Oh! His hair is feathers!” Even his eyebrows have that fluffy/scruffy texture to them that his hair has. The markings on his eyes can also be seen on him as a young child in Chapter 191 which means it isn’t makeup meant to tie in a theme or look. He has those dark, pointed eye markings like many birds do. So on some genetic level he resembles a bird.

Step 4: Testing our hypothesis with the gathered evidence.

There’s already a lot of compelling evidence that already closely aligns him to birds which is promising. However, to really prove our point we should try to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt he is a bird. To do that this time around I’m going to see how the series treats people with animal-based quirks and see if it’s consistent with the way Hawks is portrayed.

You bring up Hound Dog and Tsuyu, and they’re fantastic examples. Let’s start with Hound.

He’s pretty straight forward - he’s like a dog. He has a dog face, has dog-like tendencies, and dog-like abilities. Superpower: dog.

And in Tsuyu’s case - quirk: frog, just frog. She’s stated explicitly to have frog-like features, frog-like tendencies, have frog-like abilities, and even comes from a “froggy family.”

So with these two very explicitly animal-like characters the common theme seems to be “If they’re considered to be like a specific animal, they have to physically resemble that animal, act like that animal at times, and have abilities like that animal.” Let’s see if another animal-quirk character matches up and then put Hawks to the test.

Spinner’s quirk is Gecko. Based on our criteria, is he a gecko?

Does he look like a gecko, even vaguely?

Yes, he’s covered head to toe in scales, and his face is very lizard-like.

Does he occasionally act like a gecko?

Unclear. We haven’t really seen any evidence of this, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t. For the sake of our argument, we’ll just say no and move on.

Does he have gecko-like abilities?

Yes! Though most of his abilities are limited to things like being able to stick to walls, it’s still gecko-like in origin and qualifies.

Spinner hits clearly hits ⅔ criteria and our standards seem pretty consistent, so let’s see how Hawks stands up.

Does he look like a bird?

Not all of his features may explicitly scream “avian” at first, but upon closer observation and with his clear previous inspiration this is a resounding yes.

Does he act like a bird?

Many of the mannerisms and behaviors he displays can just be chalked up to him being a little eccentric, but with the sheer number of them that also parallel birds in some way this is also a pretty convincing yes.

Does he have bird-like abilities?

While most of the emphasis is on his wings and what they can do, it does seem that he not only possesses things like heightened senses which could be attributed to avian abilities but he also very much possess high intelligence and incredibly fast reaction times which birds are also known for.

Even if we only gave Hawks a “maybe/half a point” for those last two, he still meets the 2⁄3 that Spinner did. So we have another question to ask: Does a character have to have an explicitly named “animal” quirk to be considered to be/resemble a specific animal? Let’s look at Ojirou and Tokoyami for reference.

Ojirou’s quirk is just “tail,” but he’s been described by his peers and classmates as a monkey and does seem to share some more monkey-like features. It isn’t lumped in with his quirk because the only notable monkey-like quality he possesses is a tail. He doesn’t have fangs or an opposable toe - he just has a tail. For quirk classification as far as hero work goes, that’s the only important thing to note.

Tokoyami, on the other hand has an entire literal bird head, but nothing else. He has a beak, feathers, and even in illustrations of him as a baby he had fluffier feathers on his head. Even with only those details, he just screams “bird!” However, his quirk is classified as “Dark Shadow” because that’s what sets him apart for hero work.

Back at Hawks we see his quirk classified as “fierce wings” but like Ojirou and especially like Tokoyami, the emphasis on his wings is what sets his abilities as a hero apart. Otherwise, he’s just a guy who looks and acts a LOT like a bird.

But astute observers may have noticed I’ve left out a detail that’s more or less a nail in the coffin on the whole matter, so let me ask a question: Tsuyu in particular has something else of note that solidifies in our minds that she is, indeed, a frog - she explicitly calls herself a frog. Could we say the same about Hawks?

Chapter 199 - Explicit Type

Bingo. Hawks has known himself for as long as he’s been alive. He knows his habits, his impulses, his family/genes, and so on. If he calls himself a bird, are we going to call him a liar? In fact, he calls himself a bird not once, but twice!

That’s pretty much it. With the evidence stacked to that degree, I’d be hard pressed to NOT believe he’s a bird.

That was a long amount of text to get through, so if you’re here at the end thank you for sticking out with me to this point. I really appreciate it. This is more or less the process I use when analyzing anything and everything whether it be HeroAca related or not. Maybe it’ll help you if you’ve struggled with literary analysis, or at the very least I hope you got some enjoyment out of it.

TL;DR If Hawks looks like a bird, walks (acts) like a bird, is based on a bird (character), and calls himself a bird, he’s probably a bird.

#hawks bnha #bnha hawks #hawks #hawks mha #mha hawks #she writes #let's talk hawks #bnha meta #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #manga spoilers

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donavanhall · 4 years ago

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Acts of Translation

Late in February 2021, I was walking through the Long Island Pine Barrens, along the beginning of the Paumanok Trail. The snow-covered path was marked by the patterned boot tracks of other hikers (only two or three at the most) and the cloven hoof-marks of deer. The sky above the trees was pale blue, tinged with gray. The air was cool, crisp, dry. With each step, my boots compacted the icy slush and sometimes my boot would shift, sliding on the heavy, dense snowpack so that I’d have to compensate with a movement of my upper body and arms to keep my balance and to prevent myself from slipping.

The fourth branch of Jacques Roubaud’s “the great fire of London”, a volume called Poésie: (récit) — I prefer the French title since Poetry: (a story) is less poetic and loses a sense of meaning that I think should be there, poésie to my ear implies a movement that is lost in the more static English word, poetry, and récit (and perhaps this is peculiar to me and has nothing to do with actual French) suggests narration closer to that when a storyteller speaks to a listener who receives the récit and so completes the action, a story doesn’t necessarily require a reader — begins with the Narrator (Roubaud) moving through space, in this case, the space is urban, the streets Paris.

Early in December 1994, I was walking in Paris. The sky was gray, low, the air humid, warm.

For walking in Paris, I wear a blue K-way jacket, and a cap, also blue. The K-way was a gift, not something I’d picked out. It was light, blue, waterproof, costly.

For walking in the woods, I wear an olive green jacket made by Patagonia that zips up the front and has a little pocket over the left breast where I can store my phone for easy access. Around my neck, I wear my “Doctor Who scarf” knitted by my mother. (The scarf isn’t a replica of any of the long scarves worn by the Fourth Doctor, played by actor Tom Baker, but a spirited recreation of the sort that anyone familiar with the various scarves featured in Season 12 through 17 of the TV show would immediately recognize.) On my head I wear a black bowler hat I purchased at the museum shop of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2018 when I took my mother and son to the Magritte exhibit. (The next summer, I would take my wife and son to Brussels to tour the permanent Magritte exhibit at the Musée de Beaux Arts. The study of Magritte’s art and writing is a principal concern of my Project.) The clerk at the shop said this style of bowler hat is the exact same one worn by René Magritte when he was alive. So it should be no surprise that I’m pleased with it and wear it every opportunity I get, and especially when I’m out on my daily walk.

Before the pandemic, I walked every afternoon through the pine barrens. This was easy enough since the office where I perform my paid work (not at all literary) is located in the middle of the pine barrens. There are a network of trails that lead through the woods that are immediately accessible from the back door of the building where I work. A year ago, my office was closed, so that I now work from home. Now my afternoon walks (usually) are taken along the streets in the neighborhood where I live in the village of Long Neck. I’ve become a familiar sight in the neighborhood as the man in the bowler hat. My neighbors wave to me and sometimes will view my unusual headwear as an occasion for conversation. What kind of hat is that? asked one neighbor. Another fellow walker assumed I’m a fan of Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, a novel by Anthony Burgess. I’m more a fan of the book than I am a fan of the movie, but my bowler hat is most deliberately a nod to Magritte and not to Alex and his three droogs. Throughout the pandemic, Magritte and his art has been my life line.

On his walks in Paris, Roubaud doesn’t wear a bowler — his cap is of a different sort.

I bought the cap in New York, at J.J. Hat Center, at the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street. It’s a hat made in Scotland and the salesperson assured me that it was the same exact style of cap worn by Sean Connery in the film The Untouchables. It’s no surprise that I’m happy with it.

After I’m vaccinated and I feel like taking the Long Island Rail Road to Penn Station again, maybe I’ll go to the J.J. Hat Center myself and shop for a hat. Although according to “the internet” J.J. Hat Center is now located at 310 Fifth Ave (between 31st & 32nd), not far from Penn at all. If/when I do go in to the city, I’ll want to pay a visit to the Fountain Pen Hospital. A man can never have too many hats or too many fountain pens.

I could go along in this vein for quite some time, this leisurely stroll through Roubaud’s Poésie: (récit) allowing his text to guide my own thoughts, reveries, musings, etc. The resulting text would function as a companion text. I’m walking along with Roubaud in Paris as he moves from the National Library, past familiar restaurants, along familiar streets…

I passed between the tops or periscopes of the licorice icebergs of the Buren columns, making sure not to slip on their outgrowths/extensions [? the French word is excroissances, but it’s not obvious to me what these outgrowths or extensions might be], on the damp grills, slimy, soaped with crushed beige leaves. And I made it through with no accidents to Place Colette, on the right side of the Théâtre-Français. This route was well known to me.

...but Roubaud himself is not walking with me, only his text, or perhaps he is with me as an invented copy of an imaginary Roubaud that I carry within myself as I read and as I walk along the snow-covered Paumanok Trail thinking of his book, or books (one book in seven volumes called collectively “the great fire of London”).

I read the first two and a half branches (the first three volumes to be translated into English), starting with Branch One: Destruction in the fall of 2018. Without really intending to, I wrote a little book of jottings while reading Roubaud’s novel. I called my little book, In the Labyrinth of Forking Paths, since “the great fire of London” is “a story with interpolations and bifurcations” with actual links indicating different narrative paths the reader can take during their wandering reading. I was reminded (though only a little) of the choose-your-own-adventure books (published by Bantam) I read when I was a kid. One of my early attempts at writing fiction was a “literary” choose-your-own-adventure called (imaginatively enough) Into the Labyrinth (a slight variation on a title of one of Alain Robbe-Grillet’s novels, Dans le labyrinthe, with whose hyper-descriptive nouveau roman style I’d become bewitched, a style ideally suited to such text adventures). (I published my Into the Labyrinth as an interactive fiction designed for a media platform that worked only on those early generation iPods. I have no idea if anyone ever read/played my interactive fiction even though according to the app, mine was the most downloaded story. It was certainly the longest.) I won’t claim that I have been waiting for the remaining four volumes to be translated into English. In fact, I felt a certain level of contentment with the artificial truncation of the novel — I had read all that I could, all that was available in English, so now I could move on to other things, like reading the works of Miklós Szentkuthy. Procuring and reading the rest of “the great fire of London” wasn’t a tempting prospect until Anthony, author of the blog, Time’s Flow, mentioned that he’d purchased the remaining volumes in French and would be making an attempt to read them. That was all it took. If Anthony was going to do it, then so would I. I ordered copies from a bookseller in France and they arrived last Friday in the post. So when did I get the idea to translate these remaining four volumes into English myself? Was it a serious idea or just another of my fanciful projects? Project 7139: translated two thousand pages of Jacques Roubaud’s “the great fire of London” into English. (For the record, I’m currently working on Project 3 which I started twenty years ago. Project 4 is “write a masterpiece that will establish my literary reputation.” That one might take awhile.) Certainly, I would read these other branches. Or would I? My track record for finishing big projects is not stellar. (The first time I read Proust, it took me ten years.)

While walking in the snow in the pine barrens, I thought about why I was being pulled back into Roubaud’s book. What was it about his very long prose that attracted me? Was this a momentary literary crush or had I fallen for “the great fire of London”? If this were a romance, you could say that Roubaud and I met in the fall of 2018 and spent some time together, mostly walking. We shared our mutual interests, talking about poetry, literature, and mathematics. I learned a great deal about haikai (haiku and haibun), gained a new appreciation of the works of Charles Dickens, and was introduced to Nicholas Bourbaki, and then resumed my own mathematical studies after a hiatus of twenty years, this time beginning with set theory and topology. And then it was over. He had to go. We parted ways.

Then two and half years later, Roubaud pops up again at a party hosted by a friend, this time we’re speaking French — my French is better now, so it’s much easier for us to talk and now I feel something different than I did before. We’re making a real connection. I can feel it. And Roubaud seems somehow changed. When we first met, I was the one who was paying attention to Roubaud, accompanying a new master, and learning new things. Now, this new Roubaud, this French-speaking Roubaud is interested in me, keeps asking me questions, asking for my opinion. Then it dawns on me. Roubaud has chosen me. You’re the one, he says. I’ve picked you.

Of course, this isn’t an exclusive relationship. Such is the way with authors and their books. Readers must share the objects of their affection, but still it feels different when a book chooses you rather than you choosing it.

I’m choosing you. I’m ready whenever you are. Shall we begin?

#jacques roubaud #walking #translation #french #literature

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thehalalgirlofficial · 4 years ago

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BHM: the life of omar ibn said

In today’s racially charged climate, the call to learn from and reckon America’s violently colorful history with people of color has reached a fever pitch. In order to move forward, we must first study our past. This Black History Month should be more than just a time elementary school teachers rattle off facts about Madam C.J. Walker and George Washington Carver. Rather, we as a people must use this opportunity to allow ourselves to feel the long suppressed pain of our black brothers and sisters so that we may begin to heal together. Surely, much of the racial injustice that is prevalent today stems from the conscious decision to enslave masses of people against their will whilst forcing them to desert their culture, land, and families.

One such story is that of West African slave and author Omar ibn Said. In early 2019, the Library of Congress acquired the Omar Ibn Saeed collection, including his original Arabic autobiography written in the early 1800s, along with its English translation The Life of Omar Ibn Said from the 1860s. Now that these documents have been made public, we have access to firsthand accounts of slavery in America which are unedited by ibn Saeed’s owners, unlike other slave’s autobiographies that were written in English. In fact, many of the accounts of slavery and the treatment of enslaved people we read today are derived from white abolitionist writers, rather than black enslaved people. This is often because slaves did not have the time, the ability, or the resources to record their conditions, and even if an enslaved person did dare to write an autobiography, he or she risked being caught by an “owner” and being severely punished. Still, there are written accounts of some enslaved people’s experiences, but these accounts are tainted by the possibility of being dictated or altered by an “owner”. What makes ibn Said’s work exceptional is that he chose to record his life in Arabic, a medium his “owner” was unlikely to have been able to read, let alone contour to his whims. Due to his foresight, today we have access to a work that facilitates an enhanced understanding of the complications of slavery in America and what it meant to be Muslim in the 19th century.

Ibn Said begins his autobiography with Al-Mulk, the sixty-seventh chapter from the Quran. After praising Allah ﷻ and sending salutations of peace and blessings upon Muhammad ﷺ, he begins quoting the Quranic passage,

“Blessed be He in whose hand is the kingdom and who is Almighty; who created death and life that He may make you the best of his works” {67:1}.

It is no accident that ibn Said chose, out of 114 chapters, consisting of a total 6,236 verses, to begin with Al-Mulk, which means “The Sovereignty.” The very first ayah (verse) he pens establishes that Allah ﷻ is the owner of all and that he controls both life and death, which leaves no room for the ownership of man over any form of life. “It is a fundamental criticism of the institution of slavery,” says Mary-Jane Deeb, chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division at the Library of Congress.

Personally, what I find astounding is the stark contrast between his manner of writing and the way in which other writers of the time incorporate religion into their work. For instance, we can observe a less nuanced tone in American author Ralph Waldo Emersons’ "Nature," published in 1836, in which he declares,

“I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”

While Emerson sees God through the world around him, ibn Said understands the world around him through God. Perhaps this difference arises as a result of each writer’s position in life. Emerson already had access to material possessions, which led him on a journey to “find” God amongst a world he had already defined materialistically. On the other hand, ibn Said had very little to nothing to his name, thus his world view was shaped by the beliefs he brought with him in the long boat ride over from Futa Toro. This fundamental difference illustrates the disparity of conditions faced by free and enslaved Americans.

Interestingly, when recalling his life within America, ibn Said’s description of his experiences do not mirror the general perception of enslaved life most carry. Although he does mention the abuse he endured at the hands of Johnson, the man who he was sold to in Charleston, his dislike for Johnson isn’t solely due to him being a “wicked man,” rather he repeatedly mentions that he “had no fear of God at all.” Contrary to the notion that enslaved people fled the persecution and excruciating labor of the fields as some form of refugees, ibn Said mentions in his manuscript that he made the choice not to stay with Johnson, as he, “was afraid to remain with a man so depraved and who committed so many crimes.” Yet, when speaking of North Carolina’s governor John Owen and his brother Jim Owen, who ibn Said “remained in the place of” after being caught, he describes them as “good men” and praises them for reading the gospel and “having so much love to God.” In fact, when asked if he “were willing to go to Charleston City,” ibn Said responds, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I not willing to go to Charleston. I stay in the house of Jim Owen.” Despite being able to depict the Owens in a negative light, given that they wouldn’t understand his criticism since it was written in Arabic, he talks highly of each member of the family and even refers to Jim Owen as sied, or master, postulating that enslaved people might have had a relationship of respect and fondness towards their “masters.”

Intriguingly, ibn Said never refers to himself as a slave, and speaks about his circumstances with a refreshing air of self- reliance. To him, he didn’t flee slavery in Charleston; rather, he left a “wicked man” who ibn Said made the choice not to stay with. Perhaps the aspect of ibn Said’s life that vastly sets him apart from the mainstream understanding of a slave’s life is his advanced education. While most enslaved people are regarded as being illiterate, ibn Said wrote letters and personal writings in beautiful calligraphy and had many passages of the Qur’an committed to memory. Along with his manuscript being evidence enough of just how highly educated he was, ibn Said writes, “I continued my studies twenty-five years,” which means he was only six when he first “sought knowledge under the instruction of a Sheikh called Mohammed Seid.” Similarly, the elegance with which he writes is truly a testament to his intelligence. Aside from his cross examination of Christianity and Islam, and his interwoven subtle critisms of the institution of slavery, ibn Said masterfully uses language that illustrates both his wisdom and humility as he looks back on his life. In fact, he even includes an effective introduction and conclusion to his work. From ibn Said’s outlook on life, which allows him to describe his “master” fondly, to his blaring sense of self-determination, he redefines what it means to be an enslaved person in America.

Ibn Said, within his autobiography, attempts to analyze the interwoven tale of his experiences in regards to both Islam and Christianity. He mentions his past rituals of walking to the mosque for prayer in the daytime and at night, and the zeal with which he read the Quran, all before he came to America. Yet, he repeatedly praises the Owen’s for reading the gospel, mentioning that they would read it to him, and implies that he may have converted to Christianity. Due to the many Quranic verses and prayers scattered in his writing, it is difficult to tell whether ibn Said truly brought faith in the Christian religion or only accepted it as an outwardly gesture to ensure his safety in the South. Either way, he was able to examine each religion objectively. At one point, ibn Said even contrasts the manner in which he prayed as a Muslim in opposition to how he prays as a Christian by providing the entire chapter of Al-Fatiha from the Quran, while adding that now he prays, “Our Father.” Interestingly, he never criticizes, gives his opinion on, nor shows a preference towards either religion. This neutrality drives home not only ibn Said’s intellect, but the fact that he was simply searching for the true path, without blindly following whatever he was told.

Perhaps what sets ibn Said apart from other enslaved people in regards to religious aspirations is his twenty-five years spent in seeking out knowledge in Foto Turo. This disciplined early education instilled in him a zeal which followed him across the Atlantic, allowing him to become a lifelong learner. In fact, he was eager to listen to the gospel whenever someone would read it to him. Although he doesn’t specifically mention that he is Christian, ibn Said places a substantially large emphasis on the relationship between God and human beings, as well as the need to read and understand scripture. Even if he remained Muslim, ibn Said never makes clear his opposition to Chrisitan ideology. Rather he reiterates the necessity of faith in one’s life by praising the Owens for being a religious family while cursing at his first “owner” Johnson for his lack of attachment to God.

Aside from The Life of Omar Ibn Said’s literary brilliance and historical significance when analyzing slavery in America, the work resonates with me on a personal level. When I first heard that the Library of Congress had published this work as a collection, along with other hand written pieces such as personal letters, my interest was sufficiently piqued. What I didn’t anticipate, however, is just how much I would relate to the story of a West African slave living in the 19th century. Before reading the English manuscript of The Life of Omar Ibn Said, I first made my way through the Arabic documents. Written in mesmerizing handwriting which, due to my severe lack of knowledge, I can only describe as 19th century African calligraphy, ibn Said begins with the basmallah. As Muslims, we recognize this prayer as one to recite before embarking on any task or journey, even as small as lifting the lid off of a pot. Then he goes on to send salutations upon the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in a manner so customary that I caught myself doing so involuntarily. When I realized he was quoting surah Al- Mulk, one that my mother helped me commit to memory and would read with me every night before going to bed as a child, I was touched. Despite being stripped of his culture, isolated from his people, and forced onto a new land, ibn Said did not forget the essentials of his religion. It was at that moment that I resolved to start reciting Al- Mulk at night again. When he mentions the Shuyukh, or scholars, under whom he gained his education, I felt the respect emanating from his words. In that moment, the oft- quoted words came to mind, “I am a slave to the one who teaches me even a single letter.”

Perhaps the most striking part of ibn Said’s journey is the fact that while on the run for nearly a month, he risked capture to stop at a church and pray. Although he knew the inherent dangers that would stem from being apprehended, ibn Said’s imaan (faith) proved stronger than his fear, as he was eventually caught and sold back into slavery. In this defiant act of his, I find reasons to feel both ashamed and hopeful. Ibn Said actually faced the possibility of being killed, yet he still chose to preserve his religious traditions. Meanwhile, when prayer time rolls in while I am still on campus, I feel the need to squeeze into the tiniest corner I can find to quickly pray just the bare minimum so that I don't inconvenience anyone else around me. Yet, the fact that ibn Said was caught and sold to a man about whom he mentions, “During the last 20 years, I have known no want in the hand of Jim Owen,” is cause enough for me to be hopeful that the slight stress I endure while praying in public will surely bring about, through Allah’s ﷻ unlimited Grace, great fortune in my own life. Although we are separated by a span of almost two centuries, ibn Said’s struggle is inspiring in ways I couldn’t have anticipated.

In the ever-divisive times in which we now find ourselves living, The Life of Omar Ibn Said is a welcome triumph of human spirit and optimism. Not only are ibn Said’s life and work subjects of intrigue, but the implications of his writing reaffirm a story that many of us have long since forgotten: American slavery does not take one shape, size, or form. Although the institution itself was horrific, we must contend that some enslaved people did find a greater purpose in their lives. Ibn Said was one of them. He rose above the hatred surrounding him, and speaks of the men who held him in captivity with astonishing reverence. How ibn Said was able to look back at the progression of events in his life and not be angered that a scholar as learned as he could be enslaved is a lesson for us all. Truly, ibn Said’s knowledge provided him with humility and wisdom. Perhaps, if he had succumbed to human nature and only displayed outrage at his conditions, which would have been completely justified, we would not have the masterpiece that is the Omar Ibn Said collection today. As we continue to engage literature and history as a way of understanding the world, Omar ibn Said stands as a reminder to value the narrative of every individual, because, rather than a large-scale standpoint in viewing the world, personal experiences speak to the very core of what it means to be human. We all deserve the chance to live prosperously and this cannot be the case until we rectify the mistakes of our past and work towards ensuring the sanctity of every life.

Carey, Jonathan. “The Extraordinary Autobiography of an Enslaved Muslim Man Is Now Online.” Atlas Obscura, Atlas Obscura, 26 Jan. 2019, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/omar-ibn-said-autobiography-digitized.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Nature.” EMERSON - NATURE--Web Text, https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/nature.html.

ibn Said, Omar. “About This Collection : Omar Ibn Said Collection : Digital Collections : Library of Congress.” The Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/collections/omar-ibn-said-collection/about-this-collection/

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cawolters · 5 years ago

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December...? DECEMBER!?

What about September?

November?

October?? What did I miss??

Yes, well, no you didn’t miss any vitals updates. I have reasons for why I haven’t been active on tumblr, and the most honest reason is that I didn’t feel like writing and posting on here since spring.

The writeblr community is so so great, one of the best in the web, but the platform is driving me nuts. Flagging, shadow bans, tag dysfunction and draft erasing/crashing, have just completely smashed my love for making fun and elaborate posts.

However, lots of updates has been made and i keep seeing wips I want to tag list and people i want to hang out with, so I’ll stick around for another decade or so! Hashtag always lurking.

The more polite reason for my absence, and equally truthful I might add, is that I was very busy the last few months —COMMISSIONS! LIFE! IRL NETWORKING!

And now I’ll tell you about it all, starting by answering the Q on everyone’s tongue:

1) Is Flash Fiction Friday Getting Revived in 2020?

In short, yup.

I need it, you need it, the world needs it. We need to WRITE folks. And the lovely prompt Friday will be back with week no 30 (!!) on:

Friday the 10th of January!

I have a capable team of creative and lovely writeblrs on the job as to how we an ensure consistent posting —and just and FYI, we might even end up with giving the FFF it’s own blog.

Run free, be with the people my beautiful prompt creature, inspire! And give me something to read!!

Stay tuned for updates and tell me is you want to be added to the FFF tag list.

Now next up is my scrip update!

2) Querying ‘The Serpent Kiss’

All is well in the land of querying.

or... well almost.

Alrighty, lemme explain below.

So, if you’ve been following me for awhile, you know my third child (whom is not currently teething or using my lipstick as a crayon) is my dark new adult fantasy trilogy —The Serpent Kiss <3

If you donno what I’m talking about, here’s a quick summery of the query process:

I finished the English first draft, two and a half years ago (I think?) and started looking into querying after my fifth draft was done.

I decided very early on that I would feel more comfortable working here in Denmark, where I already have a literary network, and actually understand the cultural unwritten rules when working with publishers!!

Since then I have been rewriting, tweaking, had beta-readers, editors, a sponsored translator (who translated the script from English to danish) BEFORE I started querying seriously in Denmark.

During the time where the book was being reviewed, I’ve kept in touch with houses who showed interest in the book from the get go (encouraging me to push onward), done a lot of social media work (especially on Instagram since the publishers all mentioned the importance of that platform) and attended books cons to physically mingle (it makes a difirence —really).

Ah, and now, finally, we’ve starting to get serious replies back from the Danish publishers.

Let’s look at what they’ve said so far.

(And mind you, this is Denmark. We’re a tiny country and we DON’T have adult fantasy books written by danish authors, so their critique is based on that. YA is what’s sellable and had been for years, buuut I also know that tendency will shift, so that’s what I’m really selling. A new trend basically. Always understand what pov the critique is coming from and don’t stop at the first rejection)

3/5: ‘no thank you, there’s no marked in Denmark for your book’

1/5: ‘we love it but rewrite it to YA and we have a deal’ — I said, no thank you

1/5: ‘we love it as is and we want to give you a deal, but we have to work out the legal kinks, and we will give you final answer by the end of January!’

So I’m awaiting the final judgement!!

But not really, it’s not the final judgement. If the deal falls through, and it might, never pop champagne before signing, I still have four more houses I could send the book to here in Denmark.

And, I could still go the international route and query over seas.

Yup! That’s the update on that!

Next up? The general writing!

3) A Year Of Author

“It’s really hard being a writer... Not on the days where you’re writing, but on the days where you’re not!”

— @CAlisaWolters, Instagram confessions

My year of full time professional writing, meaning mainly relying on my text/skill/art to heave in the cash, is six months down and going — OK!!

Here’s what I’ve learned/done so far:

I’m writing 4-7h on commissions, the second book of the trilogy, short-stories, poetry and another little YA project every day. Yes. Every day. And that’s very very cool and also exhausting mentally. My advice to others: HAVE OBLIGATORY DAYS OFF! (Oh yea and I also won nanowrimo but the project is a secret shh).

I’m somewhat alone most of the time but being a closeted introvert, I don’t mind, but I miss coworkers. That’s why Café dates and write-ins with writer pals IS IMPORTAINT.

Also! Speaking of socializing, I’ve been to five writers cons/events and I definitely recommend making it a priority for all professional authors. BRING BUSINESS CARDS!!

I have a set routine and I’m really happy with it! Early mornings is the best! And Monday is where I don’t write, but keep up with social media and answer mails and run errands! MAKE A ROUTINE!

And that’s the update on THAT!! Phew I’m getting winded, are you? Fear not we one have one last thing to cover. Promise.

4) Personal Life and Drag Kings ^_^

Where to start? Ah I know! I’ll start with the drag king storytelling event because that’s really what stands out!

I’m a mom, a wife, a bisexual, a general theatrical person and a genderfluid jellyfish who uses she/her pronounces, so when someone booked me for a storytelling event, I decided to go in drag. Naturally. Tsh duh.

I’ve really been experimenting with my gender this year, playing with apperence and comfortzones, and discovering that my real happiness lies somewhere between flooofy dresses and black buttondowns. And not just the clothes, but there attitude, the demeanor, the mental space of wearing cologne!! It might not sound dramatic, but to me it’s been A RIDE!

(I’ve been dying to go full drag for a long looooong time and I should’ve gone all out on the makeup —but next time!!! Also the event went so so well and I had the best time! I’m going to do it again!)

And NOW I’m done! Hah not really, but I won’t force you to spend all day reading my updates and this post is already so loooong 💕💕✨💕

The new year looms!! May it bring you love and confidence, and lots of new opportunities!!

Hug hug hug!!

~Ciao

#author #cawolters #ayearofauthor #writeblr #my writing #nano 2019 #books #writer #update #query #agents #writing adventures #writing advice

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storm-of-aegis · 4 years ago

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Art Club leads

Name: Naoko Hokusai Age: 15-16 Nationality: Japanese Year: Sophomore Ability: Light Manipulation Gender: Female Club: Art Bio: Naoko was born near the northern coastal town of Ishinomaki. She never knew her parents. Her father was completely unknown, allegedly a soldier from another country stationed in the country for a while who left the country when he was stationed elsewhere. Her mother abandoned her within the childcare system, stating that she wishes for the child to find a proper home. Naoko was always a quiet and shy child. Many of the other children would make fun of her largely due to her never wanting to fight back. She just wanted to be invisible, so the torment would stop. Because of the constant harassment, she generally kept to herself. That was until Yui came to her orphanage. Yui had been taken from her home at a young age and moved from around through several orphanages do to her having special and unique abilities. Upon arriving at the orphanage, Yui frightened the other kids, even Naoko. She was an older girl, and a bit brash. One day a boy tried to push her down to prove she was nothing to fear, only for her to grab his hand and flip him over her head onto a table. With her strength she broke the table, and his arm. If anyone wasn’t afraid of her before, they surely were now. Naoko was bound and determined to avoid her from here on out. Time past as it always does, and the abuse for Naoko began to get worse. That was, until one day when a group of kids decided they were going to get back at Naoko for something someone else did, but since they didn’t know who it was, it had to have been Naoko. Naoko began to cry as the other kids pulled her hair and called her names, only stopping when Yui picked the biggest kid up and threatened to use him to beat the others. That alone was creepy enough, but the smile she had didn’t help matters much. As Yui began to walk away, Naoko stood up and introduced herself. Yui stopped, turned to face her and said that she knew, and introduced herself as Yui. From then on the 2 became good friends, almost inseperable. They read comics, and played games and Yui was even introduced to art by Naoko. One day Yui got into a fight with the headmaster who was hitting another student because he had a candy bar. Yui threw a trashcan at him, knocking him over. Befuddled, the man stood up, looked around and then ran right past Naoko and Yui. He never even saw them. Unbeknownst to Naoko, she had grabbed onto Yui to try and pull her away, when in a startling awakening, her power had materialized. She warped the light around them, making them seemingly disappear. Naoko never let anyone else know about her ability, and often used it to go see and read manga with her friend as she was punished for various deeds she had and even ones she had not done. Naoko unfortunately had to say good bye to Yui one day, as she was pushed off to yet another orphanage, and soon after Naoko was adopted by a salaryman and his family in Tokyo. Naoko lost contact with Yui, but always hoped she’d be able to meet her “Big Sister” again.

Name: Eugenio Bianchi Age: 16 Nationality: Italian Year: Sophomore Ability: Ventus-Kinesis (Air) Gender: Male Club: Art Bio: The youngest of a long line of artisans, Eugenio carries on the tradition of bringing beauty into the world, except for one small problem, Eugenio’s less of a visual artist as he is a literary one. While talented with paint, and even with sculpture, his true calling is with the written word. He can begin a work on a canvas, and quickly lose his motivation to see it through. So many statues started, and left to nothing short of unfinished rubble. Such skill and artistry sealed behind a door, that only opens fully when he had his book and pen in hand. His mind opens and the creative flow can barely be contained. He envisions worlds of fantasy and whimsy, chivalrous knights, cunning heroines and powerful artifacts of unimaginable might. But he toils away, trying to find that which his siblings has, that his mother has, that his grandparents had all the way through the ages past. Perhaps a new setting will help his lethargy at play, or help him prove he knows what’s best for him.

Name: Ainsley Maclachlan Age: 17 Nationality: Scottish Year: Junior Ability: Vibration Manipulation Gender: Female Club: Art Bio: Ainsley grew up in the town of Skye. Her parents were often off on various forms of business, so she lived with her grandmother much of the time. She learned much from her, like working in the garden, building and repairing various items ranging from barbecues to walls, horseback riding and even how sing. Her grandmother was an opera singer in her youth, where she met the man who would eventually become Ainsley’s grandfather. After having 2 boys and a daughter, her husband passed away. While she knew what to teach her little girl, she had to learn how to raise her boys and what to teach them. All of those years of knowledge, now passed on to her Ainsley. But the one thing Ainsley loved most was riding her Clydesdale along with her Gran, and spending hours over looking various structures and castles and even the lakes drawing what she saw as her Gran would sing to her to pass the time. When Ainsley was 11, her Grandmother began to turn gravely ill, forcing her mother to return home. Ainsley was deeply worried, to which her Mother told her that everything would be fine. As they awaited word of how her Grandmother’s condition was, her mother asked if she would like to travel with either her or her father so she’s not so stranded her in Scotland, to which Ainsley surprisingly told her, “Why would I leave. Gran’s here. Would she be going with us?”. While her Grandmother’s condition was still unknown Ainsley’s mother, fearing the worst, tried to convince Ainsley to travel with them as to put less stress on her mother. Ainsley refused saying that if her Gran was left alone, who knows what could happen. She wasn’t going to leave, no matter what. Ainsley’s mother asked, would she prefer that she move back instead then. Ainsley surprised said she would love to have her mother stay there. Then there’d be her, and Gran and mum. Only thing missing would be her Da, and her uncles and aunts and all her cousins. Ainsley’s mother began to explain how Gran may not necessarily be able to stay with us, to which she told her daughter that she wouldn’t be going anywhere but to her home. And that if her cousins were coming by, she’d need to do some shoppin’, them boys eat like locusts after a famine, and she’s not feedin’ them anymore drywall. Barely enough walls as is. Overcome with joy, Ainsley ran over and hugger her Gran tightly, to where she told Ainsley that she needs to be careful, she’s still a bit wobbly, but she’ll be headin home soon. Ainsley’s mother transferred to a nearby office so she wouldn’t have to move about so often. Ainsley’s Gran began to slow down a bit after her episode, but always made time to go off on an adventure with Ainsley whenever the wind had the sweet scent of mischief about it. Eventually, Ainsley grew up and was offered an opportunity to go to a prestigious school in a vastly different place. Sensing Ainsley was apprehensive to leave her Gran behind, her Grandmother told her that this wasn’t the Granddaughter she raised. That the Ainsley she knew would never turn down an adventure. That she’d walk down to that airport and tell the pilot to sit back, she’d get this bird to that island herself. Concerned, Ainsley stated that she didn’t want to leave her Gran behind, but didn’t want to miss out on what could be a grand adventure. Tearfully, she agreed to go, but swore she’d call every day. To which her Gran told her, that with her voice and singing, I’ll hear you clear as a whistle from here. With tears in both of their eyes, and one last hug goodbye, Ainsley took off to begin an adventure, all on her own.

Name: Rachel Matthews Age: 15-16 Nationality: American- Caucasion Year: Freshman Ability: Pyrokinesis Gender: Female Club: Art Bio: Rachel grew up in New York City, eldest daughter to a major film composer and a stay at home dad who translated books into other languages from home. Rachel loved sitting in the window of her fathers’ office reading her favorite books. During the more intense parts she would begin to read out loud, only to realize her volume was so high and to find her father sitting back and watching her smiling. Immediately after, he take her to the kitchen to get a snack. “You can’t fight the Jabberwocky on an empty stomach.”, he would always tell her as he made her a turkey sandwich. They’d then go back to the office and continue working. At school, Rachel never had much of a problem making friends, but she preferred the company of her own thoughts. She loved books, and learning and dreaming about fantasy worlds. She was a dreamer, who never wanted to wake up. To her, the real world was less exciting than the books she had. But much like in the books she would read, there would be a dark twist to her story, when she developed her abilities.

She was barely 7 when, at school, her powers awakened. She was reading a rather intense section to her book in the library, when she began to speak out loud. The book was so impassioned her that she began to almost yell what she was reading. An enraged librarian walked over to her to get her to quiet down, startling the young girl by slamming his hand on the desk. Frightened she threw her book and from her hands erupted a massive ball of flame. The fireball set fire to the walls, demolished desks and lit so many of her beloved books aflame. The librarian had his arm burned, but was able to put it out quickly. Rachel’s attack was so powerful, using it knocked her out. When she woke up, she saw her mother and father running towards her. She didn’t know what happened, but she was wrapped in a silver blanket, and the fire dept was putting out a fire at the school. She saw kids huddling around, when suddenly one of the boys who was a friend of hers, pointed and yelled that she killed Mr. Bronson. Soon after all of the kids started pointing and chanting, “MONSTER! MONSTER! MONSTER!”. After her parents found out what happened, they pulled Rachel and her brothers from that school. Her brothers went to a new school, trying to hide their old school as much as they could. Rachel was home schooled from then on. They had a plethora of books, and could focus on a broader array of educational points for her. And her Father worked from home as is, so he would just cut back on his projects to work on her education, and then work on his job during “off” hours. Her family maintained, and no one blamed her for what happened, but now that she had what she wanted, she realized how much she really did enjoy being around others. But she was afraid that if she lost control again, what would happen. She got older, and after years of trying to figure out how to use her abilities, with little progress, heard of a school where she could attend classes with people like herself. She talked to her parents, and explained how she’d be able to go out and be normal again. How she wouldn’t have to be afraid of hurting anyone, or being judged. Although pricey, Rachel’s mother pulled some strings, and got her enrolled at the academy. Rachel kissed her parents goodbye, and she left for an adventure all her own.

#MyYearAbroad indieDev PersonalHistory

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antigonick · 5 years ago

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Can I ask how you managed to have your first(s) translation contracts for translating books? I'll be graduating in six months (in Paris) but all the people I know who work in publishing tell me they never accept translators who don't have at least one book under their belt. However I suppose these experienced translators must have started somewhere somehow, so how do I get my foot in the proverbial door? How did you do it? Do you think a lot of experience in translation agencies is necessary?

Hmm. Well, I’m not gonna lie, it was a struggle. It still is, but it gets better. Your contacts are a bit pessimistic, but they’re mostly right: if you’re interested in literary translation, having translated books is a must for the big players of the industry—that, and/or knowing the right people, but nepotism sucks, so I’m not going there.

Anyway. Translation agencies usually don’t deal with literary translation (to my knowledge?), and you won’t need extent experience to work for them; it’s usually specialised translation such as marketing, legal, business, etc. You can send your CV through, pass the test, and as long as your rates are low and your skills are good, you should be able to get work from them without too much difficulty. I didn’t try much because I didn’t want to work for agencies, and I still got offers.

For publishing and literary translation, it’s another story. I personally started with an endless “please-give-me-work” e-mail campaign to publishers, finding their e-mail addresses online or inferring them from Linkedin or straight-up inventing stuff and hoping the message landed somewhere. I went to book and publishing fairs with cards and texts, I left my paper file in publishing houses letterboxes, and I smiled and listened to a lot of elitist bullshit. I had a neat CV, I knew what I was good at, I had a smidge of experience as an editing and translating intern in a few publishing houses, I had compiled a teeny portfolio with my university texts and free creative projects. I reached out to publishing houses big and small, but obviously only the small ones replied. A handful were interested. Only one or two out of those were willing to pay me for my work. I passed their tests, I accepted their crazy deadlines, their outrageously low rates, and I got to work.

I translated for my main customers for almost two years at very, very low rates, but I built up my experience a lot through these, and that was crucial. I needed the practice, I needed the know-how, and I needed a list of books to my name. It wasn’t ideal, but damn, at least they trusted me with my translation choices and gave me space to learn. I went back to the e-mail campaigning regularly, I haunted book fairs again, I put my portfolio online with a lot of excerpts and the list of novels I’d translated, and gave my card (bearing the website address) to publishing professionals. Just… you know? Throwing stuff at silent walls and hoping something sticks.

So yeah. The first question they ask you is have you even translated a book before? And even if you have, it’s not like there’s a ton of opportunities just waiting to be offered. I’m afraid my own experience is basically slaving away until someone actually recognises your work for what it is and pays you fairly. But hey, I know my first publishing house are always looking for translators, so if you’re willing to translate for low pay, don’t hesitate to contact me when you graduate; I can give you their e-mail address at least.

#on jobs and adulthood #on translation and languages #ithrowmyviolets #whisperers #i'm posting this because that could be helpful for others? but you can DM me if you need anything

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graziadiocenterilpostino · 4 years ago

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Staff Spotlight: Joanna Tatro

The Graziadio Center Welcomes New Assistant

The George L. Graziadio Center for Italian Studies is pleased to welcome Joanna Tatro as the new Graziadio Assistant. Joanna is no stranger to the Italian program or the Center. She started taking Italian classes at CSULB when she was in the French MA program. In 2016, at the tail end of her MA in French, she chose to pursue a second MA degree in Italian. Since then, she has worn many hats in the Italian program. She has been a student, a TA, President of Club Italia, a lecturer, and starting in fall 2020, the new Graziadio Assistant. Her hard work, passion for languages and literature, kindness, and willingness to help others has led her to excel in each of these various roles. For all of these reasons and more, we are thrilled to be able to continue working with her in the Graziadio Center. To learn more about Joanna, please see our interview with her below!

1. What were some of the reasons why you initially decided to study Italian and to later pursue a second MA degree in Italian?

I have always been interested in my Italian heritage, ever since my father told me we still had relatives living in the northern mountains of Lombardia. I was fortunate enough to go to a high school that offered Italian and I began learning the language at the age of 16. Although I didn't continue to study it consistently throughout undergrad, I kept returning to Italian, taking a course here and there, with the thought that this would be my opportunity to become fluent enough to travel to Italy, and even possibly to visit my relatives. When my father passed away, I realized that he had not been able to travel to Italy and meet our family, as he had always dreamed, so I have taken on the task of fulfilling that dream for him. I entered into the master's program at Cal State Long Beach for a myriad of reasons, but internally, this was the driving force. Before Covid-19 hit, I had made plans to travel to Italy this summer with the summer study abroad students and then I was to travel north to stay with my cousins in Timù, however that was not meant to be. It will be a top priority when safe travel resumes once more.

2. Tell us a little bit about why you were drawn to the study languages, literature, and translation.

I have always loved languages because they came naturally to me when I was younger. I began learning French at the age of 10 and Italian at 16, and my dad was learning Russian and taught me some phrases here and there. I have also always loved to read. Ever since I can remember, I have read something literary every day, and I especially enjoy reading books from different cultures that lend me a new perspective. I think translation has become a passion because it seamlessly interweaves these two interests. I also enjoy the process of making difficult decisions such as balancing the author's intent with the natural flow of language. There is a particular rush of adrenaline when you realize that you have worded a phrase or sentence in just the right manner that it strikes the perfect tone of the author's work. I have recently realized that collaborative translation is my preferred method, as it allows for maximum creativity and accuracy while it also enhances the enjoyment of the entire process. One goal I have for myself is to translate a novel by a favorite French author of mine who has yet to be published in English.

3. What motivates you as a lecturer in Italian and French, and now as the new Graziadio Assistant? What do you look forward to in this new role?

When I began teaching, I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I do. I found that teaching is something I do relatively well, which I think is because I am so passionate about the subject. What really motivates me is introducing my students to the world of language and demonstrating to them how useful it is in today's world. I also enjoy teaching language because it goes hand in hand with culture. It is impossible to study a language without learning about the people who speak it and how they live. I find that students really respond to enthusiasm; it's catchy. I learned this from my Italian professor, Daniela Zappador Guerra, who brought her passion into the classroom every day and made me want to learn more about anything she introduced to us, and Dr. Enrico Vettore, who engages students on a level they can relate to and minimizes the daunting task of reading difficult texts by incorporating his sense of humor. Instructors can make or break a classroom, and I try to teach with that in mind and bring my best to every lesson.

Joining the Center as the new Graziadio Assistant is something I had never dreamed would be a possibility and I am honored to have been selected for the opportunity. I am excited to be a part of the center that was so instrumental in shaping my academic career and presenting me with amazing opportunities such as internships, conferences, and guest lectures from around the world. I am driven by the desire to give back to this program and to encourage future students to consider the possibilities that an Italian Studies program can present. I also look forward to meeting members of our community who support the Graziadio Center, to hear their perspective and learn about what they enjoy and what they would like to see implemented in the future. Lastly, I am eager to participate on a larger scale in the university as a whole. In the short time that I have been in this position, I have met quite a few people in various roles here at CSULB who contribute behind the scenes to keeping the Center running. It truly does take a village and I look forward to making my small contribution.

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hrk4 · 4 years ago

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My Sanskrit Story

I am an ardent student of Sanskrit.

Over the past few years, I’ve been learning Sanskrit in a slow, schizophrenic manner – a few weeks of frenetic study of grammar and literature with long months of lackadaisical, lukewarm engagement with the language, mostly through ‘study circles’ (we’ll come to this later) that I’m a part of. But I have kept at it constantly and never regretted it once.

My earliest exposure to Sanskrit was perhaps at the age of two. Born and raised in a typical Hindu middle-class family, I was taught simple shlokas and stotras. My father took me to Cubbon Park or Ulsoor Lake on Sunday mornings and on the way he would teach me verses from the Mukunda-mala (a poetical work composed by Kulashekhara azhvar, a ninth century king and poet-saint). My grandmother taught me the Krishna-ashtakam (usually during power-cuts) and my mother taught me verses from the Venkatesha-suprabhatam. At age three or four, I became a sort of ‘installation art’ at weddings where elders gathered around me, coaxing me to recite verses from the Mukunda-mala. (But of course, getting children to recite verses is not uncommon in our families. Many of you might have experienced this in your childhood.)

That was it, pretty much: Some stray verses committed to memory and the strong notion that Sanskrit was a great language. In spite of my rejection of orthodox theism, rituals, and outdated religious/superstitious practices during my rebellious adolescent years, strangely, I never lost respect for Sanskrit.

Most of my cousins studied Sanskrit in school but I didn’t have that good fortune. I wanted to learn the language but I didn’t know where to start; for years it remained a pipe dream.

By sheer chance, I got involved in co-writing a translation of the Bhagavad-Gita with Dr. Koti Sreekrishna in 2006. At that time, I didn’t know any Sanskrit. My role was to review and edit the English; after Dr. Sreekrishna produced a rough translation, I would work towards presenting the verses in the simplest way possible. By the time we published the book five years later, I had learnt a few words here and there, particularly when we discussed the meaning of difficult verses.

In early 2011, when the manuscript of our Gita translation was being sent to reviewers, someone suggested that I get the opinion of the renowned scholar, poet, and polymath Shatavadhani Dr. R Ganesh. Until then I hardly knew anything about him. When I phoned him, he spoke in an encouraging manner and I felt like I was speaking with a family elder rather than a celebrity-scholar. He graciously reviewed the manuscript and gave his feedback. I casually mentioned to him about my interest to learn Sanskrit and my helplessness at not knowing where to start. Not only did he give me general guidance but he also taught me some of the basics of Sanskrit grammar like noun forms, verb forms, sandhi, and samasa. More importantly, he taught me the real value of learning Sanskrit in today’s world.

The rest of this piece comprises what I’ve learnt from Dr. Ganesh about the study of Sanskrit coupled with my personal experiences. It might be of value to those interested in learning the language.

Why Study Sanskrit?

Given that learning Sanskrit—or any language for that matter—consumes considerable time and effort (and some money), it’s a good idea to think for a moment if it’s actually worth it. Now, the worthiness can be decided only by one’s intentions – Why do I want to study Sanskrit?

In my case, I love learning languages when the opportunity presents itself. The process of learning itself is a great deal of fun for linguaphiles like me. So if you are a language-lover, there’s no need to think any further. Go and learn Sanskrit!

There is a widespread notion that Sanskrit is a sacred language meant solely for rituals and that its literature is entirely ‘spiritual stuff.’ So if you’re someone who likes that sort of thing – tradition, philosophy, scriptures, and so forth – you might be thinking of learning the language. The good news is that you probably don’t need to learn Sanskrit.

If you are just interested in the Vedas and want to connect with the tradition better, you could consider learning Vedic recitation, which is definitely easier than learning Sanskrit. In addition, you can read a book or two on the philosophy of the Vedas or listen to lectures on the topic by scholars like Dr. Ganesh. Even those of you who are interested in philosophy can get by reading reliable translations of the Upanishads and Bhagavad-gita as well as general works on Indian philosophy by scholars like Prof. M Hiriyanna.

There is a feeling among the culturally inclined nationalists that it is our duty to preserve Indian heritage and showcase the glory of India’s past. Triggered by this missionary zeal, some people might wish to learn Sanskrit. This often leads to a narrow interest in hunting for science in ancient India, or in the study of traditional works of polity, economics, architecture, law, or other secular subjects. Again, the good news is that you don’t have to learn Sanskrit to accomplish this.

You can always look into reliable translations of works like Artha-shastra, Manu-smriti, Surya-siddhanta, or Brihat-samhita. You can also peruse through books on Indian history, ancient Indian mathematics, temple architecture, and so on. You could even take up the study of a serious treatise like P V Kane’s History of Dharmashastra. That will satiate your thirst to a large extent.

When something can be effectively translated from one language into another—particularly when the objective is to provide information or teach certain concepts—then there’s hardly a case for learning the source language. If I can give you the exact translation of a verse from the Gita and you understand it without any transmission losses, then why do you have to spend ten years of your life learning Sanskrit?

But there are things that simply can’t be translated. Jokes, for instance, are untranslatable when they employ puns or have strong cultural references. The same goes for poetry, where the structure and the substance are closely intertwined. So if you’re interested to explore the vast landscape of Sanskrit literature—Kalidasa’s masterpieces; the two great Epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata); Bana’s Kadambari; Shudraka’s Mricchakatika; Bharavi’s Kiratarjuniya; Vishakadatta’s Mudra-rakshasa; and many other poems, plays, and prose compositions—it is worthwhile taking steps to learn Sanskrit. Stories about gods and goddesses, romantic escapades, nature descriptions, episodes from the Epics, idiosyncrasies of public life, the history of a kingdom, tales of commoners – all this and more can entertain and enrich several lifetimes.

In addition to being a wonderful treasure trove of literature, Sanskrit is also a window to our past. Therefore, any serious student of Indian history, archaeology, sociology, culture, sculpture, philosophy, and so forth will benefit immensely if s/he learns Sanskrit. Here I wish to make a distinction between one who is interested in Indian history or philosophy or culture and a full-time student of these subjects (like a BA or MA student). Those who are merely interested to know more about a certain era in Indian history can read a book by R C Majumdar or Jadunath Sarkar and be fulfilled. But for students of history, the knowledge of Sanskrit will enable them to read inscriptions, contemporary literary works, and so on, which will prove invaluable for their careers.

However, if you’re looking to improve your knowledge of physics, become better at technology, get a promotion at work, or win an election, you will benefit from doing other things than learning Sanskrit.

Is Sanskrit Difficult?

A good way to learn a language is like how we all learnt our mother tongues – by listening and repeating, then slowly moving towards understanding and speaking, and then eventually starting to read and write. If you wish to learn Russian, Spanish, or Japanese, this approach works well. But Sanskrit is not a widely spoken language. And our motivation to learn Sanskrit is not so much trying to communicate with other people as it is to read and savour ancient (and modern) literature.

Although there are a number of people who fluently speak in Sanskrit, it is almost impossible to find a person who knows only Sanskrit and no other language. It’s therefore obvious that you don’t need Sanskrit to communicate with others; you can get by speaking Kannada or Tamil or English. (On the other hand, if you’re visiting the UK and can’t speak a word of English, you’re going to be in trouble!)

To learn Sanskrit, you might have to choose an approach that’s different from what’s popularly known as ‘immersion’ in language-learning circles.

There are some people who think that Sanskrit is extremely difficult and wonder if they can approach it at all. In fact, those who are familiar with one or more Indian languages already have the basic equipment to understand Sanskrit. The nuts and bolts of the grammar can give you sleepless nights but it’s probably not as hard as you think.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are people who think that attending a ten-day Sambhashana course or reading a ‘Learn Sanskrit in 30 Days’ book can give you mastery over Sanskrit. That’s a dangerous notion to harbour if you really want to learn the language.

So, the one line answer is that if you’re interested and pursue it sincerely, it’ll get easier along the way, and more importantly, the journey will be great fun after the initial fumbling about.

Learning Sanskrit

Where do I start?

The answer, surprisingly, is: anywhere. Just start. Sanskrit is an ocean and where does one begin to swim in an ocean? Somewhere. Put your feet in the water, slowly get inside, get used to the cold, and before you realize it, you’re already kicking your legs and having a good time.

And that’s what I did: just started at some point.

I would read a verse from the Gita and then read the English translation. I had learnt Kannada and Hindi at school and as a result, many of the words were familiar to me. Reading the translation after reading the original Sanskrit verse exposed me to new words. I committed verses to memory and later replayed them in my mind, trying to check if I remembered the meaning completely.

That said, the most suitable works to start off learning Sanskrit are lucid compositions like the Ramayana or the Pancha-tantra. Get hold of a reliable translation of one of these works (preferably in an Indian language); start by reciting the original Sanskrit verse or prose passage a couple times, then read through the translation, and go back to reading the Sanskrit – this way you slowly make connections between the words and their meanings. Instead of diving into the technicalities of grammar straightaway, spending time with literature will help you experience the beauty of the language.

Three to six months after commencing the study of a Sanskrit work, you can start learning up some grammar – by reading good books, watching online tutorials, or learning from a teacher.

I’m extremely fortunate that Dr. Ganesh taught me the basics of Sanskrit grammar. That set me off on a winding path of reading different aspects of grammar and trying to wrap my head around them. This continues even today. The more I hunt for rules, more the exceptions I find. My advice: Keep aside logic while learning basics. In the initial stages, don’t ask questions; simply accept things as they are. It just makes life easier. Over time, you’ll develop an intuition for the correct form of a word.

All said and done, it’s easy to start but difficult to keep going. What’s the solution for sustained study?

In my experience, learning a language requires both self-motivation and external agency. Unless one is driven from within, no amount of external push will be fruitful; when self-motivation is present, external agency becomes invaluable. For instance, Sanskrit is taught in schools and colleges – this is a push from outside (i.e., external agency). But only those with self-motivation learn the language well and continue reading literature long after they have graduated.

When I met Dr. Ganesh in 2011, he told me about a fortnightly ‘study circle’ he was conducting and extended an invitation to me. I had never heard the term before so I asked him what that was. A group of friends would catch up every other Saturday and read the Raghu-vamsham of Kalidasa.

I started attending the study circle. This went on for close to a year and I learnt a great deal. Owing to various reasons I became irregular in attending the sessions and after I shifted to another end of the city, I practically stopped going. During the years 2013–16, I moved around quite a bit and finally I shifted to Malleswaram in November 2016.

There came an inflection point in my Sanskrit study in 2017. Around that time, my good friend Raghavendra G S had started his PhD program in IISc. and my house happened to be a sort of midpoint between the metro station and his lab. One day I casually suggested that we should meet once a week and read a Sanskrit work together. He readily agreed and we started reading the Krishna-karna-amritam (a poetical work by Lilashuka). By the time we finished reading the text in early 2018, a few other friends showed interest in coming together to form a study circle. And so, in April 2018 we formed our Sanskrit study circle and have continued ever since. I also got the opportunity to join a few other study circles and this ensured that my Sanskrit study is ever fresh; over the past three years, not a week has gone by without a few hours of Sanskrit reading (unless I was travelling or unwell).

So if you want to learn Sanskrit, try to find even one other like-minded friend and get started. Even better if you can find more friends – especially those who know more Sanskrit than you. The ideal is a group of four to six, meeting once a week, for about an hour or ninety minutes. (You can meet in person or online – it shouldn’t make too much of a difference.) There are ample online resources and translations available for various Sanskrit works. Start reading a work together. Take turns to read the verses aloud. (Even when you’re reading Sanskrit by yourself, it’s useful to read aloud). Then look at the translation. Discuss. Read the original verse again. Then move forward. In the first few sessions, you may read just three or four verses in an hour but as you go forward, your speed will drastically improve and you’ll start getting comfortable. After a while, refer to the translations only after you’ve made an attempt to understand the original. This will slowly push you to rely on your memory and learning.

And once in a while, when there’s an opportunity to meet during a long weekend, you can take a short poetical work like Niti-shataka or Kali-vidambana and read the whole thing in one marathon session.

There are many possibilities with study circles. In fact, it can prove to be the mysterious ingredient to accelerate your learning. That’s been the case with me for sure. I’ve still got a long way to go before I can say that I’ve learnt Sanskrit but the journey itself has been incredible so far. Dr. Ganesh and friends have been largely responsible for what little Sanskrit I know. And for that I’m ever grateful.

Hari Ravikumar August 2020

Thanks to my friends Pratap Simha (for getting me to write this piece), Arjun Bharadwaj (for his valuable inputs), and Sudheer Krishnaswami (for his review and feedback).

#Sanskrit #Language learning

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imustbeamermaidrango · 5 years ago

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The Optimism of Satan

by Mitch Horowitz

See article at: https://medium.com/s/radical-spirits/the-optimism-of-satan-eea5a1a24550

A friend of mine once had the opportunity to ask the Dalai Lama a single question.

“Who was your greatest teacher?” he asked.

The exiled leader replied, “Mao Zedong.”

I once felt provoked in my own sphere by a similarly unlikely teacher — Donald Trump.

Years ago, Trump the Developer asked an interviewer: “What good is something if you can’t put your name on it?” His comment is indelibly stamped on my memory, though I confess I cannot find a source for it. Did I imagine it? The sentiment, while coarse and easily rebutted, came to haunt me.

Did Trump, the showy conman obsessed with naming rights, capture a nagging truth of human nature — a side none of us can deny or push away, other than by an act of self-regarding hypocrisy? And did I, hopefully in a more integral way, share a kernel of his outlook? Was the voice even his — or something within me?

Soon after hearing Trump’s remark, I received what struck me as a bit of ridiculous advice from the editor of an academic spiritual journal. I told him in candor that I wanted to find greater exposure for my byline. “You don’t have to put your name on everything you write,” he replied. Such a principle could ring true only in the world of abstraction.

Trump’s statement about self-exaltation, however ugly, captured half a truth. The whole truth is that our lives, as vessels for various influences — some physical, some perhaps beyond — are bound up with the world and circumstances in which we find ourselves; and within that world we must, at the stake of personal happiness, create, expand, and aspire. Whatever higher influences we feel or great thoughts we think, or are experienced by us through the influence of others, are like heat dissipated in the vacuum of space unless those thoughts are directed into a structure or receptacle. Our purpose is to be generative. Questions of attachment and non-attachment, identification and non-identification, are incidental to that larger fact.

I came to feel strongly about this several years ago when I found that my spiritual search, a path of radical ecumenism with a dedication to esoteric interests, was failing to satisfy me. I began to suspect that I was not acknowledging what I was really looking for, either in spirituality — by which I mean a search for the extra-physical — or therapy. I came face-to-face with an instinct that few people acknowledge, and would deny if they heard it spoken. But they should linger on it. Because what I discovered captures what I believe is a basic if discomforting human truth: The ethical or spiritual search, not as idealized but as actually lived, is a search for power. That is, for the ability to possess personal agency. We pray, “Thy will be done.” We mean “my will be done” — hoping that the two comport. This is why, at least in my observations after thirty years as a publisher, seeker, and historian of alternative spirituality, many seekers in both traditional and alternative faiths are ill at ease, fitful in their progress, and apt to slide from faith to faith, or to harbor multiple, sometimes conflicting, practices at once.

Power is supposed to be the craving of the corrupt. Is it? The novelist Isaac Bashevis Singer, surveying the modern occult scene, wrote in 1967: “We are all black magicians in our dreams, in our fantasies, perversions, and phobias.” And to this I would add, in pursuit of our highest ideals. As Singer detected, we are not very different from the classical magician when we strive, morally and materially, to carry forth our plans in the world — to ensure the betterment of ourselves and our loved ones; to heal sickness; to create, sustain, and, above all, to generate things which bear our markings, ideals, and likenesses. All of this is the expenditure of power, the striving to actualize our drives and images.

I do not view the search for individual power, including through supernatural means (a topic I will clarify and expand on), as necessarily maleficent. Historically and psychologically, it is a fundamental human trait to evaluate, adopt, or avoid an idea based upon whether it builds or depletes our sense of personal agency. “A living thing,” Nietzsche wrote in Beyond Good and Evil, “seeks above all to discharge its strength — life itself is will to power…” The difficulty is in making our choices wisely, and ethically.

I know how far I’m extending my chin by quoting Nietzsche. I sound like a dorm-room libertine. A critic once accused me of harboring an adolescent wish to power. To that, I plead guilty — but with a catch. I do believe in universal reciprocity, an indelible oneness of existence, and I operate from a ground rule of nonviolence. By that, I do not mean abstention from self-defense but rather an unwillingness to violate the sanctity of another’s search, to knowingly do anything that would deprive another of his or her own pursuit of highest potential. And since the political question is never far away, I’ll note that my policy preferences run to a mildly redistributive social democratic state with single-payer healthcare, labor unions, and consumer protections with teeth.

As alluded, sensitive people often deny or overlook their power-seeking impulse, associating it with the tragic fate of Faust or Lady Macbeth. It can be argued, however, that all of our neuroses and feelings of chronic despair, aside from those with identifiably biological causes, grow from the frustrated expression of personal power. We may spend a lifetime (and countless therapy sessions) ascribing our problems to other, more secondary phenomena — without realizing that, as naturally as a bird is drawn to the dips and flows of air currents, we are in the perpetual act of trying to forge, create, and sustain, much like the ancient alchemist or wizard.

The ultimate frustration of life is that, while we seem to be granted godlike powers — giving birth, creating beauty, spanning space and time, devising machines of incredible might — we are bound to physical forms that quickly decay. “Ye are gods,” wrote the psalmist, adding “but yet shall die as princes.” Immortality and the reversal of bodily decline is the one magic no one has ever mastered. The wish to surpass the boundaries of our physicality is behind some of our most haunting myths and parables, from the Trojan prince Tithonus, to whom the gods granted immortality but trapped in a shell of misery and decay for failing to request eternal youth, to the doomed scientist Victor Frankenstein, who sought the ultimate alchemy of creating life only to bring destruction on everyone around him.

We live in a sphere of limitations. But we cannot desist from pushing against its limits. It is our heritage.

Many of us grew up learning the story of humanity’s fall from grace in the biblical parable of the garden of paradise, where the serpent — long associated with the Great Adversary (a guest who’ll soon be arriving) — seduces Eve, and then she Adam, into eating forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But take a fresh reading, or a first reading, of the sparsely detailed chapter three of Genesis. When revisiting this familiar story in virtually any translation, you’ll see not only that the serpent’s argument is based in truth — the couple does not perish for eating the apple, and their eyes are, in fact, opened to good and evil (indeed, some scholars contend that the garden’s two trees, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life, are the same)— but also that Eve, contrary to a shibboleth about feminine nature, does not seduce Adam, who requires little coaxing. The serpent even suggests, as augmented in other texts, that Yahweh displays cruel hypocrisy by forbidding intellectual illumination, even as its availability sits in the garden’s midst.

We’re taught, too, that the denouement of Eve’s misstep was her son Cain slaying his brother Abel. But Cain’s tragic act of fratricide may reflect, in discomforting realism, the unavoidable consequence of creativity: friction. Competing ideologies and the wish to measure and evaluate may be the inevitable cost of awareness. But without the rebel, the malcontent, the usurper — the snake in the garden — how could humanity claim sentience?

Lord Byron used his 1821 drama, Cain, one of the dramatist’s most alluring and under-appreciated works, to take the marked brother’s side. And to introduce the most jarring literary re-conception of Lucifer next to Milton’s. Byron’s antihero, who befriends the rebellious Cain, is persuasive and penetrating in his denial that he was the serpent in the garden, yet he points out that the serpent greeted Eve as a sexual and political emancipator — an outlook embraced by many proto-feminists and political radicals of that century and the next. Byron’s dark lord is a fiery optimist on the side of the malcontents: “I know the thoughts/Of dust, and feel for it, and with you.”

I began to question whether the forces of creation with which I most identified — whether parabolic or metaphysical — were these same forces of Promethean defiance. Forces of aspiration who rallied to the cry of the demon Moloch in Paradise Lost: “Hard liberty before the easy yoke.”

Now, one could ask: why think of any of this other than in material terms? Why not put away my Bhagavad Gita in favor of Atlas Shrugged? Because, as noted, I believe that truth is not contained within flesh and bone alone. I think we participate in an existence that goes beyond the five senses. And I believe that our ancient ancestors were correct in deifying certain energies and understanding oneself in relation to them; they gave them names like Thoth, Hermes, Minerva, and Set. Hence, I began to take a long and considered look at such an energy, to which I have been alluding, but which I have not yet named: Satan. This term has its own complicated past, it has gotten me cast out of a garden or two myself, but I employ it both to acknowledge its colloquial primacy and as a bow to bluntness.

There exists a rich and underappreciated counter narrative of humanity’s encounter with what is called “Satanic” in Western life particularly, but not only, in the literature of the Romantics. This countercurrent of spiritual, political, and cultural history — and present — has been insufficiently understood, historically confused, and blurred by entertainment, conspiracy theorists, sensationalism, and fraud (such as the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s).

My wish then, is to encourage a second look where we’re not supposed to be looking — that is, to take a more unadorned, elucidating, and even hopeful perspective on the Satanic. Milton has Satan say: “The mind is its own place, and in it self/Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.” Again, Satan is an optimist. Me too. No cards under the table: my journey — and perhaps yours — includes constructively wondering whether my own search for a personal, spiritual, and ethical philosophy (I have one — and it’s vital to me) lies east of Eden, or within what is popularly but incompletely called the “dark side.” That’s what I’ve been describing.

Darkness is not a void; it’s a womb. And in the territory of truth and consensual experiment, there exist no boundaries of exploration.

#Mitch Horowitz #satan #satanism #snake #adam and eve #cain and abel #power #ethics #reciprocity

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courtneyrobinson97 · 5 years ago

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IXD301

Where does content come from?

This week was all about where content comes from and also who owns that content. We looked at sources of content, for example:

Client Supplied

Self Generated

User Generated Content

APIs

Etc.

We also identified different sources of imagery, etc., for example Illustration, Icons, Photography… from places like:

Illustration

iStockPhoto

Shutterstock

Getty

What is copyright?

Copyright (or author’s right) is a legal term used to describe the rights that creators have over their literary and artistic works. Works covered by copyright range from books, music, paintings, sculpture, and films, to computer programs, databases, advertisements, maps, and technical drawings.

Copyright touches our lives on a daily basis. Whether you read a book, watch a film, transfer music, or take a photo, copyright issues are ever-present.

Copyright law aims to balance the interests of those who create content, with the public interest in having the widest possible access to that content. WIPO administers several international treaties in the area of copyright and related rights.

There are two types of rights under copyright:

economic rights, which allow the rights owner to derive financial reward from the use of their works by others; and

moral rights, which protect the non-economic interests of the author.

Most copyright laws state that the rights owner has the economic right to authorise or prevent certain uses in relation to a work or, in some cases, to receive remuneration for the use of their work (such as through collective management). The economic rights owner of a work can prohibit or authorise:

its reproduction in various forms, such as printed publication or sound recording;

its public performance, such as in a play or musical work;

its recording, for example, in the form of compact discs or DVDs;

its broadcasting, by radio, cable or satellite;

its translation into other languages; and

its adaptation, such as a novel into a film screenplay.

Examples of widely recognised moral rights include the right to claim authorship of a work and the right to oppose changes to a work that could harm the creator's reputation.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organisation devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organisation has released several copyright-licenses, known as Creative Commons licenses, free of charge to the public.

These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. An easy-to-understand one-page explanation of rights, with associated visual symbols, explains the specifics of each Creative Commons license.

Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyright but are based upon it. They replace individual negotiations for specific rights between copyright owner (licensor) and licensee, which are necessary under an "all rights reserved" copyright management, with a "some rights reserved" management employing standardised licenses for re-use cases where no commercial compensation is sought by the copyright owner. The result is an agile, low-overhead and low-cost copyright-management regime, benefiting both copyright owners and licensees.

Portfolio Website Content - So Far...

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<h1>HEY, I'M COURTNEY.</h1>

<p><i>METAL GIRL WITH TATTOOS.</i></p> <p><i>ANIMAL & COFFEE ENTHUSIAST.</i></p> <p><i>UI DESIGNER & FRONT-END DEVELOPER.</i></p>

<button>VIEW MORE ABOUT ME</button>

</div>

<h1>PORTFOLIO PAGE</h1> <div>

<h2>WHO'S THAT GOOD BOY?</h2> <h3><i>SKILL : APP DESIGN / PROTOTYPING</i></h3>

<p>The educational app for all ages, encouraging users to travel and discover the many varieties of doggos we have in this beautiful world even right on our own doorstep.</p>

<p>Who’s That Good Boy? allows users to have a fun, interactive experience as well as sharing the experience with family or friends.</p>

</div>

<h2>SELF BRANDING</h2> <h3><i>SKILL : CORPORATE IDENTITY - BRANDING</i></h3>

<p>My brand vision is to create unique and exciting solutions within the design industry which adhere and relate to my selected style and approach to design.</p>

<p>In this section you will see my start to finish process of making my Monogram, Wordmark and Visual Marque.</p>

</div>

<div>

<h2>DEMENTIA IN THE UK</h2> <h3><i>SKILL : DATA VISUALISATION - INFOGRAPHIC</i></h3>

<p>During my first year of university, my Nannie suffered from and passed due to the affects of Dementia.</p>

<p>I decided to base my infographic on the topic of Dementia in the UK as it's a disease that, unless witnessed first hand, not everyone understands the full extent and issues it raises.</p>

<p>I wanted to make something that would provide people with the relevant information in an interesting but informative way.</p>

</div> </div>

<h1>ABOUT PAGE</h1>

<div>

<div> <h3>Hey, I'm Courtney.</h3>

<p>I’m a young, enthusiastic UI designer based in Belfast currently seeking placement opportunities for 2020-2021.</p>

</div>

<div> <p>I'm currently a second year student at Ulster University, Belfast, studying a Bachelors in Interaction Design.</p>

<p>My key areas of interest include:</p>

<ul> <li>Front-End Development</li> <li>Branding</li> <li>UI Design</li> <li>App Design</li> <li>Data Visualisation</li> <li>Illustration</li> </ul>

</div> <div>

<p>Before coming to Ulster University, I achieved a Level 5 HND in Graphic Design at Belfast Metropolitan College. It was here that I discovered my passion for digital design whilst building and designing projects for set briefs.</p>

</div> </div>

<h1>CASE STUDY PAGE</h1>

<h2>The Challenge</h2>

<p>Create an illustrative travel app considering elements such as mobile design principles, colour and thumb.</p>

<h2>The Process</h2>

<p>For this project, I began by exploring the potential answers to the problem given by drawing a mind-map of ideas after hearing the topic “Travel”. From this, I was able to branch the ideas out further to see which ideas held the most potential in regards to fulfilling the set brief of creating an app using illustration but also considering the potential needs of the intended users.</p>

<p>After discussing my list of ideas in class, my next stage was to begin market research. I had to gain a sound knowledge and understanding of all the elements that need to be considered when building and designing an app before I could begin developing my own concept. Looking at how existing apps use illustration in regards to travel as well as their navigation layout approach, icon sets and branding were all helpful as it made me consider what was needed for my own app in order for it to be successful.</p>

<p>As I’d never created an icon set before, I used the design technique of master apprenticing to recreate a set of travel icons so that I would have a better approach to designing using just simple shapes. I enjoyed completing this exercise and it encouraged me to research the history of icons to see how they have varied in design approach from the 1900’s to present day.</p>

<p>Now that I had a better knowledge on what needed to be included in an app, I then went back to my initial mind-map of ideas. From this I decided to create a dog themed app as I felt it held strong visual stimulation for creating illustrations. My inspiration behind the functioning of the app stemmed from looking at Pokemon Go. I wanted to design an app that encourages the user to travel in real life to collect as many dog breeds as they could, gaining a stamp for each breed as a reward.</p>

<p>The idea for the app is that the user would photograph a dog they find whilst out exploring, the app would then transform the dog into an illustrative id card which would then be stored. Each dog discovered gains the user more ranking and also unlocks mini challenges like a treasure hunt as they have to answer questions and follow clues to end up at a final destination.</p>

<p>Turning to my sketchbook was the next stage of my process so that I could start developing visuals for my app design. I created many rough sketches in regards to icons, illustrations and wireframes so that I could move on to digitising the app using Sketch to develop them into clean, finished design elements which would piece together to finalise the overall app design.</p>

<p>I produced a high-level mock-up of my app to present in front of my classmates in order to receive constructive feedback that would then help guide me to a finalised app design. Once I made the recommended changes to my designs, I created a functioning prototype using InVision to best show how my app design answers the problem set in the original brief.</p>

<h2>Some Obstacles</h2>

<p>The main challenge I encountered was when I was digitising the dog illustrations as at this point I had limited experiences using Sketch for these purposes. The illustrations therefore took quite a bit of time to create however I feel that this experience helped strengthen my skill set in regards to using this software.</p>

<h2>My Reflection</h2>

<p>Throughout the process of this project, I feel like I was able to strengthen my existing skill set for developing and designing concepts from start to finish, however, I also got to experiment and learn some new techniques I hadn't tried out before such as prototyping and considering the rule of thumb.</p>

<p>To read further notes and my reflections on this brief, click the link below to my Tumblr page!</p>

<button>VISIT MY TUMBLR</button>

</div>

<h1>CONTACT PAGE</h1>

<p>Check out the ‘Hire Me’ page for my CV or fire me an email using the link provided below whether it be for job opportunities, an invite to groups/events or perhaps even for a killer collaboration project.</p>

<p>I’m currently seeking placement opportunities for 2020-2021.</p>

<button>GET IN TOUCH</button>

</div>

<h1>Courtney Robinson</h1> <h2>UI DESIGNER & FRONT-END DEVELOPER</h2>

</div> <div>

<h3>Design Experience</h3> <h4>Content Marketing Manager</h4> <h5>Robinson Financial Services</h5> <h5><i>Oct 19 to Present (Part Time)</i></h5>

<p>Roles & responsibilities:</p>

<ul> <li>To expand the company’s digital footprint and brand awareness</li> <li>To take full responsibility of the companies digital marketing strategies including use of social media, email campaigns, blogs, SEO (to name a few) to increase digital lead generation</li> <li>To provide administrative support to the Company Director</li> <li>To perform other incidental and related duties as required and assigned</li> <li>Responding promptly to customer enquiries in person or via telephone & email</li> <li>Working to tight deadlines</li> </ul>

<h4>Freelance Designer</h4> <h5>Courtney Robinson Designs</h5> <h5><i>June 17 to Present (Part Time)</i></h5>

<p>Roles & responsibilities:</p>

<ul> <li>Responding promptly to customer enquiries in person or via telephone & email</li> <li>Create visuals based on customer requests (print or digital)</li> <li>Strong use of Adobe Creative Suite and Sketch Software</li> <li>Daily reports on the status of pending work</li> <li>Good general IT skills</li> <li>An ability to communicate design ideas clearly</li> <li>Working to tight deadlines</li> </ul>

</div> <div>

<h3>Education</h3>

<h4>Interaction Design (BDes)</h4>

<p>Ulster University, Belfast</p>

<p>Sep 18 - May 22</p> <p>Result: Pending</p>

<h4>Graphic Design (QCF)</h4>

<p>(EDEXCEL BTEC Level 5 HND Diploma)</p> <p>Belfast Metropolitan College, Belfast</p> <p>Sep 15 - May 17</p> <p>Result: Pass</p>

<h4>OCN NI Level 2 Award in Social Media (QCF)</h4>

<p>Belfast Metropolitan College, Belfast</p> <p>Sep 15 - May 17</p> <p>Result: Achieved</p>

</div>

<div> <h3>Design Skills</h3>

<ul> <li>Sketch</li> <li>Adobe Creative Suite</li> <li>HTML/CSS</li> <li>InVision</li> <li>Branding</li> <li>Digital Marketing</li> <li>Web & App Design</li> <li>Data Visualisation</li> </ul>

</div>

<div> <button>DOWNLOAD PDF</button> </div>

Sources:

https://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/

https://creativecommons.org/

#ixd301 #designingwithcontent #ulsteruniversity #belfast #design #ixdbelfast

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theycallmebeccawrites · 6 years ago

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Chris & Ellie Series: Episode 14

With Tumblr holding my original writing blog @beccaheartschrisevans captive (aka flagged as explicit), I have made a secondary writing blog and may end up closing the other all together. In the meantime, I am reposting all of my stories on my new blog.

Pairing: Chris Evans x Ellie Spencer (OFC)

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: some minor language

Episode Summary: Basically how Chris and Ellie spend December 2013 while apart

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

This episode can also be read on AO3.

The Chris and Ellie series is primarily chronological. It begins with a flash forward to 2016 and has a few other scenes in the future. However, the majority of their story is told in chronological order starting in 2013 and going through 2017. Each episode starts with a date to help you place it within the story.

The Chris & Ellie Series Masterlist | Chris & Ellie Masterlist

Episode 13

Episode 14: The Most Wonderful Time of Year

December 2013

It was with a mix of great joy and pure exhaustion that Ellie walked into the house on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Too tired to walk down to the guesthouse, she collapsed on the couch in the living room and closed her eyes. Thanks to her cousin who had offered to watch Daisy over the weekend due to the extra hours Ellie was working, there was no reason for her to even get off the couch.

Which was why she woke up six hours later with a crick in her neck from the awkward position she'd fallen asleep in. Still, it took a lot of strength to pull her exhausted body from the couch and make her way down to her room. Despite it being a little after two in the morning, she took a shower and let the hot water ease her sore muscles, before she got into bed and fell back to sleep.

After picking Daisy up, later that morning, Ellie spent most of the day cleaning and doing laundry, chores that had been completely overlooked in the days leading up to Black Friday weekend at the bookstore. It was as she was checking the pockets of her clothes that she came across the business card of the lady who she had met at her aunt's house on Thanksgiving. She hadn't looked closely at the card until now and was slightly disappointed when she saw that the lady worked for a publishing company and not a literary agency, which likely meant she had no use for someone who aspired to be an editor. Setting the business card aside, Ellie continued with her chores, quickly coming to terms with the fact that she would just have to wait for another opportunity.

During the craziness of her weekend, the texts between Ellie and Chris had been sporadic, but they often found time to shoot each other a message or two in the days that followed. It was a couple days in December, however, when Ellie's phone rang at just after eleven p.m. Curious as to who was calling her so late, Ellie grabbed the phone and stared at in shock when she saw that it was Chris. With a sick feeling in her gut, especially since it was after two in the morning on the east coast, she accepted the call and said, "Chris? What's wrong?"

"I'm kind of freaking out right now," Chris said and she could hear the anxiety and panic in his voice. "We start shooting the movie later today, well, tonight really, but that’s beside the point, because I don't know why anyone would trust me with their manuscript. I'm just an actor."

Ellie let out a mental sigh of relief that no one was sick or seriously injured before she stepped up to the task of helping him through his freak out. "You're more than just an actor," she told him. "Yes. You've acted all your life, but you've been studying your craft and learning from those around you."

"But directing?" he sighed his voice thick with tension. She hadn't seen him in this situation before, but knowing him, she imagined him wringing his hands and pacing the floor of his hotel room, likely to the annoyance of his neighbors. "What the hell was I thinking?"

"That you wanted to challenge yourself," Ellie said firmly, repeating the words he'd said to her months ago when he'd told her he was looking for a script to direct. "You have a great team around you, Chris, they trust you and they want to take this journey with you."

"Insane, every last one of them," Chris with a scoff that gave way to a forced laugh. "Even more insane than I am."

"You're not insane, you're just nervous," Ellie said as she pushed herself up into a sitting position on her bed, jostling Daisy slightly, who glared at her before rolling over and falling back to sleep. "You just need to distract yourself so you can get some sleep."

"You're right," Chris said and she heard him take a deep breath. "Ok, distracting myself." He took another long, slow breath. "Distracting myself... Oh! Did you send that lady your resume?"

Caught off guard at the change of subject so quickly, Ellie stammered, "No… not really."

"What does that mean?" Chris inquired. "You either did or you didn't."

"I didn't," Ellie confessed, biting down on her lower lip.

"Why not? That's the door you've been waiting for," he said, practically lecturing her. She was happy to hear a more positive tone to his voice, but not so happy that it was at her expense.

"It isn't though," Ellie said before defending herself, "she works for a publishing company and editors work with authors and literary agents, not the publishing company."

"But if she works with authors and literary agents then she has the contacts to forward your resume to," Chris countered. "Therefore, she has the contacts you need."

"You're trying to confuse me with logical shit and it's too late for that nonsense," Ellie muttered, rubbing her forehead. "Can't we go back to talking about your anxiety over directing?" Ellie pleaded before letting out a deep shy as the pressure of the situation began to wear on her. She'd come to LA to be an editor only to have her dreams of that career go up in flames thanks to her sexist pig of a boss.

"No," Chris said with a chuckle. "This is a great topic to distract myself with. That is what you suggested after all."

"Ugh, remind me to never tell you to distract yourself again," Ellie grumbled, slumping back against the headboard.

"At least not when we're across the country from each other," Chris said, smoothly. Despite their time apart, he was even more sure that Ellie was the girl he wanted to be dating. After all, she was the first person he'd needed to talk to when he had started freaking out an hour earlier. He understood why she was hesitant, however, and he didn't want to push her into anything she wasn't ready for, but there were some innuendos even he couldn't resist even on his best behavior.

"Or ones that require us to talk," Ellie responded as her mind flickered back to their kisses in October. What she wouldn't give to be with Chris right now, kissing his worries away. She cleared her throat, pulling them both back to the topic at hand. "Ok, Evans, give me your sales pitch."

"My sales pitch? What? … Oh, right... We were talking about you submitting your resume." Chris let out a genuine laugh that made Ellie smile. "I don't really have a sales pitch, I just think you'll live to regret it if you don't send her your resume, El," he admitted. "Like you said yourself, she isn't the person you're trying to get to hire you, but she’s an avenue to that person."

"If she even reads it," Ellie said in a negative Nancy tone.

"Then make her read it," Chris said with an overzealous amount of enthusiasm. "Send her flowers or chocolates or -"

"Something stolen from Chris Evans' house?" Ellie suggested, jokingly.

"Ha," he replied before sobering. "I've seen your resume, Ellie, and you've accomplished a lot. If this lady is smart, she'll take one look at your resume and know she has to send it on."

"But what if she doesn't?" Ellie said quietly, voicing her biggest fear. "What if the only reason she gave me her business card was because my aunt was nagging her to during dessert?"

"What if someone had helped her to her first job in the publishing world and she wants to help you? Chris countered, his tone part fierce and part compassionate. "I know I sure as hell didn't make it where I am now without help from people in the industry who took a chance on me."

He waited a moment, likely for dramatic effect, she thought, before he continued, "You're damn good at what you do, Ellie, and don't you ever forget that. We both know that selling used books and managing my house are not what you want to do for the rest of your life. Editing is where your passion is. I've never seen someone actually light up over a writing reference book like you did when you bought that book that someone had traded in."

"It wasn't just a book, it was a first edition of -" she started but stopped when she heard him call her a nerd. "Hey!"

"Does it make it better if I say you're an adorable nerd? Hot even." Chris asked, thankful that he had distracted her from what he knew would be another hour-long conversation about the importance of that book. "Because you totally are."

"You aren't so bad yourself, though I don't think anyone would confuse you for a nerd, you've got too many muscles," she replied her tone turning a bit wistful at the end. "Lots of bumpy muscles." A part of her wanted to tell him right then and there that she wanted to try to be a couple with him, but that would put them exactly where they were now, nearly 3,000 miles apart.

"Nerds come in all shapes and sizes," he reminded her, biting his tongue to keep from telling her he'd show her his bumpy muscles again if she showed him her bumps. He cleared his throat and quickly tried to recall what they had been discussing before their detour. "Right. You're resume. You're going to send it to her, right?"

After taking a moment of her own to recall the conversation, Ellie replied, "Yes, I'll send it in the morning, if it will make you happy."

"No, don't do it to make me happy," Chris told her, shaking his head despite the fact that she couldn't see him. "Do it because you want to, because it will help you achieve your dreams. Because this is the job you want so bad you can taste it, because it's all you think about."

"Ok, I'll do it for me," Ellie replied, feeling somewhat inspired by his passion. "You know, if this acting and directing thing doesn't work out, you'd make a great inspirational speaker."

"Ha ha ha. No." Chris shuddered at the idea. "Gimme a script and tell me to play a superhero. I've got that. Tell me to stand in front of a bunch of people I don't know and tell me to just speak, you'd better have something for me to fall onto when I pass out."

"I'm sure it wouldn't be that bad," Ellie told him. "But I don't think you need to worry about a second job, or is it a third job, now that you're an actor and director?"

"It's too late to think that hard," he replied with a laugh.

Glancing at the clock, Ellie's eyebrows shot up when she realized they'd been on the phone for over an hour. "Chris! You need to get some sleep!! You're going to be pissed when your lead actor shows up with dark circles under his eyes!"

"Wouldn't surprise me, that guy is an asshole," Chris joked and then yawned. "But you're probably right…"

"Of course I'm right and you need your beauty sleep, too, Mr. Director," she snickered. "Even though all you have to do tomorrow is sit still and look pretty."

"It's a hard job, someone has to do it," Chris said in a self-sacrificing tone. Returning to a more serious tone, he said, "Thanks for answering your phone, El. You're exactly who I needed to help me through my panic tonight."

"I'll always answer my phone for you, Chris," Ellie replied, her tone also serious. "And I'm glad I was able to help you out."

After saying goodbye to Chris, Ellie plugged her phone in and turned off the lights. She slid under the blankets of her bed and whispered to Daisy, "I know he is worried about directing, just like I'm worried about this job… but I have as much faith in him going for his dreams as he does for me."

The next morning, before going to the bookstore, Ellie did as she had promised and sent her resume and a carefully worded cover letter to the lady at the publishing company. She still wasn't convinced that it would open any doors for her, but she'd promised Chris she would do it. Before pressing send, she took a picture of her computer screen with her phone and sent it to Chris and got an 'you got this!' in reply.

Over the next couple of days, Chris kept Ellie up to date on how things were going with the movie (good) and how he was getting on with the cast and crew (great). Due to his late night shoots, however, all of their communication happened via text since by the time he got out of bed, she was already working. The texts were usually funny things that were happening around them as well as encouraging thoughts for each other.

She was at work the day she got the email from her aunt's friend with a formal introduction to a literary agent who wanted to meet Ellie for a possible job. Before even replying to the email, during her break, Ellie sent Chris a text with a screen shot of the email, to which he replied with a simple, "told you so."

Once again, Chris was the first person she reached out to, a few days later, when she got into her car after the meeting with the literary agent. Way too excited to type, she took a chance and called him, hoping he was awake and available to talk.

"How'd it go?" he asked, answering his phone without a proper greeting. He'd known that her interview was that morning and there was an edge to his voice that told her he might have been more nervous about it than she had been.

"It was amazing," Ellie gushed as she leaned back against the car seat. "We talked about my goals and what I wanted to achieve as an editor and the typical 'where do you see yourself in five years' questions. But Chris, he said he was impressed with my resume and that he was familiar with a couple of the self-published novels I've edited."

"That's awesome," Chris said and, knowing him as well as she did, Ellie could hear the smile in his voice. "See, I told you. You should listen to me more often," he added, cockily.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she replied, rolling her eyes playfully. "I haven't even told you the best part yet."

"Well get to it then, I don't have all day!" he teased, sarcastically. Before she had a chance to tell him, however, he started humming the Final Jeopardy tune and then continued when she did start.

"CHRIS!" she complained while laughing. "Shut up so I can tell you!"

"Sorry," he replied attempting a tone of sincerity while still laughing. "I'll behave, promise." She said nothing, not trusting him at all. "I'm done, I swear!"

"He gave me a manuscript for one of his authors!" she exclaimed and let out an excited squeal, nearly dropping the phone as she did a little happy dance in her car.

"That's fantastic!" Chris couldn't help but chuckle at her antics. "Do you have a due date?"

"That's the thing," she said, her excitement tapering off. "He wants me to read it, mark it up and do my thing to it, but before Christmas. That's less than two weeks away…"

"I've seen you read an entire book in one sitting," he stated. "Which let me tell you, is an impressive and mind blowing sight. I have no doubt you can get this done in that time. Assuming, of course, it's not like a War in Remembrance length…"

"It's not, thank God, it's a little more than two hundred pages and double spaced," Ellie replied. "I've edited longer ones, but I'm kind of nervous, ya know? This is a real book and author. I mean, when it's finished, I could walk into a bookstore and pick it up off the shelf."

"You've got this," Chris encouraged her. "And when it comes out, I'm going to buy that book and make you sign it."

"You don't even know what kind of book it is," Ellie said with a laugh. "It could be a self-help book on embracing your sexuality as a woman."

"Is it?" Chris asked, hesitantly.

"No, lucky for you, it's not." She laughed. "It's a mystery novel."

"Whew, that was going to be an awkward purchase otherwise." He let out a sigh of relief. "But you've got this, Ellie. Editing was what you were born to do."

"Thanks for pushing me, Chris, I wouldn't have had this opportunity if it weren't for you," she said, seriously.

"Exactly and when you become the most in demand editor, I expect residual checks," he stated with a chuckle. "I know there isn't much room to work in the guesthouse, so feel free to use my office to spread out, if you'd like."

"Are you sure?" she asked, hesitantly. "I don't want to invade your personal space."

"I'm pretty sure we crossed that line on Halloween," he said casually, but the memories of that night and the kisses they had shared brought extra heat to his words.

"Which line was that?" she asked, flirtatiously. "When I pushed you against the wall? Or when you flipped us around?"

"Somewhere in the middle," Chris replied, lowering his voice since he was on set. He'd moved aside when he'd answered the call, but he wanted to protect Ellie and their, hopefully, budding relationship.

Feeling emboldened by his words, her meeting that morning and her desire to clear the air with Chris about her feelings, Ellie opened her mouth to tell him she wanted to take that step with him, but before she could get the words out, someone on his end shouted at him.

"Shit," he cursed into the phone. He pulled the phone away and she could hear a hushed conversation happening on his end, followed by additional cussing from him before he finally returned. "I've got to go, El. We're having an issue with one of the cameras. We'll finish this conversation later, good luck with the editing."

After hanging up, Ellie held her phone to her chest and breathed in deeply. Chris's support and refusal to let her give up on her dream of being an editor had only made her more confident in her decision to take a chance with him. It was early--way too early, if she was being honest with herself--to even be thinking along the lines of a definite future with Chris, but she couldn't help it. There was something special about the bond she shared with Chris and she hoped it was the forever, even if it was just forever friends, kind of bond.

In the week that followed, Ellie spent her free time working on the manuscript, which left little time for more than a few texts with Chris here and there, which ended up working out fine because Chris, himself, was busy with the final days of filming. There were times that she wished they could talk on the phone as she was trying to go to sleep at night, but she knew that they both needed to focus on their projects before distracting themselves with relationship talks. As she powered through the corrections and comments for the author she was working with, Chris acted and directed, which resulted in them both finishing their projects on the Friday before Christmas.

They exchanged texts the next day as they sat in airports across the country from each other waiting for their flights: hers to Oregon to spend two weeks with her family and him to Florida where he would join his family for the last couple days of their annual Disney World trip before they all returned home to Sudbury for Christmas.

By the time Ellie got to her parents’ house, in a small town in the Willamette Valley, it was nearly dinner time and the house was already full. Her younger sister, Riley, was home from college and her older sister, Sydney, and her two kids had arrived a couple hours before Ellie had. The only people who hadn't arrived yet were Sydney's husband and her sister Izzy, who both had to work the first part of the week.

After a dinner of pizza, Ellie retired to the room she'd shared with Izzy growing up and was unpacking her clothes when she got a text from Chris asking if she'd made it home yet. Sitting down on the bed, she smiled as she replied yes and then sent him a selfie she had taken with her niece and nephew earlier. They texted a few more times, including a couple pictures of him with his nephews in Disney World.

Distracted by the texts, Ellie didn't realize Sydney and Riley were in the doorway to her room until Riley cleared her throat, startling Ellie completely and making her jump in fright.

"So, how's Chris?" Sydney asked with a knowing smile.

"Good," Ellie replied with a slight blush. It had been during their last sisters group chat that she had told her sisters what had happened between herself and Chris after the baseball game and about the decision she had made on Thanksgiving. Her sisters had been happy for her and had teased her about it a bit, but Ellie had noticed that Izzy hadn't been herself.

It hadn't been until a private conversation between the two of them over the phone that Ellie found out that Scott had already told Izzy about the kiss at the World Series and the lipstick incident at the Halloween party. Her sister, and best friend, had been understandably upset for not hearing about those two incidents from Ellie herself. Things were still a bit touchy between the two sisters, which is why Ellie had offered to drive to Portland to pick Izzy up on Christmas Eve.

When it came to talking with her sisters, it was easier to tell all three of them at once than each individually, especially if you weren't trying to tell them everything. Ellie, herself, had been part of the post one-on-one conversations where notes had been compared to figure out what the sister on the hot seat had left out. She had hoped to avoid that situation, but clearly Riley, Sydney and Izzy had different plans.

"Have you told him you want do have sex with him yet?" Riley asked in the casual way a college student talks about sex.

"Not yet," Ellie replied before going on to tell her sisters how her attempt the week before had failed and how she and Chris had both been super busy. "It's the whole distance makes the heart grow fonder thing, ya know." She shrugged.

"But what if the other heart doesn't know it's supposed to be getting fonder?" Sydney asked with a sense of caution in her voice.

"Seriously, even I know that," Riley stated. "He's a celebrity. All he has to do is give a girl a look and he can bone her."

"Riley!" Sydney scolded as she quickly got up and closed the open door. "Little ears have big mouths."

"Sorry," Riley replied, sheepishly.

"And if Chris is out there 'boning' other girls while waiting for you to decide what to do about your relationship then I'm sending Garrett and his brothers to get your stuff from Chris's house and we'll have Izzy get a restraining order -" Sydney went off on an overprotective big sister rant.

"He's not boning other girls," Ellie cut her sister off. "Chris isn't that kind of guy."

"I'm just saying," Riley said with a shrug.

"Well you can stop saying," Ellie replied with a pointed look.

"And you could start saying who that guy in all your Instagram photos is," Sydney said, changing the subject and putting the fire on Riley for a bit.

By the time Christmas Eve rolled around, Ellie welcomed the peace and quiet of the hour drive to the airport. She loved her family, but her parents’ house was smaller now than it had ever been, especially since her brother-in-law had arrived the night before and there had been another shuffling of sleeping arrangements.

It was while she was waiting for Izzy in one of the designated cell phone waiting areas that the literary agent called her. The conversation was short and to the point: he and his client had been impressed with the notes and corrections that she had made and they both wanted to work with her in the future. So much so that he told her he had put in a request with the agency he represented to sign her as an independent contractor contract at the beginning of the year.

As soon as she hung up with the agent, she called Chris without a second thought. She was crying happy tears when he answered the call and it took her a moment to compose herself before she was able to tell him the fantastic news. "The author said she has never had such helpful notes," she gushed to Chris, repeating what the agent had told her. "She wants me to be her main editor and she already has another novel in the works that she wants me to read as she writes it!"

"I knew you could do it!" Chris cheered then jested, "Next time text me first so you don't give me a fucking heart attack when I answer the phone and you're crying!"

"Sorry," Ellie said with a giggle. "I'm just so… over the fucking moon right now!"

"I knew you had it in you," Chris praised. "You're talented, you just needed to have a little faith in yourself."

"This never would have happened if you hadn't seen it and had the faith in me that I didn't have," Ellie pointed out.

"True, but you did the hard work and I am so proud of you," he agreed, encouragingly. "How are you going to celebrate?"

"I don't know, you're the first person I told," Ellie replied still in a state of awe over the whole thing. "In fact, I'm by myself waiting for Izzy at the airport. And -" She paused as she realized now was the time to tell Chris something equally as important as her job.

She took a deep breath and then laid her heart on the line. "Chris, I want to try us out," she said. Her voice had lost some of its bubbliness of a few seconds prior and a sense of anxiety had taken its place. "We both know the riskiness of it was what was holding me back, but I think it's worth it."

"Try us out as in date?" he asked, to make sure he was following the sudden change in conversation.

"Yes." She felt like her heart was going to explode as she waited for him to tell her that he still wanted to try. If he said he didn't, though, she wasn't sure what she would do.

"Are you sure?" he asked, cautiously. "You're really sure?"

"I've been sure for about a month," she admitted as she nervously picked at a dent in the steering wheel. "I was just waiting for the right moment to tell you." Recalling the conversation with her sisters the other day, she cleared her throat and added, "Chris, if me taking too long led to -"

"No, I haven't been with anyone else nor have I even wanted to be," Chris interrupted her. "That is where you were going with that, right?"

"Yes," she admitted, feeling relieved. "Really?"

"Really," he confirmed.

"So you still want to, too?" she asked, she felt silly for asking, but she wanted to know for sure.

"Yeah, I still do," Chris assured her before attempting to ease the tension with a joke. "And not just because I don't have to deal with LA traffic to pick you up for a date." To his relief, she laughed and he couldn't help but laugh, too. "So, out of curiosity, why did you wait so long to tell me?"

"It sounds silly now, but I didn't want to make it harder since we're on opposite sides of the continent," Ellie explained.

"I will resist the urge to make a joke about it being hard," Chris snickered with a hint of cockiness in his voice.

"You didn't resist too hard," Ellie pointed out with amusement. Now that they were on the same page, it was easier to be herself again without watching what she was saying.

"What can I say, it comes naturally to me," he played along. "Why fight what comes so easily."

"Hopefully not too easily, that would be disappointing," Ellie teased before dissolving into a fit of giggles.

"I guess you'll have to wait and see what happens in two weeks," Chris stated.

"Wait. In two weeks?" Ellie asked, quickly sobering. "You're coming home?"

"We got scheduled for reshoots beginning in early January," Chris confirmed, appreciating the excitement that was in her voice at his news.

As Ellie was letting that information digest, Izzy's text alert sounded in her ear. "Suddenly, I can't wait for Christmas to be over," she told Chris, finally. "And I love Christmas."

He chuckled and said, "I find myself feeling the same way, all of a sudden."

Knowing her sister was waiting, Ellie said goodbye to Chris with regret and then made her way to the arrivals area. It took her a good twenty minutes to get to where Izzy was waiting and they didn't have time to do anything other than get Izzy and her luggage into the car before they had to move on. Which meant that Ellie had to wait until she was out of the airport area before she could find a place to pull over. By the time she did, she was practically bursting from all the pent-up excitement. She then spent the next twenty minutes telling Izzy everything that had happened while she was waiting for her.

She was still on cloud nine when they got back to their parents’ house and found out that a package had been delivered for her while they'd been gone. The package, which had been overnighted from Florida, was from Chris and contained a Donald Duck stuffed animal with a note.

Ellie - Found this guy at Disney World and remembered you telling me how the Oregon Duck mascot was basically Donald Duck and, well, I knew you had to have him. Merry Christmas, Chris

Ellie felt tears come to her eyes as she held the stuffed animal to her chest. She felt Izzy behind her and felt her sister squeeze her shoulder before heading into the kitchen. Instead of following, Ellie took the present up to her room and placed it on her bed. She took a picture of it and sent it to Chris with a 'thank you' and 'I love it'.

When she finally made her way downstairs, she was surprised to find her family waiting for her with glasses of champagne and sparkling cider for the kids. Izzy handed her a glass and said, "I told them you had exciting news and that a toast was in order."

Ellie shared her news with her family and laughed as they showered her with exclamations and excitement. After they sipped their celebratory drinks, they shifted gears to their usual Christmas Eve festivities: watching Christmas movies and playing board games while munching on snacks. Followed by present opening since Sydney, Garrett and their two kids would be there in the morning for stockings before spending the rest of the day with Garrett's parents and siblings.

As she went to bed that night, with Donald Duck tucked in beside her, she couldn't help but think of the future. Per tradition, she and her family would head to the coast for the final week of the year, where they would ring in 2014 with four generations on the family compound of beach houses. Then she would return to LA and Chris would be there or get there shortly after her… and then… well, they'd be together and kicking off what had the potential of being an amazing year.

Episode 14.5

Want to find me off tumblr? I’m @beccatheycallme on twitter. I also post my stories on AO3.

My tag list is always open, just let me know if you’d like to be added!

#chris evans #theycallmebecca #beccaheartschrisevans #theycallmebeccawrites #chris evans fanfic #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans fan fiction #chris and ellie series #chris and ellie #chris evans x ofc #chris evans x original female character

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bbclesmis · 6 years ago

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Variety: ‘Les Miserables’ Team Talks Importance of Victor Hugo’s Tale as ‘Story for the World’

When Victor Hugo wrote the 1900-page tome “Les Misérables” in 1862, he gave the world a transcending and sweeping tale that dissected the division of class while breathing life into complex characters spanning decades. Unfortunately, no matter what your stance on musical theater, much of that tome has since been lost in Broadway and big screen iterations.

Given that the book is one of the longest ever written, that comes as no surprise.

Enter the incoming six-part PBS Masterpiece limited series “Les Misérables,” a music-free offering aiming to introduce the novel’s intricate themes and plots to new and older audiences alike in a more intimate setting. Dominic West, David Oyelowo and Lily Collins star in the ambitious Belgium-shot production, which already aired across the pond on the BBC.

Retelling a classic that’s been told so many times certainly comes with its challenges, but Hugo’s story was one producers and scribe Andrew Davies felt was important to tackle in today’s political climate. Here, Variety talks with Davies and executive producer Faith Penhale to discuss those challenges, recreating memorable scenes in a new way, and why now is the time for “Les Mis” to return.

Penhale: We all felt that we knew the book and thought there was an opportunity to tell the story as Hugo intended with a serialized adaptation. Instead of having 90 minutes or two hours at most to tell the story as a musical or film, we had six hours to really dive into all of the themes and all of the characters as Hugo originally intended. It’s a vast novel. One of the beautiful things about working on a television adaptation, and in the serialized form, is you get the space: You get the opportunity to really tell stories with the breadth and the depth that you just don’t always get when you are working within a much shorter timeframe. That was one reason, and also if you really dig into the story of “Les Misérables” and look back at when Hugo wrote the book, he wrote it with a very clear intention in mind. He wrote it to really tell the story of the underclass who were living with no safety net. He wrote it not just about France, but he wrote it as a story for the world. Some of those themes and questions that he emphasized in the story really resonate today in the challenging times we live in. It also felt as though we had the opportunity by having the story to really connect with today’s modern audience.

Davies: There are parallels between Paris then and London or America today. There seems like a widening of the gap between rich and poor, a society where we have seen homeless people begging in the streets as opera-goers step over them. It just seemed that it was a good time to do it again. I guess another reason why is I wanted to show the book as a whole as distinct from the slice of it that we get in the musical. I started working on this before I ever saw the musical so I already had my version in outline before I went to see it. And I was kind of startled by how shallow and partial the presentation of the book in the musical was — how little drama in fact there was in it. It seemed like there was a big opportunity and a chance to either introduce the story to people who didn’t know it or to show people who only knew the musical there was a lot in the book that they haven’t seen.

Specifically what got lost in the translation to the musical that you’re able to bring back here?

Penhale: Fantine’s story is one that really struck us. In the novel you get a sense from the beginning of a girl who has her life ahead of her, who she has a sort of optimism of a young woman embarking on the rest of her life. As you follow that story and [learn] what happens to her you begin to really feel and understand the story of a young girl living with fallen circumstances where society and all levels are working against her. I’ve never felt that story has been really brought to life in a way that we’ve been able to do with this adaptation. You’re really able to get under the skin of these characters.

Davies: Recreating [the early bits with Fantine] and putting it on the screen it felt a bit like the world of a Renoir painting. Renoir, Degas, working class pleasures. Boating on the Seine, open-air picnics, pretty girls and wealthy students. … The other bit that I find particularly engaging and moving was Jean Valjean’s relationship with Cosette. A man who had never really learned to love finding out what love was all about through adopting this little girl, and how intense and happy their relationship was. And then having to let her go, which in a way is emblematic of something all fathers know about, certainly I do. Watching Dominic play that relationship and having to let his daughter go was very powerful for me.

How did not having the musical requirements open up casting?

Penhale: We approached this as a really premium, quality piece of drama and for us where this was hugely exciting is we could really think about the casting in terms of who are the most exciting actors working at the moment and who was right to come into this. It was an enjoyable process of looking for the best actors.

What other challenges did you face in bringing this story to life for the small screen?

Penhale: One of the biggest things you feel when you take on an iconic piece of literary fiction is this huge responsibility to deliver the story really powerfully and well for the audience. There are iconic moments in “Misérables” that everybody knows, everybody is aware of. Everybody knows of the barricades. You have to be able to really deliver that to the audience. So part of it is that we set the bar very high for ourselves. You have to do that really well and you can’t disappoint.

Davies: There were huge moments in the book and they were what I set out to dramatize. They were also what I was interested in — bringing out all of the interesting connections in the way the characters link up. The chronology of the book is quite eccentric and I thought it would be valuable to straighten it out and begin the story with the aftermath of The Battle of Waterloo.

What did shooting in Belgium add to the project?

Penhale: Another challenge is you don’t have a limitless budget to draw on and so you have to have conversations around how are you delivering this authentically and cinematically. That’s a process. [Director] Tom Shankland had a clear sense of how he wanted to portray the world on screen and how he could achieve that and hats off to him for doing the most epic and cinematic job, but at the same time really focusing on performance. We took the decision early on that we wanted to shoot on location as much as possible near to where the story might have played out, so we shot in northern France and southern Belgium so that we could basically capture the feel of these French towns and the French countryside and make it feel as real as possible.

Was six hours enough time to properly tell this story?

Penhale: Six hours is a great length for the story. This will cover 17 years, you have a lot of time to cross and a lot of characters that grow with you.

Davies: As it turned out, that last episode ran an hour and 20 minutes in the U.K. Even then a lot of scenes had to go down in time in the edit; it could’ve been eight hours easily.

How else might themes of “them” versus “us” play out in the wake of Donald Trump’s wall or Brexit?

Penhale: “Les Misérables” tells the story about a whole sort of society finding a voice and speaking out and challenging the establishment. That’s essentially the skirmish that you see that leads to the barricade. It’s about a whole community of people standing up for what they believe in and fighting for a better world. You just have to look around, even beyond Britain or America. It’s a global phenomenon at the moment and much talked about in the news, the connections between those who are making decisions and those who have to live with those decisions on the day-to-day. There is absolutely a rift and gulf between the establishment and the society that people are living in in the world, and this absolutely echoes the sentiment and challenges that we struggle with today.

PBS Masterpiece’s “Les Misérables” debuts Sunday, April 14 at 9 p.m.

#les mis bbc #bbc les mis #Interviews #articles #Andrew Davies #Faith Penhale #variety #pbs

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the-busy-ghost · 7 years ago

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History Edits: Eleanor of Scotland, Archduchess of Further Austria/Tyrol

Born c.1433, Eleanor Stewart was one of the seven surviving children of King James I of Scotland and his wife Joan Beaufort. Very little is known about Eleanor’s early life in Scotland, but her parents’ relationship was apparently an affectionate one and their children initially seem to have been raised in a close family environment. This all changed however when her father was murdered at Perth in 1437, when Eleanor was probably not yet four years old. Her six year old brother was crowned James II of Scotland, and during the factional squabbles of his minority, her mother Queen Joan fought for control of her son. Amidst all this political intrigue, little is known about the experiences of James II’s five unmarried sisters, though the second, Isabella, was married to the duke of Brittany in 1442; the fifth, Mary, married the son of the lord of Veere in 1444; while in 1445 the youngest of the sisters, Annabella, was sent to Savoy in preparation for her marriage to the Count of Geneva.

Eleanor’s career properly begins in April 1445, when a letter was sent to Scotland from Isabel of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy, with the support of Louis, the dauphin of France, and his wife Margaret Stewart, Eleanor’s oldest sister, suggesting that Eleanor be sent to the continent for in preparation for marriage. Eleanor, along with her older sister Joanna (who had not been named in the letter), travelled to France later that year, but they arrived they to find the French court in mourning for the dauphine, their sister Margaret, whom they had not seen in nine years and who had died only a few days before. Nonetheless, the French king Charles VII still undertook to support the two Scottish princesses, and Eleanor and Joanna spent the next few years at the French court, under the eye of their sister’s old lady-in-waiting Jeanne de Tuce, and passing the time in games of piquet and writing poetry. Several possible matches were suggested for Eleanor during this time, initially to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, while the possibility of a marriage to the widowed dauphin Louis may also have been raised. In the end however, Eleanor married Frederick III’s nephew Sigismund, duke of Further Austria, and the proxy ceremony took place at Chinon in September 1448 with the French king and queen in attendance. Eleanor then began the journey to her new home, finally arriving several months later in the Tyrol, high in the Alps, where she met her husband Sigismund for the first time, and their marriage was solemnised at Merano on 12th February 1449.

While little is known of the early years of Eleanor’s marriage to Sigismund, however the couple seem to have worked well together, though they were never to have any children (the common claim that Eleanor had a son named Wolfgang has been debunked in recent decades). She was clearly trusted enough by her husband to be appointed regent on several occasions when he had to leave Tyrol between 1455 and 1458. This period was particularly tense, and during her regency Eleanor had to weather the fall-out from issues such as her husband’s conflict with the reforming Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, and some of the correspondence of the rebellious abbess Verena von Stuben addressed to Eleanor survives relating to this notable affair. Other domestic problems such as the split between Sigismund and his former retainer Bernard Gradner caused more tension, however for the most part she discharged her role as regent ably, including raising and funding an army to defend the ducal interests, and personally taking control of various lands belonging to her husband to lessen the impact of any interdict that might be placed on Sigismund in his conflict with Nicholas of Cusa. She further acted as regent in the foothills during the late 1460s, though after this she retreated from political life and spent more time supporting religious endeavours in the Tyrol. Much more could be said about Eleanor’s regency, but due to lack of space it is safe to note that she was a capable and clever ruler, playing the role of both consort and regent with great skill.

She also seems to have been able to communicate in various languages and a considerable amount of her correspondence survives, not just relating to the internal affairs of the Tyrol, but also with various important European figures, as well as several Scots both at home and on the continent, not least her brother James II and her sister Isabella, Duchess of Brittany. One of her retainers Jorg von Ehingen visited Scotland in 1458 and his diary left us with our only contemporary image of King James II. The strategic position of her husband’s lands also meant that the couple hosted many important guests who passed through the Tyrol on their way north or south, including Christian I of Denmark, Rene Duke of Lorraine, and even, in 1472, Sophia Palaiologina, the Byzantine princess who was then travelling on her way north to marry Ivan III, Grand Prince of Moscow. Eleanor’s half-brother James Stewart, Earl of Buchan may also have passed in the vicinity of Innsbruck on his way to Rome in 1465, as did many lesser Scottish visitors who were no less well-received by their countrywoman, far from home as she was. However sometimes the crowd of guests seems to have fatigued Eleanor, and she frequently left busy Innsbruck to stay at quieter locations, such as Sigmundsburg, a now ruined castle on an island in Fernsteinsee, which was built for her as a ‘tribute’ by her husband around 1463. She must have been pleased with the hunting opportunities it presented as this was a past-time she particularly enjoyed. She also frequently visited Baden to ‘take the waters’ in the springs there.

However Eleanor is probably best-known for her cultural interests and came from a very literary background. Her father, James I, was probably the author of the Kingis Quair, which gives a poetic account of his captivity in England and his first sight of Eleanor’s mother Joan, while Eleanor’s eldest sister Margaret was famous for her obsession with poetry, allegedly writing as many as twelve ballads a day and frequently staying up all night to write. The French court was also a hub of poetic activity, and Eleanor’s interest in literature may have been fostered during her time there, while the nobility of Germany and Austria were no less culturally active, and Eleanor would have come into contact with other notable female literary patrons, such as Mechtild of the Palatinate. Her husband Sigismund also seems to have shared her interest in literature. Eleanor herself is most famous for the translation into German of the romance Ponthus and Sydonia, and this version was widely popular in the German-speaking world for some time afterwards, though it is unclear whether Eleanor translated all of the work herself or if she oversaw the process. Furthermore she was also known as a literary patron in her own time, and the Swabian humanist Heinrich Steinhowel dedicated “Von den Erlauchten Frauen”, his translation of Boccacio’s ‘De Claris Mulieribus’ (i.e. ‘Concerning Famous Women’), to Eleanor in 1473.

Eleanor Stewart died at Innsbruck on 20th November 1480 and is buried in Stams Abbey, along with her husband and several other Hapsburgs, and in the seventeenth century large effigies of Eleanor and the others were erected which still survive. She also left her mark, no matter how small, on many other buildings and places in the region, as well as the political and cultural life of the Tyrol, and her impact is of some interest on a wider European level, and not least for the country of her birth.

Sources because the ‘read more’ section isn’t showing up on a lot of reblogs.

*The costumes in the edit above are inaccurate I am aware, and I’ve probably missed a tonne of things out in this description of Eleanor’s career, or made a few mistakes but I’m working on learning more (unfortunately many of the sources are either unavailable or in a language I’m not very fluent in) and I’ve talked for too long anyway. Either way had to spread the love for this little-known Scottish princess who absolutely deserves more attention. If you can find the Scottish royal arms in Merano that’s usually worth at least some comment, but when they’re associated with a politically active princess and literary patron, even more so.

Some good resources for Eleanor- the primary biography is “Die Beiden Frauen des Erzherzogs Sigmund von Österreich”, by Margaret Köfler and Silvia Caramelle, which covers both Eleanor and Sigmund’s second wife Katherine of Saxony. However there are some accounts in English- a good one is Stewart’s article ‘The Austrian Connection’ in ‘Brycht Lanternis: Essays on the Language and Literature of Medieval Scotland’ (eds. Spiller and McClure), and a much shorter article about both Eleanor and her two eldest sisters Margaret and Isabella in ‘Women in Scotland, 1100-1750′ (eds. Ewan and Meikle), and Fiona Downie’s analysis of queens Joan Beaufort and Mary of Guelders in ‘She is But a Woman: Queenship in Scotland, 1424-1463′, also considers the role of the Scottish princesses, including Eleanor. There are many other articles and primary sources both in English and German (and French) but these should serve as an introduction.

#Scottish history #British history #Austrian history #women in history #history edit #fifteenth century #Eleanor Stewart Archduchess of the Tyrol #Who I have not talked up well enough here and I'm sure I made mistakes but I'm going to go back to translating that book this summer #So I'll correct them if I find them #shoddy history gifsets #All the King's Horses #the Stewarts #My fave

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02m1lk · 6 years ago

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180821 Beijing News Interview

2nd of august 2018, cai xukun’s 20th birthday, it was the day his ‘first child’ - first EP 《1》was ‘born’.

At 5am, he suddenly woke up and hurriedly asked the staff how much longer till his new song would be released at 10am? He then quickly got up, and confirmed it’s been 8 hours since he’s been on weibo to promote the news and discussed the details of the press conference.

That afternoon, in a certain industrial park area within beijing, cai xukun’s press conference officially started with the screams of his fans.

Yet the originally expected ‘fan-interaction’ and game segments did not appear. In that one hour, cai xukun’s every word never left (the topic of) his works. From playing his MV, to his DJ show, the whole time he only talked about one topic - ‘music’.

“I hope what everyone remembers is my music, that is the best gift I can requite everyone with.”

Someone once described cai xukun’s speed of rising in popularity to be higher than china’s ‘high-speed rail’. A year go, his career was still in a ‘blank period’, he was still a half-popular artist who could only let his stress out by doing music; a year later <Idol Producer> shot to fame, quickly making him the representation of the phrase ‘new generation flow’. each weibo post of his easily surpasses millions of reposts, and when the news of his new song was announced, that weibo post speedily broke over a billion reposts.

*new generation flow (?) - sorry i’m not very sure how to translate this, but it generally means the popularity rate/flow of a celebrity in the industry.

But on the flip-side of shooting to fame, are the eyes locked on cai xukun with hostility. Behind the doubts of him ‘not being as impressive as he looks’ are more and more people groundlessly defaming him.

When we met cai xukun, he was different from the public’s opinion of the boy that is sometimes cute, sometime sexy, gradually revealing the maturity and open-mindedness he holds beyond others his age. He says, from the very start, he just wanted to be a singer, music will always be the best weapon against gossips and rumours.

Cai xukun isn’t bothered by the public’s discussions, another reason is that - he throws almost his all into his packed schedule; group album, fan meeting tour… On the afternoon of the interview, he took only a few simple mouthfuls of food before quickly returning to his work mode.

Yet even so, during the afternoon break, the sound of music was still heard coming from cai xukun’s room from time to time. A soft humming and a light cough, proved that the person in the room had no thoughts of allowing him to get a moment of rest.

Though clearly the most concerned about his music and works, but when cai xukun was informed of the many records《1》had broke, the childlike smile only lasted on his face for a second. “I have to repress myself, and let my mind calm down. If I’m too impetuous, I won’t be able to make music down to earth(ly). I want to do even better.”

Stood on stage for the first time at 12 Returned seeking for the stage at 16

“I’d started preparing for EP 《1》after debuting, the reason why I’m only releasing it now is because I hope to take a slower pace, and perfect every detail.” After debuting from <IPD>, many people once doubted cai xukun for only having popularity and no works. Towards the pressure of these discussions, cai xukun smiled and replied with that.

As we know, every song in this EP - from its composition, production to the filming and editing of the MV was personally participated in by cai xukun. Even the filming angle of the scenes, and MV plot had him personally flying to korea and staying up to re-design and edit.

“Worrying over so much, don’t you get tired?” We were curious.

Cai xukun didn’t hesitate a second, “It’s okay. As I’m doing something I like, so I really enjoy every moment.”

Cai xukun seemed to have discovered his interest earlier than others his age.

Cai xukun’s grandpa knew how to play over 10 types of instruments, he’d been influenced since he was young, naturally moving his limbs when he hears music. After starting to attend school, cai xukun was once the student council president, an active member of the school’s literary activities. Speaking under the flag, being the host of parties, he was always taking the lead. “I’d started to unearth my hobbies (interests) then.”

Cai xukun grew up with a democratic family, supporting everything the child likes, and that cultivated cai xukun into someone with his own thoughts (opinions).

He first performed on stage at 12. Back then cai xukun didn’t actually know what music was, but the feeling of being free on stage, made him discover, that he’d already fallen hopelessly in love with singing and dancing, and that he wanted to keep doing it “I’ve been a pretty stubborn person since I was young, I persevere on the things I like.”

Therefore after going to high school in america, cai xukun learned about the pop music over there, and slowly came into contact with composing. The first time he wrote a song, he only wrote a short section of rap, even if it were only a few sentences, but he sang it repeatedly it for a long time.

He progressed to writing sections of lyrics, then tried to hum a melody, then slowly pieced them together to form a song. “A process like this felt really good! From then I discovered myself liking music more and more, I couldn’t help but to be immersed in it.”

In 2015, the 16 year old cai xukun decided to pause his education in america, and returned to take part in <Super Idol>. He said, he didn’t think too much, he only knew there was a stage (back in china). And the him back then, really needed a stage.

In that year of stillness He made peace with the world by writing songs

The cai xukun that controls the stage well now, and the cai xukun from <Super Idol> 3 years ago, are two completely different people.

Back then he was filled with shyness and nervousness. In that period of puberty (change in voice) he sang <Fate>, he eyes only looking straight, not even knowing where the camera was.

The cai xukun then didn’t talk much, only training under the programme’s arranged classes, practicing repeatedly in front of the mirror. He wasn’t the most eye-catching one on stage, everyone’s impression of him was just ‘cute’. “I have very high expectations for myself, I chase after perfection. When I am certain of how I should become (/achieve), I’ll want to do everything I can to change myself.” Cai xukun admits.

<Super Idol> allowed him to receive systemised training, but from his point of view, the year that made him change the most was 2017, when his career was at a temporary pause. The programme was popular at the time, debuting with glory then, many looked well upon cai xukun’s idol journey.

Yet no matter the effort put in, things did not go his way. Bringing up that period of time, cai xukun didn’t say much, and after a glum moment he said; actually a year of stillness doesn’t affect the choices he makes, he only see it as an opportunity arranged for him by the heavens, and is also a gift for his turning 18.

That year, cai xukun had little schedules related to music. Most of his time was spent cooped up at home or in the recording studio, repeatedly listening to music alone, writing sections of songs. Back then someone advised cai xukun to drop his path in music, but he was set on that - other than music, there was nothing else he wanted to do.

“I’m very grateful for myself not giving up on this path back then, to think of it now it was insane, as people had no idea that you were working hard. But I always believed, the most success one can achieve is doing something they like.” Cai xukun recalls smiling.

In may 2017, a period of time when he was the most lost and alone, cai xukun composed his first original track <I Wanna Get Love>. “If you need my baby, I will be your side.”

He says, this is a ‘love song’ written for the fans that had always been watching over him, it had nothing to do with his mentality(/condition) then, he just wanted to create a style that belonged to cai xukun.

While writing this song, he wrote his motto “keeping one’s heart grounded in a world of temptations”, “I took a really important step out, I can ignore the external matters and public’s discussions, as long as I’m focused on composing.” Music, became cai xukun’s conversation with himself during that period of stillness, and was his only way of making peace with the world.

Someone once asked him, if he could return to a year ago, what would he tell himself? Cai xukun admits, he wouldn’t say anything, “Because it’s only when you’ve truly walked through that period of stillness, will you turn into another person. Now I’ve changed, I’ve become stronger than before.”

About <IPD> What he cherishes most is the stage, not fame.

In the public’s eyes, cai xukun’s participation in <Idol Producer> is a ‘fight or die’. There are too many of such survival shows in the mainland, but those that really succeed can be counted with the fingers. And those who’ve gone through such audition programmes would know, that choosing a stage, means having to accept its success or failure, it is a long-term risk.

“I can’t say it’s gambling, but it does need courage.” Cai xukun talks about the reason for participating in <IPD>, “Because you’ve experienced not being recognised (/acknowledged for his skills) and uncared for, so you have to let go of all the previous bad experiences and pressure, and restart. It’s is a difficult thing to do.”

But to stand on stage, he gave up on the opportunities to film, and came to <Idol Producer> to fight.

His first appearance on stage, he chose <I Wanna Get Love>. The first performance, cai xukun became to first person to get an A with his mature stage control.

And yet, the public was mostly on his appearance; middle-parted golden brow hair, blue contacts, a velvet jacket matched with a mesh shirt, even the teachers’ first impression of him was ‘fishnet’.

“If I were to do it for the first time again, I’d still choose a style like this.” To him, ‘sexy’ is a style that belongs to cai xukun, and fits the expression of that song. Besides the stage, any other voices were not within cai xukun’s radius of taking into consideration.

Cai xukun’s journey in <IPD> was a constant victory, no other trainee could ‘sit’ steadily in the centre position throughout till debut, yet cai xukun did it. There was a time during the competition where the trainees posted on weibo at the same time, cai xukun’s post had three hundred thousand reposts, and two hundred and sixty likes in two hours, shocking the entertainment industry. Many guessed, cai xukun’s generation of popularity is soon arriving.

Towards this, cai xukun himself was more than flattered, even a little dumbstruck. He says, those that have experienced (being at a) low, wouldn’t hope for ‘popularity’ and ‘shooting to fame’ to happen to themselves. He understands that the love he receives are requites from the stage and his works, “I’ll never give myself too many pre-set goals, when people place you on a higher starting point, there indeed will be pressure. But you have to spend more time to practice, to become better, not enjoy yourself in this ‘bunch of fresh flowers’.”

On the 6th of april 2018, zhang yixing announced cai xukun as the centre position of nine percent with 47,640,887 votes, successfully debuting. Cai xukun raised his head and took a deep breath, but still didn’t manage to hold back his tears. He said, that he is grateful for the him four months ago, for having made this decision, for not having given up.

Closing himself up after debut Making use of his spare time to compose

It’s been four months since the end of <Idol Prodcuer>, cai xukun’s daily schedules are packed: nine percent’s 7 consecutive fan meetings within two months, and endless endorsements. Our interview with cai xukun was also delayed for nearly 3 months.

Though surrounded by and stuck in his numerous contracts of business performances, cai xukun still spent most of his time after the competition on music.

After debut, he followed the band to LA for over half a month of training; in july, cai xukun many times flew to korea by himself, personally participating in the making of his new song. Every schedule of his were very low-key, it didn’t seem like he was enjoying the benefits of shooting to fame.

On the flip-side, the world never seemed to forget cai xukun’s existence. Just a video of him brushing his teeth made it to the trending list’s TOP20; any news that mentioned ‘popularity’ or ‘little fresh meat’, whether good or bad, the arrows would be pointed at cai xukun and his fans. Doubting voices like “no works, only popularity” lurked.

Someone once advised him, to not make an english song, but to compose a song with higher singing difficulty, but he always persisted on his own ideas and style in music.

“Because there was always a voice telling me, that I can do even better.” Cai xukun didn’t want to view music as a task because of these doubts towards him, “I want to try different styles, let everyone see the most all-rounded and best (version of) myself, instead of being eager to showcase myself. The process of keeping yourself grounded can only be grasped and persevered with by yourself.”

The competition just ended in april, and cai xukun posted a weibo in may, once again bringing up “keeping one’s heart grounded in a world of temptations”. He hopes to always keep the initial passion he had for music, and to not be affected by the impetuous industry.

Facing the schedules that only get more and more packed, cai xukun often gets only 2 - 3 hours of sleep. Like squeezing toothpaste out of its tube, he squeezes time out to compose; shower time, on flights, at the dinner table, these have all become places for cai xukun to compose. When travelling around for fan meets, cai xukun made use of the time to create 4, 5 songs “After I finish chatting with you and take a ten minute break later, I can write a section of lyrics, as long as I’m willing to. Since I’m still young, I think all of these are ok.”

Until the end, we even forgot, that he is still a boy that just turned 20. We asked, if you aren’t popular anymore in the future, returning to that year of stillness, what would you do?

He answered without hesitation: “I haven’t thought about that, these have never been a part of the things I worry about.”

Q&A

BJN: When are you usually the most happy?

CXK: When I eat (laughs). When I’m alone I listen to music, and get immersed in my own world. I can’t stand not listening to music for a day.

BJN: After debuting, what do you think is your biggest change?

CXK: My mentality hasn’t changed much, I’ve always persevered in doing the things I like. But maybe because it’s in a different environment, sometimes I’m also like a chameleon. They say sometimes I’m cute, but when on stage I become a little ‘arrogant’. In different environments, I turn into different colours.

BJN: Will you try any film-related work next?

CXK: Of course, I’d be to glad to try. But I’ll take every decision very seriously, like when I release music, I’ll be very serious (/careful) about each word, each melody. I’m just as serious when choosing scripts and characters.

BJN: Throughout this experience towards debut, have you ever ‘lost control’ of yourself? Or have you always controlled yourself well?

CXK: I’ve never lost control. If I did, I wouldn’t live tiredly like this. But this kind of tired is enjoyable, as it’s my own choice, because I like it.

BJN: Is 《1》a product of your perseverance in your own style?

CXK: 《1》is a very inclusive album, it doesn’t consist only of mainstream elements; while satisfying the audience, it also consists of my own style. I named it 《1》, as it holds the meaning of a new form of style. Each work is like my child, after this I will continue to extend my style and create new works, I’ll slowly strive it towards perfection. This is something that will never change, it must be my own original work.

BJN: When the public labels you with the tag ‘popularity’, do you get upset?

CXK: I’ll happily accept it, but time will prove everything.

BJN: Your current state (/condition), is it one that you are satisfied with?

CXK: I’ve actually never thought about a state (/condition) that I’d look forward to, or how I should become, and neither have I thought about which high level I have to achieve. I just want to do the things that I like right now, you’ll then be able to achieve the happiness as of right now. You don’t have to give yourself a frame - ‘I have to be this great’, there isn’t a need. If you want to write a song of this certain style today, ok, then it’ll feel nice to just write it out. The type of happiness that is ‘right now’.

Credits; Text: Zhang He Editor: Bao Bao Photography: Zhu Jun Article: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/NXbyk0oZgEmShjRDtCsh9g

Full Translations: @02m1lk Do NOT repost, please take out WITH credits.

#cai xukun #caixukun #xukun #nine percent #interview #180821 #02m1lk

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