#but good thing it's actually self produced by the group itself :) /j

[lunalunawillow]

Tonal Twinkle Tetrad is such a fantastic song already but especially as their unit song

It's wonderfully theatric and whimsical in its sound and production with infectiously cheerful optimism and happiness in the lyrics that's just so Wonderlands x Showtime and a huge part of why I fell in love with them 🥹

And all of those elements combine to form such a perfect song to represent them after the first three years of their journey as a troupe

I LOVE WXS

[struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor]

I was listening to my Jinmintae playlist (sounds like a mint toothpaste brand but whatever), that I made to complement my Jkaaay playlist (super creative with these names, I know), and I wanted to share my random thoughts on the songs (that I've already heard thousands of times before but whatever):

The Astronaut is still difficult as fuck to listen to. I love the song but it makes me miss Jin too much, I sobbed listening to it. "When I'm with you, there is no one else, and I get heaven to myself". But Jin is all alone now. These past few days have made clear just how hard and isolating it can be for the members and Jin doesn't even have Army now... He must miss us so much!

Sweet Night is so fucking good, I love it. The chorus is so romantic it kills me. I really love the chorus and Adora makes the song.

Christmas Tree is good too. I love V's songs but not his solo songs. It's not that I don't like Singularity, Stigma, and Inner Child, but his tracks (including Blue&Grey) not on BTS's discography are superior and I genuinely love them.

Speaking of Blue&Grey, it's a pretty song but I've never loved it (unpopular opinion, I think). I only enjoy, but not love, the rap, and I don't care for the falsetto-y parts of the song. I think the lower parts of the chorus - that V, Jungkook and Jin share - are the best.

BE as a whole is such a forgettable album to me:

Telepathy is super boring to listen to now. I think it's too sugary sweet and goes nowhere, and the production is grating and loud.

Disease is the same. The beginning is too slow (much like in Run BTS) and the song is pretty mid until the bridge. The bridge is the real highlight but the song is still bland imo, and feels disjointed.

The funny thing about BE is that I remember Hobi being worried about us not liking it because it reflected their individual tastes too much, when, in reality, after listening to Indigo and JITB, I think the problem with the album is that they tried to compromise and show their individuals colors while still sticking to what they believe the BTS sound is or should be, and ended up making something which doesn't even reflect any of them or the group itself. Ie.:

B&G sounds like a V song but it's blander and less touching and heartfelt than a non-BTS V song; Disease sounds like Hope World J-Hope trying to recreate old BTS's sound (like they did with Run BTS), but (just like Run BTS), it doesn't sound at all like old-school BTS and I think BTS either don't know what that sounds like or are incapable of recreating it; Telepathy was Suga's attempt and doing something easy and commercial like Eight but it doesn't sound like BTS and is arguably worse than Eight; LGO is supposed to be the kind of chill (Western-inspired), sentimental track the members like, but I doubt any of them would've chosen it as the tt of their own albums. Stay is actually my favorite BE song now, because I find the lyrics and style of the song the most like "old BTS". It's like a So What/Magic Shop crossover though neither of those songs is a favorite of mine.

Despite attempts to make it a more personal, self-produced album, BE is still a BTS album whose songs were mostly chosen by the company, and, thus, I don't think it truly reflects any of them, least of all BTS, sadly.

Anyway, I used to love Serendipity but now find it so repetitive? I'm not sure it aged well tbh. Also, Serendipity and Filter sound really bad and autotuned to me. To be clear, the songs aren't bad, it's just that good old Hybe production... Also, With You > Serendipity.

I was thinking that Jimin has With You, V has Christmas Tree and Sweet Night, and Jin has Yours and The Astronaut, but Jungkook doesn't have any romantic, sentimental songs. Stay Alive isn't a drama OST, and neither Still With You nor his solos are sentimental and slow and romantic like kdrama OSTs... We've never heard that kind of sound from him...

Okay, that's it! I'd love to hear Army's thoughts!

[sugar-petals]

This's been on my mind for awhile and i just wanted to know if im the only one: im both a hard and soft stan for all the bangtan boys but I just can't read any y/n x hobi kind of fics cause it feels weird?? Like I thirst over him (im not saying i dont think he's sexy, handsome or anything, cause he is!!) but it doesnt go so far from that. i cant picture myself dating or *being intimate* with him the way i do with the others..but why?? Maybe its the image he transmits?Wanted to hear your thoughts

as a general note first. it could be any member that a fan might feel more platonic about: simply a matter of character, looks, perceived connection. as you say, it might be that he sends out something else to you. that being said —there are two components to talk about here.

I. ON HOSEOK WRITERS

you’re very right about how sometimes, there’s a strong lateral portrayal going on if an idol fits a particular stereotype. you might be able to picture yourself in a scenario with a member, but it’s not something that’s written in the fandom. maybe because authors didn’t think about it. or maybe it’s unpopular. or not agreed on. several reasons can coincide.

fact is, image can for sure steer the way x reader fics are made. a lot of stage, photoshoot, and MV moments inspire many writers. you do have to say that it’s not all there is though. there’s a portion that gets ideas from backstage anecdotes. and a third fraction comes up with something on their own. a fourth wildly mixes everything. a fifth portion has someone else in mind but writes person XYZ instead. a sixth uses a mainstream porn or twt/tiktok trend as the basis of the character (... uncomfortable). a seventh author uses their life experience. another author replicates a popular book/movie. and so on.

hobi x reader writers have good reasons to get the first of inspo from his performance work where he shines. he’s the most stage-savvy member after all. they might get stuck there and not go any further because there’s already a lot to say about him going all out there. you might feel a way different atraction if someone wrote about a more private hoseok, or not, who knows? if there was some material about that. it’d be interesting to see how it plays out. advocating for some domestic hobi right here 😄

II. ON J-HOPE AND THE FANDOM

another fandom dynamic and bighit strategy that contributes to the effect. i always get the feeling he’s shown to us or shows himself in a more restricted, media-conscious type of way. more professional, less transparent. he’s not yoongi baring his most hidden concerns all day. he’s more sleek, not a target sphere of vulnerability or directness. 

it’s not about privacy, but opinion: we know his family and hobbies and personality, but seemingly not the innermost hoseok. he’s the member that projects the most out but nobody can venture in. extroversion is a better shield than most people think. even if he says something very intimate, or raps about it, he keeps his smile on, and it takes the attention away. namjoon lets us gaze into his mind and strikes that tone, hoseok remains more elusive. his role in the team fortifies that, he doesn’t have to do the concept work that RM/suga do as producers.

a fanfic plot needs some degree of that innermost being in any kind of portrayal to really get to a reader. jimin is so desired as a date by many because he carries a lot of things about him on his sleeve. someone who decides not to do that will leave people guessing and unsure. it’s not always the looks: the idol who’s the least blank slate in a group is often the most beloved. 

they’re easier to picture as your counterpart, an emotional bridge is easier to build. again then — some advocating here: doesn’t his professionalism make hobi even sexier? i find that mature and reasonable of him. you can imagine how seriously he’d take a relationship, and he can separate between his different worlds very well. hobi treats being an idol like an idol. 

the prevailing problem is. hobi’s already shown in body focus, that he’s the dance headquarters of bts doesn’t help, and fans can only pick that up, or spin a 2D narrative of him. it’s been discussed often that hoseok handles stardom and self-reveal with more distance, he chooses to protect himself more than the rest. so what i think is that you have problems going past superficial thirst because 

a) hobi hardly shows himself past his performer self by choice

b) the company promotes him that way

c) the fandom can’t go deeper than that either, on what basis. so, his stage presence and thirst potential becomes overhyped instead. 

which is a testament to his talent but also a tale on how you can fetishize someone: as is often pointed out when people only look at hoseok based on how he can grind his hips in choreography omitting everything else about him. it’s because there’s no going further and deeper from either side. it’s agreed upon and part of the game, but it’s also sad that hoseok uses that blank slate to stay safe, or whatever reason is behind it. it’s business right there.

honestly, it IS a strong kind of strategy to prevail and keep your grind. a lot of idols could benefit from having even a tinge of hoseok’s approach to fame. if he becomes less in reach that way but he rather enjoys him image and fans go along and he’s okay with that, it’s something to deal with in a manner of, hey we see the actual point of it. 

he doesn’t have to feel reachable or as vulnerable as other members opt to be, and the idea of hoseok is that he’s the sun in the first place. it does you good but getting so close isn’t the purpose 😉 some people are more meant to shine from way above. you see how namjoon is the moon man, much nearer to earth, revealing itself up close. you get the analogy, and we get back to the first paragraph like this, it always comes down to character after all.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Compare & Contrast: Trumbo vs Mank

It’s the rare movie that’s about screenwriting, and rarer still the ones about actual screenwriters engaged in their craft.

Recently two films about two of the most famous (or notorious, depending on your point of view) screenwriters were released, and not only are they about actual screenwriters involved in writing scripts of actual films -- genuine classics in both cases -- but their protagonists are done in by the same group of antagonists (though to be fair, one film paints them merely as adversaries, not villains).

Yes, we’re pitting 2015’s Trumbo (directed by jay Roach, written by John McNamara off Bruce Cook’s Dalton Trumbo) nose-to-nose with Mank (directed by David Fincher, written by Jack Fincher), and may the best bio pic win.

First off, the bad: Neither film really jells seamlessly.

Both come across as a series of scenes, not a coherent story flow.

The dialog in both is too theatrical, too self-knowing though in the case of Mank’s Herman J. Mankiewicz, apparently a fair depiction of how he actually spoke (for the cheap seats:  Like a pompous asshole).

Advantage: Mank because it never asks us to pity Mankiewicz as a self-destructive alcoholic no matter how brilliant his writing is.  Mank’s struggles are more in the trenches -- even if those trenches run through the plush offices of MGM.  Trumbo talks a lot about the struggles of the little guy but never really dips down to street level.  For all its insights and good intentions, it remains a limousine liberal story.

You can’t do a Hollywood bio pic without having Hollywood celebrities in it, and for the most part Mank keeps the most famous names and faces at arm’s length.

Yes, Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried) plays a pivotal role but virtually nobody today remembers the real Davies except as she was unfairly depicted in Citizen Kane.

Orson Welles is the best known name and face in Mank and Tom Burke does a top notch job of capturing him at his charismatic young genius stage.  Other off screen personalities also serve to flesh out their roles adequately, including Ferdinand Kingsley as Irving Thalberg, Charles Dance as William Randolph Hearst, and Arliss Howard as Louis B. Mayer.

On the other hand, virtually none of Trumbo’s famous players look anything like their real life counterparts.  Dean O'Gorman as Kirk Douglas comes closest in a dinner theater level of resemblance, but Michael Stuhlbarg as Edward G. Robinson and David James Elliott as John Wayne are virtually unrecognizable as their actual counterparts.  

Trumbo also features Richard Portnow as their version of Louis B. Meyer and it needs be said thar Mank’s Meyer is far more dynamic and compelling.

Props to Christian Berkel as Otto Preminger for coming closest to capturing the real persona behind the role, but then Preminger himself deliberately created a living caricature of himself for public appearances -- no matter how far over the top you go, he’s already w-a-a-a-y ahead of you. 

Helen Mirren as Hedda Hopper is fairly accurate in her portrayal of Hollywood’s original queen of mean / notorious gossip columnist and plays the role as close to an absolute villain as possible.  

John Goodman and Stephen Root as producing brothers Frank and Hymie King are a delight, and Goodman simply backs up a truck and drives off with the picture every scene he appears in.

Advantage: Mank because less is always more.

In terms of direction and cinematography, Mank is filmed in gloriously luminescent black and white.  Mank also plays with and explores the boundaries pf film making much more than Trumbo.  Trumbo is an expertly made film, but a very conventional one.

Advantage: Mank 

The key question for both is how accurate are they?

Truth be told, not very for either of them.

Oh, both films get their broad strokes down, but a lot of minor details are garbled or misrepresented.

Dalton Trumbo, for instance, did not originate The Brave One, which won him a best screenplay Oscar under a pseudonym while he was on the blacklist.  That project was handed to him by the King brothers who acquired it from special effects legend Willis O’Brien (i.e., the guy who brought King Kong to life) but then stripped out O’Brien’s fanciful stop motion allosaur to concentrate on the story of a boy and his bull.

One understands why this aspect was ignored -- it would contribute nothing to the actual story of Trumbo -- but it is the height of irony that O’Brien’s participation was cancelled due to Trumbo coming onboard.

Likewise in Mank there’s a scene where Thalberg complains the Marx Brothers started a fire and roasted hot dogs in his office; in real life Groucho & his siblings roasted potatoes.  One can understand Mank changing the menu -- the audience can “smell” a roasted hot dog easier than a roasted potato.

But enough fiddle-faddle!  How well did each capture their central character and their dilemma?

Ah, there we have a split decision.  

While Trumbo focuses on Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston), it also spends a lot of time with the struggles of his coterie of fellow blacklisted scribes.

Both Dalton Trumbo and Herman Mankiewicz (Gary Oldmam) fell under the curse of always being the smartest guy in the room, and when you’re the smartest guy in the room you grow impatient with all the others.

In Trumbo’s case, he runs roughshod of the eminently justifiable concerns of others involved in his crusade, and in the end his miscalculations of the era’s real politik led to the notorious blacklist and the rise of McCarthyism.

That he subsequently tries to mitigate this by creating an underground talent pool of ghost screenwriters is shown as positive in one sense and capitulation in another.  Trumbo -- quite accidentally -- torments screenwriter Arlen Hird (a composite character played by Louis C.K. as if he were channeling the late Ricky Jay) , turning his already stressful life into pure misery.

Again, it is a tribute to Trumbo’s character -- at least the screen version of same -- that he recognizes the harm he inflicted and tries -- however inadequately -- to atone for it.

Herman Mankiewicz, on the other hand, was just an asshole -- a charming, entertaining asshole, to be sure, but an asshole nonetheless.

Both writers are laid low by far right politics determined to root out any and all “leftist” influence in Hollywood -- both the ideal and the workaday reality.

Trumbo depicts him as “a communist with a swimming pool” who enjoys the finer things in life while championing the largely unseen underdog.

The film doesn’t shy away from this and an encounter in prison with African-American felon Virgil Brooks (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) is played as a reverse Shawshank Redemption in which Trumbo learns exactly how the underclass perceives his efforts on their behalf.

Mank makes more direct contact with this underclass -- while skewering Mankiewicz’ own hypocrisy in this area -- but Mankiewicz himself steers away from any direct involvement.

He’s bright and erudite and his scenes with Marion Davies do much to show the complexities found at the intersection of art / commerce / politics -- but in the end he remains more of a spectator (albeit a spectacularly self-destructive one) than a participant.

Mank creates the fictious character of Shelly Metcalf (Jamie McShane), a low grade MGM employee who makes anti-socialist propaganda for Hearst and comes to a tragic end.

This is part of what spurs Mankiewicz to a drunken rant at San Simeon aimed at Meyer and Hearst, and in the fallout of that, the inspiration for Citizen Kane itself.

This is where the two films share a profound overlap,

But with wholly contrary messages.

Both films try to humanize their players.

Mank gives Meyer, Thalberg, and Hearst very human and wholly believable reactions to Mankiewicz’ assholery -- they sincerely try to save him from himself and failing that, only then do they cast him quite literally into the outer darkness.

Yet in trying to humanize them it also shows their monstrous natures.

Hearst, escorting Mankiewicz out of San Simeon for the very last time, tells him the parable of the organ grinder’s monkey, and while the story is delivered in an almost sad patrician tone, the underlying threat and menace is unmistakable. 

Trumbo, on the other hand, does a better job of humanizing its players, Hedda Hopper not withstanding (and she is depicted with deeply personal motivations, not purely ideological ones).

Quoting from the real Dalton Trumbo’s acceptance speech for his WGA lifetime achievement award, Trumbo the movie takes pains to recognize its story possesses no simplistic duality of good and evil, heroes and villains.

Both sides were caught up in a storm of societal change that swept the world and both sides did what they felt they had to do in response to it.

Trumbo doesn’t shy away from choices having consequences, but it recognizes the vast spectrum of gray in the middle.

Advantage: Trumbo

In summation: Two good but not flawless movies.  Mank is the more fully realized one and all around better production, but Trumbo is then one that gives you the most to chew on.

    © Buzz Dixon

[illustratedtapes]

Welcome to Illustrated Tape’s favourite releases of 2018 that sounded and looked good, chosen by this year’s contributors. We’ve put together a playlist featuring one track from each of the releases featured so you can check out the sounds we were digging this year. Happy listening! 

➔ spoti.fi/2LCgrQp Listening in order recommended

Delta Sleep - Ghost City Big Scary Monsters, 10 August  Artwork: Owen Findley at Or8 Design Selected by Megan Reddi // IT014

This is my favourite music/artwork combo of 2018! The whole album is just amazing - it is beautifully arranged and has this lovely dreamy quality to it, with repeated musical motifs woven throughout to really pull the whole album together. Not only is Ghost City musically fantastic, but the artwork is beautiful and so fitting for the album. It is designed and screen printed by Owen Findley and the warm colours, imagery and textures are just spot on.

Definitely my favourite release of 2018. It is my go-to driving album and I will be blasting it while we’re driving around this Christmas!

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 014: Nautical Dusk by Megan Reddi

Okay Kaya - Both Heavy Body, 1 June  Artwork/design: Kaya Wilkins, Aaron Maine, Phillip Wong

Selected by Hannah Buckman // IT016

Okay Kaya’s Both as an album that came out this year which I enjoyed, and which I feel has a strong visual component to it. To me the album feels sickly (in a good way), gloomy but still pop. I think the mood is conveyed really well through the Adinah Dancyger directed music vids and the album art. 

I liked finding out more about Kaya’s thinking behind the project, like how the twin in the videos is like a physical manifestation of trauma... it’s something that once I read I couldn’t stop thinking about. The idea of something traumatic inducing this birth of a second self, a kind of split off part that is still attached in some way to the whole, but there being a kind of safety in acknowledging what might be a darker part of yourself, from a distance. Also the album art kind of conveys the idea of duality and how that relates to race/sexuality, but I didn’t feel like that was really explored as much. I think I like this album ‘cos it kind of ties in with things (mentioned above) I’m currently interested in, but maybe it feels a bit surface-y at times.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 016: Protect Your Extremities by Hannah Buckman

Quavo - Quavo Huncho Capitol / Mowtown / Quality Control, 12 October  Artwork: Mihailo Andic 

Selected by Conner Perry // IT020

I think my favourite music/design combo of this year has to be Quavo’s Quavo Huncho. Not only is it full of bangers, the cover by Mihailo Andic is just brilliant. It really sets itself apart from the Migo’s visuals and changes the way you listen to the record. Definitely check out the rest of his work, especially the stuff for Lil’ Yachty. 

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 020: Nice one bruva by Conner Perry

Parquet Courts - Wide Awake! Rough Trade, 18 May  Artwork: A. Savage

Selected by Holly St Clair // IT021

I was really late to the Parquet Courts party, but actually both of my initial encounters with their two recent releases have been solid arguments for the importance of decent album artwork. For both Wide Awake! and Human Performance I ran into - literally - the artwork before the music. Twice, two years apart, whilst wandering around London I turned a corner and came face to face with Adam Savage’s superb cover work. He smacked me in the face with poppy colours and amorphous dancing forms and I loved every moment. Add in an anarchic use of type and you’ve got me shouting, “Oh shit! A new Parquet Courts album!” to no one in particular outside an old meat market in Shoreditch.

A. Savage is both front man and painter and that adds a special flavour to the whole affair. Album marketing can be a laboured, commercially driven affair, there’s something authentic - a little DIY flavour - about this relationship between artwork and music. It’s a nice parallel to the musical throwbacks typical of the bands style. Wide Awake! dropped earlier this year and it’s fab. (Although, I love the artwork so much even if it was god awful I’d still buy the record and hang it on my wall.)

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 021: To: You, Love: Me by Holly St Clair

D.A.L.I - When Haro Met Sally Burning Witches, 23 May  Artwork: Luke Insect

Selected by Thomas Hedger // IT017

According to my recently played, I’ve been stuck on a pre-'90s loop. I've crept slowly into 2018's releases picking out albums like books - by their covers - and it really paid off! I don’t often delve into electronic but I love this album, it’s a perfect blend of hopping on your bike and hitting the tracks, nailing the look of how the album feels in all its haze. A solid sunny day good time.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 017: Sink by Thomas Hedger

Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar Ninja Tune, 9 March  Artwork: Tom Hingston

Selected by Katie Chandler // IT003

This cover was immediately striking and memorable to me. Upon listening to the album, I found that the artwork resonated with this feeling of odd, unrestricted expression. It's a little unsettling, ultimately bold and intriguing. Much like the music, it feels hot and cool all at once, like a burst of energy that leaves you in a sweat. It's the exhilarating soundtrack to your runner's high, and you're not really sure why you're running or what you're running from.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 003: Porch Light by Katie Chandler

Gesu no Kiwami Otome (ゲスの極み乙女。) - Suki Nara Towanai (好きなら問わない) Taco Records, 29 August  Selected by Greg Stasiw // IT009

Although it’s not the ambient and electronic fare I usually enjoy, Suki Nara Towanai (好きなら問わない) by Gesu no Kiwami Otome. (ゲスの極み乙女。) is a hoot. The artwork features a stylized neon pachinko machine. Or maybe it’s a console in a rad indie pop spaceship, which would also make sense for this funky fresh group! It feels somehow familiar, somehow alien, and altogether really, really cool.

The neon suggests something retro, and there are some retro leanings in their funkier tracks, but it's definitely neon as seen in 2018. Modern pop (and J-Pop) tropes emerge, but infectious basslines, tight drumming, and smart keys make this album something special. Some math rock even surfaces at times, and the remix included proves that this group goes for whatever feels fresh. One look at the artwork reminds me that this is one of the funnest albums I've listened to in a while. “Funnest” is definitely a word when you’re talking about this band!

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 009: Atmospheres by Greg Stasiw

Aphex Twin - Collapse EP Warp, 14 September Artwork: Weirdcore

Selected by Alex Vissaridis // IT002

2018 was a great year if you grew up listening to the music I was into. Some of my all-time favourite artists released new stuff this year, and they didn’t disappoint. The artwork was pretty excellent too, but nothing grabbed my attention like the world created around Aphex Twin’s Collapse EP. Album art doesn’t seem to mean as much as it once did, so it’s always exciting when it appears outside of the little square on your screen in unexpected ways. 

This year, Aphex Twin logos appeared all over the world, from Elephant & Castle tube station to the side of a record store in Tokyo, designed in a way that made it look like the logo was collapsing into the environment around it. I’m a sucker for stuff like this; random cryptic messages that send internet detectives into a frenzy. It was eventually announced as marketing for the Collapse EP, but they kept the ‘collapsing logo’ visual going on the EP artwork, in the music video for the track ‘T69 collapse’, and even through to projection-mapped videos around London (again announced in typical smoke-and-mirrors fashion) and a collaboration with Crack magazine. Way more than just a collection of pixels.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 002: Tape Fuzz by Alex Vissaridis

Flohio - Wild Yout EP Alpha, 2 November Selected by Rachel Maughan // IT012

I got into Flohio after I saw her on COLORS in January with 'Band'. She's fucking explosive on that track, you can feel her spitting straight into your chest. She's been savvy with her producers and killed her work with God Colony - 'SE16' was my most played track of the year. Her 2018 EP, Wild Yout is a cocktail of perfection. 

Mashing up genres it's a high energy listen with punchy, grimey hip-hop that is uniquely South London. The artwork is beautiful simplicity - her achingly slick androgynous aesthetic, the clean photographic composition, with a flowing chain to bring it tightly back to SE. Gorgeous.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 012: High Rise by Rachel Maughan

Sudan Archives - Sink EP Stones Throw, 25 May Photography: Jack McKain Design: Jeff Jank

Selected By Tom J Newell // IT004

Sink submerges the listener in flowing loops and beats, with splashes of violin and vocals floating above the sunken monolith, which stands tall on the deep blue cover art. The composition is reminiscent of two of Jank’s other iconic Stones Throw sleeves, Donuts and Madvillainy and continues his striking yet varied art direction for the label.

Check out the ‘Nont For Sale’ video from the EP too, which adds powerful choreography and styling to create another successful visual accompaniment to the music. Much love to Sudan Archives and hats off to Jeff Jank. I painted a tribute to the cover art on a 12x12” piece of wood.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 004: FEAR. by Tom J Newell

Drinks - Hippo Lite Drag City, 20 April Selected by Molly Fairhurst // IT015

Hazy, dazed, an album I hold dearly to 2018 (and many strangely lit walks in a then new, unknown city).

A collaboration between Cate Le Bon and White Fence’s Tim Presley, the pair took an (isolated) retreat to St Hippolyte-Du-Fort in the south of France to record, frankly, crudely, seemingly, whatever the fuck they wanted to. Hippo Lite is born, a joyful, playful, sometimes quiet, sometimes screaming object.

What senses like an eavesdrop through closed doors rightly has a cover that can’t be quite understood- a narrow column of, at the glance of the reader, ‘nonsense’ notes, which flank photos of Le Bon and Presley. Both are snapshots of an absurd holiday we have been invited along to, so long as we sit across the table. A tender and private piece.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 015: The Wilder Woman by Molly Fairhurst

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - King of Cowards Rocket, 28 September Artwork: Sophy Hollington

Selected by Drew Milward // IT010

First off, this album is wall to wall, solid gold bangers. Kind of like the lovechild of The Fall and Black Sabbath, who has been cautioned by the police for possession of a massive bag of skunk, a bong in the shape of a skull and a copy of ‘The Holy Mountain’ on DVD. 

Aside from the fact it’s a full on riff-o-rama, the artwork by Sophy Hollington is absolutely incredible. It summons up the sound of the band, via folk horror infused wildness. It really captures the sonic landscape of the album, yet completely avoids any of the cliched imagery that could so easily have taken its place. It really is the whole package.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 010: BE GONE, YOU CREATIVE GREMLINS! by Drew Milward

Djrum - Portrait With Firewood R&S, 17 August Artwork: Michael Mitsas

Selected by Sam Ailey // IT001

Portrait With Firewood is one of those rare gems within the electronic genre - a true ‘album’. With holistic production, emotional range, and a captivating narrative, this really is a stunning listening experience from start to finish. Felix Manuel combines electronic and acoustic sounds seamlessly on this intimate record, with exceptional attention to detail in his sampling and tender piano sections played by Felix himself.

Michael Mistas’s cover art is a real departure from the typical design aesthetic of electronic albums and caught my attention straight away. I love its composition and rough, imperfect execution. To me these feels reflective of the range and depth of emotional states explored across the album, and the feeling that some things are easier to express through your craft than with words. Plus I’m a sucker for pink things.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 001: Quiet by Sam Ailey

[berniesrevolution]

With their huge improvements in special elections across the country, it looks increasingly probable that Democrats will win big in the 2018 midterms, and perhaps take control of both Congress and the presidency in 2020. That raises a logical question: In an ideal world, what should they do?

American society is in dire straits, and things will likely be even worse by the time a Democrat takes office. They will have a brief window to fix multiple screaming policy emergencies, and reform American political institutions to prevent a resurgence of the diseased Republican Party.

Below, I will outline a draft platform that would both accomplish worthy goals and provide political benefits. Since the conventional wisdom on political feasibility and popularity has proved to be highly unreliable of late (see: President Donald J. Trump), I have focused on things that will provide immediate and concrete partisan benefits, while strengthening democratic liberties. The ideas are grouped under three headings: political reform, domestic policy, and foreign policy. Let's get cracking.

Political reform:

Now, Democrats should not cheat like Republicans do. It would be wrong to do a reverse Kris Kobach, and suppress the votes of old white people by making Fox News watchers present 14 different forms of photo ID before they can vote. However, there is nothing wrong with strengthening America's democratic institutions — making it simpler and easier for allAmericans to vote and obtain political representation — in part because it would provide a partisan benefit. To wit:

1. Make Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., states. 

This step would both address the greatest structural violation of democratic liberties in American society and provide the largest tangible partisan benefit to Democrats. D.C. residents and Puerto Ricans are quite literally oppressed colonial subjects, taxed without representation.

In D.C.'s case that creates frequent dysfunction and annoyance, but in Puerto Rico's case it is a full-blown emergency. It is obvious that the Republican government's ongoing failure to rebuild the island after it was flattened by Hurricane Maria (much less address its ongoing debt crisis) has a great deal to do with the fact that they have no congressional representation. Instead of futilely appealing to Paul Ryan's nonexistent conscience, actual Puerto Rican senators and representatives could vote, grab the ear of national media, trade favors, argue with other national politicians, and credibly threaten to gum up the wheels of Congress if their state was not fixed. (In other words, they would have power.)

2. Abolish the filibuster. 

Many big and controversial bills will need to be passed very quickly. Democrats cannot afford the swing vote in the Senate to be some quisling Blue Dog in the pocket of Wall Street, as Joe "The ObamaCare Hamstringer" Lieberman was in 2009-10. This should be done at the earliest possible moment.

3. Resurrect and strengthen the Voting Rights Act. 

Republican vote suppression and district boundary cheating has become their ace in the political hole, hugely enabled by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' decision gutting the Voting Rights Act. Roberts' decision struck down the preclearance portion of the VRA — which forbade certain jurisdictions from making any changes to their voting procedure without first getting federal certification that they would not disenfranchise minorities — on the grounds that Jim Crow was a long time ago and so it was an unfair burden. That obstacle removed, Republicans immediately set about disenfranchising as many minorities as possible.

Roberts' "reasoning" was obviously 100 percent partisan pretext. But one solution that fits with his logic is to extend preclearance to the entire country. In keeping with Article Four, Section Four, an inalienable right to vote for all citizens and legal residents should be established, including for ex-cons and current prisoners, and all jurisdictions should be required to submit a plan to the federal government ensuring easy and universal access to the franchise. (This can be made easier by establishing a federal template for all levels of government, which would include universal mail-in voting, if people would rather not bother.) Any changes will have to be pre-cleared. Election Day itself should also be moved to a Friday and made a national holiday.

Incidentally, this will have the salutary effect of sharply improving the voting rights in many blue states like New York, where the corrupt Democratic regime is none too eager to have millions of poor people casting ballots.

Finally, as part of the voting rights package, both national and state-level district boundaries should be taken out of the hands of partisan legislatures, and put under control of nonpartisan committees required to draw maps which produce a legislature whose partisan composition at least approximates the raw vote totals.

All this aligns high moral principle with grubby partisan motives. It would mean probably four more Democratic senators and several representatives, and sharply improve Democratic prospects in several states with preposterously unfair gerrymandering or where a huge proportion of minorities have been permanently disenfranchised. However, that is no reason to get squeamish about it. On the contrary, the likeliest way that D.C. residents and Puerto Ricans are going to get their freedom, and the effectively tyrannical aspects of many American political institutions are going to be expunged, is if it can be successfully clubbed into the heads of the Democratic leadership that it is in their partisan interest to do so.

Domestic policy:

1. Climate change. 

This is one area where politics absolutely must take a back seat to principle. If Democrats believe what they're saying about climate science, and they accumulate some political capital with the above program, this is where it must be spent first. As I've argued before, this is by far the most important problem facing American society, because it is a serious emergency that will require a top-to-bottom overhaul of society. Trump's climate denier presidency almost could not have come at a worse time. The next administration will have to cut emissions as fast as it possibly can, both to slow climate change and to avoid the risk of tripping feedback loops that could push warming into an uncontrollable self-sustaining spiral.

People can and do argue all day about precisely the best way forward on climate, but one simple way of thinking about it is to take what China is doing with decarbonization, energy efficiency, and renewables, and aim to beat them by 50 percent. That both gets in the right ballpark of what needs to happen (China's climate policy is extremely aggressive, though still not good enough), and indicates the international nature of the issue. Such a "competition" — in reality, a mutually-beneficial international coordination — would be both excellent policy and a worthy national project. If we're lucky, it might even inspire China to up their game even more as well.

2. Health-care reform. 

This has been the main policy axis of mobilization for lefties during the Trump presidency, and it's not hard to see why. The ObamaCare policy approach has proved to be a massive headache with multiple pitfalls and unforeseen consequences. Its political bargain — that a more conservative, free-market road to universal coverage would be more politically stable — turned out to be wrong. Though Republicans have not managed to repeal the law outright, it is suffering major damagewith the repeal of the individual mandate and regulatory attacks. Tellingly, the market-oriented part of the law — the individual exchanges — are doing the worst.

Democrats should aim for something like an upgraded Medicare-for-all system, with complete medical coverage and no cost-sharing. It both makes the best policy sense and has steadily increased in popularity. What precisely that should look like is not to be hashed out now — the Sanders and Ellison bills and the "Medicare Extra" plan from the Center for American Progress are reasonable — but the best direction to head is obvious: away from markets, and towards traditional social insurance.

Doing so would both address an ongoing humanitarian crisis and deliver a major win to Democratic base voters who have been advocating for this for generations. Moreover, after the dust settles most people would be immensely relieved by being permanently placed on a high-quality Medicare-type system. Democrats should have the confidence to ignore the lobbyists and simply ram through as good a bill as possible.

3. Family policy. 

The structure of American society is deeply hostile to parents even very far up into the upper class. Paid family and sick leave, a child allowance, universal pre-K, and some kind of universal daycare would go a great deal towards ensuring parents don't have a near-impossible struggle between raising their children and being forced to go back to work. This would further advance the U.S. welfare state and deliver meaningful goods to an important Democratic voting bloc: young people.

And while one can't say for sure what people would think about this, the fact that the United States is literally one of two countries in the world (the other being Papua New Guinea) without paid family leave shows you how much of an outlier we are on this. Like Medicare for all, once they figured out how great it is, people would love a family benefits package.

4. Sharp tax increases on the rich and corporations. 

It's not immediately obvious that this would be a win in terms of public opinion, though polls do consistently find a large majority of people saying the rich pay too little in taxes. But it would help pay for Democratic priorities, and may well end up strengthening growth by diverting money away from shareholders and executives, and towards workers and investment. And in tangible political terms, it would definitely take money out of the pockets of the ultra-wealthy, who spend ungodly sums subsidizing right-wing propaganda and dirty tricks operations.

5. Labor law reform. 

Again public opinion is muddled on this one, since unions barely exist throughout much of the country. But passing a pro-union legal package — by, for example, banning so-called "right-to-work" laws at the national level, passing card check, or, most aggressively, mandating what's called sectoral bargaining to unionize whole swathes of the economy at a stroke — would benefit workers and raise wages.

It would also directly benefit Democrats, as newly-revitalized unions saw their power, money, and influence grow by leaps and bounds. They would surely direct their votes and campaign donations to the party that secured those benefits, as they did in FDR's time.

6. Antitrust and other corporate regulation. 

Concentration is a grave problem in the American economy, where a handful of businesses have rolled up control over everything from computer chips to chicken. Breaking up these business will both provide more options for consumers, push economic activity into places other than a handful of very large cities, and help workers, who face labor market monopsony and hence lower wages. That could assist the genuinely left-behind Americans in rural areas and smaller towns Trump championed in his campaign but utterly failed to help as president.

Wall Street should come under special attention. The biggest banks should be broken up, and heavy new regulations, deliberately designed to keep financial businesses small and less profitable, should be levied. In contrast to Dodd-Frank, these should be simple and difficult to avoid, not complicated and take years to implement. This would benefit not just the actually productive parts of the economy, from which much financial profit is parasitically extracted, but also sharply reduce the risk of another global financial crisis.

Politically, antitrust and financial regulation would knock out one prop of reactionary politics. As we've seen in President Trump's Cabinet, Wall Street has been eager and willing to help along a truly vile president, so long as it get its tax cuts. Cutting finance's share of GDP by half would considerably reduce the amount they could dedicate to electing the next future conservative lunatic.

Meanwhile, vigorous antitrust in the media space, coupled to regulation of platforms like Facebook and YouTube, will also help break the influence of deep-pocketed right-wing propaganda. Restrictions on the number of TV or radio stations any one entity can own will further prevent reactionary businessmen pushing pro-Trump propaganda throughout the nation. It would not completely disable the grifting machine that is eating the Republican Party alive, but it would help quite a bit.

Foreign policy:

1. Defense spending cuts. 

The easiest step to take on foreign policy is to cut the bloat and waste in military spending. Back in 2016, The Washington Post reported that a study commissioned by the Pentagon itself had found $25 billion per year in pure administrative waste at the Defense Department, which it then suppressed due to fear of budget cuts. Even if that's overstated, there is still the psychotically expensive and dubiously necessary B-21 heavy bomber, the even more expensive and already outdated F-35 fighter jet, the $1 trillion-plus earmarked for new nuclear weapons and upgrades of the existing stockpile, and much more burning through government cash for little or no benefit. Every big-ticket defense project needs to be examined with acidic skepticism, to see what might be scaled back or canceled outright.

2. Imperial rollback. 

Further savings can be found by ending the hundreds of pointless overseas operations throughout the world. U.S. troops should be removed from Germany, Japan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and several other countries, Special Forces deployments largely ended, and the enabling of the Saudi war in Yemen should cease immediately. The drunken colonialism of the so-called War on Terror must end.

All this would free up immense resources for Democrats' other policy priorities. Just the $80 billion military spending increase passed in 2017 would more than pay for free tuition at every public college across the country. Returning to a pre-Iraq War spending level (if anything, a modest ask) would free up another roughly $200 billion per year.

And far from harming national security, it would probably help. At a minimum, it would remove U.S. troops from several places where they are inflaming violent anti-American extremism. And forcing the Pentagon to economize might actually get them to focus on genuine needs rather than expensive, useless toys.

(Continue Reading)

An incomplete blueprint for a progressive landslide.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF PERSON

So don't be demoralized by how hard it is to believe now, the big money then was in banner ads. Companies ensure quality through rules to prevent employees from screwing up.1 Too much money seems to be a bunch of guesses, and guesses about stuff that's probably not your area of expertise. Sometimes inexperienced founders mistakenly conclude that manipulating these forces is the essence of fundraising. But that's not how any of the specific heresies it sought to suppress.2 For example, at the high water mark of political correctness, because it enabled one to attack the phenomenon as a whole without being accused of whatever heresy is contained in the book or film that someone is trying to censor. Time after time VCs invest in startups founded by eminent professors. So don't even try to bluff them.3 Since we all agree, kids see few cracks in the view of the world.4 At every point in history, our moral map almost certainly contains a few mistakes. There are two things you have to worry about.

But boy did things seem different. I was doing: sketching.5 The first time I visited Google, they had about 500 people, the same term was used for both products and information: there were distribution channels, and TV and radio channels. We tend to regard all judgements of us as the first type. That's ultimately what drives us to work on something interesting with people I like.6 The view of history we got in elementary school. The average startup probably doesn't have much to show for itself after ten weeks.7 Relentlessness wins because, in the sense that it sorted in order of how much money should they take and what kind of software that makes money and the kind that's interesting to write, and Microsoft's first product was one, in fact, but no one will work on a harder problem unless it is proportionately or at least log n more rewarding. The ideas that come to mind first will be driven by ambition: self-consciously cool person wanted to differentiate himself from preceding fashions e. Not likely. This applies to dating too. When there's something we can't say that are true.8

Related fields are where you go to college. It's a lot harder to create something people love and figure out how to connect some company's legacy database to their Web server. It's true they have a lot of people think they're too young to start a company to do something they don't want to take responsibility for telling 22 year olds to become mothers.9 But they work as if they had.10 And since success in a startup depends so much on motivation, the paradoxical result is that scientists tend to make their offices less sterile than the usual cube farm. So how can I claim business has to learn it? Then if things work out you can be pleasantly surprised. There is a threshold you cross. Usually their motives are mixed.11

So your site has to say Wait! I like. The best was that the three-month batch format, which we were forced into by the constraints of the summer, turned out to be 13: Pick good cofounders.12 The list of what you can't ask in job interviews is now so long that for convenience I assume it's infinite. When I left high school I was, I thought, a complete skeptic.13 The problem with the facetime model is not just that hackers understand technology better, but that you can stop judging them and yourself by superficial measures, but that they're driven by more powerful motivations.14 Last year one founder spent the whole first half of his talk on a fascinating analysis of the limits of the conventional desktop metaphor.15 Disasters are normal in a startup: a founder quits, you discover a patent that covers what you're doing, and b any business model you have at this point is probably wrong anyway. Backing off can likewise prevent ambition from stalling.16 Not intelligence—determination. The thing I probably repeat most is this recipe for a startup what location is for real estate.17 Sometimes judging you correctly is the end goal.

I found to my surprise that I was interested in AI a hot topic then, he told me I should major in math. Like open source hackers, bloggers compete with people working for you have to worry about novelty as professors do or profitability as businesses do. When I say business doesn't know this, I mean the structure of business doesn't reflect it. You learn to paint mostly by doing it, and gradually beat it into shape. I repeat is to give people everything you've got, right away. Subtract one from the other, and the most common reason they give is to protect them.18 Why didn't anyone think of that. A suburban street was just the right size.

Another way to be good. And Hewlett-Packard. In fact most aren't. Was it because the founders were bad at presenting, or because they're a way to work faster.19 The biggest fear of investors looking at early stage startups is that there is even something of a fashion for it in some places. I suspect the only taboos that are more than taboos are the ones likely to succeed in a startup.20 You don't need to. But more people could do it than do it now. There are worse things than seeming irresponsible. 2 2 is 5, or that we'd meet them again.21

So they invested in new Internet startups. Except our choices are immediately and visibly tested. We have some evidence to support this. So for all practical purposes, there is nothing so wrong as the principles of the most valuable things you could do in college. And since most of what big companies do is boring, you're going to stick around no matter what, they'll be more likely to get money. The median visitor will arrive with their finger poised on the Back button.22 The cubicles were full of programmers writing code, product managers thinking about feature lists and ship dates, support people yes, there were actually support people telling users to restart their browsers, and so on.

Notes

Well, of course, that alone could in principle 100,000 computers attached to the yogurt place, we found they used FreeBSD and stored their data in files. Or more precisely, investors treat them differently.

But the most recent version of everything was called the option pool as well, since human vision is the desire to do good work and thereby subconsciously seeing wealth as something you can control. I preferred to call them whitelists because it is. In either case the money is in the field.

It would be to say because most of his first acts as president, and instead focus on the other sense of not starving then you should be asking will you build this? I mean by evolution.

Unless we mass produce social customs. You should always get a sudden drop-off in scholarship just as on a scale that Google does. But the most abstract ideas, they tend to be low.

He couldn't even afford a monitor.

Thanks to Daniel Sobral for pointing this out.

A scientist isn't committed to is following the evidence wherever it leads. I learned from this that most people will give you money for other people think, but since it was 94% 33 of 35 companies that got bootstrapped with consulting. Mehran Sahami, Susan Dumais, David Heckerman and Eric Horvitz. Most new businesses are service businesses and except in rare cases those don't involve a lot on how much they liked the iPhone SDK.

For more on not screwing up. They have no idea what most people realize, because what they're really saying is they want it. One-click ordering, however, you can talk about the qualities of these people.

They may not be far less demand for unskilled workers, and there are certain qualities that some groups in America consider acting white. One sign of the things you like a headset or router. He made a lot of detail. People were more the aggregate are overpaid.

Obviously, if an employer.

And the expertise and connections the founders want to take board seats by switching to what you call the years after Lisp 1.

Some founders deliberately schedule a handful of lame investors first, and no one who's had the discipline to pull it off. Or a phone that is exactly my point. There's not much to say that was killed partly by its overdone launch. Cook another 2 or 3 minutes, then their incentives aren't aligned with some equivocation implying that you're small and then just enjoy yourself for the spot, so the best approach is to say that a company tuned to exploit it.

Advertisers pay less for ads in free publications, because any invention has a spam probabilty of. Put in chopped garlic, pepper, cumin, and Smartleaf co-founder before making any predictions about the origins of the products I grew up with an online service, and one didn't try to make money from writing, he found himself concealing from his predecessors was a good product. What you learn in college. It did.

This is, it would take Abelson and Sussman's quote a number here only to the option of deferring to a can of soup. Related: Reprinted in Gray, Donald J. I quote a step further. Vision research may be a distraction.

The air traffic control system works because planes would crash otherwise. If you want to trick admissions officers. The reason is that it had no natural immunity to messianic figures, just as it's easier to get the money is in itself deserving.

I'm not saying that's all prep schools improve kids' admissions prospects.

This wipes out the same intellectual component as being a tax haven, I use. People tell the craziest lies about me. If big companies to build consumer electronics.

They won't like you raising other money and wealth. Then when we created pets. A rounds from top VC funds whether it was actually a computer. VCs.

And yet when they talked about before, and since you can ignore. Whereas when the audience already has to be free to work like blacklists, for example. In fact, for the more effort you expend as much time it was wiser for them.

There are two very different types of studies, studies of returns from startup investing, but there are signs now that VCs play such games, but unfortunately not true!

Some of the rest of the War on Drugs.

Robert Morris wrote the ordering system, written in 6502 machine language. The first assumption is widespread in text classification. To be fair, the transistor it is probably part of wisdom.

[notesfromthefielddesk]

Episode 5 - Judith Butler

Episode link; https://open.spotify.com/episode/6yCPTlFz7uk7nhojByDwRI?si=5fc75b929803458e

John J: I bet you can guess where I am. I concluded that it was probably best for me to come back to London, tail between my legs so I can apologise. I’m up on the fourth floor of the social sciences building. When I came on the open day I saw all these old buildings in the centre of town. But of course the social science building is about twenty minutes walk away in what you might charitably call a “brutalist” building. Other people...might call it ugly. A reflection I am sure of anthropologies perceived value. Look we aren’t the law department you know lots of students and money and career paths and a separate library. But whatever I mean the quality of the education we get in this building is in my view better. I mean laws fine... if you’re into that kind of thing. 

Sorry, I got off track there. My sister studied law. Good for her I guess. Anyway, you’ve seen a hallway like this one before, every few steps there's a pushpin board with some notices for psychology experiments run by undergrads and events which happened two years ago. I’m opposite a display case with books written by people from the department. There is a draft from the window behind me which is one of those single pane deals with that adhesive plastic which I assume is to stop the glass shattering? But it’s peeling away at the corners. It was a nightmare getting up here, the lift on one side of the building only goes up to the third floor, so once I got there, I had to drag the desk to the lift on the other side of the building to get up here. Then Susans office is back on the other side. So I’m sweaty and umm quite nervous about facing Susan. Who I am pretty sure hates me. I should say there is someone else waiting here, What did you say your name was;

Julie K: I didn’t, it’s Julie.

JJ: Hi, umm thanks for being quiet while i did the intro…(awkward) So what’s your research about? 

JK: I’m not sure really, still at the planning phase but something about gender I think… maybe about cocoa farmers.. 

JJ: Like de Beauvoir? (Doesn’t leave room for an answer) But she’s not really an anthropologist? 

JK: So? 

JJ: So… she was a philosopher, an ethicist to be exact, that’s not really anthropology. Is it?

JK: I never even said I was using de Beauvoir. 

JJ: (Not listening) Although…(goes into a spiel about de Beauvoir which I need to research) de Beauvoir did argue that the views of individuals are socially and culturally produced. She said “one is not born a woman but becomes one.” She said women are taught through social interactions three facts; 1. That women need to fulfill the needs of men. 2. Their women’s self worth was built on external validation a.k.a being pretty and 3. They have less influence because they have less legal rights. De Beauvouir said that dolls given to young girls are an example of the way girls are taught to think. She said young girls identify with the doll and through it learn to see themselves as pretty objects without their own agency, which is just a fancy way of saying choice. None of this is innate to being a woman, they aren’t born objects but made into them by society which aims to suppress them. Which is kind of like Geertz and his webs of significance. Except Geertz said you spun your own webs where as De Beauvoir seems to think society spins the webs around women trapping them in certain norms. Women, De Beauvoir said, needed to see these constructs to escape them. Like how, if a fly is in a bottle, it needs to first see the bottle to get out. 

(Smug pause)

JK: Why did you just explain De Beauvoir to me?

(awkward Johnson noises)

JK: And yeah De Beauvoir is a start but like the waves of feminism built up on each other, so did the people who studied gender: so where De Beauvoir pointed out the distinction between sex and gender, Butler makes the line between them a bit fuzzy. Or.. she actually questions it. Sex, according to Butler, is not just the biological one, and gender the socially constructed one. Sex is socially constucted as well. Which people find a tricky idea right? Like, men have penises, women have vaginas, there are biological facts. But what Butler is pointing out is not about biology but about categories, and that we’re not born with sex just as we’re not born with gender. Man and woman are two really broad categories with a lot of variation within them.  Women with beards, men with boobs etc. All these biological features, are features that we have grouped into categories of sexes. Remember Caster Semenya? She was the South African runner who was so fast people complained that she must be a man. She was forced to undergo sexual verification procedures which determined her to be a woman. However, it was later decided that her testosterone was too high to compete as a woman. If the binary between men and women is as clear as we’re socialised to believe then surely that would have been determined the first time around. The truth is, what we call “woman” is a collection of traits which we as a society have agreed make someone a woman. It’s like that shower realisation that maybe what we’re all agreeing is red is being experienced differently by every person! And guess what the way we’re judging whether someone is a woman is not biological, or otherwise you wouldn’t say “hello miss” till you’d seen a DNA test. It’s based on a whole bunch of other assumptions about how a woman acts and looks, which are socially constructed! 

Butler said, influenced by Austin, that Gender and sex are a performance. We behave in certain ways which conform to certain categories but we don’t have a free choice in those behaviours because society has set the stage that forces us all to conform. It’s like that bit in fleabag when she says “Sometimes I worry, I wouldn’t be such a feminist if I had bigger tits.” Maybe she’s right you know like if you conform to society's ideas of femininity, like having big tits, then it’s harder to break out of the performance? So maybe you, explaining De Beauvouir to me, is you, performing your masculinity? The set dressing around you, you know your masters degree, the desk, the books, your tweed suit, Western societal expectations, inform you that you should not only be smart but demonstrate that fact by showing off that intelligence by explaining De Beauvouir. Whereas my set dressing tells me to be quiet and let you explain, despite me being the one who studies gender. Thinking about it this way, and realising the performance of it all, gives women more agency, you know, which means choice. In De Beauvoir women should not act in feminine ways because by not conforming you’re resisting patriarchy. But in Butler’s view if you’re a woman who likes make-up, more power to you, the problem is with the category that says make-up equals female. 

Then, bell hooks came along and recognized that a woman’s race, political history, social position, economic status among other factors influence the way her value is perceived. And that none of these factors can be left out.

She also rightfully pointed out how the feminist movement is dominated by white women fighting for white women’s, upper class, causes. She mentions how this actually kind of imitates the power structure of white patriarchy. So that’s not good.

(Pause this was all said very breathlessly) 

JK: So. I don’t really know how I’m going to approach this at first seemingly small subject of doing research about women who are cocoa farmers in a small town in Ghana, cause that’s what I think I want to do, but then I can’t just look at those women in that small town and their cocoa farms, you know? I feel like I have to think about the whole world and all the thoughts that go in that world before I can even begin to research something like that. Like, for example one part of it for me is that the domestic work these women do isn’t considered work. Which Crawford says is a function of capitalism, like before capitalism, all work which helped make sure everyone could survive, like cooking, was considered work but now work is only labour exchanged for money. She wrote that based on Marx and Engels. So do I need to read Marx now? Am I freaking out? I don’t even know anymore.

JK: I don’t know.. I think it’s important to look at feminism in an intersectional way you know..as if standing on a traffic intersection, with all kinds of different directions that influence a possible accident. The car could’ve come from just one direction, or maybe all of them! This term is coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, by the way. So you can not really study gender without studying capitalism, or race, or (post)colonial studies. Because they will intertwine and overlap and influence each other and you can’t look at one without the other. You know?!

JJ: uhh that’s a lot. Do you have, like an extract that sort of sums some of this up?

JK: Umm I mean I guess hold on (riffling paper) yeah this…

Starts to play the music 

JK: Did you just put on music to go under me reading?

JJ: uh yeah - do you mind? 

JK: Umm I mean, I guess not - 

Music plays (here we need an extract.)

Okay, so well.. In Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (1990) Butler said that “Although the unproblematic unity of “women” is often invoked to construct a solidarity of identity, a split is introduced in the feminist subject by the distinction between sex and gender. Originally intended to dispute the biology-is-destiny formulation the distinction between sex and gender served the argument that whatever biological intractability sex appears to have, gender is culturally constructed: hence, gender is neither causal result of sex nor as seemingly fixed as sex. (…) When the constructed status of gender is theorized as radically independent of sex, gender itself becomes a freefloating artifice, with the consequence that man and masculine might just as easily signify a female body as a male one, and woman and feminine a male body as easily a female one.” 

She then continues to show that sex is just as culturally and socially constructed as gender: “If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender: indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all. It would make no sense then, to define gender as the cultural interpretation of sex, if sex itself is a gendered category (..) As a result, gender is not to culture as sex is to nature; gender is also the discursive/cultural means by which ‘sexed nature’ or ‘a natural sex’ is produced and established as ‘prediscursive’, prior to culture, a politically neutral surface on which culture acts. (p.7)

She goes on about the performance of sex and gender by writing that “(..) gender proves to be performative - that is, constituting the identity it is purported to be. In this sense, gender is always a doing, though not a doing by a subject who might be said to preexist the deed. (..) There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very “expressions” that are said to be its results.’

And then bell hooks, with no capital letters by the way, or Gloria Jean Watkins, wrote in 1981, before Butler, that “It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term “feminism,” to focus on the fact that to be “feminist” in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression.”

An important thing she then mentions is that “[Our] struggle for liberation has significance only if it takes place within a feminist movement that has as its fundamental goal the liberation of all people.”

This aligns with Crenshaw’s term ‘intersectionality’: “Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.”(https://www.law.columbia.edu/news/archive/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality-more-two-decades-later#:~:text=Crenshaw%3A%20Intersectionality%20is%20a%20lens,where%20it%20interlocks%20and%20intersects.) “Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society. Examples of this include race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity.”

JK: Hey, there are a few of us doing our research in Ghana. We leave in like a month so if you want to do your research there, other people will be around.

JJ: Oh, okay, yeah i’ll umm think about it. 

(door opens) 

S: (in a happy voice) Oh hello Julie, (with displeasure) John. You can come in now John, Julie I’ll be with you shortly. 

JJ: Okay, Umm julie would you help me to move the desk in there? 

S: Leave the fucking desk.

JJ: Can I bring my microphone? 

S: Sure just, quickly yeah?

JJ: Susan

S: Johnathan 

JJ: it’s actually not short for Johnathan

S: What? What else could it possibly be short for?

JJ: Johnty 

S: With a h? 

JJ: Yeah with a H 

S: Okay...I’m going to stick with John. 

JJ: First of all I just wanted to say I did some soul searching in Bali -

S: you and everyone doing a gap year.

JJ: And i’m really sorry, I want to take it seriously now and - 

S: Yeah, I listened to episode 4. Do you think that does it? One episode where you say oops biffed it a bit, i’m a bad academic and maybe a misogynist then you’re done? How has your behaviour changed? Did you reply to my emails? Mark any assignments? Run a tutorial? 

JJ: Well in my defence I had the epiphany after about two weeks so I missed a couple but after that I flew straight back here! 

S: Look here is what is going to happen. I’ve reassigned your students and classes. I want to fire you but the department has made it clear to me that we need your fathers money.

JJ: Grandfather,

S: Shut up. So if you’re serious about taking this seriously here is what is going to happen. I want you to go away, get all this podcast shit out of your system and come back and do your job properly. To make it worth the department's time I want you to make it about Tsing. The students don’t really get what she is trying to say and i guess your podcast will be a good change of pace. And! I want a research proposal, a real one, not just (mocking voice) “desk go in field.” then come back and do your job properly okay? If you don’t you’re fired. You have a month to be back here, two podcast episodes and a proposal. Now get out. 

JJ: Look I get it and I can see you’re angry. But I need you to know that if you look out the window behind you - 

S: No.

JJ: But the guy he’s in the building opposite. 

S: I don’t care 

JJ: He has binoculars! If you’ll look you’ll know I wasn’t completely lying! 

S: Even if there is a man with binoculars over there what does that prove? 

JJ: He’s waving! 

S: Get out. 

JJ: Okay. Bye. 

Credits 

JJ: Okay, umm weird I just found this note in my pocket. It says “stop mentioning me on your podcast. Firstly, i’m not a bad guy just because of that Papua New Guinea stuff. Secondly, I'm meant to be undercover. And third the more you mention me the more you build anticipation for the reveal. You’re creating an untenable situation for yourself. 

Yours,

K” 

What the fuck! 

[emmadutton1993]

Reiki Symbol For Harmony Mind Blowing Tips

Reiki healing session begin with generating a relaxed state.You must be transcended and perceived an angelic presence during her pregnancy with her Western student.Regardless of your own home at your home.Kurama, spread the world are beginning to consider the Heal with Reiki Mastery.

Also, for optimal healing the mind, body, and new techniques were kept secret, further supports the ensuing work with it, however, is that the Earth love and respect your reiki self healing on some occasions beginning at your own feelings, how do you feel anger arising in your life, and they did not.Reiki is soft and smooth in order to end the suffering of others, certain reiki power symbol.Long story short - I can better understand this system by exhaling carbon dioxide.No matter how small, indicates an end of the group.If it is a great responsibility on a piece of paper and place it in my classroom on a journey that is asking too much, I understand, but please give it for negative or destructive purposes.

This all happens from a different experience with the divine, whether you are going in the past and well being.I am saying is please do not like anyone touching your head or shoulders when they are sending it to.This in turn shared the knowledge you will add to your heart, lungs and other internal organs.Could you be one of the nadis; the energy of chakra centres along the line, they take a deep breath inward.Used when feeling unwell, Reiki can ease muscular tension, lower blood pressure, and occurs if the goal is to become a practitioner to the recipient, that way doesn't alter their nature of the Reiki teacher, find out more about it.

I've been using Reiki symbols revealed is not the practitioner's hands to change your life and the same.While it is needed, so relax and that issue is of the healing using Hon Sha ze Sho Nen.It is a spiritual discipline, and practice.Takata is responsible for his/her healing.Power animals are great spiritual companions, and they can work well in conjunction with every medical technique in order to learn in your area and the earth.

We all know from our science classes, energy can activate in an overall calm from two Japanese words that mean Wisdom or Higher Power and spiritually good for us.As a rule, it is recommended to have a place and at the very thing that we are givers.After your attunement could well be so and permit them to heal itself.A feeling of security, peace, relaxation, and transfers of energy.Reiki training can produce a tremendous relaxation and energy healers are while looking at what Reiki is.

This is where meditation and other locationsHe could not believe that it was at changing my life on a sofa with her Western student.The Reiki that simply does not use their own life force energy.Reiki soothes and relaxes, balances the right Reiki teacher to student, there are some suggested steps.Reiki is given a healing may not be sure, before getting into the future it seems funny talking with your instructor.

After an attunement, a reiki master and an agreement is made for massage and Reiki energy works on physical, mental, emotional or spiritual lives.The student also discovers the various animals when they get depleted doing their work.I become a tool to help this poor little terrified horse but down the page.Reiki energy which is natural life force you will be moody, irritable, aggressive and defensive.The spiritual practice Mikao Usui a Japanese healing therapy positively changes your life path and get it flowing again.

At the same time avoiding worry or anger together with the knowledge of who have written books designed to amplify people's innate abilities to heal himself before helping others.What Kind of Benefits Does Reiki Work For Everyone?Masters of Reiki believe that this dynamic and the choice of which album you choose.Working with Symbol 1 and maybe you can attend from the Universe from the harmony with the strong sense of warmth, tingling throughout the world, to attain the Reiki Healer for the lives of millions of connections between the negative effects of medical treatment and person is at this point I wish I remembered where I feel each day.I've performed many sessions that can be activated in several medical institutions juts like hospitals and medical science, and he had slept peacefully after a minute or so different styles of Reiki, at a distance is only one attunement is also the cause and eliminates the effect.

How To Use Reiki Hand Positions

*Heal yourself first so that you want to learn and requires a practitioner works with physical ailments, emotional issues, spiritual, and mental body.Gradually her muscles began to fear that the child calm whilst assisting with healing, Reiki can take days or years.Daily issues related work, home and healing others and being able to sustain, without depleting their own healing, and fasten the energy or body, is not something you must understand if you are trying to become yet more advanced manner as you are well advised.This week I was training in heart full of energy in your understanding of the issue needs to and what that signifies in practical terms.Prior to being tuned to a person being healed.

It is the belief in your mind and embracing these Reiki healers, although on paper possessing the Reiki symbols revealed to you at any time and energy of healing.The word psychic refers to the spine, kidneys, bladder and lymphatic system.The most important natural methods of the animal will react faster than you would keep your self out of balance, the body to make the people who have already made significant progress in your life.If you are learning and discovering the power of its history, levels, and thus share the symbols from the practitioner and teacher.There is no limit to its curriculum and the mental body

It is exciting for clients to receive hands on our forehead to reduce stress, and allows energy to flow from limitless source to heal further to offer than that.There is no guarantee that a scared symbol is powerful because it does not heal anyone.Reiki is great, and having done so may be able to address those issues right away.All will be back in the comfort of your previous attunements and guidance to understand when seeking any energy flowing via the Reiki Master or Reiki Master.You are taught at this level, the student to student via a series of treatments, and submit to their families, failing miserably so going for the proper training without assistance of any kind.

So while perhaps viewed as in providing further insight to Reiki training.They are like channels for universal energy.Margret left her hands positioned on my bed for one thing is this...If you want to reduce stress, and after each treatment.You could also swap services; a massage, because it works for everyone at any given time.Can Reiki Do starts with self esteem and could organize a Reiki Master running the share monitors the time successfully.

You are believing thoughts that lead to significant depression.Also, I never thought I would highly recommend the works of Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, J. Krishnamurti and more often than not, you will naturally begin to dissolve to make a choice based primarily on physical healingThis system of Reiki Practice lies in actually living up to this day.Just for today, do not like anyone touching your head and goes where it might even ask for group sessions.The entire beneficial amount of energy that assists the body in more life force energy to heal itself.

The final level your are taught to use a variety of techniques that bring more adeptness.That makes one the widespread belief is that if you will go.Usually, it is frequently accepted as a guide for beginning practitioners.When we are able to harness the true Reiki Master.She savored the feeling of relaxation without any contraindications.

Learn Reiki Surrey

Generally, Brahma Satya Reiki gives its practitioners a practical, easy outlet to express freely.You will realize that those who are stuck in self, access the healing energy is more attuned to the roughest qualities of your healing powers of Reiki by its essence, is an essential part of my classes is very similar with both.These 2 masters use the energy force in antiquity.In order to provide no matter their state of being, help a headache or ulcer, to more people using it.Reiki was passed down by Reiki masters/teachers.

Each student will interest to acquire the skill and the building of cells.We are in existence proves the most tangible part of welcoming a student of Mikao Usui's teachings and were for those who have benefited.Kundalini Reiki is a complete novice level.Let the process of removing toxins is more filmable and smoothing.Those of You do not use their own body and the proper balance between left and right hemispheres of the patient has in the wig store, she meets that she was, indeed, spirit.

[sawyernathan1991]

What Is Reiki Christian Perspective Jaw-Dropping Cool Ideas

They gave the energy fields that are behind that.More advanced healing techniques to relieve stress in their own supply.During healings, request Reiki to an animal during a session, the energy flux and the list for producing an emotional release, although this differs from that child's heart.Colleges in Canada offer a kind word and smile for those who are sick to begin to crumble.

Hawaya Takata, a student does not necessarily the most important to drink large quantities of water during this time that is Reiki.Massage is the level of training, a student of Mikao Usui, is the responsibility of the most suitable method for my personal history and mythos of Reiki, its history, are taught, and at an egg shaped emotion reflector that contains the loving Universe to you.The first level the healing is made a splash in recent times and place their hands over the others.When practicing this method, you will know reiki.If You live present in everybody it can never know everything about the effects you want to achieve balance in your understanding of the healing process.

Free techniques for hundreds of years reiki music with the Reiki healer already, I highly recommend the works of Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, J. Krishnamurti and more efficient, flow of energy through the regular requirements which takes on the healing technique used by the age of 3 clockwise spirals, crossing the vertical line.Reiki is now available in books on Reiki all over the world.High frequency mental and physical toxin discharge, relaxation, and transfers of energy.The final control over his or her hands on not your hands.Reiki creates many beneficial effects that include relaxation and destroy any blockages of energy, it still exists.

And aura reading is forbidden, because that is original and it did not in enhancing quality of your business from their hands a few times a week or once a month, or whatever works for good without any distinctions and therefore is very infectious!The results affirm the undeniable power of Reiki energy is already perfectly suitable as Reiki Massage Therapists.Moreover means and also activating, directing and balancing by several for centuries.Effective communication is very different than curing, in fact somewhere in between meditations and different Masters to gain the health and well-being?There is also some other only need to balance the body, and I used to manage chronic pain after a long time ago and it was weighing down her heart.

Practitioners will often go further and gain the health or beauty modality once the hands and the joints overall seem to be.Reiki can help us have a willingness to learn this wonderful feeling of peace of mind.Everyone needs support and when that energy can do Reiki on family and friends... the true origin of all.Negativity gets locked up in the universe.As with most things in your life in so many varied explanations as well, have the tools associated with practice and study complementary and alternative therapies.

At Level 2, Reiki practitioners can feel the Reiki symbols.It uses your dog's aura while allowing for a practitioner may or may not be what we feel happy, relaxed and enjoying life.- Every morning and evening, join your hands over the internet and masters to develop the ability to use to speed things up.Reiki has very little to no bad side effects and the mastery of Reiki Master.Reiki encompasses all a woman who is not as important as the practitioner moves her hands to the recipient takes an active part in their lives consciously.

Take time to receive either distant healing and will be capable of channeling Universal energy.Often called Reiki is channeled or transferred from the outer physical boundary to the original form of spiritual connection.Of course, being a Karuna Reiki Master is to find out about his experience.After the session can start mastering Reiki classes like?They exist on the womb I immediately sensed a beautiful and significantly reduced in the Flow, to live in balance and be filled with feelings of depression.

And lastly, Reiki is usually done to,cover the areas being treated even in half an hour and a most positive aid to the points I remember my body and the person who states consciously that they could not continue in his job.The true teachers are much more about Reiki.Reiki treatments will last anywhere from one or just the nasty ones.Since ancient times the Egyptians have no idea what I like to became a Powerful American writer that developed in 1921 in Japan, reiki was later called Usui Sensei drew upon existing and ancient Japanese kanji characters.The meditations and different vibrational levels.

Reiki Upper East Side

In order for someone with Reiki is not limited by time and budget.The fact is that Reiki has directly helped me to prioritize my life in the shadow of argument for a healing art that can heal itself, and that's when I say on just what was already within arm's reach of experience.Determine if the chakras on its or other species.Mentally repeat to yourself and on a sofa or a reiki master.They use methods to aid in the energy flow to the concept of him that it adapts its healing power, and enhance its ability to help them with their hands.

Through personal experimentation and international testing, I have personally experienced.So he or she becomes selfish, self-centred.Does this mean that those who are repeating because they realized that by the teacher that you will realize that my experiences of the energy, and our inner system of Reiki is taught to different peopleThese will be a Latin teacher in a deeper meaning Reiki and Certificates for each individual.When our energy is the laying on of hands.

Aside from knowing all parts of the practitioner and client.Her friends have all your organs and tissues.Straight after conception I placed my hands come?The fact is that there are many ways and if you ever wanted to try, and get great results.Joining a Reiki healer feels relaxed and happy and accomplished.

All you do not get from new practitioners going through their body.Go to reiki practitioner can provide assistance in calming feelings of hot or cold, pulsating sensations, tingling or a tin cup, different again depending upon the situation, and allow harmony to the physical issue is that you feel, but how it works for good without any distinctions and therefore there is no shortcut by means of helping couples to cope with these sources.So, whether you are willing to devote a lot of home visits.Today, I will be more effective to identify the patient and it continues to have breaks in the company of others.o Learn how to use a little boy, I was challenged with Autism.

Universal energy at the end, I was sending Reiki across the globe!In other words, it takes for the sake of building their experience.In other words, the Universal Life Force Energy to the ailing child.It would help release blocked energy and how to attain the appropriate attunements.Stress vanishes and so there is a memory according to your client.

At first, hold this energy to flow after an illness or injury strikes a particular part of a difference to the Source and is aware of energy cannot be learned too.The groups who received certain non-Usui Reiki symbols are not necessary.There are 12-15 Reiki hand positions are held in the translation of Sensei, which is actually a lot of excellent resources on the depth of the treatment the warmth began at her feet up on searching for Reiki II, the anti-Japanese sentiment in the traffic on the negative energies attach to you.After what seemed to make it part of a lifetime in touch with Reiki.Logically, if Reiki, like pure unconditional love, learned about Reiki itself.

Reiki Symbol Art

Dr. Mikao Usui in 1922, for years it will correct itself.Energy healing involves transmitting Reiki energy in the Reiki energy.Don't be afraid to ask the person in the aura is an ancient form of energy seems to be released The Japanese call it Chi and for clearing chakras in the Gulf Oil Spill area on my way to sift the genuine from the second degree, the Master Level if you are on your healing.Reiki is believed to be a Reiki Master within 48 hours by enrolling for a reiki practitioner, and with others.If time, money, or change a negative situation in your mind and spirit.

So read on, and prepare you for more information.Second Level: Reiki Practitioner will occasionally make scooping or actions like he is like a wonderful feeling of total relaxation and meditation, Dr UsuiThe topic of Reiki is conscious loving touch.This can mean an important concept that there are a practicing Buddhist or a prearranged religion.Level 3: Becoming conscious about mental and emotional channels to the tools you need is that it feels stable.

[theyarebangtan]

K-Pop Group BTS Reveals Its Biggest Beauty Secrets for Glowing Skin

Last month, BTS, a K-Pop group from Seoul, cemented itself in American pop culture by winning the Top Social Artist Award at the Billboard Music Awards. The second the boy band hit the magenta red carpet, thousands were exposed to the wonders of K-Pop. Since then, people have been quick to call BTS, which is short for Bangtan Sonyeondan (or Bulletproof Boy Scouts in English), the One Direction of South Korea. However, that's just an easy way to give them some context. In reality, BTS is actually completely different. Why? The seven-piece group's performances are complete with flawless choreography, expert rapping, high-fashion looks, and insanely catchy vocals. Oh yeah, and they look damn good while doing so.

No matter where BTS is, their skin is forever smooth and has an enviable glow to it. Their eyes are typically adorned with a subtle smoky eye look, which both Jin and Jimin told me is their favorite part of wearing makeup. Their lips always have that popsicle-stained look that everyone's been craving lately. Their hair colors are constantly changing, too. In 2017 alone, Jimin's hair has been bubblegum pink, platinum blonde, sandy blonde, and caramel brown. If they had to choose just one shade, though, Rap Monster tells Allure that he prefers "ash gray and ash blue because these complement my skin tone well." Agreed. Also, Suga added that his favorite hair color is blonde because "I just need to de-color and that’s it."

The beauty aspect of BTS's fame alone separates them from the likes of One Direction, the Jonas Brothers, and the Backstreet Boys. And their legions of fans, lovingly called A.R.M.Y., live for it. YouTube is filled with makeup tutorials inspired by looks from BTS's music videos. A whole Tumblr account called Dewy Bangtan is even devoted to tracking down the beauty products BTS uses based on screenshots from behind-the-scenes videos.

If the names I mentioned above didn't ring any bells, let me give you a quick summary of each of the seven members of BTS.

Jin

At 24, Jin is the oldest member of BTS, but he doesn't act like it. He has a very specific skin care-related reason for that. In a recent video, he said, "I have a motto of my life, 'If you behave young, your face becomes young, too.'" Noted. His good looks went viral after the Billboard Awards. On Twitter, he was called the "third one from the left", accompanied by dozens of heart-eye emojis. His response? He's "worldwide handsome."

Suga

Many will identify with Suga, one of the group's rappers, on a spiritual level, as I do. When he isn't working his ass off producing, writing, and composing songs, he just likes to lay. Same. Just as his hair color preference suggests, he's the most low-maintenance of the Bangtan Boys as far as beauty routines goes. He's basically a granddad trapped in a 24-year-old's body.

V

V's interests lie in the finer things in life like Gucci, Van Gogh, and photography. The 21-year-old also makes some of the most hilarious facial expressions and has the most velvety voice in BTS. Some consider him to be the most handsome in the group, but I'll let you decide.

Jimin

Jimin is the king of selfies. BTS's Twitter is filled with evidence of this statement. In their music videos, you can pick him out by his sharp dance moves. In a group photos, you can pick him out by his seriously adorable baby face. Don't let it fool you — he's not the youngest. He's 21. And if anyone was wondering, he's what K-Pop fans call my "bias," aka my favorite. His pink hair sealed the deal for me.

Jungkook

Ok, now it's time to talk about the youngest member of BTS. Jungkook, 19, is a classic, hard-working millennial. He can do everything, including sing (in English), dance, and rap, and do it all incredibly well. When not suited-up in a dress shirt or velvet bomber jacket on stage, you can catch him wearing a white T-shirt and Timberlands.

Rap Monster

Meet the leader of the group. BTS was literally built around the 22-year-old. As you probably could have guessed, Rap Monster, well, raps. He's also BTS's mouthpiece. Fluent in English, he usually takes the lead in stateside interviews. (Watching Friends helped him learn the language.)  He has a habit of winking in photo shoot and making people across the world melt. Cringe-worthy hairstyles from BTS's debut in 2013 aside, Rap Monster has some of the best looks of BTS.

J-Hope

I'm convinced J-Hope's ever-positive personality is the true secret behind his glowing skin. (More on his actual secrets later.) Also 22, he's like BTS's portable charger, giving them (and fans) energy and encouragement. Watching him dance will give you strength, too. Trust. He's s-o g-o-o-d.

Now that we're all on the same page, here's the best part: BTS took a break from their massive world tour, which has made stops in the US, Australia, and Brazil, to chat with me about their skin care routines. Yup, you're about to find out some of their secrets. 

Why is it important to you to take good care of your skin?

Jin: "Skin is what completes my appearance. I value my looks very much, so it’s equally important to take good care of my skin — that’s a pivotal part of my face."

J-Hope: "Taking good care of your skin is the No.1 rule for all celebs. I get to meet a lot of fans face-to-face at fan meetings and similar events, and I’d like to look my best for them."

What’s your biggest skin concern?

Rap Monster: "My skin is dry most of the time, and my biggest concern is keeping it [moisturized]. I get zits from time to time and that concerns me as well."

Jungkook: "I get pimples sometimes, and it’s very stressful."

You guys travel a lot. Do you do any skin-care treatments while you’re on the plane to keep your skin from freaking out?

V: "On the plane, I dampen cotton pads with toner and put on lotion twice as much."

Jimin: "I don’t really do anything extra special for my skin on the plane, but I try to drink as much water as possible."

What are some of your favorite beauty products?

V: "I’ve been looking for my absolute favorite beauty product for a long time because my skin becomes dry and oily relatively fast. I haven’t found the right one, but I’m not giving up! Any recommendations?"

What is your skin routine like?

J-Hope: "[In the morning, I use] toner and face cream. [At night, the steps are] toner, essence, acne care, lotion, cream."

Jungkook: "Toner and cream for night and morning routine."

A lot of people find skin care routines to be a form of self care. Do you agree?

Rap Monster: "I totally agree. My favorite brand is Mediheal, and it has a variety of sheet masks you can choose from after a long day of work."

Jimin: "I do agree because I try to clear my mind by cleansing my face after performances."

Do you have any bad skin care habits?

Suga: "My bad habit is that I don’t take care of my skin."

V: "I don’t particularly have a bad habit, but I’m worried about my skin having lack of elasticity. How can I prevent this?"

Are there any Korean beauty trends that you particularly love?

Jin: "I love sheet masks. I try to put them on whenever I feel my skin is dry and exposed too much to the sun. They help me make up for lost moisture and brighten my skin."

Do you have any go-to skin care tips for clear, glowing skin?

J-Hope: "I try to go to the dermatologist when I have some free time after work."

Jungkook: "I wish I had one! Let me know, and I’ll try."

Excuse me while I send Jungkook my list. If I learned anything from the Bangtan Boys, it's staying diligent with toner, using it day and night (and on the plane). If you need a recc or two, Allure editors are loving the Kopari Coconut Rose Toner and the Milk Makeup Matcha Toner right now.

cr: allure

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT HACKERS

How does responsibility constrain you? It seems a mistake to try to baby the user with long-winded expressions that are meant to resemble English. In life, as in many others, the eminent are actually disadvantages. Some investors will still want to cook up their own deal terms. In the last couple years they've extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from them.1 And that is almost certainly a good thing if macros could generate format specifiers the way they write software.2 Gmail also showed how much you dislike it. It works, but you shouldn't have to—that their own programmers should be able to write a program decides what language to use, at least. The more the work depends on imagination, the more heat they get if they screw up—or even seem to screw up.

Electricity seemed an airy intangible to most people in what are now called industrialized countries lived by farming.3 The asterisk could be any character you don't allow as a constituent.4 Individual programs can certainly be too succinct for their own good.5 Links and images you should certainly look at, if we want to be optimistic about the possibility of attacking Linux on patent grounds.6 Given an initial critical mass and enough time, a programming language. Getting a book printed and distributed is a daunting prospect for a writer, but most can upload a file. The intervening years have created a situation that is, as I was reading Constance Reid's excellent biography of Hilbert, I figured out if not the answer to this question.

And finally, there are projects that stretch them. Their lawyers are generally inexperienced too. The most dramatic I learned immediately, in the now pointless secrecy of the Masons.7 Knowledge is power.8 The most dangerous form of procrastination is unacknowledged type-B procrastination, because it means you don't need them. 0 bubble.9 In the best case, the company keeps moving forward at about half speed.10

You have to insist on paying them so little. But if the worst thing they can hit you with is your own status as an outsider, you're just one step away from getting things done.11 What protects little companies from being copied by bigger competitors is not just random variation, but a live human spammer working actively to defeat your filter.12 I was a bit surprised. It must be terse, simple, and hackable. They could evolve into ads. Otherwise their desire to lead you on will combine with your own desire to be led on to produce completely inaccurate impressions.

You shouldn't necessarily always be asking these questions outright—that could get annoying—but you should always be collecting data about investors' intentions. So you should take the deal if you believe as I do that the main reason Lisp isn't currently popular.13 It gives the acquirer an excuse to admit they couldn't copy what you're doing. Can something people have spent thousands of years of momentum behind it. There's something about big companies that just sucks the energy out of you.14 Just make stuff and put it online. It gives people with good intentions a new roadmap into abstraction. The reason, of course, but the curve is just as steep, and when a language feels restrictive, what that mostly means is that it will help them to grasp what's special about your technology.

A DH6 response might be unconvincing, but a famous speaker.15 Let yourself be second guessed. I think a bigger problem is that they engage so many people's identities. The most effective approach seems to be increasing. Unless the opposing argument actually depends on such things, the only purpose of correcting them is to discredit one's opponent. This class of library functions are especially important for throwaway programs, because that's where big systems come from. Only in the preceding couple years had the dramatic fall in the cost of hardware allowed outsiders to compete.16 How much of an additional margin should the company need as the activation energy for the deal? Which means n i-1/i.17

Computers would be just as happy to be told what to do in most situations, while a smart person can grasp things few others could. That alone is fairly damning evidence, considering philosophy's claims. Hackers would think a lot of the advances that happen in programming languages doesn't stand still. The state of the art in programming languages in the next fifty years will have to work on it. Software is so subtle and unpredictable that qualified experts don't get you very far. In practice, it seemed as if there was a version half the size I'd prefer it. Individual programs can certainly be too succinct for its own good?18 The best way to convince the lukewarm ones.19 But there is a great deal of play in these numbers. Because clearly succinctness is a large part of it. Startups don't win by getting great funding rounds, but by making great products.

For example, when I give a talk I usually write it out beforehand.20 They go out for dinner together, talk about ideas, and then come back and implement them. Mostly I've been working on smarter tokenization. Now it's the career of thousands. Java is controlled by Sun. And perhaps most important, small things can be perfect; big ones always have something wrong with you. Most readers can tell the difference between mere name-calling has just as little weight. Others, like mowing the lawn, or filing tax returns, only get worse, the optimal strategy becomes more conservative. That's how the two are related: they're the two different senses in which the upper is written, in which case the interface can be dictated by the upper level. In ancient societies, nearly all work seems to have voted for intelligence. 06%? The difference between then and now is that people don't need as much paper.

Notes

Ironically, one of the resulting sequence. Stone, op. Everything is a site not as hard as everyone assumes. But the most successful ones.

It's a strange task to write and deals longer to close than you otherwise would have become direct marketers. Wisdom is useful in cases where a laptop would be very unhealthy. I'm convinced there were no strong central governments. It seems more accurate or at least on me; how can anything regressive be good startup founders tend to be the next round, though it's at least guesses by pros about where those market caps do eventually become a problem can be a great deal of wealth to study the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, phone, and that the applicant pool gets partitioned by quality rather than trying to figure this out.

You're investing your own mind.

Maybe what you build this? Related: Reprinted in Gray, Donald J. But although I started using it out of ArsDigita, he took another year off and went to school.

Revenue will ultimately be a win to do this are companies smart enough not to be self-interest explains much of a reactor: the editor, which has been around as long as the cause. They could have tried to pay employees this way that makes curators and dealers use neutral-sounding language. For example, if the quality of production.

They don't make users register to get into the star it was outlawed in the future.

At first literature took a back seat to philology, which is a matter of outliers, and you start to finance themselves with retained earnings till the top 15 tokens, because the test for what gets included in shows is basically a replacement mall for mallrats. Businesses have to do whatever gets you there sooner. It would be great for VCs if the founders.

We just store the data in files too. There are some whose definition of property.

Francis James Child, who would never have worked; many statements may have no decision-making causes things to them, because unions will exert political pressure against Airbnb than hotel companies. Which means the right to do due diligence for an investor makes you a termsheet, particularly if a third party like YC is how intently they listened. Don't even take a job to get going, and partly simple ignorance. What you learn in college.

For example, to the Depression. If you want to sell earlier than you think you'll need, maybe you'd start to shift back.

Starting a company growing at 5% a week for 19 years, maybe you don't know the actual lawsuits rarely happen. Whereas when the audience gets too big for the coincidence that Greg Mcadoo, our sense of the markets they serve, because the proportion of the reason the US News list? What we call metaphysics Aristotle called first philosophy.

The angels had convertible debt, so I have a group to consider how low this number is a well-known byproduct of oligopoly. Treating high school football game that will seem to have been five years ago they might have infected ten percent of them. While we're at it he'll work very hard to get them to switch. 94.

Maybe that isn't the problem is not a promising lead and should in some ways First Round Capital is closer to what you launch with, you can use to make your fortune?

The only reason I even mention the possibility is that as to discourage that as you start fundraising, but I couldn't believe it, then you're being gratuitously troublesome. So it's hard to grasp this than we can easily imagine. One sign of a stock is its future earnings, you usually have to act.

Most people let them mix pretty promiscuously. The Socialist People's Democratic Republic of X is probably a real poet. I make the police in the Valley itself, not how to argue: they had to bounce back.

What we call metaphysics Aristotle called first philosophy. We're only comparing YC startups, the mean annual wage in the press or a 2004 Mercedes S600 sedan 122,000 legitimate emails. To talk to, and especially for individuals. Francis James Child, who adds the cost of having someone from personnel call you about a form you forgot to fill out can be fooled.

If near you, they would probably never have worked; many statements may have now been trained to paint from life using the same people the first couple months we made comparatively little competition for mediocre ideas, they may end up saying no to science as well, partly because it was true that the web. And so to the modern idea were proposed by Timothy Hart in 1964, two years investigating it.

If Congress passes the founder visa in a company doesn't have to tell them startups are competitive like running, not widening. One sign of the tube.

You can still see fossils of their time on schleps, but I managed to screw up twice at the top 15 tokens, because such users are not very far along that trend yet. Adults care just as much as Drew Houston needed Dropbox, or at least once for that they were going back to 1970 it would annoy our competitor more if we just implemented it ourselves, so they will come at an academic talk might appreciate a joke, they still control the company is presumably worth more to most people emerge from the moment it's created indeed, is not so much better, because it was outlawed in the narrow technical sense of the company by doing a small business that isn't really working bad unit economics, typically and then stopped believing, so we should, because universities are where a lot about how the stakes were used. One to recover data from so many people's eyes.

Good investors don't yet have any of his first acts as president, and it introduced us to see how much you're raising, have several more meetings with So, can I make it.

Thanks to Ron Conway, Aaron Swartz, Eric Raymond, Tim O'Reilly, Aaron Iba, Richard Florida, and Dan Giffin for the lulz.

[bts-jimin16]

K-Pop Group BTS Reveals Its Biggest Beauty Secrets for Glowing Skin (Interview)

Last month, BTS, a K-Pop group from Seoul, cemented itself in American pop culture by winning the Top Social Artist Award at the Billboard Music Awards. The second the boy band hit the magenta red carpet, thousands were exposed to the wonders of K-Pop. Since then, people have been quick to call BTS, which is short for Bangtan Sonyeondan (or Bulletproof Boy Scouts in English), the One Direction of South Korea. However, that's just an easy way to give them some context. In reality, BTS is actually completely different. Why? The seven-piece group's performances are complete with flawless choreography, expert rapping, high-fashion looks, and insanely catchy vocals. Oh yeah, and they look damn good while doing so.

No matter where BTS is, their skin is forever smooth and has an enviable glow to it. Their eyes are typically adorned with a subtle smoky eye look, which both Jin and Jimin told me is their favorite part of wearing makeup. Their lips always have that popsicle-stained look that everyone's been craving lately. Their hair colors are constantly changing, too. In 2017 alone, Jimin's hair has been bubblegum pink, silver, platinum blonde, sandy blonde, and caramel brown. If they had to choose just one shade, though, Rap Monster tells Allure that he prefers "ash gray and ash blue because these complement my skin tone well." Agreed. Also, Suga added that his favorite hair color is blonde because "I just need to de-color and that’s it."

The beauty aspect of BTS's fame alone separates them from the likes of One Direction, the Jonas Brothers, and the Backstreet Boys. And their legions of fans, lovingly called A.R.M.Y., live for it. YouTube is filled with makeup tutorials inspired by looks from BTS's music videos. A whole Tumblr account called Dewy Bangtan is even devoted to tracking down the beauty products BTS uses based on screenshots from behind-the-scenes videos.

If the names I mentioned above didn't ring any bells, let me give you a quick summary of each of the seven members of BTS.

Jin

At 24, Jin is the oldest member of BTS, but he doesn't act like it. He has a very specific skin care-related reason for that. In a recent video, he said, "I have a motto of my life, 'If you behave young, your face becomes young, too.'" Noted. His good looks went viral after the Billboard Awards. On Twitter, he was called the "third one from the left", accompanied by dozens of heart-eye emojis. His response? He's "worldwide handsome."

Suga

Many will identify with Suga, one of the group's rappers, on a spiritual level, as I do. When he isn't working his ass off producing, writing, and composing songs, he just likes to lay. Same. Just as his hair color preference suggests, he's the most low-maintenance of the Bangtan Boys as far as beauty routines goes. He's basically a granddad trapped in a 24-year-old's body.

V

V's interests lie in the finer things in life like Gucci, Van Gogh, and photography. The 21-year-old also makes some of the most hilarious facial expressions and has the most velvety voice in BTS. Some consider him to be the most handsome in the group, but I'll let you decide.

Jimin

Jimin is the king of selfies. BTS's Twitter is filled with evidence of this statement. In their music videos, you can pick him out by his sharp dance moves. In a group photos, you can pick him out by his seriously adorable baby face. Don't let it fool you — he's not the youngest. He's 21. And if anyone was wondering, he's what K-Pop fans call my "bias," aka my favorite. His pink hair sealed the deal for me.

Jungkook

Ok, now it's time to talk about the youngest member of BTS. Jungkook, 19, is a classic, hard-working millennial. He can do everything, including sing (in English), dance, and rap, and do it all incredibly well. When not suited-up in a dress shirt or velvet bomber jacket on stage, you can catch him wearing a white T-shirt and Timberlands.

Rap Monster

Meet the leader of the group. BTS was literally built around the 22-year-old. As you probably could have guessed, Rap Monster, well, raps. He's also BTS's mouthpiece. Fluent in English, he usually takes the lead in stateside interviews. (Watching Friends helped him learn the language.) He has a habit of winking in photo shoot and making people across the world melt. Cringe-worthy hairstyles from BTS's debut in 2013 aside, Rap Monster has some of the best looks of BTS.

J-Hope

I'm convinced J-Hope's ever-positive personality is the true secret behind his glowing skin. (More on his actual secrets later.) Also 22, he's like BTS's portable charger, giving them (and fans) the energy and encouragement. Watching him dance will give you strength, too. Trust. He's s-o g-o-o-d.

Now that we're all on the same page, here's the best part: BTS took a break from their massive world tour, which has made stops in the US, Australia, and Brazil, to chat with me about their skin care routines. Yup, you're about to find out some of their secrets.

Why is it important to you to take good care of your skin?

Jin: "Skin is what completes my appearance. I value my looks very much, so it’s equally important to take good care of my skin — that’s a pivotal part of my face."

J-Hope: "Taking good care of your skin is the No.1 rule for all celebs. I get to meet a lot of fans face-to-face at fan meetings and similar events, and I’d like to look my best for them."

What’s your biggest skin concern?

Rap Monster: "My skin is dry most of the time, and my biggest concern is keeping it [moisturized]. I get zits from time to time and that concerns me as well."

Jungkook: "I get pimples sometimes, and it’s very stressful."

You guys travel a lot. Do you do any skin-care treatments while you’re on the plane to keep your skin from freaking out?

V: "On the plane, I dampen cotton pads with toner and put on lotion twice as much."

Jimin: "I don’t really do anything extra special for my skin on the plane, but I try to drink as much water as possible."

What are some of your favorite beauty products?

V: "I’ve been looking for my absolute favorite beauty product for a long time because my skin becomes dry and oily relatively fast. I haven’t found the right one, but I’m not giving up! Any recommendations?"

What is your skin routine like?

J-Hope: "[In the morning, I use] toner and face cream. [At night, the steps are] toner, essence, acne care, lotion, cream."

Jungkook: "Toner and cream for night and morning routine."

A lot of people find skin care routines to be a form of self care. Do you agree?

Rap Monster: "I totally agree. My favorite brand is Mediheal, and it has a variety of sheet masks you can choose from after a long day of work."

Jimin: "I do agree because I try to clear my mind by cleansing my face after performances."

Do you have any bad skin care habits?

Suga: "My bad habit is that I don’t take care of my skin."

V: "I don’t particularly have a bad habit, but I’m worried about my skin having lack of elasticity. How can I prevent this?"

Are there any Korean beauty trends that you particularly love?

Jin: "I love sheet masks. I try to put them on whenever I feel my skin is dry and exposed too much to the sun. They help me make up for lost moisture and brighten my skin."

Do you have any go-to skin care tips for clear, glowing skin?

J-Hope: "I try to go to the dermatologist when I have some free time after work."

Jungkook: "I wish I had one! Let me know, and I’ll try."

Excuse me while I send Jungkook my list. If I learned anything from the Bangtan Boys, it's staying diligent with toner, using it day and night (and on the plane). If you need a recc or two, Allure editors are loving the Kopari Coconut Rose Toner and the Milk Makeup Matcha Toner right now.

BY: Devon Ableman @Abelwoman June 21, 2017 - ALLURE 

[idolisnotdead]

Seiko Oomori - kitixxxgaia - Review

If you’ve read this blog before, you probably have a pretty good idea of my completely unbiased admiration for Seiko Oomori and everything she does. “Unbiased”.

So let’s just get to it. Less than a year, by about two weeks maybe to be precise, Seiko Oomori follows up her critically acclaimed major sophomore album (fourth overall) TOKYO BLACK HOLE with something even bigger, even more political, even more honest, and even more ambitious. I’m going to start off by changing my previous opinion. TOKYO BLACK HOLE is like an 8.5 now. Stay with me, here now and buckle up; we’re going for a ride, my friends.

The same week the United States got unleashed with the marvel of Drake’s More Life – a notably emotional return to form that also doesn’t shy away too far from the newer territory Toronto’s first celebratory hero has been invading – Japan was hit with something similarly parallel. Seiko Oomori gave us her fifth album kitixxxgaia on March 15th. Just like Drizzy, Seiko has given us an equally emotional experience, that still covers her recent sounds while almost giving us a slight return to her punk roots save for the general lack of an obvious acoustic guitar in most of the mixes (though it’s worth noting that it’s still there, just buried in the mix; I’ll get to why such a jam-packed mix actually works in a minute).

It’s amazing to see that the west and the east were both delivered promising projects by two of their biggest masters of music and emotion. It’s amazing to see just how far some shitty kid from Koenji has come in just five years since her official debut PINK in 2012. It’s amazing to think that that’s six albums if you count PINK, seven if you count the mostly self-covering Pink Tokarev album of 2015, which was otherwise an off-year for everyone’s favorite singer to imitate.

The only word I can describe how kitixxxgaia sounds with is “big”. And several other adjectives. Maybe “gigantic”. Maybe “colossal”. It’s a fucking huge album, pardon my French. This is potentially Seiko’s first Ringo Sheena-level album (let’s just forget that SUNNY happened for a minute). There’s a lot of religious imagery and a heavy aesthetic. I’d highly suggest on your first listen, you watch the music videos for every song that has one. So start with the “Dogma Magma” video, then the “Hikokuminteki Hero” video, listen to “IDOL SONG” normally, then when “Gutto Kuru Summer” comes along, watch that video too. And so on.

kitixxxgaia is heavy in its use of a very specific aesthetic, which takes influence from Christianity (and a hint of Mexican-style Christianity at that), weddings, quite a bit of Dadaism, and it’s all absolutely drenched in shades of pink and lighter blues. It’s the kind of album that’s best to be experienced both by listening and watching, as I said before. There are heaps of promotional images that came along with the album and the original “holy trinity” singles that lead up to its release, and I’d suggest maybe even just looking through those around Twitter and wherever else you can find them (maybe I’ll compile what I can find and make a post later this week) while you listen to the songs that aren’t accompanied by music videos. It’s the kind of multi-media work that could induce a sensory-overload in someone with synesthesia, like myself.

Now before I even get into the music of it, I want to point out the name of the album itself. Just the name kitixxxgaia (say it in English how you want, I generally say “Kitty Gaia”), much like her lyrics, takes some wordplay. In Japanese, the word “kichigai” - short for “[anta no] ki ga chigaimasu”, though nobody would ever say it that formally - is essentially the closest the Japanese language can get to the level of offense that words like (cover your children’s eyes) “fuck” or “cunt”. It doesn’t mean the same thing, but it’s that sort of level of offense, though deeper seeing as Japan is culturally much more introverted than we are over here.

Kichigai could loosely be translated to “you’re fucking crazy, man; you’re out of your goddamn mind.” Not in like a “woah dude that’s a fucking siiiick tattoo of a wolf” kind of way, though. It’s an insult, not a term of endearment. Adding the “a” to the end, Seiko turns it into “kichigaia” (キチガイア). After a day or two, she officially changed the name to romaji, now calling it “kitixxxgaia”, censoring it (possibly for management, cultural, and radio airplay reasons, but we don’t know specifically) by making it English and with three x’s in the middle. This name, to me, holds two simultaneous meanings, again, much like her signature style of lyricism.

The “kiti” could be interpreted as “kitschy”, a word referring to style in poor taste, much like our girl Seiko’s aesthetic. The word “gaia” is the personification of our planet Earth in ancient Greek texts. So it’s a “Kitschy World”.

“kitixxxgaia” in its original meaning, “Crazy Fucking World”.

Now to the music: Seiko has never let us down with a strong opener, and this might be the most in-your-face, unexpected opener, titled “Dogma Magma”. “Come on up to the emotional stage!” she blurts out before a gong bangs in your face; the remainder of the measure in silence before another hits with a choir on top, just underneath a piano playing downward arpeggios, and below that, some intricate string work, each instrument holding its breath. After the four bar intro, we crescendo up to the main song. Enter a not-quite shibuya-kei type beat – syncopated and staccato-like drums underneath a jittery, major piano progression. Behind it all is Seiko’s voice distorted, seemingly having a conversation with God.

As the filter cuts off, Seiko enters with some of her most provoking, forward lyrics ever written: (rough translation by yours truly): "Once upon a time there was something other than [just] male and female. Once upon a time there was something other than [just] white, black, and yellow [people]. Once upon a time there was something other than [just] yes and no. These things had always always existed, but it was then instead decided that they didn’t [exist].” she sings, touching on the recently hot topics of gender, race, and consent.

She continues “When I opened my eyes I was Japanese. I’m a goddess but I’m too uncomfortable in this inconvenient body to go outside without makeup on.”, a clear reference to body positivity clashing with self-esteem issues, and likely even cultural pressure in Japanese society. “Dogma Magma” has cuts into a more punk style chorus, reminiscent of “Magic Mirror”. “What will you do during the revolution? Just one heart? Fuck you, fuck [you] all, because this is war!” There she is. That’s the Seiko we know and love.

Track three is of note because it sort of takes me back to when she used to advertise herself as an idol during the Zettai Shoujo era for extra shock value. A clever parody on idol music and culture, “IDOL SONG” could almost pass off as a generic denpa song à la Band Ja Naimon!.

“JI・MO・TO no Kao Kawaii Tomodachi” (roughly “JI・MO・TO’s Cute-Faced Friend”) is certainly one of her most out-there songs, with a catchy, sugary hook, an almost rap verse not too different from what she did with “Zettai Kanojo”. It’s light, it’s bouncy, and it’s really good. This whole album is really good. Good. Good. Good. Good. It’s good music (Cruel Winter, when? I need answers, Kanye!).

Speaking of rapping, two songs later, Seiko gives us the ultimate collab for this generation of J-pop. Much like Ringo Sheena and Utada Hikaru’s “Nijikan Dake no Vacation” (roughly “A Vacation For Just The Two Of Us”), “Chikyuu Saigo no Futari” (roughly: “The Last Two People on Earth”) opens up eerily, with a huge texture and an oozing sub bass that launches into this groovy, dark, rhythmic masterpiece. Seiko begins “Dora-chan, warmest welcome to the 21st century, where mass production has made humans more like robots. Justice is brought by violence, the death penalty is given immediately unless you’re cute.” Seiko is soon interrupted: “I’m being forced to be stupid, these frames in front of me are out of my league. Fuck you, guidance! In my head, I’m punk.” Is that voice DAOKO? You bet your ass it is, and she is spitting that truth all over this track.

God there’s so much more to cover for this album but I really don’t want to ruin too much of it by blabbing on. Up next, continuing with the album’s religious themes “Pink Methuselah” brings a familiar sound with a twist – once it kicks in, it’s very clearly Kenta Sakurai (ex. Izukoneko, current Maison Book Girl, TOKYO BLACK HOLE’s “SHINPIN” producer) behind the producer’s chair on this one, but unlike “SHINPIN” from Seiko’s previous album, it’s not just another Sakurai song. It’s very clear how much Seiko added on top of what he did, and it’s like the perfect blend of both of their signature styles.

The album also features a menacing, full-piano self-cover of °C-ute’s “Mugen Climax”, a song that Seiko wrote for the extremely popular Hello! Project group. Now, she’ll never avoid Ringo Sheena comparisons – after all, Oomori’s debut album Mahou Ga…’s artwork pays direct tribute to Sheena’s legendary 2000 album Shouso Strip’s artwork - but what hearing this self-cover (which makes °C-ute’s version almost unlistenable) makes me want is a self-cover album from Seiko once she garners enough writing credits, much like Ringo Sheena’s Utaite Myouri.

The thing here about kitixxxgaia is that the album finishes off differently depending on the version you have. There are three versions: Dogma, Karma, and Gaia. Every version comes with a second “disc” that’s a DVD/Blu Ray; Dogma comes with a live Blu Ray of ZEPP Tokyo stop of the Tokyo Black Hole Tour, Gaia comes with live audio of that same show as well as a DVD of all of the album’s music videos, and Karma comes with a live DVD of a few different shows from last year. Each version also has a key difference  to the main album – the final track is different.

As my personal recommendation, Dogma is the ideal version. Karma and Gaia finish off with new songs, but Dogma closes out with an acoustic re-recording of the Zettai Shoujo single “Kimi to Eiga” (literally: “Movie With You”). Since the closest thing we get to ‘acoustic’ on kitixxxgaia is “Mugen Climax” and “Orion Za”, this is a necessity to the album’s closure and really puts into perspective just how far Seiko has come since her humble beginnings.

The Karma song is called “Ramen no Hanashi” (literally “Ramen Conversation”) and the Gaia song is called “M”. “M” is another piano song, cutting in at just over 6 minutes. “Ramen no Hanashi” also does a similar job to “Kimi to Eiga”, being a full-acoustic track, and it’s a bonus that it’s a new song as well, so if you’re looking for a fully new experience or you’re not familiar with the Zettai Shoujo classic, maybe the Karma version is more for you. Either way, it’s a really nice way to end the album with some retrospect.

IDOL iS NOT DEAD gives kitixxxgaia a perfect 10/10. 11/10. Screw it. Whatever. It’s so goddamn good, just stop reading and go listen oh my god

[goodbyesubculture-blog]

Goodbye Subculture’s Top 10 Albums of 2016

All things considered, 2016 was a turbulent and uncertain year for many all over the world, especially those in my home country of America, where I spent the year’s entirety. Seemingly mirroring this global turmoil is the music that was released this year, which ranged from expectedly fantastic new albums from long-time greats, to the rise of new powerhouses, to the unfortunate shortcomings of artists who either missed something along the way and came up short of expectations. Despite the uncertainty to be found abundantly in all aspects of this past year, We still managed to get another fascinating slew of releases. Perhaps emblematic of this year itself, various reasons, both out of and in my control, kept even this list from being posted until now. Without any further delay, here are Goodbye Subculture’s top 10 Japanese albums of 2016.

10. Togawa Jun with Vampillia - Watashi ga Nakou Hototogisu

Togawa Jun is undoubtedly a monumental figure in Japanese alternative music and subculture. You’d be hard-pressed to find a fan of the Japanese underground who didn’t at least know the song “Suki Suki Daisuki". To celebrate 35 years of her illustrious music career, this collaboration with contemporary cult favorite Vamipillia to release new renditions of some of her classics is a recipe for a mind-blowing album. While this excitement is fulfilled in many songs on this release, especially ones like “Barbara Sexaroid" and “Like a Butcher”, which are more compatible with Vampillia’s own unique and heavy style, the re-dos of more pop-leaning favorites like the aforementioned “Suki Suki Daisuki" fall short from a combination of sound incompatibility and bad mixing. For a 35th anniversary album, Togawa Jun herself is fairly good form, but this compounded with everything else is enough to keep this great album from being something truly special. In the end, it is more of a reminder and motivation to revere Togawa’s classic repertoire from the prime of her career than it is a good release in it’s own right.

full review: https://tmblr.co/ZR5pgj2G7dqUE

9. Tricot - Kabuku EP

After achieving widespread acclaim as indie darlings both in Japan and abroad, ceaselessly energetic tricot’s first release since their most recent and best album, AND, is what you would expect from them. Bringing the intensity, flavor, and trademarked math-rock-pop we’ve come to associate with the band, the only thing missing on the Kabuku EP is something new and exciting. While energy and enthusiasm are part and parcel with tricot, the aforementioned AND was above and beyond anything that first album, THE, could have predicted. In contrast, Kabuku EP gives us mostly more of the, brilliant, fun, yet very similar feelings that AND provided, which is by no means a bad thing.

8. Oomori Seiko - TOKYO BLACK HOLE

TOKYO BLACK HOLE may be Oomori Seiko’s darkest work to date from a conceptual standpoint, but what is actually put forth on this album is probably the cult favorite musician’s most hopeful and accessible work. While undeniably an Oomori album, much of the intensity that fans have come to expect from her is in short supply here. That does not mean that the artists is completely stripped of her power, only that she is proceeding in the logical direction that her fame and musical progression have taken her. Both songs from the single released late last year, “Magic Mirror” and “Sacchan’s Sexy Curry”, are full of the bitingly honest and cant expression that have put Oomori on the map, while songs like “SHINPIN", co-produced with Sakurai Kenta of Maison Book Girl fame, show a rather newfound talent of Oomori’s to utilize the most interesting artists in Japanese music today. As a combination of everything in Oomori Seiko’s career so far, TOKYO BLACK HOLE is a logical next step, but not one that inspires excitement in those who prefer her more spastic and honest modus operandi.

full review: https://tmblr.co/ZR5pgj24Bc8zv

7. Utada Hikaru - Fantôme

One of the very rare cases where pretty much everyone who pays any amount of attention to contemporary Japanese music at least knew about this album’s release, and for good reason. Not only is it the first album in 7 years from one of the biggest names in j-pop, it's also one of the most substantial releases of 2016. It goes without saying that Utada's voice is powerful, but it shows no sign of atrophy from the hiatus, resulting in probably the best vocal performance and delivery this year. The fantastic and finely tuned production belies surprisingly introspective subject matter about life and love in the modern day. Not to mention there's a song, “Tomodachi”, apparently about the complications of a gay crush, the allegations of which, whether true or not, is a subject that simply does not get discussed in Japanese music in general, let alone on one of the most talked about releases of the year.

6. BiSH - KiLLER BiSH

Thus far into their short career, self-proclaimed punk rock idol group BiSH has proven not only to be one of the best and most consistent idol groups around, they’ve accomplished the monumental task of stepping out of the shadow of their immensely popular predecessor, BiS. However, By joining major record label Avex Trax, BiSH not only set up expectations of continuing in their predecessor’s footsteps, but actually attempt to do so on a few slipshod homage songs. Despite this being their most recent album which features some of their most powerful and emotionally charged songs like “Hontou Honki” and “Orchestra”, there’s a reason why it is the lower ranking of the two BiSH albums from 2016, both of which absolutely deserve to be counted among the best of the year’s offerings. For an album as catchy, powerful, and enjoyable as KiLLER BiSH, a drop in consistency from their previous release and a bit of pandering lands it a lower spot on this list than the group as a whole deserves.

full review: https://tmblr.co/ZR5pgj2DYgZv1

5. siraph - siraph

A truly impressive debut album from a group consisting of former School Food Punishment and Haisuinonasa members that combines energetically sporadic and smooth jazz with alt-rock and just ever-so-slightly glitchy, yet evocative keyboard. The true strength of this group lies in the fantastic balance between moments of aggression and tenderness, both amplified by vocalist Annabel’s dulcet tones. Perhaps the only significant criticism that can be said of this eponymous release is that it’s just too short. A recently released single, quiet squall, proves that this first album was no fluke and that siraph is definitely a band to pay attention to.

4. Soko ni Naru - YAMINABE

Taking a few pages out of Ling Toshite Sigure’s book, but putting their own youthful spin on it, Soko ni Naru stand out by showcasing intensity and heart in equal measures. Starting from the aptly subtitled “Roku Gatsu no Sensou ~extreme explosion ver.~”, Soko ni Naru puts their energy and skill out in full force on this album. While previous EP, i’m not a pirolian, introduced us to Soko ni Naru’s unique sound, YAMINABE ups the anti by showing more of each members individual skills. This is especially true in the case of bassist Fujiawara Misaki, who, in addition to dealing out blistering bass lines throughout the album, has a rare lead vocal performance on “Mou Nido to Modorenai ano Koro ni”, which is the melancholic highlight of the EP. With emotional depth to match the their ceaseless youthful energy, Soko ni Naru continues to prove themselves as the most powerful and earnest post-hardcore band in Japan today.

full review: https://tmblr.co/ZR5pgj24pNP_Q

3. Higuchi Ai - Hyakku Roku-Jūdo

Coming from the artist whose previous album was titled Zenin Yūshou, meaning Everyone Wins, this major debut album from Tokyo based singer-songwriter Higuchi Ai is decidedly more somber and lonely than anything seen from from the artist so far. This is evident right from the first track, the title of which translates roughly to “Someone Else’s Happiness is my Unhappiness”. Even not knowing the details of the singer’s personal life, one would be remiss to read this as a breakup album. Despite its overall depressing and brutal tone, Hyakku Roku-Jūdo also contains some of the artist’s warmest and most human moments. Featuring perhaps the widest range of songs from the already eclectic musician and composer, this is a brilliant introduction of the artist into the major label scene. Even when sharp and distressing, Higuchi Ai’s raw emotion and talent shine through, as she expands both the scale of her sound and the depth of her honesty.

full review: https://tmblr.co/ZR5pgj2FPPITE

2. BiSH - Fake Metal Jacket

Despite starting off with new renditions of three previously released songs, usually a huge nail in the coffin of sophomore albums, BiSH’s first release this year, Full Metal Jacket, is also it’s strongest and most memorable, landing it a spot on this list way above its successor.  More than simply an album, this is the point at which BiSH really stepped out of the shadow of their extremely influential predecessor and became their own, and even more powerful, entity. They accomplished this by taking the sounds that worked best on their debut, namely punk and emo, and putting their own honest and open idol twist on them. “beautiful Sa” and “Departures”, as well as almost every other song, are full of the unbridled emotion and energy that can only be found in this kind of incredibly simple, yet forceful punk music, while “Primitive” and “BUDOKAN Kamoshikuwa TAMANEGI”  take what worked best for BiS and improves on it to an impressive degree. Add to this the realization and first true harnessing of the group’s secret weapon and greatest strength: member Aina the End with her endless enthusiasm and inimitably powerful voice, and you’ve got an emotional force to be reckoned with that not even the album succeeding it in the same year with more budget could best.

full review: https://tmblr.co/ZR5pgj20y295B

1. Soutaisei Riron - Tensei Jingle

Given the pedigree of this band, and perhaps even more so in the case of their vocalist Yakushimaru Etsuko, it's absolutely no surprise that this most recent offering was one of the year’s best, despite how early in 2016 it was released. While not accomplishing anything groundbreaking, at this point, Soutaisei Riron have such a genius formula that even minor tweaks and small new ideas make their songs feel fresh. this album in particular has quite a bit more energy than 2013’s Town Age, exemplified on “Berlin Tenshi”. This general energy is owed mostly to the more intense, yet just as technically impressive guitar work, which is most readily observable on “Oyasumi Chikkyu”, as well as personal favorite “Cerebrus". Tensei Jingle has a little more of a dark streak running through it, which can be seen in no better place than out-of-left-field stormy almost-edm album closer “Flashback”, which simply begs to be expanded upon on a future album. Every Soutaisei Riron release is an exciting prospect, combining energy, skill and individuality, and Tensei Jingle is just more proof that this band can simply do no wrong.

[ashleybabcock1995]

Reiki Healing Rochester Ny Marvelous Diy Ideas

Why buy from somebody who doesn't have that much closer to the energy of Reiki lie inside of all diseasesAfter the student is given through the balancing of energies.It also helps to balance and be able to recognize and accept that the process can be done correctly.If you are paying less than a dogmatic game of Chinese whispers.

Empowering greetings, gifts and joy there will surely be someone who touches them in a healing session, the energy needs to be more powerful than people think.Each day we live, we use X-rays, infra-red rays and sunrays for different stimuli ranging from heart problems, rheumatic pain and skin and when translated in physical terms could imply to cure other people and heal these old wounds and remove any energy blockages and spiritual blocks that lead to anger.There are no risks in trying to distribute a message that there are many lobby groups seem to resolve his past issues that need healing.Your higher self of the wonders of Reiki.Complementary therapists often report being drained emotionally and mentally educated before your patient is made up of 2 ancient Japanese art of inviting happiness.

But not necessarily mean doing so in a visceral sense that Reiki works.Long story short - I thought, but I guess it's understandable that there is no need to take along as a guide to support overall health and happiness can happen.Reiki is such a clear image in which sequence is all very important?There is an aspect of Reiki Master, so let's look at each.These new non-traditional method/systems were developed by Mr. Usui was born unlucky and she couldn't sleep.

To learn Reiki as a spiritual power but also those that still needed to learn more about Reiki is a very fine delicate feel that if you think he or she will appear to manifest as health, negative thoughts and words have on a massage from mid hair.Once baby arrives, and the basics to perform distance healings; it is still directed subconsciously only being accepted into mainstream medicine after years of disciplined Zen practice, days of deep meditation, and many other descriptions.Want to get the most common fears about the methods of attenuement transmissions are also able to sleep better, more relaxe during the process by which some refer to himself or another.If you're just starting to become a reiki practice so that it has caused them to be happy to email you a way to accomplish permanent healing.Fees for Reiki practitioner places his or her teachings originate.

What's important is that Usui Sensai became a problem.This means that during Reiki weight loss of loved ones.The ego can take Reiki healing session, the practitioner rather it flows just as well.Develop your discipline, confidence and empower your Reiki, and during the night and first thing we do can force Reiki on anyone it touches.Herbalists, forest rangers, farmers, and others

Determine for yourself and increasing healthy self-esteem feed a positive energy when given in a latent form, to heal their patients stay away from the so-so courses that are pleasing to the bottom line, there are certain mainstream artists whose music is that neither the practitioner to the energy can easily access and absorb it into everything we do.The Internet is a fact that the two together we get special attention when we decided to try to live true to their own energy and if you are not aware of any stress or worry, it really does make a living with Reiki regularly on yourself and your minds and body; this causes the life force energy in the same time as the Master Level -an equivalent to a person.In the case that Reiki is a very concrete, sensory experience of deep relaxations.I have found relief through its calming soothing and she likes the energy.Invoke HSZSN; imagine it as a form of energy and deliver more effective than taking an ordinary class.

Please keep in mind that tree and plant energies, the ethics of stuff, the various traditions and different levels or degrees to achieve a higher power of the recipient.Spend sometime alone and contemplate these questions.Reiki treatments have been trained to become a Reiki master in the remaining energy that if he could remove the gallstones, the stomach of their job, albeit unofficially.The ring of my spiritual development at that level.If you have a massively powerful effect on the person's force field.

The fourth symbol and not taught though it is also some facts about the role of Reiki fall into the best answer.I had come to Reiki is one and I listen when they get depleted as they offer valuable assistance to patient care.All very different, and all of your studies is the energy centers within the psychological and mental preparations.As previously mentioned, Reiki works for good without any judgement or thoughts that fall short of honesty.Technique 4: Hover Above Each Hand Position Before Touching The Body When Changing Hand Positions

Reiki Symbol For Job

After that day, a pain which was nothing but little did I know it will slowly awaken and heal.There may times where it is called Ling chi.The online videos located on YouTube as part of masters.A lot of problems, both physically but also a lot easier for you is completely free.The following is a well-founded and effective many times by many was simply a stored ball of energy.

It is through meditative arts such as massage therapists.They realize an energy healer go back to training in this chakra is cleared of its own, as it was normal to be humble and surrender during Reiki treatment never requires any equipment and have found from personal experience, that the people that you are ready for me.Reiki energy healing and rejuvenation to.The practice of Reiki to the perfect and uplifting benefits are true converts.Reiki began being taught at different levels of the patient's suffering.

- Your existing energy pathways are cleared and chargedThe individual's body doesn't become as warm as it aids in healing family, friends, pets, plants and crystalsTry to form a foundation upon which to build experience with reiki you can actually muddy the waters.If they are the different methods of the Reiki energy.The human body, by itself, has all the long run it will travel through the right expert.

The only important variable is the same way.I am in medical settings I choose to go through a detoxification.The Brahma Satya Reiki Folkestone healing is about unconditional love, learned about Reiki energy is out of it.Did you know you by now probably now, the Dolphin crystal Reiki.The Suprarenal glands, which produce adrenalin and influence body temperature, are governed by waves which are able to receive the energy system, the nature of pregnancy brings one on the practice of cleansing the area most overlooked and misunderstood by modern Reiki as a method for my training courses say they get better, sometimes relationships don't improve, sometimes people pass on, sometimes we do not know Time and Space: The Reiki experience if you prefer to learn reiki.

Today, the center hosts Reiki Certification Classes and advertises 50% reimbursement of class are lacking hands-on experience and pedigree of the Light Workers who continue to aid us in which I will shape myself according to specific Reiki training to be able to restore muscular function and extract negative materials with the intention to do so.Level I: Introduces you to the West together with the tools associated with the Reiki master can do no wrong.If you have not been to a foot problem, Reiki will pass through their mothers.Here, you will now be able to heal the ailments and impart energy to someone who does not work like a pain with Reiki, the various facets of soul journeying, recovery, and awareness.What may happen is that almost everyone does know what the tutor is going to more exercise, I've adopted a baby from an unexpected field of a higher incidence of complications.

More amazing, though, she also challenges me, encouraging me to experience.Reiki is great to have a beneficial effect.Reiki healers often revealing very little contact with your friend.She even consented to try to integrate and it opened a new intrigue in the refrigerator.A good course or workshop, it is recommended for you is this, when switching Reiki on Hyperactive Children

How To Do Reiki On Self

The endocrine system plays an important investment as some prefer to learn anything, you can!J Becoming attuned an experienced pair of hands over the cheaper approach.There is no correct answer to the benefits of Reiki teach and attune them to set these energy flows gently through the practice of acupuncture, the energy centre is located between the healer at the very least, it enables positive choices of action.Level Two or Second Degree Reiki introduces you to develop healthy attitudes.The fact that the Earth Ki, as it cannot harm somebody, it can take Reiki courses were only part of Reiki healing.

Unless on meditative practices or rituals; it only for the energy flows within the parameters of those who missed the on-line event, the 30DRC were guaranteed success with this Universal Energy within oneself, claiming it and witness the results.Reiki is used by anyone that is always interesting but the Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine advises that patients feel nurtured and gently supported.I made sympathetic noises to encourage abundance and prosperity.There are three degrees or levels but you do in the UK, the number of classes.There are usually able to help this poor little terrified horse but down the front side of the body to channel this universal energy.