#but that episode really did illuminate things. it highlighted how incredible these people are; that absolute clarity of purpose

[notbecauseofvictories]

the most affective thing I've ever watched on climate change was comedian Jordan Klepper's episode on the L'eau Est La Vie water protectors in Louisiana. Not because it was well put together or terribly comprehensive (there's a documentary that does it better) but because it was the first time I'd seen a public figure follow in activists' footsteps---and be scared so absolutely shitless, he can't quite hide it from the cameras.

these days, Klepper goes to the big political rallies and smirks and jokes, and though that can be fun to watch---it just isn't the same.

[jq37]

The Case File – Mice and Murder Ep 1

The Case of the The Pernicious Party  

Hello, hello, hello! It’s been a hot second but your resident D20 recapper is back to tackle the newest season: Mice and Murder! Y’all had to know I wasn’t gonna sit out the murder mystery, are you kidding me???

I might be playing around with the format a bit in the coming weeks to make sure I have the best possible system for keeping track of possible clues, suspects, and theories as we untangle whatever web Brennan weaves for us this season so don’t be surprised if things change a little. 

Anyway, without further ado, onto our mystery!

Summary

In case you missed it, this season takes place in an alternate, Zootopia/Wind in the Willows-esque universe where all the characters are animals but history seems to have happened in more or less the same way--for example there was still a King Charles but he was a King Charles Spaniel (cute Brennan). Our story specifically takes place in the English village of Tufting Meadows.  

We start with Katie’s character--Gangie Green (Weasel/Thief Rogue) in the graveyard of the Anglican Chapel (Our Lady of Prayerful Paws). Gangie, we learn, is an orphan who was kicked out of the orphanage at some point for thievery. Obviously, he’s not reformed of the habit because he is here to do some graverobbing. On a nat 20 (that Katie hilariously doesn’t notice even though her total is like a 29) Gangie can see through the window of the rectory that there is a weeping window inside--Catherine McCabbage who is being (dubiously) tended to by Raph’s character, Vicar Ian Prescott (Owl/Bard, College of Eloquence). 

Ian comes from a line of men of the cloth but he’s not exactly the best speaker despite his subclass. He’s doing his best though! The widow’s husband (Conor McCabbage) died at the local mill in what has been declared an accident but she suspects foul play. She’s been hearing his voice on the wind and wants Ian’s professional opinion on whether this could be a sign from God or if her husband might be speaking to her from beyond the grave or something like that. Ian gives a very muddled and not very comforting answer but seems pretty sure that something sketchy did in fact happen. Then, he sees a crack of lightning outside which illuminates the graveyard where he gets a glimpse of Gangie. 

He goes to check it out (and Gangie fully has an elderly goat he’s dug up slung over his shoulder) but “gravedigger” is his legit job so Ian decides to assume whatever’s going on is legit and not ask too many questions. He goes back to the widow (who, before she leaves, says that maybe sometimes people need to work on God’s behalf) while Gangie takes the body Loam Hall (a massive manor, built into a hill).

We cut to the next day and our next two characters! 

At 22B Hamsted Street in a pretty well appointed home are Ally and Grant’s characters. First up, we have Lars Vandenchomp (Huge ass Doberman/Battlemaster Fighter) who is so tough looking but also so Swedish sounding--it’s A Lot (so, incredibly on brand for Ally). Lars is security for Grant’s character Sylvester Cross (Fox/Inquisitive Rogue) who is a kinda (to use Grant’s word) “foppish” Sherlock Holmes type. He was hired by Squire William Thornwall Brockhollow to figure out what happened with Conor McCabbage (and clear him of negligence in running the mill) but he couldn’t find any evidence of any funny business, making this the only case he’s never cracked. He’s not as young or popular as he once was so this is, understandably, bumming him out. He’s even more bummed out when he realizes that William has invited him to his 60th birthday party that’s happening that night (as kind of a prop to show that he did his part in trying to solve the mystery) and Lars has already RSVP’d yes. He grudgingly agrees to go as it’s one of those asks that’s really more of a veiled demand but decides to pull the money he was paid from the bank first so he can return it and really stick it to the guy.

Finally, we cut to our last set of PCs who are on their way to Tufting Meadows via a very luxurious train. Inside are Sam and Rekha’s characters! Sam is Buckster $ Boyd (Peccary which is like a small boar/Mastermind Rouge) a Texan Oil Tycoon who acts exactly how you’d expect a Texan Oil Pig to act. Yes, you pronounce the dollar sign as “dollar sign” (even though as we find out later his middle name is Cassius so it’s like Cash which I think is super cool). With him is Rekha’s character, Daisy D'umpstaire (Raccoon/Assassin (???) Rogue another American (from South Carolina) though it seems she’s My Fair Lady’d herself into an upper class socialite (her last name was previously Dumpster). They’re traveling with their accountant, an Armadillo named Armond who seems kinda skittish and concerned about their travel expenses but Buck tells him that to make money you gotta spend money and they’re gonna make a *ton* of money on this trip. They’re also so so mean to him for absolutely no reason. 

When the train stops, they’re greeted by Templeton Padhop (a frog, natch) who is the chauffeur of Loan Hall, sent to fetch them. A wheel on his car is broken so he joins in on the Armond abuse immediately and has Armond roll into an Armadillo ball and replace it. Poor guy. When they show up they're greeted by a footman--a pug in a bowler hat named Milo Snout.

Meanwhile, Lars and Sly (Oh, Sly fox, I see what you did there Grant) are similarly greeted by another footman--a lizard named Basil Baskins. On a 23 perception check, Lars sees that Jeremy “Jez” Brockhollow is inside (the son of William who is a badger btw) and also clocks Gangie (who they know as a career criminal who disappeared like a year ago). Gangie doesn’t notice Lars though. 

Ian, who is also invited, shows up at about the same time as Sly but very quickly, the conversation is taken over by Lucretia “Lucy” Brockhollow, William’s older, eccentric sister who immediately gets into it with Lars about astrology and the occult (she thinks bad stuff is happening because of a curse let loose when Sly’s old rival--a rabbit named Fletcher Cottonbottom who is the son of his former employer--opened an Egyptian tomb). They’re thick as thieves right away because Ally is a nonsense magnet. And not like a regular magnet, one of those big electromagnets. 

Daisy and Buck spot William’s kids--the aforementioned Jez and his older sister Constance--along with their husbands Dr. Corbin Magpie (Constance’s and obv a magpie and a doctor) and Osmond Sheffield (Jez’s who is a Ram and a lawyer). Daisy is too stuck in her conversation with a truly unhinged squirrel (Lady Eugenia Bristlebrush who clearly does not know she’s in a murder mystery because she just keeps talking about how much she hates and wants to kill everyone) to hear what’s going on but she indicates the conversation to Buck who is able to eavesdrop and hear that they’re lamenting that Catherine--the widow--RSVP’d no which is gonna look really bad, like they didn’t invite her (bad PR). 

Buck, introducing himself as a business partner of William, eases into a conversation with the husbands which their respective spouses also join into and we learn that Buck's dad was British and a friend of Willian’s. Buck bonds with Jez (who is a bit of a dilettante) really quickly since Buck is ready to go drinks-wise immediately (and there’s a stellar pun about the “American [Drinking] Constitution''). Through the window, Buck notices Gangie outside getting his attention. 

At the same time, Ian is going from party guest to party guest, giving out the penances he forgot to earlier at church (as one does). We see him talking to the Lord and Lady Bramble (a cow and hedgehog, respectively) and while she wants to pray her way out of situations without doing any legwork, he wants to buy his way out and gives Ian 250 pounds. A frustrating but financially lucrative conversation.  

Buck goes outside to talk to Gangie who has a list of names of the bodies he’s been collecting. We’re not told what Buck is doing but it seems that this list is extremely valuable to him in some way. Gangie (who Buck keeps calling Gangly, to his annoyance) pays him handsomely (like, with a 50% tip) for the list (and Gangie gives him the real list, despite Brennan saying he didn’t have to). We also learn that Gangie has allegedly been getting the orders from someone in Loa Hall and they flow from William himself.

Matilda Molesly (a mole and the head maid) invites Gangie to come in from the rain--she’s the only person who’s been consistently nice to him and he agrees to come in for tea and scones. 

Everyone is ushered together by the butler (because of course there’s a butler--he’s quite literally a fancy rat named Thomas Gilfoyle) and William gives a speech where he wishes Conor well and kinda highlights that he did hire Sly to solve the case in a “Hey, I did my bit don’t blame me” kind of way. He also makes a 150k pound donation to the church (and Ian thought 250 was good) and tells his daughter not to read the praise he got for it from the cardinal when she mentions it (I wonder if that was choreographed). Sly interrupts the speech to “magnanimously” give his money back, to William’s annoyance. Buck notices that Lawrence Longfoot (a nouveau rich, rabbit photographer) takes a pic of the scene but with Sly in the foreground and William in the background. 

Then, a few things happen at once (in a very cinematic way):

As the camera flashes, Mrs. Molesly drops her tray, eyes hurt by the light. Lady Calliope Fawnbrooke (Deer, Matron of the Arts) helps her up.

In the moment of dark, after the flash goes away, the butler disappears. 

Buck thinks he sees a shape through the window, out in the rain. 

A cheer goes up for Sly for returning the money but all Sly can focus on is one figure he recognizes in the back of the room. Daisy, who is downing her drink and not cheering for him. He downs his as well, and looks at her until she breaks the stare and leaves the room. 

And this episode doesn’t end with a dead body like I thought, but with a flashback to a younger Sylvester, 12 years ago when he first met Daisy.

PC INTERPERSONAL DRAMA Y’ALL!!! Get HYPED! 

Case Notes

Here is a compilation of all the characters (PCs and NPCs introduced in this episode). 

Sly mentions that Ignatius Cottonbottom faked his own death as a part of some scheme which seems like a backstory point that might come back later--we now know that there exists a way to convincingly fake your own death in this world. 

Sly walks with a walking stick because of some “mysterious accident” but we’re jumping into a flashback next week so it looks like we might find out about it pretty soon. 

Sly also mentions he used to be the personal physician to the elder Cottonbottom so those are skills he has. I wonder if that’ll be useful to this healer-less party. I wonder if cleric was even an option in this world which seems to be low to no magic. It would explain by Ian is a bad and not a cleric. 

Lars has a military background which I wanted to mention in case it becomes relevant later. 

And Dr. Magpie grew up poor and still acts it a bit even though he married a very rich woman. Brennan uses the very good line, “He forces his body into the shape of an apology”

This might be a really deep cut reference but did anyone else here was the old Britcom “Keeping Up Appearances”? Cause I was getting serious Bouquet/Bucket energy from Daisy. 

This is an all College Humor season and it shows. The energy of 6 (7 if you count Brennan) top notch comedians sparking off of each other, trying to one up each other is off the charts. Some of the best bits this episode:

“When God closes every door but one, you go through the door that is open.” followed by “I’m an owl by the way.”

“Time is money, here’s both” from Buck re his inscribed gold pocket watch--everyone at the table loved that so much and they’re right. 

Armond going from being a third to a fourth wheel. 

And the names--I already shouted out a ton on the main recap but also a rat butler (like Rhett Butler) and naming the mouse Cat(therine). Can’t forget Gangie Green/gangrene from Katie. Also points to Ally for the data stealing Eel Musk which broke Brennan a little. 

I know we just went through this with Crown of Candy but what are these animals eating? Like, in Zootopia there were only mammals so we can assume the carnivores are eating like birds and fish but there are sentient birds here. I know this isn’t important. I’m not trying to do a CinemaSins gotcha. I just wonder, you know?

Y’all were waiting for all the lights to go out during that speech and then come back on and there’d be a body too, right?

If Brennan makes the bad guy a chicken or a duck or something so he can make a “fowl play” joke, he is cordially invited to catch these hands. 

I have been waiting for Raph and Katie to do D20 forever. Their specific brand of nonsense on Rank Room was always amazing. 

I love love love that Grant and Rekha are the PCs that have ~a past~ because they are so funny together. If you haven’t seen their episode of Game Changers, you absolutely must (it’s also a murder mystery actually!). 

[funjoushi]

Miki/Souma is a perfect ship don’t @ me

This ship has taken me on one of those journeys that feels like it has just lashed me against the rocks and left me stranded. So bet prepared for a little bit of some slightly messy but extremely passionate meta.

I started out with “haha, Hakuouki keeps making rival pairs with blistering sexual tension” to “maybe this could be a tasty fucked up ship” to “oh no they are husbands” which is always a wild ride to go on let me tell you.

In general I tend to only get attached to an mlm ship once every ten thousand years. From my observations these ships tend to have a lot of intertwined personal history and themes of loyalty/sacrifice/self-loathing and idealism

However souma/Miki has some particular aspects that really stick out to me

As mentioned before, Hakuouki has a habit of setting up rival and antagonist relationships with a lot of sexual tension wether intended or not. The most notable being Shiranui/Harada and Kazama/Hijikata.

Kazama/Hijikata is only nominally similar as it is much more of genuine enmity but I do believe that the ultimate source of that rivalry is in personal weakness and seeing that weakness reflected in the other. Hijikata whole struggles with the loss of his humanity, and Kazama who rejects humanity altogether.

Shiranui/Harada is one much closer to Miki/Souma in that they are two very similarly motivated men who just happen to be on opposing sides. Shiranui and Harada are both motivated by loyalty to their friends and by love(you cannot convince me that Shiranui wasn’t in love with Takasugi).

Miki being Souma’s rival specifically never made sense to begin with and still doesn’t really, but as a result it leads to a much more fascinating dynamic. They aren’t sworn to kill one another nor obsessed with the other, but instead just two guys caught up in their own stories and cause them to clash.

The fact that they are not directly antagonistic to one another is something that is key to their potential dynamic. Yes, they started out at odds due to the factional divides, and Miki did accost Chizuru which earned Souma’s dislike, but on a personal level, it’s never more than a surface level dislike. Miki thinks Souma to be foolish and wasting his potential while Souma thinks Miki to be nothing but a brute.

However, in reality, they are far more similar than either of them first realise.

During most of their interactions, they appear to be pretty starkly contrasted. Souma is earnest, hardworking and incredibly humble. Meanwhile Miki is prideful, blunt, and distrustful.

However, if you recall...Souma was very different when he first met the Shinsengumi. When Souma was still employed by his domain, he was ashamed of his clan’s neutrality and disgusted of the general state of the country and of the bushi class. He at first views the Shinsengumi as nothing but violent wolves, but eventually comes to learn and understand them and want to be counted among them.

Which is to say that Souma in himself has some similar idealistic, judgemental and spiteful tendencies that Miki ends up displaying during his time in the Shinsengumi. Miki overall appears to view the Shinsengumi as similarly foolish and misguided

This viewpoint of Souma’s I view to be not all too different than how Miki views things, he simply has a different set of base values and puts a lot more value on birth station while Souma values action and conduct. At their core, both are unshakeably loyal which eventually leads to their actual clash.

Another major factor in my like for this ship came in one of the ginsei no shou episodes.

In a scene directly after Souma, Chizuru and Nomura escape Edo after Kondou’s execution, Souma reflects on how he now feels that he can understand how Miki feels. Looking back on how Miki became unhinged and obsessed with revenge after his brother was killed. Itou was like Miki’s sun, he states. Something that illuminated the path that he followed and made everything make sense. And Souma viewed Kondou in a similar way and in that moment feels blinding rage and a desire for vengeance towards those who killed Kondou. But then essentially Souma insinuates that the only thing keeping him from a path of bloodshed is his remaining friends. And so in that way he does not at all blame Miki for his revenge quest.

This section directly highlights how Miki and Souma mirror one another and hold within them very deep similarities.

Souma’s main character flaw is that he is deeply self-critical and has basically no self-esteem. He constantly pushes himself too far out of a desire to improve himself but without support that will only lead to ruin.

We can extrapolate some similar points from Miki, based on how over the course of Souma’s route he becomes increasingly more suicidal as his quest for revenge sends him to deeper and deeper depths, which culminates in him trying to die upon Souma’s sword in the final chapter.

However, Souma notices this. Souma could have easily chosen to just end it all there, but again. Souma has no particular grudge against Miki. And in truth, he pities and identifies with Miki. 

It really just gets me, man. Like, I know that it’s because Miki survives historically, but despite that, they managed to make it so completely and utterly in character. It absolutely makes sense that Souma would show mercy. But what is truly beautiful to me is that said mercy is not out of any sort of pride or high morals, but out of pure and simple empathy.

Just about all of Miki’s former fellow Goryoueiji members are dead, his beloved older brother is dead. And on top of that he is estranged from both his birth family and adoptive family(historical detail not brought up in the game but it SHOULD BE). And while Souma has lost a lot, he still at the very least has Chizuru, and Souma’s humility also compels him not to take that for granted and reach out a hand to someone who wasn’t so lucky.

And considering that they do both survive, and as Souma says they “do not know what the future has in store” :) who knows! Maybe their paths may cross again.

Yes, I fully understand that the fact that Miki did try to kill Souma and Chizuru at one point might be a turn off to some people, which is fine. But also Chizuru was about to be killed by the Shinsengumi upon first meeting them. That’s just kinda how it goes in the world of samurai! And because the grudges aren’t specifc, that’s why I can still find them so compelling. Also I do find it so fascinating that Souma’s kyoto winds bad ending only occurs if Chizuru lets him kill Miki. Hmm! Funny that!

Anyway, in conclusion. This ship is good and no, I will not shut up about them. Thank you for reading and pls ready my fic--

[somemanyships]

Rupaul’s DragRace season 13 is almost here and I want to give my opinion on the queens based only on the promos and meet the queens. (Everything I am about to say is just my opinion and doesn’t have to be taken seriously. For no reason I want to discredit the work of any queen because all of them are fierce entertainers that have to be respected by all the public that watches the show). Normally my opinion of the queens based on the promos is not so far from what ends up happening in the show.(I want to apologize if my English is not that good, it is my second language and many times I don't know how to transmit my ideas very well).

I want to start with my top 4. Last season three of the four queens in my top ended up being the final three, only leaving Sakura out of the top. This season my top 4 are:

GottMik, Symone, Utica and Rosé.

I want to start with GottMik and Symone. From my top 4 (if I had to cut it to a top 2) they would be my front runners.

GottMik

GottMik's aesthetic in the promo stands out (which is something that almost all the winners have) she is very high couture mix with fantasy and sci-fi cinematography, his personality is interesting and somewhat enigmatic, his makeup is 100/10 the best in the promo and he is the first trans man to compete (it is important highlight the visibility of our trans brothers and sisters in the LGBT+ community).

Symone

Symone's aesthetic stands out a lot from the other participants (As Nina Bonina Brown said: Symone is serving us black girl high fashion couture). Her personality (in the promos) is one of the brightest among all personalities. With Symone it happens to me (and I don't know if it happens to you when you see someone) that I see her and it is one of those people that I immediately say: This person is a star, she was born to shine. And we also always have to remember the incredible visibility of poc in the LGBT+ community that queens like Symone bring.

Utica Queen

From Utica I also want to highlight her aesthetic (that outfit with the 3 hats gives me life). Her personality (based on the promos) is like a ray of sunshine that illuminates everyone's day. It is seen that she is an interesting and alternative queen with a very strong creative spirit. And always in all seasons these “kooky/weirdos” queens have a special place in my heart.

Rosé

I don't have much to say about Rosé, she gives me this vibe of a new york queen like Bianca Del Rio, Bob The Drag Queen and Aquaria (what I mean is that she gives me a vibe of a queen that is very talented in many areas) and her look is very blondie meets Barbie and the rockers, which is a concept that I am always here for.

Now I want to talk about the queens that are not in my top 4 for some reason but I am sure that they may surprise me and that I think they can do well in the competition, which are:

Tina Burner, Kandy Muse, Tamisha Iman, Lala Ri, Denali and Olivia Lux.

Tina Burner

Tina Burner looks like she's a talented queen, but something doesn't quite convince me. She reminds me a lot of Nina West but I don't feel that warmth and sweetness that Nina exudes. Her look is not one of my favorites (but hey, she said in the meet the queens that her taste is questionable, and I liked that). I think she's going to do very well in the snatch game and in the acting challenges, and also, she have a great personality. I hope to be surprised by Tina this season.

Kandy Muse

One of the hardest things about competing in DragRace is being part of a family that has already participated in the show. Aja (Kandy's mother) is one of the queens with a strong personality that has participated in the most recent seasons. Dahlia (kandy's sister), although she was the first eliminated, appeared in all episodes of the season. Kandy's look is very good, and although I think the judges are going to demand a lot of personality from her (comparing her to Aja) I'm sure that Kandy has personality to spare, I also think that it is very possible that she is part of the top 4 this season. The reason I didn't put her in my top is merely personal taste, normally queens who describe themselves as "loud" are not my personal liking (like Eureka or Silky). But I am sure that Kandy is going to be one of the strongest competitors this season.

Tamisha Iman

The main reason why I didn't put Tamisha in my top is her personality, and don't get me wrong, her promo attitude (a very serious and straightforward personality) I like a lot, I'm sure the narrative that the producers are going to give her it isn’t going to be very flattering. Her outfit looks like a typical pageant queen look (well executed but has nothing that stands out). And above all this, I'm sure the producers are going to put her in the bottom two with Lala Ri to give us this dramatic and heartbreaking mother vs daughter lipsync.

Lala Ri

Lala Ri (judging from the promo) looks like she has a very striking personality, which always helps a lot in the competition. Her promo look, which is a bodysuit (her signature outfit), isn't very strong. And we all know Michelle's opinion of the queens who wear too many bodysuits in the competition. As a second point, something that scares me is that Lala Ri said in meet the queens (I don't fully remember how she said it so I'm going to paraphrase): "I didn't get to this competition to leave because of hot glue" Putting that together with the fact that she said she doesn't know how to sew, gives me to understand that she is going to be eliminated in a design challenge. Another point is, like what is going to happen with Tamisha, is that the producers are going to putting her in the bottom two to give us the mother vs daughter lipsync.

Denali

Denali is one of the queens with one of the most striking and different outfit among all the competitors, which is very good. From everything that she said she seems very talented, and the fact that she is an ice skater is a skill that hardly any queen possesses. A personal point for me here (of why I support her) is her Mexican heritage (and as a queer Mexican person myself, I am proud to see a queen who can give that representation on the show). The main reason I didn't put her in my top 4 is: her personality. Her personality It doesn’t look as flashy as other queens and that always ends up eliminating talented queens who cannot steal the spotlight compared to other contestants (such as Jan in season 12 or Max in season 7).

Olivia Lux

In the case of Olivia I debated a lot if I should put her in this category or in the next category (queens that are going to be eliminated first). In the end I decided to put her in this category because (from what she said) she has a strong personality and I think that can help her a lot in the competition. Her outfit from the promo looks good (but she has nothing that makes her stand out like other queens). Her hairstyle is one of my favorites, the combination of afro with that color between mahogany and carrot, I really loved it. And that's it, I don't have much to say, I just hope Olivia surprises me this season.

And the last category in which I separate the queens is: contestants that I think are going to be eliminated first.

Kahmora Hall, Joey Jay and Elliott with 2TS.

Kahmora Hall

One of the things I always enjoy seeing on DragRace is: representation. I'm glad we have another Asian queen to join the DragRace family. The look Kahmora is using in the promo is very polished and the wig with crystals looks perfect (Did you stone that wig?). Having said that, I really don't think Kahmora will last long in the competition. Her drag daughter Soju (who was one of my favorite queens even before she entered the show) is incredible, but I think the mother is going to repeat the same situation as the daughter and be one of the first to leave. I think the main reason is that her personality can't get across the screen. When queens have trouble to transmit their personality across the screen they also tend to have the problem of not being able to transmit their personality to the judges and end up getting eliminated at first. But I hope that Kahmora manages to excel and advance in the competition. Sidebar: I am very upset that the face mask that Kahmora had planned to use had not ended up appearing in the promo because of the message it transmitted. My boyfriend is Asian and he has suffered a lot of harassment for the issue of the pandemic, where ignorant people accuse him of being the carrier of the virus. It was a very strong message that Kahmora had planned with the face mask and it should have been shown to the public.

Joey Jay

Something very strange happened to me with Joey, although she has an aesthetic that I really enjoy (very punk rock and edgy style) I feel that she does not stand out among all the queens. Her personality looks nice but also very difficult to decipher, something doesn't quite convince me with Joey. And I'm sure Michelle is going to criticize the fact that Joey doesn't normally wear wigs (even from the first episode as Michelle also criticized Crystal's makeup in season 12 or Dusty in season 10) and when Joey decides to change it she runs the risk of being eliminated in that episode (like Max in season 7 or Derrick in season 8). I don't know what it is yet, but something actually tells me that Joey is going to be one of the first eliminated contestants.

Elliott With 2TS

And finally we have Elliott. When I see Elliott’s promo I can only think of James Mansfield from season 9. His personality doesn't stand out much compared to the other queens. Elliott looks like she's nice but I don't feel like she commands attention like other participants. And the two negative points for me are: her name and her outfit. Her name just doesn't resonate in a nice way to say it (like Dax exclamation point from season 8) and her outfit, what do I say? Her outfit was the weakest of the entire promo. But I really hope Elliott can surprise me and advance in the competition.

That's it, just judging by the promo and the meet the queens this are my opinions of how the queens are going to do in the competition. But this is only the beginning, many things can change during the competition. And I want to emphasize again that this is ONLY my opinion, and should not be taken seriously in any way, all participants are talented and deserve to win just for the fact of being selected to participate. I am very excited for this new season of Rupaul's DragRace.

Gentlemen, start your engines, and may the best woman WIN!

[putschki1969]

Reflectin on 2020 at my own pace〜 Hikaru//’s Free Writing Vol.#6 〜

Hello, this is Hikaru//.

These days, I spend all my time in production, preparing to deliver new music to everyone. When I am not too busy I think it is very important to find time to relax, are all of you finding enough time to relax?  I would really like to know how everyone is spending their relax time.

Well, this column I would like to reflect on 2020.

To put it simply, I think 2020 was the year that my solo project H-el-ical// started properly. I feel like H-el-ical// is slowly taking shape.

My big milestones were that I was able to release two singles, "Altern-ate-" and "disclose", I also produced two mini-albums that were exclusively available at the live venue and via mail order. So overall I felt like I was working all year round. Since I started working as H-el-ical// things have been very different since I no longer just sing the songs that are given to me, there is so much more to think about now, so many processes that I had never before taken into consideration. What kind of lyrics to add to a specific song? How to sing a certain song? People sometimes ask me, “isn’t it hard?” but honestly, I am enjoying myself.

It's a lot of fun to step into an unknown territory and to be able to write lyrics about whatever springs to mind. Even when it comes to my singles which are theme songs for animes, I try to find my own words to convey the atmosphere while still respecting the origin work.

As for the other songs I made, I tried to make them poetic, using words that came to mind when thinking about the overarching themes I had chosen for my albums. In a way, I was free to do whatever I wanted, it was a very casual production.

When being asked whether or not it was tough to do all that, I can’t really come up with a good answer but taking into account that I wrote around 15 songs throughout the past year, I will have to admit that I was struggling to find new words, there was certainly a lack of vocabulary. I realised that there were certain words that I really liked and I kept using them a lot *laughs* I want to increase my vocabulary in the future.

What I learned from writing lyrics is that I may want to convey something particular. So even if our world views are different, I want the core of my message to stay the same. But how to best express that thing you want to convey? I think that is one of the issues I will continue to tackle in 2021.

As for me as a singer, I feel that as I grow older, I have to find way of xpression and singing styles that suit my age. Even if I sing the same words that I sang many years ago, it seems that the meaning and colouring of the words is different depending on whether you sing something in your 20s or your 30s.

As I keep on living and gaining experience, a single word will become so much more loaded, by adding different shades to my singing I think there is a lot more that can be conveyed to everyone, be it people that are older, younger or the same age as myself.

Coming back to the previously mentioned singles, in May 2020, I made my major debut as solo singer when I released the theme song "Altern-ate-" for the TV anime "Gleipnir" under the label NBC Universal.

I was incredibly moved when the episode of "Gleipnir" with my song "Altern-ate-" was first broadcast on TV. I have not mentioned this before but my body was actually trembling so much, more so than I had ever expected *laughs*. I guess that was the moment I truly felt the gratitude of being a solo artist.

Of course I was always moved when I saw our our songs being aired during my time in Kalafina, but that felt a little different. Now it is only my vocals you hear in the song that is airing on TV alongside the end credits of an anime. At first, I couldn't even see the screen properly., everything was so blurry The tension was just too high *laughs*. When I saw the name H-el-ical// on the screen I almost broke into tears, I still remember that moment clearly now.

What was really though in 2020 was the fact that my live 『H-el-ical// Acoustic LlVE 2020～elements～』which was scheduled to be held on April 5 had to be cancelled due to corona. I'm beyond happy that I was able to have a proper comeback by holding 『H-el-ical// acoustic LIVE 2020 「咲 -SHOW-」』 on December 29. Thank you to everyone who came to the venue and send their support from afar!

My impression of my first live performance in about 13 months can be summarised in a few words, I felt completely "burned out ..." *laughs*. During my daytime MC I told everyone, "I'll do my very best without thinking about saving energy for my night performance" and as a result I sang with all my might and ended up being completely exhausted *laughs*. Afterwards I thought to myself, "Somehow I have to restore my energy in time for the night performance!" I did my very best to achieve a proper revival so I could stand on stage with all my strength.

To be honest, I didn't expect so many people to come to the venue. I was trembling and vervous when the performance started, but I was also so very touched when I saw how many of you had turned up *laughs*. When the first song was over and the audience are was illuminated, I got to see everyone’s face and almost started crying. I truly felt like I was able to hold a proper conversation with everyone that day.

I still cannot believe that I got the chance to hold that live in our current situation. I think some fans in the audience might have been curious because they were seeing me perform for the first time as a solo artist so they wondered what my solo live would be like but due to the pandemic, this live was quite different and many decisions had to be made by the organiser.  Everyone who participated also had to think hard about whether they wanted to take the risk of attending. That's why I was really able to treasure and appreciate my luck, I was truly blessed to be able to hold that live. After it was over, everyone involved told me, "it looked like you had a blast," and yes, it’s true, for me it felt like, "if I didn’t enjoy this precious time to the fullest, wouldn't it be a great loss?"

In fact, everyone’s joy and happiness was conveyed even through the masks, so I was also able to have a good time. Once again, I feel like I was able to have a solid “conversation” with all of you. It was a very, very special time. Thank you so much.

I'm looking for more things to do in 2021. I am taking in suggestions by staff members too because I want to broaden my horizon. First and foremost though I feel like it is very important to get more people to know about H-el-ical// so I will work hard and spare no effort in spreading awareness.

I will also contine to collaborate with SPICE by updating this column, I think I can learn a lot by doing this. How can I best write this to highlights the charms of my experiences so everyone enjoys reading about it? I always worry about this when I write my column but it is a lot of fun, especially when I get positive feedback on Twitter and you let me know that people are actually interested in what I have to say. This is a different kind of “conversation” that Iam able to hold with you.

In addition, I feel that I have the opportunity to do some self-reflection when writing down my thoughts like this. I guess it’s like having a dialogue with yourself rather than just thinking about something? In the future I would like to continue worrying and spreading joy by talking about all kinds of things. Of course I will have to keep my deadlines in mind! *laughs*

And here’s a bonus photo. One of my favourite ways to relax is to take a bath. Recently I have always had a candle and a bottle of water with me.

Well then, until next time.

[shadows-twilight]

RWBY Volume 7 Finale

Man, it feels like only a few weeks ago we were celebrating RWBY's return, yet here we are again, saying goodbye. Without further ado, here are my various thoughts and opinions on the finale of RWBY Volume 7, "The Enemy of Trust"

SPOILERS BELOW:

This opening fight is nothing but classic Neo and I can't help but love it for that.

Oh, right. Ironwood included JNR and Oscar on that Wanted Poster, and so the military is looking for them. Kinda forgot about that.

Damn, I think Cinder's "I refuse to starve" monologue just did more for her character building than the entire Mistral Arc combined. Jessica Nigiri's delivery was pretty damn impressive, too.

Moving the fight outside did some amazing things for what was already a breathtaking battle. Whoot, Winter also has a Manticore summon? I love how they gave Winter and Weiss the same Semblance, and yet managed to personalize them to such an extent.

I don't know if watching JNR run in circles while Oscar trails breathless behind them was supposed to be humorous, but it certainly was regardless

Not gonna lie, they got me with that Nora fakeout. Totally thought she was real until I saw the spiky umbrella. Oof, Neo got Ren with that Maes Hughes maneuver. It's not quite the Pyrrha illusion we were all hoping for, but it came pretty close.

Crying Ren is not a fun Ren. It makes me feel things I'd rather not ;~;

I was hoping that Fria would wake up and contribute to the fight, and BY GOD SHE DID NOT DISAPPOINT!!! THIS IS AMAZING!!!

I love how concerned Winter sounded for Penny when she jumped into the cold storm. Them having this relationship is one of the highlights of Penny's return for me.

Angry Ren makes me both sad and scared. Ren is really putting me through the ringer today, isn't he.

Pietro and Maria are probably one of my new favorite duos. They have yet to have a bad scene, either separately or together.

There's always something really tragic about seeing elderly people who's minds are going. I mean, I can only imagine what kind of powerhouse Fria must have been in her heyday.

I admit, I was with Ironwood on this one. When I first saw Oscar descending that elevator, I fully expected to find out he was actually Ozpin. Oscar really managed to pull off that presence.

CRWBY really did right by Oscar this volume. With Ozpin gone, it gave our favorite farmboy a chance to really grow into his own, and dear lord did he take that chance and run with it.

Damn. Ironwood really just completed his decent into proper, full blown villainy, didn't he? I can't say I didn't see this coming, I feel like the groundwork for this was laid out as far back as Volume 3, but even so, what a sight to behold.

For a show that likes to include a gun into almost every single weapon imaginable, never has a gunshot felt like such a proper gunshot as it did when Ironwood shot Oscar.

I've always wondered what would happen if someone just cut off Cinder's Grimm arm. I mean, it's certainly an easy enough target, what with the lack of aura protection and all.

How long of a drop is this tunnel? Is this how Palpatine felt at the end of Return of the Jedi?

PENNY IS THE NEWEST WINTER MAIDEN AND...ok, are the Maiden Eye Flames connected to Aura color? Because there is no other justification I can think of for the Winter Maiden's eye flames to be green.

Ozpin's monologue is for some reason giving me some serious Red vs Blue feelings. Specifically Epsilon's final speech. This is in no way a complaint.

Winter seems to be battling between accepting that Penny is the Winter Maiden and being bitter at the fact that the thing her entire military career had been grooming for is now gone. I find this interesting.

Apparently this song was written by Casey herself? I must say, this is one hell of a debut. I am getting ALL OF THE FEELS FROM IT!!!

OF COURSE QROW'S STILL CARRYING CLOVER'S PENDANT! BECAUSE THIS EPISODE STILL HASN'T STABBED US IN THE HEART ENOUGH YET!!!

I really feel for Winter's struggle between choosing Weiss or Ironwood. I mean, sure, WE know that Ironwood has lost it and become a straight up villain now, but she hasn't seen any of that and has been loyal to him for what I imagine to be all of her adult life. That isn't something that's easy to just throw away, especially when she hasn't seen the full extent of it yet.

Wow, Cinder, are you really planning to just present the lamp to Salem as if it was entirely your accomplishment and just leave Neo as an afterthought? It's going to be so satisfying when she stabs you in the back.

Oh, so Watts is still alive. Good to know.

Oh cool, Oscar learned to use Ozpin's shield ball from Volume 3! It's so nice seeing the classics return.

God those storm clouds are foreboding. I mean, probably because we know what's coming, but still.

Ah yes, the old "Hide the Eldritch abomination behind storm clouds only to illuminate it's silhouette with lightning" effect. There's a reason the classics never go out of style.

HOLY SHIT!!! SALEM HAS A MONSTRO WHALE GRIMM!!! SALEM HAS SIN HIMSELF ON HER SIDE!!! Whelp, it was a good run, RWBY, but I guess this is where it ends. This is where we all die.

Ooh, Salem has a new look. I must say, I love it. Nothing says "Queen of Darkness" like spinal armbands.

Wow. Forget ending Chapters on cliffhangers, now we've graduated to full Volumes. Gutsy. This end credits song is amazing. I mean, it's sad, yet incredibly energetic. I really can't wait for the soundtrack to drop, I have a feeling it's going to be a really good one.

As someone who follows Miles on Twitter, it really hurt my heart to see Meatball in the "Additional Security" section. Rest in peace, bestest boy. Pretty jarring having a Volume Finale without an end-credits scene. I mean, that's a series first, right? Still, according to Kerry it was because they wanted to just focus on the show and avoid any crunch time, so I can't really to be upset about it. Can't really imagine what would've fit anyway, that final shot of Salem was a perfect way to close off the Volume. So that was Volume 7, and I must say, HOLE. LEE. SHIT!!! Despite the odd bump here and there, this volume still turned out to be AMAZING!! The improved fights, the wonderful new characters, the different twists and turns to the story, there is just so. much. to. praise. CRWBY has really outdone themselves with this volume, and while certain plot elements weren't handled the best, and certain decisions were made that I'm not entirely happy about *cough*Clover*cough* I still can't help but feel that they managed to bring us one of the most well put together volumes we've has in a long time. Everyone in the CRWBY deserves to really pat themselves on the back for this volume, and I certainly can not wait until Volume 8. Until next time, fellow Huntsmen and Huntresses.

Keep Moving Forward.

[arbitrarygreay]

Towards a PoI S5 fix-it

My personal highlight for the MW POI comments this week was that seeing Flesh And Blood, and the lead up to, illuminated for me some potential S5 fix-its. First, I was inspired by this comment from mirandawmeyer, who reviewed PoI for After Ellen:

Incredibly, I actually forgot this happened! So I was genuinely surprised at the ending, and at the exposure of Fusco's background to Carter. In general, I think I forgot how many plot threads the first season stacks up, and how quickly. Elias, HR, Snow, Donnelly, John's backstory, Finch's backstory, the mysterious hacker...and that's not even counting the main threads of the main characters' relationships to each other! They really gave themselves a lot to work with so that almos5 any case of the week can nod to one or more of these threads, which makes the season feel dense and full and not "oh yeah, after 5 filler episodes, remember that long form plot thing?" (I cough in later-season Supernatural's direction.) It also means they have a lot of interesting places to go in Season 2, with a variety of possible configurations.

In contrast, by S4, the show doesn't have enough antagonists. Not enough threads were introduced to replace the elements they had resolved by the end of S3. You've got Samaritan, you've got the Brotherhood, and that's about it, because the Elias faction stopped being an antagonist. There's no more corruption faction, because government is all tied to Samaritan, so there's not as much of that tension of anyone getting betrayed/backstabbed at the worst possible moment. In S5, you have bargain bin Root (the Voice), you have bargain bin Vigilance, you have no crime/gang plot whatsoever, no exploration of the intersection of corrupt law enforcement with the new ASI world order, and then Beale is just wasted as the instance of intelligence agencies intrigue. At that point, since we see the team defeating minor Samaritan plots over and over again, that storyline runs the risk of the antagonist feeling more and more impotent. The Brotherhood storyline is resolved in the worst way (and we have no sense of escalation with them), Elias is de-fanged and his and Bruce's stuff in season five are extra impotent, and the government is such a nonentity that the episode where the freaking president is the number feels lackluster. Batman has always been defined by his opponents, which S1 strongly lived up to, and post-S4A did not. I understand Nolan was really riding the AI themes train at this point because of Westworld, but this rewatch reminded me of how powerful the show was in the first three seasons, with just the human element. In Flesh and Blood, you've got the FBI and CIA swirling around right alongside HR and Elias. Root Path has Root, Donnelly, HR, and Zoe Morgan all colliding. Samaritan never integrated with the other storylines, so you don't get this kind of amazing convergence effect. That isolation eventually hurt the characters and storylines for both the AI and Crime plots. Rewatching Flesh and Blood pointed to some of the mechanisms they could have employed to maintain the intensity and menace of Samaritan, which exists as the show's Big Bad for about as long as HR is. In S4, the interactions between Elias and the Brotherhood aren't nearly as complex as they were between Elias and the Dons, or Elias and HR, or HR and the FBI. In S4, the crime plot has no contact with the AI or government stuff. To compare, the government stuff with Control and such was good in S3. It also had promise, like the Brotherhood storyline, through MIA in S4. And then it, like the Brotherhood storyline, suffered an undignified death in the S4 finale. It's not necessarily about having more memorable characters for each faction, either. Donnelly is the only person we remember from the FBI faction. But he doesn't only exist to chase Reese, he also interacts with HR and Elias, along with how Carter and Fusco are intertwined into those storylines. S3 Greer feels extra nefarious whenever we discover his fingers in another pie, from Rylatech to Vigilance to Senator Garrison. But once he turns things over to Samaritan, we stop seeing that interaction of storylines, and it feels like the status quo is stagnant. So, potential fix-it to the lack of storyline interactions: The S4 opener has the Brotherhood trying to take over the mesh network, indicating that they're aware of how easily they are surveilled and their technological communications are compromised, and so are trying to subvert that. Imagine if they had been the surprise dubious allies with Team Machine against Samaritan, mirroring how Elias had been the surprise dubious ally against HR! Or an episode where the team have to work with Decima agents to escape a sticky crime situation! Low-key corrupt local government officials (which would replace HR as the corruption faction) have reasons to not want the Panopticon! (exploring how moves against pork and smoky backroom deals have in some ways worsened polarization and deadlock) A lot of people have taken issue with the dropped threads from S4 to S5, clamoring for a return of more recurring characters. I don't mind that so much, and proposed fix-its shouldn't necessarily bank on that trick, either, because scheduling actors is always an unavoidable issue. See, for example, Supergirl and Floriana Lima. Or the case of Morgan Le Fay in The Librarians. And with CBS mucking with the schedule, they couldn't lock down actors early on. The DC Thornhill team roster was probably an open slate to see just who they could get, and we have the guy Nolan's working with on Westworld and Amy Acker's husband. It's a miracle we got Harper back, or Lambert, for that matter. Just looking at who they did manage to bring back for .exe makes it pretty clear that the scheduling shaped S5 in a big way. Not just for recurring characters, but the ability to recur even S5 characters. Odds are that Beale's actor is in big demand, and only had the one episode's worth of time to film. Or would we rather that S5 had tried what The Defenders did with Sigourney Weaver? I think we got the better execution, for that. Another logistical concern is that the writers who pen the episode a recurring character appears in get paid every time that character appears, even if they no longer work for a show. Since most shows get a big writer turnover around season 3/4, the production may not want to play extra to people no longer in house, and the new writers want to introduce their own potentially recurring characters instead. An old recurring character showing up decreases the chance that any character they introduce that episode will become popular. I think that fix-its that only look at Watsonian writing choices and ignoring Doylist logistical concerns can be arrogant, ascribing an unfair quality judgement on canon. It would be like complaining that a Chopped challenge dish didn't use sashimi when the required special ingredient was chicken nuggets. So if the uniformity of the Samaritan arc made it stagnate, and we can't inject life through fan favorite characters, then the solution is to get to a place where we can introduce new characters without baggage. Burn/resolve the Samaritan storyline at the end of season 4, defeating the main part of the ASI. Then, open up S5 with new stuff, like with uncertainty about TM as an ASI monopoly, the difficulties of hunting down Samaritan remnants as a metaphor for terrorism (which still allows for Shaw simulation stuff), the opened-Pandora's-Box inevitability of another ASI rising. [Here be spoilers for the TV show Nikita!] When I think about it, it would be like compressing Nikita seasons 2-4. Finish off Samaritan in the back half of S4 (like Nikita S2 finished off Division), let the first front half of S5 be akin to Nikita S3, about their attempted reconciliation but inevitable cooption in power. However, the tone of the show is such that we don't want our protagonists in power for the last stretch, they should be betrayed at the halfway point, leading to a last arc where they're back to desperate underdog status, battling to a thrilling ending climax, a la Nikita S4. You can also look at Angel S5, Leverage S5 for various ways PoI could successfully soft-reset, without compromising their competence and look at the various ways Red Vs. Blue have finagled the titular crew back to a Blood-Gulch-like setting to see how to soft-reset without necessarily spending so much money on new sets. I kinda like the idea of the end of NuWho series 6, as well, where our team become a bit too notorious, and fake their deaths in order to stop the escalations with their opponents, and get back to the ground level of saving those that others consider irrelevant.

[miss-rumphius]

Best of The Best 2016

2016 was, on pretty much all accounts, a less than stellar year- for many of us we felt its effects in our inner lives, socially, and politically. That said, there were some highlights and I thought I would celebrate those right now. And for the second year in a row I’ve compiled a Best of the Best for the year. This is my roundup of favorite books, movies, music, and quotes from the year as I believe in celebrating the little things that keep us going when things get tough.

Books

Brooklyn by Colm Tolbin- An excellent story of coming into one’s own and the perils and joys of being an immigrant in ‘50s America. Beautifully written as well.

Becoming Wise An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living by Krista Tippett- I am in awe of this book and if I could I would shove it into everyone’s hands as I believe it offers insights that everyone can benefit from. Krista examines what and how it is to live in today’s world through various elements that one needs to live a good life. She examines interviews and quotes from authors, spiritual leaders, scientists, socially conscious minded people and divulges some of the wisdom they have gained throughout their life.

Boys in The Boat- This is the book I chose to take with me to the lake house in Maine and it was so wonderfully written, it reads more like a novel than a work of nonfiction. And the story of the boys from Seattle who surprised the world and won gold at a divisive Olympics will inspire everyone, even those who know nothing about rowing or care little for sports.

Television

The Queen- Certainly the best period drama to debut this year, filling the void that Downton Abbey left for many people. Typically I shy away from Hollywood portrayal of the British royal family, like that ill conceived film about Diana a few years ago, as too often they veer into being crass rather than being insightful and thoughtful. The Queen however, is tastefully done, as it looks at the struggles and making of a queen. Plus, it must be said, the costumes for this show are incredible, they lovingly reconstructed a few of Queen Elizabeth’s iconic outfits and created serious wardrobe envy with Margaret's looks!

Broad City- Hands down, the best comedy show this year (for me at least). The reason why it gets this title is because of the two stellar final episodes of the season… in which they parody a titular experience for many young American Jews, Birthright Israel. Honestly, some of the quips were so on the nose that I chortled with insider realization and memories from my own experiences. They also grasped the comedic goldmine that is the young Jewish experience (and concerning Birthright too) that quite frankly no one else has tapped into.

Stranger Things- What? It’s good. What can I say, it is impossible not to find Eleven interesting and to be curious about what is happening in that odd little town.

Movies

Moana- Quite simply the best Disney movie in forever. And I am so in love with the music Lin Manuel Miranda wrote for Moana, especially with the way in which everyone who worked on the film stayed true to Polynesian culture and musics’ but also including Lin’s sick beats.

The Dressmaker- The costumes for The Dressmaker were beyond excellent, but this quirky, slightly dark Australian film holds its own even with a bit of a nutty plot. Plus, the dishy Liam Hemsworth in this film, so ladies and gents, do enjoy seeing him on screen. It is nice, for once to see a man basically fill the role of “eye candy” that is usually reserved for women. Liam did a good job.

Mustang- I got around to watching this film this year and it was so beautifully crafted. And it told a illuminating story of four sisters and how patriarchy can dismantle a girlhood.

An Affair to Remember- Shockingly, this year was the first time I have ever watched this iconic movie and it did not disappoint. Honestly, if a romance movie doesn’t have a touch of heartbreak in it, is it really a romance movie? Because this one certainly fits the bill.

Quotes

“Hope gets you there; work gets you through.” James Baldwin

“When they go low, we go high.” Michelle Obama

“I define hope as distinct from optimism or idealism. It has nothing to do with wishing. It references reality at every turn and revere’s truth. It lives open eyed and wholeheartedly with the darkness that is woven ineluctably into the light of life and sometimes seems to overcome it. Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes a spiritual muscle memory. It’s a renewable resource for moving through life as it is, not as we wish it to be.” Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living

“We’re all just walking each other home.” Ram Dass

[lorrainecparker]

Three beautiful TV shows you probably aren’t watching

I’ve worked on episodic television. I know how fast it moves. That’s why I’m amazed at how good recent TV shows tend to look. Not only are the stories and acting better than what I see in features, but the cinematography is on par as well. It’s not always as complex as one will see on a feature, but it’s amazing what television cinematographers are able to do quickly and simply.

The following are three shows that I’ve watched and enjoyed over the last year or two that tend to be pretty obscure, at least in the U.S. Each has a different look. I’m going to touch on what I see in all three, and if you happen to watch any of them maybe you’ll see the same things I did… and maybe more.

PATRIOT (Amazon)

This is my favorite of the bunch. It’s a slow burn, but it’s incredibly smart, quirky, dark and funny. This is the kind of show you’d never see produced on a network. It’s a little bit hard to describe, but here goes:

Imagine a burned out super spy by the name of John Lakeman (really John Tavner), who agrees to a top secret, deniable mission to help out his father, who is a bigwig in U.S intelligence. It’s the last thing he wants to do: he accidentally killed the wrong man on his previous mission and spent three months being tortured in a foreign country, and all he really wants to do is bring his wife to Amsterdam, get stoned, and ride bikes with her across Europe.

But… family wins out, and before long he finds himself trying to get work as a piping export at a construction company in Milwaukee. This gives him cover to go to Luxembourg, where he’s to give a bag of money to an Iranian politician in order to influence an election.

Of course it all goes horribly and hysterically wrong. Soon he’s on the run from the Luxembourg police, whose homicide squad is composed entirely of women because the men have snapped up the “sexy” financial crimes jobs, and there are (normally) no murders in Luxembourg—until he arrives with a bag of money that is immediately stolen.

That’s only the first episode. That’s part of the first episode. There’s LOTS more.

The show is amazingly quirky. For example, Tavner’s only stress release is singing folk music at open mic nights, but his improvised songs include sensitive details about his current mission. In this scene, his brother—a U.S. congressman—has to react quickly to his brother’s performance:

What grabbed me about this show is that it is SMART. It’s extremely well plotted, the dialog is excellent, the actors are phenomenal, but the cinematography and the directing show incredible vision and foresight. For example:

There are several scenes, scattered throughout the series, where—in one take—eight or nine things go catastrophically wrong. Tavner often contemplates his predicaments while seated outside in a field of concrete pipes, and in one scene—likely the one above—people enter the frame one by one and tell him something that destroys just a little bit of his world. They enter from all directions, but the scene never seems forced: each character enters frame and drops a little bombshell that compromises John Tavner’s plans while he sits, dejected, wishing to be anywhere else.

There are several examples of this kind of mise en scene in the series, where a scene plays out in one complex and beautifully-choreographed Steadicam move, or the camera sits perfectly still (as in the frame above) and characters move in and out of the frame.

Here’s one such scene from the first episode. A coworker complains that John stabbed him in the thigh because he tried to follow John in Luxembourg, but then reveals that he subscribed to a local newspaper to see what John was up to. John knows that this is going to result in a police investigation, and he’s not thrilled—but then he discovers that he’s likely going to be dropped from the return trip to Luxembourg, which he needs to take because the original trip didn’t go to plan. He also pushed a fellow job applicant in front of a truck to make sure that he got the job instead, but even with brain damage the guy won’t go away. A security guard has figured out who John really is, and makes a point of telling him. And then John’s dad calls to let him know that they’ve been played and the money is in the wrong hands. His life crumbles in one five minute Steadicam shot:

How often do you see this kind of thing played out in a TV series? It’s brilliant.

Composition is not an easy thing to do well. It requires buy-in from the director and a lot of planning, as composition and coverage are inextricably linked.

For example, in this scene from the pilot, the sequence of shots is:

I love starting scenes on close shots and waiting a bit before pulling wide and showing the environment. It’s a clever way to draw the viewer into the scene, as not knowing exactly where it is set builds tension that is released by the wide shot. It’s a beautiful wide shot, too, but it only appears once for a few seconds. My guess is they only ran the performances for the first 30 seconds of the scene, cut, and then covered the entire scene again in closer shots.

Old-time TV directors used to do this: they’d shoot a master until they were one line into where they knew they’d only use closeups. They’d cut, and then move in for closeups. They didn’t get coverage they didn’t need. In this case the wide shot is beautiful, and serves a purpose at the beginning of the scene, but after that, it’s done.

Notice, also, that the camera always faces the same direction. I love this style of coverage: even though the characters don’t face each other, they face us, and it just… works.

The series has a Wes Anderson single point perspective vibe that works well to keep the show somewhat light even though John Tavner’s life gets worse with every minute of every episode.

And, like so many series now, it is clearly shot at very low light levels. When I was a camera assistant, I knew I could get any shot in focus on any lens at T4. T2.8 saw me getting a little nervous, and T2 saw me getting very nervous. T1.3 was… well, I just gave it my best shot. Back then we had to do all this by eye, and we didn’t know what was in focus until the next day, so I lost a lot of sleep when working with DPs who lit scenes with a single Kino tube. (I remember once having to pull focus on a night interior shot, handheld, at T1.3, without a rehearsal. It was the last night of the feature, and I still don’t know how much of it was in focus. Normally I’d find out in dailies, but by the time they saw dailies I was on to the next job.)

Now camera assistants regularly pull focus using wireless controllers while watching a 17″ monitor near the set. This is not the best way to pull focus for entire scenes, as it’s often easier to focus using set marks when actors are moving around, but it’s perfect for nailing focus when actors stop and miss their marks. Because of this, series DPs are now free to light to very low levels and shoot at very wide stops, using natural light whenever possible and taking advantage of the low contrast that most lenses impart to a scene when used wide open.

As the stop opens up, the light has to pass through more glass, and that causes the light to bounce around a bit more. Some DPs talk about how the light fills itself in at low light levels, and often the image on the monitor looks very much like what the eye sees.

This isn’t a license not to light, however. Most naturally-lit scenes look awful, particularly on faces, and the environmental lighting may not suit the subject matter. Rather, the lighting can be simpler: we can use smaller units, or use negative fill to shape ambient light, or light the foreground but let ambient light illuminate the background. Those tricks make for high quality imagery on a fast-paced TV show schedule.

This is probably my favorite TV show of the year. It’s not the fastest paced show you’ll see, but it is by far the smartest. If you like dark humor, you can’t go wrong. If you like gorgeous but naturalistic cinematography, this is a master class in composition, staging, and lighting quickly and minimally.

Patriot has been renewed for a second series.

TRAPPED (Amazon)

This “Nordic Noir” thriller is also one of the best shows I’ve seen all year. When a torso is found in the water just off the shoreline of a small Icelandic town, the local police find themselves stretched to the breaking point as they piece together an astounding web of local corruption that leads to multiple deaths.

Not only are the performances and the story stellar, the cinematography is stunning—but in a very different way to Patriot. Once again, the emphasis is on using natural light, or emulating natural light, and shooting at very low light levels, but the look is much grittier.

It’s not ugly, and it doesn’t make people look bad, but it also doesn’t look lit. That’s quite a feat.

What I love the most is that I can feel where the light sources are, even though I can’t always see them, and the fill light matches what I’d expect to see from the environment. For example,

This looks like a night scene to me, not just because it’s dark but because there are multiple light sources mixing together in a kind of low contrast murk. I see this when walking down a city street at night: lots of small light sources combine into a base of colored fill light, and yet it’s still obviously night.

There’s something magical about low contrast mixed light source night scenes, and now that we can shoot wide open without worrying too much about focus we can quickly create such environments.

I love how there’s no direct light hitting his face. He appears to be lit by bounce light from the snow. The highlights in the background keep the shot from appearing dull by giving us a “brightness reference,” which tells us the frame is supposed to be dark and not accidentally underexposed. This is where this series excels: lighting shots that would look exactly this way in real life, but without looking ghastly. I frequently thought to myself, “Wow—light would actually do that!”

I’d recommend watching this series for its use of naturalistic environmental lighting, while paying extra attention to the fill light. Fill light has a direction to it, and if it comes from the wrong direction it can make a scene look lit just as quickly as a misplaced key light. One example of this is filling from the key side, which almost always cleans up faces regardless of where the key light is placed, and almost never looks forced.

Trapped has been renewed for a second series.

UTOPIA

I’m not going to lie. This series is messed up. It is frequently brutal to watch. It’s also very well done. Several people from wildly different backgrounds stumble onto a plot that will effectively result in the end of the world, and when they try to stop it they discover that the organization they are up against is vastly bigger than they could ever imagine.

What’s fun about the cinematography is that it’s shot in 2.39:1 wide screen and the filmmakers use the entire frame, all the time. Mostly they put people and things in the dead center of frame, but they also work the sides as well. Many shots are framed dead on to the background. The images feel as if the camera is usurping control of the characters’ lives. It’s all very disturbing, and suits the series perfectly.

Like Patriot, there’s a lot of single point perspective going on, and the filmmakers aren’t afraid to frame their shots with a lot of extra headroom:

We’re all taught in film school that head room is “this much,” but I love that we’re getting away from that in TV and commercials. Headroom is arbitrary. You see still photographers composing with “this much” headroom for every photo; rather, they use the entire frame and either fill it with something that leads the eye around the frame or use negative space to “push” the eye into the one thing in the frame they want you to look at.

The trick with this kind of framing is to make sure there’s always something at the top of the frame to justify the extra space… or, alternately, make sure there’s nothing there. These kinds of images can feel sloppy if the top of the frame cuts off something at the top of frame for no particular reason.

I wrote an article about this that you can find here, but the short version is that you have to think like a painter. A painting hangs in a frame, against a white wall, along with lots of other paintings. Your goal as a painter is to keep the viewer focused on your painting for as long as possible. The key is to make sure that the viewers eye travels around within the painting but doesn’t leave it, because if it leaves then they’ll move on to the next painting. The picture frame isn’t enough: the picture elements themselves must accomplish this task.

Often I will sweep my eyes around a shot in a circle and see if there’s a part of the frame that lets my eye “escape.” If so, I’ll try to put something there—a line, a piece of architecture, a grad, a cloud, the top of a door frame—that will prevent the eye from escaping.

Here’s an example from one of my favorite landscape painters, Alfred Bierstadt:

If you sweep your eyes around this frame, they’ll probably start at the top (because it’s the brightest part of the frame, and that attracts attention), follow that dark cloud on the right down and across into the trees, down the trees to the ground and across the bottom of the frame, past the deer and through the center of the painting, along the line of white water to the cliffs, and up the cliffs to that dark diagonal cloud that brings you back to the top of the painting. There’s always something at the edges to keep your eyes moving within the frame.

I very much enjoy seeing multiple pieces of action happening within the frame, and wide screen is great for that:

I’d watch this series for its use of framing and space around characters. Also, as compositions take place across both space and time, watch how the different compositions cut together. Some cut seamlessly, but others force your eye to jump around a bit, which is a great way to increase tension in a scene or show the emotional distance between characters.

This trailer gives you an idea of how powerful composition can be across an edit. Also, keep an eye on elements at the top of frame that justify excess headroom. Not every shot has something obvious performing this task, but most do.

I don’t know where to watch this in the U.S. right now. The series originally aired on UK Channel 4, and the episodes were on Youtube for a while. Here’s hoping one of the big streaming services picks this up. There are two series.

Art Adams Director of Photography

The post Three beautiful TV shows you probably aren’t watching appeared first on ProVideo Coalition.

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15 Books Billionaire Warren Buffett Recommend Everyone Should Read

This is a captivating “rags to riches” story, as a young boy discovers during the Depression that hard work and sheer perseverance are the keys to living his dreams.

First A Dream is filled with practical, easy-to-understand, no-nonsense business lessons that the entrepreneur can apply to his or her own life — describing the qualities an effective leader must possess, the key methods to inspiring team members, and the development of culture and values that are critical to the success of a small business as well as a multibillion dollar conglomerate.

Clayton’s business Clayton Homes is the largest producer and seller of manufactured housing. In his 2003 shareholder letter he recommended the book saying that it was given as gift from the students at University at Tennessee. Soon after reading the book he was inspired enough to invest in the company.When Warren Buffett started his investing career, he would read 600, 750, or 1,000 pages a day.

Even now, he still spends about 80% of his day reading.

“Look, my job is essentially just corralling more and more and more facts and information, and occasionally seeing whether that leads to some action,” he once said in an interview.

“We don’t read other people’s opinions,” he says. “We want to get the facts, and then think.”

To help you get into the mind of the billionaire investor, we’ve rounded up his book recommendations over 20 years of interviews and shareholder letters

1. 'Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street' by John Brooks

What do the $350 million Ford Motor Company disaster known as the Edsel, the fast and incredible rise of Xerox, and the unbelievable scandals at General Electric and Texas Gulf Sulphur have in common? Each is an example of how an iconic company was defined by a particular moment of fame or notoriety.

These notable and fascinating accounts are as relevant today to understanding the intricacies of corporate life as they were when the events happened.

Stories about Wall Street are infused with drama and adventure and reveal the machinations and volatile nature of the world of finance. John Brooks’s insightful reportage is so full of personality and critical detail that whether he is looking at the astounding market crash of 1962, the collapse of a well-known brokerage firm, or the bold attempt by American bankers to save the British pound, one gets the sense that history really does repeat itself.

In 1991 when asked by Bill Gates which is his favorite book, Warren Buffett send him his personal copy of the “Business Adventures”.

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2qm1Xsd

2. ‘Dream Big’ by Cristiane Correa

“My friend — and now partner — Jorge Paulo and his team are among the best businessmen in the World. He is a fantastic person and his story should be an inspiration to everybody, as it is for me.” — Warren Buffett In just 40 years this Brazilian trio built the biggest empire in the history of Brazilian capitalism and launched themselves onto the world stage in an unprecedented way.The management method they developed, which has been zealously followed by their employees, is based on meritocracy, simplicity and constant cost cutting.Their culture is as efficient as it is merciless and leaves no room for mediocre performance. On the other hand, those who bring in exceptional results have the chance to become company partners and make a fortune.Dream Big presents a detailed behind-the-scenes portrait of the meteoric rise of these three businessmen, from the founding of Banco Garantia in the 1970s to the present day.

Buffett recommended this book in his 2014 annual shareholder meeting. He worked with 3G capital for the purchase of HJ Heinz in 2013. He says the principles with which the firm grew- cost cuttings and meritocracy.

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2rPssLV 

3. 'The Intelligent Investor' by Benjamin Graham

When Buffett was 19 years old, he picked up a copy of legendary Wall Streeter Benjamin Graham's 'Intelligent Investor.'

It was the one of the luckiest moments of his life, he said, since it gave him the intellectual framework for investing.

'To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information,' Buffett said. 'What's needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework. This book precisely and clearly prescribes the proper framework. You must provide the emotional discipline.'

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2o7jgw1 

4. 'Security Analysis' by Benjamin Graham

Another groundbreaking work of Graham's, Buffett said that 'Security Analysis' has given him 'a road map for investing that I have now been following for 57 years.'

The book's core insight: If you do a thorough enough of analysis, you can figure out the value of a company -- and if the market knows the same.

Buffett has said that Graham was the second most influential figure in his life, only after his father.

'Ben was this incredible teacher, I mean he was a natural,' he said.

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2oSYbIW 

5. ‘First a Dream’ by Jim Clayton and Bill Retherford

This is a captivating “rags to riches” story, as a young boy discovers during the Depression that hard work and sheer perseverance are the keys to living his dreams.

First A Dream is filled with practical, easy-to-understand, no-nonsense business lessons that the entrepreneur can apply to his or her own life — describing the qualities an effective leader must possess, the key methods to inspiring team members, and the development of culture and values that are critical to the success of a small business as well as a multibillion dollar conglomerate.

Clayton’s business Clayton Homes is the largest producer and seller of manufactured housing. In his 2003 shareholder letter he recommended the book saying that it was given as gift from the students at University at Tennessee. Soon after reading the book he was inspired enough to invest in the company.

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2sUtBBs

6. 'Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits' by Philip Fisher

While investor Philip Fisher -- who specialised in investing in innovative companies -- didn't shape Buffett in quite the same way as Graham did, he still holds him in the highest regard.

'I am an eager reader of whatever Phil has to say, and I recommend him to you,' Buffett said.

In 'Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits,' Fisher emphasises that fixating on financial statements isn't enough -- you also need to evaluate a company's management.

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2q0PMAZ 

7. ‘The Most Important Thing Illuminated’ by Howard Marks

In May of 2011, Columbia Business School Publishing released Howard Marks’ The Most Important Thing, a book that distilled the wisdom of Marks’ celebrated client memos into a single volume, making his time-tested investing philosophy available to general readers for the first time. The book was greeted with wide acclaim from investors — professional, casual, aspiring, and armchair alike — and became a business bestseller.

Now, Columbia Business School Publishing is proud to announce an innovative digital edition that allows you to read Marks’ words alongside comments, insights and counterpoints from four other renowned investors and investment educators: Christopher Davis, Joel Greenblatt, Paul Johnson and Seth Klarman. See what these investors think of such concepts as “second-level thinking,” the price/value relationship, patient opportunism, and defensive investing. There are also annotations from Howard Marks himself, highlighting some of the themes that run throughout the book, along with a previously unpublished bonus chapter on the importance of reasonable expectations. This edition features a foreword from Bruce Greenwald.

Buffett recommends this book because Marks heavily focuses on his mistakes which the investors can concentrate on to make sure that they dont make it themselves.

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2trLKnw

8. 'Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises' by Tim Geithner

As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then as President Barack Obama’s secretary of the Treasury, Timothy F. Geithner helped the United States navigate the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, from boom to bust to rescue to recovery. In a candid, riveting, and historically illuminating memoir, he takes readers behind the scenes of the crisis, explaining the hard choices and politically unpalatable decisions he made to repair a broken financial system and prevent the collapse of the Main Street economy. This is the inside story of how a small group of policy makers — in a thick fog of uncertainty, with unimaginably high stakes — helped avoid a second depression but lost the American people doing it. Stress Test is also a valuable guide to how governments can better manage financial crises, because this one won’t be the last.

Stress Test reveals a side of Secretary Geithner the public has never seen, starting with his childhood as an American abroad. He recounts his early days as a young Treasury official helping to fight the international financial crises of the 1990s, then describes what he saw, what he did, and what he missed at the New York Fed before the Wall Street boom went bust. He takes readers inside the room as the crisis began, intensified, and burned out of control, discussing the most controversial episodes of his tenures at the New York Fed and the Treasury, including the rescue of Bear Stearns; the harrowing weekend when Lehman Brothers failed; the searing crucible of the AIG rescue as well as the furor over the firm’s lavish bonuses; the battles inside the Obama administration over his widely criticized but ultimately successful plan to end the crisis; and the bracing fight for the most sweeping financial reforms in more than seventy years. Secretary Geithner also describes the aftershocks of the crisis, including the administration’s efforts to address high unemployment, a series of brutal political battles over deficits and debt, and the drama over Europe’s repeated flirtations with the economic abyss.

Buffett says that this book about the financial crisis is a must read for all managers.

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2sSpshO 

9. 'The Essays of Warren Buffett' by Warren Buffett

The year 2015 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Berkshire Hathaway under Warren Buffett’s leadership, a milestone worth commemorating. The tenure sets a record for chief executive not only in duration but in value creation and philosophizing. The fourth edition of The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America celebrates its twentieth anniversary. As the book Buffett autographs most, its popularity and longevity attest to the widespread appetite for this unique compilation of Buffett’s thoughts that is at once comprehensive, non-repetitive, and digestible. New and experienced readers alike will gain an invaluable informal education by perusing this classic arrangement of Warren’s best writings.

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2ovXMtt 

10. ‘Take on the Street’ by Arthur Levitt

In Take on the Street, Arthur Levitt — Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission for eight years under President Clinton — provides the best kind of insider information: the kind that can help honest, small investors protect themselves from the deliberately confusing ways of Wall Street.

At a time when investor confidence in Wall Street and corporate America is at an historic low, when many are seriously questioning whether or not they should continue to invest, Levitt offers the benefits of his own experience, both on Wall Street and as its chief regulator. His straight talk about the ways of stockbrokers (they are salesmen, plain and simple), corporate financial statements (the truth is often hidden), mutual fund managers (remember who they really work for), and other aspects of the business will help to arm everyone with the tools they need to protect — and enhance — their financial future.

In 2002 shareholder letter he talks about how the accounting standards have eroded over the years. He recommends this book as it shows the whole of the Andersen Accounting’s downfall in manner which will remind every business to uphold valuable principles.

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2tMyPMq

11. 'Jack: Straight From The Gut' by Jack Welch

As CEO of General Electric for the past twenty years, he has built its market cap by more than $450 billion and established himself as the most admired business leader in the world. His championing of initiatives like Six Sigma quality, globalization, and e-business have helped define the modern corporation. At the same time, he’s a gutsy boss who has forged a unique philosophy and an operating system that relies on a “boundaryless” sharing of ideas, an intense focus on people, and an informal, give-and-take style that makes bureaucracy the enemy. In anecdotal detail and with self-effacing humor, Jack Welch gives us the people (most notably his Irish mother) who shaped his life and the big hits and the big misses that characterized his career. Starting at GE in 1960 as an engineer earning $10,500, Jack learned the need for “getting out of the pile” when his first raise was the same as everyone else’s. He stayed out of the corporate bureaucracy while running a $2 billion collection of GE businesses-in a sweater and blue jeans-out of a Hilton in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. After avoiding GE’s Fairfield, Connecticut, headquarters for years, Jack was eventually summoned by then Chairman Reg Jones, who was planning his succession. There ensued one of the most painful parts of his career-Jack’s dark-horse struggle, filled with political tension, to make it to the CEO’s chair. A hug from Reg confirmed Jack was the new boss-and started the GE transformation. Welch walks us through the “Neutron Jack” years, when GE’s employment rolls fell by more than 100,000 as part of a strategy to “fix, sell, or close” each business…and how he used the purchase of RCA to provide a foundation for the company’s future earnings. There were mistakes, too-and Jack confronts them openly.

In his 2001 shareholder letter, he had endorsed the book saying

“Welch has had such an impact on modern business that a tour of his personal history offers all managers valuable lessons.”

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2ovRPwn

12. 'The Outsiders' by William Thorndike, Jr.

“It is impossible to produce superior performance unless you do something different.” John Templeton.

What makes a successful CEO? Most people call to mind a familiar definition: a seasoned manager with deep industry expertise. Others might point to the qualities of today’s so-called celebrity CEOs charisma, virtuoso communication skills, and a confident management style. But what really matters when you run an organization? What is the hallmark of exceptional CEO performance? Quite simply, it is the returns for the shareholders of that company over the long term.

In this refreshing, counterintuitive audiobook, author Will Thorndike brings to bear the analytical wisdom of a successful career in investing, closely evaluating the performance of companies and their leaders. You will meet eight individualistic CEOs whose firms’ average returns outperformed the S&P 500 by a factor of twenty in other words, an investment of $10,000 with each of these CEOs, on average, would have been worth over $1.5 million twenty-five years later. You may not know all their names, but you will recognize their companies: General Cinema, Ralston Purina, The Washington Post Company, Berkshire Hathaway, General Dynamics, Capital Cities Broadcasting, TCI, and Teledyne.

In “The Outsiders,” you’ll learn the traits and methods striking for their consistency and relentless rationality that helped these unique leaders achieve such exceptional performance. Humble, unassuming, and often frugal, these “outsiders” shunned Wall Street and the press, and shied away from the hottest new management trends. Instead, they shared specific traits that put them and the companies they led on winning trajectories: a laser-sharp focus on per share value as opposed to earnings or sales growth; an exceptional talent for allocating capital and human resources; and the belief that cash flow, not reported earnings, determines a company’s long-term value. Drawing on years of research and experience, Thorndike tells eye-opening stories, extracting lessons and revealing a compelling alternative model for anyone interested in leading a company or investing in one and reaping extraordinary returns.”

In his 2012 shareholder letter he praises the book about CEO’s who excelled with their capital allocations.

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2trVI8t 

13. ‘Limping on Water’ by Phil Beuth and K.C. Schulberg

Phil Beuth spent his entire broadcasting career with one company. As the first employee of a fledgling media startup in 1955, Phil worked his way up over a 40-year span, as Capital Cities grew to become one of America’s most influential and successful media companies. Limping on Water is a Dickensian rags-to-riches tale of a disadvantaged boy, born with cerebral palsy who, through luck, pluck, strength of character, skill, persistence and loyalty, rose to become a top executive at one of America’s most respected and successful media companies, Capital Cities Communications; “The minnow that swallowed the whale.” Phil was born in a blue-collar neighborhood of Staten Island to parents of English and German stock in 1932. To state that his origins were humble is like saying the Yankees know a thing or two about baseball. The young struggling family was crushed by the tragic death of Phil’s father when Phil was just four, causing his mother to park her young, physically impaired son with her step-father, an embittered, war-wounded veteran (of the Spanish-American War!), who ran a ramshackle “Sanford and Son” junk business out of his backyard. What propelled this boy to raise himself by his orthopedic bootstraps to become a respected and honored leader in his field, a member of two Broadcasting Halls of Fame, head of Good Morning America and a Division President of ABC?

In his 2015 shareholder letter, Warren Buffett recommends for being such inspiration. He talks about the journey of Phil from being someone suffering from cerebral palsy to being one of the top executives in media. He says through the book Phil gives everyone a ringside seat to his story.

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2trNVI1

14. 'The Clash of the Cultures' by John Bogle

Over the course of his sixty-year career in the mutual fund industry, Vanguard Group founder John C. Bogle has witnessed a massive shift in the culture of the financial sector. The prudent, value-adding culture of long-term investment has been crowded out by an aggressive, value-destroying culture of short-term speculation. Mr. Bogle has not been merely an eye-witness to these changes, but one of the financial sector’s most active participants. In The Clash of the Cultures, he urges a return to the common sense principles of long-term investing.

Provocative and refreshingly candid, this book discusses Mr. Bogle’s views on the changing culture in the mutual fund industry, how speculation has invaded our national retirement system, the failure of our institutional money managers to effectively participate in corporate governance, and the need for a federal standard of fiduciary duty.

Mr. Bogle recounts the history of the index mutual fund, how he created it, and how exchange-traded index funds have altered its original concept of long-term investing. He also presents a first-hand history of Wellington Fund, a real-world case study on the success of investment and the failure of speculation. The book concludes with ten simple rules that will help investors meet their financial goals. Here, he presents a common sense strategy that “may not be the best strategy ever devised. But the number of strategies that are worse is infinite.”

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2sUOuMX

15. ‘Essays in Persuasion’ by John Maynard Keynes

Essays In Persuasion written by legendary author John Maynard Keynes is widely considered to be one of the top 100 greatest books of all time. This great classic will surely attract a whole new generation of readers. For many, Essays In Persuasion is required reading for various courses and curriculums. And for others who simply enjoy reading timeless piees of classic literature, this gem by John Maynard Keynes is highly recommended.

Buffett says that reading about Keynes will make any reader smarter about securities and the markets. He says even after a century of his writings, they are still relevant in today’s markets.

Order From Amazon  ==>>> http://amzn.to/2rPCY5G

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Podcast: Tiago Forte on Productivity, Provocation, and Layering Knowledge

When it comes to productivity, there are plenty of people who want you to do things their way. Tiago Forte, a productivity consultant based in San Francisco, wants to help you think for yourself. “I try to provoke people,” he says. “I try to find what is becoming the common wisdom that ‘everyone’ knows, and just attack it. Because that gets people thinking.”

In Part 1 of our podcast interview with Tiago, we talked about chaos in the modern workplace, the virtues of small-batch productivity vs. deep work, and the system Tiago has devised to organize his thinking in Evernote. For Part 2, we take a deeper look at how he structures his notes and get a peek into “Building a Second Brain,” Tiago’s five-week boot camp for personal knowledge management.

Taking Note: Episode 6

Length: 20 minutes iTunes | SoundCloud | Overcast | MP3 | RSS

  Selected highlights of our conversation are transcribed below. Please note that this episode builds on concepts Tiago introduced in Episode 5, such as the “PARA” organizing system (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives) and Tiago’s argument for breaking down work projects into “intermediate packets.” You may want to check out that episode before diving into this one.

You wrote a guest blog post for us awhile back, a very lengthy one, and one that generated a lot of discussion. In it, you argued pretty forcefully against something that is a key factor in many people’s organization of Evernote, and that is tagging. If I remember correctly, you argued that it was putting a lot of effort where it wasn’t delivering value. Could you expand on that?

I try to provoke people. I try to find what is becoming the common wisdom that “everyone” knows, and just attack it because it just gets people thinking. Like the comments on that post and the various messages I received through social media, in many cases people counter-arguing against me and saying, “No, you’re wrong for this reason, this reason, this reason.” That, right there, was some of the best thinking I’ve ever seen on this stuff. They were provoked into defending their viewpoint.

I may have kind of been a bit melodramatic on purpose. It’s not that I never use tags or think tags are completely worthless. It’s just a pattern I see with people. Working with people one on one is always so illuminating because they get so caught up in their tagging system. It becomes this game of perfectionism that’s never quite ready.

It’s the same thing with like evaluating which program is correct, right? I actually see people like, “Oh, yeah, I have all these book notes on paper. I want to wait until I have my tagging system correct to get these into my database.” Meanwhile, they’re stuck in — in some cases, literally — a cardboard box in your closet. All of that knowledge is going stale, or at least not being used, because you don’t have the “perfect system.”

Yeah, I’ve definitely heard cases of that as well. Because they want to get that tagging system just right, and then apply all the tags to everything. And they’ve got hundreds and hundreds of tags. And I wonder, are you spending more time tagging than you’re spending using the information?

I have a good antidote to that. Temporary tags. I think where the pressure comes from, that pressure to have everything perfect, is the “long-term” thing. The idea that this is going to be around forever, so it needs to last years and years.

So what I do is I have project-specific tags. For a given project, I use tags to track my progress to that deliverable or that intermediate packet. And then once in a while, usually when I do my monthly review for GTD, I delete all my tags. So every single month I have a blank slate, which sounds crazy because you think all that work is going to waste. But I got what I wanted, which was the deliverable, the project outcome.

And the interesting thing is it allows me to bring my creativity to it. Some months I’ll do tagging based on emotions. The next month, the slate is clean, I’ll do tagging based on deliverables. Next month, I’ll do tagging based on time slots. And I’ve just discovered so many little things that I wouldn’t have been able to discover just thinking about it abstractly, but actually trying it. And there’s never any pressure because I know, at most, a month from now it’s all going to go away.

What about your notes themselves? We all have different ways of taking notes, especially when we have a tool like Evernote to work with. Is there a particular style that your notes tend to have?

A very particular one. So, there are the three pillars of the course that I teach: capture, organize, and retrieve. The middle one, organize, is the PARA system. The first one, capture, is something I call “progressive summarization.” This is a method I’ve developed over a number of years that is essentially designing notes; really putting a lot of thought into the design of individual notes.

But the way I do this is not maybe what you typically think of design… I’ll take notes on a source, whether it’s a conversation, an article, a book, a podcast, audiobook, whatever. And then I just put it in my system. Just the raw notes. The next time I see that, the next time I serendipitously come across it — or it might be that I’m looking for a project or looking for a resource that I want to use this note for — I summarize it.

The first layer, as I call it, is bolding. I go though, and I’m already reading the source anyway, I bold the best parts. The next time I see it, which could be months later, in some cases a year or two later, I do the next layer: I highlight in yellow only the best bolded parts.[…]

There’s an 80/20 thing, where a tiny minority of your notes has the great majority of value. So it makes sense to concentrate your design attention on that small minority that’s actually very insightful, rather than spread your attention equally across all your notes, which is what I see with tagging. You may spend a minute tagging a note that has very little value, which doesn’t seem like a lot but that’s one minute too much for me.

a tiny minority of your notes has the great majority of value. So it makes sense to concentrate your design attention on that small minority.

You’ve talked a bit about the boot camp/workshop called “Building a Second Brain.” I believe you’ve run that twice now. So what are you learning from running that pretty intensive program, and are you going to keep it going?

I’m definitely keeping it going. It’s been, honestly, the most rewarding project I’ve ever worked on, and for just the reason you said. I learn, without a doubt, more than anyone actually taking the course. In each group, we’ve had between 50 and 55 people. And reading their bios, because I do some Linkedin stalking, their bios are incredible. They’re engineers, they’re Ph.D.s, doctors, professors, startup CEOs. Incredible people that have spent, in many cases, just as long as I have thinking about personal knowledge management. So they come with their own insights, perhaps not quite as structured as the way that I’m presenting it, but I’m on the sessions presenting, and on the side, taking notes from what everyone else is saying. It’s been a great experience.

What do you go through in the workshop? Did you say it was five weeks? How do you break that down?

It’s really those three pillars. So we start with organization, because people usually have this mass of messy notes they’re not too happy with. And so to kind of give them the initial confidence to really dive in, we start with PARA. So after the first week, they have every single digital file in their life, actually, because PARA is not only Evernote, it goes across cloud storage, your file system, your task manager… everything. So it’s really a universal digital organizing system. That’s the first part of the course.

The we go to progressive summarization and cover capture, and really build the skill — and it is a skill — to capture not just the original note, but the insights and the most important ideas within that note.

And then we end the course with retrieval, which is a method called “just in time project management,” which is sort of related to the intermediate packet thing. It’s always working towards the next intermediate packet in these short sprints. And building systems and support routines and all this so that you can do that as quickly and with as much acceleration as possible.

And you mentioned that you get some really interesting people who are taking these classes, because I presume a class like that is going to appeal to a certain type of person. Have any of the people that you have taught in this course changed the way you think about some of these issues?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, one thing was this technique of layering and summarizing, one of the students was a Finnish entrepreneur in the music business. And he got that idea and said, “Okay, I get it, but I’m going to completely change it and apply it to music.” I thought it was a textual analysis method. He showed me that it’s actually about the structure of any sort of information.

Layer Zero for him is just all of his notes on random songs and concertos, sources and inspiration, sounds, instruments, all these things. Layer 1 is anything that he’s put into a piece of music. Layer 2 is anything that he’s performed for someone else. Layer 3 is anything that he’s recorded.

It’s kind of like a topology of your knowledge that has peaks. The peaks are where your thinking has gone the furthest, whereas the valleys are where the thinking is still kind of raw and unfiltered. So that kind of blew my mind, and I’m still trying to work out the implications of what does it mean to apply this to images, to photographs, to art, to sports and the movement of the body? It’s a pretty fundamental principle that you want to surface the key components of any body of knowledge.

And that ties into some of the things you’ve mentioned throughout this interview. You talked about the art of organizing. You talked about how on a core level we’re all designers. And you’ve talked about the importance of creativity. How can we foster creativity within a productivity system?

Great question. I love that because there’s this implicit assumption that they’re opposites. I get this all the time, actually. People come up to me, sometimes, and their initial entry will be, “I don’t like productivity because it’s about being efficient, and like a machine, and just sticking to the plan.” And I just go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s your definition of productivity?” And they tell me something like, “Oh, what machines do, basically.” And then I say, “Can I tell you my definition?” And my definition is creating as much value in the world as efficiently and as effectively as possible. And they go, “Oh, well, I can buy that.”

My definition of productivity is creating as much value in the world as efficiently and as effectively as possible.

No. And that’s where creativity comes in. It takes immense creativity to use processes in that way. To not be a slave to the process, to not just obey the process, but to think, “This part isn’t working,” or to have the courage to say, “Look, this process we’ve always followed does not serve our purposes. It’s no longer in line with our values. Let’s change it.”

That’s one of the insights from the Toyota Production System, is when you give workers the freedom to point things out — to pull the cord, so to speak — they come up with an incredible number of ideas. They think of things that management would never think about in a million years. Small things, big things, human things, software things, hardware things.

And it’s almost like having the foundation or the structure — we talked about structure before — already in place, just like a scaffolding gives you these little pockets where creativity can happen. Because the thing with creativity is, creativity cannot happen without constraints. This is a really important point. The same with design. Design cannot happen without constraints. If you tell me “just design something” … Oh, what should I design? What are the user needs? What is the purpose it serves? What are the constraints? And you give me none? I literally cannot design anything useful.

Another term that gets used a lot and has an inherent assumption of a dichotomy is “work-life balance.” We all say we want it, at the same time work and life seem to be blending together. And I mean, that’s nothing new … farmers, artisans, soldiers have always had a blended work and life experience, but it’s new to office workers. Is this a trend we should be fighting or embracing?

My initial reaction is fighting, going along the “provoking people” thing. And you know, my take on that is just … I just don’t get it. I don’t think about work-life balance. I don’t think about work-life blending or whatever the new term is.

I think that whole way of thinking is an artifact of a previous time. Just having those two things that need to be balanced or blended or whatever it is, assumes there’s a division, there’s a dichotomy. And I see the consequences of that are many.

One thing I notice is, people not giving much credit to themselves for side projects. Like a programmer works on an open source project, and they think, “Oh, I’m not getting paid, so it doesn’t fall in the ‘work’ category.” Therefore, they’ll be hesitant to put it on their resume. They won’t really use it as evidence that they continue to learn and improve. And I go, “Oh my gosh, that is one of your key assets. The fact that you do this stuff for fun, it’s a part of you and what you care about and what matters to you, not just something you do for money? That should be front and center in your resume or your portfolio.”

You can hear the complete interview and subscribe to future episodes of “Taking Note” at iTunes, SoundCloud, or Overcast

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[frozenartscapes]

My Thoughts on “Sing”

There’s something I couldn’t put my finger on for the longest time, almost since I first saw a trailer for the movie Sing, and now that I’ve been able to watch some non-bootlegged clips on youtube of the movie - enough to get the just of what it actually is about - I think I’ve figured it out.

See, my problem with it before was that is was very obviously trying to ride Disney’s coattails by having a similar premise as Zootopia. Except...it wasn’t Zootopia by any means. It was no secret that Disney had that movie in the works for a while, and its wiki page and IMDb page were both vague enough that it’s entirely plausible someone at Illumination saw that and went off a similar idea: animals living like people in the modern world. And it drove me crazy because, at the time of seeing the first trailer, it didn’t even look like they were trying to make it look good. The character designs were awkward and at times weird to look at. Because of the song choices a lot of the actual sound syncing seemed off (think of that clip of that sheep singing “Kiss from a Rose” - it looks like the sheep was uncomfortably being forced to sing the song by some higher power). It looked like they were trying to rely solely on the fact that the characters were singing popular songs while plodding through one of the most overused story clichés of all time: the singing competition.

And, honestly, yeah, that’s what the movie still is. But that’s not the issue I have with it, and anyone who actually is a fan of the movie feel free to comment with your own opinion, but my question is:

Why did they have to do this movie with animals?

Having seen a good chunk of the movie now through clips, I’ve yet to see a definitive reason for why the world had to be set in one where all the humans were replaced by anthropomorphic animals. Aside from the odd joke or slight plot convenience, there isn’t a viable reason. And this is one of those things where I wouldn’t care so much if it wasn’t painfully obvious that it was in response to another more successful company’s movie.

And before the arguments come flying in, unlike Sing, Zootopia had to be set in a world of animals. First off, it’s called Zootopia, automatically giving some kind of sign that it was going to be about animals. But what’s more is that the world of Zootopia was creative and unique - it wasn’t our world but something that exists on its own. And the writers and animators did a fantastic job creating a world that cleverly incorporates animals from all corners of the world and all shapes and sizes and accounts for just about every question you might have about the world. From different sized doors on the commuter trains to districts catered to the specific biomes (and even sizes) of different types of animals, the makers of Zootopia created a world where it seemed like everything belonged. And, what’s more, is that they utilized the fact that their characters were animals to highlight a very human issue. The characters didn’t feel like they were human because they acted like humans, but rather because they had the emotions and the experiences of humans.

With Sing, it’s LA. That’s it. There’s been no attempt to make the world any more different than today’s. And in this case it works against the film because it’s leaving me wondering countless questions about stupid things like “How is that mouse driving that full-sized car?” or “So how do aquatic animals get around? Do they have to pay other animals to push their little fish tanks everywhere?”. This is distracting, plain and simple.

And ok, ignoring for a minute the fact that none of the songs are original songs and have a very Glee-like vibe to them, I will say this: I like the characters. And I do like the singing. They’ve got a very talented voice cast in Sing, and each of the characters have their own unique personalities that are entertaining to watch. But this comes back to my original question: why are they animals? To me, Sing would have been a much better movie had the creators chosen to not make the characters animals. First off, as overdone as the singing competition plot line is, I can’t think of many things outside of tv shows were its been done as an animated movie. Illumination is a good animation studio. They are capable of making unique character designs. Think of how much more interesting that movie might have been with a wide variety of human characters - from all sizes and ethnicities.

Sing had nothing new about it. The animation was the same stock animation we’ve seen from non-Disney/Dreamworks studios for a while now. The music was all songs from about three or more years ago. The story has been done a million times. And even the concept of anthropomorphic animals living with cellphones had already been done. Instead of trying to ride off Disney’s success they should have instead tried to produce something at least a little different. Would it really have been that much better? No, probably not by much. But the distracting questions about how the world worked would at least be gone. The point of the singing competition story is for marginalized people to see characters and find some kind of connection with themselves to those marginalized characters. That’s how Glee got as popular as it did. But it’s a lot harder to do when your characters who people are supposed to be identifying with aren’t people at all - but instead a shy elephant, or a housewife pig, or a British Danny Zuko wannabe gorilla, or a punk rock porcupine. Imagine instead a shy teenaged black girl, a working mother running a foster home, a British Danny Zuko wannabe who isn’t an awkwardly drawn gorilla, or a punk rock teenage girl coming into her own. All of these characters are written really well, but they’d be even more relatable if you weren’t getting distracted by the way the fur has texture but not fur texture.

For a story to work unnecessary things need to be cut out from it. And in Sing’s case, that would be the fact that the characters are animals. Unless there is an absolute, completely justifiable reason - and that doesn’t include: “we can’t have human women twerking to Anaconda in a kids movie so that’s why they’re bunnies instead” then that whole concept shouldn’t have been in the movie. Sing still needs major reworking but there are a few elements that would work if more effort was put into it. But I am seriously getting sick of people touting it as an incredible and motivational movie when I’m pretty sure there were episodes of Glee that had more emotional drive. And at least those were more relatable and weren’t filled with distracting questions like “How are those porcupines wearing shirts with all those quills sticking out of their backs?” or “Why do the pigs’ noses not have nostrils, but instead little round divots? How do they smell things?”

[the-flyways]

Love Cast Episode 005 Nate Miller

Show Notes by Host Leah Garza

January 3, 2017

I am so excited to share this week’s episode!

I wanted the LoveCast to feature the extraordinary work of everyday people, starting with people I know and in this episode, I am doing just that. This week I talk to Nate Miller.

Nate is a political and labor organizer from San Francisco. He is also a friend that I have known for over a decade. I am lucky to have friends who are amazing people, and Nate is one of them. He is many things, and one of them is being a conscious person of privilege. You will hear in the episode that he chooses to leverage his privilege in service of others. I love and respect that about him.

In this conversation we examine privilege and how to check it and leverage it as we work for social justice. This is a really critical and timely topic for this coming year- how we deal with our privilege as we find ourselves increasingly drawn to help the causes of those people without privilege.

Nate and I talk about two really illuminating points.

    1.  People with privilege can utilize their privilege by using the safety that society has bestowed upon them to hold a space for those struggling to lead their own struggle in unsafe situations. Nate’s personal work in Colombia was not to lead union talks, but to accompany union leaders to meetings. He used his own socially ascribed safety as collateral to provide safety for Colombian union leaders who were regularly being assassinated.

THIS is leveraging privilege, not using it to create an imperial domain over another group’s struggles.  I often think about this for myself and I encourage you to think about your identity, especially if you are white, and what privileges are included in that. And then think about how can you use these things to help others.   

    2. The second critical point that Nate brings up is that part of privilege is not having to experience certain things that others regularly experience, and that we must not judge the reaction or course of action that the oppressed person or group takes to respond to oppression. What may look like an overreaction to you, might be the only response that makes sense for their self-preservation.

This brings me back to a critical discussion I had early in my teaching career about violence. When I began teaching in a very gang-active school, I wanted to teach, believe, and live by a creed of non-violence. My director and I debated about how believing in non-violence as the only way to be is a moral choice, and much easier said than done by someone who is not checked by other gangs just by walking down the street. It is easy for me, a person who does not live around and did not grow up with community violence, to make the judgment that violence is wrong. But if I could put myself in the shoes of my students, some of whom have been trafficked, jumped into gangs, forced to leave school to work, sent to jail, forced to sell drugs on the streets, raped and molested constantly at home, relentlessly bullied by both family members and schoolmates and law enforcement, all without their consent, and if using violence against their oppressor was the only choice they had, the only power they had, the only skills they had, could I judge their decisions?

The answer? No. I must honor them as equal human beings to me, and that like me, they would draw on the skills, context, and tools that they have to preserve their lives.

These two topics in privilege are critical keys to successfully examining and utilizing privilege. I invite you to examine your own privilege as it relates to using your physical safety to hold a safe space for others leading their own struggle, and being mindful of judging other people’s responses to oppression.

Truly, there is no such thing as an overreaction. Everyone will react as much or as little as is appropriate for them. Reactions are loaded with society’s push to normalize everyone. First, do this examination in the privacy of your mind, then discuss it at large with a group of people you trust. Build it out, so when you are bothered by social injustices put upon others, and you feel like you must take a side, you will not allow the safety or judgment of your privilege to keep you quiet.

Setting intentions for 2017

In the introduction of this episode, I talk about setting intentions for this year. It feels imperative to do this, because each of us will be pulled and pushed out of our comfortable places this year, in ways we never thought would happen.

Let’s prepare ourselves to let go of what no longer makes sense and to open up to new ways of being. And let’s make this fun! Below are some ideas you can bring to life to get you thinking about your vision for yourself in 2017.

Regardless of which option you do, try to answer these two questions in your project:

What do I want to do? Who do I want to be?

1.     Create a vision board. What is your vision for yourself in 2017? Use any art supplies, magazine, collage supplies, anything to create visual symbols of how you want to be and what you want to do in 2017. Invest time in this. You are making a valentine and altar to your future self. Give yourself the gift of time to make it as beautiful as you are.

2.     Write a letter to yourself in which you identify how you want to be and what you want to do. Read it at least once a month in 2017.

3.     Make a list of your being and doing goals. Make an action plan to make each thing happen on the list. Check in on it at least once a month.

4.     Record yourself describing your being and doing intentions on your phone or computer. Listen to it in the car or on the way to work every other week or once a month. Listen to how wonderful your voice is and how others love you just because of it.

Non-Negotiables for this Project

·      This is private. You can share if you want to, but this is a private conversation with your higher self, your future self, your inner child, your mind, your heart and your body. Respect your privacy.

·      Because it’s private, be radically authentic with yourself. Take this privacy as a safe space to be 100% honest about who you are and what you want. You are a precious resource from the universe and your true self, flaws and all, are what make you invaluable to this planet.

·      Check in on this project. Check the progress. Check for relevance. Check back to see how you change over time.

·      There is no failure. Only learning. If your vision does not come to fruition, you have not failed, but been given other sacred opportunities, paths, or challenges to highlight your resilience.

·      See yourself in the context of social justice. How can you affect social justice in 2017.

I am holding you all with love and pure potential and optimism for an incredible year!