#elysian fields challenge

[elysianfieldsarchive]

Elysian Fields Anniversary Event Details!!!

It's our birthday!

Elysian Fields Spuffy Fanwork Archive is turning eighteen, and so, the inspiration for the theme comes from Buffy’s own harrowing eighteenth birthday, when she is betrayed by Giles and the Council alike. 

That said, your fic/art DOES NOT have to be based around that same episode. So long as it’s a Spuffy work with betrayal as a theme, you’re good. This does not mean it specifically has to be Buffy or Spike who is the subject or perpetrator of the betrayal! You could go for a spin on canon with Amy betraying Willow, Willow betraying Tara, or something completely AU like Xander being betrayed by the cheese guy from Restless. Your use of the theme can be as small or as large as you want. So long as it's obvious enough for the readers to go "Oh, I see what you did there!" then your fic qualifies for this challenge. Whichever path you choose to take, we'd love to see what you come up with.

How and when do I post my story?

Starting as soon as the clock ticks over into October 1st (site time, which is Eastern US time—it's listed under the ShoutBox), you'll see a checkbox on the page where you add a new story. It’ll look like so:

Reminder: Your work DOES NOT need to be complete prior to posting. In fact, it doesn't even need to be completed during the event month. So, any creators stressing about the timeline, you can relax because you have the whole month to BEGIN posting your work.

Also: the betrayal does not have to happen in the first chapter, or any chapters that are posted during October. The only requirement is that betrayal is featured in your work at some point.

How do I find Challenge Stories?

Want to keep up with the fun? All betrayal works will have a little knife icon in the byline, as seen in the example below:

And you can find all of the betrayal works as they are added by visiting the Event Page.

What should my work include?

So long as your work features Spuffy, a betrayal, and doesn’t break any of EF’s rules or Terms of Service, you’re golden. You could make art, write a comic, edit a fan-vid, or write an epic novel. The world is your oyster poodle! 

Written works must be at least 100 words long, but there is no word count limit for artwork-only pieces or narrative artwork (i.e. works that consist of both words and pictures, such as a comic).

Please remember that EF has a strict no-AI policy.

What happens if I don’t post my work within the time window?

If you don’t post the first installment of your work during October (per site time), it can’t and won’t be considered part of the October event, sorry.

Do I need to post the entire work before the end of October?

Again, no. You just need to have posted at least one chapter before site time ticks over to November (per site time).

What about beta readers and sensitivity readers?

We love beta and sensitivity readers and have a shiny Beta award they can win! Use EF’s credit system to mark their contribution or else they won’t get the award—and they deserve all the accolades for their hard work!

Can I work with someone else on my event response?

Sure! The more the merrier! Whether it’s writers working as coauthors, artists creating a collaborative work together, or an artist and a writer teaming up as a duo (or a moresome!) as deadly as Spuffy, we welcome collaborations for this event.

How do I get the art award?

You can get the art award by creating a banner (for yourself or someone else) or by posting a work that fits within our Artwork or Narrative Artwork categories. We’ve seen images, manips, gifs, videos, fan vids, comics, playlists, and more get posted, and can’t wait to see what y’all will come up with next!

If someone has created art for your work, make sure you credit them using EF’s credit system—otherwise we won’t know to give them an award! And DON’T FORGET to credit yourself as artist if you created your own banner or other artwork.

Are there rules for banner creation?

Banners should be no more than 920x300 pixels and include a variation of the text ‘Designed/Created/Written for the Elysian Fields Betrayal Event’ somewhere on them. Example:

Now that I have a gorgeous banner/other artwork, how do I add it to my work?

To add the banner to your story, you can upload the banner to your account in “Your Images” under “Account Info.” Banner images must be a gif, jpg, jpeg, or png file type, and under 1 MB in file size. Banners should be no more than 920x300 pixels. Images posted within chapters can be up to 1500x1500 px. (Note: make sure you add images to the chapter itself; any images in the Chapter Notes or End Notes won’t be added to ePubs when people download them!) You can also host your banner on an image-sharing site or your own site, especially if the file size is too big for us to host on our site.

You then enter the URL from Elysian Fields or the image sharing site in the Banner URL field on the Add Story page, or click the Insert/Edit Image icon in the toolbar for the Story Text box.

NOTE: The URL you add MUST be end in the image file extension (.gif, .jpg, .jpeg, or .png) or else the URL will not be saved. Make sure there are no spaces after the final character in the file extension. If you are having issues with a specific image sharing site, please reach out to us via email or try asking for help in our Discord server.

You said we could add videos? How do I do that?

You will need to get the embed link from YouTube, Vimeo, or another site (which can be a little tricky on mobile, but not impossible—google for directions if you can’t do this on desktop) and insert the html into the Source Code. You can access this by clicking the Source Code button in the toolbar. Reach out via email or Discord if you’re having any issues with embedding videos.

Is there an event skin?

Yes. The October event skin is now live if you want to make it your default. Scroll down to the skins on the main page or in the footer and select the one labeled “betrayal” to switch. If you want to keep it, make sure you change the selection on your preferences page. (Otherwise it will change back to your saved skin the next time you access the site.)

And if you haven't seen it yet, the skin looks like this:

The banner was made by our very own @isevery0nehereverystoned.

Will you be featuring regular works while the event is going on?

Instead of our normal mod-selected featured works, we will be highlighting fanworks posted in past years in honor of our October anniversary. Starting on the first of the month, each day will highlight a random assortment of works posted during the matching year of the archive (for example, on October 1st, we will feature works from 2006, our first year; on October 2nd, we will feature works from 2007, our second year; and so on). On day eighteen, we will change to feature fics that are part of this event.

The October Event challenges authors and artists. What about the readers? Won’t you think of the readers?

Obviously, readers deserve all the love. If you write at least 18 comments in October that contain at least 18 words (for any works here on EF, not just the challenge ones), you'll meet the requirements of the commenter challenge and earn a Commenter award! There will be a link to the comment challenge leaderboard on the homepage under the Members of the Month along with the All Star Commenter list.

Show me the awards!

This event’s shinies have also been lovingly made by HappyWhenItRains. Lookit!

I’m So Excited!

We are too!

Do we really have to include poodles in our works?

No. Probably.

Anything else?

If there are any additional questions, please comment on this post or email us at elysianfieldsarchive@gmail.com. And get ready for some amazing new stories!

[whencyclopedia]

Charon

Charon is a figure from Greek mythology where he is the boatman who ferries the souls of the dead across the waters of Hades to the judgement which will determine their final resting place. The Greeks believed the dead needed a coin to pay Charon for his service and so one was placed in the mouth of the deceased.

Charon was a popular subject on 5th-4th century BCE Greek pottery scenes, especially the lekythoi used to store fine oils and perfumes which were commonly buried with the dead. Charu was a similar figure in Etruscan mythology, although there he often carries a hammer. Charon continued to feature in Roman mythology and he enjoyed a revival with other classical ideas during the Renaissance (1400-1600). The largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto is named after Charon.

The Boatman of Hades

The Greek Charon as the boatman of the dead is an idea which may well have been influenced by Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythology, where there, too, the Underworld contains rivers which hinder the progress of the soul. In Greek mythology, Charon is the son of Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night). His name may have originally meant ‘fierce brightness’.

Charon’s job was to transport the shades or souls of the dead across either a river - most typically named as the Acheron and, in later sources, the poisonous Styx - or a lake, often called Acherousia. The destination was Hades, which was the Greek underworld (and also the name of the god who ruled there), or, more precisely, the inner part of that realm. Often accompanying Charon is the messenger god Hermes, who was thought to act as a guide to the dead in Hades. Often Hermes escorts the soul to Charon, who then takes them deeper into the underworld for judgement.

Hades is described in Greek literature as a cold, dark, damp, and mirthless place, which it is everyone’s fate to end up, that is until post-5th century BCE writers created an alternative destination for good souls. Accordingly, from Hades, good souls went to the Elysian Fields and forgot all their troubles and bad souls went down to Tartarus in the deepest depths of Hades. Those souls who had wronged the gods fared even worse and were given wicked and eternal punishments like Sisyphus who had to endlessly roll a boulder up a slope.

In many Greek accounts, Charon assists heroes who descend into Hades on various challenges, such as Odysseus, Orpheus, and Psyche. Hercules engaged Charon’s services when, for his twelfth and most difficult labour, he was required to fetch the terrible three-headed dog Cerberus (aka Kerberos). This terrible hound made sure nobody ever left Hades or crossed the waters without either Charon or Hermes as their guide. Charon was punished by Hades for allowing the living Hercules into the realm of the dead. The boatman was shackled for one year, which must have left quite a queue of expectant souls waiting on the shores of Acheron.

In order to ensure Charon did actually bother to take one to Hades in his boat, Greeks buried the dead with a small coin in the mouth as it was thought this money could then be useful to pay the boatman. The coin was typically an obol and was placed under the tongue. Those souls without the coin were obliged to wait on the shores for 100 years before Charon would condescend to take them across for free. A proper burial was also considered essential to allow the soul to reach Charon’s boat. In later periods, the money tradition changed to placing a coin over each eye of the deceased before burial.

Continue reading...

[elysianholly]

Masquerade (WIP)

Thought I'd share a bit of my upcoming Elysian Fields April Challenge fic. This is plotted at 16 chapters, and 5 are complete at the moment. There's zero chance the whole fic will be done by the end of April, so the current plan is to post the first chapter and then wait and schedule the rest for later this year.

Inspired by this challenge on Elysian Fields. As of yet unbeta'd.

--------------------------------------

Title: Masquerade

Pairing: Buffy/Spike

Timeline: Post-Chosen

Expected Publication: Mid-2024

-------------------------------------- “So,” Willow said blankly once Buffy reached the end of her sales pitch. “You’re…staying. In Los Angeles. Indefinitely.”

Buffy furrowed her brow, glanced around at the others. It was just the core gang—Willow and Xander, Giles and Dawn, plus Faith and Kennedy, the latter of whom was there more an accessory to Willow, considering Buffy didn’t give a crap how she voted. Those girls who were set on seeing through the slayer gig were out with Andrew, and thank god for that, as there wasn’t enough room in her father’s house to accommodate everyone. Barely enough room to accommodate the people she was looking at. All of whom were looking at her with varying degrees of uncertainty. Something Buffy did not appreciate.

“No,” she said slowly. “I’m not staying in Los Angeles indefinitely. Just until we find out what Angel is up to.”

“And what do we think he’s up to?” Xander asked, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. The eyepatch and shaggy hair gave him an air of manufactured authority that Buffy could do without, particularly when he was looking at her like she had a screw loose. “No offense, Buff, but none of us even knew this law firm was a thing until, what, last week?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just that you seem really worried about something that wasn’t on our radar before.”

“Xander, how do you think things end up on our radar?”

He shifted a bit at that, gave the room a look with his good eye as though trying to drum up support. “I’m just saying… Is it possible that you’re overreacting to this Angel news?”

“How so?”

“Because Spike died,” Kennedy said shortly, then threw up her hands when Willow shot her a warning look. “What? It’s what we’re all thinking, right? She learned that the necklace or whatever that killed her boyfriend came from this law firm and suddenly it’s all she can talk about. She didn’t even care until that Angel guy told her.”

“I didn’t care?” Buffy echoed, her shoulders going tense. Not that that was saying much—she was always tense whenever Kennedy opened her mouth, and usually for good reason. “According to who? You?”

“What? You were all proud of him on the trip up.”

“I’m still proud of him. I can be proud of him and suspicious about the thing that killed him at the same time.” She turned to glare at Willow—it was safer than glaring at Kennedy directly. Not as likely to lead to a larger screaming match, and therefore easier on her blood pressure. “The amulet—”

“Closed the Hellmouth,” Giles said in his watcher voice, or as she was starting to consider it, his I-know-better-than-you voice. “It worked as it should have. And given the information Angel was provided, we can’t say that the other outcome was unprecedented. The amulet was said to have cleansing powers—it did. Angel also told you that it was volatile, dangerous. It was. What exactly do you think you would have done differently?”

[thebookofsadala]

Drawn by @umbranemone!

Tor, Warrior Saiyan Goddess of the Moon

Purveyor of Saiyan “Dark” Magic, Death, The Afterlife, Premonitions/The Future, The Past, Saiyan Pride and Honor

Second oldest of the pantheon in both U6 and U7 Universes

Twin sister to Soli (goddess of the sun and life)

The goddess who bestowed upon Saiyans the ability to tap into Saiyan "dark" magic (umoya/auras) and their Saiyan pride

Patron Saiyan: Vegeta, Prince of All Saiyans

Tor is also known as the Caretaker of Saiyan souls. She leads Saiyans to the "Intsimi Yezinyanya" or "Fields of Ancestors” (like the Elysian Fields of Roman/Greek story but more Saiyan-like). This is why Saiyans do not exist in Otherworld in U7. Tor created a separate Afterlife for “worthy Saiyans.” Those Saiyans who are not worthy end up staying in The Otherworld in U6 and U7. There are not many Saiyans however who exist in U6 in Otherworld; most Saiyans in U6 end up in the The Amasimi aka The Fields. (Amasimi is the short form word for the ancestral fields.) The U7 Saiyans who were not worthy ended up being reincarnated. Goku and Vegeta's families are in the Amasimi.

When Saiyans in either U6 or U7 receive premonitions either by chance or by force (like by a priestess assisting in communication to ancestors of their past), Tor’s realm is where they enter, a sort of purgatory between Otherworld and The Amasimi. In The Amasimi, Tor shows Saiyans what they need, not what they want. She holds nothing back. That influence comes from her younger brother, Synphot, Saiyan God of the Mind. She believes informing a Saiyan of the truth will guide them to what they actually need, even if it hurts.

In U7, Tor is the most worshiped and most popular goddess, which is in contrast with U6. Tor's penchant for mercilessness and pride above all goes against what most Saiyans on Sadala believe. However, Sadalan Saiyans believe in honor, and Tor is the goddess of death and the one Saiyans meet near death, hence why Tor isn't banished from the culture.

Tor’s chosen patron Saiyan is Vegeta, Prince of All Saiyans. Like Soli, she is protective of Vegeta, but in the sense of defending his honor and pride. She is all for putting Vegeta through trials and tribulations as she believes these challenges make Saiyans stronger overall. In addition, unlike Soli, Tor is the twin who believes in second chances for Saiyans. This is due to her ability to see multiple futures and pasts. It is also part of the reason why she is tough on Vegeta but willing to forgive him easily. She knows all that could’ve happened and didn’t.

Tor is the goddess who bestowed upon Saiyans the ability to harness Saiyan “dark” magic aka umoya/auras in U6. Saiyans in U7 also possess this ability, but they do not utilize it in any capacity as magic is looked down upon versus Saiyan strength and prowess. When Vegeta turns Ultra Ego, he taps into the power of Tor that is latent inside of him as her chosen patron/avatar.

Finally, U7 Saiyans who worship Tor live in the Northern Hemisphere of the planet, while U6 Saiyan Tor worshipers congregate in the highest mountain tops near ice and cold, closest to the stars. These Saiyans in U6 are not ostracized for being Tor worshipers, but they do not tend to mingle with a majority of the planet. They tend to keep to themselves on Sadala. On U7, it is the Soli worshipers who are slightly ostracized, living majority in the Southern hemisphere. Tor worshipers congregate closer to the Capital of Planet Vegeta where the Palace and the Temple of Tor resides -- the temple being located where the High Star (their version of the North Star) is easy to be seen and located for holy days.

[dirtyaimfanstuff-blog]

Done for an art challenge over at Elysian Fields archive.

Done in Clip Studio paint.

Please do not repost without permission ;)

[extinct-fish]

Reaper's Bride Drabble

In the time it took for the Dis-poison to be in stock, Ryoji had Orpheus heal Makoto in the morning, then he would spend the day with Makoto, making sure to keep him company. It was strange for Makoto to be cared for, as he often took it upon himself to care for others. He kept trying to find reasons to be continuously wary of Ryoji, but the more that the god of death spent time with him, the more he felt his own barriers crumbling. 

As Ryoji promised, he administered the antidote as soon as the dis-poison came in. When it was administered, Makoto immediately felt relief, like he returned to his former health before the sacrifice. 

How coincidental for the snow to come as the dis-poison was administered. Makoto could see the snow attempting to lay a blanket of its cold white fluffy powder.

“Since you’re now cured, I have to show you around,” Ryoji said as he got up, “I do owe you a tour of the manor.”

“You sure?” Makoto asked.

“Yes. Since you’ve met me, the shadows won’t hurt you, I promise. They may pull pranks, so I can’t guarantee they won’t make you dizzy or amorous to say the least.”

“At least that’s better than being poisoned by a literal table.”

“You are not going to live that down, are you?” 

“Oh gee, ya think?” Makoto huffed sarcastically.

“I love when you’re sarcastic.”

“Oh, you’ll get sick of it.”

“Quite the contrary, funeral lily,” Ryoji pulled Makoto towards him, causing the boy to stumble a bit, “I actually like when people don’t really see me as a god and rather see me as a person.”

“So pretty much ‘what’s a god to a non-believer,’ huh?”

“Yep. Now c’mon! We’ve got so much to see!” Ryoji practically dragged Makoto enthusiastically.

“Whoa- RYOJI! SLOW DOWN YOU GODDAMNED PUPPY!”

“Oh- sorry, I’m just excited, since I’ve always wanted someone to be with me genuinely.”

“Geez, Ryoji, you don’t need to drag me all over the place. I’m the kind of guy to take things slow, y’know!”

“Ohhh, okay, sorry, I’ll adjust to your pace. Just let me know if I’m going too fast, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Alright, as you’ve seen when I brought you up here, this is the hall of the Gods.”

“Never knew it had a name.”

“Just about every room has a name,” Ryoji chuckled.

“Really?”

“Well, pretty much. I could talk about every god here if you want to ask about them.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I know each one.”

“Okay, so Orpheus mentioned the heart against the feather thing, what’s up with that?”

“Oh, the weighing of the heart against the feather?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, in Egypt, when you die, your body would be mummified with all but one organ removed: The heart. Your spirit went to the duat, which is the Egyptian underworld, and with it, you carried your heart. There, you went through various challenges to be able to come face-to-face with Osiris, the Egyptian god of the Underworld. The final one would be Anubis, the god of embalming and the judge.”

“Uh huh.”

“And what he does is that he takes the feather of Ma’at, which is quite a bit heavy in all honesty, and he weighs it against the heart. The heart represented your soul and if the heart was heavier, then that meant you were wicked and your heart was eaten by Ammut, which was a heart-eating monster. The reason is because it prevents the dead from going to the field of reeds, which is the afterlife.”

“So when Orpheus mentioned that you were looking for someone with their hearts lighter than the feather…”

“I meant I wanted someone who was good. It’s a common sentiment all mortals- even gods- feel, but it’s not often a good person comes around.”

“So… what’s the Greek version of the field of reeds?”

“Well, we’ve got three levels: Tartarus, the Asphodel Meadows, and the Elysian Fields. Most mortals live a decent life, and they go to the Asphodel meadows. However, there are few that actually manage to get to the Elysian Fields. Tartarus is reserved for the miserable assholes that like to ruin people’s day.”

“Huh. So how would you determine that?”

“How good a person is?”

“Yeah.”

“Actions speak louder than words, and I like to see how others feel about you before completely judging someone’s character.”

Ryoji then turned to Makoto.

“But, there’s something that tells me that you're kinder than you seem.”

“Do I look stand-offish?”

“Well, no, you look like someone plagued with apathy, but if I had to guess, you’re someone who’s much less apathetic.”

“Is that supposed to be a complement?”

“Just an observation. I don’t know what you and Orpheus discussed, and frankly, that’s not my business unless you wanna talk about it.”

“Okay.”

“Anyways, moving on! Next to the Anubis statue is my office. I’m not really there often, but I like to go there for writing sometimes, usually for logging how my brides are doing. It’s all the same ending: they either leave or they just… nevermind, I don’t want to depress you.”

“I’ve heard. They either leave or commit suicide.”

“Orpheus?”

“Yeah. He told me that he’s pretty much sick of seeing you so depressed.”

“Sounds like Orpheus,” Ryoji chuckled, “Anyways- your entries are relatively new, so if you want to read the entries, I’ve got nothing to hide, I’m all for open communication.”

“Geez, either you’re shameless or-”

“‘Just too considerate?’ I’ve heard that one before, I can’t really help being selfless.”

“I can tell.”

“Anyways, over by the statue of the furies, that’s my room. If you ever feel like you need company, you can always come in.”

“No knocking?”

“I’ve got nothing to hide, so just feel free to barge in. Make sure to close the door on the way out, of course.”

“Jeez. That open, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t you worried about-”

“‘Someone taking advantage of you?’ Not a bit. I am the god of death, and if someone dares try to abuse me in some ways, their souls are mine to eat.”

“I thought only Ammut ate the souls?”

“Oh, every god of death eats souls,” Ryoji laughed, “It just so happens that the soul is in the heart, and each of us are able to rip out hearts.”

“Damn. Okay, yeah, I gotcha,” Makoto sighed, “Sheesh, how can someone so sweet be so deadly..?”

“Well, many things in nature are poisonous, but look beautiful,” Ryoji shrugged, “Pipevine Swallowtails are poisonous due to the pipevine plants they fed on as caterpillars, but are still beautiful.”

“Is that a compliment for yourself?”

“Oh, no, that wouldn’t apply to me. I’d say the butterflies share a similarity with mortals far more than they would share similarities with me.”

“Then what would you compare yourself to?”

“Hmmm… Probably a bumble bee.”

“A bumble bee?”

“I’m not benefiting humanity, nor am I detrimental. I’m mostly sweet and patient, but provoke me and you get stung.”

“Sounds about right. Though plenty of people would say you’re a wasp.”

“A wasp?!” Ryoji seemed offended.

“Well, people often say death is cruel, detrimental, yet a crucial part of life,” Makoto answered with no change of attitude.

“Is that how humanity views me?” Ryoji sighed with disapproval.

“Well, some people do. I think you’re more like a honey bee.”

“Why?”

“Well, you’re sweet, you’re protective, and frankly, people benefit from you a lot more than they think.”

[theantonian]

"We stand up peerless"

In Shakespeare's tragedy Antony and Cleopatra, their own perspective on their significance, combined with their defiant attitude toward their detractors, challenges us to pay attention to shades of meaning beyond the Roman view and encourages us to respond to their greatness, a response which is made even easier as Shakespeare returns to an analysis of their love relation. For besides defeat of Caesar, Antony's death will reunite him with his lady. It is Cleopatra's pardon and her nearness that Antony anticipates: "I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra . . . I come, my queen . . . Stay for me" (IV. xiv. 44, 50). The excitement of the "love of Love" which stirred Antony in the play's first scene to equate the "nobleness of life" with being paired with Cleopatra returns to him now. As he once had boasted that they would "stand up peerless" in comparison with any other pair of lovers on earth, he now has no doubt that they will remain peerless even among the famous lovers who have preceded them to the Elysian Fields: Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand, And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze: Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops, And all the haunt be ours. (IV. xiv. 51-54)

[elysiumkerr]

Name: Elyse "Elysium" Kerr Occupation: (struggling) Fine Artist, part time clerk at Eden's Apple Age: 32 Sexuality: Bisexual Species: Human Hometown: Chicago, Illinois Relationship Status: Single Personality Traits: Egotistical, stubborn, temperamental, creative, disciplined, determined.

Biography (tw mental health, drug use, sexual reference, exploitational artwork):

Aspire/Aspirate

It comes to you as easily as breathing. To want, to strive. For better and higher than beneath a fridge magnet. For a while, it's sufficient. It represents the pinnacle of achievement in your parents' eyes. It's not their fault their comprehension isn't deep enough for the work you create. You're the darling of their lives, your dreams encouraged no matter how little money they might make in the long run. It doesn't matter. They have money to spare as you aspire, aspirate, asphyxiate on your ambitions.

Ephemeral/Extemporal

College is a unique challenge for you. To learn and be humble, and yet assert your own value in a sea of peers who think their dreams are the same as yours. Peers is a generous word -- you find friends, inspirations, enemies among them. But rarely do you consider someone a peer, an equal. And yet, you consider yourself below the muse that inspires you. Without it, without her, you are throwing paint into empty space and hoping the something that takes shape has any semblance of value, meaning to the world. Your aspirations, inspirations, are fleeting. You spend the better part of your school years chasing them by any means necessary. Altering your mind, your flesh, desperately tearing at the veil over your eyes to see the world the way you know it should be. Moments are ephemeral, your plans extemporal. To catch the rabbit you have to move fast, live faster.

Elysium/Asylum

In your 20s, you find breakout success for a series of portraits you created to reflect the thin line between personhood and undoing of the flesh. They are called many things -- provocative, perverted, and disturbing are among your favorites. Good. Your work isn't meant to make others comfortable. The fruits of your still life class are beyond rotted now, festering and food for the flies. Painting idealism isn't your style. You would rather expose the flesh beneath the canvas, the parts that people are too afraid to see. Your parents are proud as they are worried. They don't understand -- they never did. But all that matters is your name on the gallery window. The name beneath your name. Elysium, you sign the work. A word meaning 'a place of happiness'. It's Greek, you're pretty sure. Asphodel, for the average death, the ones who never strove for perfection. Tartarus, for the vicious. Your work is not cruel, not malicious, though undoubtedly morbid. Wouldn't the souls of the Elysian Fields want the beauty of their afterlife put to the canvas? If poets could do it on paper, why not a painter, with oil and acrylic and blood?

The Hanged Man/The Hanging Man

What if it was all a mistake? You've spent years convincing yourself of your cleverness. That your perspective is unique, worth sharing with the world. But after that first gallery show, nothing comes again. You disappear into the studio, head down, letting the ephemeral world pass by while you simply aspirate. Create. Take a drink, have a smoke, find a muse and grab them fast. Rabbit punch them if you must. (You mustn't, but you would do it if the work required it.)

Nothing.

No one wants your work. You, too, start not to want your work. The rent is too high and your parents won't pay the bills any longer. You haven't sold a painting in months, and you're fairly certain the last you sold is being masturbated to in someone's studio apartment, dingy and dust-stained. Elysium is now a prison you've constructed for yourself in the shape of your rib cage fluttering, the heart beating and pounding for something, anything, to assure you this hasn't all been a waste of time.

It certainly doesn't come in the months after you move to Port Leiry, Oregon. You've been to the Pacific Northwest before, and you know what it's like to live in a tourist trap. But you are lured out with the promise of renewed creativity, another way to sustain yourself. Who promised it? You did, hoping you could make it true somehow. But the McCormick gallery, the only real semblance of fine art you can find in this place, rejects you. The owner does it personally, too. You're not sure if that makes you feel better or worse.

“I don’t sense any desire to prove yourself in these and you’re not sensing the beauty of the macabre— it feels as though you’re just doing this to shock. That’s not what my gallery is.”

You refuse to believe you're the one who misunderstands the art. He has photography of women anointed in bruises plastered to the walls of the gallery. Dark, delicate works of sketch art and oil and mixed media hung that evoke the stanch and scab of wounds picked over. Even still, demure things so far from your own style you wonder if you mistook the kind of man who ran this gallery.

So you go back to your flat, have a tantrum, a smoke, and a drink about it, and start anew. You crack the stretcher bars, unwind the canvas, and fold it into a corner. The beauty of the macabre. It has to be there somewhere -- you've perhaps got too much paint over your eyes to see it properly.

Until that night... like nature is beautiful, dark nature is darkly beautiful. You spot a creature of some kind wandering the streets of Port Leiry, the specifics of it you don't recall -- all you could witness was the emergence of something supernatural from the shadows. With a sharp glint of fangs, a life is taken in front of you and the beast disappears. You see the moonlight dancing drunk in the growing pool of blood on the pavement. And now, you understand. The purpose is not to shock, but to reveal slowly, layer by layer, another side of the world.

The gallery is the still goal, the aspiration, the obsession. You want payment, you want stability, and you want validation. But above it all, you want that place of goodness and comfort, even in death. You are building Elysium once more.

Wanted Plots / Connections

Taken Connection: The Muse Who Opened Her Eyes (Vampire/Werewolf) @lrivkin

You weren't careful. You didn't mean to. You let slip the masquerade. And now, Elysium dreams of you, their muse, the one who showed them the truth of Port Leiry. Will she recognize you when next you meet?

Buyers/Patrons for Their Art

Elysium does private commissions in addition to her personal/gallery works. She needs to make money somehow. But understand she doesn't do cheap works.

General: Friends, One Night Stands, People Who Appreciate Fine Art

Does what it says on the tin.

Taken Connection: Ex-Somebodies. They dated for a whirlwind of a year -- but they just weren't a match. Maybe it was something about the way they were both hiding behind fake names. Maybe it was something about the way Elyse wanted to scratch beneath the surface and make it bleed, while Rose wanted old wounds to heal over. Whatever happened, it didn't last. But Elyse knows the real truth of the world now, and that's something Annabelle couldn't hide from her forever. @rosexhalstead Taken Connection: The Master and Margarita. He's the devil. He's the Promethean fire and the eagle tearing out her liver. She wants nothing more than his validation -- does she admire him? worship him? hate him for impeding her artistic progress? Is he the sole reason she's making art these days? For better or worse, he's stoked a dark blaze inside of her and she's enthralled by watching herself burn. @huntercam

[jgthirlwell]

2022 Year In Review

This year once again I invited some friends and colleagues to reflect on 2022

JG Thirlwell

Composer Foetus Xordox Manorexia Steroid Maximus Venture Bros Archer www.foetus.org

2022 was a marathon year. I took on too much work, but somehow got through it. It challenged me. I played some excellent shows in Woodstock, Los Angeles, Orlando and NYC. Reconnected with Soft Cell at the Beacon. Reconnected with Sarah Lipstate. Wrote a ton of new music for Archer and a Venture Bros movie. Taught a class on film scoring at the New School. I still woke up 5am in a panic on too many occasions. And I saw some great concerts.It was difficult to whittle down this list but here are a lot of albums I enjoyed in 2022, in no particular order.

Tyondai Braxton Telekinesis (Nonesuch) Zeal & Ardor Zeal & Ardor (MVKA) Papangu Holoceno (Bandcamp) Extra Life Secular Works Vol 2 (Bandcamp) Carl Stone Wat Dong Moon Lek (Unseen Worlds) / Gall Tones (Unseen Worlds) / We Jazz Reworks Vol 2 (We Jazz Records) Louis Cole Quality Over Opinion (Brainfeeder) Ben Frost 1899 OST (Invada Records) Loraine James Building Something Beautiful For Me (Phantom Limb) Persher Man With The Magic Soap (Thrill Jockey) Anna Meredith Bumps Per Minute (Moshi Moshi) Sault Air (Forever Living Originals) The Smile A Light For Attracting Attention (XL) Shamblemaths Shamblemaths 2 (Apollon Prog) Julia Wolfe Oxygen (Cantelope) Heiner Schmitz’s Symprophonicum Sins & Blessings (Big Band Records) Burial Antidawn EP / Streetlands EP (Hyperdub) Gotho Mindbowling (Controcanti Produzioni) Oliver Coates The Stranger OST Gilla Band Most Normal (Rough Trade Records Ltd) Blanck Mass Ted K OST (Sacred Bones) Arcade Fire WE (Interscope) Yeah Yeah Yeahs Cool It Down (Secretly) Catarine Barbieri Spirit Exit (light-years) Felicia Atkinson Image Language (Shelter Press) Netherlands Kali Corvette (Three One G) Kemper Norton estrenyon (Zona Watusa) Elysian Fields Once Beautiful Twice Removed (Ojet) Simon Hanes Hurricane Salad Two Fingers Red Bass DJ Mix 22 (NoMark) Backxwash His Happiness Shall Come…(Ugly Hag) Bob Vylan The Price of Life (Ghost Theater) John Elmquist’s Hard Art Groop Stars and Bells / Zero Rest Mass / Trip Up reissues (Bandcamp) Dan Deacon Hustle OST (Netflix Music) Bent Knee Frosting (TTTH) Boris Heavy Rocks 2022 (Relapse) Wet Leg Wet Leg (Domino) Author and Punisher Kruller (Relapse)

Honorable mentions Hudson Mohawke Cry Sugar / Rival Consoles Now is / Haunted Horses The Worst Has Finally Happened / Sirom The Liquified Throne of Simplicity (Tak:Til)/ Meshuggah Immutable / Ani Klang Ani Klang / Pimpon Pozdrawiam (Pointless Geometry)

Shows

The Smile at Kings Theater Julia Wolfe Steel Hammer Carnegie Hall The Protomen LPR Tristan Perich St Thomas ChurchSparks Town Hall Anna Meredith Elsewhere Lingua Ignota LPR Royal Blood Terminal 5 Kraftwerk Radio City Hiro Kone Pioneer Works RATM / RTJ MSG Matmos LPR Rammstein MetLife Stadium Yeah Yeah Yeahs Forest Hills Stadium Melvins Irving Plaza Roxy Music MSG Sean Lennon Stone Elysian Fields The Owl The Comet Is Coming Bowery Ballroom Child Abuse TV Eye Fennesz Pioneer Works Helm Elsewhere

Film / TV

The Stranger All Quiet In The Western Front Dont Worry Darling Moonage Daydream The Velvet Underground Elvis Men Northman Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent White Lotus

Books

I read a ton of memoirs this year. Standouts were

Kid Congo Powers Some New Kind Of Kick Danny Sugerman Wonderland Ave

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Kemper Norton

LISTENING

My favourite album of the year was the dayglo psychedelic joy of Panda Bear/ Sonic Boom’s Reset , with honourable mentions for the amazing Aethiopes by billy woods and Alison Cotton’s beautiful The Portrait You Painted of Me. Also, must mention the massive , varied and crucial Rental Yields compilations on Front and Follow /Gated Canal Community in aid of homeless charities in the UK.

GIGS

Didn’t get out much this year but live events I loved this year here in Brighton, UK included the blasted joy of deafkids at The Hope, the final gig of the mighty Slum of Legs at The Green Door Store, and playing alongside Alexander Tucker’s Microcorps and Opal X at The Wire’s 40th anniversary shows at The Rosehill as part of the reanimated Outer Church.

In terms of radio, as well as Elizabeth Alker’s essential breakfast and Unclassified shows on Radio 3 there were loads of great shows on the fantastic Repeater Radio ( many previously on the mighty Neon Hospice) including Afternoon Delight by Ix Tab and the best of Eastern Europe showcased on Slav to the Rhythm by Catherine and Iris.

READING

Apart from the works of nonconformist Cornish poet Jack Clemo and American novelist Pete Dexter ( Deadwood and Paris, Trout ), new discoveries were thin on the ground this year. I read and reread a lot of old favourites ( Ray Bradbury, Cormac McCarthy, Pat Barker , Elmore Leonard ) and finally fell in love with Jane Austen.

WATCHING

My film and TV viewing in 2022 was largely informed / enforced by my 5 year old daughter, and the essential texts we rewatched repeatedly were the lively and proactive Gaby’s Dollhouse, multi-species global explorers the Octonauts , surreal UK gem Sarah and Duck and of course, the inspirational Aussie masterpiece Bluey. I did manage to catch a few films either new or new to me in 2022…

Wake in Fright ( 1971) : another Australian key text ( although less adorable than Bluey ). The horrors of closed environments, toxic masculinity and continuous drinking.

Enys Men (2022) : Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin’s spooky and minimalistic follow-up to his incredible Bait (2019) , a wonderful drama of local economic realities and identities. Would love to score one of his films but unfortunately he does an excellent job of this himself.

Stalker (1979) : As good as everyone said it would be.

EATING

Chorizo with honey Chinese black fungus

DRINKING

Everything by Burning Sky brewery ( Sussex, UK)

CREATING

I managed to churn out two tape releases in 2022 in between all the watching, listening, eating, drinking etc.

Estrenyon was released on tape and download with the Barcelona label zonawatusa and was inspired by historical UFO sightings throughout Cornwall from 1888 to 2021. Rife is the story of a Sussex Spring day and was released via Woodford Halse, who have released loads of great electronic and folky music by the likes of Xylitol and Sairie. On top of that , our first volume of download-only pay-what-you-like winter tunes Montol Melodies is available on our bandcamp until the traditional English old ‘ twelfth night ‘ ( January 12 2023).

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Lee Ranaldo

2022 LIST

I’m terrible at lists like this, and usually don’t keep track towards such a year-end summary. Pardon the self-focus, this is my year-in-review accounting, mostly just remembering to myself.

August in Vienna Leah and I spent the month of August in Vienna, creating a public artwork, sound+image, called Fermata. I discovered the world of small-body, near century-old, German + Austrian guitars. I wrote the main melodic material one one of these tiny, wonderful instruments,. At one point we had 3 of them in the apartment down in the MuseumQuartier. A whole new world of sound to explore. Side trips to Berlin and Prague. (https://tonspur.at/soundworks/lee-ranaldo-leah-singer/?lang=en) Exhibitions in Berlin and Eupen, Chile Media Arts Biennial, Covid Flowers online Exhibitions of my Black Noise record print editions in Berlin, Lost Highway road drawings in Belgium, and watercolor covid-flowers online. In Chile Leah and I created an outdoor sound/art work, Do You Read Me?, in a field of trees surrounding an observatory above Santiago. Sounds were generated from signals collected from deep space by another observatory in the Atacama desert. A sound displacement work.

Medicine Singers in Brasilia, Montreal, NYC Had fruitful wanderings this year with Yonatan Gat, working with indigineous players from the USA, Brasil and Canada. Recording sessions in Montreal at fabulous Hotel2Tango studio, and in a splendid house set on the edge of the city in Brasilia, one of my favorite places. Happy to have been invited along for this most interesting ride.

Touring resumes Mostly in Europe, mostly quite wonderful. After 2 years at home it felt good to stand up in front of audiences again. Lots of solo acoustic shows playing In Virus Times and singing songs, but also interesting collaborations with Yuri Landman; My Cat Is An Alien, Jean-Marc Montera and Sophie Gonthier, and a special ‘Velvets Suite’ with French legend Pascal Comelade in Banyoles, Spain. Also the beginnings of a new collaboration with Chicago guitarist Michael Vallera, in a great new space in NYC for experimental music, 411 Kent (aka Shift). Leah and I premiered the new version of our Contre Jour performance with suspended guitar and films, in A Coruna, Spain and at the Three-Lobed Fest in Durham, North Carolina – which was an amazing three days of music. Also a short NorthEast tour with Jeff Parker in May.

London/Paris/Leah/ Catpower My touring year ended with a month split between Europe and the UK. A friend-lent apartment in Paris as base, with shows and lectures in Nantes, and Brittany. Five shows in the UK, the most I’ve played in some time there, including a free-ranging set with the Pop Group’s Mark Stewart and an eclectic band. Wild night! Leah flew over to celebrate her birthday, with CatPower at Royal Albert Hall (first time there for us both) recreating Bob Dylan’s legendary show there – both acoustic and electric sets – from 1966. What a great night, and our time together, in London, Paris and Brittany, was splendid.

Hurricane Transcriptions This year I played solo keyboard shows for the first time ever – the solo-for-Fender-Rhodes performance of my Hurricane Sandy Transcriptions, first at Karma Gallery in NYC, accompanied by films from LA Artist Mungo Thomson, and also at a Xenakis celebration in Vienna and at the opening of my exhibition of Lost Highway drawings, ‘The Road Is Like The River, Constantly Changing Yet Ever The Same’ – at IKOB Museum in Eupen, Belgium. (ikob.be)

Circuit des Yeux at Green-Wood Cemetery I think my favorite gig of the year was Circuit des Yeux in Green-Wood Cemetery on a rainy night in June. The weather threatened the show all evening, which made this incredible performance – just Haley and Whitney Johnson (Matchess). Just a magical, powerful night.

Godard’s King Lear In late August I committed to introduce Jean-Luc Godard’s King Lear, which I’d never seen, at TriBeCa’s Roxy Cinema, which has been doing terrific programs organized by Illyse Singer. I love Godard’s films, they are an important touchstone for me, and I took this as an opportunity to discover both the film and Shakespeare’s play; my Shakespeare knowledge is terrible, so I boned up on the play. Four days before the screening, the great master died, which cast the whole night in a new light. The film has been described by Richard Brody of the NY’er as ‘one of the best films of all time’ – wow. Burgess Meredith, Molly Ringwald, Norman Mailer, Julie Delpy, Leos Carax, and Godard himself center-stage and the plugged/unplugged oracle Professor Pluggy. What a film. As usual with a Godard film: what a sound mix!. See it in 35mm.

Broken Circle / Spiral Hill I have had a long fascination with the work of Robert Smithson, since discovering the book of his writings in the 70s. In the early 80s on the first few SY tours, I ‘coaxed’ the band into visiting one of his 3 still existing artworks – Broken Circle/Spiral Hill – in the countryside of northern Holland. Back then it was like a treasure hunt trying to find it, in the dark, late on the way to Club Vera in Groningen. In 2020 I visited it for a third time w friend Carlos, in the week before the world shut down. It had been totally restored and ready for it’s moment – just at it’s 50-year mark. In 2022 the site-an old, long-unused quarry – was opened to the public for the first time in ages, across 8 weekends. This year I narrated a podcast for the Holt/Smithson Foundation and the Netherland’s Land Art Contemporary, about Smithson and the work, which went live in November. (brokencircle.nl)

Birdsong Project I worked on this project, as both producer and performer, to raise money to benefit the Audobon Society for the preservation of avian habitats. Over 200 musicians contributed to this 20-LP set, as well as writers, poets and artists. Uplifting and surprising. (https://www.audubon.org/birdsong-project)

James Jackson Toth In the early 2000s I produced an album – James and the Quiet – with Mr. Wooden Wand, who’s music I love. This year a group of friends organized a birthday tribute to James, with 33 of us recording versions of songs from his vast catalog. I recorded ‘Wired to the Sky’, a favorite from the album we made together, recorded in our Viennese apartment in August, which closes this Birthday Blues collection. (https://aquariumdrunkard.com/category/jamesjackson-toth/)

Some Music/Art/Books etc:

Lou Reed – Words + Music, 1971 RCA Demos David Bowie – Divine Symmetry Catherine Christer Hennix – Selected Early Keyboard Works (https://blankformseditions.bandcamp.com/album/selected-early-keyboard-works) Plus Instruments, Februari-April ’81 (first record I was ever on) on Domani Records, NYC. In/Out/In, Sonic Youth. So cool to see this release welcomed so warmly! Cecilia Vicuña, Tate Modern Turbine Hall Venus of Willendorf, Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna Matisse: The Red Studio, Museum of Modern Art, NYC Claude Monet – Joan Mitchell, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris Marco Fusinato, Desastres, Venice Biennale Family Affair, a 20-minute short film included in the Criterion Collection edition of Josh & Benny Safdie’s 2009 Daddy Longlegs, outlining our two families intertwined involvement in the making of the film. The most glorious home movie ever. The Double Life of Bob Dylan: A Restless, Hungry Feeling, Clinton Heylin. First of a 2-part bio of the (other) Bard, making first use of all the new material out from Tulsa’s Bob Dylan Center archive. Loved: Olivier Assayas’ Irma Vep mini series. He’d used SY’s ‘Tunic’ in his original 1995 film, and we became friends and occasional collaborators. The new limited series mines the story anew, meta-mixing in his 1995 film and Louis Feuillade’s 1915 original, Les Vampires. The most contemporary piece of ‘television’ I’ve seen in ages, just wonderful, with fantastic cast including a spot-on stand-in portrayal by Vincent Macaigne as the director, Alicia Vikander as Irma Vep, and Lars Eidinger as Gottfried. Also Devon Ross, Carrie Brownstein, many other great performances. Loved it. Still watching: Westworld, Handmaid’s Tale. Hal Willner Memorial, St. Anne’s, April. Miss Hal all the time…

---LR, Winnipeg, December 2022

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Brian Chase

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Brian chose to write about one album that impacted him in 2022

This write-up is in no way meant to be a formal review - I don’t deem myself qualified for that task here - rather, this is meant to share personal enthusiasm and bring an album to light - like, "Have you heard this, it's really really amazing and inspiring and why isn't there more talking about it, and…" As a musician working within a greater community, I am acutely aware of the creative drive to continually uncover new modes, methodologies, practices etc. of expressing our chosen art form - each performance and each album serving as an instance of discovery and offering new perspectives on old conundrums. Whether the genre is rock, jazz, noise, free-improvisation, modern classical etc. the relationship of discourse and dialogue is still the same. At the forefront of this dialogue is John Zorn, as he has been for decades, and a major contribution to the conversation is the 2022 album Incerto - Existentialism, Psychoanalysis, and the Uncertainty Principle. Here, Zorn is the composer and the performing ensemble consists of some of Zorn's tightest in recent years: Brian Marsella on piano, Julian Lage on guitar, Jorge Roeder on bass and Ches Smith on drums. As Zorn says in the liner notes, "Incerto is about possibilities, probabilities, inevitabilities and improbabilities." Formal logic for musical structure is considerably expanded with these compositions and never before have I heard such new forms for improvisation. In these pieces, unexpected juxtapositions and superimpositions abound, as foremost examples of its many distinct features. The syntax of this music is beyond the scope of any previous way that I've conceived of music existing. Not only are harmonic and rhythmic conventions regularly reconstructed - often replaced with adjacent compliments and aggressive contradictions - but entire paradigms of improvisatory behavior are game as well. Shifts in genre/mood/tempo/texture/harmonic character/melodic personality place the improvisor in varying contexts - often in a short amount of time - and each context requires its own set of responses. The whole scope of musical history+trends+possibilities takes on a dynamic relational co-existence, in ways that I've never previously heard or thought possible - like when angular atonal lead lines enter on top of a serene ostinato, or impressionistic chords alternate between stillness and motion, or genre styles and idiomatic references collide, or gravelly density and noise build tension culminating into a placid release. Plus, so much of the composed material is really just so cool. Paramount to it all is the music’s immense depth of feeling. The moods on this album are evocative, romantic and ecstatic as much as they are revolutionary, kaleidoscopic and mystifying. As the music winds through its structural twists and turns, the key that holds it all together is sincerity of spirit - the performance of this music, as well as listening to it, is a literal experience. And within each singular track is the remarkable performance of the individual musicians themselves - each a respective master at the craft. Additionally, the album as a collective whole, being comprised of eleven very different tracks, functions as a macro-structure in itself which expands on the themes present in each individual track. So many new modes of music making are presented here - integrating them into current music making will take a while as more people discover its brilliance and begin to absorb the concepts and ideas it conveys. It is uniquely Zorn and there for us musicians to process and in turn produce that which is uniquely ours. Incerto is a gem in the conversation - we can listen and run with it how we like - but we have to hear it first.

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David T. Little

composer www.davidtlittle.com

MUSIC (new, revisited, & in rotation)

Vile Creature – Glory! Glory! Apathy Took Helm! Burning Witch – Crippled Lucifer tryphème – Aluminia Louis Cole – Quality Over Opinion KANGA – You and I Will Never Die DELANILA – Overloaded Amyl & the Sniffers – Comfort To Me Kae Tempest – Let Them Eat Chaos Graindelavoix & Björn Schmelzer – Josquin, the Undead: Laments, Deplorations & Dances of Death Run The Jewels – 1, 2, 3, 4 The Cure – Disintegration, Wish, Show, Pornography Tenderheart Bitches – High Kicks George Walker – Piano Sonatas (Steven Beck) Rammstein – Herzeleid, Mutter, Sehnsucht, Untitled (in heavy rotation after the MetLife Stadium show) Living Colour – Vivid Utah Phillips – We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years Tom Morello – Hold The Line (track, feat. grandson) ACRONYM – Oddities & Trifles: the Very Peculiar Instrumental Music of Giovanni Valentini Late Stravinsky (various) Son Lux – Everything Everywhere All At Once (ost) Harrison Birtwistle – The Moth Requiem Christopher Tin – The Lost Birds Karim Sulayman, Apollo’s Fire – Songs of Orpheus Hermann Nitsch – Symphony No. 9 “The Egyptian” Jay Wadley – Swan Song (ost) Herem – Pulsa diNura Danny Elfman – Big Mess / Bigger. Messier. (Deluxe.) Scott Walker – The Drift

FILMS & SERIES (new & rewatched) Hellraiser (Clive Barker) The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman) Tetsuo: The Iron Man (Shin'ya Tsukamoto) Private Life (Tamara Jenkins) Double Take (Johan Grimonprez) After Life (Ricky Gervais) One Big Bag (Every Ocean Hughes) The Village Detective (Bill Morrison) Polia & Blastema (E. Elias Merhige) Sibyl (William Kentridge)

The Copper Queen (Crystal Manich) Wishes (Amy Jenkins) The Once and Future Smash (Sophia Cacciola & Michael J. Epstein) End Zone 2 (August Kane) All Quiet on the Western Front (Edward Berger) Everything Everywhere All At Once (Daniels) Russian Doll (multiple directors) Piggy (short) (Carlota Pereda) The Mitchells vs. The Machines (Michael Rianda & Jeff Rowe) WHAT DID JACK DO? (David Lynch) The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion) Pig (Michael Sarnoski) The Green Knight (David Lowery) The Northman (Robert Eggers) Muriel’s Wedding (P.J. Hogan) BoJack Horseman (multiple directors) Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick)

BOOKS (some) Body Horror - Anne Elizabeth Moore Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf a ghost in the throat - Doireann Ní Ghríofa Cleanness – Garth Greenwell A Saint from Texas – Edmund White Out Loud – Mark Morris The Gastronomical Me – M.F.K. Fisher Agamemnon – Aeschylus (trans. Robert Fagles)

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Jonnine

HTRK

2022 good vibes - Hackedepicciotto tour photos such #couplegoals, kicking off the HTRK tour in Atlanta was exhilarating! Big hangs with my overseas buds Nathan Corbin and Yasmina Dexter, writing new songs with Nigel and keeping THE dream alive, my puppy Pali growing up into mumma’s good boy, instagram follows @the.holistic.psychologist (self healing)  @cracked.bolos (cakes), DJ Sundae, Amir Shoat, ‘Crush’ by Richard Siken (borrow from Nigel) writing bonkers dreams down again, Jonathan Richmond lyrics, tik tok #stayathomegirlfriend, jamming with Brother May in London and playing cafe OTO, second season Euphoria, White Lotus, Heartbreak High, rewatching Curb, Julia Fox’s eye makeup tutorial, films The Weekend and 45 Years by director Andrew Haigh, Charlotte Rampling interviews, fam long drives with Conrad and Pali finding songs for NTS <3 <3 Conrad got me into the Kinks!

Some music  i liked Actress — Dummy Corporation (Ninja Tune)  Autumn Fair - Autumn Fair  DALE CORNISH — Traditional Music of South London (The Death Of Rave)  Delphine Dora — A Stream Of Consciousness II (for piano solo) Coby Sey — Conduit (AD 93)  CS + Kreme — Orange (The Trilogy Tapes)  Harry Howard  - Slight Pavilions  Various / Kashual Plastik — Field of Progress Jonathan Richman - Jonathan Goes Country  Julia Reidy - World in World  Kitchen Cynics — Strange Acrobats Liz Durette - A Christmas Gift To You  Malvern Brume — Body Traffic (MAL)  Taylor E. Burch — The Best of Taylor E. Burch (Downwards)  The Incredible String Band — Wee Tam and the Big Huge  The Kinks - The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society  Thomas Bush — Preludes Warm Currency — Returns (Horn Of Plenty) 

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Lawrence English

(Room 40 Records)

This year was the first time I had travelled internationally since 2019. The thing I realised I've truly missed is seeing people. The opportunity to share ideas, to be curious with others and to just be in the world was, well, magical. I think if anything the past few years has reminded me (us?) not to take things for granted…especially each other. This year was also the first time I returned to making solo electronic works. It had been about six years since I had completed Cruel Optimism and, if I am honest, I wasn’t sure if I still had an appetite for making solo electronic works. Approach however proved, to me at least, I can still derive great pleasure from working alone. Unexpectedly, I found the whole process of the album very satisfying, like it was new all over again, not something I always feel.

There’s been a tonne of great input into the system this year. Ergo Proxy totally got me thinking. I was late to the party, but it was a party I am glad I did make it to. Puce Mary made some tapes back in April, both of them were totally ace, filled with an acute sense of heaviness. I very much enjoyed Boy Harsher’s work this year too, outside my usual orbit in some ways, but they are really onto something of late. I caught up with my old and dear friend Kate Crawford, and had a chance to read over he excellent Atlas Of AI book, she is a tower of radiance. Annea Lockwood’s, work occupied a great deal of my thoughts this year, realising her Piano Transplants all at once was quite simply a delight. Adam Curtis’s TraumaZone left an indelible mark in more ways than one. I returned to Vancouver to photograph the crows that started off my homage to Masahisa Fukase, perhaps that tract of work is done? Oh and thanks to a dinner with Atsuo from Boris, and the encouragement of my small humans, we all started down the pathway of the epic saga of Gundam too. I missed that when I was younger, so it’s a long road to catch up on….but I started.

Oh and on a purely personal note I was able to commission a shikishi from Yoshihisa Tagami. Seriously, my 12 year old self was reborn when it arrived. The world is so much bigger, and smaller, than that little human could ever have imagined!

Love to you all and here’s hoping 2023 is full of curious surprises and wonder.

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John Tottenham

author

A LISTLESS LIST

Best Books:   Woodcutters Concrete Extinction| Wittgenstein’s Nephew Old Masters 

Thomas Bernhard

A Father and his Fate More Women than Men Manservant and Maidservant A Family and a Fortune  -  Ivy Compton Burnett   Hawkwind: Days of the Underground  -  Joe Banks

Best Songs:   Eunice Collins  –  At the Hotel Gloria Barnes  -  Old Before My Time Sonia Ross  -  Every Now and Then Rozetta Johnson  -  A Woman’s Way Debbie Taylor  -  I Don’t Wanna Leave You Denise LaSalle  -  Trapped by a Thing Called Love Barbara Stant  -  Unsatisfied Woman Ann Alford  -  If It Ain’t One Thing Big Martha  -  Your Magic Touch Helene Smith  -  Sure Thing     Best Shows By Octogenarians And Nonagenarians:

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott – Zebulon, LA  / Bob Dylan  -  Pantages, LA / Marshall Allen (Arkestra)  -  Zebulon, LA / Swamp Dogg  -  Teragram, LA / Doug Kershaw  -  Zebulon,  LA / Sonny Green  -  Barnyard & La Louisianne, LA / Tommy McClain  -  Stowaway, LA

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Brian Carpenter

Composer / Ghost Train Orchestra

My favorite recordings of 2022, in no particular order…also the most frequently played albums on my long-running radio show Free Association on WZBC in Boston. As I'm writing this I'm reminded that a lot of great records came out of bands from South London this year, across genres. 

The Comet is Coming - CODE Caroline - caroline Dry Cleaning - Stumpwork William Orbit - The Painter Akusmi - Fleeting Future

Electric Youth, David Sylvian, et al - A Tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto - To the Moon and Back Portico Quartet - Next Stop The Smile - A Light for Attracting Attention Zola Jesus - Into the Wild Mary Lattimore and Paul Sukeena - West Kensington Lucrecia Dalt - Ay! Bjork - Fossora Tindersticks - Stars at Noon Original Soundtrack Kamikaze Palm Tree - The Hit Bitchin Bajas - Bajascillators Bill Callahan - YTILAER Thurston Moore - Screen Time Bill Orcutt - Music for Four Guitars Horse Lords - Comradely Objects Curha - Curha III

Sharon Van Etten - We've Been Going About This All Wrong Aldous Harding - Warm Chris Weyes Blood - Hearts Aglow Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You Oneida - Success Brandon Seabrook - In the Swarm Jacob Garchik - Assembly Oren Ambarchi - Shebang The Lord and Petra Haden - Devotional Roedelius & Tim Story - 4 Hands Brian Eno - Foreverandevernomore Steve Reich - Runner Moor Mother - Jazz Codes Makaya McCraven  - Dream Another Sun Ra Arkestra - Living Sky Danger Mouse and Black Thought - Identical Deaths A Far Cry - The Blue Hour Nils Frahm - Music for Animals Mary Halvorson - Amaryllis Kronos Quartet, Van-Anh Vanessa Vo, Rinde Eckert - My Lai Attacca Quartet - Caroline Shaw: Evergreen

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DJ Food

Music: Clocolan - Empathy Alpha LP (Redpan) Brian Eno - The Lighthouse (Sonos HD) King Gizzard &The Lizard Wizard - Omnium Gatherum LP (Flightless) Twilight Sequence - Trees in General: and the Larch 12" (Castles In Space) WTCHCRFT - Drugs Here 12" (Balkan Vinyl) Ghost Power - Ghost Power LP (Duophonic Super 45s) Dexorcist - Night Watch 12" (Yellow Machines) The Advisory Circle - Full Circle LP (Ghost Box) Fenella - The Metallic Index (Fire Records) S'Express & Daddy Squad - Music 4 The Mind (DL)

Podcasts: The Bureau of Lost Culture We Buy Records Oh God, What Now?

Gigs / Events: The Orb play U.F.Orb @ The Fox & Firkin, London Staying in a restored Futuro House, Somerset Fogfest @ Iklectik, London Funki Porcini's Lasarium @ Iklectik, London The Trunk Groovy Record Fayre @ Mildmay Club, London

Books / Comics: 99 Balls Pond Road - Jill Drower (Scrudge Books) Radio Spaceman - Mike Mignola & Greg Hinkle (Dark Horse) A-Z of Record Shop Bags - Jonny Trunk (Fuel) Mud Sharks - Dave Barbarossa Good Pop, Bad Pop - Jarvis Cocker (Vintage) House Music - Andy Votel (The Modernist) Defying Gravity - Jordan Mooney w. Cathi Unsworth 69 Exhibition Road - Dorothy Max Prior (Strange Attractor) Judge Dredd - Mike McMahon (Apex Edition) It's Lonely At The Centre Of The Universe - Zoe Thorogood (Image Comics) The Black Locomotive - Rian Hughes (Picador)

Films: Get Back (Disney+) Who Killed The KLF? (Chris Atkins) In The Court of the Crimson King (Toby Aimes)

[gaiaseyes451]

New WIP Tag Game!

thank you @malachitegrey !

Give me three lines/paragraphs that you've written that you love [fiction, non-fiction, from different works or the same, from completed stories or poems or WIPs, from yesterday or ten years ago]. If that seems hard, even one will do. It doesn't have to be perfect. It can just be something silly that gives you joy.

And give me three lines/paragraphs that you've written that you dislike and find shitty. Anything at all as long as you wrote it. If you think it's ridiculous or absolute fucking garbage, even better! That's the point of this game. To see that we all write good things and bad things. Yeah? You can do this. And remember that both these categories are subjective.

Ok, let's start with the ones I don't love. These aren't polished, they haven't come out right yet (2 WIPs and bloody hard to pick without giving major spoilers):

When the alarm buzzed at 10 a.m. on 25-May Ezra was already awake; thankfully Anthony had awoken naturally a bit before the alarm. That boded well for the day, it was always easier when Anthony woke of his own volition and today would be challenging enough. The hope was to keep their routine at home as consistent today as possible until they had to get ready for Adam’s wedding. It was one of the reasons Evelyn had suggested setting the ceremony for 3 p.m., an unhurried morning for Anthony to give him the best possible opportunity to be able to attend and enjoy the wedding. They would miss getting ready at the hotel with Adam and the rest of the wedding party, they would miss the photographs before the ceremony and getting to spend the last few hours with their son before he embarked on married life, they would miss the last chance to give fatherly advice.

“Get out of there! I don’t need you mixing things up. If you can’t keep track of your own things I’d thank you stay out of my personal effects!” He shoos Anthony away from his desk as his phone in his trousers rings. He checks the name on the screen - Tracy - probably looking for Anthony.

Heaven largely didn’t concern itself with Hell’s organogram, but Aziraphale knew even Hell followed the idea that the punishment must fit the crime. A demon found to intentionally have aided and abetted in Good would be severely reprimanded. Crowley’s role in saving Elspeth’s life must have had dire consequences. What did they do to you? He wanted to demand an answer, to know what his role had been in this change in his companion’s countenance. But he remembered the withering glare, the venom in Crowley’s voice earlier in the evening. Careful. Don’t push, don’t demand. Careful.

The ones I do love (3 different WIPs):

It was the sorrow that overwhelmed Aziraphale, that drew the air from his lungs and forced his eyes open. He had felt others’ sorrow many times before, he knew the way it spread like oil over water, leaving a film on everything it touched. The surge and swell before it receded again to the edges of consciousness, not always demanding attention but omnipresent nonetheless. That was not this sorrow. This wasn’t an insidious oil slowly coating every surface. It was an inferno consuming every molecule of oxygen, stoked by every breath taken in vain attempts to smother it. It was keen and blinding and new and it needed to be contained before it reduced everything else to smoke and ash.

“’Magine my surprise, seeing a streak of black and red flash past my office door. No ‘hi Tracy’, no stopping by to complain like you usually would on a Friday, not even frustrated mutterings!” She affects an air of obviously feigned concern. “I’da been worried ‘bout ya if I weren’t so stunned by the peaches ‘n’ cream flash that wasn’t two steps behind ya.”

[This is technically in verse, formatting be damned] He is my after life and my liturgy. I seek not Heaven nor Hell. Valhalla nor the Elysian Fields. I worship him alone and he sanctifies me. He exalts in me as I debauch him. I am his salvation and he my damnation. Together we are Balance. Look away, heavenly hosts, for you cast him aside as wicked. Look away, legions of Hell, you sought to destroy him as righteous. You shall never know a love such as ours.

@hakunahistata, @kotias, @paperclipninja, @the-literal-kj and anyone else who wants to, come play!

[uzumakisavior]

Starder @elysian-noctuary

A curse that shared the likeness of a large 5 story chimera awaited Inumaki in the middle of the baseball field. A lion's main, two rat tails, four wings, a snake head, an ox head, and lastly an eagle's head made the creature. Suguru greeted the student. His hands are thrown above his head, eyes close and crinkle with elation.

"Inumaki!!!!" He exclaims, a big joyful smiles joins in jubilation. "Glad to see you here on this wonderful spring day!" He places his hands into his pockets. A cool breeze runs its fingers through his black, silky locks. "Are we ready to push boundaries and break the barriers that keep us from our full potential? I brought you a sturdy curse this time. It should provide you a challenge."

[elysianfieldsarchive]

It's event time at Elysian Fields! Here are all the details Spuffy authors and artists need to get ready. (If you missed the announcement, see here.)

Once you have picked the challenge you wish to respond to and created your work (either fic or art), you will need to upload at least the first part between 00.00 on April 1st and 23.59 on April 30th site time, which appears under the ShoutBox on EF’s homepage. During the posting window, a tick box will appear on the upload page that, when checked, marks your work as part of the event.

After you have uploaded your work, you must link it to the challenge you’re responding to. To respond to a challenge, find the specific challenge on the Challenges page and then click “Respond to this Challenge” at the bottom of the challenge. Click the link, check the box next to the story that is the challenge response, and click submit. If your work is not linked to a challenge, you will not be eligible for awards.

Please note, the challenge you respond to must have been issued by another member. Works that respond to a challenge issued by the creator are not eligible for the event.

Event works will appear on the 2024 April Challenge Month page, be eligible for awards (designed by the wonderful bewildered), and get a little umbrella icon beside them (pictured below).

Below is the breakdown of how to qualify for each award:

Author Award: Post a story or a work tagged as Narrative Artwork.

Artist Award: Post a work tagged as Artwork or Narrative Artwork, contribute illustrations to an event story, or create a banner for an event story. Authors must credit their banner artists and illustrators, including themselves if they are an artist for the work.

Beta Award: Perform a beta read or sensitivity read on an event work. Authors must credit their beta and sensitivity readers.

Comment Award: Add 15 comments of at least 15 words each during the month of April. (see below for more details).

As always, authors must credit any beta readers, sensitivity readers, or artists who contributed to their story. Please use the new crediting fields on the Upload page to ensure everyone gets their hard-earned shinies. The Mods will not check summaries, story notes, or chapter notes for crediting, so this information must be in the crediting field. Please confirm you have the correct spelling and punctuation of usernames, as some members have very similar handles.

Commenters must leave at least 15 comments of at least 15 words each during the month of April to be eligible for the award. Comments do not need to be on event fics, though we always encourage people to read and comment on those!

Banner artists: please add a small line of text somewhere on event banners to say, Designed for Elysian Fields' 2024 April Challenge Month.

Happy creating!

[disco-tea]

Dead Man’s Best Friend

AO3:

Elysian Fields

Description: This is the story of a boy (a 100-plus-year-old vampire) and his dog (a 15-pound Shih Tzu named Miss Sunshine).

And also a Slayer. Who may or may not be the sunshine destined to burn him to ashes. Or is it the dog? Or the actual sunshine? Spike’s pretty confused about that part, actually. Oh well, at least he still has his faithful— albeit tiny—companion.

Written for the Elysian Fields Challenge Month 2023.

[cryingoflot49]

Book Review

Ratner’s Star by Don DeLillo

    Somebody once told me that Don DeLillo’s Ratner’s Star is an inscrutable novel, impossible to interpret and impossible to understand. I took this as a challenge. After all, I’ve read supposedly impossible books like Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, and Gravity’s Rainbow. I’ve plowed through The White Goddess by Robert Graves and managed to make some sense out of Heidegger’s Being and Time and Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. The trick to understanding these books is knowing what to read for, where to look for it, and how to separate the main ideas from the noise and irrelevant details. And especially be careful when listening to others who have read these books and obviously didn’t understand them, but felt a need to explain them anyways. Whether I am guilty of this or not will be left to others to decide. My take on Ratner’s Star is that it is a picaresque-style novel and that Billy Twillig is one of the least important characters in the narrative.

    Billy Twillig is a prodigal scholar. At the age of fourteen, he wins the Nobel Prize for mathematics due to his work with zorgs, a branch that only six people in the world are able to understand. Billy gets taken to a secretly-located institution to work on an assignment to decode a message received from aliens in outer space. Billy, unsurprisingly, acts like a teenager despite his advanced skills, an aspect of him that never gets fully explored by DeLillo in the narrative. He is equal parts cheeky and horny, taking every chance he can get to ask questions of the adults that deprecate them but never himself. The institute itself seems, at times, more like a lunatic asylum than it does a research facility. DeLillo says that this first half of the book was modeled on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I didn’t pick up on that by myself, but after having learned that, it fits more or less.

    The other scientists are eccentric, to say the least. After arriving, Billy encounters some of them in an artificial, man-made Elysian field. One of the first he meets is Cyril, a scholar working with a team of linguists to define the word “science”. This task is harder than first imagined as they can not agree to where the parameters of the definition lie. Some of them argue that primitive magic, as described by Frazer in The Golden Bough, should be considered part of the definition because those folk magic and customs were devised for the same reasons that science was invented; the purpose was to understand nature and the universe and to exert some sort of control over it for the benefit of humanity. Modern science is nothing more than a precise and more finely tuned form of magic.

    Throughout the course of the discussion, Billy is introduced to some female scientists who study the natural elements and he think of them as nothing less than Pagan deities. After assigning one of them the characteristics of a water goddess, he spies on her while she is bathing only to be chastised by her when she catches him. This scene alludes to Artemis, the Greek goddess of chastity, who caught Actaeon spying on her in the woods. This Paganism is all significant because it introduces a theme that pervades throughout the entire book, the primitivism of science as it encounters the frontiers of human knowledge and also the disconnection between language and reality. Since thought, science, and mathematics are all products of language, all of which are tools used to comprehend what we encounter as real, nothing can ever be known in full. The signifier can never be equal to the signified. In the context of comparing Pagan magic and its transition into science, the same questions are foundations for both endeavors with science introducing higher levels of accuracy but also increasing levels of complexity to the point where finding defnite answers may be impossible. Where magic and religion have finality, closure, and the illusion of certainty, science offers only open ended questions that never stop expanding.

    Billy Twillig proceeds to meet other strange, eccentric scientists in a similar vein. One is an Indian woman from the untouchable class who studies animal communication and how they are able to think without language. Again, this is another commentary on language and the nature of thought. How can we even use language to comprehend thought that manifests without language? Considering the woman is untouchable, Billy wants to know what would happen if he touches her leg. “Nothing, obviously,” is the woman’s answer, rendering the concept of “untouchable” an empty set. There are also two sleazy gangster types who speak an odd mishmash of languages and left me wondering if they were actually space aliens. They represent the Honduran Syndicate and wish to recruit Billy to manipulate international financial markets. Yet another doctor, claiming to be a lapsed Gypsy, whatever that means, and wants to get rich by turning Billy into a super-computer by inserting brain-accelerating electrodes into his head. Also in a secret ceremony, Billy meets the old scientist Ratner who lent his name to Ratner’s Star, the part of the galaxy where the coded message came from. Ratner was an astronomer who abandoned science as a career and embraced the mysticism of Hasidic Judaism when he realized that science can not answer the question of what happens when we die. On his deathbed during the ceremony, Ratner tells Billy his life story and then whispers the ultimate secret of life into Billy’s ear, but the secret is the most mundane statement you could possibly imagine. But the symbolism of the old passing traditional knowledge down to the young is what is most important here. It also exemplifies how mysticism is a closed system of information whereas science is, by contrast, an open system.

    Those are some of the minor characters from the first half. One of the more important characters is Billy’s father who doesn’t contribute too much to the overall narrative, but does introduce one important theme. He takes Billy down into the subways of New York City, where it is dark and there is a danger of getting hit by a train, to teach him that the basis of life is fear. In this instance Billy directly experiences the fear of death since getting hit by a train in the dark would inevitably result in death. Indirectly, DeLillo is pointing out how the fear of death leads to magic, mysticism, and religious thought. Through Billy’s father, DeLillo also points out that fear can lead people to live lives of absurdity since the father owns a guard dog that no one is scared of except for young Billy, develops a neurosis over a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, walks the streets prepared for brawls that never happen, and almost assaults an elderly and frail Chinese man who he mistakes for a mugger. The father also makes the mistake of admiring a tall and talented basketball player for being the kind of son he wishes he had even though the athlete makes a dumb decision that ruins his career while Billy goes on to be a success. The father even considers murdering Billy out of fear of how the boy, unusually small for his age and full of unusual ideas, will make the family look. The father’s fear of death does not lead him to make wise or sensible decisions about life which may be DeLillo’s critique of religion and the possibility of science as an alternative.

    Then there is Endor, the mathematician who was assigned to crack the code from Ratner’s Star before Billy came along. Endor lost his patience, moved to a remote location, and spent the rest of his life living in a hole, eating grubs, and digging a tunnel. This latter project parallels the scientific task in that research involves digging oneself deeper and deeper into a hole that eventually will lead to some truth. Endor, as we learn later in the book, actually solved the code before seemingly going crazy. After doing so, he realized that the tunnel digging involved in solving the puzzle created a tunnel leading nowhere as the answer to the original problem ultimately led to more questions rather than one answer. So Endor quit and began digging a tunnel that literally had no purpose and led nowhere. But it did mean something symbolically. The entire book is full of tunnels and hallways all joining up with enclosed rooms, caverns, cells, and enclosures. These may or may not allude to the kabbalah diagram that Ratner describes to Billy as he dies.

    In fact, there is one astrophysicist who explains to Billy that black holes are entrances to tunnels and anything that enters them re-emerges in another part of the galaxy. Every star corresponds to a black hole. I am not atronomically literate enough to know if this is true, but it serves a purpose in the book. The man who explains this to Billy is Orang Mohole, the man who discovered moholes, or pockets of hidden space that permeate the cosmos. This character is significant because his moholes play a major part in explaining where the message from Ratner’s Star came from and why they took so long to reach Earth. Mohole is also a pervert and a bipolar psychotic who enjoys inventing sex toys as if he is preoccupied with penetrating into the secret spaces of women’s bodies. He also sometimes goes crazy and shoots people at random. It is possible that he is the man having a firefight with the police when the riddle of the coded message is solved. As if he entered a narrative black hole and re-emerged in another part of the book, kind of like the Aboriginal shaman with white hair and one eye.

    If the first half of the book is meant to portray the different aspects of science, two things are certain: one is that teamwork is necessary for scientific research; none of these people are working on their own, but rather they are each deeply involved in one complex part of a larger scientific problem. The other deduction, and the other side of that teamwork, is that individual scientists are lonely, eccentric, and socially isolated people who often risk their sanity for the cause of discovering higher truths. The fact that science, as an open system of information, can never be complete, drives some practitioners into mental territories that suggest locations on the autism spectrum. And all these characters in the first half do represent aspects of science. Ratner represents its mystical element. The Honduran Syndicate represent the exploitation of science for technocratic power, the lapsed Gypsy is the commercialization of science, and Cyril shows how science, in its inability to finally and completely explain the nature of existence, is always at the frontier of human knowledge, while Endor portrays the problematic side of science in that it can never fully explain nature the way religion can.

    By the start of the second half of the book, one thing becomes clear; Billy Twillig’s purpose is to  provide a structure to the novel and a thread that holds the whole mess together. He is like Virgil leading Dante through Hell in The Divine Comedy, only we, the readers, are Dante and Billy does not tell the stories of the lost souls we encounter, rather he lets them speak for themselves.

    In this second half, Billy continues to serve his narrative function as the main character but not the most important character since that role gets filled by Softly, a drug and sex addicted dwarf with a deformed and asymmetrical body. He takes Billy into some underground tunnels to a cavern compound below the institute where they have been working. Softly has assembled a team of scientists to construct a language based purely on logic and mathematics that will be utilizable as a tool so that any intelligent living being on Earth or in outer space can communicate with perfect efficiency, without any ambiguities or misunderstandings. Wasn’t Esperanto meant to do something similar? Softly explains to Billy that he originally brought him to the institute for this secret project. When Billy asks why he had to spend so much time working on deciphering the message from Ratner’s Star even though no one actually cared about it, Softly explains that that project was nothing but preparation for this more important task. In terms of structure, this is the author’s way of telling us that the first half of the novel introduces all the themes of the book and the second half puts them into play. The metanarrative is actually encapsulated in the narrative. Is this Chomsky’s recursion at a semantic level? Remember how most of Moby Dick was descriptions of whales and the esoteric language associated with the practice of whaling? The layman needs to learn all of that so they don’t get lost in technical descriptiveness when the action of the novel begins. Well, that worked for Herman Melville, but not so much for Don DeLillo. Ratner’s Star reaches a narrative plateau rather than a narrative peak. While Billy isolates himself, refusing to do any work, the others set about the task of creating the language and, by God, they create it. Oh yeah, and Billy cracks the code of Ratner’s Star too. No big surprises or conventional conflict resolutions.

    But like the first half of the book, the second half is really all about the characters. Where previously characters were meant to represent different aspects of the scientific endeavor, now the characters in the project are brought into three-dimensionality for an exploration of their individual motives. One man works on this project to advance his career and status in the scientific community, one woman uses it as a means of fueling her own philosophical theories about language. A third is engaged in the project to reconcile his identity as a Chinese-American man, being unable to fit completely into either category of “Chinese” or “American”; He latter concludes that language barriers prevent him from being wholly one or the other. The most poignant portrayals of the inner lives of the characters come from Softly and Jean Venable, an author he hires to write a book about the project. Jean is actually a talentless writer with a turbulent psyche and an unfulfilling social life, possibly even suffering from mental illness. Softly chose her because he wants the story to be told to the general public by someone who doesn’t understand science; in other words, he seeks fame through mass popularity while also seeking prominence in intellectual circles through his real work. Actually, though, he is more preoccupied with using Jean for sex to overcompensate for his physical malformations. As we get to know Softly more, we learn that he is motivated by insecurity and self-loathing. He refuses to look into mirrors out of disgust and tries to conquer the world to make up for his inadequacy.

    Otherwise, the scientific themes in the second half are really just expansions on the themes introduced in the first half. One theme that deserves some attention here is that of mathematics. A lot of readers are put off to this book because of it, but you don’t actually need to do any math to follow what is going on since DeLillo limits his exploration to theoretical mathematics rather than applied mathematics. What I get from this book is the need for math to remain an open system of communication so that mathematics can expand eternally and adapt to scientific changes as more knowledge accumulates. The paradox is that while pure mathematics deal in absolute truths, applied math needs to be constantly readjusted to function since science is a process of never-ending self-correction. Pure mathematics can only be self-referential thereby posing the question of whether they are pure or not when we utilize them to explain scientific objectivity. Or do we, in reverse, adjust our perceptions of objectivity to correspond with the ultimate truths of pure mathematics? Of course, this is postmodernism so there can ultimately be no solution to these problems. Is postmodernism meant to be an admission that there are limitations to our intellectual abilities or is it merely just a cop out? When reading Wittgenstein I think it’s the former, when reading Derrida I think it’s the latter.

    In the end, Ratner’s Star certainly has its flaws. The anecdotes about Billy’s childhood don’t lend a whole lot to the overall story and I think some of them should have been written to completion or else left out entirely. I guess in postmodern novels, not everything makes sense because the world is just that way. Pynchon can get away with this, but here DeLillo appears to have made some poor editorial choices. Billy could have been developed as a character more too. I know he is more of a narrative device than a real character, but this still leaves a huge void in the center of the novel that makes it underwritten which is strange considering how overwritten everything else in this book is. Speaking of Pynchon, DeLillo intended this to be an homage to him. But instead of reading like an homage, it comes off as derivative and unoriginal. There are secret plots, paranoia, underground tunnels, secret societies, communications theory, arcane technological jargon, loose plot threads, sexual perversion, non sequiturs, narrative derailments, and even a couple songs stuck in at random places. It’s as if DeLillo took every element from Pynchon’s first three novels and repurposed them for his own novel. It is often too close to Pynchon to be good, but isn’t that also postmodernism? There is never anything new, only copies of copies of copies? In DeLillo’s case it doesn’t quite work. But this novel is far from being a failure. The well-drawn characters are unforgettable and full of depth, so much so that within a sentence or two they feel complete and fully realized. This is a trick few authors can master.

    Would Ratner’s Star stand on its own for a reader who had never heard of Pynchon? I think it would. There is enough brilliance here to be independently evaluated without the overbearing shadow of the great and mysterious Ruggles. DeLillo is full of his own ideas and this is a unique exploration of language, logic, science, and mathematics that could never be recreated by anyone else. DeLillo’s later novels were definitely better, and Ratner’s Star is not for the casual reader, but for those who make the effort, and especially those who have an eagle’s eye for fine details, reading this book is a rich and rewarding experience.

[ao3feed-spuffy]

A Slayer's Fortune

by VoronaFiernan

After Buffy stands up for Tara when her family tries to take her away, Tara shows her gratitude by offering Buffy a reading from a special Tarot deck she has had in her family for generations. Buffy chooses to focus on relationships, and Tara proposes a series of three-card (Past, Present, Future) readings over the course of three days, to evaluate three separate possible relationships. After each reading, Buffy meditates on the cards, and learns additional information leading to an unexpectedly happy new relationship.

Written for Tarot Cards and Christmas Carol challenges on Elysian Fields. Complete story is posted there. Will post this here one chapter per week.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Words: 1610, Chapters: 1/5, Language: English

Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Angel: the Series

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/M

Characters: Buffy Summers, Spike (BtVS), Angel (BtVS), Riley Finn, Tara Maclay, William Pratt, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Ensemble, Anne Pratt, Drusilla (BtVS), Darla (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Samantha Finn

Relationships: Spike/Buffy Summers

Additional Tags: Tarot, Slayer Dreams, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV) Season 5, Minor Riley Finn/Buffy Summers, Torture, Swearing, Smoking, Non-Explicit Sex, Minor Kink, Happy Ending, Reference to Canonical Attempted Rape/Non-Con Outside of Buffy/Spike

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/48431128

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Tuesday, March 7 - Wednesday, March 8

Cain: No wonder this town's overrun with monsters. No one here's man enough to kill 'em. Buffy: Oh, I wouldn't be too sure of that. (bends his gun into an arc with her bare hands) How about you let the door hit you in the ass on the way out of town?

~~Phases~~

The Sunnydale Herald is looking for at least one new editor. Contributing to the Herald is a great way to get your Buffy on! Find out more here.

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Self-Doubt by badly_knitted (Buffy, Faith, PG)

Define Special by madimpossibledreamer (Buffy/Devil May Cry/Resident Evil/Background NCIS Crossover, Xander, T)

Birds of a Feather by DWEmma (Black Widow crossover, Faith, T)

Flock Together by DWEmma (Black Widow crossover, Faith, E)

A little more time by LJ94 (Buffy/Spike, Buffy & Xander, M)

The Benefits of Being a Hero by anonymous author (Tara/Willow, T)

The Neurology Wing by heckate (Buffy, Willow, G)

Welcome to the Clan by JessicaSnow (Twilight crossover, Buffy, M)

I Would Kill Him (If You Let Me) by thoughtsofahouseplant (Buffy/Spike, Hank Summers, T)

Spike's Night-Time Bites by Supernatural_Artefact (Buffy/Spike, T)

Rainbow by BeatriceEveryTuesday (Buffy/Anya, M)

facing sorrow with Faith by watcherless (Buffy/Faith, E)

The Weird & Wonderful Tale of Buffy the Horse by TheBatmanPersona (Buffy/Faith, T)

A little more time by LJ94 (Buffy/Spike, R)

Empty by ClowniestLivEver (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

[Chaptered Fiction]

Paper clouds, open windows - Chapter 1 by tinkerbellamy (Willow/Heidi the hyena, T)

Who Am I - Chapter 1-3 (COMPLETE!) by Luka (Dawn, G)

APOCALYPSE - Chapter 1 by TheCitron (Faith/Robin Wood, M, in French)

Askew - Chapter 1 by ApexDrive (Xander/Larry, Xander/Jesse, Xander/Jonathan, Xander/Andrew, E)

Slaying Nightmares - Chapter 1 by LinzOd (Sandman crossover, Scoobies, Buffy/Spike, T)

Several chapter updates on Elysian Fields (Buffy/Spike, various ratings)

And chapter updates on Twisting the Hellmouth (various characters and ratings)

=

Found family ties, Ch. 1-4 by Julikobold (Buffy/Spike, G)

And many chapter updates on Sunnydale After Dark (Buffy/Spike, various ratings)

[Images, Audio & Video]

5 Buffy Icons by debris4spike (Buffy, worksafe)

Crafts: Slayer scythe replica in progress by dykerikki ()

Animated drawing: a master vampire and an unruly fledge by sundayroadkill (Angelus, Spike, worksafe)

Gothic rose Willow manip by emmatheslayer (worksafe)

💃🏼 BtVS 505. No Place Like Home 💃🏼 by tmcarlee (Glory, worksafe)

[Reviews & Recaps]

Older and Far Away by elliebartlets

S7 rewatch : review of Storyteller (Pt 3/3) by PuckRobin

First Time Watcher (S2 Halloween) by genz9

Check out my Buffy podcast, Slayer Lair, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts! by Jera420

First Time Watcher S2 Ep 8 (The Dark Age) by genz9

5.10 Soul Purpose | Angel on Top

7.11 – "Showtime" by If the Apocalypse Comes, Beep Me

Pop Culture Role Call: Mazel Tov Molotov - Angel S04E07 - Apocalypse, Nowish

[Recs & In Search Of]

Three fanvid recs by apachefirecat

Spuffy style Reading Challenge - #21: Dancing with Fantasy and Sci-Fi by mcgnagallsarmy

[Community Announcements]

The Buffy Fashion Bracket (a tournament to determine the Ultimate BtVS Outfit) is open for submissions

Buffyverse BINGO is open for signup

[Fandom Discussions]

[The vibes Buffy is giving off in I Was Made to Love You] by all-seeing-ifer

I don’t like the idea that Cecily Addams and Halfrek were the same person by coraniaid

Re: if you were going to make Faith/Buffy into a throuple, which character would you ship with them? by juanabaloo

Angel leaves Buffy to give her a chance to have a full life, and... by petpluto

[Spike is the Perfect Romantic Lead™ to an absurd degree] by deadthingu

Multiple Homestuck classpect headcanons for Buffy characters by tavtiers

Ever had a Buffy related dream? by garuffy and others

What would you say is the best season for your favourite characters? (cont'd) by Dogs of Winter and fauxindigo

Willow's arc was the opposite of the Slayers by garfan and others

Which villains or neutral characters could be evil counterparts for each of the Scobby and Angel Investigations gang members from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel? hosted by EnvironmentalAd6108

When the vampires *didn't* go poof! and get dusted... by sakura_drop

weird buffybot observation by PuzzleheadedSteak868

Why is everyone so quick to think that Buffy would sleep with Angel again? by LeahcarA

What's something that happens in the show that you understand and don't blame them for but really don't like either? hosted by Captainoats88

Poll: Would you rather work at... by Captainoats88

My So Called Life, Halloween, & I Only Have Eyes for You by MissMash01

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

90s Con 2023 Schedule (inc James Marsters & Buffy cast) via dontkillspike

Emerald City Comic Con 2023 Reports, Pics & Videos (James Marsters, Kristine Sutherland, Charisma Carpenter) via jamiemarsters

Buffy's New Slayer Transforms Willow & Tara's Queer Legacy by Andy Davis (Screenrant)

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