#emotion: underlit

[spn-speech-bubbles]

[cantsayidont]

More bad movies:

LATENCY (2024): What's duller than watching someone else play video games? This tedious sci-fi horror story about an agoraphobic gamer named Hana (Sasha Luss), whose only real human contact is her friend Jen (Alexis Ren), going off the deep end after getting the opportunity to try a new AI-powered headset that she can use to operate game controls and other technology with her thoughts alone. Soon, of course, she's having disturbing hallucinations suggesting that she's being haunted, or even possessed. Luss is not nearly a good enough actor to carry what's almost a one-woman show — particularly one so thinly plotted — and the attempts at spooky reality-bending are rendered completely pointless by the idiotic premise, which recalls terrible pre-MATRIX movies of the '90s about virtual reality. Critics have praised the visual effects, but on home video, even with the brightness turned way up, the film is so underlit that I couldn't discern about half of it. About the only vaguely interesting point is a brief attempt to visualize the experience of having the game TETRIS seep into one's dreams; the finale also has some very weak echoes of MULHOLLAND DRIVE that only serve to remove the story's one remaining vestige of emotional reality. CONTAINS LESBIANS? At one point Jen teases Hana for inviting her into her bedroom without offering her anything interesting to do. VERDICT: Conceptually bankrupt and weakly executed; if there's an intelligent movie to be made about gaming as a phenomenon, this certainly isn't it.

THE OUTRUN (2024): Extremely dreary recovery drama, based on a memoir by Amy Liptrot (who co-scripted), about a young biologist, here called Rona (Saoirse Ronan), who retreats to Orkney after blowing up her academic career due to her struggles with alcohol while living in London. Paapa Essiedu costars as her former boyfriend Daynin. There's a scene about a half-hour in where the protagonist checks herself into an abstinence-only rehab program whose organizer declares, with appalling misplaced pride, that only 10 percent of participants will make it; I started feeling similarly about this movie, which is much like being caught in a heavy rain while on foot far from home, wearing sneakers with cracked soles. Ronan is quite good, but while Liptrot has praised the film as "fresh and authentic," every scene is a miserable slog — not even the scenery is pleasant, and its paean to 12-step programs (which substantial research now demonstrates are statistically worse than useless) made me itch. CONTAINS LESBIANS? No. VERDICT: I'm glad Liptrot got something worthwhile out of this, but you won't. Photosensitive viewers should be aware that there are some flashing light sequences in nightclub flashbacks (the worst starting around 40 minutes in).

THE SUBSTANCE (2024): Unsubtle, frequently disgusting sci-fi horror story from French writer-director Coralie Fargeat, about an aging TV fitness star, Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), using a mysterious new bio-engineering kit that allows her to create a younger, hotter version of herself, "Sue" (Margaret Qualley) — vapid, selfish, hypersexual, and irresistible to every man she meets — whom she can become for seven days at a time. It doesn't take long, however, before she violates the stringent rules that governs the process, and soon her two selves are at war, with horrific results. The first half is a deliberately paced, unsettling, and potent (if obvious and heavy-handed) statement about gender, beauty, and aging, overlapping somewhat with the gayer but more muddled LOVE LIES BLEEDING, albeit with more, and ickier, body horror. Unfortunately, about halfway through, Fargeat loses interest in trying to be creepy or thought-provoking in favor of escalating grossness, which culminates in an absurdly icky finale drenched in literal geysers of blood. CONTAINS LESBIANS? No, and it's curiously disinterested in the erotic implications of the premise, handcuffed by its own very conservative sexual politics. VERDICT: Visceral and visually striking, but ultimately not as audacious as it would like to be, and very, very gross. Be warned: The squeamish need not apply, and if you struggle with eating disorder, you should approach this film with extreme caution, if at all.

SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY (1971): Critically acclaimed but unrewarding and very gloomy British drama about a 30-something divorced mother (Glenda Jackson) and a 50-something gay Jewish doctor (Peter Finch) carrying on separate but parallel affairs with the same younger man (Murray Head), who's ultimately not willing to give either of his lovers the kind of time or energy they want from him. A downbeat, thinly plotted slice of life, its basic thesis is that youthful notions of love and freedom are fundamentally incompatible with the weight of middle-aged responsibility, a point hammered home by Finch in the fourth-wall-breaking final scene. It's (otherwise) realistically rendered, with the basic premise treated with a refreshing lack of nervous tittering, but it's so glum that it's always kind of a drag, and the Head character is never allowed even half the dimensionality of his older partners. CONTAINS LESBIANS? No. VERDICT: Put me off for various personal reasons from the very first shot, and its sexual politics are as cheerless and inflexible as Margaret Atwood's, which is not a compliment.

[steelcityreviews]

REVIEW: HTI's Fun Home - An Ambitious and Heartfelt Premier for Hamilton's Theatre Community

Adapted from Alison Bechdel’s groundbreaking graphic novel, Fun Home is a refreshing original musical about the power of memory and how it helps us shape, reexamine or even destroy our identity. Moving between past and present, Alison relives her unique childhood playing at the family’s Bechdel Funeral Home, her growing understanding of her own sexuality, and the unanswerable questions about her father’s hidden desires. It was the unexpected winner of Best Musical at the 2015 Tony Awards, championed the underrepresented (specifically women writers and directors) and has become a sorely needed addition to the musical theatre zeitgeist.

Hamilton Theatre Inc. has taken an ambitious risk with producing Fun Home as part of their 65th season. It is Hamilton Ontario's premier of the show and there has been a great deal of anticipation regarding its opening. After several health based challenges leading up to opening night, the show finally opened its doors to Maple Avenue and the Bechdel "fun home." While the production has its flaws, it ultimately grants audiences a brave, humourous and heart-felt look at the lives of the Bechdel family and how tragedy can lead to healing and hope.

Director Tyler Collins has staged Fun Home to incorporate all the memories present-day Alison recalls. The main set is the house, which begins as a dusty relic and is unveiled as Alison's father's passion project and, as we discover, a way to express his closeted queerness. The set design has some effective reveal elements to it which I won't spoil here but shows the ingenuity in how to make larger scenes work on a small stage.

HTI often faces the challenges of spacing and this time, the orchestra is affected. Some members were in the loft and some were on the ground floor which often made the sound levels uneven and several songs were very difficult to hear over the instruments. Lesson 101 at HTI is always the power of projection as the cast is not mic'd and the hanging mics only provide so much assistance. Due to many cast members recovering from illness, this may have affected their ability to project so bravo to those who pushed through. That being said, audience members who are not familiar with the songs and story may find difficulty in hearing several cast members throughout. The production features some moody lighting that adds to the overall atmosphere of the show but is also underlit for several scenes. The actors faces were often so dark that the emotional impact was frequently lost. Perhaps, for the remaining shows, some extra spotlight usage or warm washes would help resolve this.

Where this show shines is in its casting. It is no easy feat to cast three individuals to play the same character at various points in their life. Collins and the creative team made brilliant choices in casting Kristi Boulton (Present-day Alison), Sabrina Gabrielle (Medium Alison) and Ariana Abudaqa (Small Alison). Each of these actors bring charm, humour and nuance to their performances and they even match one another in stature and vocal prowess.

Boulton interacts with the other versions of Alison in an endearing way while making hilarious quips about situations as she tries to make sense of her past. Boulton impresses with her deep understanding of the source material and channels the emotional impact of the story with deep respect and soaring vocals, particularly in Maps and the gut-wrenching Telephone Wire. Gabrielle embodies the nervous energy of Medium Alison perfectly while they accept their sexuality and their awkwardly joyful Changing My Major is equal parts funny and relatable. I hope to see more of Gabrielle on stage in the future. Small Alison is energetic and sassy, almost to a fault. There is undeniably a great deal of talent in Abudaqa but her performance of Ring of Keys comes off a bit too manic and less reflective in the realization of Alison's sexuality. It is a pivotal moment in the show and it doesn't have the impact it should. All this to say that at the finale, these three will have you tearing up with their powerful performance and gorgeous harmonization. Bravo.

While Alison is our protagonist, the show ultimately focuses on the strained relationship with her father Bruce, his closeted sexuality and the deeply concerning (and ultimately tragic) decisions he makes. Ian McKechnie is another strong casting choice in this role. He understands the levels needed to make this role work so that the audience never hates him but like, Alison, never truly understands him. The moments of rage and intensity delivered by McKechnie shows off his skilled acting ability and the tension and despair never feels phoned in. Very impressive work.

There is a great deal more to praise about HTI's Fun Home. Amber Mill's breaks our hearts with her tragically resentful Days and Days. This song is a key example of why musical theatre exists: to show emotion and reveal one's self when words simply aren't enough. Mills demonstrates the heartbreak in this song and it is delivered beautifully. The Bechdel brothers (Gretchen Tellez and Olive Millie) deliver some refreshing moments of levity in Come to the Fun Home and Raincoat of Love and Jackie Mahoney and newcomer to the stage, Ivan Bond provide balanced support as Joan (Alison's girlfriend) and various characters throughout. The costumes are period accurate for the 1970's and the colour matching for the characters, particularly the Alison trio, is creative and clever.

HTI's Fun Home is a welcomed piece of musical theatre in our community and almost a decade since its original debut, still has a story that needs to be told. Audiences will come to understand more about the rollercoaster of emotions while discovering one's sexuality, the hardships associated with it and how the past can be our greatest resource to accepting ourselves and those who impact our lives. Tickets are selling quickly for this Hamilton premier. Go to the Fun Home.

For tickets and more information, please visit: https://hamiltontheatre.com/tickets/

Photos by: Kreations Photography

[alexcaldownapier]

Film Project - Critical Reflection

Longboard Nights is a film that, for me, delivers on its premise and although it occasionally loses what Kate would refer to as “Narrative Clarity”, I think the broad strokes (which is the bread and butter of an action film) are affecting and impactful. The moments that work best for me are the entrance to the flat, the bathroom scene and the final moment which I will analyse to show how my work has helped to deliver the film’s story.

As cinematographer, the developing framings of the opening shot of the living room sequence, does what I intended, showing the character's intentions and action in a way that emphasises their importance and psychology. We go from a close up on the door-handle, to a close-up on Alex’s knife, onto a single of Alex and then finally into a two-shot as they creep into the flat. The close-ups communicate the careful entrance and the murderous intent, while the framing of the actors shows their performance clearly: Alex’s grim look, her making sure Casca is silent when closing the door and her then taking the lead into the room. The tracking backwards emphasises the rising action and the creeping of the characters, pairing well with Rowen’s sound design to create a rising anticipation of the coming confrontation. The developing lighting, with Alex stepping into the low-angle toppled light source, also creates a change within the shot, moving us forward from what was a softly lit opening into a high contrast close up ending shot, again emphasising the movement into a more high-intensity scene. The clear communication along with the rising tension sets the scene up well.

Shot 5.1: Multiple framings as we track backwards as the characters enter the flat.

Where I think the film stumbles slightly is in the moments that are quickly cut in order to not just meet the time restrictions, but also to communicate multiple things quickly. As in the next moment, where Alex is distracted by the photograph of the husk and his daughter and in the opening scene where we set up not just the world and the characters, but also a whole backstory relating to our protagonist. In order to show the differences in time, I designed the flashbacks to be softly lit, in contrast to the rest of the film, shot at a 360 degree shutter angle and played back only showing every third frame. However, in post-production, we decided we needed a clearer visual difference between past and present so added another layer to the shots, where we brought in vertical streaks in the image and an overall glow. While these changes are necessary to contextualise the flashback narrative, when it is combined with the quick cutting and the world-building soundtrack, it becomes a little hard to follow. This aspect of the narrative, Alex’s past with her father’s turning and how it impacts her present actions, seems to be the first thing that can stop people totally engaging with the film. Having shown it to people who did not know anything about the narrative, this was the thing they found confusing. They didn’t understand Alex’s actions, which is really quite a big aspect of the story. The fact these scenes are a little underlit also doesn’t help the confusion. (Another well-thought-out part of Rowen’s work is the shrewd timing of the line “11 years ago” from the politician’s speech which he placed underneath the first flashback, helping to smooth over the gap in communication).

Shot 2.1: The flashback sequence, with post-production alterations.

The bathroom scene and final moment both display another strength I think the film has, which is an excellent central performance from Claire Cassidy, emotively directed by Ben. Despite working with an untrained actor, Ben, through his research into directing and acting techniques, was able to get Claire to the point where she was able to fully cry on screen and totally communicate the intense panic the character is feeling.

Again, I think I made the correct choices in the cinematography in these moments to best add to the emotions captured. The handheld camerawork combined with the wide lens creates a visceral panic and a very ‘present’ feeling, if that means anything.

Shot 6.1: Wide angle, handheld shot of the bathroom scene.

Again, I used multiple framings within one shot to emphasise specific narrative beats: Alex’s panic, Casca’s precarious situation, the blood on Alex’s hands, Alex feeling overwhelmed and alone. The long take was both a practical consideration, to ensure we had enough time in the schedule, and also added to the intensity of the content of the scene. The use of the 14mm lens throughout the film was mainly inspired by the films of Terry Gilliam where they are used to emphasise the unsettling nature of his dystopias and the characters within them. In order to ensure I could achieve a similar effect in this film, I also tried to emulate the chromatic aberration of the 14mm lenses used in his film Brazil (1985). I added a “prism blur” effect to the edges of the frame to disrupt the image and make it feel more disgusting and unsettling. I used this effect on all of the 14mm shots throughout the film as I had already saved the lens for the moments when the world was particularly unsettling and the characters were sliding closer to their fate, so the addition of lens aberrations would not be out of place.

While the final shot is a little shaky and quite poorly framed, I think it is also an example of where the cinematography was able to elevate the action on screen. The camera pulls out very slowly as Alex desperately tries to get Casca up on her feet, as if saying: they’re not going fast enough, she’s not going to make it. I asked Bethany if we could repeat the last frame of the film a few times as we cut to black to ensure that the final cut leaves an impact and we keep thinking of the characters through the final moments. This final frame, like the rest of the film, was shot with a 270 degree shutter angle, to create heightened motion blur and I think it really works to emphasise the desperation of the characters’ movements.

Shot 8.1: The final frame of the film.

Overall, I think the film delivers the emotional impact of the narrative: is tense when needed, is thrilling when needed and is depressing when needed. The art design and SFX is well displayed and elevates the film. Due to its quality, we didn’t need to hide anything in the design of our shots, so the believability of the gore and the action is at a level that ensures the audience are invested and their disbelief is suspended. The sound design is another thing that really helps sell the emotion of the film, with the final announcement over the black screen leaving a really bleak tone to the ending.

As for issues with the film and my work, there are inconsistencies within the film's visuals that, while not breaking the illusion of the film, could definitely be improved. In order for the action to work, the bathroom had to be directly connected to the living room, however, in reality, this was not the case. So, to cheat this, I had a light shine through the door when it was opened, trying to match it to the lighting of the following scene. However, I used a different wattage of bulb to cheat the bathroom from what I used to actually light that scene. Samuel Duner later pointed out that the colour temperature of a tungsten light varies based on the wattage of the bulb, which meant that it was harder to match the colour of the light between scenes. Something I should’ve researched before the shoot.

Another issue comes with the motivation of the majority of the film’s lighting. As the film is set at night and the camera needs to be able to follow the action in quite a wide arc, I chose to light the majority of the interiors by placing lights outside with a combination of gels and blackout material behind them to imply street lighting. However, often there is a bit too much spill from the natural light, no matter how hard we tried to black out the sun. On top of this, the colour temperature I chose can be read as golden hour sunlight, which kind of breaks the world of the film. I tried to push the colours to a more yellowy hue in the colour grade, to little effect. The room was also quite large so there are points in the scene where the action is between my two main light sources and therefore looks flat and underlit. In hindsight, more use of practicals in the living room scenes would have helped to properly light the scene and create the desired time of night.

Shot 5.7: My least favourite shot, complete with both lighting issues and poor framing.

There are other moments where the framing is leaving a bit to be desired, especially the shot showing Alex dragging Casca into the bathroom. Due to the movement, where I was tracking and panning with the action, I was consistently missing parts of the performance. My camera operating needs some improvement and while I did eventually get a technically good shot, the take used was the best one for the story.

Interestingly, one of the main critiques of the cinematography was of the coverage of the hallway scene - the only scene where we cut a shot. We tried to combine two shots (4.2 + 4.3), due to running out of time in the day, but I still missed a section of the action, leaving Bethany not a lot of room in the edit of that scene. I think the original shot list covers what it needs to, in a way that is both practical and emotive, however, I think more inserts of specific actions in the fight scene could have helped to clearly communicate the specific actions.

The use of hard light sources, heavy grain, 2.35:1 aspect ratio, foreground elements and darkly lit interiors all contribute to a grimy and intense overall look that suits the tone of the film and the psychology of the protagonist. I think the inspirations for the look of the film definitely come through as well, most notably, The Batman (2022) and Mandy (2018).

As I’ve touched on, the narrative clarity of Alex’s backstory and its impact on the film’s story is certainly lacking and there are some technical issues throughout the film, but I am still incredibly proud of the film and my work on it. I think the visuals (mostly) communicate the story and create the appropriate tone and emotions. I’m very happy after this term and I think my pre-production and conceptualisation work paid off.

[keikakudori]

(kaname/postwar down the road) ‘You should've let me go. It wouldn't have worked. But at least you wouldn't have this on your conscience... this... ...me... ...what happened--’

for just a moment, aizen found himself staring into the distance with the words which seemed to be as stones, hurled at his back. was it anger he heard in kaname's voice? something else? whatever emotion underlit those words, he was left silent and gazing at nothing. he came here -- from time to time. here, where kaname had made a home for himself, but rare visits, small visits, never doing more than lingering an hour or two, spending the night rarely. here, he simply spoke to kaname for a moment, one of the few people who might see fit to let him linger despite everything. but these words are not ones that truly shock him, not entirely.

but what was a surprise was what felt like a strange kernel of rage flash in a bloom in his thoughts. rage with kaname--? no, not exactly. but it was a strange anger, one that he could not put a reason to, an understanding. for just a moment, it was nearly enough to have his hands growing tight around the items that he held. simple things, a cup of tea, a box made out of wood which held the few things he carried with him during his travels along the outer fringes of the rukongai. the districts where no shinigami tended to visit unless there were reports of hollow out in the hinterlands. then - and only then - was it likely that he would ever see shinigami visiting in patrols. but aizen tended to eliminate them himself.

because there was a risk in doing such a thing -- a risk that carried with it the yearning to return whenever he saw those men and women wearing the garb of shihakusho. because ever and always his mind shifted to the shadow gone from his back. perhaps the words of conscience were what stirred his anger now and aizen's hand snapped the lid on the box which held one of the few brushes he still carried with him, the inksticks, shut. not that he tended to have much chance of writing out any letters, but it was one of those few items he carried with him and aizen wasn't sure if his hands shook or not as he put it in the soft embrace of a spare yukata nested in the rucksack.

❝ perhaps i should have. ❞ a cold voice, a cold admission. ❝ but if i had done so, you still would have been on my conscience perhaps. if i had done so, then i've little doubt i would have received word of you trying to kill that so-called noble yourself and being struck down for it at the time. and by the time that i understood that you should have been free... well. ❞ his head shifted as he finally turned towards him. ❝ i was cautious. i did not like to leave loose ends, as you know. and you were useful to me then, kaname. ❞

no, he wasn't angry with kaname. the words held a bitter twist of self-contempt in them, little spores of acidic tang bursting across his tongue. such anger was aimed solely and entirely at himself. kaname was right. he should have let him go. but aizen had not. he had not let him go and he had not allowed gin to leave either.

❝ -- as for my conscience ... ❞ no, the anger wasn't for kaname. ❝ ... i made the offer to you. a request i said you could make of me, a request that i would honor. you laid your life in my hands, willingly, when you chose to follow and obey me. my loyal hound, my general, my executioner. ❞

it was not anger now but a wearied pain. one hand lifted to shade his brow, visible eye becoming downcast. a pain that had grown in the dark, a stunted and twisted fruit. kaname spoke of his conscience and aizen could not say to him now of the differences between him and the viper who had been his shadow. kaname had ever been a tool - but not trusted the way gin had been. gin had ever had the adaptive nature and flexibility required by aizen for the plans. kaname -- no, he was rigid. he had been rigid. he would have done his best to see aizen's whims and desires carried out, yes - there was no doubt about that. but he had twisted him up, used him, trusting kaname to be the blunt instrument he had made himself into.

❝ ... the truth of it, kaname, is that what happened was ... was a result of my own choices. of things i did. i made those decisions myself and there is nothing -- nothing at all -- that i can do to make it otherwise. you speak of my conscience. trust me when i say that i have come to understand many things with the time i was left entombed in Muken. of -- of my own ... of my own follies and my own foolishness. ❞

it had not been kaname who had truly weighed upon his conscience. not him. aizen had asked him the night they met: would you surrender your hatred to me for a while? he had smiled when he heard what kaname sought. vengeance, beneath the blood-laden wish for so-called justice, against the man who had killed kaname's friend ---- that nobleman's own wife. he had smiled --- and he had used him. without hesitation, aizen had used kaname, studying his displays of obeisance, his desire to please, soothing him and seeing how brittle he was.

❝ ... if i had let you go, if i had sent you away -- what would have become of you, kaname? without that for me, what would you have done? you followed me, willingly. i respected the request you made of me. you asked me for that; you delivered your own life into my hands, to hold as i willed, until the time i saw that you faltered. would you have been happier if i had sent you away? would that have pleased you? you would have died far sooner if that had been the case, trying to kill tsunayashiro tokinada yourself. but you chose to give me your life and your obedience. ❞

his loyal hound -- but brittle, so brittle, treating him with divine veneration, worshiping him, seeking to please him and ensure that aizen's will would ever be obeyed and brought to fruition. he had used him to punish grimmjow once -- which had earned him a chiding from the one person he had trusted above all others. and when grimmjow had acted out again, it was not kaname who displayed the displeasure of those moments -- but aizen himself. a chiding from the one person he trusted most of all, a scolding no matter how playful from gin, and he had not let kaname take over the next time. he had handled it himself.

aizen had never asked kaname of what he thought over the fact that the man he treated as his own personal god had come to trust that pale-haired youth. or if he had ever seen -- what, feelings? fondness? whatever the complex tangle was.

❝ ... i should have let you go, as you said. but i didn't. i used you and i listened to what you wished of me. i should have let you go, then, and i did not. and i ... am sorry, kaname. ❞

a slow inhale.

❝ ... i am sorry i failed you for all of your faith in me. ❞

/ @njnth

[knifesxedge]

you really are about to unlock smth bc a) i have SO many thoughts on the sequel trilogy and b) im DESPERATE for a distraction so um. i think about the prequel trilogy and i really truly start to lose it. bc force awakens was SO GOOD. like remember the first time you watched it and you (me, but maybe you as well) were like? HOLY SHIT. it was obviously a new hope v2 but it was FRESH and NEW and there were cool characters that i CARED about. (1/3)

HELL YEAH let’s get into it ok ok ok OPINIONS INCOMING.

TOTALLY with u on this. like the prequels make me mad about the wasted potential but tbh the sequel trilogy is just like. draining emotionally because they LOOK so fucking good. the force awakens WAS so so good, like very very star wars even if it was following the plot beats of anh. and then it just. tanked itself holy shit. like at least the prequels look bad, sound bad, it’s like a comical level of tragic. the sequel trilogy feels like having chalk dust spread all over my skin and then being put in an echo chamber of nails on a chalkboard 😔 at this point even tfa comes with a TINY lil bit of like 😞 just because i know what comes after but YES tfa is one of those star wars movies that just FEELS so fucking star wars it makes me unhinged. “THATS ONE HELL OF A PILOT” YEAH BITCH!!! IT IS!!!!! GAY PEOPLE!!!

the last jedi. a mess. i like certain rian johnson films but he should not be allowed to be anywhere near Star Wars. my main problem? (beyond the racism and romanticizing stalking and emotional and physical abuse?) it doesn’t FEEL like star wars. like. ok even in the darkest moments in mainstream star wars films they are SUPPOSED to feel hopeful. tlj feels like watching a train wreck in slow motion it’s just like shitty thing after shitty thing after shitty thing happening to the main cast. i think the casino planet’s design was a little lazy and WAY too underlit and rose’s character was pointless in the way she was shown in the movie. exhausting. the jokes were all on the wrong edge of disrespectful to the characters and the original star wars like luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder? appalling. not funny just there for shock value. everyone is out of character. everyone is stressed and miserable all the time. aside from things i didn’t really want to see but wouldn’t have argued with in a better movie (ie luke dying) it really was just a racist misogynistic mess. oh yeah did i mention how they did rey’s character dirty because she went from being a scrappy desert mechanic who’s a little dorky and just trying to find a family and a place in the galaxy to Bland White Girl Servicing a Man’s Character. that pales in comparison to how finn poe and rose’s characters were treated but HOLY shit. i walked out of the theater crying. tfa raised my expectations only to have tlj smash them down to the floor it was. hhhhh ok ok ok im trying to think if i liked anything from the movie. um. you were right it looked good! sound and score were great as usual. i did think poe’s conversation with hux at the beginning was funny. i really liked when leia used the force to come back to the ship (ik that was a controversial scene for some people but i did really like that scene. she deserves it). laura dern is cool i hated her character but in theory laura dern being leia’s lesbian boarding school friend is neat. but yeah im sorry i really REALLY didn’t like that movie we only saw it in theaters once it was so bad. :( i do agree with u abt the force mysticism being cool tho!

rise of skywalker. now maybe it’s because the bar was on the floor after tlj. but i actually liked it quite a bit. still kind of a mess. jj trying to retcon all of the stuff from the last movie because for some reason he wasn’t just allowed to do the whole trilogy. the pacing being a nightmare for the first half. the atrocious abuser-validating kiss at the end. but im gonna be real after having to sit through tlj i was happy enough just to see the main trio back together and finn and poe being treated with more respect to care much about that stuff. disney queerbaits me once again but that’s on me for clowning. i really genuinely liked the scene where rey passes the lightsaber to kylo i thought that was cool but it was overshadowed by the knowledge that the Kiss 🤮 was coming so i didn’t get to enjoy it like i wanted. ALSO hayden christiansen and all the other actors doing the voices in the scene where rey is fighting the emperor (who im pretty sure was only in there because RIAN put the trilogy’s intended big bad into a sparkly gold bathrobe and killed him off in the second movie but im not complaining about seeing ian mcdiarmid) were apparently on set in costume and force ghosts were supposed to protect her in like a big circle and what im saying is i feel robbed and cheated and feral

the only movie of the three i REALLY liked was tfa. now we’re back to How Would I Fix It. step one fire rian johnson. step two put JJ on the whole trilogy and HOLD HIM ACCOUNTABLE for having a plot planned out, or else get a different director TO DO ALL THREE MOVIES. none of this middle of the road “trying to appease both sides of the fandom” bullshit. kylo dies at the end and they DO NOT kiss and that is all the redemption he gets. if disney is claiming gay rep then they SHOW us ACTUAL gay representation. poe and finn kiss on screen and we don’t get a two second blurry background kiss between random characters. completely toss out whatever the fuck that plot was supposed to be in tlj and separate ros into two movies so JJ could actually DO the entire plot he had planned (instead of disney execs chopping down what was p much a four hour movie into two hours twenty two minutes which was SHORTER than the two hour forty minute cut jj reluctantly okayed but i DIGRESS).

god. what the fuck. anyways sorry for completely going off the rails but ty for sharing ur sequel trilogy opinions and ty for letting me rant sorry this got so long but ily!!! ❣️💕💝

[spectregraphy]

adeline rudolph. nonbinary. she/her ❝ — well, look who’s just arrived ! if it isn’t the one and only miriam moon. though, around here they’re known as the spectator. don’t tell ‘em i said this but the twenty-eight year old photojournalist kinda has a reputation of being stoic and judgemental. but y’know, they can be insightful and attentive too. typical aquarius. anyways, welcome home and stay safe miri ! ❞

BACKGROUND (content warning: implied suicide, adultery)

is of german and korean descent but they lived in hong kong prior to moving to misty hallows. more correctly, before she and her mother moved.

she was 14 when her father left them for his second family. luckily, the in-laws were willing to take them in. 

miri tried to acclimate to the new culture and environment. ( and failing on some level ). she found companionship within the yearbook committee but namely, the camera she borrowed from the school. meanwhile her mother bounced back even though she was coming out of a divorce with no money and a housekeeping job. her resiliency served as an inspiration for miri.

one day miri came home to the neighbors crowding around her house. yellow tape blocked off the perimeter. they ruled her mother’s death as self-inflicted. she couldn’t buy that explanation. it just didn’t add up.

she developed the last photos she took of her mother before the incident and discovered something that felt off... and almost sinister. her mother’s fae was distorted, blurred,  overexposed in an underlit room. the orbs scattered all over.

she never stopped taking photos from that point, desperately trying to replicate what she saw. she became a photojournalist who was obsessed with finding the truth.

IN TOWN

she got a total of like five close friends kdsjsd she keeps to herself because word got out about her being the “weird girl with the freak photos.” she’s an aqurius sun capricorn moon. so although she doesn’t want to cling to deep emotions, she remembers how everybody picked on her. she comes with receipts every time.

she’s gone by miriam ever since she moved. only her family and friends call her miri. she does speak fluent english that is heavily accented due to her cantonese. her korean name is moon mihyun. her old classmates used to call her “siu yuet” (little moon). her dad never taught her german. never really taught her anything except men are not to be trusted.

some people think she’s doing some cute project like “humans of new york” but she’s not. she goes around taking a million pics a day to see if she can get any ghost photos again.

she never went to college because lack of funds but she did get a job shortly after graduating high school, so she’s not entirely bothered.

major resting bitch face. sometimes active bitch face too. she doesn’t really mean it. she’s just constantly sleep deprived. she suffers from insomnia among other things.

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Demon Slayer, Episodes 4-7

In which loneliness makes for a different kind of shonen, Tanjirou shares everyone’s pain, and I consider the complicated tonal whiplash going on in the details.

The Loneliest Shonen

It’s been a good few days since I last watched Demon Slayer, and in the time since then I’ve been thinking about those first three episodes a lot. While there was a lot I enjoyed about them, I also couldn’t help feeling that something wasn’t clicking quite well as it could have. At the time, all I could do was compare it to Attack on Titan, a show which had a very similar starting point and I felt pulled it off much more effectively. But now that Demon Slayer’s really hit the ground running and has established its own identity, I think I’m going to have a much easier time exploring it on its own terms. And what I’m realizing is that while this is definitely a shonen action series at heart, it’s got a very different edge than one might expect from a contemporary of the likes of My Hero Academia and Black Clover. That edge is both its strength and occasionally its weakness, as it both sets this apart from a lot of what its contemporaries are doing and also makes it very noticeable when it does start falling back in line. Simply put, Demon Slayer’s true focus lies with the feelings of loneliness, tension, and silence, and whenever it’s focusing on those emotions, it’s really damn good.

See, most shonen tend to be pretty camaraderie-driven affairs. They’ve got big casts of characters that all hang out in the same general vicinity, whether it’s for hero school, volleyball practice, ninja missions, or whatever, and the appeal of watching all those personalities bounce off each other and inspire each other to improve lies at the heart of what makes them so entertaining. They’ve got their dark moments, sure, but that sense of teamwork and companionship always shines through. Demon Slayer, by contrast, is defined by the isolation of its characters. The demon slayers aren’t a single location team like a school or army, but an underground network of lone rangers who barely ever see each other in person. They’re all independent operators, which means you rarely see more than two significant characters sharing a conversation at any given time. Tanjirou spends a lot of him time fighting alone, save for his often-sleeping sister, and outside master Urokodaki, he hasn’t really made any significant interpersonal connections yet. He triumphed solo in the final selection after the kid he saved ran off in fear, we haven’t yet seen any more of the other kids who passed (who would normally form a merry band of bickering squadmates by now), and the people he saves are all crippled by loss and grief, isolated in their own private worlds of pain. Not to mention how gristly and dark the actual battles get, with all their underlit alleyways and body horror. In direct contrast to the outwardly cheery spirit of most shonen, You throw any of UA’s kids into this kind of situation, it probably wouldn’t be long before the overwhelming despair ate away everything they thought they were fighting for (expect for Tokoyami and Todoroki, probably).

All Pain Matters

And that difference in focus is what makes this show such a visceral, often haunting experience. Demon Slayer is build around isolation and sadness, not on the bombast of heroism or the bombast of vengeance, but the quiet, crushing despair of staring out at the horizon and finding it blank before you. It’s about setting into the pain of Tanjirou and the people he runs into, the trauma they’ve all had to suffer and the thick clouds of sorrow that weigh down on them after the fact. It’s almost like a tonal flipside to the shonen standard; instead of exploring the power of friendship and connection, Demon Slayer is exploring the consequences that occur when friendship and connection aren’t able to exist. But it’s also clearly building its characters up to a point where those connections will exist, starting from such a sorrowful point to make it all the more rewarding when these lost souls finally manage to reach each other. That’s honestly a fantastic idea; with how saturated the idea of the Power of Friendship(tm) has become in anime, it’s easy to lose sight of how, well, powerful that concept can be. When you’re allowed to feel everyone’s pain so unguardedly, you’re able to feel how much it means for them to find someone who can restore light to their lives.

That’s the genius of Tanjirou as a protagonist as well; he’s someone suffering the pain of loss and grief, just like everyone else, but he’s trying to use that pain to reach empathy with others who’ve been consumed by it. When he defeats that first big demon in the Final Selection, he makes sure to bid farewell to its victims, the spirits of his master’s former disciples who were butchered alone and scared. He gives them a chance to feel at peace one last time before departing for the next world, secure in the bonds they’ve forged in this one. He doesn’t even need to say a single word to the man who lost his fiance; just a single, empathetic stare communicates just how deeply he understands the kind of pain he’s going through. And what makes him so great is that he’s still affected by that grief himself; Tanjirou is kinda the person who needs Tanjirou’s the most. Facing down such heavy loss drives him to emotional extremes, bringing anger and despair out of him as he pushes back against a world that’s taken so much from him. But in the kindness of his sister and the bond he’s forged with Urokodaki, he’s able to find people who can give him a shoulder to lean on as well. For someone who was so determined to beat the sentimentality out of him, even Urokodaki realizes that he needs to take this kid’s emotional needs into consideration. And that moment where we see him crying behind his mask once Tanjirou returns alive is... man, it’s so fucking good. Like I said above, it’s only when you’re allowed to feel how much these characters are hurting that them rising above that pain together is able to hit to fucking hard.

But Tanjirou’s desire to hold onto that strength is only going to get harder the darker his steps tread. As much as he tries to bring peace to the demons he fights, even the stalker from episodes 6 and 7 is too much of a monster for him to empathize with. He’s going up against creatures who were once human, but now have that side of them locked away behind a million walls of hate and hunger. And nowhere is that more chilling than in the reveal of Muzan, the Michael-Jackson-looking-motherfucker responsible for the slaughter of Tanjirou’s family. God damn, the reveal that this demon had actually started a human family was such a great twist, because it throws all our moral grounding out the window. Muzan’s unmistakably a danger; he can turn a human into a demon with a single precise slash. But what about his family? What do they mean to him? Are they just camouflage for him to escape detection, or does he genuinely care about them? And even if they’re disposable to him, how’s Tanjirou going to stop him without giving this monster’s family the same grief he gave him? There’s no easy answer to that question, and I can’t wait to see where they take that setup. Demon Slayer’s playing with pretty heavy ideas, but it’s making them all work, and the potential’s there for it to really achieve something powerful when all it said and done.

Split Down the Middle

So with all that praise out of the way, with all those good features noted, what is it about this show that’s still keeping me at arm’s length? Well, like I mentioned above, Demon Slayer’s doing such a good job charting its unique course through the shonen waters that it doesn’t feel natural whenever it falls back on more conventional shonen tactics. And I’m not really referring to the story itself here, even if it’s a little cheap how we only get that one demon’s sympathetic backstory after he’s spent an entire episode being little more than a ravenous monster and has already had the killing blow dealt. It’s more like, there are moments where it feels like it’s trying to capture the spirit of more outwardly goofy, silly shonen, and it just doesn’t feel natural with the tone it’s established. You know, how sometimes the backgrounds go all silly and abstract and the character models put on extremely cartoony expressions to punctuate a joke? There’s a particular moment in episode 7 where Tanjirou’s furiously stewing over the idea of tracking down Muzan, his brows furrowed in obvious rage, and then his crow companion shows up out of nowhere to raucously announce his next mission with a goofy voice punctuated by impact lines, and it completely kills the intensity of the moment. It’s not really a constant issue, and the jokes that are allowed to play more naturally work fine (It’s amazing how much character Nezuko can express as just a shuffling lump under the blankets), but it happens enough to be distracting and throw a wrench in the powerful tone the show otherwise works so hard to establish.

I think a lot of it also comes down to this show’s style; Demon Slayer’s overall aesthetic feels like it’s stuck between two different ideas and doesn’t know how to reconcile them. The poppy character art feels like something out of a Meiji-period fresco, and whenever Tanjirou pulls out those equally gorgeous water attacks, it feels like you’re watching a painting in motion. It’s utterly goddamn beautiful, and between the striking color choices and the way the effects and linework still manage to feel like paper cutouts while in action, it plays almost like a hyperstylized puppet show, a kaleidoscope of colorful expressionism that wows with its attention to detail and use of space. Add to that some delightfully grotesque monster designs and body horror, with plenty of equally stylized blood and limbs flying every which way- that one demon’s ravenous arm-mouth and the other’s eternally grinding teeth with haunt my nightmares tonight- and you’ve got yourself a recipe for one hell of a snappy-looking spectacle, one that’s able to be expressive, striking, and emotive all at the same time. But all of that clashes with the muted, realistic CG backgrounds, which almost feel like something out of a less artistic Mushishi, and the very Ufotable hazy compositing that comes with them. As such, it can feel like all these wonderful colors and motions and character animation are taking place in a muddy, underlit void, and the show’s world really kinda struggles to come to life as a result. And while none of these problems are dealbreakers, they’re constant enough presences that Demon Slayer’s overall atmosphere ends up feeling frustratingly incomplete. Hopefully I’ll become more used to them in time, because there are too many good things going on here for these stylistic niggles to ruin the experience.

Odds and Ends

-So is this thread of attack metaphorical or literal?

-Okay, the shimmering purple of these trees is beautiful.

-ahahaha oh my god Tanjirou that’s not what they mean by using your head

-”Crow? Isn’t this a sparrow?” He sounds so done with everything askdhashd

-”Five of them survived, huh?” ...I only counted four. Where’s the chaser?

-”You’re a child of brightness, aren’t you?” “Um, no, I’m a child of Tanjuro and Kie.” snrk

-AHAHAHA YES NEZUKO GIVE HIM THE NECK CORKSCREW

-You know, I feel like fighting under swamp water should probably have less oxygen available than up on a mountain?

-Wow, the city’s so technologically advanced it turned him into Salad Fingers. That’s impressive.

-Aw, why would you waste perfectly good udon like that? Jerk.

And on we go. See you next time!

[gojira007]

The particular ways you play with the flow, of both the images and emotions here, is really good.  The way the ghostly dream-memories of the other Edelgards act as mirrors to the actual Edelgard in bed with Byleth is immediately striking and effective, especially because of the clear progression of Emotion from one to the next, from Hegemon!Edelgard’s Regret to Silver Snow!Edelgard’s Bittersweet Acceptance to, finally, Actual Edelgard’s warmth and happiness; the growing discomfort in Byleth’s expression along the way and the way it snaps awake into joy likewise works beautifully.  The way the ghostly Edelgards are underlit by that ember-like glow is also very effective, and I LOVE how pointedly the hands of all three play into the composition, especially with how it allows Actual Edelgard’s ring finger to center the third panel.  And that final panel is just great, with the cape-like feel of the blanket and the pulled back perspective letting us appreciate the new Calm Byleth has found in her wife’s arms.  

“No more regrets” Got permission to share the comic page I made for @EaglesBox zine “Serenity”! Thought it would be nice to share it in my other art pages as well, because why not. :) At my request there was a team debate about the setting I was going to do. Because I had no ideas! There were so many options that got me overwhelmed. In the end was decided that would be from angsty to sweet. So here’s some good old Edeleth (what else would it be from me, right?), where Byleth has rewound time over and over again and retained the memories of every timeline she killed Edelgard, which manifest through her nightmares. Please do reblog, do not repost!

[ivorytowerblr]

NaNoWriMo 2017: Oct 25th

This one is slightly shorter, but yesterday’s was longer, so it’s all good. Mostly.

Word Count: 486 Monthly Word Count: 13214 Previous: November (Masterpost); December (Masterpost); January (Masterpost); February (Masterpost); March (Masterpost); April (Masterpost); May (Masterpost); June (Masterpost); July (Masterpost); August (Masterpost); September (Masterpost): Week One (1st - 7th) Week Two (8th-14th) Week Three (15th - 21st) 22nd. 23rd. 24th.

Bilaraat stared at Surya, his fingers tapping out a sudden, jerky beat against the table, but said nothing, the picture of a man with something to hide.

“Of course it is,” Surya said. “As I’ve mentioned before, the Aeldari and the Krork were powerful psychics, but the key is to remember where the source of that power is. There are two realms, the realm of the physical, the weft, and that of the empyrean, the warp. They’re intertwined, and those with sufficient will can shape it, or draw the power of the Warp into reality. Strong emotions, like anger, hate, and bloodlust can shape the power within the Warp, which creates… creatures.”

“Gods?” Hector suggested. “Angels and devils, demons and seraphim? Ghouls and ghosts and things that go bump in the night?”

Marissa stared at him, politely disbelieving and disgusted. “Really?”

“He’s less far off than you think,” Surya said. “Many of the supernatural creatures that were prevalent in myths exist because of the power of people’s terrified imaginings combined with the psychic ability to see those creatures into existence. Psychic powers are dangerous and need to be limited severely except by those who are smart enough to know better.”

“That may be totally beyond our ability to stopper back into its bottle,” Malcador cautioned. “The best we can do is carefully and tightly control those who use those psychic powers, limiting their capacity for chaos.”

“Like that overbearing, condescending little witch who came to my facility,” Bilaraat snarled. “If the world weren’t ending she would have ruined my career.”

“You probably had that covered already,” Harra snorted. “So psychic powers create monsters and the two main forces behind fighting back evil were psychic. So what?”

“So the Necrontyr weren’t psychic,” Surya said. “In fact, they were particularly vulnerable to psychic powers owing to their innate inertness. The C’tan knew that the best way to win the war was to prevent them from using their psychic powers at all, and there was one, certain way to do that.”

“Was it… kill all the psychics?” Susanne asked, her mildly curious expression underlit by the floating galaxy. Marissa couldn’t help but shiver. “It would have solved their problem.”

“They couldn’t kill all of them,” Surya noted. “Not without just winning the war anyway. The plan was to sever their connection to the source of their powers… the warp of reality. They built a series of pillars located in different locations, meant to push apart reality and the empyrean. The Necrontyr were intended to activate them when they could, but then the civil war happened.”

“...there’s no possible way that went unnoticed,” Marissa breathed as the words sunk in. “So, what happened to the pillars?”

“Nothing,” Surya said. “They still exist, unused, untouched, unnoticed as far as the Eldar and the Orks are concerned. The pillars will function, I’ve researched that quite thoroughly. The trouble is that they’re guarded.”

[domocoye]

QCQ 4

While reading the New York Times Magazine article one of the quotes that I enjoyed the most was by Teju Blue. When Blue said, “She is apparently in bright sunshine, but both her face and the rest of the picture give off a feeling of modulated darkness; we can see her beautiful features, but they are underlit somehow. Only later did I learn the picture’s title, “Mississippi Freedom Marcher, Washington, D.C., 1963” which helps explain the young woman’s serene and resolute expression. It is an expression suitable for the event she’s attending, the most famous civil rights march of them all. The title also confirms the sense that she’s standing in a great crowd, even though we see only half of one other person’s face (a boy’s, indistinct in the foreground) and, behind the young woman, the barest suggestion of two other bodies.” It showed me not only can lighting enhance the context or artistic vision of a photograph but, the lack of light can also. Dark images could evoke a lot of emotion and get the point of the photo across better than if it was bright. Although it may be bright outside, the mood of the subject may be completely different.

The documentary Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People brought a lot to my attention when it came to early black photographers and photographs. Many of the photographs were showing blacks in negative ways and that narrative was passed along since many could not take photographs for themselves. My favorite quote from the narrator, “Free people of color, authors of their own image”. Photographs have a huge impact on the way society sees things. When the majority of the photographs show blacks in bondage or other negative views it can carry on for decades. When free black people were actually able to have photos taken willingly they were able to show who they really are, rather than who their oppressor wants them to be perceived as. Being able to take photos of self affirmation was very important for the culture.

A question I would ask photographer Roy DeCarava is, was it hard to get recognition for his early works in the era he was working in?

[alittledropofheaven]

On the internet, where people become data and popularity is conveniently quantified, it’s easy to learn what a community values most. Twitter embraces celebrities and #brands. Reddit stans for Barack Obama and elaborate pop-culture GIFs. Quora is an asylum of techies questioning their morality and their stock options; its second-most-upvoted answer is a “soul-satisfying” account of a sales bro helping a homeless man.

On the Bodybuilding.com forums, the two most popular threads of all time are not about deadlifts, intermittent fasting, or maintaining motivation. They’re about women. Specifically, women Bodybuilding.com members would “love to pound.” While one thread features pictures of “petite/slim girls” and the other of “athletic girls,” both are an endless stream of lightly Photoshopped near-nudity and predictably lecherous comments. Both have been viewed almost 3 million times. And both are on the lone section of the Bodybuilding.com forums that’s explicitly unrelated to fitness: the Misc.

“Participate at your own risk, some content NSFW,” reads the description of the Misc. on the forums’ homepage. “U Aware?”

The number of people who are Aware, it turns out, is over 16 million. As of January 2018, these members of Bodybuilding.com have made more than 137 million posts on the forums, including 90 million on the Misc. The forums first became active in 2000, a time before Wikipedia and when “Skype” was neither app nor verb. Myspace—Myspace!—didn’t exist until three years later. The Misc., as the predominant section of an internet community with such immense popularity and longevity, has cemented its place near the top of Google’s search results for any query imaginable. To appropriate Rule 34, if it exists, there’s a Misc. thread for it. Online, at least, the Misc. is inescapable.

A cursory scroll through the Misc. reveals what it has in common with the still-popular internet communities it predates, Reddit and 4chan. There are the memes, comics, copypastas, acronyms, and slang recycled endlessly in a digital echo chamber largely devoid of moderation. There are the forum members—Miscers, they call themselves—who post, and post in, intentionally incendiary threads about whether tongue rings scream “cum dumpster” and how “Crossfit is gay,” then fan the flames for entertainment’s sake by doubling down on their inanity. There are moments ofuproarious, absurd, gut-busting idiocy. There are ideology-clarifying usernames (RICHSTRONG, MinisterOfLust, weightsb4dates, WishIWasJawBrah, MericaThatsWhy) and statement-making profile pictures (deliberately titillating yet invariably off-putting abdominal shots, monochromatic selfies, strategically underlit bicep closeups). There are trolls surely seething and/or laughing maniacally, their keystrokes like machine-gun fire, as they launch poorly punctuated ad-hominem attacks and, at their most destructive, encourage people to commit suicide. There are sexists, racists, xenophobes, and homophobes. There is the sense of being in a parochial, patriarchal madhouse where decorum has gone to die.

What emerges, when you spend enough time on the Misc., is a ghoulish portrait of a place that embodies the white, male id currently at the helm of S.S. America. The Misc. is a stone-faced Uncle Sam with Popeye’s forearms and a cocked pistol in each hand. It’s a screeching bald eagle with a foreign Bad Thing in its talons. It’s everything that defines America’s bro culture, magnified and weaponized. But it’s deeper than that.

“Bro-merican” culture is largely defined by the stratification of power and status, both real and imagined. So, too, is Bodybuilding.com, where a power imbalance is embedded in the structure and design of the site’s forums. Unlike on 4chan, where all posts are anonymous and ephemeral, or on Reddit, where the grand sum of a user’s upvotes has little value, Bodybuilding.com members’ reputation points, or “reps,” mediate and deeply influence community interactions. While reps are similar to Facebook likes—weighted such that getting either “repped” or “negged” by a user with hundreds of thousands of reps will drastically affect your own rep count—they function as the Misc.’s de facto currency. Your rep count is displayed next to your every post. It’s like your bank account balance flashing on your forehead whenever you speak.

Bullying by those with power (high-rep Miscers) and obsequiousness by those without it (low-rep Miscers) is rampant. Getting negged by a high-rep Miscer means potentially becoming a “red,” a user with negative reputation points, displayed beneath your username as a gradated red bar as jarring as a stop sign. If you’re a red, you’re a second-class citizen. Your posts might as well come with a disclosure: “I’m a worthless idiot. Please listen to absolutely nothing I say.”

The opinions and caprices of high-rep “green” Miscers, then, dictate the forum’s personality. Any Miscer brave enough to post contrarian ideas—including, and especially, those that are liberal and feminist—is often negged into oblivion. Bad joke misses the mark? Negged. Sincere comment comes off as sarcastic? Negged. The Misc. is an echo chamber in which “greens” are given a megaphone and a gun.

But in contrast with Reddit and 4chan, the Misc. has been filtered through and molded by bodybuilding subculture, a set of beliefs and customs rooted in the many manifestations of stereotypical masculinity: egotism, aggression, hypersexuality, über-competitiveness, entitlement. Insecurity, intolerance, misogyny. Bodybuilding, after all, is not about functional strength but about vanity and surface appearances, how masculinity is projected to the world. It fosters narcissism by trading in cosmetic superlatives: the highest bicep peaks, the most vascular calves, the most extreme V-shaped back.

The Misc. applies this dog-eat-dog frame of mind to every topic. Everything is a masculinity- or dick-measuring contest. Including, of course, the actual dick-measuring contests, because Miscers are nothing if not cripplingly aware of their own inadequate manhood. Swears and slurs are censored but their creatively misspelled phonetic workarounds are not, which makes for a forum full of “kunts” talking “chit” and menacingly telling each other to “pepper your angus” (prepare your anus). The most recurrent insults all concern perceived masculinity, or lack thereof. “U mad bro?,” a popular retort, juxtaposes one-of-the-guys slang with the notion that showing emotion means demonstrating debilitating weakness. A real bro doesn’t get mad, he only gets testosterone-fueled revenge.

Near the bottom of the masculinity totem pole are “low-T beta manlets”—that is, short, shy, effeminate guys. Lower down are “phaggots,” a word that gets tossed around the Misc. like salt at a Sichuan restaurant. Lest any Miscer think you’re a “phucking phaggot,” all posts about personal care, fashion, home decoration, or how to look like a certain actor/model/bodybuilder are appended with “no homo.” Yet shaky Misc. logic dictates that even if you’re a gay man, there’s still someone you genetically out-alpha and who is, therefore, below you: a woman.

While the entire internet is teeming with horny men whose dark loneliness and insecurity wears the cloak of misogyny, they seem to be especially vocal, and in especially high numbers, on the Misc. Every other thread is a depressing question (“Think she’s faithful to him?”) or a charged statement (“Drunk Sex > Sober Sex”) about women—their bodies, hitting on them, their innate tendency to cheat—and sex—where to find it, how to go “no contact” after having it, why she is fucking him.

The Misc.’s ties to PUA (pickup artist) forums and Reddit’s /r/TheRedPill, a perniciously misogynist, anti-feminist Reddit community dedicated to “discussing sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men,” are as well documented as they are unsurprising. One of PUA’s most frequent suggestions is to acquire “inner game,” or self-confidence through self-improvement. Miscers, being on what is ultimately a bodybuilding forum, have inverted that mantra—they’re going from the outside in. Look good, feel good.

Other elements of the manosphere, from cries of societal misandry to sexual techniques like kino escalation and shit-testing, permeate the Misc. All women are “thirsty sloots” to be conquered, their emotions and physical well-being to be toyed with for internet strangers’ entertainment. When, to the forum’s delight, a Miscer posts about a sexual conquest in lurid detail—a surefire way to rack up the reps—the verbs employed are barbaric: “took down,” “smashed,” “hit.” To have “oneitis,” or an obsessive and unrequited crush on one woman, is to be afflicted with a masculinity-destroying emotional disease, one that can be cured, naturally, by sexually subjugating another woman. Regardless of whether a Miscer is successful or is rejected in the pursuit of sex, the response is the same: “Sloots gonna sloot.”

Despite the Misc.’s obsession with women, it has the latent homoeroticism you’d expect of a website devoted to a male-dominated sport in which bronzed, muscled competitors get smeared with oil and put on thongs before preening onstage in front of other men. This is no more obvious than when discussing a “Chad.” While there is a 5,000-post thread asking what, exactly, defines a Chad, the consensus is that he’s shorthand for a tall, built, strong-jawed, big-dicked, thick-haired, financially successful, athletic, confident, funny, sociable man who, because of these eminently desirable qualities, has his pick of the XX-chromosome litter. You look at a Chad and say, “This guy fucks.” (The prototypical Miscer might be a “Sheldon,” minus any TV-driven connotations of high-level intelligence.) Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski is a stone-cold Chad. Chad Johnson of The Bachelor is a Chad, and not just in name. It’s no accident that “Chad” is one of the most generically white and straight names imaginable, nor that archetypal Chads are nearly always white and straight. The etymological origin of the name Chad is the Welsh word cad, meaning “battle,” a fact that would surely delight Miscers to no end.

The Misc.’s resident Chad is an Australian bodybuilder known by his Bodybuilding.com handle, Zyzz. In early 2010, Zyzz began regularly detailing his “aesthetic” lifestyle on the Misc. As the so-called and self-proclaimed “king of aesthetics,” and with the zingy catchphrases “U mirin’ brah?” and “U jelly?,” Zyzz became the preeminent demigod of the Misc., where he and his “Aesthetics Crew,” acolytes similarly lacking in shirts, body fat, and social grace, were #bodygoals and #squadgoals come to life. Pictures and videosof Zyzz fist-pumping shirtless in public, wrapping his tanned arms low around the waists of nipple-pastied ravers at festivals, adopting a Herculean pose while standing in a shopping cart—these were the icons of the Misc. religion. When Zyzz died of a heart attack in 2011 at the age of twenty-two, his death became the sixth-most-searched death-related topic in Australia that year. His Facebook page, still regularly updated, has over 400,000 likes.

Zyzz’s masculinity showed itself in vain but harmless demonstrations of grandiosity, but other headline-making Miscers have expressed theirs through violence and morally indefensible acts. Gable Tostee first became a Misc. star by posting screenshots of his Tinder and text conversations with women he “rooted,” or had sex with; he entered Misc. lore after creating an ill-advised thread titled “Regarding the balcony tragedy” in the wake of news that one of his Tinder dates had been found dead from a fall from his apartment balcony. (Tostee was later acquitted of murder and manslaughter.) A Miscer known as YaBoyDave secretly filmed himself having sex with women—“whale-smashing,” in Misc. parlance—and posted the videos on the Misc.; he served 10 months in jail and is now a registered sex offender.

Still worse was Luka Magnotta, a wannabe model whose desperately misguided attempts at fame led him to asphyxiate kittens on camera and, later, live stream the brutal murder and dismemberment of a Chinese student while music from American Psycho played in the background; he was arrested at an internet café in Berlin, alternately surfing for pornography and reading news stories about himself, and it was later revealed that he’d posted on the Misc. Most infamously, Elliot Rodger, the Santa Barbara shooter, was active on the Misc., starting threads like “Why do girls hate me so much?” and “I’m tired of seeing losers with hot chicks.” In the latter thread, he recalled being “disturbed and offended” by seeing a “short, ugly Indian guy driving a Honda Civic” with a “hot blonde girl in his passenger seat.” It’s the bro’s classic sense of entitlement: Why should someone less masculine than me have what I know I deserve?

Miscers reaching toxic masculinity’s most violent nadir are mercifully few and far between. Yet the obvious connection between these people is one shared by the vast majority of the Misc. They’re young, white men whose social and sex lives are marked by absence or humiliating rejection, and their worldviews have likely been shaped by those failures. Rodger, for one, admitted in his autobiographical manifesto to having “never even kissed a girl.” He was an “incel,” or involuntarily celibate. “Not getting any sex,” he wrote, “is what will shape the very foundation of my miserable youth.”

A pervasive negative sense of self, of disappointment about one’s past and simultaneous anxiety and hopelessness for one’s future, is to the Misc. what the iceberg was to the Titanic: visible if you know to look for it, destructive if you don’t, and lurking below the surface all the same

The running joke about Miscers is that they’re all sad, awkward, forever-alone virgins who don’t lift and are on the only non-fitness-oriented section of a bodybuilding website because they can’t get their shit together. It’s revealing that one of the Misc.’s celebrities—there’s a 24,000-word condensed version of his “saga” on a fan-made website dedicated to him—is a weird, often clueless Everyman. He’s neither egregiously out of shape nor conventionally “aesthetic,” and his videos show a distinct lack of social awareness, a trait cultivated, presumably, by a life spent behind a computer screen and under a barbell.

Users of other Bodybuilding.com sections and other internet communities entirely propagate this idea of the Misc. as a cesspool of beta males with hopelessly futile aspirations of being alpha. “They have to be some of the most insecure dudes out there,” a Hypebeast forum user said of Miscers. On another forum, a user wrote that the Misc. is “filled with people [who] make fun of autism, while at the same time they themselves complain about their jobs, women, etc.”

More often, however, the call is coming from inside the house. Miscers reveal their vulnerabilities and problems in earnest with critically self-aware, self-deprecating posts. There are countless threads about “beta” topics like being a virgin (a Google search of site:bodybuilding.com “virgin” yields nearly 70,000 results), undergoing hair loss, not knowing how to normally interact with women, and giving up entirely. The Misc.’sRelationships and Relationships Help sub-forum would be more aptly titled “Sex: Help.” The “Depression Discussion and Support Thread Part III” thread is “stickied” by moderators at the top of the Misc., indicating that it resonates with the community; “Part II,” before it got so long that a new thread had to be created, had 10,000 posts and 1.6 million views. After the two aforementioned pornographic threads of “petite/slim girls” and “athletic girls,” the most-viewed Misc. threads are one about “Beta/cringe” moments of social awkwardness and another that documents the 350-pound weight-loss journey of a Miscer named Wetbreasts. For many Miscers, undoubtedly, browsing those threads is either motivational or like looking in a mirror. Or both.

It might appear counterintuitive that unconfident, sex-deprived, socially awkward young men would congregate—by the millions—on a bodybuilding website. But that paradox is precisely what’s responsible for the Misc.’s enduring allure.

It goes like this: A young guy thinks that improving his body will improve himself, that lifting weights will make him more confident, which will make girls like him more, which will make him happier, which will get him laid. And so on. In search of guidance, he finds Bodybuilding.com, where, after analyzing fat-to-ripped or skinny-to-jacked transformation stories, he ends up on the most popular part of the website: the Misc. But in the Misc. he finds a different kind of self-help: a vibrant, active community of like-minded guys. Guys who’ve felt inadequate and lonely and somehow less than manly, who’ve struggled with women and friends and money and body image, who’ve laughed at internet jokes and self-referential image macros that no one found funny, much less comprehensible, in real life. With a newfound sense of solidarity, this young guy wades deeper into the Misc., a community that gets him, his worldview increasingly shaped by this bodybuilding subculture, his mind warped by the community’s devil-may-care, “LOL, nothing matters” ethos.

It’s this last quality of the Misc. that Miscers themselves most readily use to characterize the forum. They see the stupidity of getting worked up over little green internet squares. They don’t take themselves seriously—it’s a motley crew of dudes on a bodybuilding site, bro—so nor should anyone else. Their attitude, one adopted from the bro culture with which they’re intertwined, is predicated on actions not having consequences. Break shit and someone else will pay for it. Get blind drunk, scream offensive things in public, and your boys will carry you home. Sexually harass or assault a woman, more than one woman, dozens of women, and you’ll still be revered, promoted, elected. You’re just “bro-ing out,” man, be easy, be chill, have a beer, have a protein shake.

“bro that forum is a fucking laugh man, just need a sense of humour,” a Hypebeast forum user wrote, in a thread titled, “The misc section of the bodybuilding forums is full of clowns.” If you’re young, white, and male, with a sense of humor shaped by the internet and a sense of privilege shaped by, well, everything else, the Misc.’s “clowns” can certainly be hilarious. But the further you are from that in-group, the more those clowns start to look like a horde of disturbing, misogynistic Pennywises.

Zyzz was once your standard insecure teenager with bad hair and spaghetti-thin arms. “I remember feeling like a little bitch when I was out with girls, walking next to them and feeling the same size as them,” he said in an interview. Becoming “aesthetic” hid a profound insecurity. His no-fucks-given attitude hid a fierce desire to be wanted.

Miscers see only the mirage. To them, Zyzz was living, walking, flexing proof that an average guy could eventually open the door to the HBB-filled alpha-male kingdom by gaining confidence and an aesthetically pleasing body. But the king is no more. And not every guy in search of personal fulfillment finds the key to that door by picking up a barbell. Not every young, white male who’d otherwise troll Reddit or 4chan becomes, through bodybuilding, the type of bro who doesn’t spend time on internet forums because he’s too busy crushing it, whatever “it” is, in real life. The Misc.—an online fraternity of the average and awkward, a safe space of the resentful and lustful and doubtful—is for the bros still searching.

[bella-blogz]

In what seems to be hopes of drawing millennials back to the theaters to see their movies, Disney has begun a trend of recreating everyone’s favorite animated films with a live action cast. While some of these I truly enjoy, like Cinderella (2015) and Maleficent (2014), the newer remakes, specifically involving animals, have been quite disappointing.

I don’t know if it is because it’s original version is often argued to be the best animated Disney film of all time, but Jon Faverau’s remake of The Lion King was one of the most anticipated films of 2019, and was also one of the most upsetting. They tried to lure everyone in with James Earl Jones’ reprisal of Mufasa and Beyonce as Nala, but they did little to save the film from the dull, lifeless, and emotion-lacking two-hour experience it is.

Technically, I think the CGI is amazing, which is the exact issue. It’s too amazing. This movie reads more like a National Geographic documentary or episode of “Planet Earth”, rather than a magical piece of storytelling. They use many extreme close ups to obviously show off the technical marvel that is their all-too-real animation style. While, usually, close ups convey some kind of emotion, these, what look like, real life animals do not have any way of conveying those emotions, which is where this film falls extremely flat. In addition, the lighting seems to be quite dark and underlit, directly contrasting the 1994 version’s captivating use of bright colors to reflect the diversity of the savannah. The film is composed well, but the subjects being composed aren't very visually pleasing. It’s obvious that Favreau mostly directing large action pieces might have been a disadvantage to him for this film, as he did not prioritize the use of color that’s needed to depict such a culturally rich and unique story. The most reminiscent aspect of the original is the montage during the “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” sequence, but even then Favreau’s is flawed. While he did include the montage of Simba and Nala getting reacquainted, he placed the scene in the day, which contradicts the lyrics and tone of the iconic song.

Many people believe that Disney pushing out a soulless live-action remake every year just reflects the soulless, money-hungry, monopolistic, mega-corporation they have evolved into- prioritizing revenue over creativity. While I completely agree, I like to be optimistic and hope that Disney is seeing these critiques, and using this backlash as fuel to return to telling their more original stories.

[atonguethatisafraid]

Manchester by the Sea - (2016, d. Kenneth Lonergan) My pick for “Hype Movie That Lived Up.” We’re in runup to awards season, a frustrating and yet exciting time as a movie lover. Beginning around September every year, there is this collective consciousness winnowing down the movies we Need To See or are Best of the Year, a sort-of great filtering that leads you to an end result of Best Picture nominees that always feel like they were chosen by half-hearted consensus rather than by the ballots of individually-determined experiences. Anyway, this movie had a lot to live up to based on that. It was the right kind of movie for me right now: underplayed, honest, subtle, based on little moments rather than sweeping emotion. Saw it at the Midtown Cinema, girl from film school was there who I did not say hi to. Something large multiplexes rarely give you anymore: bright, vibrant projection. Like cool water flowing on your head...I think they have digitial projection there, but it felt like film, rather than the dingy, soft, underlit screens I’m so used to seeing modern movies on. A treat! Almost cried a few times, most notably the part where he almost takes his life. Rough stuff but, as the critical consensus also states, beautiful stuff.

[architectnews]

LWK + PARTNERS Lighting Design

LWK + PARTNERS Lighting Design, Architects Office News, Images

LWK + PARTNERS Lighting News

4 August 2020

LWK + PARTNERS Lighting Design

Hebei Grand Hotel, Anyue in Shijiazhuang, China:

The best lights are invisible

“Lighting is a sensory experience,” said Rebecca Wong, LWK + PARTNERS Associate Director and its principal lighting designer, “No matter what times you live in, and whether you notice it or not, it is part of our everyday surroundings and deeply affects how we enjoy a space.”

Beyond its practical functions, architectural lighting changes how people perceive the space and built environment through aesthetics, satisfaction, mood, atmosphere and social interaction, telling a different story between day and night and creating emotional connections between people and places.

With a background in architecture, Rebecca is fully aware that whether a design works or not depends a lot on lighting. In her latest completed project, Hebei Grand Hotel, Anyue in Shijiazhuang, China, Rebecca and her team gave the space a romantic boost by showing it in a softer light when evening comes.

Rebecca Wong, Associate Director, LWK + PARTNERS:

Lighting and emotions

Lighting is no longer just a last-minute add-on. It is part of curating a memorable ambience and meaningful experience, by depicting the sentimental side of architecture and space.

Rebecca compares her role to ‘applying makeup on architecture’, highlighting important features of the design of a place and using shadows to create contrast.

“By playing with light and shadows, volume and space, lines and texture,” said Rebecca, “Lighting engages the people, history and culture of a space to make the whole user experience relevant and meaningful. It sets the mood for a story to happen, inspire alternative ways of experiencing and thinking about a space and create an emotional connection.”

Hebei Grand Hotel, Anyue consists of twin towers and 60 low-rise villas. As Design Architect, Landscape Architect and Lighting Designer, LWK + PARTNERS has gone to great lengths to make it a serene urban getaway. Lighting plays the essential role to transform the project’s magnificent luxury during the day to subtlety and agility at night.

Hebei Grand Hotel, Anyue in Shijiazhuang, China offers a different ambience when evening comes:

During the day the twin towers look like solid cuboids, but at night, their soft side is revealed through façade lighting. Instead of delineating all four sides of the cuboid, linear lights are only applied along the inner and top sides to bring out the beautiful symmetry. This charmingly mimics the effect when the morning haze forms a shimmering outline at the building edges. Upward grazing lights are used along the elevations to accentuate the building height, but are kept at a minimum to amplify the geometric form.

Shimmering underlit roofs at Hebei Grand Hotel, Anyue recaptures the morning haze over the mountains, revealing the soft side of the project:

Enriching the functionality of space

The presence of light sharpens people’s senses of the three dimensional space around them and their spatial relations with objects, and therefore affects how they navigate or interact with the environment. This makes lighting a key component of the overall programme design, acting as a bespoke, versatile tool for placemaking and the efficient use of space.

“But the best lightings tend to be unnoticeable,” said Rebecca, which is probably why it takes such a long time for people to realise its importance.

Hebei Grand Hotel, Anyue also aims to create a peaceful experience by immersing guests in greenery and nature. Light is applied to depict the pitched roofs of the villas, as well as their staggered heights and progressive layers. Landscape lightings such as buried wallwashers emphasise textured walls, while tree uplights help bring patrons’ attention to the dynamic landscape to immerse in and reconnect with nature.

“In principle, we adopt a thematic approach for outdoor environments while for interiors, we focus on ambience,” said Rebecca, “However, in reality, most spaces would require a hybrid, integrated scheme to suit a range of human activities taking place simultaneously.”

Taking Kei Cuisine in Hong Kong, China, for example, which won the LIT Lighting Design Awards 2019 for Hotel and Restaurants Lighting and also commissioned LWK + PARTNERS as interior designer, Rebecca said: “The restaurant is meant to celebrate a blend of cultures, so we decided to set up the lights in a way that encourages imagination and a tint of mystery. To suit the restaurant’s commercial positioning, we also made sure to factor in a sense of elegance and exclusivity to the experience.”

Lighting design can be coupled with interior decors for a change of tone. Pictured is a translucent partition in Kei Cuisine, Hong Kong, China, which won the LIT Lighting Design Awards 2019 for Hotel and Restaurants Lighting:

Lighting is all about energising the space

Traditionally, lighting designers work mostly with the hospitality sector, where businesses strive to offer the most comfortable place to stay in town to attract customers. But today, Rebecca works with every kind of projects from facades, restaurants and galleries to offices, schools, landscapes and large-scale mixed-use developments.

“Clients are beginning to involve lighting designers early on in the development process,” said Rebecca, “It allows us to deliver plans and strategies that best fit the project with cost-effectiveness.”

Hebei Grand Hotel, Anyue in Shijiazhuang:

Whether a space is truly hospitable depends on how well it is lit. With purpose-designed lighting, people are willing to come in, socialise and freely engage with the space in all sorts of ways.

Kei Cuisine in Hong Kong, China celebrates a fusion of cultures:

About LWK + PARTNERS

LWK + PARTNERS is a leading design architecture practice rooted in Hong Kong, with 1,000+ creative minds collaborating across a strong global network of 12 offices to deliver world-class solutions to the built environment. With over 34 years of growth, diverse design team at LWK + PARTNERS shares expertise to provide a wide range of services including architecture, planning & urban design, interiors, landscape, heritage conservation, building information modelling (BIM), brand experience and lighting design. LWK + PARTNERS believes that great design has infinite possibilities and direct positive impact to people’s lives.

LWK + PARTNERS is a member of C Cheng Holdings Limited (HKEX stock code: 1486).

LWK + PARTNERS Architects, Hong Kong images courtesy of architects office

LWK + PARTNERS Saudi Arabia Office The new LWK + PARTNERS Riyadh studio will be led by Kerem Cengiz, Managing Director – MENA (right), and Usama Aziz, a new Director.

Website: www.lwkp.com

LWK + PARTNERS Lighting Design images / information received 040820

Location: HK, China

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[joannstevelos]

Dream Alibis

Dream Alibis is both a collection of poems and a play called Little Red Wagon. Ryder Cooley’s intriguing illustrations bring a deeper sense of meaning to the Dream Alibis poems, an assemblage of fragmented narratives about finding hope in the aftermath of estrangement, lost love, loneliness, and emotional abuse. The poems segue into Little Red Wagon, a play about a family that has created a temporal divide from a political activist’sdeath by suicide to the present and explores the layers of grief that tethers the family to one another in conspiratorial silence. Written & published by JoAnn Stevelos with illustrations by Ryder Cooley, Photography by Noah Fowler, and Book Design by Mika Dmytrowska.

Goodreads Reviewer Such an elaborate yet brief and impacting collection of poems. It took me some time to understand some of them but I was more than willing to absorb every word and understand it's meaning as it struck hard into my heart when I caught on. Particularly, "Bells", "Even", and the short play "Little Red Wagon" lingered in my mind as I processed its poignant significance. The conflicts presented in the "Little Red Wagon" play is something that should be addressed considering with all protests, marches, and organizations aligned against the despairing turn of events in political, economic, and environmental changes that not only affect society as a whole but also individually. Sigh I wish this book was longer. Thank you, Stevelos and all others who partook in this collection of poems, it's a beautiful piece of art!

♦—Favorite Quote—♦ •"Love requires so much more from us than we ever realize—and if we do finally figure out what someone really needs from us—it's usually too late." ~Walter

Review by Sara Ayers, Editor, Nippertown Children learn the history of their families through stories, told over and over: “That’s how your parents met.” “That’s how we lost the house.” “That’s why I left your dad.” But as time passes and the child grows up, the stories inevitably become more nuanced, as the child detective gains both more details and and better insight into human motives. Perspectives shift and actions acquire more gradations. JoAnn Stevelos’ new book Dream Alibis delves into this phenomenon in a subtle journey that explores the bonds that both unite and divide families.

In the prologue, she lays out her themes – dreams as an alternative to reality and alibis as a skirting of guilt – and then launches into 13 short poems, illustrated by Ryder Cooley’s plaintive drawings, that fearlessly examine tiny junctures of grief and self-deception, now viewed from a wiser, more mature distance. Stevelos has a knack for distilling these crystalline moments of loss, sometimes surreal, sometimes achingly straight forward.

“Walk Along the Edges” is a dream-like telling of a pregnancy and birth, complete with squabbling siblings, a shirking lover and red pine trees as a supporting character. In “Bells,” a breezy account of a rainy day spent looking at old photographs abruptly comes to a rueful conclusion: …our two grins as wide as wide as the bells ringing inside me whenever you come near Bells ringing so loud that I will never believe you can’t hear them too.

The short poems in the first half of the book set the stage for the second half: “Little Red Wagon,” a play told in a series of vignettes that focus on the secrets that families keep through misinterpretation, pride and shame. Lucy is a young woman approaching her 20th birthday. Her grandfather Ezra and father Walter debate whether to give her a letter from her mother, Attie, who committed suicide some time ago, but left the letter to be given to Lucy on that day. Their arguments and recriminations reveal a large gulf between their respective memories of Attie, both as a political activist and as a loving mother. The play is written with two alternative endings that reveal different motives for the suicide, both completely plausible, reinforcing Stevelos’s theme that another person’s inner world is ultimately unknowable.

Sometimes wrenching, sometimes hopeful, Stevelos’ understated writing serves as a compassionate beacon, illuminating the dark corners of complex family relationships. It’s a gem of book that rewards close reading. The book is available through Amazon.com.

By Betty Fon July 12, 2017 Format: Paperback This is not a book but a wistful experience that artfully combines audio and visuals, poetry and play. To fully immerse yourself in this experience, you will need to do some preparation. First, you will need to choose two scenes. For the first part of this adventure please choose a place where you can welcome your old friends, nostalgia and longing, with a dash of tears here and there. I recommend propping your back against a willow tree by a lake (note the site, Albany) so that you can read JoAnn Stevelos's dreamlike poems while guarded by solitude. "Come as a child to me Come, climb the willow Where I built my fort to wait for you"

Take deep breaths. ("I inhale. You exhale.") You will pause in meditation after each poem, grabbing onto the sorrow, yearning, grief or regret fleeing the poems yet so disturbingly well captured by Ryder Cooley's carefully crafted, eerie drawings. There are birth, love and loss - life - weaved into pensive, pristine words.

For the second part of this adventure, take yourself back to civilization: a bustling, noisy, and underlit cafe where patrons may linger for hours and regulars are recognized by name. Stevelos conjures up the image of the Hungarian Pastry Shop on the Upper West Side. Imagine the history of lives there. So if you are a lucky New Yorker, please get your ass there to immerse yourself into the play Little Red Wagon. Put the following songs on your playlist for the experience: Dust Bowl Faeries "Polar Bear," Kyle Esposito and Meg Johnson's "For This World," Bob Dylan's "Little Red Wagon" and Todd Nelson's "Crestfallen." Your imagination will be then walked through a tragic family story and invited into two endings highlighting distinct social problems: the price of activism and birth.

I highly recommend this little gem of an experience that will surely leave an imprint in your heart and mind.