#especially if you come from a cultural with big emphasis on like dancing and music and celebration

[prettyboykatsuki]

if you are not like culturally japanese and you hail from a diff culture i think your non-japanese friends love bachira. he is such a character and he is so charming

[ariesjupiter]

Mitski Birth Chart Reading

This is just my interpretation based on Mitski’s birth chart and what I know of her music. Let me know if you have any suggestions of someone I should make a post on next! If you’re interested, I offer natal chart readings, just check my pinned post!

Libra sun: In terms of basic personality and ego, Mitski is focused on creating balanced, harmonic relationships. Intimate, one-on-one relationships are a major part of her identity. Libra is ruled by venus which represents love and beauty. After all, she is known for her lyrics relating to her romantic relationships. The lyric “I love everybody because I love you” is so profoundly Libra to me. She is friendly and charming. She sees herself reflected and other people and people see themselves reflected in her (for better or worse). Venus also rules the arts and Mitski is a natural artist in every sense of the word. Her music sonically is very unique, inventive, and creative as she experiments with mixing different genres. This is influenced by her sun in the 11th house. Sun in the 11th house also indicates an emphasis on friendships and memberships of certain groups and communities. It also indicates an importance of her hopes and dreams. Her sun in 3° explains why she is such a talented writer, communicator, and lyricist. Peak libra sun culture: “Young adult romance is the shit” (a real quote from the queen herself). And let’s not forget her iconic quote from 2016: “I’m a libra so my sexuality is essentially “you can really be any gender as long as you treat me like a princes.” Truer words have never been spoken.

Capricorn moon: Despite how personal her music is, Mitski is a rather private and reserved person, particularly when it comes to expressing her emotions. Also, Capricorn is associated with the father and she has been known to be especially private regarding her dad’s career. She is serious and intense with emotions but can sometimes get detached. The emphasis is on having control over her feelings. She is ambitious and a practical person. Her emotions are connected to her career. Those who do not know her well may see her as cold. In temperament she tends to be melancholic. Emotionally mature and wise beyond her years. Straightforward and honest with her expression. She is dependable, loyal, hard working, & realistic. Emotional fulfillment is often tied to achievement and success. Her moon in the 2nd house and 2° suggests material comforts make her feel safe. With the 2nd house being associated with venus, she is able to express her emotions in an artistic way. Could be protective over material objects. Sentimental. Music has a big impact on her emotions and mood. Peak capricorn moon culture: “I didn’t really feel anything. I’ve stopped feeling things for a long time” - Mitski, The Fader Interview, 2017. In all seriousness, I hope my capricorn moons are doing good.

Virgo mercury: Mitski is practical and detail oriented when it comes to communication and matters of learning. She takes the time to choose the right words to convey her thoughts. She is clear and concise. Mercury is in its sign of rulership here. Her mercury in the 10th house suggests that she will be known for her communication style. Has a lot of thoughts but is also organized. Analytical. Mitski likes making lists. Loves to give advice. Mercury is in 16° (cancer degree) and she has a soft spoken voice. Talks about the past and her roots (cancerian themes).

Virgo venus: In love, Mitski will assume a caretaking role and will gladly help her partner finish mundane tasks and chores. A devoted and faithful lover. Love is about the mundane and routine details of life. Love is about service. Acts of service tend to be virgo venus’ main love language. She wants to help improve her partner’s life. She is patient and observant. Values love that is simple and authentic. Appreciates a partner with whom she can have intellectual conversations. May have a tendency to be too critical on herself when it comes to love. Venus rules aesthetics & style and she tends to have a modest fashion sense. Mitski has voiced her interest in astrology and how she has asked people she’s interested for their birth times lmao. Her venus is in the 11th house, she treats a lover like she would treat a friend. In fact, romantic love probably equates to platonic love in her book. She has her venus in 24° which is a pisces degree, which explains this natural interest in astrology.

Gemini mars: Could be impatient because she moves quickly. Efficient. Has a lot of goals and likes to keep busy. She thrives when she talks to others and exchanged ideas. Likes to multitask. Very versatile. Probably has a flirty, bubbly energy when she’s attracted to someone. Attracted to intellect. Desire to see things from multiple perspectives. Gemini rules the hands so she’s skilled with playing instruments and writing. Likes to try new things. Witty and humorous. Could have nervous energy or fidget often.

Leo jupiter: The planet of luck and expansion in Leo is a big indicator of fame. Her jupiter is also in the 9th house and in 7°. Jupiter in the 9th indicates being born in a different country from where you reside now. Mitski is biracial and has lived in multiple countries growing up. She loves to learn, particularly about other cultures and ways of life. She is open minded, philosophical and values freedom and being independent. She attracts good fortune when she travels (touring!) and also when she focuses on partnerships/intimate relationships (7°). Combining this energy, Mitski attracts luck when she acts dramatically, demonstrates/teaches her knowledge, expresses herself artistically, shows her warm hearted and sometimes stubborn side, & takes chances, shows her bravery, and takes the lead. Be the Cowboy is big leo energy 🤠

Capricorn saturn: Mitski is responsible, practical, goal-oriented, and cautious. With saturn in the 3rd house, she probably had to grow up quickly and become mature at a young age. Capricorn saturn people tend to be very successful people. Strong willed. Tendency to be quiet and is a good listener. Could also be outspoken. With saturn in 18° (virgo degree), she’s very hard working but she may need to learn how to take a break and let herself rest and recharge.

Capricorn uranus: This placement also indicates that she goes after her goals and is efficient and practical in achieving them. Uranus being in the 2nd house shows that she could make money from being unique and groundbreaking. 2nd house also rules the voice! Her values are unique and she could be resistant to change them. Her self esteem could be in a constant state of flux and be tied to money. Her income could rapidly change, like maybe she did not get paid much but then suddenly she starts making a lot of money. Uranus is in 5° which is a fame degree. She’s famous for being authentically herself and very much an individual in the industry that can’t be compared.

Capricorn neptune: Capricorn neptunes are most likely realists. She is skilled at going after her dreams. Her dreams are practical and connected to themes of wealth, power, and control. Neptune in 3rd house shows a dreamy, poetic way of communicating. A very creative placement. Dreamy vibes. Could be elusive in communication, open for interpretation. Neptune is in 11° so this gives aquarian energy. Idealistic with friends and always searching for ways to achieve her dreams.

Scorpio pluto: Her power lies in her ability to analayze human interactions and be introspective with herself since it’s in the 1st house. She is very self aware. Mitski understands that life is about going through changes and she welcomes the ability to grow and rebuild. She has intense, deep emotions but has control over them and how she expresses them. Pluto in 16° adds a cancerian energy. Her strength lies in her ability to nurture and be empathetic.

Scorpio rising: First impressions of Mitski can be that she’s mysterious and secretive. A powerful and intimidating presence. This explains to me why she loves dressing in black. She probably has a strong dislike for anything superficial. She likes to get to know people on a deeper level and connect with them. She likes honesty and is probably very perceptive and intuitive. Privacy is so important to her! She has a lot of layers and wants people to unpack them, but it may take her a while to open up. She is powerful and has endurance. Her presence leaves an impact on people. Loyalty and intimacy is important. She’s not afraid to talk about taboo topics or scary, heavier emotions. Passionate and even a tendency to get fixed on or obsessed with something or someone. Her rising is in 15° (gemini degree) so she’s clever, curious, and thinks quickly. a little more flexible than a regular Scorpio rising would be.

Leo midheaven: People might see her as dramatic or arrogant. In the public eye, she was meant to be a performer. At her concerts she’s known for putting on a good show & includes interpretive dance and choreography. She becomes herself more when she’s on stage. The stage is where she shines. Has a lot of pride connected to her career. Reputation for creatively expressing herself and being brave and taking risks. Wants to be admired, especially regarding her career. Her purpose is to become a leader. Mc in 22° (capricorn degree) shows that she is a very hard worker when it comes to her career. She won’t let anyone stop her when it comes to achievement and success in her field. Another indicator of being at the top of her career and being publicly recognized for it!

TLDR: Mitski is a natural born singer, performer and artist. She is unique, talented, and an introspective writer. Being earth and water dominant, she balances practicality & stability with sentimentality & raw emotion. With all of her Capricorn placements, she is grounded and doesn’t let fame get to her head. Her chart ruler is Scorpio pluto in the 1st which means that major transformations will be a big theme in her life, especially regarding herself & her identity. She is always reflecting and looking at herself on a deep level.

[lilquill]

On Representation, Diversity, and “have characters of color just don’t write about the experience of being a person of color”

Alright. I’m gonna piss a bunch of people off and also confuse a bunch of well-intentioned white people because I don’t think that you can write about a character of color without talking about the experience of being a person of color of a certain culture.

Seriously. There’s so many conversations celebrating how people have narratives where it “doesn’t matter” that one of their characters is a person of color and that their characters’ identity as a person of color “doesn’t affect the storyline” or whatever.

I’m going to cut right to the chase here: as a reader and storyteller of color, I’m not a fan of narratives where race doesn’t affect the story.

My race and culture and ethnicity ABSOLUTELY impact the way I perceive the world around me! For instance, many South Asian families bond with lively debates and discussions and lovingly roasting their family members. The way that I develop positive relationships, often with a solid dose of conflict and loudness and argument, is therefore fundamentally different from the way a white person would develop relationships; in fact, many white people are intimidated by how loud South Asians like myself are. We’re dramatic and loud and love jokes with wordplay! That’s just how it is and it means I form bonds with people differently.

I also have different values. White people are often more individualistic in culture, with more weird distant formal bonds with their parents (shit like referring to their parents by first name or, on the other end of the spectrum, calling their dads “sir”???) as opposed to the more comfortable and closer bond I have with my parents, where my family is all up in my shit literally all the time LMAO.

Literally white families are SO DISTANT to the point where white people consider practices like co-sleeping with your young child, something very common in South Asian families, to be child abuse?? Like, as if keeping your baby in a crib in another room where they’re not close to you and it’s harder to hear them isn’t dangerous but apparently suffocating a child while sleeping (which is very rare especially since co-sleeping is a practice that has gone on for MILLENNIA) is the bigger threat here??

White kids might perceive that as invasive or a violation of their privacy; I don’t perceive it that way because of the way South Asian families are structured. There’s a stronger emphasis on closeness with family. Of course, there are situations of kids being estranged or difficult family relationships or child abuse in South Asian families as well, but family is more valued in my culture.

The plants I put in my garden are different because of my identity; flowers like bela (Arabian jasmine) and bougainvillea and roses and gladiolus and marigolds and such things are what I’m fond of because of biases based on what my parents and grandparents like. I even once grew nenua (a type of squash). (I’m gonna get my hands on a raat ki rani soon I hope!!) And, of course, not every South Asian is partial to these flowers, but there’s definitely a cultural aspect as to why I personally like them!

The colors and patterns I gravitate towards are also different! I’m not a big fan of western “neutrals” and I find bright colors more appealing, especially because hey, those vibrant shades look better on brown skin! And GUESS WHAT, part of why the western world gravitates towards neutral colors in formalwear is because of colonialism and a disdain for the vibrant colors and dyes that colonized countries used. I love wearing jhumka earrings and statement necklaces and bright, vibrant jewelry as well. Now, obviously, this isn’t the case with every South Asian, but there is certainly some level of impact on these choices from my culture and upbringing.

Hell, even the food I eat is different! I drink chai in the evenings. I gravitate towards spicier dishes and better seasoning. I don’t eat meat other than fish/seafood and chicken and occasionally turkey because of cultural stuff, though ofc lots of South Asians are vegetarian and on the flip side lots of South Asians DO eat red meat and stuff.

And this isn’t even universal to ALL South Asians by any means, because my parents are specifically Hindu and from northeastern India and I’ve grown up in California! And there’s so many other details I could go into but for the sake of not writing a twelve-page essay I’m stopping here. 

Basically, my point is, I don’t want representation where race “doesn’t matter” to the story. Race impacts so many aspects of my life and how I perceive and interact with the world around me.

It’s ridiculous to me how so much “representation” is basically just starting with a default of a white character, making her brown, avoiding the stereotypes, and that’s....it. It doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel authentic to take away cultural impacts on your characters. People start with white western archetypes and tropes and try to mold them to fit characters of color, instead of starting off with an authentic character of color, and it really, really shows.

Especially because Tumblr and writeblr are such white spaces, and also because culture is usually picked up from the environment as opposed to online, the conversations centered around “representation” are always about “don’t do x stereotypes” as opposed to how to actually learn about other cultures and actually....write a character of color. So many of y’all only know how to NOT write a character of color as opposed to how to ACTUALLY write a character of color.

I see so many lists of tropes and things to not include in stories, and not enough things about values and family structures and food and fashion and ways of developing relationships and all that fun stuff that will shape who you are as a person.

And some of y’all don’t even TRY to, I dunno, engage with the culture of your character of color to actually write them. For instance, if you’re writing a South Asian character, go explore South Asian cinema! Go make South Asian friends who can tell you little details about their lives as they, y’know, exist and are your friend! In general, explore the movies and literature and music and dance types and food and drink and whatnot of the culture your character is from! Form relationships with people of those cultures; it’s the internet! I know this is a super white space but there’s PLENTY of poc on here! Make an effort, not just to avoid harmful stereotypes, but to write a character of color whose identity actually MATTERS.

When I’m reading escapist fantasy/sci-fi/romcom/etc. literature where characters aren’t being hurt by racism, I don’t want a story where RACE doesn’t exist, I want a story where RACISM doesn’t exist. I want cultural understanding, empathy, and compassion!

I don’t want a role a white character would play just switched out with a character of color.

For instance, in the movie To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Lara Jean’s identity as East Asian is reflected in her fashion choices; book author Jenny Han lent inspiration for this. The Yakult drinks she likes, inspired by Korean tastebuds, plays a role in the story, too. These are details that don’t necessarily heavily impact the plot; it’s a fake-dating high school romcom. But they make a more real, fleshed-out character. They’re little details, little in-jokes and references, showing that the character’s race and culture actually MATTER to the story.

There’s a part in Pacific Rim where Raleigh Beckett, a white man, is frustrated with Mako Mori, a Japanese woman, for not going against the wishes of her father figure, Pentecost. When he tells her she doesn’t have to obey him, she responds, “It’s not obedience, Mr. Beckett. It’s respect.” This depicts her cultural understanding of family and respect; her relationships and her responses to things are impacted by her culture.

This is what I’m talking about! In order to write an actual character of color, you MUST write about their experiences to a certain extent. Of course, don’t make your characters of a certain culture a monolith in terms of personalities and responses and all that, but understand how they may be similarly impacted by their identities.

Now, don’t write a whole damn novel about a character coming to terms with their racial identity and coping with racism, but you absolutely MUST holistically incorporate their identity into your narrative.

Otherwise, it’s not actually representation. It’s you essentially writing a racebent white character. It’s you using a white default and trying to adapt it to totally different experiences.

[spacecrone]

Sorry, Cassandra.

So, it's definite then

It's written in the stars, darlings

Everything must come to an end - Susanne Sundfør

I first learned about the climate crisis in 2008, as an undergrad at Hunter College, in a class called The History and Science of Climate Change. For the next decade I would struggle with how to process and act on the scientific paradigm shift climate change required: that human activity could disrupt the climate system and create a planetary ecosystem shift making Earth uninhabitable to human life. I became a climate justice activist and attempted to work directly on The Problem which was actually, as philosopher Timothy Morton writes, a hyperobject, something so systemic and enormous in size and scope as to be almost unintelligible to human awareness. I’ve cycled through probably every single response a person could have to this knowledge, despair, ecstasy, rage, hope. I’ve landed somewhere close to what I might call engaged bewilderment. For me, his particular locale has a soundtrack, and it’s Susanne Sundfør’s cinematic dance dystopia Ten Love Songs, an album that tells a story of love and loss in the Anthropocene. Sundfør is a sonic death doula for the Neoliberal project, with a uniquely Scandinavian version of bleak optimism. To truly grapple with this time of escalating transition, we need to really face what is, not what we hope or fear will be, but what is actually happening. A throbbing beat with shimmering synths around which to orient your dancing mortal envelope can’t hurt.

Susanne Sundfør’s Ten Love Songs was released a few days after Valentine’s Day in February of 2015, six months after I had been organizing Buddhists and meditators for the Peoples Climate March.  I was already a fan, having first heard her voice as part of her collaboration with dreamy synth-pop outfit m83 on the Oblivion soundtrack. Oblivion was visually striking but felt like a long music video. The soaring synths and Sundfør’s powerful voice drove the plot more than the acting, though I loved how Andrea Riseborough played the tragic character Vika, whose story could have been more central to the plot but was sidelined for a traditional Tom Cruise romantic centerpiece. But since the movie was almost proud of its style over investment in substance, the music stood out. The soundscapes were as expansive as the green-screened vistas of 2077  in the movie. It was just nostalgic enough while also feeling totally new, a paradox encapsulated in the name of m83’s similarly wistful and sweeping Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.  I am not exempt from taking comfort in style that signifies a previous era, and I am also not alone in it. It’s a huge industry, and while the MAGA-style yearning for a previous era is one manifestation, maybe there are ways to acknowledge culture as cyclical in a way that doesn’t sacrifice traditional knowledge to some imagined myth of perpetual progress.

When Ten Love Songs came out the following year, I listened to it on repeat for days.  Sundfør seemed to have absorbed the music-driven sci-fi into a concept album, with m83 providing her with a whole new panopoly of sounds at her disposal. Like Oblivion,  Ten Love Songs told the story of a future dystopia with high speed chases, nihilistic pleasure-seeking and operatic decadence against a backdrop of technocratic inequality. It mixed electro-pop with chamber music and I listened to it on a Greyhound ride to Atlantic City in the middle of snowy February. I hadn’t felt like this since high school, that a full album was a sort of soundtrack to my own life, which I could experience as cinematic in some way while the music was playing. This situated me in my own story, of studying climate change as an undergrad and graduating into a financial collapse, working as a personal assistant to an author writing about ecological collapse and ritual use of psychedelics, to joining a Buddhist community and organizing spiritual activists around climate justice. 

Ten Love Songs is a breakup album, with lyrics telling of endings and running out of time. But it didn’t read to me as an album about a single human romantic relationship coming to an end. It felt like a series of vignettes about the planet and its ecosphere breaking up with us, all of us. People. Some songs like Accelerate, one of the album’s singles, throb in an anthem to nihilistic numbness and speeding up into a catastrophe that feels inevitable. Fade Away is a bit lighter, tonally and lyrically, (and if you listen, please note the exquisitely perfect placement of what sounds like a toaster “ding!”), but is still about fading away, falling apart. The way the songs seem to drive a narrative of anthropocenic collapse built on science fiction film scores, the combination of orchestra and techno-pop, absolutely draws on Sundfør’s experience collaborating with m83 for the Oblivion soundtrack, which itself combined Anthony Gonzalez’s love for the adult-scripted teen dramas of his own 80’s adolescence. In Ten Love Songs, Sundfør takes what she learned from this collaboration and scores not a movie but a life experience of living through ecological collapse and all of the heartbreak and desire that erupts in a time when everything seems so close to the knife’s edge.

I am reminded of another Scandinavian dance album that was extremely danceable yet harbored within it a sense of foreboding. The Visitors, ABBA’s eighth studio album, was considered their venture into more mature and complex music. The two couples who comprised the band had divorced the year before it was released, and the entire atmosphere of the album is paranoid, gloomy, and tense. The cover shows the four musicians, on opposite sides of a dark room, ignoring each other. Each song is melancholy and strange in its own way, unique for a pop ensemble like Abba. One song in particular showcases their ability to use an archetype of narrative tragedy and prophesy to tell the story of regret. Cassandra is sung from the perspective of those who didn’t heed the woman cursed by Zeus to foretell the future but never be believed. 

I have always considered myself a pretty big Abba fan, something my high school choir instructor thought was riotously funny. I was born in the 80’s and nobody in my family liked disco, so I seemed like something of an anachronism. But pop music, especially synth-oriented pop, has always felt like a brain massage to me. It could get my inner motor moving when I felt utterly collapsed in resignation to the scary chaos of my early life. But I only discovered the song Cassandra in 2017, while giving The Visitors a full listen. It felt like I had never heard the song before, though, as a fan I must have. But something about 2015 made the song stand out more. It starts with piano, soft tambourine, and the ambient sound of a harbor. It has a coastal Mediterranean vibe, as some Abba songs do, foreshadowing Cassandra’s removal from her home city, an event she foretold but could not get anyone to believe. It’s a farewell song of regret, echoing the regret the members of Abba felt about their own breakups. 

We feel so full of promise at the dawn of a new relationship. Only after the split can we look back and say we saw the fissures in the bond. The signs were there. Why did we ignore them? This happens on an individual level but the Cassandra paradox is an archetype that climate scientists and journalists are very familiar with. This particular Abba song, and the Visitors album overall, uses this archetype to tell the story of a breakup in retrospect. With climate change, the warnings have been there, even before science discovered the rising carbon in the atmosphere. Indigenous peoples have been warning of ecological collapse since colonization began. Because of white supremacy and an unwavering belief in “progress,” perpetual economic and technological development and growth, warnings from any source but especially marginalized sources have been noise to those who benefit from that perpetual growth model and from white supremacy itself. Is there a way to undo the Cassandra curse and render warnings signal BEFORE some major event turns us all into the chorus from Abba’s song, singing “some of us wanted- but none of us could--  listen to words of warning?” Composer Pauline Oliveros called listening a radical act. It is especially so when we listen actively to the sounds and signals of those we would otherwise overlook.

When I look back at my life in the time that Sundfør’s Ten Love Songs and m83’s movie music seems nostalgic for, the late 1980’s in New Jersey,  I was a child with deeply dissociative and escapist tendencies, which helped me survive unresolved grief, loss, and chaos. I recognize my love for Abba’s hypnotic synth music as a surrendering to the precise and driving rhythm of an all-encompassing sound experience. I also see how my early life prepared me to be sensitized to the story climate science was telling when I finally discovered it in 2008. I had already grown up with Save the Whales assemblies and poster-making contests, with a heavy emphasis on cutting six-pack rings so that sea life would not be strangled to death. I knew what it was like to see something terrible happening all around you and to feel powerless to stop it, because of the way my parents seemed incapable of and unsupported in their acting out their own traumatic dysregulation. Wounds, unable to heal, sucking other people into the abyss. I escaped through reading science fiction, listening to music like Abba and Aphex Twin loud enough to rattle my bones. I wanted to overwhelm my own dysregulated nervous system. I dreamed of solitude on other planets, sweeping grey vistas, being the  protagonist of my own story where nothing ever hurt because ice ran through my veins and the fjords around me. My home planet was dying, and nobody could hear those of us screaming into the wind about it.

Ten Love Songs woke up that lost cosmic child who had banished herself to another solar system. Songs of decadence, songs of endings, songs of loss. Though that album was not overtly about climate change, Sundfør did talk about ecological collapse in interviews for her radically different follow-up album Music For People In Trouble. After the success of Ten Love Songs, Sundfør chose to travel to places that she said “might not be around much longer” in order to chronicle the loss of the biosphere for her new album. It is more expressly and urgently about the current global political moment, but the seeds for those themes were present and in my opinion much more potent in the poppier album. But maybe that’s the escapist in me.

The old forms that brought us to this point are in need of end-of-life care. Capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchal theocratic nationalism, neoliberalism, they all need death doulas. Escapism makes sense in response to traumatic stimulus, and for many of us it may have helped us survive difficult circumstances. But if we are to face what it means to be alive on this planet at this moment, we might be here to be present to and help facilitate and ease the process of putting these systems to rest. And maybe this work is not at odds with a dance party. The ability to be visionary about shared alternatives to these dying systems is not inherently escapist, when we are willing to take the steps together to live into those new stories. What would happen if cursed Cassandras, instead of pleading with existing power structures to heed warnings that sound like noise to them, turned to each other to restore the civic body through listening, through bearing witness to each others unacknowledged and thwarted grief over losses unacknowledged by those same systems of coercive power?

Engaged bewilderment means my version of hope, informed by Rebecca Solnit’s work on the topic, comes from the acceptance that things will happen that I could never have imagined possible. Climate change is happening and there are certain scientific certainties built into that trajectory. Some of it is written in the stars. But as with any dynamic system change, we do not know exactly how it will all shake out. These unknowns can be sources of fear and despair, but there is also the possibility for agency, choice and experimentation. The trajectory of my individual life was always going to end in death. Does that make it a failure? Or does it render each choice and engagement of movement towards the unknown an ecstatic act? As the old forms collapse, no need to apologize to the oracles. At this point they are dancing, and hope you’ll join.

[sarahlwlee]

31 Stories in 31 Days: Faith

What is this? As part of celebrating Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month (May), I am writing a story a day about my experiences as a Chinese Malaysian immigrant in America. My friends and family have provided numerous one-word prompts to help me create these stories. Today’s word prompt was contributed by Heather A. and the word is “Faith”. Thank you Heather for your contribution and thank you everyone who stopped by to read my story today.

When I was 14, I was baptized as a Christian at Holy Light Lutheran Church in Malaysia. One year prior, I had been taking catechism classes with the pastor and a few others who were preparing for baptism. I spent a lot of time in prayer and reading the Bible in preparation for this day. My faith in God was simple and it felt easy to understand His word, especially through song. In addition to the preparation to be baptized I was serving in church as one of the classic piano or synthesizer players for Sunday service. Whenever I prayed or read the Bible I felt a song within me that I use to play on the piano during communion or prayer at church.

The day I was baptized, I felt renewed and lighter. It was a surreal experience that is indescribable. When I shared this feeling with my parents and other grown ups, they said everyone’s baptism experience is somewhat similar but yet unique to that individual because it was about your commitment to God. Within the following year, I started to volunteer more in church especially with the youth group — from weekly cell group meetings,  to serving in the youth ministry executive team and leading worship service. This was the time where I felt most accountable to my faith and my belief in Christ was at its strongest or so I believed it to be.

After serving for more than a year on the youth ministry executive team as the secretary, I was excited to renew my service in this role. We had a new youth ministry leader take over and everyone’s role within the team was renewed with a unanimous vote. A few weeks later, the new youth ministry leader drove over to my house late one night to speak to me. My mom had greeted him at the gate and she called for me to come out and talk to him. I invited him into our house but he refused and said this was going to be short. He said that he would like his girlfriend to be the secretary because he is closer to her and feels much more comfortable working with her. In short, he asked me to step down from my role so that his girlfriend could fill the spot. No one else on the team was asked to step down, only me. As a young teenager at 16, I was disappointed and frustrated but felt helpless in pushing back or even asking for a formal process to make this official instead of some late night conversation in front of my house on opposing sides of a metal gate.

This was the beginning of when I started to lose faith in people at church. The new youth ministry leader pushed for a tight knit circle of people he liked and had existing relationships. I slowly felt pushed out of youth related activities and my opportunities were cut back to just playing the piano. One of the older youth leaders noticed I was not as active in church as I used to be and he asked me what’s holding me back. I couldn’t bring myself to explain to him what had happened and that it wasn’t me holding back but rather the opportunities were taken away and given to someone else. So I did what I did best at the time, I shrugged my shoulders in shyness and said “I don’t know.”

The youth cell group I was a part of was named “Joy”. Each youth cell group was named after the Fruits of the Spirit. Eventually our attendance started to drop and the same thing happened to “Love” youth cell group, so they merged our groups together. I really enjoyed these gatherings and the activities we did, however I always felt like I was the outsider trying to find a way in to this group. The inside jokes they shared, I could never get into nor understand the context. So when a joke was told, I wouldn’t laugh because I didn’t get it. This interaction continued to drive a wedge between my desire of connecting with the youth group and pursuing something else. I stayed for as long as I could because it pleased my mother that I was serving God and participating in Christian youth group.

During this same time, I started to engage more with a writers group called Phases Young Writers (PhYW). I met some really amazing people through this group and felt more accepted as well as welcomed into this group. Many of them were Christians and wrote for the Phases magazine, published by Scripture Union. The experience allowed me to explore writing and also step up as a leader to bring a group of people together who often felt like they didn’t fit in anywhere else. As I began to increase my involvement in the PhYW, I reduced my involvement with the youth cell group.

Subsequently, I told my cell group leader that I was leaving the group. He was sad and disappointed that I was leaving and wanted to make sure I was still getting the guidance I needed for my faith. I told him all about PhYW and what we had been doing, it sounded just like a youth cell group but with an emphasis on quirky writing and fans of good literature. He reluctantly approved my departure and I never returned to any youth activities except for Sunday church service with my parents. I even stopped volunteering to play the piano. A few of the musicians on the worship team tried really hard to engage me to continue playing with them by leveraging other instruments I played such as the violin. I was just so disappointed in the youth ministry and the church overall for allowing this culture to permeate its congregation.

In reflection, could I have told somebody about my frustration and would things be different? I don’t know. My family was labeled as big complainers in the church, especially after a big argument my mother had with another older youth leader about me. I felt that if I complained to someone, I would be labeled being just like my mother and people wouldn’t take me seriously or be blamed for getting kicked out because I was a troublemaker. I don’t hold any grudges towards anyone in that church today. These were very difficult thoughts to process as a teenager and the only reasonable choice I had at the time was to leave.

When I traveled to Kalamazoo for my undergraduate studies, I left everything about Holy Light Lutheran Church behind and thought I could start fresh with a new church or youth group at college. The first church I went to was a Lutheran church on West Main. I attended a few Sunday services on my own and inquired with the pastor if I could join their music ministry. He introduced me to the music ministry lead and they told me there is no extra spots in the music ministry where I could participate in. I kept asking about other opportunities on how I could get involved and each time they said no. Eventually I got the feeling that I was too different than everyone else in that church and they weren’t as welcoming to foreign students. I stopped going to the church because why would I want to keep going when I’m not welcomed. Later I found out a different foreign student who came from Sunway College went to this same church at a different time than I did and was given the same treatment.

I researched on campus for a Christian Fellowship group for college students and when I joined I thought I had found my people. I joined a Bible study group as part of the Christian Fellowship and we threw a few awesome Salsa dancing parties to bring people together. I even designed the invitations. After awhile, the Bible study group leader started to withdraw from her leadership role and subsequently the Bible study group fell apart. I wanted to join another group, but they were not taking anymore people into their group. If they took anymore, the group would have to split up to form new groups and they didn’t want that to happen. So I stopped going and trying to engage with other Christian groups.

Today, I don’t go to church nor do I belong to any Christian group. I have made my peace that I shouldn’t put my faith in people when it comes to having faith in God. We can only be responsible for our own actions and behavior. People stumble, fail and make mistakes all the time, just like me. So holding them responsible for my personal stumbling in my faith seems unreasonable. I still pray because it brings me a lot of comfort during very difficult times and have several prayers from the Bible memorized since I was a teenager. Reading the Bible is now much easier in a digital format than reading a physical book, which has made it easier for me to digest God’s word.

Not many people know I am a Christian at heart, it’s a piece of me that I keep hidden and private because I don’t want to discuss judgment others might have of me not going to church or not carrying on practices that a typical Christian should be doing. I know I am not typical and I have accepted that part of myself. It took me a long time to come to this acceptance and I have felt so much lighter in my heart.

[sweetheartjeongguk]

love letters

pairing: namjoon x reader

genre: high school au, fluff, minimal angst

rating: g

warning(s): insecurity, slight jealousy

word count: 2.2k+

summary: you’ve held his heart in your palms since the age of eight years old, but there was a difference between true love and wishful thinking. 

masterlist

He writes you the first letter at the tender age of eight years old.

It is filled with numerous grammatical errors and multiple ink streaks from him forgetting that he can’t erase pen marks. He signs the bottom as “Joonie” because everybody calls him that.

Everybody being his parents and his sister.

The next letter is written when the two of you are graduating middle school and heading to the same high school. He is extremely ecstatic that day when he finds out, kicking his feet up and down and jumping high on his bed until the springs yelps in agony (more so, when his sister barges into his room and screams at him to stop bouncing or else she’ll take away his Pokemon cards). Needless to say, Namjoon bottles up his excitement and lets the words flow onto paper, all summed up with a shaky “Kim Namjoon”.

The third letter comes nearly a day after the homecoming dance. Namjoon is forced to go by his best friend Seokjin who ends up vomiting on the dancefloor after eating a few bad shrimps and has to be picked up by my mom. Namjoon writes about this in full concern, hoping that you would share his worries too.

Not that you’ll ever see these letters, but Namjoon would like to think that despite not knowing Seokjin that well, you’d feel sorry too.

He also comments on your beauty that night – how the yellow dress you wore brought out your smile and the lipstick was a nice shade of red.

‘You looked like a princess that night. Kind of like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. I wish I could have told you that myself, but you wouldn’t want to be seen by a guy like me.’

Namjoon tries to write a fourth letter, but he finds himself unable to do so. He watches you from a distance – seated at the back of the cafeteria, vaguely listening to Seokjin’s rant about the cost of school lunches while staring intently at your figure as you walk across the room to your friend’s table. Ever since your debut at the high school, you’ve been dubbed popular royalty by pretty much the entire student body. Boys grovel at your feet while girls are desperate to be called your “best friend”.

Call it wishful thinking, but Namjoon likes to think that he understands you. He likes to think that he can understand your emotions better than your “friends” can, better than the boys who claim to be in love with can. While Namjoon could very well be sucked into the “boys-who-are-hopelessly-in-love-with-you” category, he likes to think that he’s different.

He hopes that, given the opportunity to get to know you, you’d start to feel the same way.

That night, he writes you the letter. He recalls the look on your face in the cafeteria when your friends are joking around you and aweing at your every move. He could see the pain in your eyes at the insincerity. He could see your longing for more, for something real.

‘It’s okay to feel sad and anxious. It’s okay to feel like you’re fighting against the entire world. Just know that I’ll be by your side when the time comes. I’ll fight for you.’

His fifth letter is written at the back of Biology class during a boring documentary about biodiversity. The side of his hand smears at the pencil markings, but he’s too desperate that he doesn’t seem to care that grey stains his skin. Today, you come into class late, your hair a tangled mess and the lipstick smudged at the corner of your mouth. If you had looked closer, you could have seen that the concealer over the reddened mark on your neck didn’t cover a thing.

Namjoon feels a sharp pang in his chest – no doubt, jealousy – but he also feels anger towards himself, more than anything.

‘Why am I too cowardly to do anything? Why must I force myself in the distance while you drift further away?’

This time, he signs off as “KNJ” – someone mysterious, someone unknown.

Exactly what he is to you.

For a while, he stops writing you letters. It feels awkward to write to you now. Looking back on his old letter, he’s ashamed of the way he thought of you. You weren’t his – everyone knew that, Namjoon especially. This is why he stops writing to you – in an attempt to collect his thoughts and not spew them out of the pages like an immature teenage boy. Seokjin would disagree and say that ‘Yes, we are immature teenage boys’, but Namjoon still enjoys a little blissful ignorance once and a while.

The two of you are reaching the end of your junior year, heading closer to your last year of high school. Soon, you will be off to college, off on your own separate paths.

He overhears one of your friends’ conversations that you had been planning on going to a university in America. You have been desperate to study abroad and to experience a culture so different from your own. This is no secret to everyone – even the janitor knows. Namjoon decides to play it safe and aim for a university closer to home, possibly even in Japan if he tries hard enough.

He tries to ignore the innate feeling to pick up a pen and scribble down his thoughts as they rush through his brain and spill onto the paper. He tries taking an extracurricular afterschool despite his teachers telling him not to overload his already-packed schedule. He takes his dog out for walks almost twice as long as usual, in hopes that the cool breeze and scenery will force him to forget. He even takes a minute to text Seokjin back, even during his scheduled My Hero Academia binging.

No matter what he does, you always seem to creep back into his thoughts.

The start of senior year kicks off before Namjoon could even take a breather. Homecoming is shoved down their throats, demanding for school pride and support for the upcoming homecoming game. Namjoon sees on the senior board that you have been nominated for homecoming queen. He has no doubt that you’ll win and even puts in a vote with a heart at the end of your name in the little bucket at the front of the cafeteria.

When you finally do, he’s sitting there on the bleachers, clapping alongside everyone else. He smiles at the look of complete surprise on your face as you walk down onto the field with your partner Jung Hoseok to receive the obligatory crown and sash.

As you link arms with Hoseok and wave at the crowd, Namjoon gulps as your eyes meet.

Your stare lingers until Hoseok nudges your side and pulls you in for a group photo. Namjoon sighs (from relief or dissatisfaction, he doesn’t know which) and starts down the bleachers to head towards the parking lot. Seokjin is waiting by the car for him, and Namjoon gets in without another word, ignoring the look of bemusement on his best friend’s face.

Certainly ignorant of the wandering eyes that had been watching him from the bleachers for quite some time.

His sixth and final letter is written hours after prom. Once again, he is forced by Seokjin (as well as his parents) to attend. Something about it being “one of the most important moment in your high school career, nay, your entire life!”

He could have told Seokjin (and his parents, primarily his mother) that he was overreacting, but he didn’t exactly want a smack in the face to leave a big bruise on his cheek before the “big day”.

Namjoon sits on the gym bleachers, awkwardly holding onto a flower corsage that his mother bought for him to give to his so-called lovely date. He didn’t want to mention to her that he may or may not (emphasis on ‘may not’) have asked someone to the dance, but the teary smile on her face is too precious to destroy with his devastating news.

The flowers are a simple yellow color – a symbol of happiness and sunshine. Yet Namjoon is sat here with no one to share it with.

Seokjin is dancing it up with his date amidst the large crowd of teenagers by the DJ, making her laugh with his ridiculous rendition of the Chicken dance mixed with some other obscure dance move that is certainly outdated. The gym is filled with sweaty teenagers either standing around while waiting for someone to ask them to dance or grinding it up and making the teachers stew angrily at the blatant provocative moves.

Namjoon twirls the flower in his hand, pausing to scratch behind his ear and scan the crowd for anything interesting to watch. Suddenly, the visual of Seokjin crowd-surfing isn’t enough to satisfy his entertainment needs. No one seems to pay him any attention as they pass by, shouting over the loud music or laughing drunkenly. Namjoon scrunches his nose when he catches a whiff of the strong alcohol, but he stays silent in his seat. He couldn’t care less about what those people were doing – besides, what he is doing isn’t any special either.

“Mind if I sit?”

Namjoon turns with widened eyes at the sudden voice. More specifically, your voice.

You stand at his right with a hopeful expression on your face, wearing a fluffy peach dress with matching heels. Namjoon wipes his sweaty palms on his pantlegs in an attempt to rid his mind of his lovesick thoughts.

“S-sure.” Namjoon stammers.

“Thanks.” You settle down next to him, fluffing up your skirt in an attempt to avoid catching it on your heels.

The two of you sit there in silence for a few minutes – Namjoon trying hard not to sweat profusely and you bobbing your head to the upbeat song playing throughout the gym.

“So…” You start, shocking Namjoon back into reality. “Where’s your date?”

“My…date?” Namjoon asks stupidly.

“Yeah, your date.” You point at the corsage in his hands. “Isn’t that for her?”

“Oh…” Namjoon’s gaze shoots down to his lap where the sad excuse of a corsage lays. “Y-yeah, my mom got them for me, but I-I couldn’t tell her that I…”

“…didn’t have a date?” You finish.

“Y-yeah.” Namjoon chuckles nervously. “I know, it’s stupid, right?”

He half expects you to agree and laugh at him too, but you do nothing of the sort.

“Of course not!” You frown. “I think it’s sweet!”

“R-Really?” You nod, your frown replaced with a cheeky smile.

“Yellow’s my favorite color, so you get extra points for that.” You wink.

‘Oh, god, I feel like my heart is about to explode in my chest.’

“Any girl would be lucky to be given flowers by the one and only Kim Namjoon.” You continue as you fiddle with the rings on your fingers.

“Y-You know my name.” Namjoon stutters, fumbling with the flower in his hand and nearly ripping out a couple petals as a result.

“Of course, we’ve been in the same classes since elementary.” You hum knowingly. “Also, between you and me…”

Namjoon waits for your next words, his heart pounding in his chest. He wouldn’t be surprised if he died in the next five minutes.

“I’ve heard from Seokjin that you like me.”

Namjoon pales.

‘What the fuck, Seokjin?’

“Actually, not really.” You backpedal on your words. “Seokjin was telling his girlfriend about you and it just seemed to come up. She’s one of my friends so…”

Scratch that, Namjoon is about to die in approximately five seconds.

“What?” Namjoon awkwardly laughs. “He’s just lying, he just says all that to rile me up.”

Namjoon’s crooked grin falls flat when he sees the expression on your face drop. “Oh…I’m sorry then.”

You shift in your seat, suddenly wanting to leave and never face the boy ever again.

‘Seokjin, you said he liked me!’

As you begin to rise up from your seat, Namjoon starts to panic.

‘Shit, this isn’t supposed to be happening!’

In the span of the five seconds that you begin standing up, Namjoon has already visualized the future.

You ignoring his very presence at graduation and proceeding to move out of the country, never to see him again.

Namjoon decides that it’s not a future he’s willing to live in. Not if he had anything to say about it.

“Y/N, wait!”

You turn on your heels to face him again, your face flushed from heat and embarrassment.

“Seokjin wasn’t…wrong.” Namjoon watches as you raise an eyebrow. “I…”

‘Suck it up, Kim.’

Taking in a gulp of air, Namjoon begins to speak again, but the soft touch of your lips to his cheek startles him into silence.

You pull back, the familiar grin pulling on your lips.

“You busy this Saturday?”

“Um…no.” Namjoon coughs. “Why?”

“Good.” You turn on your heels again as you begin walking towards your group of friends that stay clustered next to the food bar. “Pick me up at 6! We’ll go see a movie!”

Namjoon stammers as he shoots up from his seat, clutching onto the corsage for dear life. “What movie?”

“Your pick.” You mouth from across the room, turning back around to dance with two of your friends.

That night, Namjoon rushes upstairs and throws his suit jacket on his bed. He instantly picks up a pen and begins to write.

‘This is a start of something unknown, but I’m no longer afraid. I’m no longer scared of taking hold of your hand and telling you how I feel. This time, it’ll be different. This time, you’ll see the real me.

Signed, Joonie.’

[the-energon-hole]

heya. saw the request box open. may i request a headcannon about Bayverse Crosshairs, drift, Hound Bumble bee and Optimus having a human ally who likes to draw, paint and make photo collages of their alt. modes? and they aspire to design cars one day?

Optimus Prime

-He always has enjoyed human creativity and culture, including things like the music and graphical arts, as it was just another way to prove that you’re species was indeed much more refined than the other Cybertronians give you credit for. Any sentient species capable of not only creating universal images that can portray heavy and interesting emotions, while also putting real value onto simple things like paintings and musical talent really proves the validity of your planet. Cybertron used to have a lot of traditional artistic things like interpretive and realistic drawings on top of both traditional and trendy music that included singing and dancing- however nearing more and more conflict in the government more emphasis was placed on things like the value of defending oneself and the need for weapons productions in case of escalating situations becoming violent, which they did. So much culture was lost in these times of the war that even the Autobots forgot about all the things their fellow bots have created-it was refreshing to see art being produced and appreciated by other beings besides their own- it gives him hope for the future of both of your species.

-Even if he won’t say it out loud, he very much enjoys the aesthetic of human automobiles, especially that of the one he choose as his alternative mode- the Peterbilt Semi-truck.It was very much a symbol of a powerful vehicle that was capable of not only transportation, but also one of great stability and comfort. He was glad that you enjoyed his outward appearance enough to create so many artistic renditions of him, he had never been the center of a muse before- beyond that record keeping of the archivists who want to keep extensive track of Cybertronian history. You very much had  a lot of talent for someone who was so young and a little inexperienced when it came to certain political ideologies, it was good that you had something to focus your attention away from all the bad and produce something beautiful in such a bleak and dark time of war. Though he keeps his praises short, and his complements small, he feels like you have great potential in your field of study and he wants to encourage you to pursue your passions of vehicular design and wishes nothing but the best for you in that pursuit.

Bumblebee

-He was never exposed to artistic Cybertronian culture, as he was thrusted into an already conflicting society really tense with the threat of war looming over them- so he was taught things like battle and survival rather than creative value and understanding. He doesn’t claim to be the smartest bot in the troop, so he doesn’t fully understand your art and why it’s important to you, as he was raised in a  militaristic way where nothing is more important than being a good soldier. Though he has strayed from a lot of those values instilled into him when he was younger- art was just one of those things that never really clicked with him- Cybertronian or Human, it’s all the same to him. He can see ho much value you place on your art and design, and being the muse of your interest, he will still support you all the way- he might not get it, but he sees how important it was to you, and that is all he needed to know that art is a good thing. He also thinks you draw him very handsomely, and anytime you show him a new piece he becomes a victim of his own vanity- he loved it.

-He picked his alternative mode- the Chevrolet Camaro, a little while ago because he enjoyed how it appeared aesthetically, and the fact it was a pretty fast and sporty vehicle. It also looked good in his signature yellow and black colors- that was a big factor in his picking an alternative mode.He would have never guess that you would have had a passion for his appearance, but it made him feel very confident and attractive, even if you didn’t mean for it to be taken that way- who knew this art stuff could have such a profound effect on his feelings and emotions! He gets artistic value a little bit more than he’s letting on, he just is underestimating his own intelligence and critical thinking skills. He wholeheartedly supported you in your efforts to become a great car designer, and he even said that if you design something sleek and fast he would use it for himself- it just has to look good in yellow and black because otherwise it will be a deal breaker.

Crosshairs

-He can’t say he is a fan of art, even back on Cybertron it seemed to him to be a silly commodity that had nothing to do with the bigger scheme of the universe, it wasn’t impressive on his home planet and it wasn’t impressive on earth either. Not that he hates the idea of culture or anything, it just seemed a little odd to place so much emphasis and ideology on some picture or sculpture- the only things that matter aesthetically like that are weapons and vehicles. You have to look good no matter what mode you take, and certainly he had to give credit to the humans for at least not having hideous designs when it comes to automobiles and aircraft. THe designs of sleek and fast cars is definitely something that should be praised and appreciated- and when you explain to him that certainly things like that started off as just a drawing, it kind of hits a little closer to home for him. He will never understand the impact art has on culture, but he can’t get over how good he looks when you show him a new projects you are working on based on his appearance.

-He had chosen an alternative mode based on a car that looked stunning and would turn heads on the street as he would zoom past them- he was a very important bot and didn’t have time for them. It was for sure a vain thing, and the only fitting car for that was the Chevrolet C7 Corvette Stingray. That car looked good in any color but black- as a car like that was meant to shine with a bright and beautiful color, and not blend in with the crowd of ever growing aesthetically pleasing cars. You give credit where it was due, and enjoyed listening to what Crosshairs had to say about car design- whom else would know better than a vehicle themselves? He might be an ass sometimes and unappreciative, but he was a his spark a good bot, even if you would never tell him and he would never want to hear it.

Drift

-Despite his harsh past, and his occasional bouts of loss of self control, he prides himself on a deeper understanding of artistic expression. It can be music created to express various opinions and tones, it could be hand crafted drawings and paintings that hold deep and meaningful emotions, or it could even be sculptures created to be viewed in different jagged shapes in order to create a three-dimensional image- either way, he loved and appreciated it all. Cybertron stopped caring about art a long time ago, so to see it still being able to flourish and grow on Earth made him hopeful and happy- seeing you constantly participating in activities that contributed to this meaningful practice made him happy. Though you were more of a graphical artist, he enjoyed how you could tell his play on words and haikus when he spoke them- finally someone was able to appreciate and understand is words hold a deeper meaning and value than just being simple words.

-Being your muse made him happy, but he would try to remain humble amongst your constant praise and adoration- as humility was a big lesson he learned long ago when he was amongst the decepticon ranks. It was hard to stay humble as his old habits surface more and more anytime you compliment his chosen alternative mode, the Volkswagen Bugatti Veyron- an uncommon car from the region where you are from, so it end up becoming a head turner of a car when he drives down a populated street. You are inspired by his color scheme and appearance, and when you tell him he had a hand to play in the fact you want to design cars one day- well let’s just say all that humility he has been trying to instill in himself is gone and is replaced with all these feelings of dangerous pride and selfishness, he did look very good didn’t he.

Hound

-You can show him all the pretty pictures you want, you can explain the importance of artistic expression all you want, and you could even be a little aggressive in your approach to try and talk to him- it all falls on deaf audio receptors. He was kind of an old man, and even back on Cybertron he didn’t much care for the fine arts of his culture, as he could go as far as to say it was a waste of time. Not to be mean to your or your ambitions, he was just a bot of action and a bot of war, even before the Autobot and Decepticon conflict, he was always a weapons and shooting guy and not a sit around and look at pretty pictures guy. He would never do anything to intentionally hurt your feelings or step on your dreams, it was just when he would see you spending hours and hours on one picture it made him think about all these other things you could be doing with that time, like learning self defense or mechanical technical stuff. He was flattered that he was the subject of a lot of your artistic aspirations- he just doesn’t get it and doesn’t want you to have a sugar coated view of his opinions on it, he just doesn’t care as much as the others would.

-You always asked him why he chose his alternative mode the way you did, and every time he told you, you always were underwhelmed and disappointed with his answer. It was mostly a tactical decision, as he needed a  big and powerful truck that could carry all his weapons as well as it could remove someone from a battle they can no longer fight in. It only made sense to pick the slightly flashy and defensible Mercedes Unimog Tactical Vehicle, and even if that was his outward excuse you knew there was more to that. If there was one thing you knew, it was that cybertronians enjoyed the aesthetics of human automobiles, and even if he won’t admit it he had the look and feel of an old army vet. It was nostalgic in a way, and it had its own weird and pleasing charm- it was vintage and you can totally dig it. Hound hasn’t given you any indication her really cares about your artistic pursuits of car design, but you know he really does care about you, even if he doesn’t get it.

[education-memoriesls11]

Years 1 & 2 , Playgrounds, Percy Police Car, Portakabins and Penguins.

Year One

We relocated a little bit further up the school past the main entrance to the lower “big playground” that faced on to the school field by the bus terminus. The school has a very memorable layout in that way, when people say you moved up the school, in each year group that was the case both in age and in geographical terms as well, In this year my class was 1V taught by were Mrs Vincent, an older teacher than the ones I had before, she had a look a bit like Betty Turpin from Coronation street with her style of glasses and how her hair was set. She was well-spoken, patient, empathetic and approachable, she had a very mothering influence with our class, she would always listen to whatever wild and wonderful stories we would come up with.

She had a lot of worldly-wise insight and had a way of explaining information to us in a way we would understand at our age without being too childish, she could also still be firm and assertive when required in a more old school manner and strong but fair in discipline if any child was trying to lash out too. In later years she also moved to Hugh Gaitskell and also taught my sister and one of my cousins in their time at school.

I remember I had a phase where I would draw pictures at home on a night with my felt tip pens, I was never a good artist but I enjoyed drawing back then, I used to bring her a picture in most days and she would always take it and thank me for it, no idea what she would do with them! She also made me register monitor so it was my job to go take to register back to the school office after registrations.  

A lot of the work we did in this time was more focused around learning about the seasons of the year, a lot of geography-based projects and elements of life and growth, particular examples that stand out were each table having to get a seed, water it from the start then maintain their plant up to growth and we would compare each tables efforts as the weeks went on, although in the case of our table we almost jinxed it from day one when I pretty much drenched the seed and pot after it was planted!  Alan Titchmarsh or Monty Don I am not that’s for sure!  

For a while too we had a class pet, which from memory was a hamster which we would have to take turns to tend to.  We read the story of the very hungry Caterpillar. The story was an introduction to our learning about nature as then a caterpillar was brought in and then we watched it follow the full metamorphasis to a chrysalis and then eventually a butterfly, for kids of our age it was eye opening and fascinating and in a way introduces us to some of the miracles and phenomena of life and nature.

We started to learn more about different occupations, Evolving Technologies of the day, and also about how Vehicles evolved so for example cars from Model T to the current Fords of the time. We were also encouraged to create or discuss our own ideas of what Cars and Motorbikes of the future may look like.

One of the most basic elements we learnt though were common courtesy and manners, holding doors open for one and other and tolerance of other cultures, our class in this year had more of intake from the growing Asian community in Beeston, The first name for example on our register was Adeeba Akhtar, the first response to reading her name out was for Mrs Vincent to tell her and all our class what a beautiful name she had. It transpired that Mrs Vincent had spent a good deal of time in Saudi Arabia when her husband worked in the oil industry, so she was very awake to the customs of Muslim culture before many in the area were, she also knew about how the law was dealt out over there and explained how it differed from our own, always in plain English and to sound engaging. She also organised some Mendhi Painting in the class at the time of the fest

The well travelled Mrs Vincent also spent time in Canada and I remember her bringing in a giant Maple Leaf the following day from pancake day after discussion moved from what we like to have on our pancakes to the symbolism of the leaf in addition to that very popular Canadian syrup. She was always thinking 2 moves ahead.

We had our first Christmas play in this year, the normal type that you would have but ours was not in the main hall but to the parents in the lower school wet area, I managed to bag myself a speaking part in it too, although I managed to bypass having to be dressed in any of the tinselly costumes as I had the part of “The Son” my role was to be told the story of the nativity by my “mother” which was the role delegated to Jenna Bennett who did an excellent job as narrator, it also meant that I got to spend the whole show in my pyjamas and slippers, which helped ease any nerves as I was sat there in the 1988 equivalent of loungewear. She was also the person that went on to marry my classmate Richard Leach, they are still together to this day, so my on-stage mother went on to marry the guy sat next to me in class on a daily basis, I don’t think Mystic Meg, Derek Acorah or especially that Stephen Holbrook would have been able to see that coming no matter how many adverts he puts in The Metro.

In summer Months Mrs Vincent would take us out to the little field for our games of rounders where she would act as umpire and occasional bowler too.  Stories, registration and milk time would be taken at the carpet, legs crossed and fingers on lips to be quiet until time to speak!  

This was also the year where we started to be allowed to go into the main hall for assemblies and year group would make their way into the hall one at a time then sit in their row with our teacher perched on a chair at the side, the hall used to seem massive, its wooden climbing frame at one side and if you looked up to the roof in and across a maypole which was only brought out at Maytime when we would be taught maypole dancing. Assemblies were mostly led by the then headteacher Mr Archer.  

We didn’t get to see him for long before his time at the school was finishing so I only have limited memories of him but I remember he was particularly fond of belting out the hymns, pumping one arm to the time of the music in the style of a conductor and giving out the various prizes and awards that had been given. One of which I believe was called The Thomas Watson award, there were also awards given out for House Points and a prize for attendance which was named after a female pupil who braved it into school in particularly treacherous conditions at some point in History but the name escapes me!

Other assemblies would be from the older years carrying out their designated topic or assembly based on what they were learning at the time.   Some assemblies would be taken by Mr Wood who was Deputy Head for many years, always dressed in a sharp suit with slick hair, he was built like a rugby player and had a distinctive whistle to his voice similar to how you hear whenever Matthew McConaughey is speaking in a film these days. He always carried an air of authority about him and when he spoke people listened, in later years when he semi-retired he also took lessons for my form class in our final year at Hugh Gaitskell as a supply teacher where I found him to be a bit more informal and he was always very sympathetic to the class whilst talking to us like young adults, he was always very well liked and when teaching in class and was particularly good at teaching maths.

Going back to Hymn practice, a regular occurrence over the years at BPS, as well as at the assemblies those were always taken accompanied by the piano, which was more often than not played by Mrs Oliver, Mrs Oliver was some character, her speaking voice was brash but to the point, northern straight-talking, she had a quick wit, sharp humour and if ever we were not doing something to give the song full effort would find a way to rouse us into singing a piece as she desired usually by way of delivering her critique in the manner of something Victoria Wood would orate in one of her stand up routines.  

The main ones we would sing are “if I needed a neighbour” and “all things bright and beautiful” in particular on the beginning of each chorus you would always hear us all doing a very pronounced high pitched emphasis on the word “all” at the beginning of each chorus.  

If Mrs Oliver was away her husband would take the piano to fill in, he had a very distinctive pair of readers that were half cut semi-circle glasses, once or twice a week to we would have an assembly with a lesson or parable from a vicar of one of the 3 local C of E Churches, St Mary’s St Andrews and St David’s, The most regular of whom at that time was also a namesake as The Reverend Oliver, But also occasionally from Reverend Williamson whose son Mark was a member of our class.  

At playtimes we had migrated to the bigger playground facing the field, the games we would play had evolved into either acting out our favourite characters from kids shows or movies, playing Tig or kiss chase and so forth, we were policed by Miss Mary and her cohorts which then also included Mrs Allen and Mrs Dunbar as well as Mrs Easton and Mrs Slight who were also parents of our schoolmates and in one case a Grandparent.

This is where Miss Mary came into her own as Chief Constable as well as judge and jury of any misdemeanour, Big red coat on in all weather, the main punishment  she would dish out would be send you to “The Wall” , Followed by a walk of shame to stand at the wall by the door, nose facing the wall to contemplate your actions and don’t dare turn around until told otherwise, in the most extreme case you would go to the heads office but that was rare then.  

However, it was a particularly wet year until the summer, lots of storms and thunder which then meant we would be inside a lot and have to take part in “wet playtime” which seemed to be a lot more hard work on the dinner ladies to keep our attention as they would have to make our entertainment for us, This would vary from having the giant tv with its winged covers on showing us some sort of educational re-run of “words and pictures “ with the magic pen, to sing-songs on the little cassette radio or if times were getting desperate then Mrs Easton all making us do repetitions with our fingers wiggling to some actions of “ex-er-cises ex-er-cises we can do our exc-er-cises" we still didn’t even have tablets back then this was the height of our self entertainment. They did a sterling job.

We also had our first school trip, a 2 part affair starting with a trip to Armley Mills in the morning, followed by a break for egg mayo sandwiches if like me you had school dinners then a trip to Roundhay Park in the afternoon, in between both journeys we were taken by the coaches that also ran the Asda bus and we would all stand shouting and screaming for “coach one coach one” or “coach two coach two” depending which one had been designated to take us. Some of the parents also joined us for day to assist with the supervision, I have a photo from it somewhere at my mums or Aunts house which I am in the process of trying to retrieve.

The last day of the year we were all allowed to bring toys, with our board games like Mouse Trap, Buckeroo, Operation and the like, we were too young then for the type made at Waddingtons down the road. Then it was time for summer holidays before joining Mrs Vincent's class again, At some point possibly maybe during a walk to The Co-Op I passed the school and we noticed some lorries in there dropping off some giant fabrications which we then came to know as “the portakabins” which became our daytime dwelling for the following year in year 2 where once again we had the pleasure of Mrs Vincent’s teachings. The area was starting to grow in numbers and with it the demand for bigger class sizes and more classrooms at the school to cope.

 Year 2

Year 2 was a year of change in many ways for me and my classmates, Class 2V was based in the portakabins of the big playground, complete with its green steel railings that faced on to the Whistlestop Pub and the summit of Crows Lane, which at one point one kid got their head stuck in and had to have the fire brigade help them dislodge it along with some soap and water.  

The playground used to look humongous for people of our age and size, it also meant we were mingled with the bigger kids at lunchtime which in turn made us feel a bit older and in my case, like we were a bit more grown-up, As well as Mrs Vincent's class I believe the other cabins were occupied by Mrs Graham who i go into more detail about further on in this section, Mrs Cumberbatch, a diminutive softly spoken older teacher with an element of an older petite Julie Andrews about her, and then her complete opposite Miss Seymour, who was probably the strictest teacher in the school, forthright in tone, very matter of fact and dealt in absolutes, she would also act as a sort of Health and Safety officer and Police the pupils, from her 2 bell routine which would involve us having to stand absolutely still on the first bell (the "Stand Still" resembled the one you hear in the Pink Floyd song if you know it)  to then making our way orderly to our lines on the second bell, if we didn’t line up quietly she would then make us perform rituals with our hands on our heads or shoulders as instructed until she had compliance.

In lessons from any I had with her, she was more relaxed and learning focused. Although she had a penchant for making us play the farmers in his den in PE lessons, which was always a laugh unless it got to the and the dog wanted a bone as if you got selected you were in the middle while everyone vigorously patted you on the head!   It must have been a job to do as well because it took a fair bit to stop us from having many a stray ball land over the fence to crows nest lane or the marshland behind.  She also co-ordinated the sports day for our year group which was a super competitive affair but well organised as you would expect under her jurisdiction.

It was the era of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (UK name at the time) and the emergence of Hulk Hogan and the WWF so the teachers had a lot on to stop us from performing Clotheslines, Back Breakers or heaven forbid any DDT on each other.

Some would also gather by an area to the far end of the playground near where you can see below the old bricked up War Shelter playing army. The other popular sports for the boys, of course, would be football which was highly competitive and usually about 25 aside. The goal at one end was a Portakabin and then coats by the fence at the top end. There was a little gap in that part too where the bars had been stretched so the ball could be retrieved if it went on the marsh, as long as you were quick to come back in.

On windy days some lads would just amuse themselves by turning their coat inside out over their heads facing the wind and see how far they could get blown or if they could resist it, all the while James Ratcliffe was a good year into carrying out a family tradition of wearing shorts for school every day continuously in a bid to outdo the efforts of his dad and his brother, I think he got to 2 and a half years, a sterling effort given some of the cold weather we had back then. His parents were one of many who would give their time up for the school. His father was the regular DJ for the school discos too. Although that's more for Key Stage 2.

The girls would be playing on their “Skip and Go” which was the popular toy of the time seeing if they could get over 100 on the counter. At Christmas some groups of kids would walk around arm in arm in large groups belting out pop songs, they seemed to particularly like belting out "Mistletoe and Wine", we were in the era of Cliff Richards annual christmas takeover of the charts then. At least we didn’t have to get him in to sing at wet playtime like they did at Wimbledon!

The most popular game involved the yard splitting into two halves and then launching a tennis ball to the opposing side, a bit like Shrove Tuesday football but much simpler, if you hit the fence or Portakabin / boundary at the opposite end your team got a point, also if you caught the opposing throw clean you got a point, Whichever of us had a monster arm on them for throwing was always the first pick. Before each throw to the teammates would be chanting their name akin to what you get at a football match.

We didn’t need tablets or Minecraft in those days, it was much simpler. We also had the toilets at the far end of the Portakabin below the upper playground. This was also where the wall was located for the naughty kids, the teachers used to have to spend a lot of time stopping people messing about by them or trying to crawl under the gap playing their army games. Then following our school trip to Temple Newsam they would have to stop people from running in and screaming “blue lady blue lady” which would cause kids to dash out of the toilet frightened that the urban legend was in their presence!

We also saw a major change at the school in terms of leadership, we had a new headteacher, Mrs Bobbie Syrett, A tall charismatic lady who carried an air of authority at all times yet was approachable and personable as long as the pupils were also conducting themselves with the same level of courtesy, from the memory of what I heard from other pupils too if anyone was misbehaving she also ensured the correct level of discipline was delivered to make sure pupils learnt their lesson with a knowing prod of the finger. Luckily for me I never got that summons.

She went on to become a legend at the school and continued lead the school when some of my classmates children attended too, over her time there she went a long way towards modernising the culture of the school.

I believe previously she had been based at Greenmount School and from her time there she learnt a lot about diversity and always encouraged it within the curriculum. She would also always take a very active part in hymn practice, particularly when it came to having to sing the round section in the “Sing Hosannah” hymn, where each line would have to follow the line in front, but also brought a bit more entertainment into the assemblies we had, on a Friday she would have a birthday assembly where all the kids with birthdays from the week ahead would be brought to the front and she would ask what they would be doing to celebrate and get the school to sing them a happy birthday. When events such as Comic Relief occurred we would all learn to do “The Stonk” by Hale and Pace whilst we put a red nose on our conks, for Children in need she would go all out, she organised a charity evening at the school where we put on a school fashion show, she converted the whole of the area adjoining the school hall into a café area, her husband came to play jazz piano music by candlelight next to the reading area which was being used as the cafe, we had tombolas, stalls and a mini fair set up inside the school hall. It was quite something.  

The school bonfires went up a gear too, again she would organise events in the hall such as apple bobbing and games for the kids to play, for the firework display we would all gather in the top playground whilst we then watched the display complete with the full array of Catherine Wheels, Airbombs, Screamers and whatever Standard was making in those days and have them be set off from the highest point in Beeston, all the time complete with her walkie talkie organising the logistics and setting a few off herself as well. We couldn’t have the actual bonfire for health and safety reasons but the display was as good as any a school could put on.  We of course had to watch all the safety films in assembly too about them. Most people will remember the type of safety advert you had in the 80s, most of which would end to the sound of sirens. She also made sure the school Harvest Festival went up a notch too, she worked us double hard in the weeks running up to that to make sure that we did the best possible rendition of “Cauliflowers fluffy and cabbages green” especially when it came to bringing the ending reprise of broad beans sleeping in their blankety beds to almost a whisper, it was an absolute triumph and the local pensioners and residents of Maple Court and Beeston Manor loved it.

Our other assemblies would vary from the readings again from the local clergy to being given presentations based around the different patron saint days of the year or the religious festivals of each culture, complete with the stories to go with them, usually taken by a teacher with heritage from the said country, so for Easter Reverend Williamson would tell the story of the resurrection complete with large illustrated images on the easel, when it was Hanukkah Mrs Raphael would take those.

Mrs Raphael was also a newer teacher at the school then who had come from Little London Primary School, she taught us a lot about Jewish Culture during our time there, she had a resemblance somewhere in between Harriet Harman and Maureen Lipman, she also taught me something about myself too as she used to always say that her favourite person on TV was Jonathan Hart from Hart to Hart, so from there I looked it up and learned about Mr Wagner's exploits, I still use it on phone calls at work as an ice breaker sometimes, “yes my names Jonathan Hart, I just don’t have a Ferrari, millions of pounds, Stephanie Powers or a dog called Freeway”, everything has a link somewhere!  

For our St David's Day Assembly we had a presentation from Mrs Graham, who had the most wonderful welsh lilt to her voice, she told the whole story of his Patronage and was sure to include all the expected symbols such as the Daffodils and Leeks for our cultural benefit. She would occasionally take lessons in our class too in the afternoon for reading or music where she would bring in her acoustic guitar which I was always fascinated by, it left an impression given my love of the instrument these days.  

A few times a year assemblies we had would usually be taken by members of the emergency services, we would have regular visits from the fire brigade complete with Wellyphant who the kids went mad for. We would meet our community constable which firstly was PC Cryer and then later PC Binns, they would come in to show us films about Saying no to strangers, the green cross code and road safety, which was a big thing for us as sadly over that time period a few children were sadly taken from the world mainly by the crossing at St Marys and the CO-OP , thankfully that led to some changes on the crossing too and the situation is much better these days, the other thing they would warn us about was playing on the railways, how much effect that had on some of us for the latter subject is debatable but once they had done the serious stuff they would then lighten the mood, especially if they brought in Percy the Police Car, which we would be mesmerised by as he whizzed around the school hall cracking jokes at the expense of PC Binns whilst educating us on the subject of the day, although in reality we should have probably noticed that there was a police officer with a headset microphone and a transmitter stood at the back of the hall , but we were all too fascinated by Percy to notice, plus it would have spoilt the magic.

Other memories from that time mainly come from the lessons we had, we still had look and read, the main episode of which was “Through the dragon's eye” complete with that beast called Charn that used to scare the bejesus out of the whole class, to the point where some would cover their eyes until he had left the scene! You can find the reruns on youtube his costume was pretty akin to something from Freddy Kruger mixed with some dark gothic crow, a bit much for a group of 7-year-olds to take in!

We would learn the various morality tales which would then be tied in with their countries, such as the story of Romulus and Remus, Icarus, The Emperor's new clothes, the boy who cried wolf, and The Little Dutch boy who put his finger somewhere which I will not complete the sentence for as it can be mistaken for being politically incorrect in 2020,that is if the wording is misinterpreted by people who don’t know about the canal system of the Netherlands as we discovered from this tale.

Our class read various storybooks, one that stood out to me was a story called ESP, a tale of a pigeon who would peck holes in a man's newspaper on the racing pages and always select winners. People who know me know I am a fan of the sport and spent many weekends watching Channel 4 racing with my grandfather, however, I don’t think Mrs Vincent was as impressed as I then went on to tell her the tales of picking out "In The Groove" to win the Juddemonte International at York ridden by Steve Cauthen and then followed it with all manner of other picks I had made reeling off tales of Nashwan and the like, my mother gave me a telling off when I mentioned it as she thought they would be getting the social services out on us!

We started to do science lessons complete with circuit boards and lightbulbs, made little tapestries and were encouraged to a lot of drawing, in particular for a competition which was launched by the newly constructed St Johns Shopping centre to design a mascot, which would then feature on their branding and in costume at the centre for advertising purposes, clever marketing on their part, it was open to all the schools in the local area, safe to say my poor effort “Babbit the rabbit” was an epic fail, I was also surprised to see that it was not won by Andrew Webb who was advanced at illustration in our class at the time and could draw original creations as well as brilliant replicas of the famous cartoon characters freehand and from memory.

But I am pleased to say Beeston Primary still forged the winner, as my neighbour, Phillip Mitchell had his selection “Pertweek the Penguin” selected, much to his enjoyment and I remember a year later when we were stood at the Lord Mayors show he suddenly went wild in excitement when his creation was walking down Vicar Lane waving at the crowds. For the school trips, an outing was organised to Temple Newsam, including a tour of the house as you will have gathered from the Blue Lady reference earlier with the obligatory egg mayo sandwiches again for the kids on free school dinners!

Then a long hot summer followed which was mainly spent with me my friends looking forward to replicating our favourite Leeds players who were now in the top league following promotion, many of the lads had Vinny Jones V Haircuts at the time, and to the world cup of Italia 90, complete with Pavarotti Soundtrack, Penalty shootout heartbreaks, Jack Charlton & O’Leary, prior to breaking up many of us in the playground could be seen doing impressions of John Barnes rapping or singing for England (Eng – Ger –Land). With that Key Stage one was over, next up we would be into year 3, with a new teacher, to whom teaching was also new, a shakeup of all the classes and us being the guinea pigs for a new style of testing.

It was also the last year we got milk too, which like the Prime Minister who was often spoken of when talking about Milk at the time Mrs Thatcher was also about to depart. 

That was the end of Key Stage one and I will probably repost in a week or so with key stage 2 once i have gathered a few more photos to go with the stories, if people have any stories to recall or clarifications, teachers they remember from their own classes in these year groups feel free to add your input, i will be mentioning a lot of the other teachers in accounts of my final 2 years at the school in future posts as I am trying to keep things chronological for my own train of thought.  Hopefully it triggers a few memories for other people too.

[teachersofbeestonls11]

Years 1 & 2 , Playgrounds, Percy Police Car, Portakabins and Penguins.

Year One 

We relocated a little bit further up the school past the main entrance to the lower “big playground” that faced on to the school field by the bus terminus. The school has a very memorable layout in that way, when people say you moved up the school, in each year group that was the case both in age and in geographical terms as well, In this year my class was 1V taught by were Mrs Vincent, an older teacher than the ones I had before, she had a look a bit like Betty Turpin from Coronation street with her style of glasses and how her hair was set. She was well-spoken, patient, empathetic and approachable, she had a very mothering influence with our class, she would always listen to whatever wild and wonderful stories we would come up with. 

She had a lot of worldly-wise insight and had a way of explaining information to us in a way we would understand at our age without being too childish, she could also still be firm and assertive when required in a more old school manner and strong but fair in discipline if any child was trying to lash out too. In later years she also moved to Hugh Gaitskell and also taught my sister and one of my cousins in their time at school. 

I remember I had a phase where I would draw pictures at home on a night with my felt tip pens, I was never a good artist but I enjoyed drawing back then, I used to bring her a picture in most days and she would always take it and thank me for it, no idea what she would do with them! She also made me register monitor so it was my job to go take to register back to the school office after registrations.  

A lot of the work we did in this time was more focused around learning about the seasons of the year, a lot of geography-based projects and elements of life and growth, particular examples that stand out were each table having to get a seed, water it from the start then maintain their plant up to growth and we would compare each tables efforts as the weeks went on, although in the case of our table we almost jinxed it from day one when I pretty much drenched the seed and pot after it was planted!  Alan Titchmarsh or Monty Don I am not that’s for sure!  

For a while too we had a class pet, which from memory was a hamster which we would have to take turns to tend to.  We read the story of the very hungry Caterpillar. The story was an introduction to our learning about nature as then a caterpillar was brought in and then we watched it follow the full metamorphasis to a chrysalis and then eventually a butterfly, for kids of our age it was eye opening and fascinating and in a way introduces us to some of the miracles and phenomena of life and nature. 

We started to learn more about different occupations, Evolving Technologies of the day, and also about how Vehicles evolved so for example cars from Model T to the current Fords of the time. We were also encouraged to create or discuss our own ideas of what Cars and Motorbikes of the future may look like. 

One of the most basic elements we learnt though were common courtesy and manners, holding doors open for one and other and tolerance of other cultures, our class in this year had more of intake from the growing Asian community in Beeston, The first name for example on our register was Adeeba Akhtar, the first response to reading her name out was for Mrs Vincent to tell her and all our class what a beautiful name she had. It transpired that Mrs Vincent had spent a good deal of time in Saudi Arabia when her husband worked in the oil industry, so she was very awake to the customs of Muslim culture before many in the area were, she also knew about how the law was dealt out over there and explained how it differed from our own, always in plain English and to sound engaging. She also organised some Mendhi Painting in the class at the time of the fest

The well travelled Mrs Vincent also spent time in Canada and I remember her bringing in a giant Maple Leaf the following day from pancake day after discussion moved from what we like to have on our pancakes to the symbolism of the leaf in addition to that very popular Canadian syrup. She was always thinking 2 moves ahead. 

We had our first Christmas play in this year, the normal type that you would have but ours was not in the main hall but to the parents in the lower school wet area, I managed to bag myself a speaking part in it too, although I managed to bypass having to be dressed in any of the tinselly costumes as I had the part of “The Son” my role was to be told the story of the nativity by my “mother” which was the role delegated to Jenna Bennett who did an excellent job as narrator, it also meant that I got to spend the whole show in my pyjamas and slippers, which helped ease any nerves as I was sat there in the 1988 equivalent of loungewear. She was also the person that went on to marry my classmate Richard Leach, they are still together to this day, so my on-stage mother went on to marry the guy sat next to me in class on a daily basis, I don’t think Mystic Meg, Derek Acorah or especially that Stephen Holbrook would have been able to see that coming no matter how many adverts he puts in The Metro. 

In summer Months Mrs Vincent would take us out to the little field for our games of rounders where she would act as umpire and occasional bowler too.  Stories, registration and milk time would be taken at the carpet, legs crossed and fingers on lips to be quiet until time to speak!  

This was also the year where we started to be allowed to go into the main hall for assemblies and year group would make their way into the hall one at a time then sit in their row with our teacher perched on a chair at the side, the hall used to seem massive, its wooden climbing frame at one side and if you looked up to the roof in and across a maypole which was only brought out at Maytime when we would be taught maypole dancing. Assemblies were mostly led by the then headteacher Mr Archer.  

We didn’t get to see him for long before his time at the school was finishing so I only have limited memories of him but I remember he was particularly fond of belting out the hymns, pumping one arm to the time of the music in the style of a conductor and giving out the various prizes and awards that had been given. One of which I believe was called The Thomas Watson award, there were also awards given out for House Points and a prize for attendance which was named after a female pupil who braved it into school in particularly treacherous conditions at some point in History but the name escapes me! 

Other assemblies would be from the older years carrying out their designated topic or assembly based on what they were learning at the time.    Some assemblies would be taken by Mr Wood who was Deputy Head for many years, always dressed in a sharp suit with slick hair, he was built like a rugby player and had a distinctive whistle to his voice similar to how you hear whenever Matthew McConaughey is speaking in a film these days. He always carried an air of authority about him and when he spoke people listened, in later years when he semi-retired he also took lessons for my form class in our final year at Hugh Gaitskell as a supply teacher where I found him to be a bit more informal and he was always very sympathetic to the class whilst talking to us like young adults, he was always very well liked and when teaching in class and was particularly good at teaching maths.

  Going back to Hymn practice, a regular occurrence over the years at BPS, as well as at the assemblies those were always taken accompanied by the piano, which was more often than not played by Mrs Oliver, Mrs Oliver was some character, her speaking voice was brash but to the point, northern straight-talking, she had a quick wit, sharp humour and if ever we were not doing something to give the song full effort would find a way to rouse us into singing a piece as she desired usually by way of delivering her critique in the manner of something Victoria Wood would orate in one of her stand up routines.  

The main ones we would sing are “if I needed a neighbour” and “all things bright and beautiful” in particular on the beginning of each chorus you would always hear us all doing a very pronounced high pitched emphasis on the word “all” at the beginning of each chorus.  

If Mrs Oliver was away her husband would take the piano to fill in, he had a very distinctive pair of readers that were half cut semi-circle glasses, once or twice a week to we would have an assembly with a lesson or parable from a vicar of one of the 3 local C of E Churches, St Mary’s St Andrews and St David’s, The most regular of whom at that time was also a namesake as The Reverend Oliver, But also occasionally from Reverend Williamson whose son Mark was a member of our class.   

At playtimes we had migrated to the bigger playground facing the field, the games we would play had evolved into either acting out our favourite characters from kids shows or movies, playing Tig or kiss chase and so forth, we were policed by Miss Mary and her cohorts which then also included Mrs Allen and Mrs Dunbar as well as Mrs Easton and Mrs Slight who were also parents of our schoolmates and in one case a Grandparent. 

This is where Miss Mary came into her own as Chief Constable as well as judge and jury of any misdemeanour, Big red coat on in all weather, the main punishment  she would dish out would be send you to “The Wall” , Followed by a walk of shame to stand at the wall by the door, nose facing the wall to contemplate your actions and don’t dare urn around until told otherwise, in the most extreme case you go to the heads office but that was rare then.  

However, it was a particularly wet year until the summer, lots of storms and thunder which then meant we would be inside a lot and have to take part in “wet playtime” which seemed to be a lot more hard work on the dinner ladies to keep our attention as they would have to make our entertainment for us, This would vary from having the giant tv with its winged covers on showing us some sort of educational re-run of “words and pictures “ with the magic pen, to sing-songs on the little cassette radio or if times were getting desperate then Mrs Easton all making us do repetitions with our fingers wiggling to some actions of “ex-er-cises ex-er-cises we can do our exc-er-cises" we still didn’t even have tablets back then this was the height of our self entertainment. They did a sterling job. 

We also had our first school trip, a 2 part affair starting with a trip to Armley Mills in the morning, followed by a break for egg mayo sandwiches if like me you had school dinners then a trip to Roundhay Park in the afternoon, in between both journeys we were taken by the coaches that also ran the Asda bus and we would all stand shouting and screaming for “coach one coach one” or “coach two coach two” depending which one had been designated to take us. Some of the parents also joined us for day to assist with the supervision, I have a photo from it somewhere at my mums or Aunts house which I am in the process of trying to retrieve. 

The last day of the year we were all allowed to bring toys, with our board games like Mouse Trap, Buckeroo, Operation and the like, we were too young then for the type made at Waddingtons down the road. Then it was time for summer holidays before joining Mrs Vincent's class again, At some point possibly maybe during a walk to The Co-Op I passed the school and we noticed some lorries in there dropping off some giant fabrications which we then came to know as “the portakabins” which became our daytime dwelling for the following year in year 2 where once again we had the pleasure of Mrs Vincent’s teachings. The area was starting to grow in numbers and with it the demand for bigger class sizes and more classrooms at the school to cope. 

  Year 2 

Year 2 was a year of change in many ways for me and my classmates, Class 2V was based in the portakabins of the big playground, complete with its green steel railings that faced on to the Whistlestop Pub and the summit of Crows Lane, which at one point one kid got their head stuck in and had to have the fire brigade help them dislodge it along with some soap and water.   

The playground used to look humongous for people of our age and size, it also meant we were mingled with the bigger kids at lunchtime which in turn made us feel a bit older and in my case, like we were a bit more grown-up, As well as Mrs Vincent's class I believe the other cabins were occupied by Mrs Graham who i go into more detail about further on in this section, Mrs Cumberbatch, a diminutive softly spoken older teacher with an element of an older petite Julie Andrews about her, and then her complete opposite Miss Seymour, who was probably the strictest teacher in the school, forthright in tone, very matter of fact and dealt in absolutes, she would also act as a sort of Health and Safety officer and Police the pupils, from her 2 bell routine which would involve us having to stand absolutley still on the first bell (the "Stand Still" resembled the one you hear in the Pink Floyd song if you know it)  to then making our way orderly to our lines on the second bell, if we didn’t line up quietly she would then make us perform rituals with our hands on our heads or shoulders as instructed until she had compliance. 

In lessons from any I had with her, she was more relaxed and learning focused. Although she had a penchant for making us play the farmers in his den in PE lessons, which was always a laugh unless it got to the and the dog wanted a bone as if you got selected you were in the middle while everyone vigorously patted you on the head!   It must have been a job to do as well because it took a fair bit to stop us from having many a stray ball land over the fence to crows nest lane or the marshland behind.  She also co-ordinated the sports day for our year group which was a super competitive affair but well organised as you would expect under her jurisdiction. 

It was the era of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (UK name at the time) and the emergence of Hulk Hogan and the WWF so the teachers had a lot on to stop us from performing Clotheslines, Back Breakers or heaven forbid any DDT on each other. 

Some would also gather by area to the far end of the playground near where you can see below the old bricked up War Shelter playing army. The other popular sports for the boys, of course, would be football which was highly competitive and usually about 25 aside. The goal at one end was a Portakabin and then coats by the fence at the top end. There was a little gap in that part too where the bars had been stretched so the ball could be retrieved if it went on the marsh, as long as you were quick to come back in. 

On windy days some lads would just amuse themselves by turning their coat inside out over their heads facing the wind and see how far they could get blown or if they could resist it, all the while James Ratcliffe was a good year into carrying out a family tradition of wearing shorts for school every day continuously in a bid to outdo the efforts of his dad and his brother, I think he got to 2 and a half years, a sterling effort given some of the cold weather we had back then. His parents were one of many who would give their time up for the school. His father was the regular DJ for the school discos too. Although that's more for Key Stage 2. 

The girls would be playing on their “Skip and Gos which was the popular toy of the time seeing if they could get over 100 on the counter. At Christmas some groups of kids would walk around arm in arm in large groups belting out pop songs, they seemed to particularly like belting out "Mistletoe and Wine", we were in the era of Cliff Richards annual christmas takeover of the charts then. At least we didn’t have to get him in to sing at wet playtime like they did at Wimbledon!

The most popular game involved the yard splitting into two halves and then launching a tennis ball to the opposing side, a bit like Shrove Tuesday football but much simpler, if you hit the fence or Portakabin / boundary at the opposite end your team got a point, also if you caught the opposing throw clean you got a point, Whichever of us had a monster arm on them for throwing was always the first pick. Before each throw to the teammates would be chanting their name akin to what you get at a football match. 

We didn’t need tablets or Minecraft in those days, it was much simpler. We also had the toilets at the far end of the Portakabin below the upper playground. This was also where the wall was located for the naughty kids, the teachers used to have to spend a lot of time stopping people messing about by them or trying to crawl under the gap playing their army games. Then following our school trip to Temple Newsam they would have to stop people from running in and screaming “blue lady blue lady” which would cause kids to dash out of the toilet frightened that the urban legend was in their presence! 

We also saw a major change at the school in terms of leadership, we had a new headteacher, Mrs Bobbie Syrett, A tall charismatic lady who carried an air of authority at all times yet was approachable and personable as long as the pupils were also conducting themselves with the same level of courtesy, from the memory of what I heard from other pupils too if anyone was misbehaving she also ensured the correct level of discipline was delivered to make sure pupils learnt their lesson with a knowing prod of the finger. Luckily for me I never got that summons.

She went on to become a legend at the school and continued lead the school when some of my classmates children attended too, over her time there she went a long way towards modernising the culture of the school. 

I believe previously she had been based at Greenmount School and from her time there she learnt a lot about diversity and always encouraged it within the curriculum. She would also always take a very active part in hymn practice, particularly when it came to having to sing the round section in the “Sing Hosannah” hymn, where each line would have to follow the line in front, but also brought a bit more entertainment into the assemblies we had, on a Friday she would have a birthday assembly where all the kids with birthdays from the week ahead would be brought to the front and she would ask what they would be doing to celebrate and get the school to sing them a happy birthday. When events such as Comic Relief occurred we would all learn to do “The Stonk” by Hale and Pace whilst we put a red nose on our conks, for Children in need she would go all out, she organised a charity evening at the school where we put on a school fashion show, she converted the whole of the area adjoining the school hall into a café area, her husband came to play jazz piano music by candlelight next to the reading area which was being used as the cafe, we had tombolas, stalls and a mini fair set up inside the school hall. It was quite something.   

The school bonfires went up a notch too, again she would organise events in the hall such as apple bobbing and games for the kids to play, for the firework display we would all gather in the top playground whilst we then watched the display complete with the full array of Catherine Wheels, Airbombs, Screamers and whatever Standard was making in those days and have them be set off from the highest point in Beeston, all the time complete with her walkie talkie organising the logistics and setting a few off herself as well. We couldn’t have the actual bonfire for health and safety reasons but the display was as good as any a school could put on.  We of course had to watch all the safety films in assembly too about them. Most people will remember the type of safety advert you had in the 80s, most of which would end to the sound of sirens.   She also made sure the school Harvest Festival went up a notch too, she worked us double hard in the weeks running up to that to make sure that we did the best possible rendition of “Cauliflowers fluffy and cabbages green” especially when it came to bringing the ending reprise of broad beans sleeping in their blankety beds to almost a whisper, it was an absolute triumph and the local pensioners and residents of Maple Court and Beeston Manor loved it. 

Our other assemblies would vary from the readings again from the local clergy to being given presentations based around the different patron saint days of the year or the religious festivals of each culture, complete with the stories to go with them, usually taken by a teacher with heritage from the said country, so for Easter Reverend Williamson would tell the story of the resurrection complete with large illustrated images on the easel, when it was Hannukah Mrs Raphael would take those. 

Mrs Raphael was also a newer teacher at the school then who had come from Little London Primary School, she taught us a lot about Jewish Culture during our time there, she had a resemblance somewhere in between Harriet Harman and Maureen Lipman, she also taught me something about myself too as she used to always say that her favourite person on TV was Jonathan Hart from Hart to Hart, so from there I looked it up and learned about Mr Wagner's exploits, I still use it on phone calls at work as an ice breaker sometimes, “yes my names Jonathan Hart, I just don’t have a Ferrari, millions of pounds, Stephanie Powers or a dog called Freeway”, everything has a link somewhere!   

For our St Davids Day Assembly we had a presentation from Mrs Graham, who had the most wonderful welsh lilt to her voice, she told the whole story of his Patronage and was sure to include all the expected symbols such as the Daffodils and Leeks for our cultural benefit. She would occasionally take lessons in our class too in the afternoon for reading or music where she would bring in her acoustic guitar which I was always fascinated by, it left an impression given my love of the instrument these days.   

A few times a year assemblies we had would usually be taken by members of the emergency services, we would have regular visits from the fire brigade complete with Wellyphant who the kids went mad for. We would meet our community constable which firstly was PC Cryer and then later PC Binns, they would come in to show us films about Saying no to strangers, the green cross code and road safety, which was a big thing for us as sadly over that time period a few children were sadly taken from the world mainly by the crossing at St Marys and the CO-OP , thankfully that led to some changes on the crossing too and the situation is much better these days, the other thing they would warn us about was playing on the railways, how much effect that had on some of us for the latter subject is debatable but once they had done the serious stuff they would then lighten the mood, espescailly if they brought in Percy the Police Car, which we would be mesmerised by as he whizzed around the school hall cracking jokes at the expense of PC Binns whilst educating us on the subject of the day, although in reality we should have probably noticed that there was a police officer with a headset microphone and a transmitter stood at the back of the hall , but we were all too fascinated by Percy to notice, plus it would have spoilt the magic. 

Other memories from that time mainly come from the lessons we had, we still had look and read, the main episode of which was “Through the dragon's eye” complete with that beast called Charn that used to scare the bejesus out of the whole class, to the point where some would cover their eyes until he had left the scene! You can find the reruns on youtube his costume was pretty akin to something from Freddy Kruger mixed with some dark gothic crow for a group of 7-year-olds to take in! 

We would learn the various morality tales which would then be tied in with their countries, such as the story of Romulus and Remus, Icarus, The Emperor's new clothes, the boy who cried wolf, and The Little Dutch boy who put his finger somewhere which I will not complete the sentence for as it can be mistaken for being politically incorrect in 2020 if the wording is misinterpreted by people who don’t know about the canal system of the Netherlands. 

We read various storybooks, one that stood out to me was a story called ESP, a tale of a pigeon who would peck holes in a man's newspaper on the racing pages and always select winners. People who know me know I am a fan of the sport and spent many weekends watching Channel 4 racing with my grandfather, however, I don’t think Mrs Vincent was as impressed as I then went on to tell her the tales of picking out "In The Groove" to win the Juddemonte International at York ridden by Steve Cauthen and then followed it with all manner of other picks I had made reeling off tales of Nashwan and the like, my mother gave me a telling off when I mentioned it as she thought they would be getting the social services out on us! 

We started to do science lessons complete with circuit boards and lightbulbs, made little tapestries and were encouraged to a lot of drawing, in particular for a competition which was launched by the newly constructed St Johns Shopping centre to design a mascot, which would then feature on their branding and in costume at the centre for advertising purposes, clever marketing on their part, it was open to all the schools in the local area, safe to say my poor effort “Babbit the rabbit” was an epic fail, I was also surprised to see that is was not won by Andrew Webb who was advanced at illustration in our class at the time and could draw original creations as well as brilliant replicas of the famous cartoon characters freehand and from memory. 

But I am pleased to say Beeston Primary still forged the winner, as my neighbour, Phillip Mitchell had his selection “Pertweek the Penguin” selected, much to his enjoyment and I remember a year later when we were stood at the Lord Mayors show he suddenly went wild in excitement when his creation was walking down Vicar Lane waving at the crowds. For the school trips, an outing was organised to Temple Newsam, including a tour of the house as you will have gathered from the Blue Lady reference earlier with the obligatory egg mayo sandwiches again for the kids on free school dinners! 

Then a long hot summer followed which was mainly spent with me my friends looking forward to replicating our favourite Leeds players who were now in the top league following promotion, many of the lads had Vinny Jones V Haircuts at the time, and the world cup of Italia 90, complete with Pavarotti Soundtrack, Penalty shootout heartbreaks and many of us in the playground doing impressions of John Barnes rapping or singing for England (Eng – Ger –Land). With that Key Stage one was over, next up we would be into year 3, with a new teacher, to whom teaching was also new, a shakeup of all the classes and us being the guinea pigs for a new style of testing. 

It was also the last year we got milk too, which like the Prime Minister who was often spoken of when talking about it at the time was also about to depart. 

[night-speak-blog]

Suzanne Tamaki (Tuhoe, Te Arawa, Maniapoto) is a costume designer and the Events and Festivals Coordinator for Wellington City Council. She has a long personal and professional involvement in Wellington nightlife.

lightreading (lr): How would you describe your involvement with Wellington’s nightlife?

Suzanne Tamaki (ST): At the moment I work in the City Arts and Events Team, I mainly do events and festivals. But I’m also a designer so I do a lot of fashion/costume stuff. So I spend a lot of time either in clubs, watching, dancing, inhabiting...Or I spend a lot of time in there working...So I’ll be backstage or I’ll have a show on, and it’s either work-related [for the Council] or fashion-related... Which is when I’ll be back stage dressing models, either in my own garments or I do a lot of work to promote Māori designers. My main emphasis is Māori fashion. So it could be a bunch of different designers’ work as well, not just mine. Which is really, really, exciting! The only thing I hate about it is that I’m so busy working I never get to see the shows! That’s why it’s so good these days that everyone carries cameras...The way I get to experience the show is when they tag me in social media.

lr: Where would you put one of these events on?

ST: Most of the time it comes down to facilities that are available in the clubs...You need to have decent back space area...Especially for the number of models we tend to work with. Although, in saying that, we’ve also done shows in places where all we’ve had is a toilet to get changed in which can be really trying and sort of hilarious. The main thing we look for is a really nice green room space that has mirrors, water, power for hairdryers etc., good lighting. I’ve been in places where we’ve had one light bulb swinging on a rope...You don’t want that. We don’t work under those conditions anymore—ha! Those were the old days. A really good stage, good lighting, good sound is a must. One of the best shows I remember doing was—I called it Anti-fashion. I did a residency at Unitech and put on a show in a club that coincided with Auckland Fashion Week. The whole back wall was covered in monitors. I had a video artist come in and he worked with my images and put together this big multimedia thing on the monitors behind the live show. It looked really spectacular. A double hit of art.

lr: How long have you lived in Wellington?

ST: I was born here and brought up here. Then I moved to Auckland in the eighties for about 10 years and then I came back.

lr: Over the time you’ve been involved in the Wellington scene in this professional capacity or just partying do you think that there’s a distinctive way to characterise the nightlife down here?

ST: Wellington’s always had a grungy feel about it. It’s always quite gritty. The Southern Cross had a public bar where all the gangs used to drink—you don’t have that any more, you don’t really have public bars and lounge bars. You could wear patches and jandals and bare feet in the public bar and that was acceptable, but you couldn’t get away with that in the lounge bar. Now it’s just blended into this one big room. It was great, bars would have a really rough room and a posh room, and I’d always end up in the rough room because that’s where all the fun was. It was loud and partying. There were always loads of Māoris in there. And good music and really cheap drinks. And there’d always be a fight, but you’d just stay out of the way. And I guess that grungy, gritty thing has permeated into lounge culture, like if you look again at Southern Cross, it’s kind of hippy, almost…Still earthy, grounded…We don’t get too elitist, I guess. Even the Matterhorn is still a little bit real. It’s like glamping…You might have a fancy caravan but you’re still in the motor camp

lr: What’s been the most memorable thing for you about Wellington’s nightlife?

ST: One of the most memorable things for me was Chips, a nightclub back in the eighties. You used to get issued chips and that’s what you’d use to exchange for drinks. And that was Frankie Stevens who managed that place. It was up the top of Plimmer Steps, I think. You’d get your chips and he was such a smooth guy. It was like walking onto a cruise ship…He was like the guy who meets you at the door. He was always in a suit and very suave. And in his deep voice he’d say something like, “hello Suzanne, good to see you tonight”. You'd get this personal welcome from the owner of the bar and you’d feel like a VIP. And he’d give you your handful of chips.

lr: So you would pay for the chips? Did he do it for the novelty?

ST: You’d pay for the chips. Yeah, partly for the novelty but hey, probably also to get around liquor licensing rules too. You’d buy chips so you didn’t put any money across the bar. I didn’t care, I just liked that I got my chips and I liked the personal approach. And always really good music and people dancing—I miss that. People don’t dance any more. A few do at Laundry but all the other clubs will be playing really great music but people won’t dance until they’re really drunk. So I find myself dancing alone a lot.

lr: What’s your favourite music to dance to?

ST: Still disco. It’ll always be disco.

lr: You mentioned Frankie Stevens, who were the other big names in the scene (from any time you remember)?

ST: In Auckland I loved bars like The Staircase that had loads of drag queens there. And I loved the glamour. They always dressed up, always made an effort, and looked absolutely stunning and spectacular, above and beyond…The clubs would play a lot of disco and they had a disco ball. When disco is playing people seem happier, it’s quite uplifting. Maybe it’s because the songs have words, and everyone knows the words. I just remember the glamour and the glitz. It was like magic, especially when the mirror balls were going and the light was bouncing off the drag queens’ sequins. They became big mirror balls. Two other personalities in Wellington are Scotty and Mel from S&M’s. They remind me of Frankie Stevens in the way they always welcome people in, they enjoy their job, they will join in. It makes such a big difference. And I love their bar. Red velvet ropes and curtains, chandeliers...But it’s like an alley. It’s just a tiny alley that gets absolutely packed.

lr: Is this how you became interested in fashion?

ST: I was already in fashion. I used to dress a lot of the drag performers. I got into fashion because my mum was a seamstress and used to make all my clothes as a girl. But then I got away from the mainstream, and started making my own stuff, which is more militant and political, talking about the landscape here in New Zealand. But I still love glamour, so I do a lot of styling too. I do a lot of theatre, I dress a lot of bands. I loved the drag queens because they’re so fantastic, surreal. It’s almost like you could be anything you wanted to be. Nothing was forbidden, it’s like Alice In Wonderland, but if you go down into the rabbit hole and underneath it’s all sequins, glitter, make up and big hair. Surreal. So in terms of personalities it was Bertha and Buckwheat who used to host at Staircase. Bust'Op, she used to do a little bit of hostessing. Another one of the standout drag queens in Auckland was Pussy Galore. Those are really Auckland memories. Wellington-wise I don’t really remember many of the personalities. I remember we used to go clubbing at Claire’s nightclub and I used to go with my hairdresser. I always remember we’d spend hours and hours getting ready. So once again it comes back to glamour and fashion. We all lived in Upper Hutt and it was such a hole, and we’d go into Wellington—the big city! As soon as you came along the harbour toward Wellington and you’d see the lights…We’d squeal when we saw the lights because we knew we’d made it. It always looked like magic, like Christmas. The city lights bounced off the water and you’re transported into this other world. And we weren’t in Upper Hutt any more, we were these glamorous creatures coming to Wellington to ponce around in a club and pretend we were somebody for— two hours—then back to reality.

lr: Was there any specific night that sticks in your mind as a time when you might have met someone who was particularly influential or interesting, or had a conversation that has shifted your thinking somehow?

ST: In truth nearly every time I go out it’s like that. You get into a club and there’ll be someone I’m looking for or some idea that I’m trying to get and you always meet someone interesting, who’s doing something that aligns with what you’re doing or is just doing something really exciting. I don’t know if that’s just the alcohol. I carry around a notebook and so the next day I’ll look at my notebook to see what I wrote but half the time I can’t read my writing. But I know at the time I had this fantastic idea, a brilliant light bulb moment and the next day it’s terrible because I can’t read my writing. I think that people are relaxed in clubs and they don’t have their guard up, and because they’ve had a few drinks the ideas flow and they’re less cautious about sharing information. I can’t think of any particular moment but almost every week I have an ‘a-ha’ moment with somebody in a club.

lr: So you’re still out every week?

ST: It’s my job and I’m always looking for what’s going on—who’s the band, what’s the show, who’s around. So you need to get out and about. You can follow it on Facebook or read about it but it’s not the same as experiencing it.

lr: How do you think the scene here has come about, how did it form? Maybe the grittiness you mentioned?

ST: I reckon it was that ‘number eight wire’ mentality; they wanted to make it happen so they just had to do it. And it wasn’t that they were breaking rules but they were making them up as they went along. Wellingtonians were so keen to get out and do something that it didn’t matter about the weather. If there was a band playing they went out to see them. I was listening to the news this morning and there’s going to be 100km winds today…And I was like, “Oh, it’s just another Monday. Maybe I’ll wear my gloves. I’m ready, bring it Wellington!”. We’re hardy, so the elements don’t put us off at all. We just wrap up and under all those layers of hats and scarves there’ll be a glamorous outfit waiting to emerge. We just want to party.

lr: The project we are working on addresses the way architecture helps or hinders the atmosphere in social situations, so I was wondering if you have any thoughts about how the built environment can impact on social dynamics?

ST: I think that on lots of levels we like to watch. We like watching people. Say for example at The Staircase there was a mezzanine floor where you could have your drink and lean on the rail and watch everybody below and you could see people coming and going. I always liked the clubs that had chairs and tables upstairs too. So you could be removed from it. You’re not in the middle of the tank but you could see what the social interactions were…Who had come into the room, what everyone was wearing, who was dancing with who...St John’s bar here, on the waterfront, used to have one too, and there’s also that sleazy thing where the people upstairs were also the ones maybe doing drugs or having a sneaky joint. But you were still above the maddening crowd. So I like the ideas of stairs, and even the queues of people up the stairs made it seem like a fashion thing, where everyone was lined up and was looking.

lr: I’m interested in the idea of the queue—it doesn’t seem simply that the club is too full…

ST: They do it for the people driving past so they think they need to get into that club. It’s all about the hype.

lr: Do you think it builds a sense of anticipation for the people who are in the queue as well—or just frustration?

ST: It’s a social thing, because I can remember when we had to queue, and it’d just be like, oh well we had to queue, so we’d just enjoy it and talk to each other and wait until we got in. Maybe things have changed now…We’re not as socially kind anymore, it’s just ‘I want it now’. Maybe I was obnoxious too when I was young, I don’t remember. I think I just had interesting friends around me so we’d still have a good time being in the queue. Maybe [in your nightclub design] you could have people in queues but the queues are like a series of cubicles, so it’s also like a window display.

lr: I was talking to some others yesterday about Ivy and the car park/smoking cage. We were thinking about the politics of having a smoking area tucked out of sight like that…And we were speculating that it might be because it’s still not entirely safe to be dressed in drag out on the street. Maybe it’s kinder to provide people a way to have a cigarette—

ST:—while still being sheltered. I really like it that they do that. I don’t smoke but it annoys me that the smokers have to brave the elements. I think it’s unfair. I think the same owners had the Garden Bar on Courtenay Place and there was a balcony and there was one bar upstairs and you could still smoke in it even after the legislation changed. I like that renegade thing.

lr: A couple of bars down that area have been in legal trouble over the past two years over letting people smoke in covered areas...

ST: Yeah, and it’s still in an outside area but covered on too many sides…I think it’s just going to get worse. It’s going to wreck the clubs.

lr: Is there any other way the architecture or built environment might reflect what’s happening politically or socially?

ST: You might think about socio-economic groups, like people who, for example, vote National, aren’t likely to be going to an underground warehouse party.

lr: So would you say that having an underground warehouse party is implicitly excluding certain groups of people?

ST: Definitely. Like over the weekend there was a punk gig at the Newtown Bowling Club. One, who’s going to go to a punk gig. But two, who even knows where Newtown Bowling Club is! I loved the idea that these guys would do it in a bowling club. I’m actually a member of the Newtown Bowling Club and I laughed because I went along to the gig and there were all the old Koro who were all members, and they’re there because it’s where they always go, and it’s cheap beer and what else would they do? And all of a sudden they’ve got this wall of noise with these punks playing. And they’re not going to leave, they’ve got nowhere else to go. And their faces were absolutely stunned, listening to this wall of sound but they still stayed there. I don’t know, maybe if you force people into those positions where they have to listen to music or interact with a whole other crowd what could happen? Probably nothing.

lr: Are there any other memorable interiors that you haven’t already mentioned?

ST: The other thing I pay attention to is the toilets. I’ve been into some toilets and they are plush. Bangalore Polo Club has good toilets. The other thing that Bangalore has that I adore is a red carpet that runs from the front door right through to the back, up some stairs. And I love the idea of having a show in there and lining people up on the side of the carpet, with a band at the top, and having the models parade in and back out onto Courtenay Place. So the street turns into part of the catwalk. That’d be a dream come true to do that. You might have picked it up that I like the idea of glamour, fashion and performance... Surrealism. Taking people on a journey.

lr: Other than Courtenay place, are there any other areas where there was a lot of nightlife activity?

ST: I really loved Eddie's. It was down an alleyway and up some stairs. The alley and the stairs always smelled like piss, but Eddie’s was just a big pool hall. The interior was all graffiti, tags, whatever, it didn’t matter. It looked really underground even though it was upstairs. And you could smoke in there. I like the idea of that, it’s like you’re breaking the rules, it’s like a garage party but you’re in a bar. All the people who would go there were edgy and arty. I think he closed last year, it was a shame. He’d be open until really late and you’d get locked in. I like the idea of a lock-in. That was a great space. And S&M’s again…the lounge, boudoir feel. Ivy’s Garden Bar, I think it was where Calendar Girls is now. There were four different bars so you could go to different levels—I love the idea of that, that you could be downstairs in the dance room, go upstairs to the smoking area, out the back to the gay room. I didn’t go there, it’s just another closet. I loved Electric Avenue with the cheesy eighties music and they played music videos from my youth that I’d never had the chance to see and we had really limited access to them. And upstairs was just a private room, a mezzanine floor.

lr: I was looking at a documentary about the punk scene on the terrace in the eighties, which revolved around two flats...Was that before your time?

ST: I’d left Wellington and moved to Auckland by then so I missed a lot of that scene. But I remember coming down and going to a party there and also on Cuba Street on Tonks Avenue. Up on Tonks there used to be a lot of musos and artists. They used to have a lot of parties down there—live jams. The houses weren’t condemned but no one was supposed to be living in them, people were squatting, but they were all really good artists. Lots of drugs actually. You asked what Wellington was built on, I think Cuba street was built on those Tonk Street tenants. A lot of them had shops down Cuba Street or they were supporting the shops, it was a really supportive community, they all looked after each other and they all knew each other. A lot of the artists who lived on Tonks were supplying the shops with their clothes...They were selling things through Misdemeanor [a shop] etc. It was edgy and quirky but very uniquely Wellington. As soon as they pulled down all of those buildings Cuba lost its artiness and became mainstream. And now the punk scene has moved to Valhalla and the Newtown Bowling Club. Maybe that’s because they needed to find an affordable venue.

lr: Nightclubs are said to have the ability to contribute to counter-cultural movements. Do you think this could be said of Wellington’s nightlife?

ST: Not as much now as it used to be. We’ve turned into a real nanny-state. You can’t even smoke cigarettes, never mind anything else. But I do remember some of the clubs used to have rooms that the managers would take you to do coke or speed or smoke pot. And I’m sure that those rooms still exist. But I like the idea that there are these areas hidden away. Nearly every club that I go there is another room to be honest…And they’ll take you there if you want to go or they know you well enough, or if you’re into it. But I don’t know if it contributes to counter-culture behavior because it is so secretive, you wouldn’t want everyone knowing that’s what you were getting up to…A lot of the people who can afford to do drugs have good jobs as well. So it’s not the same grungy “let's go into the backroom and do needles” anymore. It’s “let's go into the backroom and do coke”. Stuff that will cost you lots of money. So I don’t know it is about counter-culture. It’s maybe more elitist. It doesn’t contribute to a scene because it’s so secretive…You’d have to be careful who sees the activity. But the other thing I think has come about, since people have to go outside to smoke cigarettes…In the old days your whole table would leave to go have a joint…Now everyone just thinks you’re going out to smoke a cigarette…So, thanks! At least they’ve made that easier. And it’s so expensive to drink, and that’s why they talk about ‘pre-loading’. But that’s driven people like the punks to Newtown. Arlo Edwards was living in a warehouse in Newtown with a bunch of other guys and they used to organise bands to come down from Auckland. It was $5 on the door, BYO alcohol and there was a bar. I’m sure they didn’t have a licence. But it was such a great crowd, really young and the bands were really good but it was just someone’s grungy old warehouse. So much more life and excitement than the clubs who’d spent millions of dollars doing them up…People would go to them and be bored. They’d sit there and wait for something to happen but no one would want to make it happen.

lr: Do you think these clubs and venues are/were safe for you? Did you ever feel unsafe?

ST: I think that a lot of those public bars that I went to were really unsafe. But I guess that was part of the appeal, the risk was part of the excitement. You know like, “oooh I’m hanging out with the rough crowd”. Nobody liked me doing it, they’d all ask me “Suzanne, what are you doing hanging out with that lot?”. But it was interesting! Different and exciting. It’s not the same as everything else. But generally you’re pretty safe in the clubs now. They have good security, the bar staff are really mindful. But then I read recently that someone’s been going around spiking drinks again, so that’s not a good thing for people, especially females who go out alone, which I do a lot but I have never had my drink spiked. I’ve saved a few girls who have had their drinks spiked. One time I found a girl who was passed out in a car park in the pouring rain, lying in the gutter. I managed to get out of her where she lived, and took her home, poor thing. It’s quite commonplace. I see girls passed out all the time. We’re talking about safety, maybe I’m safe because I’m really mindful, maybe I’ve been around so long I know how to take care of myself. But I see girls half-dressed and vomiting or passed out. Maybe it’s not safe. Maybe they’re not well looked after…They get themselves into a state and then the bars will kick them out and leave them. Just desert them, and maybe they’ve become separated from their friends somehow.

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Feminists use Manchester bombing to push their ideology before bodies even cold

On May 22, 2017 at approximately 22:30 local time a suicide bomber set off an explosive at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England after an Ariana Grande concert had finished. Current count has 23 killed and at least 120 injured.

More information is still coming out as the investigation continues. However, this didn't stop writers from Slate and Salon, no more than 24-hours after the attack, from using the bombing as a springboard to claim that not only were women and girls specifically target, but they are victims of massive societal oppression.

The Bombing at a Manchester Ariana Grande Show Was an Attack on Girls and Women" by Slate's Christina Cauterucci was (assuming U.S. Eastern Standard Time on the byline) published less than 6 hours after the bombing. Even now the true motives of the bomber are still being investigated, but 6 hours after the fact Cauterucci seemed perfectly comfortable suggesting the attack was in retaliation for pop-singer supposedly challenging the big, bad Patrichary.

"Like her pop-superstar predecessor Britney Spears, Grande has advanced a renegade, self-reflexive sexuality that’s threatening to the established heteropatriarchal order. If the Manchester bombing was an act of terrorism, its venue indicates that the attack was designed to terrorize young girls who idolize Grande’s image." [emphasis added]

Cauterucci even tries to subtlety weave in undertones of rape and slut-shaming:

Grande has long been the target of sexist rhetoric that has deemed her culpable for any sexual objectification or animosity that’s come her way. Her songs and wardrobe are sexy, yet she’s maintained a coy, youthful persona; the combination has led some haters to argue that she’s made her fortune by making people want to have sex with her, so whatever related harm befalls her is entirely her fault. [emphasis added]

It's confusing what Cauterucci is even suggesting here. Is she suggesting the bomber was some kind of misogynist Grande-hater? It doesn't help Cauterucci's point that attackers didn't appear to make any concentrated effort to harm Grande. The bomb went off after the concert ended, which makes sense if your goal is take out as many people as possible (people crowd together up as they rush for exists), but not if you are trying to assassinate Grande. Cauterucci even acknowledges that the attack didn't explicitly target women and girls, just a venue where there were likely to be a many women and girls:

"The victims of Monday’s bombing will almost certainly be mostly girls and women. The Grande fan demographic also includes a number of older millennial women, gay men, and general lovers of pop music, of course, but her live concerts are largely populated by tween and teenage girls and their moms."

Of course, Cauterucci doesn't have a break down of the gender ratio of the victims, because it hadn't (and still hasn't) been released. At the time Cauterucci published her article, the causality toll hadn't even been settled (Cauterucci's article still lists the death toll at 19 and the injury count at 50). Cauterucci doesn't even try to give us hard data about the gender/age makeup of the concert or Grande's fan base in general.

Salon article is worse

A Salon article entitled "Manchester was an attack on girls" by Mary Elizabeth Williams, is basically the same as the Slate article, but dialed up a few notches. It's more emotional, more bombastic and says even less. This is impressive, since (unlike Slate) Salon waited a full 19 and a half hours after the attack to publish this gem. Almost a full day!

Williams unconvincingly tries to show that young girls are constantly crushed by societal oppression and find brief precious moments of freedom in Ariana Grande's music.

"If you just happen to not be a girl or don’t live with girls, I want to tell you how truly spectacular they are and what they’re up against every goddamn day. I want to remind you what a refuge pop music is — music that speaks to you, without judgment. That makes you feel safe and joyful in a culture that seems to purposefully and ceaselessly try to tear you down. One that seeks to punish you for how you dress, that trivializes your interests and your icons, that obsesses over guarding your purity."

Williams mentions how some people wrote some not nice things on social media (with little evidence to back it up). Perhaps a high crime in the feminist world, but less concerning to most of us, especially when the subject is a deadly bombing. Williams article mostly boils down to 8-paragraphs of emotional venting about how wonderful and oppressed girls are:

"They are so, so strong, these girls — yes, these girls with their goofy Snapchat streaks and their mermaid hair and their willingness to love things unironically. Their courage and their grace would knock you out. And if you want to know what ferocious resilience looks like, take a look sometime at a young girl and her bestie, sharing a set of earbuds and dancing, in spite of it all."

Remember all of those terrorists attacks that targeted men

In all fairness, the attacker may have targeted the concert because it seemed like they would be many women and girls there (or maybe just because it was an event with lots of people). Unlike Slate and Salon, I'm waiting for the police investigation to be complete. I don't know the attacker's motivation. My point is that neither do Cauterucci and Williams, but that didn't stop them from writing their articles less than 24 hours after the bombing.

If the bomber was trying to kill a high number of women and girls, I imagine it was increase the perceived tragedy of the attack (because under "patriarchy" the deaths of women are seen as uniquely tragic for some reason).

Of course, Cauterucci and Williams really start going off rails by trying to spin the bombing into evidence of widespread oppression of women and/or girls. Here is a riddle for you. If bombing a concert where the fan base is likely mostly female is sexist, what is a shooting at club primarily catering to gay men? You would think Cauterucci and Williams might have asked themselves this question, since they both brought up the 2016 Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting in their articles as an example of terrorist/societal oppression.

Was that attack not specifically targeting men? 45 out of 49 of those killed were men (I can't find stats on the other 53 wounded). Now you might argue, that was because they were gay, not because they were men. I guess there just weren't any good lesbian clubs to shoot up. Maybe the bomber didn't mind women, just those pop-music fan women. But rather then splitting hairs over idiotic identity politics, let's have another example. How about the Charlie Hebo Massacre where attackers deliberately and systematically targeted men:

"After culling the women from the men, the victims were mercilessly shot at point-blank range, said Gerald Kierzek, a doctor who spoke to CNN after treating the stunned survivors."

""Sigolene Vinson, a freelance journalist attending the paper’s weekly editorial meeting, hit the floor and hid behind a partition but was grabbed by a gunman who pointed his AK-47 at her head. "You, we will not kill, because we don’t kill women. But read the Quran,” the gunman warned her, before repeatedly shouting “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great.”"

The Mirror seems to provide a slightly different quote from the attacker:

"She said the man told her: “I’m not killing you because you are a woman and we don’t kill women but you have to convert to Islam, read the Qu'ran and wear a veil.” She added that as the man left, he shouted “Allahu akbar, allahu akbar.""

Another Mirror article adds even more detail:

"She said Saïd Kouachi [one of the gunmen] turned towards the editorial room where his brother Chérif had shot Elsa Cayat[a woman], another Charlie writer, and shouted: “We don’t kill women,” three times. The men then left.""

Out of the 12 fatalities, Cayat was the only women. Furthermore, it seems one of the gunmen chewed the other out for killing her. It is unknown why she was the only female victim. There is suspicion that it may be because she was Jewish.

Feminists may counter these attacks don't count because they were committed by men. It doesn't matter. This is the problem with engaging feminist gender warriors. They treat the sexes like two sides in a war and one side (always the male side) has to be fault. You can't just blame ideologies or (God forbid) individuals. The point I'm making is that these terrorists attacks that largely targeted men were not considered sexist (and sexism was definitely not considered the main motivating factor), so there is no grounds to call the Manchester bombing sexist (especially when you don't know the motivation of the attacker).

The smart money is the attacker's motivate was Islamic terrorism. If so, then trying to cram the attack into a simplistic feminist gender war paradigm hinders seriously needed discussion about Islamic radicalization in the U.K.

More To Say

There is a lot more I could write about this because it touches so many nerves: how men are considered the socially acceptable recipients of violence, how tragedy is portrayed as uniquely tragic when it befalls a women("Earth destroyed - women most affected"), how men are genderless "victims" in a tragedy unless they are the villains, how feminists falls over themselves to defend an Islam that would destroy most of the basic freedoms Western women enjoy. Don't even get me started about the state of gender politics in the U.K. It's a country where vaguely defined "misogyny" has been made punishable by law and the courts punish men for rape after they have been found innocent.

There are also reports of a possible female accomplice in the bombings. What could this do the feminist narrative if it pans out?

However, I'll just stop here after pointing out that after the explosion, a nearby homeless man decided to take a break from enjoying his male privilege to help the wounded. But, you know, fuck patriarchy.

More Links

Sargon of Akhad: Never Waste A Tragedy

[ashafriesen]

Education Boards – ‘Which’ One & ‘How to’ Choose One for Your Child?

I am one of those parents, who are under constant confusion and bewilderment about –

– The Battle of the Boards

– Which is better – CBSE, ICSE, IB, IGCSE or State

– How to pick one for my child

 Finally, I got a lot of my doubts cleared when I recently visited Edify International School Pune and had a detailed word on ‘all the above’!

So, before we dig deeper, lets understand how many educational boards are there in India and how they differ from each other?

There are FIVE types of education boards:

CBSE – Central Board of Secondary Education

CICSE or ICSE – Council for Indian Certificate of Secondary Education

IB – International Baccalaureate

IGCSE – International General Certificate of Secondary Education

SB – State Board

CBSE –

It falls under the Union Government of India for public and private schools.

Being the most popular board in India, more than 20,000 schools follow it.

CBSE schools follow NCERT curriculum.

Its main aim is to prepare students for entrance examinations for professional courses like engineering and medical.

Approach is more of theoretical.

Focuses more on science and math; and less focus on languages.

Complexity level – Relatively Easy

ICSE –

It focuses on overall development of the students with emphasis on practical knowledge.

Has equal focus on science, arts and languages, especially English.

Beneficial for students who wish to go abroad for higher studies as it is recognized by most foreign universities.

Complexity level – Tough

IB –

It focuses on holistic learning, intercultural awareness and enhancement of communication skills. More importance is given to languages, arts and humanities.

Provides an opportunity to engage in an in-depth study of a topic of interest within a chosen subject.

Has a different approach with lesser textbooks; more research work. Students are free to explore the world.

Main focus is on ‘how to learn’ rather than ‘what to learn’.

Students under IB have slight advantage in exams like CAT, SAT and GRE because of their better analytical skills.

The examinations test student’s knowledge and not their memory and speed.

Ideal for students who are inclined to pursue courses in foreign countries after grade 12

Complexity level – Tough

IGCSE –

It has worldwide status and credibility.

Good for multi-language and multi-cultural grooming.

There are over 70 subjects including 30 languages available at Cambridge IGCSE and schools offer them in any combination.

Suitable for children whose parents may relocate internationally so that they will be able to manage change effectively.

Complexity level – Tough

State Board –

Boards undertaken by individual State Governments in India.

Each state follows its own syllabus and grading strategy.

Study of the regional language and culture is encouraged and practiced.

Each state board has some variance from NCERT syllabus and focuses more on local education.

Help students in preparing for state level entrance exams.

Complexity level – Easy

I found this relevant and comprehensive infographic at Mindler.com. Have a look to understand the differences better.

Coming back to where and how this research started, recently when I met Mr. Imran Bandeali, Chief Admissions Officer, Edify International School Pune, he gave me a thorough insight on various boards and how IB curriculum prepares your child to become a confidant person with global skills and competencies.

Edify International School Pune Science Lab

He also explained in detail what sets apart Edify International School and makes it the most promising IB school not only in the vicinity but across Pune.

High Points of Edify International School 

Foreign Languages from Pre-primary

It is one of the very few schools in India offering French and German as a second language from Nursery onward.

Daily and Bi-weekly Reporting Format

The school has a one-of-its-kind daily reporting format wherein the facilitators and teachers update the parents everyday about their child’s meals, activities at school and even nap time to keep the parents involved and informed.

Free Day Care

An exclusive day care is offered to parents at no cost for the children who would like to stay back after the school is over’ especially of working parents.  Sports and other creative activities are part of day care schedule on day to day basis. While most day care centers cost a big chunk of a parent’s earnings, Edify International School provides this facility at no additional cost.

Scholarships

Edify offers scholarships to meritorious students. And this makes the IB education affordable to most parents. As of now, there is no IB School in Pune which offers scholarship options to students.

Sports 

We give equal importance and weightage to sports and academics. Swimming, skating, tennis, basketball and football are part of school’s curriculum and not merely an activity.

Visual and Performing Arts

Music, multiple dance forms, theater/drama and other visual arts are made mandatory for holistic development.

I hope this article will help you understand various educational boards better and choose the right one for your child.

To know more about Edify International School or visit the campus, here is the contact info

Address: 38, Phase 1, Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park, Hinjawadi, Pune -411057

Phone: +91 77418 50000

Mobile:+91 77419 50000

Email:admissions@bkfbliss.org

Education Boards – ‘Which’ One & ‘How to’ Choose One for Your Child? published first on https://parentcenternetwork.tumblr.com/

[keremulusoy]

The Person Who Sings His Poem Or Lyrics On The Uniform Melody Where The Rhythm Is At The Forefront Is Called With The Abbreviation “Mc” Meaning “Master Of Ceremonies”, “Microphone Controller” Or “Mic Check”.

Rap as a musical genre; is a protest method of execution based on the rapid and harmonious singing of poetic words that have limited melody depth, suitable for rhythm and often touching on social issues. Most of the time, it continues the form of words against worldly events that the MC (Master of ceremonies) cannot accept. It can be described as one of the two opposites that manifest its poetic intelligence and thus overcome its dominant power.

Hip Hop And Rap As A Subculture Hip hop culture, which can be called as a rebellion reflex that revolts and even rebels from its local area to a cultural hegemony, comes to life in the 1970s American ghettos. Rap music, which is often confused as a concept, is only one of the sub-classes of hip hop culture such as graffiti, break dance, and DJ. In the American suburbs of the time, in the ghettos where Hispanic and African American populations are the majority, especially in uncanny gang struggles, hip hop, a subculture structure that emerged in order to intimidate the other side and gain superiority by expressing itself, stakes the popular culture created by “white man”. The “bad boys”, who are far outside the collective bourgeois hierarchy, seek their own means of amusement while at the same time seeking to expose their ever-increasing existence troubles within them. Rap music comes to life at the point where the sadness and ordeal thrown into the masses is finally brought out by music just like blues, jazz, punk or rock.

Although the offensive aspect seems to have an aggressive expression in the foreground and body language, the basis of rap music is the hope of seeing the world as a more livable place. For this reason, what he recommends to his addressee is that he starts by respecting the person who is not like him first.

From Light Western Music With Turkish Lyrics To Rap Music While searching for the roots of Turkish rap music, our way is coming to the early 90s and the German ghettos. After the Second World War, Germany began to be thrown in a social eddy and paralyzed ideological practices, while some radical political movements took advantage of this political emptiness. When National Socialism failed to dominate its intellectual and political stance on a democratic basis, it took an aggressive position aiming to make it accepted by armed means if it deemed it “necessary” and had its eye on the minorities in Germany as the first job. Neo-Nazism was going to trouble the Turks in Germany, who were “black heads” in the eyes of the Nazis, “Alamancı” as the Anatolian people call them.

The Turkish workers whom Germany has opened its doors with the condition of returning to their countries after working only one year due to lack of labor in industry and industry move (can) have never returned. They lived in poor conditions and worked hard. In the 70s, they were dispersed to permanent houses, neighborhoods and social life. They have achieved social rights, albeit limitedly. When the next generation started to overcome the problems of education, language and adaptation, the Turkish neighborhoods were already established in Germany, in other words ghettos. When the Berlin Wall collapsed, the pressure put by the United States on Federal Germany increased and “security and supervision” activities accelerated. It was in the early ‘90s and American families began to increase in areas where Turks lived. Their children went to the same schools, played on the same streets, lived the same social life. Turkish young people were introduced to hip hop culture and rap music thanks to the effects of this political whirlpool on urban life.

Berlin-based Turkish rap music trials started with English and German were realized in 1991 with the album The World is Subversion released by the band named King Size Terror. With the rap song “Bir Yabancının Hayatı” (The Life of a Stranger) recorded by Alper Ağa, the first rap song in Turkish was opening a brand new page in our music history.

Cartel Number One, The Biggest! In the event, remembered as one of the most abhorrent massacres of recent European history, the home of the Young family of Turkish origin living in Solingen, Germany was burned on May 29, 1993, as a result of the arson of the Neo-Nazis; The five members of the family had died in this event, which was called the Solingen Massacre in history. Later, the German government of the period, with the suggestion of leading artists and intellectuals of the public conscience to a little bit to repair the bleeding conscience of the house burned into a museum, and the entrance “O German people, humanity, remember the shame!”

In this period, the ability of rap music to manipulate the insurrection and rebellion that could not be converted into reaction was coming to the rescue of the German Turkish youth who could not find a medium to reflect their reaction. The Solingen massacre, a tragic case in which Turkish rap music took a giant step and ravaged the music world, has a great share in this respect.

The children who grew up with the love they heard from the children of American families in Germany first wanted to reflect the crush psychosis within them by combining the ghetto groups. With the participation of Erci-E in the rap groups Karakan and Cinai Network, the legend of Cartel was born, which would later become a phenomenon. We could see that some of the lyrics in the group’s song with the same name express their manifestos in a language that we’ve never been accustomed to. The band is featured in lyrics and video clips of the Solingen massacre, making references to German Neo-Nazis. This musical phenomenon, which has progressive potential, expressed the sense of “being the other and being despised” experienced by parents and children for three generations, so to speak, in the lyrics they put into rhythm. According to them, the solution of the problem was to turn collective consciousness into action. As a foreigner in the foreign land, an Alamanist in homeland their sorrow had already turned into reaction.

In their songs, emphasis on Turkishness, feelings of exploitation, humiliation and otherness were prominent. The rebellious cry of expatriates spreading from the ghettos into the city center was gradually becoming a social canon. The young children of immigrant families, the rap groups they formed in Germany, Cartel conducted a small public opinion poll in the music market. After a short while, they took their album and took it to Istanbul, the city paved with gold. And for them, a dream that was never in the account was thus begun. The album was able to sell 100 thousand copies in the first week when it took its place in the music markets, creating a full bomb effect; it was able to collect all the sales-oriented awards such as Golden Cassette, Double Platinum. Cartel introduced the Turkish music audience to rap music with stadium concerts, a “kitsch” music tradition of the period. A record number of music fans attended the band’s concert at the Inönü Stadium, which was even featured in Time magazine under the title how the German-based Turkish rap group conquered Istanbul.

After The Cartel (C.S.) In the Turkish rap music, the stave was set to the highest point at the beginning, and for the masses who thought that the oppressed were at least crushed; this brand new music style gave a deep breath. In fact, the fathers of young people who embraced Turkish rap music when they migrated from the provinces to the big cities gave their hearts to another music which they formed as sympathetic as their sons. Arabesque… the task of calming the oppressed towards the Millennium was this time in rap music. Turkish young people who localized the legacy of German youth from Berlin’s ghettos to big cities such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, stepped into the music market one after the other, reaching considerable sales figures and reading their “rhythmic poems” to thousands of concerts. During this period, artists such as Yunus Özyavuz (Sagopa Kajmer), Bilgin Özçalkan (Ceza), Tarık Gamert (Dr. Fuchs), Emre Baransel, Sultana, and Kolera carried the flags they received from Cartel according to their own pastures. Erman-Ender, Yener Çevik and Fuat Ergin, also a German ecole, were known as important representatives of rap music in this period. The overwhelming taste of good work was condemned to the sieve of these young people. Kadıköy Acil and Doğu Bosphorus were the first ones that came to mind.

Rap music, which has been re-accelerating its popularity since the 90’s thanks to the rap music elements that have been reflected in the cinema and TV series soundtracks in recent days, continues to provide the development of Turkish rap music with names such as Ezhel, Norm Ender, Gazapizm, Ben Fero, Sansar Salvo, Anıl Piyancı, No.1 and Allâme.

King Size Terror

From Cartel Albüm

From Underground to the Stadium Concerts

Ezhel

Allame

Ceza

NOTE

Microphone Controller MC’s microphone control, breath and rhythm harmony, poetic mastery, rhyme-harmony and language dominance are key elements of his harmonic success in rap music. Sensitivity to social issues, responsiveness, and positioning of the mechanism of criticism to the right point determine MC’s depth in rap culture.

From Cartel Album

“The solution of the problem is in us and in me/ Don’t let them oppress you because you’re a foreigner/ Cartel is at the 3 corners of Germany/Cartel hits and runs/ But thinks well and chooses the ones they’re gonna hit/ All the young people are ready for Cartel/ That’s what it seems to me or do you have a doubt?”

From Underground To The Stadium Concerts Cartel introduced the Turkish music audience to rap music with stadium concerts, a “kitsch” music tradition of the period. A record number of music fans attended the band’s concert at the Inönü Stadium, which was even featured in Time magazine under the title how the German-based Turkish rap group conquered Istanbul.

“Voices below mediocre excite fans/I’m a vortex choking empty lyrics in deep waters/Listen as you listen, apart from rap is lie to me/Well done to the one understand the word, understand and tell.”

By: Necati Bulut

*This article was published in the September-October issue of Marmara Life. 

A Protest Scream Spreading From Ghettos To Metropolises Rap Music The Person Who Sings His Poem Or Lyrics On The Uniform Melody Where The Rhythm Is At The Forefront Is Called With The Abbreviation “Mc” Meaning “Master Of Ceremonies”, “Microphone Controller” Or “Mic Check”.

[jamesrabechurches]

Communism, Oppression and Hope: Lifeword in Romania

When Romania's dictator was killed by firing squad on Christmas Day 1989, the people danced in the streets and waved tri-colored Romanian flags with the communist party emblem torn from the middle. They were free! Free from the Securitate, secret police who monitored and rid the country of dissidents; free from restrictions on food, heat, water, and travel; free from forced labor that tore families apart; free from religious and racial oppression.

Ironically, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu thought the people loved him right up until they stormed Bucharest and his once-loyal military joined protesters in the streets on December 22. He had been in power for 24 years and had no reason to believe otherwise since everyone around him told him so. For two decades, his advisors brought in crowds of people waving communist Romanian flags, paid audiences to applaud his speeches and hung his picture in every classroom and public building in the country.

On December 23rd, as Ceausescu and his wife tried to flee by helicopter, they received word that it would be shot down if it didn't land, and on Christmas Day 1989, their death sentences were carried out. Communism had died and the people won, but almost three decades later Romanian people are still struggling economically and spiritually.

Bogdan and Daniela Bilav, Lifeword coordinators and BMA missionaries, were very young on that day of freedom. Bogdan was seven years old and remembers what communism was like and its effect on his family. As a skilled laborer, his father was rarely home; instead, he worked far away on state-sponsored projects. In December of 1989, his project was in Bucharest, and when government-controlled TV began to broadcast filtered news reports about an uprising there, Bogdan and his mother could only wait. Two days later he contacted them to say that he was coming home but he wasn't sure how, since train travel was virtually impossible.

Although it was not something they could express freely, especially during the communist regime, the Bilavs were a Christian family, as were Daniela's family. Their faith, Bogdan said, and the kindness of neighbors and family sustained them while they waited, and he remembers his mother crying a lot but trying to hide it from him until their reunion. They were one of the lucky families, for at least 2,000 people died during the Romanian Revolution.

Twenty years later, Bogdan and his young wife began serving and ministering to the hurting people of Romania through media and church planting.

____________________________________________________________________________________

During the first week of December, Lifeword and BMA Missions representatives traveled to Romania to witness the first all-gypsy, social media broadcast to the most oppressed people group in Europe. The post-communism generation of young gypsies has iPhones and devices to reach an even wider audience than traditional radio. This training trip deeply affected all of us, and the story can't be told without understanding Romanians.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

“I remember in the winters my father and other men had to wait until dark to chop firewood for us, because it was against the law. Only state officials could cut down the trees, but it wasn't used for firewood; it was sold somewhere else.” Daniela Bilav's sister-in-law recounted what she remembers about communism in Romania. Her family were Christians, which was not illegal; however, those who spoke boldly against the destruction of churches and seminaries, imprisonment of church leaders and emphasis on atheism often mysteriously disappeared.

As Rick, Brian, Mati and I drove through the city of Cluj with the Bilavs the day after we arrived in Romania, Bogdan explained that the buildings we passed were built during communism, a time when everyone received a paycheck, often for jobs in construction. President Nicoleau Ceausescu wanted impressive-looking buildings in his big cities, but after communism fell in 1989, those buildings remained and everyone left the cities to reclaim the land they were forced to give up.

Driving into the countryside, we noticed narrow strips of land carefully planted with wheat, fruit trees, and potatoes. Sheep roamed the hills, along with the shepherds who cared for them. As we passed through these agricultural towns, Bogdan pointed out the gypsy villages built just outside of each them.

Our reason for traveling to Romania was the people in those villages. We were there to witness and document a plan that Bro. Bogdan and Rick Russell had been praying about for months: expanding Lifeword's ministry to the unreached by training gypsies to create social media broadcasts. Bogdan explained that, “The gypsy language is the same for all gypsies, so we want to make broadcasts available to them all over Europe on the internet and social media.”

Jointly sponsored by BMA Missions and Lifeword, the Bilavs minister to gypsy communities in some way almost every day of the week. Daniela began working with the children when she was fourteen years old, and Bogdan became involved when a pastor

asked him to help him with a new gypsy church. With the same heart for the same people, it wasn't long before they met, got married and began serving in the Transylvania area of Romania.

With each day of training, we were privileged to get to know these gypsy men better through interviews and video. There was a language barrier, but Bogdan, and sometimes Daniela, worked tirelessly to translate for us. Actually, these men had pretty good English, but we couldn't convince them of that. It was just easier to express in their own language how they came to know Jesus and their passion for the lost. Their testimonies were powerful.

One young man, Gaza, was honest about his life before Christ: “I used to live in the world and had temporary happiness. Now I have real happiness in Jesus. Before I knew him, I couldn't support my family because I gambled it all away and partied, but I don't need that anymore because I have Jesus in my heart.”

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In Romania, 85% of the people claim Christianity as their religion, with 80% of those being Eastern Orthodox. The remaining five percent are Protestant. The rites and rituals and the elaborate church buildings of the Eastern Orthodox can often be a stumbling block to spreading the gospel in Romania, but their is encouraging news about this people group, the gypsies.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Lifeword visionary leader and missionary in Romania Bogdan Bilav is now ministering to the first generation of gypsy teenagers who have grown up in Christian homes. At the same time, the cost of smartphones with access to broadband internet has dropped so much that these teenagers are the first in their families to have access to fast internet connections. Those two factors have compelled him to challenge young people to speak into the lives of gypsies all over Romania and Easter Europe.

A dozen or so young men and a few of their older mentors gathered for training on how to use their new smartphones to produce internet podcasts in their own Romany language. Theymet in the upstairs “sanctuary” of a small church in the village of Nusfalau,

and their love for music was immediately evident. They are gypsies after all; it is in their blood. Each morning as they waited for everyone to arrive, they plugged in the boom box and speakers, turned on the microphones, and sang with the tracks with enthusiasm.

Rick Russell began his training with an important question: What should your program content look like? Their answers were right on…gospel presentations, Bible-reading and testimonies. But Rick asked them to think like non-Christians and what would attract them. One man said to Rick (translated by Bro. Bogdan), “So you didn't come here to tell us what works in the States. You want us to figure out what will work for us.”

Their answers were different this time with very relevant topics in their culture: cracking nuts (the livelihood of many Roma), how to find a good wife, what I have learned from the old people in my village, etc.

After that discussion, Rick began the technology portion of training by having them download the Spreaker app that will create their broadcast. Each day's training ended with a homework assignment. Day One homework was to create a one-and-a-half-minute broadcast using their new app, which comes complete with sound effects, music, and applause.

Day Two began with listening to those broadcasts and critiquing them, and concluded with an explanation of the different aspects and tools in Spreaker. Their homework for the next day was to create an entire broadcast then download music to include in it.

Day Three included working out the bugs in Spreaker and solving technical problems that came up. Rick also told them to tag their broadcasts “Romanes” (the common name of their language) so gypsies searching on the Internet can easily find it. Their assignment for the last day was to complete their broadcasts and upload them to Spreaker and Facebook.

Finally, on Day Four, they created a two-hour live broadcast.  While several men listened in Bogdan's van and others on their cell phones, those without devices recorded devotionals and songs they had been practicing throughout the week. Witnessing the smiles, high-fives and laughter as they heard their voices for the first time was something those who witnessed it will never forget.

[daphneeck]

Receive

Most of us have been taught to give and say thanks. But who has really been taught to receive?

Whenever we dream about winning millions of bucks, we immediately think of what we want to do for the people we love. Giving makes us happy, it makes us feel good. It connects us to our people and passions, it makes the world better, it’s an expression of our love. In the Christian culture I came from, there was a big emphasis on giving. We were taught to give with a cheerful heart. We tithed 10% of our income and often gave beyond that to missions, the needy, and special building projects. We gave 100% of our hearts to God and the Church and served accordingly (“give” and “serve” were synonyms). Women, especially, were taught to serve and to be subservient. We know how to give.

Gratitude is another biggie; it’s one of my all-time favorite things. I often sit down and just write a gratitude list. We say ”thanks” in every email, to every cashier, we probably say it a million times a year. One of the first things a toddler learns is how to sign or say thank you. We’ve all got a thank you note drawer, right? And Mom’s voice in our head reminding us of the ones we have yet to write. At Thanksgiving, many of us take a turn around the table saying what we’re grateful for. Most of us even know the science of giving thanks, that gratitude makes us happier and healthier. We know how to do gratitude.

Fewer of us have been taught to receive. Is there anyone who has mentored you in this? I’ve love to hear.

I get a funny feeling when someone can give, give, give, but won’t receive anything. I want people to be able to accept my offer to help them out. I want them to say, “Yeah, I could use a friend right now.” I want them to let me pay for dinner sometimes. I get a funny feeling when I see myself being resistant to receiving, too. Because it usually means I’m somehow out of sorts—overwhelmed, self-denying, unsure, or letting my ego get the best of me. But let’s give ourselves a break! Few of us have learned the subtleties of how to graciously receive.

Without being able to receive, our giving is just ego-driven striving, lifeless tradition, or squishing ourselves into a box that’s too small, too dark for our magnificence. 

And when we can’t receive, our so-called gratitude comes off hollow, like an echo of greeting card platitudes. 

When we are able to truly receive, both our service and our gratitude ring true. And they bring us joy.

I’m in a season right now where I’m focusing on truly relishing the things I receive. Sometimes it goes hand in hand with giving. But not always. And it's different than being grateful or saying thanks. To me, it feels like the precursor to a thank you. It’s the enjoyment, the satisfaction, the permission, the settling in your body, the giddy exhale, the pause before you say thanks. Here are some things I love to receive. 

Food. 

Whatever and as much as I want. Enjoying every bite. Feeling satisfied. A gift received from the earth, multiple times every day. 

Sex. 

Being touched and touching—slowly, quickly, lightly, roughly, everywhere. Orgasms from not-me. Pleasure both given and received.

Music. 

An impulse received, to dance or sway or head-bob to the beat. The musician’s impossible gift, touching something that couldn’t be reached, stirring or soothing or riling up a buried ache.

Time.

Not stolen time, not time I fought to claim. Time that’s all mine. Received with pleasure, luxuriously. Or time that’s given by the divine, a loved one, a cancellation, illness, or mistake. So many ways this gift can be received.

[raystart]

Eike König: Deliver the Unexpected

One word connects almost every graphic designer, illustrator, or young type enthusiast that I come across in Berlin: one inconspicuous code word that binds together a continually growing, ever-connected chain. That word is an expected one: it’s Hort, the German word for “nursery.” 

“Hort is where I discovered my stencil technique,” says an illustrator selling prints at a zine market. “Hort is the best place to grow,” says a code wiz turned typographer. “Hort is where I realized I shouldn’t work ‘for’ a client but ‘with’ them,” says a graphic designer at a poster show.

They’re actually talking about Hort studio, the Berlin-based graphic design collective founded in 1994 by Eike König; a studio known for its commitment to reinvention, its support of young designers through its internship program, and its playful sensibility. It emerged from the Frankfurt techno scene in 1994, a disruptive, vibrant blip in an otherwise repetitive song: König deliberately rejected the agency model he observed around him, and also the idea that a designer should be associated with just one aesthetic.

Hort was founded on the principles of play, fair pay, honesty, change, and exploration. König penned eight golden rules for his dream studio, including 1. Have fun, 2. Get paid, 3. Don’t work with assholes, and perhaps most crucially, 8. Quit when you don’t have fun anymore. In 2007, the studio moved to Berlin, and has worked with institutions such as Bauhaus Dessau, and global brands IBM, Microsoft, Nike, and The New York Times.

Hort is not, and never has been, just König. As I write this, Hort is Anne Büttner, Eike König, Elizabeth Legate, Tim Rehm, Tim Schmitt, Tim Sürken, Alan Woo, and its network of freelancers. (By the time this is published, more names will probably have been added to the list.) Just like Hort is not just König, König is not just Hort: since 2011, he has been a professor at Offenbach University of the Arts, and since 2015, he has been producing his own artwork and prints. And just as the studio changes, grows, splinters, mutates, waxes, and wanes, though, so does König. It’s been a long process, and one that is by no means finished.

For this story, König was photographed throughout Berlin.

When did you first become aware of graphic design?

When I was quite young, during the Cold War years especially.  Magazines were filled with infographics about the current global political climate: I found them touching and exciting. What was the power behind something so little? I figured out that the power was graphic design. I was also into music growing up. I loved records, especially the records that my cousins collected. I would go hang out with them and play close attention to the music that they were buying and listening to. I liked the ritual of a record: opening it up, taking out the vinyl, putting it on the player, and then listening to the music and looking at the artwork at the same time. There was a strong connection between the visual moment and the listening moment, which I was drawn to. Back then, I listened to music in a different way from how I do now. I took my time with it, I sat down, and I didn’t do anything else. Nowadays, music is more like having a nice background noise. It’s atmosphere in a room and not a ritual.

Were there particular sleeves where you found the connection between the visual and the aural was especially strong?

One of my cousins was listening to Pink Floyd a lot, so I got into Hipgnosis (fairly early on the designers behind Pink Floyd’s albums) I liked the way the covers told surreal stories using photography, and how by putting an image in an unusual context, a new story was created that you didn’t necessarily get straight away. I always appreciate it in design when there is something I recognize put into an unrecognizable context. Complex juxtapositions make you think in a deeper way. I found it very clever how Hipgnosis could translate the complexity of the music, the emotions of the music, into something that visually doesn’t just tell the same story as the songs but gives the album another layer of meaning.

After learning about Hipgnosis, I also got into Peter Seville of course, and his work for Joy Division. I admired the label 4AD, so I was looking at the work of Vaughan Oliver. At the same time, I got into magazines like i-D. With independent music labels and new youth culture magazines, designers were suddenly being connected to their output. Before, the designer had been invisible.

That’s how I got into design, and then I enrolled at the University of Applied Arts – they’ve since changed their name – in Darmstadt. I didn’t really know at that time what design was, though. The universities were focusing on educating people to go into ad agencies. When I got there, I realized that 90 percent of the students were going to go into advertising, which was a completely different world from where I wanted to be. 

You were admiring independent practitioners like Saville and Oliver, so you were looking at a model that hadn’t yet become pervasive. The idea of an independent practitioner, let alone an independent design studio, was still rare.

Exactly. It was a shock getting to university and figuring out there that what I wanted to do didn’t yet have its own framework or structure. I also had no real understanding when I was 19 of what design could really do. Design was not taught in school. You only knew what art is and what music is, but not what design means in your life. Yet everything is design. It’s very important.

I think even nowadays, most students starting out don’t really know what graphic design is or what it can do – I see that with my new students every year at Offenbach. They don’t really know how broad it is. Most people think, like I did, of record sleeves and infographics. I didn’t think about what typography is, or what a way-finding system is. I thought design was creating artwork for a product. Getting to art school was frustrating because I was a big fan of people like David Carson. I was fascinated to see that there was a designer using a platform like Ray Gun magazine to experiment and provoke. I wanted to do that. I didn’t want to work in an ad agency.

What was it about Carson’s form of experimentation that you found so effective?

How he would take an image and place it somewhere else so that it didn’t have its previous context, but gained a new one, like what Hipgnosis did. If there is a disruptive moment, it instantly grabs your attention. 

I started to wonder, How can I not simply follow the rules that come with a platform? How can I hack something? That fascinated me from the start. How can I question things that have been built and developed and ingrained into an audience’s way of perceiving? How can I not repeat, but create something new? How can I put my own signature onto something? How can I deliver something to society that is more than a repetition?

At university, they didn’t want that. They wanted to educate people so that they would become functional workers. You weren’t educated to be a critical designer. It was about selling things. It was, “How can you make something that’s not great-looking something that people will buy?” You know, it was all about capitalism and tricks.

Apart from this emphasis on advertising, was there anything else about the university’s approach to the design process that you objected to?

The school came out of the thinking of the Ulm School of Design, and emphasized a holistic, multidisciplinary approach like the Bauhaus had done. It was closed-minded about pop culture, though, and more interested in the idea of designing something timeless. I was more open to the idea of the contemporary. I was interested in history, of course, but I also thought history is history. I wanted to create work that is rooted in its specific time, so that people could work out later where it came from. I’ve always liked that people can say, “Oh, this is the first time that a designer worked with a computer.” I don’t want to design something that looks like it was designed in the 60’s.

When did you get to put these feelings into practice? When did you first get to design something that you felt was truly “timely”?

I worked in an advertising agency during university, but then I started working at a record company, a techno and dance label in Frankfurt called Logic Records. That’s when I started making work that felt rooted in its time. I was 23 or 24. I was interning at the label, and then eventually I was asked to be the art director. I decided to quit university and accept the position.

There was a new genre around: techno. It’s amazing to see a new genre rise. It doesn’t happen very often. Techno at the time had no fixed face, so being involved at its genesis meant that I was able to explore different visual looks for the new genre. It was during a time when Frankfurt was one of the most important cities for techno music.

What kind of “face” did you envision for Frankfurt techno?

I didn’t want to design a cliché. The cliché would have been to do what other people had done in the 80’s for electronic music, drawing on the idea of a utopia. Using electronic imagery felt too easy, and I never like to go with the first association that comes to mind. Why not give the audience a visual experience that is different from how the music sounds, to jar and juxtapose and create new connections?

The label was successful, and they were open-minded and said, “Do whatever you feel is right.” I could explore, using the format of the record sleeve. I decided to design every single sleeve in a completely different way. Sometimes I did collage; at other times, it was purely typographic and Swiss. Sometimes I had a photo concept. The label liked it and said, “We don’t want to have a fixed identity; we want every product to look individual.” There were other labels that had more of a recognizable face. Our face was to have many faces.

This sounds a lot like your approach at Hort, where you emphasize the importance of trying things out, experimenting, and starting from scratch. At Hort, you don’t want to repeat an idea too often. Do you think these techno record designs were the root of Hort?

Yes; it was the DNA of Hort. I didn’t ever want to repeat. It’s easy to find something that looks good and works well, and then reproduce it over and over again. It’s clever from a business perspective, but it’s not challenging. I didn’t want to be the kind of designer that has a visual identity that they put on each record. It then feels like I’m taking over. Like I’m using myself and my aesthetic as the promotional tool.

You don’t want to be a designer with a brand.

Every musician and producer I’ve ever worked with is unique, so they should get something unique from me.

You mentioned quitting university to work full-time at Logic. What did you learn at the label that you weren’t getting at school?

I was trained not just to be a designer, but to work with a team and find the right people to collaborate with. I learned how to support and motivate others, and how to critique.

After about a year, I had complete freedom; it was a dream job. I got money, I could work with a product that didn’t hurt people – unless it’s bad music…but then you can turn it off. – I was also going to clubs, raving a lot, so my lifestyle became my job, and I never expected that that could happen. I learned that the culture I was surrounded by could be part of my working life.

How did you come to the decision to leave the label, go out on your own, and set up as an independent designer?

The great thing with vinyl at the time was that it was like your business card. If someone saw the design and liked it, your name was written on the sleeve, so they could contact you and say, “I want to work with you.” That started happening to me quite a lot.

I suddenly found myself in a situation: Did I want to work for different people or one client? I didn’t have to think about it very long, though. I was 25; I was naïve. I was like, “Everything is running so smoothly so, why not just jump in and try being freelance?” I wasn’t scared; I had no idea how things worked, and I had no business plan.

Logic supported my decision to go and said I could continue to collaborate with them. And amazingly, everything worked perfectly. I never had to ask someone for work; word just spread around that I was available. The design scene in Germany at the time, especially for music, was very small.

You formed Eike’s Grafischer Hort. When and why did you drop the “Eike”?

I was flying first-class, staying in fancy hotels; I wasn’t saving money. After three of four years working in this way, I had a breakdown. I was so successful in such a short time and I started wondering, What will be the next step? What comes now? It was all too fast and I feared the blank page. I kept thinking, What happens if I don’t have another idea?

Because of that, I looked inside myself and realized, “OK, I want to work with other people.” This was in 1994. I wanted to learn by having discussions with others, so I got my first employee. I still want discussions; it’s a crucial part of my process. Eventually, we dropped the “Eike Grafischer” and just became Hort because I didn’t want the studio to be about me as a brand – I wanted it to be a collective. Now, we’re seven people in our office, plus a couple of interns and our network of freelancers outside the office.

How do you choose the people that you work with?

Designers often start as interns; it’s the way that I get to know them. They do internships for six or seven months, and then during that time I can figure out how well they fit into the idea of Hort. I like when people are up for conversations and are open to critique; when they step back from ego, when they can work in a team. Right now, I think more than 80 people have gone through Hort. We still have contact with a lot of them. We keep in contact and create a network. I also wanted a flat hierarchy from the start.

Can you tell me how the flat hierarchy works on a practical level?

We decide on jobs together. Everyone has their own little company within the studio, and they work on their own projects, so they can design their own future while being a part of ours. We only join forces on the bigger projects. It’s a modern way of working. It’s important that people also have their own thing going on because it keeps up the creative energy and flow and mental health. That’s always been important, for myself too.

When a new client comes in, how do you divide up work or decide who is going to get the project?

In the beginning, I had to think about people’s strengths and decide who would fit a project best. Now, though, we’ve worked together for such a long time that I don’t have to do that anymore. I usually get the first email from a new client, and then the whole team sits around the table and we discuss each job together. We debate whether it’s too small, too big, whether it’s challenging enough, whether there will be too many problems. We decide together; that means that the whole team is involved.

It’s completely organic. Back in the old days, especially, I would put people together who had never worked together before, in order to create a spark. The work you get out of collaboration is much better than if one person does it alone, especially if it’s two people who you might not necessarily think would fit together neatly.

When you put two people together who don’t normally work together, the drawback is that things become less efficient in terms of working under deadlines. Can you tell me about time management at Hort?

There’s a lot more discussion when you work this way, at the cost of time and energy. But people then learn from each other and share, and that’s what I always wanted. For sure, things do take longer. Absolutely. We have had to build this into our strategy. The way we work doesn’t have a rhythm. You can’t say, “In a week we’ll have completed that, and in the following week, we’ll have completed that.”

Often, we have to have quite difficult discussions with our clients to get them to understand that design is a process. In the beginning, clients come with a specific image in their mind and a concrete timetable. A new client will say, “We want a new identity.” We will ask, “When do you want it by?” and then the reply will be, “We want to launch in three months.” We’ll take a look at the brief and say, “Oh. It’ll take us two years.” The clients are always completely shocked.

If you’re allowed to take your time, than the outcome will be much more exciting and precise then if you follow a strict, systematic method. No single job is like another one. There’s no recipe for how to solve a problem.

When you’re working for certain music industry clients or smaller independent ventures, it’s a lot easier to negotiate the kind of freedom you’re describing. How did you negotiate time when taking on major international clients?

First, we deliver something that they don’t expect. I remember the first job we did for Nike, which started as a brief for the packaging design for the LeBron trainer. We thought, Sure, we could design the surface of the box, but then it’s just a nice skin. Why not create an entire system, and with that system, there could be a connection between the box, the poster, an in-store decoration, even the fashion? We created a typeface based on the characteristic of the shoe, so that Nike could do whatever they wanted with it. Nike was surprised but also pleased. They said, “Oh, why don’t you also do the visual guidelines for the entire season?” We developed the guidelines, including store applications, fashion components, posters, everything – a big identity that started off as the design of a box.

Nike now always expects something unforeseen from us, and I think that’s our trick. We don’t just deliver; we create something that lets them imagine a bigger picture, a picture they haven’t seen yet. It’s much more interesting to us than finishing a job in a short time and getting the money quickly. Most of our clients understand that. They come to us and are open about seeing where things could go. Everyone comes with a picture in their mind, but we prove that it’s not always about delivering that image by, first of all, showing them something unexpected.

We’ve talked about how you went from art director at a label to independent practitioner because you wanted to be on your own. Then you realized that what you thrived on was being in a team and bouncing off others. In the past two years, though, you’ve started working on your own again and reclaimed the name “Eike König” as something independent from Hort. You’ve been working on your own typographic prints and posters. How have you found it returning to something that is entirely your own and that has your name on it?

I do three things, and all with the same passion: I have the studio, I teach, and I do my personal work. With my personal work, I am still a designer. I still use the same methods of design and typography. It’s not like I’m knitting or creating sculptures. It’s the same as what I’ve always done, but with the stress of a schedule taken out of the process, and I find this incredibly rewarding.

Ultimately, I made the decision to spend some of my life focusing on my own personal work because I realized it’s good for my health and my brain. It’s not a different way of thinking from what I do at Hort, but it’s a different context. I’ve learned that I need three elements in my life: I need the team at Hort, I need my students, and I need time to work on my own design projects. It’s the combination of these three things that keeps me balanced.