#flood magazine 2022

[wilwheaton]

When you watch The Curse, you are watching two children who were abused and exploited daily during production. No adults protected us.

This was originally published on my blog in August, 2022.

I had a wonderful time at Steel City Comicon this weekend. It was my first time at this particular con, so I didn’t know there was such a huge contingent of horror fans, creators, and vendors who attend.

I love horror, and I was pretty psyched to be in the same place as John Carpenter and Tom Savini, across the street from the Dawn of the Dead mall. Pittsburgh feels like one of the places horror was invented, at least to me.

A number of these horror fans came to see me, and asked me to sign posters and other things from a movie my parents forced me to do when I was 13, called The Curse. I had to tell each of these people that I would not sign anything associated with that movie, because I was abused and exploited during production. The time I spent on that film remains the most traumatizing time of my life, and though I am a 50 year-old man, just typing this now makes my hands shake with remembered fear of a 13 year-old boy who nobody protected, and the absolute fury the 50 year-old man feels toward the people who hurt him.

I told this story in Still Just A Geek, and I’ve talked about it in some podcasts I did on the promo tour, but I’ve never put it out in public like this, in its entirety.

I suspect someone at the publisher would prefer I tease this and hope it drives book sales from people who want to read all of it, but I honestly don’t want to have another weekend like this one where everything is awesome, except the few times people who have no idea (and why should they) put that fucking poster in front of me, and all the fear, abandonment, and trauma come flooding back as I tell them that I won’t sign it, and why.

To their credit, each person was as horrified as they should have been, told me they had no idea (if they didn’t read my book why would they), and quickly put the poster away. They were all understanding. I am grateful for that.

But I really don’t need to tell this story over and over again, so here it is, with a child abuse and exploitation content warning, so I can just tell people to Google it.

After Stand by Me, everything changed. The attention from entertainment journalists, casting directors, and especially teen magazines came pouring in. The movie was a generational hit, beloved by critics and audiences alike, and every single one of us could pick anything to do next.

River’s parents and his agent got him Mosquito Coast, with Harrison Ford, as his next movie. I also auditioned for the role, but I knew even then that River was going to book the job. He was perfect, and I’d have to wait a little bit for my opportunity to come along.

I went on a lot of theatrical auditions after Stand by Me. I had tons of meetings with directors and the heads of casting at every major studio. It was all a very big deal, and I felt like we were all looking for something really special and amazing as my follow-up to Stand by Me.

At some point, a couple of producers contacted my agent with an offer to play one of the leads in an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space.” The script was titled The Farm. (It would, of course, be changed when the film was released).

I read it. I did not like it. It was a shitty horror movie, and I saw that right away. It was the sort of thing you rented on Friday when the new release you wanted was already out of the store.

My mother, already an incredibly manipulative person, used every tool at her disposal to change my mind. My father threatened me, mocked me, told me “It’s your decision” when it clearly wasn’t. It was all so weird; I didn’t understand why they cared so much.

I told my parents I didn’t like it and didn’t want to do it. I clearly recall thinking it was a piece of shit that would hurt my career.

It wasn’t the first thing that had come our way that I wanted to pass on, and every other time, it hadn’t been a very big deal.

Sidebar: I was cast in Twilight Zone: The Movie, in 1983. The film tells four stories, and I was cast as the kid who can wish people into cartoonland. It was a GREAT role, in a movie I still love. (Note that Twilight Zone had four directors. One of them got three people killed. The segment I was cast in was not that one. I mention this because too many people zero in on this to deflect from what this whole thing is actually about.)

But I was CONVINCED by my parochial school teacher that if I worked on The Twilight Zone, which she had determined was satanic, I would go to hell. (This woman and her bullshit played a big role in my conversion to atheism at a young age, but when she told me that, I was all-in on the supernatural story they taught us in religion class.) I was so scared, more scared than I’d ever been to that point in my life, I cried and wailed and begged my parents to not make me do the movie. And I never told them why, because I was afraid my dad would laugh at me for being weak and afraid. My agent tried to talk me into it, and I wouldn’t budge. It’s the only thing I deeply and truly regret passing on, and I really hate I made that choice for such a stupid reason.

Okay. Back to The Curse.

This time, when I told them how much I hated it, they wouldn’t listen to me. My mother, already an incredibly manipulative person, used every tool at her disposal to change my mind. My father threatened me, mocked me, told me “It’s your decision” when it clearly wasn’t. It was all so weird; I didn’t understand why they cared so much.

That is, until they made me take a meeting with the producers of the movie, in their giant conference room on the top floor of a tall building in Hollywood. All I remember about this place was that it was huge; the table was way too big for the five of us who spread around it, and there were floor-to-ceiling windows on three of the walls, but the room was still dark. There was a weird optical illusion in the center of the table, this thing they sold in the Sharper Image catalog, made from two reflective dishes with a hole in the top of one. You placed an object in the bottom of the bottom dish, and it made it look like that object was floating above the whole thing. They had a plastic spider in it. What a strange detail for me to remember, but it’s as clear in my memory as if I were sitting in that room right now.

One man, who I presumed was the executive producer, was European or Middle Eastern (I didn’t know the difference then, he was just Not Like People I Knew), and I was instantly afraid of him. He was intimidating, and seemed like a person who got what he wanted.

So we sat there, my father who didn’t give a shit about me, my mother who was cosplaying as someone with experience, and me, thirteen years old, awkward as fuck, and scared to death.

I don’t remember what they said to me in their pitch or anything other than how uncomfortable and anxious I was to even be in that room. I tried so hard to be grown up and mature, but I — and my parents — was way out of my depth. I’d done one big movie and that was it. We didn’t have my agent with us, who had lots of experience and would have known what questions to ask.

No, in place of my experienced agent, my mother had decided she was going to be my manager, and she tackled the responsibility with an enthusiasm that was only matched by her absolute incompetence and inability to go toe-to-toe with producers the way my agent did. She was outwitted, out-thought, and outmaneuvered at every turn.

“You don’t have a choice,” my father commanded. “You are doing this movie.”

So we sat there, my father who didn’t give a shit about me, my mother who was cosplaying as someone with experience, and me, thirteen years old, awkward as fuck, and scared to death.

At some point, this man, who is represented in my memory by big Jim Jones sunglasses under dark hair above an open collar, said, “We are offering you a hundred thousand dollars and round-trip travel for your whole family. We will cast your sister, Amy, to play your sister in the movie.”

It all made sense, now. I was only thirteen, but I knew my parents were pushing me so hard because this company was offering me — them, really — more money than I’d ever imagined I’d earn in my life, much less a single job.

I knew that the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, was to say no. There would be other opportunities, and it was stupid to cash myself out of feature films for what I thought was, in the grand scheme of things, not very much money.

It’s incredible to me that I knew all of this. It’s incredible to me that I could see all these things, plainly and clearly, and my parents couldn’t (or, more likely, chose not to).

So after this man made his offer, all the adults in the room ganged up on me, selling me HARD on this movie.

My mother said, “Don’t you want your sister to have the same opportunities you’ve had? Wouldn’t it be fun and exciting to go to Rome? Think of all the history!”

The experience was awful. It was the worst experience I have ever had on a set in my life, by every single metric. The movie is awful, and it is the embarrassment I knew it would be.

I don’t think about this very often, because it’s super upsetting to me. Right now, I’m so angry at my parents for subjecting me and my sister to this entire experience. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In that moment, I felt bullied and trapped. All these adults were talking to me at the same time, and I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted to go home and get out of this room. I just wanted to go be a kid, so I did what I’d learned to do to survive: I gave in and did what my parents wanted.

The experience was awful. It was the worst experience I have ever had on a set in my life, by every single metric. The movie is awful, and it is the embarrassment I knew it would be.

But here’s the thing: when you watch The Curse, you are watching two children, me and my sister, who were abused on a daily basis. The production did not follow a single labor law. They worked us for twelve hours a day, on multiple film units (while I work on First unit, second unit sets up and waits for me. When I should get a break to rest, they send me to Second unit, then to Third unit, then back to First unit. I was 13.) without any breaks, five days a week. I was exhausted the entire time. I was inappropriately touched by two different adults during production. I knew it was wrong, but I was so scared and ashamed, and I felt so unsupported, I didn’t tell anyone. I knew my dad wouldn’t believe me, and my mother would blame me. Anything to keep the production happy, that’s what she did. That was more important to her than the health and safety of her children. The director was coked out of his mind most of the time, incompetent, and so busy fucking or trying to fuck one of the women in the cast, he was worse than useless. He was a fading actor who was cosplaying as a director, as in over his head as my mother. My sister and I were never safe. Instead of harmless atmospheric SFX smoke, they set hay on fire in barrels and blew actual smoke onto the set. They took buckets of talc, broken wood, bits of wallpaper and plaster, and threw it into my face during a scene inside the collapsing house. My sister is in a scene where she goes to get eggs from some chickens, and they attack her. So they hired Lucio Fulci, the Italian horror master, to direct her sequence. His idea, which everyone was totally on board with, was to throw chickens at my sister. Live chickens, live roosters, live birds. Just throw them at a nine-year-old girl. Oh, and then tie them to her arms and legs so they’ll peck her. All of this happened under my mother’s observation, and with her full participation.

Everything I need to know about who my parents are is wrapped up in that experience: the total lack of concern for my safety and happiness, treating me like an asset instead of a son, lying to me, manipulating me, and using me to get things they wanted, and then gaslighting me about it.

If just ONE of the things I can remember happened to someone I loved, I would have grabbed my kids, gone to the airport, and flown home. Fuck those abusive assholes in the production. Let the lawyers sort it all out. Nobody hurts my children and gets away with it.

My mom says she “had some talks” with the producers. She claims that, once, she wouldn’t let us leave the hotel. (God, what a fucking dump that place was. It was just slightly better than a hostel.) I have no memory of that, but honestly the entire experience was so traumatic, I’ve blocked most of it out.

The movie was the commercial and critical failure I knew it would be. My parents spent the money. I don’t know what they spent it on. I got to keep fifteen cents of every dollar, so . . . yay?

My sister and I hardly ever talk about this. I suspect it was as upsetting and traumatic for her as it was for me. I told her I was writing about it, and asked her if she remembered anything. She told me she’d been lied to her whole life about this movie. Our mother let her believe she had been cast on the strength of her audition. “I was excited to work with you,” she said. She reminded me about some stuff I’d blocked out, including a scene where my character’s older brother (played by an actor named Malcolm Danare, who was kind and gentle, and made both of us feel safer when he was around) shoves my character into a pile of cow shit. When it came time to shoot the scene, the mud they’d put together to be the cow shit looked an awful lot like cow shit. When Malcolm pushed me into it, we all found out it was real cow shit. I was FURIOUS. The director had lied to me and had allowed me to have my entire body shoved into an actual pile of actual cow shit. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember he treated me the exact same way my father did whenever I got upset: he laughed at me, told me I was being too sensitive, reminded me that he was the director and he wanted to get a “real” performance out of me, and concluded, “If it bothers you so much, we’ll get you a hepatitis shot,” before he walked away.

My sister also recalled that, after she survived the scene with the chickens, it was the producers’ idea to give her one as a pet.

Okay, let’s unpack that for a quick second: you’ve been traumatized by these birds, so we’re going to give you one as a pet. That you’ll somehow keep in your hotel, and then will somehow get back to America. It will shock you to learn that neither of those things happened.

She remembered, as I do, the huge fight I had with my parents in our kitchen, where I told them I hated the script and I hated the movie. I didn’t want to do it, and I hated that they were making me do it.

“You don’t have a choice,” my father commanded. “You are doing this movie.”

“This is the only film you are being offered,” my mother lied to me. She made me feel like, if I didn’t do this movie, I would never do another movie again in my life. I had to do this movie. As my father bellowed, I had no choice.

Both of my parents denied this argument ever happened. Can I tell you how reassuring it is to know that my sister, who was also there, remembers it the same way I do?

The makeup department decided they would literally cut my little sister’s face with a scalpel, in three places, and put bandages over them.

But one thing she told me, the thing I did not know, the thing that makes me so angry I want to break things, actually managed to make the entire experience even worse than I remembered it.

There’s a scene after her chicken incident where I check up on her in her bedroom. She’s got cuts and bruises, and I guess we talk about it. I don’t remember and I can’t watch the movie because I’m terrified it will give me a PTSD flashback (I’ve had one of those and I recommend avoiding it). Here’s the thing about that scene: she has some cuts on her face, and those cuts are real. They are not makeup.

I’m going to repeat that. My nine-year-old little sister had actual cuts on her face that were placed there by an adult, on purpose.

The makeup department decided they would literally cut my little sister’s face with a scalpel, in three places, and put bandages over them. My sister told me our mother wasn’t in the makeup room when this happened — honestly, it seemed like our mother was strangely and conveniently absent when most of the really terrible things happened to us on the set — and when my sister told her what they’d done, she “lost her shit” at the production. She was pissed, I guess, which is appropriate and surprising. I wonder what would have to have happened for her to put us on a plane and get us home to safety? I mean, her son being abused daily didn’t do it, and her daughter being CUT IN THE FACE ON PURPOSE didn’t do it.

I just . . . I can’t. I can’t understand or comprehend allowing your own children to be physically and emotionally abused. They were literally selling my sister and me to these people, like we were some kind of commodity.

This was a tough conversation. My sister’s experience with our parents is very different from mine. My sister and I love each other. We’re close. I know it’s hard for her to hear that her brother, who she loves, was so abused by her parents, who she also loves. I was really grateful she made the time to talk to me about it, and grateful the experience wasn’t as horrible for her as it was for me.

As we were finishing our call, Amy also remembered one man, a young Italian named Luka, who was our driver for the movie. I haven’t thought about him in thirty years, but I can see his face now. He was kind, he was friendly, he taught us how to kick a soccer ball, and in the middle of an abusive, torturous experience, he stood out as a kind and gentle man. I mention him because she remembered him, which made me remember him, and goddammit I want at least one small part of this thing to not be awful.

The Curse remains one of the most consequential times the adults in my life failed to protect me. I’m 50. I still have nightmares.

Ultimately, as I predicted and feared, this piece of shit movie cashed me out of respectable films forever. I got offers for movies, but they were always mindless comedies or exploitative horror films. They were never the serious dramas I wanted to work in after Stand by Me. The industry looked at me and River, wondering if one or both of us would become a breakout star. They quickly saw that River was doing real acting work, and I was in this piece of shit. For River, Stand by Me was a beginning. For me, it would turn out to be pretty much everything, at least as far as film goes.

There are thousands of reasons film careers do and don’t take off. Maybe mine wouldn’t have taken off anyway. Clearly, it’s not where my life ended up, and I’m super okay with that now. But when all of this happened, it hurt and haunted me.

The Curse remains one of the most consequential times the adults in my life failed to protect me. I’m 50. I still have nightmares. Everything I need to know about who my parents are is wrapped up in that experience: the total lack of concern for my safety and happiness, treating me like an asset instead of a son, lying to me, manipulating me, and using me to get things they wanted, and then gaslighting me about it.

This annotation is the last thing I wrote before I turned this manuscript in, because opening these wounds is hard and painful. I put it off as long as I could, and I feel like I’m still holding back, because just this small glimpse of the experience has taken me a week to write. I can’t imagine trying to go back and unpack the whole thing. (Note that is not in the book: I’ve made an EMDR appointment to work on this because the nightmares have come back after the weekend).

Fuck The Curse, and fuck every single person who exploited and hurt two beautiful children to make it. You all participated in child abuse, and you all knew better. Shame on all of you. I hope this follows you to the end of your life. I hope that living with what you did to innocent children has been as hard for you as it has been for me, because you deserve no less.

[keery]

JOE KEERY 2022, ph. by Pooneh Ghana for FLOOD Magazine

[alexturner2005]

By Chapman Baehler for FLOOD Magazine, 2022

[ateez-himari]

HAND OF MIDAS; THE KINGMAKER

The idol with a king's golden touch gives the throne to fellow artists through music

October 20, 2024 (9:07PM)

ATEEZ's producing maknae has recently gained the title Kingmaker, with more eyes trained on her portfolio, due to having produced some of the biggest songs for prominent male soloists in the industry only six years into her career. Since SHINee member Taemin habitually boasts about his protegee of four years' every move it was easy for fans to forget about the other artists who have benefited from the vocalist's talents.

EXO's Baekhyun saw the enormous potential in her hands through the numerous mixtapes uploaded when the company contemplated the vocalist's future as a producer rather than an idol due to the hate flooding in at the time, resulting in the creation of one of his all time most streamed songs; 'Candy'. They worked together again the following year to release the song 'Bambi', with the album selling over one million copies, but both kept this collaboration under the radar for unknown reasons and as not many people kept an eye out for her credits they were never publicly tied to each other.

B.I took her at his side almost one year later to create one of the most iconic songs of 2022, BTBT, - as designated by magazines such as Nylon, Dazed and Time - which currently stands at over 160 million streams on Spotify. ASTRO's Yoon San Ha recently released his very first mini album this year, in which the maknae was credited on two tracks; Bittersweet Mistake and Dive.

The most recent collaboration was with the rapper Penomeco who was reportedly curious about the rising phenomenon and entrusted her with two songs in the 'Organic2' album; AURORA (feat. Crush) and ASURABALBALTA. These credits being unknown to most create some ghost writer aspect to the young woman's producing career, further proving that her desire to create stems from true passion for the art of music rather than the desire to be recognized.

Himari has been relatively public about slowing down on studio work aside from ATEEZ for a short period of time in order to finally focus on her health, leaving many artists eagerly awaiting the end of this unofficial hiatus. With spoilers given during the teaser to an interview with producer Kim Tae Ho - also known as Bicksancho - fans have begun speculating that the future might possibly hold the widely desired collaboration with (G)I-DLE leader, Soyeon. SEVENTEEN leader S.Coups has also hinted several times at them spending time in the studio together, making comments about it on Weverse and leaving comments under her personal Instagram posts.

Please remember to vote for ATEEZ on the Mnet Plus app for Fan's Choice as they are currently in 17th position!

Share This Post

[goblinontour]

i must say i am so thankful that you are talking about how similar alex looks to al pacino because when i first started getting into the monkeys i watched panic in needle park around that time and instantly saw the resemblance but nobody i knew agreed with me. this is so validating.

like this photo: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/532339618461504955/

he looked sooo freaking cute in that movie, it was the first one of his i watched but unfortunately i didn’t enjoy the movie itself that much. (i did end up finishing ‘and justice for all’ and i really loved that one, currently on ‘bobby deerfield’)

i am all for the pacino x turner propaganda.

also, i found this pic yesterday and it instantly reminded me of the one of al(ex) from flood magazine 2022

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

In 2022, Republicans in Michigan made a major mistake: They spent more money on anti-transgender ads than on reinforcing economic messaging. As a result, Democrats won a trifecta in the state for the first time in 40 years. Now, there are signs Republicans may be repeating the same error. A new set of polls in the crucial "blue wall" swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania shows that Harris is matching Trump on the economy. This is happening as Trump spends more money on anti-trans advertising than immigration, housing, and the economy combined. According to the well-respected Marist poll, Harris is nearly tying Trump on the economy in Pennsylvania and Michigan and has come within five points in Wisconsin. She leads Trump in all three states, polling at plus two in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and plus three in Michigan. The numbers were highlighted by James Singer, rapid response advisor to the Harris campaign, who noted that she had closed the gap on the economy, and shifted independent voters by 19 points in the state of Pennsylvania.

“This has been the long story of the Harris paid media campaign — just grinding on this economic message (anti-price gouging, Medicare covering home care, etc) for months as different shiny objects hit the news cycle,” said political analyst David Weigel on Twitter. Harris's late-campaign surge comes as Trump has flooded the airwaves with anti-trans advertisements during major sporting events. Meanwhile, Republican Senate candidates have also received tens of millions of dollars in support from groups like the Senate Leadership Fund, which has blanketed these swing states with ads about transgender bathroom usage, sports, and health care. Spending on transgender issues dwarfs all others; according to national political reporter Marc Caputo, the Trump campaign has spent more money on anti-trans advertisements than on any other issue, surpassing topics like the economy and immigration.

“I will never understand the Trump strategy of spending the entire month of october ignoring the economy and instead running ads exclusively on trans people existing and immigrant caravans,” posted Andrew Lawrence, deputy director of rapid response for Media Matters.

Lawrence has good reason to be stumped; Republicans have attempted this same playbook in Michigan and many other states before. In 2022, Republicans spent $50 million on anti-trans advertising. One of the primary focuses of that spending was Michigan, where they used the ads to target Democrats as well as Issue 3, an abortion rights amendment. This is similar to how Republicans are targeting abortion rights amendments today by saying reproductive freedom will codify "transgender healthcare" into law. These ads failed; Issue 3 passed, and Democrats took the trifecta in the state for the first time in 40 years. They faced similar losses in every other swing state where similar ads were deployed.

[...] The movement towards Harris on the economy is notable and not limited to the recently released Marist poll. A Time Magazine analysis of polls found similar results, and a Fox News poll released on Wednesday found Harris “nearly even” on the economy, down only two points in Michigan, whereas Trump was up 11 earlier in the year.

As Donald Trump continues to push inflammatory anti-trans attacks in his ads, Kamala Harris has been chipping away at Trump’s advantage on the economy in polls, thus putting her roughly neck-and-neck with him on the topic.

[prettyyvisitor13]

FLOOD (2022)

alex turner from arctic monkeys photographed by chapman baehler for the magazine's october 19th 2022 digital cover. upscaled + enchanced + re-edited by me. (part 3)

[beardedmrbean]

The two Egyptian inmates ate a routine final dinner in a prison in northern Saudi Arabia, not knowing they would be put to death for drug crimes the next morning.

Their abrupt killing this month extended a recent spree of drug-related executions in Saudi Arabia, after officials ended a moratorium on the death penalty for such crimes less than two years ago.

The cases have spurred outcry from human rights groups and spread fear in Tabuk prison, near the Jordanian border, where inmates told AFP more than 50 defendants have been sentenced to die over drug smuggling and worry their executions could come at any moment.

"We don't know whose turn it is. Maybe it's me or my closest friend," said Mohammed, a 40-year-old Egyptian who ran a hotel in Riyadh before his arrest in 2015 for receiving a shipment of furniture that turned out to be stuffed with drugs.

"We are not notified in advance to say goodbye to our loved ones or even prepare ourselves psychologically," Mohammed, in tears, told AFP by phone from the Tabuk facility.

He agreed to be identified by his first name only to avoid repercussions.

Since May, Saudi Arabia has executed 28 people on drug-related charges, according to an AFP tally based on official statements, up from just two in all of 2023.

This year's toll includes the two Egyptians killed last week in Tabuk: Walid Farouk and Youssef Kleib, who the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said were guilty of smuggling hashish and amphetamines.

All told, Saudi Arabia executed at least 170 people last year, more than any other country besides China and Iran. It is on course to exceed that figure this year.

The authorities deem the executions to be compatible with Sharia law — the Islamic legal code based on the teachings of the Koran — and necessary to "maintain public order".

Though state media reports do not specify how executions are carried out, Saudi Arabia is notorious for beheadings, contributing to its forbidding reputation.

- Short-lived moratorium -

As de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tries to transform Saudi Arabia into a business and entertainment hub, he has hinted at a softening of its approach to capital punishment.

In a transcript of an interview with The Atlantic magazine published by state media in March 2022, Prince Mohammed said the kingdom had "got rid of" the death penalty except for cases of murder or when someone "threatens the lives of many people".

However, in November 2022 the authorities announced the first executions for drug crimes in nearly three years, trampling on a moratorium announced by the kingdom's official human rights commission.

"We were relieved and very happy when we heard about the moratorium on executions in drug cases. I felt that life had given me a second chance," said Mohammed, the Egyptian inmate in Tabuk.

Now that the executions have resumed, those hopes have been dashed, he said.

State media reported 19 drug-related executions in late 2022 before the pace slowed considerably, only to pick up again this past July.

- 'Execute me now' -

Saudi Arabia is a major market for the addictive amphetamine captagon, which floods in from Lebanon and war-torn Syria, prompting the authorities to launch a high-profile crackdown last year involving a flurry of raids and arrests.

Duaa Dhainy, a researcher for the Berlin-based European-Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR), sees a link between that operation and the latest executions.

"We believe the campaign made prisons more crowded, and it seems that the recent executions are an attempt to close some pending cases," she said.

The Saudi government did not respond to AFP's request for comment.

Human rights groups like ESOHR, Amnesty and Reprieve say executions are all the more unacceptable because of problems with Saudi Arabia's justice system.

These "general flaws" include defendants' "exposure to torture and ill-treatment and their lack of the right to adequate self-defence," Dhainy said.

That rings true for one 34-year-old Egyptian death row inmate who, fearing retribution from prison authorities, asked to be identified only as Shadi, a pseudonym.

A taxi driver in the coastal city of Jeddah, Shadi was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to death the following year for drug trafficking, which he denies.

"I was wronged, I never got a fair trial and I didn't have a lawyer to defend me," said Shadi, who has a 10-year-old son back in Egypt.

As the executions tick up, Shadi told AFP he found the years spent behind bars awaiting his own death to be unbearable.

"Waiting for the death sentence is cruel torture," he said.

"If you are going to execute me eventually, execute me now."

Drug-related executions surging in Iran - Amnesty

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

NO REST FOR THE ARMIES OF HELL -- NEVER ENOUGH FIREPOWER TO HALT THE FLOOD.

PIC INFO: Spotlight on the original "DOOM" (1993) cover art (upscaled, text removed). Original artwork by Don Ivan Punchatz. Source: nukedspacemarine (via Reddit).

MINI-OVERVIEW: "Blood, gore, viscera, shotguns, demons, chainsaws, violence, and heavy metal. These staples encapsulate what is means to play a game in the "DOOM" series. From the classic "DOOM" to the divisive "DOOM 3," all the way to the upcoming "DOOM: Eternal," these games have been monolithic in defining what video games are and what they can do.

It would be difficult to argue that the modern day first person shooter (FPS) genre would have become what it is if "DOOM" had never existed. From "Quake" to "Turok," "Half-Life" to "Bioshock," gaming has been molded by the steps "DOOM" took to create one of the most visually appealing, mechanically engaging, and downright visceral gaming experience gamers had ever seen.

Nearly three decades later, the series is still going strong, and the echoes of the original "DOOM’s" rise to prominence can still be heard every time you boot up a game that plays from a first person perspective. Every legend has a beginning however, and the Demonslayer is no exception."

-- SUPERJUMP MAGAZINE, "Rip and Tear: How "DOOM" Changed the Gaming Landscape," by Jared McCarty, published December 7, 2022

Source: www.superjumpmagazine.com/rip-and-tear-how-doom-changed-the-gaming-landscape/amp.

[fashionbooksmilano]

Mexico The Land of Charm

edited by Mercurio López Casillas

texts by Mercurio López Casillas / James Oles

presentation Steven Heller

Editorial RM, Mexico - Barcelona 2022, 224 pagine, 18x25 pagine, ISBN 9788417975517

euro 35,00

email if you want to buy booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

Mexico: The land of Charm is a beautiful and fascinating visual tour of the popular universe of Mexican Vintage Prints, from the Mexican Revolution to the 1950s. This stunning volume includes over 350 images from the collection of the most important and influential collectors in Mexico. This volume gathers a surprising and engaging sampling of more than five hundred pieces of printed matter: material that circulated between the 1910s and the 1960s, with prints run of anywhere from a thousand to tens of thousands of copies. These ephemeral, utilitarian publications flooded streets, newspaper stands, bookshops, and homes, in the common aim of disseminating an idealized image of what is considered typically Mexican. Drawn from private collections and the holdings of museums, with no claim to completeness, the material in Mexico: The Land of Charm ranges in size from stamps to posters, and includes supports such as books, illustrated magazines, photography magazines, songbooks and musical scores, almanacs and calendars, tourist guides and maps. The result is impressive, in terms of both individual examples and the collection as a whole: these images are now a part of Mexican history.

25/01/24

[ashadowofburnedoutstardust]

Chris Evans Life path days 2022

Apparently CAA/Narrative are big followers of numerology like I am, either that or they've been reading my posts in the private group on LSA for a year and a half and have been using it to plot this PR shitshow

His "11" days are technically what I've been tracking

"2 days" & CE related events 2022

13/01/2022 (11)

shared ASP story from Mark Kassen

First Ghosted production update with shooting dates announced

Mila IG troll went down for the first time

31/01/2022 (11)

Replies “Interesting” to Gray man Review on Twitter

Priestesses big Tarot read on CE showing first indication of Tower moment

02/02/2022 Pluto (8)

12/02/2022 (11)

mila creates new account

(Alba IG location changed to us on 9-10 feb)

CE trends on twitter

Teachers friend sends tweet

Teacher decides to take down IG account

20/02/2022 (8)

Plutonic Chaos hits thread

21/02/2022 (11)

Mila tweets about Teacher video, tags Ghosts director, make IG public

CE follows Interior design pages on IG

First examination of Porto trios finsta accounts

Teacher replies to Mila on Twitter

02/03/2022 (11)

Scott posts "Theatre as a kid" TikTok

03/03/2022

Pluto fucks off again

Filming at Inman Park Atlanta

Union Strike rumour?

Photos from Ghosted set by pap

11/03/2022 (11)

Posts "fluffy hair" selfie to IG

DM blind about interior design follows

Teacher deletes comment, no response was given

Sugar baby page changes name to Seduction Secrets

Clout chasing TikTokers post le Mesa lounge/Doheny club video

Ok magazine article

10/04/2022 (11)

Thread notices SE followed back JA,

reportedly happened on Thursday, unfollowed again on the following Tuesday

Scott posts siblings day photo on IG

AB turns her comments back on

Scott ups price on Cameo,

gets trolled for JA follow back

09/05/2022 (11)

NZT - DM mention of Georgetown gym on Sunday spotting

Scott targeted by CE fan and video posted to Twitter to troll him claiming he was an asshole

Follows Mike Birbiglia on IG

Posts TGM moustache removed selfie to IG, pics determined to be taken December 2021 after end of TGM reshoots

Night shoot of Taxi scene in London for Ghosted

08/06/2022 (11)

Follows Jamie Foxx and Rita Oras Sister and Manager Elena Ora

Lightyear premiere red carpet

Posts pic of Dodger (turned foot) to IG story

Livestream on Tiktok for LY Premiere

Retweets LY reviews on twitter

07/07/2022 (11)

Deuxmoi Ballgag DMs story post

Posts June 18 dated video of Dodger to his IG story

Posts pic of Dodger to IG "New phone new pics"

Blahblah has live interview flooded with troll comments

Hits 17 million followers on IG

06/08/2022 (11)

Andrew Garfield DM blind

Posts pic of Dodger on IG

05/09/2022 (11)

Nothing occured

04/10/2022 (11)

Carly refollows Alba

Alba deactivated IG

Followed NE Pat's and NatGeo on IG

03/11/2022 (11)

#Pumpkingate

Follows Matthew McConaughey on IG

Variety article about TGM

Cosmo article about Pumpkingate

Various Gossip site articles about Pumpkingate

DM blind featuring screenshot of Tweet about Lisbon video

Another CE family member follows AB

Chris likes AB WN post

ASP app of the day on Apple retweet

Midterm elections retweet

02/12/2022 (11)

DM blinds

1 about Aly

1 about babytrap getting ditched for leaking stuff

C-Dawg emerges

Dex Fletch post about Ghosted

Random Shipper account requesting playlist ideas

Tara and Scott looking at CE hate accounts due to being tagged

11/12/2022 (11)

AB fan account posts old baby IG story pic

AB deactivated IG after accidentally posting nudes to stories, dark room thread created

Chris team continues to block Alba tags and name from comments section

Chris like Violas Star post

Chris likes Rocks R1 post

Justin's twitter goes public again

Shampoogate hits Reddit

Minor articles about Alba nude leaks

20/12/2022 (11)

Mentioned on BuzzFeed Celeb couples article

Posts a pic of Dodger to IG

Mama Lisa liked comment calling AB a racist in CEs comment section

And that ladies is his Life path days for 2022

🤍🪽✨

[weeklydrarryficrecs]

This year was the first time I actively participated in the Drarry fandom. I started this recommendation blog, and I wrote a handful of fics. 2022 had a lot of ups and downs, but all the fics I read brought so much happiness to my life.

Thank you to the wonderful writers, artists, fest mods, recommenders, and fellow fans out there. There is so much beauty and love out there, and I am grateful to have encountered it.

Below is a short list of fics that have a special home in my heart. (But, there are so many I love!!! You can also find all of my recommendations from this year here.)

Drarry Fic Short List (2022):

Vis-à-Vis-à-Vis by @vukovich (E, 50k)

Summary: Harry’s assignment was simple. Close out Draco Malfoy’s missing persons case so he can be declared dead. But  who’s making withdrawals from Malfoy’s vaults? How is a death  omen-turned-Unspeakable involved? Is an organization known as the  Moirai to blame? Harry brushes it off until he can’t. Until The  Prophet is flooded with sightings of dead people. Until Robards throws  himself on his sword. Until Ron turns on his own family. Until Harry  scarcely trusts his own reflection in the mirror and trusts the stranger  in his bed even less. Until all that stands between war and peace is Harry, a name plate, a stadium of murderers, and Draco Malfoy. God save the Ministry. Link to Fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37523059?view_full_work=true

Notes on a resurrection by newleaves (M, 126k)

Summary: It was never Draco’s intention to raise Sirius Black from the dead. Link to Fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18634393/chapters/44188591

A Pocket Full of Stones by @amywaterwings​ (E, 67k)

Summary:

A curse is spreading through the wizarding world, erasing memories of the war. Harry Potter is on the case! Where  Draco is the DMLE’s most wanted dark wizard and Harry is the private   investigator tasked with bringing him in. It goes as well as one might   expect. Link to Fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36210718/chapters/90265783

Life skills outside the curriculum by @llendrinall​ (E, 66k)

Summary:

It was “Witch Weekly”, of all people and organizations, the first to notice and comment on The Boy Who Lived’s absence from the ranks of first years at Hogwarts. The magazine went on to elucubrate that the young hero was studying at a foreign school, possibly Beauxbatons or Holzschuhkäse. Link to Fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7693897/chapters/17528833

Allegiance by Mimichan2018 (E, 200k)

Summary:

A month after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry is a complete mess and   everyone knows it. Draco’s on trial and has it all figured out - that   is, until Harry Potter takes it upon himself to put a spanner in the   works and they both get a whole lot more than they bargained for… This  is a Post-War story about the War Trials and Dark magic, healing and   facing one’s fears, understanding and growth, a cottage in the Cotswolds  and a can of baked beans, love and a pair of Weasley jumpers. “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only   remembers to turn on the light.” Link to Fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33585556/chapters/83455573

I hope everyone has the 2023 of their dreams!

[omegaremix]

Omega Radio for April 9, 2022; #303.

Still Corners: “The Trip”

Jeanines: “You Were Mine”

Peel Dream Magazine: “Up And Up”

Long Beard: “Sweetheart”

Crumb: “M.R.”

Shower Curtain: “All That U Do”

Corey Flood: “Down The Hill”

Fawns Of Love: “Horoscope”

Gentle Heat: “In Between”

Julia Shapiro: “Shape”

Citrus Clouds: “Whoa”

Young Prisms: “Feel Fine”

Dummy: “Slacker Mask”

Soft Blue Shimmer: “Coca-Cola Abyss”

Deeper In: “Sicayda”

Trillion: “Sure”

Chrome Waves: “Aspiring Death”

Poppy Jean Crawford: “Same Old Tricks”

Criminal World: “Mox Jet”

Youngest: “Slow Fade”

Slow Crush: “Hush”

Kestrels: “Octavio”

Nadja: “Starres”

Gemma Ray: “Acta Non Verba”

Wand: “Airplane”

Mr. Elevator: “Brobdingag”

Shoegaze, alternative, dream-pop, and jangle.

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

Do you feel like bts enlistment will have an effect on you in kpop spaces? I know you're a multi but you primarily focus on bts, so do you feel like you'll turn to a new group to focus on?

This has been on my mind a lot lately. I listen to other kpop music but I don't consider myself a multi just because im unable to keep up with other groups content like i do with bts. I've seen other army turn to svt after the hiatus was announced, and now they're more of a carat than army. I thought this would happen to me, but the thought of delving into another group just feels like a chore lol.. I guess I need to find a new hobby 😭

It's funny you say I'm a multi, because I'm really not. I'm a kpop fan, who loves a lot of kpop music and listens to many artists, but I'm only Army. I wouldn't call myself part of any other fandom.

Like you, I've checked some groups out, I watch some variety content from other groups, mainly Twice, but I don't have the interest to dive into other groups like I did BTS. It's not just because of the effort I'd have to make, which is daunting, but because other groups' dynamic and members aren't captivating enough for me to want to spend hours watching videos of them. Also, BTS is the only group whose discography I love as a whole - not just the title tracks - and the group I respect the most as artists. I love Twice the most after BTS but the girls have very little involvement in their music and lipsync 80% of the time...

2021, and even some of 2020, was actually when I felt the most disconnected from BTS. Most of the content we got from them was commercials, collabs with LV and McDonald's. We had very little new music, performances, or meaningful content like Bangtan Bombs. I reconnected with BTS in late 2021 and 2022, during PTD on Stage and after chapter 2 was announced - which came with a flood of meaningful content, like albums and performances. Thankfully, aside from fashion magazines and ambassadorships, there haven't been many commercials recently. Also, a lot of the ambassadorships have been lowkey or, in JK's case, really good.

Even though my relationship with JK, for example, hit a rough patch this year, I've also never loved him more or been as invested in his career. I'm pretty sure next year will be the same. We'll have tons of content until Jin returns, and then he'll keep us entertained until J-Hope comes back and releases an album. I'm sure there's enough content from the other members to last until 2025. I'll miss BTS for sure, but I'm too busy to even watch the content we have now, so there's tons I can catch up on. I hope I don't lose my connection with BTS, but I don't think I will, and no one will take their place regardless.

If some fans become Carats, Blinks, Onces, Moas, or whatever, and prefer another group over BTS, that's okay. It won't be me, but I'm not worried about Armys leaving BTS.

Thanks for the ask!

[upalldown]

PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying

Tenth album and first in seven years from the alt.rock singer-songwriter produced by Flood and John Parish

10/13

“I was quite lost,” says Polly Harvey of the period that produced her new, 10th (and first for seven years) LP I Inside the Old Year Dying. “I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do: if I wanted to carry on writing albums and playing, or if it was time for a change in my life- ‘OK, I’ve done this for a long time. Do I want to carry on for the remainder of my life doing the same thing?’”

It probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise to hear that Harvey, burnt out by a gruelling year-long world tour in support of 2016’s The Hope Six Demolition Project, found herself in a rut. There hadn’t been a single whisper of new studio recording since then – she had worked diligently on music for the stage and for film and TV soundtracks and, of course, had been working on the beautiful, strange Orlam, her poetry collection that published last spring.

Sprinkled in the middle of this period was a delicious reissue campaign of her entire back catalogue with accompanying demos albums – manna for the PJ Harvey fan. But you got the sense that there was something of a shift happening in real time for Harvey; the album-tour-album cycle had been resolutely broken and she was pursuing her artistic urges in oblique and sometimes obscure new directions. 

It wasn’t the first time Harvey expressed doubts on her future in the music business – she told Q magazine in 2001 that she almost gave up music to retrain as a nurse in the low period between 1995’s To Bring You My Love and 1998’s Is This Desire? – but the move towards writing, particularly on such an all-encompassing work as Orlam, had an air of finality about it and the lengthening gap seemed to support a sense that Harvey might just be done in terms of recording new albums. 

So seeing studio photos by Steve Gullick uploaded to her Instagram account in February 2022 was, certainly, an exciting and surprising change of pace. As it turns out, Harvey was in the thick of recording her new album at London’s Battery Studios with long-time collaborators John Parish and Flood. She describes how the songs “fell out of [her]” within three weeks, and indeed the music has both an immediacy and a haziness that suggests a conception that is far from studied and rehearsed.

What is a PJ Harvey album in 2023 going to sound like? Harvey has made a career on sharp turns, unexpected diversions, the persistent search for new ways of singing, writing, recording. Hope Six, for all its lively garage-rock swagger and vivid sketches, felt somewhat distant and cold and, following on from its counterpart Let England Shake, seemed to occupy a similar kind of space thematically and in terms of performance – Harvey’s voice high and reedy, the outside narrator observing the scene without opinion or emotion. The last time Harvey felt such an innate need for something new was on 2007’s White Chalk, where she ditched the guitar for the piano and traded the raw energy of her previous records for an album of strange, austere, gothic ballads of autumnal beauty. She sang in a new, plaintive voice – her “church voice” – and wrote songs that were somehow both thrillingly different and offbeat but made sense within the Harvey oeuvre.

I Inside the Old Year Dying, perhaps not coincidentally then, most closely resembles White Chalk in terms of its mood and style – perhaps incongruously released in July, it is certainly an autumnal listen; Harvey sings most of it in a higher register and there is an elegant, restrained intimacy that recalls some of White Chalk. But it does not share the same piano-centric DNA and, indeed, some of it also recalls the ramshackle folksiness of some of the deeper cuts on 2004’s Uh Huh Her. In fundamental terms, it trades Let England Shake and Hope Six’s looking-outwards philosophy to focus firmly on the interior. “I instinctively needed a change of scale,” Harvey has said. “There was a real yearning in me to change it back to something really small – so it comes down to one person, one wood, a village.”

The “one person, one wood, a village” refers to Ira-Abel Rawles, the central figure in Harvey’s poem Orlam, which forms the basis for the lyrics of I Inside the Old Year Dying. Ira is a young girl growing up in the fictional Dorset village of Underwhelem, surrounded by a peculiar crop of villagers and family. Orlam is a story of awakening, the tension between the natural world and physical reality, and the inevitability of the passing of the seasons, all of which are loosely evoked throughout the album.

The Harvey of 2023 is no longer an artistic compartmentaliser, which is why it might take some getting used to in understanding that the album occupies the same artistic terrain as the book. The filmmaker Steve McQueen told Harvey during the Hope Six era: “Polly, you have to stop thinking about music like it’s all albums of songs. You’ve got to think about what you love. You love words, you love images and you love music. And you’ve got to think, What can I do with those three things?”

It’s not necessary to know Orlam to be able to enjoy I Inside the Old Year Dying, but such is the esoteric nature of the work that, as song lyrics, they are far more oblique than we’re used to from Harvey. As a lyricist, and indeed as a musician, Harvey has always been pretty direct. The deceptive simplicity in her work, both lyrically and musically, has always been her superpower. I Inside the Old Year Dying marks a significant change in this regard – written in Dorset dialect and sung again with her natural accent (yes, recalling that “church voice” of White Chalk), the text is an allegory of childhood, adolescence, the natural world – it’s an evocation of the English countryside and rural magic realism.

There are thematic threads that weave in and out – the shadowy symbol of Wyman-Elvis, who is both a Christ-like mythical figure and a ghostly spectre (“are you Elvis? Are you God?” she sings on the fragile and folky “Lwonesome Tonight”), the dreaded feeling of starting school, and the haunting refrains of “Love Me Tender” that shift in and out of several songs. It’s not something that the listener is particularly able to pin down, and that appears to be the point – I Inside the Old Year Dying seems not to be an album that you are supposed to “understand,” but instead one that you feel. A lot of the songs are about memories and delving back into the past, and the music and production – which is not rough in the sense of Uh Huh Her but not polished like a Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea – perfectly captures the distance, both physical and mental, of memory and the passing of time.

The Dorset dialect lends the album its unique poetic sensibility and also contributes to its slippery feeling of unknowability; “Quaterevil takes a wife / chilver meets her Maker / as the grindstone turns the knife / o’er Eleven Acres,” scans “The Nether-Edge.” It’s beautiful and strange and not your usual PJ Harvey lyric. But, just as readily, she emerges with imagery as familiar as “Pepsi fizz / peanut and banana sandwiches.”

Some songs have a formative, Beefhearty vibe, from the rough-hewn guitar roll of “Seem an I” (translated as “Seems to Me”) to the ramshackle chaos of the delivery of “Autumn Term”, but anyone familiar with Harvey’s soundtrack work post-Hope Six – particularly All About Eve – will recognise the restrained elegance in some of the chord structures of songs like “Prayer at the Gate” and “Lwonesome Tonight”. I Inside the Old Year Dying is an album that seems to hinge on these kind of fault-lines – between the corporeal and the imagined, the poetic and the prosaic, the bridge between childhood and adulthood. Of “life and death all innertwined,” as she keens on “Prayer on the Gate”.

Musically, the deft fusion of the delicate and the hearty reflects Harvey’s thematic explorations; the production is full of strange quirks, whether found sounds or unusual effects that are sometimes inserted and not repeated. The effect is that the music feels both hazy and alive, evoking the Orlam world in its strange splendour.

Another key to the sound is the use of male vocals not just for contrast but for poetic resonance, and the way Harvey employs the voices of Parish and actors Ben Whishaw and Colin Morgan is haunting and rather beautiful. The interpolation of Whishaw singing a segment of “Love Me Tender” in the foggy magnificence that is “August” is nothing short of stunning, while Parish’s crazed singing with Harvey on “Autumn Term” has a bizarre, nightmarish vibe that captures that first-day-of-school dread – “I ascend three steps to hell / the school bus heaves up the hill.” Morgan, meanwhile, provides the folk-horror chant that “A Child’s Question, July,” is built around – all Wicker Man ritual, with its “twoad”-licking and rural dance around the phallic Ooser-Rod. 

For an album that evokes childhood and adolescence so strongly, I Inside the Old Year Dying makes use of some of Harvey’s most girlish singing – the beginning of “Seem an I”, for instance, is sung as if she were a girl singing to herself at the bus stop. It then morphs into its Beefheart roll, and it also puts me in mind loosely of “Heaven”, one of Harvey’s earliest recordings, that later emerged as a b-side in the White Chalk era. There is that same innocence of sound, the simple and joyful guitar pattern (although slowed and rougher), and the murky merging of the past and the present. In some ways, it makes sense on such a record that Harvey might subconsciously revisit something from the past.

The Beefheart influence found in so much of Harvey’s work can also be detected, for me, on “Autumn Term”, which seems to heave and creak like the bus in the lyrics; it’s sung in a deranged yet contained A Woman A Man Walked By style. “The Nether-edge”, meanwhile, begins with a disembodied vocal effect; it has a strange, strident beat that recalls Pink Floyd’s menacing “One of These Days”, before becoming something altogether jauntier. 

“I Inside the Old Year Dying” is a classic Harvey acoustic guitar D-minor stomp with beautiful, reverb-drenched piano piercing the fog; “All Souls” is a melancholy dirge, one that starts so purely and softly, with one of Harvey’s gentlest and loveliest vocals, before the arrangement builds into a heavy hymn. “A Child’s Question, August” is both a deceptive and appropriate trailer for the record – it’s probably one of the least interesting songs on the record, but successfully suggests its broad themes and style. Following on from “All Souls”, though, is a sequencing gamble that threatens to swamp the mid-section of the album in sloth.

The gorgeous “I Inside the Old I Dying”, though, is one of the album’s gems with its shuffling percussion, Parish’s gossamer guitar part, and Harvey’s graceful melody; the uncertain vocal delivery was a purposeful choice – “I was standing in the vocal room with the headphones on, and Flood said ‘No, no–you sound like PJ Harvey.’” Harvey ended up recording the vocal with her eyes closed, unaware of where the microphone was, which lends it its blurred, out-of-focus quality. “Flood would just experiment all the time like that, to find the thing he wanted,” says Harvey.

The same can be said of the magnificent opener “Prayer at the Gate”, which is sung, as a lot of the album is, in Harvey’s upper register – but there is a warmth and strength in the delivery that is so much more appealing than on Let England Shake or Hope Six. It’s a beautiful, emotional invocation that recalls some of her work on the All About Eve soundtrack and, at its climax, Harvey sings in an unabashed, radiant high vibrato that is somewhat new for her and possesses a real yearning and sad desperation. It’s a beauty. 

At the opposite end of the record, “A Noiseless Noise”, seemingly from nowhere, brings out a heavy, propulsive rhythm not heard on a Harvey record in a while and she also unleashes a vocal that is pure Stories grit, power, and sheen. As much as one respects Harvey’s resolve in not wanting to repeat herself, it’s a joy to hear something a bit more unbridled again that, to her credit, hangs together well with the rest of the material.

Although comparisons with earlier records might provide loose reference points, ultimately comparison is futile in trying to pin down the sound of an album that simply will not be pinned down – I Inside the Old Year Dying succeeds where all Harvey records do, in breaking new ground for her. Its plaintive beauty and major/minor contrasts recall some of her more intimate work and it exists within the same world as Harvey’s more apparently personal, “English” work, but there is a newness in the decision to include more found sounds and effects – birdsong, bells, schoolchildren, strange nocturnal noises – that make it sound alive, immediate, and particularly with Orlam as a base text, it’s definitely its own universe.

Somehow, though, it feels transitional. It doesn’t present as a bold step forward, nor Harvey’s most daring volte-face. This isn’t to say it is not an important artistic moment for Harvey – in many ways, it might be one of her most personally important records. Breaking new ground doesn’t need to mean something entirely leftfield. It feels like a gentle but decisive turn towards a new direction, the sound of Harvey making sense of where she is at artistically. It’s the sound of an artist who had obviously been uncertain where to go and how to go about it but has pulled the threads together into something meaningful for her creative future – Harvey speaks about being “broken-hearted” at fearing she had fallen out of love with music after 2017, and how she slowly found a way in again by playing her favourite songs by other artists on the piano or guitar – Nina Simone, The Stranglers, The Mamas and the Papas.

I Inside the Old Year Dying is probably most important because it represents Harvey’s vision clearing – the confusion about which direction to take, having become more comfortable with writing music as accompaniment to existing work and focusing on poetry, has crystallised into the realisation that there needn’t be a choice. At one point, Harvey thought I Inside the Old Year Dying might end up as a stage piece; instead, it’s its own world on record, the aural cousin of Orlam. Harvey describes it as a “resting space, a solace, a comfort.” That can be said for both its content and its result.

I Inside the Old Year Dying is a record that takes time to find its way in. There is more to uncover than might first appear – which is also one of the general themes of Orlam and the associated song lyrics. You’re never quite sure exactly where you are – Harvey’s voice is often mixed very much front and centre but is deliberately contrasted with the reverb in the instrumentation and the comparatively dry recording of the percussion to create an eccentric, ambiguous hinterland that moves in and out of focus.

“I’m somewhere I’ve not been before,” says Harvey. “What’s above, what’s below, what’s old, what’s new, what’s night, what’s day? It’s all the same really – and you can enter it and get lost. And that’s what I wanted to do with the record, with the songs, with the sound, with everything.” On this basis, Harvey has succeeded in her aims. 

There is enough here that suggests both a looking back and a looking forwards – again, that bridge between new and old, the past and the future, the real and the fantastical. As ever, where she goes next is anyone’s guess.

[sunburnacoustic]

Muse Fosters Community Between the Lines of Your Favorite Song

Rolling Stone Magazine spoke to Muse fans earlier this year in 2022 about how Muse bring together a community of fans

Kwasi Boadi, July 29, 2022

In our second Welcome Sessions feature with Jim Beam, we dig beneath the live music frills to explore how strangers in the crowd become quick friends by talking to the supergroup and their most passionate fans

There’s something so communal about going to a Muse show. The experience has a way of inducing a unique catharsis. On the one hand, it’s hard to ignore the tremendous feeling of it all, from the hypnotizing laser light show to the rousing pyrotechnics and the otherworldly visuals.

But beneath the (literal) flash and frills lies something much more intimate. Fans are embracing, fists are pumping, and in spurts, the audience takes on the role of lead vocalist while they roar the lyrics of their favorite records. In these moments, complete strangers become part of something much larger than themselves because there’s community to be found between the lines of your favorite song.

“Nothing beats being in the crowd with music fans when you don’t know what the setlist is,” says self-proclaimed superfan Helen Rose Tooth. “When they start bringing out the songs, and bring out some rarities, and everybody just comes together, you get picked up by the atmosphere.”

Rolling Stone caught up with Rose Tooth and a host of other Muse diehards at a secret homecoming show in Exeter, Devon. Hosted by Jim Beam as part of their Welcome Sessions event series, the intimate gig brought Muse superfans back to the Cavern, a cozy music venue in the South West of England where the band started out by playing for some of its earliest supporters: friends, family, and classmates.

When asked about her favourite song to see live, it only takes Rose Tooth a moment to land on “Definitely ‘Knights of Cydonia’” as her answer. Tom Kirk, a longtime friend of the band, doubles down on the sentiment. ’Knights of Cydonia’ is the ultimate fan singalong. I don’t think Matt needs to even stretch his vocal cords for that anymore because the whole crowd in the arena or festival [is] just bellowing it out. It’s an electrical force of people being completely tuned into the moment like nothing else exists.”

It’s easy to hear why the record elicits a range of emotions from the Muse faithful. The song kicks off with a spellbinding harmonica solo by bassist Chris Wolstenholme. Though everyone in the house knows what’s coming next, the anticipation builds like a roller coaster inching closer to its first big drop. Then, at the perfect moment, Matt Bellamy sends the audience into an auditory free fall once he interjects with a few crackling strums of his electric guitar.

When you’re singing along to lyrics that speak to you, that feeling you get is irreplaceable, and it runs much deeper when you look to your left and see a fellow fan sharing in that communion. There’s a bond created there, an understanding that the words that made such a pronounced impact on your life have struck a chord with someone on a similar frequency. At that moment, a would-be stranger feels more like a kindred spirit.

This belief that you truly feel connected when belonging to a community is rooted in Jim Beam’s two-century history of bringing people together, and that sentiment is evident in talking to another Muse superfan, Hannah Chandisingh. “You’re all in that together”, she says. “And when they break out these really powerful songs, when you actually realize that you and the person next to you are both in floods of tears, [there’s this sense that] ‘I don’t know you, but I love you.’”

It’s a feeling that can transcend language and borders. Danny Yeates has vivid memories of his first Muse show outside of the UK. “I went to Madrid for a VIP experience in 2016,” he recalls. “The fan base was just so different. This guy literally collared me, and [we] just started singing along. Generally, in the UK, it doesn’t really happen that way. The cultures are very different, but we’re here, and the universal language is Muse.”

Muse frontman and songwriter Matt Bellamy describes this lightning in a bottle as equal parts method and magic. “It’s hard to describe the emotions that you feel on stage. Spiritual, I guess some people could describe it that way,” he says. “It’s something otherworldly. Very connective with thousands of people.”

Early on, Bellamy realised he should pen his lyrics through the lens of inclusivity. “Over the years, [I realised that] you know what? I can actually play with this and start writing songs using ‘we’ pronouns instead of ‘I’ and singing about myself. ‘Uprising’ was the big moment where I was like, ‘I’m going to change this song. Instead of it being about me, I’m going to make it about us,’ and I sort of deliberately wrote the lyrics with that in mind.”

That communal spirit can be just as stimulating for the performer as it is for the audience. Muse drummer Dom Howard speaks warmly of that synergy. “It’s an amazing feeling,” he says. “It’s kind of this really reciprocal feeling of you enjoying what you’re doing and them enjoying what you’re playing. It’s a wonderful thing where you’re very much tuned in to each other and aware of how everyone feels.”

In the mind of a songwriter, that reciprocity is a catalyst for growth because feeling understood can be an invitation to push the envelope even further. Bellamy observes that, “there’s a vulnerability in songwriting because you’re digging into workings of your personality and expressions and experiences that you’ve had,” he says. “There’s a kind of confidence that emerges over time when you realise how many other people there are in the world that can relate to that. And over time, that actually gives you a bit more confidence to maybe dig deeper.”