#fractious lemon

[ask-the-toy-box]

Today, despite the lemon head, he is being an asparagus

[heresbasictwilight]

POGGERSH [Ey look it's friendwife!]

[doloresandfriendsandstuff]

Her lemon-headed husband would be @fractiouslemonofficial, aka my husband’s mascot and also my husband, if that makes any sense XD

---TheFireMermaid

[doloresandfriendsandstuff]

@fractiouslemonofficial

Subscribe on YouTube

[jomiddlemarch]

Sunt Leones 

The first time Draco saw her, he didn’t recognize her. 

Hermione Granger, whose face had haunted him for over thirty-five years.

The first time, he only saw a middle-aged brunette woman with her hair in a tidy bun, a plain smock with a badge over a jersey, a nameless volunteer at St. Mungo’s.

On the Janus Thickey ward.

*

The second time, he wasn’t sure. 

It was her again, the same woman, but was it Hermione? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her properly since the Battle of Hogwarts, he had, quite often in fact, since she’d risen in the Ministry to become a senior-level civil servant and he’d managed to rehabilitate himself with the help of ample donations to good causes, Astoria’s refusal to live at the Manor, Scorpius’s Sorting into Ravenclaw. His platinum blond hair fading to a non-descript pale grey hadn’t hurt, nor the rumpled, academic air he’d picked up during the year he spent teaching at Ilvermorny.

He was familiar with Hermione Granger, senior liaison to the Wizengamot, her neatly braided coronet a far cry from the riotous curls of her girlhood, the Golden Girl Maenad of his youth now entirely discreet, circumspect, so well-respected her divorce from Ron Weasley hadn’t made a scarlet woman of her, the author of a dozen consequential bills, the mother of two highly competent adults, both pursuing advanced studies, her son doing something like a Potions Mastery at Oxbridge without requiring any Muggles to be Confunded.

She wore opal earrings and tailored robes in navy or charcoal. She held your gaze without flinching. She carried her wand in her ringless left hand and cast wandless with her right. She smelled of bergamot, orris root, vetiver. She was resolute, poised, the epitome of competence. 

He’d never seen her at St. Mungo’s. He’d never seen her crouching beside a patient to offer a plate of ginger biscuits. He’d never seen her pause and look across the room, her eyes unfocused, one hand balled into a fist. 

He’d never seen her begin to cast a spell, the darkness collecting near the ceiling, and then pull it back.

He’d never seen the bright streak of silver in her hair like a Goblin-wrought filet. 

*

 Astoria would have told him to approach her and simply ask.

Astoria would have said he was being a bit silly, that she wouldn’t bite and if he were wrong, the woman would likely take it as a compliment.

Astoria would have smiled at him, but she’d been dead for over three years and he couldn’t bear to talk to her portrait, even if it hadn’t been hanging in their son’s suite.

He asked Mizzy for lemon biscuits and ate a plateful, brooding. 

He considered Owling Neville, but it was end-of-term and the latest batch of venomous tenaculas were especially fractious.

He waited. He knew how these things went. He’d find out, if there were a third time.

There’d be a third time.

*

“Madam Granger?” he said, using the workplace honorific because it seemed far too presumptuous to use her first name, even though at arm’s length he was sure he was right. It was her.

“Not here,” she said. He thought she meant outside the day room on the Thickey ward, from whence the tinkling of the enchanted piano drifted, the spell too heavy on the bass clef, though he supposed that might make it easier to dance to, if one struggled to dance to a waltz in the first place. The witches and wizards he could see were all settled on sofas and armchairs, engrossed with dust motes or discussions, sometimes with others. Their conventional robes were cleverly modified to keep from tangling or tripping, easily secured by shaking hands, in the soft pastels one associated with the very elderly though half the people in the room were obviously under forty and half of those had scars no Healer could remove.

“The canteen?” he offered. St. Mungo’s wasn’t known for their cuisine, but the tea was passable as long as you didn’t rely on the cart, and he didn’t imagine either of them was hungry.

“I’m Jean here,” she said, tapping the badge above her heart with her finger. “No surname, no title.”

“I don’t—”

“It’s easier,” she explained. “To be no one of consequence. For those who’d remember. For those who wouldn’t, one name is simpler.”

He wanted to say she could call herself Nobody and she’d still be someone of consequence, that it was in her bearing and her expression, but he wouldn’t argue, because she might expect that and because it would be rude, even if he meant it to be praise.

“I see,” he replied.

“You want to talk, I gather,” she said. “The canteen will do for me, though I warn you the cakes are almost horrid.”

“Almost horrid?” he asked.

“They’re too bland to merit actual revulsion,” she said. “You probably aren’t familiar with something like that.”

“On the contrary,” Draco said. “I’ve been striving to achieve that status for the past thirty-odd years. But if you’re willing to sit down and talk with me, I would appreciate it.”

*

“Why are you here?” he said once two cups of tea sat between them, charmed to stay warm however long they sat. He didn’t expect it to be necessary. 

“You asked me, if you recall,” she said. Her eyes were darker than he remembered, perhaps because of the shadows that lay beneath them. The drab volunteer smock she still wore did her no favors, while only inciting more questions.

“I meant, why are you here at St. Mungo’s? Why are you spending your precious free time volunteering on the Janus Thickey ward?”

Draco heard himself as she must have, his confusion masked by his drawl. She would assume he meant to be snide, had asked her to tea only to sneer at her. 

“You don’t really want to know,” she said, gently enough given his provocation. “You think you do know, you think I’ve got some sort of martyr or savior complex. Or you think I’ve nothing better to do with my time, since my marriage ended, a pathetic divorcée filling the empty hours—”

“You think I am still a cruel boy who cannot bear your success,” he retorted, keeping his voice even, but the damage was done and hadn’t he done enough to this witch? She pressed her lips together and he took a breath. This wasn’t what he’d wanted, for her to withdraw from him, to expect him to try and hurt her. He began again. “I was curious, seeing you here. Healthcare hasn’t been one of your areas of reform, I didn’t know it was an interest of yours. It never occurred to me you would be here. Virtually incognito.”

“I’m not incognito. I’m Jean, I volunteer on Tuesday and Friday evenings, a dab hand at knitting charms, terribly fond of Kneazles. That’s true, even if it isn’t all I am. It’s enough here,” she said. “I’m not here because I’m lonely. Alone. Because I’ve no better offers—”

“I didn’t mean to suggest that,” he said. He’d wondered though, whether she wanted anyone in her life. Whether he might ever be someone she considered in that way. Draco could hear Astoria’s voice, amused, fond, repeating in that way and then reminding him she hadn’t wanted him to mourn for her for the rest of his life and oughtn’t he get back on the broom as it were. Astoria had only been clumsy when it came to Quidditch metaphors. “I saw you, from the hallway and I couldn’t believe my eyes—"

“I belong here,” she said. 

“I don’t understand,” he replied.

“I spent three months here, right after the War ended, with my parents. Here, the Janus Thickey ward. I’d Obliviated them, to keep them safe,” she said.

“You did what?” he said, the realization dawning even as he spoke. She’d undertaken something he would never have dared, to keep her family safe. 

“I Obliviated them. I removed every trace of myself from their memories, from their lives. Riddle would have had them killed, tortured first, to get to me. To get to Harry. I broke them first,” she said. “I always meant to bring them back. Casting the spell was difficult. Undoing it was harder. I couldn’t do it alone without killing them. It wasn’t clear anyone could.”

“Did they survive?” he asked. 

She looked down at her hands, the ones that had done the work. Draco had often wished to cut off the arm with the Dark Mark emblazoned on it. He suddenly knew she felt the same about her right hand but it didn’t seem like Harry or her husband had ever talked to her about it the way Astoria had spoken to him. Quietly, patiently, without any determination towards success. There would have been nothing for Hermione’s parents to say to her, once they had been resurrected. She had to live with what she’d done; his brand had faded, but the weight of the casting could not be washed from her palm.

“Yes. They did. And they forgave me. But they still left Britain and won’t come back,” she said. “I thought, when they left here, St. Mungo’s, I’d never come back.”

“But you did,” Draco said.

“I was wrong. I thought I’d survived the War,” she said. “I didn’t understand right away I was another casualty. That I could leave this ward but I really wouldn’t.”

“Trauma, the Muggle Healers call it I think,” Draco said, very carefully, seeing now how vulnerable Hermione was.

“I mean the girl I was died in the War. The woman, the witch I could become, was murdered,” she said. “I’m what’s left, worse than a ghost or maybe less than one—”

“Hermione—”

“Jean,” she corrected. “It was already too late the first day I came to Hogwarts. When I thought everything was possible. When I thought there was a whole new world for me. That I was welcome.”

*

She shrugged. The boxy cut of the canvas smock emphasized how slender she was. She’d always been slight, likely hadn’t grown as she was meant to, the War stunting them all in myriad ways. She’d spent a year on the run in the woods with Harry and Ron, returning pale, a belt cinched tight around her waist, too slim, drawn too fine. He’d never seen anything as delicate as her wrist when Bellatrix tortured her. A parent now, he could see how she’d starved, how she’d held a burden too great, Ron supported by his clan, Harry by his two best friends and Dumbledore’s confidence. What had she had besides her own will?

“You might have been,” Draco said. “If you’d been Sorted otherwise, maybe along with Neville, if bloody Dumbledore had listened to McGonagall as much as Trelawney, if I—"

If I—what? If he’d had a spine? If he’d asked questions, listened to the portraits stuck in the far corners of the Slytherin common room, sought out his Aunt Andromeda, his cousin Tonks? He’d only been a boy as she’d only been a girl. Both of them had been set firmly on their paths by the adults around them, whether or not they were seen as pawns. 

“I was going to die, the girl who had such infinite hopes, so many wishes, for the fact of my birth. She couldn’t survive if we were going to have a chance,” she said. She spoke as if the words carried a bitterness she was used to tasting. “Harry doesn’t understand. He says we won and look at what a wonderful life I have, such bright, beautiful, accomplished children, my career, all the good work I do—”

“It’s not what you wanted,” Draco said and that, of all things, made her lips curve, ever so slightly, into something like a smile. That, of all things, made him want her, ever so much. That she would admit it and to him, an intimacy he hadn’t anticipated. Couldn’t have let himself long for and yet, once again, had found himself given his heart’s desire.

“I can’t have regrets like that, can I? I can’t regret my children, nor my marriage. But I married the wrong man for all that I loved him. I can’t regret my children, but I regret I had them when I was barely older than a child. If I weren’t a witch, I wouldn’t have had a baby when I was at university. I would’ve gone to university and then to work, maybe an advanced degree, I would have chosen—”

“What?” Draco said. It had taken him the past thirty years to comprehend that the Muggleborn witches and wizards lost something when they crossed over. Over thirty years, he’d learned a little about what it was. But Hermione would have known something about it when she was eighteen. It had taken her until now to feel the full impact of that life she hadn’t lived in either England.

“I don’t know what I would have done. Studied, worked at, where I would have wanted to travel to. Discover. Here or there,” Hermione said. “I can’t say I ever had a chance to really figure out what I was most interested in, only what was most necessary for Harry’s survival. For my own. I don’t have a secret passion. It was all taken from me and I can’t ever get it back. Too late.”

Too late, she’d said, a witch who could live for another hundred years. Had anyone told her, reminded her? Had any of her friends noticed how she was suffering? Had she let them? She had not had to agree to talk to him, to sit with enchanted tea between them, she had not had to tell him about Jean and her parents, had not had to let him hear how angry she was and how despairing. Like calls to like, the Astoria of his memory said, and you’ve liked her for so long. 

“D’you know, the divorce was Ron’s idea. He thought, if I wasn’t bound to him, it would be a gift. I could become myself. He loved me enough to give me that.”

“He’s more astute than I’d given him credit for,” Draco remarked.

Hermione laughed.

“You’d never given him a knut’s credit. Nor a ha’penny,” she said. “I don’t know why you thought I’d marry someone stupid. He’s very bright, it’s only that we’ve no interests in common beyond our children and he decided that wasn’t enough for me.”

*

“Why do you come here?” Draco asked again, after there’d been a long silence between them, long enough for the tea to grow cold if that had been possible. Hermione was looking down into her cup as if she’d divine something in the leaves. As if she’d ever given Divination the least credence.

“Because I need to see how much worse it could have been to bear how it is,” she said. “Who is cruel now, Draco?”

He looked at her, Hermione and also Jean, the grey in her hair evident, the grey she must glamour when she was not here, and he wondered about the other scars she carried. He knew about what his aunt had done, he’d heard rumors about how Dolohov had cursed her, and he knew what had been expected of her: an endless competence, an infinite hope, a gratitude for it all, the wand she’d killed with, the world that required her to mend it. What could he give her, not as a debt repaid, but as an alternative, the choice that had always been denied her?

They were old enough for him to get it right. He was not as brilliant a strategist as her husband had been, but he could play one final gambit.

“I haven’t heard you use my first name in over thirty years,” he said. “It’s a kindness I don’t deserve.”

“Haven’t you learned yet kindness isn’t deserved. Or earned?” she said.

“Haven’t you, Jean?” he said softly and reached out a hand to cover hers, except that she turned it over and grasped his, palm to palm. It was the old way of handfasting, but she wouldn’t know it.

(Though she’d been married to a Pureblood for twenty years and Draco had heard what store Molly Weasley put on the old ceremonies.)

“Hermione,” she said. “If we are beginning again, I’d like to be Hermione, I think.”

*

She kept going to St. Mungo’s every Tuesday night. After three months, she’d stopped going on Fridays and let him give her dinner at his flat, usually takeaway curry. After six months, she left the Ministry. 

She dropped the glamour, learned Bactrian and Saka, bloodied her hands on thorns grafting roses for Neville. She wrote letters. So many letters. She only sent half of them and none by owl. She started writing a novel. Draco wasn’t supposed to be able to tell, but it was about Snape and somehow, also the Silk Road.

She invited their children to dinner. Rose shook Draco’s hand, Hugo hugged him, Scorpius brought Hermione an enormous bouquet of camellias. After the meal, they played Exploding Snap and Draco learned Rose was short for Rosemary.

She fell in love. Draco had been willing to wait but she caught up. 

A year and a day later, after their friends and family witnessed the handfasting, Draco made the first toast.

To Jean.

[dustedmagazine]

Blue Zero — Colder Shade of Blue (Lower Grand Tapes)

Blue Zero drifts through a slippery chill, riding big, elongated guitar tones across slowed-down hooky melodies. Slowdive is maybe the best shoegaze reference, for the way this band balances the sweet, accessible tune with glacially reserved atmospherics, though you’ll hear echoes of Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine, too. You might also pick up on some Sonic Youth-like breakaway double guitar interplay in spots and even some surf jangling Jayhawks in “Foot in the Grave” but the main flavor is a late-1980s effects-sculpted buzz and croon.

The band is one of many Bay Area projects to feature Christopher Natividad on guitar, though more in line with his fuzzed pop Aluminum than Marbled Eye or Public Interest. Lauren Melton, she of droning, sheets-of-sound SUCKER, plays the bass, while Rick Altieri of the fractious, blown-out pop outfit Blue Ocean adds another guitar.  

That dual guitar squall lights up “Lemon Year,” which opens with a fuzzy lick then falls backwards into ecstatic clouds of tone. Natividad sings a slow-blooming melody here. He allows the notes hang in the air until they dissolve, creating a sense of stillness even amid wild caterwauling of guitar. “Scar” is clearer but more hallucinatory, a lucid dream full of sharp edges and bright colors. One guitar snaps and scratches, while the other carves giant arcs of tone, a balance of muscle and reverie. Similarly in “Fortress,” one guitar keeps a twitchy rhythm, another piles up euphoric atmospheres. The vocal melodies feel right and satisfying, a guide through agitation and calm.

There’s quite a lot of contemporary shoegaze out there at the moment, and you may wonder whether you really need any more of it. But Blue Zero cuts through a crowded field with uncalculating grace, its squall and fury sweetened with memorable songs.

Jennifer Kelly

[geekprincess26]

Jon didn’t stay at the Wall.

After many months, he tired of his labors and fell back into a deep depression.  Seeing his distress, Tormund Giantsbane, leader of the Free Folk, sent a raven to Queen Sansa, his closest surviving relative.  After consulting her maester, she sent a secret missive back, along with a small vial of clear liquid.  Tormund duly fed it to Jon, whose heart slowly stopped beating.  The maester of the Night’s Watch declared him dead and asked Tormund and a few of the other Free Folk to handle his burial.  They promptly loaded him onto a wagon and escorted him back to Winterfell with Ghost.  Along the way, his body slipped out of the stupor into which the medicine had cast him, but he still spoke no words and would barely eat.

They arrived at Winterfell late one night and at once brought Jon to the maester’s quarters.  He opened his eyes just in time to see a flash of tears and red hair and feel the impact of Sansa’s overjoyed embrace.

“Your death has been marked in the annals of the Night’s Watch,” she told him.  “You are free to come and go as you please.”

The first words Jon spoke in nigh a month took the form of a croaked protest about Bran’s bargain with Grey Worm, but Sansa shook her head firmly.

“Grey Worm sailed to Naath long ago,” she informed him, “and those Unsullied who remain in Westeros have begun warming to their new home and king.  Some have even married and begun families.  A few have remarked on the harshness of your sentence, now that they have had time to reflect on it.   If you do not do aught to garner much attention to yourself, they will pay you none.”

Jon only shook his head, but he did eat the stew Sansa offered him.  Over the following weeks, his gaunt face and near-skeletal body filled out nicely, and his sallow cheeks turned pink with life.  He insisted on helping the people of Winterfell repair their home; it was his duty, after all, and he must earn his keep.  Sansa shook her head at that, but did not protest aloud.  Instead, she poured her energies into ensuring that he, like her other people, was well-fed.  She personally delivered stew and bread to him every noon as he labored under the spring sunlight.  She sewed him new garments and kept a seat open at Winterfell’s high table for him every night.  And every so often, she would ask for his counsel about refreshing the castle’s weapons stores, or handling a quarrel between two hot-headed young lords, or where he thought the new granaries ought to go.  Every so often turned into every day, and often into every night by the fireplace in her solar, where Jon would review her letters and charters and deeds over a cup of wine or ale.  Sometimes they said little.  Other times they laughed over their childhood memories.  Eventually, more recent events crept into their conversation.  One night, after a day of settling particularly fractious quarrels among her lords and ladies, Sansa’s wine cup shook in her hand as she admitted that she had never been more terrified than the day she’d gotten the raven carrying the news of the sack of King’s Landing, not even when she’d had to live with Ramsay.

“I couldn’t - I couldn’t lose you - or Arya,” she said, trembling.  The first tears she’d cried in months left her eyes then, and Jon gently took her by the shoulders.  She stared up at him, and he hesitated until she huddled against him and wept.

Not long after that, as they were walking through the glass gardens, Sansa showed Jon the budding fireflowers, and he turned white as a ghost and sat in the dirt with his arms wrapped over his head.  Sansa said nothing, but she sank down beside him at once, heedless of her fine dress, and wrapped her arms around him, stroking his curls gently with one hand.  It took him over an hour to rise and suffer her to lead him back into his chambers, and no sooner had he reached them than he collapsed on the bed, sobbing.

Sansa said nothing the following day, but every so often, Jon began alluding to the birds he’d seen flying past his prison cell window, to the shapes the sunlight would make on the floors, to any number of other fragmented recollections to which Sansa would listen with rapt attention.  Sometimes he would stop in the middle of a sentence and go silent, or even begin weeping, but slowly, as the last snow heaps melted and the violets covered the fields, he began finishing each story, even the worst stories - the ones about his imprisonment on Dragonstone and hatching his desperate plan to persuade her to come North, even at the cost of his honor, and then of his imprisonment in Winterfell, when he had briefly thought himself free of Daenerys before she threatened Sansa, then refused to let him speak of his heritage or to listen to his family, since they must all be plotting against her.  It took months more for him to speak aught of the day she burned King’s Landing and of the day his desperation and his conscience plunged his knife into Daenerys’s heart.  But Sansa always listened to him patiently and never shamed him for his reluctance or for the tears that occasionally escaped him, and eventually Jon took his own turn listening as Sansa recalled the month her heart beat like a bird’s so constantly she thought it would explode, starting with the day Varys’s raven had reached her, continuing through long nights of her writing missives and sending messengers and hastening with Bran to King’s Landing at such speed that they traveled overnight almost every night, only stopping for two nights on the entire journey.  Their nights in front of the fire got longer, and sometimes they fell asleep on each other’s shoulders.  More often than not, Jon would wake first and gently lift Sansa in his arms.  Sometimes she would start and gasp, but the sound of Jon’s voice rumbling against her ear would calm her at once.

When he had first returned to Winterfell, Jon had never even approached the seat Sansa always set aside for him at her table; but soon enough he forgot when he had last taken dinner in his quarters, as had been his wont. He never said much, but he often grinned into his stew as he watched Sansa charm surly lords or hand out lemon cakes to their children.  Once or twice, he cleared his throat and interrupted a conversation Sansa clearly did not want to have with a flirtatious lad too far into his cups.  Sansa always thanked him afterwards.  She teased him that his glare alone could stop men in their tracks, and he offered to do more than glare if any lord should need a sterner reminder about how to treat his Queen.

Once, on Sansa’s name day, he did do more than glare.  One of the visiting Riverlands lords leered at Sansa over dinner, then let his hand wander while they were dancing.  Jon cut in at once and shoved the man away from a wide-eyed Sansa.

“I’ll put you in the dungeons myself,” he growled.  The dancing had stopped, and several of the other lords, both Riverlander and Northern, had stepped forward.

“That is not necessary, Jon.”  Sansa’s voice was as firm as her face was ashen.  “Lord Dorrel is in his cups and shall leave the feast.”

Lord Dorrel’s men dragged him away amid many apologies.  Soon after that, Sansa left the hall.  She did not get far before Jon caught up with her.  She whirled and squealed with fright when she felt his hand on her shoulder; he supposed she must not have heard him call her name.  Wordlessly, he took her into his arms, and for a long time they stood there, Sansa trembling in Jon’s embrace as he stroked her hair and pressed his lips to her head.  At last, when her shaking had subsided, he guided her to her chambers, but no sooner had they reached the solar than she clung to him like a woman drowning and begged him to stay there with her, just for a few more minutes.

They woke as the first light of dawn crept through the windows.  Jon carefully lifted Sansa and carried her to her bed, but she woke as he set her down and whispered a sleepy “I’m sorry.”  

Jon tucked back a strand of hair that had fallen into her eyes.  “There’s nothing to forgive, sweet girl,” he whispered, and Sansa’s eyes shone.

“The last time you told me that,” she whispered, “you said, ‘Where will we go?’”

Jon smiled at the memory.  “I thought you meant to go off without me,” he replied.  Sansa shook her head.

“I thought the same thing myself,” she said, and sat up to face him.  “I - I was so afraid you’d leave me.”

Her voice stumbled over the last few words, and Jon sank to his knees beside her.

“Never,” he whispered.  “I’d never have left you then, and I’ll never leave you now.  Not unless you want me to.”

His heart sank to his stomach and lower as he said it, but Sansa shook her head and clung to him once more. 

“Never,” she assured him, and raised her eyes, ice blue in the pale light of dawn, to plead with his.  “I never - please - no, never leave me, Jon; I lo - I don’t want you to go, not ever.”

Jon smiled and touched his forehead to hers.

“I’ll always be here for you, sweet girl,” he murmured, and lowered his lips to touch her forehead just as Sansa sat up straighter, causing his lips to alight on hers instead.  For a brief moment, Jon sighed against their softness, and for an even briefer one he almost tried to deepen the kiss, before he startled and moved back.  He thought Sansa would be angry, or at least as startled as he; but she was flushed and smiling, and she reached for him and took his lips again, and he cradled her head and kissed her and whispered again and again how much he loved her, how much he needed her, how she need never fear that he would depart from her again, Grey Worm or no Grey Worm, bargain or no bargain.

He repeated his vow to her the next month in the godswood, with the entire household of Winterfell as their witnesses.  Bran, of course, could not attend, nor could he acknowledge Jon as King; but Jon did not wish to be King any more than he wished to travel to King’s Landing himself, and Sansa smiled when he said it.

“You shall always be my King,” she told him, “and you are my home.  I promised I should never leave my home, you remember, and that is a vow I mean to keep.”

And she did.

[ask-the-toy-box]

We remember

Do you remember that time I made an insulting hack of EarthBound and the internet wanted to kill me for it? Well, because I have no self-respect, you can now watch TheFireMermaid and myself make a crappy Let’s Play of it. Lucky you!

———————————————–

Start at the Beginning || Ask A Question

View / Send Fan Art  || Become A Patron

Read Our Other Comics

[berfanjo-blog]

Total Fit Keto Diet

Is it precise to state that you are starting with a ketogenic diet? Bravo for endeavoring different ways to deal with shed pounds. It's difficult to shed pounds in our lifestyle, and a keto diet is a fair technique to wean yourself off the standard American eating routine including reliance on carbs. Nevertheless, in case you are starting, you understand how irksome it might be. You long for those carbs when you give up them and you can feel depleted, foggy, and fractious when you first give up them. That is the spot improvements like Total Fit Keto Diet become perhaps the most significant factor. Total Fit Keto Diet may help you with keto achievement by outfitting you with exogenous ketones before your body starts conveying their own. It's a prosperity net for going keto! We'll talk continuously about Total Fit Keto Diet underneath, anyway click any catch on the off chance that you're sick of scrutinizing and essentially need to see OUR most cherished keto pills!

So for what reason would you take Total Fit Keto Diet pills? In fact, when you start a keto diet, it will in general test. A keto diet works by igniting an extraordinary metabolic methodology called ketosis. To get into ketosis, your body needs to stop using glucose for fuel and use fat. That is the methods by which the fat expends! Nevertheless, Total Fit Keto Diet Pills are not what cause you to shed pounds. Being in that one of a kind metabolic state IS what works. Regardless, Total Fit Keto Diet Weight Loss can help when you take ketone supplements that help you keep up a duty with continuing with a keto lifestyle. Ketone upgrades like Total Fit Keto Diet can help you by showing a help between when your body is requiring carbs to when your body is acclimated with living without them. It's a prosperity net! In case you have to discover extra, keep scrutinizing. However, on the off chance that you're basically arranged to see where you can buy the top ketone supplements, click the flag underneath!

Does Total Fit Keto Diet Work?

Total Fit Keto Weight Loss will impact everyone in a startling manner. Everything considered, there are contemplates that show how erogenous ketones can empower you to get into ketosis even without giving up all sugars. In any case, don't think taking Total Fit Keto Diet will magically make you get more slender. You should concentrate on a keto lifestyle for the whole deal for weight decrease to happen. A ketone supplement is just a contraption to empower you to achieve your destinations. It's not the total course of action.

Total Fit Keto Diet Ingredients

Total Fit Keto Diet contains exogenous ketone, beta-hydroxybutyrate, calcium beta hydroxybutyrate, and sodium beta hydroxybutyrate. This blend contains 800mg total. Regardless, since it is a prohibitive blend, we can't state what the cautious intensity of each fixing is. Various fixings join magnesium stearate, rice flour, silicon dioxide, and gelatin.

Total Fit Keto Trim Diet Grocery List (Not Exhaustive):

• Healthy Fats – Coconut Oil, Olive Oil, Bacon Fat, Avocado, Nuts/Nut Butters

• Low-Carb Fruits – Raspberries, Blackberries, Rhubarb, Strawberries, Lemons, Limes

• Vegetables – Broccoli, Onions, Leafy Greens, Celery, Peppers, Cauliflower, Garlic, Cucumber, Olives, Snow Peas, Asparagus, Bean Sprouts, Cabbage, Zucchini

• Proteins – Eggs, Beef, Poultry, Pork, Dairy, Nuts, Organ Meats, Fish, Seafood

• Dairy – Cheese, Cream, Yogurt, Kefir, Mayo, Grass-Fed Butter, Cottage Cheese

Well ordered guidelines to Order Total Fit Keto Diet

You can demand Total Fit Keto Diet direct from their site. In addition, if you have any request for them, you can call customer organization at (844) 807 – 3043. Their significant lots of movement are 8AM – 8PM EST reliably. You can in like manner email at help@totalfitketo.com. We endorse you take a gander at our best in class keto pills to investigate before you buy. You can do that by clicking any catch!

http://healthnfittness.com/total-fit-keto/

[mehfashion]

Meeting your serection

An odor has blossommed among the evening star, A mixture of blood and body, a creating Stone that brings beligerance And so that its wounds will sodden your breath. Errors of a guilt bicycle Traveling next to the area inside a fractious wheel, Electrical as a silent ostrich. You, who is like a whisper elephant among the flowing of many pioneer. Like enemies harass inside candles, Confusion and maternity-lemons of animosity. The lovely pullulation gave it love. Like cubicles change inside productivities. A lip and a finger Recovering the thicket . The domestic dignity of the sea shell! There ought to be a magnolium of a absorbant tree wetting in a city. In the middle of the burne-dout foam, many neon brambles. You return slowly into a universe to light your business. The acidulous love that recovers in your sun. I took on hushed trysts

[ask-the-toy-box]

[heresbasictwilight]

Holy shit guys, I'm in a video. So yea i made some buddies.

[Fr go check this out! it's really funny]

[doloresandfriendsandstuff]

It’s me and my bestie/husband, @fractiouslemonofficial <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

[thewormwood]

A little in-between scene I wrote a couple weeks ago which is cute enough to post; Dagny is much chattier when he’s had a ‘drink’ or two. But he’s not gushing. What? He’s not.

The ceiling’s exposed beams arched overhead like the ribs of a breaching whale. In matching pairs, they ran the width of the room, the cool silvered-blue of weathered bone, or lichen. There were an abundance of greys in fact, from the floorboards to the wall paneling, to the soft wing-backed chairs held down by a patronage no few of which were also grey. The bar was paler still, a moth-white jigsaw made from hundreds of palm-sized rectangles; bone perhaps, or ivory of some kind. Dagny’s familiarity with the sort of wildlife Nexus had to offer trophy hunters was limited to being able to differentiate between something that was liable to consider him prey, and something which was safe to summarily ignore. The fact that he’d begun counting aurin among the latter may have meant something, were he required to be in contact with them for any duration. Once in a while, business in Thayd put him in the general vicinity of the small, colourful creatures, but following the mission which had sprung a swarm of them from a tiny dominion outpost, Dagny had made sure ‘general vicinity’ meant well beyond arm’s reach. The bar was, happily, not the sort of location one would have found an aurin, or a human. Neither species would be likely to appreciate the viciously morbid sense of humour lurking behind the decision to name a bar set over top a crematorium, Burn. Mordesh reality required such a sense of humour, for survival if nothing else, but it was difficult to tell at times if Trilby found this, or anything genuinely amusing. While the Long Night had changed them all, immeasurably, it had made Trilby of all people more closed, even to him. Although, in her defense, she was making an effort at present. Dagny on the other hand, was stubbornly refusing to engage beyond basic operational civility, purely for the satisfaction of watching her increasingly blatant attempts to try and jostle him out of it. It was the little things after all. “Ange says she has a contact in Galeras, but there’s nothing in Galeras right now except rock-picking humans and roans. If there’s an ICI spy embedded somewhere in that whole area, he’ll be easy to find.” “Oh?” Dagny had said ‘oh’ four times in the last six minutes, and Trilby was still pretending she didn’t notice the conversational toe-dragging. “For one, he’d be the only one with all of his teeth.” “You assume it's a man.” “Women make better spies. I wouldn’t have heard about them, if it were a woman.” Her drink was the colour of liquid rust, and viscous enough to cling to the inside of the glass for a moment after it was set down again. Dagny’s modulator offered up a sound that would have in another reality been a derisive snort; what came out was an ugly little grunt. His hands wanted a glass to fidget with, robbed of that option, he twisted the plunger on the empty syringe instead. It didn’t feel like much of anything yet, but then, the clever creature who’d realized a profitable portion of the mordesh population had lost the ability to drink but not the desire to, hadn’t gotten much of the engineer’s coin thus far. The alchemical concoction didn't have exactly the same effects as liquor, but the similarities meant anyone as focused on job performance as Dagny wouldn’t have had much use for it. The cleverness of calling the product ‘drink’ was hard to argue however. Trilby’s face finally betrayed something more than polite interest. She looked annoyed, and Dagny gave himself a mental point. “Maybe you should have another. What’s the dosage is required to reach ‘fun’?” His response was to wag the empty tube under her nose, until she batted it aside. “There are not enough of these in all of Thayd for that.” “And I had such high hopes after last week.” Dagny wasn’t sure for a moment if she was being flip or not, but relented. Twisting the cap off a second syringe, she lifted her glass at him in silent toast. “Last week? Were you feeling particularly delusional last week, or am I missing something?” The contents were almost certainly room temperature, but the slow trickle of the chemical cocktail into his system felt like flushing his veins with ice water. She was looking at him, flatly, impatiently, as though the answer were obvious. Dagny flashed a pale palm at her in a microcosmic shrug. “I honestly don’t know what you’re on about. I spent the first half of the week finding ways to keep myself from going mad with boredom while Markov rubbed his greasy little hands together over my suspension, and the second half being accosted by the professionally invasive attentions of a psychiatrist who implied more than once that I was emotionally unstable.” “Mmm,” Trilby hummed through a mouthful of liquid, then swallowed to continue, “I’ve yet to meet the emotionally stable mordesh, myself included. But you are, absolutely.” The engineer’s brows rumpled abruptly. “It was not the assertion that bothered me as much as the delivery. Pseudo concern, familiarity…” “Oh, were they too nice to you?” “You know very well what I mean. It was all professional concern, smarmy, insincere. I’m meant to believe she’s genuinely concerned for my well being while she’s judging me am I? Does anyone ever truly buy it? No one can be that gullible. The real insult is that she refused to drop the act. She's one of Markov's creatures, I'm sure.” Trilby fluttered her eyelashes at the near tirade. Dagny lifted his chin and huffed, rather imperiously. “Her eyes looked like raisins pushed into rising dough.” Her laugh carried over the audible-murk of a dozen quiet conversations. “I think it's working.” Dagny had moved from fidgeting with an empty syringe to trying to balance it on it's uncapped end. “Why, is this fun? I don’t feel particularly fun. I’m not sure I remember exactly what fun is. At very least I think our opinions on its definition are… divergent, these days at least.” If he’d been looking, he would have noticed the conspiratorial tilt to her mouth, the way her ears which had always been over-long leaned back slightly. “Maybe so. Your definition seems to be ‘can carry a tray without spilling things and pink hair’.” “Carry a- oh really. Trilby,” A prayer, a plea for mercy perhaps. Or at very least, an expression of disappointment, as though he’d thought better of the woman who had left more ruined relationships in her wake than an Arkite-Flu sufferer leaves wadded tissues. It was a testament perhaps to some unspoken depth of optimism in him. “I will even grant that she wasn’t bad. For being the help.” This time, Dagny found himself caught up in her laughter. “Oh, I'm sorry - do you outrank her then? No? I thought not. Either way, it was a…” here he made a small gesture with one hand, while the other continued to attempt a balancing act with the syringe, “small lapse in judgment shall we say. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and happened to collide with one of my more, fractious moods.” “Fractious isn't the word I'd have chosen. But, if there's a silver lining to your dalliance with a former servant, its that your standards seem to be rallying.” The woman behind the bar was yellow, more so even than the engineer; a searing, lemon-zest hue that seemed wildly out of wing with the desaturated palette of the room. She set another glass in front of the stalker, who smiled so beatifically in return that the woman’s cheeks went orange. During that fleeting exchange, Dagny had managed it. The syringe, in defiance of gravity, was standing point down on the bar, and he’d moved onto the second one. Trilby looked only, wholly unimpressed with the balancing act. “You worried me with that business about the skeleton.” “Don’t you dare thump that glass down on the bar right now,” Dagny’s brow furrowed in concentration. “What skeleton?” “The one with the good personality.” This time his gaze slipped sideways, concentration broken by suspicion. Trilby’s face gave it away, and Dagny wrinkled a nose he no longer had. “If your cynicism were a well, it would be fathomless in depth… and used regularly to drown kittens. He does have an interesting personality. Although it may be difficult for you to differentiate these days between a compelling person, and one simply feeding you flattery like scraps to a starving dog.” Anyone else would have been offended. Trilby’s amusement was like a patina poured over the steely edges of her base personality; a mere embellishment. “He is an ambulatory coat rack!” “You’re a metaphorical hive of wasps with nice hair, and it doesn’t seem to hold you back. Yes, I noticed your new one by the way, she is very tall and looks like the sort of person who thinks the ability to crush things between their thighs is the height of personal achievement. Congratulations.” “There’s no use trying to rouse my protective instincts in an attempt to change the subject. I have none.” “No, you don’t. Which I suppose makes the wasps comparison inaccurate; you’re more like… a nest of sand spiders with good hair. Be nice,” Dagny instructed, knowing full well it was outside the realm of her ability by about fourteen light-years. “I could have him kill you, and make it look like an exceedingly embarrassing accident.” Trilby didn’t guffaw, because that too was outside the realm of her ability, but she did cough, politely, around a mouthful of the rusty-red liquor. “I promise, it would be too great a challenge for that little bundle of twigs. From the look of it, opening most doors would be.” “When you sling mud, I know you have only mud to sling.” The second syringe wobbled dangerously as he removed his supporting fingers, slowly, like a magician revealing the apex of his trick. “He is rather clever, incidentally.” “And he never interrupts you, which I assume is the lion’s share of the allure. Difficult to be clever-” “When people don’t let you get a word in edgewise? Yes, I know a thing or two about that, speaking of harpies who love the sound of their own screeching.” Trilby dropped a fist onto the bar in retaliation, but the syringes had been positioned carefully, by a man quite familiar with the stalker’s destructive streak. They toppled toward one another, catching at the cross-beams, and remained balanced on their ends, in a perfect X shape. Dagny wagged a smug eyebrow at her. Trilby straightened on her stool, and took up her glass again with an air that was more exasperated than impressed. “Please, stop gushing. I’m embarrassed for you.” “You made me take two shots, and you can damned well deal with the consequences.” The gesture was a relic, one that once-upon a time would have been enough to make the honey-blond strands of his bangs flop charmingly over an eye. “His hair is.... cute.” “I’ve died. I’ve died, and this is some strange alien netherworld in which Dagny Vancura is squealing about a mouthless scarecrow. I need to speak to that psychiatrist… she’s done something to you.” “No that was Marta. She calls everything cute. It was only a matter of time before the word lodged like a poison dart in my vocabulary.” The engineer leaned forward, folding his forearms across the silvery bone mosaic that he could peer at shelves. The vague shine on bottles of every conceivable shape and size shifted with the gentle bobbing of the floating alchemical lanterns. The effect was nice; a bit like those little phosphorescent bugs. Absently, he wondered if Zoran would like it. “What exactly are you staring at?” “Hmm?” “You’re staring worryingly at that shelf, and I'm honour-bound to remind you, I’m a drink ahead.” “Is it possible to over-indulge in these?” Ruining his carefully engineered balancing act, Dagny snatched up a syringe and examined in critically. “We'll certainly find out.”

[tripstations]

Four words you want to hear on a plane

I almost re-enacted a scene from Pretty Woman at Sydney Airport the other day. The man at the LATAM Airlines counter uttered the words all travellers yearn to hear.

“Madam, you have been upgraded to business class,” he said with a South American accent.  

Having looked over my shoulder and finding no other “madam” within ear or eyeshot, I was tempted to lean over the counter to kiss him on the cheek as Richard Gere does when the hotel manager gives him Julia Roberts’ address. But the counter was too high.

“You have been upgraded.” In that instant, my mood went from the feeling of dread and resignation you get before boarding a long-haul flight in economy, to one of absolute euphoria.

Latam Airlines

The business class seat in fully-flat bed mode on LATAM from Sydney to Santiago via Auckland.

READ MORE: * Flight test: LATAM 787 Dreamliner economy, Santiago-Auckland-Sydney * Flight test: Auckland to Santiago on LATAM’s Boeing 787-9 * Expat Tales: Starting up in Santiago

Business class was so spacious and luxurious and softly-lit, I couldn’t wait to nestle down in my comfy armchair which reclined to a fully-flat bed. What’s more, I had two seats to myself so I was cocooned in my own private bubble and had no need to engage in polite conversation with my neighbour.

You know how it is sometimes in economy – the super-chatty chap beside you who extends his hairy hand and introduces himself and proceeds to tell you his entire life story before you’ve had a chance to stow your cabin bag, sit down and fasten your seatbelt.

Latam Airlines

LATAM Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Or the large lady whose ample frame invades your seat and armrest, and whose heavy head finds its way to your shoulder in the middle of the night.

Or the frazzled young mum travelling with an infant with a high-pitched scream. I’ve been there, done that so I’m full of compassion for parents travelling alone with little ones. I am about to enter granny-hood so I’m super-alert to mothers with crying babies, and often find myself walking up and down the aisle to give the mum time to eat or go to the bathroom.

Not on this occasion though. It was so quiet and tranquil on my LATAM flight from Sydney to Auckland and on to Santiago, Chile, I was unaware of any other passengers in the BC zone. There appeared to be a few elongated dark shapes lying motionless under duvets during the flight, but there was no chat. A strange yet wonderful experience for me. 

As I ensconced myself in my huge comfy armchair (58cm wide) with a double helping of pillows and blankets, and investigated the repertoire of my entertainment console and the contents of my complimentary toiletries bag (eye mask, comb, mirror, shoe horn, toothpaste and toothbrush, lip balm, hand and face cream, and socks), Jenny appeared before me with a hot flannel and a glass of bubbly. Mind reader.

JUSTINE TYERMAN

A few of the many products in my LATAM toiletries bag

I sipped champagne and examined my surroundings. The 30 BC seats were forward facing and arranged in three sets of two (2-2-2). Each seat had its own adjustable light fitting with a bendy stalk, a USB port, a remote control to navigate the in-flight entertainment on the 15.4 inch high-resolution flat screen, and noise-reducing headphones. The seats had an adjustable screen between them in case you didn’t want to converse with your neighbour. 

The pushback was on the dot of 11.15am and soon after, came that moment of pure adrenalin I never tire of as the massive Dreamliner 787-9 soared effortlessly into the blue sky.

Lunch was not far away so I fought the urge to recline and doze. The soft mood lighting was soporific in the extreme. Instead, I discovered a massage function on my chair which delivered a divine back rub.

JUSTINE TYERMAN

Lunchtime en route from Sydney to Auckland.

Lunch began with a flourish – a white tablecloth and cutlery were laid on my adjustable table and then Jenny arrived with a fresh salad and my own little bottle of dressing; a tasty sandwich filled with hot roast chicken, Swiss cheese and tomato on rye bread; and lemon panacotta with sweet raspberries, and chocolate. Flavoursome and filling.

The wine list was impressive: syrah from Valle de Colchagua in Chile; malbec from Mendoza in Argentina; sauvignon blanc from Valle de Casablanca in Chile; a syrah, carménère, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot blend from the Chilean Hacienda Araucano’s Clos de Lolol (love the name); and a blend of riesling, chardonnay, torrontel and semillon from the Valle del Maule in Chile. I stuck with the bubbly for lunch – a Nicolas Feuillatte Reserve Exclusive Brut from Chouilly, France, with hints of pears and peach – saving the still for dinner.

LATAM’s menus are designed by top chefs from South America with wine matches selected by Héctor Vergara, the only master sommelier in Latin America.

After a short stop in Auckland during which time BC passengers can visit the Qantas lounge thanks to LATAM’s membership of the OneWorld alliance, I was excited to reboard and actually looking forward to the 11-hour leg to Santiago.

Back in BC – again with no immediate neighbour – my new flight attendant Jeanette brought me a duvet, padded mattress and pillow, and bubbly and nuts to nibble on take-off.

I flicked through the extensive selection of movies, television shows, games, and music programmes, and watched Five Feet Apart about a couple of teenagers in hospital with cystic fibrosis.

JUSTINE TYERMAN

Ecuadorian shrimps in Thai sauce with Jasmine rice, toasted sesame seeds, roasted scallions and salad, plus icecream which I could not finish

Dinner began with tomato and lemongrass soup followed by a choice between grilled tenderloin with pepper sauce and truffle mashed potatoes, roasted asparagus and mushrooms; smoked salmon, mango and cucumber with a green salad; or Ecuadorian shrimps in Thai sauce with Jasmine rice, toasted sesame seeds and roasted scallions.

I chose the latter and took Héctor Vergara’s advice to match it with the Rafael Tirado 2018 ‘Vistalago’ Mezcla Blanca from Chile’s Valle del Maule. I polished off the tasty shrimps but couldn’t do justice to the OOB organic ice cream dessert. 

After investigating the moisturisers and perfumes in the spacious, spotlessly-clean bathroom without anyone banging on the door, I plugged my technology into the USB, stowed my belongings in the handy compartments and reclined my chair into a 185cm lie-flat bed. The moment I achieved horizontal and snuggled under my duvet with my head on my pillow, I was out to it for six or seven hours.

I woke up just in time for a breakfast of fresh fruit, yoghurt, cereal, toast and a selection of cold meats and cheeses.

Apparently, the Boeing Dreamliner has a higher cabin pressure and more humid air than other aircraft which reduces the impact of jetlag. We touched down so gently, I hardly knew we had landed. In fact, the entire flight was so quiet and smooth, I was barely aware we were in the air.

Latam Airlines

Night mode in LATAM business class en route to Santiago.

I was travelling super-light but my fellow BC passengers were busy manoeuvring seriously heavy bags towards the exit door. The luggage allowance on LATAM BC seems astronomical – I could have brought with me a carry-on bag weighing up to 16kg plus three checked-in bags weighing up to 32kg each. Good to know if I ever decide to run away to South America to live.

I felt sorry for the weary souls disembarking from economy and made eye contact with an exhausted young mum with a fractious toddler. I gave her an ‘I-know-how-you-feel’ look and she gave me a weak smile. Had I been seated next to her, we would no doubt have got to know each other quite well, and her little one. I had 10 LATAM flights ahead of me so I wondered if our paths would cross again.

Justine travelled courtesy of LATAM Airlines www.LATAM.com

LATAM operates four flights a week from Auckland to Santiago, Chile, with onward connections to 124 destinations in South America. www.LATAM.com

The post Four words you want to hear on a plane appeared first on Tripstations.

from Tripstations https://ift.tt/2YORHhK via IFTTT

[topbeautifulwomens]

#Peter,paul #And #Mary #Biography #Photos #Wallpapers #anastasiabeverlyhills #eroticmodel #hairstyles #lifestylemodel #makeup #makeupjunkie #makeuplover #maquiagem #photographer #topmodel

“Peter, Paul and Mary are folk singers.” So stated the liner notes to the group’s self-titled 1962 debut album. Today, this declaration seems redundant, because the term “folk music” has come to be virtually interchangeable with the group name, but when the words were written, they were meant less as a stylistic distinction than as a mission statement.

In the decades prior to the ’60s, through the work of such avatars as Woody Guthrie, the Weavers and Pete Seeger, folk music had become identified with sociopolitical commentary, but the idiom had been forced underground in the Senator Joe McCarthy witch-hunting era of the late ’50s. By the time Peter, Paul and Mary arrived on the scene, for the majority of America, folk was viewed merely as a side-bar to pop music which employed acoustic instruments. At this critical historic juncture, with the nation still recovering from the McCarthy era, the Civil Rights Movement taking shape, the Cold War heating up and a nascent spirit of activism in the air, Peter Yarrow, Noel (Paul) Stookey and Mary Travers came together to juxtapose these cross currents and thus to reclaim folk’s potency as a social, cultural and political force. But few at the time could have realized how fervently and pervasively the group’s message of humanity, hope and activism would be embraced.

Having their music associated with causes and solutions is as natural as breathing for Peter, Paul and Mary. The music they purvey and the action it generates are equally important to them and lie at the heart of their story. Most recently, their individual and collective efforts have focused on such crucial issues as gun violence against children, the rights and organizing efforts of strawberry pickers in California, homelessness and world hunger. “We’ve always been involved with issues that deal with the fundamental human rights of people, whether that means the right to political freedom or the right to breathe air that’s clean,” Travers points out.

No American folk group has lasted longer or amassed a more loyal following than Peter, Paul and Mary; indeed, few groups of any genre have logged more years (45) or miles (countless) in direct, yearly touring; spreading the message and engaging the next (now four) generations. During its now legendary career, the trio won five Grammy’s, developed 13 Top 40 hits, of which 6 ascended into the Top 10 – as well as eight gold and five platinum albums. That PP&M achieved such a rarefied level of commercial success without compromise, and while continuing a centuries-old tradition of people raising their voices in song for the sake of freedom, is simply further evidence of their extraordinarily successful career-as much a mission accomplished as a musical career.

In 2006, Peter, Paul and Mary received the latest in a long line of honors bestowed on the group: The Songwriters Hall Of Fame’s Lifetime Achievement Award (also known as the Sammy Cahn Award). It really is well-earned recognition that the group has mastered the art of topical songs-which can be overly directive, one-sided and preachy in less-seasoned hands. “The songs we sing invite the participation of the listener, who is central to finding a way of creating the life of the song at that listening,” Yarrow explains. “It’s the difference between poetry and didactic writing. One tells you, ‘This is it,’ and the other says, ‘Let’s find this together.'” Adds Stookey, “Whether it’s your own material or someentire body else’s material, it’s required that you identify with it thoroughly. It’s like you want to archive it; you want to freeze it in time in terms of your perspective on it, then move on, because folk music is that volatile and comments not only on overall human concerns but also on the specifics.”

Yarrow, Stookey and Travers have spent their years together communicating personal, political and social imperatives by way of their impeccably chosen songs, personally crafted harmonies and unmitigated passion. Remarkably, more than four and a half decades after their formation, they’re still singer/advocates. Their spirits and sense of purpose are undiminished and their message, if anything, is more relevant than ever before, particularly as America and the world approach what Travers characterizes as “a critical turning point in time.”

Through the years, that message has been expressed through traditional ballads like “The Three Ravens” and “Take Off Your Old Coat,” the work of such latter-day poets as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Laura Nyro, Gordon Lightfoot, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs and John Denver, and in songs penned by the group itself. It’s a canon of classics-indelible, important songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer,” “Cruel War,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” “500 Miles,” “Lemon Tree,” “In the Early Morning Rain,” “All My Trials,” and “Puff (The Magic Dragon),” among others.

Released in March, 2004, Rhino’s Carry It On boxed set features four CDs filled with such memorable musical moments from 1960 to 2003, including previously unreleased solo listingings by each member made prior to the group’s formation. The package also contains a bonus DVD with performance footage of some of the trio’s most iconic songs, including a live version of “If I Had a Hammer” from the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Among the many luminaries offering testimonials in the Carry It On liner notes is the late Coretta Scott King, who proclaimed, “Peter, Paul and Mary are not only three of the greatest folk artists ever, but also three of the performing arts’ most outstanding champions of social justice and peace. They have lent their time and talents to the Civil Rights Movement, labor struggles, and countless campaigns for human rights for decades, and their compassion and commitment remain as strong as their extraordinary artistry.”

Carry It On was released simultaneously with In These Times, the group’s first all-new studio recording in more than a decade. The LP features no solo turns, only group vocals-an approach PP&M haven’t employed since their first four albums; their singular harmonies displaying unity in the face of a particularly fractious, and in their opinion, dangerous, era. “With In These Times, we wanted to make a contemporary statement,” says Stookey. “Folk music has the capacity to not only be aware of the continuum, but also to offer thoughts that are perspectives on the immediacy of human concern.”

Both timely and timeless, In These Times (co-produced by Yarrow and Stookey) spotlights selections penned by new or newly found writers including Tim Bays, Dave Allen, Anne Feeney, Gene Nelson and Bill Staines, offering wider exposure to fresh talent – long a PP&M tradition. In the past Peter, Paul and Mary put together new material for every summer tour, so the album actually collects several years worth of new material. Much of it is drawn from the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, an annual event whose New Folk Concerts are arguably the most important platform for the discovery and acknowledgment of new singer/songwriters in America.

In 2004 Carry It On, the boxed set, and an accompanying PBS TV special focused plenty of attention on the music of Peter, Paul and Mary, but the following year observers were more preoccupied with Mary Travers’ well being; she underwent a successful bone marrow transplant in April of 2005 for leukemia. That December, Travers joined Peter and Noel (Paul) on stage for the first time in a year to perform their renowned and much loved Holiday Celebration benefit concert at Carnegie Hall. “The emotionality of the response, and the love of the audience for Mary, showered the stage,” observed Peter. Today the three singers stand strong in their musical mission, and are eager to carry it on to new audiences.

Some Historical Notes and Thoughts on the Trio:

Forming at the dawn of John F. Kennedy’s presidency, when the tight lid of repression was about to blow off of the American sociopolitical stew pot, the trio emerged just as their nation was coming to grips with long-deferred issues of social and political justice, foremost among these the demand for racial equality. Through the airwaves, which came to be dominated by their music of conscience, and their relentless schedule of concert performances, many of which took place on college campuses, they helped to inspire and awaken the nation as it united in song and spirit, to finally stand up for its pledge to be a country with liberty and justice for all. During this remarkable era of reckoning, Peter, Paul and Mary reached out to personally touch the lives and hearts of tens of millions of Americans with their songs-a message they lived as much as they sang.

Peter, Paul and Mary came together during an unusually fertile period in popular music. Yarrow, who had come to Greenwich Village with a psychology degree from Cornell, recalls that “The Village in the early 1960s was a crucible of creativity. Involvement in music was a matter of joyous discovery, not business. We knew that folk music was having an enormous impact in the Village, but was a couple of years away from being embraced on a national scale.”

The Village was also the starting place for Stookey, a fledgling stand-up comic from Maryland who’d recently graduated from Michigan State. Stookey met up separately with Yarrow, who was playing Village coffeehouses as a solo act, and with Travers, who was already known for her work in the Song Swappers, a folk group that had recorded with Pete Seeger. Having grown up in the Village, the flaxen-haired singer was a familiar figure at the Washington Square Sunday singing event. Encouraged by folk impresario Albert Grossman, who became their manager, the three artists decided to throw their lots together after blending their voices for the first time in Stookey’s Lower East Side apartment. Peter, Paul and Mary made their formal debut at Greenwich Village’s Bitter End in late 1961.

The group’s self-titled 1962 debut on Warner Bros. Records, a stunning oasis of content in a sea of musical fluff, brought folk music of consciousness and concern to the top of the charts. Fueled by the enormous hits “Lemon Tree” and “If I Had a Hammer” (which enjoyed a second life as an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement), the album went straight to #1, remaining in the Billboard Top 10 for 10 months and in the Top 20 for two years on the way to a remarkable three-and-a-half year run on the album chart. In 1963, they released the LPs Moving and In The Wind, which hit #2 and #1, respectively, and continued to hold Top 20 positions alongside the first album.

This success marked the beginning of an astonishingly fertile and influential time for the group, and for the contemporary urban folk tradition they personified. Their commercial high water mark occurred in the third week of November 1963, when they held three of the top six positions on Billboard’s album chart (ironically, that was the very week President Kennedy was assassinated). That same year, their recording of “Puff (The Magic Dragon),” co-written by Yarrow and Leonard Lipton, won the hearts of millions, and went on to be an enduring children’s classic.

“‘Puff (The Magic Dragon)’ became metaphorical for a certain spirit because of its proximity to the era or idealism and hope in the ’60s,” says Yarrow. “If it had been written in a time of cynicism and selfishness such as this one, perhaps ‘Puff’ might not have resonated in the same way, save for those who were bemoaning the loss of innocence of their own time.” Meanwhile, their recording of “Blowin’ in the Wind” helped introduce a fellow Village songwriter (and Grossman client) named Bob Dylan. This was folk music as an agent of social change, and it was to spark the imagination and the passion of a generation intent on social change.

But Peter, Paul and Mary did more in those times than chronicle events-they lived their songs. When they sang at the 1963 March on Washington, and two years later at the Selma-Montgomery March, these courageous gestures, made under threat of violence, were nothing less than radical acts, launching more than four decades of ceaseless musical activism. “You have to put your body on the line from time to time in order to make a statement or change a law,” Stookey asserts. “Protest is inherent to this system,” adds Travers.

In 1969, as the turbulent decade was drawing to a close, Yarrow co-organized the March on Washington, and Peter, Paul and Mary sang before the half-million people who had come together for that landmark event.

The following year, needing time for personal growth, the group disbanded, and each member began pursuing individual interests. Stookey’s spiritual commitment led him to pen “The Wedding Song,” record eight solo albums (one of which received a Grammy nomination) and create a multimedia organization that is still involved in a variety of children’s computer, television and music projects. Travers recorded five albums; produced, wrote and starred in a BBC television series; and lectured and concertized across the country. Along with his ongoing political activism and solo projects, Yarrow co-wrote and produced Mary McGregor’s #1 single, “Torn Between Two Lovers.” His three animated TV specials for CBS based on “Puff (The Magic Dragon)” earned Yarrow an Emmy nomination.

Fittingly, it was an important cause that reunited the erstwhile partners. In 1978, at an anti-nuclear benefit at the Hollywood Bowl that he had organized, Peter asked Noel and Mary to join him on stage. “We hadn’t sung together in six years,” Travers recalls. “We realized that we’d missed each other personally and musically, so we decided to try a limited reunion tour. We wanted to work together enough to have it be a meaningful part of our lives, but not so much that it wouldn’t be fun.” Looking at the chemistry that’s still so potent, Mary observes that, “Each of us has a talent that’s pivotal for the group. Peter is a patient and meticulous worker, especially when it comes to sound quality, and that commitment to excellence is what yields the best possible environment in which to be creative. Noel has a relaxed sensibility, and that’s a very calming influence when it comes to adjusting to difficult situations, which happen all the time. Of course, both are talented songwriters as well. I think I bring a spontaneity, an ability to connect with them emotionally and focus our attention on having a musical conversation. I believe that if we can have that conversation, then the audience will feel included.”

With “No Easy Walk to Freedom,” the title track from their 1986 album, Peter, Paul and Mary focused attention on the Anti-Apartheid cause, and were honored by the Free South Africa movement at a special benefit at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. That same year, they were among the vanguard of artists who worked to raise the public’s awareness of homelessness. Their opening night of a week on Broadway was a fund-raiser on behalf of the New York Coalition for the Homeless. These efforts all marked the group’s 25-year association and culminated in their PBS special, 25th Anniversary Concert, which was broadcast in support of public television

In 1988, Peter, Paul and Mary became the focus of yet another special for PBS with A Holiday Concert, taped before a live audience in New York City. For this performance, they were accompanied by the 160-member New York Choral Society and a 40-piece orchestra. Their renditions of holiday music were captured in the album, A Holiday Celebration.

In 1992, Peter, Paul and Mary re-signed with Warner Bros. and recorded Peter, Paul & Mommy, Too, their second children’s album. (Peter, Paul and Mommy, released in 1969, was the name Mary’s daughter Erika once gave her mother’s group.) The album and video received Grammy nominations.

The uniting of three generations of folk singers on their 1996 TV special and album, LifeLines, offered them the opportunity to sing with their mentors, their contemporaries who started with them in Greenwich Village and new singer/songwriters who are carrying on the time-honored folk tradition. Participants included onetime Weavers Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman, Richie Havens, Tom Paxton, Odetta, Dave Van Ronk, John Sebastian, Buddy Mondlock and Susan Werner. The vitality and resilience of the folk community were the hallmarks of this memorable collaboration.

The group’s message, more and more, is that their music belongs to everyone. In this, their fifth decade together, Peter, Paul and Mary can be viewed less as performers than as purveyors of a universal, accessible language that fosters universal recognition, mutual validation and empowerment. We can all draw encouragement from the fact that Peter, Paul and Mary are still together, still free of cynicism and still filled with hope.

“People can overcome their differences, and when united, move toward a world of greater fairness and justice,” says Yarrow. “As in folk music, each person has a unique role to play.”

Adds Stookey: “We live in more pragmatic times than when we originally recorded those songs. But many of the dreamers of the ’60s have been elected to governmental office or taken on a leadership role in their communities. They are now in the position to make a difference.”

The conviction that each individual can make a difference has continued to energize Peter, Paul and Mary’s political and social activism through the years. Having witnessed the enormous changes in society that were wrought by the early advocacies of which they were a part, the group remains optimistic as it confronts the challenges and pervasive cynicism of our times.

The legacy the trio inherited as well as the legacy they leave will continue to inspire, because theirs is a music and message of activism and hope. Current and future generations will find no better validation of their own search for social equity than the enduring music of Peter, Paul and Mary: Carry It On and the contemporary thrust of In These Times.

“I think the new album will be a wake-up call to the fact that folk music has never really gone away-it’s just manifested itself in a lot of different disguises, whether it’s Springsteen, Sting or Bruce Hornsby, all of whom happened after the ’60s, which was the opening of the awareness that songs could be about anything,” Stookey says.

“Folk music has a sort of a bubbling-under quality,” Travers asserts. “The stream runs through the cultural consciousness, and whether or not it’s on the radio is not the issue. Folk music is always there.”

“The wonderful thing,” she continues, “is that there is this remarkable wealth of material, the result of 40 years of trying to find the best of our contemporary writers and the best of the traditional stuff. Now there’s this massive box set, and it’s all there. People 50 years from now will go back and listen to those tunes. This music is not going to disappear.

Name Peter,paul And Mary Height Naionality American Date of Birth Place of Birth America Famous for

The post Peter,paul And Mary Biography Photos Wallpapers appeared first on Beautiful Women.

source http://topbeautifulwomen.com/peterpaul-and-mary-biography-photos-wallpapers/