#i also love the idea of Joel speaking french

[kaldujamur]

I LOVEEEEE IT SOOO MUCH THANK YOU😘😘😘😘😘😘! BEAUTIFUL! BEAUTIFUL💛💙💛💙💛💙. I also love the idea of Joel speaking French😂. Sometimes i imagine him doing that just to tease Ty, but i think Ty (not so) secretly loves it and thinks it's sexy😂

Joel Embiid 💙 Tyrese Haliburton. Love bite 💕

Tyrese was waiting at the bar with Siakam, surprisingly nervous about having dinner with both him and Joel.

After the Olympics, Tyrese was jittery with excitement at this whole new era he’s found himself in. During the summer, in the most romantic city in the world, he found something real with someone new. He could barely compose himself when someone asked about his experience, launching full in to how much he learned from Embiid.

Pascal must’ve clocked something, because when Hali mentioned Joel was coming to town, he immediately suggested dinner, something about wanting to see his Cameroonian brother.

Tyrese scratched his neck absentmindedly, as he took a sip of his drink, glancing at the door ever so often, waiting for Joel to arrive.

“Bro, is that a hickey?” Pascal surprise caught him off guard enough to look away from the door.

And to be fair, it was a hickey. Joel landed in Indiana last night, and Hali spent the better part of the night in his hotel room getting reacquainted. He could feel the blood rushing to his face as he stumbled over his words trying to come up with an excuse.

“And what about it.” He heard a familiar baritone voice, thick with an accent behind him. Heavy arm draping over his shoulders, with a quick kiss hello to his temple.

Tyrese ducked his head, taking another sip of his drink to avoid Pascal’s gaze, but felt butterflies at the protectiveness.

“Want everyone to know he’s mine.” Hali sputtered at that, slamming his glass back on the bar, shoving Joel back for good measure.

He heard Pascal laugh, and Joel with his lopsided smile that defused his annoyance the moment he looked up.

“Don’t be mad, mon coeur.”

“Yeah, mon coeur.” Siakam teased.

Tyrese groaned as the older two men talked in a mix of English and French, waving at the bartender for another round.

He could feel Joel lace his fingers with his unconsciously as he spoke to Siakam, the large hand enveloping his. He gave up on trying to keep up with the conversation, content with just watching his man for the time being, having him this close was good enough for now.

Ask is HERE

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2020

You know, when I finished my latest list and realised every decade had the same pattern and that we were slowly going towards a series of great years for pop, I didn’t realise how good that year would be.

What’s at the top? Am I boringly predictable because I already said I loved that song all the way back in January 2020? Let’s find out.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will probably be stuff in French somewhere on this post. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

So. Uh. How was your 2020?

Mine was actually surprisingly good, considering. I’m lucky enough to have a job that I can partially do from home, and I was extremely paranoid from the get-go and nobody got sick under this roof so far. Turns out I’m even better at my job from home and I got permission to work from home one day per week even after the health crisis is over! My first name was also finally officially approved and I can’t tell you how happy I feel about that. I almost feel bad to have had such a good year considering the circumstances. I feel like an asshole just because I’m happy, haha.

The only frustrating part was that I was supposed to see Hatari in concert in Paris in early April which, as you can guess, was cancelled. I’m not too mad about it though, since their tour was called “Europe will crumble” and the message saying the tour was cancelled started with “since Europe is actually crumbling due to Covid-19″ and that’s hysterical.

Good or interesting albums that came out in 2020 now, let’s see.

Nightwish released Human/Nature, which was a huge letdown compared to their previous album, but I will relisten to it at some point to make sure I wasn’t just in a bad mood that day.

The Birthday Massacre released Diamonds, which might be their weakest album since their debut, but contained some real gems (I listened to The Last Goodbye on a loop, it floored me. Flashback and Enter are also very good).

The 1975 released Notes On A Conditional Form, and let’s be real, it’s a f█cking mess. You could cut half the tracks and end up with an excellent album, but as it is it’s like, yes, a collection of notes ; however there’s some truely excellent shit on it (see unelligible songs).

Thanks to a friend on a discord server I was exposed to Dorian Electra’s music and I haven’t been quite the same ever since. I’m so happy to be alive to see other enbies making such great music with an insanely good aesthetic surrounding it and asking so many interesting questions about gender. Also the arc the ‘gentleman’ character goes through over the course of the entire tracklist of the 2020 My Agenda album is absolutely hilarious, don’t @ me.

I also discovered 100 Gecs this year. Why are most of you guys saying it’s unlistenable garbage. It’s just as abrasive and over the top as industrial music is, but with none of the edginess or drama. I love it. What the hell. But yeah Tree of Clues was released this year. Good.

Speaking of industrial, in March 2020 Nine Inch Nails were like “hey remember when we released Ghosts I-IV a decade ago entirely for free and how amazing that was? Well we’re all in lockdown and bored as hell so here’s Ghosts V-VI and it’s also free. Enjoy” and I f█cking died instantly. And it’s even better than I-IV. What the hell was that year

Jonsi released Shiver. It’s strange and highly experimental. I’m pretty sure it’s a good thing I was into hyperpop this year, otherwise going from his previous material straight to this album would have been brutal.

Yadda yadda yadda After Hours by the Weeknd good yadda yadda.

I’ve joked about that already but if you had told me in 2019 that 2020 would have fires, a pandemic, riots, monoliths appearing and disappearing, and also a super good Machine Gun Kelly album, guess which part I would have found the most ridiculous. But yeah uh. Tickets to my Downfall good

So uh this year I tried to listen to some hyperpop and liked it a lot, and I also dipped my toes timidly into screamo and listened to Svalbard, who released When I Die this year, and the entire album was a very beautiful, very intricately decorated punch to the face. It sounds like God Is An Astronaut except with a shit ton of yelling. I love it. Open Wound is my favorite track on it.

But no, despite all of this, my album of the year was from a band I had never even heard about before that year, called Spanish Love Songs. The album is titled Brave Faces Everyone and it’s line after line after line of extremely relatable generational angst but yelled with complete sincerity and it’s so propulsive and energetic you can’t help but feel both exhausted and ready to fight the entire universe. I don’t know how it works, but it’s incredible. The entire album is wonderfully brutal, so it’s kind of difficult to pick my favorite songs on it, but Beachfront Property and the title track stand out.

Unelligible songs, now, and there’s, uh, quite a few of them too so I’m also gonna use bullet points. Good lord this post is gonna be long.

First, let me say I have literally no idea why Midnight Sky by Miley Cyrus wasn’t a bigger hit. It’s not on the year-end US top 100 and it feels extremely wrong. Would have made it to #4 on this list otherwise.

I still entertain the vague hope that stuff from Machine Gun Kelly will chart higher in 2021 but I doubt it will happen so I might as well tackle it now and say that Bloody Valentine and especially Forget Me Too are both excellent and that it’s a shame radios aren’t playing them more often.

Heaven by the late Avicii featuring Coldplay should have charted in 2019 and still didn’t chart in 2020 and that’s a real shame.

If the world was a bit less unfair, Lovesick Girls by Blackpink would have been a hit rather than the awful Ice Cream.

One day I will stop complaining about my bafflement concerning the lack of mainstream pop charts success of The 1975. Today is not that day. I just love how they keep making songs about extremely awkward relationships full of weird details, and I haven’t grown tired of that yet. So yeah If You’re Too Shy is about a guy who’s crush is asking him to get naked on Skype in his hotel room and he’s, uh, not too sure about that idea.

And Me & You Together is about a guy who never finds the right moment to tell his best friend he’s in love with her, and he manages to do so at the end and it’s cute as hell. My fave part is “I'm sorry that I'm kinda queer / It's not as weird as it appears / It's 'cause my body doesn't stop me (Stop me) / Oh, it's okay, lots of people think I'm gay / But we're friends, so it's cool, why would it not be?”. Relatable as f█ck.

And now for an international hit that should have been bigger in the US and/or in my country but wasn’t: Head & Heart by Joel Corry and MNEK.

I’ve heard Nos Célébrations by Indochine extremely often on French radio for months now so I was very surprised to see that it didn’t crack the local year-end list. What happened.

I can finally hear the appeal of Bring Me The Horizon. It took me ages. And also Death Stranding. The song Ludens isn’t in the game per say, but it’s among the ones you can pick to broadcast briefly when people drive by your constructions, and long story short it's been living rent-free in my head for months now.

Phew.

It’s time for a round of Honorable Mentions for elligible songs, containing a couple of guilty pleasures, which is saying something considering the kind of shit I put on some of my previous lists.

Ne Reviens Pas (Gradur et Heuss l’Enfoiré) - Heuss is a French artist that kept baffling me while making my lists for the previous years, and I was like “??? ok, that’s it then, I guess I’m getting too old to get what teenagers find funny”. This one worked for me, though. And the music video doesn’t hurt. Really dumb and really fun.

Adore You (Harry Styles) - Perfectly good little pop song, very pleasant to listen to, never outstayed its welcome for me.

Mood (24kGoldn) - This doesn’t sound like a very good relationship, my dude, but that’s still a super pleasant song.

WAP (Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion) - This song is absolutely hilarious and I will hear no argument from any of you.

Control (Zoe Wees) - Was clearly a hit here. Should have been even bigger though. What a powerful but comfy voice. If I had better taste it would be on the list.

Hot Girl Bummer (Blackbear) - I. Uh. Listen. I keep saying I have bad taste and nobody believes me. Do you believe me now. But yeah. “F█ck you, and you, and you~, I hate your friends and they hate me too” is gonna pop in my head every single time someone is being a jerk anywhere near me now. It’s been happening all year already. Someone trashed my documents at work? Someone isn’t wearing a mask in public? That guy has filled his car with rolls of toilet paper? Brain goes “F█ck you, and you, and you~”. Every. Single. Time.

Come & Go (Juice WRLD & Marshmello ) - Damn, that’s a pretty good little song. I’ve seen plenty of people saying it’s ruined by the drop, but may I remind you I’m the person who loves Blue by Eiffel 65 with all my heart. If the song was ramping up consistently until the end instead of ending like that, it would have made the list, definitely.

And now, the actual list. This one actually feels pretty solid, I genuinely like everything on it, there’s no filler here for once.

10 - The Box (Roddy Rich)

US: #3 / FR: #23

Now this is a weird case, because for the longest time I couldn’t figure out why this song was so popular and I was completely neutral about it. Then, one morning in September, my mental jukebox (which always, always puts a song on a loop in my head when I wake up) decided to play it. And I was like oh wow?? I never noticed the atmosphere in that song before? It’s so great. And that hook too. Let’s listen to it.

So yeah, I don’t know what happened. It just clicked one day and everything fell into place, I guess.

9 - Alane (Wes & Robin Shulz)

US: Not on the list / FR: #93

Come on. You can’t do a remake of one of my previous #1 songs and let it chart in 2020. That’s cheating. Even with this subpar drop, I have to put it on the list, now.

I’ve already said my piece about the original, so I’m just going to send you back to my 1997 list.

8 - Kings and Queens (Ava Max)

US: Not on the list / FR: #76

[BBC documentary voice] After Lady Gaga decided to make piano balads and left her musical niche vacant, Ava Max quickly took her place as the top predator pop diva. Even after Lady Gaga was re-introduced to her natural habitat in 2020, she still hasn’t fully recovered in Europe, where Ava Max still reigns supreme on the charts -

(tldr I think it’s hilarious that this isn’t on the US Billboard while Lady Gaga isn’t on the French year-end top 100)

7 - Roses (Saint Jhn & Imanbek)

US: #19 / FR: #3

What an earworm. It doesn’t even bother trying to have an intro or an outro, so it loops almost perfectly. It’s like entering a party that started long before you arrived, and it will go on long after you leave it to go back home. Kind of hypnotic in a way.

And yes, my mental jukebox was very fond of using it to wake me up this year, so this is another song that’s here almost solely because of that.

6 - Physical (Dua Lipa)

US: Not on the list / FR: #69 (hehehe)

“Hey I’m not that old” says the guy who’s definitely a sucker for this kind of retro throwback that was so popular this year. Oh well.

I don’t have anything interesting to say about this one, though. Apart from the fact that everyone seems to have a different fave song on that album. Guess that’s quality for you.

5 - Rain on Me (Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande)

US: #48 / FR: Not on the list

That is far from being Lady Gaga’s best song, but it was a joy to listen to everytime it was on the radio anyway. Also Ariana Grande has surprisingly good chemistry with Gaga! This year was full of strange duets mostly made for commercial reasons, and this one isn’t an exception, but unlike a lot of them, it really, really works.

4 - Dynamite (BTS)

US: #38 / FR: Not on the list

I’m still not 100% sold on k-pop even if a ton of it sounds super good, but come on. Even if some bits of this song (especially the beginning of the second chorus) sound a bit like they were made on autopilot, it still sounds just as happy and fun several months after I first heard it and I never got tired of it. That’s quality. You hear it and you can’t help but tap your feet and smile.

Actually, I’m sure there’s people somewhere that don’t smile when they hear this song. And they must be avoided at all costs.

3 - Godzilla (Eminem ft Juice WRLD)

US: #62 / FR: Not on the list

What are you doing so high on this list, old man. Why are you still here in the year 2020. I thought we left you in the previous decade. Who gave you the right.

I’m gonna tell you who did, and it’s actually Juice WRLD. Because that chorus is incredible, and like a lot of people I’m pissed off because the guy died super young and this shit shouldn’t happen to anybody. No, his early material wasn’t great, but I’m sorry I’m gonna say it again: have you heard this damn chorus? It’s suspenseful and dark, it’s got this lowkey menacing quality, it’s an earworm and a half, and it’s more convincing in like six lines than Eminem’s own flexing is in the entire song.

The beat is extremely good as well, and the flow, obviously, impressive. The weakest link is Eminem’s writing, which is as usual full of puns and weird wordplay, except here a lot of it isn’t great, and that last ultra fast part at the end is technically impressive but it also drives the song up a cliff and stops it dead in its tracks once it’s over. But frankly the lines fly by so fast it’s difficult to be too annoyed by them.

Can I sincerely put this extremely flawed song so high on my list? A better question would be “did I spend hours trying to learn how to sing this shit without choking on my own spit?”. The answer is yes. To both.

2 - Heartless (The Weeknd)

US: #28 / FR: Not on the list

I’ve said it on my 2015 and 2016 lists already, but just for the record I’ll say it again: it took me ages to like The Weeknd, mostly because I found most of his songs fairly boring, or disliked the lyrics, or both. Also I never really liked the general vibe of his “sexy” songs like The Hills, they felt dark but in an unpleasant creepy way. Felt like miserable hedonism, if that makes sense.

So, because I’m a person with extremely consistent and logical tastes, here’s the exact same shit he was making before, except that this time I absolutely adore it.

What is he doing differently that makes the whole After Hours album click for me whereas almost all of his previous material failed to do so? Is it the energy? Is it the reverb? Is it the fact that the narrator sounds properly unhinged and, frankly, scared to be spiralling out of control? Why are the colors so beautiful yet full of anxiety? Why is that bridge so fantastic? How can you make your voice look like a glowstick in the dark?

I give up. I have no clue. At least I’m done talking about-

Oh.

1 - Blinding Lights (The Weeknd)

US: #1 / FR: #1 (listen sometimes something’s just that good, ok)

Surprise. Or not.

Wow, look at that, Johannes has put this year’s number one pop song at number one on their personal playlist. The audacity. The edge. What a hot take.

I discovered that song when it first came out at the end of 2019 and I adored it instantly. And I was so scared it wouldn’t be a hit. Which means I’m a f█cking dumbass considering it ended up breaking all sorts of records in 2020. But what can I say, overplay can be a blessing when you love a song that much.

Like every single song I put at number one on one of my lists, I will draw this one at some point and you will understand how incredibly satisfying it is to listen to a song called Blinding Lights, talking about city lights looking blurry when you’re driving at night, while looking itself like a bunch of blurry city lights passing by super fast. Perfect in every way.

Also it sounds exactly like A-ha, and that never hurts.

See you next year! Pretty sure it will be even better music-wise.

[justathingidid]

‘LOVE WEDDING REPEAT’ IS ONE WEDDING TO SLEEP THROUGH

Eleanor Tomlinson and Sam Claflin play brother and sister in the film

Love Wedding Repeat was released on Netflix on April 10, 2020. The film is an updated version of the 2012 French short film Plan de Table, which follows eight guests at a wedding.The synopsis Netflix provides for its newer version is simple enough - “Different versions of the same day unfold as Jack juggles difficult guests, unbridled chaos, and potential romance at his sister’s wedding.” 

Basically, a wedding meets Groundhog Day. That actually sounds pretty interesting.

So why was Love Wedding Repeat so bad?

It’s nearly impossible to answer that question without doing some serious digging and examination into the movie. Is it the shallow plot, tonal inconsistencies, or Sam Claflin’s atrocious haircut that caused Love Wedding Repeat to miss the mark? Let’s march down the aisle and see.

In this post, I will:

Summarize the plot

Conduct a character analysis for the ensemble (spoilers!)

Examine the  film’s poor execution of “repetition” 

THE PLOT

From the start, it’s obvious Love Wedding Repeat has close to no concept of time. We start out with Jack (a miscast Sam Claflin) and Dina (a pretty, but boring) Olivia Munn at the end of a stay in Rome, where they’ve supposedly spent time together and fallen in love. Dina is the roomate of Hayley, Jack’s sister. Now, not only is the romantic chemistry between Jack and Dina non-existent - it’s really more of a sexual tension - but so is the desire to care about the two of them ending up together. The two are interrupted before a kiss can occur, and eventually head their separate ways.

Sam Claflin and Olivia Munn play love interests to one another

Fast forward 3 years and Hayley is getting married to wealthy Italian Roberto, causing Jack and Dina to reunite. The “3 years” might as well have been the next day, since there appears to be little growth in any of them - especially Jack, who still struggles to formulate a sentence around Dina. Luckily, Hayley’s placed them at the same table. But Jack’s desire to make a move is constantly interrupted by the other guests, and the distractions only grow when Hayley’s ex-boyfriend Marc shows up to crash the wedding and a sleeping drug is misplaced in a champagne glass. And when love doesn’t prevail, the movie switches things around: showing us another seating arrangement at the table that changes the situations of each character. What should be a wild ride that eventually ends with love (and yes, a kiss) - feels shallow and undeserved.

THE CHARACTERS

The ensemble is talented, but lacks cohesion

JACK

Sam Claflin portrays the main character

I like Sam Claflin. I really like Sam Claflin. He’s more than suitable to handle these types of films, with romances Me Before You and Love, Rosie under his belt. But, here, the lack of personality to Jack’s character makes it difficult for Sam to bring much to the film. Now, Sam certainly does carry the film, but it’s definitely breaking his back in the process. There’s only two things to know about Jack: 1) he likes Dina a lot (I still doubt it’s love - despite what the film says) and 2) he loves his sister. Everything else: dead parents, a job as an engineer, an ex-girlfriend -  all which would help bring a sense of depth to Jack as a person - is simply mentioned and never truly explored. His bumbling speech and “just can’t win” trait make it hard to not like Jack, but it does grow old after a while. One would think that losing Dina 3 years prior and finding her newly single would make Jack jump at the chance to make a move, but he still struggles to articulate his feelings to her, or even ask guests to leave so he can speak to her alone. It hurts to watch Jack’s awkwardness be one of the biggest barriers between him and Dina - the film would strengthen if Jack was actively trying to speak or flirt and then was pulled away. Jack’s supposed conflict of having Amanda, his ex-girlfriend, attend the wedding is hardly a conflict, given their relationship seems to have consisted of more sex than substance and Dina barely seems to care about Amanda’s presence. In an attempt to make Jack have something to his character, he ended up with nothing. Well, nothing but a kiss and a wealthy brother-in-law. 

HAYLEY & ROBERTO

Eleanor Tomlinson and Tiziano Caputo play the marrying couple

Hayley and Roberto are the couple causing the “wedding” in the film’s title, which fails to show a ceremony and instead, spends the film at the reception. Now, Roberto plays next-to-nothing of a role in the film, so let’s focus on Hayley, who is arguably the cause of all conflict in the film.

During her relationship with Roberto and (fairly near to the wedding), Hayley slept with old classmate, Marc, who unexpectedly shows up to the wedding to declare his love for her and expose the secret. Hayley threatens to have security to remove Marc from the wedding, but decides that recruiting Jack to drug Marc with sleeping medication is somehow a better idea. How? In the first scenario, the infidelity is exposed and during an argument with Hayley, Roberto accidentally falls off of the balcony to his death. In the second (and final) scenario, Marc has a change of heart, keeping the secret to himself, leaving Roberto to live his married life in blissful ignorance. Apparently, if in the second scenario love prevails, being honest isn’t part of the deal. Hayley’s infidelity is excused because according to her “it didn’t mean anything” and she “loves Roberto!” If love truly prevailed - if Haley truly loved Roberto - the truth should’ve come out with Hayley admitting it and (hopefully) Roberto forgiving. But, that’s just me and my ideas. 

Anyways, Hayley also decides to invite Jack’s ex-girlfriend Amanda for whatever reason (it’s not even mentioned if Amanda and Hayley are friends) and to sit her and Jack at the same table. I thought she loved her brother? It’s no surprise when the table arrangement goes south, and is that the fault of the little kids who switched the name cards, or the bride who planned: not only for those particular people to sit at the table but to add a sleeping drug into the mix? 

DINA

Olivia Munn plays Dina

Olivia Munn really tries with this role. You can tell she attempted to bring something to the table with Dina, but - similar to Jack - there’s not much to her. She’s a foreign correspondent and former roommate/friend of Hayley, but she’s mainly just the pretty girl who’s Jack’s love interest. Dina is at the wedding as a plot device. She’s there to remind Jack to seize his chance at love, she’s there to be separated from Jack or whisked away, she almost exists as a symbol. Her story of being kidnapped whilst in Afghanistan and coming back to care for a sick mother who would eventually pass is played twice for laughs, making it hard to find anything to care about for her. “Does she even like Jack?” is what I wondered in the back of my mind. She definitely engages in conversation with him, but her flirtiness is hard to find as more than friendliness. It’s known that Dina is newly single, having broken up with an ex. While this is a golden opportunity for Jack, it’s not even determined whether Dina is interested in another relationship. It certainly would’ve been nice to see Dina try to make an effort towards Jack as well - truly making it feel as if both sides are being kept apart.

BRYAN & REBECCA

Joel Fry and Aisling Bea play Bryan and Rebecca

It’s established early that the comedic side-kick is Bryan, the man-of-honor-maid-of-honor, whose relationship to Hayley or Jack doesn’t feel entirely sincere no matter how the film tries. He doesn’t come across as a “ride-or-die” type of best friend, and it’s unclear how he and Hayley even met, or what his relationship is like with Jack. Is he best friends to both of them? There’s little time to ask these questions (not like the film would answer) since Bryan announces his plan for the evening: convincing famous director Vitelli to give him a role in a film. This “subplot” is little plot, since Vitelli’s presence or effect on the wedding is barely felt. In the first scenario, this plan fails tremendously, with Bryan (victim of the sleeping medicine) falling asleep on Vitelli and mid-speech. In the second scenario, the plan works, but only after he falls in love with Rebecca, the blunt Irish guest whose relation to Jack or Hayley is not made clear. Honestly, Rebecca was my favorite character, possibly because she had a clear personality. Even if her chatterbox nature was exploited for exposition, Aisling Bea plays the obliviously honest nature with such perfection that I didn’t mind. Rebecca and Bryan have supposedly dated, but in the end, the two end up together, so there’s little time to care about what caused the breakup. I could only wish that Bryan had acted as more of a wingman for Jack and Rebecca had been given a larger role, perhaps as a wingwoman for Dina.

MARC

Jack Farthing plays the coked-up wedding crasher

If Marc was more of a looming threat, his arrival could’ve easily saved the movie. In fact, I was intrigued by his arrival: who is this disheveled, red-eyed man stumbling into the wedding reception? Whoever he was, he was obviously up to no good. However, the one thing that makes Marc interesting: the secret of him and Hayley having slept together, is quickly taken away or avoided when Hayley reveals the information to Jack (and the audience) on her own. Marc is not much of a physical threat either, his druggy demeanor makes him easy to overtake, hence why in the first scenario he’s locked up in a armoire. While the whole situation with Marc could have easily been avoided had Hayley had security remove him, the sleeping drug intended for him never finds its way in his champagne glass. And what’s worse: the audience never gets to see that scenario. If Marc was intended to be the antagonist of this movie (which the film will try to convince you he is), he surely failed by barely being much of a threat to begin with. 

CHAZ & AMANDA

Allan Mustafa and Freida Pinto play Chaz and Amanda

If Hayley’s enemy of love is Marc, then surely Jack’s is his ex-girlfriend Amanda. Or, supposed to be. Unfortunately, what is told about Amanda is worse than what is shown. For someone who’s supposed to be extremely rude and problematic, Amanda just seems to be extremely annoyed at best. Even when seated next to Jack, she doesn’t bother commenting on the situation, but her unbearable fiancé Chaz sure does. His angry comments towards Jack seem to be coming from a place of hurt: Amanda has not responded to his marriage proposal six months prior. But where Chaz could really be a character to wreak some havoc, especially for Jack, his lines are delegated to unfunny penis jokes for nearly the entirety of the movie. No wonder Amanda is annoyed.

SIDNEY

Tim Key plays Sidney

Speaking of annoying, it’s time to talk about the last character of the ensemble: Sidney. Who is this guy? Once again, his relationship is not made clear and the audience is quite confused by the kilt-wearing-crotch-adjusting guest who lacks social intelligence. You can tell when Sidney is supposed to be funny and unfortunately it falls short every time. I guess him finding love in the end is supposed to make us feel some type of way, but it failed to move me. Every member of an ensemble should have something to contribute, and I can say - aside from a few scenes where he was needed to act as a barrier between Jack and Dina - Sidney was completely unnecessary in the film.

VITELLI

Paolo Mazzarelli plays Vitelli in the film

Why was Vitelli in this film? What exactly did he add? Is he actively scouting for a new movie or did guests just assume? What’s his whole relationship thing with Dina? He offered her a ride - was he romantically interested or trying to cast her? Who even is this guy? How does Roberto know him?  

I just...why?

THE ORACLE

Penny Ryder voices The Oracle

There’s a narrator in this film. Don’t ask why. Not only is she completely unnecessary and unhelpful, the message she spews for a majority of the film is not only untrue but contradicts the entire plot: that chance is the enemy of love.

“REPEAT?”

Confused, Bryan? So am I.

I don’t what’s worse: that I can’t tell you how many times the film lived up to the “repeat” part of its name, or that I don’t want to. It’s true: the film only plays out the entirety of two scenarios when it comes to seating at the table. The rest are muddled in what is perhaps the worst montage I’ve seen recently (and I’ve been subjected to multiple ‘senior szn’ recaps on IGTV), and offer no information. In this montage, we don’t know who has the sleeping drug, and the entirety of the table isn’t even in frame. You don’t know who is sitting where or who has the sleeping drug. I guess it doesn’t matter because Jack and Dina don’t end up together, but it does matter because it needs to make the wait worth it. The audience should be subjected to different crazy scenarios: they should realize how completely wrong everything has gone. They should be tired of reliving the same wedding reception, they should want Jack and Dina to end up together to just end it. 

But I must say, the best part of the montage was Jack and Rebecca end up tongue-kissing. That’s a scenario I’d love to see.

CONCLUSION

A kiss to end it all

I hate to bash a directorial debut. But I hate wasted potential more.

Love Wedding Repeat could’ve been something great - it really could’ve. It’s easy to see the same idea executed better going down as a modern rom-com classic. But Love Wedding Repeat’s failure to live up to its name is a major disappointment, especially giving the talented leads (who are better off playing friends than a couple). The idea was certainly there, and so were the resources. I mean, they shot on-location in Rome. But if Love Wedding Repeat shows anything, it’s how a lackluster script can truly harm a concept. You can’t tell us sad stuff about our characters, show the sadness. Show the tension between Jack and Amanda, show us the camaraderie between Hayley and Bryan, show how reckless and wild Marc is - make us care and understand. It shouldn’t just be Jack who wants a kiss between him and Dina - it should be us.

Overall, I can only hope what Netflix has in store for the future when it comes to rom-coms isn’t anywhere close to repeating this complete mess. 

[onestowatch]

Moontower Gives a Voice to What We’re All Feeling on ‘What Day Is It?’ [Q&A]

Los Angeles based Indie-electro trio Moontower just unveiled their vibrant new EP What Day Is It?. Aptly titled for the current situation the world faces, we are all left wondering that same question as every day blends into the next. The highly anticipated release features innovative and enthralling soundscapes as well as relatable messages including striving for self-awareness and relational connection.

Moontower’s music combines quirky pop with French house inspired production. From their infectious singles to invigorating live shows, Moontower is a band on the rise. Ones to Watch had the opportunity to speak with them about their latest EP, virtual tour and musical influences.

Ones to Watch: In late May you released a 15-minute performance video entitled “What Day Is It?”. What inspired you to create an EP with the same name?

Moontower: We started Moontower as a live-focussed project and that has never really changed… With that in mind, it’s always been our intention to be able to FIRST play our songs live for people before releasing them, giving concert go-ers the opportunity to get acquainted with something new in the space that we intend the songs to be “best” heard. With all of the craziness that is 2020, we needed to get a little creative with how to keep that up! Our hope with putting out the “What Day Is It?” performance at the beginning of the Summer was that people could familiarize and experience the songs with live energy before the whole project was released, the same way you would normally in a venue.

The compelling four-track release has a uniquely experimental sound touching on themes of regret, self-doubt and broken relationships. What prominent message do you hope listeners will take away from this EP?

For our first EP, “Season 1”, we used a conduit to tell our own stories, that being a character named William Hollywood – a crime fighting cowboy at the center of our surrealist visual album. For this one, we wanted to tackle something both simpler and more daunting – writing about ourselves without a conduit. With this EP, we’ve touched very directly on some serious subjects to us personally – deaths in the family, dejection inspired by the downfall of our heroes, the unravelling of a relationship, lovesickness causing personal stagnation, and more. We hope people feel inspired to see the beauty in the process of putting yourself back together, especially when things work out differently than how you hoped.

Moontower just completed a virtual interactive tour. Can you explain more about what that experience was like?

Tom - The most important thing that we wanted to offer to differentiate the 15 minute “What Day Is It?” performance video from the 4 night virtual tour was giving people the closest thing they could have to going to a “real” show even when they can’t leave their living room. So, with the “What Day Is It?” virtual tour, you could see everyone else who was “there” and celebrate with them like you were at a venue, you could visit the “virtual merch booth”, there was an opening set and a meet and greet after the show. Really, our goal was to not compromise even in the time when so much is different than what we had envisioned before quarantine.

Jacob - It kept us sane. We had our first headline tour canceled, it would have been really easy to slide into a cycle of self-pity. Luckily we never had the time to.. and for that we have to thank our fans. The fact that we have people who want to see us put on something like this, we just wanted to give them (and ourselves) an experience that was deserving of their desire to look forward to something.

Devan - The experience was surreal, all around. It felt like a different kind of live show! For me, what sticks is the delirious, good, tired feeling that I usually get by the end of a show night. On a normal day of show, If I’ve put everything I could into setup, soundcheck, performing the music the best that I could, and talking with as many fans as I can – it usually ends up with me feeling pretty exhausted by the end of the night (but in the best way). I got the same feeling at the end of each night of our Virtual Tour, which I didn’t realize I needed! Putting on this Virtual Tour was not easy by any stretch – but like most things with Moontower, after putting in the heavy lifting we enjoyed every second of the reward.

On the topic of shows, you’ve performed live with Night Riots and The Driver Era as well as opened for COIN and Cold War Kids. Do you have any interesting tour stories you can share with us?

Tom - I think it is appropriate to give a little shoutout to Riker Lynch, the bassist of The Driver Era who replaced all of our stage water bottles with vodka on the last night of our tour with them. Nothing like sweating on stage and quickly downing a water bottle to discover it is very much NOT water.

Jacob - To jump off that story ^ I usually throw out water bottles to the crowd after our sets (venues charge too much for water) but yeah, not that night. It’s beautiful to feel like you’re home no matter where you go, that’s what our community gives to us...even if nobody knows who you are at the start of the night, you have friends by the end.

Devan - We’ve definitely had those hilariously classic touring stories, from fast food runs to the strange people you meet, to the unexpected – those never get old. Overall though, I do want to share that we’ve had the pleasure of touring with some of the most professional people in music. Touring is not easy - it’s tough but extremely rewarding work. When we went on those first couple of tours – I had no idea what to expect, yet we had so many pros around us to show the way. Always thankful for their guidance and the friendships made.

Through your infectious indie-electronic music you have managed to grow a dedicated and loyal fan base.  Who are some of your musical influences and how have they seeped into your sound?

Tom - Moontower started shortly after Jake and I went to go see one of my favorite groups Lemaitre at the El Rey. They really were (and are) so far ahead of their time and the way that they mixed alternative and dance in a live setting really inspired us to get the project off the ground and influenced what we set out to do in a major way. So much love to Ketil and Ulrik!

Jacob - There’s a lot about The Killers that speaks to what we want to do and where we want to go. It’s powerful pop-music you can dance and cry to. They’ve been a band forever, we wanna be touring and making albums together like that and even beyond till we’re as old as The Stones.

Devan - Our tastes are pretty different across the board. Tom’s typically obsessed with dance, French house, & impeccably-produced songs (SebastiAn, Caribou, Breakbot, Busy P). Jake’s got an obsession with well-written songs based on structure, bulletproof lyrics and melodies (Julia Michaels, Phoebe Bridgers, Billy Joel, Manchester Orchestra). I’m obsessed with songs that have grand & strong instrumental harmony (Coldplay, U2, Pat Metheny Group, Tears for Fears). Together, we like the middle ground of Daft Punk meets The Killers – it’s our sweet spot.

What is next for Moontower?

We’ve done a lot that we were very blessed to be able to get done before COVID hit – touring, filming big sequential music videos, promoting our EPs, and playing internationally. What we’re so excited to do next is something none of us have ever actually done before: make a debut full-length album. :)

Lastly, who are your "Ones to Watch"?

There’s an EP coming from a new artist going by Skofee! Also, always so much love to our friends constantly releasing music we love – Younger Hunger, OSTON, Valley, & Max Leone!

[themechaneer]

How would you say Joel sounds? Do you have an official voiceclaim for him?

Voice || Headcanon

So I was actually just talking to somebody about this a bit but honestly—-. I ain’t got much for you nonny. This may arguably be my laziest headcanon to date but essentially Charlie Humman. Joel’s fc is also his voiceclaim as far as register goes. 

Now for some details. Joel grew up in a dual accent home just like his brother. His father was Australian, while his mother was French. Due to having spent more time just talking with his father through the years its noticable that he definitely picked up more of Casey’s accent and slang then he did Remy’s. 

The twang his voice has is aussie, the way his mouth treats constanants and vowles is to. But lemme tell you something, there is a wide variation in Australian accents and Joel’s own is softer then what his father’s sounds like. He has what would be reffered to a general accent or the ‘I don’t have an accent’ accent. Actors like Hugh Jackman have this accent, olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe has this accent. But it is there in the way hard ‘I’ sounds in words have a tendency to turn to the sound ‘Ai’ like you find in the word ‘aisle’. He does have a glottal stop when it coems to ‘T’s’ on the end of words. It’s subtle, but its definitely there if your muse has an ear for linguistics or accents and pays attention.

So here is Travis Fimmel, Casey’s fc, speaking in his own Australian accent. This is an example of what Joel would’ve grown up listening to and where his most of his own accent came from.

That’s not to say he didn’t get any of his mothers verbal mannerisms though. He did learn to speak French fluently from her after all. The best indications once could manage to find in Joel’s speech is in words with a heavy R. He does have a uvular trill though again it’s softer then his mom’s own and you’d have to be paying attention to catch it or be paying close attention to the way he pernounces certain words.

That being said here is Remy’s fc/vc the lovely Clemence Poesy and her accent~.

And as a bonus here is Charlie himself speaking in a Cockney accent which is an east britian accent. I figure it wouldn’t be a bad idea to let you hear this given the Australian accent as we know it was actually from southeast britian and developed from the accent of those there that migrated to Australia. So this isn’t QUITE it, again Joel’s accent is Australian not cockney, and is much much more subtle, not to mention his voice notiecably warmer and deeper then Charlie’s character in this but I hope you all enjoy it just the same.

[kneelbeforeclefairy]

Okay, I'll play @fangirling-inthe-waverider 's tag game

Real Name? Francesca

Nickname? Fran , Francy, Chess, Chessie, Chesca. People have a compulsive need to shorten my name even though it's the same amount of syllables than a lot of normal names. Also, Buttercup, but only @bestnoncannonship is allowed to call me that. And any character I cosplay.

Zodiac? Aquarius/Capricorn cusp. Yes, you need both of them. But I'm more Aquarius if I have to choose.

Favorite musicians or groups? David Bowie, Queen, Emilie Autumn, Voltaire, the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Iron Maiden, the Ramones. And of course, Broadway stuff. I like Stephen Sondheim, ALW, Boulbil&Shoenberg, Lin-Manuel Miranda. I don't really have that many Broadway stars I like but I have preferences within casts. it's all about the score.

Favorite sports teams? I don't sports! Did you SEE how many musicals I rattled off there? If someone makes me say something sports-y I usually say the Mets cause I saw one (1) Mets game once and I don't remember it, but they're in queens and they can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory every time and I somehow respect that.

Other blogs? Not telling! I have a rather prolific alter ego who runs an askblog but half the fun is keeping those two people separate.

Do I get asks? No, but alter ego up there does.

How many blogs do i follow? 238. That's...less that I thought it would be

Tumblr crushes? If I crushed, which I don't, I certainly wouldn't display it HERE. But I do have a few blogs I get excited when I see a post from. Again,not telling

Lucky numbers? Never thought about it. If I had to pick maybe 32 from an incident where I wandered into a Buddhist temple and the lady who ran it told me in a very thick Chinese accent about the 32 Buddhas and I was NOT leaving until I prayed to them (she was very insistent) and told me anything I prayed to the 32 Buddhas about would come true. So I prayed for a job and got one a few days later. I tried to Google who the 32 Buddhas were and couldn't find any information and still don't know who I prayed to.

What am I wearing? A black nightgown

Dream vacation? Right now I just wish Greece would open again so I can see some more of the sites so I don't feel like I wasted my time here. Outside of that, Paris is always a good idea.

Dream Car? I never learned the breeds of car and at this point I'm too afraid to ask.

Favorite food? ...I am too much of a foodie to pick just one. But I'm a sucker for anything matcha flavored. Maybe Tikka masala curry. Or pho.

Drink of choice? Tea, or any soda in a strange flavor.

Instruments? Piano. I can replicate music I hear to a reasonably accurate degree,sight read almost anything immediately, and fake things off chords. I can't play any classical music, cannot hit every note off of sheet music (you get an accurate approximation but not every note), and I have trouble with anything where I have to move my hand too much. The way I play piano basically shouldn't exist. I also play Autoharp and in order to teach my mother uke I learned a few chords on that. I would like a theremin. And maybe a kithara. Oh, and I guess voice. I did study voice in high school.

Languages? English, pretty conversational in French but it's better when I'm drunk, beginner American Sign Language, and Greek. I understand more Greek than I speak, but I have enough to get through daily transactions.

Celebrity crushes? Too Aro for that shit. But I think I would fangirl out the roof if I met Lin Manuel Miranda. And I was starstruck when I met Ben Vereen. He's a Broadway LEGEND

Random facts? I have a going on fifteen year long obsession with Alexander the Great. I can hypnotize people. I have ADHD. I tried to read the entire Bible all the way through but got stuck in Isaiah. I can bake a mean loaf of bread. I love silent movies.

tagging: @actualshonenprotagonist @wotchertonks7

[thesporkidentity]

Get To Know Me

I was tagged by @hakyeonniedaegoonie. It has been...a very long time since I’ve done any of these so why the hell not. I don’t have to be a cryptid in my own garbage can

rules: answer these questions then tag people you would like to know better!

nickname:  Kit. Or spork I guess, though that would be a very strange thing to shout at me on the street. I would absolutely respond, but it would be weird.

height: 5′2

time: it is currently 6:10 pm

fav bands/solo artists: Oh dear. I’m just gonna list some of the most recent plays on my iTunes. I have difficulty choosing “favorites” because I like a lot of different things in a lot of different ways. Air Supply, Billy Joel, BTS, The Civil Wars, Ella Fitzgerald, EXO, Florence + The Machine, Heart, Inspection 12, Johnny Cash, Journey, Kesha, Lady Gaga, MAMAMOO, Marianas Trench, The Mountain Goats, Muse, P!nk, Park Hyoshin, Regina Spektor, Sara Bareilles, SHINee, Simon & Garfunkel, TAEMIN, Vienna Teng, VIXX, WALK THE MOON

song stuck in my head: America by Simon and Garfunkel. (It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw...)

last movie i saw: I...honestly could not tell you. I’ve been much more into tv shows than movies lately so it might very well be my yearly drunken 4th of july re-watch of National Treasure.

last thing i googled: reverse lookup for a phone number to see if i should pick up the phone. shockingly (gasp) it was a spam caller so i ignored it.

other blogs: used to have an adult blog before the tittypocalypse. i also have one specifically related to a novel idea that i want to write but likely never will, and one related to music because i’m very devoted to my main blog being chaotic trash and that would be too consistent for me and also i’m trying not to drag people unwittingly into my hell-spiral.

do i get asks: i used to. but since the advent of tumblr messenger (and exchanging phone numbers with a few friends) most of our communication takes place outside of my inbox. i also used to have a few really sweet anons, but i had to stop accepting anon messages for a while due to nazis, and my sweet anons have not returned since i turned anon back on.

why i chose my username: the superpower i wanted most as a child was invisibility, and my favorite eating utensil is the spork

following: i don’t know if that’s asking how many i follow or how many i am following. i’m gonna go with how many i follow because i think that’s what was intended? maybe? anyway i follow 60 blogs, though probably at least a third are inactive at this point.

what I’m wearing: tank top and underwear. i live in florida okay?

dream job: musician. at some point in the past i allowed the adults in my life to talk me out of it and pursue a “safer” career. so i’m an industrial and systems engineer. but i am currently very seriously considering how it might be possible to transition back into music.

dream trip: i’ll be honest i don’t really have one at this point. traveling is difficult for me for a variety of reasons, so i don’t really dream about it too much. i suppose if i had the means i would love to take a trip to visit all my far-flung friends in their hometowns

fav food: sushi?

play any instruments: I’ve been playing the piano six i was 6 years old. i’ve been trying to teach myself guitar lately but it...has not been going well lol. it’s just that the guitar is made for people much larger than myself and it is honestly difficult to wrap my arms around it when its body is almost as big as my own

fav song: oh no please don’t do this to me

play(ed) any sports: i used to be a swimmer. specialized in butterfly and endurance events.

hair color: dark brown just about 1 shade up from black

eye color: blue

most iconic song: i don’t understand how this is different from fav song? whatever. iconic. let’s say Everytime We Touch by Cascada

random fact: due to a weird interaction with a medication, the bones of my teeth have a slight blue tint at the very bottom where the roots attach to my jaw

languages you speak/are learning: mainly English nowadays. i’m not sure i can say Latin and French anymore because while i was very comfortable with them in the past I haven’t had occasion to use them often in about 10 years so. my vocabulary is probably shot at this point. i would probably need subtitles again if i tried to watch anything in french.

describe yourself as aesthetics/things: well behind me in my dining room i have a wall of framed vintage matchbook art of cats getting drunk and making bad decisions that’s...probably about as representative as you could get

Tagging: @ifeelbetterer @amberlyinviolet @bonesbuckleup @thunderboltsortofapenny @ink-phoenix @boopifer @killerville @melthedestroyer

no pressure though. and anyone else who wants to do it don’t feel left out just go ahead and do it and tag me if you want <3

[thebreakfastgenie]

Tag game!

Tagged by @nonthirsty-queenie​

Answer 21 questions and tag 21 (or how many you want who cares) people you’d like to get to know

Nickname: I don’t have one :( please give me one

Sign: bold of you to assume I was born

What I’m wearing: fuzzy pajama pants

Dream job: I don’t even know. I might want to be a writer in a magical world where I could pursue a creative field without worrying about health insurance. 

Favorite quotes: There are a whole bunch from Lemony Snicket I usually recite but I’m too tired to find them right now. Just know there are many more I’m not listing. 

“The truth is, these weren’t very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”  --Deep Throat

“I find it more comforting to believe that this... isn’t simply a test.” --Dr. Gregory House on “House MD”

I’m gonna annotate this one because I do feel a little ridiculous including a House quote, but it’s actually very important to me because it kind of sums up a significant part of my worldview. The scene this is from, a conversation about the afterlife, articulated some of my thoughts. I adamantly do not believe in an afterlife and find the idea somewhere between unappetizing and horrifying. 

Favorite food: I love so many food. Sushi, especially spicy tuna roll. Pasta and pizza of all kinds. Tacos. Chocolate cake. 

Favorite movie: Apollo 13, Bohemian Rhapsody, Star Trek IV: The One With the Whales, Yellow Submarine, this is only a selection

Favorite sport: soccer and baseball

Dream trip: I want to go to Australia and New Zealand so badly

Languages: English and very limited very bad French

Favorite song: I can’t pick but my defaults are You May Be Right and Vienna by Billy Joel. I’ve also lately been fond of ‘39 and The Miracle by Queen. Also, Tears In Heaven by Eric Clapton. 

Favorite book: Matilda, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Good Omens, Ella Enchanted, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Fault In Our Stars, Speak, this is just what I can think of off the top of my head

What do I hate: being sick right now

Random fact: I’ve had platinum in my body for over nine years

Describe yourself as aesthetic things: yellows, reds, bold prints, sunlight filtered through trees, lemons, daffodils, fresh-baked bread, dripping ice cream cones

Do I get asks: not enough :( send me more!

Other blogs: none that are active. I keep meaning to make @jedbartletsdankmemestash active again but I never have time. (if you want to mod a west wing meme blog hmu)

Hogwarts house: I don’t know I guess I’m a Ravenclaw but I don’t really care

Patronus: cat! snow leopard, maybe. 

Favorite characters: to name a few: Julian Bashir (DS9), Spock (Star Trek), Josh Lyman (The West Wing), Esther Hoffman (A Star Is Born 1976), Crowley & Aziraphale (Good Omens), Tony Stark (MCU), Ellie Miller (Broadchurch), Alec Hardison (Leverage), Shelagh Turner (Call The Midwife), Hazel Lancaster (The Fault In Our Stars), Melinda Sordino (Speak)

Any updates on a new fic: I’m working on a Star Trek fic currently. It was supposed to be the short fast one to get the ball rolling on my big one but it’s not going so fast now, which is predictable. 

Tag Others: I’m tired and sick and suffering but I want to get to know you all so do it if you want! That goes for anyone reading this. 

[allons-y-to-hogwarts-713]

Playlist: Neal Caffrey Meets Winn Schott (....I have no idea why this needs a playlist, but now it does. Sorry. 😆)

Thanks! ❤️

Admittedly I don’t know much about Winn, having only seen a few episodes of Supergirl when it first aired. So these songs are based entirely on what I’ve gathered from the gifs that bless my dash, and I hope they’re actually relevant. He seems like a precious, anxious, theatre bean who would defend his friends to his death but needs to learn to give himself some love and time too.

There’s five songs for each of the two cuties, and I alternated them starting with a song for Neal, then Winn, then Neal, then Winn, and so on, though a lot of them could overlap a bit too. There’s also a bonus song at the end that I think fits both of them. 🙂

“New York State of Mind” - Billy Joel (or Ramin Karimloo’s cover feat. Hadley Fraser 😍)

“Broadway, Here I Come!” - Jeremy Jordan (yeah, a Jeremy song for a Jeremy character lol)

“Sharp Dressed Man” - ZZ Top

“Corner of the Sky” - from Pippin (I like the New Broadway Cast recording, but I really want to hear Jeremy sing this)

“Smooth Operator” - Sade

“You’ve Got a Friend in Me” - Randy Newman

“Bésame Mucho” - cover by Thalía feat. Michael Bublé

“Pompeii” - Bastille

“Le Festin” - Camille (this is from the Ratatouille soundtrack; I don’t speak French but I looked up a translation and it’s actually pretty relevant)

“Friend Medley” - Anthem Lights

“Trouble” - Avicii (bonus song that applies to both of them)

Here’s a Spotify link too. 🙂

I hope it’s accurate, and I hope you like it! 😁❤️

send me playlist + a title = get a playlist of 5-10 songs

[rachelbrosnahanweb]

New Update has been published on Rachel Brosnahan Web

New Post has been published on http://rachel-brosnahan.org/2018/12/07/press-marvelous-mrs-maisel-star-rachel-brosnahan-on-exploring-love-and-privilege-in-season-2/

Press: 'Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' Star Rachel Brosnahan on Exploring Love and Privilege in Season 2

[This story contains spoilers from season two of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.]

The award-winning actress talks with THR about the sophomore season of Amazon’s critical darling — and how Midge’s estranged husband Joel fits into the picture.

Rachel Brosnahan’s buoyant and nuanced performance as housewife-turned-comedian Miraim “Midge” Maisel was one of the highlights of last year’s TV slate, and has been deservedly lauded since by critics and awards bodies alike.

Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel presents some unique technical challenges for its star, who must deliver lengthy stand-up comedy monologues with spontaneity — since Midge’s style is often stream-of-consciousness and off-the-cuff — and at the lightning speed that creator Amy Sherman-Palladino’s world demands. Season two, now streaming on Amazon, gives Brosnahan even more opportunities to shine, as Midge’s new life as a rising, struggling comic scrapes up against her old one as a perfectly content housewife. Featuring extended jaunts in Paris and the Catskills before following Midge and her manager Susie (Alex Borstein) on a multi-state tour, the new episodes see Midge grappling with the realities of the path she’s chosen, and what she may have to give up in order to truly succeed.

Below, Brosnahan speaks with The Hollywood Reporter about Midge’s season two journey; her relationships with Susie, estranged husband Joel (Michael Zegen) and new love interest Benjamin (Zachary Levi); and how the comedy world is impacting her social skills.

Did filming season two feel different from season one, now that you know how successful the show is?

Fortunately, no, it didn’t. It still feels like we’re shooting in a vacuum a little bit, because it’s a really intense show to shoot. We have a lot of pages in a very short period of time, really long hours, and so we do get to escape. We got to dig deeper into almost all the relationships on the show this year, and I’m so fortunate that as Midge, I have relationships on the show with almost every other character. I enjoyed getting to work more with so much of our core ensemble, and to be able to shoot more together. That was one of the biggest differences between season one and two, is that in season two, you get to see a lot more of the whole family, and the whole ensemble together. Those scenes were fun to shoot — crazy, psychotic, but fun, just to get to see each actor and character have moments to shine.

Starting the season in Paris must have been an interesting change of pace.

The Paris scenes were actually the first that we shot, which was very strange! It was all of our same people, but we also had partially a French crew, and it was a bit of a strange note to start the show on for season two, to be somewhere else. But it was a blast — we got to go to Paris and hang out and shoot in beautiful locations and eat 12,000 baguettes!

So the first stand-up scene you shot for this season was the one in Paris, where Midge has a translator?

Yes, which was strange mostly because with the translator, the timing is a little bit different. You really have to wait for that laugh, and it was nerve-wracking, and also most of our audience [in the scene] only spoke French and genuinely had no idea what I was saying without the translator. It was an entirely French background [cast], and we had a French coordinator, so having the French translator was useful!

Was it harder to get back into character because you were in a new location?

The challenge was less getting back to the character in a new location, and more getting back into the character after having had six months away. We’d only shot one season and it was eight episodes, so there’s always that fear that you’ve forgotten how to play them! About halfway through Paris, we were all collectively like, “Oh, we do remember how to do this, we know these people still,” and it was like putting back on a comfy old sweater.

Joel is still a big part of the show this season, and there’s a lingering question of whether he and Midge might give it another shot. What’s your take on that?

The big question at the end of season one is whether or not Midge and Joel are going to get back together, and it’s something that we’ll continue to explore throughout season two. I remember Amy saying to me before we shot the pilot that Midge and Joel have children together, so they’ll never be able to be completely out of each other’s lives. And while there may be various points — as you saw at the end of season one — in which they may feel like they’re back on the same page, almost as quickly one of them will always take a step forward while the other takes a step back, or sideways, or on a diagonal. They will, as is true for so many relationships, continue to just miss each other, perhaps forever.

Episode five ends with an incredible moment where Midge realizes that Abe (Tony Shalhoub) is in the audience halfway through her set, and has to keep going. What was that scene like to film?

It was crazy! Midge is a fast talker anyway, but I have never talked so fast in my entire life. All I can think about when I think about that scene is the days leading up to it, where I drove every single member of our crew insane, running around the set just saying that entire speech over and over and over again, at lighting speed. Susie says early on that it’s the biggest crowd that Midge has ever performed for, and it was also the biggest crowd that I have ever performed for. It was genuinely nerve-wracking, doing stand-up in front of Tony. He’s never been around for any of those scenes — nor has anybody but Alex, and Michael I suppose — and it was petrifying and exhilarating and he was so wonderful. There was something really cathartic about it, to have it all out in the open, for it finally to come out in such a Midge way. Because man, she can’t shut up!

What’s happening in Midge’s mind in that moment?

Midge is one of those people who, when the elephant is in the room, she cannot stop talking about the elephant. About what it looks like, how much it weighs, how it’s standing in the corner, how nobody else is talking about it — she’s a master of observational comedy, and she cannot keep her mouth shut. She just shoots herself in the foot over and over and over.

Zachary Levi’s Benjamin introduces a completely new dynamic for Midge. What does he bring to the show?

His character is so much fun, and such a good foil for Midge. The thing about Benjamin is that he is just as smart as she is, and just as stubborn as she is, and that makes for some very entertaining and frustrating scenes between the two of them. They are both weird, and they’re a funny pair, they both make complete sense, and make no sense at all. Zach is a wonderful actor, he’s so funny, and it was a blast to have him join our crew, we’ve been kind of a tight group for such a long time and it was nice to have some fresh blood.

What does Benjamin represent for Midge?

Joel and Ben couldn’t be more the opposite [of each other]; and on paper, Benjamin is everything that Joel wasn’t, and everything that Abe wanted. Benjamin is a doctor, he’s tall and handsome and traditional. I guess he’s getting married a little bit late, but he is stable and has money, and once they get past their initial tension he treats Midge very well, treats her like a queen, lifts her up. That’s appealing to those around Midge, but also to Midge in some ways. For someone who thought her entire life had imploded, maybe it’s possible to have a second chance at the life she’d always dreamed of with someone like Benjamin.

How does Midge and Susie’s relationship develop this season?

I love their relationship so much. It’s really the core of the show, this budding womance, as Alex lovingly refers to it. They are such an odd couple, and they’ve chosen to link arms and walk down this unbeaten path together, and they’re going to be faced in season two with the reality of what that looks like. They’ve been on this steady uphill climb, but they’ve hit kind of a block in the road as it relates to Sophie Lennon and Harry Drake and the goons, and they’re going to have to overcome this obstacle together. And they sometimes have different ways of doing that. The stakes are a lot higher for Susie, so they butt heads a little bit this season.

It feels like Midge’s privilege, in contrast to Susie really having to hustle, is being emphasized more this season.

I appreciate that this season, Midge is confronted more with her privilege and the idea that she has a safety net to fall back on. Even if she doesn’t always feel that way, it’s there, and that gives her a kind of confidence that Susie has never been afforded the opportunity to have. It’s all or nothing for Susie, this is it. For Midge, there are things that have the potential to pull her off this path, and I think Susie keeps Midge grounded and Midge forces Susie into her feelings a little bit more and embrace the softer side of herself. Midge is interested in the idea of them being friends. To her, that’s what really marks their relationship as something more permanent. Alex said something really interesting that I think is totally true: Susie’s never been afforded the privilege of having friends. She’s just been trying to scrape by, and I think Midge is maybe helping her relax into that idea a little bit more, the idea of having a support system.

Midge gives an incredibly misjudged wedding speech in episode three. Is her stand-up career impacting her ability to socialize in normal life? Yes, as she says to Susie later on the phone, she’s losing her societal filter. I think it’s happening with the more time she spends with Susie, but also the more time she spends immersed in this world of comedy, where there really are no rules as long as it’s funny. If it’s funny, anything goes, and that isn’t really true in real life! I think the lines are blurring for Midge, and she’s losing track of where the line is. That seemed kind of a foreign idea to me, but a good friend of mine is also a stand-up comic, and she told me she’d had the same experience in real life. Suddenly she found herself, in real life, just grossly offending people with things that she would just sling around backstage when she was doing shows, and she was having trouble keeping those worlds separate. That’s something that Midge is definitely struggling to maintain in season two.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

[hughgrantlesbian]

Answer these questions then tag blogs you’d like to know better!

I was tagged by the lovely zigworth aka @chickenwristies

Nicknames: people have always called me tilly or tilda since i was little

Zodiac: pisces sun / aries moon / cancer rising 

Height: 5′4 i think

Time: currently? 10:46pm

Favorite band/artist: i've been deep in the grips of my fifth and most intense taylor swift phase, but apart from that i love amy grant (esp her 80s stuff), alan parsons project, carly rae jepsen, arctic monkeys’ new album, billy joel, cliff richard, electric light orchestra, a whole lotta disco and 2000s pop, etc?

Song stuck in my head: edge of seventeen - stevie nicks

Last movie I saw: watched i, tonya the other night and i was shaken to my core

Last thing I googled: 90s i spy books

Other blogs: @lesbiantaylcr - taylor swift sideblog, @bisexualfinnhudson - very inactive glee sideblog that i don't talk about lmfao

Do I get asks: never

Why I chose this username: i thrift a lot of 90s clothes that were definitely worn by many grannies 

Following: zigworth? always

Average amount of sleep: at least 9 hours usually, but it doesn’t feel like it

What I’m wearing: high waisted blue pants that are supposed to be flares but my legs are too short so we had to cut the flared bits off, stripy sailor top that says “dubrovnik” on it, pink leopard print dressing gown for warmth

Dream job: michael bublé - build a whole career out of singing christmas songs and being vaguely likeable...but with some other side jobs thrown in, like, i want to learn how to fix vintage stereos and cassette decks, and i kinda like the idea of acting in cute lesbian indie movies? 

Dream trip: 2 weeks in a little log cabin in the victorian alps, all by myself with a gorgeous view and a log fire

Favorite food: i’ve been gorging myself on white chocolate and i feel sick, generally though i’m a big fan of anything salty

Play any instruments: i’m pretty ok at piano and pretty awful at guitar, but i also sing quite a bit with varying success

Hair color: naturally dishwater blonde, but i dye it auburny with henna

Languages you speak: english, high school french, 2 years of moderate german

Most iconic song: urgent - foreigner 

Random fact: ever since my nineteenth birthday i’ve suddenly been good at housework and cooking/baking 

Describe yourself as aesthetic things: stacks of vhs tapes, the smell of an iron gliding over linen shirts, vintage cookie tins in patterned orange, delicately fixing a broken cassette with tweezers and tape, glamour shots from 80s sewing magazines, slightly crooked wiry sunglasses, the high pitched whine of an analogue tv, a collection of various electrical cords

Tagging: @alienrealities @chogiwah lovely mutuals...you don’t have to do this but if you want go ahead!!

[ericgiles]

I've got a defensive responsibility as well as trying to get goals and assists.

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[wineandhargreeves]

Characters of Come From Away (A Work in Progress)

All of the names given are taken from the cast recording, a lyric video on Youtube of the cast recording, a bootleg that can be found online of the OBC (link may or may not be found on reddit), and facts from the actual events. Besides that, I’ve done my best to compile all the people I could.

There are spoilers below, so beware.

Roles | Tracks (Main roles are in bold)

·       Claude Noel (Mayor of Gander) | Mayor of Louisbourg | Mayor of Gambo | Derm | Eddie | Brenda’s brother | Passengers [Originated by Joel Hatch]

·       Annette | Captain Beverly Bass | Passengers [Originated by Jenn Collela]

·       Bob | Captain Bristol | Muhumuza | Newfoundlander | Robin | Passengers [Originated by Rodney Hicks]

·       Beulah Davis | Delores | Passengers [Originated by Astrid van Wieren]

·       Constable Oz Fudge | Mr. Michaels | The Rabbi | Joey | Manny | CTV Reporter | Passengers [Originated by Geno Carr]

·       Janice Mosher | American Airlines Flight Attendant | Hindu Woman | Passengers [Originated by Kendra Kassebaum]

·       Kevin Tuerff | Garth | President George W. Bush | CBC Reporter | Passengers [Originated by Chad Kimball]

·       Hannah O’Rourke | Muslim Woman | Bus Driver | Muhuzuma’s Wife | Margie | Passengers [Originated by Q. Smith]

·       Kevin Jung | Ali | Dwight | BBC Reporter | Passengers [Originated by Caesar Samayoa]

·       Diane Grey | Crystal | Brenda | Passengers [Originated by Sharon Wheatley]

·       Nick Marson | Doug Harris | Barbecue Man | Passengers [Originated by Lee MacDougall]

·       Bonnie Harris | Hindu Woman | Al Jazeera Reporter | Passengers [Originated by Petrina Bromley]

Main Characters

·       Claude Noel: The mayor of Gander, he’s an amicable and jovial fellow. However, he often butts heads with Garth over the school bus driver strike. It is his idea to turn the hockey rink into the world’s largest walk-in refrigerator to help preserve all the food.

·       Annette: A teacher at Gander Academy, she often fantasizes about men both local and international. She and Beulah work to prepare the school for the seven hundred passengers sent there.

·       Bob: A young man from New York, he is slow to trust his new surroundings. He comes to adjust when he’s sent to live with the Mayor of Appleton.

·       Beulah Davis: A teacher at Gander Academy, she comes to befriend both Ali and Hannah O’Rourke over the course of their five days in Newfoundland.

·       Constable Oz Fudge: One of the two members of the police department, he’s a friendly face and source of stories.

·       Janice Mosher: A reporter from Rogers TV from Channel-Port aux Basques who’s new to Gander. She is quickly thrust onto the front lines of the action as she coordinates the news for the town.

·       Kevin Tuerff: The head of a California environmental energy company, his relationship with Kevin Jung is strained by the events of their five days in Gander.

·       Hannah O’Rourke: A mother from Queens, New York, she spends much of her time trying to reach Kevin, her son who is a firefighter back home.

·       Kevin Jung: Kevin Tuerff’s self-proclaimed “sexy-tary,” he worries about his family in Brooklyn, New York. His relationship with Kevin Tuerff is strained by the events of their five days in town.

·       Diane Grey: A woman from Texas, she is worried about her son David, who was also flying on September 11. She bonds and falls in love with Nick Marson.

·       Nick Marson: An English oil company worker, he was flying to the United States for a conference when the plane is diverted to Gander. He bonds and falls in love with Diane Grey.

·       Bonnie Harris: An SPCA worker, her main concern is the well-being of the eight dogs, nine cats (one of whom is epileptic), and two rare Bonobo chimpanzees on the planes.

·       Captain Beverly Bass: The first female American Airlines captain in history, she does her best to keep her passengers and crew calm and informed.

·       American Airlines Flight Attendant: One of Captain Bass’ crew, she tries to handle the passengers as well, but her personal fears get in the way.

·       Ali: An Egyptian Muslim passenger and head chef for an international hotel chain, he experiences discrimination from the passengers, crew, and even some Newfoundlanders.

·       Doug Harris: An air traffic controller, he looks out for Bonnie as well as the planes on the tarmac.

·       Dwight: An employee of Gander International Airport, he reports to Bonnie and Doug that per FAA instructions, American planes are being treated as bomb threats.

Minor Characters

·       Derm: The mayor of Appleton. A well-meaning man, he and his wife welcome Bob into their home with open arms.

·       Brenda’s Brother: A bar patron who reveals that his and Brenda’s 68-year-old uncle just came out as bisexual.

·       Eddie: A Jewish Newfoundlander from Poland, he reclaims his faith with the Rabbi’s help.

·       Captain Bristol: A Virgin Atlantic pilot who converses with Annette.

·       Muhumuza: An African passenger who doesn’t understand English, he is protective of his wife and daughter.

·       Robin: Kevin Tuerff’s new secretary at the tenth anniversary event.

·       Delores: A paranoid passenger who can belt a mean rendition of “My Heart Will Go On.”

·       Mr. Michaels: The gym teacher at Gander Academy, he can speak Spanish and can translate for some of the passengers.

·       The Rabbi: An Orthodox Jewish rabbi, he creates a kosher kitchen for other Jewish passengers, some Hindu women, a Muslim, and a couple of vegetarians. He also learns the story of Eddie, a Jewish Newfoundlander.

·       Joey: A man who is frustrated due to being on his plane for so long.

·       Hindu Women: Two women who pray in the library of Gander Academy.

·       George W. Bush: The President of the United States, he gives a speech that is broadcasted into Bob’s plane.

·       Muhumuza’s Wife: An African passenger, it is when Garth uses her Bible as a means of communication that she and her family come to trust their new hosts.

·       Margie: A Newfoundlander who answers Bonnie’s phone calls to Claude’s office.

·       Crystal: A Tim Horton’s employee.

·       Brenda: A bar employee, she tells the Kevins that her sister is gay and that her neighbour ran off with their best friend.

·       Manny: The owner of a bar, he reveals that his and Brenda’s daughter is gay.

·       Barbecue Man: A Newfoundlander whom Bob helps steal his own barbecue grill. His wife also prepares a cup of tea for Bob.

·       Walmart Greeter: A Walmart employee who thanks Nick for shopping there and invites him to her place for a shower.

·       Mayors of Louisbourg and Gambo: Two briefly seen characters, likely just as reference to Bob talking about the size of towns in Newfoundland. They look the exact same as Claude, except for the former’s glasses and the latter’s moustache.

·       Cardiologists: The top six cardiologists from all over the world who were on their way to a conference. They help clean the bathrooms at Gander Academy.

·       Flight Attendants: Members of Captain Bass’ all female crew.

·       Reporters: These men and women interview both Newfoundlanders and Come From Aways at the tenth anniversary event.

·       Lyle: An epileptic cat that Bonnie finds in the hold of a plane.

·       Unga: A rare Bonobo chimpanzee who is also pregnant. She suffers a miscarriage in Gander, but later gives birth at the Columbus Zoo to a healthy baby.

·       Ralph: A cocker spaniel who was well-loved by the airport night security crew.

Unseen/Referenced Characters

·       Kevin O’Rourke: Hannah’s son who works as a firefighter in New York. She reaches out for him, but learns after coming home that he had died.

·       Beulah’s Son: A Gander firefighter, Beulah talks about him as a way to connect with Hannah.

·       David Grey: Diane’s son, she is relieved to learn that his flight was safe.

·       Gander: Unga’s son, born after the events of September 11. She had reconceived after her miscarriage in Newfoundland.

·       Tom Brokaw: A prolific NBC anchor, he enlists Janice Mosher for her reporting on the events in Gander. She respectfully declines his offer, but is thankful nonetheless.

·       Captain Charles Burlingame: The captain of American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon. Captain Bass is horrified to learn about his fate.

·       Tom Bass: Captain Bass’ husband, they talk over the phone multiple times. He greets her at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport when she finally comes home.

·       Bob’s Father: Bob calls him to reassure him that he is alright.

·       Celena Jung: Kevin Jung’s younger sister, she lives in Brooklyn.

·       Kevin Jung’s Mother: She lives in Brooklyn and is cared for by Selena.

·       Miss Newman: A French teacher at Gander Academy, she knows some Russian.

·       The Wish Kids: 90 children who were being flown by the Children’s Wish Foundation to Walt Disney World. Even though they were diverted to Gander, the kids still had a grand old time.

·       Doctor O’Brien: A pharmacist in Gander who offers to fill the prescriptions of the passengers.

·       The Shoppers Manager: The manager of a Shoppers Drug Mart, they allow Oz (and eventually, Beulah) to take whatever they need from the shelves.

·       Michah and Lauren: Two other people who are phoned by passengers from the phones by the Newtel building.

·       Rich: Another airport employee mentioned by Dwight.

·       Don Burton and his Wife: A couple that won the Super 7, earning them $4.6 million dollars.

Notes

·       All women except Captain Bass play flight attendants during “Me and the Sky.”

·       All men play the cardiologists.

·       The orchestra appears as musicians at the Legion and during the finale.

·       Everyone plays air traffic controllers.

·       “Newfoundlanders” is used when the Newfoundlander is unnamed in the book and/or lyrics.

·       “Passengers” applies to the Come From Aways who are unnamed by the book and/or lyrics.

 Overall, if anyone has any corrections they know of, please let me know!

P.S Thank you to comefanaway from naming the Mayor of Appleton!

[pieces-falling-from-me]

all of them

Woman!• 1. List 5 things you want to do before the year ends. --- Get another piercing, successfully bake banana bread, read three more books...ummm and I’m not sure what else. The year is almost up!• • 2. What color are your pants? --- Dark destroyed jeans• • 3. Favorite motivational quote. --- “Have some fire. Be unstoppable. Be better than everyone else here and don’t give a damn what anybody else thinks.” (Cristina Yang)• • 4. When was the last time you drank coffee? --- Around 3pm today• • 5. What was the last thing you ate? -- A maple pumpkin muffin!• • 6. Favorite animal. --- Polar bears• • 7. Favorite song. -- Vienna, by Billy Joel or Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper• • 8. Last movie you watched? --- Wonder Woman• • 9. Any turn ons? --- Lots ;)...soft hair, people who smell good, ear kisses, nice collarbones, creative talent, brown eyes• • 10. Any turn offs? --- Also lots. Rudeness, cockiness, patriarchal bullshit, men who have chest hair• • 11. List 4 big words off of the top of your head. --- triskaidekophobia, ubiquitous, penultimate, pamplemousse • • 12. What are some meaningful movies? --- Music of the Heart, The Freedom Writers, Kedi• • 13. 2 most important people in your life right now? -- My wife and daughter :)• • 14. What are 3 things you want to do before the month ends? --- Start Christmas shopping, go hiking before it snows, pay bills lol• • 15. When was the last time you read a good book? --- Just finished one! I’m always reading.• • 16. How long do you study for usually, if you study? --- I was the worst at studying. Always super last minute.• • 17. Do you have any nicknames? -- A couple• • 18. Favorite kind of perfume? (fruity, alluring, etc.) --- Slightly sweet, slightly vanilla-y, slightly smoky• • 19. Do you have any international friends / friends who live out of state? --- Lots!• • 20. What is something unique that you do every single day? --- Umm...I honestly have no idea. • • 21. If there was a movie based on your life, what would it be called? --- “Gay Chaos”• • 22. When was the last time you bought a gift for someone? --- Just this weekend! I bought my wife a necklace. I mean, she picked it out, but it still counts.• • 23. Are you a shopaholic? --- I don’t think so. I do love shopping though when the mood strikes.• • 24. What are some songs that always make you feel better? -- Vienna, by Billy Joel, Time After Time, by Cyndi Lauper, and anything by the Barenaked Ladies• • 25. List 3 activities that you can only enjoy by yourself. --- I really can’t think of any. I pretty much like doing anything with my wife or kid :)• • 26. If you could live in any biome (and survive) which biome would you live in? --- Forest, or Tundra• • 27. How do you like being roused in the morning? --- ...let’s just say my FAVOURITE way is rated R ;)• • 28. How was your day? What did you do? --- It was ok! I went grocery shopping, baked some muffins, and did some casual job hunting while my daughter was at preschool• • 29. What did your last text message say? --- “I’ll eat your muffin.”• • 30. Do you respond to texts quickly? --- Usually right away, unless I literally can’t• • 31. Who was the last person you called? --- My wife• • 32. List 5 things that are on your wish list. --- Like, anything?? World peace, the end of climate change, gun control in America, a food processor, and a private jet• • 33. If you were famous, what do you think you would be famous for? --- Something music-related• • 34. Winter or summer? -- AUTUMN• • 35. What is a quality that all people should have? --- Kindness• • 36. If you could have a large collection of one item, what would that item be? --- Hmm....seaglass• • 37. What have you been thinking about lately? --- Whether or not I want to go back to work.• • 38. What is the secret to a happy life? --- Loving yourself• • 39. What are some phrases you say often? --- “That’s the worst.”, “For real.”• • 40. Favorite food? --- IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE! Lasagna and pie are right up there, though.• • 41. List 3 wishes. -- Didn’t I already do this?• • 42. What are some of your greatest fears? --- My loved ones getting sick or dying, fire, President Trump• • 43. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer? --- Season 2 of Wynonna Earp• • 44. Most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen (in real life)? --- She’s sitting right beside me.• • 45. Spicy food:Like or dislike? --- LOVE• • 46. Scary movies:Like or dislike? --- If I’m in the right mood.• • 47. Do you like to travel? --- Love it.• • 48. Any regrets? --- Not really, no. There’s no point in regrets.• • 49. Do you like rain? --- One of my fave things ever.• • 50. What do you spend most of your money on? --- Eating out, probably• • 51. Would you rather visit the past or the future? --- Hmmm. Past.• • 52. Favorite clothing store? --- Simon’s, Anthropologie, Old Navy/Gap, and a local store called Belle et Rebelle• • 53. What is the best advice you can give to those who are feeling down? --- It gets better. Truly.• • 54. How often do you think about your future? Does it scare you? --- All the time. It’s terrifying.• • 55. What angers you the most? --- Currently? The lack of gun control in America. And I’m not even American.• • 56. When was the last time you got majorly angry? --- See above.• • 57. When was the last time you got really sad? --- Also see above.• • 58. Are you good at lying? --- Haha no• • 59. What foreign language would you like to learn? --- I’m trying to learn Italian, currently! I’d also love to learn Spanish.• • 60. How many languages can you speak and what are they? --- English, French, and VERY basic Italian.• • 61. How often do you go to parties? If you don’t, what do you do instead? --- Not too much anymore, but usually once a month some friend has a gathering. Otherwise I mostly stay home, or go out with the wife or with the wife and kid.• • 62. What books do you plan to read this year? --- I never really plan ahead, I just pick up whatever seems interesting at the time.• • 63. Do you have breakfast every morning? --- Most mornings• • 64. Tell us a secret. --- Calzona will rise. Shh.• • 65. How many concerts have you been to? --- Too many to count• • 66. Last hug? --- Earlier this afternoon• • 67. Who knows you better than anyone else? --- My wife, hands down. Also my twin.• • 68. Baths or showers? --- Both! Showers for actual cleaning, baths for just...soaking.• • 69. Do you think you’re ambitious? --- Somewhat.• • 70. What song is stuck in your head? --- Taylor Swift’s new song, which I actually hate.• • 71. Countries you’ve visited? --- A lot• • 72. What do you most value in your friends? --- Their kindness and sense of humour• • 73. What helps you to sleep better? --- Valerian tea.• • 74. What is the most money you have ever held in your hand? --- Uhhh in my hand?? About 5 grand, I think.• • 75. What makes you nervous? --- Sharing my writing, making new friends• • 76. What is the best advice you’ve ever been given? --- “Being nervous is the same physical reaction as being excited. So you’re not nervous -- you’re excited.”• • 77. Is it easier to forgive or forget? --- Forgive• • 78. First mobile phone? --- First I ever bought myself that was truly mine? A little Motorola candy bar phone. It had a colour screen!• • 79. Strangest dream? --- I usually don’t remember them, actually!• • 80. Best dream? --- Probably something sexy...haha• • 81. Who is the smartest person you know? --- My wife• • 82. Who is the prettiest person on tumblr? --- @myfaerytale ;)• • 83. Do you miss anyone right now? --- Yeah• • 84. Who do you love? Why? --- I love my wife and daughter more than anything in this world.• • 85. Do you like sharing? --- Depends what I’m sharing ;)• • 86. What was the last picture you took with your phone? --- My daughter this afternoon with her hands full of pumpkin muffin dough• • 87. Is there a reason behind everything that happens? --- Yes, I think so• • 88. Favorite genre of music? --- Pretty much everything, honestly• • 89. If you had one word to describe yourself, what would it be? --- Laid-back• • 90. Describe your life in 5 words. --- Laid-back, loving, exciting, fun, happy• • 91. Describe the world in 4 words. --- Chaotic. That’s really the only word.• • 92. Craziest thing you’ve ever done? --- Ummm….a naked polar bear dip?• • 93. First three songs in your favorite playlist? --- I don’t have any premade playlists!• • 94. Are you more creative or logical? --- Creative• • 95. Would you rather lie or hurt someone with the truth? --- Truth• • 96. What are you most proud of? --- I’m raising a pretty great kid• • 97. What personality trait do you admire in other people? --- Kindness, laughter• • 98. When you imagine yourself as really, really relaxed and happy, what are you doing? --- Laying in the sun reading• • 99. How do you usually start a conversation? --- Hi?• • 100. What is the best news you could hear right now? --- That Trump and the entire Republican Party are gone.

[ecotone99]

[RO] A Distant Daydream

It is necessary for the sake of both narrative consistency and authorial vanity to start this recollection by explaining the exacting and tedious circumstances under which I rediscovered the muse for this little story.

One cold November night as I was wasting away amidst the gaudily floral décor of my University Reunion, surrounded by mundane faces and half-empty glasses, I saw her again. There is a long running cliché in the Romance genre where after the protagonist sees his old ingénue (or femme fatale depending on the story) after a long period of time has elapsed, he immediately drops everything to talk with her. Don Quixote was its victim when he clasped eyes on Dulcinea (del Toboso), great Achilles fell to it when he was with Patroclus again in the underworld, and that night I also fell to it. (Albeit with less literary significance)

The shadowy glitter of the tawdry lights illuminated the outline of her body against the faded backdrop of the Reunion. Nervously, I watched as we orbited the various old-acquaintances and older-ex-professors that stopped us to talk as we made our separate ways around the room, drawing closer until we were face to face. After the awkward introductions had been made, the meaningless pre-prepared platitudes voiced, and the small talk talked we got down to the serious business of remembrance. We started with the fates of friends, whose minor heartaches and tragedies fortified us to go deeper into the catacombs of memory. We compared our lives since University had finished and after a time it became clear to me that she had become an adult. We both had. Finally we arrived simply, on time and on budget, at our old relationship.

“At that time, if I am remembering things correctly, I was quite pleasantly in love with you.” I said. (The universal laws of literature dictates that Romance stories must always start with, in some shape or form, a declaration of love)

Her eyebrows rose as if in surprise before forming a perfectly indecipherable mask, “That must be I think the first time, or at least the first time I can remember, when you said you were in love with me. And it’s now when we’re both married!”

“Oh well maybe if I had said it more we’d still be together.” I said, “Good thing I didn’t!” (Slight awkward pause for comedic timing on her part then cue laughter.)

The flow of the conversation moved on to more extravagant and ostentatious reminiscences and by the end of it, it was clear to me that any dregs of past attraction that I had been savoring had long since been drained by her. Nevertheless, I want to capture in frozen prose the remnants of my past emotion, to prevent it as long as possible from dissipating like so much barren smoke amidst the fogs of time. Now, having described both my muse and my intentions there is little left to do except begin; a task that I am both excited and nervous about.

***************

In literature’s best beginnings the author (after a sufficient amount of pre-amble) starts by describing a meeting between two characters. As I was studying literature at that time I might endeavor to reproduce the same effect now, having done the pre-amble above I can get right to it. In this story, I (playing the “Noble Byronic Hero”) was sitting bored and alone amidst a sea of empty chairs and chattering people waiting for the lecturer to arrive. Instead of opening my workbook and preparing for the copious amount of notes that are required for true learning to be achieved, I was staring idly out the window at the assorted people walking between classes.

The lecturer entered the auditorium like he was about to receive an award and was greeted with a heavy silence underlined by the whispers of continued conversation. He made a small throat clearing bark while he was adjusting the lectern’s positioning and the silence became total.

He began reading from a loose collection of pre-prepared notes, speaking in a unique blend of French, Russian, and English accents, “Russian Literature as a notion, an immediate idea, this notion in the minds of non-Russians is generally limited to the awareness of Russia’s having produced half a dozen great masters of prose between the middle of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth…”

Despite the mesmerizing rhythm that the trilingual blend lent to his speech I (or the arrogant little shit I was) soon lost interest in the subject, having already become familiar with the half dozen great masters over the break. After nearly 2 hours of quite condescension on my part the lecture concluded and those students who had scheduled tutorials afterwards gathered around the lecturer while the others left. We were dissected into groups then turned outside armed with some tedious readings and pressing assignments. My group consisted of me (smug and self-satisfied), her (bored and busy), and one of her friends (forgettable and not really part of the story).

A straightforward and bland conversation was struck up as we debated the best approach to our shared homework. In protest of the tedious nature of the discussion, and since I was feeling somewhat bashful in new company, I spent most of my time trying to come up with the opposite answer to any question asked. (Sample: What is something that you are thankful for in modern society? Clean drinking water. Cue laughter.)

“Come on man, take this seriously. There’s no point if you’re just sitting there taking the piss,” her friend said.

“Fine, what’s the next question?” I asked.

“It says here to outline the role that the various cultural, social, and theological influences have played on the development of Russian literature throughout the 19’Th century,” she said.

“Alright, I trust that we are all aware of the cultural and social influence that my boy Pushkin has had?” I said. “By the way have either of you read Eugene Onegin? It’s fucking good.”

“Of course I’m aware of Pushkin and I’ve read Eugene Onegin,” exclaimed her friend.

“What self-respecting person who when studying Russian literature doesn’t read Pushkin?” she said. “My only regret is that I couldn’t read it in Russian. I’m confident that what makes his style so beautiful is lost in translations.”

As I continued to expound my “unique” theories about Pushkin and his influence on literature my reservations began to drop away and soon we started having a real conversation. I’ll spare you the details I was in my twenties my comments weren’t profound. However, after I finished talking the discussion moved away from the assigned work and we started to get to know each other as we told jokes, made fun of classmates, talked about exams etc.

Soon I discovered that I shared most of my classes with her and we began walking together on the way between them. I watched as our relationship grew in the broken time between lecture and tutorials and like any functionally hormonal teenager as soon as we started to spend any regular amount of time I became quite enamored with her. We smoked cigarettes outside in the sun, we worked on essays together in dusty library halls, and I told lots of bad jokes. I savored every moment that we were together and when we weren’t I was thinking about ways to make her laugh.

One bright evening as we were returning from a particularly trite lecture delivered by a particularly trite lecturer we stopped at a University Bar in order to do the only thing that people who go to University Bars do, forget the lecture that they just sat through. We sat down in a corner booth drinks in hand, there was some god-awful student band hammering out a cover of For Whom the Bell Tolls (a classic bar anthem), but we ignored them.

I started throwing out a bunch of half-baked observations and I noted that despite not being drunk my voice came out in a sort of slurred mutter, “Oh no, your other friend in literature is definitely at least a little bit gay. He has the accent. It’s a peculiar phenomenon I’ve noted, when you’re gay you get assigned a new accent.”

“Shut up! He is not!” she said. (Author’s Note: the friend in question came out earlier this year. A bit late but vindication! After 20 years I told you so!)

Reflectively, leaning back like an elder statesman confronted by a new scandal, in a slow voice I muttered, “If he was, I’d hit that.”

“Oh my god!” She laughed.

The conversation continued in a teasing jocular style for the rest of the evening. The band changed and instead of Metallica we were treated to Billy Joel. Time (and by proportion drinks) sped away and soon it was closing time. We ended up taking a cab back to her apartment and under a shared fantasy became lovers. I shall not describe with sensual derision or racy brags the details of our first night together that would altogether cheapen it; I shall keep it locked privately inside an ever receding tomb of memory.

***************

How is it I can describe, with so short a story, the thousand moments and reveries that make up a relationship? Should I describe our first date? How after a while we spent every waking moment in each other’s company? Perhaps I could keep using rhetorical questions as a device to further a floundering paragraph while I try and think? I could describe the general contentedness that fell over me, I could even spend the next few pages describing the time we spent laughing over nothing. But I think that, that description would ultimately be meaningless, cheapening the experience, and reducing the emotions I felt to mere words on a page to be read and forgotten. That time has become in my mind like a fine fabric and pulling at the stands to recall a few parting moments might cause the whole thing to unravel. Perhaps I’m wrong, I don’t know, but I feel any such descriptions would make her seem less real, just a nameless character in the dark who when described is never seen again. I’m going to move forward to the conclusion as I could well be rid of those memories but I’ll take with me the knowledge of what I felt.

After the initial glow of our relationship faded what remained solidified into a concrete routine, a useful habit that slowly suffocated. We would meet in class to ingest the readily forgettable inanity of the lectures, then move onto a quick lunch, and after sneaking cigarettes outside we went back to the classroom to wait for the time we could retire to an apartment somewhere and be alone. This rapidly became unbearable, that magic intimacy I had felt during our first night together was gone, and I began to fantasize about ways to escape. I spoke to some friends who had more experience in these matters than I did and they convinced me that the best course of action would be to come clean and break things off like a mature adult, which was what I did.

I was lounging on a bench thinking about the little speech I had prepared and listening to her complain about some essay that we were meant to be working on. Amber rays of light where broken between the trees, inciting warm shadows to drift across the park, and causing her eyes to look even more like gleaming gemstones. Eventually she ran out of things to say and the moment stretched out awkwardly as I worked up the courage to speak. I started talking about our relationship and from my tone it would have been clear to anyone listening what I was about to say. Nevertheless, I continued my way through my muddled thoughts until the final inevitable words fell with all the weight and severity of a Judge’s gavel. After I had finished she got up and left leaving me alone with my reflections.

We continued to see each other throughout the last few weeks of the semester but the connection that had existed between us was gone. After the course ended we agreed to schedule next year’s classes at different times so that we wouldn’t be together. Occasionally I would see her walking through the campus, sometimes with friends sometimes alone, and after a while we stopped even acknowledging each other becoming two strangers passing each other in an empty corridor.

***************

I left the reunion and sped off into the darkness. I said goodbye to her, again, for perhaps the last time and watched as she walked away with her husband. Now that I have emptied my emotions out onto these pages I am already starting to think clearly again; the tarlike memories that have been circulating inside my chest have been scooped out, properly analysed, and the findings reproduced here in print. In a way I feel like I have relived an entire chapter of my life and as a consequence my muse has lost the nostalgic charm that made this project seem so appealing in the first place. In the morning I am going to incinerate this manuscript and watch the ash dance on the wind like so much fiery decay, as these memories slip quietly away.

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[mercedessharonwo1]

Recommended Marketing Podcasts: Week of December 11

Podcasts are a great way to educate yourself. Whether you’re on the train, in the car, at your desk, or anywhere in between, this medium is an incredible vehicle for supplementing your industry knowledge. Every week, I’ll be sharing with you some of the best marketing podcasts around, spanning the whole marketing landscape.

Whether you’re new to podcasts or you’re a seasoned listener, I know you’ll find value in each weekly round-up. Let’s get listening, shall we?

Six Pixels of Separation #595: Future Proof with Minter Dial

The awesome name “Minter Dial” should be enough to entice you into listening to this episode. Minter is “American, with French citizenship, born in Belgium, educated in England, living in France,” and the author of  Futureproof: How to Get Your Business Ready for the Next Disruption.

After host Mitch Joel allows Minter introduce himself at the top of the show, Mitch chides him about the other work Minter leaves out of his own introduction, specifically his time as a senior leader for L’Oréal. The two go on to discuss Minter’s book, which explores three core mindsets and 12 disruptive technologies that, according to Minter, businesses must master to grow in the current market.

Takeaway: One of the biggest disruptors of the future, according to Minter, is company culture. Employees find it much harder to sell without core values. This might seem like a very “non-tech” answer for such a digitally focused book, but it makes a great deal of sense to me.

Predicting the future is a fascinating business—Mitch himself even wrote about this in his 2013 bestseller Ctrl Alt Delete. The biggest players in our industry are curious about the future, and we should pay attention to what they find.

On Brand: Why Brands Should See Ideas Everywhere with Ashley Zeckman

I discovered Nick Westergaard five years ago when he and DJ Waldow started The Work Talk Show (which, even three years after their final episode, still remains one of my favorites). He has one of the best voices in the marketing industry, and the advice he gives in his book Get Scrappy is some of the best small business information you can find.

In this episode of his agency’s podcast, Nick speaks with Ashley Zeckman, Director of Agency Marketing for TopRank Marketing, about the importance of promoting yourself even when you’re in the business of promoting external clients.

Takeaways: When it comes to finding inspiration for your next big idea, campaign, or product innovation, it’s okay to look outside your own industry. In fact, Ashley recommends it! She adds that she consults the Social Media Masterminds group on Facebook for ideas and tips, while also abiding by all things Ann Handley (which, to be frank, is pretty great advice).

Also worth mentioning is Ashley’s shoutout to the dog toy and treat subscription service Barkbox, which delivers monthly boxes of fluff and joy for my dog, Colette, and Jess Ostroff’s Doodle, Hummus! Their marketing is top-notch and full of dog puns. Ann Handley has commended their email marketing in the past, and I’ve always been impressed with their ability to write witty, subscription-driving copy. Ashley loves their marketing, too, and believes all of us can take a page out of their marketing playbook.

When finding inspiration for your next campaign, it’s (more than) okay to look outside your own… Click To Tweet HBR Ideacast: How Technology Tests Our Trust

How often do you find yourself in an unfamiliar city, placing full trust into Waze? I’m confident we’ve all been there, and that’s exactly what this episode covers: the amount of trust we give technology.

Host Sarah Green Carmichael begins the episode with a story of how she and a group of friends were traveling in an unfamiliar country. To get around, they used a GPS—and quickly found themselves on a goat path.

The faith we have in our technology is why Sarah brought Rachel Botsman, the author of Who Can You Trust?, onto the podcast. Rachel and Sarah talk through how trust works (regardless of whether it be machine, human, or societal norm) and why we shouldn’t let our tech make decisions for us, no matter how convenient.

Takeaways: According to Rachel, “Efficiency is the enemy of trust.” Since efficiency is the primary goal of most technologies, you might assume she considers technology an enemy. Instead, she turns the responsibility back to us.

“Technology doesn’t like friction, but friction is often human connection. Friction is when you consciously slow down and start to ask whether this thing is worthy of your trust. This isn’t new because we’ve seen this play out with information, like the way we share information. You know that wonderful study that was done that 80 percent of people shared a piece of content just based on the headline? That’s a really good example of just giving our trust away too easily.”

Rachel’s advice seems to be a lot like the advice our parents gave us growing up: Don’t talk to strangers, and definitely don’t let them put a cookie on your phone without your permission. This conversation was terrific, and I look forward to listening to more of Rachel’s information.

That’s all for this edition! I’ll be back with a new batch next week. In the meantime, share any podcasts you think I should know about with me @jwsteiert on Twitter or in the comments below!

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