#i emailed the national team and just said I used to play and they invited me to try out

[partybarty]

The scariest thing ever is trying out for a sport.

[myelocin]

Postcards From: Kanazawa | Tsukishima Kei

Synopsis: The fear that comes with love is the realization that it isn't always just light. Love, rediscovered as both the fear and the drive that depicts the push and pull of whether it's worth it to say "I do," if the unknown is what's to come beyond the vow. In which it's a week until the wedding, and the both of you return to Kanazawa--to day one--as strangers.

Characters: Tsukishima Kei

Genre/Tags: Engagement!AU, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with Happy Ending | WC: 10,200+

A/N: this is a piece commed by @tsukishumai​ ;w; tq for trusting me w u and ur bb boi ily to the moon n back

playlist

commissions | ko-fi

The illusion of the soul is the false belief that love must always—always—be just light.

The truth is, it’s not. Love is many things. Primarily, love begins from desire. Then, that desire seeps into a drive that pushes you to keep wanting. Then finally, when it’s seeped in through the skin deep enough, love pools in the soul.

Love is bound to be raw at the very core. A desire. To say, “I want you,” and think it holds as much credibility as “I love you.”  To look at what you know is only the tendrils of something at the very most, and trick yourself into thinking that it’s enough. A beating heart—bloody red. The line just barely hanging in-between what’s selfish and selfless, before it ultimately sways and becomes selfish sometimes.

Sometimes, being right now, Tsukishima thinks.  

Sandwiched in-between you to the left, and Yamaguchi to his right, he finds his eyes flickering towards the clock a lot more often than he would have liked. Akaashi, who sat across from his seat on the table, was the first to catch on.  

He quirked a brow, presumably in question earlier, and mouthed the question if he was in a rush. Tsukishima’s never been known for having too many words, but because Akaashi pauses and insists to relieve his question with an answer, he shrugs, waving him off and mouthing back that he’s alright.  

“So,” Bokuto starts, his voice already slipping into somewhat of a slur. “How’s it feel to be the first to pop the question?”

You laugh, finding amusement in the man’s enthusiasm. Turning to Tsukishima, you sit and wait, expectant of a reaction.  

In response, he just shrugs, but a smile breaks through and redefines the nonchalance of his expression anyway. Raising the glass to his lips, he takes a quick sip before answering smugly, “It’s nice to finally settle down. You should try it sometimes.”

Bokuto waves him off, cheeks flushed and eyes already drooping from the inebriation. “Nah,” he slurs, shaking his head. The exaggeration warrants a quick laugh from Sugawara, who sits on the other side, nursing his own drink. Continuing, Bokuto huffs and takes a slight pause before he connects the last of what he says with, “—getting married is nice and all, but I don’t know, man,” he laughs. “Just feels like I’ll end up hitting a fucking blank space after I do or whatever. Not my vibe.”

Visibly, Tsukishima shifts a little, the smile on his face maintained but the lighthearted energy that earlier fueled it just slightly more drained now.  

From the corner of your eye, you notice it. Though, Akaashi’s the one who gives him a pointed stare, to which the former simply ignores.  

“But—“ Bokuto continues, as if trying to remedy the cracked part of the atmosphere that isn’t even visible in the first place—“If that’s your thing, then I’m obviously not going to judge you for that.”

Tsukishima responds by his silence. Bokuto, with his head still warped around the heavy state of his inebriation, doesn’t do so much other than sip a little more of his barely filled glass of beer, Tsukishima’s apathetic expression just a blur in his eyes now.  

“You seem happy, though,” Bokuto notes, then raises his glass towards you.

Blinking at being the sudden subject of his interest, you raise your own glass of water. The ice inside shifts, clinking against the sides of the glass, and slowly, Tsukishima watches. There’s familiarity in the way it moves down: trickling slow like the patience inside him that’s suddenly running by the clock. His palms just barely gripping the utensils, clammy. While his head, still whirs at Bokuto’s halfhearted words.  

It’s halfhearted, he reminds himself.

The thought of hitting a plateau after “I do,” in a way is terrifying.  

But he is happy, right?

The way his palms respond solely through tensing suddenly spikes the fear that maybe his ring will slip. So he looks at you, trying to find an anchor to keep the love he pushes to stay intertwined with his truth afloat as he responds, “Of course I am. I’m happy.”

You look back at him, eye to eye, though you find something waver just for a split second— wondering if there’s credibility in the saying that gold will always deliver truth.

-

The rest of the night flows easy.  

Almost naturally, he’s quick to wave off Bokuto’s invite for more drinks at the bar just down the street, tugging your interlaced hands towards the parking lot as soon as the group found its way to the exit.  

“You know he probably just wanted more company,” you laugh. Thirty minutes after making it back home, instead of jumping straight into the shower and getting ready for the night routine, you instead take out the suitcase and take your place, seated on the floor in the living room.  

“We needed to pack,” you hear him respond, his voice a little distant from the bedroom down the hall.  

You shrug. “Yeah, but we could have made time.”

“Sometimes we can’t just make things, if we don’t have any to make it with in the first place,” he sighs.

You chuckle. Perhaps it’s just one of those nights again. In the ten years you’ve known Tsukishima Kei, you found that he had a tendency to become a multitude of things.  

A stranger, at the start, because that’s where every connection begins. The neighbor who lived with his grandfather across the street from your childhood home. Kanazawa was a long way from Sendai, but before his parents had whisked him off to Miyagi some years later, he had been the friend that oftentimes spent his afternoons with you.  

Strawberry cake and tiny sips of boxed juice from the convenient store down the street, and not much conversation exchanged between the both of you. He’d tell you about the things on his grandfather’s old encyclopedia, and you’d listen with rapt attention, finding it nice how he seemed to carry a little bit of the stars the more his eyes gleamed. He just talked about dinosaurs, you remember. At ten, Tsukishima had always been a wonderer.  

Then he moved.  

From the friend who told you stories and shared his juice boxes with you under that tree, to the occasional email that would pop up on your phone, when you were in highschool and weaving your way in and out of pathways and dead-ends. Miyagi was a little like Kanazawa, he said. There was a lot of quiet in the two cities. His email would come once a week, then twice when you reckon he felt a little lonely.  

You’d reply with the same kind of enthusiasm as he had established, though you still couldn’t deny the fact that the notification with his name on it never failed to have you smiling—at least just a little bit. At fifteen, Tsukishima was far from a stranger, but he was also falling just a little short in making it to the halfway mark of being a friend too.  

The once-a-week emails were welcome, none the less. It stayed like that, until once a week turned into twice. Though most were just the customary how-are-yous and obligatory holiday greetings once the seasons came and went, one year it turned into emails about the little nothings.  

‘I had strawberry cake today,’ it once read. ‘The one we used to share tasted sweeter.’

‘I joined the volleyball team.’

‘Winter here is a little colder. I remember your puffy green jacket.’

‘I don’t know if you want to know…or if I should tell you...but our team won, and we’re going to nationals.’

Somehow, you were managed to be convinced by one of your friends that same week to travel with your own highschool’s volleyball team to assist in the preparation for nationals in Tokyo. It was just a coincidence, you used to reason. You were there, and so was he. There was a hundred other courts his team could have played at, and your priority was assisting your own team in what they needed.  

But still, you couldn’t help but wave back and cheer the loudest from your stands when he perfected the block and scored the winning point for the first set.

It was then, where you realized that perhaps Tsukishima Kei wouldn’t just be a stranger.  

Kanazawa to Miyagi, but somehow Tokyo became the in-between. Childhood friends to the sort-of friends from the other ends of the country sharing a few scattered memories in slices of strawberry shortcake and random dinosaur trivia from an old man’s outdated encyclopedia.  

He was the first to approach you after that match. A hand held out to shake, perhaps to commemorate the evident shift between strangers to friends—but it was nice.  

Because after that, friends turned into something more.  

Maybe Tokyo really was the middle ground. After you graduated and moved out of your respective cities, Tokyo became the third place of hello.  

Then things just slipped into place. He was here, and so were you. He had plans to stay, and you just signed the contract that bound you to the city for the next two and a half years. The apartment right down the hall from yours was recently vacated, and he was looking for a place to stay.  

His new work place, coincidentally enough, was just a stop away from the train station closest to your place.  

You had always doubted the presence of serendipity and everything that had to dictate with the celestial control of fate, but the ease that came with the relief of him signing the lease the very next week almost seemed to validate what had been just a farfetched something.  

From strangers, to friends, to lovers, then to this:

Ten years later, a ring on your finger, and an I do, bound to be said just a little over seven days from now.  

Tokyo was kind to the both of you. His mother’s close enough to visit on the weekends, while Kanazawa was just a shinkansen away from Tokyo station. A new apartment with enough space for two, plus maybe an extra, and a bakery right down the street with the best strawberry shortcake made fresh every day.  

The wedding’s just a week away. His grandfather, still living in Kanazawa was meant to travel with Akiteru to Tokyo last week, but because plans changed, the both of you were instead tasked with going there yourselves to travel with him. While Tsukishima hesitated, you didn’t. Yes was easy to say in a situation like this. Though your parents had moved to Tokyo some years ago, you were aware that his grandfather didn’t.  

The house across the street was still his, while the one you grew up in just now became a summer home your family would frequent to when Tokyo became too swarmed with tourists.  

You look at the half-filled contents of the suit case on the floor in front of you. The right side’s meant to hold your clothes, while the left was left bare for Tsukishima’s. You turn and look at him.  

“You can just grab the stuff you need me to bring for you and I’ll fold it in. We should probably catch the first train tomorrow if we wanna get there before sundown.”

What comes as a reply is only prolonged silence.  

You let what he started stay for a little, but because you had never been the type to be fond in gouging out answers from the blank spaces, you sigh, and break the impending silence before it could get a chance to even settle. “You’re quiet again, Kei.”

When he makes it to the living room, instead of coming back out with a stack of clothes, he stands by the wall with his hands in his pocket. His eyes shift from wall to wall, but skip over you.  

Knowing that you’ll just prompt another conversation again the more he keeps his silence, he sighs, swallowing the hesitation and clinging onto the bits of courage that floats by him in the moment. Grasping at the very tips of it, he forces the words out of his mouth. “Are you really coming with me?”

You raise a brow. “Back to Kanazawa? Of course. I’m from there too, you know. Plus I haven’t seen Grandpa in a while.”

He shifts his gaze to the side, thankful for the blur that came with forgetting to slip on his glasses. He’s always had a tendency to give in the moment he looks at you, so the vagueness in the blur was a welcome change. “It’s just for a week,” he mutters. “I think I’ll handle the trip just fine.”

“Plus,” he adds, the hike in the tone of his voice giving away his panic. “—I heard there was a problem with the florists? Maybe one of us needs to go in and fix it ourselves just in case.”  

In the ten years you’ve known him, you’ve always considered it a given that you’ve well perceived him by now. In front of you, he’s stammering. While Tsukishima has never been the face to poise and perfection—because at the end of the day he still is just a boy—you knew he only stammered when he was nervous.  

Perhaps trying to manipulate the situation through a wordless exchange was his way of doing so. In your head, you chuckle. Tsukishima Kei is many things, and is witty when it counts—but he could never be blunt when it came to the things he was unsure of.  

You try to gouge out his truth. Speaking straight to the point, you let him know that there’s no purpose in trying to skirt around. You turn to him, his sweater half folded on your lap. “You know I could have believed what you just said, but,” you pause, giving him a pointed look, “—you’re not even looking at me.”

“Is this about what Bokuto said earlier?”

The way he shifts his weight from one foot to the other awkwardly, confirms your suspicions that that it is about that, before he can muster up the courage to even say it. “Tell me,” you initiate. You’ve never been afraid to speak what needs to be said. “What’s got you so afraid?”

Once more, he hopes for the silence to speak for him. And like before—it doesn’t. Silence was never meant to fill in the blanks. What it did, rather, is add three seconds more on the clock that’s ticking regardless. Tsukishima bets on a timed clock to speak for him, and because you’ve never been the type to shrink at the presence of raw truth, you huff and poke into what obviously hits for him just a little deeper.  

“You’re afraid we’ll hit a blank space after we get married, aren’t you?”

He doesn’t look away, but little by little, his body language starts slipping bits and pieces of the truth you’ve already long sensed. “I think I just need to think this through.”

“What?” you scoff. “You planned to go to Kanazawa by yourself for a week to what? Soul search? To decide if you even wanna marry me?”

“I’m sor—“

“That’s what you’re not supposed to say,” you interrupt him. “You don’t say you’re sorry for how you’re feeling, because you’re allowed to feel it how it is, but shit, Kei,” you exhale, pausing to suck in a quick breath. “You couldn’t have just said this earlier?”

He looks away again, the guilt evident on his features. “You’re mad.”

“Do you blame me?”

This time, he turns to you. “No,” he murmurs. “I don’t, but I’m gonna be blunt here—“

“—first time—“

He gives you a pointed look, but in the moment, you don’t really have much in you to care too much.  

“I think I need space to clear my head.”

“Sounds like you’re contemplating on whether you wanna stay with me or not,” you respond. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that.”

Tsukishima’s steady, this time. “Of course I wanna stay with you.”

“But,” you counter. “You aren’t sure if you want to marry me.”

He looks away. “What if—we hit a plateau after.”

“That’s still not an excuse to back out before we even try, Kei,” comes your reasoning.  

“You’re right,” he sighs. “It’s not.”

Then it’s you, who shrugs this time, giving in a little and throwing him what you hope he doesn’t see as a lifeline. There’s no comfort found in knowing that an out is a means of mercy when it comes to love. Why should there even be an out?

You settle for just cracking the door open instead. Though it was never locked, the fact that it remained close must have been understood differently by him.

“Let’s go back to Kanazawa separately, then,” you propose. The open suitcase in front of you still has the right half filled with his half folded clothes, so you reach in, taking it out one by one. “You stay with your grandfather and I’ll stay at my parent’s house.”

Tsukishima raises a concern. “He’ll wonder why we aren’t staying together.”

In response, you shrug. “Just make something up then.”

“Is this just a passive aggressive way to say you’re mad at me?”

You scoff. “When have I ever been passive aggressive, Kei? I’ve said shit as it is since day one.”  

He flinches, maybe because of what you said or the tone of the deliverance, but either way, you decide you can’t give much of a shit. It’s a given that you’re angry, but because being hurt just paves the path to silence more than lashing out, it’s not much of a surprise that you probably look deflated in front of him.  

“What I’m saying is,” you explain. “Let’s go back to Kanazawa as strangers. Do what you gotta do, however you’ve gotta do it to get your head sorted out, and then we’ll talk. I’m not dancing around in circles with you on this. Either we get married next week, or we don’t.”

He panics. “I don’t want to lose you—“

“You’re already talking like you’ve decided that you won’t be at the other end of that aisle, Kei.”

Words feel lacking all of a sudden, so you pause. The absence of the split second brevity has Tsukishima standing still, his breath held, throat dry.

But like always, clarity seems to weave its way through the cracks in the room and find you first. “Yes or no isn’t easy to decide between,” you finally mutter. Eyes to the half folded sweaters you meant to tuck into the other half of the suitcase, you realize that you’ll need to switch to a smaller trolley now because you won’t be needing this much space anyway. “I don’t know what I should tell you, because I don’t know that we’d be having a possible fallout a week before the wedding. But at the same time—I don’t want to say you’re despicable for feeling like that, Kei. It just—“

“—fucking sucks,” you sigh.  

“If you feel like you need a week to figure whatever this shit is, then okay,” you nod. “Okay. Let’s be strangers for a week and by the time we’re back in Tokyo, you give me a yes or no and be fucking blunt with it.”

-

Later that night when you turn your back against him and face the wall, his whisper breaks through the quiet. “Why are you still patient with me about this? You could have just left me.”

You shift, laying on your back and sighing to the makeshift glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling of your room. “Because I love you,” you sigh. “Loving someone just means you have to exhaust every other option before even thinking of throwing in the towel.”

He sleeps that night, feeling heavy.

-

He woke up later that morning, feeling the same too.  

In a sense, things admittedly started weird. You woke up before he did this time, when he usually would be the one trying to be quiet when he slipped out of bed. Even though early mornings had never been a thing for the both of you, there was still something unpleasant in waking up to an empty bed.

The sheets on your side were done, and your phone that usually would be pinging with email notifications by now wasn’t there.  

It’s odd, he thinks. While he agreed to be strangers for a week, the walk to the train station was the same. Silence was normal, but the five extra inches that added to the distance between the both of you wasn’t. You nodded his way when he pointed at the shinkansen’s direction, and wordlessly would hand him his usual brew when you stopped at the coffee shop just before going in.  

Seated beside you in the train, he tries to ignore the urge to poke you on the side and make conversation. Words have always come easy when it came to moments with you, he noticed.

Tsukishima’s aware that he’s always been dubbed as the kind of person who never preferred to say too much, and while that was true—to an extent—he realizes that there is some truth to the saying that silence kills.  

You’re seated beside him on the train, eyes to your phone, and earbuds in place. He resorts to just staring at you through his peripherals, caught in between wanting to satiate the want to talk to you by breaking the silence, or keeping it as is.  

This is where fear grips him a little tighter. The deal was, as you had pointed out just last night, that the both of you would move through the week pretending to be strangers again. You’d stay on your side of the street, while he stayed in his.  

It’s a given that his grandfather’s bound to ask about you, and so in the event that it does happen, you would just spend a few hours with them and pretend like everything was fine.  

You made it clear that you’d try to exhaust all the options before resorting to that, though. And it’s easy, he thinks, doing so. It doesn’t take much to fake a phone call from work or a last minute meeting with an old friend that wouldn’t be able to make it to the city for the supposed wedding.  

The lines were drawn, and the outline of what was to be expected in the next week was made clear.  

He thinks of what you said before you slept. Love, as that one drive that has you exhausting all your options before even thinking of quitting. It’s fair, he thinks. You’ve always been the rational thinker in the relationship.  

But then again, he doesn’t doubt your hurt either. A week was lengthy, he realizes, and to act as strangers again just a week before the wedding was a different kind of test when it came to your patience.  

Still, he owes you truth.

You’ve always told him to lay things bare, and even though what’s bare is ugly, because love always pushes to try—he stays, doing just that.  

Undoubtedly, this is a jump. There’s no question in the fact that the possibility of reaching the peak and coming face to face with a plateau scares him. But still, his thoughts counter, to face a drop that doesn’t guarantee a landing somehow terrifies him even more.

The sound of your phone vibrating snaps him out of his thoughts. Before you answer it, he snags a look of the name written on the screen—Akiteru’s.  

Tsukishima sighs, shooting you a cautious stare as you pick up the phone and turn to him.  

The tone of your voice is easy, though you look at him, unbothered. “Hey,” you answer. “Just got in the train, so Kei should be calling you in about three hours when we’re there.”

In comes a pause, before you chuckle a little. Unconsciously, Tsukishima scooches in, curious. But before he could get a chance to lean in too close, you pull away a little, looking at him curiously, an eyebrow raised. “I meant to tell you,” he hears you say, and as you look at him, he chooses to hold your stare.

“Kei and I will be staying separately for the week.”

Beside you, he shifts, fighting the urge to turn away and face forward.  

Assuming that your flinch afterwards was only a response to what he’s only certain is Akiteru’s sudden outburst, the prior nervousness of his stare shifts into concern. Understanding the are-you-okay that he mouths, you wave him off. “We’re fine,” you laugh. “I just miss staying at the house that’s all, and I’m pretty sure Kei wants to spend quality time with his grandfather.”

You stay silent after that, which truth be told, doesn’t exactly help with his nerves.  

“He’s right next to me,” you add. “We’re fine, I swear. Just wanna enjoy Kanazawa in different ways that’s all.”

-

To put it bluntly, the first day is awkward.  

His grandfather’s waiting from outside the gate the second you make it to that familiar street. Nothing much has changed, the two of you notice. The gate’s rusted a little by the edges, and the door’s still got the same chip on the left side he always said he’d take a look at.  

“Heard they were cutting down that tree,” his grandfather says, when it’s a little over three hours later and you’re all seated at a local restaurant for dinner. His old friend owned the place, he explained. Low lights, home cooked meals, and a family run business you vaguely remember your father talking about when you were young.  

Tsukishima pauses, eyebrows rising in question. “What do you mean that tree?”

“The one you used to run off to,” he laughs.  

Elbowing him, you nod towards his grandfather before pointing out, “We met by that tree, you know.”

His grandfather’s quick to responding, laughing at Tsukishima’s perplexed expression. “Seems like your grandfather’s memory is doing better these days than you, boy.”

You suppose that at the end of the day, it shouldn’t have been a big deal that he forgot. You’ve never been one to dwell too deep within the symbolic little nothings that’s bound to come with life. Rationally speaking, maybe you’re just a little miffed because of what he said the night before. And maybe that’s the reason why you’re taking this a little harsher than you would have on a normal day.  

But strangers, you remember. Strangers wouldn’t care if the other forgot.  

So with that, you shrug. You take another spoonful of the food in front of you and shift your body just slightly to the left—to which Tsukishima took noticed—and leaned forward. Without even saying much, his grandfather already has his attention on you, the smile on his face kind.

He’s always been kind, you remember. With a smile, you choose to keep the peace in the room at bay, willing yourself to ignore Tsukishima’s stare boring holes into the side of your head from beside you.  

“Now that I think about it, I don’t remember a lot of people stop by that tree,” you comment, as you take a step into nostalgia.  

His grandfather shrugs, absentmindedly nodding his head as he mulls over your word through a spoonful of broth. “It was in the middle of a residential area. Bound to get taken down if you ask me. People nowadays need a place to park.”

This time, you really feel his stare beside you almost intensify. Truth is, you can make sense of what you know he only fears. The point in life was to brave through the unfamiliar to establish a consistency in familiar grounds. To continuously rise from day one, only to hit the peak and possibly come face to face with a plateau instead of something greater than even the height of all highs—you admit that it’s terrifying.  

The plateau, that perhaps works sort of like that tree.  

It’s been there, so here it still is.  

You’ve both been at that tree—at the start—so here you both still are. Side by side back in Kanazawa, sharing a meal like I do, isn’t hanging on the line.

His grandfather’s voice snaps you out of your thoughts. “You’re not wearing your ring.”

Tsukishima’s voice is quick to cut into the conversation, his voice smooth. “She just doesn’t wanna lose it.”  

You nod along to his lie, undecided with how to feel in regards to how smooth he seemed to have delivered his lie.  

“You know, now that I think about it, it’s good that they’re cutting down that tree.”

Tsukishima speaks his mind this time. “Last week, you said you were looking forward to coming back home so you could visit that tree again.”

You don’t look at him when you answer. “I know, but your grandfather has a point. When things change, what else can you do but get rid of it?”  

“Oh nothing’s changed,” he laughs across you. “Even before the two of you were born, people would always talk about how it’s just there when the space could have been used for parking.”

“Then why put off cutting it down this long?”

“Who knows,” he laughs. There’s an unfound wisdom in his eyes that read through your soul when he looks at you. “Maybe cutting down what people already see as a permanent fixture will do more harm than good in the long run.”

“Even if it doesn’t contribute anything?”

Tsukishima thinks of his fear, then of the plateau.  

Through the rim of the glass, he keeps a steady eye on his grandfather, breath held as the anticipation for his words begin to really settle.  

“People these days just see what’s the most obvious from the surface and consider it as the only fault then run with it. Maybe it’s not the tree,” he laughs. “Maybe it’s just the people. They want convenience so they cut off everything around them instead of adjusting to it.”

The food tastes bland in his mouth, suddenly.

“Goes to show how selfish people can get sometimes,” his grandfather finishes, as an afterthought. “A shame, really. That old tree’s done nothing but give people shade.”

-

At the end of the day, you really had to give his grandfather a lot more credit than what was due.  

The second and third day was awkward. Even though you tried to stay inside for most of your day, venturing outside and meeting up with old friends was inevitable. And really, you should have remembered that he often started his day with a couple laps walked around the block.  

On day two, he hinted that he could sense something was off. Tsukishima had been a lot more silent lately, he pointed out. First, as just a passing comment, then by the third time he’d bring it up and wouldn’t get too much of a response out of you, there came more emphasis to what he says.  

He passed by the tree every time you’d round the street too. It occurs to you that passing through it was a shortcut, and contradicted his prior statements to having a route that catered towards the long way home, but you chose to not comment much about it.  

The second day was curiosity, and you figured that you could live at least just a week with it.  

The third day, on the other hand, gave you a little more trouble than you had bargained for.  

You’re on your way home from an old friend’s house, and ironically enough, both Tsukishima and his grandfather are out by their front door, tending to the weeds of a garden that doesn’t even look remotely grown.  

Tsukishima’s the first to look at you.  

Stubborn, and frankly intent on upholding your end of the deal in staying strangers, you attempt to wave them off with a passing greeting as you look through your bag, feeling around for the keys to the gate.  

“You don’t have to think of an excuse,” you hear him say. “He’s back inside now. It’s just you and me here.”

It’s funny how ever since you’ve made it back to Kanazawa, he’s been the one to break the silence a lot more lately.  

You don’t turn. Strangers, you think. The deal was to pretend the other was a stranger.  

“Cam,” he calls out again, the desperation in his voice inching more and more out of its shell. “I’m really sorry.”

You turn around, the buried anger getting the best of you in the moment. “You know the more you say that, the more convinced I am that I should just give you back your ring right now and go back to Tokyo alone. You talk like the only thing you’re sure of is the fact that you won’t be marrying me next week, Kei.”

The moment you shift your gaze from the ground to his eyes, a part of you aches at the idea that you may have to bid farewell to gold. Swallowing down the mass of emotions you hope isn’t entirely just made of anger, you steady yourself and sigh.  

It hits you that it’s been a long day.  

“It’s just you and me here,” you repeat, slowly. There’s a flutter in your heart that tells you it’s still love that stares back when you look at him. “Then why do you feel so far away, Kei?”

-

He doesn’t sleep that night.  

Day three of being strangers, but he hasn’t had anything figured out. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but what only grew was the silence. The distance is really just a few feet away—across the street and through the leaves of that tree that your father would always say he’d get to.  

The light from your room is still turned on, though the curtains are drawn.

8PM and it’s early. 8PM, and on a usual day, you’d usually be seated beside him in your Tokyo apartment’s living room, mulling over the nothings that went on in your day.  

It’s nice to talk about the rest of the world as if all they’re meant to be is just a passing blur in the background, he thinks. He’s never been much for words, but you were.  

Then again, you had always been one for truth.  

Reality is, he knows he could always swallow his doubts, walk across the street, cover the distance, and apologize to you with an I’m sorry, that covers all that needs to be addressed in a standard apology. Life can be lived as easy as that. You swallow your own thoughts, adhere to what they say needs to be done in the way they tell you how to do so, and be done with it.  

But he knows you just as well as he knows himself.  

You’d call him a coward—and truth be told, he’ll think the same.  

Present wise—he does think he is a coward.

Tsukishima sighs, knowing that blinking at your closed curtain visible from his window won’t do much of a difference. Begrudgingly, he sits up, grabbing his glasses from the bedside table.  

The streets around the neighborhood are quiet this time of night. The perks about living away from the city was the silence, he thinks. As soon as he tugs on a sweater, he makes his way downstairs, carefully, so he doesn’t stir his grandfather he presumes is sleeping on the room across the hall.  

He exhales, relieved at the barely audible creak the door clicks to as soon as he shuts it and turns the lock from the outside. The keys, jingling in his pockets, is the only sound that rings in the quiet.  

It isn’t lonely, but it isn’t comfortable either.  

Kanazawa has always been a town he’s considered as a piece of constant that’s meant to drift inbetween.  

Neither like Tokyo or the towns by the outskirts of Okinawa, it stays as is. Twenty years ago, the crack on the sidewalk was there, and now, twenty years later, it remains.  

There’s comfort in recognizing constants, Tsukishima admits. The tree just down this road, the crack on the asphalt, and the fact that your room is still the second window to the left visible from his on the second floor.  

When he was younger, he remembers he often would stand under your window, caught in between wanting to knock on your door and ask permission from your parents if you could accompany him for the afternoon, or just wait around until you’d come down yourself.  

While he left a lot of things on chance, the conscious choice to stay rooted in the spot by your window remained constant.  

The gravel under his feet crackle everytime he’d take a step. The moon’s hazy behind the clouds tonight, he muses. While you’d wish for the stars, he found a temporary safety in the midnight clouds. A timelessness felt when it’s midnight, stays.  

Before he turns to the corner that would lead home, he stops midway—recognizing the tree from a good few meters away.  

There’s a sense of feeling an urgency to let something go, the more he stares at it. Nearing autumn, the colors start to change, and just like that, he’s reminded of the impermanence in life.  

As the earth eventually changes throughout the years, he fears that perhaps in love—it would too.

-

“You’re out late,” is the first thing Tsukishima hears as soon as he enters the room.  

From the genkan, he peers over the shelf, noticing the lights from the kitchen is what floods into the dim living room. Slipping on his house slippers and making his way around the corner, Tsukishima gets a feel of the warmth that’s radiating from the familiarity of the space.  

After his grandmother had passed, his grandfather stayed in Kanazawa. Though his mother often expressed her desire for him to move with the rest of the family in Tokyo, every time, he’d only wave them off and say that there’s too much rooted here for him to just up and leave.  

Walking into the kitchen, his grandfather’s the first to raise a mug his way and offer a smile. “I’d ask you if everything’s fine, but I think I’ll just wait around and see if you’re even willing to tell me.”

Tsukishima chuckles airily. “Sounds like you wanna ask anyway.”

He takes a slow sip. “Okay then,” he nods, smiling like he’s just struck a deal. “First question is—are you okay?”

In response, Tsukishima smiles, pulling the chair and taking the seat across his. He nods. “’Course I am.”

His grandfather’s eyes don’t leave him. “You’re not wearing the ring, and neither is Cam.”

Suddenly feeling like he’s caught in between a blocked exit and the spotlight, Tsukishima freezes, but wills himself not to look away. “Just needed some space, that’s all.”

“To think?”

He sighs. “To reconsider.”

“Ahh,” the older man sighs. “Cold feet. Pretty normal, if you ask me.”

He raises a brow in question. “It’s normal?”

“To be nervous, yeah,” his grandfather laughs. “But looks like it’s a different case for you.”

Tsukishima doesn’t respond, his eyes fixated towards a spot on the wall that feeds more into the blank space of his thoughts than anything more.  

“You’re afraid,” Tsukishima hears, and as soon as the retaliation he tries to string together at the very last minute don’t come—he realizes the core of all the chaos in his head is meant to be just like that—

Blank.

“What are you so afraid of, boy?”

In the silence, he lets the rawness of his truth slowly spill. “What if I hit a plateau after this?”  

His grandfather wastes no second in countering.  “How is it life if we just keep climbing? What’s the point in doing all that work if we never get rest?”

Tsukishima laughs. “You know, by that logic it can just go the other way around too.”

He settles in his seat, trying to appreciate the silence instead of looking for company in the noise, before he adds, “What if we decide we don’t love each other anymore?”  

“That’s not all there is to a plateau,” he laughs. “It’s a valid fear, but being afraid isn’t all there is after you marry someone.”

“Then what’s there?”

With a smile, his grandfather leans back, raises the mug to his lips, and relaxes—his eyes looking fondly at a faded photograph hung beside the wall clock. “Everyday,” he answers. “What’s there after I do is just everyday.”

Sensing that his grandfather means to say more, he chooses to retain his silence. Sighing softly, his grandfather keeps his smile steady as he continues to speak. “Everyday you wake up. You roll over in bed, you think about the checklist you do to consider a day done, then you come home, eat a meal, rest a little and start the whole day over the next day. Everyday’s like that.”

He shifts, leaning forward with his arms crossed supporting his weight on the table as he eyes his grandson with a smile. “Best part is, you can do all that with someone you love. Makes the boring part of the plateau a lot more bearable.”

“You wake up with them and complain about how boring the rest of your day will be, then come home and eat a meal with them. Wash the dishes, share the silence, and just go to bed knowing you’ll wake up with somebody.”

The smile on his face is honest, then he shrugs. “It’s nice, though. The plateau after you hit a certain point in life is just inevitable, Kei. You can either complain about life alone or complain about it with somebody. At least there will be two pairs of slippers by the genkan waiting for you everytime you come home. You’ll say you’ve made it home and someone will greet you. You’ll roll over in bed at 2am and someone will be there with you. The point of climbing in life is to get somewhere, not ascend past the norm.”

Tsukishima stays quiet, pondering over the truth in his grandfather’s words. “So life’s just meant to stay in the middle?” he asks, slowly coming into terms with his grandfather’s redefinition of the plateau.  “Life’s meant to find a consistency in everyday,” he corrects.

A few moments pass before he stands back up, pointing to the counter with a thermos. He knows it’s yours. The old one that your mother refused to throw away, because there’s a crack by the lid and a couple faded sailor moon stickers stuck by the side.  

“Look at that,” Tsukishima hears. He turns his head just in time to see the old man offer him a patient smile, the message in his eyes delivered without a hitch. “That old thing’s seen a couple of decades, but it still gets to you when you need it, right?”

It’s not so bad to have an old thing be your constant, right?

-

Twenty minutes after his grandfather climbs back to his room upstairs, Tsukishima’s seated on the side of the table beside the window. Peeking through the half-opened blinds, he can still see that the light from your room is still flicked on.  

Without mulling over the decision, he takes his phone out, scrolling through the contacts until he taps your name. A swipe without too much pressure, because even his thumb’s memorized where your name is by now. Kind of like muscle memory, he supposes.  

Bypassing the unannounced rules about what to do as the strangers you had claimed from the start of this week, it results to the lack of hesitation as he types a quick text and presses send without a thought that would counter it.  

I love you, it reads.  

From his spot in the kitchen, he leans back and smiles, pouring himself a cup of the tea he knows you brewed yourself on the nights where he can’t sleep.

The lights from your room stay on for a few more moments before it dims, but before the metaphoric silence could take root, the screen of his phone lights up.

Stop walking around at night. Drink the tea and try to get some sleep.

Exhaling almost in relief, it’s the slow beating of his heart that resettles him back into the love he’s known everyday.  

It’s not quite the end, but it isn’t exactly somewhere unpleasant either.

-

Two days before you’re meant to return to the city, instead of spending the day in your room—like you had initially planned—you somehow found yourself in the passenger seat of his grandfather’s old car, with a grocery list in hand.  

You sigh, understanding what his grandfather’s trying to do.  

As you look down, there’s nothing much written in the grocery list. He had complained about some back pain earlier, followed up by his insistent request of desperately needing his groceries done so when Akiteru was to arrive later on, dinner would be taken care of.

Beside you, with his hands on the wheel, Tsukishima sighs. “We could have just ordered in food for dinner. It’s just Akiteru coming,” he mumbles.  

Keeping your eyes to the window to your left, you shrug. “He likes making the ordinary special, I guess.”

Tsukishima stays silent after that, mentally thankful for the green light and the empty roads. The more stops, the longer silence would stay. And even after the sort of middle ground from the night before, he doesn’t know what to say to you.  

After making a quick turn, he pulls up into the parking lot and kills the engine. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he turns to you, with an expectant look. “You can just stay here if you don’t wanna go in with me,” he offers. “It’s a short list, I can be in and out in a bit.”

You wave him off, already slinging on your bag and opening the car door—the list on your hand. “It’s alright. I think I’m more familiar with this area than you are, so we can just meet back in the car in thirty minutes if that’s okay with you.”

“You don’t need me to come with you?” he raises a brow.

You shake your head no, but upkeep the smile on your face anyway as you exit the car and close the door.  

-

Something about what you say sticks with him, the more he thinks about it.

He can distinguish the hesitation laced each of your decisions. You look past him, but not exactly at him. You speak to him, but keep the conversations short. Though conversation was rare between the both of you this past week, the times that you did speak to him, your words often were clipped short.  

It’s your means of upkeeping your end of the deal, he realizes.  

You’ve always been one for communication, but then again, patience can only stretch so much.  

He respects your wish for distance and walks the opposite way from the grocery store, towards a building he doesn’t really known. It’s a gallery, he realizes. Three steps past the entrance, he notices that he’s one of the few that’s in the room.  

Traditional artwork line the wall, hung in frames that have rusted throughout time.  

Tsukishima stares, eyes drawn to the pieces of art he recognizes from the few scattered memories in his childhood that relate to his time in the city.

A fieldtrip, when he was seven. He remembers leaving the house upset over the yellow hat he had to wear, and the rain boots his teacher wouldn’t let him change out of. Unlike the present, rain was present that day. He stood beside you in line, and had to tilt his head up at the piece of art he always thought was the prettiest out of the bunch.  

And now, almost two decades later, he still thinks the same.  

He smiles at the memory, finding the comfort of returning to what’s familiar, pleasant.  

As if caught by an epiphany, and suddenly enveloped in a sense of a rediscovered home, here, within a room that’s familiar, he finds purpose in the permanence of love.

Love, that’s never meant to be stretched into the likeness of what the poets declare as the absolute form of love after “I do.”

Staring at the piece of art with the rusting frames, the strokes within the canvas still depict the same story. It still is beautiful.  

It’s doesn’t become more—but it stays as is.

And maybe that’s what his grandfather was trying to convey.

To fear a certain phase in love is something that comes and goes, but it often never stays. It can linger, but eventually, it too, fades.  

What stays is what’s rooted.  

Primarily, just you. Truly, just love.

That tree in that old street, these paintings on the walls, and the kind of serenity that washes over him at the thought of you.  

The fear in life comes in the form of thinking that beyond the peak lays a plateau. Beyond “I do,” what’s next to come is love, dwindling until “I don’t love you anymore,” is the only thing left to be said.  

It’s fear, that spoke to him the past few weeks, so this time, as he gives in, he listens to love.  

It’s quiet.

But through the smoke in the room, the message that’s meant to deliver truth comes in full clarity. Illuminated, it appears before him as it is. A painting that’s struck him as beautiful then and now, and the thought of you as the face that’s always been the first to greet him every morning for more than just a few years now.  

An old man stands not too far from him, hands clasped behind his back as he stares—with a smile on his face—at a similar painting on the wall. Sensing Tsukishima’s presence, he looks over and redirects the smile his way. “Been coming here for years, and looking at this still feels the same.”

Poking at the doubts, Tsukishima responds, “Are you afraid that it won’t get old?”

The gentleman laughs, though soft enough so it doesn’t echo too much in the halls. The joy lingers around Tsukishima, on the other hand. “To have something grow old with you isn’t a bad thing. Day one, this piece was beautiful, and now, almost forty years later, I look at it and think the same too.”

A beat of silence passes, but the man speaks once more.  

“My wife, when she was alive, showed me this piece. Maybe I look at this and still find it beautiful after all these years because I think of her, but I don’t think trying to focus on that matters much. The feeling’s the same, even if it grew old.”

Reciprocating the older man’s goodbye with a nod to the head, it’s then where he laughs, a little bit more of the truth unraveling as each moment comes and goes. Thinking of his words, he dwells on its meaning.  

Standing there, alone in the museum hall, the smoke clears, and he presents himself his words of blended truth and patience.  

Love is timeless, his thoughts say. The plateau after the peak is as possible as the drop, but life’s meant to be lived in the lows and in betweens as much as the highs. Time moves in waves, and perhaps love doesn’t always grow stagnant. It can be timeless, even though the frames rust. His hair will grey, and maybe you’ll stop linking your pinky with him beneath the sheets during the rainy season’s thunderstorms, but the root of love stays.  

Within the plateau, time will move, and you’ll both grow old, but the taste of the tea you’ll brew for him will remain the same.  

And thirty minutes later, when he makes it back to the parking lot with you waiting by the door, the love that steadies his beating heart will be the same too.  

Steady, present, and timeless.  

-

Eyeing the dashboard, you’re the first to break the silence. “Why’d you buy a postcard?”

Rolling into a stoplight, he eases on the brakes and shrugs. “Lived here for so long, and I don’t even own a postcard from here.”

“Me neither,” you blink.

A couple minutes pass, and the car’s rolling again, but he misses a turn. Assuming that he’s just not used to the usual route, you stay quiet—until about he pulls up to a familiar street.  

Parked to the side, through the windshield, you find yourself face to face with a familiar tree. “Kei.” He hums.  

The coming autumn has a few leaves beginning to change its colors, you notice. The summer hues, unbalanced, as bits of red begins to bleed through the green. “You were supposed to turn there, not here.”

He shifts the gear into park, then takes his hands off the wheel, leaning back. “I know.”

It’s quiet after that, but it isn’t all that unpleasant either.  

This is the part where the questions begin to poke at you, the what-ifs in love let out in the open as you voice a little bit of your vulnerability. And because the truth is daunting, you hope he understands you through the metaphors. “Do you really think they’ll cut it down?”

He doesn’t allow the silence to take more than a moment. “I think so,” he nods his head.

“It’ll be good though, I think,” you add, nodding your head.  

It’s quiet in the room even though the words of your truth coaxes the unhealed wound to resurface. As it comes into light, it doesn’t sting.  

Sitting shoulder to shoulder beside him in the car, the tree that witnessed the first hello stays rooted, and watches.  

He doesn’t turn to you as he speaks, but in a way, you feel as if a farewell was the finale that was meant to be delivered somehow. “It’s good,” he starts. “Letting go of something that needs to be let go of.”

-

Tokyo

-

Tsukishima’s the first to speak.  

“I’m not good with words,” he starts.  

There’s a hush in the crowd, so you stay with it, knowing you’ll only add to the silence should you choose to respond. It wasn’t your turn anyway, so you will yourself to be still and listen.  

“Hey Cam,” Tsukishima continues, choosing to begin his vow with a hello. “I think a lot about what love’s supposed to have meant, mean, or eventually mean in the long run. I thought too much about it to the point where it…” he trails off, blinking at the piece of paper before flicking his eyes up to you with a slight shrug. “—to the point where love began to scare me.”

For a brief moment, he closes his eyes, confident in the fact that when he opens them, he knows he’ll see the world in clarity this time. With the smoke cleared and the scattered pieces of all his doubts set in order, the words of his truth may not speak of the most tender poem of love—but within the lines lies his truth.

As he lays his truth on you, he holds a breath and lets it all go. “I wanna wash the dishes with you for the rest of my life,” he laughs, exhaling softly, his shoulders shaking a little. “Never occurred to me how much of a liar the downside of your thoughts are when you listen to everything that isn’t love,” he continues.  

Your shoulders relax, and even through the blur of the veil, you can tell his eyes are steadily watering.  

“I’m sorry,” he says, the microphone just barely picking up what he says. You nod your head anyway, wishing you were holding his hands instead of the bouquet. Reassurance comes in many forms, but you know he’s always been the type to receive it well through physical touch.  

A kiss on the cheek, your head on his shoulder, or your hands squeezing his. But the smile you give him suffices for now, you think.  

“I wanna wash the dishes with you for the rest of my life. I’ll wash, and you dry. Nothing much happens in our day usually, but nothing has to. I’ll listen to you talk about how shit the traffic is in the city, because I know you’ll listen to me talk about the same complaints I have from Monday to Friday anyway.”

You realize he’s written his vows in the back of a postcard—the one you saw on his dashboard a few days ago, from Kanazawa.  

He sniffles a little then looks up, laughing to himself at how emotional he’s getting. Allowing more than just truth to trickle out slow is a part of love too, he realizes, so with a soft laugh, he lets the tears be and speaks again. “What needed to be let go of was let go of,” he exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for this long.  

In a sense, maybe he has. Sometimes fear grips you tightly enough that it shifts your point of view from one thing to another. What’s love, becomes fear. Then what’s fear, becomes the smoke that buries the core of truth too deep within the haze.  

“I let go of the thought the thought that after marriage, if nothing great would come then that would be the end of love,” he breathes. “I stared at that tree and thought of Grandpa’s words again and again then wrote my apology and I love you on the back of a postcard that only had one a couple of blank lines at most.”

He waves it for you, then to the crowd, to see. The words, jumbled up together look almost incomprehensible written so closely together, but in a way, you have a feeling that he’s just speaking the rest of his truth as it comes in the moment.  

The truth in love, you realize, is that its truth comes, fully unraveled the moment the initial plan falls apart.  

He puts down the postcard, and just looks at you.  

“There’s a lot I don’t think I will ever understand when it comes to love, but maybe I’m here to just feel it and not try to decipher it.” He pauses, ignores the few tears that roll down, and shrugs his shoulders, admitting to himself that the truth in his love is the first thought that comes.

“Love doesn’t have to the greatest,” he tells you. “I just wanna wash dishes with you for the rest of my life and hear about how traffic was unbearable.”

You smile, and your assurance reaches him.  

“I think that counts as love too,” he finishes, the smile on his face tender.

-

As he leans in after I do, he murmurs a question in your ear that you’ve been expecting since the start.

You could have just left, he said. How did you deal with me and still choose to stay?

Your answer was said without a hint of hesitation. With a shrug, and an honest smile, you told him, “Because I love you.”

“I think we both had to let go of the thought that to love always means to have the biggest reasoning behind it. We do things for love, and because of love. That’s just how it is,” you shrugged.

Oddly enough, it’s in that same exact moment where he remembers Bokuto’s question from that dinner a week and some days ago.  

How does it feel? he recalls, and even though words have never found him first nor met him in the middle easy, he gathers what he can and just settles on the conclusion that it just feels like love.

Wherein love, is this.

An identical band on his and your finger, and the taste of I do pleasant on the tongue. I love you, as a truth that’s easy to fathom and healing to hold, and the fear of what comes next just a passing thought that goes as soon as it comes.  

Later that evening his grandfather sits him down and asks him what he really thinks about why people have been putting off cutting down that tree for a few decades now.  

With a laugh, the hesitation that often turns decisions is made clear to him. “You know I think that people would decide things and think they’re so solid on it before even being face to face with it. The second they get to that tree with a chainsaw, I promise you they changed their minds. You think you go there and cut off or let go of one thing, then realize you’re cutting off something else in the end. They go back to what’s been there and realize that it’s not the problem at all.”

Tsukishima sighs, and his grandfather watches, the smile on his face easy. It’s like watching some emerge from a smoked out room, he thinks. Clarity’s always been a blessing, and he’s glad his grandson’s finally found it.  

“Sometimes going back to the start is the one thing you need to be reminded that it’s worth it to keep going.”

“Sounds like you’re not talking about the tree,” his grandfather comments.  Looking at you, Tsukishima smiles. “You could say that too.”

[path-of-my-childhood]

Musicians On Musicians: Paul McCartney & Taylor Swift

By: Patrick Doyle for Rolling Stone Date: November 13th 2020

On songwriting secrets, making albums at home, and what they’ve learned during the pandemic.

Taylor Swift arrived early to Paul McCartney’s London office in October, “mask on, brimming with excitement.” “I mostly work from home these days,” she writes about that day, “and today feels like a rare school field trip that you actually want to go on.”

Swift showed up without a team, doing her own hair and makeup. In addition to being two of the most famous pop songwriters in the world, Swift and McCartney have spent the past year on similar journeys. McCartney, isolated at home in the U.K., recorded McCartney III. Like his first solo album, in 1970, he played nearly all of the instruments himself, resulting in some of his most wildly ambitious songs in a long time. Swift also took some new chances, writing over email with the National’s Aaron Dessner and recording the raw Folklore, which abandons arena pop entirely in favor of rich character songs. It’s the bestselling album of 2020.

Swift listened to McCartney III as she prepared for today’s conversation; McCartney delved into Folkore. Before the photo shoot, Swift caught up with his daughters Mary (who would be photographing them) and Stella (who designed Swift’s clothes; the two are close friends). “I’ve met Paul a few times, mostly onstage at parties, but we’ll get to that later,” Swift writes. “Soon he walks in with his wife, Nancy. They’re a sunny and playful pair, and I immediately feel like this will be a good day. During the shoot, Paul dances and takes almost none of it too seriously and sings along to Motown songs playing from the speakers. A few times Mary scolds, ‘Daaad, try to stand still!’ And it feels like a window into a pretty awesome family dynamic. We walk into his office for a chat, and after I make a nervous request, Paul is kind enough to handwrite my favorite lyric of his and sign it. He makes a joke about me selling it, and I laugh because it’s something I know I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. That’s around the time when we start talking about music.”

Taylor Swift: I think it’s important to note that if this year had gone the way that we thought it was going to go, you and I would have played Glastonbury this year, and instead, you and I both made albums in isolation.

Paul McCartney: Yeah!

Swift: And I remember thinking it would have been so much fun because the times that I’ve run into you, I correlate with being some of the most fun nights of my life. I was at a party with you, when everybody just started playing music. And it was Dave Grohl playing, and you...

McCartney: You were playing one of his songs, weren’t you?

Swift: Yes, I was playing his song called “Best of You,” but I was playing it on piano, and he didn’t recognize it until about halfway through. I just remember thinking, “Are you the catalyst for the most fun times ever?” Is it your willingness to get up and play music that makes everyone feel like this is a thing that can happen tonight?

McCartney: I mean, I think it’s a bit of everything, isn’t it? I’ll tell you who was very... Reese Witherspoon was like, “Are you going to sing?” I said “Oh, I don’t know.” She said, “You’ve got to, yeah!” She’s bossing me around. So I said, “Whoa,” so it’s a bit of that.

Swift: I love that person, because the party does not turn musical without that person.

McCartney: Yeah, that’s true.

Swift: If nobody says, “Can you guys play music?” we’re not going to invite ourselves up onstage at whatever living-room party it is.

McCartney: I seem to remember Woody Harrelson got on the piano, and he starts playing “Let It Be,” and I’m thinking, “I can do that better.” So I said, “Come on, move over, Woody.” So we’re both playing it. It was really nice... I love people like Dan Aykroyd, who’s just full of energy and he loves his music so much, but he’s not necessarily a musician, but he just wanders around the room, just saying, “You got to get up, got to get up, do some stuff.”

Swift: I listened to your new record. And I loved a lot of things about it, but it really did feel like kind of a flex to write, produce, and play every instrument on every track. To me, that’s like flexing a muscle and saying, “I can do all this on my own if I have to.”

McCartney: Well, I don’t think like that, I must admit. I just picked up some of these instruments over the years. We had a piano at home that my dad played, so I picked around on that. I wrote the melody to “When I’m 64” when I was, you know, a teenager.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: When the Beatles went to Hamburg, there were always drum kits knocking around, so when there was a quiet moment, I’d say, “Do you mind if I have a knock around?” So I was able to practice, you know, without practicing. That’s why I play right-handed. Guitar was just the first instrument I got. Guitar turned to bass; it also turned into ukulele, mandolin. Suddenly, it’s like, “Wow,” but it’s really only two or three instruments.

Swift: Well, I think that’s downplaying it a little bit. In my mind, it came with a visual of you being in the country, kind of absorbing the sort of do-it-yourself [quality] that has had to come with the quarantine and this pandemic. I found that I’ve adapted a do-it-yourself mentality to a lot of things in my career that I used to outsource.  I’m just wondering what a day of recording in the pandemic looked like for you.

McCartney: Well, I’m very lucky because I have a studio that’s, like, 20 minutes away from where I live. We were in lockdown on a farm, a sheep farm with my daughter Mary and her four kids and her husband. So I had four of my grandkids, I had Mary, who’s a great cook, so I would just drive myself to the studio. And there were two other guys that could come in and we’d be very careful and distanced and everything: my engineer Steve, and then my equipment guy Keith. So the three of us made the record, and I just started off. I had to do a little bit of film music - I had to do an instrumental for a film thing - so I did that. And I just kept going, and that turned into the opening track on the album. I would just come in, say, “Oh, yeah, what are we gonna do?” [Then] have some sort of idea, and start doing it. Normally, I’d start with the instrument I wrote it on, either piano or guitar, and then probably add some drums and then a bit of bass till it started to sound like a record, and then just gradually layer it all up. It was fun.

Swift: That’s so cool.

McCartney: What about yours? You’re playing guitar and piano on yours.

Swift: Yeah, on some of it, but a lot of it was made with Aaron Dessner, who’s in a band called the National that I really love. And I had met him at a concert a year before, and I had a conversation with him, asking him how he writes. It’s my favorite thing to ask people who I’m a fan of. And he had an interesting answer. He said, “All the band members live in different parts of the world. So I make tracks. And I send them to our lead singer, Matt, and he writes the top line.” I just remember thinking, “That is really efficient.” And I kind of stored it in my brain as a future idea for a project. You know, how you have these ideas... “Maybe one day I’ll do this.” I always had in my head: “Maybe one day I’ll work with Aaron Dessner.”

So when lockdown happened, I was in L.A., and we kind of got stuck there. It’s not a terrible place to be stuck. We were there for four months maybe, and during that time, I sent an email to Aaron Dessner and I said, “Do you think you would want to work during this time? Because my brain is all scrambled, and I need to make something, even if we’re just kind of making songs that we don’t know what will happen...”

McCartney: Yeah, that was the thing. You could do stuff -  you didn’t really worry it was going to turn into anything.

Swift: Yeah, and it turned out he had been writing instrumental tracks to keep from absolutely going crazy during the pandemic as well, so he sends me this file of probably 30 instrumentals, and the first one I opened ended up being a song called “Cardigan,” and it really happened rapid-fire like that. He’d send me a track; he’d make new tracks, add to the folder; I would write the entire top line for a song, and he wouldn’t know what the song would be about, what it was going to be called, where I was going to put the chorus. I had originally thought, “Maybe I’ll make an album in the next year, and put it out in January or something,” but it ended up being done and we put it out in July. And I just thought there are no rules anymore, because I used to put all these parameters on myself, like, “How will this song sound in a stadium? How will this song sound on radio?” If you take away all the parameters, what do you make? And I guess the answer is Folklore.

McCartney: And it’s more music for yourself than music that’s got to go do a job. My thing was similar to that: After having done this little bit of film music, I had a lot of stuff that I had been working on, but I’d said, “I’m just going home now,” and it’d be left half-finished. So I just started saying, “Well, what about that? I never finished that.” So we’d pull it out, and we said, “Oh, well, this could be good.” And because it didn’t have to amount to anything, I would say, “Ah, I really want to do tape loops. I don’t care if they fit on this song, I just want to do some.” So I go and make some tape loops, and put them in the song, just really trying to do stuff that I fancy.

I had no idea it would end up as an album; I may have been a bit less indulgent, but if a track was eight minutes long, to tell you the truth, what I thought was, “I’ll be taking it home tonight, Mary will be cooking, the grandkids will all be there running around, and someone, maybe Simon, Mary’s husband, is going to say, ‘What did you do today?’ And I’m going to go, ‘Oh,’ and then get my phone and play it for them.” So this became the ritual.

Swift: That’s the coziest thing I’ve ever heard.

McCartney: Well, it’s like eight minutes long, and I said, “I hate it when I’m playing someone something and it finishes after three minutes.” I kind of like that it just [continues] on.

Swift: You want to stay in the zone.

McCartney: It just keeps going on. I would just come home, “Well, what did you do today?” “Oh, well, I did this. I’m halfway through this,” or, “We finished this.”

Swift: I was wondering about the numerology element to McCartney III. McCartney I, II, and III have all come out on years with zeroes.

McCartney: Ends of decades.

Swift: Was that important?

McCartney: Yeah, well, this was being done in 2020, and I didn’t really think about it. I think everyone expected great things of 2020. “It’s gonna be great! Look at that number! 2020! Auspicious!” Then suddenly Covid hit, and it was like, “That’s gonna be auspicious all right, but maybe for the wrong reasons.” Someone said to me, “Well, you put out McCartney right after the Beatles broke up, and that was 1970, and then you did McCartney II in 1980.” And I said, “Oh, I’m going to release this in 2020 just for whatever you call it, the numerology...”

Swift: The numerology, the kind of look, the symbolism. I love numbers. Numbers kind of rule my whole world. The numbers 13... 89 is a big one. I have a few others that I find...

McCartney: Thirteen is lucky for some.

Swift: Yeah, it’s lucky for me. It’s my birthday. It’s all these weird coincidences of good things that have happened. Now, when I see it places, I look at it as a sign that things are going the way they’re supposed to. They may not be good now, they could be painful now, but things are on a track. I don’t know, I love the numerology.

McCartney: It’s spooky, Taylor. It’s very spooky. Now wait a minute: Where’d you get 89?

Swift: That’s when I was born, in 1989, and so I see it in different places and I just think it’s...

McCartney: No, it’s good. I like that, where certain things you attach yourself to, and you get a good feeling off them. I think that’s great.

Swift: Yeah, one of my favorite artists, Bon Iver, he has this thing with the number 22. But I was also wondering: You have always kind of seeked out a band or a communal atmosphere with like, you know, the Beatles and Wings, and then Egypt Station. I thought it was interesting when I realized you had made a record with no one else. I just wondered, did that feel natural?

McCartney: It’s one of the things I’ve done. Like with McCartney, because the Beatles had broken up, there was no alternative but to get a drum kit at home, get a guitar, get an amp, get a bass, and just make something for myself. So on that album, which I didn’t really expect to do very well, I don’t think it did. But people sort of say, “I like that. It was a very casual album.” It didn’t really have to mean anything. So I’ve done that, the play-everything-myself thing. And then I discovered synths and stuff, and sequencers, so I had a few of those at home. I just thought I’m going to play around with this and record it, so that became McCartney II. But it’s a thing I do. Certain people can do it. Stevie Wonder can do it. Stevie Winwood, I believe, has done it. So there are certain people quite like that.

When you’re working with someone else, you have to worry about their variances. Whereas your own variance, you kind of know it. It’s just something I’ve grown to like. Once you can do it, it becomes a little bit addictive. I actually made some records under the name the Fireman.

Swift: Love a pseudonym.

McCartney: Yeah, for the fun! But, you know, let’s face it, you crave fame and attention when you’re young. And I just remembered the other day, I was the guy in the Beatles that would write to journalists and say [speaks in a formal voice]: “We are a semiprofessional rock combo, and I’d think you’d like [us]... We’ve written over 100 songs (which was a lie), my friend John and I. If you mention us in your newspaper...” You know, I was always, like, craving the attention.

Swift: The hustle! That’s so great, though.

McCartney: Well, yeah, you need that.

Swift: Yeah, I think, when a pseudonym comes in is when you still have a love for making the work and you don’t want the work to become overshadowed by this thing that’s been built around you, based on what people know about you. And that’s when it’s really fun to create fake names and write under them.

McCartney: Do you ever do that?

Swift: Oh, yeah.

McCartney: Oh, yeah? Oh, well, we didn’t know that! Is that a widely known fact?

Swift: I think it is now, but it wasn’t. I wrote under the name Nils Sjöberg because those are two of the most popular names of Swedish males. I wrote this song called “This Is What You Came For” that Rihanna ended up singing. And nobody knew for a while. I remembered always hearing that when Prince wrote “Manic Monday,” they didn’t reveal it for a couple of months.

McCartney: Yeah, it also proves you can do something without the fame tag. I did something for Peter and Gordon; my girlfriend’s brother and his mate were in a band called Peter and Gordon. And I used to write under the name Bernard Webb.

Swift: [Laughs.] That’s a good one! I love it.

McCartney: As Americans call it, Ber-nard Webb. I did the Fireman thing. I worked with a producer, a guy called Youth, who’s this real cool dude. We got along great. He did a mix for me early on, and we got friendly. I would just go into the studio, and he would say, “Hey, what about this groove?” and he’d just made me have a little groove going. He’d say, “You ought to put some bass on it. Put some drums on it.” I’d just spend the whole day putting stuff on it. And we’d make these tracks, and nobody knew who Fireman was for a while. We must have sold all of 15 copies.

Swift: Thrilling, absolutely thrilling.

McCartney: And we didn’t mind, you know?

Swift: I think it’s so cool that you do projects that are just for you. Because I went with my family to see you in concert in 2010 or 2011, and the thing I took away from the show most was that it was the most selfless set list I had ever seen. It was completely geared toward what it would thrill us to hear. It had new stuff, but it had every hit we wanted to hear, every song we’d ever cried to, every song people had gotten married to, or been brokenhearted to. And I just remembered thinking, “I’ve got to remember that,” that you do that set list for your fans.

McCartney: You do that, do you?

Swift: I do now. I think that learning that lesson from you taught me at a really important stage in my career that if people want to hear “Love Story” and “Shake It Off,” and I’ve played them 300 million times, play them the 300-millionth-and-first time. I think there are times to be selfish in your career, and times to be selfless, and sometimes they line up.

McCartney: I always remembered going to concerts as a kid, completely before the Beatles, and I really hoped they would play the ones I loved. And if they didn’t, it was kind of disappointing. I had no money, and the family wasn’t wealthy. So this would be a big deal for me, to save up for months to afford the concert ticket.

Swift: Yeah, it feels like a bond. It feels like that person on the stage has given something, and it makes you as a crowd want to give even more back, in terms of applause, in terms of dedication. And I just remembered feeling that bond in the crowd, and thinking, “He’s up there playing these Beatles songs, my dad is crying, my mom is trying to figure out how to work her phone because her hands are shaking so much.” Because seeing the excitement course through not only me, but my family and the entire crowd in Nashville, it just was really special. I love learning lessons and not having to learn them the hard way. Like learning nice lessons I really value.

McCartney: Well, that’s great, and I’m glad that set you on that path. I understand people who don’t want to do that, and if you do, they’ll say, “Oh, it’s a jukebox show.” I hear what they’re saying. But I think it’s a bit of a cheat, because the people who come to our shows have spent a lot of money. We can afford to go to a couple of shows and it doesn’t make much difference. But a lot of ordinary working folks... it’s a big event in their life, and so I try and deliver. I also, like you say, try and put in a few weirdos.

Swift: That’s the best. I want to hear current things, too, to update me on where the artist is. I was wondering about lyrics, and where you were lyrically when you were making this record. Because when I was making Folklore, I went lyrically in a total direction of escapism and romanticism. And I wrote songs imagining I was, like, a pioneer woman in a forbidden love affair [laughs]. I was completely...

McCartney: Was this “I want to give you a child”? Is that one of the lines?

Swift: Oh, that’s a song called “Peace.”

McCartney: “Peace,” I like that one.

Swift: “Peace” is actually more rooted in my personal life. I know you have done a really excellent job of this in your personal life: carving out a human life within a public life, and how scary that can be when you do fall in love and you meet someone, especially if you’ve met someone who has a very grounded, normal way of living. I, oftentimes, in my anxieties, can control how I am as a person and how normal I act and rationalize things, but I cannot control if there are 20 photographers outside in the bushes and what they do and if they follow our car and if they interrupt our lives. I can’t control if there’s going to be a fake weird headline about us in the news tomorrow.

McCartney: So how does that go? Does your partner sympathize with that and understand?

Swift: Oh, absolutely.

McCartney: They have to, don’t they?

Swift: But I think that in knowing him and being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids. Whether that’s deciding where to live, who to hang out with, when to not take a picture - the idea of privacy feels so strange to try to explain, but it’s really just trying to find bits of normalcy. That’s what that song “Peace” is talking about. Like, would it be enough if I could never fully achieve the normalcy that we both crave? Stella always tells me that she had as normal a childhood as she could ever hope for under the circumstances.

McCartney: Yeah, it was very important to us to try and keep their feet on the ground amongst the craziness.

Swift: She went to a regular school...

McCartney: Yeah, she did.

Swift: And you would go trick-or-treating with them, wearing masks.

McCartney: All of them did, yeah. It was important, but it worked pretty well, because when they kind of reached adulthood, they would meet other kids who might have gone to private schools, who were a little less grounded.

And they could be the budding mothers to [kids]. I remember Mary had a friend, Orlando. Not Bloom. She used to really counsel him. And it’s ’cause she’d gone through that. Obviously, they got made fun of, my kids. They’d come in the classroom and somebody would sing, “Na na na na,” you know, one of the songs. And they’d have to handle that. They’d have to front it out.

Swift: Did that give you a lot of anxiety when you had kids, when you felt like all this pressure that’s been put on me is spilling over onto them, that they didn’t sign up for it? Was that hard for you?

McCartney: Yeah, a little bit, but it wasn’t like it is now. You know, we were just living a kind of semi-hippie life, where we withdrew from a lot of stuff. The kids would be doing all the ordinary things, and their school friends would be coming up to the house and having parties, and it was just great. I remember one lovely evening when it was Stella’s birthday, and she brought a bunch of school kids up. And, you know, they’d all ignore me. It happens very quickly. At first they’re like, “Oh, yeah, he’s like a famous guy,” and then it’s like [yawns]. I like that. I go in the other room and suddenly I hear this music going on. And one of the kids, his name was Luke, and he’s doing break dancing.

Swift: Ohhh!

McCartney: He was a really good break dancer, so all the kids are hanging out. That allowed them to be kind of normal with those kids. The other thing is, I don’t live fancy. I really don’t. Sometimes it’s a little bit of an embarrassment, if I’ve got someone coming to visit me, or who I know…

Swift: Cares about that stuff?

McCartney: Who’s got a nice big house, you know. Quincy Jones came to see me and I’m, like, making him a veggie burger or something. I’m doing some cooking. This was after I’d lost Linda, in between there. But the point I’m making is that I’m very consciously thinking, “Oh, God, Quincy’s got to be thinking, ‘What is this guy on? He hasn’t got big things going on. It’s not a fancy house at all. And we’re eating in the kitchen! He’s not even got the dining room going,’” you know?

Swift: I think that sounds like a perfect day.

McCartney: But that’s me. I’m awkward like that. That’s my kind of thing. Maybe I should have, like, a big stately home. Maybe I should get a staff. But I think I couldn’t do that. I’d be so embarrassed. I’d want to walk around dressed as I want to walk around, or naked, if I wanted to.

Swift: That can’t happen in Downton Abbey.

McCartney: [Laughs.] Exactly.

Swift: I remember what I wanted to know about, which is lyrics. Like, when you’re in this kind of strange, unparalleled time, and you’re making this record, are lyrics first? Or is it when you get a little melodic idea?

McCartney: It was a bit of both. As it kind of always is with me. There’s no fixed way. People used to ask me and John, “Well, who does the words, who does the music?” I used to say, “We both do both.” We used to say we don’t have a formula, and we don’t want one. Because the minute we get a formula, we should rip it up. I will sometimes, as I did with a couple of songs on this album, sit down at the piano and just start noodling around, and I’ll get a little idea and start to fill that out. So the lyrics - for me, it’s following a trail. I’ll start [sings “Find My Way,” a song from “McCartney III”]: “I can find my way. I know my left from right, da da da.” And I’ll just sort of fill it in. Like, we know this song, and I’m trying to remember the lyrics. Sometimes I’ll just be inspired by something. I had a little book which was all about the constellations and the stars and the orbits of Venus and...

Swift: Oh, I know that song - “The Kiss of Venus”?

McCartney: Yeah, “The Kiss of Venus.” And I just thought, “That’s a nice phrase.” So I was actually just taking phrases out of the book, harmonic sounds. And the book is talking about the maths of the universe, and how when things orbit around each other, and if you trace all the patterns, it becomes like a lotus flower.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: It’s very magical.

Swift: That is magical. I definitely relate to needing to find magical things in this very not-magical time, needing to read more books and learn to sew, and watch movies that take place hundreds of years ago. In a time where, if you look at the news, you just want to have a panic attack - I really relate to the idea that you are thinking about stars and constellations.

McCartney: Did you do that on Folklore?

Swift: Yes. I was reading so much more than I ever did, and watching so many more films.

McCartney: What stuff were you reading?

Swift: I was reading, you know, books like Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier, which I highly recommend, and books that dealt with times past, a world that doesn’t exist anymore. I was also using words I always wanted to use - kind of bigger, flowerier, prettier words, like “epiphany,” in songs. I always thought, “Well, that’ll never track on pop radio,” but when I was making this record, I thought, “What tracks? Nothing makes sense anymore. If there’s chaos everywhere, why don’t I just use the damn word I want to use in the song?”

McCartney: Exactly. So you’d see the word in a book and think, “I love that word”?

Swift: Yeah, I have favorite words, like “elegies” and “epiphany” and “divorcée,” and just words that I think sound beautiful, and I have lists and lists of them.

McCartney: How about “marzipan”?

Swift: Love “marzipan.”

McCartney: The other day, I was remembering when we wrote “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”: “kaleidoscope.”

Swift: “Kaleidoscope” is one of mine! I have a song on 1989, a song called “Welcome to New York,” that I put the word “kaleidoscope” in just because I’m obsessed with the word.

McCartney: I think a love of words is a great thing, particularly if you’re going to try to write a lyric, and for me, it’s like, “What is this going to say to that person?” I often feel like I’m writing to someone who is not doing so well. So I’m trying to write songs that might help. Not in a goody-goody, crusading kind of way, but just thinking there have been so many times in my life when I’ve heard a song and felt so much better. I think that’s the angle I want, that inspirational thing.

I remember once, a friend of mine from Liverpool, we were teenagers and we were going to a fairground. He was a schoolmate, and we had these jackets that had a little fleck in the material, which was the cool thing at the time.

Swift: We should have done matching jackets for this photo shoot.

McCartney: Find me a fleck, I’m in. But we went to the fair, and I just remember - this is what happens with songs - there was this girl at the fair. This is just a little Liverpool fair - it was in a place called Sefton Park - and there was this girl, who was so beautiful. She wasn’t a star. She was so beautiful. Everyone was following her, and it’s like, “Wow.” It’s like a magical scene, you know? But all this gave me a headache, so I ended up going back to his house - I didn’t normally get headaches. And we thought, “What can we do?” So we put on the Elvis song “All Shook Up.” By the end of that song, my headache had gone. I thought, you know, “That’s powerful.”

Swift: That really is powerful.

McCartney: I love that, when people stop me in the street and say, “Oh, I was going through an illness and I listened to a lot of your stuff, and I’m better now and it got me through,” or kids will say, “It got me through exams.” You know, they’re studying, they’re going crazy, but they put your music on. I’m sure it happens with a lot of your fans. It inspires them, you know?

Swift: Yeah, I definitely think about that as a goal. There’s so much stress everywhere you turn that I kind of wanted to make an album that felt sort of like a hug, or like your favorite sweater that makes you feel like you want to put it on.

McCartney: What, a “cardigan”?

Swift: Like a good cardigan, a good, worn-in cardigan. Or something that makes you reminisce on your childhood. I think sadness can be cozy. It can obviously be traumatic and stressful, too, but I kind of was trying to lean into sadness that feels like somehow enveloping in not such a scary way - like nostalgia and whimsy incorporated into a feeling like you’re not all right. Because I don’t think anybody was really feeling like they were in their prime this year. Isolation can mean escaping into your imagination in a way that’s kind of nice.

McCartney: I think a lot of people have found that. I would say to people, “I feel a bit guilty about saying I’m actually enjoying this quarantine thing,” and people go, “Yeah, I know, don’t say it to anyone.” A lot of people are really suffering.

Swift: Because there’s a lot in life that’s arbitrary. Completely and totally arbitrary. And [the quarantine] is really shining a light on that, and also a lot of things we have that we outsource that you can actually do yourself.

McCartney: I love that. This is why I said I live simply. That’s, like, at the core of it. With so many things, something goes wrong and you go, “Oh, I’ll get somebody to fix that.” And then it’s like, “No, let me have a look at it...”

Swift: Get a hammer and a nail.

McCartney: “Maybe I can put that picture up.” It’s not rocket science. The period after the Beatles, when we went to live in Scotland on a really - talk about dumpy - little farm. I mean, I see pictures of it now and I’m not ashamed, but I’m almost ashamed. Because it’s like, “God, nobody’s cleaned up around here.”

But it was really a relief. Because when I was with the Beatles, we’d formed Apple Records, and if I wanted a Christmas tree, someone would just buy it. And I thought, after a while, “No, you know what? I really would like to go and buy our Christmas tree. Because that’s what everyone does.” So you go down - “I’ll have that one” - and you carried it back. I mean, it’s little, but it’s huge at the same time.

I needed a table in Scotland and I was looking through a catalog and I thought, “I could make one. I did woodwork in school, so I know what a dovetail joint is.” So I just figured it out. I’m just sitting in the kitchen, and I’m whittling away at this wood and I made this little joint. There was no nail technology - it was glue. And I was scared to put it together. I said, “It’s not going to fit,” but one day, I got my woodwork glue and thought, “There’s no going back.” But it turned out to be a real nice little table I was very proud of. It was that sense of achievement.

The weird thing was, Stella went up to Scotland recently and I said, “Isn’t it there?” and she said, “No.” Anyway, I searched for it. Nobody remembered it. Somebody said, “Well, there’s a pile of wood in the corner of one of the barns, maybe that’s it. Maybe they used it for firewood.” I said, “No, it’s not firewood.” Anyway, we found it, and do you know how joyous that was for me? I was like, “You found my table?!” Somebody might say that’s a bit boring.

Swift: No, it’s cool!

McCartney: But it was a real sort of great thing for me to be able to do stuff for yourself. You were talking about sewing. I mean normally, in your position, you’ve got any amount of tailors.

Swift: Well, there’s been a bit of a baby boom recently; several of my friends have gotten pregnant.

McCartney: Oh, yeah, you’re at the age.

Swift: And I was just thinking, “I really want to spend time with my hands, making something for their children.” So I made this really cool flying-squirrel stuffed animal that I sent to one of my friends. I sent a teddy bear to another one, and I started making these little silk baby blankets with embroidery. It’s gotten pretty fancy. And I’ve been painting a lot.

McCartney: What do you paint? Watercolors?

Swift: Acrylic or oil. Whenever I do watercolor, all I paint is flowers. When I have oil, I really like to do landscapes. I always kind of return to painting a lonely little cottage on a hill.

McCartney: It’s a bit of a romantic dream. I agree with you, though, I think you’ve got to have dreams, particularly this year. You’ve got to have something to escape to. When you say “escapism,” it sounds like a dirty word, but this year, it definitely wasn’t. And in the books you’re reading, you’ve gone into that world. That’s, I think, a great thing. Then you come back out. I normally will read a lot before I go to bed. So I’ll come back out, then I’ll go to sleep, so I think it really is nice to have those dreams that can be fantasies or stuff you want to achieve.

Swift: You’re creating characters. This was the first album where I ever created characters, or wrote about the life of a real-life person. There’s a song called “The Last Great American Dynasty” that’s about this real-life heiress who lived just an absolutely chaotic, hectic...

McCartney: She’s a fantasy character?

Swift: She’s a real person. Who lived in the house that I live in.

McCartney: She’s a real person? I listened to that and I thought, “Who is this?”

Swift: Her name was Rebekah Harkness. And she lived in the house that I ended up buying in Rhode Island. That’s how I learned about her. But she was a woman who was very, very talked about, and everything she did was scandalous. I found a connection in that. But I also was thinking about how you write “Eleanor Rigby” and go into that whole story about what all these people in this town are doing and how their lives intersect, and I hadn’t really done that in a very long time with my music. It had always been so microscope personal.

McCartney: Yeah, ’cause you were writing breakup songs like they were going out of style.

Swift: I was, before my luck changed [laughs]. I still write breakup songs. I love a good breakup song. Because somewhere in the world, I always have a friend going through a breakup, and that will make me write one.

McCartney: Yeah, this goes back to this thing of me and John: When you’ve got a formula, break it. I don’t have a formula. It’s the mood I’m in. So I love the idea of writing a character. And, you know, trying to think, “What am I basing this on?” So “Eleanor Rigby” was based on old ladies I knew as a kid. For some reason or other, I got great relationships with a couple of local old ladies. I was thinking the other day, I don’t know how I met them, it wasn’t like they were family. I’d just run into them, and I’d do their shopping for them.

Swift: That’s amazing.

McCartney: It just felt good to me. I would sit and talk, and they’d have amazing stories. That’s what I liked. They would have stories from the wartime - because I was born actually in the war - and so these old ladies, they were participating in the war. This one lady I used to sort of just hang out with, she had a crystal radio that I found very magical. In the war, a lot of people made their own radios - you’d make them out of crystals [sings “The Twilight Zone” theme].

Swift: How did I not know this? That sounds like something I would have tried to learn about.

McCartney: It’s interesting, because there is a lot of parallels with the virus and lockdowns and wartime. It happened to everyone. Like, this isn’t HIV, or SARS, or Avian flu, which happened to others, generally. This has happened to everyone, all around the world. That’s the defining thing about this particular virus. And, you know, my parents... it happened to everyone in Britain, including the queen and Churchill. War happened. So they were all part of this thing, and they all had to figure out a way through it. So you figured out Folklore. I figured out McCartney III.

Swift: And a lot of people have been baking sourdough bread. Whatever gets you through!

McCartney: Some people used to make radios. And they’d take a crystal - we should look it up, but it actually is a crystal. I thought, “Oh, no, they just called it a crystal radio,” but it’s actually crystals like we know and love.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: And somehow they get the radio waves - this crystal attracts them - they tune it in, and that’s how they used to get their news. Back to “Eleanor Rigby,” so I would think of her and think of what she’s doing and then just try to get lyrical, just try to bring poetry into it, words you love, just try to get images like “picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,” and Father McKenzie “is darning his socks in the night.” You know, he’s a religious man, so I could’ve said, you know, “preparing his Bible,” which would have been more obvious. But “darning his socks” kind of says more about him. So you get into this lovely fantasy. And that’s the magic of songs, you know. It’s a black hole, and then you start doing this process, and then there’s this beautiful little flower that you’ve just made. So it is very like embroidery, making something.

Swift: Making a table.

McCartney: Making a table.

Swift: Wow, it would’ve been so fun to play Glastonbury for the 50th anniversary together.

McCartney: It would’ve been great, wouldn’t it? And I was going to be asking you to play with me.

Swift: Were you going to invite me? I was hoping that you would. I was going to ask you.

McCartney: I would’ve done “Shake It Off.”

Swift: Oh, my God, that would have been amazing.

McCartney: I know it, it’s in C!

Swift: One thing I just find so cool about you is that you really do seem to have the joy of it, still, just no matter what. You seem to have the purest sense of joy of playing an instrument and making music, and that’s just the best, I think.

McCartney: Well, we’re just so lucky, aren’t we?

Swift: We’re really lucky.

McCartney: I don’t know if it ever happens to you, but with me, it’s like, “Oh, my god, I’ve ended up as a musician.”

Swift: Yeah, I can’t believe it’s my job.

McCartney: I must tell you a story I told Mary the other day, which is just one of my favorite little sort of Beatles stories. We were in a terrible, big blizzard, going from London to Liverpool, which we always did. We’d be working in London and then drive back in the van, just the four of us with our roadie, who would be driving. And this was a blizzard. You couldn’t see the road. At one point, it slid off and it went down an embankment. So it was “Ahhh,” a bunch of yelling. We ended up at the bottom. It didn’t flip, luckily, but so there we are, and then it’s like, “Oh, how are we going to get back up? We’re in a van. It’s snowing, and there’s no way.” We’re all standing around in a little circle, and thinking, “What are we going to do?” And one of us said, “Well, something will happen.” And I thought that was just the greatest. I love that, that’s a philosophy.

Swift: “Something will happen.”

McCartney: And it did. We sort of went up the bank, we thumbed a lift, we got the lorry driver to take us, and Mal, our roadie, sorted the van and everything. So that was kind of our career. And I suppose that’s like how I ended up being a musician and a songwriter: “Something will happen.”

Swift: That’s the best.

McCartney: It’s so stupid it’s brilliant. It’s great if you’re ever in that sort of panic attack: “Oh, my God,” or, “Ahhh, what am I going to do?”

Swift: “Something will happen.”

McCartney: All right then, thanks for doing this, and this was, you know, a lot of fun.

Swift: You’re the best. This was so awesome. Those were some quality stories!

[sgt-paul]

MUSICIANS ON MUSICIANS: Paul McCartney & Taylor Swift

© Mary McCartney

❝ During the shoot, Paul dances and takes almost none of it too seriously and sings along to Motown songs playing from the speakers. A few times Mary scolds, ‘Daaad, try to stand still!’ And it feels like a window into a pretty awesome family dynamic. ❞

interview below the cut:

Taylor Swift arrived early to Paul McCartney’s London office in October, “mask on, brimming with excitement.” “I mostly work from home these days,” she writes about that day, “and today feels like a rare school field trip that you actually want to go on.”

Swift showed up without a team, doing her own hair and makeup. In addition to being two of the most famous pop songwriters in the world, Swift and McCartney have spent the past year on similar journeys. McCartney, isolated at home in the U.K., recorded McCartney III. Like his first solo album, in 1970, he played nearly all of the instruments himself, resulting in some of his most wildly ambitious songs in a long time. Swift also took some new chances, writing over email with the National’s Aaron Dessner and recording the raw Folklore, which abandons arena pop entirely in favor of rich character songs. It’s the bestselling album of 2020.

Swift listened to McCartney III as she prepared for today’s conversation; McCartney delved into Folkore. Before the photo shoot, Swift caught up with his daughters Mary (who would be photographing them) and Stella (who designed Swift’s clothes; the two are close friends). “I’ve met Paul a few times, mostly onstage at parties, but we’ll get to that later,” Swift writes. “Soon he walks in with his wife, Nancy. They’re a sunny and playful pair, and I immediately feel like this will be a good day. During the shoot, Paul dances and takes almost none of it too seriously and sings along to Motown songs playing from the speakers. A few times Mary scolds, ‘Daaad, try to stand still!’ And it feels like a window into a pretty awesome family dynamic. We walk into his office for a chat, and after I make a nervous request, Paul is kind enough to handwrite my favorite lyric of his and sign it. He makes a joke about me selling it, and I laugh because it’s something I know I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. That’s around the time when we start talking about music.”

Taylor Swift: I think it’s important to note that if this year had gone the way that we thought it was going to go, you and I would have played Glastonbury this year, and instead, you and I both made albums in isolation.

Paul McCartney: Yeah!

Swift: And I remember thinking it would have been so much fun because the times that I’ve run into you, I correlate with being some of the most fun nights of my life. I was at a party with you, when everybody just started playing music. And it was Dave Grohl playing, and you…

McCartney: You were playing one of his songs, weren’t you?

Swift: Yes, I was playing his song called “Best of You,” but I was playing it on piano, and he didn’t recognize it until about halfway through. I just remember thinking, “Are you the catalyst for the most fun times ever?” Is it your willingness to get up and play music that makes everyone feel like this is a thing that can happen tonight?

McCartney: I mean, I think it’s a bit of everything, isn’t it? I’ll tell you who was very … Reese Witherspoon was like, “Are you going to sing?” I said “Oh, I don’t know.” She said, “You’ve got to, yeah!” She’s bossing me around. So I said, “Whoa,” so it’s a bit of that.

Swift: I love that person, because the party does not turn musical without that person.

McCartney: Yeah, that’s true.

Swift: If nobody says, “Can you guys play music?” we’re not going to invite ourselves up onstage at whatever living-room party it is.

McCartney: I seem to remember Woody Harrelson got on the piano, and he starts playing “Let It Be,” and I’m thinking, “I can do that better.” So I said, “Come on, move over, Woody.” So we’re both playing it. It was really nice.… I love people like Dan Aykroyd, who’s just full of energy and he loves his music so much, but he’s not necessarily a musician, but he just wanders around the room, just saying, “You got to get up, got to get up, do some stuff.”

Swift: I listened to your new record. And I loved a lot of things about it, but it really did feel like kind of a flex to write, produce, and play every instrument on every track. To me, that’s like flexing a muscle and saying, “I can do all this on my own if I have to.”

McCartney: Well, I don’t think like that, I must admit. I just picked up some of these instruments over the years. We had a piano at home that my dad played, so I picked around on that. I wrote the melody to “When I’m 64” when I was, you know, a teenager.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: When the Beatles went to Hamburg, there were always drum kits knocking around, so when there was a quiet moment, I’d say, “Do you mind if I have a knock around?” So I was able to practice, you know, without practicing. That’s why I play right-handed. Guitar was just the first instrument I got. Guitar turned to bass; it also turned into ukulele, mandolin. Suddenly, it’s like, “Wow,” but it’s really only two or three instruments.

Swift: Well, I think that’s downplaying it a little bit. In my mind, it came with a visual of you being in the country, kind of absorbing the sort of do-it-yourself [quality] that has had to come with the quarantine and this pandemic. I found that I’ve adapted a do-it-yourself mentality to a lot of things in my career that I used to outsource.  I’m just wondering what a day of recording in the pandemic looked like for you.

McCartney: Well, I’m very lucky because I have a studio that’s, like, 20 minutes away from where I live. We were in lockdown on a farm, a sheep farm with my daughter Mary and her four kids and her husband. So I had four of my grandkids, I had Mary, who’s a great cook, so I would just drive myself to the studio. And there were two other guys that could come in and we’d be very careful and distanced and everything: my engineer Steve, and then my equipment guy Keith. So the three of us made the record, and I just started off. I had to do a little bit of film music — I had to do an instrumental for a film thing — so I did that. And I just kept going, and that turned into the opening track on the album. I would just come in, say, “Oh, yeah, what are we gonna do?” [Then] have some sort of idea, and start doing it. Normally, I’d start with the instrument I wrote it on, either piano or guitar, and then probably add some drums and then a bit of bass till it started to sound like a record, and then just gradually layer it all up. It was fun.

Swift: That’s so cool.

McCartney: What about yours? You’re playing guitar and piano on yours.

Swift: Yeah, on some of it, but a lot of it was made with Aaron Dessner, who’s in a band called the National that I really love. And I had met him at a concert a year before, and I had a conversation with him, asking him how he writes. It’s my favorite thing to ask people who I’m a fan of. And he had an interesting answer. He said, “All the band members live in different parts of the world. So I make tracks. And I send them to our lead singer, Matt, and he writes the top line.” I just remember thinking, “That is really efficient.” And I kind of stored it in my brain as a future idea for a project. You know, how you have these ideas… “Maybe one day I’ll do this.” I always had in my head: “Maybe one day I’ll work with Aaron Dessner.”

So when lockdown happened, I was in L.A., and we kind of got stuck there. It’s not a terrible place to be stuck. We were there for four months maybe, and during that time, I sent an email to Aaron Dessner and I said, “Do you think you would want to work during this time? Because my brain is all scrambled, and I need to make something, even if we’re just kind of making songs that we don’t know what will happen…”

McCartney: Yeah, that was the thing. You could do stuff — you didn’t really worry it was going to turn into anything.

Swift: Yeah, and it turned out he had been writing instrumental tracks to keep from absolutely going crazy during the pandemic as well, so he sends me this file of probably 30 instrumentals, and the first one I opened ended up being a song called “Cardigan,” and it really happened rapid-fire like that. He’d send me a track; he’d make new tracks, add to the folder; I would write the entire top line for a song, and he wouldn’t know what the song would be about, what it was going to be called, where I was going to put the chorus. I had originally thought, “Maybe I’ll make an album in the next year, and put it out in January or something,” but it ended up being done and we put it out in July. And I just thought there are no rules anymore, because I used to put all these parameters on myself, like, “How will this song sound in a stadium? How will this song sound on radio?” If you take away all the parameters, what do you make? And I guess the answer is Folklore.

McCartney: And it’s more music for yourself than music that’s got to go do a job. My thing was similar to that: After having done this little bit of film music, I had a lot of stuff that I had been working on, but I’d said, “I’m just going home now,” and it’d be left half-finished. So I just started saying, “Well, what about that? I never finished that.” So we’d pull it out, and we said, “Oh, well, this could be good.” And because it didn’t have to amount to anything, I would say, “Ah, I really want to do tape loops. I don’t care if they fit on this song, I just want to do some.” So I go and make some tape loops, and put them in the song, just really trying to do stuff that I fancy.

I had no idea it would end up as an album; I may have been a bit less indulgent, but if a track was eight minutes long, to tell you the truth, what I thought was, “I’ll be taking it home tonight, Mary will be cooking, the grandkids will all be there running around, and someone, maybe Simon, Mary’s husband, is going to say, ‘What did you do today?’ And I’m going to go, ‘Oh,’ and then get my phone and play it for them.” So this became the ritual.

Swift: That’s the coziest thing I’ve ever heard.

McCartney: Well, it’s like eight minutes long, and I said, “I hate it when I’m playing someone something and it finishes after three minutes.” I kind of like that it just [continues] on.

Swift: You want to stay in the zone.

McCartney: It just keeps going on. I would just come home, “Well, what did you do today?” “Oh, well, I did this. I’m halfway through this,” or, “We finished this.”

Swift: I was wondering about the numerology element to McCartney III. McCartney I, II, and III have all come out on years with zeroes.

McCartney: Ends of decades.

Swift: Was that important?

McCartney: Yeah, well, this was being done in 2020, and I didn’t really think about it. I think everyone expected great things of 2020. “It’s gonna be great! Look at that number! 2020! Auspicious!” Then suddenly Covid hit, and it was like, “That’s gonna be auspicious all right, but maybe for the wrong reasons.” Someone said to me, “Well, you put out McCartney right after the Beatles broke up, and that was 1970, and then you did McCartney II in 1980.” And I said, “Oh, I’m going to release this in 2020 just for whatever you call it, the numerology.…”

Swift: The numerology, the kind of look, the symbolism. I love numbers. Numbers kind of rule my whole world. The numbers 13  … 89 is a big one. I have a few others that I find…

McCartney: Thirteen is lucky for some.

Swift: Yeah, it’s lucky for me. It’s my birthday. It’s all these weird coincidences of good things that have happened. Now, when I see it places, I look at it as a sign that things are going the way they’re supposed to. They may not be good now, they could be painful now, but things are on a track. I don’t know, I love the numerology.

McCartney: It’s spooky, Taylor. It’s very spooky. Now wait a minute: Where’d you get 89?

Swift: That’s when I was born, in 1989, and so I see it in different places and I just think it’s…

McCartney: No, it’s good. I like that, where certain things you attach yourself to, and you get a good feeling off them. I think that’s great.

Swift: Yeah, one of my favorite artists, Bon Iver, he has this thing with the number 22. But I was also wondering: You have always kind of seeked out a band or a communal atmosphere with like, you know, the Beatles and Wings, and then Egypt Station. I thought it was interesting when I realized you had made a record with no one else. I just wondered, did that feel natural?

McCartney: It’s one of the things I’ve done. Like with McCartney, because the Beatles had broken up, there was no alternative but to get a drum kit at home, get a guitar, get an amp, get a bass, and just make something for myself. So on that album, which I didn’t really expect to do very well, I don’t think it did. But people sort of say, “I like that. It was a very casual album.” It didn’t really have to mean anything. So I’ve done that, the play-everything-myself thing. And then I discovered synths and stuff, and sequencers, so I had a few of those at home. I just thought I’m going to play around with this and record it, so that became McCartney II. But it’s a thing I do. Certain people can do it. Stevie Wonder can do it. Stevie Winwood, I believe, has done it. So there are certain people quite like that.

When you’re working with someone else, you have to worry about their variances. Whereas your own variance, you kind of know it. It’s just something I’ve grown to like. Once you can do it, it becomes a little bit addictive. I actually made some records under the name the Fireman.

Swift: Love a pseudonym.

McCartney: Yeah, for the fun! But, you know, let’s face it, you crave fame and attention when you’re young. And I just remembered the other day, I was the guy in the Beatles that would write to journalists and say [speaks in a formal voice]: “We are a semiprofessional rock combo, and I’d think you’d like [us].… We’ve written over 100 songs (which was a lie), my friend John and I. If you mention us in your newspaper…” You know, I was always, like, craving the attention.

Swift: The hustle! That’s so great, though.

McCartney: Well, yeah, you need that.

Swift: Yeah, I think, when a pseudonym comes in is when you still have a love for making the work and you don’t want the work to become overshadowed by this thing that’s been built around you, based on what people know about you. And that’s when it’s really fun to create fake names and write under them.

McCartney: Do you ever do that?

Swift: Oh, yeah.

McCartney: Oh, yeah? Oh, well, we didn’t know that! Is that a widely known fact?

Swift: I think it is now, but it wasn’t. I wrote under the name Nils Sjöberg because those are two of the most popular names of Swedish males. I wrote this song called “This Is What You Came For” that Rihanna ended up singing. And nobody knew for a while. I remembered always hearing that when Prince wrote “Manic Monday,” they didn’t reveal it for a couple of months.

McCartney: Yeah, it also proves you can do something without the fame tag. I did something for Peter and Gordon; my girlfriend’s brother and his mate were in a band called Peter and Gordon. And I used to write under the name Bernard Webb.

Swift: [Laughs.] That’s a good one! I love it.

McCartney: As Americans call it, Ber-nard Webb. I did the Fireman thing. I worked with a producer, a guy called Youth, who’s this real cool dude. We got along great. He did a mix for me early on, and we got friendly. I would just go into the studio, and he would say, “Hey, what about this groove?” and he’d just made me have a little groove going. He’d say, “You ought to put some bass on it. Put some drums on it.” I’d just spend the whole day putting stuff on it. And we’d make these tracks, and nobody knew who Fireman was for a while. We must have sold all of 15 copies.

Swift: Thrilling, absolutely thrilling.

McCartney: And we didn’t mind, you know?

Swift: I think it’s so cool that you do projects that are just for you. Because I went with my family to see you in concert in 2010 or 2011, and the thing I took away from the show most was that it was the most selfless set list I had ever seen. It was completely geared toward what it would thrill us to hear. It had new stuff, but it had every hit we wanted to hear, every song we’d ever cried to, every song people had gotten married to, or been brokenhearted to. And I just remembered thinking, “I’ve got to remember that,” that you do that set list for your fans.

McCartney: You do that, do you?

Swift: I do now. I think that learning that lesson from you taught me at a really important stage in my career that if people want to hear “Love Story” and “Shake It Off,” and I’ve played them 300 million times, play them the 300-millionth-and-first time. I think there are times to be selfish in your career, and times to be selfless, and sometimes they line up.

McCartney: I always remembered going to concerts as a kid, completely before the Beatles, and I really hoped they would play the ones I loved. And if they didn’t, it was kind of disappointing. I had no money, and the family wasn’t wealthy. So this would be a big deal for me, to save up for months to afford the concert ticket.

Swift: Yeah, it feels like a bond. It feels like that person on the stage has given something, and it makes you as a crowd want to give even more back, in terms of applause, in terms of dedication. And I just remembered feeling that bond in the crowd, and thinking, “He’s up there playing these Beatles songs, my dad is crying, my mom is trying to figure out how to work her phone because her hands are shaking so much.” Because seeing the excitement course through not only me, but my family and the entire crowd in Nashville, it just was really special. I love learning lessons and not having to learn them the hard way. Like learning nice lessons I really value.

McCartney: Well, that’s great, and I’m glad that set you on that path. I understand people who don’t want to do that, and if you do, they’ll say, “Oh, it’s a jukebox show.” I hear what they’re saying. But I think it’s a bit of a cheat, because the people who come to our shows have spent a lot of money. We can afford to go to a couple of shows and it doesn’t make much difference. But a lot of ordinary working folks … it’s a big event in their life, and so I try and deliver. I also, like you say, try and put in a few weirdos.

Swift: That’s the best. I want to hear current things, too, to update me on where the artist is. I was wondering about lyrics, and where you were lyrically when you were making this record. Because when I was making Folklore, I went lyrically in a total direction of escapism and romanticism. And I wrote songs imagining I was, like, a pioneer woman in a forbidden love affair [laughs]. I was completely …

McCartney: Was this “I want to give you a child”? Is that one of the lines?

Swift: Oh, that’s a song called “Peace.”

McCartney: “Peace,” I like that one.

Swift: “Peace” is actually more rooted in my personal life. I know you have done a really excellent job of this in your personal life: carving out a human life within a public life, and how scary that can be when you do fall in love and you meet someone, especially if you’ve met someone who has a very grounded, normal way of living. I, oftentimes, in my anxieties, can control how I am as a person and how normal I act and rationalize things, but I cannot control if there are 20 photographers outside in the bushes and what they do and if they follow our car and if they interrupt our lives. I can’t control if there’s going to be a fake weird headline about us in the news tomorrow.

McCartney: So how does that go? Does your partner sympathize with that and understand?

Swift: Oh, absolutely.

McCartney: They have to, don’t they?

Swift: But I think that in knowing him and being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids. Whether that’s deciding where to live, who to hang out with, when to not take a picture — the idea of privacy feels so strange to try to explain, but it’s really just trying to find bits of normalcy. That’s what that song “Peace” is talking about. Like, would it be enough if I could never fully achieve the normalcy that we both crave? Stella always tells me that she had as normal a childhood as she could ever hope for under the circumstances.

McCartney: Yeah, it was very important to us to try and keep their feet on the ground amongst the craziness.

Swift: She went to a regular school .…

McCartney: Yeah, she did.

Swift: And you would go trick-or-treating with them, wearing masks.

McCartney: All of them did, yeah. It was important, but it worked pretty well, because when they kind of reached adulthood, they would meet other kids who might have gone to private schools, who were a little less grounded.

And they could be the budding mothers to [kids]. I remember Mary had a friend, Orlando. Not Bloom. She used to really counsel him. And it’s ’cause she’d gone through that. Obviously, they got made fun of, my kids. They’d come in the classroom and somebody would sing, “Na na na na,” you know, one of the songs. And they’d have to handle that. They’d have to front it out.

Swift: Did that give you a lot of anxiety when you had kids, when you felt like all this pressure that’s been put on me is spilling over onto them, that they didn’t sign up for it? Was that hard for you?

McCartney: Yeah, a little bit, but it wasn’t like it is now. You know, we were just living a kind of semi-hippie life, where we withdrew from a lot of stuff. The kids would be doing all the ordinary things, and their school friends would be coming up to the house and having parties, and it was just great. I remember one lovely evening when it was Stella’s birthday, and she brought a bunch of school kids up. And, you know, they’d all ignore me. It happens very quickly. At first they’re like, “Oh, yeah, he’s like a famous guy,” and then it’s like [yawns]. I like that. I go in the other room and suddenly I hear this music going on. And one of the kids, his name was Luke, and he’s doing break dancing.

Swift: Ohhh!

McCartney: He was a really good break dancer, so all the kids are hanging out. That allowed them to be kind of normal with those kids. The other thing is, I don’t live fancy. I really don’t. Sometimes it’s a little bit of an embarrassment, if I’ve got someone coming to visit me, or who I know…

Swift: Cares about that stuff?

McCartney: Who’s got a nice big house, you know. Quincy Jones came to see me and I’m, like, making him a veggie burger or something. I’m doing some cooking. This was after I’d lost Linda, in between there. But the point I’m making is that I’m very consciously thinking, “Oh, God, Quincy’s got to be thinking, ‘What is this guy on? He hasn’t got big things going on. It’s not a fancy house at all. And we’re eating in the kitchen! He’s not even got the dining room going,’” you know?

Swift: I think that sounds like a perfect day.

McCartney: But that’s me. I’m awkward like that. That’s my kind of thing. Maybe I should have, like, a big stately home. Maybe I should get a staff. But I think I couldn’t do that. I’d be so embarrassed. I’d want to walk around dressed as I want to walk around, or naked, if I wanted to.

Swift: That can’t happen in Downton Abbey.

McCartney: [Laughs.] Exactly.

Swift: I remember what I wanted to know about, which is lyrics. Like, when you’re in this kind of strange, unparalleled time, and you’re making this record, are lyrics first? Or is it when you get a little melodic idea?

McCartney: It was a bit of both. As it kind of always is with me. There’s no fixed way. People used to ask me and John, “Well, who does the words, who does the music?” I used to say, “We both do both.” We used to say we don’t have a formula, and we don’t want one. Because the minute we get a formula, we should rip it up. I will sometimes, as I did with a couple of songs on this album, sit down at the piano and just start noodling around, and I’ll get a little idea and start to fill that out. So the lyrics — for me, it’s following a trail. I’ll start [sings “Find My Way,” a song from “McCartney III”]: “I can find my way. I know my left from right, da da da.” And I’ll just sort of fill it in. Like, we know this song, and I’m trying to remember the lyrics. Sometimes I’ll just be inspired by something. I had a little book which was all about the constellations and the stars and the orbits of Venus and.…

Swift: Oh, I know that song — “The Kiss of Venus”?

McCartney: Yeah, “The Kiss of Venus.” And I just thought, “That’s a nice phrase.” So I was actually just taking phrases out of the book, harmonic sounds. And the book is talking about the maths of the universe, and how when things orbit around each other, and if you trace all the patterns, it becomes like a lotus flower.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: It’s very magical.

Swift: That is magical. I definitely relate to needing to find magical things in this very not-magical time, needing to read more books and learn to sew, and watch movies that take place hundreds of years ago. In a time where, if you look at the news, you just want to have a panic attack — I really relate to the idea that you are thinking about stars and constellations.

McCartney: Did you do that on Folklore?

Swift: Yes. I was reading so much more than I ever did, and watching so many more films.

McCartney: What stuff were you reading?

Swift: I was reading, you know, books like Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier, which I highly recommend, and books that dealt with times past, a world that doesn’t exist anymore. I was also using words I always wanted to use — kind of bigger, flowerier, prettier words, like “epiphany,” in songs. I always thought, “Well, that’ll never track on pop radio,” but when I was making this record, I thought, “What tracks? Nothing makes sense anymore. If there’s chaos everywhere, why don’t I just use the damn word I want to use in the song?”

McCartney: Exactly. So you’d see the word in a book and think, “I love that word”?

Swift: Yeah, I have favorite words, like “elegies” and “epiphany” and “divorcée,” and just words that I think sound beautiful, and I have lists and lists of them.

McCartney: How about “marzipan”?

Swift: Love “marzipan.”

McCartney: The other day, I was remembering when we wrote “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”: “kaleidoscope.”

Swift: “Kaleidoscope” is one of mine! I have a song on 1989, a song called “Welcome to New York,” that I put the word “kaleidoscope” in just because I’m obsessed with the word.

McCartney: I think a love of words is a great thing, particularly if you’re going to try to write a lyric, and for me, it’s like, “What is this going to say to that person?” I often feel like I’m writing to someone who is not doing so well. So I’m trying to write songs that might help. Not in a goody-goody, crusading kind of way, but just thinking there have been so many times in my life when I’ve heard a song and felt so much better. I think that’s the angle I want, that inspirational thing.

I remember once, a friend of mine from Liverpool, we were teenagers and we were going to a fairground. He was a schoolmate, and we had these jackets that had a little fleck in the material, which was the cool thing at the time.

Swift: We should have done matching jackets for this photo shoot.

McCartney: Find me a fleck, I’m in. But we went to the fair, and I just remember — this is what happens with songs — there was this girl at the fair. This is just a little Liverpool fair — it was in a place called Sefton Park — and there was this girl, who was so beautiful. She wasn’t a star. She was so beautiful. Everyone was following her, and it’s like, “Wow.” It’s like a magical scene, you know? But all this gave me a headache, so I ended up going back to his house — I didn’t normally get headaches. And we thought, “What can we do?” So we put on the Elvis song “All Shook Up.” By the end of that song, my headache had gone. I thought, you know, “That’s powerful.”

Swift: That really is powerful.

McCartney: I love that, when people stop me in the street and say, “Oh, I was going through an illness and I listened to a lot of your stuff, and I’m better now and it got me through,” or kids will say, “It got me through exams.” You know, they’re studying, they’re going crazy, but they put your music on. I’m sure it happens with a lot of your fans. It inspires them, you know?

Swift: Yeah, I definitely think about that as a goal. There’s so much stress everywhere you turn that I kind of wanted to make an album that felt sort of like a hug, or like your favorite sweater that makes you feel like you want to put it on.

McCartney: What, a “cardigan”?

Swift: Like a good cardigan, a good, worn-in cardigan. Or something that makes you reminisce on your childhood. I think sadness can be cozy. It can obviously be traumatic and stressful, too, but I kind of was trying to lean into sadness that feels like somehow enveloping in not such a scary way — like nostalgia and whimsy incorporated into a feeling like you’re not all right. Because I don’t think anybody was really feeling like they were in their prime this year. Isolation can mean escaping into your imagination in a way that’s kind of nice.

McCartney: I think a lot of people have found that. I would say to people, “I feel a bit guilty about saying I’m actually enjoying this quarantine thing,” and people go, “Yeah, I know, don’t say it to anyone.” A lot of people are really suffering.

Swift: Because there’s a lot in life that’s arbitrary. Completely and totally arbitrary. And [the quarantine] is really shining a light on that, and also a lot of things we have that we outsource that you can actually do yourself.

McCartney: I love that. This is why I said I live simply. That’s, like, at the core of it. With so many things, something goes wrong and you go, “Oh, I’ll get somebody to fix that.” And then it’s like, “No, let me have a look at it.…”

Swift: Get a hammer and a nail.

McCartney: “Maybe I can put that picture up.” It’s not rocket science. The period after the Beatles, when we went to live in Scotland on a really — talk about dumpy — little farm. I mean, I see pictures of it now and I’m not ashamed, but I’m almost ashamed. Because it’s like, “God, nobody’s cleaned up around here.”

But it was really a relief. Because when I was with the Beatles, we’d formed Apple Records, and if I wanted a Christmas tree, someone would just buy it. And I thought, after a while, “No, you know what? I really would like to go and buy our Christmas tree. Because that’s what everyone does.” So you go down — “I’ll have that one” — and you carried it back. I mean, it’s little, but it’s huge at the same time.

I needed a table in Scotland and I was looking through a catalog and I thought, “I could make one. I did woodwork in school, so I know what a dovetail joint is.” So I just figured it out. I’m just sitting in the kitchen, and I’m whittling away at this wood and I made this little joint. There was no nail technology — it was glue. And I was scared to put it together. I said, “It’s not going to fit,” but one day, I got my woodwork glue and thought, “There’s no going back.” But it turned out to be a real nice little table I was very proud of. It was that sense of achievement.

The weird thing was, Stella went up to Scotland recently and I said, “Isn’t it there?” and she said, “No.” Anyway, I searched for it. Nobody remembered it. Somebody said, “Well, there’s a pile of wood in the corner of one of the barns, maybe that’s it. Maybe they used it for firewood.” I said, “No, it’s not firewood.” Anyway, we found it, and do you know how joyous that was for me? I was like, “You found my table?!” Somebody might say that’s a bit boring.

Swift: No, it’s cool!

McCartney: But it was a real sort of great thing for me to be able to do stuff for yourself. You were talking about sewing. I mean normally, in your position, you’ve got any amount of tailors.

Swift: Well, there’s been a bit of a baby boom recently; several of my friends have gotten pregnant.

McCartney: Oh, yeah, you’re at the age.

Swift: And I was just thinking, “I really want to spend time with my hands, making something for their children.” So I made this really cool flying-squirrel stuffed animal that I sent to one of my friends. I sent a teddy bear to another one, and I started making these little silk baby blankets with embroidery. It’s gotten pretty fancy. And I’ve been painting a lot.

McCartney: What do you paint? Watercolors?

Swift: Acrylic or oil. Whenever I do watercolor, all I paint is flowers. When I have oil, I really like to do landscapes. I always kind of return to painting a lonely little cottage on a hill.

McCartney: It’s a bit of a romantic dream. I agree with you, though, I think you’ve got to have dreams, particularly this year. You’ve got to have something to escape to. When you say “escapism,” it sounds like a dirty word, but this year, it definitely wasn’t. And in the books you’re reading, you’ve gone into that world. That’s, I think, a great thing. Then you come back out. I normally will read a lot before I go to bed. So I’ll come back out, then I’ll go to sleep, so I think it really is nice to have those dreams that can be fantasies or stuff you want to achieve.

Swift: You’re creating characters. This was the first album where I ever created characters, or wrote about the life of a real-life person. There’s a song called “The Last Great American Dynasty” that’s about this real-life heiress who lived just an absolutely chaotic, hectic…

McCartney: She’s a fantasy character?

Swift: She’s a real person. Who lived in the house that I live in.

McCartney: She’s a real person? I listened to that and I thought, “Who is this?”

Swift: Her name was Rebekah Harkness. And she lived in the house that I ended up buying in Rhode Island. That’s how I learned about her. But she was a woman who was very, very talked about, and everything she did was scandalous. I found a connection in that. But I also was thinking about how you write “Eleanor Rigby” and go into that whole story about what all these people in this town are doing and how their lives intersect, and I hadn’t really done that in a very long time with my music. It had always been so microscope personal.

McCartney: Yeah, ’cause you were writing breakup songs like they were going out of style.

Swift: I was, before my luck changed [laughs]. I still write breakup songs. I love a good breakup song. Because somewhere in the world, I always have a friend going through a breakup, and that will make me write one.

McCartney: Yeah, this goes back to this thing of me and John: When you’ve got a formula, break it. I don’t have a formula. It’s the mood I’m in. So I love the idea of writing a character. And, you know, trying to think, “What am I basing this on?” So “Eleanor Rigby” was based on old ladies I knew as a kid. For some reason or other, I got great relationships with a couple of local old ladies. I was thinking the other day, I don’t know how I met them, it wasn’t like they were family. I’d just run into them, and I’d do their shopping for them.

Swift: That’s amazing.

McCartney: It just felt good to me. I would sit and talk, and they’d have amazing stories. That’s what I liked. They would have stories from the wartime — because I was born actually in the war — and so these old ladies, they were participating in the war. This one lady I used to sort of just hang out with, she had a crystal radio that I found very magical. In the war, a lot of people made their own radios — you’d make them out of crystals [sings “The Twilight Zone” theme].

Swift: How did I not know this? That sounds like something I would have tried to learn about.

McCartney: It’s interesting, because there is a lot of parallels with the virus and lockdowns and wartime. It happened to everyone. Like, this isn’t HIV, or SARS, or Avian flu, which happened to others, generally. This has happened to everyone, all around the world. That’s the defining thing about this particular virus. And, you know, my parents … it happened to everyone in Britain, including the queen and Churchill. War happened. So they were all part of this thing, and they all had to figure out a way through it. So you figured out Folklore. I figured out McCartney III.

Swift: And a lot of people have been baking sourdough bread. Whatever gets you through!

McCartney: Some people used to make radios. And they’d take a crystal — we should look it up, but it actually is a crystal. I thought, “Oh, no, they just called it a crystal radio,” but it’s actually crystals like we know and love.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: And somehow they get the radio waves — this crystal attracts them — they tune it in, and that’s how they used to get their news. Back to “Eleanor Rigby,” so I would think of her and think of what she’s doing and then just try to get lyrical, just try to bring poetry into it, words you love, just try to get images like “picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,” and Father McKenzie “is darning his socks in the night.” You know, he’s a religious man, so I could’ve said, you know, “preparing his Bible,” which would have been more obvious. But “darning his socks” kind of says more about him. So you get into this lovely fantasy. And that’s the magic of songs, you know. It’s a black hole, and then you start doing this process, and then there’s this beautiful little flower that you’ve just made. So it is very like embroidery, making something.

Swift: Making a table.

McCartney: Making a table.

Swift: Wow, it would’ve been so fun to play Glastonbury for the 50th anniversary together.

McCartney: It would’ve been great, wouldn’t it? And I was going to be asking you to play with me.

Swift: Were you going to invite me? I was hoping that you would. I was going to ask you.

McCartney: I would’ve done “Shake It Off.”

Swift: Oh, my God, that would have been amazing.

McCartney: I know it, it’s in C!

Swift: One thing I just find so cool about you is that you really do seem to have the joy of it, still, just no matter what. You seem to have the purest sense of joy of playing an instrument and making music, and that’s just the best, I think.

McCartney: Well, we’re just so lucky, aren’t we?

Swift: We’re really lucky.

McCartney: I don’t know if it ever happens to you, but with me, it’s like, “Oh, my god, I’ve ended up as a musician.”

Swift: Yeah, I can’t believe it’s my job.

McCartney: I must tell you a story I told Mary the other day, which is just one of my favorite little sort of Beatles stories. We were in a terrible, big blizzard, going from London to Liverpool, which we always did. We’d be working in London and then drive back in the van, just the four of us with our roadie, who would be driving. And this was a blizzard. You couldn’t see the road. At one point, it slid off and it went down an embankment. So it was “Ahhh,” a bunch of yelling. We ended up at the bottom. It didn’t flip, luckily, but so there we are, and then it’s like, “Oh, how are we going to get back up? We’re in a van. It’s snowing, and there’s no way.” We’re all standing around in a little circle, and thinking, “What are we going to do?” And one of us said, “Well, something will happen.” And I thought that was just the greatest. I love that, that’s a philosophy.

Swift: “Something will happen.”

McCartney: And it did. We sort of went up the bank, we thumbed a lift, we got the lorry driver to take us, and Mal, our roadie, sorted the van and everything. So that was kind of our career. And I suppose that’s like how I ended up being a musician and a songwriter: “Something will happen.”

Swift: That’s the best.

McCartney: It’s so stupid it’s brilliant. It’s great if you’re ever in that sort of panic attack: “Oh, my God,” or, “Ahhh, what am I going to do?”

Swift: “Something will happen.”

McCartney: All right then, thanks for doing this, and this was, you know, a lot of fun.

Swift: You’re the best. This was so awesome. Those were some quality stories!

[everybodyscupoftea]

hockey!jj: road to the nhl

the ncaa and the stress of being an nhl prospect

@sunnypogue​​ and i are back at it folks - and with this, we’ve finally established all of jj’s backstory

(the next thing we’re working on is the masterlist linking all of our hockey!jj and coho!rafe content - we’re posting on both of our blogs and @sunnypogue​ has a ton of coho!rafe stuff written already for you to catch up on his backstory)

warnings: cursing

Ward knew the Major-Junior leagues were a great opportunity and that they funneled players straight into the NHL - JJ’s end goal

The OHL came knocking as soon as JJ was draft eligible, but the idea of leaving the outer banks during high school to move somewhere way up north to play with even richer kids than he already did was intimidating to him

Then Rafe started looking at college hockey and opened the ncaa option to JJ, which he much preferred

As soon as Ward learned that JJ was considering college hockey, he started contacting coaches from the top hockey schools in the nation

Ward had a whole whiteboard full of schools and corresponding contacts posted up in his office

He sent out JJ’s highlight tape to any D1 school he could get in touch with

(JJ was oblivious - just playin’ hockey & working at the mechanics in his free time)

Actually, outside of playing hockey, JJ had very little to do with the process

Ward would send the emails, field the calls, etc.

Ward even accompanied him on a few recruiting trips, asking all the right questions.

(Did Ward miss one of Rafe’s games to attend the BU recruiting trip? Yes.)

And it paid off - JJ had a lot of college offers from some really good schools

Most of which JJ had no idea existed - Quinnipac? Northeastern? Clarkson?

Of course, there were a few he recognized - Michigan, BU, Denver

(tbh his favorite was Arizona State, but Ward refused because - “what kind of hockey did they play on the West Coast?”)

(JJ imagined it was similar to the hockey they played in North Carolina, but kept his mouth shut - for once.)

After much debate, he decided to attend University of North Dakota

JJ had grown up watching Toews & Oshie college highlights - he couldn’t help but have a soft spot for the school

Plus, the concept of living in North Dakota was hilarious to him

Ward moved JJ in mid-June, sticking around for an additional week to “keep an eye on him”

Despite Ward practically adopting JJ, he still didn’t really trust him

JJ caught Ward hovering at his practices, chatting up the coaching staff, the Athletic Director, his RA - JJ could only imagine what Ward was instructing them to do.

JJ dealt with it the way he dealt with most Ward-related things - he put his head down and played hockey.

JJ’s birthday was mid-September, so he had the luxury of being able to enroll at UND without worrying about the upcoming draft - he wasn’t eligible for another year.

UND was great, the guys were really nice and it was like a fresh start for him - no Ward, no Luke.

No one knew he was just a poor kid from some beach town on the Atlantic Coast with a deadbeat dad - he was “just JJ”

Road trips were his favorite - he’d never really gotten to travel in this region of the US before

He loved the bus rides with his teammates - even the early morning ones.

Plus, his teammates actually LIKED him - unlike his travel team back in NC, who never really embraced him as “one of their own”

(Ward said they were jealous - JJ knew better.)

The team was significantly more laidback than his travel team - despite being one of the best teams in the country

Most of the guys weren’t actively trying for the NHL and were a lot more chill which helped his nerves

Some of the older guys were already drafted, allowed to return back to UND for a year or two before joining their respective clubs

They took JJ under their wing, recognizing his talent immediately

They were always willing to hang around after practice, offering an opportunity for JJ to get a couple more drills in, or hit the gym with him a little extra.

They were full of advice for what to do and what not to do as a prospect

One thing they all advised? Attend the combine

JJ got an invite, late his freshman year, opting to attend despite being pretty unknown.

No one was really talking about him, this scrappy kid from North Carolina, who somehow got a full ride to UND.

He had a pretty impressive combine despite being on the smaller side; the physical testing went well, even though he almost threw up after the Wingate Test

(The kid before him puked twice)

The team interviews were harder, he was unfamiliar with it, unlike the junior hockey boys, his only experience coming from meeting with college coaches

JJ definitely said the Wrong Thing more than once

Ward had always handled the harder questions, the harder conversations - suddenly JJ was getting asked about his attitude issues, what he thought about legalizing marijuana, what he would do if there was a 25 foot python in a room with him - JJ was LOST.

(Also if he got ONE MORE question about his size, he was going to Lose It.)

He felt really alienated because they all seemed to know each other; it was like an exclusive clique.

Thankfully, one of his older teammates from UND was there too - they stuck together despite not really being good friends.

Somehow, he survived the combine (even after he snarked off in an interview when they questioned him about his height - JJ aptly responded with a “well, I’m taller than you, aren’t I?”)

Ward did not like that one.

His prospect status grew. Teams were very interested in him and he got on the media’s radar. Analysts predicted him going late first round, early second even.

Some of his UND teammates got wind of his newfound popularity and googled his name + elite prospects to check out his page

JJ was a little astounded to see how in depth they’d gone on his stats and a little embarrassed by all the teasing, but it was never mean-spirited

Kinda helped him feel like one of the guys which was unfamiliar after being ostracized in his younger years for not having the same economic status

JJ felt a little sick when he entered the draft.

He had been having a recurring dream where he attended the first and second rounds, only to not get picked at all, left sitting in the stands, desperately waiting to hear his name.

Deep down he knew he’d get selected by someone, but there was the inherent fear that teams hated him and would pass on him.

What if he didn’t get picked at all?

Of course, several teams were interested in him - he had a great freshman year, an excellent showing in the Frozen Four (UND lost in the semis, but JJ really put the team on his back), and his name was popping up all over Twitter as a “sleeper first round pick”

He had been in contact with scouts from Philadelphia, Columbus, Nashville and Dallas - he knew they were interested.

Ward regularly kept up with JJ, checking in to make sure his grades were good and he was getting his workouts in to stay in top form for the draft.

“Scouts are going to start attending your games, if they haven’t already.”

“They’ve even popped up at a few of Rafe’s games - they’ll be at yours.”

(That’s how JJ found out Rafe was interested in trying out for the Canes after graduation)

JJ felt stupid, but he was really praying Carolina wasn’t interested in him - he’d rather go undrafted than end up on a team with Rafe again

Hell, he was hoping they wouldn’t be in the same division, much less the same conference - the less he saw of Rafe, the better.

Silly boy thought he’d be in the AHL

JJ didn’t attend the draft because he wasn’t predicted to go super early (also, you know - the nightmares)

He ended up staying in North Dakota to keep practicing and working out with some of his teammates who stuck around

The night of the first round, the group of them ordered food and hung out in one of the boys apartments to watch together. JJ was pretty sure he wouldn’t go in the first round, but his curiosity won out.

He sat in a corner chair, staring blankly at his hands the majority of the evening, too nervous to really even watch

To his surprise, his name was called late in the first round, the Dallas Stars using the 28th pick on him.

(JJ was pretty dejected at this point - Philly and Nashville had passed him up, despite showing a ton of interest earlier in the week)

He was struck still and wordless, barely registering the boys jumping up and down, shaking him, and screaming all around him

“Fuck, dude, you get to play with Seguin and Benn”

Soon after the first round ended, the Stars GM called and he put it on speaker to talk to him

“We love your game, son, we feel you’ll be a good fit for our team. I’m calling to invite you to prospect camp this year, we want the opportunity to see what you can really do. Can’t wait to see you in a Stars uniform.”

Ward called him next, already talking about getting JJ an agent and flight details to get down to Dallas for camp. It was all a blur, and the fluttering in JJ’s stomach got stronger as he realized he’d really made it.

Well, almost made it.

Prospect camp was insane. He felt like he barely slept, it was just eating, media, and hockey. The facilities were amazing and the other guys were so talented.

The competitive atmosphere was nothing like he’d ever felt before, and he thrived, consistently rising to the challenge.

Everyone wanted an invite to training camp, but spots were limited.

The practices were on another level - JJ was bone tired the whole week, body aching from the constant skating & checking.

Scrimmages were fun - JJ loved playing with guys outside the NCAA, enjoying the challenge that came with playing with talented, older prospects.

At the end, he got an invite to training camp

Playing with actual NHLers, some that he’d even grown up watching, was insane.

He was legitimately starstruck when Joe Pavelski checked him into the boards during a practice scrimmage - it took him a couple of seconds to recover.

JJ was the youngest at training camp by far - living out of a suitcase in a random Dallas hotel, trying to figure out whether he needed to re-enroll at UND or not, fielding daily calls from Ward - it was stressful.

(And apparently, his stress was palpable, because the next day, after practice, Tyler Seguin smacked him on the head, demanding that he meet him for dinner that night at Nick & Sam’s)

(JJ did not know what the fuck Nick & Sam’s was, but he figured it out)

Tyler sat JJ down, ordered him a big ol’ steak, & told JJ to tell him what was on his mind because “you’ve been looking constipated for about a week, now.”

JJ just...unloads on him. Tells him everything he’s stressed about - leaving school, moving to Dallas, whether he’s actually good enough to stay on NHL roster - he’s nearly panting by the time he’s done talking.

Tyler, shockingly, is an excellent listener. He offers advice about signing a contract & reassures JJ that he’s talented (“dude, you’re not going down to Austin. They’d be insane.”).

They also discuss the merits of maybe playing an extra season of NCAA before committing fully to the NHL because he was young and it was intimidating

Tyler gave his perspective and mistakes he made as a bit of a warning to starting too young

If anything, the dinner made JJ more confused about his future - would he fuck everything up if he waited another year? What if he got injured at UND, and never actually made the NHL?

He didn’t sleep that night - or the night after.

Ultimately, Ward ended up deciding for him, pushing him into signing an ELC & leaving UND.

“At least you’re guaranteed some money, son. That’s gotta be enough inspiration.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 19, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

With the election just over two weeks away, the news is intense.

The biggest story, by far, remains coronavirus. While we are all understandably buffeted by the craziness of politics these days, no historians will ever write about this election without noting that over it hangs the pall of more than 220,000 Americans dead of Covid-19 and more than 8 million infected, and that numbers, once again, are rising. Today the U.S. had 58,387 new cases, along with at least 445 deaths.

After Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and, theoretically anyway, an adviser to the White House, was quoted on CBS’s 60 Minutes last night criticizing the administration’s response to coronavirus, Trump attacked him this morning in a conference call with staff to which reporters had been invited. “Fauci is a disaster,” Trump said. “If I listened to him, we’d have 500,000 deaths." Later he increased that number to 700,000 or 800,000. “People are tired of Covid,” he said. “I have the biggest rallies I’ve ever had. And we have Covid. People are saying: ‘Whatever. Just leave us alone.’ They’re tired of it.”

In Prescott, Arizona, this afternoon, Trump expanded on this idea. He told the crowd: “They are getting tired of the pandemic, aren’t they? You turn on CNN, that’s all they cover. ‘Covid, Covid, Pandemic, Covid, Covid.’ You know why? They’re trying to talk everybody out of voting. People aren’t buying it, CNN, you dumb bastards.”

Indeed, we are all tired of it, but as cases are surging and hospitals and medical staff again appear to be on the verge of being overwhelmed with cases of Covid-19, a majority of Americans trust Fauci’s cautious advice more than we trust that of the White House, which is embracing the idea of simply letting the disease spread to try to create immunity. Trump’s final push for reelection centers on holding in-person rallies, trying to illustrate that there is nothing to fear from the disease and that the country needs to get back to normal despite it.

Trump’s anger at Fauci seems to be part of his general anger these days, seemingly sparked by the polls that show him trailing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. He is using his rallies both to express his grievances and to boast of his own power. Today, in Prescott, he boasted “I call the head of Exxon. I’ll use a company. ‘How, how are you doing, how’s energy coming? When are doing the exploration? Oh, you need a couple of permits, huh?’ But I call the head of Exxon, I say, ‘you know, I’d love you to send me $25m for the campaign.’” This sort of a bribe—the official term is quid pro quo—is illegal. Exxon promptly clarified: “We are aware of the President’s statement regarding a hypothetical call with our CEO… and just so we’re all clear, it never happened.”

Trump and pro-Trump media outlets are frustrated that the story Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani passed to the tabloid newspaper the New York Post is not getting the traction they want. The story of three laptops, abandoned at a repair shop by Biden’s son Hunter, that just happened to have incriminating evidence that ended up in Giuliani’s hands was flagged almost instantly as having the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Today more than 50 former senior intelligence officers signed a letter to that effect, warning that Russia was, once again, interfering in our elections.

Even though intelligence officers warned the White House that Russian intelligence was targeting Giuliani, Trump’s team stands behind the story, and is reportedly putting pressure on FBI director Christopher Wray to announce an investigation into the issue. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA), and Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) have all been pushing the story.

Today, the president exploded at a reporter, calling him “a criminal for not reporting” on the Hunter Biden story. Trump loyalist John Ratcliffe, the Director of National Intelligence—which places him at the head of our intelligence services—defended the Biden story and insisted it is not part of a Russian disinformation campaign. He told the Fox News Channel: “That's something the American people should consider as they go in & look at elections & everything that's going on in this country ... we have the opportunity to bring truth."

Ratcliffe’s partisanship shocked CIA veteran John Sipher, who tweeted: “Stunningly inappropriate. Intelligence leaders should be focused on collecting and analyzing foreign national security information. This is domestic, partisan politics and out-of-bounds.”

The news broke today that Fox News Channel executives passed on the Biden story, thinking it was not credible. Now, of course, FNC is reporting on the fight over the story, so it is sort of having it both ways, but the fact that the story was too iffy even for FNC speaks volumes. Also today, Facebook suspended the account of Andrii Derkach, the Ukrainian politician associated with Giuliani and the Biden story. Treasury officials have identified Derkach as a Russian operative. Facebook took down his page “for violating our policy against the use of our platform by people engaged in election-focused influence operations.”

Also today, the Department of Justice indicted 6 Russian military intelligence officers for computer hacks around the world that cost billions of dollars and disrupted a number of different societies. Thomas P. Bossert, Trump’s first homeland security adviser, who is now the president of a security firm, told New York Times reporters Michael S. Schmidt and Nicole Perlroth: “The G.R.U.’s hackers operate as a strategic arm of the Russian state, and they have been using this cybertool as a military weapon in a military campaign.”

Thursday night is the final presidential debate, and the Trump campaign spent the day wrangling over its terms. The non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates negotiated with the campaigns months ago to establish that the topics for each debate would be determined by the debate’s moderator. Last week, NBC News White House correspondent Kristin Welker, who will moderate the Thursday event—an arrangement to which Trump agreed—announced her topics, including the coronavirus, race, leadership, national security, and climate change. The Trump campaign promptly accused the commission of breaking a promise to focus on foreign affairs, an accusation the commission rejected, reminding the campaign of the terms to which they had agreed.

For his part, Trump called Welker “a radical left Democrat” who is “extraordinarily unfair,” but said he would take part anyway. “I’ll participate, I just think it is very unfair,” Trump told reporters. “I will participate, but it’s very unfair that they changed the topics and it is very unfair that again we have an anchor who is totally biased.”

Later today, though, the commission announced it would turn off each candidate’s microphone during his opponent’s initial two-minute reply to Welker’s questions. Trump indicated he was not happy with the change.

Finally, tonight the Supreme Court denied a request from the Pennsylvania Republican Party to stop the counting of mail-in ballots that arrive up to three days after Election Day. This is a win for wider voting in a swing state that often plays a key role in the Electoral College, and it appears that the Pennsylvania Republican Party thinks enabling more people to vote will hurt them. Four of the eight voting justices-- Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh—sided with the Republicans’ argument for restricting the vote. Since Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett is, like them, a strict constructionist, it is not unreasonable to assume she would have joined them if she were on the court. Because there are currently eight justices on the court, and they tied, the lower court’s decision holds. But if Barrett were there, it is likely the strict constructionists would have made up a majority, cutting off the counting of ballots that arrived in the three days after the election.

In what is quite a rare occurrence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to hold sessions over the weekend to push through Barrett’s nomination before the election.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

Heather Cox RIchardson

[kickassviv]

Pernille Harder: "I first dared to say that I would be the best in the world when I got away from Denmark"

Danish national team leader Pernille Harder was only a fan of the women's soccer World Cup. However, due to her high profile on and off the field, she left her mark on the tournament. Berlingske has met her for a conversation about love, homophobia, the fight for equality and the ambition to become the best in the world. And about two parties that got the national team leader out of the chair.

Credit to @magdaerikssons for the article and disclaimer, google translate was used to translate into English.

Is there a Danish "Liebes-Spionin", a love spy who helps the Swedish women's team against a victory?

That's how the German newspaper "Bild" speculated about the Danish national team leader and Wolfsburg player Pernille Harder in the heat during the just over the World Cup in women's football in France.

The newspaper had noted that the "Bundesliga's best player with a good knowledge of Germany" was constantly found among the Swedish players because of the girlfriend and defender Magdalena Eriksson. Eriksson plays daily for the London club Chelsea.

Two days before Berlingske meets Harder in the French city of Rennes, a picture of her and her boyfriend, both wearing Swedish national team jerseys, went viral on social media, not least in South America:

“It's a little crazy. I've gained 10,000 new followers on Instagram and I haven't even posted the picture myself. Many are from South America. I don't know what it is about homophobia down there, but it obviously means a lot of two female soccer players openly dare to show their love, ”says Harder, who also notes that she has lost no followers because of the picture.

It's 38 degrees hot, and the blue-and-yellow fans are trying to hide in the shade of bars and cafes before heading out to the stadium where the double world champion Germany, with some of Harder's teammates, waits.

Commander's Tour de France as the roe Instead of just being upset that it missed out on Denmark's participation, Harder has been taken to the World Cup as a Swedish roigan. The qualification smoked on the floor, among other things, as Denmark, due to a conflict between the national team and DBU, could not place teams against Sweden in the fall of 2017 and therefore lost 3-0 at the desk.

Now, instead, she is undertaking her own personal Tour de France in cities such as Nice, Paris, Rennes and Lyon. To support her girlfriend, who otherwise beat Denmark in the World Cup qualification, and to become smarter in her sport:

“It gives me another perspective to be here as a fan. I sense what the football gives off the field to all the fans. When you play a final round, you don't think so much about it off the field. But now I realize how big it all has become with fan march, etc., and that makes me want to put even more heart into it on the track in the future, "says the 26-year-old star, while the Swedish fans agree a new kind of song.

Harder and Eriksson have been together for five years. The Dane has not been exposed to homophobia or hate emails herself, but decided in the spring of 2019 to go actively into the debate on homophobia. This happened after FCK star Viktor Fischer was met by homophobic calls.

In a broadcast on TV 2, Harder openly talked about how she had previously fallen in love with a guy, but fell for Magdalena when they both played in Linköping:

'I didn't really think much about it. It just came very naturally. You have to be with the one you love. I have always felt that if there is something I want, then I do it and do not go into what other people think. And then I also have a good family that totally doesn't care who I love, just like it is pretty normal in the women's soccer world, "says the Wolfsburg player.

According to Harder, in the men's football »a front figure is missing. There are certainly gay and bisexual men in men's soccer too, but they obviously dare not stand out because the tone is different in the dressing room and among the fans. That is a sorry trend. You have to be proud of the one you love '.

More edge in women's football Courage to step up in the homophobia debate, Pernille Harder shares with female U.S. national team leader Megan Rapinoe, who up to the World Cup declared that her team would not accept an invitation from President Donald Trump if they returned home with the World Cup trophy. In addition, Trump was too homophobic and condescending to women:

"There are several in women's football who dare to have an opinion, although that may not be the opinion that other people think one should have. And so it gives something more edge. After all, not one of the really big men's team players actually does. Maybe just with the exception of Zlatan, ”Harder points out. Swedish Zlatan Ibrahimović has, among other things, commented on the Swedish immigration debate.

A party in Basel In addition to the fight against homophobia, Harder's main theme is gender equality. And here we are approaching the canceled match against Sweden and the football conflict with DBU.

Instead of looking back at the conflict, Harder first takes a mental detour to Switzerland. In 2018, the FC Basel football club held an anniversary party that got Harder out of the chair.

Before the party, the club had decided that the gentlemen should attend a gala party with a three-course menu, while their female counterparts were asked to sell the ticket and were literally eaten off with a sandwich:

“It's incredible that it can still occur today. But that's why it's so important that we have enough self-respect to say. And that women know what value we have. If we don't, they just do it again. And that is exactly why we had to take that fight with DBU, 'says Harder.

Similarly, Harder and teammates from Wolfsburg said when the club in 2017 asked the women's team to postpone their championship party until it became clear if the club's men's team avoided relegation.

When the women's team won "The Double" again the following year, no-one was thinking of issuing a ban - even if the men again fought relegation.

The conflict between the national team and the DBU was primarily about the remuneration of the women's team players. A sub-agreement between DBU and the Players' Association was landed in October 2017. But negotiations are soon on a long-term agreement, so that the national team is in control if Denmark should be able to arrange the European Championships in 2025 at home.

And here too the national team leader is ready to make demands. However, she fully agrees that in the future there will also be a difference between women's and men's salaries and bonus schemes, simply because Denmark does not have a women's league that can afford to pay the domestic players sufficiently in salary.

This is why DBU has to step in with scholarships, and then "there is something else you can't get," Harder points out.

The decisive point, however, is not the money, but that the national teams - regardless of gender - must have the same conditions for all the matches:

“Now just take the planes. Now we have to go to Georgia soon and play the European Championship qualifier. It is such a match that we risk playing a draw and thus lose important points to qualify for the European Championships in England. So it's mega important. But we are definitely traveling over there with two stops where we have to get up at 05:00 in the morning. DBU should, therefore, charter an aircraft. After all, they do this to the gentlemen, and so does the German and Swedish Football Federation for their wives, ”Harder points out.

Of other differences, the leader mentions that, unlike the gentlemen, the women travel without a cook and only occasionally have a volunteer analyst who can help understand and illustrate the tactics of the opponents. According to Harder, it is also not OK that the national team has only 18, and not 23, players with:

"It's a problem when we have to play 11 against 11. Then the physical therapist has to get into the field. There, I think we can demand equality and that it must be completely the same regardless of gender. And it's not, ”Harder points out.

The conflict was not the main problem Although the conflict is still filling, it is definitely not the whole story of why Denmark is not on the field in France:

“We simply weren't ready physically after the summer holidays in 2018, when we were going to play against Croatia and Sweden. Before the two matches went well. But we have learned from that and have now got a new physical trainer in Peter Krustrup. "

Harder is also confident that Peter Møller's new director of football, Peter Møller, will address the women's case to the DBU board.

She is aiming for Denmark to qualify for the European Championships in England in 2021, just as she hopes that Denmark can secure the European Championships in 2025:

"It will be crazy for Danish football, but we can learn something from them down here about how to set up fan zones and use modern, hard-hitting discos rather than always horn music for the matches," the national team leader says.

Although the level in France is high, Harder is not intimidated on behalf of Danish women's soccer: “We have a good team, and now we work with physics. This is where we need to put in. We are already fully involved in the technical, football and tactical aspects. "

According to the leader, a number of new talented players are also emerging, such as Emma Snerle from Fortuna Hjørring.

Harder welcomes the high viewership of the World Cup, which has seriously given women's football its popular breakthrough. In England, the fight against the United States was the most-watched TV show of 2019:

"I also don't understand if people can't see the exciting thing in eg. the battle between France and the United States. There are 40,000 at the stadium, high pace, chances, and fighter will. Now I have also seen men's football at the stadium several times, so it is not because I think 'hold it up, where does it go 100 times stronger', 'notes Harder.

Football camp in Ikast As we speak, several fans pass by in national team jerseys with women's names on their backs and no longer just men's stars such as Mbappé, Messi and Müller.

As a child, Harder had only one possible role model, Brazilian Marta, but it was now United gentlemen David Beckham and Ryan Giggs who hung in the children's room. Back in the nineties and nineties, there was also no opportunity to attend a girls' soccer camp.

That's the main explanation that, a few years ago, Harder and her sister and cousin decided to start a girls soccer camp:

“I want to pass on some of what I have learned both on and off the field. I even train the girls some of the time and give presentations. And this year I also had my mental trainer who gave parents some tips on how to be good parents. "

The world's best is the goal In 2018, Pernille Harder was named the second best Danish footballer ever to be Europe's best. The first to achieve this honor was Allan Simonsen in 1977. But despite the lack of World Cup, the goal remains to be the world's best footballer.

“I know it might not be very Danish with the Janet Act and all that. And I also dared to say it out loud first when I moved away from Denmark. But why is it so dangerous to say that I want to be the best in the world? One must dare to put words into one's dreams. And the worst thing that can happen is only that I don't reach it, but then I have pushed myself to do my utmost. "

The dream, which she first put into words when she came to Sweden, was born in Ikast. “Recently, I found a style that I wrote when I was ten years old. And there I wrote that I would be the world's best in ten years, 'says Harder.

The road over there is provisionally over Wolfsburg, where this year the club has invested in five to six new players to be able to conquer the Champions League trophy, which lost after another defeat to Lyon.

But Harder, whose contract expires in 2021, is open to trying her hand at a new country and league - also to learn a new language.

"German is doing very well," laughs Harder and continues:

"Although I do not always have a say in whether the pronoun should come in the middle or at the end."

During the World Cup, there have been rumors that Real Madrid are looking for the striker. As one of the last major clubs in Spain, the "king's club" now also enters women's soccer. Before the World Cup, the women's match between Barcelona and Atlético Madrid set a spectator record in Spain with over 60,000 on the limbs.

“We must say that both Denmark and Germany are behind. In England and Spain, they are targeting a professional league, where big men's clubs also invest in women's soccer. It would be optimal if we also did it at home. But it is clear that e.g. FC Midtjylland does not have as much money as Manchester United, so it will cost in the beginning, 'says Harder, pointing to FC North Zealand as a men's club, which is now also focusing on women's football.

On the team with Magdalena? A new club change could also open for the girlfriend couple Harder and Eriksson to put an end to the long-distance relationship, which is, however, facilitated by a direct flight connection from Hanover to London:

“Right now we are each running our own race. But we are about to be where we can again play on the same team. Defenders are slowing down a bit, but Magdalena has become one of the key players on Chelsea's team entering the Champions League semi-final, "Harder points out.

If the pair are on the same club team, there will also be no danger of the relationship being put to the test in a Champions League match between Chelsea and Wolfsburg:

“None of us can stand to lose. I want to win everything. Also in ludo against children. And so will Magda. If she loses cards to me, she won't talk to me for the rest of the day, 'says Harder, laughing.

But in France, the couple both get something to laugh at. Magda and the other Swedish players secure a bronze medal at the World Cup. Yet another image of the couple kissing each other goes around the world. Although Pernille Harder has not been on the field, much has been noticed by the Dane during the World Cup.

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Supercorp SAO AU, Pt 3

Kara hasn't ever met Lena's husband. Honestly, she isn't entirely sure Lena has either. He's never home, Lena's apartment very much her own from the art to the books to the furniture. If not for the occasional tabloid photo, the wedding portrait on Lena's mantel, and the rings on her left hand, Kara might have assumed the husband to be a specter to dissuade would-be suitors. Even so, she can't help but notice the way Lena's smile dims when she sees his number on her phone during movie night. "It's nothing," Lena says, when Kara works up enough nerve to mention it. "He likes to pick fights. I used to enjoy the debates we'd have, but lately... I don't know. It doesn't feel like debate anymore. And at the end of the day I don't have the energy for it." Over the weeks and months, Kara learns about him in bits and pieces. That he was a friend of Lex's, and that they fell in love over the course of several summers. That he had his own tech company, who had just migrated to a new market on another continent, hence his absence. One time, Kara arrives to movie night to hear Lena almost shouting into her phone. Her tone is the kind Kara only heard once in all their time in Aincrad-- when she'd been on the verge of committing murder, against a player who had nearly poisoned Kara to death. Dark, menacing, and inhumanly cold. 

"Come anywhere near my company again, and I will slap you with enough lawsuits to keep you and your pathetic excuse for a firm underwater for the next thirty years. Do you understand me?" She barely pauses long enough for her victim to open their mouth before interrupting, her voice pitching even lower. "I said-- do. you. understand. I want to hear you say it."

Lena hasn't registered Kara's arrival yet, and so Kara shifts awkwardly as she waits, trying not to watch as Lena's lips twist into a cruel smirk. "Good boy." She ends the call shortly thereafter, and starts in surprise when she turns to find Kara standing in her foyer. "Kara! Gosh, you startled me!" She sounds like herself again, but Kara eyes her warily. "Is tonight a bad time? I can come back--" "Don't be ridiculous!" Lena beams, rolling her eyes. "Marital squabbles might be a bitch, but it'll take a lot more than that to keep us from movie night. What's on for tonight? Die Hard?" Before long, Kara is curled up against Lena's side on the couch, sharing a blanket as Bruce Willis yippee-ki-yays across the screen. The call lingers at the back of her mind, and she decides right then and there that if Lena's husband is someone who brings out that side of her.... he doesn't know Lena at all. Perhaps Kara's favorite part of their friendship is their party. It happens by accident-- Kara stumbles across her during a trial period of a new VR. She's an elf this time, and her username is Kieran, but her avatar still looks mostly like herself. "I didn't know you played," Kara says, scuffed her dwarven boot against the ground. She's a little hurt that Lena hasn't ever mentioned it. "I should have told you," Lena admits. "I'm sorry I didn't, but after what you told me about your time in SAO, I was worried if we connected in a game, I... I guess I worried I wouldn't measure up to her. It sounds really silly to say it out loud. I really cherish our friendship, Kara, and I was scared I might lose it if you spotted too many differences between us. Between me and her." Kara smiles, and throws her short, but strong arms around Lena and squeezes right. "Not possible." After that, they're inseperable in the VR world. They try new games together, and the nature of Lena's position grants Kara beta access to countless games still in development. They explore entire worlds together, and Kara finds that Lena needn't be worried at all. She is Lena. The Lena Kara loved in Aincrad didn't stray far from the template of her creator's personality and fighting style, and in VR Lena comes alive in a way she doesn't in the real world-- as though anything could top that. In VR Kara watches Lena lead raid parties with expert precision, sharp and intense but also warm and inviting. More than once Lena helps inexperienced players level up, and shares the secret spawn points for creatures that drop rare items. Kara misses Lena-in-Aincrad, misses what they shared together, but she loves this Lena, the whole of Lena, with her entire being. Eventually, they beta test ALO together, by virtue of the fact that Lena's husband headed the development team that produced the matrix for it. It's a world that rivals Aincrad in beauty and scale. Better yet, it allows magic use, and every race has the ability to fly. One day, they spend an afternoon simply flying through a rainstorm, dodging lightning bolts and collecting thunderbells to smith armor with. Somewhere between the rain on her skin and laughter that gets swallowed by thunder, Kara simply stops and watches as Lena loops into a tight corkscrew to snag an escaping ingot. Her grin is as bright as the lightning, and when their eyes meet Kara's chest tightens at the heated expectance that opens Lena's features into something intimately familiar. Before either of them can speak, the in-game alarm alerts them to the end of their scheduled session, Kara immediately wakes and rolls to her phone. I love you. She almost hits send, but the phone buzzes in her hand before her finger can tap the button. Not a bad way to spend the last day of beta, Lena texts, with pulsing dots following to warn of an incoming note. I think that might be my favorite quest so far. Catch you next rainstorm? Kara deletes her previous message. Launch Day is marked on my calendar. Can't wait. The pulsing dots appear and disappear several times before Lena's next message finally comes through. You're my favorite. Kara rolls over, clasping her phone to her pounding chest. As she drifts off to sleep, those three words sear themselves across the back of her eyelids. You're my favorite. --- "So when will you be back online?" Kara asks over the phone almost a month later. The ALO launch is coming up, and their standing date (it's not a date) looms in the back of Kara's mind. Across the line, Lena sighs. "I'm not sure." Lena's work has kept her busy since their night chasing lightning. They've barely spoken, let alone lunched or gamed. "Were still on for the ALO launch, though, right?" Silence answers her. In a rare moment of petulance, Kara pouts. "Lena, you promised." "Yeah," Lena breathes. "Yeah, you're right, I did. At this point it looks like I might be traveling that day, but I'll try to reschedule some things. I don't know how much time I can spare though." "That's okay!" Kara chirps, grabbing at the compromise with both hands. "I just want to see you. I miss you." "I miss you too, you have no idea." A rumble of voices on the other end cuts their time short. "Sorry, I have to go," Lena says. "But I'll do what I can, I promise." "Okay. See you then." From that night on, Kara counts down the days. When Launch Day dawns, Kara logs in immediately. She waits for hours, selecting an avatar that looks almost like herself. In fact it's  a dead ringer except for the white feathered wings that fold up snugly against her back, and unfurl between the slats of her armor. As she waits for Lena to log in, she experiments with her new wings (during beta, she'd chosen fairy wings), and revels in the power of every stroke. She feels the most like she did in Aincrad, and it feels like coming home. But as she waits, the faces who greet her aren't Lena's. She passes on joining other survivors for a commemorative hunt, even as the sun dips below the horizon, and in her heart she knows Lena won't make it. Still she waits. Just in case. When she finally logs out, Kara texts Lena, but sends only a frowning emoji. Then she turns it off and goes to sleep, determined to let whatever apology Lena sends sit unopened until she wakes. But no response is waiting for her when she gets up the next morning, and none comes for the entire week that follows. That week spreads to two, and then three. Kara's disappointment shifts to irritation when she assumes Lena is trying to avoid her after missing the launch, but then snaps to concern when even her calls go unanswered until her voicemail is too full to record any more. Something is wrong. She calls Lena's office, her assistant, sends countless emails, but gets nothing except a cagey brush off from Lena's assistant. When Kara goes to L-Corp herself, she's rebuffed at the door. "Orders came down from the top, Miss Danvers. You're no longer permitted in the building." "What? That's ridiculous! Lena wouldn't--" "You'll have to take that up with her, ma'am." "I'm TRYING." But to no avail. Kara gets nowhere, and is left bewildered and hurt and afraid for Lena who she can't quite believe would cut her out so abruptly. Alex doesn't have any advice to give her, except to be patient and keep trying. So all Kara can do is log in to ALO every night, and watch her friend list, praying that Lena will log in. She never does. Then, one night, Kara receives an anonymous message in her inbox. She doesn't know how a player could send an anonymous message, as the privacy on her inbox is set to friends only. Nevertheless, she opens it. "Meet me tomorrow night at 1am." It includes a National City address. She doesn't need Alex to tell her it's a bad idea. But her gut tells her it's about Lena-- maybe even Lena herself-- and so she goes to the location at the designated time with her heart in her throat. It's not Lena. Rather, it's her assistant, Jess. "Come with me," Jess tells her. Kara obeys, and after a furtive drive through the city, Jess leads her into a nondescript building that has more locked doors than Fort Knox. Finally, Jess swipes her security pass over the final sensor, and pushes into a room filled with medical equipment. For a moment, Kara sees her own hospital room, when she woke up from her SAO coma, filled with the same equipment. She's had this dream before. But the figure lying prone in the sterile bed isn't herself. It's Lena. "Oh my god." "She logged in the morning of the ALO launch," Jess informs her, her voice quiet. "She cleared her schedule for it. But she never woke up, and when we reviewed the game data, it never showed her syncing up to the game." Lena's features are slack inside the visor of the NervGear. When Kara takes her hand, her skin is cool, and waxy, like it isn't even human. But it is. Kara recognizes the scar on Lena's wrist, from a soldering accident when she was twelve. "I don't believe them," Jess murmurs. Kara blinks. "What?" "The new Nerv models are designed with multiple redundancies after the SAO incident. If she didn't connect, Lena would have woken up instantly." "Is it possible it could have been tampered with?" Jess shrugs. "Maybe. But the logistics of doing so without Lena noticing just aren't feasible." Kara regards her solemnly. "It sounds like you have an alternate theory." "It would be easier to alter the game data than tamper with the gear. Someone involved with the game's development would have easy access and ample opportunity." Someone involved in the game's development? Like... "Her husband?" "He's already assumed her seat on the board as interim chair. And he's already proposing changes Lena vetoed earlier this year. There enough members who agreed with Lena's veto that they've resisted him so far, but it won't be long before he wears them down." Rage burns low in Kara's belly. Bastard. Gritting her teeth, she meets Jess' gaze. The woman's face is well past angry-- she's exhausted, and at the end of her rope. It's clear that Kara is her last hail mary. "I'm going to lose my job the moment they find out I brought you here," Jess warns. "After that, I won't have any access. But I can't help her from here anyway." "You think she's trapped in the game," Kara surmises. Jess nods. "My guess is there's a backdoor that lets them control a small area of the game. To avoid detection by the moderating algorithms, they've probably built it into the context of the game-- an uncharted area that only becomes available after completing a legendary quest." Or clearing the final floor boss, Kara thinks bitterly. Her hand tightens on Lena's limp fingers. This is SAO all over again, except this time... This time, Lena is alone. "I've been searching every second I spend at home, but haven't found anything," Jess continues. "But I'm certain the answer to waking Lena up is in the game itself. That's why I reached out to you." Kara's head lifts sharply, surprised by the admission. Jess returns her gaze solemnly, her features hard. "If anyone can beat a broken game from the inside, it's you."

previous / next

[bigskydreaming]

princeescaluswords replied to your post:

Alex Summers, after the most recent of 128979889...

Why don’t you write Marvel? You couldn’t possibly do any worse and I could use the laughs!

Lol, its a nice dream, but realistically I don’t think there’s any universe in which Marvel would ever let me write the X-Men. 

Like, my very first story would probably have Bobby refreezing the Arctic while Storm heads up a team of elementals to combat climate change. And then a Republican senator and a Democrat senator would go on TV and make a bipartisan show of expressing their gratitude towards mutants for helping save the planet and this is the real future of humanity, this is them all building a world where they can live side by side in a mutually beneficial -

And then the broadcast would cut off because Cypher just hacked every satellite worldwide and said “all your binary codes belong to me now, resistance is futile, blah blah” before turning the camera to Sunspot who’s all decked out in his snazziest suit and dressed to the nines. Roberto yawns and flips the whole world off and says “LOL fuck you, the X-Men are done with respectability politics, we took a vote and our democratic process actually works, we don’t have a fucking electoral college. We only saved the planet because it happens to be the planet we live on, dipshits, nobody did it for you, you’re still cordially invited to go extinct. Or you can play nice and try getting along with the rest of us for a change but good luck trying to make Sentinels happen again, lmao, funding’s gonna be an issue for you pretty soon I think.”

He turns off the camera and goes back to planning his and Sam’s wedding, because look, I have my priorities, okay.

Then Mystique unleashes her new Fellowship of Evil (Same Name, But This Time Its Evil as in STFU, Its Ironic U Assholes) Mutants that she’s been recruiting from the ranks of the young and disenchanted. Overnight, the market is flooded with gold and gems transmuted from ordinary materials by mutant powers, as well as a bunch of shit ‘liberated’ from the coffers of the 1% via her Fellowship’s alliance with her son-in-law’s Thieves’ Guild. Value plummets instantly, and then technopaths join in the fun, crashing every banking system worldwide.

“Whoopsie, I broke capitalism, money’s worthless now, vive la revolution, everyone eat some fucking cake,” Raven sing-songs merrily from the chaise she’s lounging on while eating grapes. The city outside her window is burning. Meanwhile, a fiddler is playing nearby. She calls him Nero, because Aesthetic.

“Oh relax,” she rolls her eyes when Remy attempts to frown at her disapprovingly. “I had my teleporters evacuate the city before I set it on fire. I’m not a heartless monster, you know.”

“You mean you didn’t want to spend the next ten years dealing with your children yelling at you about innocent civilians and how could you,” Remy says dryly.

Mystique just shrugs and eats some more grapes. “Or that.”

Far-right dominated police forces and white supremacist militia groups attempt to forcibly establish martial law, except mostly they’re just standing around clutching their heads and trying to cope with the mother of all migraines as a gestalt of telepathic minds headed up by a Cerebro-powered octet of Jean, Emma, Betsy, Rachel, Quentin, and the Stepford Cuckoos psychically screams FAKE NEWS!!! into their brains every time their CO’s attempt to bark out new orders.

“Best school project ever,” Quire shouts. Emma smirks.

“Extra credit to the first person to psychically leak the full extent of just how extensively governments have invaded their citizens’ privacy with surveillance extremism in the name of national security.”

Jean attempts a half second of chastisement, but with them all linked this closely, there’s really no way to hide that she’s mostly just amused. Oh no, she and Emma are seeing eye to eye on something and there are witnesses and everything. The revolution was a mistake.

Atlanteans and mutant hydrokinetics team up to shove the worst oil and toxic waste and trash spills up onto the shores of every beach marked ‘privately owned’. The mile-wide ‘island’ of plastic debris that formerly sat in the middle of the Pacific is now parked off the coast of Malibu.

There’s a twenty foot demon from Limbo sitting in the Oval Office. It burps. Illyana beams and boops its nose. “Good boy.” It wags its tail and breaks the Oval Office.

Kitty and Kurt direct teams of similarly powered mutants in raiding the top secret R&D facilities of major pharmaceutical companies for all their research on diseases that never made it to mass production because they decided those treatments or cures wouldn’t be profitable in the long run because healthy people don’t need to spend a ton of money on medical care. Teams of healers are standing by to vet the viability of various research, while Hank, Cece and other mutant geniuses are already working on filling in the gaps on all the projects that were shutdown and Forge, Madison Jeffries and tech-based geniuses are converting existing infrastructure into the necessary machinery to take over mass production of these drugs, prosthetics, and sweatshop labor in general.

Speedsters and teleporters are redistributing food and stocking up the millions of properties worldwide that have just been sitting there empty for god knows how long, useless. Colossus is standing in the smashed remains of a mansion with his arms crossed sternly while a man who is definitely not meant to resemble the CEOs of either Tesla or Amazon or look like some kind of Musky Bozo hybrid cowers on the floor.

“You are a very stupid man,” Colossus says. “Why are you wasting billions funding research into space travel when there are aliens with a strong grasp of the technology in the ships that brought them here on every superhero team on Earth? You could have easily provided the Earth with working and widely accessible space travel by now if you weren’t so miserly.”

“Yeah,” Juggernaut says behind him, scratching his head. “Aliens have been coming and going from this planet for like fifty years. There are tons of fancy spaceships anyone could’ve just reverse engineered and mass produced by now. How come nobody’s ever done that and we’re all just acting like space travel is some far-off dream when everyone we know’s been to space like at least ten times?”

“Stupid people,” Colossus rumbles again. Musky Bozo wets himself and Piotr sighs and shakes his head. He didn’t even touch him.

Cyclops and Wolverine and their teams of bruisers are already done with the ICE facilities and have progressed to busting open prisons and liberating all nonviolent offenders. They inform everyone else that they can appeal to a panel of telepaths to read their minds and see for themselves that they’re innocent.

“Guilt determined by mind-reading?” Someone asks. “Lots of potential for sketchiness there.”

“Absolutely,” Scott says. “Which is why laws about boundaries and oversight have to be established. For now, its a volunteer basis only. Nobody has to get their mind read, but its an option available in the meanwhile as we sort out a better system for determining who’s been imprisoned for crimes of premeditated malice and abuse and who’s just been railroaded by an unjust and biased system.”

“So this is your new utopia, huh?” Sneers the prison warden, from the floor where he’s on his ass with a busted face because, idk, Reasons.

Scott just shakes his head. “No. It’s merely a start.”

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but if its broke and you wanna fix it, you gotta start somewhere,” Logan says gruffly. “Shit was broke. This is ‘starting somewhere.’”

He and Scott share a very Passionate look of camaraderie. Rogue sighs loudly.

“Just fuck already, jfc.”

Logan grunts. He already offered, but apparently all Personal Business must wait until after the Revolution was over, because a Scott Summers who put himself first was very clearly an impostor, so its not like Logan could even fucking get mad considering Scott putting in a pin in sucking each other’s faces after their We Were Both Dead But Now We’re Not and Also What the Fuck Was Up With Us For the Five Whole Years Before That reunion was what confirmed that it was definitely the Real Scott’s tongue in his mouth.

“Alright, let’s move it people,” Logan barks, clapping his hands. “There’s three more joints to hit before sundown. We got a timetable here.”

Jubilee squints at him suspiciously. “Since when are you efficient?”

“Mind your own fucking business.”

At no point does anyone suggest they erase the most sacred sites of all the world’s major religions and call them all fake or randomly resurrect a bunch of dinosaurs and release them on unsuspecting and innocent populations, because those are terrible ideas and make no sense and just because they’re stinkin’ commies now doesn’t mean they’re fucking morons.

Also, nobody grows a ridiculous beard or stops using shampoo or starts wearing flip flops or robes, because apparently those are not actually essential components of being a stinkin’ commie or even just a garden variety peace-aspiring socialist. They checked. Extensively. It was almost a dealbreaker. Emma, Monet and Roberto all threatened to side with the Capitalist Pigs if that was not thoroughly clarified before proceeding any further.

Thus ends my first issue. I email Marvel the script. They email it back, almost entirely redacted in red, with the note “This isn’t quite what we were looking for. Do you have anything about a new cure for mutants, maybe?”

I email them back: LOL NO. MAGNETO WAS RIGHT.

I am promptly fired.

I go back to ranting about how Marvel sucks on the internet.

[theblueroute]

On March 27, four Widener English majors–all Blue Route staff members–and two faculty members traveled to Portland, Oregon to attend the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference. Along with nearly 12,000 other writers, readers, editors, and publishers, the team enjoyed three amazing days of panels, networking opportunities, enlightening readings and keynotes speeches, and of course, the pacific northwest! Read on for a few words from all four senior English majors about their time in Portland!

Kelly Bachich Carlie and I signed up for an hour of manning the FUSE table in the book fair section of the conference. While we were setting up, Carlie nudged me and said, “Kelly, doesn’t that dog on that poster over there look just like the one you wrote about in Historical Fiction class?” Low and behold, I look over and the juxtaposing booth is sporting a poster of Laika, the space dog from the Sputnik II mission that I had just written about the week before coming to AWP. Naturally, I had to go over and investigate. I asked the woman working the booth why Laika was on the poster and she informed me that their book press had published an author who just wrote a biography on Laika. Not only were they selling copies, but he would be there signing them in an hour!

I purchased the book and stood waiting in line, mustering up the courage to ask the author, Kurt Caswell, if I could send him my short piece to read. I am a pretty confident and outgoing person but, for some reason, the minute I was next in line I almost chickened out. I told him about the poster and why I had to buy his book and meet him to tell him that I had also just written about Laika. He handed my book back to me after a really great conversation about Laika and I knew my window to ask him to read my story had closed. Then, to my complete shock, he asked me to send him my story to read and even gave me his personal email to send it to. I was elated.

Later that night, Rohan met a panelist named Shayla Lawson who wrote a poetry chapbook mixed with Frank Ocean songs and got us invited to a “battle of the bands” where she performed her work with her band. One of the opening acts, however, incorporated the song “Space Oddity” by David Bowie into his piece. The minute I heard the lyrics my head snapped over to look at Carlie who was already staring at me, mouth agape. “Space Oddity” is also an integral part of my short story about Laika. In a three-page story there is not much room and for two major aspects to crop up so blatantly at AWP had to be a sign for me to continue working with that piece. AWP is an invaluable resource for English and creative writing majors, it is a hub for creative minds and a space where we can feel important and bond with other professionals.

Vita Lypyak The first panel I attended at AWP was one of my favorites. It was titled “Translators Are the Unacknowledged Ambassadors of the World,” which is a play on the famous Percy Bysshe Shelley quote, “women are the unacknowledged poets of the world.” I speak two languages besides English, so languages and translation is something that always interested me. The final panelist opened my eyes to the Iranian culture and the struggles associated with translating Iranian literature to English. Unlike the first two panelists, she explained that Iran, as a nation, hinders its own artist by utilizing strict censorship and even executing writers. As a whole, this panel made me understand the crucial role translators have in the dissemination of literature. It helped me understand that translating is also a form of creative writing; a translator has to not only present the same meaning of the original work, but also closely match the same style.

In a sense, translators are poets and makers of things, too; they give readers access to things they could have never reached, due to a language barrier. AWP features a lot of intellectually stimulating and educational panels, which are great, but they can also cause a lot of mental fatigue. By attending poetry readings and readings of other kinds, it really helps your mind slow down and recharge, at least that was my experience. At “A Wild Girls Poetry Reading,” I was particularly moved by one poet, who wrote a collection of poetry where she was attempting to deal with the grief associated with her younger brother’s suicide. The stories she told the audience and the poetry she read were so raw and they made me empathize with her so much. I attended this reading on the first day and I could not stop thinking about her work. Her words impacted me the entire trip to the point that on the last day, I went and bought her book. I had to or I would never forgive myself. After I purchased it, I sat outside and read it from cover to cover, and her words continued to move me.

Rohan Suriyage I decided to go to Page Meets Stage, a reading that is a yearly tradition at AWP. This was the best decision I made throughout the time of the conference. The reading consisted of five poets reading and performing poems after one another, “popcorning” in order and choosing what to perform based on what was read before them. The panel was led by Taylor Mali, four-time poetry slam champion and arguably the most famous American spoken word poet, and consisted of other notable poets like Anis Mojgani, Mark Doty, and Shayla Lawson. For the whole hour I just sat there, mouth agape, at the incomparable stage presence and refined performing art they all shared with the room. When it was time for Shayla Lawson to read, she prefaced her poems in explaining they were all from a book of poems inspired by Frank Ocean, an R&B artist and one of my main artistic inspirations. When Shayla finished performing “Strawberry Swing” from her poetry book I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean I struggled to retrieve my jaw from the floor and knew I had to speak to her after. Upon the panel’s conclusion I was able to do so.

We talked about Frank and our common interests, and after we spoke, she invited me to come to a reading she was orchestrating in downtown Portland. Of course, I obliged and I ended up going after the last of the panels of the day. In the library room of the Heathman Hotel, I heard Shayla and 4 of her colleagues read marvelous poetry. All of them are part of an association of writers called the Affrilacians, about 2,000 southern writers strong (per Facebook). Two of them I met and spoke with, published poet and educator Mitchell L.H. Douglas and former Kentucky poet laureate and educator Frank X Walker. Both were incredibly down to earth men who gave me insight on getting published and furthering my education, and I thank them for that. To whoever made the decision to take me as one of the students to go on AWP this year: thank you. Thank you. What I owe you can never be repaid. This was a span of days I can’t see myself ever forgetting, a span of days I firmly believe will prove to be important as I further my writing career.

Carlie Sisco One of the panels I attended was titled “8 Techniques Guaranteed to Take Your Script to the Next Level.” Using examples of films such as “Juno,” “Star Wars: A New Hope,” “Pulp Fiction,” and “Little Miss Sunshine” among others, this panel offered techniques relative to character, scene structure, descriptions, and dialogue. Though I do not write screenplays myself, I have always loved reading the screenplays to my favorite movies and television shows. It makes a very visual experience feel like reading a book. This panel demonstrated the ways in which some screenwriting techniques have the ability to transcend into fiction writing, because, even if I am not worrying about camera angles, it is still storytelling. Screenwriting can sound like a novel just as a novel can read like a screenplay.

Something that stood out to me in particular had to do with a tip on character development: “we watch movies because we want to connect with our characters.” Is that not the same for fiction writers? Shouldn’t I also be focusing on want versus desire, asking emotional questions in scenes, considering symbolism and foreshadowing, making my language visual or finding imaginative ways to introduce my characters? Isn’t it good advice regardless of the medium to think about increasing tension and suspense by slowing down, using misdirection to reveal information, or revealing my characters through their actions? I chose to go to a variety panels on screenwriting and playwriting not because I want to try my hand at either one, but because I know that the techniques between them and fiction writing are interchangeable. I also know that films and television serve as my influence, the driving force that compels me to provide visual detail and intricate characters. I would not have been able to explore what that means to my writing or how related the two mediums are had I not been given this opportunity. My path may not have been the one most fiction writers would typically take, but I think that is what was so amazing about AWP at the end of the day. I was able to find what interested me and gained insight from an influencing medium all while taking my own unique path.

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by Carlie Sisco

Recently our senior staff members attended the 2019 AWP Conference in Portland. Click the link to read about their experience! #AWP2019 On March 27, four Widener English majors–all Blue Route staff members–and two faculty members traveled to Portland, Oregon to attend the annual…

[cyberleaf69]

Good morning[Vietnam]! Let's discuss the future that is already here, this morning. I've been working on this ARTICLE for about half a day. I'm using my internet-connection to gather/verify information[all of which is available to you/anyone]. I'm NOT using a SmartPhone. Two reasons for this:1)too slow, & 2)my 'collected' information now 'lives' on my hard-drive. I have opened a new online account. https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/ryzen_threadripper This account allows me to post comments/replies, where them EE's is discussin' our 'futures' in BB-forums[some not recently active; only 9 participants have been active recently]. I can also start a new discussion/TOPIC, which is exactly what I have already done. BAIT for honey-bears, that is linked to my e-mail-account, so I will receive a notification, if any bears come sniffing around! YOU can do the same exact honey-baiting at any public forum; choose from hundreds of thousands w/BB's just like this one; WikiPedia is set up the same way; you can open an account there, and start suggesting 'edits' to ARTICLES there, and even write the first-ever ARTICLE, on any subject that they have no 4-1-1 on; >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation If you choose not to register, or you have a conflict of interest but have an idea for a new article with some references, you can create one here and it will be reviewed and considered for publication. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< become a self-proclaimed Professor[the State of Georgia gave me an honorary PhD, when I used one of their online registration 'editors']!; they even INVITE ordinary folks to do just that; if you request the 411 on something they've not heard about before[you can make-up anything at all, & use it as your search-parameter], you will get an INVITATION[but need an account first; they'll gladly guide you through the whole process], and can see what I'm talking about! Now, when I started the research for this ARTICLE, I needed some images for illustration-purposes; for that, I type my search-parameters into Google's search engine, and often without glancing at the return[Google moves all their paying-customers to the top of a very long list; unless you desire to purchase what you just typed-in, you are in deep-doo-doo at Google][I use Yahoo's ask.com, unless I'm shopping for images], I quickly left-click on "IMAGE" above, and up comes a long list of .jpg's; you can visually-scan images a lot faster than you can a list of 'blurbs' from pages you don't need anyway; each photo is 'sourced' from a page, that has a LINK to it; your eye tells you quickly which pages have what you are looking for; these photos are not 'ranked' like the text-returns, but are ranked for closeness to the search-parameters you have entered[a few minor changes to that text, and you quickly have exactly what you need! When examining the photos, of the key-players in the 7nm-lithography business, I kept on seeing two flags[side-by-side] displayed in the background; I grew curious about the frequency of the phenomenon, all over Taiwan/Taipei[two names/two flags]; I started my research on that aspect of the emerging STORY. You will see below, what turned-up.

Only three semiconductor foundries are currently working on a 7nm process: Intel, Samsung and TSMC. https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/7_nm_lithography_process

Welcome to the space/time 'present[2019],' where the G-5 network is coming to appliances near you! https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/microarchitectures/zen%2B Linux added initial support for Zen starting with Linux Kernel 4.10. https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/cores/pinnacle_ridge Pinnacle Ridge processors are a refresh of Summit Ridge, fabricated on an enhanced process in order to provide a modest frequency bump. Those processors are a complete system on a chip with both the northbridge and southbridge on-die. Pinnacle Ridge chips offer 16 PCIe lanes (generally for the GPU) along with four additional 4 PCIe lanes for SATA and four USB 3.0 links. Those processors use Socket AM4 and can be extended in functionality with the Socket AM4 chipset which provides support for additional resources (i.e., more PCIe lanes and USB ports).

Intel Corporation is an American semiconductor company. While most notably known for their development of microprocessors and x86, Intel also designs and manufactures other integrated circuits including flash memory, network interface controllers, GPUs, chipsets, motherboards, and computers. In addition to x86, Intel used to also design and manufacture ARM-based chips as well as embed ARC-based cores in their products. While they no longer sell such chips, they still use ARM processors in various products (e.g. in their FPGAs) as well as still retain full a architectural level ARM license allowing them to design and sell their own ARM devices should they wish to.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a South Korean multinational electronics conglomerate owned by Samsung Group and accounting for roughly 75% of the group's revenue. Samsung is a major manufacturer of electronic products such as microprocessors, flash memory, and many other integrated circuits. Samsung is also the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones, tablets, and televisions. On May, 2013 Samsung sold off its S3 families of 4-bit and 8-bit microcontrollers to Ixys, parent of Zilog for $50M.

TSMC http://www.tsmc.com

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the world's largest pure-play semiconductor foundry.

https://exploretraveler.com/tag/hsinchu-science-and-industrial-park/

https://www.most.gov.tw/?l=en

image from Emirates' aircraft[windows for passengers] The email that Emirates’ Uniform Standards and Development Manager sent out to employees read as follows:

   We have been instructed by the Chinese Government that with immediate effect, Emirates airline cabin crew are to follow the One China policy. This means you must remove the Taiwanese flag from your service waistcoat and replace it with the Chinese flag.    This must be followed by all Taiwanese crew without exception.    Additional stock of Chinese flags have been ordered and expected to arrive in the coming weeks. You will receive an email when they arrive. In the meantime carry the attached letter to show your seniors why you are not wearing a flag.

Then Emirates sent a follow-up email to crew members, “after reviewing [their] responses,” acknowledging that the request was “incorrect and inappropriate.” Here’s what that email said:

   After reviewing your responses to the email below the original request for you to wear a Chinese flag was incorrect and inappropriate.    Please refrain from wearing your Taiwanese flags on flights until further notice. Therefore no flag is required on your uniform.    I do apologize for any upset that I may have caused.

panda says: May 31, 2017 at 10:07 am

@doublejade Emirates clearly stated China was behind their actions in the emails. Instead of hurling insults you should learn how to read.

The request by Emirates would be like Russia asking a US president to wear their flag… oh wait bad example 🙂

AdamR says: May 31, 2017 at 11:20 am

What bugs me most about this is it comes across that EK is flat out lying about the memo/email. At no point do any of the emails paint the situation with a broad, multi-national brush. It VERY specifically states just the countries of Taiwan and China. If this was really a uniform update, then no countries would be singled-out.

So now they’ve essentially looked like assholes for making the lame requirement in the first place. Then they looked like assholes that don’t know how to properly communicate with their employees and had to retract a previous statement. And now they look like lying assholes that STILL don’t know how to communicate at all, either with their employees or the public. The communications team needs some new leadership and/or expertise. Not to mention how poorly written the emails/memos are from a grammatical standpoint. Robert says: May 31, 2017 at 11:29 am

China is at fault for oppressing a country and EK is at fault for enabling that oppression. Lucky highlights the fact that EK doesn’t even own up to it (who would?). David says: May 31, 2017 at 11:36 am

Taiwan now at least is not a country acknowledged by most of the world’s government. Only part of the people in Taiwan hope to be independent. Cipta says: May 31, 2017 at 11:44 am

Well… a corporate exit has been laid. Sure, Taiwan flag is singled out due China’s pressure. Sure, there is pressure from China government to Emirates or maybe UAE. Sure, Emirates wouldn’t want to lose Chinese market.

So, is China is a bully? Is Taiwanese people/FA are victim here? Its funny to read people’s comments here. Sarcasm were thrown without knowledge of China-Taiwan politics and history. Very funny indeed…. Kevin says: May 31, 2017 at 12:13 pm

@doublejade, your ranting sounds pretty clueless. EK’s Standards and Development Manager’s internal email clearly mentioned “We have been instructed by the Chinese Government that with immediate effect”. If the instruction from Chinese government were not true, EK should have clarified it. But instead, EK used a lousy excuse saying ” This email was sent in error and has since been retracted. The intent is to recall the flag pins worn by all our cabin crew was part of our uniform update.”.

How could such intent result in the original email? And how on earth this excuse proved the instruction from Chinese government was untrue? If Chinese government didn’t interfere at all, how would the manager even mentioned that? The excuse at most simply implied the manager should not have sent out that email to stir the controversy.

Unless somehow you find out their manager was actually lying or his/her account was hacked to send a fake email, it’s very logical to assume Chinese government interference on EK’s business is real. Even if the manager sent out that email by accident, that does not change the fact revealed in the mail.

So to me, Lucky drew his judgement based on what presented there. How did it make him close minded? NOW I'M RESEARCHING MR. 'LUCKY' Without getting any deeper here, into History or Politics, I'll simply say  that the 'flag-controversy' in Taiwan was not news to me; one of the two flags, in so many of those photos, looks an awful-lot-like one of PUTIN's flags! I'll leave it up to my readers to decide; is there cause for alarm here? *** https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2018/11/22/olympic-referendum-shall-it-be-taiwan-or-chinese-taipei/38584381/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Formosa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Taiwanese_flags#/media/File:Flag_of_the_Netherlands.svg  -  click here to see the 'suspect' 'Russian flag' https://www.most.gov.tw/folksonomy/list?menu_id=ab79b892-bd5b-4285-b544-9e6cc9602c83&l=en&view_mode=listView  -  MOST

https://eng.taiwan.net.tw/

[argyle-s]

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME CHAPTER 30/38

Rating: Mature

Read at Ao3

Start at the Beginning

Vicki makes offer.  Max Makes an accusation.  Kara extends an invitation.  Bruce and Clark both make phone calls.

Thanks to @ifourmindbeso for her great work as a beta. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.

Chapter 30 -  Offers, Accusations and Concerns

Kara stepped out of the elevator on the forty-second floor the next morning with her eyes firmly fixed on her phone as she headed towards her office, wishing she could use the holographic interface Konex had included instead of just the touch screen. The good news was, the emails were easier to deal with than all the feelings stirred up by the previous day’s events. She hated to admit it, but a tiny little part of her was actually going to miss Livewire. They’d never exactly been Besties, but Leslie had, eventually, become her friend.

“Kara Danvers?”

Kara looked up from her phone, realizing she hadn’t been watching where she was going, and wanted to kick herself for being so distracted she didn’t notice someone in her office before she walked in. She was more than a little surprised to see who that person was. She recognized Vicki Vale immediately, of course, though photos did not do the redhead standing in her doorway justice. She picked up her glasses and slipped them on, then stood up.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hey. Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude. I’m Vicki Vale.”

Kara nodded. “Oh course. I’ve seen your picture before.”

Vicki smiled. “One of the unfortunate side effects of recent events, I’m sure,” she said, holding out her hand.

Kara took it, giving it a firm shake. “No,” she said. “Clark Kent’s my cousin. He’s got a shot of you, Bruce Wayne, Him, and Lois at some event or other.”

“Oh, God,” Vicki said. “I know just the picture you’re talking about, and you must be horribly disappointed. I was a good ten years younger in that picture.”

“Disappointed wouldn’t be the word I’d use. The picture doesn’t do you justice at all.”

Vicki’s face lit up with an almost impish grin. “Cat told me you were talented, but she didn’t tell me what a charmer you are.”

Kara laughed and gestured to one of the chairs in front of her desk as she walked around it to sit down. “Just being honest, Miss Vale.”

“Please, call me Vicki,” she said. “And tell me, does that line work on a lot of women?”

“If I ever try it, I’ll let you know,” Kara said. “Contrary to what you might have heard from Miss Grant, I don’t date much.”

“Honestly, neither do I,” Vicki said. “I’m normally too busy figuring out which of Gotham’s politicians is taking bribes from which mobster this week.”

“Something you’re pretty good at, if the list of awards you’ve won is anything to go by.”

“A little too good, if you ask the mobsters.”

Kara noticed her reaching up to rub her side as she said it. “How’s that healing?” she asked.

Vicki looked down in surprise, as if she hadn’t realized what she was doing, and blushed slightly as she looked back up. “It’s mostly just scar tissue now, though it still aches a bit when the weather changes. Which, in Gotham, is all the time.”

“Then you’ll like National City. We might get a storm every so often, but most days, it’s nothing but sun.”

“I hear southern California’s good about that.”

“It is. So, what can I do for you?”

“Join my team,” she said, without a moment’s hesitation. “Anyone who can put together a file like that on Maxwell Lord should be in the field, as a reporter. Not sitting behind a desk, managing a twitter account.”

Kara smiled, feeling a bit of a blush in her own cheeks. “Well, I’d love to take credit for that, but I didn’t put together the file myself. I got a friend to do it.”

“Which changes my opinion not at all,” Vicki said. “If you put it together yourself, you’re a hell of a researcher. If you managed to get it from someone else, you have sources. Both of those are vital to a reporter. Plus, I saw your byline on the Reactron background piece.”

Kara blinked and shook her head. “I’d forgotten about that,” she said.

“You forgot writing an article as amazing as that?” Vicki asked.

Kara shrugged. “It’s been a busy few weeks. First, Supergirl showing up out of the blue, then arranging the interview with her for Miss Grant, then organizing the gala, and starting the S2MG. On top of all of that, I’ve been arranging the officially licensed Supergirl merchandise, getting the legal sign-off on the trust fund for the profits, helping organize the press conference for the Kryptonian Medical Foundation. Remembering something that took me twenty minutes with a google search… I’m sure you can understand.”

“You arranged the Supergirl interview, too?” Vicki asked.

“I did,” Kara said. “Took a bit of arm-twisting, but I managed to get a phone number. Once she knew who I worked for, she couldn’t agree fast enough.”

“And whose arm did you twist?” Vicki asked, which made Kara laugh so loud most of her staff turned to look at her office.

“You’re almost as bad as Cat,” Kara said, not able to keep the smile off her face or the amusement out of her voice.

“Oh, sweetie, I’m so much worse than Cat,” she said. “Cat was able to walk away from it.”

“So did you,” Kara said. “Or you wouldn’t be in an Editor’s Chair.”

“Touché,” Vicki said. “But seriously, Kara. I’ve been here three days, but I knew before I got on my plane, you belong out on the street with a press pass and a notepad. Not in here. Come on. Come join my team.”

“Give me six months,” Kara said. “Nine, tops. Once this department is up and running, and I’ve found someone who can manage it on a long-term basis, I’d love to get out there. But right now, what we’re going here is probably the most important thing happening at CatCo.”

“Seriously? Managing Supergirl’s twitter account?” Vicki asked.

“You’ll see,” Kara said with absolute confidence. “Supergirl’s been on the scene for less than two months, and she’s already changing the world.”

“You’re really that impressed with her?” Vicki asked.

“I believe in her. Enough to stake my career on all of this,” she said, gesturing to the area outside of her office.

“Well,” Vicki said. “You are every bit as impressive as Cat made you sound.”

“I will take that as a compliment,” Kara replied.

“You should,” Vicki said. “And when you’re ready to be a reporter, Kara, you come see me.”

“I look forward to it.”

“It looks like more trouble for CEO Maxwell Lord today, as rumors of further indictments spread. As viewers may recall, both the National City Tribune and the Daily Planet published new allegations of wrongdoing in an extensive series of articles yesterday. The Tribune revealed a long history of ethics violations and criminal behavior by Lord, ranging from falsifying termination papers to avoid paying unemployment, up to and including industrial espionage and human trafficking, and illegal experimentation on human test subjects.”

“Meanwhile, The Daily Planet published an exposé detailing massive irregularities in Lord Technologies’ Public Disclosures, evidence of insider trading on the part of Lord, and several board members, as well as a possible price fixing agreement with TychoTech, run by noted tech mogul Simon Tycho.”

“Sources close to federal prosecutors report that Maxwell Lord, charged last week with terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, blackmail and attempted murder, along with a number of lesser charges in connection to a bombing at a lab owned by Lord Technologies, now faces a second round of indictments stemming from evidence uncovered by the Tribune and the Daily Planet.

“While no formal statement has been released by law enforcement, industry insiders are already suggesting this latest news could lead to charges against members of the Lord Technologies and TychoTech boards, as well as charges against Simon Tycho. Stock prices of both companies have already dropped drastically in the hours since the stories were published, and Lord Technologies investors are calling for Maxwell Lord’s removal from the company.”

“While neither Maxwell Lord, nor Simon Tycho could be reached for comment, both have issued press released denying all charges, and claiming this is a smear campaign organized to discredit them in the wake of their public opposition to the presence of Supergirl in National City.”

“No word yet on a response to these comments from the Girl of Steel, but CatCo has reached out to her for comment.”

“Reporting Live from Studio One here at Number One CatCo Plaza, this is Tawny Young, signing off.”

From Facebook

Supergirl Zor-El

Tuesday, November 24th, 2015

Maxwell Lord and Simon Tycho have both accused me and those who support me of organizing a smear campaign to discredit them. While I could issue a denial, and we could spend weeks playing a very public game of He Said, She Said, I will choose instead to let my actions speak for me. I did not step into the public eye seeking praise or attention. Instead, I stepped into the public eye because the people of National City Airlines Flight 237 needed help, and I was the only one who could provide it. Since then, I have sought the attention of the media, and of those with wealth or influence, not as a way to aggrandize myself, but as a way to help other refugees who find themselves stranded on a world not their own, and to share the knowledge and gifts of my people with the world as a whole.

If Mr. Lord and Mr. Tycho question why I chose the partners I did, they need only look at the histories of the companies and leaders in question, then compare them to the histories of their own companies, and their own behavior, both towards aliens who find themselves stranded on Earth’s shores, and humans who are less fortunate than themselves.

Finally, I will close by saying this. One of the stipulations I have made in all of the business dealings I have had since my first appearance as Supergirl is that I will take no profit from them. Unlike my cousin, I have chosen to issue official licenses for my likeness and merchandise which bears my name, but all profits from such merchandise go into a trust fund, where they will be held until such time as I designate a charity to receive those funds. Similarly, my share of any profits from the production and sale of any medicines and technologies derived from Kryptonian science goes into the same trust. All records are available for public review. In the time I have been Supergirl, I have accepted not one single cent for anything I have done.

I will admit that I have, on occasion, accepted food. To date, 10 large pizzas from Rosa’s Pizzeria on 6th Street (six of them Hawaiian, because pineapple on pizza is delicious) after I stopped a robbery there, Four family-sized orders of buffalo wings (Nuclear) from Benny’s Wing Shack on the corner of Lexington and 29th when I stopped a drunk driver from running through their front window, two jumbo hotdogs with extra sauerkraut and brown mustard from the cart in the Northeast Corner of CatCo plaza after I helped the owner lift the cart out of a pot hole, a dozen Churros from La Familia Market on Ponce De Leon Blvd after I stopped a robbery there, and six orders of Fried Pickles (which are surprisingly delicious) from Bubby-Lou’s Bar-B-Que on the Nation’s Bay Pier after I put out a trash fire that threatened to engulf the entire building.

I also freely admit that if someone offers me free food in the future, I will almost certainly accept it.

Perhaps, in the interest of fairness and transparency, Mr. Lord and Mr. Tycho can let the world know, in similar detail, what expressions of material gratitude they have received from those they have helped, and whether those expressions of gratitude arrived before, or after they provided the aid in question. I think their answers would be quite telling.

As are the words I have chosen to live by. Hope, help and compassion for all.

May Rao light your way.

Gordon Ramsay @GordonRamsay 24 Nov 2015

@SupergirlZorEl Pineapple does not go on top of Pizza…

Supergirl @SupergirlZorEl 24 Nov 2015

@GordonRamsay I am a great fan of your work, sir. However this is one of two points on which you are completely and unequivocally wrong. The other being Rice Pudding, which is disgusting and not food.

Gordon Ramsay @GordonRamsay 24 Nov 2015

@ SupergirlZorEl I bet I could change your mind.

Supergirl @SupergirlZorEl 24 Nov 2015

@GordonRamsay Are you offering to cook for me?

Gordon Ramsay @GordonRamsay 24 Nov 2015

@ SupergirlZorEl That was the general idea.

Supergirl @SupergirlZorEl 24 Nov 2015

@GordonRamsay Direct Message me. We’ll set something up. Now, excuse me while I go do some loops around the city while shouting with joy.

Clark frowned at his phone as he saw the name listed on the caller ID. He liked Bruce, but the man almost never called with good news, and Clark had two pans of chicken enchiladas in sour cream sauce in the oven, and enchiladas did not keep well at all.

With a sigh, and images of a missed dinner in his head, Clark hit the accept call button, and lifted his phone to his ear. “Hey, Bruce,” He said.

“Have you seen the news today?” Bruce answered.

“You do remember what I do for a living, right?” Clark asked.

“You’re a reporter at The Daily Planet,” Bruce said.

Clark closed his eyes and counted to ten in Kryptonian before answering. “Yes, Bruce, I have seen the news today. Is there a specific item of news I should be looking at more closely?”

“Tawny Young’s report on Maxwell Lord and Simon Tycho’s response to the articles published today by the National City Tribune and The Daily Planet,” Bruce said.

“I haven’t seen that segment,” Clark said as he walked over into the home office and sat at his desk. “Let me see if I can find it.”

“Don’t bother,” Bruce said. “Just check Supergirl’s facebook.”

“Oookayyy,” Clark said, pulling up Supergirl’s facebook page. It took longer for the page to load than for him to read her post. “That’s quite a response.”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

“Bruce, can you please explain what you’re talking about? I’ve told you before, mind-reading isn’t a part of my power set.”

“Your cousin seems remarkably adept at manipulating the media in her favor,” Bruce said. “In fact, based on the way she handles her public persona, if I didn’t already know who she was, and didn’t know for a fact that Cat Grant is human, I would actually suspect Cat Grant was Supergirl.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Clark said. “Unless Georgio Armani started designing super suits.”

“I’m not saying I think Cat Grant *is* Supergirl. I know it’s Kara. Or, at least, I know it’s Kara in the suit. What I’m worried about is Cat Grant’s influence on Supergirl.”

“Kara has idolized Cat Grant for years and has been working for her for almost a year. It’s only natural that she would pick up some of Cat’s style. Besides, this is a good thing.”

“Are you sure,” Bruce said. “A Superhero with a facebook page?”

“Bruce, I’m a reporter, and you remember how much of a disaster my first few interviews as Superman were. Kara’s always been a quick study, and she had a lot of examples to draw from. Me, Diana, Ted, Hal.”

“It worries me,” Bruce said.

“Clearly,” Clark replied. “But she’s been managing the media like a champ since she gave that first interview. Why is it bothering you now?”

“Did Diana tell you about the conversation she, Kara and I had Friday about developing Kryptonian power supplies for use on Earth?” Bruce asked.

Clark frowned. “No,” he said. “Kara hasn’t really been looping me in on a lot of things. I mean, she talked to me about the Krypton Remembered website, but that was more of a ‘Hey, I’m doing this, and didn’t want it to surprise you’ conversation than asking if I thought it was a good idea. About the only thing she did ask me was if it would be okay with me if she used Kryptonian food and clothing for the CatCo release Gala. The only reason I knew about the Kryptonian Medical Foundation ahead of time is she emailed me the press packet that morning.”

“That doesn’t bother you?” Bruce asked.

“It does, but technically, Kara is the head of the House of El.”

“I thought you were,” Bruce said.

“It’s complicated,” Clark said. “My father was the head of the House, so normally, I would inherit that position, but he died before I came of age. Since Kara was of age when my father died, the title passed to her, until I actually claim it. And even then, she has the right to challenge my claim.”

“I thought she was thirteen when your father died.”

“Kryptonians come of age around twelve Earth years.”

“Do you think she would challenge you if you tried to claim head of house status?” Bruce asked.

“I honestly don’t know,” Clark said. “I don’t think so. Kryptonian tradition means a lot to Kara, and a challenge is pretty much a formal statement that she doesn’t think I’m fit to lead the House. That’s pretty serious. Especially since, if she challenged me and lost, she’d lose all standing as a member of the House.”

“What does that mean, in practical terms?” Bruce asked.

“Well, first, she couldn’t wear the coat of arms anymore, and second, she’d be required to surrender all house property. She’d lose Konex, Kolex, and her Fortess of Sanctuary. She’d lose all access to the data archives we brought with us. She’d be locked out of her travel pod. I think all that would be left to her would be her necklace.”

“If she challenged you, could you win?” Bruce asked.

“Probably,” Clark said. “As the challenged, I have the right to choose the type of contest. It would almost have to be combat though. If I picked anything else, she’d wipe the floor with me.”

“What other kind of challenge is there?” Bruce asked.

“There are three challenges. The Challenge of Intelligence, The Challenge of Wisdom, and The Challenge of Strength.”

“You’re saying she’s smarter than you?”

“I don’t know if she’s got more raw intelligence. By human standards, she and I are both more than three standard deviations above the mean, but she’s the one with a Kryptonian education, and the equivalent of about ten PhD’s. All I’ve got is a journalism degree from Metropolis University, and what Jor-El could cram on a Kryptonian thumb drive. Same with the Challenge of Wisdom. It’s all tied up in Kryptonian culture and philosophy. On the other hand, I’m a master of Torquasm Rao, and she’s only trained to the first level in Klurkor, and as far as I know, hasn’t practiced seriously since she left Krypton. I know Alex has been teaching her Krav Maga since she went public as Supergirl, but that’s just a few weeks’ training.”

“What happens to you if she wins the challenge?” Bruce asked.

“I lose any right to claim status as the head of House. Essentially, my line would become the cadet branch of the family. In theory, if she chose to, she could expel me from the House at that point, but that’s almost never done. Bruce, what is all this about?”

“She suggested hiring Lena Luthor to help develop Kryptonian power supplies for sale on Earth.”

“SHE WHAT?” Clark yelled.

“She suggested hiring Lena Luthor to help develop Kryptonian power supplies for sale on Earth,” Bruce repeated, in the exact same tone he’d said it before.

Clark took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his noise. “Lois and I are going to National City tomorrow morning for Thanksgiving. I’ll talk to her then and find out what the hell she’s thinking.”

“Be prepared for an argument,” Bruce said.

“Right,” Clark said. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Okay,” Bruce said.

Clark cut the connection to Bruce and pulled up Diana’s number to find out what the hell had actually happened.

Kara looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps and smiled at the sight of Cat Grant making her way towards her office door.

“Hello, Miss Grant,” she said.

“Hello, Kiera,” Cat said as she sat down in one of the chairs in front of Kara’s desk.

“You’re here late,” Kara said.

“So are you. I thought you were taking off early because your family is in town for Thanksgiving.”

“That was the plan, but every time Supergirl makes a Facebook post, it’s like someone sets my entire calendar on fire.”

“Yes, well, our girl does seem to be making quite the splash, doesn’t she?”

“I’m pretty sure that incident in the bay this afternoon was just a misunderstanding,” Kara said, grinning.

“Oh, I’m sure. I mean, it was purely a coincidence that Supergirl splashed Simon Tycho, and only Simon Tycho when she did a flyby of his yacht.”

“She was on her way to a warehouse fire in Nation’s Bay,” she said, trying not to laugh, despite the amused twinkle in Cat’s eyes.

“I’m sure,” Cat said. “I heard someone had a visit from Vicki this morning.”

“I did,” Kara said. “She tried to convince me to give up all of this,” Kara said, waving to their surroundings, “to go be a reporter.”

“You would make a hell of a reporter, Kara,” Cat said.

Kara nodded. “I would,” she said. “And someday, I will. But if I’m honest, there’s a part of me that wishes I was still fetching your latte’s and organizing your schedule.”

Cat smiled at her. “I wish you were, too,” she said.

“Is there a problem with Jackson?” Kara asked, frowning.

“Just that he isn’t you,” Cat said. “I’ll never admit it to anyone, but my day feels a little emptier without someone sending me some inane cat video.”

“Oh, well, if it’s just the cat videos, I’m sure I can add that to his list of duties,” Kara said.

“He also can’t keep a latte hot,” Cat said.

Kara just grinned, deciding not to push any further, even though she knew exactly what Cat was getting at.

“How’s our girl handling her new status as a gay icon?” Cat asked.

“It’s a little overwhelming,” Kara said. “Out, the Advocate, Curve, Autostraddle and AfterEllen all keep begging for interviews, which makes me wish we had the lesbian-focused magazine and website already spun up, and some of the negative comments are enough to make anyone want to shoot lasers out of their eyes. Maybe a bit shocked that the President actually issued a statement about it.”

“I thought Oliva was very supportive,” Cat said.

“Yeah, it’s just… You know, having your private life on display like that isn’t easy.”

“No, it isn’t,” Cat said. “I remember the first time a paparazzi got pictures of me on a date. I didn’t want to leave the house for a week.”

“That’s hard to imagine,” Kara said.

“It was right after I started my first talk show,” Cat said. “Naturally, I adapted, but it was hard, at the time. People say things, cruel things, about public figures. I just hope Supergirl knows that the people who care about her won’t believe them, and the people that believe them aren’t worth caring about.”

“Well, I will pass along the message, Miss Grant. But I think, given her little speech on Leslie’s show, she knows whose opinions should be given weight.”

“I hope so,” Cat said.

“How about you, Miss Grant? You and Carter have your Thanksgiving plans all settled?”

“Oh, no. I don’t do Thanksgiving,” Cat said. “Carter spends it with his father, so I just come in and work.”

“I’m sorry,” Kara said.

“It’s okay. I get him for Christmas.”

“You should come to my place!” Kara said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cat said.

“I’m not,” Kara said. “It’ll be fun. Besides, James will be there, and Clark.”

“Which means Lois,” Cat said. “I’ll pass.”

“Oh, come on, Cat,” Kara said, bouncing a little in her seat. “You can spend the whole time rubbing it in her face that *your* Superhero let you sponsor her entire social media presence, and you’ve got inside access to the first out lesbian superhero.”

“Well, that does make it sound tempting,” Cat said.

“Come on!” Kara said, putting just a little bit of wheedling into her voice. “I bet I could even talk Supergirl into doing a cover shoot for the next issue of the magazine. It could be another feature. ‘The Out Girl From Outer Space.’”

“Well, we know who won’t be writing any headlines any time soon.”

“It sounded better in my head,” Kara said, not able to stop from giggling just a little.

“I should let you get going,” Cat said, standing up.

“I’ll text you my address,” Kara said, “In case you change your mind.”

Cat smiled at her. “Good night, Kara,” she said, then turned and headed for the elevator.

Kara didn’t stop smiling the whole way home.

[your-dietician]

How the Copa America soccer tournament in Brazil is spreading COVID-19

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/soccer/how-the-copa-america-soccer-tournament-in-brazil-is-spreading-covid-19/

How the Copa America soccer tournament in Brazil is spreading COVID-19

Just after nightfall about 60 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, Marlus Jesus was whisked into a hospital after hours to verify that he didn’t have coronavirus, then ushered into a hotel room.

His secret mission? The Brazilian soccer star Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior and several teammates wanted haircuts.

“I started cutting hair at about 8 p.m. and finished after midnight,” said the 32-year-old barber. “I cut the hair of seven or eight players.”

He couldn’t resist posting a selfie with Neymar on Instagram.

The haircuts, which quickly became national news, burst a strict “sanitary bubble” meant to keep COVID-19 out of the Copa America, the premier soccer tournament on the continent.

The event has been shrouded in controversy since organizers hurriedly moved it to virus-stricken Brazil in early June, less than two weeks before kickoff. The original co-hosts, Argentina and Colombia, had suddenly bowed out, citing an alarming rise in coronavirus cases.

Brazil, where COVID-19 has claimed at least 525,000 lives, a toll second only to the United States, was a curious second choice. Infections were surging to unprecedented levels as the country entered a devastating third wave. But, to the shock of many, President Jair Bolsonaro enthusiastically agreed that Brazil be the host.

“From the beginning I have been saying, when it comes to the pandemic: I am sorry for the deaths, but we have to live,” said the far-right populist, who is being investigated by a congressional committee for his handling of the pandemic, including possible corruption related to the purchase of vaccines.

Government health authorities and Copa America’s organizers say those taking part of the tournament are following strict protocols to avoid infections, as 10 teams compete in four Brazilian cities. Crowds are barred from stadiums and players must stay in their rooms when not training or playing matches. Nearly 26,000 coronavirus tests had been administered as of this week.

But outside health experts say the event is complicating Brazil’s fight against the virus.

At least 165 new cases have been linked directly to the tournament. A total of 37 were players, coaches, trainers and other team personnel, while 125 were drivers, caterers, cleaners and others providing services for the tournament. Three work for Conmebol, the South American soccer federation, which provides medics and referees to the tournament.

“We’ve seen that the majority of cases were not among players — they were the people providing them with services,” said Dr. Lucia Campos Pellanda, an epidemiologist and dean of Porto Alegre’s Federal University of Health Sciences. “It’s really cruel — to expose people who are already vulnerable.”

Without systematic contact tracing, authorities are unable to determine how those infections may have spread coronavirus into the wider population.

Enforcing protocols — and controlling the players off the field — has proved challenging. Members of Chile’s team were accused of partying and inviting prostitutes to their hotel. Venezuelan team members infected with the coronavirus allegedly broke quarantine, sneaking out of their rooms. Hotel workers who came in contact with the rogue players complained that their pleas for testing were ignored for days.

With the Tokyo Olympics just over two weeks away, Brazil may serve as a grim bellwether on whether behemoth multinational sporting events can be held safely as the pandemic still rages on. Already, the Summer Games have sparked protests, as coronavirus cases surge across Asia.

“Even if the risk is minimal, even if an event like this results in a single death — is it worth it?” Pellanda asked.

Outraged Brazilians have dubbed the tournament “Cova America,” rebranding it using the Portuguese word for “grave.” Memes of a coffin kicking a coronavirus have swept through social media.

Brazil has advanced to the final, scheduled for Saturday. But many fans say that even if it wins and retains the title it captured in 2019, there will be little to celebrate.

“There just isn’t that same joy that the game usually brings,” said Júlia Passos, a 21-year-old food service worker. “This time, it brings a lot of sadness. Because it can’t erase what happened, how many people have died.”

Her family, like so many others, saw the devastation of COVID-19 up close. Her stepfather spent a week in hospital, struggling to breathe.

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“With all the pain Brazil is going through, that we’re going through,” Passos said. “It is not the time to host a huge sporting event like this.”

Still, she couldn’t turn down a gig in one Rio stadium hosting some of the matches. Out of work since March, the young mother needed the income. On game days, she earns $20 serving food and drinks to the coaches, organizers and security staff.

Passos managed to get one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and she and her colleagues are tested for coronavirus every other day. Nonetheless, she said, the job feels risky, starting with her 25-mile commute from the outskirts of the city.

“We end up so exposed. We take trains packed full of people to get to work,” she said. “But I really needed the work.”

Her stepbrother, Júnior Campos, needed money too and also jumped at the chance to nab a job at the stadium. Yet, even as a soccer fan, the tournament left a bitter taste.

“I lost my uncle and, just last week, I lost my best friend too,” said Campos, 21, who was applying to colleges when the pandemic struck. “We’ve lost so many people to the virus. And so many are still dying. It’s absurd to have this event, to pretend like life is back to normal here, like in Europe.”

The Euro Cup, which is being held in 11 countries across the continent, kicked off in June amid easing lockdowns and ramped-up vaccination campaigns in many of the host nations. But even with reduced stadium capacity and rigid travel restrictions, the tournament has failed to fully avoid infection. The World Health Organization sounded an alarm recently, pointing to overcrowding and clusters of cases.

Health experts warn the risks are even greater in Brazil, where just over 13% of the population is fully vaccinated. One particular worry is that highly contagious new variants could gain traction. The Delta strain — first discovered in India — was spotted in one city hosting Copa America matches, though authorities are still unsure if it infected tournament participants.

In the last two weeks, daily coronavirus cases have eased from June’s record peaks. But health experts still fear spikes. And with the lag between infections and illness and hospitalization, they warn that the tournament’s full effects may not become clear for weeks.

Unlike much of the world, Brazil never closed down to contain the virus. All along, Bolsonaro downplayed COVID-19 and urged Brazilians to keep working. Lockdowns, he insisted, kill more people than the virus by hurting the economy.

Brazil ultimately lost out on both fronts. As the virus ripped through the country undeterred, the pandemic decimated the economy. A welfare scheme helped keep informal workers afloat last year, but the aid was slashed significantly as public spending ballooned.

Angry Brazilians have taken to the streets, calling for vaccines, economic aid and impeachment of the president. Nearly 15 million are out of jobs and hunger has almost doubled, with 19 million routinely going without food during the pandemic.

Faced with economic need, millions risk their health in search of work, including in the Copa America.

On a recent morning, Viviane Azevedo served breakfast to the Copa America delegations at a ritzy hotel in Rio’s wealthy south zone. Still waiting for her second dose of vaccine, she was happy for extra shifts at the hotel that came with the influx of guests.

“It’s a disgrace really, hosting this tournament now,” said Azevedo, 43, who went back to waitressing after being laid off from a piercing studio early in the pandemic. “But for us, there’s no other way. In today’s Brazil, if you don’t take the risk, you’ll go hungry.”

Murilo Castro Vianna, 61, waited outside the same hotel in a white shuttle bus, ready to drive Uruguay’s team to training. Earlier in his 12-hour shift, he had dropped off an injured player at the airport. A few days earlier, a fellow driver had been sickened by COVID-19.

“I’ve spent every day of this pandemic on the street, working,” he said. Before this, he had driven around linesmen working for an electricity company. “Here, I’m being tested. I wear my mask, I try to be careful. That’s all you can do.”

Back at the barber shop he owns in Belford Roxo, a working-class neighborhood on the northern fringe of Rio, Jesus was clad in a face mask as he swiftly razed a little boy’s hair into a mullet, like the ones worn by soccer stars.

One chair over, an unmasked employee trimmed a client’s beard, then doused it in a fragrant spray. Stand-up comedy blared from the television.

Jesus’ secret mission last month wasn’t the first time he cut the hair of Brazil’s soccer elite. But the Copa America job was a chance he couldn’t pass up.

The tiny, bright shop had remained shut for much of the pandemic. Jesus kept cutting hair in the homes of clients, to stay afloat.

“Are we afraid of the virus?” Jesus said. “Of course we’re afraid. But we have to work.”

Ionova is a special correspondent.

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[jswdmb1]

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

“You don’t see me now. You don’t want to anyhow.”

- Wilco

Summer is officially upon us.  At 5:07 AM this morning we entered the longest day of the year.  It’s easy to take something like this for granted, but in six months it will be hard to even remember that we had almost sixteen hours of daylight to enjoy today.  I know that I have been wasting too many precious hours lately online reading the news.  I’m letting evil politicians and crass news media rile me up with grotesque behavior only intended to self-promote.  And I’m definitely using too much time and energy thinking about my presence on social media on how to respond to all of it. It’s time to dial it back and not squander all this wonderful sunshine and precious time to those who don’t deserve it.

Don’t worry, I’m not going away forever.  It’s just time for my annual summer technology break.  This year, I am expanding it to thirty days and it will follow me whether I’m home, up North, or wherever.  The rules are pretty simple.  I will be offline from all social media during this time.  The apps will be deleted from my I Pad and phone and I’ll keep all the wonderful things that I think need to be said to myself.  As for the news, no more reading online.  I still get the papers delivered (Trib, Daily Herald) and will limit my consumption to the next day in print.  I still feel this is the best way to get your news anyway as it allows the journalists time to do their job and filter out some of the nonsense that shows up as “breaking” online.  I also find that it is far easier to stay composed when reading things that upset me after things have calmed down enough surrounding the latest scandal to let me have a better perspective on things.  As for TV, I don’t watch a lot to begin with, but I am going to go “old school” if I do watch and limit myself to channels 2, 5, 7, 9 and 11.  Those were the only channels available to me until we got cable in the sixth grade (we didn’t have a good antennae so no UHF), so I’m going to go back to the basics if I do decide to flip on the tube.  I will still be on email and take texts and calls, though I am going to at least try to consolidate my time on those as much as possible to early and late in the day and limit those to necessary communication.

This is going to give me a lot of time so I have picked ten things to do instead of going online. They are in no particular order:

1. Play a classic board game I haven’t played in a while - I’m thinking a solid game of Risk but I’ll take suggestions.

2. Start a backyard whiffle ball game - two on two is best with pitcher’s hand out.

3. Invite a friend for coffee with no phones - and no weather or current events talk. Really try to listen to them and reconnect.

4. Go to a free concert = they are all over the place often within walking distance. I’m going to catch one in Lilacia Park or on a Saturday cruise night

5. Support a local team = my daughter and I are going to a Chicago Red Stars soccer game. There are also a half-dozen minor league teams in the area to check out (and no smart ass, the Sox aren’t one of them)

6. Invite the next door neighbors for dinner - this is easy for me because mine on both sides are great. Could be as simple as throwing hot dogs on the grill.

7. Create a mix tape = I want to bring back my favorite activity from the 80’s. You can use Spotify but the rules are two distinct sides of 45 minutes each

8. Learn more about a favorite not-for-profit organization = see what they are up to and how to help support their cause.

9. Go to the pool and I’m not talking fancy water park - just walk or ride your bike to the local public pool and spend the afternoon there

10. Go to the periodical section of a library = this is my rainy day activity. It’s the perfect place to read about subjects about which you wouldn’t normally subscribe. I may go with Popular Mechanics.

What is the point of all this? We are lost right now in a sea of undignified and cruel politics. It is beneath us not as a nation but as human beings and I think a huge reason for it is that we are not getting out and connecting with one another. All of my activities will lead you to interact with people directly. When we do that an amazing thing happens - we develop empathy. If anyone is going to save us from the mess we are in, it is ourselves. Our leaders are actually a help in this because they have clearly demonstrated they are not here for us but only their own self interests. They don’t have an empathetic bone in their bodies. We need to put a premium on this emotion and prove that is what we truly value.

Will this work? I don’t know but I think it is worth trying. Certainly what I have been doing recently has had no impact. Like any grass roots effort it is going to take some time. My next post will be in 30 days and I’ll report on my activities. I’d love it if you would join me. Maybe together we can turn the tide.

Enjoy your summer everyone,

Jim

[orbemnews]

Forget Back Stage Passes or V.I.P. Bracelets. Vaccination Cards Are the New Ticket. At Fort Bragg, soldiers who have gotten their coronavirus vaccines can go to a gym where no masks are required, with no limits on who can work out together. Treadmills are on and zipping, unlike those in 13 other gyms where unvaccinated troops can’t use the machines, everyone must mask up and restrictions remain on how many can bench-press at one time. Inside Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles, where lines not long ago snaked for miles with people seeking coronavirus vaccines, a special seating area allows those who are fully inoculated to enjoy games side by side with other fans. When Bill Dugan reopens Madam’s Organ, his legendary blues bar in Washington, D.C., people will not be allowed in to work, drink or play music unless they can prove they have had their shots. “I have a saxophone player who is among the best in the world. He was in the other day, and I said, ‘Walter, take a good look around because you’re not walking in here again unless you get vaccinated.’” Evite and Paperless Post are seeing a big increase in hosts requesting that their guests be vaccinated. As the United States nudges against the soft ceiling of those who will willingly take the vaccine, governments, businesses and schools have been extending carrots — actually doughnuts, beers and cheesecake — to prod laggards along. Some have even offered cold hard cash: In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine this week went so far as to say that the state would give five vaccinated people $1 million each as part of a weekly lottery program. On Thursday, federal health officials offered the ultimate incentive for many when they advised that fully vaccinated Americans may stop wearing masks. Now, private employers, restaurants and entertainment venues are looking for ways to make those who are vaccinated feel like V.I.P.s, both to protect workers and guests, and to possibly entice those not yet on board. Come summer, the nation may become increasingly bifurcated between those who are permitted to watch sports, take classes, get their hair cut and eat barbecue with others, and those who are left behind the spike protein curtain. Access and privilege among the vaccinated may rule for the near future, in public and private spaces. “The bottom line is this interesting question of the conception of our society,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, a former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the architect of a smoking ban and a tuberculosis control program in New York City, both of which included forms of mandates. “Are we in some important way connected or not?” A vaccine requirement to attend school or participate in the military is not a novel concept. But because the three Covid vaccines offered in the United States have yet to receive full approvals by the Food and Drug Administration, the military has declined to insist on inoculation. For their part, public school districts cannot consider mandates until the vaccines are available to most children. The F.D.A. just granted emergency use authorization to Pfizer this week for children ages 12 to 16. But even without a mandate, a nudge can feel like a shove. The military has been strongly encouraging vaccines among the troops. Acceptance has been low in some branches, like the Marines, with only 40 percent having gotten one or more shots. At Fort Bragg, one of the largest military installations in the country and among the first to offer the vaccine, just under 70 percent have been jabbed. A podcast designed to knock down misinformation — a common misbelief is that the vaccines affect fertility — plays around the base. In addition to their freedom gym, vaccinated soldiers may now eat in groups as they please, while the unvaccinated look on as they grab their grub and go. With soldiers, experts “talk up to decliners versus talk down,” said Col. Joseph Buccino, a spokesman at Fort Bragg. Still, holdouts pose obstacles. For a recent mission to Europe, a handful of unvaccinated troops had to be replaced with those who had gotten shots, because of quarantine rules in countries there. “What we need to do is restore readiness,” Col. Buccino said. Updated  May 13, 2021, 9:25 p.m. ET Segregating the unvaccinated and limiting access to gyms and dining areas were not measures aimed specifically at getting soldiers vaccinated, he said, “but there is an enticement.” The private sector, sometimes with the encouragement of government, is also trying to make life a bit nicer for the vaccinated, emphasizing the privileges — rather than perceived infringements on freedom — bestowed by the protection of the vaccines. It’s baseball season, and fans have clamored to get back to normal, to a place where the wave used to mean something other than the next surge of the coronavirus. Major League Baseball is heavily promoting inoculations, and stadiums have become a new line of demarcation, where vaccinated sections are highlighted as perks akin to V.I.P. skyboxes. In Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee recently announced that sporting venues and churches would be able to increase their capacity by adding sections for the vaccinated. Some businesses — like gyms and restaurants — where the coronavirus was known to spread easily are also embracing a reward system. Even though many gyms have reopened around the country, some still haven’t allowed large classes to resume. Others are inclined to follow the lead of gyms like Solid Core in Washington, D.C., which seeks proof of inoculation to enroll in classes listed as “Vaccine Required: Full Body.” “Our teams are now actively evaluating where else we think there will be client demand and will be potentially introducing it to other markets in the weeks ahead,” said Bryan Myers, president of the national gym chain, in an email. The Bayou, a restaurant in Salt Lake City, will open its doors only to those who have had their shots, according to Mark Alston, one of the owners. “It was entirely driven by the fact that I work at the Bayou seven days a week,” he said. “I do not work from a comfy office and send staff off to work in unsafe conditions, but work there alongside them.” The “vaxxed-only” policy has flooded his voice mail with rancorous messages. “One in particular accuses us of running some kind of pedophile beer cult,” he said. “It’s a bit unhinged.” Even private citizens are deploying the practice in their homes. A spokesperson for Evite said 548,420 guests had received online invitations to events mentioning “fully vaccinated” or using other vaccinated-related terms since March 1, 2021, and invitations with the exact term “fully vaccinated” had been sent to 103,507 people. A similar company, Paperless Post, has created specific invitation designs with the inoculated in mind, vaccinated only please RSVP. Not everyone endorses this type of exclusion as good public policy. “I worry about the operational feasibility,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. “In the U.S., we don’t yet have a standard way to prove vaccination status. I hope we’ll see by fall such low levels of infection in the U.S. that our level of concern about the virus will be very low.” But few dispute that it is legal. “Having dedicated spaces at events reserved for vaccinated people is both lawful and ethical,” said Lawrence O. Gostin, an expert in health law at Georgetown Law School. “Businesses have a major economic incentive to create safer environments for their customers, who would otherwise be reluctant to attend crowded events. Government recommendations about vaccinated-only sections will encourage businesses and can help us back to more normal.” Large employers with a few notable exceptions have been reluctant so far to impose vaccine mandates for workers, especially in a tight labor market. “Our association came out in favor of masks,” said Emily Williams Knight, president of the Texas Restaurant Association. “We probably will not be taking a position on mandates, which are incredibly divisive.” But some companies are moving that way. Norwegian Cruise Line is threatening to keep its ships out of Florida ports if the state stands by a law prohibiting businesses from requiring vaccines in exchange for services. Public health mandates — from smoking bans to seatbelt laws to containing tuberculosis outbreaks by requiring TB patients to take their medicines while observed — have a long history in the United States. “They fall into a cluster of things in which someone is essentially making the argument that what I do is only my business,” said Dr. Frieden, who is now chief executive of Resolve to Save Lives, a program designed to prevent epidemics and cardiovascular disease. “A lot of times that’s true, unless what you do might kill someone else.” Dr. Frieden was the main official who pushed for a smoking ban in bars and restaurants in 2003 when he was the New York City health commissioner under former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Other senior aides at the time felt certain the ban would cost Mr. Bloomberg a second term. “When I was fighting for that, a City Council member who was against the ban said of bars, ‘That is my place of entertainment.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s someone’s place of employment.’ It did have impact.” Mr. Dugan, the bar owner in Washington, said protecting his workers and patrons are of a piece. “As we hit a plateau with vaccines, I don’t think we can sit and wait for all the nonbelievers,” he said. “If we are going to convince them, it’s going to be through them not being able to do the things that vaccinated people are able to do.” Source link Orbem News #bracelets #cards #Forget #passes #Stage #ticket #Vaccination #VIP