#i keep coming back to watch this baltimore ritual

[ghuleh-anima-mia]

"You like going down?"

[maggiedoyle]

november 8, 2020

Alex Trebek died today. He had been sick for quite a long time, announcing his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in early 2019, but it seemed like he had been doing well — however, it is 2020 after all, and everything has changed. 

Jeopardy has been a fixture in my life and a part of my identity for as long as I can remember. Indeed, it has been on air for longer than I’ve been alive. Its current iteration aired in 1984, back when my parents were bonding over crosswords and coffee and cigarettes in Susquehanna Hall. A game show built on smarts and speed and wit is a game show built for my parents and thus, apple, tree, for me. Shouting out the correct answer as quickly as possible, all while in competition, is one of the most Doyle-like things I can imagine. 

On the DC channels Jeopardy came on at 7:30 PM. (Living in Annapolis, we picked up local channels for both the DC and Baltimore media markets. My mother preferred the DC ones, likely missing her Rockville roots, and more importantly, because the Baltimore channels aired Jeopardy at 7 and Wheel of Fortune at 7:30, which is simply heresy). Our evening rituals lived and died by Jeopardy at 7:30. Dad would be home from work around 6, and then we ate dinner. Usually a little dessert and chatter followed (never, ever a quiet moment in the Doyle household). Clearing the table, doing the dishes, by 7 someone would have turned on Wheel of Fortune, the far inferior game show, but a passable warm-up for the main event. Pat Sajak (a Maryland local) and Vanna White did their thing and we lazily engaged with it because lazy engagement is all you need for Wheel of Fortune. 

By 7:30, the leftovers packed up and the dishwasher running, the Doyles huddled around the television for our daily communion with the greatest game show on air. 

We didn’t keep score amongst ourselves, but we all shouted out the answers and patted each other on the back for the occasional obscure clue that only one of us knew. We argued relentlessly (and without ever resolving, also big Doyle energy) about whether or not Dad got to claim having “gotten it” when he did not phrase his answer in the form of a question. Decades of watching together, and instead of once and for all deciding on rules, we welcomed the chaos. We all picked our favorite contestants based on their personal stories, their outfits, their gameplay. Mom always hated it when people jumped around the board. 

Once it came to Final Jeopardy, we actually did have a rule: no blurting it out. Whether or not you indeed had the correct answer was on the honor system. We trusted. I still hold that one of the greatest feelings is getting Final Jeopardy when none of the contestants do. 

When I moved out, I brought a TV to college so I could watch Jeopardy. I pay $75 a month for my stupid Xfinity wifi/basic cable package so I can get network TV like I’m a boomer, even though I only ever watch Jeopardy live once in a blue moon (because, unfortunately, the Bay Area is like Baltimore and for some ungodly reason slots Jeopardy at 7 and not 7:30 and that is just too early!). I have never watched it as much as I did growing up, where its status as a Doyle family nightly fixture is as indelible and reliable as Alex Trebek being its host. 

Jeopardy as we knew it is over, as is the home I grew up in. It all feels very metaphorical today, that one of the most steadfast aspects of life at my parents’ home — even today, when we return to the empty nest, we fall right back in to the 7:30 ritual — has now come to a close. What felt as certain as the sun rising and setting never really was; people asked me if I was surprised, and of course I wasn’t really, but I think what surprised me is just how much this one man and what he represented held for me. 

Home is Jeopardy with Alek Trebek at 7:30, shouting at the TV with my parents and my brothers. And that home is officially in the past now.

[catgirlthecrazy]

Muse and Knight

Warning: this fanfic contains major spoilers through Tiamat’s Wrath.

AO3

Summary: The transition from uneasy allies to family doesn’t happen in a single moment. Not even a dramatic one. It’s a slow change, like a sunset. You can’t see it happening, just see the results when it’s already happened.

Holden and Clarissa’s relationship, through the years.

The coffee machine was broken. Again. Holden pressed his forehead into the cool brushed steel surface of the machine. “I don’t ask for much. Really, I don’t. Is this so unreasonable?” The red text of the error message shown even through his closed eyelids. It seemed almost irritated at him for expecting it to perform the function that was the entire purpose of its existence.

The galley door slid open. “Oh,” a soft voice said. Clarissa hovered at the galley door. 

“Hey,” he said. “You’re up.”

Clarissa seemed to teeter on the edge of leaving. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were awake." 

Holden shrugged. "Couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d start shift early. Or, I was going to."  He gestured helplessly at the red error message. Holden’s head already ached in anticipation of caffeine withdrawal.

Clarissa frowned and crossed the galley, inspecting the error message. "It’s not working?” She power-cycled the coffee maker and hit the brew button again.

“Already tried that,” Holden said. As if agreeing, the machine buzzed angrily and spat out the same error message as before. 

“Hmm. Let me take a look.” Clarissa left, and returned with a bag of tools and parts. A minute later she had the machine on the floor, back panel removed and parts exposed to the open air. Not for the first time, Holden was struck by a sudden sense of surreality. Just a handful of years ago, this woman had tried to destroy him and everyone he loved. He could still remember the murderous rage she’d inspired in him. Now she was fixing his coffeemaker, and he was weirdly ok with that.

He’d like to say that the assault on the slow zone had been the tipping point. The moment when she’d moved in his mind from “person who’d tried to kill him” to “part of his crew.” But these sorts of things never worked like that. It was like a sunrise: you couldn’t see the sky turning from black to blue while it was ongoing. You could only notice the results after they’d already happened.

“Ha!” Clarissa pulled out something metallic and charred, with little dangling wires like tentacles. “Power leads burnt out.”

“Is that hard to fix?" 

"No, this part swaps out pretty easy.” She opened a utility organizer labeled Replacement Parts: Galley in neat handwriting that definitely wasn’t Amos’. She pulled out the pristine twin of the burnt out part and wired it into the machine. She put the machine back together, and ran diagnostics. This time the message was a happy green. She made a little animal noise of satisfaction. “There, all fixed.”

Holden clapped her on the shoulder. “You are my favorite person in the solar system.” He turned to the machine and started a new brew. “You want me to make some for you?” When she didn’t answer, he turned to look at her. 

There was an odd expression on Clarissa’s face, one his caffeine-deprived mind couldn’t quite decipher. “I… yes, I would love that,” she said.

Weeks later, Holden would learn that Clarissa actually hated coffee. That morning, though, she drank the whole cup.

***

Pátria was a big colony. To Holden, a child of cramped and crowded Earth, that still felt a little strange. Pátria only had a few settlements, and only one that could rate the label ‘city’- barely. But by the fledgling standards of extra-solar colonies, it was a metropolis. It had paved roads and a sewage system and real buildings not made from scrap and mud. And it had recreational swimmers.

The day was uncomfortably hot, the kind of hot that made his shirt damp. A few families with young children were splashing in the local lake on the outskirts of the town. A floating platform had been set up in a deeper part of the lake. One adolescent took a running leap off and cannonballed into the lake, splashing his friends and prompting screams and shouts. A few nearby waterbirds croaked their annoyance and flew off. Holden found himself grinning. 

“People do this for fun ?” Bobbie’s voice was acrid with disgust and amusement.

“What, swim? It’s not that uncommon on Earth,” he said.

“Those birds have been pooping in there. And the fish. And whatever the hell kind of microbes they’ve got.”

Holden shrugged. “That’s true on Earth too. People still swim in ponds and lakes there. Remind me to tell you about some of my family’s trips to Flathead Lake.”

She shot him a look. “Yeah, and that's also disgusting. But at least Earth lakes have our flavor of shit and microbes in it. This will have alien shit and microbes in it. Who knows what that does?”

Holden opened his mouth to answer, but Clarissa beat him to it. “They test the water regularly here. It’s not safe to drink without treatment, but you can swim in it just fine. So long as you don’t swallow too much, anyway.” She was taking off her shoes and rolling up her jumpsuit pantlegs as she talked. “I looked it up before we landed.” She set her shoes aside, socks neatly tucked in, and walked purposefully towards the water. It took Holden a second to understand why. Then he grinned and shucked off his own shoes.

Bobbie groaned. “If your feet melt into green slime, don’t come complaining to me,” she called.

They both ignored her. Clarissa was already up to her ankles by the time Holden reached the water. Her face was turned up to the sun like a flower, her expression pure bliss. 

“I don’t think I’ve been anywhere near a real lake since I was a kid,” Holden said. The water was delightfully cold. The soft wet sand slid comfortably between his toes. 

“Last time I was near a lake was when me and Amos were trying to get off Earth. Not much time for swimming then.”

“And before that?”

“Probably the same lake, the last time I summered there with my parents. We used to go there every other year. It was… nice.” She had the same distant tone she got, discussing her old life. He’d never pressed her much about it. So Holden changed the subject. 

“I forgot how good cold water feels on a hot day,” he said. He crouched down and started splashing water on his face, careful to keep his mouth closed as he did so.

Clarissa was digging out handfuls of sand out of the lake bottom and watching them flow through her fingers underwater. “I know. I almost want to just dunk myself in and float for a while." 

"But?”

“But I don’t fancy walking around in a soaking wet jumpsuit the rest of the day.”

“Those colonists got their swimsuits from somewhere. We’ve got a few hours. We could go get some. Have some shore leave on the beach.

"You think anyone else will be interested?” Her tone was amused. Holden glanced behind him. Bobbie was still shaking her head at the whole affair in amused disgust. Amos was staring at them with the blank non-comprehension of someone watching a foreign religious ritual. Alex and Naomi were back on the Roci, but he suspected their reaction would be much the same as Bobbie’s. Lake swimming wasn’t something people did outside of Earth- or it hadn’t been until now. And Baltimore didn’t have any bodies of water a sane person would want to swim in. It occurred to Holden that, though Clarissa wasn’t the only other Earther on the crew, she was probably the only one who shared any of his fondness for the place.

“Maybe not,” he said. “Do we need anyone else?”

She smiled. “I guess we don’t.”

By the time they were done at the lake, the day was nearly gone. The two of them walked back to the Roci’s landing pad, chatting animatedly, beneath a sky transitioning from blue to azure to black.

***

When you lived day in and day out with the same people on a small ship, a certain level telepathy emerged. From the tone of Naomi’s humming, or the way Bobbie took a ladder, or the rhythm of Alex’s fingers on the controls, Holden could take a barometer reading of each of his crew. So when Holden saw Clarissa sitting in the galley, gripping her mug of tea in a very particular way, he knew something was very wrong. Unfortunately, the telepathy didn’t tell him why.

To buy himself time, he started making coffee. Holden knew so much detail about his crew personal and work lives that, whatever their mood was, he usually had plenty of context to guess what the cause was. He didn’t know of anything in Clarissa’s life that could be behind her anxious mood. She hadn’t had any fights with the other crew that he knew of. There weren’t any looming mechanical problems or existential threats. He wondered how to go about asking what was bothering her.

Holden sat down at the table across from her. “What’s bothering you?”

Her eyes focused on him, like she’d only just noticed he was there. Then she laughed. “Always the direct approach.”

He grinned and shrugged. “I’m not very good at this.”

She grinned back for a moment. Then it faded. “I got a message from my sister.”

Two thoughts collided in Holden’s head: I thought your sister was dead slammed into I hope she’s doing well and jumbled together in his mind. Just barely, he stopped himself from blurting I hope she’s dead out loud. He knew Clarissa had siblings besides Julie. She never talked about her birth family except in the past tense, so it was easy to forget that most of them were still alive.

“Not good news, I take it?”

“My father is dead.”

The news was like a dropped tool in an empty cargo hold. Her father. Jules-Pierre Mao. The man who had probably held the record for bloodiest hands in the solar system until Marco Inaros came along to steal the title. It was hard for Holden to think of the arrogant man he’d encountered on Luna so many years ago as related to the tired looking mechanic in front of him. The Venn Diagram between the two had so little overlap these days that they were nearly separate circles in his mind. “Um. Wow.” He took a long pull from his coffee. He couldn’t make this about his own feelings right now. “How are you feeling right now?”

She didn’t answer for a long moment, but Holden chose to wait and sip his coffee. He didn’t have to wait long. “When I was young, he defined my life. Father was like a gravity well. So much revolved around him, and you couldn’t pass near him without accounting for how he’d alter your trajectory. Now he’s gone, and it’s hardly worth a story on the news feeds.” She smiled wryly. “He would have hated that.”

Holden frowned into his coffee. “You know, now that you mention it, that’s kind of weird. I mean, yeah, it’s been a while since he was in the news, but he was kind of a big deal back in the day. I’m surprised I haven’t heard more about this.”

“I’m not. He was held in Mossoró when the rocks fell. They were hit bad by tsunamis. They couldn’t find most of the bodies. It’s only now that the courts have made it official.” Clarissa’s voice was so flat, like she was reading off a list. 

“So you’ve known this was coming.” Holden wondered if that was the reason for her mood. He could remember one of his grandmothers, who’d been gravely ill for so long before she died that he’d felt more relief at her passing than loss. And with that relief, guilt.

“I suppose I did.” Clarissa cocked her head in bemusement. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that. You’re the one who put him in prison.” There was no hint of reproach in her voice. Almost, they could have been talking about a famous football player whose career Holden hadn’t kept up with.

Holden shrugged. “Honestly, I kind of stopped giving a fuck about him once he was in prison. So long as he couldn’t start wars, I didn’t really care.” Holden winced. “I uh, may not be the most comforting person to talk to about this.”

Clarissa just smiled at him. “I think he’d hate that even more than the lack of news coverage.”

Holden wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. “So… You sound pretty calm about this. But I can tell something’s bugging you. Anything you want to talk about?”

Clarissa frowned into her mug. “When I got the message that he was dead, my first thought was 'good.’ I don’t like that.”

Holden took a long sip from his coffee to buy himself time. “No love lost between you two, then?”

“I don’t feel anything about him. No love, no hate. I’m just very, very glad that he’s gone forever now. And I don’t like that I feel that way. I didn’t think I was that kind of person anymore.”

“I mean, to be fair, it makes me a little happy to know he’s gone for good.” Clarissa looked up at him sharply, and he shrugged. “It probably doesn’t speak well of me as a person. But I think it’s just part of being human.”

“Maybe.” She stared at her drink. “I still feel like I’ve failed somehow.”

Holden strongly disagreed. But he knew by now that she didn’t really want him to prove her wrong. Just listen while she worked through it on her own.

And the truth was, Holden could sympathize with her sorrow, but he couldn’t entirely empathize with it. Mao was her father. He understood intellectually why parent-child relationships could fall apart so completely and irreparably that she could react this way. He could agree entirely with the reasons why. He knew that the only right you had with anyone in life was the right to walk away. But he couldn’t really feel it. He had always gotten on well with his own parents. It was hard to imagine anything different.

He took her hand. “Well, for what it’s worth, I like the person you are now,” he said.

“And who do you think that person is?”

“The person who fixes things. The person who won’t let so much as a squeaking hinge stick around for long. The person who builds things.”

She didn’t answer him. She just smiled a small smile. They sat together in companiable silence for a long time. 

***

When his interrogators told him about the body on Medina, Holden thought they were lying. Surely, it was a tactic to make him admit something. Surely, the photos and autopsy reports were fake. Surely, they couldn’t have found Clarissa Mao, shot twice amidst a half dozen dead Laconian soldiers. When Holden finally let himself believe them, he waited for them to tell him who else in his family had died. Months, then years passed, and the news never came.

He couldn’t grieve. He couldn’t afford to. If the Laconians knew just how deep a weakness it was, if they understood that she was more to him that a mere crewmate, they’d never stop hammering away at it. So he threw all his efforts into diverting them. He opened up as much as he could on the alien threat. The Tempest anomaly. The Ilus artifact. Elvi Okoye.

When he finally got free, he was too preoccupied to think much about older pain. The flight to the gate, Bobbie’s death, Amos’ strange resurrection: all of these overwhelmed his attention like a well lit room overwhelms a single candle. When the grief reminded him of its presence, it wasn’t how he expected it.

The cabin door squeaked. It was such a soft little sound, it took Holden weeks to notice it. He was so wrapped up in the joy of being back on the Roci, of not being on Laconia, that most other things were background noise. But as time went by, as they passed through the Laconia gate, through the slow zone and into the Gossner system, Holden noticed the small rattling whine of a mechanism not quite in alignment.

“It’s just a squeak.” Naomi shrugged with her hands when he mentioned it to her. “I can have Amos put it on the to-do list, but I guarantee you he’s got a couple dozen other items on it already. This might never make it to the top.”

“I know it’s pretty minor in the grand scheme of things,” Holden said. Experimentally he cycled the door a couple more times to see if the noise was consistent. “I just can’t remember the last time a squeak stuck around this long." 

He meant to sound casual. Evidently he failed, because Naomi’s expression softened. "I miss her too.”

Holden sagged a little, like a spring losing tension. “I wanted to believe it was a bad dream. Or a lie to make me admit something. The Laconians sprang it on me suddenly. I think they were trying to surprise me into letting something slip.” He could still remember the feeling like a dunk in ice. Like a confirmation of his worst nightmares. 

“Did they tell you how it happened?”

“Some. 'Likely involved in terrorist activities’ was I think how they put it.”

“She saved my life. She saved the whole underground.” And Naomi told him the story of the jailbreak, the traitor, and Clarissa’s last stand. 

Holden couldn’t speak. In broad strokes, what Naomi told him wasn’t far off from what he’d already guessed. But he hadn’t fully appreciated just how much he owed to Clarissa’s sacrifice. Naomi’s life was one item at the top of a very long list.

Naomi pulled him into a hug, and Holden broke. His body shook with the quiet sobs that he’d never allowed himself on Laconia. She murmured soothing words whose content mattered less than their tone. He could feel some of her tears wet on his forehead. He wasn’t sure how long they stood there like that. He had the raw sense of having burned a deep infection out of a wound.

“I’ve got a few spare hours,” Naomi said. “I could grab some tools. We could fix it together." 

"That,” Holden said, voice still ragged, “would be great.”

[vinylackles]

pinned

word count: 1,800

summary: sam has never had much luck with homes, but you’re on a mission to change that

all my works || request imagines here

You loved the bunker, you really truly did. It’s concrete walls and long hallways had become so endearing to you over the years you’d spent there with the boys. It held memories for you - cooking in the kitchen with Dean, your first kiss (any many there after) with your boyfriend Sam. Reading over lore books with Cas, making popcorn for the movies you watched when you could. It had really become home to you... you just wished Sam felt the same way.

Every time you went into Sam’s room you couldn’t help but sigh a little bit. It looked almost exactly as it did when he first stepped foot in it, besides the pair of shoes on the floor, the empty duffle bag in the corner, and all the books he had lugged in from the library. You’d convinced him to buy a new blanket and lamp, but that was about all he would muster in terms of personalizing the place. And you understood why.

No matter how much Sam tried to deny it, he never really wanted to call anywhere home anymore. Why would he? His first one burnt down, and then his apartment after that. Everywhere he put down roots and tried to make his own just fell apart, the life he had there crumbling with it. He had decided long ago to stick to dingy motel rooms and the passenger seat of the impala. You’d first caught on when he talked about how the bunker was where you all worked, not where you lived. But when you asked him about it later he’d explained how he felt, and you could tell that something was just holding him back from truly making it somewhere for him to live. 

Which is how you ended up stuck with bags on each arm, lugging them into the bunker after a long day of shopping. You were determined to make that place home for him, no matter what it took. 

Lucky for you, Dean had actually listened to you and managed to get him out of the bunker for the afternoon. He’d rummaged up a story about needing a specific herb for a new ritual he wanted to try, and how it only grew in one specific place. Day trip for the boys, decorating time for you. 

You took all the bags back to your and Sam’s room, leaving again to track down a hammer and nails. Once you had everything together that you needed, you got to work hanging, arranging and brightening up the space as best you could before the boys got back.

SAM’S POV:

It was oddly quiet when he got back to the bunker. He knew that Y/N was there, and he’d expected to hear her music or a TV on. 

“Well, um, I’m going to go organize the.... herb drawer,” Dean said very matter of factly, starting to walk away in the opposite direction of where they stored their ingredients.

“Since when do we have an herb drawer?” Sam asked, his suspicion growing. 

“Since... now?”

“Okay, what’s going on with you? You’ve been acting weird all day.”

“I’ve been acting weird all day? Pshhh, you’ve been acting weird all day. You weirdo.” Dean deflected, slowly inching his way down the hallway. Always so skilled with the come-backs. 

“Uh-huh.... right,” Sam narrowed his eyes, prepared to follow his brother until Y/N appeared through the other entrance, a nervous smile on her face as she came up to him, pulling him into a hug. Something was definitely up. 

“I’m assuming you have something to do with why he’s been so keyed up all day?” He asked, quirking an eyebrow as he looked down at her. Y/N shrugged, stepping up on her tip-toes to kiss him. He kissed her back, not really caring about what was going on with Dean for a moment. He’d missed her, even if it’d only been a few hours. 

“Maybe,” she grinned.

“You wanna fill me in?” 

“Promise to have an open mind?” She asked, using her best puppy dog eyes. She only pulled those out on rare occasions, and it gave him a bit of a pit in his stomach. There was no telling what she had been up to. 

“I’ll try?” was all he could muster.

“Good enough for me. Come see.” She took his hand, so small compared to his, and pulled him down the hallway and to the right. He did a bit of a double take to make sure he was in the right room. 

It looked... different. There was a new rug on the floor, some small decorations on the dresser. The books that had been stacked on the shelf by the head of the bed were up on a bookshelf - he recognized it later as the one from the basement that had been cleaned up. Where they had stood were picture frames, all different sizes. And as he went down each one, he couldn’t help but smile.

There was one of him, Bobby and Dean when he was about 12, all of them sat up on the couch before a football game in Bobby’s living room. Next was one of him and Dean from when they were kids, one of the few pictures John took of them after Mom died. Dean had him in a head lock, a wide smile on both their faces. Next was a picture of him and Y/N after a hunt, both of them covered in bandages but laughing uncontrollably - Dean had told them they looked like mummies and snapped a picture. She still looked just as beautiful. He didn’t finish looking at them as the map on the other side of the room caught his eye.

It was rather large, covering most of the empty wall space with the outlines of the states, but that wasn’t what was interesting. He stepped closer, fingertips running over the multicolored pins that were carefully placed throughout the states, each one with a tiny little tag on it. It took him a moment to place the names that were scribbled on them in Y/N’s scrawl. Diana in Baltimore, Lucas in Wisconsin, Tyler in Connecticut. It clicked for him after that. All names of people that he had helped save, scattered all across the map, from coast to coast. 

“How long did this take you?” He asked in awe.

“The pins only took a few hours, but i’ve been working on the list for a while now. The pictures came from some of your and Dean’s old stuff. I hope it’s not too much,” she murmured, and he knew she was beginning to second guess herself for redoing the room. He had been reluctant to it before, that was true.

“Are you kidding? I love it!” He exclaimed, and he couldn’t help but pull her to him and kiss her. He could feel the surprise on her lips for a moment, but she melted into him like she always did. He pressed her to him, his hand against the small of her back. 

“Really? You really love it?” She asked, beaming.

“Yeah, it really makes it feel more like h-”

He cut himself off before he could finish.

“It’s okay Sam. Say it,” she encouraged, offering him a soft smile as she ran a hand over his cheek. He leaned into her palm automatically. He wanted to give into it so bad, but it terrified him. It sounded irrational to him when he tried to explain how he felt about the whole concept, but it wasn’t something that he could help. 

“Baby,” he whispered, unable to say anything else. He turned his head a bit, pressing a kiss to her hand, hoping she understood his silent apology.

“I know it’s hard, and I know you’re scared. But we’re safe here. Nothing bad is going to happen to me, or Dean or you or Cas or anybody in these walls, okay? It’s where were gonna keep building good memories, not make any new bad ones. It’s our home. We’re home.”

He could only nod, a bit surprised at the tears that were welling up in his eyes. He had never realized how much being ‘homeless’ had really weighed on him until now. She wiped them away with her thumbs. 

“Yeah... home.” He tested out the word, letting it bring a cautious smile to his lips. Y/N looked as if she was going to burst with joy, but she held it in as best she could, rocking a bit on her heels in excitement as she gave him time to process. 

“C’mere,” he chuckled, pulling her into another hug. He lifted her up off her feet this time, spinning a bit until they were on the bed, her falling on top of him as he landed on the pillows. He brushed her hair back from her face, watching her beam down at him. 

“Thank you, for all of this. I love you.”

“I love you too, I’m glad you like it,” she smiled, leaning down to kiss him. Her hair fell through his finger, tickling at his cheeks. 

“By the way, next time you need to hatch a master plan, you should probably enlist someone other than Dean as your cover. Pretty sure we drove all the way to Missouri so he could buy some oregano,” Sam teased.

“I have limited options you know,” she countered, scrunching her nose. She yawned halfway through, making it quite possibly one of the cutest things Sam had ever seen.

“Tired hmm? Wanna take a nap?” He hummed, running a thumb along her cheek.

“Decorating is hard work you know. Plus, that bookshelf is made of some heavy duty shit. That thing was weighs a ton,” she explained, tucking her head down and resting it on his chest. His arms went around her automatically - it was how they usually slept, both arms around her. Nothing could get to her if she was in his arms, he was sure of that.

“Sleep then. I could go for some shut eye myself,” he assured her, even though it was a lie. He knew she’d never go to sleep if he was still up, not after he was gone all day.

“Okay,” she sighed, cuddling herself closer to him. He rested his cheek on the crown of her head, pressing a few kisses into her hair and beginning to hum as she held onto him, her breathing getting deeper and deeper as she fell asleep.

He had mastered the art of retrieving the blanket from the end of the bed without waking her - she fell asleep on him often - and as he pulled it over the both of them he reminded himself of a new pin he wanted to place when she woke up.

A bright red one, right in the middle of Lebanon, Kansas.

And he would label it home.

[fathersonholygore]

Hulu’s The Path Season 2, Episode 9: “Oz” Directed by Patrick Norris Written by Coleman Herbert

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Return” – click here * For a recap & review of the next episode – click here The unburdening tapes are being used now with more force by Sarah Lane (Michelle Monaghan). She goes to one person, then the next, the next. Using the dirty little secrets of everybody against them. Such a creepy sequence. Reminds me of something you’d see from Scientologists, blackmailing people to stay, or else their “fragile house of lies” come toppling down. Clearly Sarah knows she’s doing awful things, yet she is so tied to Meyerism she has no identity otherwise. So, she’ll fight dirty to save what she loves. Eddie (Aaron Paul) sits alone in a church thinking. A priest comes and sits with him. They talk about their life’s path, how they came to faith, their calling. He’s searching for his own answers about his calling with the Meyerist movement. In other news, Abe Gaines (Rockmond Dunbar) is in shit with the higher ups. Because the movement’s paid off their back taxes. No more leverage for the feds. This puts Abe in a tough spot. Now he’s going to try harder to catch Cal (Hugh Dancy) and the movement red-handed. And that could lead to some trouble. Eddie meets with Richard (Clark Middleton) and Felicia (Adriane Lenox) in a hotel. To talk about what’s next for Meyerism. She doesn’t totally believe what’s happening, in regards to Eddie as Steve’s choice to lead them forward. The only way she’ll accept it? He must “continue the climb” to 8R. Mary Cox (Emma Greenwell) is introduced to the cult deprogrammer Sean’s (Paul James) mother has brought in, though she isn’t interested. She can tell what’s going on, and there’ll be resistance. Finally, Sarah reveals to Cal she’s paid off the back taxes to keep them afloat. This stresses him out. He’s not the saviour, he isn’t the leader. She is taking charge like never before. You can see how it bothers him. He’s not exactly great at hiding his inner feelings, despite what he may think of himself. Note: more instances in this scene of how Cal is cast in shadow often, behind the veil of darkness, and there are other times he’s half in the light, half in shadow to convey a split sense of who he is as a person. Abe a.k.a Sam goes sniffing around the donors who helped with the tax bill. He figures out about the blackmail, something he already suspect, anyways. I only keep worrying about what’ll happen to Abe if he pokes in the wrong places.

Hawk (Kyle Allen), Hank (Peter Friedman), Russel (Patch Darragh), they all worship Sarah’s supposed good deed of saving their cult. The only one unsure, as usual, is Nicole (Ali Ahn). And more every episode I start feeling as if she’s going to play a part in Abe’s eventual plan to catch Cal and the movement in their ugliness. On top of everything, the guilt is flowing through Sarah as eager as the blood in her veins. Like you didn’t see it coming, Cal still keeps in close contact with Mary. He goes to see her before the upcoming trip to Baltimore. She talks to him about The Wizard of Oz, which she was given by the deprogrammer. He’s there because a family is what he needs, only he’s far too dysfunctional and damaged in his own right to be with anyone properly. As for Mary I’m starting to think she’s seeing the truth about Meyerism. Or at least, I want her to see. Cal: “I‘m a husk, Mary. I wanna be vapour. I wanna metamorphose. We can do it together. Swim in the sea. What do you say?” On his way up the Ladder, Eddie’s guided by Felicia into his own mind. He’s at a bus stop, and when a bus arrives it’s filled with people who have no faces. Just a head covered in skin. What does it all mean? He believes it has to do with the cult’s Denier Policy. He wants it changed, as per his vision. The faceless were those outside the movement and this isn’t any way to treat the outside world, nor is it any way to treat those who’ve been shunned as deniers.

Physically, Abe and Nicole get closer. He also gets a bit of information: the unburdening tapes are in the movement’s archive room. In the meantime, they bang on the floor in a storage room. A little secret to keep between each other. Out in the real world, Eddie goes to see Tessa Bishop (Alexia Landeau) – Sarah’s sister, who long ago broke away from the Meyerists and all their nonsense. Cal and Sarah keep on having issues. He says he can’t get up and speak with her at the conference. He says he’s having problems with his conviction. Then she admits to her blackmail for the donations. Essentially, after the murder and the blackmail they’ve both got to keep going, for one another. If only for the sacrifices they’ve made to get to that point. This is an effective point in the series overall, is that anyone who gets lost in a religion, a cult, anything of that, eventually becomes so lost they don’t even know why they’re still walking further. But Meyerists, they have a weird little ritual they do similar to the Catholics’ confession, to wash away their sins/convince themselves that their sins are washed away. Sarah and Cal find themselves on the same page again. For better or worse. Sarah (to Cal): “Make me believe” What Eddie wants to do, underneath his new leader exterior, is change the movement. To show them the truth. When Tessa walks out on him because she can’t deal with any of that, he winds up running into Ashley (Amy Forsyth), Hawk’s old girlfriend. Hmm. I wonder if she’ll play a further role, maybe to help get Hawk away from all the madness. She actually turns up at the centre to see him later. One big surprise.

Back at the hotel after their conference, Cal and Sarah become one. Not only in their emotional headspace, their wants and needs. They fall in bed together. And this just feeds into their shared delusions of Meyerism, it won’t help anything. Not to mention it’ll take Sarah farther from Eddie than she already is. Above all, she’s fallen into a black hole, one crime after another with Cal. Abe is snooping in the archives. He finds the tape of an unburdening with Don Hendren written on it. Eddie receives a visit from Hank, about his meeting with Tessa. “Our families need to be mended,” he tells his estranged father-in-law. He says Steve chose him to lead, and that soon he will replace Cal; that they can make something better out of their movement. We end on a strange moment, when Hank and Eddie embrace. Suddenly Eddie is bleeding from his side/back, almost like one of the wounds of Christ.

This second season is fantastic! I can’t believe that some critics have said there’s nothing overly enjoyable or worth fleshing out in these episodes. Are they watching the same series? I don’t think so. The Path – Season 2, Episode 9: “Oz” Hulu's The Path Season 2, Episode 9: "Oz" Directed by Patrick Norris Written by Coleman Herbert…

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Funeral Homes, Families Ponder Deaths In The Age Of COVID-19

As COVID-19 cases spread across the nation, disrupting daily routines for the living, growing numbers of U.S. businesses and families are changing how they deal with the dead.

Funeral homes — already well-versed in ways to prevent disease — are implementing even stricter protocols to handle bodies infected with the novel coronavirus.

Families of people who die from any cause, not just COVID-19, are being asked to scale back how they memorialize their loved ones by changing or postponing funeral services, limiting the number of people who can attend and increasingly using online tools.

“The overwhelming majority of families understand,” said Matt Levinson, president of a Maryland funeral home that is limiting private graveside services to 10 people or fewer to comply with federal guidelines. “They’re not happy about it, but they understand that safety is more important.”

More than 7,700 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in the U.S., and more than 115 deaths, although infectious-disease experts say those figures are likely vast undercounts.

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In Washington state, where more than 1,100 people have been infected by the virus and more than 65 have died from the disease, funeral homes in the Seattle area and beyond are bracing for more bodies.

“Once the medical system gets overwhelmed, who’s next?” said Sandra Walker, president of the Washington Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association. “That would be us.”

Across the U.S., about 7,800 people die each day from any cause, a number that is only expected to increase. It’s impossible to predict how many people will die from COVID-19 disease, with U.S. estimates ranging from tens of thousands to more than 2 million in a worst-case scenario.

That’s expected to fuel a grim rise in business for mortuaries and crematoriums, said Barbara Kemmis, executive director of the Cremation Association of North America. Nearly 55% of people in the U.S. opt for cremation, with about 40% choosing traditional burials.

“We’ve come out of the flu season and, for much of the U.S., the winter weather, where death rates are usually higher,” Kemmis said. “What a lot of funeral businesses are preparing for now is no slowdown.”

Federal government guidelines banning gatherings of more than 10 people, plus state and local directives ordering residents to shelter in place, will curtail all but the most basic rituals.

In Washington, D.C., Arlington National Cemetery is closed to the general public to stem the spread of infection. Though funerals can still be held there, at least three dozen have been postponed in the past week, said Barbara Lewandrowski, the site’s director of public affairs.

“Each individual family has a personal reason for waiting,” she said.

Jack Mitchell, a spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association and director of a Baltimore funeral home, had a service scheduled for Thursday at a local retirement center. Amid coronavirus concerns, the center abruptly canceled the reception and post-cremation burial ceremony.

“I’m going to hold the urn and they’ll have the service at a later time,” Mitchell said.

As funeral workers handle more bodies potentially infected with the COVID-19 virus, they’re doubling down on their usual precautions to avoid disease, said Rob Goff, executive director of the Washington State Funeral Directors Association.

“We’re not sure how long the virus will last on deceased human tissue at this point,” he said.

Workers transporting bodies are advised by health officials to place masks over the mouths and noses of those who have died because bodies can exhale the virus when moved. Workers also should use double body bags to contain them, Goff said. Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call for disinfecting the outside of body bags and following embalming precautions for hard-to-kill viruses.

Funeral homes are discouraging touching or kissing the bodies of people who have died of COVID-19, said Bob Achermann, executive director of the California Funeral Directors Association.

“Those cultures where you may have different customs, such as bathing the body or a shroud, you may think about whether that’s advisable when COVID-19 was the diagnosis,” he said.

More funerals — and the arrangements for them — are being conducted online, Achermann added, to protect staff, families and guests from potential infections.

As a result, demand is surging for virtual funeral webcasts and other online services. Funeral-related websites, including eCondolence.com and shiva.com, have seen a “tremendous increase” in online traffic, said Michael Schimmel, chief executive of Sympathy Brands, an online marketplace.

“People just want to make sure they do the right thing,” he said.

David Lutterman, the chief executive of OneRoom, an international firm that has specialized in livestreaming funerals for the past decade, said the company’s 100,000 weekly views have spiked about 60%.

“It’s almost like the ability to stream a service has suddenly become the most important thing a funeral home can do,” said Lutterman.

Still, the crisis is difficult for families who may not be able to mourn in their usual way. At the Sol Levinson & Bros. funeral home in Pikesville, Maryland, staff members are advising Jewish clientele to forgo the traditional sitting shiva ritual that invites mourners to gather at the family’s home, Levinson said.

In Hayward, California, where a shelter-in-place order is in effect, in-person viewings continue at Chapel of the Chimes, a 61-acre cemetery and funeral home complex. But visitors there are being asked to stagger their arrivals to keep groups smaller than 10, and to follow social-distancing and hygiene guidelines.

“Our families are being incredibly gracious,” said General Manager David Madden, noting that funeral homes are considered essential businesses that can remain open.

Many funeral directors in Washington state are limiting the number of family members allowed in waiting rooms and offices, or they’re conducting business using email, remote document signing and other electronic tools. That means less in-person support for families.

“Typically, when people are grieving, they like to console each other,” Walker said. “It’s already a tough time for families, and this kind of compounds their grief.”

Walker and others are watching closely as public health experts work to slow growing numbers of COVID-19 cases. She’s seen the frightening reports from Italy, where traditional funerals have been outlawed and bodies are piling up in hospital morgues.

She wouldn’t speculate about whether that scenario could happen in the U.S.

“I don’t want to say we’re going to be Italy,” she said. “I just think we have to do one day at a time. I told my team today, It might be one hour at a time.”

Funeral Homes, Families Ponder Deaths In The Age Of COVID-19 published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[stephenmccull]

Funeral Homes, Families Ponder Deaths In The Age Of COVID-19

As COVID-19 cases spread across the nation, disrupting daily routines for the living, growing numbers of U.S. businesses and families are changing how they deal with the dead.

Funeral homes — already well-versed in ways to prevent disease — are implementing even stricter protocols to handle bodies infected with the novel coronavirus.

Families of people who die from any cause, not just COVID-19, are being asked to scale back how they memorialize their loved ones by changing or postponing funeral services, limiting the number of people who can attend and increasingly using online tools.

“The overwhelming majority of families understand,” said Matt Levinson, president of a Maryland funeral home that is limiting private graveside services to 10 people or fewer to comply with federal guidelines. “They’re not happy about it, but they understand that safety is more important.”

More than 7,700 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in the U.S., and more than 115 deaths, although infectious-disease experts say those figures are likely vast undercounts.

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Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

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Please confirm your email address below:

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In Washington state, where more than 1,100 people have been infected by the virus and more than 65 have died from the disease, funeral homes in the Seattle area and beyond are bracing for more bodies.

“Once the medical system gets overwhelmed, who’s next?” said Sandra Walker, president of the Washington Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association. “That would be us.”

Across the U.S., about 7,800 people die each day from any cause, a number that is only expected to increase. It’s impossible to predict how many people will die from COVID-19 disease, with U.S. estimates ranging from tens of thousands to more than 2 million in a worst-case scenario.

That’s expected to fuel a grim rise in business for mortuaries and crematoriums, said Barbara Kemmis, executive director of the Cremation Association of North America. Nearly 55% of people in the U.S. opt for cremation, with about 40% choosing traditional burials.

“We’ve come out of the flu season and, for much of the U.S., the winter weather, where death rates are usually higher,” Kemmis said. “What a lot of funeral businesses are preparing for now is no slowdown.”

Federal government guidelines banning gatherings of more than 10 people, plus state and local directives ordering residents to shelter in place, will curtail all but the most basic rituals.

In Washington, D.C., Arlington National Cemetery is closed to the general public to stem the spread of infection. Though funerals can still be held there, at least three dozen have been postponed in the past week, said Barbara Lewandrowski, the site’s director of public affairs.

“Each individual family has a personal reason for waiting,” she said.

Jack Mitchell, a spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association and director of a Baltimore funeral home, had a service scheduled for Thursday at a local retirement center. Amid coronavirus concerns, the center abruptly canceled the reception and post-cremation burial ceremony.

“I’m going to hold the urn and they’ll have the service at a later time,” Mitchell said.

As funeral workers handle more bodies potentially infected with the COVID-19 virus, they’re doubling down on their usual precautions to avoid disease, said Rob Goff, executive director of the Washington State Funeral Directors Association.

“We’re not sure how long the virus will last on deceased human tissue at this point,” he said.

Workers transporting bodies are advised by health officials to place masks over the mouths and noses of those who have died because bodies can exhale the virus when moved. Workers also should use double body bags to contain them, Goff said. Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call for disinfecting the outside of body bags and following embalming precautions for hard-to-kill viruses.

Funeral homes are discouraging touching or kissing the bodies of people who have died of COVID-19, said Bob Achermann, executive director of the California Funeral Directors Association.

“Those cultures where you may have different customs, such as bathing the body or a shroud, you may think about whether that’s advisable when COVID-19 was the diagnosis,” he said.

More funerals — and the arrangements for them — are being conducted online, Achermann added, to protect staff, families and guests from potential infections.

As a result, demand is surging for virtual funeral webcasts and other online services. Funeral-related websites, including eCondolence.com and shiva.com, have seen a “tremendous increase” in online traffic, said Michael Schimmel, chief executive of Sympathy Brands, an online marketplace.

“People just want to make sure they do the right thing,” he said.

David Lutterman, the chief executive of OneRoom, an international firm that has specialized in livestreaming funerals for the past decade, said the company’s 100,000 weekly views have spiked about 60%.

“It’s almost like the ability to stream a service has suddenly become the most important thing a funeral home can do,” said Lutterman.

Still, the crisis is difficult for families who may not be able to mourn in their usual way. At the Sol Levinson & Bros. funeral home in Pikesville, Maryland, staff members are advising Jewish clientele to forgo the traditional sitting shiva ritual that invites mourners to gather at the family’s home, Levinson said.

In Hayward, California, where a shelter-in-place order is in effect, in-person viewings continue at Chapel of the Chimes, a 61-acre cemetery and funeral home complex. But visitors there are being asked to stagger their arrivals to keep groups smaller than 10, and to follow social-distancing and hygiene guidelines.

“Our families are being incredibly gracious,” said General Manager David Madden, noting that funeral homes are considered essential businesses that can remain open.

Many funeral directors in Washington state are limiting the number of family members allowed in waiting rooms and offices, or they’re conducting business using email, remote document signing and other electronic tools. That means less in-person support for families.

“Typically, when people are grieving, they like to console each other,” Walker said. “It’s already a tough time for families, and this kind of compounds their grief.”

Walker and others are watching closely as public health experts work to slow growing numbers of COVID-19 cases. She’s seen the frightening reports from Italy, where traditional funerals have been outlawed and bodies are piling up in hospital morgues.

She wouldn’t speculate about whether that scenario could happen in the U.S.

“I don’t want to say we’re going to be Italy,” she said. “I just think we have to do one day at a time. I told my team today, It might be one hour at a time.”

Funeral Homes, Families Ponder Deaths In The Age Of COVID-19 published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[dinafbrownil]

Funeral Homes, Families Ponder Deaths In The Age Of COVID-19

As COVID-19 cases spread across the nation, disrupting daily routines for the living, growing numbers of U.S. businesses and families are changing how they deal with the dead.

Funeral homes — already well-versed in ways to prevent disease — are implementing even stricter protocols to handle bodies infected with the novel coronavirus.

Families of people who die from any cause, not just COVID-19, are being asked to scale back how they memorialize their loved ones by changing or postponing funeral services, limiting the number of people who can attend and increasingly using online tools.

“The overwhelming majority of families understand,” said Matt Levinson, president of a Maryland funeral home that is limiting private graveside services to 10 people or fewer to comply with federal guidelines. “They’re not happy about it, but they understand that safety is more important.”

More than 7,700 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in the U.S., and more than 115 deaths, although infectious-disease experts say those figures are likely vast undercounts.

Email Sign-Up

Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

Sign Up

Please confirm your email address below:

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In Washington state, where more than 1,100 people have been infected by the virus and more than 65 have died from the disease, funeral homes in the Seattle area and beyond are bracing for more bodies.

“Once the medical system gets overwhelmed, who’s next?” said Sandra Walker, president of the Washington Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association. “That would be us.”

Across the U.S., about 7,800 people die each day from any cause, a number that is only expected to increase. It’s impossible to predict how many people will die from COVID-19 disease, with U.S. estimates ranging from tens of thousands to more than 2 million in a worst-case scenario.

That’s expected to fuel a grim rise in business for mortuaries and crematoriums, said Barbara Kemmis, executive director of the Cremation Association of North America. Nearly 55% of people in the U.S. opt for cremation, with about 40% choosing traditional burials.

“We’ve come out of the flu season and, for much of the U.S., the winter weather, where death rates are usually higher,” Kemmis said. “What a lot of funeral businesses are preparing for now is no slowdown.”

Federal government guidelines banning gatherings of more than 10 people, plus state and local directives ordering residents to shelter in place, will curtail all but the most basic rituals.

In Washington, D.C., Arlington National Cemetery is closed to the general public to stem the spread of infection. Though funerals can still be held there, at least three dozen have been postponed in the past week, said Barbara Lewandrowski, the site’s director of public affairs.

“Each individual family has a personal reason for waiting,” she said.

Jack Mitchell, a spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association and director of a Baltimore funeral home, had a service scheduled for Thursday at a local retirement center. Amid coronavirus concerns, the center abruptly canceled the reception and post-cremation burial ceremony.

“I’m going to hold the urn and they’ll have the service at a later time,” Mitchell said.

As funeral workers handle more bodies potentially infected with the COVID-19 virus, they’re doubling down on their usual precautions to avoid disease, said Rob Goff, executive director of the Washington State Funeral Directors Association.

“We’re not sure how long the virus will last on deceased human tissue at this point,” he said.

Workers transporting bodies are advised by health officials to place masks over the mouths and noses of those who have died because bodies can exhale the virus when moved. Workers also should use double body bags to contain them, Goff said. Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call for disinfecting the outside of body bags and following embalming precautions for hard-to-kill viruses.

Funeral homes are discouraging touching or kissing the bodies of people who have died of COVID-19, said Bob Achermann, executive director of the California Funeral Directors Association.

“Those cultures where you may have different customs, such as bathing the body or a shroud, you may think about whether that’s advisable when COVID-19 was the diagnosis,” he said.

More funerals — and the arrangements for them — are being conducted online, Achermann added, to protect staff, families and guests from potential infections.

As a result, demand is surging for virtual funeral webcasts and other online services. Funeral-related websites, including eCondolence.com and shiva.com, have seen a “tremendous increase” in online traffic, said Michael Schimmel, chief executive of Sympathy Brands, an online marketplace.

“People just want to make sure they do the right thing,” he said.

David Lutterman, the chief executive of OneRoom, an international firm that has specialized in livestreaming funerals for the past decade, said the company’s 100,000 weekly views have spiked about 60%.

“It’s almost like the ability to stream a service has suddenly become the most important thing a funeral home can do,” said Lutterman.

Still, the crisis is difficult for families who may not be able to mourn in their usual way. At the Sol Levinson & Bros. funeral home in Pikesville, Maryland, staff members are advising Jewish clientele to forgo the traditional sitting shiva ritual that invites mourners to gather at the family’s home, Levinson said.

In Hayward, California, where a shelter-in-place order is in effect, in-person viewings continue at Chapel of the Chimes, a 61-acre cemetery and funeral home complex. But visitors there are being asked to stagger their arrivals to keep groups smaller than 10, and to follow social-distancing and hygiene guidelines.

“Our families are being incredibly gracious,” said General Manager David Madden, noting that funeral homes are considered essential businesses that can remain open.

Many funeral directors in Washington state are limiting the number of family members allowed in waiting rooms and offices, or they’re conducting business using email, remote document signing and other electronic tools. That means less in-person support for families.

“Typically, when people are grieving, they like to console each other,” Walker said. “It’s already a tough time for families, and this kind of compounds their grief.”

Walker and others are watching closely as public health experts work to slow growing numbers of COVID-19 cases. She’s seen the frightening reports from Italy, where traditional funerals have been outlawed and bodies are piling up in hospital morgues.

She wouldn’t speculate about whether that scenario could happen in the U.S.

“I don’t want to say we’re going to be Italy,” she said. “I just think we have to do one day at a time. I told my team today, It might be one hour at a time.”

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/funeral-homes-families-ponder-deaths-in-the-age-of-covid-19/

[how2to18]

WILLA DRAKE, the protagonist of Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anne Tyler’s new novel Clock Dance, is a 61-year-old widow who’s suffering the fate of many women her age: she’s still young enough to enjoy new adventures or a second career, but to the outside world she’s just a woman of a certain age with a “flowered chiffon scarf knotted perkily at her throat.” Despite her happiness and material comfort — and a second marriage — Willa has the growing sense that her life is not enough.

And then the phone rings.

It’s the neighbor of her son Sean’s ex-girlfriend Denise, who, Willa is told, has taken a stray bullet in the leg. Willa’s phone number was still on Denise’s emergency contacts list, and Denise needs someone to take care of her nine-year-old daughter, Cheryl, and dog, Airplane. Could Willa, as the mother-in-law, get on a plane right away to help out?

Willa doesn’t correct the neighbor or say she’s the wrong person to call. Instead, she evaluates her life. Ever since she and her second husband, Peter, moved to a golfing community near Phoenix, she’s been restless and unfulfilled. She had to leave her job teaching ESL, which she loved. Peter spends hours each day on the golf course. Her parents are gone, she’s not close to her prickly younger sister, and she’s only in sporadic contact with her faraway sons — products of the marriage to her first husband, who died in a car accident. She doesn’t expect that either of her children will settle down soon, which is a shame because she wants grandchildren more than she admits.

With this in mind, Willa impulsively books a flight to Baltimore and tries to sell the idea to her husband. Peter is a sardonic, fussy, intellectual, semi-retired attorney, and he sees through her explanation that this sudden trip is to help a family in need. They both know the reason is more selfish.

“Oh Peter,” she tells him, “can’t you see my side of this? I haven’t felt useful in … forever!” Peter understands exactly and decides to go with her. He means it as a kindness, but already the reader can see Willa’s wings being clipped. Isn’t this supposed to be her adventure?

Willa and Peter arrive to pick up Cheryl, Denise’s daughter, at a neighbor’s house. She’s in the company of Airplane, her best friend, and the four of them walk to Denise’s rundown house. When Willa expresses concern that Airplane is trotting alongside them without a leash, Cheryl shoots back that he doesn’t need one. Her mother told her that Airplane must have previously belonged to “one of those guys that takes it for granted dogs will do what he tells them to, and so they do.” Tyler, who lives in Baltimore, has an excellent ear for everyday dialogue.

Willa can only wonder at this odd family and the grandchild she has unexpectedly been loaned. Age has mellowed her, and she rolls with the quirks of Cheryl’s home and neighborhood, its rituals and characters. Later that night, she walks Airplane on her own, leashless. It’s the first way she will insert herself into the family’s routine as a step — she subconsciously hopes — toward becoming indispensable.

The next day Willa and Peter take Cheryl to visit Denise in the hospital. While embarrassed by the mix-up — of course she hadn’t intended for her ex-boyfriend’s mother to swoop in and care for her child — Denise mainly seems relieved for the help. In fact, she is curiously lackadaisical about the whole situation: she remains cheerful despite the stray bullet, and she’s unconcerned about the strangers in her house or who watches her kid. She reveals to Willa how Sean broke up with her, and Willa is horrified.

Meanwhile, Peter is bored by the first night. He alternates between watching CNN, pacing the house for a decent wi-fi signal, and complaining. “She hadn’t asked him to come,” Willa thinks but doesn’t say, biting her tongue as usual. This is not Peter’s mission anyway. He has his place in the world — a social life through golf and the law firm he keeps a hand in. It’s Willa who is searching for meaning.

As days go by, Willa feels a kinship with Cheryl, who reveals herself to be independent and preternaturally wise, a “tidy child, with staid, old-ladyish habits.” She’s the only sense of order in the whirlwind of Denise’s home. Willa can relate: “[She] had felt that way during her own childhood, she’d felt like a watchful, wary adult housed in a little girl’s body.”

Then Willa meets the neighbors, who are as colorful and varied as a mosaic and who lift her up in ways that a golf community never will: Mrs. Minton, the old lady who has been on the block forever; Ben, the doctor whose office is tacked onto the back of his house; and Erlandson, an orphaned 15-year-old boy who lives with his older step-brother, the suave Sergio.

When Denise comes home from the hospital, Peter wastes no time making plane reservations. He’s had enough, but, of course, he’s missing the point: Willa doesn’t want to go yet. She’s onto something in Baltimore — something about the neighborhood and sense of community beyond just granddaughter-stand-in Cheryl — and she wants to explore it. It’s not merely that she feels useful. She feels part of something.

She sends Peter home without her, a tiny rebellion.

¤

What do you live for? That’s the question around which the book circles. When Willa’s first husband died, her father told her that he got through the days after her mother died by breaking them up into separate moments: drinking coffee, working in the woodshop, watching a baseball game on TV. Willa tried it, but it didn’t work for her.

One day, she’s gathered with the neighbors — old Mrs. Minton, Ben the doctor — and the question of what to live for comes up. Everyone weighs in, but no one has an answer that rings true for Willa. “Sometimes,” says Mrs. Minton,

it feels so repetitive. You know? Like when I’m getting dressed, I’ll think, these same old, same old colors, I wish I had some new ones […] It seems like I’ve used everything up.

Ben finds comfort in being part of something bigger than himself. “I widen out my angle of vision till I’m only a speck on the globe,” he says.

Willa keeps searching by doing: she teaches Denise how to walk in a cast, cooks every meal, watches kids’ shows with Cheryl. But eventually she realizes her time in Baltimore must end. Denise is getting better and better, and soon they won’t need her anymore: “[Willa] began to look at everyone with an eye to losing them […] Cheryl’s dear, soft, pudgy cheeks, the elegant whorls of fuzz on Airplane’s nose — she dwelt on them, committing them to memory.”

Ultimately, Willa’s hand is forced when her usefulness begins to feel, to Denise, like interference.

Clock Dance rests on an easy fish-out-of-water plot and a contrived narrative trope — Willa wants grandchildren and is magically placed in a situation where she is caring for a substitute — but the story turns into something bigger and unexpected. Willa’s time in Baltimore throws into high relief how her own family — her mother and sister, her sons and husbands — has disappointed her the most. With Cheryl, Denise, and their neighbors, her life expands; she finds salvation in strangers.

Willa’s need to be useful forces a reckoning, and by the book’s end it seems as if her powers have been ratcheted up a notch. She may not yet know life’s meaning, but she’s committed to continuing the search one act, one moment at a time.

¤

Sheila McClear is a freelance writer and author based in New York City.

The post At a Certain Age and Searching for Meaning: Anne Tyler’s “Clock Dance” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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[rantsandaves]

Vermont, Maine, & the Atlantic

At a library in Scottsdale, Arizona, I tallied up my numbers and counted all the species I’d need to see to make it to 700 before the end of the year. I looked at my credit union account and tried to how (if) I could make my dollars stretch till the beginning of 2018. I sat down like a an accountant from the 1920’s. I furrowed by brow and added, subtracted, and divided every which way. It became apparent that I would not be able to go to Alaska. A lower 48 big year it is, I suppose. I am very much aware that I probably won’t see 700, at least within this calendar year. But it’s way too late to quit now. 

As I left Arizona, Hurricane Harvey was wreaking havoc on Texas. Shortly after, Hurricane Irma would hit Florida. I decided to stay clear of the South for the time being and booked a spot on a pelagic trip in Maine. Previous year’s trip reports looked extremely promising, and I hoped that this year would yield similar results. I had just over a week to get from AZ to ME and knew it would take a lot of driving to get there. No pain, no gain, no Maine.

I zipped across the country, stopping in Hagerman NWR in Texas for a Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Chautauqua NWR in Illinois for a Hudsonian Godwit, and managed to snag great looks at a Connecticut Warbler (FINALLY!) in Hammond, Indiana near the shores of Lake Michigan. I visited my first roommate ever, Katie, who just happened to be visiting her hometown in Cleveland the same weekend I was passing through. We watched the Cleveland Indians set the record of twenty-two consecutive wins at a bar near where she grew up. It was quite a scene. Katie and I birded briefly in the morning and I set out towards the North East. 

I checked the ABA listserv and saw a Northern Wheatear was sighted in Vermont near the New York border. The bird could not have been in a more perfect place, as it was only a half hour out of the way from my planned route. I slept briefly at a rest stop that had a picture of a black and orange bird labeled “Northern Oriole” in its visitors center— evidence that NYDOT either really doesn’t like Baltimore or doesn’t keep up with changes in ornithological taxonomy. 

I drove up to Vermont and arrived to see other birders scoping the field where the wheatear was reported. Mosquitos and bluebirds were the main creatures buzzing about for hours. At about 9:30, the wheatear finally showed up and gave quite a show! It perched for a long time (like, ten whole minutes) on a post and seemed unconcerned by the thousands of dollars worth of viewing equipment pointed in its direction. The people who owned the property next store came out to view the bird and everyone was thrilled at what a successful morning it turned out to be.

I drove up through New Hampshire and got my first taste of what autumn feels and looks like. It reminded me of a time nearly three years ago, while working at a Crate and Barrel in Pasadena, California, I was folding fall-themed dishtowels with renderings of brightly-colored red, green and yellow leaves. I remember wondering if I’d ever even see the Atlantic, let alone a real, honest-to-goodness fall. Let me tell you: the colors on the trees are better than on the dishtowels. 

I finally arrived in Maine and stopped to stretch my legs and bird around Gilsland Farm. I sat on a bench near the south end and checked the bird reports when I noticed that a Fork-tailed Flycatcher had been reported in Maine the same day, and the same place at Gilsland Farm! The report was posted at 11 AM and I had just gotten there at 2 PM. I grabbed my scope, hoping the bird was still hanging out, when I saw a handful of other birders all looking in the same direction—a very good sign that something has been found. I walked over and there it was, a beautiful long-tailed, highly contrasting black and white flycatcher, a wayward vagrant far from where it should be in South America. It hung around for a long time, swooping and fly-catching, then perching at the top of a tree as if to show off to the birders below. Two great birds in one day! I was thrilled, but worried that my luck would run out the next day on the pelagic trip.

The next morning, I took some dramamine and boarded a huge boat that set out to find birds on the Atlantic. The passengers came from all over, from far-away mystical places like Texas and California, even as far as Norway. The trip started off with a thick layer of fog in all directions, but I had hope that it would clear up. I kept to the front of the boat, hoping it would be the best spot to get great looks. As the wind bit my face and numbed my fingers, we saw some Black Guillemots and Northern Gannets. And we got great views of fog.

On the back of the boat, small trees were propped up as an ‘experiment’ in hopes to attract passerines lost at sea. We saw a Cape May Warbler and a Red-eyed Vireo flying confused over the Atlantic, and a juvenile Cedar Waxwing actually did make use of one of the conifers. 

We did end up seeing a few species that I hadn’t seen before: Leech’s Storm-petrel, Great Shearwater, Wilson’s Storm-petrel, and Pomarine Jaeger. The Wilson’s and Pomarine we saw in Canadian waters and would not count towards a lower 48 big year.

 While the storm-petrels were exciting to see, the highlight for me was the large group of Pilot Whales that came up to greet the boat. They were playful, popping their heads up or coming up and doing twirls so you could see their belly through the water., There were a couple of very young calves that were so much smaller than the rest and undeniably adorable. 

The rest of the trip I spent fighting a dramamine-induced coma. Non-drowsy formula, yeah right. I stepped off the boat disappointed, tired, and hangry. I checked into a motel in Bangor to wash off the marine layer and all the dirt that I accumulated at rest stops across the country. It was hard not to feel disappointed, but I did. I went and got some greasy take-out food, a tall-boy of cheap-o beer and watched some bad reality TV; a ritual for me that makes even the worst day fade away. 

That’s the nature of pelagic trips, I suppose, as well as birding in general. You might go out and see everything you want to see and more, or you might find that all the birds are everywhere you are not. But it’s still better than not going out at all. 

[thomasella]

Honor in the Pit: Dillinger Escape Plan at Baltimore Soundstage

This article was original published in 2014 by What Weekly, a now-defunct Baltimore magazine.

“Just keep your elbows up and you’ll be OK.”

That was the advice my friend Josh gave me before Summer Slaughter last year, a hardcore metal show headlined by The Dillinger Escape Plan and my first of its kind. The way he and his friend Eric had been hyping up the mosh pits, I spent serious time debating whether to wear a mouth guard, shin guards, and a jock strap. I chose none and came out with a sprained wrist.

So why am I on my way to see Dillinger again?

That’s all I could think on the car ride to the Baltimore Soundstage last Saturday. And not only that, but why had I roped along my friend John, who had never been to a show like this? Whatever the reason, it was too late to turn back now.

On the way there, we stop at 7-11 to grab Red Bulls, a crucial ingredient for the prospective mosher. Just before we arrive at the Soundstage, we chug our drinks in a ritual we call “riding the Bull,” and head inside.

We’re early, giving us a chance to scope out the crowd, another vital step. We identify a few people as “potential problems” and a few we plan on dragging into the pit ourselves, including a guy in a classy silver sport jacket, a guy wearing neon yellow socks and a light-up Transformers shirt, and Super Mario himself.

As the show starts, a Norwegian band called Shining takes the stage. Led by Jørgen Munkeby, Shining is a fascinating outfit that has Munkeby switching between vocals, guitar, and a tenor sax with ease and style. He would throw his sax back and high into the air, barreling out complicated, intense riffs like dipping George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” in hellfire.

Torstein Lofthus, the drummer, had his moment as well, pounding out an incredible extended solo to start a song before Munkeby joined in with another fiery sax section to crowd fanfare.

The soundcheck crew prepared for the next band with a lengthy and grating test before launching into a mediocre song of their own, inspiring us to poke our earplugs farther into our heads. After they began playing a second song, however, we realized that that were actually Retox, the next band.

“We are an opening act,” lead singer Gabe Serbian finally said, brushing aside his fauxhawk. “I hope you like us. If you do, good. If you don’t, even better.”

He mentions that the Soundstage management instructed him to inform us that we should save our ticket stubs to come back the next night to see the lead singer of Creed perform. He can’t get through the message without laughing.

“Dude, I love Scott Staph,” a cry comes from the audience.

With that, Retox’s final song begins. Halfway through, Serbian hops down from the stage and leaves.

Trash Talk is the next band to take the stage, led by Lee Spielman, a man who looks like he was born in mosh pit, his face looking swollen in few places and his long hair dripping sweat down his back, and who proved to be one of the most charismatic performers of the night.

“Hold on, Baltimore. There’s no barrier to this f***ing stage so I need every motherf***er diving head first off this stage,” he commanded, and the audience was more than happy to oblige. “Somebody kicked me in the f***ing jaw,” he said ecstatically by the song’s end.

The light nodding and the occasional sole mosher eager for the show to start that characterised previous acts turned into a riot under Spielman’s direction. The stage became the new frontier for most of the audience as stage dives started happening every few seconds to mixed results, but one especially ambitious soul actually climbed a dangling stagelight and hung from the rafters, eliciting huge cheers from the crowd. Not even security seemed keen to stop him.

Spielman’s next orders were “crowd around me, crowd around me” as he hopped down into the audience. “You with your f***ing arms folded,” he yelled, singling out a person in the back, “get up here! You’re no better than any of us!"

Inches from his face, I have no idea what to expect. Then the order comes. “All right, when this next song starts, I want you all to circle pit." I look to spot John’s face in the crowd. We exchange unprepared looks. Spielman screams, the wardrums start, and the crowd ignites, rushing in a mad circle around him. People shove off each other, grab bystanders from the fringes and drag them in, and try to hop over the cord to Spielman’s mic.

I watch a guy fall and rush over to help him up, but the crowd has already lifted him to his feet before I even get halfway there. I think back to when I fell in the pit at Summer Slaughter and sprained my wrist. Before it even registered to me that I had fallen, there were three hands extended in my direction to help me up. “There’s honor in the pit,” Josh had told me, and he was right.

The Soundstage isn’t a large venue, but for a show like this, it’s miles long, an observation not lost on Spielman, back on the stage, as the song dies down and he notices a large contingent of the crowd hanging back. He splits the room in half, ordering every mosher in the front to attack the back at the start of the next song.

All of us winded from the circle pit, my group steps to the side to observe. We see true, distinct fear take hold of the back half of the room, and Eric points out an older gentleman who simply throws his hands up, accepting of his fate. The song starts and at first, there’s no movement from either side, then suddenly, the entire front half charges at the back, fists flowing wildly into the air, screaming, jumping, gnashing. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

Josh spots a guy who looks like he’s about to be trampled and rushes into the battlefield to help him. Eric follows in support, but John and I hang back.

We’re all exhausted as Trash Talk leaves the stage, but we know that it’s only going to get crazier once Dillinger takes the stage. Sure enough, as the clock counts down and the lights dim, a palpable tension descends over the room and a real anxiety starts to build up in our guts. We look around the crowd, their faces darkening and fists clenching. If these people were willing to hang from rafters and go to war for Trash Talk, what would they do for Dillinger?

The screens onstage begin displaying hypnotizing messages and the image of a woman in a trance. The crowd begins to rush forward. Long, ominous bass booms ripple through the room, vibrating through our chests and ribs, timed with blinding light flashes. A few moments later, the band files on stage and launches into their first song, “Prancer.” Greg Puciato, the lead singer who looks like a hulking version of Macklemore, grabs the mic, kneels on the edge of the stage and grabs a fan by the shirt, pulling him close and screaming into his face as loud as he can.

From all over, whenever Puciato comes close, hands reach out to grab him, trying to pull him into the crowd like the river Styx. People push and shove and punch to get closer to him, or just for the sake of it.

Behind me, a mosh pit breaks out, but right now, I’m so close to the stage that I want no part of it. Occasionally I get flashes of my group swirling around me, pushed by the mob. There’s a moment where I watch one of them on my left get shoved backward and disappear into the tumultuous, angry sea, and I don’t see him again until the end of the song when suddenly he’s on my right.

“You want to go up?” Josh asks me, gesturing to the crowdsurfers. I’m not sure, honestly. I’ve watched it go particularly poorly for a few unfortunate folks. But I’m not here to sit on the sidelines, so I give him the go-ahead. He and Eric each grab a leg and thrust me up on top of a crowd who shoves me forward onto the stage. I land roughly on my left elbow, which starts bleeding, and stand up, looking out. In the moment, I headbang a bit, glance to Puciato, his thick neck red as he screams wildly a few feet from me, then I leap off back into the crowd. Hands reach up both to support me and protect their owners. It feels like I’m floating miles above the crowd. After what must have in actuality been five seconds but felt like five minutes, I’m set gently back on my feet next to John, who nods in approval but cannot be convinced to do the same.

I can’t blame him. Last year, I wouldn’t have done it either, even after the inspiring display of watching a man in a wheelchair get carried up almost to the stage, wheels and all, grabbing Puciato’s outstretched hand before security denied him the stage floor.

Security at the Baltimore Soundstage is thankfully much more permissive. During the band’s encore, they sit in chairs onstage and play the same manic rhythm juxtaposed with a decidedly more relaxed posture, before Puciato grabs his chair and throws it into the pit, a dangerous and irresponsible move but incredible nonetheless.

I run to the bathroom to palm water into my mouth from the sink like a man in the desert finding an oasis, and return feeling rejuvenated, rushing past tired faces to slam myself into the crowd, finding my place at the front again. A fan jumps onstage during a cover of Aphex Twin's "Come To Daddy" and Puciato hands him the microphone. Not missing a beat, the fan perfectly emulates Puciato's style and screams "come to daddy" over and over to the crowd before jumping back in.

Guitarist Ben Weinman stands on a speaker inches in front of us, looking down upon us like we are his subjects, then treats us as such, stepping forward onto, not into, the crowd. His left foot lands on my shoulder and I grab it to support him as he plays from above, standing tall. Eventually we push him back onto the stage and he lands smoothly, seamlessly returning to his place by Puciato’s side.

The final song begins and true chaos finally breaks out. It starts with a fan rushing the stage to grab the setlist, met by a sly grin from Weinman, appreciating the fan’s tenacity. Soon, another fan climbs up, trying to grab water, paper, a drumstick, anything. More join him, each of them grabbing for a piece like Prometheus trying to steal fire from the gods. Eventually there are more people on the stage than not. I join them.

All vestiges of society disappear around us as the elevated mosh takes over. The band members take it in stride, hopping onto their amps to keep performing over the sea of zealots below. They ram and elbow each other, clawing at the band. The ones closest to the edge look like Persians about to be pushed off a cliff by King Leonidas and his Spartans.

I consider jumping off, one final crowd surf into the night, but there simply aren’t enough people below anymore to support it. I am surrounded by faces desperate for Puciato’s blessing. He is their savior, their own personal Jesus Christ. I am not at a concert. I am at church.

[nofomoartworld]

Art F City: The Last Day of Disco; DUOX4Odell’s: You’ll Know If You Belong

“DUOX4Odell’s: You’ll Know If You Belong” installation view. All images courtesy Wickerham & Lomax

Wickerham & Lomax: DUOX4Odell’s: You’ll Know if You Belong The Former Everyman Theater 1723 N. Charles St, Baltimore MD March 31 – April 28 Closing reception 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. Presented by Light City and the Station North Arts & Entertainment District

I have a soft spot for any exhibition that’s promoted with coasters left in gay dive bars.

In this case, coasters featuring local personalities Elon Battle and Keenon Brice, painted silver, posing in fashion-editorial-like tableaus advertise: DUOX4Odell’s: You’ll Know If You Belong. They lead visitors to an abandoned theater, where collaborators Wickerham & Lomax have staged an installation inspired by an even more abandoned nightclub. The space is dominated by industrial-looking contraptions that hang larger-than-life prints from the coaster photoshoot, loosely framed by three even larger projection screens. They’re printed on plexiglass, overlapping with transparent silhouettes evocative of 70s Blaxploitation posters. Theatrical lighting streaks across the floor, like disco lights fallen from the ceiling, occasionally casting faint projections of the dancing figures on the black walls, giving the impression of an archaic iPod commercial. Only visible up close, tiny blocks of poetry are printed into the negative space.

I’ve visited Wickerham & Lomax’s ambitious installation more times than I can count. But it didn’t occur to me why the space feels so uncomfortable until I attended a discussion between the artists and the philosopher Luce Delire, who bluntly stated that her first reaction to the work was disappointment: “When I first came in I was expecting something celebratory.” Instead, an almost sullen, eerie vibe hangs over the work.

The installation feels a bit like a funeral for a queer time traveller, glamorous but sad. It’s not what one would picture as existing in the realm of “community arts”—the project was commissioned through Neighborhood Lights, the community-focused satellite programming of the Light City festival. And Wickerham & Lomax are even less likely to be described as “community artists”. Their rabbit hole of multimedia work—full of allusions to past projects, inside jokes, and everything from pop references to critical theory—isn’t always “accessible”, even to many in the arts. But the one constant with Wickerham & Lomax’s work is surprise. I’ve known the two for years (full disclosure: they rent their studio space from me, and we’re good friends) but despite this familiarity, their work is seldom what I expect. How does one evaluate a show that seems, on some level, to be about the futility of its own nostalgia?

I’m not sure I can. Most of the work is polished and beautiful. Parts of a documentary-style video feel important as a piece of untold oral history. But as a whole, I can’t place exactly why I like the exhibition or why it simultaneously leaves me feeling unfulfilled. I suspect that feeling of unfulfillment is deliberate. They’re not trying to give us a simulacrum of fun. In one video, “Wormholes Robert + Allen”, a couple sits at home, surrounded by moving boxes. They’re debating going out dancing, and talk about the impending death of one man’s estranged father. It’s hard to watch, and feels almost like a home movie not intended to be seen by others. It’s not readily apparent how the piece relates to the rest of a show about an abandoned disco. It ends with them dancing alone at home. It’s aesthetically incongruous, but speaks to notions of loss and placelessness.

DUOX4Odell’s: You’ll Know if You Belong, which closes tonight in Baltimore’s former Everyman Theater, is the result of a months-long research project. The pair were partnered with the rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood Station North, which until about a decade ago was known as Charles North and was a center of the city’s LGBTQ Black community. At the heart of the neighborhood, a block away from the theater, stands O’Dell’s, a disco that operated from 1976 to 1992. Since closing, it’s sat vacant and fallen into disrepair (it was recently purchased by a developer with plans for coworking space). DUOX4Odell’s is less about resurrecting the club for one last wild night, and more about admitting that task is impossible—through interviews with former patrons that inform meandering collaborations with their peers.

For anyone who came of age gay and/or weird in Baltimore in the past few decades, O’Dell’s holds a special allure. It’s a place of not-so-distant mythology. A discotheque with a curious facade, it’s felt like a mysterious ruin from a bygone civilization since the 1990s. My eccentric former landlord used to regale us with unsolicited stories of drug-fuelled nights there with drag icon Divine. The old drunks at gay dive bars tell kids-these-days about the better fashion of yesteryear. Countless art students have broken into its abandoned dancefloor for midnight photoshoots. But for those who wistfully remember the club’s heyday in the late 70s and early 80s, there’s a sharp thorn of sadness in the side of all that glamour.

Wormholes Odell’s from duox on Vimeo.

The more documentary-style “Wormhole O’Dells” begins with the building’s current owner leading the camera through the gloomy, dilapidated former dancefloor, excitedly talking about the flexibility afforded by column-free floors. It transitions to interviews with former regulars, such as Chuckie Dennis, who explains “Going to O’dells in those days gave us a sense of identity… O’dells brought glamour to Baltimore.” The oral histories, many of which focus on the rituals of dressing up for nightlife, are intercut with snippets of disco and poetry by Janea Kelly and Malcolm Lomax. It seems every humorous anecdote is balanced by a sentiment of loss or regret.

“The doors trembled, quaked not knowing that music had a grudge against exclusion. That music would pass through the membrane, inciting and inspiring. That music would be a contagion if caught, turns bodies into brick and mortar – turns gentrification into a common cold. Lump of flesh not just corpse and cadaver but sentient forms that knew love and its expression. Let me fall somewhere between two pillars and let them catch me, and I’ll be burning wounds to prevent infection. They, in not knowing me, ripped my innards out – a horror, gore, zombie fuck. A string of one-night stands going from one owner to the next. Causing whole communities to look like shells or fallen soldiers in war-torn Baltimore, fixated only on keeping composure. Can there be a process, a practice, a poetics to knowing [remove the word “that” here] the pulse of city as body and buildings as organ? Would our steps to render them living make us better care for them”

-From ODELL’S FLESHY EDIFICE (SPACE)

It’s hard at first to see the connection with the other two videos. In “Wormholes Antiques,” frequent Wickerham & Lomax collaborators Blairè Leòn and Kentrell Searles search a cluttered antique store for a gift for Blairè’s love interest, an older man. The two exchange quips with each other and the store’s proprietor, who warns them that used objects carry with them the memories of previous owners. It feels a bit like a caveat for the gentrifiers circling Baltimore’s historic building stock—perhaps all the “character” and curb appeal that old buildings possess might include the ghosts of former occupants. The video ends with Blairè walking away holding a vase stuffed with peacock feathers, a motif that recurs throughout the videos and photo installations.

But one question from the video, directed at the camera by the antique store owner, sticks with me the most: “So you guys come around, prying into other people’s lives… why are you so curious about back histories? Are you storytellers? Old World gossips? New World liars?”

This perhaps gets to the root of the exhibition’s (seemingly deliberate) awkwardness. Wickerham & Lomax made it clear they don’t want to recreate the experience of the club, or delve too deeply into nostalgia. And they certainly don’t want to tell someone else’s story. The installation feels instead like a reflection on the O’Dell’s-shaped-hole in their own lives, or the idea of loss at its most obtuse. It touches on the disruptive nature of gentrification in queer and Black communities, but explores the feeling through extended metaphors more often than direct political finger wagging. Kimi Hanauer, Program Director for Station North introduced the work as “a positive interruption to some of the changes that are happening in the city.”

Daniel Wickerham, in their discussion with Luce Delire, described the frustrations of working with someone else’s histories: “How inefficient is it to ask someone to give you their memories? Its failure of being so boring. I wanted to ask ‘remember better! Remember differently… just make it up!’ I want to be dazzled.” But also the problems of using those memories for entertainment: “It’s about negotiating responsibility… are we allowed to access the space we’re working through?”

You’ll Know if You Belong references O’Dell’s signature catchphrase, and it’s evident that here no one belongs anymore. Malcolm Lomax explained that the installation was conceived shortly after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, in the midst of a years-long trend of gay bars shuttering. The story of O’Dell’s regulars, for all its specificity, became a starting point to describe queer placelessness and loss in more abstract terms. Referencing the numerous allusions to absent bodies (the silhouettes, shots of empty spaces) he summarized the project as “Eulogizing. It’s about the way we frame absence… at one point in a poem I ask ‘am I a church housing my own funeral?’ It’s about these empty spaces in Baltimore where we’re still negotiating their uses.”

The more I return to the space, attempting to center my thoughts about the show, I find myself gravitating to Lomax’s poetry. Interspersed throughout the video works or printed on the sculptural image/objects, it remains one of the most salient components of the show:

“The way tears cause avalanches Is the way orgasms cause earthquakes, But my body is still a stranger to this Earth. And because this planet is dying, an ad is placed: Kinky club seeks asylum on another planet.”

–From Monuments & Moments: AM I OLD? (TIME)

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