#i know there are a lot of arts students on here but the vitriol directed at history majors over the years has been insane

[cctinsleybaxter]

remember when there was a genre of popular post on here like ‘if someone is into studying wartime history that is a Red Flag they’re probably some kind of violence-obsessed freak’ and now we’re getting posts like ‘wait how was united states involvement in WWII a bad thing? we saved people from the germans! this isn’t a black-and-white issue the nuclear bomb actually had a lot of nuan-’

[brotheralyosha]

Art does not exist to be evaluated on a scale of “harm” to “uplift,” and if we want to talk dog-whistles, that right there is a huge one: it’s deeply anti-intellectual, and it centers a form of toxic individualism that evacuates solidarity/difference in favor of moral purity.

Also, relevant from other recent intra-community trans Discourse: the fact that something triggered or hurt you, personally, is real— but that doesn’t actually make it bad, or wrong, or Harmful (tm) because you *are not the center of the universe.* Other trans folk who have different experiences of gender and the world might be deeply seen by the art that you think is morally bad and harmful personally. To some extent, we know why this is common: traumatic stress forces your focus to be survival oriented, internal, and evaluative. It’s hyper-vigilance! However, what it is *not* is healthy or productive—especially when turned relentlessly outward to hold others responsible for your bad feelings as opposed to processing them, or saying “ouch, not for me.” (Which is not to say artists shouldn’t be cognizant of other people’s pain and the larger social implications of their work, so please don’t reduce what I’m saying here to “fuck it, who cares.”)

The other huge flaw with “the story harmed me” or flat harm-critique is the lack of acknowledgement that, if we’re using that metric, then your insistence on the story harming you is EQUALLY harming to the other trans folk for whom the piece was a revelatory story, or productive. It’s powerfully self-centered and not feasibly sustainable. This is where the whole “criticism is an art itself and has theory” thing comes in. Because Sedgwick wrote re: queer theory’s internal failings a long ass time ago about “paranoid” vs “reparative” reading practices.

What we saw here was a classic case of destructive/paranoid readings that (1) FORCIBLY OUTED A TRANS WRITER and (2) caused a lot of misery and stress across the board for everyone... but that stress has been processed unevenly. Paranoid readings are also a valid understandable response to a violent world that seeks to harm us! But they close in on themselves and each other like a fucking bear trap. Reparative readings are open to pain as useful and potential, and are by definition attempting generosity.

Generosity in critique MATTERS. And furthermore, here’s where I get mad as hell: direct-effects audience theory has been discarded for like 40 years for a reason, but it HAUNTS twitter discourse like a hideous revenant. This framing of art and culture is very conservative, pretty fucked up, & spooky to someone who does this stuff professionally. If your replies are full of people saying “hell yes this is critical theory RUN AMOK” I want you to think hard about that.

And regarding some subtweets: it is, in fact, some people’s job—a job for which they have trained extensively!—to do critical work. That does not mean your opinion doesn’t matter, but it does mean (as I teach students every semester!!) that when doing heavy lifting with art, perhaps the metric of “who is allowed to speak about rhetoric and discourse” is not *solely* an identity based category. That’s a dangerous game. All of us can read badly, or be missing the background that a piece is speaking from, and being trans is NOT a guarantee against that. I’m exhausted and upset by the idea that we can’t have things that dig into more than 101 level exploration of gender, or our pain and tropes and violence, because it won’t be perfect for Everyone. And a queer woman who has the background to engage with what rhetoric and discourse and criticism do, weighing in specifically on those things, is not out of line—and neither is a trans person speaking to their identity experiences. Both can coexist and be discussed with an ethical approach to critique that is not infuriating.

I’m extremely tired and frankly feel violated by the level of anti-intellectual rhetoric and vitriol that cropped up in this discussion, and I’m not talking about fair critiques of a story’s functions or failure to fulfill those. Shit got personal quick, in unproductive ways. In short: harm-based critique of art sounds reasonable on the surface but its application & implications are intensely problematic and almost impossible to ethically or properly deploy, particularly when applied not to, like, egregious hate speech, but affectively difficult art.

That Twitter Thread (On Criticism), By Lee Mandelo

[kirain]

Hazbin Hotel and VivziePop Drama

I've been hearing/seeing a lot of drama concerning Hazbin Hotel and it's creator VivziePop, and while I don't know her personally or really care what people think, I do hate slander and the spread of misinformation. Truly nothing in this world upsets me more than when people believe rumours while making no effort to fact check, and that's exactly what's happening right now. That said, I wanted to try and clear up some of the rumours going around about Vivzie and the show, because I think some of them are absolutely outrageous and need to be addressed.

1. Vivzie hired an abuser onto the show.

Now, I’m not here to burn anyone at the stake, especially since I don’t know anything about Chris Niosi (the alleged abuser), who I believe openly admitted to the allegations? Regardless, this is a moot point. He’s not credited anywhere at the end of the episode. So either he was booted before production wrapped up or he had nothing to do with the show in the first place.

2. Vivzie supports bestiality.

Admittedly I thought this one might be true, since she draws so many anthropomorphic animals. In the very least, I figured she was probably a furry, but I haven't seen any evidence supporting this accusation either. Near as I can tell, this rumour started for two reasons. One, because of her famous Zoophobia comic, which revolves around a therapist named Cameron who gets assigned to work with human-like animals. Ironically, poor Cameron suffers from crippling zoophobia, which makes for some pretty decent comedy. I didn't read the whole comic because, quite frankly, it’s not my cup of tea and I just don’t have the time. But from what I saw there are no examples of bestiality anywhere in its contents.

Two, this message, which blew up all over social media:

To me, this just proves that people are more interested in virtue signalling than checking to see if their claims are actually true. Everything about this message is 100% false, which I’ll touch on in my next point.

3. Vivzie is a pedophile and she’s drawn child porn.

This is hands down the worst allegation and holy shit, I really wish people would stop using it to defame someone when they don't have any proof. This is a life-ruining accusation and you're disgusting if you believe it based solely on hearsay. This rumour began to spread when Vivzie allegedly shipped the two underage characters in the above photo and drew them NSFW-style. At the time, one character was 19 while the other was 14, and the relationship was a very illegal student-teacher relationship.

This is WRONG! The characters were not 14 and 19, they were actually 18 and 19, the legal age of consent! Additionally, the relationship wasn't student-teacher. One character is a student and the other is Alumni (a student teacher). This one pisses me off the most because it’s obvious the person who sent that message didn’t even bother to conduct any research. They said, “He’s a teacher, she’s a child.” Both characters are MALE!

Since then, Vivzie has apologised for any NSFW art she drew in the past and stated that it's not a reflection of her art today, and I'm inclined to believe her. Almost every artist has drawn NSFW content at some point in their career, and hers wasn't even distasteful. Other than this one example, there is no evidence anywhere that suggests she’s drawn “child porn”. In fact, she’s never even drawn explicit NSFW.

Please stop spreading this rumour. It’s dangerous and completely incorrect.

4. Vivzie said the "N" word!

No, she didn’t. It was a fabricated tweet. That is all.

5. Vivzie is copyright striking every video that criticises her!

No she isn't. YouTube’s DMCA is automatically striking people who are using full clips without permission. Vivzie has gone public several times, telling people exactly how to avoid getting a copy strike from the algorithm, which is something she absolutely does not have to do. At this point, she doesn't owe you anything. In my opinion, she should just sit back and watch these channels burn.

6. Vivzie copies and traces other artists’ work.

This is another one I’ve seen going around, but I looked into it as thoroughly as I could and failed to find any concrete evidence to support the allegations. As of right now, there are only two examples of Vivzie “copying” or “tracing” other artists’ work, and both of them can be explained. The first is a gif she made with a character from her Zoophobia comic, which looked a lot like the girl from ME!ME!ME!:

Damn, that’s pretty incriminating. She obviously stole-- oh, wait. This gif was part of a ME!ME!ME! MEP (multi editor’s project) and Vivzie didn’t take full credit, despite the fact that it’s not even a direct trace. It’s supposed to look like the original, which she fully cited. The second example comes from a short dance sequence from her Timber video, which seems to have been inspired by several Disney movies. As Vivzie herself stated, that was an homage to the original animations. Lots of artists and shows do this, including the beloved Stephen Universe series.

Regardless, this doesn’t count as stealing character designs or plagiarising someone’s work. It’s meant to be respectful, an admiration of other projects. Other than these two instances, however, there is no evidence of her tracing or stealing other people’s art. From what I’ve discovered, all other designs she’s been accused of “stealing” are characters she bought and paid for. They’re quite literally HER characters.

7. Vivzie supports problematic creators.

I’m getting really tired of guilt by association. Vivzie follows and enjoys some controversial figures, but who cares? We can argue all day about whether or not the accusations against them are true, but it ultimately has nothing to do with the show or Vivzie as a person. I do the exact same thing, to be honest-- follow and listen to people on all sides so I can learn, understand, and form my own opinions. The fact that some people think this is bad, to me, is absolutely mesmerising. Vivzie doesn’t control what the people she follows post, and if they do something overly questionable she publicly criticises and denounces it.

From Vivzie:

Now that that’s been dealt with, I’d like to address some complaints/claims about the actual show.

8. Vaggie is an angry Latina stereotype and a lesbian stereotype. Vivzie is appropriating Hispanic culture and misrepresenting the gay for profit.

First off, I see a lot of people passing around yet more misinformation regarding Vivzie's race. So many people seem to think she's white? Well, I'm here to tell you they're wrong. Very incorrect. Vivzie is in fact Latina, and Vaggie is meant to mirror some of her own personality traits.

Second, who is Vaggie mad at? Context matters, and if we take a look at the episode, we see that Vaggie is literally only mad at two specific people: Angel Dust and Alastor. Why? Well, for starters, it's her girlfriend's dream to run a rehab hotel for sinners, and Angel Dust nearly demolishes that dream single-handedly. Vaggie has every right to be over-the-top vitriolic. Then there's Alastor, a known sadist, narcissist, and murderer who loves trapping people in his nefarious schemes. He invites himself in, effectively takes over the hotel, and pushes both her and Charlie aside. At one point he even sexually assaults her by slapping her butt during his musical number. So yeah, I think her seething ire is totally justified. Keep in mind, however, that when she's around Charlie she's calm, collected, and happy. I wouldn't call that a stereotype.

Thirdly, the lesbian stereotypes. I keep hearing this argument but I really don't see it. Both Vaggie and Charlie have so much personality and trust for each other. Maybe I'm wrong, but the stereotype I know always totes a more butch, tomboyish woman with a ditsy, innocent, naive woman. Charlie is optimistic, but she isn't stupid. She refuses to shake Alastor’s hand because she knows he’s likely trying to screw her over. She’s also not entirely innocent herself and uses words like “fuck” and “shit”. I also wouldn’t call Vaggie butch or tomboyish. She has a cute, girly presentation, complete with a pink ribbon in her hair, lace stockings, and a dress. She's protective of her girlfriend, as I think we all are with our partners, and there's nothing wrong with that. They're flawed characters, as every character is meant to be. This isn't a problem.

9. The show is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, blah, blah, blah.

I’m amazed this is even an argument. The show is supposed to be a dark comedy that takes place in HELL. You know, the place the worst of the worst end up after they die? What were you expecting? Everyone gets a shot or two fired at them, but that doesn't make them bad characters nor does it make the show itself horrible. Take, for example, Katie Killjoy, the news reporter so many people are up in arms about. She says she doesn’t “touch the gays” because she has “standards”. Well, here’s a newsflash of my own: we’re not supposed to like her! She’s an antagonist. Not to mention ten seconds later Charlie insults her and isn’t the least bit slighted by her pretentious attitude. The characters are strong and don’t take shit from anyone, because to some degree they’re all terrible people who can throw down when it’s called for.

Obviously if you don’t like the show or think it’s offensive, I’m probably not going to change your mind. That’s perfectly fine. You’re entitled to your opinions and you don’t have to watch the show. Just stop lying and stop trying to take it away from everybody else. Stop attacking Vivzie and spreading misinformation without checking the facts. I realise a lot of people probably aren’t trying to be vindictive and only want to do something good, but just remember this: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[txtniipped]

ode to flower and cloud

genshin impact -- childe/zhongli, childe & venti, venti & traveler, traveler & paimon, paimon & venti

(2680 words)

ao3 version

With the Windblume Festival in full swing, love is in the air. Who better to teach the art of waxing poetry than the Windborne Bard and his two faithful assistants?

Though… tutoring the Fatui’s Eleventh Harbinger on such a topic was not something the three of them were expecting to be doing.

“Well, now that all that’s settled, we have some time to waste until their two hours are up,” Venti says as he turns towards the Traveler and Paimon, a grin blooming across his face. “Let’s go get a drink, shall we?”

The Traveler smiles awkwardly at the bard as they begin their march from under the city’s Barbatos statue to Angel’s Share, Paimon huffing indignantly as she floats along. “You know they don’t drink, bard! You only suggested it because you don’t know how to do anything else!”

Venti laughs, jovial and completely lacking any shame, which only further riles up Paimon. “So? A good drink always tastes better in good company! You can get grape juice or something.” The bard hops down the steps, two at a time, the traveler following in suit as to not be left behind. “Besides—” Venti pauses near the bottom of the staircase, turning himself back towards his companions, gazing cheekily up at them— “what else are you going to do while we wait to check up on our students? Those commissions no one has posted since the festival began?”

Paimon’s cheeks puff, her little hands balling into fists. “You—!!”

“Ahaha, there you are! Figures I’d find you two mixed up in the sprite’s shenanigans.”

Venti’s cheekiness drops the moment he hears that laugh, a thin smile taking its place as he turns to the presence at the bottom of the staircase. The Traveler’s attention snaps to the Harbinger below just as quickly as Paimon’s, who gasps loud enough for them both. “Childe?!”

“Hey!” The Harbinger greets the three of them with a wave, his smile genuine as far as any of them can tell.

“I thought the shame of losing our little contest would have driven you back home by now!” Venti lilts, bounding down the rest of the steps to land in Childe’s space, that forced smile still plastered on his face.

“Ahh, no, see—” Childe grins at Venti, a little too toothy, this smile much more fitting with the dangerous man the Traveler and Paimon now know him as— “a loss leads to more practice, and more practice leads to more polish, and more polish always warrants another go.”

Venti levels the Snezhnayan with an unimpressed stare. “So you’re here for a rematch,” he states.

Childe laughs, pleasant and warm, the epitome of friendliness. It’s so easy to be drawn into that sound if you know little of the man.

“Not yet! Rather, I heard you’re offering the masses lessons in poetry?”

The question catches both the Traveler and Paimon off guard, and if the silence between the four of them singing louder than any cricket is capable of is anything to go by, it’s surprised Venti too.

“You actually, uh...” Paimon starts after a beat, fidgeting her hands as she speaks, “just missed—.“ 

The sudden clap of Venti’s hands coming together cuts the fairy-creature off, his tone much more amicable than it just was. “I am! And these two are my assistants!” Venti gestures over to the Traveler and Paimon, who have now finally joined the other two at the bottom of the stairs. “You did actually just miss our assignment period though,” the bard stresses, offering a pitying expression that clearly irks the Harbinger. Paimon saw his fist curl.

Childe laughs mutedly, lifting said fist to his torso, casually smoothing it out over the front of his uniform. “That’s... unfortunate.”

“But!” Venti chimes, switching his demeanor in a heartbeat, leaning forward enough to force Childe back a step. “I’d be willing to let you join late, as long as you’re willing to pay the fee!”

The laugh that falls from Childe’s mouth this time is much fuller than his previous one, amusement dancing across his face. “Sure, sure. How much is it?”

“Welllll~” Venti’s index finger comes to rest on his chin as he turns his head conspiringly towards his two assistants, the corners of his mouth curled up in such a way that it practically screams mischief. 

“Since you missed the beginning of the class,” Venti begins as he turns a more scholarly expression towards Childe, his index finger tapping against his chin, “we’ll have to catch you up one-on-one. On top of that, you’re cutting into our break time, which we were really looking forward to after all our hard work with our other students...”

Paimon suddenly seems to brighten up in her spot next to the Traveler, catching onto the scheme the bard is putting forth. The Traveler can practically see her vibrating with her habit of greed. “Seriously! Paimon had to explain the ins and outs of poetry so much, Paimon’s jaw hurts!”

Childe’s eyebrows raise as he appraises the bard and the fairy, and when he glances to the Traveler, they can tell he’s not convinced. However...

“Well, why don’t I just owe you double and we move on?” the Harbinger suggests, his attention returning to Venti.

Venti laughs, delight ringing through the air. “Sounds good to me!”

—

The trio filled Childe in on what information he missed from their earlier class within a few minutes, despite how long both Paimon and Venti alluded to it taking beforehand. Childe didn’t seem bothered over paying double for something that hardly took five minutes, but knowing his spending habits after witnessing everything in Liyue, the Traveler wasn’t surprised.

By the end of it, they assigned Childe a poem to be read and critiqued by the bard as they did the others, and soon enough, the four of them parted ways with an agreement to meet at the Goth Grand Hotel later in the day.

The trio’s idle time passed by swiftly, mostly due to the hilichurl camps nearby the city they decided to clear instead of day drinking. The walk back into town and to the Fatui delegation’s temporary place of residence ate up their remaining time, and though they were clearly invited to the building by the Harbinger earlier, the guard at the door seems unconvinced.

“‘Poetry lessons’ hardly seem in the realm of the Lord Harbinger’s interests,” the doorguard, Luke, states in response to the explanation he’s been given regarding the trio’s presence.

“Well, what else do you expect him to be doing during the Windblume Festival?” Venti asks as he tilts his head curiously, a teasing smile on his face.

Luke scoffs, haughtily turning his head to the side. “The matters of the Lord Harbinger’s love life aren’t mine to divulge. Besides—“ the Traveler raises a hand to cover their sudden smile as Luke continues on, amused over the guard’s predictability. Always a talker, this one. “—last I heard, his partner is in Liyue anyway. What use would he have for the festivities of a Mondstadt festival?”

The mention of a partner has Venti perking up like a dog offered a treat, Paimon now joining the Traveler on covering a smile of her own. “Ohhh, his lover is in Liyue, huh~?” Venti sing-songs. “He must be wanting to send them an authentic piece of his time in another country! How romantic!”

The Traveler and Paimon are both left giggling behind the bard as an embarrassed flush blooms over what’s visible of Luke’s face, the Fatui man clearly only now realizing he’s once again shared too much. “Shut it, you twerp,” Luke spits, trying to reign the conversation in his favor, “unless you want the Lord Harbinger shutting you up himself!”

“Must you threaten my guests, Luke?”

Four heads turn towards the amused voice of said Lord Harbinger, who currently has his upper body partially leaning out a window of what can only be assumed is the foyer. His head is propped up on one of his hands, leaving him looking picturesque under the warm sun and soft breeze.

Venti cackles unabashedly as Luke stammers out an apology in Childe’s direction, Childe’s amused smile pulling into a grin.

“Let them in before you spill more of my secrets,” Childe waves as he pulls himself back into the building, tone light. Luke mumbles an affirmative to the no-longer-present Harbinger and opens the doors of the hotel for the three guests, Venti happily making his way inside with the Traveler and Paimon close behind, the doors softly thudding closed once they’re through.

The foyer of the Goth Grand Hotel hosts two sets of socializing spaces to the left and right of the rug running through the room, decorated with high quality rococo couches, loveseats, and chairs. At the back of the room is the counter, most likely vacant of staff due to the occupation of only Fatui here. On either side of that, stairs leading up, the space required for that leaving the room quite open.

Childe is seated in the room alone, in a chair to the left of the entrance, watching his guests with thinly-veiled amusement. He’s perched so one elbow rests against the armrest of the chair, that hand providing support for his head. He’s leaning heavily to the right, his left leg crossed over the thigh of his right, left hand loose and casual in his lap.

“Someone looks comfortable,” Venti comments good-naturedly as he makes his way over to the couch angled perpendicular to the armchair, the Traveler and Paimon following his lead.

“I am!” Childe laughs as he lifts his head from his hand, regarding the three of them with a bright smile. “Mondstadt is just so lovely right now, what with all the vitriol your people have for us Fatui.”

Paimon huffs, crossing her own legs in the air as she mimics Childe’s positioning, only a lot more balled up. “Well, can you blame them? You guys are always up to something!”

“Ahaha, a fair assessment,” Childe muses as he unfolds himself, planting both feet on the floor as he leans towards the coffee table in front of him. There, he snatches the top paper from a stack of several and offers it in Venti’s direction. “Well, shall we? You’ve more students to see, after all.”

“That we do,” Venti hums, taking the paper from the Harbinger. He sits up properly in his seat then and turns his eyes to the paper only briefly, quickly returning them to Childe. “Would it bother you if I read this aloud?”

Childe grins and waves a hand through the air, casually dismissing the need for permission. “By all means.”

The bard smiles and nods, then once again settles his gaze to the paper, clearing his throat before beginning.

“‘Words come easy to me,’” Venti begins, voice light and pleasant. “‘Over dinner, drinks, the shore. But there are some far more challenging, said aloud than written down.’”

The room is quiet save for Venti’s soft countenance. Childe’s gaze has drifted down to the rest of the pages on the table, where the Traveler can clearly see scribbles and scratches of other versions of the poem Venti’s currently reading.

“‘Surely you know by now, how irreplaceable your presence is, to a man so solitary.’”

Paimon looks to the Traveler then, head tilted in a silent question of who the Harbinger could possibly be talking about—at least until—.

“‘How every word that falls, from your lips and graces my ears, is a sweet treasure, more decadent, than any wine or dessert.’”

Paimon’s eyes widen, and she starts rapidly smacking her hand against the Traveler’s shoulder, pieces being put together. She’s excited, despite how hostile she may or may not be towards the Harbinger. The Traveler can’t help but laugh silently at her antics.

“‘Mondstadt prides itself on freedom, but the freedom you’ve given me, will forever be the envy, of the City of Wind.’”

Venti pauses here, though with a brief glance, the Traveler can see another verse written, just two lines. The script is just messy enough to keep them from making out the words before Venti’s laughing stiltedly, catching the attention of all those in the room. Childe’s eyebrows raise in a silent question, and after a beat passes without an answer, he lifts his upper body to sit up straight.

“What?” Childe laughs, the lightest dusting of color painting his cheeks as he leans back into the chair, the iron grip he’s taken up on the armrest betraying his calm. “Don’t want to finish it, little sprite?”

Venti huffs out a laugh of his own and tosses the paper back in Childe’s direction, who catches it out of the air like it’s a precious thing. Which, honestly...

“To be honest, I was expecting the same sort of mess as your form with a bow, but that was actually well done!”

Childe’s smile turns tight, mirrored perfectly back at him by Venti. The tension is palpable. Concerned, the Traveler turns their attention to Paimon, who meets their gaze with a mildly alarmed look of confusion.

The moment passes as Childe breaks eye contact with the bard, folding the paper in his hands. “Well, as unhelpful as you were, I do owe you,” Childe says as he places the piece of paper on the coffee table. He reaches under the jacket of his uniform after, pulling out a hefty pouch of mora and tossing it carelessly into Venti’s lap. It doesn’t take much thought to how much is in there when the Traveler can practically see Venti’s eyes sparkling—most likely, it’s much more than their efforts today are worth.

“Now,” Childe hums, regarding the three of them with a pleasant smile, “get out.”

—

Luke was more than happy to doubly unwelcome them as the trio stepped out from the hotel with a shout of scram! for good measure, since he apparently decided his Lord Harbinger’s icy dismissal wasn’t enough.

Venti pockets the pouch of mora with a guilt-free grin despite their initial critiquing session lasting a grand total of five minutes max, turning his attention to the Traveler and Paimon.

“Well! Next stop is the Knights of Favonius’s headquarters!” Venti announces with a clap of his hands.

—

The nighttime scene during the Windblume Festival mostly seems to consist of lovers holding hands, playing music, feeding one another food, or in that unlucky instance where the Traveler picked the wrong side path, being tangled together.

The PDA is near unbearable, but Paimon’s never ending hunger has driven them out in search of festival food. Admittedly, everything they’ve tried so far has been mouthwatering, and almost makes up for the trauma both the Traveler and Paimon now have with that one path. Luckily, they’ve wandered into a quieter section of the city, most of the festivities contained to the main street and surrounding areas.

“‘...is a sweet treasure, more decadent, than any wine or dessert.’”

The words coming from somewhere above the duo are immediately recognizable as the work of one Eleventh Harbinger they had already heard earlier in the day. The Traveler and Paimon share a startled look as the voice continues—one they just as easily recognize as Childe himself.

“‘Mondstadt prides itself on freedom, but the freedom you’ve given me, will forever be the envy, of the City of Wind,’” Childe recites, to the sky or to another, they can’t tell. Then...

“‘I love you, dear consultant.’”

A low, rumbling laugh floats down upon the duo then, and the Traveler and Paimon both freeze up.

“I never quite took you as the ‘waxing poetic’ type, Ajax,” Zhongli comments, voice something too tender for these two intruders to be hearing.

“When in Mondstadt,” ‘Ajax’ replies, his tone fond.

“Indeed.”

There’s a quiet moment that neither the Traveler or Paimon are quite sure what to do in, until they hear a deep purr of Childe’s given name. That scares them away immediately, the sound of the Traveler’s footsteps rushing back down towards the main street. 

Another beat of silence, and then Childe’s warm laughter rings out from where he and Zhongli are seated against the railing of an upper layer of the city, as innocent as ever. “I cannot believe you,” he says to the consultant through his laughter. Zhongli offers his partner an amused smile in return, his eyes crinkling in delight.

[the-record-columns]

Feb. 13, 2019: Columns

She gave much, but asked little

Editor’s note: This column originally appeared in a slightly different form on Feb. 17, 2009)

           Willa Mae Lankford

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

Lifelong Millers Creek resident Willa Mae Lankford, widow of Sammie Lankford died Thursday, February 12 (2009).  

Willa Mae died as she lived, peacefully, and surrounded by those who loved her.

Her son, Jerry Lankford, is the editor of The Record.  What follows was adapted from remarks I made at Willa Mae’s funeral service on Sunday, Feb. 15, 2009, at the Arbor Grove United Methodist Church in Purlear.  The service was conducted by Rev. Ed McKinney, and special music was provided by David Johnson, Eric Ellis, and Keith Watts, longtime friends of the Lankford family.

                                                        ***

David, Eric, and Keith make that music look easy, don’t they, but it sure isn’t. As they played, I couldn’t help but remember the little half-smile that would come over Willa Mae’s face, much like the one on this page, when she would listen to her son, Jerry, or one of her grandchildren play music.  She enjoyed listening, then combined that enjoyment with the feeling of pride only a mother and grandmother can know.  

I actually came to know Willa Mae Lankford because of her son, Jerry, and much of what I say today revolves around that.

A bit over 10 years ago (20 years now), a man stopped me and asked when I was going to turn Thursday Magazine into a newspaper—I replied that I was looking for the right person to do just that.  He inquired further, and I told him I was looking for a man in his 30’s who had newspaper experience outside Wilkes County, and who might be in a situation with aging parents or something and looking to settle back down in Wilkes.

“I know that man,” he replied, “I know exactly that man.”  

In my mind I said “Sure you do,” and told him just to have that fella call me.

Well folks, about four hours later, that very same day, I got a phone call from a man who identified himself as Jerry Lankford, and who began the conversation with, “I understand you might like to start a newspaper.”

The rest, as I like to say, is history.  Very soon, after Jerry began working with us, The Record began publishing and thankfully, continues to do so. There is an aside I must tell on Jerry, however. We agreed that he was to give a two week notice to his employer the following Friday.  That afternoon, he came by my office to tell me when he gave his notice that they sent him home on the spot.  I told him not to worry, just come on in on Monday and we would just start work a little earlier than planned. So you see, his first day at work on his new job was a day off.  Pretty good deal, huh.

Particularly in the earliest years of The Record, circumstances called for me to spend many, many late hours with Jerry Lankford. Anytime we were anywhere near Kite Road in Millers Creek, we would stop in for a visit with his mother. As long as I knew her, she was in fragile health.  As the years went by, more and more things went wrong and she became noticeably weaker and weaker.

But her spirit remained strong.  I never heard her complain, in fact, she was always asking how I was doing—most especially after I suffered a stroke some years ago.

And, she stayed busy.

Unable to get around very well, she was always making something with her hands.  I guess it was from all those years at the City Florist, working and talking with that wonderful gaggle of ladies who we all knew by sight, if not by name.  In fact, one of the gifts I enjoy most came from Willa Mae—not counting Jerry, of course. One day he brought me a package about the size of a bowling ball and said simply, “My mother made this for you.” Inside was a multi-sided quilted star. “It is to be used as a doorstop.” Jerry said.

It was amazing.

You can look and look and you can’t find a starting place, or a stopping place, and I still have no idea how she put that thing together, but it’s beautiful, and remains one of the most noticed items in my home, and a gift I’ll always treasure.  

And that was Willa Mae.

She gave much of herself and asked for little.  

She loved her husband, her children, and her grandchildren.

And she loved the people of Arbor Grove Methodist Church so much.

To Ellen, Mike (now also deceased), and to my good friend, Jerry, I must be honest and tell you that nothing will ever be quite the same for you again.  But hold on to those wonderful memories of your mother, indeed, wrap yourselves in them, for they will carry you through a lot.

Willa Mae Lankford—a kind and caring soul if ever there was one.  

Clearly, she rests in peace.

                                             Willa Mae Lankford

                                    Nov. 9, 1926 – Feb. 12, 2009

Gentlemen of the Jury…

By HEATHER DEAN

Record Reporter

Next week I will be performing with Alleghany Community Theatre as they present “12 Angry Jurors” in the historic courthouses of Sparta, N.C., and Independence, Va.

Readers may remember the original title of “12 Angry Men,” a stage play written by Reginald Rose, which was also adapted to a 1957 movie starring Henry Fonda.

Over the years the title has changed in production as women have been allowed to be seen as competent jurors. But that wasn’t always the case.

Even though women have served on juries for over 100 years, it was considered more of a novelty, which quickly turned to critique, with national newspapers lamenting that “men would be only too happy to cede the burden of jury service to women, if only female jurors could be trusted to endure the gruesome business.” And so the “woman of the jury experiment” began. The results? Good female jurors were conscientious and committed to justice, just like their male counterparts (gasp!).

For those not familiar with the show, the plot revolves around the murder trail of a Latino teenager accused of murdering his abusive father. His conviction would mean execution by electric chair.  The case seems open and shut with a murder weapon and witnesses to place the boy at the scene of the crime. One lone juror, attempts to prevent a miscarriage of justice by forcing his colleagues to reconsider the evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

As the case unfolds more is learned about each juror, in some cases, the paranoia and prejudices that expose the ugliness of white privilege and imagined American supremacy.

I play juror 11, an immigrant watchmaker and naturalized American citizen who demonstrates a strong patriotic pride. (George Voskovec had this part in the 1957 film).

Voskovec was a Czech actor, writer, dramatist, and director who became an American citizen in 1955.

I am the fourth to cast a not guilty vote, but not without repercussion. Prejudice runs amok among the jurors, and my character at one point is questioned because I am not a “real American.” One juror even throws up the fact that I ran for my life during the Second World War, taking advantage of the American Immigration system, doubtful that I was really a refugee, and that I had no right to come over here, or even serve on a jury, and I certainly did not get to tell them how the Constitution works. She follows this up with a threat to “knock my GD middle-eastern head off” if I don’t shut up. Needless to say, our characters have quite a row after that exchange. In fact, a lot of murder threats get thrown around to other jurors, making our task at hand seem like the background noise to the real issue of the intricate divisiveness of human nature when questioned with what it is to “be a good American.”

This play is both eye opening and disheartening to me. Even though human compassion wins in the end, kind of, the relentless diatribe of how of a kid literally from the wrong side of the tracks, because of his skin color, his nationality, and his lack of being able to speak English is ENOUGH for the many of this jury to dismiss him and actually be happy about sending him to his demise, to keep the country “clean.”

The absolute prejudice shown in the 50’s is still being shown today, most recently with a supposed crisis at the border. The vitriol spouted in this play is the same we still hear on national news 60 years later. I get chill bumps at some of the lines realizing that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and that we have a humanitarian duty to make sure the cruel side of history stops with us.  

To quote Henry Fonda’s character’s closing line “Let them live.”

 12 Angry Jurors is presented by Alleghany Community Theatre and Alleghany Arts Council and is directed by Danny Linehan. Tickets are $8 adults, $5 students. Friday Feb. 22, and Saturday Feb. 23, shows are at 7 p.m. at the Alleghany Courthouse, 12 N Main St Sparta, NC 28675. Sunday Feb. 24, show is at 2 p.m., at the Old Grayson courthouse in Independence, Virginia, 107 E Main St, Independence, VA 24348.

 Cast includes: Foreman (An assistant football coach): Lori Hirschy; Juror Two (A shy bank clerk): Beka Perry; Juror Three (Small business owner): Kevin Bennett; Juror Four (Stock Broker): Brant Burgiss; Juror Five (EMT in a Harlem Hospital): Zach Weaver; Juror Six ( Housepainter): Charlie Scott; Juror Seven (Marmalade salesman): Laura Kennedy; Juror Eight (Architect): Danny Linehan; Juror Nine (Elderly Retiree): Marion Adams; Juror Ten (Mechanic): Donny McCall; Juror Eleven (Immigrant Watchmaker): Heather Dean; Juror Twelve (Marketing Agent): Michael Bridges.

  Anti-Semitic Strategy at the UN ​

By EARL COX

Special to The Record

At first glance, the recent G-77 gathering seemed like a “Saturday Night Live” parody of the UN’ s largest bloc. The new chairman, with rehearsed political correctness, to smiles and applause, called on “all states” (except his) to end the “epidemic” of terrorism and “work with us to put an end to this scourge.”

The speaker was Palestinian Authority President and PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas— infamous inciter and propagator of violence and terror against the sovereign State of Israel, and bankroller of Palestinian terrorism to the tune of more than US $138 million to terrorist prisoners and ex-convicts in 2018 alone.

Abbas’s chairmanship, which violates G-77 principles and the UN Charter, is the latest blight on the UN’s eroded legitimacy and credibility. Created to safeguard world peace, security, human rights, and��the sovereign equality of states by peaceful dispute resolution, the UN has been hijacked by an anti-Semitic, terror-tainted political agenda—discrediting itself by violating its own charter.

How did this sorry state of affairs develop? And what can be done by those states who are committed to the UN’s ethical, democratic founding principles?

Anti-Semitism at the UN began not randomly, but as a deliberate strategy. Some historians believe it started after Israel won the Six-Day War in June 1967, damaging Russian prestige at home and abroad. The Soviets, enraged by Israel’s defeat of its proxies Egypt and Syria, retaliated, aiming its Cold War weapons of propaganda and disinformation against the Jewish State—by a state-sponsored vilification campaign against Israel and Jews, and then at the UN, where it forged a political alliance with Arab and Third World states. Starting in 1969, the General Assembly produced multiple resolutions affirming the “inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.”

Russia uses language for totalitarian social control, said historian Joel Fishman. Following the Six-Day War, the selected vocabulary was published in the party newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in October 1967: “Zionism is dedicated to genocide, racism, treachery, aggression, and annexation ...attributes of fascists.” In 1975, the Soviet- Arab bloc passed GA Resolution 3379, “Zionism is Racism."

But historian Joel Fishman said Resolution 3379 was brewing in 1964—before the Six-Day War. In March of that year, the U.S.proposed that the UN recognize anti-Semitism as a form of racism along with apartheid and Nazism. The Soviets stonewalled, because they were, after all, anti-Semites who persecuted Soviet Jews, Fishman said. They threatened the United States to drop the proposal or face a Russian amendment condemning Zionism and Nazism—thus equating the two.

In October 1965, the US pushed an amendment to the final draft condemning anti-Semitism, but the Soviets insisted on adding“Zionism” to the forms of racism to condemn. After a bitter debate, a compromise struck all references to racism except apartheid. Thus, the Soviets succeeded in excluding anti-Semitism as racist without leaving behind a voting record—which could augur future charges against its own state-sponsored anti-Semitism.

The 1965 debates critically impacted evolving world opinion and international law on Israel and Zionism. “From then on, it was almost impossible to raise anti-Semitism as a human rights issue,” Fishman said. Thus Soviet political propaganda became a bridge to today’s global outbreak.

For the Soviets, the Cold War never really ended. Recent revelations of their digital disinformation and propaganda are well-publicized.

But neither has the UN been a passive instrument of Soviet manipulation. Israeli Major General (res.) Yaakov Amidror recalled how UN Secretary General U Thant endorsed President Nasser’s request to withdraw UN forces from the Sinai. Nasser replaced them with Egyptian military divisions, helping to spark the Six-Day War. And that’s just one example of UN complicity against Israel.

 Israel’s concerted relationship-building with individual nations, and delegations of visiting UN ambassadors to see and experience the “real” Israel firsthand, are part of the solution to return to the UN Charter principle of friendly relations between nations. Likewise, while keeping an eye on Russia, Western democracies should continue to strengthen democratic blocs of nations to defend against the real “scourge.”

At all costs, the truth must be published. What does Israel or the US gain from “dialogue” in a tilted UN that could be better served by bilateral or Western-bloc diplomacy? 

 Heart to Heart

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas

The past few weeks have been exciting and entertaining.

The Carolinas are well known for seasonal abnormalities. It’s not odd to have near recording breaking cold weather for a few days and then Spring-like weather. Just enough to tease our spring flowering plant life and then in the twinkling of an eye it’s cold again.

So, it goes in the Carolinas, we are people with many layers, and those layers come in handy during our winter months. We also love metaphors, and a colorful story fills the need we have to be a good storyteller or a great listener. The need for both is never-ending.

While in the barber’s chair last week, Garry, my barber, had big news. It looks like he may have a brother he is just now learning about. I asked him if he was excited about having a new brother. He said he was; however, the idea is so new he is still processing the emotions that come along with such a discovery.

Josh, Garry’s son and the fellow barber said they have been invited to visit their new northern family member.  Garry is not much for long-distance travel; his heart indeed is in the Carolinas, and he is not excited about venturing too far away from the land he calls home.  

In the style of true Southern Hospitality, an invitation will soon be extended to the brother from afar. From what I understand hints have already been given by the new brother that suggest an invite and visit to the Carolinas would be welcomed.  

Bill Barns ask for my thoughts on his new book that is in the final stages before publishing. The first sentence of Chapter One is “One beautiful, moonlit night, a young mother opossum known as Oden was out in the woods foraging for food.”  

I plan to read every word.

I had the opportunity to take in a few live shows. One was an open mic night at The 1915 in Wilkesboro, and the other was at the Reeves Theater in Elkin NC. The Reeves Theater is the subject of one of our broadcast segments that we are calling The Carolina Theater Trail. The segment series will be part of our Life In The Carolinas syndicated show. Over the next few years, we will be producing segments on historically significant Theaters in the Carolinas. We have a good variety of theaters to choose, and each one plays a vital role in our charming towns in the Carolinas.

I enjoyed dinner with Ken Welborn, publisher, and friend who loves the Carolinas with a strong focus on Wilkes County. It’s never a dull visit with Ken. The food and service at Sixth and Main in North Wilkesboro is excellent. I enjoyed the crab cakes with asparagus and baby potatoes. Ken dined on and spoke well about the salmon and vegetables. I think digestion works better when you have dinner with a well-seasoned storyteller.

In celebration of February as the Heart Month, we had Dr. Julian Thomas as a guest on the Life In The Carolinas Podcast. We titled the episode Heart to Heart. The special show focused on the journey of dealing with matters of the heart. Dr. Thomas is brilliant, and his approach to healthcare is driven by promoting awareness and a passion for healing.

Wherever we find ourselves, it’s a good idea to stop for a moment and share our lives with those we are around. The love month can be demanding, but it can also be gentle, kind and full of passion.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 Carl White is the Executive Producer and Host of the award-winning syndicated TV show Carl White’s Life In The Carolinas. The weekly show is now in its 10th year of syndication and can be seen in the Charlotte market on WJZY Fox 46 Saturday’s at noon and My40. The show also streams on Amazon Prime. For more information visit www.lifeinthecarolinas.com. You can email Carl at Carl@lifeinthecarolinas.com.

[sad-trash-writing]

“I’m a history major and i keep getting into arguments with one of my classmates about things because they keep saying i’m wrong so i finally scream, ‘how would you know?!?’ and they’re like, ‘because i was THERE!’ and that’s how we all find out that there is a centuries-old vampire taking our British history class” AU bioquake

You got me too excited for this prompt and now this is spiraling into something much larger in my brain thanks a lot  jk I love it and you

Sorry this took so long, but here it is now!

AO3 Link 

Daisy gulped and glanced down at her notecards. Normally, she would have just skimmed the research, thrown together a 2-slide powerpoint, and made something up on the fly for the oral presentation. For this assignment, though, she had a powerful motivator to excel: spite. 

Daisy threw a quick glare to the front row where her least favorite classmate, Jemma Simmons, was leaning on her propped up elbow on her desk, looking bored as usual. Jemma was the primary reason Daisy chose this topic to present. Jemma always was such a know-it-all when it came to British history, even to the professor. And the professor let her correct him all the time!

So for this presentation, Daisy put in weeks of research. She read seven books  cover to cover on the downfall of Charles I, and even went back and read the sources they sourced! This powerpoint was a work of art and she even had meticulously organized notecards to make sure she wouldn’t miss anything.

  If she got anything less than 100% on this presentation she was going to give Professor Coulson an earful. 

But her primary focus was Jemma Simmons. If she wasn’t such a pain in the ass in class every day, she would be exactly Daisy’s type. Cute, smart, kind of awkward, a mischievous twinkle in her eye every time she was about to say something snarky. 

Unfortunately, usually that snarky comment was directed at Daisy so it was less cute. 

Daisy had gotten through the entire presentation without a peep from Jemma (though she was pretty sure the sorority girls in the back were Snapchatting each other through the whole thing). Now, she just had to wrap it up. 

Daisy clicked the slide to the painting she found of Charles I walking up to his execution and flipped to the next notecard. 

“Charles I was sentenced to death on January 30, 1648. As he climbed the scaffold, his last words were ‘I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world,'“ Daisy concluded. 

The 'last words’ bit was a little dramatic for Daisy’s taste, typically, but she thought it added a little spice to the otherwise dry subject. She noticed most of the students were actually paying attention now and looking interested. 

And then Jemma freaking Simmons had to mumble under her breath, “That’s not what happened.”

Here we go. “Sorry, did you have something to say?” Daisy asked with false sweetness. 

Jemma barely looked up from her notebook where she was now doodling in the margins. “I was just saying that’s not what happened. Are you sure you were using reputable sources?”

Daisy felt her eye twitch as she clicked to the last slide of her sources with maybe a little more force than was strictly necessary. “Yeah, I did. All were published books that used first hand accounts that people who were at the execution wrote right afterwards.”

“Did they all use the same source perhaps?”

Daisy’s eye twitched again. They had, in fact. “Yeah, he was a very reliable historian who—”

“He was a bloody liar, is what he was,” Jemma grumbled under her breath. 

Oh, hell no. Daisy read the first-hand account, which she practically had to translate, since it was written in Ye Olde English where all the ’s’s were 'f’s and there were 'e’s where they shouldn’t be. That was the last straw for Daisy. 

“How would you know?!” she shouted, throwing down her notecards. 

“BECAUSE I WAS THERE,” Jemma screamed back. 

All fidgeting and bored shuffling stilled so the room fell deadly silent. As the vitriol faded from Jemma’s face, wide-eyed horror replaced it. Before Daisy could form a question, Jemma was gathering up her books. 

“Excuse me, I have somewhere I need to be,” she grumbled, piling all her books into her arms and darting for the door. 

Professor Coulson slowly stood and strolled to the front of the classroom. “Um, class dismissed. See you all Thursday. Excellent presentation, Daisy.”

Daisy tossed a quick 'thanks’ in his direction, before throwing her bag over her shoulder and sprinting after Jemma. She wasn’t getting off that easy. 

She quickly caught sight of Jemma’s brown hair, weaving through the crowd of students just released from class. Daisy jogged to catch up to her. 

“Please leave me alone,” Jemma growled. 

“What did you mean 'you were there?’ You can’t possibly mean that you were actually alive in 1648,” Daisy prodded, ignoring Jemma’s request. 

“Of course not, that would be absurd,” Jemma replied flatly. 

“But seriously, what did you mean? Are you just that into history that it feels like you were there?” 

“Please go away.” Jemma turned down a less crowded hallway and picked up her pace even more, so Daisy was practically running alongside her. 

“No! If you’re going to continually ruin my presentations with your snarky comments, I deserve to know why you think you know more than the rest of the world,” Daisy demanded. 

Jemma ignored her. 

Daisy was starting to get winded from jogging through the building after Jemma. She reached out and grabbed Jemma’s arm to make her slow her pace. 

“Hey, I’m just trying to—” 

Jemma whirled on her with a hiss. Her eyes flashed red and her angry snarl was punctuated by two long, sharp fangs that Daisy definitely had not noticed before. 

Daisy stumbled backwards and dropped her bag. “What the— You’re—”

Before Daisy could form another non-sentence, a hand grabbed the front of her shirt and she was forcefully shoved into a dark, empty classroom. Daisy cringed in the dark, waiting for those fangs to pierce her skin or for sharp claws to rip her throat out or any of the typical horror movie tropes of….vampires. 

But it never happened. Daisy cracked open an eye and Jemma was standing there with her hands on her hips looking disappointed. 

“You just had to be nosy. You couldn’t just let things be and continue your short little life without knowing about the existence of the creatures in your bedtime stories—”

Daisy was getting lectured. The vampire was going to stand there and lecture her. Typical. 

“I mean, you just had six more weeks of class, but you couldn’t keep your damn mouth shut and let it be and now—”

“Hey! You’re the one who had to keep being a pain about my 'historical inaccuracy,'“ Daisy snapped back with air quotes. She probably shouldn’t be sassing a vampire either, but too late to stop now. “If anyone couldn’t keep their mouth shut, it was you and— wait, did you say creatures? With an ’s’?”

Jemma rolled her eyes. “Think back. Don’t some things about this university seem strange to you? Like how there are always more Koenig brothers than you think there are? Or how our swim team never comes close to be beaten, even though they never practice? Or how about Professor Coulson’s spontaneous three month trip to Tahiti in the middle of the semester?”

Daisy wracked her brain. She had never thought too had about it, but there were some weird things she had noticed. Like the massive wall around the main campus and how most of the student body claimed to have seen a pack of wolves roaming just outside campus limits. None of this seemed strange enough to give much thought to, though. “I thought Coulson won a trip from a travel company,” Daisy mused. 

Jemma sighed. “He was dead. He came back to life. He does that from time to time. Koenig can clone himself and the swim team is full of sea nymphs.”

“What?” Daisy staggered back until she hit the concrete wall. “So the whole school is full of monsters?”

Jemma winced. Maybe that wasn’t quite the right word to use. “Only about 50% of the student population is non-human. The other 50% has no clue. They get to carry on living their oblivious lives without this knowledge. And we’re going to keep it that way.”

Jemma stepped into Daisy’s space and Daisy tensed, expecting the worst. Jemma’s eyes had returned to their usual caramelly brown, but they were no less piercing. Daisy’s vision narrowed to the single point that was Jemma as her eyes bored into Daisy and she felt like she was sinking into the floor. She had to squeeze her eyes shut and shake her head to get rid of the feeling.  

“Forget everything you’ve learned in the past ten minutes. We have a very delicate balance at this school and it’s not wise to to upset it, so don’t even think of blabbing this information to the world. You will not only put yourself in harm’s way, you will get me in trouble. And know that I was around during the creation of every medieval torture device you’ve ever heard of and some too heinous to even record, so I’d advise you stay off the radar. Understood?”

Even though Jemma spoke at barely above a whisper, Daisy’s ears were ringing at the end of her speech (threat?) and Daisy suspected it had nothing to do with the volume of the room. 

“Um…yes?” Daisy croaked out. 

Jemma took a step back and smiled. “Good. Sleep well.”

Without another word, she breezed from the room, leaving Daisy alone. The second she rounded the corner, Daisy gasped in a breath like she had been underwater for hours, a weight that Daisy hadn’t noticed lifting from her chest. Well, the rest of the semester sure was going to be interesting.

[eugenefischer]

Lee Mandelo on the Crucial Importance of Generous Reading

Easily the best thread I’ve seen about the the most recent fiasco of SFF Twitter is this thread on literary criticism and heterogeneity of marginalized experience by Lee Mandelo. It’s so good that, with Lee’s permission, I’m reproducing it here in its entirety, in case my prayers are someday answered and Twitter actually does burn down and fall into the sea.

Art does not exist to be evaluated on a scale of “harm” to “uplift,” and if we want to talk dog-whistles, that right there is a huge one: it’s deeply anti-intellectual, and it centers a form of toxic individualism that evacuates solidarity/difference in favor of moral purity. Also, relevant from other recent intra-community trans Discourse: the fact that something triggered or hurt you, personally, is real— but that doesn’t actually make it bad, or wrong, or Harmful ™ because you *are not the center of the universe.* Other trans folk who have different experiences of gender and the world might be deeply seen by the art that you think is morally bad and harmful personally.

To some extent, we know why this is common: traumatic stress forces your focus to be survival oriented, internal, and evaluative. It’s hyper-vigilance! However, what it is *not* is healthy or productive— especially when turned relentlessly outward to hold others responsible for your bad feelings as opposed to processing them, or saying “ouch, not for me.” Which is not to say artists shouldn’t be cognizant of other people’s pain and the larger social implications of their work, so please don’t reduce what I’m saying here to “fuck it, who cares.”)

The other huge flaw with “the story harmed me” or flat harm-critique is the lack of acknowledgement that, if we’re using that metric, then your insistence on the story harming you is EQUALLY harming to the other trans folk for whom the piece was a revelatory story, or productive. It’s powerfully self-centered and not feasibly sustainable. This is where the whole “criticism is an art itself and has theory” thing comes in. Because Sedgwick wrote re: queer theory’s internal failings a long ass time ago about “paranoid” vs “reparative” reading practices.

What we saw here was a classic case of destructive/paranoid readings that (1) FORCIBLY OUTED A TRANS WRITER and (2) caused a lot of misery and stress across the board for everyone… but that stress has been processed unevenly. Paranoid readings are also a valid understandable response to a violent world that seeks to harm us! But they close in on themselves and each other like a fucking bear trap. Reparative readings are open to pain as useful and potential, and are by definition attempting generosity. Generosity in critique MATTERS. And furthermore, here’s where I get mad as hell: direct-effects audience theory has been discarded for like 40 years for a reason, but it HAUNTS twitter discourse like a hideous revenant. This framing of art and culture is very conservative, pretty fucked up, & spooky to someone who does this stuff professionally. If your replies are full of people saying “hell yes this is critical theory RUN AMOK” I want you to think hard about that.

And regarding some subtweets: it is, in fact, some people’s job—a job for which they have trained extensively!—to do critical work. That does not mean your opinion doesn’t matter, but it does mean (as I teach students every semester!!) that when doing heavy lifting with art, perhaps the metric of “who is allowed to speak about rhetoric and discourse” is not *solely* an identity based category. That’s a dangerous game. All of us can read badly, or be missing the background that a piece is speaking from, and being trans is NOT a guarantee against that. I’m exhausted and upset by the idea that we can’t have things that dig into more than 101 level exploration of gender, or our pain and tropes and violence, because it won’t be perfect for Everyone. And a queer woman who has the background to engage with what rhetoric and discourse and criticism do, weighing in specifically on those things, is not out of line— and neither is a trans person speaking to their identity experiences. Both can coexist and be discussed with an ethical approach to critique that is not infuriating.

I’m extremely tired and frankly feel violated by the level of anti-intellectual rhetoric and vitriol that cropped up in this discussion, and I’m not talking about fair critiques of a story’s functions or failure to fulfill those. Shit got personal quick, in unproductive ways. In short: harm-based critique of art sounds reasonable on the surface but its application & implications are intensely problematic and almost impossible to ethically or properly deploy, particularly when applied not to, like, egregious hate speech, but affectively difficult art.

Lee Mandelo

[via WordPress https://www.eugenefischer.com/2020/01/18/lee-mandelo-on-the-crucial-importance-of-generous-reading/ ]

[vileart]

Dead Dramaturgy:Daniel Thackeray @ Camden

Scytheplays Ltd presents

The Dead, Live by Daniel Thackeray

Sunday 11th February 3.30pm, The Etcetera Theatre

Manchester-based Scytheplays Ltd, the company previously responsible for fringe theatre genre hits like the stage adaptation of 2000AD’s The Ballad of Halo Jones (“The greatest and most honest interpretation of an Alan Moore comic” – Forbidden Planet) is thrilled to be part of the first-ever London Lovecraft Festival with a one-off performance of The Dead, Live.  In development for ten years and initially developed through the Oldham Coliseum Theatre's New Writing programme, the play is a new and unique take on the theatrical ghost story, and has gained much popular acclaim on its previous appearances at fringe festivals around the country (“Intimate chills for fans of postmodern ghost stories” – Starburst Magazine).

What was the inspiration for this performance?

I’ve always loved ghost stories and films based on ghost stories, and I wanted to add my own.  But I wanted it to be for the theatre, and I wanted it to be powerfully theatrical.  

Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved theatre and the transporting, imaginative quality of it, and I had an inkling that it might be the ideal medium for a tale of supernatural terror.  All theatre has a slightly uncanny quality to it – that sense of being in the same room as, almost able to touch, fictional characters – and I thought if you emphasised this for horrific effect, you could deliver a real thrill for the audience.

Having said that, I started writing the piece a decade ago, and soon stopped – because I saw The Woman in Black!  It’s an obvious reference point when you’re talking about stage ghost stories, but I had just never seen the stage version, although I’d read the book.  The Woman in Black has kind of come to define what the stage ghost story is, and for a while I just couldn’t see how I could do better than that.  

My piece, The Dead, Live, was even structurally kind of similar.  So I gave up on it.  But, after a long time, I realised that my piece actually had the potential to be something quite different, and to be uncanny and frightening in a different way.

The Dead, Live is a modern-day piece about a popular ‘psychic medium’ called Lawrence Dodds (played by the brilliant Howard Whittock). He’s a very modern figure who does public ‘reading’ shows – a little bit Derek Acorah, Colin Fry.  And he’s very much a fake, using plants in the audience to make his psychic abilities look real.  

The play begins as he is training up an actor called Rachael (Carly Tarett) who is going to be a plant in the audience watching his latest show, so we get a big discussion – with some tension, as these are two characters who have never met before and are forced to quickly develop a working relationship - about how the fraudulent psychic’s techniques of misdirection and cold reading work.  And from that point, we go into the live show itself.  And hopefully things don’t develop as expected.

When I was thinking about what may really lie beneath the surface of the fakery and manipulation of the stage psychic, I took inspiration from a number of writers – Nigel (Quatermass) Kneale, Christopher (Scream and Scream Again) Wicking and HP Lovecraft.  The unsettling dread of Lovecraft’s ‘cosmic horror’ was something I felt could really lie beneath the surface of Lawrence’s world.  And so I’m very pleased and thrilled that we we’ll be performing at the first ever London Lovecraft Festival!

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

It absolutely is. In the age of social media, ‘public discussion’ seems in large part about people making snap judgements and attacking each other instantly and with great vitriol.  But performance allows the speaker more time to set out their stall, to work through their ideas, with no less passion and precision.  The discussion happens in the bar afterwards, or on the way home, and it’s possibly a better discussion because good theatre is good art, and therefore a more thoughtful and inspiring way to explore ideas than a soapbox.

How did you become interested in making performance?

I always have been, I can’t really remember how it started.  Possibly a love of Roald Dahl at an early age led to a love of writing, and that led to drama through school.  But over the years I’ve been lucky enough to see and be inspired and moved by many fine productions in the theatre and in film, television and radio, so for a long time I’ve wanted to study those media and make my own contribution to what seems to me to be a great tradition. 

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

This particular show caused a great many interesting conversations in the rehearsal room, between the director, Alex Shepley, myself and the actors.  Without giving too much away, I think the style we’ve tried to go for is a kind of intimate, semi-interactive naturalism. 

Because the main characters in the play are both performers and spend a good chunk of the show ‘in character’, and are at other points required to deal with particularly non-realistic situations, it was a challenge to keep the tone consistent.  It involved breaking the fourth wall – Alex and I agreed that it’s fine to do that, so long as in doing so you are making the drama more real, not less real.  I don’t want to say any more about it really.  Except that I hope we succeeded!

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

Pretty much.  Scytheplays is all about bringing genre to life on stage.  When I say ‘genre’ I mean horror, sci-fi, fantasy.  We either adapt for the stage genre material in those genres, or, less frequently, create original works for the stage that are still identifiably genre.  

The Dead, Live is the latter.  Those are the genres that have always inspired me, and yet they’re rare on stage, possibly because often it takes a kind of verisimilitude to get an audience to an accept a fantastical narrative, and verisimilitude isn’t something you can really do on stage.  

But I think that theatre is perfect for flights of the imagination, as long as you lead the audience in the right way.  I’m very proud that many of our shows, like The Ballad of Halo Jones or a student production of Nigel Kneale’s The Year of the Sex Olympics, have put things on stage that seemed impossible – often in tiny spaces with almost no set!  And in doing so they have transported the audience.  The direct feedback we have received from people who have seen our shows over the years has been really wonderful and it usually comments on that sort of thing.

Having said that, The Dead, Live actually is going for a kind of verisimilitude.  It’s an experiment, but one that has worked well so far, I think.  And we’re always refining and improving what we’re doing.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

The uncanny.  A sense that they’re in the same room as something unearthly.  A suspense that they’re not sure where they’re being led.  And hopefully a sense of having been entertained!

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

Again, it was about whether or not we could break the fourth wall – how far we could go in terms of directly addressing the audience, how soon we could do that, whether it would enhance the atmosphere we’re trying to create, or wreck it.  Despite the talk about naturalism and verisimilitude, this play does fall into the category of supernatural fiction.  If you are dealing with that subject matter, I think there are basically two ways you can go.  You can be all style, and hit the audience over the head with artifice, effects, music and so on to bludgeon them into submitting to the narrative.  That can work wonderfully well – as a fan, for instance, of the Hammer horror films, I have no problem with that.  But the other way you can go is towards minimalism, appealing to the audience’s intelligence and imagination, so that they can be sensitive to that chill insidiously creeping up their spine.  I think we probably lean more towards that.  Or possibly dive!

Partly inspired by stage predecessors such as Stephen Mallatratt's The Woman in Black and by memorably frightening TV events such as The Stone Tape and Ghostwatch, it nevertheless charts an intriguing course of its own, inviting the audience to participate in a live psychic medium show, in which things may not be quite what they seem.

The Dead, Live is a new departure for a creative team who have in the past been responsible for more light-hearted fare. Oldham playwright Daniel Thackeray previously wrote the highly-praised, based-on-truth 1980s-set comedy drama Together in Electric Dreams, in which Sir Clive Sinclair and the future Lord Sugar wrestled over sushi for the future of the British electronics industry ("A lot of laughs and worth a trip down

memory lane" said the Manchester Evening News). Actor Howard Whittock, who plays Lawrence Dodds, the 'psychic' who knows he is really a fake, and director Alex Shepley previously worked together on the surreal comedy sketch show, The Ray Harryhausen Skeleton Orchestra. And actress Carly Tarett, also from Oldham, is well known for her comedy one-woman shows, such as Sinful and Princess Dee, which she has performed locally and internationally to much acclaim.

Although it features light-hearted

moments, The Dead, Live is something altogether more chilling. Whittock and Thackeray are both fans of horror, having hosted The Lee/Cushing Podcast on classic horror films on YouTube for the last year, and their aim here is to bring that feel to the stage.  When the play received a partial preview performance as part of Oldham Library's live@thelibrary programme in February 2017, North West End's reviewer praised it: "Mixing pathos with light humour, and tragedy with the spiritual unknown... this story certainly has, as we say in the profession, legs."  Subsequent performances at the Greater Manchester Fringe in 2017 brought universal acclaim from critics and audiences. 

“More than a match for any stage… a wonderful performance by all involved” said Quays News.  Audience member @deadmanjones commented on Twitter: “…a chilling, sardonic tale that would fit right perfectly into Ghost Stories for Christmas (or inside Inside No 9).”  While the Fictionmaker blog asserted that the play was “Quite terrifying.”

Of the piece’s appearance in the first London Lovecraft Festival, writer Daniel Thackeray says, “It was an honour for our show to be selected to appear in this festival.  To be associated with the name of HP Lovecraft – the man who, in many ways, redefined the territory of literary supernatural horror, and who is owed a great debt by every writer who has worked in that field since – is no small thing, and to have the title of The Dead, Live appear in the festival listings next to monumental titles like At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a real thrill.

“I feel like supernatural theatre is on the rise, which wasn’t the case until recently. Apart from the wonderful The Woman in Black, there were so few theatrical ghost stories, despite that intimate sense of the uncanny, that you can only really get in theatre, being so suited to that type of story. The wonderful sense of being in the same room with something otherworldly.  But now, more writers and producers of theatre are emboldened to enter that realm, and often their inspiration is Lovecraft.  Even though our play has no direct connection to Lovecraft’s works, when I was writing the play, his universe of ‘cosmic horror’ was very much in my mind as something that might lurk behind the veneer of the stage ‘psychic’.

“I wanted to capture the unease present in his stories, adding to it the immediacy of theatre, the feel of the uncanny being in the room.  That element is also present, in a different way, in live psychic shows, the kind of thing that Derek Acorah does. It seemed to me that to write something which combined the two could be a real winner. Still, it took a long time to get the balance right – years and years of redrafting and rethinking in fact - but, thanks to a brilliant director and cast, I think we've finally done it. And audiences are in for something really memorable!

“It’s high time there was a fully-fledged Lovecraft Festival.  The organisers are clearly doing it out of love for the material, and they’ve put together a really special programme.”

Show taking place at:

The Etcetera Theatre

Camden, NW1

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Why My Grandma Loves Barbra Streisand (And You Should Too)

My grandma Barbara really loves Barbra Streisand. I haven't asked, but if you offered her the chance to befriend Babs in exchange for all her grandkids, I'm not entirely sure we wouldn't be what she calls chopped liver. So when I heard Streisand was coming to the Tribeca Film Festival to give a talk with director Robert Rodriguez, I knew my grandma needed to be in the audience.

The gospel of Barbra has always been preached in our family. At a young age, I remember watching Streisand sing "Don't Rain on My Parade" in Funny Girl, the 1968 film that propelled her to international stardom. (The role landed Babs her first Oscar, which she shares with Katherine Hepburn—the only time there's been a tie in the Best Actress category.) Visiting New York City for the first time at 13, I fantasized about belting the show-stopping tune on a tugboat, just like Fanny Brice does in the film.

But despite being a nerdy kid, there's a lot about Streisand's biography I just didn't know. There's a reason she's an icon to millions—and not just women of a certain age and gay men. She's a feminist pioneer and a political firebrand. She's an underdog, who rose from the Brooklyn projects to the pinnacle of celebrity. After her Q&A at Tribeca, I was frankly floored. The quotes in this article are taken from her hourlong conversation with Rodriguez. Sparkling with Streisand's signature brash wit and intimate anecdotes, they provide a glimpse into the psyche of a woman who's vanquished her haters and emerged victorious.

"I'm a person who really believes in the power of the will. And I think I kind of willed [my success]. In a very quiet way, by the way, it's not loud, or pushy, or anything. It's very internal, very deep, and I do believe that you can manifest your reality."

I'll save you the Wikipedia-ing: Streisand's biography is insane. Her dad died when she was a baby, and her mom worked hard to keep the family out of poverty. She was a Broadway star by the age of 20. She's sold more records than David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, and Prince. In 1983, she became the first—and only—woman to ever win a Golden Globe for Best Director. And she has an EGOT (the colloquial term for winning Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards). She's also still selling out arenas around the world.

"I had no discipline. I remember teaching my mother how to smoke a cigarette at 10 years old."

When it comes to quintessential New York childhoods, Streisand has Neil Simon, Woody Allen, and Lena Dunham beat. She shared Brooklyn anecdotes throughout the Q&A, and it wasn't all sunshine and block parties. She said some of her earliest memories are of singing under the slide on the housing project playground. She talked of loving Chekhov and Ibsen as a young acting student, and feeling an acute sense of loss when she discovered her dad had studied the same writers for his Masters thesis.

"Later on, when I had a career as a singer, people would say, 'How do you hold the notes so long?' And I said, 'Because I want to.'"

Streisand was never one to take no for an answer. She told the audience that the first time she sang for a casting director, she naturally assumed that getting an audition meant getting the part. Later on, she was upfront about disagreeing with the choices of her male directors. She shared anecdotes about filming the 1973 drama The Way We Were and fighting Sydney Pollack on his choice to cut the scene in which her character Katie breaks down while watching coeds on a college campus from her car. "I begged him, 'Throw out 20 minutes of the film—there are boring political scenes—but don't throw out these five minutes,'" she said. "That's when I decided to be a director."

"Not enough women are directing now. Well, I love when I see a woman's name on a film. And then I always pray that it's good."

The first film Streisand directed was Yentl, a 1983 movie about a Jewish woman in Poland who dresses and lives as a man so she can study Talmudic law. And she didn't just direct it: Streisand co-wrote, co-produced, and starred in Yentl, too. Rodriguez pointed out that she was snubbed by the Academy Awards that year, but Streisand shared that her most vitriolic reviews largely, and surprisingly, came from other women. Many ignored its message—that women shouldn't have to choose between domestic and intellectual fulfillment—and criticized the film's aesthetics. One even accused her of dressing Yentl in "designer yarmulkes."

Check out more videos by Creators:

"Don't mention a wall to me."

Literally the only thing my grandmother doesn't love about Streisand is her politics. Babs fervently campaigned for Hillary Clinton, and she's been outspoken in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Personally, I love that she's a champion for women's rights, gay rights, immigration rights, and the arts, and though I may get written out of the will for saying so, it's encouraging to think that the outspoken icon might just influence the opinions of her fanbase.

When I asked my grandma what she thought of Streisand's talk, she told me it was even better than the time she got to shake Frank Sinatra's hand at a nightclub in Vegas. Which if you ask me, sounds like pretty much the coolest thing that could happen to a person. Suffice to say I think we all left that auditorium feeling like we'd momentarily basked in Barbra's greatness. Dusted with her diva magic, we strolled into the spring evening, feeling even more in awe of Streisand's fierce, pioneering artistry.

And now, since I know you want it, here's "Barbra Streisand" by Duck Sauce:

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Related:

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MUNCHIES Hanukkah Spectacular: How to Make Kugel with "Barbra Streisand"

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