#i made this in a feverish 30 minutes including the editing-

[arsonistmoth]

I have no excuse. other than Nari beat the SHIT out of Baal in my save last night and thIS WAS ALL I COULD THINK OF AS I BROKE THE FIGHT UP.

[spooky-qrow]

SERIOUS POST. SAVE A CAT'S LIFE AND DO NOT USE THIS TREATMENT.

Edit: The treatment in question is called ProFender and is the worming treatment, specifically the liquid application.

A trigger warning: mentions of animal death, descriptions of animal in distress, picture of animal in distress, symptoms of a reaction to a product

I recently had to take Lucifer on an emergency vet visit due to some anti-parasite treatment he was given. He got extremely feverish and twitchy and was in immense pain and hasn't been himself since. The reviews on the product say that it has put cats on death's door, made them lame, caused organ failure consistently, has given them seizures, made them lose fur, etc etc. Cats have even died, as little as 30 minutes after using the product, and I think Lucifer would have died if we hadn't have gotten them into the vets within the hour. He was breathing EXTREMELY rapidly, shaking, unable to eat or move, falling asleep, yelping in agony when we tried to move him, etc. After doing some research mom has found that the product has nothing but negative reviews - literally every single one she's found, and there are hundreds, report severe reactions to it.

For the safety of your cats, PLEASE steer clear of ProFender. It's an extremely harmful brand, some people have said it's like poison. The effects it has on cats are awful, and we're lucky Lucifer was big enough to take it. He was in the vet for just over two days and is still very slow and unlike himself.

His last worming treatment was a different brand which he was fine with, but for some reason they switched his treatment to ProFender and I'm worried in the lockdown vets are switching out treatments for other brands.

We had no idea how bad it was and the vets have denied that a reaction was likely and have said they haven't had bad reports of it before, but it's clear that it's a more or less poisonous substance that no cat should ever be given. Even if the effects aren't bad, the trauma an animal goes through having to go for the vet is immense. We're so lucky Lucifer seems to be recovering, especially after the experience. I had to hold him close to me in the car to comfort him on the over 10 min trip. The poor baby was crying and staring at me because he was terrified. It was a terrifying, terrible experience that no cat deserves to go through.

But yeah, if you know anybody with cats - especially young ones - please let them know about this stuff. Our experience with Lucifer was heartbreaking and scary and to think we could have lost him if we hadn't immediately taken him to the vets is horrifying.

We will be submitting evidence and ringing up animal welfare services as well as our vets and we are going to do whatever we can to make sure this brand doesn't hurt, maim, or kill any more animals.

If any of you have seen my boy Lucifer, he's very upbeat and alert. Here are some pictures of him within an hour of being given ProFender. He does NOT naturally sleep like this and never curls his paws. You can tell here that he's clearly not well and these pictures still bring tears to my eyes because if I hadn't immediately told my mom he might not be with us right now. Also, in the third picture one of our other cats Gabriel came to comfort Luce with me, but the photo shows his condition very well so I had to include it.

Stay safe everyone, and PLEASE look after your cats.

[bpoole500]

Tusk Revisited

This fall marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Tusk, Fleetwood Mac’s defiantly offbeat opus that was underappreciated in its time, even as it presaged trends in music.

After the unprecedented success of 1977’s Rumours, the Mick Fleetwood/John McVie/Christine McVie/Stevie Nicks/Lindsey Buckingham incarnation of Fleetwood Mac pretty much had carte blanche to do whatever the band wanted. A situation like that gives an artist several avenues for their potential next act.

Many acts have followed up a landmark album with “Part 2.” Think of Adele’s 25 or Michael Jackson’s Bad. The artist delivers a follow-up that’s very much in the vein of their big last album. Reviewers will tend to be less enthused, but it will sell well and produce more hit singles, usually pleasing most fans and the record label. It’s a good career move, even if the follow-up can’t help but be overshadowed by its celebrated predecessor.

Other artists respond to a significant breakthrough album by, essentially, not following it up. Perhaps a live set might emerge or some earlier recordings are repackaged for the new mass audience that came aboard for the big hit. There could be live shows. But in essence, the artist just chooses, for any of a variety of reasons, to sit it out. Look no further than the trajectory of Lauryn Hill after The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Fans usually never understand it, even if it makes sense to the artist.

And then there’s the path that Fleetwood Mac took with their follow-up to Rumours. As has been pointed out many times, there is no topping an album like Rumours, a collection that earned strong critical accolades, major sales and cross-genre airplay dominance. It’s one of those albums that, even decades later, remains a strong seller, as new generations discover it (and often access it in new ways, thanks to media evolution). Warner Bros. would certainly have been thrilled if the band had delivered Rumours II. That would have played well with fans, as well.

But that ignores the fact that Rumours was a “lightning in a bottle” moment, the kind of personal/professional alchemy that a band can’t plan. And in the case of this group, likely would not have wanted to re-live even if they could have.

Instead, the band followed the third path that acts sometimes embrace after a major success: go in an unexpected direction. No description drives record company execs to the antacid bottle more than “experimental.” Especially when its affixed to the new album of a key act. But that’s what Fleetwood Mac did with Tusk.

Buckingham is widely acknowledged as one of the guitar virtuosos of the rock world. He’s also recognized for his love of studiocraft and production experimentation. So with a blank check, the band essentially handed the wheel to their resident mad genius and let him steer them into waters that took a different path from the era-defining sound of their recent hit. The result was Tusk, a double album misunderstood at its time, that only years later would be embraced as a lunatic masterpiece.

While Buckingham was thoroughly grounded in the classic rock idiom, he listened to, and was inspired by, everything that was going on in the industry at the time. The restless energy of post-punk and the trashy electro-sheen of new wave. The fearless disregard of tradition of art rock and the sonic collage experiments of industrial music. He was inspired to go beyond what a band could produce using instruments and voices, using production not just as a facilitator, but as a sonic medium in its own right. He wrote numerous songs that sounded little like what he’d produced before and then wrapped his feverish sonic ideas around Christine and Stevie’s more traditional compositions, pushing them to unexpected places. At its core, Tusk was a major, mainstream classic rock band charting the future of alternative music.

As has been pointed out many times, Tusk often feels like the mash-up of two different albums: Buckingham’s paranoid opus, full of sharp edges and nervous tics, contrasted with the more conventional songs produced by his partners. It’s not an unfair paradigm, but even though Tusk has Buckingham’s imprimatur firmly stamped on it, it’s still definitively the work of a band. Drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie follow their guitarist’s lead and achieve the kinds of beats and rhythms necessary to execute Buckingham’s ideas, while the layers of harmonies he envisioned wouldn’t have hit with the impact they did without the unique interplay of his voice with Christine’s and Stevie’s.

Still, Buckingham did go in some startling directions. Bits of everything from rockabilly and the Beach Boys to punk and World Beat are evident in the mix, the album often presaging trends that would dominate the music scene in the decade that followed. The title track is a prime example of Buckingham’s ideas coming together in a striking manner. It boasts the sinister paranoia of many of Buckingham’s contributions, using almost tribal rhythms that referenced African sonic traditions half a decade before Paul Simon’s landmark Graceland. Married with layered harmonies, distorted guitars and an actual marching band, it was like nothing else on the charts in 1979.

“What Makes You Think You’re the One” was another moment where Buckingham managed to translate his impulses into something with commercial appeal, working nervous energy, edgy rhythms and echoes of doo wop harmonies and instrumental flourishes into an engaging stew. Throughout, Buckingham’s songs were filled with off-kilter melodies, production tricks and distortions, layers of harmonies that pushed song structures that could have been familiar into some places listeners hadn’t been before. He borrowed the economy of punk, with most of his compositions clocking in within the range of two to three minutes, often ending abruptly or on an unexpected moment of dissonance. He surrounded the songs with spacey, detached qualities, adding propulsion even to quieter moments. With titles like “The Ledge,” “Walk A Thin Line,” “I Know I’m Not Wrong,” “That’s Enough for Me” and “Not That Funny,” with unsettled lyrics and performances that communicated a certain alienation, Buckingham’s songs more dared listeners to engage with them than invited them in. It’s not what you might expect from a superstar release, but it was brave and creative.

While some critics were inclined to dismiss the more conventional tunes that Christine and Stevie composed, one of the more fascinating aspects of Tusk was seeing how Buckingham co-opted those songs to fit his vision for the album. You got Christine’s sunny SoCal pop and Stevie’s mystical rock and folk run through Buckingham’s offbeat paranoia, for some often interesting results.

Take Christine’s “Think About Me,” a charming Top 30 hit that’s often overlooked today. Buckingham’s production is drenched in the surf pop of the Beach Boys, but spikes it with fuzzy edges, jittery harmonies and wailed vocal counterpoints. Deceptively simple songs like “Over & Over,” “Brown Eyes” and “Honey Hi” took on more complex structures as Buckingham injected the emerging New Wave ethos into them, giving them layers and textures that pushed them out of Christine’s usual comfort zone, adding tension and friction that provided contrast to her cool, clean vocals. Even a gentle ballad like “Never Make Me Cry” got a jolt from the subtle pulse of a strummed electric guitar that Buckingham ran throughout.

Unsurprisingly, Stevie’s songs provided a robust canvas for Buckingham’s production work. Tusk is best remembered for hit single “Sara,” one of Stevie’s more engaging poetic explorations. Even in the edited version (which chops off nearly two minutes, including the entire second verse), it’s a beguiling mix, with Buckingham using a complex layering of harmonies that builds slowly to surround Stevie’s lead, giving an exotic charm to the mix, while he adds fuzzy touches to the edges to give the song an insistent energy. He transformed “Angel” into a harbinger of the country-pop that would come to dominate Nashville a decade later and gave a jittering, unsettling edge to the gentle “Storms” that set out a roadmap for the contemporary folk sound that was right around the corner. Most daringly, Buckingham used Stevie’s mystic rock opus “Sisters of the Moon” to pioneer the template for the dance rock that would become a staple of alternative radio.

Fans and critics didn’t know what to make of Tusk. The title track became a hit because anything that Fleetwood Mac released after Rumours would have made the Top 10. “Sara” and “Think About Me” succeeded with radio as the best examples of the band’s traditional sound melding seamlessly with Buckingham’s futurist production. But many critics at the time didn’t get the album and fans who had bought Rumours in droves didn’t embrace Tusk. It was seen as a failure and would set the stage for a retrenchment (the far more conventional Mirage (1982) and Tango in the Night (1987) would bring this chapter of the band to a close on a more commercial, mainstream note).

But Tusk has had a healthy afterlife. While it hasn’t enjoyed the long-term sales power of Rumours or the group’s eponymous 1975 album, it has remained available consistently and won over new converts over the years. Critical re-evaluations of the album, especially in the context of the ‘80s alternative revolution that followed, came to appreciate how ahead of its time Tusk was and what a crucial touchstone it became for the development of modern rock music. It grew into an “artists’ album,” one of those works cited by other musicians as one of their influences. Both “Tusk” and “Sara” have remained in regular rotation on classic rock and soft rock radio formats, while “Sisters of the Moon” developed into a cult favorite among Stevie’s loyal fans. The band included several cuts from Tusk on their various “best of” collections and incorporated them into their latter day tours to strong effect.

Tusk makes almost perfect sense when viewed from a remove of forty years. Fleetwood Mac took advantage of the opportunity that success afforded them to go out on a creative limb. And in the process, thanks to Buckingham’s feverish creativity and work ethic, helped advance the evolution of rock and alternative music.

[seimeiyuzu]

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to experience Yuzuru Hanyu’s greatness

(source: http://www.insideskating.net/2017/08/21/features/dearly-beloved-we-are-gathered-here-to-experience-yuzuru-hanyus-greatness)

Yuzuru’s routine to Prince might not have been the best short program of the men’s event in terms of scores, but it was clearly the program of the day, of the Championships maybe, in terms of energy and response of the crowd. The noise was incredible during Yuzuru’s „Let’s Go Crazy” – and how could it not? This was the man most people in the audience came to see – including that lady in white jacket, speaking a soft, reverential English, traveling to Helsinki from a city near Mount Fuji; that lady that I accompanied to the arena before the men’s SP and, as a sign of friendship, she gave me a fridge magnet bearing Yuzuru’s face. She must have been upset that day – at the end of this particular segment of the men’s event, her favorite skater was sitting in 5th place – but she was clearly in awe two days later, when the Japanese performed a beauty of a long program, titled „Hope and Legacy”, broke the World record for the free skate (that he owned) and won the second World gold medal of his career.

(by Florentina Tone/Helsinki)

Under the Pooh-storm, on the afternoon of March 30 in Hartwall Arena, Yuzuru Hanyu looks disappointed. This wasn’t the start of Worlds that he’d envisioned. For this young man who keeps revolutionizing skating, perfection is the only option – and his short program in Helsinki wasn’t perfect.

Yet, it was a glorious, crazy routine, literally screaming enthusiasm and joy, one to definitely come back to when thinking about the defining moments of 2017 Worlds. One that showed Yuzuru Hanyu has turned into a brilliant performer.

Was it the guitar or the deafening roar of the audience?

At 16:53 on Thursday, the second day of Worlds, the big guns are at the door and, seconds after, on the ice. Yuzuru Hanyu will open group 6 of skaters, the final one – and, jacket on, he hardly manages to sit in line; he wants to move, to run away even from being presented to the audience. An acute sense of urgency accompanies him all throughout the 6-minute warm-up – he’s nervy, you can tell.

And then comes the ritual: shaking Brian Orser’s hand, patting Pooh on its yellow, fluffy head – his longtime companion needs to always be there, on the front row –, pushing his arms against the boards and heading for the center of the rink, for the so-appropriate “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…”

…to experience some goosebumps.

Feverish faces behind colourful, meaningful banners, behind Japanese flags, thousands of fans are in for act one of Yuzuru Hanyu’s presence at 2017 Worlds.

And so are we, in the media tribune. And since this is such an eye-catching routine, you can only have the time to write down, in a rush, one or two things, to later help you recompose the electric atmosphere of those 2 minutes and 50 seconds.

Yuzuru’s inviting arms into the program.

His nonchalance while going for the quad loop, the flight – a purple, sparkling spinning top in the air of Hartwall Arena, and then the easiness of the spread eagle.

The shoulders moving rhythmically to Prince’s music. The noise. The screaming voices.

The glitch on the quad Sal, and the attempted recovery, arms above his head.

A triple Axel like no other.

And the complete madness of the final minute. Yuzuru’s palms around his mouth, imitating a shout, comes as an invite for the fans – and so people in the arena start to shout, accompanying the step sequence, the spins and the guitar. Turning a program into a memory.

At the end of it, someone writes on twitter: “Forecast: Pooh-bears”.

But under the Pooh-bears, when the euphoria is over, Yuzuru Hanyu looks rather down. Making little steps to the boards – where Brian Orser and Tracy Wilson await and let him be – he knows he’d left some good points on the table. But he also knows he gave it all, performance wise. “I was just happy to skate today”, he’ll later say behind the curtains. “Maybe not all jumps were so great, but I so much enjoyed skating”.

Two days after, he’ll start from scratch, delivering maybe one of the most memorable performances of this year’s edition of the Worlds. A thing of beauty, we should call it. As for the tactics – how do you come back from the disappointment of a 5th place after the short? – he’ll say simply: in the practices preceding the free skate, “I wanted to push myself very hard, but Brian told me not to, and maybe it paid off at the end”. It sure did, since the result was remarkable: “I demonstrated everything I was capable of for the moment, my whole package so to say”.

Royal Yuzuru

At 14:05 on Saturday, the Japanese opens the final group once again. And what follows is joy for the senses – with Yuzuru skating as if he were a beautiful haze in the forest, a breeze between the leaves. And even if one doesn’t know the story of the program, he’ll still perceive the lightness of it, the softness, the continuum.

“To focus for today’s performance I imagined myself somewhere at the river, I thought about nature”.

A performance that draws you into it. So different from the Prince routine, and yet so easily addictive.

“My free program music is rather quiet, it’s not the type of music that makes people excited too much, but I could hear the audience cheer for me. Especially in the last part, after the spin to the end, I was able to hear how everyone applauded”.

The Ina Bauer and then the final jump, the Lutz. The burst of joy, excitement – he’s done it, a perfect program – and his face in the ending pose, saying it all.

And then the roar. The flying gifts. The utter frenzy.

The girl that cries, fists pressing against her cheeks. The one that keeps throwing little toys from a bag. The one that mumbles over and over again, a big smile on her face: “Arigato! Arigato!”

As if no one can believe they have seen what they’ve just seen.

And when the scores show up, and it’s a World record for the free skate, Yuzuru Hanyu plunges his arms in the air with the little power he has left, and he seems like he’s about to cry. History was made again, and signs are he’ll continue to challenge his own records. In the press conference later on, he’ll address the unaddressable: five rotation-jumps, the “yonkaiten Axel”. With a smile, of course: “Someone told me that, scientifically, five rotations in the air are possible, but ISU hasn’t set a score for that yet. For myself, I would like to try a quad Axel in the future. I’m not sure if I would ever perform it in a competition, but I would like to try it”.

Who’s trying to catch who?

In between the constant noise made by the cameras’ shutter buttons being pressed in the media center, you also hear Yuzuru praising his opponents. “There is no doubt that Boyang pushed us all, because he did the quad Lutz and a clean performance. So people realized that it is possible, we can do the quad Lutz – it’s humanly possible. So he is responsible for pulling us all up to the level where we are today”. And then, when asked about the Olympic season’s challenges: “I’m pretty sure everyone will try out all sorts of different kind of things”. But then again, “after the short program here, we all know that Jason Brown did quite well without a quad and he was able to put himself in a pretty good position. So that really proved us that quads are not everything in figure skating”.

And then there’s this, his modesty, feet on the ground, when asked how is it to be the one the others try to catch: “People say that other skaters are catching up with me, but you can see that in the short program I actually tried to catch up with them. Today, neither Javier, nor Patrick were able to perform perfectly and they didn’t come here, but after the short program, Javier was in first place and Patrick in the third place, and also the younger skaters like Shoma, Boyang, and Nathan, they are all talented and everyone has their own strenghts. I am actually trying to catch up with many of the strengths of the other skaters”. Sitting on his right, Shoma Uno smiles while listening to Yuzuru’s answer, and then shares his vision candidly: ”I have been practicing very hard, and my only motivation was to exceed Yuzuru’s skating. That was the only motivation. In the end, I feel I don’t have the complete package yet, so I just want to keep on growing, keep on practicing”.

Distinctive feature – a yellow teddy bear

…as if both Yuzuru Hanyu and Winnie-the-Pooh were going over the short program, seconds before the Japanese took the ice for the warm-up on March 30. The truth is the yellow teddy bear became Yuzuru’s ally – and almost his personal trademark. The fans know it, and act accordingly.

Among the final questions in Helsinki, one is about the Poohs – the immense quality of yellow bears Yuzuru received at Worlds, just like in any other competition he attends. He laughs, stops for a while to think, and answers with a smile: “I did not pick them up myself, but I feel happy that I got so many. The number of Poohs shows how many supporters I have”.

And they did colour the arena in yellow, Yuzuru’s fans.

No wonder, one of my last images from Helsinki consists in a pair of yellow teddy bears, pendants hanging from two ladies’ suitcases, in the airport, on Monday. A sign we shared the magic. And more than that, a symbol: the Championships might have ended a day before – but Yuzuru Hanyu’s story (and his fans’ commitment) surely goes on.   (x)