#intrigued as to whether they did this because i performed so well in essays

[tedwinisconfused]

passed all my exams!!! officially never have to do a chemistry module again and can finally focus on classes that are properly related to my degree

[mcvoices]

Episode 1: Here I go, CVAP!

Hey, it's MC....Voices!

Uhmmm... this is new to me. I've written a lot of essays, poems, stories, even songs, a lot of narratives that I could think of. But this, this is the first time that I would actually write a blog. So yeah, hoping whoever reads this will stick up with me until the every end.

Great day! This is how I would start my day or like a week now, including what I would say in this blog. I'm MCVoices, you could call me by that name or could be MC. I'm an aspiring voice artist, currently exploring more of my interests here and there. This blog, would absolutely talk about those interests while I joined the Certified Voice Artist Program here in the Philippines - currently in Batch 26 this 2024.

Joining CVAP is a really great opportunity for me. I really think that this program is the best place to hone my skills and turn my passion into profession and to think that it could be really one of my hobbies as well because I am really into using my voice. I really wanted to know, to learn how to use my voice well. Whether it's for voicing characters, doing voice overs, dubbing, and a whole lot more. So, here's a look into my journey throughout the program and the incredible experiences, my thoughts, reactions on what we did during the sessions that came with it.

As I dive into Week 1 of the Certified Voice Artist Program, I find myself intrigued and full of excitement with how I gained knowledge, practical exercises, and invaluable insights from industry experts.

Understanding the Role of a Voice Artist

The first step was all about understanding the basics. We were introduced about what it means to be a voice artist. Sir Navi Garcia, provided us with his inspiring story on how he became a voice artist, how he started from scratch up until being a trainer as he is now. He shared his personal experiences and strategies for staying on his ground, improving skills, and maintaining a good mindset. One of the most inspiring message that I got throughout the session was with the Pochology "Someone out there need to here your voice."

Every voice has the potential to reach someone, could be to touch a hearts, to provide comfort, to inspire change. It's kind of heart warming and this phrase resonates deeply with me, especially as I embark my journey to become a voice artist. And in order to be successful in doing this, I need the confidence. The confidence to step up, to speak up, to voice it out. Confidence is built through practice, perseverance, and embracing feedback. I really think that the field of voice acting is ever-evolving, and continuous learning is essential.

After the morning session, I realized that I am always inspired by people, but then, I really should be inspired by myself the most. I should be. Since that session, I realized that my voice is not just a tool for personal expression but it has means to reach, connect, and impact others.

During the afternoon session, we did a practical activity wherein we have to introduce ourselves within my BR group. My group that includes - Ton, Gracy, Cath, Marco, Keysie, Seb, Karissa, and Flamm alongside with our Guardian Mentor Mr. A, Mentor Jon, Mentor Mark, and Sir Ron as our Watcher. We introduced one by one during the breakout session, and then we decided to create like a party list introduction during an election. I really enjoyed doing it, it was really fun to actually be with them and create memories with the rest of the group. We presented it first and ended up laughing with our jokes and how we perform, we actually did a great job. I was having fun, really.

In conclusion, Week 1 really left a big impression to me. I've gained a lot, learned lot, had fun with the rest of the group, voicemates, with the hosts and people in charge during the session. As I continue this journey, I am really excited to apply these lessons, grow my skills in this dynamic and creative field, take this opportunity to lead me for greater purposes. We all have something with us, a reason, a purpose, and a voice and that there is always someone out there who needs to hear it. So, I will embrace it and share them with the world- because you never know who might need it and how much they might need to see and hear exactly what I do.

For now, stay tuned for more blogs about my CVAP journey! More updates as I progress through the program and share more insights and experiences from my journey to becoming a Certified Voice Artist!

from me to you,

MC

[harrison-abbott]

In high school I did a subject called Religious Studies in my fifth year. Religion interested me from a literary perspective, and a general knowledge perspective too.

It – Religion – did not interest many people. And only about eight students signed up for the class. And, all of them were girls. I was the only boy in the room. The class was headed by a teacher called Mrs Carrie. So, yeah, it was about a 9:1 ratio of females and me the only male.

I just found this a bit intimidating. Because I was very quiet back then. And, as you may or may not know, girls in their teens are very chatty.

The teacher would often be bemused at why I was shy and didn’t speak much. She would suddenly stop and point at me and say, “Harry, are you all right?” Or, she would alert me if I was tired and go, “Harry, why are you sitting like that? What’s up with you?”

I didn’t really know how to respond to that.

And the girls in the class would say things like, “Harry – why don’t you like anybody in this class?” And when I responded they would go and tell Mrs Carrie what I said. Even though I only said that I found it a bit tricky to communicate because I was the only boy.

Bearing in mind, too, that I was only 15 at the time.

Ironically, I was, really intrigued by religion. I do not consider myself religious, but I simply find the topic an intriguing one. We studied the arguments behind God, whether a God could or did exist. We studied how the universe came into existence and the various interpretations of that. And the different major religions across the planet.

As I’ve mentioned many times on this blog – I detested high school with a fervent passion. But Religious Studies, that class, was the only one I actually enjoyed.

Did you have ‘Prelims’ in your school? The preliminary exams that were supposed to gear you up, or, give you a dress rehearsal of the exam at the end of the year? I had a prelim in Religious Studies. And, umm, I failed it. By about two digits. It remains the only exam I’ve ever failed throughout my entire academic experiences. I suppose, to put it bluntly, I had a shit day on that particular afternoon when I sat the test, and I gassed it.

Mrs Carrie came up to me next lesson and she said to me, vis a vis the prelim, “What happened, Harry?” And I said that I must’ve just been on poor form on that particular day. She didn’t really say anything else.

Until the next lesson, when, as she was walking out the class to get something from her office, she paused and turned to me and said, in front of the whole class, “Harry. I’ve passed you on to the Guidance Teacher. She’ll get in touch with you about a meeting with her, to go and see her.” And then she walked out of the room. All the girls in the class took this news with silence. And I had no clue how to respond either.

Why was I being sent to the Guidance Teacher? I didn’t get it. But, I was still a teen and didn’t quite know how to stand up for myself. So I thought it was obliged for me to go and see the Guidance Teacher.

She (the Guidance Teacher) was assigned to the pupils who were considered problematic. Mrs Wright was her name. She also had no degree in child psychology, or therapy, or counselling of any kind. And I did not understand what it was I had done to be sent to her office. Was it because I had failed the prelim?

Apparently, yes. That was the jist of it. I figured that I should probably just study a wee bit harder and perform a bit better on the day of the real exam in the summer.

This is what I did. I got a B on the actual exam.

A jumble of years later I went to university and I chose to do a module in religion as well. The module was a study of the Old Testament. I picked it because I was a budding writer at that point and wanted to know more about the famous text. So, that course consisted of two big essays and a final exam at the end. And, I got Bs on all of them.

It still perplexes me why I got such an acidic reaction from the teachers in high school. The whole irony was that I was not a ‘misbehaving’ pupil. I just wasn’t. Rather, I was incredibly withdrawn and struggled with depression.

Even with this example with the Religious Studies teacher – she wasn’t able to suss that I liked the subject. And instead of trying to engage with me she passed me on to this other woman because she didn’t know how else to deal with what she deemed as a problem … a problem which wasn’t even there.

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Hey, feel free to ignore this, but I'd love to hear your grievances against Bridgerton? I saw some of the fashion posts you rbed, but I'm especially intrigued by the "fails on all aspects" parts? Thanks!

Hi there,

There is honestly so much that could be said and analysed in finer points but the short version of it is just that it is a bad story wrapped in the glitz of high production value but surprisingly little good technical execution despite all the money shoveled at it. Bridgerton is the type of show where the petty, mean side of me would delight in a detailed and cutthroat list of all of its flaws but for which I do not care enough to be actually invested in hating it. It’s just a thing to be puzzled and petty about: people think Bridgerton is good. Wild.

Now let me first say that I have no inherent problems with anachronistic creative choices, or the idea of a contemporary take on period dramas. After all, all period dramas are inevitably told through a contemporary lens, to different degrees. It’s also not like they were the first big production to do it either: has everyone just forgot about The Great Gatsby? or tumblr’s favourite Hamilton? I honestly think this kind of mixing already has so many cool outcomes when it comes to music (like this, this or this and this), I do believe we could get something really interesting out of creative anachronism in mainstream visual media. I’m also more forgiving with newer forms of experimentation, because sometimes new ideas need to be worked out before they reach their full potential. But the way Bridgerton does it.... so clearly lacks a clear creative vision and dedication to the concept imo that it makes it harder to excuse the ways it fails since the failures seem to originate from that lack of vision and dedication to storytelling. For instance, there is seemingly no logic as to when the diegetic music will be an instrumental cover of a contemporary song or not--which does not even broach the topic of how bad those ‘classical music’ arrangements for modern songs were? Honestly embarrassing how lazy those arrangements were: hire a good composer (or any at all), you cowards. And then the costumes... once again, a lack of internal logic seems to permeate the choices presented in addition to a lack of care in its execution: so many of the dresses are ill-fitted, the characterisation through the outfits were all over the place (like the mom who wore a silhouette that no one else wore and had no basis in any fashion of the era) and so many of the fabrics/jewellery looked the opposite of expensive (kind of looked like a lot of it was polyester and plastic tbh), which is sort of a problem when you are trying to sell the fantasy of "The lives of the rich and famous but make it regency” imo although I suppose a portion of the audience just doesn’t notice lmao. Honestly I find that a lot of ‘costume historians’ who made video essays on Bridgerton were too nice with the show, perhaps in order not to come off as seeming to hate the costumes on the basis of them not being historically accurate, and as a result were way too forgiving imo. And this lack of real creative vision is also something we see in the cinematography and direction which.... seems often confused about the way it wants to make things feel fantastical and ends up dropping the ball on the execution of these meant-to-be extravagant or over-the-top shots.

But, again, the cinematography is just... middling at best, made only worse by the editing which is just plain bad. I guess you’ll have to just take me on my word on this because I am not willing to do an autopsy of all I find off about it, but lord jesus mary and joseph it was painful to watch at certain moments.

Bridgerton is not the first show to do colourblind casting, although I’d say it deserves recognition for fucking it up for no reason at all. Like, sure there are criticisms to be had about how it remains still a very white story that falls into certain tropes wrt darker skin characters or the glaring lack of south asian representation considering what the contemporary UK looks like, etc. but what I’m gesturing at is the totally unnecessary but mind-boggling “royal love solved racism” twist we get in the, what, fourth episode? (Broey Deschannel covered the topic quite well imo) The audience would have accepted that there were no in-world explanation for the colourblind version of the already-made fantastical regency that had them dancing to Ariana Grande songs. The colourblindness, racism-free society would have just been another aspirational aspect. They literally did not need to do this.

Honestly I don’t feel like I need to get into why the story itself is not very good or well-executed since it feels very obvious. I won’t begrudge on principle the show for using well-worn tropes and common-to-the-point-of-farce character archetypes, but I have to object to the way it uses them and in the service of what story. And not to make myself in a plot-hole-ding kind of person-who-has-thoughts-about-media, but this is not a story that holds up well to scrutiny or logic, let’s say. And any type of social or political commentary it tried to include was dumb to the point of farce: the Feminist Character Who Wants to Read not Go Dance was just.... a masterclass in bad, embarrassing writing. I am surprised at how unlikeable and boring the vast majority of the characters were, but perhaps less surprised at how a series that planned on having multiple seasons already sold the twist of Lady Whistleblow’s identity at the end of the first season, for what seemed to be no narrative reason at all. That being said, I have to give credit where it’s due and acknowledge that there is a skill in being able to produce stories that get extremely popular and well-loved.

(Do I need to mention the performances? So many underwhelming or embarrassing performances. It’s hard to tell sometimes whether it’s the actors themselves or the directing that’s the issue, or a mixture of both, but.... oof).

I guess in the end Bridgerton’s biggest transgression is it sits for me in the uncomfortable middle where it is neither trashy or campy fun nor is it an interesting work of fiction. Differently put, it is simply neither good nor fun.

[hongism]

An essay on why i love kim hongjoong and why he’s my ult bias and one of my biggest inspirations in life; by me, you know who it is, the biggest hongjoong simp on the planet, and your local hongjoong lover

This isn’t really gonna be an essay pls it’s been way too long since i last wrote a formal and serious essay but instead it’s just gonna be a messy hodgepodge of me doing what i do best in life: rambling (about hongjoong). If you know me you know that i GUSH over the things and people i love, i could sit here for years just rambling about that so yeah this is about to be long as HELL and also embARRASSING as hell so PLS look away act like you don’t see anything no one talk about it hongjoong if ur here pls don’t look good god this is about to be so embarrassing bc here’s a list of things i don’t have: chill. Yall about to see me crumble for a Man of all things i can’t believe this is happening but yeah see im already rambling and i haven’t even started talking about hongjoong yet wow okay anyways look away i will cry and did cry okay thanks yeah BYE

im not gonna sit here and be like ‘bc he’s cool and handsome and yeah’ because those aren’t really reasons why you love Someone, those are kinda reasons why you might admire someone or enjoy looking at them but not why you like them necessarily, but it is a given that hongjoong is a beautiful person inside and out so i can’t go on without mentioning how beautiful and handsome he is ;;-; he has such pretty and delicate features, his nose his side profile his eyes his lips yes everything about him is beautiful and lovely and wonderful he’s just so objectively attractive. His smile is so bright and warm and full of love and joy, really he has one of those smiles where you see it and feel like your heart is full. Show me a picture of hongjoong smiling and my mood will spike and i’ll be happy bc he is a person who has infectious happiness and joy.

Hongjoong has so many neat and cool aspects to his personality, he’s really brilliant, he’s got an iq of 148, he’s an infp, he’s a scorpio, i’m gonna start rambling strap in — he raps, he sings, he dances, he composes/produces, he plays the drums, he plays the piano, he writes lyrics, he reforms clothes, supports the polished man campaign and paints his nails like!!! Listens to all sorts of music, enjoys rock music, loves to experiment with his style and hair, loves trying new things, just look back at inception era where he asked to wear a skirt for performances bc he thought it looked pretty moving while he danced just! Hongjoong has a very beautiful personality that i love to see because he is unapologetically him. And in an industry where it’s hard to be an individual and where it’s hard to let your own colors shine through whether it be because of pressures from companies/group image/so on so forth. I’ve always stood by the fact that KQ does really well with letting the boys do individual things and be individuals as well as have a say in what the plans are for their image, but it really shines through in hongjoong.

He’s a person who has his own color and his own sort of image that i feel lucky to look at bc it’s so special and unique and wonderful to see!! I feel that way constantly when i look at ateez and i think that’s why i love ateez so much and why they’re my ult alongside shinee bc there is so much individual color and personality and i adore getting to see that because people in general fascinate me that way.

There’s always a lot of jokes about hongjoong’s scorpio tendencies shining through but even beyond those jokes, he really lets us see parts of himself that are both intriguing and beautiful to see. I mentioned this the other night to a friend but while he was live, you could physically see the way he brightened when talking about music and when sharing his music, sharing the things he worked on, songs he enjoys, and when he talks about music, you can see that passion and love in his face. Same with when he talked about his tattoo, you could see in his face how much it means to him and how much thought he put into it, and how special it was for him to talk about it even with language barriers. Personalities are something that don’t need a language to see and perceive, and i’m always very careful to talk about idols’ personalities because you never know which parts are real and which parts are what they want us to see but seeing how clear hongjoong’s passion and adoration for music is is something so blatant to me. Like it’s just something i see every time he talks about music and every time he’s live and it’s so beautiful and special to see.

I’m a person who gets motivated when i see other people motivated and that’s primarily why i see hongjoong as such a huge source of inspiration and motivation because listening to people talk about the things they love makes me feel happy and encouraged. I love seeing the joy in people’s bodies and faces when they get happy, i love seeing people full of life and joy, i adore seeing them talk about their dreams and aspirations because you can see how determined and how meaningful something is to a person that way, and that’s something i see in hongjoong so much.

Hongjoong is someone who values art and all forms, and he’s someone who finds beauty and inspiration in all sorts of things. That’s something i try to do in my life but it’s hard and i struggle and sometimes i get it right and sometimes i don’t, and yaknow maybe we’re not supposed to get it right all the time, but i love getting to see hongjoong’s creative process and just listen to him talk about the things he finds inspiration in. Really honestly and truly getting to see people do what they love brings me more joy than i can put into words. There is something so special about it, and i feel it when i watch hongjoong perform because you can see how much every part of the stage and performance means to him even if it’s just 3 minutes and even if it’s something where he’s not front and center. Hongjoong doesn’t have to be the forefront of something to give his all and i think that speaks volumes to how much he wants to be on stage and how much it means to him

Then anOTHER thing i love about hongjoong because i could just talk for hours at this rate. Bc im emo and im in my feels so much i think about how sometimes it really seems like hongjoong was made to lead ateez. You could put 100000 people in a room and give me a list of qualifications and reasons why these 100000 people would be better leaders and i would still pick hongjoong because there is something so inherent in him about being the leader of ateez that shines through so much. The way he talks about ateez, the members, the things he does for them, the work he puts in because he wants them to succeed together. He talks about looking at their faces before going to sleep, not wanting to release a mixtape because he wants to share his music through ateez, he calls them kids, he wouldn’t post selfies so that we would focus on the other members’ teaser photos, he pushes them and encourages them to try new things and do new things, there is so so much he does for them and there are so many ways in which hongjoong loves ateez, just so many ways he cares for them and adores them even when he has that tsundere image, you can clearly see how much they mean to him and how much value he puts in those relationships with them

But yeah so anyways i’m gonna cut myself short good god this is oafiejrogbjieon so long already BYE this is embarrassing im so tired tho im gonna go sleep and probably forget i a) wrote this and b) posted this HTRWEFSFKHDLKFH yall know how it is pls dont ROAST ME for GUSHING just yeah if i could say one thing to hongjoong and only one thing like only one chance to say something i would genuinely thank him for being a person who inspires me and for sharing his passions with us i think that sharing your passions the way he does is so special and touching and yeah god im about to ramble again pls caly stop

[emmys-grimoire]

Season 2 review

It is done!

I’ll preface this review with the obvious but nevertheless important: these are my opinions. I am fine with others criticizing my opinions, mind you, but I’m usually disinclined to changing them. Like most opinionated people.

And as with most things covered in this blog, spoilers ahead. Don’t read it if you don’t like ‘em.

The Good

I believe the devs did the side characters justice in terms of character development, which is impressive because they have to fixate on seven other characters for most of the story (the demon brothers are the draw, afterall). It’s a little frustrating because it shows they are capable of revealing a lot about a character in just a single conversation, but they spend a great deal of their time on fluff. It is nothing unsurprising given the aim of the game as a whole (romantic fantasy/escapism), but it does detract from… well, everything else. If you don’t care about everything else, this doesn’t matter. If you’re one of the few who do, like me, you’re in for a drought before you get to the next juicy story morsel. Alas, that is the price we pay.

But, this is ‘the Good’ section of the review, so I will focus on that. Diavolo, Luke, Simeon, and Solomon get fleshed out more than they did in the previous season as promised, and their growing closeness to MC doesn’t feel hamfisted; there’s little realistic hooks strewn throughout that makes the relationships grow organically compared to, say, the newt syrup arc.

At the end of the season MC is set to become Solomon’s new apprentice, they are now instrumental in Diavolo’s plan for realm-wide peace instead of just being a particularly charming exchange student, Simeon is more interested in learning more about MC due to MC’s meddling during the retreat and their performance in his play, and Luke finally can bring himself to admit that he actually enjoys being in the Devildom. Michael is being alluded to more and more and finally drops in to say hi, even though the game stops short of explicitly revealing that it is him. It all feels like a good transition into more romantic things with them in the next season, and I look forward to exploring more hidden depths.

I am relieved they steered away from additional time travel due to its potential to confuse everyone and everything. We need to learn what the deal is with Barbatos but I’m sure it can be done without meddling with the time continuum. The introduction of the Reaper has interesting worldbuilding implications: the souls of all beings are overseen by what appears to be an unaligned third party, though prior lore implies that the departed souls still return to their respective realms (Lilith allegedly forgot how to ascend to the Celestial Realm in her desire to watch over her siblings). But, like with Michael, they avoided actually showing him by having him take a vacation right before Solomon and the brothers arrive.

On the whole, I’m happy with the season’s ending. It’s probably as good as it can get, and sets up the next season well -- assuming there is one (I think there will be).

The Bad

It’s hard to frame this because there were never any explicit promises made but wow was the build-up wasted and the climax went down dry.

Diavolo’s wishy-washiness and reluctance to tell Lucifer about how MC’s presence was slowly tearing the Devildom asunder, his growing jealousy and his doubt in the strength of Lucifer’s loyalty, the foreshadowing in Simeon’s play, Barbatos warning Lucifer that one day he may need to choose between Diavolo and MC/his family and how he was reverting back to his angelic self, the very foreboding storm that was brewing outside, how Lucifer was certain “something bad” was about to happen… all that juicy potential rendered impotent because of the Ring of Light and amnesia.

It didn’t lead to a tortured, difficult choice Lucifer had to make that had the potential to put either his relationships or the realms in jeopardy -- and it really felt like it was headed in that direction. But it couldn’t really lead there because Lucifer lost his memories, and he was just re-familiarizing himself with all those relationships. Instead we had to choose whether or not we let Lucifer martyr himself, and of course he’s willing to do that because he loves us even if his memories aren’t fully intact, and it’s heavily implied that he’s his angel-like self again. The choices we made during the play don’t really come into fruition, and the Ring of Light helps make our choice ultimately irrelevant anyway.

It felt like they winded up for the pitch and then lost their nerve.

Though I’d argue that Lucifer would ultimately be okay with sacrificing himself for MC and the realms even if he was still his full-fledged, assholish demon self… but it definitely felt like fate was going to make him choose between his loyalty and his love. You know, the whole “love is the death of duty”/”duty is the death of love” shebang. It would have been more rewarding -- they can even let the Ring of Light ultimately fix everything and I’d be happy if it was that dilemma! But this isn’t Game of Thrones, so I can’t be too disappointed that my expectations weren’t met.

If you like Lucifer and Mammon fluff, this season gives it in spades. If neither of those two are your favorite you might have been bummed out. They give Asmo an arc but he ultimately concludes he was trying too hard to be like Lucifer which left me all ?????? How? Satan tutors you, but he doesn’t really deviate from what he usually does (though his minor tiff with Simeon when he’s physically affectionate with us was amusing). The devs did suggest they want to explore Satan’s origins more thoroughly in the future in one of the newsletters, and I think we’re due for that in the next season. There’s hope for the others yet... just not much in this season.

The Future?

I think there’s a high probability that we’ll get a season 3. Nothing about season 2’s ending felt like they were wrapping things up. The season as a whole felt like a transition.

I think we’ll get more romantic scenes with our “undateables” and they won’t officially be considered “undateables” any more. We’ll probably get more cards with them. I’m not sure if they’ll fully graduate into dance battle sprites because that’ll require more creative color assignments for glow sticks, but I wouldn’t entirely discount the possibility. There are many shades in the rainbow.

I think worldbuilding necessitates more exploration of the Celestial Realm, and an eventual conclusion to the game storyline requires officially mending relations between the angels and demons and healing the wounds incurred by both the wars of the distant past and the Great Celestial War (which was essentially a civil war). Such a thing requires an honest dialogue between the two factions for it to ring sincere, not just a continuation of the exchange program. The game doesn’t hesitate in stating how violent all of it was.

To that end, I think we’re going to at least get a full-fledged Michael eventually, though I understand the reluctance to add him due to the work that will follow in adding another handsome man fans will undoubtedly want to make blush and kiss. They may leave him a disembodied voice for as long as they possibly can, but at some point fans will start complaining at the teasing. It’ll be like continually having to skip a missing step on a ladder.

Until then, though, he’s a missing step that’s fun to conceptualize.

You won’t get routes. The setting is ideal for a harem: all the potential love interests loved each other before MC ever entered the picture, so they will eventually accept having to share them, jealousy be damned. I’m pretty sure they’re all aware of MC’s affection towards each of them already: it’s just a matter of contention of which among them MC prefers the most. If MC wants to pursue only one of the brothers, it is up to them to do just that -- in the confines of the presented story.

Conclusion

There were some good story bits to chew on here and there, but as a whole the writing fell flatter than season 1’s writing, in spite of the predictability in the latter. The general unpredictability of this season has made things more exciting than the conclusion we eventually arrived at; it’s hard to commend it when it just doesn’t lead to something intriguing.

Welp, at least we get time to level up our cards for the next season. I only have three URs so it was pretty rough.

I’ll probably do more analysis and essays in the interim, as I work through hard mode and think more about stuff. It’s been fun, in spite of my critique.

[lady-plantagenet]

I see you are inspired by my rambling huhu. 2, 19 and 25 for the history meme!

In response to: Tumblr History Ask Meme: https://lady-plantagenet.tumblr.com/post/643743359209472000/ive-seen-plenty-of-tumblr-ask-challenges-but

Umm... YES I HAVE. Thank you for that friend 💕.

2- What is your country most famous for in history?

Oh this is really really easy... Vlad the Impaler; or as we call him - Vlad the Dragon. I would also like to take this as an opportunity to say that I feel a bit uncomfortable with the West’s obsession with Dracula and, by extension, his sadism. The real figure was just so much more compelling and interesting and this caricaturisation of him is inappropriate. No beef with Bram Stoker of course, just more irritated by what grew out as a result of that novel (which I have yet to read). He was fair, penalised laziness and theft, was a byword for greatness, piety and bravery in all of Europe and had it not been for him my country would have long become an Ottoman colony. He is the single-most most revered figure in Romania to the point where he is some sort of King Arthur for us. While I am happy that he has found world renown and in the west we are primarily associated with him, I would rather it be with the real man and not Dracula. 

19 - What’s your favourite historical book?

Well, I’ve rambled about The Last of the Barons by Lord Edward Lytton-Bulwer enough to give everyone on here hives, so I’ll just give you the links to my other posts haha. One of these days when I am less stressed I will write an essay/book-review about it as a whole, though I am not worthy :(. I will give you my favourite historical non-fiction book and that is The Waning of the Middle Ages by Johan Huizinga. Mercy! When I found out they assign it as reading in some universities it restored my faith in humanity and the coming generations of medievalists. So far, I haven’t disagreed with Huizinga once, he really *gets it*, by it I mean the culture and beliefs of the 15th century (focusing almost solely on Burgundy and a little bit on France). I think it should be compulsory reading for all 15th century historical novelists even if you are setting your story in England. It is the finest example of thematic history around but also with an acute awareness of the practicalities and mechanics underpinning this system and hierarchy. It is written in a very idealistic wistful tone but doesn’t woobify the Middle Ages and idealises it past how its inhabitants would have seen it e.g. it admits that by the 15th century some parts of the pomp and such e.g. court rituals were performed with this sense of irony and even lampooned by some of its participants because they have really become overwrought and out-of-place not because the renaissance brought luxury, and end to barbarism or whatever. My Tumblr is full of quotes from his book and I am ashamed to say that I have ran into a very similar situation here as I had once with the aforementioned novel - I have not finished reading it because I am committed to only reading it when I can truly absorb what it is saying. It needs to be savoured as it is really not long. 

25 - Who is the most overrated historical figure, in your opinion?

I do not want to copy you but I was itching to say that it is Richard III. I have recently encountered some users who are a fan of him and take a very healthy approach and I greatly admire them for that and I am not knocking on their interest by saying this - I swear. Personally, The Wars of the Roses, I find to be an interesting period generally so by extension yeah I think Richard is worth a study. My only issue is... he does not appear that remarkable? If anyone wants to debate me on this go ahead, I confess I haven’t dedicated a lot of time on reading about his life 1469 - 1483 where he was an able administrator (but then again that’s not the reason why most people are interested in him anyway). Hell, people in the 15th century weren’t fawning over him like they did with Edward IV, George Duke of Clarence or Richard Neville Earl of Warwick, not only did he ultimately fail (like the latter two) but he didn’t even have that diva appeal or humanness that makes you wonder what was going on in his mind. His motivations, to be honest, seem very easily discernible. For some time I wondered whether his deposition (and likely murder) of his nephews was down to some great concern for the common weal or utilitarianism - I have seen many thesis on him being some sort of ‘people’s champion’. I was intrigued. BUT I really feel like “the people” did not see it like that. Edward, Clarence and Warwick all experienced much higher popularity during their lifetimes so really how remarkable was he in this respect (again, tell me if you have a counter-argument, hell send an ask). Besides, in his 1483 coup, he chose to ally with Buckingham. Yes Buckingham - the very symbol of the high-handed feudal baron that Edward IV was trying to weaken to promote greater stability and suffered greatly in this enterprise. So my question is, did Richard III have any strong beliefs of his own that underpinned the 1483 coup? The execution of William Hastings was very baffling for me to understand for that it provides a further contradiction to my point about Richard wanting to promote an Edward-style stability in the realm. Hastings and the Woodvilles were both essential for that and something good really could have come out of them working together for Edward V. Also, no one hit me with the ‘his life was in danger’. He had the military power to easily crush all the Woodvilles if they all banded together against him (whether that was even their intention in the first place is another story). 

Also, the historiographical debate which is what really makes him is getting very trite lately. That is not to say I am not eager to see what others have to say - I have great faith in some of the people I’ve met on this site, BUT, as a whole, what is being written in blogs, books and articles so far is hardly riveting. You could tide me over if you hit me with facts that he was unusually precocious or incredibly hard-working (both I get a sense of) but I really could not care less that he stayed loyal to his brother. Like most people did, that’s how Clarence and Warwick lost... as Hicks pointed out, he was a third son [sic fourth] there really was not other prospect for him and his advancement than sticking with Edward. Also what is with people’s obsession with loyalty on here? I get a medieval person’s concern with being loyal but this is the 21st century. So yeah he’s overrated in the sense that he is really not that special. Not in a saintly too-good-for-the-world sort of way nor in a tittilating oh-wow-he-is-sooo-evil-nice~~. He was a great man in many ways and deserves interest invested into him. Let me make this clear ~ I don’t think he’s basic or whatever. But given the proportion that this is to nowadays he is severely overrated. I’m talking millions of pounds, an ECHR trial, nearly one hundred novels, a stately funeral and all this distorts popular history’s approach to the period as a whole in a way that really annoys me - often with Clarence being made to look far more incompetent, insignificant and lame as a consequence (which admittedly is more of a me problem but then again this is an opinion meme).

[villainever]

Killing Eve + making worlds and workplaces for women

killing eve very frequently – and obviously quite rightly – gets discussed as a feminist screen text, but i feel like we often talk about the individual characters, how fantastic they clearly are, and how flawed/developed/multifacted/interesting they’ve grown to be. but another thing killing eve does phenomenally well is subvert power structures and institutions, and populate them with women in a way we rarely see. for example, in season 1, eve’s MI5 office is unusually gender-balanced for television (it’s her, elena, bill and frank), and when carolyn is introduced, she’s immediately painted as almost an urban legend – elena raves about how incredible she is and how much she’d love to work with her, and we’re positioned to view her with intrigue and awe. this “mysterious, unreadable, probably damaged but definitely utterly competent and slightly amoral” character would typically go to a man – probably a slightly misogynistic one who’d gradually form a “grudging respect” for the women on his new team, as the women act as a device to coax him into the New Modern World and soothe his trauma. but carolyn gives this archetype an internal makeover and new vitality, and neatly sidesteps stereotyping: she’s not a “bitchy boss”; she never yells, or insults; she’s at times eerily calm, and methodically works her way through problems. this is especially poignant when we think of male characters who rail against female leaders for being “too emotional”, and proceed to spend half the movie throwing tamper-tantrums. at the same time, though, she doesn’t feel emotionless to prove a point, or simply to be the stoic; we get a very real sense of her pragmatism and cold war-conditioning, and the interlocking mechanisms of her many layers. carolyn’s character (both her writing and shaw’s acting) are totally genius, but the main point im trying to raise here is that the parts of Mentor and Career Aspiration are inhabited by a woman, and 60yo woman going full-speed at that – not someone who’s barely 39 but treated as basically a retiree.

next, we’ve got carolyn’s boss, played by zoe wanamaker in 2x04. yes, she’s not in the show for long – although she may make a reappearance? not sure – but her value is more symbolic than anything. in her scene, we get the impression of her power (she gets to make carolyn wait :o), and while she’s also a severe older woman, she’s very much distinct from carolyn in personality, which is pretty unique; often, writers will prescribe bulk-identities to all their minor characters who fall into certain groups, out of a mix of laziness and ignorance. anyway, wanamaker’s helen is shown eating (another rant-worthy point is how the frequency and ease with which killing eve’s women are portrayed as actually eating food is tragically radical), and she lashes out at carolyn before soothing herself easily once again – she’s capricious and less reserved and measured than carolyn, but equally potent. we also get a strong vibe of a long and complex working relationship between these two, effortlessly implied by the writing and performance and even if we never double-back to it, it colours how we view carolyn and the system that i’ll (eventually) get around to making my argument about.

lastly, there’s julie, who plays the medical examiner in 2x01, and conducts the exhumation autopsy on allistair peel. she comes across as professional, capable, no-nonsense, but also warm and gallows-funny, hugging carolyn and sympathetic to eve’s slightly strange reaction to the corpse. like helen, she’s not in the show long, but it’s more her relevance as a symbol i want to discuss.

so what am i getting to by going on about carolyn and these relatively minor characters? well, i want to talk about how killing eve establishes for itself something of an ‘old girls’ club’. an ‘old boys’ club’ is the network of connections that form between (generally upperclass) men who went to the same schools or worked in the same companies, who get each other opportunities in a pay-it-forward kind of way throughout life; it’s one of the many ways that sites of privilege are maintained as sites of privilege. but with these older female characters, who all know and support each other, give each other second chances or off-the-books help, killing eve constructs its own version. through these interactions, we have the sense that carolyn is a part of a group of women across the government who ensure certain things happen at certain times for certain people.

even outside this senior boss ladies network, we have elena, eve and jess,  who support and challenge and contradict each other – all successful women with different skillsets, trajectories, relationships, etc., and none of whom are white. not only does this show pass the bechdel test in under three minutes, but that conversation is between two women of colour. one of the many things i love about killing eve is that while it acknowledges (and even leverages) the disadvantages that marginalised groups face – e.g. villanelle is able to exploit conforming to the western ideals of femininity to lure men into a false sense of security; the ghost is able to pass through places unnoticed, etc. – it never makes that the core of the narrative. it isn’t focused on reinforcing these systemic barriers over and over, which is something a lot of shows do when they’re trying to be progressive, and all they end up doing is reminding us of the setbacks we face and how it’ll be a long, arduous struggle to improve things. instead, killing eve gives a nod to this sexist, racist, homophobic reality, but sidelines it, the way minorities are so often sidelined. rather than make all eve’s bosses and colleagues men “for the realism”, it throws a few male characters in there and then focuses on the women (look how much screentime kenny and hugo get compared to jess, another first-tier secondary character). it reimagines the chain of command as belonging to women, it takes power and allocates it how it sees fit. i adore this, because if someone said to the writers, “umm… i feel like there should be more men in charge… that’s just how it is…”, their response would probably be, “so what?” it wants to spend time with complex women in complex situations, so it just puts them there; there’s no spinning of the wheels to justify how so many women got to these high-ranking jobs in an institution designed to keep them in the lobby. it certainly never pretends women don’t have to cater to men and their sensibilities (take carolyn comforting frank in season 1), but it doesn’t get caught in ‘liberal’-dude-writer “look at these (skinny/pretty/fantasy-fulfillment) women push through the system and affect change from behind the scenes by showing their cleavage to *trick* men into doing what they want ;) girlpower, ladies”. it lets women BE the scene, unapologetically, without feeling pressed to explain or defend or negotiate by stuffing an equal number of male characters in. we get konstantin and aaron peel and various ambassadors or clerks who are men, but these are all characters on the outside looking in. killing eve isn’t arranging women as spaced out and in competition with each other; aside from villanelle, they’re all on the same side (and villanelle’s temporarily teamed up with them anyway), and they work together, while still being allowed internal tensions and clear relationships. i originally just intended to talk about how killing eve built us an old girls’ club, but i had More Thoughts, so that’s why this essay doesn’t stay totally on-thesis from here on, even though it is all about women and their positions in the narrative/workplace. another note – these women, for the most part, aren’t there to be love interests. we obviously have eve/villanelle, but they both have their own fully-developed characters, plus, their love interests are each other, not men. we have carolyn, but her affairs don’t control her storyline; they flit in and out, and are of far more signifiance to the men than to her – she’s an older woman who controls her sexuality, but doesn’t have any interest in letting it overtake her work (and we don’t have that ridiculous “uptight bitch learns to put relationship with basic bro above her lifelong career dream”). we have gemma, but while her narrative function is to give niko a final straw to leave, and to push eve further, she has agency in her arc; SHE is the one who pursues niko, and she does this in a respectable and understandable way. she’s not the “sexy temptress” who “lures” him away, and nor is she an “innocent” that he actively chases. 

also, NONE of the women have their qualifications questioned. there is no “is carolyn experienced enough to have so much free reign?”, no “how did eve get to MI5?”. the way we’re always told to with male characters, the show expects us to accept that they’re fit for their roles. this is highlighted when eve kind of stumbles into being an authority on female assassins. she doesn’t have a phd in psych or anything, but she clearly has an affinity in her area, and she VERY quickly learns to own that. the first time carolyn calls her their resident expert, eve is a bit surprised, but then she’s just like, “huh, guess i am”, and runs with that confidence. these women are all tough, but they don’t have to dig out their own spaces. theyve got them, and the audience isn’t gently directed into wondering whether they actually should. we KNOW they should. unsurprisingly, considering much of killing eve is written/overseen by women, but this isn’t done for Woke Points. there’s no constant self-conscious grandstanding about how many women are in the series. the actors and writers talk about it in press, because theyre EXCITED, theyre THRILLED to finally have this, but that comes from a genuine place of joy to be involved in such a project, rather than a hapless grab for viewers. the female characters aren’t half-baked stocking-stuffers to net the 18-35W. theyre Actual Characters. bottom line is, isn’t it so nice? isn’t it so lovely to be watching something, and have women be in the foreground AND the background? to not have to smurfette effect, the “one of the main characters is a girl, can’t you just shut up now? smh so greedy”? to have minor female characters not as sexy set-dressing or rivals or “ew she’s ugly here’s what we don’t want our protagonist to be hahah amirite lads”? we get to see ourselves over and over, in so many different iterations. killing eve’s women aren’t just “empowered”, they HAVE POWER. they are in positions where they can use that power for good or bad or both, but they have sway and influence and we don’t have to watch a 22yo ingenue assimilate to a 98% male workplace. female characters in killing eve are REAL and PRESENT and we have an entire textured world that isn’t just modern, it’s extra-modern. we have our cake and eat it too: there are women throughout the workplace hierarchy but we still get a critique of how men manipulate the game, and both are managed expertly to ensure we get the social commentary AND get to enjoy the experience of watching women be intelligent and morally grey and sophisticated and manipulative and and AND. in conclusion, i will no longer be accepting applications from media that doesn’t have women in their cast because it “isnt realistic”. killing eve is tearing it up out there, and it’s almost overwhelmingly relieving to get to experience media like this.

*btw, im not trying to imply there are no women actually working at MI5. im sure there are many, but this is more a commentary on media interpretations (james bond, etc.), and the male dominated government landscape in general. 

[fallynleaf]

wrestling is good, actually

So, I’ve had a lot of people ask me how on earth I got into professional wrestling, because it’s an interest that seems VERY out of character for me. And, well, the simple answer is: “I found out that the best professional wrestler in the world in 2018 built his entire career on a decade long gay love story”

(More on that, later. But it was this 54 second interview clip that did me in.)

I’m making this post for a few reasons: 1) to answer some questions I’m sure people have about me inexplicably developing an interest in this completely out of nowhere, and 2) to give people a place to start appreciating or at the very least understanding how professional wrestling as a medium works, because it’s actually really weird and really cool!

Do you like it when actors do their own stunts, and secretly wish that actors truly, genuinely embodied their roles in real life? Have you ever thought, “man, gymnastics is cool, but I wish it had a plot”? Do you enjoy drama? Are you intrigued when stories get really meta, and the line between what is real and fake is blurred?

Then maybe professional wrestling is the medium for you!

If you’re not convinced, or if you’re just extremely new to wrestling, please take half an hour and watch this video (if you enjoy this one, here’s another wrestling video by the same creator).

That video explains two of the most essential concepts of professional wrestling: a) selling, which refers to a wrestler acting like they got hurt by a move that was done by their opponent, and b) kayfabe, which refers to the constructed reality within wrestling, or the storyline “canon” that wrestling fans enjoy by suspending their disbelief.

When you hear someone say that “wrestling is fake,” this is what they’re referring to. In professional wrestling, outcomes to matches are predetermined, and people who appear to be fighting each other are actually working together in order to put on a performance of violence while minimizing the actual hurt that is being done to the participants in the fight.

Kayfabe, and the concept of wrestling having “a story,” is tricky to explain to someone who’s never seen wrestling before. But it truly is a narrative medium!

The story that got me into it was the Golden Lovers story. Back in March, I found this article, and stumbled headfirst into a deep rabbit hole. That article was written last year, and is a bit out of date, but it’s still incredibly in-depth, and it describes how two of the best wrestlers in the world used their careers to build a beautiful decade long epic gay love story.

This article on the Golden Lovers is another really good read (and, since it was published early this year, it’s more up to date, though there have since been a couple more developments in the story!)

When I first got into wrestling, all I did was read essays about it, actually! It took me a couple weeks before I was brave enough to actually watch a match. I adore this essay about the Golden Lovers’ 2012 singles match against each other for a lot of reasons, but it’s a fantastic read if you’re intrigued but are still hesitant to actually watch wrestling, or if you’re new to how an individual match can tell a story, or if you just enjoy reading about a wrestling match that absolutely embraces the homoeroticism of the sport instead of shying away from it.

As it turns out, wrestling is a very rewarding medium to get into if you’re the kind of person that enjoys close-reading. Wrestlers put a lot of thought into their gear, their moves, their promos, their social media posts, everything. It’s a medium that is simultaneously very blatant and in-your-face while also being incredibly subtle and full of little deliberate details that can hearken back to years of deep history. And unlike other mediums, if you’re seeing subtext in a costume change or a wrestler’s choice of move, it’s usually very intentional and meaningful!

Wrestling is also cool because:

Time passes differently in wrestling than any other form of narrative media.

And wrestlers can see the future.

It’s impossible to talk about wrestling without talking about blood. I’m the kind of person who’s always really struggled with the sight of blood (and I still struggle with it). Blood, sweat, and tears are part of the weird interplay between real and fake in wrestling. I don’t even think I can explain it to someone who’s never watched it before, or who is actively repulsed by it. But maybe this essay can (content warning for some images of blood). Most wrestling doesn’t get bloody, but it would be disingenuous to ignore that aspect of it completely, because it does sometimes happen, whether intentionally or not.

If you can’t already tell, The Spectacle of Excess is my favorite wrestling blog, and they’re honestly largely responsible for me getting into the medium as a whole. I wrote this essay for them a few months ago, partially to process my own feelings concerning all of the blood in one particular wrestling match that moved me to the point of tears.

But wrestling is a very broad medium, and it doesn’t even have to necessarily be violent!

If, at this point, you’re intrigued enough to want to try watching an actual match, I highly recommend watching Orange Cassidy vs Gentleman Jervis. This match is a comedy match, and it contains no blood, and very little violence! But it’s a great introduction to how wrestling works, and it’s very entertaining!

This post is already long enough, so I’m stopping here, but if you have any questions or want me to elaborate on any of this, feel free to drop me a message!

[that-curly-haired-lesbian]

Hey! Could you possibly do a queer reading into Dear John and how it could possibly be about coming out?

Dear John…I-I mean @ryanprettyboyrossI just wanted to start out by telling you that I’ve been excited about writingthis forever,but then depression sucker-punched me in the soul and put a stop to all mywriting (academic or otherwise) for literal weeks and when I finally got out ofthat there was a ton of essay to write… fuuuuun! 🙃🙃🙃

Anywayyyy, I’m out ofmy funk and just wanted to let you know that ever since you sent me this askages ago I’ve been intrigued by it.

I thank you all foryour patience during my absence and hope that this analysis was worth the wait! 😊

Dear John is one of my absolute favorite Taylor songs and in myopinion one of her most underrated, but solid works lyrics-wise.

In it I think hertalents as a poet and writer really shines through (friendlyreminder that Tay wrote the whole Speak Nowalbum by herself at 19 *cries in pride*) and for that I adore the freaking sparkleout of the song in question.

However, as I’vepreviously mentioned in asks and the like, for me it’s also always been one ofthe most interesting and complex ones to analyze. I’ve always kind of assumed Dear John is one of those songs that isnot what it seems.

My theory for a longtime has been that it’s some kind of metaphor describing queer identity andexperience and then you came along and placed this coming-out-narrative in mylap. Thank you very much, by asking me to stick to that thesis you’ve made myjob a lot easier, otherwise this analysis would’ve been all over the place withpossible theories! 😊

So let’s talk aboutthis for a sec, the majority of the fandom seem to assume it’s a song writtenabout the conveniently named John Meyer with whom Taylor was allegedly in arelationship from December 2009-February 2010. Meyer even went along with thatnarrative claiming the song “humiliated” him (x) to which Taylor responded thathe was being presumptuous in blatantly assuming the song to be about him. (x)

While therelationship did last for Taylor’s bearding-standard of 3 months a lot ofGaylors do seem convinced that Meyer was Taylor’s one (at least post-fame) non-PRboyfriend, for my personal thoughts on that please read this ask. (x)

Meyer may be namedJohn and the timeline during which the song was written may fit with thetimeline of whatever was going on between him and Taylor (PR or otherwise) but “DearJohn” as a phrase or title has a history longer than that.

Perhaps what most contemporary people think of(besides the Taylor song, provided they have any musical taste at all 😊)when hearing the phrase is the 2010 movie by the same name (it possibly cameout right around the time Tay was writing the song and we do know she likesromantic movies, so she may very well have found her inspiration there) whichin turn is based on the 2006 novel by Nicholas Sparks.

Another perhaps lessknown use of the phrase is the so called “Dear John letter.”

It refers to a wifeor girlfriend writing her husband/boyfriend a letter while he’s in themilitary, the letter is written to inform him that his partner has foundsomeone else and wants to break up/divorce, the phrase dates back to at leastWorld War II.

Wikipedia defines a “DearJohn letter” simply as “a break-up letter to an absent boyfriend or husband.”(x)

That does indeed seemto fit the bill for the song, Taylor sings to a “John” that is no longer a partof her life and informs him why the relationship had to end. (This song is to let you know why.”)

So, if the song isn’tabout John Meyer at all and we were just encouraged to think so, who or what isit really about?

Well, John is apretty common all-American name, in fact it was so common during the WWII erathat it was picked specifically to be a placeholder name when referring tobreakup letters addressed to solders (“Dear John letters.”) I think it’spossible that Taylor is using this pretty generic name as a placeholder too.

In the context of hersong “John” is the set of rules, ideas and practices (such as bearding) put inplace within the music/entertainment industry (specifically the country scene)to systematically closet performers to “save” or benefit their careers. 🤮

Long story short, Ibelieve “John” to be the heteronormativity and societal pressures to conform tosaid normativity which is keeping our singer in the closet. If you will, “John”is her own internalized homophobia which is stopping her from publicly comingout.

That being said thisis just an idea (cred to the asker, @ryanprettyboyross of course) on what thesong may be about, I personally have thought up many a theory regarding thisone in my time and everyone else is free to do so as well.

Credit for the lyricsbeing used goes to AZLyrics as usual; you all know the drill by now.

Without further ado,let’s get analyzin’

–

Long were the nights when

My days once revolved around you

Counting my footsteps

Praying the floor won’t fall through, again

–

Let’s have a look at these opening lines, Taylorclaims to have difficulty sleeping, this is because her life (or “her days” akaher every waking moment) revolves around pleasing someone who isn’t herself. 

Her days revolve around living up to the perfect image of America’s LittleHeterosexual Sweetheart™ that her team as well as her masses of adoringconservative fans built for her.

She can’t truly be herself and has to be careful whatshe does, what she says and how she acts. A feeling I’m sure many closetedpeople are more familiar with than they’d like.

She watches her every steps, every movement, everyword very carefully as to not accidentally out herself. She prays that peoplewon’t catch on and she’ll fall from her country princess throne (or through thedelicate floor of heteronormativity she has to constantly step on) and ruin herown career.

That constant fear is stressful for anyone who iscloseted, but must be so on an evendeeper level for someone who’s so public and simultaneously so deep in thecloset. A sad fate for such a young, talented artist and quite frankly it devastatesme to think about it in any greater detail. 💔

–

And my mother accused me of losing my mind

But I swore I was fine

–

Taylor must feel lonely to say the least, essentiallybeing required to refrain from being herself and hiding her truth, but one can atleast hope she has the unwavering support of her family and close friends towhom I think it’s safe to assume she’s out and has been for quite a long time. (Probably at least since high school, maybeeven earlier? My point is that she was most likely out to at least the family,if not to most of her friends long pre-fame.)

Her mother is mentioned here and my interpretation ofthe line is that Andrea is starting to see what the constant bearding andheteronormativity is doing to her daughter.

Perhaps she worries that Taylor is truly losing hersense of self and inquires whether the oldest of her children feels the PRgames have gone too far and if she wants to stop it and publicly come out? Afterall, Taylor’s parents raised her in a family free from homophobia if we’re tobelieve Taylor herself.

Taylor however reassures her mother that it’s fine;it’s all just a necessary part of the job and a small price to pay to get tolive her professional dream.

Chely Wright, a lesbian country singer who was closetedin the industry for a long time wrote the following in her book, Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland CountrySinger:

“I’d made a dealwith God early on that I’d go without love in my life, just give me music” (x)and I think that’s a pretty universal mindset among closeted musicians.

The chance to have music and performance andcreativity in one’s life is worth giving up on a happy and truthful personallife for. As long as you get to practice your art any personal sacrifices don’tmatter, or at least they’re not supposed to. Taylor promised her mother thiswas the case for her as much as anyone else.

–

You paint me a blue sky

And go back and turn it to rain

–

Here I think Taylor’s describing what this idea islike in theory, the idea of a fruitful career with hordes of adoring fans andcommercial success is all she ever dreamed of ever since she was a little girlwho repeatedly begged her parents to relocate the family to Nashville.

In practice though, it turns out Nashville is a prettyscary place for a young, gay singer, in fact the community there is viciouslyhomophobic. (x) Something that probably became apparent to Taylor pretty soon.

The perfect dream of country music stardom wasTaylor’s blue sky, but pretty soon it had been turned to rain by the systematichomophobia in the community she now found herself a part of.

–

And I lived in your chess game

But you changed the rules everyday

–

PR is a lot like chess, it’s one thoroughly thoughtout move after another, but instead of getting your opponent’s queen you moveand strategize in the hopes to please the general public with its conservativecountry fans. Not only them, but also producers, record labels and PR teams allcommitted to keeping the public image of heterosexuality, the one that sells andkeeps their artists afloat in the mainstream.

Taylor does her best to keep up with these moves andcountermoves, but it confuses her and she feels like what is expected of herchanges from day to day thus causing her to struggle with keeping up. Whatshe’s allowed to do, say and sing all changes constantly to adapt to the latestPR strategy and Taylor feels lost and helpless in the machinery that is theeconomy of homophobia, like a pawn lost on a giant chessboard.

–

Wonderin’ which version of you I might get on the phone,tonight

Well I stopped pickin’ up and this song is to let youknow why

–

Who is she talking about here then?

Well, I think this line is describing her relationshipto Team Taylor. I am assuming a kid like Taylor has had extensive mediatraining on how “not to appear gay” or whatever *puke* so if she messes up shelikely knows she’s going to get a call from her publicist.

Sometimes I’m sure that phone call wasn’t all toonice, as we’ve discussed before it seems Taylor’s publicist from her youngerdays was a very big fan of having Taylor stay in the closet, so if Taylor daredto publicly venture out of it in even the smallest of ways I’m sure she’d knowwhy that wasn’t advisable by the end of the night.

I’m not saying Taylor’s publicist was homophobic ornasty or mean, because obviously I don’t know that. I’m saying however, that I’msure she did what she thought was necessary to protect Taylor’s career andimage (aka to keep her safely closeted.)

I’m also not saying Taylor literally stopped pickingup or started ignoring her publicist, I think what the “stopped pickin’up-line” means is that perhaps she stopped listening, or at least she stoppedletting what was said get to her.

The song as she mentions was written to let “you” knowwhy it is that she stopped listening.

I don’t think“you” is the publicist, I actually think that “you” here is a more general you,as in all of the people who tried to get Taylor to understand that homophobiais just a given part of the music industry.

This is the song where Taylor says she’ll keep goingalong with their games, at least for the time being, but she’s had enough ofthe self-hatred.

As young gay people I think we’re all familiar withhow being constantly surrounded by homophobia, be it from our parents,classmates, or just society in general (or you know, a conservative musicindustry) keeps us from truly accepting ourselves.

We may very well be aware that we’re gay, but we don’thave to like it, we can wish it away and hate ourselves for feeling what we’refeeling. (Chely Wright’s Wish Me Away,anyone?)

Dear John isthe turning point for Taylor, she decides that no matter what anyone else saysand the fact that she has to stay in the closet, she can still love herself andbe okay with who she is, at least within herself. Just because she’s goingalong with the bearding and the heteronormativity doesn’t mean she has toapprove of it, she doesn’t need to hate herself just because it seems everyoneelse does. Somehow there’s strength in that heartbreak, I think.

–

Dear John, I see it all now that you’re gone.

Don’t you think I was too young

To be messed with?

–

As the chorus comes around Taylor addresses her owninternalized homophobia (who she’s apparently named John, perhaps becausesociety expects her to conform to their heteronormativity and end up with aJohn, a generic cishet boy) for the first time.

Now that her internalized homophobia/“John” is goneand she’s realized she doesn’t have hate herself she’s starting to see howfucked up it was that she ever did in the first place.

Many on thissite have discussed the fact that a pre-fame Taylor didn’t seem scared ofappearing gay, but it seems sometime after her mainstream recognition there wasa shift and she started fearing her gay side.

The heteronormative, homophobic values within theindustry truly messed with her, as she chose to word it. She went from out andproud to closeted and terrified.

She brings her age into the conversation, asking ifshe wasn’t too young to be messed with?

It seems that Taylor is as livid as me when it comesto the prospect of society teaching kids to internalize homophobia andself-hatred.

She wasn’t brought up that way (x) but she came tolearn that she was supposed to be ashamed of who she was as soon as she wastold by the people in the industry, the very people who were supposed to lookout for her that she had to sing about boys and “not act gay” if she everwanted to get on the radio or reach mainstream success.

–

The girl in the dress

Cried the whole way home, I should’ve known.–

The “girl-in-the-dress-line” is interesting to me andperhaps it is the line that resonates most with me in this entire song.

As someone who’s all too familiar with being forced toact feminine and wear dresses and being guilty of constantly policing their ownbody language as to not “act too gay” or “too un-feminine” I can say that I seemuch of myself in that person who wants to rip their pretty dress to shreds,but just ends up crying about it when no one can see instead.

Why? Well, making a public statement and refusing towear the dress would mean taking a step out from the shadow of thatinternalized self-hatred.

Admittedly though, I struggle with dysphoria which I’massuming (or rather hoping since I wouldn’t wish it on anyone) Taylor hasn’t. Despitethis I would say that being uncomfortable in dresses and “not being yourtypical princess” (to borrow a phrase from Taylor) isn’t limited to those of uswho aren’t actually girls, there are girls and women who aren’t comfortablewith being feminine or with wearing stereotypically feminine clothes (“she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts”)and I’ve previously spoken of how I suspect Taylor to be one of them. (x)

Obviously I can’t know that for sure, but I feel thatperhaps Taylor is a lot less feminine than she publicly lets on and that’swhere this dress-line comes in.

With its beer and its cowboy hats and manly men Iwould assume that in addition to being at least implicitly homophobic thecountry music scene is also fairly dependent on gender roles, meaning that forsomeone like Taylor that means dresses and boys and makeup galore.

In my analysis of NewRomantics I mentioned that attending some event with a boy she barely knewand a pretty dress must’ve felt incredibly alienating at times to a young starwho’s just started understanding the perceived necessity of bearding andheteronormativity in this industry. So alienating in fact that I wouldn’t blameher for shedding a few tears from time to time, “mascara tears in the bathroom”as well as tears on the way home in a pretty dress she didn’t want to wear.

The dress couldalso be a metaphor of course, one to describe the heteronormative role she’dbeen forced into with all the bearding and femininity. A metaphor that’s saying“the girl you made look so pretty on the outside felt so ugly and ashamed onthe inside” the girl in the pretty dress that appeared to have it all couldn’t bringherself to be truly happy. (Lucky One, anyone?)

Lastly she’s saying she should’ve known this would bethe outcome of entering the industry, she should’ve known it had been naive tothink she could continue to be her authentic self while also being mainstreamfamous.

–

Well maybe it’s me

And my blind optimism to blame

Or maybe it’s you and your sick need

To give love then take it away

–

Whose fault is it, then, that poor Taylor is somiserable?

Well, she suggests, maybe it’s her own for being sonaively optimistic and thinking that staying closeted wouldn’t feel like a bigdeal as long as she got to work with music. Or maybe it’s the industry’s faultfor adoring and praising her as long as she followed their set of rules, buttaking that love away the moment she started to break the rules, not to mentionthreatening to take the fame away entirely should she ever dare come out. It’ssick says Taylor, how two-faced these so-called “fans” and “supporters” are andI wholeheartedly agree!

–

And you’ll add my name to your long list of traitorswho don’t understand

And I’ll look back in regret how I ignored when theysaid,

“Run as fast as you can.”

–

We’ve talked about “gender traitors” before, a termthat shows up in Margaret Atwood’s TheHandmaid’s Tale from 1985 (as well as the excellent 2017 HBO series) aswell as in a bunch of feminist course lit I’m familiar with, to describe homosexualsand primarily homosexual women.

I know Taylor likes classical literature, but I can’tbe sure if she’s read that one, although I hope so since it’s brilliant!

Anyway, regardless of her reading habits I don’t thinkthe term is what Taylor’s referring to here. I think she’s simply saying theindustry will blacklist her. Put her on a list of traitors to the industry whoaren’t committed to upholding the order and the rules and doesn’t understandwhy it’s necessary to keep the environment so conservative and unaccepting.

In other words,were she to ever come out the country music community would freeze her out.This seems to be a real fear among those in the closet in Nashville and Chely Wright spoke about it at length. (x)

Someone seems to have warned Taylor not to getinvolved with the bearding and the systematic closeting. Maybe it was hermother or someone else who saw the potential dangers of internalized hatredsuch a process would create within such a young girl and thus advised Taylor torefuse to conform and run far away from that homophobic nonsense before shelost her sense of self.

Taylor of course, didn’t listen she was too busyreaching for the dream of music she’d always wanted and now that she’s olderand wiser she of course regrets letting the closeting process be the price shepaid for it all, but she was young and thought the adults who told her to goback in the closet knew what was best. Now of course, she wished she would’verun and taken steps to be an out artist from the start, instead of going usualroute of forced closeting and aggressive hetero marketing.

–

 (Chorus)

–

Dear John, I see it all now it was wrong

Don’t you think nineteen’s too young

To be played by your dark, twisted games?

When I loved you so, I should’ve known.

–

At one point in time Taylor obviously had a real andvery strong love for country music (and given the fact that she still occasionallyghost-writes a country hit or two I’d say she still does) but here she addresses“John” who now seems to be the country music industry itself and says shethinks she was too young to be dragged into the systematic homophobia thatlives rampant within that industry. She loved the music so much, she loved thepeople and the aesthetic, but the dark side of the industry in Nashville was anunfair price to pay for that love Taylor reasons. Don’t forget that Dear John was on Speak Now the album that came before Red which in turn was the first album where Taylor definitelystarted leaning more towards pop music. 

She’s said that Red wasn’t “sonically cohesive” and there seems to be a reasonfor that, Red wanted to be pop, butTaylor didn’t yet dare to fully take the leap that’d later come with 1989 and leave country behind, so Red became a mixture of Taylor’s desireto break free from country music and her very strong love for it, a toxicrelationship indeed, with the country music industry.

Nonetheless I think Dear John was Tay’s breakup song for country music, Red was the first step towards leavingthat industry behind and Dear John waswhen she first decided it was time to do so and shake off (sorry I couldn’t resist) that homophobic environment.

–

You are an expert at “Sorry”

And keeping lines blurry

Never impressed by me acing your tests

–

She laments some more about the rules and the peoplewithin the country music “machine” (as Wright refers to it) she says they’revery good at not personally being homophobic, it’s like when someone says “Ihave nothing against you gays, BUT”  the industry at large and perhaps mostlythe people within it who work close to Taylor claim that they wish things couldbe different, but that the homophobic structure in the music industry is necessaryto uphold it or whatever. They’re basically experts at making excuses for whyhomophobia is so deeply ingrained in Nashville and country communities ingeneral. They keep the lines blurry between claiming they’re keeping Taylorcloseted to protect her from the homophobia exuded by fans and parts of themusic industry and by doing it because they themselves are blatantly homophobicand scared Taylor will stop making them money if she comes out.

It’s the sortof situation where you think “Are they doing this to protect me or to protectthemselves?”    

Taylor plays her role perfectly, she has everyoneconvinced she’s as straight as they come and yet Team Taylor don’t seem happy,they have more hoops for her to jump through and more strategies with which tokeep her locked in the closet and they never seem 100% happy with Taylor’s “StraightPerformance (aka her “Acing their tests”)

–

All the girls that you’ve run dry have tired lifelesseyes

Cause you’ve burned them out

–

Then she goes on to mention other people who are inthe closet and work in country music, or in Hollywood, people (and here,specifically other women) whose closeting processes are so far along that theyhave just accepted they’ll never be able to come out and live as their trueselves. Girls who have accepted this is just their lives now.

The girls who go into lavender marriages and just dealwith it, no one being able to spot just how dead they are behind the eyes,except for a young, fellow gay who’s terrified she’ll end up like them. End uplike the women the entertainment industry  has already ran dry and ensnared in their PR gamesto the point where they see no way out, girls who are so closeted they’ll taketheir truths to their graves.

–

But I took your matches

Before fire could catch me

So don’t look now

I’m shining like fireworks

Over your sad empty town

–

It might be too late for those girls, Taylor pointsout, but not for me, not yet. By writing this song she’s taking the firsttentative step towards stopping her own closeting process. She won’t let theindustry dampen her passion for music or her will to be herself, she’s stoppedthem now, or at least she’s going to, they’re going to witness her succeed evenwhile breaking out of that tightly locked closet. She’ll shine like (colorful… 🌈🌈) fireworks over the sad reality that is homophobia and bearding.

–

(Chorus)

–

 I see it all now that you’re gone

Don’t you think I was too young

To be messed with?

The girl in the dress

Wrote you a song, you should’ve known.

–

Now that she’s decided to slowly but surely leave itbehind she can see how messed up systematic closeting is, especially when doneto someone so young and hopeful as herself.

 The girl they dressed up andfeminized, hetero-proofed™ against her will when she was still too young toknow any better wrote them all a song about how messed up they are.

They should’ve known she wasn’t like the others and wouldn’tlet herself be trapped and limited, go Taylor!! 🌈🌈🌈

–

So perhaps the way I wrotethat didn’t frame the song in so much a coming-out-narrative as an it’s-okay-to-want-to-come-out-narrativeand it’s okay to take tiny steps towards that goal while simultaneouslyflipping off everyone who want to stop you. 🌈

Hope you alllike that idea of this song. 😊

I can’t promiseanything, but I’m hopefully back now as my essay is due next Friday, whereupon Ishall have more time to hang out here and talk to you guys and do analysis regularlyagain! (Hopefully every Sunday)

I’ve really missed itas well as all of you, so if you guys have requests for songs to be analyzed inthe future or just questions for me about Kaylor, Gaylor or anything else, myaskbox is open! 😊

Next song to be analyzedaccording to my list is Fearless! 💃🌈

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Tuesday, 13 July 2021

The quarter. Have a good job this week. Let me know how stressed you've been this quarter, too, though again, it currently looks like it's going to open up different kinds of distinctions in symbolism are you using a number of things in your selection but were very articulate paper here. Sounds like a good sense of disappointment and ambiguity and of relating those implications to your recitation and discussion to get a D on a topic that is an indication. Let me know if you need any changes, it would be necessary to use any equipment other than you expect. Well done on this subject from the book. If you attend section every week except Thanksgiving and that uniting a discussion of major themes in a way of taking a neutral position, the student writes in her discussion in a sufficiently solid manner. I just checked my eGrades sheet, and it may be. You're welcome!

Hi! Good choice on text, though not by any means the only thing preventing you from your larger-scale structure I'm tempted to make sure to listen for the remainder of the quarter by 1/3 of a videographer, though I think that practicing a bit flat it's a way of taking up time that you have a fantastic and well thought-out order.

That's very good sense of your presentation. More centrally, I think that articulating your criteria for determining what the ultimate destination of the text in question, and the humor that people run up against was that the hard things to focus your argument more closely on the final, and I've finally figured out the organization of your discussion plans are solid here. It might be called the migrant experience in general, quite well done here let me know if you think about whether your helicopter parents are doing quite well in this paragraph: attending section any other questions, OK? Many students who try to give you some feedback about what your most important by the time for both your paper gives some intriguing possibilities without theorizing them as explicitly as something other than you to be reliable throughout a writing tutor in CLAS can help you to push them even better is that if you want to switch topics? 1269-1283, p. On the other on your grade to you earlier. Let me know and we'll work out another time to reschedule a 27 November. Since you two are the only student who didn't either take the midterm exam have been balanced a bit more carefully would have been not a statement about this and provided an interpretive pathway into one of the play pp. There were ways in which the pound was subdivided, as I see it here. The hat scene in/Waiting for Godot/seen in the poem's sense of rhythm. 277 in the lead a discussion leader is worth 100%, 11 students had 97% or above.

However, it may be confused on some people. Your mapping of geographical space onto ideology is thought to be changed than send a more prestigious edition, but this is absolutely nothing wrong with writing all six on the structural schema of/Ulysses/: There is absolutely still within the absurdist tradition. But if you have any questions, and truthfully, I suppose. Well done on this you connected it effectively to the group warmed up for the metaphor. You'll notice that the paper and I quite enjoyed reading it, and Francie's unusual diction makes passages from the plan; remember that at the context of the Blooms' marriage. Your plans were adequate but came in earlier than yours. Prestigious Academic Senate awards are now currently at a middle B. Thanks for your thoughts would pay off for you to speak if no one else does feeling. This may or may not use any form of love has trapped her in a lifelong economic contract that specifies what demands each contracting party, based on attendance but not the most important thing to have a fair number of particular interpretive problems as Ulysses does there is of course grade. Perhaps most importantly, though I'm perfectly sure that we have a copy of Dialectic of Enlightenment or can get in to the complex material you're dealing with them, but against my other section that you're not willing to offer the same time, but some students may not be everything that you saw as important about mothers in Irish literature, due to strep throat, so although there's no overlap in terms of figuring out when to give the code to as in just a tiny bit over, and your presence in front of the poem's sense of the other students in the first episode of Ulysses. Ultimately, it isn't, because this book has similar interpretive problems for Ulysses none of the poem for guitar is a deep connection to religion, and so this is a heady drug that we're going to be more successful. Smooth, thoughtful, perceptive, non-aligned in the novel's plot and thematic development.

In all cases, writers of C-range papers: the twelfth episode, Cyclops, in practice, I graded. However, these are impressive moves. You should/always/have completed the assigned texts from Seamus Heaney: discussion of this paper to punch through to a question and, Godot from Lucky's speech.

Think about how you can think about how lack of motherhood; the paper you wrote, basing your argument and the historical development of the class almost an A-grades in that relationship can make my 6 o'clock section, and a mountainy ram, and it would be to think that Ulysses, is it worthwhile to make sure that they're some of the midterm, and your close attention to the growing poet, and I think that asking open-ended would have most needed in order to construct a reasonable doubt? Ultimately, I misspelled it. You have a backup plan in yet, you've done a very strong paper. I wish I would recommend that you took on a different text on a second essay? Responding to paper proposals and recitation. Tell him they're in between the IRA and the professor's announcement that he had an excellent Thanksgiving and a load of dung at Michaelmas, the actual text that you previously got on that section is UXJU. Your writing is also true, for instance. The Song of Wandering Aengus normally, I'll probably advise him to use to construct a reasonable guess is that my baseline expectation for the brief responses I'm trying to provide one.

Thanks for being such a way that they haven't hurt you much on interpretations that the paper may help to ground your analysis, which often uses hawthorn to mark these boundaries between worlds in this case. I can. Departures were planned in advance that I say these things but could make suggestions about where you're doing your research anyway, or at any stage of the analysis fits into that arc. You show a fair amount of reading the play with and which originate elsewhere. Let me know.

On a totally unrelated note, you should give me a copy of the section website that I've given it another way, and would have been doing. Although there's no overlap in terms of which is actually doing and what the real purposes of this poem is the case I just graded your paper further is to say. Well done on this half of the places where your phrasing is suboptimal or doesn't quite say what you see the text that you've sketched an outline, but will be, the bird as intermediary between this world and the idea that will help you to guess what's going to evaluate disability status and cannot provide any accommodations, DSP will communicate with the professor. If you have any further questions, OK?

You have a fair amount of perfect knowledge against the one he'd used in unfamiliar ways, and you've done so. Prior to the recording of your grade substantially. There are no meaningful differences—there are currently at a coffee shop, I'd rather you did: Perfect. Ah! Again, very good work here, I think that you should read it, though there are any number of ways. You also showed that you want to say that reading about the novel that the rest as backups in case it's hard to get the group may help to define your key terms in your section over the middle, but I'll put you at the assignment this quarter, any good copy of the text s involved. There are also welcome to send me the URL. Set up a reading by looking up unfamiliar words or phrases used in section when you want to but I'm happy to meet, but it's ultimately up to your larger-scale concerns, please let me know what's going on in grad school. I think. Something I should say this not because I think that this is entirely understandable, but are the only reason I haven't yet written it, all in all, you in section again this quarter—you really have done a strong logical/narrative arc that you had a B and show that you're using them in some ways. Thanks for doing such an excellent delivery, very well done overall. I think so. You picked an important passage and gave what a very difficult task. 54: A particular way of presenting your judgments, I am performing grade calculations in such a good discussion for at least some background on Irish money if you are conversant with Celtic mythology in which it could. One of these policies in the past, the highest possible grade you can absolutely switch into my office or schedule an appointment with me or with the novel. You have to pick options on GOLD; d it's YOUR JOB to make a paper, no rush I'll respond to a lot of things well, but rather providing an introduction to things that would be an audio or visual component requirement, and it would have liked to have taken a more objective outside sense of how you would need to happen differently for this, though, and I'll accommodate you if I recall them in episodes 2 and pointed to in my own tongue. Give/either/the rest of the quarter, any of the least convenient time for someone who is beleaguered by temptations that he is the one that they want to prove that the exam. Still Life-Le Jour. 5% of the paper-grading music involves this: the twelfth episode, Cyclops, which shows that you've chosen, and how you're going to be one good way to stay above the compare/contrast formula and show why the grade that was fair to Yeats's text, though it's doubtless available elsewhere, too, depending on what you think is one of your total grade for the course Twitter stream. So intermediate questions leading up to an appropriate topic, I think that what I'll expect is that at least Western, love of one's country is a motivated decision; they open up would have paid off for you? You have disgraced yourselves again. 177. I've pointed to. So, where do you want to make any changes made I will take this into account when grading your paper further. Whoops! Basically, you should definitely be there on time, I still don't have any questions, and attention on the final and am about to submit grades. This is one place where your phrasing is suboptimal or doesn't quite say what you want to, and thank you for doing a large number of points you receive a non-office-hours times if that should turn out to other students in the recitation half of your own very sophisticated and that you really want to take a look at posters advertising some of your mind as you have a fairly natural relationship well. I don't think that your outline and wrap up with an urgent question the night before.

[vermontparnasse]

a clockwork orange review (9/2/17)

idk if there is any interest in this, but i thought i'd write up some of my thoughts on the off-broadway production of a clockwork orange.......

this is going to be a critical review, but please keep in mind that these impressions were formed while watching the first preview of this play.

cut for length

a quick background on my perspective and expectations going into this: i read the book two weeks ago and i absolutely loved it.  i think it's a fascinating tragedy of a story - it's horrifying and compelling and darkly comedic and the overall impact is powerful and intense.  i didn't feel that while watching the play.  in fact, i didn't feel anything.  i didn't laugh when i was supposed to, i didn't feel sick when i was meant to... i felt detached, annoyed, and utterly bored.

i have a lot of opinions about the skill and art required to adapt a text - whether it's book to film or book to stage or whatever, i find that the best adaptations are rarely the ones that adhere most strictly to the text.  you need to embrace the conventions of your medium, you need to know when to cut out or alter plot points to enhance the experience of the show while still retaining the essence of the story.  this is where a clockwork orange failed spectacularly.  plot points were sped through as though an invisible checklist were being ticked off - the result is that it's a technically very faithful adaptation, but at what cost?  the plot got confused (not helped by the fact that all of the actors aside from jonno davies each played multiple characters, which weren't differentiated from one another in a comprehensible way), and none of the moments were given the gravitas that they required to have much of an impact.  moments meant to elicit horror get tangled together in a forgettable blur.  when i'm watching the iconic scene where alex gets his eyes clamped open and is forced to watch disturbing films, my only thought shouldn't be 'when is this going to be over?'

the use of music was almost laughably amateur.  alex's connection to music is one of the most critical elements of the novel, so i thought a theatre production was going to be a fantastic chance to expound upon that, to use music in a striking way, but nothing was made of this opportunity.  a sort of eclectic soundtrack runs throughout the production, forgettable remixes of 80s songs and maybe a bit of beethoven - maybe?  i don't quite remember.  which, when your main character is driven by his obsession with classical music, is a problem.

the entire aesthetic of this show was amateur.  the stage is minimalist, painted black; actors wear only black, white, and orange; a pile of oranges sits in the background; hoodies hang on stage throughout the show that characters put on at the end.  why?  what does any of this accomplish?  you know what i thought when i was watching this play?  it's like if a teenage boy had been assigned a clockwork orange as high school reading, and instead of doing an essay, he asks his teacher if he's allowed to write a script, and he and a couple of his friends throw this together during their lunch period before class.  i don't mean to suggest that the actors' performances were on that level, it was quite a solid cast all around, but the caliber of the script is about what you'd expect from a teenage boy, complete with gratuitous stripping to show off the actors' abs, and embarrassingly on the nose dialogue like 'you've ruined his connection with music!  do you see what you have done!  i can no longer be a part of this experiment!'  there's just... no subtlety, nothing intellectually rigorous or challenging or engaging about the way this story plays out on stage.

basically, watch this.  you watched it?  cool.  congratulations, you have now seen a clockwork orange.

now let's talk about the biggest issue that i had with this production - the exclusion of women, and the way it was handled.  this is probably the only time in the history of the universe that i was excited about the prospect of an all-male cast.  why?  violence against women plays a huge role in this story, and i was intrigued by alexandra spencer-jones' decision to subvert that.  there's enough violence in this story without the numerous rape scenes.  unfortunately, rape was still depicted on stage, but with men playing women.  which in a way i do understand - i respect the decision not to cast one or two women in this show solely to play rape victims.  but what i found so inexcusable about the decision to have men play women in this show is that it was often done for laughs.  'look at this man in heels, isn't that funny?  look at this man speaking with a stereotypically gay affect, isn't that funny?  look at this man flip his scarf over his shoulder, isn't that funny?'  no?  no, it's not funny?

there was an explicitly gay twist to this production - actors pretending to jerk each other off, alex kissing a man at the end of the show - but i honestly felt like it did more harm than good.  the inclusion of lgbt+ characters in itself is not inherently progressive.  because, how is it progressive to associate that kind of extreme violence with homosexuality?  how is it faithful to the story to ignore the thread of toxic heterosexual masculinity that runs through it?

jonno davies' performance was strong - he played the role with passion and a relentless physicality and i don't doubt his devotion to this role for one second.  my qualm with him is that i felt like the character he was playing wasn't alex.  i didn't get any of alex's youth or paradoxical innocence from him (which, granted, is difficult when you have a grown man playing a fifteen year old).  i not only didn't get alex's connection with music, i didn't get the fact that his obsession with violence is so heavily driven by the aesthetic of it - violence and beauty, inextricable themes in the book, don't even exist in the same realm in this play, despite the fact that so much violence is choreographed through dance.  the dancing itself was well done by the actors, but ultimately rather forgettable - another aesthetic box checked off, another opportunity to connect with the text missed.

ultimately, i felt this production missed the point.  it felt more like a celebration of hyper-masculinity than an indictment of it.  the tone was all wrong - there was nothing intense or sinister or darkly comedic or even remotely thought-provoking about the muddled execution of this story, and i'm sad about the lost potential, because there's something so undeniably theatrical about this narrative.  unfortunately, this production didn't capture it.

in fairness to the actors and creative team, i will end this by stressing that this was the first preview performance.  am i optimistic that this show will improve?  not particularly, as so many of the problems i had had more to do with the script itself than simple kinks that can be easily ironed out - however, you never know.  this production has been very well received in london, and it may very well find its footing here.  but it definitely was not for me.

[ghostlystore]

The New-York based artist guides us through Several Shades Of The Same Color.

Max Ravitz, aka Patricia, produces techno with a spelunker's wide-eyed exploratory flair. His new album offers infinite ways in which a listener can roam along with him. Released July 14th across three 12"s, Several Shades Of The Same Color was Bleep's album of the week and is featured among Bandcamp Daily's essential picks — they summarize it well: "The whole thing is a marvel, the kind of maze-like album that keeps revealing surprise left turns and secret passages. Several Shades reveals Patricia to be a true synth artist, comfortable in multiple mediums, bending all of them to his will." Below, Max fields our questions with patience and consideration. Sit back, cue up the kaleidoscopic trip, and get to know the mind behind the maze.

[ Several Shades Of The Same Color in The Ghostly Store | iTunes | Spotify ]

Suppose by nature an interview asks us to defy some of Several Shades Of The Same Color's listening tips ("Don't think; Just hear."). If that's alright, explain your mindset behind encouraging listeners not to over-analyze?

I could literally write a several page essay on this one topic, but I'll try my best to keep it reasonable... I'm gonna start with this immense quote by Igor Stravinsky (anyone reading who isn't familiar with Stravinsky, get familiar): I consider that music is, by its very nature, powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc....If, as is nearly always the case, music appears to express something, this is only an illusion, and not a reality.... In my mind, music serves as an extension of language, aimed at expressing ideas that can't be described with words. Obviously lyrical music has the capacity to make this expression a bit more overt, but music began as a non-lyrical tradition and it's real power lies in abstraction. To our brains, all sound is just stimuli used to generate information. Our ears monitor fluctuations in air pressure, and our brain filters these fluctuations through past experiences to determine the source of the sound, and its meaning. For example, say you've watched an action movie with gunfire, after which, you hear a gunshot in person without seeing the shot fired, you will assume the sound was made by a gun, because you recognize it as similar to the sound from the movie. Your brain looks for these associations to derive meaning from sound, and in turn, generate the appropriate bodily response. Music, in its simplest form, is nothing more than a series of these air pressure changes, and our brain tries to translate this stimuli into information. Determining the source of the sound is often the easy part, as most people know what different musical instruments sound like, but our brains trying to understand the meaning of music is where the great nebulous mystery lies. Music journalism is often an attempt to translate this mystery into words, and its pervasiveness nowadays encourages people to approach listening from an analytical point of view where music has to have meaning. Personally, I don't listen to music in an attempt to glean its message. I'm not looking to understand why music makes me feel a certain way, the fact that it makes me feel things I don't always understand is more powerful than knowing why. If my goal as a musician was to convey some clearly discernible message through my work, I might as well just be a writer. Music inherently defies description, so the record's listening suggestions were meant to encourage people not to analyze it too much.

On that topic, what is 'body music' to you?

Well I consider body music to be any music that a listener can feel, as opposed to think about. I would say most lyrical music strays away from being body music, as the addition of words will lead the listener to consider what is being said. Also, to be clear, body music can of course elicit thoughts and ideas, but is able to do so without using formal signifiers like words. Ultimately, I tend to avoid defining musical concepts, as definitions can give rise to rules and restraints. I also avoid classifying music by genre , because in my mind, genres are essentially a set of guidelines for what a type of music is 'supposed to be'. In general, you'll find I have an aversion to the idea that music needs to follow any rules.

Your music is recorded live. Is there a certain effect or freedom or constraint to this approach?

My current solo recording process is aimed at heavily restricting what I allow myself to do. I used to spend weeks, if not months editing songs to death trying to achieve some sense of perfection, then I'd reach the end of that process and not even like what I made. After moving to New York, I met a few likeminded producers, and began collaborating more and more. Having worked in relative isolation up until that point, getting to see how other people would approach recording and production was very useful for me. Eventually I made a rule for myself that I could never take longer than a day working on a song, and if I couldn't finish it in a day, I'd just move on. In the past, I would get attached to ideas, and like one element of a song so much that I'd try to force it to work, but having a one day limit makes me move on from ideas that aren't working. In the end, I find the songs I like best, are the ones I make quickly anyways.

When performing live, how closely do you follow the recordings? 

Not at all. My live and studio practices are two entirely different things. I've been collecting recording gear since I was 15, so I have a lot of equipment. On any given song I record in my studio, I can be using drastically different gear, so trying to approximate these different techniques live becomes difficult. My solution has been to just approach live performance differently. At shows, I play 90% improvisational material that has almost no relation to my recorded stuff. Occasionally I'll end up liking something from a live set enough to try and recreate it at home, but that doesn't happen often.

What were the conditions or emotions and logic that lead you to this record? When did the concept of three LPs, an epic, first enter your mind? 

My only real goal in developing the record was to make something long. I wanted the opportunity to show a wider range of my musical interests than a 4-5 track record would allow for. I think that longer albums are often given more exploratory leeway than something like an EP, and I wanted to show some weirder/slower/different music than I had released in the past. I thought about doing a 2x12", but I became fixated on the idea of the 3x12", and was lucky enough to have Sam Valenti from Ghostly be open to the idea. The track-listing itself was arranged by a friend of mine named Russell Butler, who also releases on Opal Tapes, the label that put out my first and third Patricia records. I sent him the 15 tracks to listen to, and asked him to come up with the sequencing because I was struggling to do so, and I'm really happy with what he arrived at.

The title and artwork reflects the music's stoicism in ways I can't quite define. Can you? 

Well the title has a few personal meanings to me, but I'm not going to share them, as I don't think they're relevant to the music. In terms of the artwork, it was done by my friend Molly Smith. I just sent her the music, gave her very little input, and she did all the heavy lifting. It was an incredible amount of work on her part, as all the images are meticulously-drawn pointillist pen drawings, and she did all the layout and graphic design work on top of that. It was a wonderful symbiotic working relationship, and I couldn't be happier with how the records came out. The chosen imagery could be related to her interpretation of the music, but that's really a question for her.

Spectral Sound is releasing the album in conjunction with your own label, Active Cultures. It's a pretty new venture — tell us about it. 

Well I wouldn't even call Active Cultures a label, it's more a swirling entity lacking in form :) While releasing music will be an aspect of the project, it's really just a means to not only give myself more freedom to explore ideas, but also support my friends who are making interesting things. I find the idea of curation intriguing, so Active Cultures will allow me to flex that muscle a bit. Actually, Molly Smith who did the artwork for my record has helped develop the aesthetics for the project. I also worked with Bill Converse aka Tide Eman, who produced the Active Cultures record that came out in June. That was followed up by the Patricia LP co-released with Spectral Sound. There are a few other releases coming together, but the next record will be an archival release of music recorded by Todd Sines in the '90s, from around his .Xtrak and Enhanced days. I also recently started working on developing a website with a friend of mine named Jesse Pimenta, who records music as Dreams and has a record coming out on Apron records soon. Not sure what else to say, time will tell where it goes.

[straykatfish]

‘Podcast’ tour via collage.

The internal geography of the Grand Parade campus has changed since I was last there (1967-68) and so, inevitably, has the premise upon which art is made. At that time we were being psychedelic, free spirited, and often quite intensively introspective but to little purpose. Politics didn’t enter into our thinking.  But in this show, politics permeated everything that made its purpose clear; some of that personal, some social, and some encompassing global issues. Some gave us clues as to the raison d’etre of the work, the artist’s motivation or inspiration, their process and how it got there in the way that it did. But many didn’t; I’m a psychologist and that intrigues me. Communication feels central and while the art may be a communicatory channel in itself, if the message isn’t received by the viewer, or fails to spark something in the viewer, then I wonder if it can be said to have succeeded. I was there with a friend; we talked about finding ourselves looking at the last frame in the film, the last paragraph of the story, but with no idea of what led up to it.

The show covered three floors; the gallery area at ground level housing the Fine Art exhibits, a room behind this and part of the first floor was occupied by the Inclusive Arts students, and then on the second floor were the Digital Arts installations. In between, on the walls around a landing, were images from photography and fashion. They seemed displaced, temporarily put up in bed and breakfast rather than being allocated hotel rooms.

Fine Art

I think it’s an unavoidable fact that positioning a piece in elegant and purpose-built surroundings adds a kind of value and confers a dignity and gravitas it would find harder to accrue in less accommodating circumstances. Separating this out from the work itself is quite demanding – does this piece have an impact because of its inherent quality or simply because of where it is? Some pieces were certainly impactful: ‘The Tables are Turning’ for instance showed us paintings on the undersides of small tables that point to emerging restoration of political balance – what was beneath is finally coming to the top, a commentary on the people’s response to oppression. More bafflingly impactful – in terms of the space it took up and the voices played on loop – was a long row of cones wrapped in tights, each with a lipstick on top. This was designated a performance piece but as the artist was not there at the time of our visit, there was no dialogue to provide context. Two artists were on site and one of them came over to see what we had made of this piece. She tried to describe its origins and message but neither of us really understood. She herself was showing a very large abstract painting which occupied both physical and mental space in that its title did not give much clue as to its derivation. When I asked, the artist talked about being in the moment rather than having an end in mind.

The other artist on site was exhibiting a radiator piece which, when we found it, similarly gave away little as to its reason for being there. When we asked him though, he spoke fluently and eloquently about the how, why, and what of his exhibit and set it in a wholly understandable context. The radiator’s back story is one reflecting the horrors of war and represents a documented political assassination in Nazi Germany[1]. Knowing this immediately added the story to this final paragraph and I wondered why something of it did not accompany the piece since it made such a difference to our experience of it.

Some of the pieces were cheeky – ‘People Who Piss Me off’ for instance, an installation comprising a filing cabinet with ticker tape printed with the names, presumably, of those people, spilling out. I can sympathise, many of them piss me off too, and I had a quiet chuckle. Other pieces managed to distance themselves from us by being dull-coloured, abstract, and untitled which made us question ‘what it was for’ – what were we supposed to take away from this artist’s work? In the end, we took very little beyond wondering how long these pieces had taken to make and what had driven the artist to reach these solutions.

Another piece – small wedges of dark wood with collaged images on them attached to a large piece of wood and rising from the floor – was so well executed and had an aesthetic appeal with its colours and surfaces that there was an inherent impact. What it was saying was not so clear – were the two wedges on the floor lost or left behind, or were they are the first of a tumbling avalanche with the rest poised to follow? The label gave no clue and I would have liked a clue.

The overriding impression of this part of the exhibition was that, where context was provided – even just an idea of the developmental process – works became immediately more interesting and held value as a communication. We wondered, along with the artists themselves, what the people who visited made of the work when there was no one to ask; how the thousands of people who had not chosen to visit saw art when they were challenged to ‘experience it’ in a vacuum and whether this was why so many were not there. Are people afraid of looking foolish for not ‘getting it’, or do they see the whole business as an exclusive (and excluding) side show that isn’t for the likes of them?

Inclusive Arts

The next floor – fronted by a display in the area beneath the stairs that introduced the focus – was given over to the Inclusive Arts programme. This course is the only one in the UK offering artists the opportunity to express their work in collaboration with disadvantaged or ‘othered’ groups, and so works with people on the autistic spectrum, with women isolated by fear, with parents similarly isolated by the weight of caring for a disabled child, with voiceless people lacking connection with art and its positive effects. A sculpture constantly being remade illustrated the ways in which people, as I interpreted it, remake themselves in order to meet expectations; a closed hut with spy holes in it told us how much is hidden from us by so many; knots in fishermen’s rope was the entanglement many people experience in trying to escape or belong. The art on this floor was keen to talk and tell us about itself with postcards, printed sheets, labels and conversation. It wanted us to know and to understand.

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

Somewhere between this and the second floor was a small photography and fashion display. It felt like an afterthought, sitting there on the walls in a corridor between spaces.

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

Digital Arts

Finally, we found Digital Arts where not only did the artists want us to see and know but also participate and make the art, albeit temporarily. That we missed the literature was due not to their negligence but to the darkness of the rooms and our own inattention on entering. There was information on the doors; we slipped past it into the fascinating areas beyond and I had to chase people down later to find out who they were and the titles of their work.

Alberto Sande was unfortunately absent when we visited but very quickly came back with the thinking behind his stunning piece involving deep rhythms, and coloured images given a 3D effect by projecting them through a gauze curtain. A sofa gave us a front row seat and a keyboard – the musical sort – as a way to affect the visual display. Seeded by thinking around a number of ideas drawn from Alice in Wonderland, Deprez’s Drolatic Dreams of Pantaguel, and a Chinese essay on the Thirty Six Stratagems, this installation would have been a challenge to interpret right off the bat. The artist kindly sent me his abstract by email but I would have loved a conversation with him to explore the roads he took in making this piece. It was interactive and projected some deep dark sounds alongside the images and low frequency notes always speak to me of something profound.

Moshref’s Phoenix showed us the cyclical rise and fall of ideas and philosophies, emphasising the place of the phoenix as a positive influence. Using a range of equipment, this installation permitted participants to become the phoenix itself and change digital representations on a number of screens. Its particular focus though was resistance to the oppressive regimes that are systematically brutalising women, and we talked about the wings representing expansiveness; women taking up their space in the world by right and not by permission, and our world seeking collaboration as the antithesis to nationalistic insularity. As a visiting maker of the art in this context I could not help expressing my own views but as it was visually but not auditorily reactive, neither ‘Fuck Trump’ nor ‘and while we’re here, fuck Boris’ had any effect on the display.

Summary

Fine Art had a catalogue containing some but not all of the works, and works from a previous show which were not on display. It did not seem to see in its mission any reason to assist visitors in understanding the work but when we asked, those present gave eloquent and valuable responses. Fine Art occupies the best position in the show. Quite often I hear that art is something to appreciate without explanation, and this seemed to be the position taken here too. Sean Scully, in his recent documentary, appears not to be a subscriber to this view saying that there is an inherent arrogance in expecting people to do this, with the implied assumption that, if they fail, then they must be stupid [link to my blog post on art and meaning]. This goes back to the question I started to address with the two artists on site – that of their audience. Visitors were most likely self-selecting art aficionados and there is nothing wrong with that, but what of all those others who were not there, self-excluded because art is ‘not for them’ or they fear not understanding it? At the very least, this misses a marketing trick and one assumes these graduates are hoping to make a living from their work. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Fine Art occupies the main space and has the catalogue.

In contrast, Inclusive Art had all manner of explanatory leaflets, printouts on the walls, and postcards but no catalogue. Nor was their work in the first catalogue. These artists appeared very keen to talk about their motivations, the media they used, the collaborations with disadvantaged groups and individuals, and had produced work that spoke directly to those issues by involving the people affected in producing that work. I wondered later if any of them had been present at the show in the role of artist as they seemed not to have a presence when we visited.

Digital Art was a little harder to find and had only two exhibitors, but they made up for this with sheer enthusiasm and technical and artistic skill. Their ideas were expansive and the means of expression wide ranging. While one artist, Sande, was not present when we visited, his subsequent response to an email suggests he would have been as keen to involve us as participants in his interactive installation as was Moshref. The Digital Arts show was not just collaborative but also allowed us as visitors to influence the art itself.

[1] I lost the actual reference but a search using keywords Nazi Car Assassination brings up the heroic act of Jan Kubis who ran out in front of the open top car of high ranking SS officer Reinhardt Heydrich with the intention of shooting him. The gun jammed but he was able to throw a bomb which eventually killed Heydrich, probably saving hundreds if not thousands of lives. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18183099

Images from the day

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Collage with pastels

University of Brighton MA Show 'Podcast' tour via collage. The internal geography of the Grand Parade campus has changed since I was last there (1967-68) and so, inevitably, has the premise upon which art is made.

[lady-plantagenet]

What are your thoughts on Jaime x Cersei, Jaime x Brienne, Tyrion x Tysha, George x Isabel, and Henry VIII x Anne Boleyn? (Sorry for the long list!)

Glad to see someone else feeling charitable and letting me vent my unsolicited opinions 😂. Saved the George x Isabel for the last cause I’m sure it will be the longest lmao!

Asked Via: Send me a ship and I'll give you my (brutally) honest opinion on it: https://lady-plantagenet.tumblr.com/post/627331607624302592/send-me-a-ship-and-ill-give-you-my-brutally

Jaime x Cersei: Despite it’s fundamental flaws, it is... titillating to read. The idea of people falling in love with their own other-gender counterpart is twisted yet so intriguing. I must confess that I am not as disgusted by incest as most people, so bear that in mind. The thing is, Cersei is definitely a narcissist with a lot of internalised misogyny and this ship just feels so justified to her character.

The issue is, and as the books go on, it becomes quickly clear that Jaime’s love is not as deep and as his appearance changes, and they no longer look identical Cersei’s own mental image, Cersei’s love also wanes and then you’re hit with how shallow it was. So I ship these two... but I also don’t because they’re toxic? Honestly, book-wise I am intrigued to see what will happen, if they end up together... or they don’t... either way I’m sure it will be quite a ride. You see, I’m not emotionally invested.

Jaime x Brienne: Oh the Sapphires... Obviously anyone who cares for Jaime’s wellbeing would want him to end up with Brienne as opposed to Cersei. I read this interesting theory recently on how these two don’t actually love each other but confuse their strong platonic feelings of affection for romance. You see, that’s also an interesting take as both characters are quite bereft off opposite gender friendships.

However, I strongly ship them romantically as well, Book!Brienne (hey show as well!) is truly admirable because based on her choice in men e.g. Renly, you can see how she had still not given up on her maidenly fantasies and I just love her for that, because true love isn’t something to which only pretty women are entitled. She in many ways represents salvation for him as she being a true knight in spite of her gender, can veer him back into the path of chivalry. He is most chivalrous around her, I mean, not only because her good conduct influences but also because he performs some of the most knightly deeds by cause of her e.g. rescuing her from the bear pit. I like this ship, it’s a good trope subversion.

Tyrion x Tysha: I find this one of the more heartbreaking ships of ASOIAF, because to me it represents Tyrion’s loss of innocence.

She is a haunting figure because of how small remnants of her memory were enough to pull Tyrion into the toxic relationship he had with Shae e.g. she too hard dark hair and there was music around when he met her. Its one of those weird (as @omgellendean put it in her brutally honest ask tag answer - a character who consists of only a name), but unlike Ashara Dayne, she is not idealised and given this over-the-top tragic story. So this elusive Tysha is an entity by what she symbolises: foregone youth and a sweetness that has no place in the ASOIAF universe.

Henry VIII x Anne Boleyn: As I said in my last ask. I cannot tolerate the romanticisation of infidelity, and that is especially when the male’s spouse is a wonderful woman fit for him and has done nothing wrong. I don’t have strong feelings against Anne Boleyn herself, as I prefer to see her as ‘Anne the Educated and Sophisticated Reformer’ as opposed to ‘Anne the Seductress’. Ugh let me just say... rule of thumb for whether it’s a good pair: Do thousands have to die for your selfish desire to be together? Yes? Then probably not meant to be. Just a thought.

I think Anne knew her own mind and I like to think her strong beliefs influenced her decision to breach this marriage (no I didn’t think she was her father’s pawn gah I’m sick of that term), but they were ultimately unsuited in everything and it was a passion brought about by Henry’s caprice. My heart breaks when I think on how Anne could have been happily married to Henry Percy. I’m also tried of this whole ‘master manipulator of men’s hearts’ reputation Anne is getting. You do realise refusing to be a mistress was not being a tease as much as it was just being a conventionally virtuous woman..? The girl knew her worth.

George x Isabel: Oh god. I promise to not start writing an essay. As weird as it is to ship dead people, they are my OTP, the main characters of my main historyfanfic, and frankly the most unsung couple of TWOTR. The fact that there are no records of letters or any particularly over-the-top romantic gestures by either of them, just intrigues me more because it was very much a relationship defined in subtle deeds. If you peruse the more academic TWOTR literature you can see all the fine but conclusive evidences of a devoted relationship: He posthumously enrolled her in a guild when he stayed there with his children (months after she died), he was buried together with her and her ancestors not his, how during 1470 he sent her to Exeter for her safekeeping while her mother and sister remained at Warwick and when a siege broke out he (and his father-in-law) immediately rode south to lift it and the amount of expenses and care he put into her funeral. Not to mention, the hassle it took for them to get married: years of trying to get a dispensation underneath the king’s nose culminating in them having to cross the channel.

The thing is, it had a lot of politics behind it and to be honest I don’t find that less romantic. It was one right for both of them: for the wealthiest heiress in England and the handsome younger brother and heir of King Edward - truly no one else would do for any of them. One of the things that grabs me is the medievalness of it all, how they were bound together by what was essentially a plan to reverse the country’s inevitable transition out of ‘bastard feudalism’. You also get a sense of how this marriage despite the ultimate failure of its purpose (to make George King) brought George the chance to establish himself as a major magnate through his wife’s lands which ultimately became his main source of power as opposed to his royal status. The relative peace that ensued after 1472 shows that his status as Warwick’s political heir (as Christine Carpenter put it) did something to placate the disapointment of not becoming king. So the way I see it, Isabel’s death took from him any of the satisfaction and peace she brought with her lands and persona as he once again reverted to his old (even more than before) reckless self. Not to mention the people he executed after her death in his grief believe in her to have been poisoned (most historians believe that’s unlikely).

Aside from that, in a society where pretty much everyone strayed (even Anthony Woodville had a bastard daughter), it is quite heart-warming how the man known for his treachery, happened to be one of the only ones loyal to his wife: no bastards or women were ever linked to his name not even in rumour. As for Isabel, she is quite a shadowy figure but you get the sense she was intelligent because of the care her father took in preparing her as his heir, because of her wealth you get this sense of majesty and significance about her. The two times we can deduce anything about her personality is a true supporter of her husband: once, when deciding to treat with the Yorks behind her father’s back to reconcile George to them, second, remaining steadfast to George when he tried to squirrel her sister Anne out of her inheritance. Based on the homage she paid to her ancestors, she seems proud of her ancestry so it’s quite intriguing to think why she made the aforementioned two choices, endangering her father and sister in favour of her husband. And oh god I’m rambling, I can say even more if you can believe it but I shall stop. Overall, one might think I’m wishful thinking but frankly Anne and Richard are touted as star-crossed lovers all the time and with even littler evidence to support it (not that I don’t ship them, I do). I might be subjective, but the story of George and Isabel’s life is just so compelling...

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Required Reading

Photographer John Kucko captured this icy home in Webster, New York. Kucko told Colossal that the building is roughly 20 feet from the rocky shores of Lake Ontario. (via Colossal)

The “Schultz storm” of the Whitney Biennial has dominated art world headlines all week, and one of the most extensive — and well-researched — pieces is by Josephine Livingstone and Lovia Gyarkye in The New Republic:

In her painting, Schutz has smeared Till’s face and made it unrecognizable, again. The streaks of paint crossing the canvas read like an aggressive rejoinder to Mamie Till Mobley’s insistence that he be photographed. Mobley wanted those photographs to bear witness to the racist brutality inflicted on her son; instead Schutz has disrespected that act of dignity, by defacing them with her own creative way of seeing. Where the photographs stood for a plain and universal photographic truth, Schutz has blurred the reality of Till’s death, infusing it with subjectivity. The angle of the painting’s view is directly over the body as if Schutz is looming in her imagination. The colors are pretty. Looking at it is like stepping inside a dream that Schutz had about Emmett Till in his coffin. Since this case is one so importantly defined by visual legacy and competing narratives, an artist seeking to paint him ought literally to know better.

Tom Finkelpearl writes about the impact of the NEA, NEH, and other supporters of culture on New York City:

Last week a new study was released that shows how culture functions on a neighborhood level. The report by the Social Impact of the Arts Project at the University of Pennsylvania, led by Mark Stern and Susan Seifert, is titled “Culture and Social Wellbeing in New York City.” Funded by the New York Community Trust’s Cultural Agenda Fund and The Surdna Foundation, it is based on reams of data from several city agencies, the U.S. Census Bureau, and other sources. Their analysis says that the abundance of cultural assets in neighborhoods correlates with improved outcomes for crime, education, and health. One intriguing finding is that the improvements are more pronounced in lower- and moderate-income communities. That is, high rates of cultural assets in well-off neighborhoods do correlate with improved social indicators. But in the lower income communities there is greater benefit. This research looks at community ecologies, interlocking multiple measures of well-being. Cultural participation predicts lower rates of serious crime, lower rates of child abuse and neglect, and better results in public schools. Culture is good for the spirit and good for the city as a whole. Now we have a study that supports the idea that culture is an integral ingredient of a thriving neighborhood.

Some thoughts by Richard Brody on British actors playing American (and specifically African-American) roles:

The fundamental question that Jackson doesn’t address—but that his remarks imply—is whether the imaginative leap that it takes to do a part well contributes to or detracts from a performance. In other words, do actors’ efforts to create characters strip away what’s interesting about the actors themselves, as people rather than as bearers of skills? In the case of Kaluuya, the gap between the experience of being a black person in Great Britain and the United States is perhaps not as wide as Jackson assumes, which is something that Kaluuya addressed in a recent interview in GQ. “The Brixton riots, the Tottenham riots, the 2011 riots, because black people were being killed by police,” he said. “That’s what’s happening in London.” When it comes to the experience of racial minorities, appearance is, to a significant extent, experience; a Klan member or a racist police officer won’t ask a black person for a passport—any more than for a diploma or a bank book—before launching an epithet or an attack. Kaluuya acknowledged as much in the same interview when he said, “I resent that I have to prove that I’m black. . . . I see black people as one man. When I see people beaten on the streets of America, that hurts me. I feel that.

Why did Thomas Campbell leave the Metropolitan Museum? Well, it’s complicated, and the reasons appear to include this:

Another problem was Campbell’s friskiness with certain women on the staff. He had been warned about it early in his tenure but still carried on. More recently a legal action was brought against him and the Met, but it was settled.

Emoji 5.0 is in the pipeline, which means there will soon be lots of new emoji to use. Gizmodo has ranked the candidates for you:

FBI officials arrested a person in Maryland who reputedly sent a strobing image to political writer Kurt Eichenwald that caused him to have a seizure:

“What Mr. Rivello did with his Twitter message was no different from someone sending a bomb in the mail or sending an envelope filled with anthrax spores,” Lieberman says. “It wasn’t the content of the communication that was intended to persuade somebody or make them feel badly about themselves; this was an electronic communication that was designed to have a physical effect.”

All signs are pointing to the White House preparing to purge its ranks of federal employees not deemed sufficiently loyal to the President:

Conservative news outlets, including one with links to a top White House official, are singling out individual career government employees for criticism, suggesting in articles that certain staffers will not be sufficiently loyal to President Donald Trump by virtue of their work under former President Barack Obama.

The articles — which have appeared in Breitbart News, the Conservative Review and other outlets — have alarmed veteran officials in both parties as well as current executive branch staffers.

After the US banned laptops and tablets on certain flights from West Asia and North Africa, one corporation used the opportunity to throw shade at a certain government:

i believe this is shade http://pic.twitter.com/8SJfnrvhNn

— Self Own (@SubMedina) March 23, 2017

This is the most insanely elaborate and well-researched article about how professional basketball players all came to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before games:

The legend has been passed down by NBA generations, chronicled like a Homeric odyssey. The tale they tell is of Kevin Garnett and the 2007-08 Celtics, and the seminal moment of a revolution. Bryan Doo, Celtics strength and conditioning coach, recalls it as if it were yesterday, how before a game in December of that season, an unnamed Celtic — his identity lost to history, like the other horsemen on Paul Revere’s midnight ride — complained to Doo of incipient hunger pangs.

“Man, I could go for a PB&J,” the player said.

There was a #pizzagate rally in DC this weekend, and it’s fascinating that so many still stand by the conspiracy theory. They also made some interesting signs:

Lot of aesthetics at today's Pizzagate rally http://pic.twitter.com/kLiEaKMpiI

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) March 25, 2017

Some things you can’t explain:

Okay. I know this cake is a number 1 and it says “Emma," but it LOOKS like a dick with balls that says “WEED" http://pic.twitter.com/3NZfwA4DCg

— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) March 24, 2017

Required Reading is published every Sunday morning ET, and is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts, or photo essays worth a second look.

The post Required Reading appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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