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jerusalismreview · 4 years ago

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Stuck in quarantine, I make a video in which I get romantic with a spoon. I send it to my friends, one of whom tells me to check out the video poems of Adeena Karasick. Some online digging tells me Karasick is a Brooklyn-based poet, writer, performer, and thinker whose work tackles the fun and the real. She also happens to be on the line-up for Mekuvan, Jerusalism’s first online reading series. In a cool combo of fate and query, I interview her and ask more about what’s happening between the lines of her words.

When Adeena sends me an email, she calls me “sweets” and “babe.” Though we think about speaking on Zoom, our interview happens over email, which is to say—text. I don my best quasi-professional internet speak while Adeena skyrockets into my gmail, peppering her answers with emoticons and parentheticals, taking me inside and outside her answers in a slightly overlarge Arial font. Her I’s are lowercase, her proper nouns uppercase. Her signature is one lone, light gray “a.”

I go deep into Karasick’s online corpus. Soon I’m floating. Her virtual vocals hold words fused across mediums, embodying a world intimate with its own supposition of depth. Within this world is the explicit understanding that depth is about layers, and its meaning comes from the interaction of all things—poetry, politics, kabbala!—not nearly as disparate as we imagine. Her work reminds me of the internet itself: obsessed by its ever-updating form and devoted to the process of making image meet word.

In our interview, Adeena tells me as much, making sure to blow my mind with the theoretical underpinnings of her playful, sexy, serious work. She signs off on our correspondence with ; ))))))) and !!!!!!! and xxxxxxx. Though we’ve finished speaking for now, I find myself again looking at her work, mesmerized. An in to the infinite. Here are some of her thoughts on the matter.

—

Joelle Milman: The infinite abounds in your work. What is your relationship to ein sof?

Adeena Karasick: I like thinking about ways in which ein sof is where all possibility erupts; everything that has been and will be created is housed in a kinda blueprint of potentiality. I think this sense of potent play is crucial, opening up dialogue for new possibilities of reference, connection, an “infinite” unfolding of semantic, syntactic (political) possibilities.

In the Zohar it says, “all binding and union and wholeness are secreted in the secrecy / that cannot be grasped and cannot be known, / that includes the desire of all desires. // Infinity does not abide being known, / does not produce end or beginning./ Primordial Nothingness brought forth Beginning and End? Who is Beginning?… It produces End… But there, no end.” ;)

I guess you could say this sense of questioning and a sense of endless opening really interests me. Take for example, how transliterated ein (nothing) is homophonically connected to ayin (eye) through which we can envision anything. Or if one shifts the letters to ani (i), then we are between being and nothingness, endlessly re-presencing. I’m interested in navigating this space between visibility and invisibility, what is revealed, concealed, veiled unveiled through the flux of form, emanation, re-formation. Recognizing, of course, that in order for anything to be manifested there has to be a limit, a concealment. I adore this ex-static play of expansion and contraction, where everything hums with a kinda vertiginous, vibratory edge.

JM: Who is your muse?

AK: Abraham Abulafia, 13th C. Kabbalistic mystic.

JM: Your ew hybrid poetic work, Salomé, takes a misunderstood character and gives her a new story. What was it like to work with such a specific character, attached to particular historical narratives?

AK: Well, it always bothered me that within Christian mythology and entrenched in history by writers like Wilde, Gustave Flaubert, Mallarmé, artists such as Gustav Klimt, Gustave Moreau, and Aubrey Beardsley, Salomé was seen as yet another Jewish temptress/Christian killer (which is not so great for the Jews ;).

But, in fact, there isn’t any evidence to substantiate this claim. I did a whack of research and according to apocrypha and Josephus’s Antiquities, she came from Jewish royalty and there is no evidence she murdered John the Baptist or even danced for Herod. The only historical reference that [Herod’s wife] Herodias’s daughter’s name was Salomé is from Flavius Josephus, who makes no other claims about her—not that she danced for Herod, not that she demanded John’s head, but only that she went on to marry twice and live peacefully. The other apocryphal reference is that a daughter danced for Herod, which caused him to lose his mind and kill John the Baptist. Thus, the conflagrated Salomé that appears in the Wilde play, [Richard] Strauss opera and all subsequent productions, is an amalgamated construct. Along with Klezmer/jazz god Frank London, I embarked on a 7 year journey to set the record straight.

For the record, there are three women named Salomé in Jewish history: Salomé, daughter of Herodias and Herod II (circa 14-71 CE); Queen Salomé, her great-aunt (65 BCE-10 CE); and Salomé Alexandra (139-67 BCE). Her great-aunt, Salomé I, was the powerful sister and force behind Herod the Great, king of Judea and Second Temple rebuilder. Salomé Alexandra (also known as Shelomtzion) was one of only two women who reigned over Judea. I wanted my Salomé, Salomé of Valor (pun intended), to carry the weight of both her genetic lineage and the cultural heredity of her name, embodying the legacy and power of the women that came before her.

JM: Your recent work, COVID/ KAVOD, pays attention to these particular times and the words we have created around it. Can you tell me more about the piece?

AK: You know, I was sheltering at home with my daughter Safia Fiera (Sefira) in NYC, and wrote a Facebook post thinking about the power of words and names. I was increasingly obsessed with how COVID transliterated in Hebrew as Kavod כבוד, which translates to glory, honor, and respect. When we congratulate someone we say כל הכבוד – ‘all the honor’ (Good job!)— or close a letter with the word בכבוד which means ‘with respect.’ Yet, ironically, it’s also related to kaved “heavy.” And throughout Exodus, the presence of God in the tabernacle is symbolized by the word ‘Kavod’ (which is also represented by a cloud!). Through a 13th Century Kabbalistic lens, Kavod כבוד refers to Shekhinah, the female revealed aspect of God, which is symbolized by the lips, the mouth, the wound, the word: gates of entry, gates of transmission. AND – according to the Zohar [3296b], the CORONA (crown) of the phallus. And most astoundingly, KAVOD as a technical term within the sefirotic system emphasizes the distinction between the 1st vessel of light and the other 9 – COVID19.

Superstar dub poet/producer Lillian Allen contacted me and asked me to record my thoughts. She had it set to music with a DJ and a cello; launched on Spotify and CD Baby…crazy! It was one of those things, where you never know where things might lead, the synecdoche of the ever-so prescient spread?! Really makes one think about the viral nature of everything, i.e. memes—units of cultural energy that virally replicate themselves; how à la Korzybski / Burroughs, “Language IS a virus…

JM: You work in performance, video, text—but everything seems grounded in words. How do words play differently in different forms?

AK: All my work is dedicated to highlighting ways in which language and being are so intricately entwined; how we are formed and reformed through the language we use; how language’s physicality / materiality / sonic qualities infinitely re-create meaning and being. Playing between and within language’s visual and acoustic space, underscoring how it’s all so viscerally alive.

I love the differences between them [mediums] and I love ways that they feed off and expand the experience of one another.

JM: What is your relationship to the individual letter?

AK: Kabbalistically speaking, if the world was created through letters, every time we read or write or speak, we are in essence re-creating the world.

I love thinking about the way each letter rubs up against another letter, how that modulates the overall feel of the way a line or a text plays itself like a score; how it asks us to renegotiate meaning and being. How every letter in a way contains every other letter and how they themselves hover, erupt as sparks of light.

My recent work Aerotomania, which investigates how the airplane is structured like a language, exposes how the shape of the airplane is reminiscent of the letter Alef, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, symbol of infinite and contemporaneous beginnings.

It’s constructed from two Yods י, one above and one below, with a diagonal line, the Vav ו, between them, representing the higher world and the lower world, separating and connecting the two Yods. And through chambers of light rungs of life ærotically connecting higher and lower worlds, all brimming with interior struggle and yearning, hiddenness, and longing—

JM: Tell me more about what you find sexy. What is the erotic up to when it shows up in your work, and do you find it particularly intertwined with gender? If so, how and why?

AK: HA! What I find most sexy are witty mashups of entwined letters. Ways references wrap around each other, the ways letters brush up against and wind around each other—ways meaning erupts in unexpected ways.

To this end, my new work Aerotomania really focuses on the erotics of meaning production. According to Marshall McLuhan, “the airplane is an extension of the body.” So, with it I’m exploring not only how the airplane is structured like a language but an extension of the body, specifically metonymic of the female body; flying through clouds of data, through a sultry and amorous mapping of light, “shade,” shadow, highlighting the relationship of how language becomes a shape-shifting trickster; an ever-swirling palimpsest of spectral voices, textures, whispers and codes transporting us to sometimes unknown destinations; flying through a variety of zones, registers, soaring to higher and higher levels, leading to radically transformative possibilities of passion, pleasure, power and promise, as we negotiate loss and light; opening up new ways of seeing and being. THIS is sexy ; )

JM: I love it. I haven’t seen anything that approximates the video poetry you make and they’re awesome. When it comes to idea generation, do you start with the medium or the message? What is your editing process like?

Well, in media ecological terms, the medium is always massaging the message. I’m always interested in the way information reads and is transformed through multiple platforms; whether on a page or a stage, a tablet, computer, or movie screen.

Videopoetry as a medium allows me exquisite axes of entry into a virtual arena. There, not only can the materiality of language be exposed, but through the conflagration of image, music, voice, text, sound and animation, a ‘textatic’ slipperiness of meaning appears. Each piece, operating with its own structure, codes, logic, idioms, reminds us how meaning-making is always a praxis of palimpsest and dissemination, generating a contiguous infolding of meaning.

But to answer your question—in almost every case, I start with a text that I want to multimodally play with. For example, right now I’m working on a videopoem for a Salomé track. I have my text, the recording of it, with the music (composed and performed by Klezmer / Jazz god, Frank London), and now have to assess what aesthetic feel is going to auratically transport it. So unlike writing the poetry, where I see and hear and feel the words all simultaneously, making videos is usually sequential.

Though I do all my own pechakuchas, it literally takes a village to make the videopoems! I write the text, communicate my vision, but I don’t have a lot of the technical expertise—so each one is a loving and painstaking process collaborating with musicians, animators, editors. Textual editing process parallels this in that I am a ferociously compulsive editor, renegotiating every syntactic reference, line break, lexical choice. And even though I have so much respect for Ginsberg’s “first thought best thought,” everything goes through a crazy amount of editing and re-editing until the last possible moment.

JM: So much of your work is mash-up, combining elements from other texts be they theoretical, visual, or otherwise. What is it like to combine existing content and bring it into new forms?

If everything is inherently intertextual and archival, my work celebrates a kind of parsed play of laced socio-political-lingual cultural shards and fractures, highlighting how all is pulsing with palimpsested resonance. This then inherently asks one to revisit and recontextualize, reframe information and thereby see it in new ways.

For example, I’ve been working on an ongoing collaborative project with famed critic / weaver, Maria Damon, on a piece we call: “Intertextile: Text in Exile: Shmata Mash-Up A Jewette for Two Voices,” where we investigate the relationship between text and textile. The whole piece is marked by a kind of intertextatic syntacticism; as we weave meaning through found data, shattered matter, shredded fragments, through all that is proper, improper, impropriotous, riotous, simultaneously celebrating and questioning all that’s filthy and wrinkled and inside out, all that’s unfolded, soiled, sullied, un-rinsed and uncomfortable. And it’s this sense of exploration and reformation, through research, inquiry and play where one can explore the impossibility of the possible, the contingency of our finitude, our brokenness, excess and exuberance, within the fissures of being.

What’s it like? In a word: textatic ; )

JM: Your work has uncompromising trust in its own voice and self-representation. For us just getting started out here: do you have any advice on how to commit to and advocate for your work, particularly in a world not always eager to support emerging artists?

AK: Trends, aesthetics, modes, schools of thought come and go, in and out of vogue, and if I’ve learned anything over the years is that everything goes in cycles. Or to use McLuhan’s terminology, systems get enhanced, reversed, retrieved or obsolesced, and so it’s so important to just trust your own mind. Regardless of what seems to be the genre, the praxis, procedure, fashion of the moment, write what you want. Read, as much as you can, go to readings, start journals, perform at open mics, gather community and share ideas, share work. But it’s so important that you trust your own vision, and just sometimes shut it all out and just create your own unique powerful universe that you want to inhabit.

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residentiallawn · 4 years ago

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via Residential Lawn Mowing Service,

In these troubled COVID-19 times many are wondering if lawn mowing professionals can still perform their duties without coming into physical contact with their customers. And the answer is yes. First, to find a service provider near you, you can easily find local landscaping, tree trimming, and lawn care companies online and message them to schedule a video call or video chat via services such as Zoom or Skype and inquire about their services – what is included and what is not – and find the one you like. Discuss your needs and strategies with them the type of service you are considering. Many companies will likely accept some form of digital payment instead of cash or check. More and more businesses are adopting the use of digital platforms like PayPal, Zelle, Venmo, and Google Pay to minimize the handling of cash or checks.

What to Look for When Interviewing Landscape Maintenance Professionals

A well-established professional lawn care business should at the very least have a business license, appropriate insurance, landscaping tools, and a mower. The most common small business insurance policies lawn care businesses carry are general liability, business property, commercial auto, and workers’ compensation if they have employees. Since there is no legal requirement for formal training, property owners should ask about certifications, level of experience, affiliations with state and local organizations, and about any education they may have received in the field of lawn care. One way to find an excellent lawn care contractor is to consult your local chapter of the Master Gardeners. They may not provide specific company names but will have tips for you about what to ask and what to look out for.

How to Handle Service Calls During the Pandemic

Practice social distancing at all times while the professionals are doing their work outside to stay safe during the pandemic. There is no need for the homeowner to be physically present, professionals will know what to do and do it well. It helps to have a regular schedule so you can plan to stay away accordingly.

Lawn Maintenance Cost

The average cost of working with a lawn mowing company varies based on location, the size of the property, the exact services offered, and the quality of service. That said, most homeowners spend between $100 and $280 on a basic “mow and blow” service which more often than not also includes edging. Services such as fertilizing, planting, weed control, spring and fall clean-ups, shrub trimming, and edging may be a service add-on at an additional fee. Adding fertilization and weed control to your package would be a good recommendation to keep the lawn in a perfectly healthy condition.

Other Tips

Keeping your lawn in good shape year-round can be challenging. That is why a regular lawn care routine by a professional can be of great benefit. Professionals will be familiar with the type of grass you have and know at which frequency it should be mowed. Typically, this will depend on how fast your grass grows. As a good rule of thumb, the lawn should be mowed when it reaches 1/3 above its recommended length. For example, if the grass is healthy at 2 inches, it needs mowing when it reaches 3 inches. This helps prevent damage to the lawn as well as keeping weeds from taking root.

Spring is the perfect time to start thinking about lawn care and test the irrigation system. Start with raking your lawn and flower beds to remove any decomposing leaves. Pull all the weeds before they go to seed and trim back shrubs and branches. Now it is time to check your irrigation system. Perform necessary repairs or make adjustments to get even water distribution. At this time you may opt to aerate your lawn but beware, some regions benefit from aerating in the fall only, so be sure to address this with your service provider. You can also consider spraying a pre-emergent herbicide on your lawn to prevent crabgrass and other types of weeds from sprouting from seed. During other seasons, broadleaf weeds like dandelions can be pulled by hand or sprayed with the appropriate weed killers. Do some research and be sure to purchase a weed killer that only addresses the types of weeds you want to eliminate and doesn’t kill the grass.

Once the temperatures are a little warmer you can overseed the lawn to encourage new growth in any bare spots you might have. Next, you’ll want to fertilize the lawn to ensure the lawn grows rich and lush. Make sure the newly seeded areas are kept moist until the seeds have germinated. The best time to water your lawn is early in the morning, allowing the sun to help dry the grass. Make sure to thoroughly soak the lawn so that the water penetrates several inches into the ground.

Of course, any of these chores can be done by your lawn maintenance service provider, so be sure to check what is included and what is not in your arrangement. A lawn care professional will help you navigate the nuances of seasonal lawn care, and keep your lawn healthy and thriving. But, there are some seasonal tasks you can tackle between visits from your pro to maintain your best possible lawn.

Other Benefits of Hiring a Lawn Maintenance Professional

Lawn care professionals have their own lawn mowers and trimming equipment, so no need to spend money on a mower of your own. Plus, there is no need to carve out space you would have used to store bulky lawn equipment in the garage or shed. You also won’t have to worry about keeping gas in the tank or a charge in the battery or finding an extension cord long enough to let you weed-whack your entire yard. Additionally, you need not worry about sharpening mower blades.

No matter what you decide – the DIY route or hire a professional lawn maintenance company, a steady routine will keep your lawn look vigorous and healthy.

from Shamrock Landscape Company https://shamrocklandscapecompany.blogspot.com/2020/06/how-to-find-landscape-maintenance.html via IFTTT

from Shamrock Landscape Company https://shamrocklandscapecompany.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/how-to-find-landscape-maintenance-professionals-during-covid-19/ via IFTTT

from Lawn Care Service https://lawncareservice0.blogspot.com/2020/06/how-to-find-landscape-maintenance.html via IFTTT

from Lawn Care Service https://lawncareservice0.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/how-to-find-landscape-maintenance-professionals-during-covid-19/ via IFTTT

from Residential Lawn Mowing Service https://residentiallawnmowingservice.blogspot.com/2020/06/how-to-find-landscape-maintenance.html via IFTTT

#Residential Lawn Mowing Service

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lawncreservice0 · 4 years ago

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via Lawn Care Service,

What to Look for When Interviewing Landscape Maintenance Professionals

How to Handle Service Calls During the Pandemic

Lawn Maintenance Cost

Other Tips

Other Benefits of Hiring a Lawn Maintenance Professional

No matter what you decide – the DIY route or hire a professional lawn maintenance company, a steady routine will keep your lawn look vigorous and healthy.

from Shamrock Landscape Company https://shamrocklandscapecompany.blogspot.com/2020/06/how-to-find-landscape-maintenance.html via IFTTT

from Shamrock Landscape Company https://shamrocklandscapecompany.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/how-to-find-landscape-maintenance-professionals-during-covid-19/ via IFTTT

from Lawn Care Service https://lawncareservice0.blogspot.com/2020/06/how-to-find-landscape-maintenance.html via IFTTT

#Lawn Care Service

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commercialyard · 4 years ago

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via Commercial Yard Maintenance,

What to Look for When Interviewing Landscape Maintenance Professionals

How to Handle Service Calls During the Pandemic

Lawn Maintenance Cost

Other Tips

Other Benefits of Hiring a Lawn Maintenance Professional

No matter what you decide – the DIY route or hire a professional lawn maintenance company, a steady routine will keep your lawn look vigorous and healthy.

from Shamrock Landscape Company https://shamrocklandscapecompany.blogspot.com/2020/06/how-to-find-landscape-maintenance.html via IFTTT

from Shamrock Landscape Company https://shamrocklandscapecompany.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/how-to-find-landscape-maintenance-professionals-during-covid-19/ via IFTTT

from Commercial Yard Maintenance https://commercialyardmaintenance.blogspot.com/2020/06/how-to-find-landscape-maintenance.html via IFTTT

#Commercial Yard Maintenance

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pressednpeeled · 5 years ago

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Rhetorical analysis of Tierra Whacks “Unemployment”

Financial influence on the hip hop/rap today has led many music videos to be used as one big flashy way for the artist to grab your interest. Then you become a fan and buy into: concert tickets, merchandise, albums, (etc). No matter how beautifully creative a portrayal of expression of music is, we must recognize and understand the persuasive aesthetics that artists create to sell themselves and draw our attention for their benefit. Our minds attach themselves to the music and time, appreciating each generation differently in their environment, but there are a few who deserve our unique attention.

Recently, however, more artists who are full of lyrical finesse and who want to share important messages are beginning to emerge, and a stellar example of this emerging artistic quality can be found on the song “Unemployment” by Tierra Whack.

In the forefront we see a cartoony world of living human-like vegetables and one human chef, played by Tierra. The video begins slowly zooming out from Tierra in an french-style kitchen, dressed in traditional chef uniform, preparing an egregious pile of terrified anthropomorphous russet potatoes. The little root veggies shiver and await their fate with horrified faces watching Chef Whack chop up their poor friends and family. Depicting a sick murder scene of defenseless creatures, the violence is easier to watch than it should be since we have no real social connection with potatoes. Tierra’s uses this shock to build momentum for a dramatic turn at the end. A transition that quiets the sarcastic humor of the video and helps us reflect, speaking volumes on an issue that has plagued us since the beginning of time, “the chain of command”.

The obvious moral argument here is the appropriation of mutilation with the animated spuds but also, the sad truth of being a sloth-like glutinous “couch potato, eating away at yourself”. If you look deeper, another very important topic emerges, a cannibalistic pyramid scheme much like the ones we live within today. Whack never mentions this theme in her explanation of the song oddly enough. Weather it be on accident or artistically on purpose it can not be ignored but only idealized.

Tierra represents an individual somewhere in the middle of the chaos, somewhere in the middle of working for the elites, somewhere in the middle of supporting cannibalism and supporting herself . As the video does close ups on Tierra working hard, she seems to be unthrilled with the work ahead of her, taking russet lives, so that she can support her own.

This video may not be taken seriously and may be seen as odd because of the unique style. Many artists today miss the chance to do more than merely entertain and are afraid to reflect deeply upon unpopular subjects.

During the “dog-eat-dog” metaphor presented, Tierra operates in a low toned fast paced with slick punchlines that leave your head spinning. Whack brings forward a message that lightly relates to the chorus to the visual. Rapping like a silenced machine gun, dispensing Hollow Point ammunition Tierra lays this track to rest with unique references, ingenious figurative language, and beautiful metaphors.

“Used to be invisible (Yo)

They would refer to me as mythical (Yo)

Sippin' on Mastika, yeah, I sip it slow (Yo)

Not on my level, not on your tippy-toes (Yo).”

=========================================

”You ain't fly, I make your wings stop

I'm real as fuck and your ring's not

Fresh as hell like a king's socks

Your real car is a slingshot

Don't need a gun, I use a slingshot

If I was a beverage

You would have to drink hot”

During the massacres Tierra created every potato dish imaginable as she works. Without actually speaking on the problem, Whack visually addresses a darker deeper scene when she completes her prep work. Before she plates the food, she changes outfits and walks the servings into an ordained room with a disgusting giant potato and a massive drooling yam. Monstrous compared to their small sibling snacks, Tierra nervously lays the plates before them with a smile and a slight curtsy. The big spuds extend out roots and use them like appendages to feast on their very own species.

Through playing the Chef, Miss Whack represents her organic and from scratch attitude. It conveys that she's a hard working master of her craft, and is not afraid to get down and dirty. The tasteful eccentric value presented in this video persuades that a great work of political art was made here. Since the potatoes involvement is fantasy, the violence is appropriated by the positive message. Whack wants to convey not losing sight of the beautiful possibilities in life with some sacrifice and dedication. One can only imagine if these former messages were to perpetuate or distract from the message hidden within.

Tierra’s music is of high lyrical agility and marvelous melodic cadence that makes other artist sound mediocre, repetitive and even plagiarist. Sharply pieced together with excellent focus on being true to oneself, this display creates hope for a future of solid, uncommercialized, fearless generations of artist.

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sonipanda · 6 years ago

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Along comes another pair to bless your Friday!

A pair that a lot of you may have seen on my ‘Shoes Are Life’ highlight on Instagram! So these are a pair of party heels, which I decided to whack a shirt and hosiery with to go that extra step and glam them up.

The Spec

Colour: Black / Silver

Size: UK 6

Materials: Synthetic

Price: £21.95

Website: Amazon – LADIES WOMENS NEW STILETTO HIGH HEEL STRAPPY EYELET OPEN TOE GLADIATOR PARTY PROM CUT OUT ZIP UP SANDALS SHOES SIZE

The Review

From The Website: Stunning Strappy Stiletto Heel Gladiator Zip Up Sandals With Silver Eyelet Ring Detailing – Perfect For Parties & Special Occasions – Available In 3 Colours

Stunning Zip Up Strappy Stiletto Sandals

Silver Eyelet Ring Detailing

Outer Material: Synthetic

Closure: Zip

Heel Height: 3.8 inches

Heel Type: Stiletto

Easy Zip Fastening

3.8 Inch Stiletto Heel Height

Perfect For Special Occasions – Available In 3 Colours

The Packaging: so as you can see the box came a little damaged, but luckily they heels were ok inside them. They came wrapped in plastic packaging pouches (these were photographed under the heels).

I was pretty in intrigued with the box as it had their social media plastered all over it, which I haven’t seen a company do before. I thought I would show you all 🙂

Once again as these are suede, I would recommend a protecting spray to help preserve the quality of the heels.

So once they’re out, let’s get zooming in to see what we are working with! (Please note here that I have worn them to model before I did this review!)

So as you can see, these have some major detail to them; that toe strap working into eyelet rings upwards to the ankle. The sides of it have small straps which join the sole of the shoes.

Underneath, these are mega slippery. They hardly have any grip on them, so I would recommend to do the following to help you out a little here:

Using sandpaper or a nail file to buff them a little so they get some grip!

Getting Them On: so these have a zip fastening at the back, so I would advise being careful when wearing hosiery as you don’t want them getting caught in this! You have that small piece that comes out where the zip sits against, so the back of your foot is protected from the zip 🙂

After I slipped my feet in, I gotta say these felt quite big on me. How I know? My foot kept slipping forward. I tried them with my tights on after, and they weren’t so bad, but with hosiery I wouldn’t advise it unless you have some gel or material insoles that you can wear wit them to stop your foot slipping forward!

Even then in the image below, you can see my foot slightly stretched out to stop my feet slipping forward LOL!

On The Feet: so on I mentioned with hosiery doesn’t really work so most of the time I had to keep pushing my heel back into the shoes. Otherwise these fit ok on the feet; I found them slightly too big as you can tell with the eyelet rings around the ankles, although without hosiery it might work a little better (and not make my ankles look so skinny!)

There is plenty of room for you feet in these, so you don’t need to worry about them being tights. I found the side little strips are slightly stretchy so you have some leeway there.

These are comfortable to walk in (once you have some grip at the bottom); they are mid-heels just to point out for those who don’t wear heels often. I found these to be a decent height to pair with any outfit, whether it be casual or a night out. I dressed it as if I would be going to dinner or drinks with my shirt and tights, but these can work with various looks.

My Thoughts?

Overall I think these are super cool, but with the fittings and the lack of grip on the soles, it makes it pretty hard to walk in. I felt limited to wearing them barefoot for them to look better and fit properly on the feet rather than wearing hosiery with my foot slipping out at the front.

The quality is decent too; I can see these lasting a good while as long as you take care of them 🙂

Sweet Suede Open Toe Eyelet Sandals Along comes another pair to bless your Friday! A pair that a lot of you may have seen on my 'Shoes Are Life' highlight on Instagram!

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gmessy30 · 3 years ago

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E:62:10 My camera has been knocked about and/or dropped one too many times! I started getting an error code on the HX400V the other day. I believe it is related to a ribbon cable in the lens housing. Either that has come loose, the bearings or nylon guides have become worn or fouled, or something has just been whacked out of alignment, and so it is failing a self-test. This explains the increasingly loud noises accompanying zooming, the slowed focus response to birds and aircraft in flight, and overall degradation in the quality of photos, even when under manual operation (thus I believe it to be an outright physical alignment issue). Anyway, the first three are of an only slightly out of focus Bohemian waxwing in a berry tree, they really blend in! The next three would have been great! The first has a berry suspended in midair within the bill, the next with one in its mouth, and the third is of a berry on the way down the hatch. The final three are also only slightly out of focus, this time with nothing in the frame truly in focus. But it shows how strangely narrow this bird's head is when viewed straight (yes, I almost typed 'head') on. Their eyes are very much side-mounted. They really have that dinosauran look about them. The E:62:10 is a long used, well known, and greatly feared/loathed error in many Sony products, first appearing in the Nineties in some of their HandyCam lines, if I'm not mistaken. Apparently the E indicates it requires an engineer to fix. It actually indicates a problem with the image stabilisation system, which cannot be fully turned off in this model of camera. I am researching the issue, but I also have a more practical solution/back-up on the way as well... #sonydschx400v #sonydsc #sonycybershot #SonyCameras #e6210 #E:62:10 #bohemianwaxwing #bombycillagarrulus #kenai #kenaipeninsulabirds #kenaialaska #alaska #alaskawildlife #alaskaphotography #alaskawildlifephotography #sonycameraerror (at Kenai, Alaska) https://www.instagram.com/p/CXt3-1uPwvT/?utm_medium=tumblr

#sonydschx400v #sonydsc #sonycybershot #sonycameras #e6210 #e #bohemianwaxwing #bombycillagarrulus #kenai #kenaipeninsulabirds #kenaialaska #alaska #alaskawildlife #alaskaphotography #alaskawildlifephotography #sonycameraerror

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souloben · 7 years ago

Text

another icon tutorial

so the poll was pretty 50/50, so most likely i’ll make a gif tutorial at some point soon.

please leave any questions or requests you have in my inbox!!

i’m not the best at explaining so bear with me lol

general method

so i’m going to show you how i make these kinds of icons:

tutorials under the cut.

i try to be trendy and give cute tip sections:

a huge tip would be to make sure your screencap is hd quality. i get my screencaps from (x), (x), or just googling ‘___ screencaps’. remember kids, always pick good quality screencaps.

here is our screencap! two fresh ass beautiful boys, we love a couple

i use a psd for headers, but for icons i tend to just color them myself. i use curves, color balance, vibrance & sometimes a white color fill set to soft light. maybe even some selective color to brighten the neutrals and darken the blacks.

now it’s time for my personal favorite part, coloring the subjects. i take a small brush with 0% hardness in a new layer set to multiply and paint over thomas’ lips. i draw over his eyebrows with a black brush set to soft light. then a brown brush set to multiply or hard light over his hair. :)

i do the same for newt now, albeit different color choices.

next i crop the image, my icon dimensions are 120x120! you could use 150, 100, 200, but my go to is 120.

now i create a solid fill layer with the color of my choice, i add a layer mask and brush black over the subjects so they’re visible. i then take a white brush with 50% hardness and brush around the subjects until it looks like this.

i add a black and white gradient fill, set it to soft light, and angle it at 68.2.

i create a new layer and set it to color, then i paint over thomas and newt’s shirts with the same color i used for the background. then i duplicate the layer and set it to soft light.

and you could easily leave it there with a nice, perfectly good icon, but i like to add my own details and textures and stuff to make them more personal :)

(here is where we go full on crazy, windows vista is quaking in a corner, this is too bright for me to handle bitch what are you doing)

i add more curves, up the vibrance, brighten the image with selective color. (remember to keep darkening the blacks so the icon doesn’t look washed out), keep in mind that all your coloring should be underneath the solid color fill layer. i also duplicate some of the coloring layers i made, such as the hair layers and lips.

this is a lil trick that i use often for darker icons and picspams, it gives a nice glowy look that i like a lot. i zoom in and take a small white brush set to soft light, and paint over the highlights on their faces/hair.

sometimes i create a new layer, set it to screen, and take a big light blue brush and just click lightly where i want there to be more light. but i don’t need to do that for this icon.

i try to be trendy and give cute tip sections:

PSA; always color your icons to fit the lighting!1!! normally in tv shows we get shitty, dark, blue/yellow lighting that looks grainier than a 1950′s tv set. you need to be stealthy and work around the lighting. color balance is your best friend when it comes to yellow/blue lighting. here are some good coloring tutorials to use as techniques. (x) (x) (x)

i take this texture, add a b&w filter to it, set it to soft light and create a layer mask to remove the texture from their faces.

now, u could add lil doodles to it like this;

or you could just leave it as it is. i now convert (only the screencap) for smart filters, and i use a sharpening action (i wish i could remember who made it!! i don’t remember).

and boom, that is how i make most of my icons.

here is my result:

fancy/longer method!

this method is for when i take twenty years to make one icon, usually for when i make my mobile themes or a request.

examples:

and this will be our result:

so we have our screencap, i’m using one of regina mills, one of the great loves of my life.

now we do the coloring process i used for my last icon. curves, color balance, white color fills, gradient maps, vibrance, etc.

i follow all the previous steps that i mentioned, the hair and face coloring, changing the outfit colors, cropping, solid color background.

i try to be cute and give trendy tip sections:

tip, follow the curves of the subject’s hair when coloring the outline/erasing the bg!! it just makes the icon look nicer and it flows better. sometimes you can even create your own waves.

next, add the gradients. i use an angled b&w one and then i use one matching the bg layer and angle it where the light would hit regina. i set it to screen, and use a layer mask to remove it in areas i don’t want it.

(just play around with gradients. they can rlly make or break your icon)

here is when i start messing about with lil details. i start highlighting her face with a small white brush on a layer set to soft light to make the icon stand out more, and i even take a tan colored brush (set to multiply, low opacity) and brush around where the shadows hit more; her jawline and where her hair looks darker. look at the difference

here is when i go full whack and add more curves, brightness, saturation, color balance, bring out more of the blacks with selective color and duplicate some of the coloring layers.

now i add various textures, specifically watercolor textures from this pack. (i set them to soft light and using a layer mask, remove the texture from her face.)

now, i usually google ‘tumblr cloud overlay’ or something and add them to my icon. i’m using these three specifically:

(i use them as gifs for headers, but that’s a different process. for icons i just place them over my image like another texture.)

now just duplicate any layers as finishing touches, sharpen, save, and you’re done!

(you could also change the green-blue to different colors.)

main tips;

always keep your screencap coloring as natural as possible until after you’ve added the color background, that’s when you can go crazy and go as far as you can with vibrance and brightness.

different scenes work with different techniques. you can’t follow one coloring tutorial and use it for everything, you have to keep the steps in mind and just merge all the knowledge together.

highlighting with soft light is such a nice detail!! it rlly adds to the soft glowing look

textures are the love of my life! i have a huge folder saved with hundreds of different ones, but i can link you to some that i use a lot. (x) (x) (x)

practice!! icons are fun to make and should be an enjoyable hobby, the way your icons look will progress over time. tutorials are just helpful along the way :)

#icon tutorial #ps tutorial #icons tutorial #ps help #mine #my tutorial #idk if i did a good job at explaining??#hopefully i did

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shrikehq · 3 years ago

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∘ ₊✧────── anonymous asked ; would you guys consider using an uncontained theme? just a suggestion since this rp seems to be contain a lot of content regarding the plot and it might be more accessible (easier to read) for others!

absolutely !! we've actually been searching for a quality non-contained theme for a little while now, but unfortunately we haven't been able to find one that fit our needs.

thankfully, however, we host a lot of our world building information off the main blog, and we've also ensured this contained theme is one that is compatible with zooming in and out ( ensuring that you can do so without losing the ability to scroll / view information properly ).

accessibility is important to us !! and so while we have those methods of allowing writers to view our information without issue, we'll be sure to take your feedback into consideration and keep on searching for an uncontained theme.

if anyone has any recommended uncontained themes, we would love to see them. the entire admin team would actually love to update the theme, but unfortunately as none of us are coders ourselves it’s not something we can do independently, and with tumblr’s tagging system being all out of whack now, it’s super hard to find any made by theme creators !!

#answered

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

Text

Nobody is an Action Movie That Questions ‘Toxic Masculinity’

https://ift.tt/39f1Es8

Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) is (as his film title suggests) a Nobody. He’s a schlub who gets up for the same soul-deadening routine each day: he drinking his coffee, forgets to take the garbage out, and sits at his boring desk job. He then comes home to kids who barely tolerate him and a wife who literally makes a barrier of pillows between them in their bed. When he fails to protect their house against a home invasion–even though he clearly could have–the sense of disappointment from his family is palpable.

But the incident awakens something long dormant in Hutch: a set of skills and a primal anger that served him well in a former life and career defined by violence. Hutch has to give that repressed rage an outlet, which unfortunately brings him into the sights of a deadly Russian crime boss, even as it reawakens his soul and reconnects him with his wife and family.

Directed by Ilya Naishuller (who helmed the equally explosive Hardcore Henry in 2015), Nobody also stars Christopher Lloyd, RZA, and Connie Nielsen as Hutch’s wife Becca, a successful career woman on her own terms, and who probably no longer needs her seemingly insubstantial husband all that much. Yet what Becca does or doesn’t know about Hutch’s past is one of the more intriguing questions that this action-packed film raises.

The Danish-born Nielsen’s first major English-language role was in 1997’s The Devil’s Advocate, and since then she’s appeared in films like Rushmore, Gladiator, One Hour Photo, The Ice Harvest and many more. A new audience embraced her more recently thanks to the role of Queen Hippolyta, the mother of Diana of Themyscira in Wonder Woman, Justice League, Wonder Woman 1984, and the just-released Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which sees her role beefed up considerably from the 2017 theatrical version.

Meanwhile, she and the great Odenkirk play off each other exceedingly well in Nobody, a fact that came up during our Zoom chat with the actress.

Den of Geek: Right at the beginning of this film, there’s a home invasion and Bob’s character, Hutch, doesn’t do anything to protect his family. Did that feel very relatable, this idea that your spouse may not have your back in a situation like that?

Connie Nielsen: I loved that scene. I loved how in the aftermath of that scene you had the neighbor literally representing toxic masculinity: “Oh if it was me, I would have taken him out.” And then you have the kid, our child, our teenage boy, so impressionable, and totally buying into this idea of masculinity: “Yeah. We could have taken him, Dad. We could have taken him.” And it’s just like that’s exactly what we’re trying to say to everybody. Stop putting that stuff on men to be that guy, stop saying that a guy has to be all of these different things because it’s not healthy.

What you then have is basically–you start a film about action movies and about action, and about those tropes within an action movie, but then it actually starts questioning what the idea of masculinity behind all of that is. I just loved the irony of that and that importance of that too, because it does make it so relatable.

How does the relationship between Hutch and Becca play into that?

One of the things I said from the beginning was, “Let’s not make Hutch feel intimidated by his wife. Let’s instead underline the fact that he’s the one who’s depressed. He is not threatened by her success. It’s that he feels like he is nobody. He feels that he has no importance. Everybody’s going to be fine if he just freaking wasn’t there, she would be able to continue taking care of the kids and the money and everything else.” It’s this feeling that he has, that he doesn’t matter, and that he’s not important.

And that is such a brilliant way of framing the midlife crisis of this guy, and also the crisis of the relationship where the power balance is out of whack and they can’t reach each other, they can’t figure out how to be a team until they’re forced to become a team.

It’s also rare in the action genre that the relationship is also age appropriate. There’s not this 25-year gap between the husband and wife.

That has always been a pet peeve of mine, even when I was a kid in this business. When I’m watching a movie and I’m seeing a girl who’s 24 playing the mother of four kids. I’m like, “What?” It’s just so dumb. There are so many women out there who get really offended as they watch these kinds of movies. So it’s just also dumb of producers and directors to cast without being age appropriate, because women get mad, they get irritated.

What other little details do you think you contributed or discussed with the director in terms of just making these characters more vivid on the set?

First of all, one of the things that was most important was when we were talking about my character’s success, that it was believable within the context, and that we didn’t make it a takedown of successful women–if it was problematic, it was not her problem, but his problem. I think that also we really talked about making her behavior understandable. There’s a second home invasion where it becomes pretty hard for her to not pose questions, so how do we play that? For me, the most important thing was to come up with a balanced behavior that also posed questions in hindsight as to, well, who is she really, what’s her background story, how is she dealing with all this, and is there something else there?

It’s a little ambiguous how much she knows about Hutch’s past. She’s never overly shocked by anything that Hutch does when the full scope of his character comes out. And that goes back to the idea that you sometimes really don’t know the person you’re married to.

That also goes for the moviegoers, they may not really know who the character of Becca is either. That’s part of what we also had a lot of fun talking about on set–what are the things that you don’t know about her?

What kind of set did Ilya run? Was there an openness for ideas and improvisational type of things?

I think so. I think especially when we were doing scenes that were about the emotional relationship, it was just really about making it come alive and truthful, that it was profound and that was meaningful emotionally, that we didn’t make it a small moment, but a big moment.

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This is the first time you ever worked with Bob.

Yeah. It is, and we never met before.

What is that like when you have to meet and immediately create a relationship between these two characters?

It’s odd, it’s so bizarre and strange. The first day on set when we were doing hair and makeup tests and so on, I was taken to this hangar and there’s box of sand on the floor with a green backdrop and a photographer in front of it. And it’s, “Oh, we’re about to do your family pictures,” and then, “Oh, and this is Bob.” Then you basically sit down and you just immediately move into pictures of our honeymoon and all of these different vacations that we’ve had back in the days when we were happy. I basically just met this man. It’s awkward, but that’s also acting, right? You’re just bringing your own experience and leaning into it as if you know this person.

Did you see the director’s previous film, Hardcore Henry?

I did not see Hardcore Henry, but it was very clear from the beginning that Ilya has this particularly cool way of marrying both music and action and image. So I just felt very comfortable that our producers believed that he was going to bring that same thing to Nobody.

When you look at the way action is done in movies today, on one hand you have the stylized stuff that we see in this movie, and then there’s the way Patty Jenkins shoots the Wonder Woman films, which has this majestic painterly quality. Does this seem like an interesting time for the genre?

I think so. I think that it has just changed so vastly from back in the day with films like Rambo. I think that a lot of these movies used to have a very jingoistic quality to them, and that instead, action has mutated. I think maybe that Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and China brought progress to the genre and really updated it and brought in fantasy elements that were really exciting. Superhero movies have definitely updated those concepts as well. So I do think that action movies continue to evolve. The John Wick trilogy is just such a great example of something that just evolved into this whole world, this John Wick world, which was so cool.

What are your thoughts on Zack Snyder’s Justice League arriving? Did you do any additional shooting for it?

I did my work with Zack on set. I did not have to go back for any reshoots. When Zack was going to start the project back up, he had the courtesy and the kindness to call everybody and ask if we were willing to support him in this. I think every single person immediately just said, “Of course.” I know that we’re all super excited that he’s bringing this vision forward to everybody. And I know that he does not consider this as another Justice League, he considers this a standalone movie in its own right.

Are you signed for Wonder Woman 3?

I know that there’s a storyline that involves the Amazons, that’s really all I can say.

Nobody arrives in theaters on Friday, March 26.

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The post Nobody is an Action Movie That Questions ‘Toxic Masculinity’ appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3spdCGW

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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realtechnolab · 4 years ago

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If Any Of These Apps Are Installed On Your Phone, Uninstall Them Now

Google has been playing whack-a-mole with various iterations of the Joker malware for over a year now.

If you’re unfamiliar with Joker, it is a particularly sneaky piece of malware that’s been circulating in apps delivered via the Google Play Store to Android devices.

Typically, a small piece of software — that is but one component of Joker — is injected into the advertising framework or hidden in another part of an app.

And when the user runs that app, if the user’s information, carrier network, and device meet certain criteria, another component of Joker kicks-in and downloads a more nefarious payload.

When that payload is executed, Joker hides in the background on a device and silently spies on the user, stealing their contact lists, SMS messages, and other identifying data stored on the device.

In addition, Joker mimics user interactions on premium advertising and subscription-based services, and leverages its access to SMS and other personal data to secretly sign people up for paid services.

Since it was first discovered, security researchers and Google have found numerous variants of Joker.

When that happens, Google is usually quick to pull the affected apps from the Play Store and any parties involved will publish their findings.

A couple of days ago, researchers in cloud security company Zscaler’s ThreatLabz team identified 17 new apps carrying Joker, which Google quickly removed from the Play Store. Those apps included:

All Good PDF Scanner Mint Leaf Message-Your Private Message Unique Keyboard — Fancy Fonts & Free Emoticons Tangram App Lock Direct Messenger Private SMS One Sentence Translator — Multifunctional Translator Style Photo Collage Meticulous Scanner Desire Translate Talent Photo Editor — Blur focus Care Message Part Message Paper Doc Scanner Blue Scanner Hummingbird PDF Converter — Photo to PDF

Needless to say, if you have any of these applications on your phone, you should remove them immediately, run an anti-malware app to scan your device, ensure your device is updated and fully patched, and check permissions to see if any questionable apps have permission to access your SMS messages, contact list, etc.

Zscaler says, “We recommend paying close attention to the permission list in the apps that you install on your Android device.

Always watch out for the risky permissions related to SMS, call logs, contacts, and more. Reading the comment or reviews on the app page also helps identify compromised apps.”

Because Joker is continually evolving and only grabs additional components when devices / users meet certain criteria, it is particularly difficult to nail down and continues to slip through Google’s app screening process.

Hopefully, with these latest findings, and continual disclosures from other security researchers, Joker’s spread will be slowed and eventually stopped.

For now though, users should be mindful of the apps they install and deny permission to any personal data unless absolutely certain the app is reputable, clean and needs it to function.

Source/www.forbes.com/sites/marcochiappetta/

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