#its very important when in my art to look for transparent things hidden as a treat

[princemonarchempress]

Another partners in crime au doodle page

close ups on those two corner scenes below as well as outfit designs

Yes, his name becomes Étienne... If he survives long enough to get therapy...

@floating-far-from-earth came up with the "Little Shadow" nickname for pre-king :3c hehe Siffrin's shadow <3

[sweeethinny]

’'Do you always stare at others like that?” For hinny please :D (even better if its an au but cannon is also pretty sweet) :D :D

it was a lot of fun to write, maybe mainly because I love to think about Harry being an artist, and I love even more, writing about art in general. I hope you enjoy! <3

A red strand here, an orange strand there, so she had brown streaks falling under her shoulders that made her look like Harry's goddess, all mixed up in colors and also looked like a sunset between the trees.

Her eyes had that brown tint that he had to dilute three inks to get an approximate color, even though maybe he needed a little more yellow and who knows, very little more of a more closed red. But Harry was content with that color that had arrived.

Her skin was more rosy, which was perhaps a little because of her beautiful red hair, and her cheeks were always a shade more pink than the rest of her face, as if she was always flushed (or had sunbathed too much), making the freckles in that region look so much more alive and flashy, that he wanted to run his hand over her skin, as if he expected to feel the warmth.

He was doing a good job. Looking at the real her again, and noticing how focused she was on her book, turning the pages and smiling in the corner with whatever was written on the pages; Of course, the real Ginny was much prettier than the one on Harry's canvas, but he was doing a good job.

''Do you always stare at others like that?’’' She looked up just as he was staring at her, trying to figure out what her lip colors would be like, a mixture of Indian red with another color that Harry hadn't yet defined which one would be.

‘’Just you.’’ He said, hiding again behind the big canvas he was painting, facing the other Ginny, this time, the one he painted with such affection.

''I know I'm your inspirational muse, but you make me uncomfortable.'' She stretched out her feet on the bench she was sitting on, her hair taking on new orange highlights now that Ginny had turned on her side, the sunrise Parisian shining behind her as if crowning a Goddess.

Aphrodite would be jealous of her.

''I thought you were used to it.'' He smiled, painting more freckles on her face, emphasizing the one on top of her lip that he loved to suck on when they kissed.

'’I think I never will. It's weird to see you staring at me while you paint.’’ She drank her tea, Harry’s white shirt turning a little transparent against the rising sunlight, giving him a privileged view of her bare breasts hidden precariously by the fabric.

''What are you reading? Has the Duke of Clevedon gone after Marcelline?’’ Harry started to focus on her lips, smiling in love with the painting in front of him.

‘’Yes, and of course he forgot about Clara.’’ She moved to the other sheet, focused on the book, even though he sometimes caught Ginny looking out of the corner of her eye. ‘’What are you painting? What made you get out of bed at four in the morning to start painting like crazy, when you could have stayed in bed with me?'' She finally looked at him, leaving the book open in her lap, but now paying full attention to him. The sky behind her was almost completely pink, the sun getting higher and higher in the clouds.

‘’It is the last frame of the exhibition. But don't see, I want it to be a surprise.’’ He stopped her before she could get up to sit next to him as she usually did. She sometimes laid her head on his lap and slept while Harry painted, or lay there, talking about everything and nothing, and other times, she just sat next to him, watching him paint.

‘’Aren’t you really going to tell me what this whole collection of paintings is about?’’ Her bare foot went up and down Harry’s leg, her touch seeming to ignite his skin. ‘’Am I not even going to get a little spoiler?''

''No. Nothing.’’ Harry concentrated on her neck, skipping the freckles there. ‘’I like to see your face when everything is ready and hanging on the walls.’’

‘’You’re so boring,’’ Gin snorted, lying on the bench and disappearing out of his sight, leaving him with only the window that have a beautiful view of Paris. The breakfast table was littered with Harry's paints and supplies, as well as the newspaper and some of Ginny's papers, scattered in the usual clutter that only they understood.

Such a mess that had made Harry paint 10 pictures inspired by their lives, the mess they made before finally accepting that they should be together, and the roller coaster of feelings that it had been until that moment. The whole exhibition was created over the more than 10 years that they had been together, and especially the idea of ​​love, which Harry now had.

It was like watching a book unfold with each art; the restaurant on the corner of the library where she worked, which they met; the cafe where Harry took her for their first date (which was not planned, but which she insisted on saying was their first date); the romance section where they gave their first kiss - and for this one, Harry drew a blurred couple kissing in the background; a room full of sculptures and canvases, which was when Ginny went to his work to say that she was leaving, and consequently, where Harry realized he loved her; the way to her parents' house; the airport with the vision he had of when he saw her plane leaving for Paris, where she would go to work; his boarding pass to Paris; the bouquet of jasmine he bought, that there was a bee in the middle and that stung Ginny in the nose (and in this one, he made sure to draw her in the background with a red nose); the jewelry store with their engagement ring in the window; the vision he had of the altar, while waiting for it; and finally, Ginny.

All paintings had little, if not all, of Ginny's appearance (even if blurry), her hair flying in the background, her hand or something that reminded her of her.

Seeing little pieces of their life scattered around the pictures, made Harry want to declare his love for who knows what time, already lost on how many times he had tried to make her cry or blush with his words, just to laugh and fill her with kisses later, getting even more in love.

‘’Gin,’’ Harry called out to her, and she got up from the bench, with that messy hair of someone who had woken up at five in the morning to be with her husband while he was painting, after a night that had been well spent. ''I love you.''

‘’Awn, Harry, I know,’’ She laughed, bending under the table to squeeze his cheeks, like she did with their godchildren. ''I love you too. Even if you don't show me what you're creating here.'' Ginny sat down again, the sky behind already bluish, reflecting off her hair and making it look more reddish, and definitely showing how translucent the fabric of his shirt was against the light. . ‘’My eyes are up here, my boy.’’

‘’I know.’’ Harry dropped the brush, deciding that there was nothing else to do when the paint was wet, and that he should wait a few hours to do the finishing touches.

‘’Don’t you need to finish this?’’ Ginny pointed to the canvas, but also closed the book and placed it on the table.

‘’I have two more days to deliver,’’ He walked over to her, picking her up as if she weighed nothing, hearing her squeak of surprise. ‘’We have more important things to do now.’’ And then he stepped away from the dinner room, ready to go back to the warm, cozy bed and enjoy the first hours of the day in the best possible way.

[grimoire-of-geekery]

Detect Magic: the Sixth World Tarot by Echo Chernik

(pictured here- the deluxe edition [left] and the Arcanist edition of the Sixth World Tarot by Echo Chernik)

Y'know, it's been a long time since I did one of these, but here goes. It's time for another Detect Magic review. I haven't put the Dork Magician hat on for a while, so let's give this a whirl!

Today we're taking a look at the Sixth World Tarot, by Echo and Lazarus Chernik. She has this available on her website (click the above link), which come signed by the artist and the author. I'm a bit bummed, I bought a copy of this deck juuuuust before she started signing them. Not her fault, but still. XD

For those of you unfamiliar with Shadowrun, it's a cyberpunk dystopian magic-and-mech RPG setting and fantasy novel universe which originated in the late 80's. The premise is that magic is growing stronger, the world experienced a big Awakening in the early 2000's, right around the same time that corporations managed to gain extraterritoriality. So, you have dragons running huge megacorps, which basically enslave people to be lifelong wageslaves from birth (or as soon as they can get their hands on a desired talent), immersive VR Matrix hackers, cyberware enhanced fighters and magic practitioners acting as "deniable assets" to said corps for all sorts of shady business.

Hence the name "Shadowrun."

This setting, one of my absolute favorite settings out there, has had the misfortune of developing a sort of eerie prophetic element akin to the Simpsons and its bizarre track record of prediction of ludicrous world events. Shadowrun was intended to be a cautionary tale, not an oracular one. That being said, that does make a tarot based on Shadowrun more than a little on-the-nose for predictive purposes. After all, they're telling the future without even trying. Wait until they actually put some effort into it...

All right, time to Detect Magic!

Accessory- Crit (4 out of 4) Stunning artwork, evocative imagery... this deck is gorgeous. It's so beautiful, and so intricate and well made, that people who don't even read tarot (or even particularly like tarot) buy several copies for their geeky collections, and even people who don't particularly care about Shadowrun have dropped their jaw when I showed the deck to them.

A bit busier than I'm used to working with (not the art, but the extras which I'll explain later), I was pleasantly surprised at how much I loved the cards when I first got them. The box for both editions I own are a nice durable gloss with a magnetic foldover closure, there's a ribbon inside each to help pull the cards and book out of the box, and the decorative artwork is gorgeous and fitting with the setting. Definitely aesthetically pleasing enough to take places, and durable enough to resist scuffing or tearing for on-the-go divination and gaming use.

Tome- Crit (4 out of 4) So, the Tome section of this review is supposed to be about how well the cards help one in the pursuit of learning magic and practicing geekomancy. And... really, I don't think I've found a deck (or any artifact of fandom) quite as good as this.

Let me explain.

Tarot, in the sorcery practice I teach, are already basically a pictorial grimoire, describing life in a way that allows us to learn the hidden movements, mysteries, and forces at play in our world. Art is good for things like that in general. It helps you see the world through a special lens, one which allows you to see things you might have missed.

The thing is, the lens of this deck is the Shadowrun continuity, which as I said earlier, has proven to be more than a little prophetic, and alarmingly so.

The magic system of Shadowrun is pretty adjacent to our own. Life force lines, spiritual power sites, astral projection and spirits and magical "energy" forms, initiatory mysteries... it's all pretty much the same as our own reality, just juiced up a bit, with some extra game elements added (don't even ask me about insect spirits).

This makes the deck particularly helpful if one wishes to learn magic in any of the myriad ways described in Shadowrun (and they're particularly respectful and diverse and true-to-life in their tradition descriptions).

BUT, it also has an entire lore-book called the Book of the Lost associated with it, which explains all these little secret sigils and images and easter eggs stored throughout the deck, which can be used for gamebuilding and storytelling, but are designed to be arcane indicators and omens, among other things. And the kinds of symbols they use range from sentences or mottos in dead languages, all the way to waveform patterns and dot-matrix maps. I swear, if you're one of those people who like puzzles and cryptography, this deck is even more fun than the Hermetic Tarot.

In summary, while you'll have to get some Shadowrun sourcebooks to really get deep into the canon lore, there's so much of it that the cards really show you on their own that I don't consider this a setback at all. Feel free to deep-dive with this deck, you'll learn a TON about magic if you let it guide you.

Relic- Success (3 out of 4) If you read the Book of the Lost, or Unearthed Arcana, or any of the 5th edition Shadowrun magic sourcebooks, you'll see that "tarot magic" is an up and coming thing in their canon. Each text helps you see how practitioners use the cards in-game for spellcasting, ritual magic, initiation practices and spirit summoning. The Tarot are already really valuable as central objects of importance to certain kinds of magical practice. This particular deck is designed to be so handy a central object that there's an entire book dedicated to it.

Weapon- Success (3 out of 4) The only reason I'm rating this a success instead of a crit is because they don't provide enough spreads in the various associated books for one to immediately begin casting spells with them, which means you'll have to do some designing. They do have a couple solid unique spreads for basic divination though.

The deck's canon in-game suggests ritual practices like gathering and doing a ritual with sets of related cards, and one such ritual was easily adapted in my own practice, into the Lucky Kimono spread I designed (which people can read about on my Patreon at the higher tiers). So, even without outright including spell-spreads, they sort of gave us clues anyway.

Again, you're going to need the sourcebooks, but it's only a few of them, and they're well worth a read even if you're not planning on playing the game (and I don't play in the actual Shadowrun mechanical system, though I do like the sourcebooks for campaign setting ideas).

Overall Rating: Critical Success (14 out of 16)

Achievement Unlocked: Novahot Echo's artwork is already legendary in the dork realms of geekomancy. She's done work for Dungeons and Dragons, Mage: the Ascension, House of Night... she's even working on a Fate: the Winx Saga playing card deck right now. Her art-nouveau delicacy combined with the powerful non-pandering way she draws women means that her paintings pack a punch!

That being said, it's rare that we see professional artists create a tarot deck of this magnitude as a gaming accessory. Most tarot decks of this caliber are found in professional occult catalogues or as independent projects by artists just wanting to flex their skills for their own reasons. To have a deck like this, clearly a labor of love by all involved, as a major element of gameplay within a franchise is really very special. And something this diverse, deep, and absolutely saturated with layers of ciphers and riddles... it's a geekomancer's dream come true.

Level Up: 2 Levels I think the only way anyone's going to be able to top this deck is if they manage to design a tarot deck that's also a fully immersive VR video game AND an AR game and divination tool useable with one's iPhone or Android. Legit, Echo and Lazarus left everyone in the dust. I haven't been this excited about Shadowrun since Shadowrun Returns first came out, and I got a set of dogtags that had a USB drive with the game on it.

It's just... crazy cool.

Full disclosure, I've had the deluxe edition of these cards for a while now, so I've basically been low-key squeeing about this deck since I first heard about it in 2018, even before I got it. I've been utterly astonished that people weren't more excited about them, and I wasn't hearing about them everywhere.

Before this, I created my own Shadowrun tarot method using the Universal Transparent Tarot (cuz, y'know, plastic and see-through and weird little mosaic readings all in one place, seemed fitting to me), and when I got the Sixth World Tarot? I don't think I've opened the UTT since!

Anyway, this is my review of this deck! Go follow the link up at the top of this post, and buy yourself one! And hey, let me know if you figure out the cool little map trick. My jaw literally dropped when I was shown that!

[whereflowersbloom]

Shadows and thorns

Part I

The ‘Princess of thorns’ they usually call her, among other names, cursed child, witch. Some said born with the gift, others the curse. The promise of a witch had been sacred for a long time. Ages before her birth, but unfortunately it comes with a high price. Her innocent mother suffered the consequences. Her dying mother weakly lifted her head to look at her, for the first and last time, a stormy night. The Queen closed her eyes, content, exhaled her last breath as the baby girl let out her first cries. Her wailing resonating through the empty halls. Born with unnatural powers, a girl with soft silver white hair, big stunning violet eyes, shinning like jewels, pale skin almost transparent and a gentle heart. Growing fast, possessing incomparable beauty, showing surprising powers that needed to be groomed with care. The people of her land utterly devastated by the loss of their last Queen. Fearing the cause. Her. Afraid of the uncertainty, no sovereign, the birth of a cursed child, with tremendous powers. A witch. Her people talked. She must be hidden from the other Kingdoms, the rest of the world they decided. Forced into isolation. She spent her days secluded, in her own castle, learning everything she could about plants, and the arts of magic, devouring every book she gets her hands on. Accompanied by the animals, they do not fear her powers. And the exception of a few servants and her guardian.

She’s the sole and last daughter of Azarath. Her nation was relatively small and poor compared to others. Nothing like Nanda Parbat which was vast, rich and extensive. Now she would be traded away to secure her territory. At the age of 16 years old, John Constantine declares she’s to be married to Wallace West, nephew of the King of a Kingdom not too far from her own. The King Bartholomew had no children, so he declared Wallace his heir. Her guardian assured her, the young man was a brave and powerful warrior. He was capable of protecting her, and her powers would remain a secret to the rest of the world. He’d guard her as his queen. Constantine gave her his word.

But will he love me? A silent question her heart whispered, full of thirst for deep affection. Unlikely. Her mind answered.

Constantine meant well, she knew it. It was such a sweet and empty promise. A bittersweet kiss of destiny. She smiled faintly and thanked her guardian for staying by her side all those years. She tried to find comfort in the idea of freedom.

~~~

“You asked for me, Grandfather?” The prince asked firmly with his deep voice as he entered the throne room. He was wearing his gold and green armor, the colors of the house of Al Ghul. He looked up at the king whose wild eyes seemed to scatter, looking for something in every corner of the grand room.

Ra’s Al Ghul scorned down at his grandson and spoke heartlessly, his expression showing disdain. “I did. Your safeguards should have informed you the banquet and tournament will be held in a month.”

The prince clenched his fists in frustration and annoyance. He did not wish for this. However, fighting his grandfather on this would lead to punishment. He subdued his discontent, wearing a neutral mask. “Very well.”

Ra’s eyed his grandson suspiciously, he wasn’t showing resistance anymore. “Heed my warning boy, you will choose a suitable bride by the end of this tournaments or I’ll do it myself. If you weren’t my only heir, I’d remove you from succession.” The prince narrowed his eyes, getting the message.

He inclined his head, showing respect to his grandfather and king. “I understand.” He wondered what his ancestors would think of the cruel monster ruling the empire they had build, the whole Nanda Parbat nation called King. There wouldn’t be need to take such drastic measures, he’d find a bride at the banquet and then he’d remove his grandfather as king. It was the only hope to save his people. Avoid the war his grandfather had planned.

“Do what is expected and do not bring shame upon the Al Ghul name, boy or I’ll have you killed.” His grandfather threatened anger reflected in his eyes. “GET OUT OF MY SIGHT NOW.” The king barked.

Damian Al Ghul bowed, not saying a single word,striding from the room, before his grandfather came up with new ways to torture him. His safeguard and spy master following, falling behind him like a shadow. Richard.

To the rest of the kingdom this tournament was the king’s way of boasting the wealth of their house, choosing a bride for the dutiful prince. To Damian and his loyal followers it was the first step in becoming the new monarch the land urgently needed, establishing his line.

A wife was all he required. Love wasn’t necessary.

~~~

Nanda Parbat was far from what she imagined it would be, larger, deep in the mountains, there were some charred ruins of epic proportions, each of its five main towers reaching into the sky. It possessed an ancient beauty. The castle was alive with activity, servants rushing past with bolts of cloth and platters of different kind of foods. Shadows as they called their assassins, sprinting back and forth with curved pieces of steel in their grip, royalty from other nations, high lords and ladies strolling the grounds, admiring the wondrous city carved into sandstone.

There she had met her betrothed, Wallace West from The Westlands. He was everything she had heard about him, rumors from commoners. Wallace was muscular and strong, with reddish locks and sparkling green eyes, he moved with the confidence of a man who knew he was the best sword in the capital, smiled at her as if he expected her to be impressed by it. Other ladies would describe him as charismatic and charming. Not her though.

Rhachel did not feel her heart hammer in her chest when she was in her future husband’s presence. She did not feel her palms sweat or heat rise to her rosy cheeks. She did not feel a ball of nerves ladies speak about, or desire and want pool in her stomach. She did not want to launch herself in his strong arms and stay there. She did not wish to engage in a conversation with him that lasted more than five minutes.

In her mind she’d gladly marry a commoner if she was in love with him. No seconds thoughts. If it meant it was her choice. Unfortunately, her duty consisted of being the wife of a prince. A queen to give him one or two heirs. That was her role to play from the moment she was born or so she had been told. She longed for freedom. Would she ever belong to herself? The wildness of her soul suffocated by the chains of her obligations screamed for release.

“You’ve been neglecting your soon to be husband.” Her guardian chastised her. “This alliance with Westlands is very important. A matter of survival.” Constantine hissed before he lowered his voice to a whisper. She felt like a mare sold to the highest bidder. She reminder herself she was doing it for her nation.

“I understand you wished for love. But it’s your duty. Azarath needs it. You may grow to like him.” John spoke directly, looking her straight in the eye. He rested a comforting hand on her bare shoulder. A gesture intended to give her hope. But I won’t, she gulped down those words that wanted to come out. She knows. Whatever he was willing to provide, he could give to her. It wouldn’t quench her heart and spirit.

With her fists clenched tightly, her blood boiling in her veins so hot it burned, a knot started to form in her throat, yet she refused to let a single teardrop leave her eyes. She was the last daughter of Azarath. She felt both anger and sadness started building up in her chest. She held her tongue. She couldn’t lose control here.

“So I have the rest of eternity to speak with him.” She says bitterly, over the muttering of the other visitors.

Rhachel saw members of the safeguard walking nearby, a man richly decorated in black and green standing in front of them, guards shadowing him, a massive sword to match his height on his hip. Midnight dark hair, olive skin and emerald eyes instantly caught her attention.

“Who is that?” Rhachel asked, fire and curiosity sparking in her eyes, pointing to the man.

Constantine snickered, pushing her hand down discreetly. “That, dearest Rae is Prince Damian Al Ghul.” Giving her a reproachful glance.

It was her first time seeing the Prince, if only she could get closer for a better look but a crowd of astonished nobles had gathered around, making it almost impossible. “I heard this tournament was a ploy for The Prince to find a bride.” She said quietly, eyes still fixed on Prince Damian, who was kissing the hand of a noble she recognized, Donna, the Amazonian princess. The epitome of a lady. She focused on the Al Ghul heir again.

She had only heard good things of the Crown Prince, Prince Damian was said to be everything the folk stories described: tall, imposing, brave and mysterious. A true maiden’s dream. He was said to be well read, chivalrous, a great swordsman, never lost a single match, loved by the commoners and nobles equally.

Her governess had taught her about all the noble families, the most important kingdoms, the lineages, everything she required to know. She read about the Al Ghul, they were said to have cursed assassins blood in their veins, with a large army of cold-blooded Assassins, called Shadows.

The moment she laid her amethyst eyes on Prince Damian she found him too beautiful. Rhachel could not imagine cursed blood or shadows being associated with him. She felt a strong and magnetic pull towards him. Questions running through her mind, if the rumors were true, if he was everything he appeared to be. Who was the real Damian Al Ghul? She shook her head, repelling those impermissible thoughts invading her. “I need some fresh air.” She let know to Constantine before leaving the palace.

~~~

The night was completely clear. The light of the moon gushed down onto Nanda Parbat and illuminated everything in such a romantic way Rhachel could not help but give a little sigh. It was so different from Azarath. Things looked entirely different in moonlight. She felt like a breath of fresh air had been blown across her caged soul. She wore her feelings upon her shoulders, carrying the weight of her duties and past. For a moment she wanted nothing but forget all about it.

Once out of the castle, she headed toward the royal stables. She looked around until she found her horse and smiled instantly. “I’m sure the stableboy will have a nice apple for you, Melchior.” she said, patting her horse’s neck and looking into his big dark red eyes. Melchior has been a gift from John after her twelfth name day. He had become her constant companion. “Maybe I can convince him to give you two apples. What do you say, my friend?” The white stallion nuzzled at her neck. “I see you’ve missed me. Two it is.”

One of the stable boys had mentioned her that buried deep in the trees there was a stream and that the banks were soft and clear enough for a horse to get up to full pace uninterrupted. Perhaps she could explore the unknown territory with Melchior tomorrow. “What do you say, want to go ride tomorrow?” Melchior exhales a deep fluttering breath through his nostrils. “I’ll make sure they give you enough apples.” Rachel promises, encouraging him. The horse seemed to sense her mood lifting and snorted in anticipation. She loved the white stallion, riding him. It gave her a sense of freedom. He’s the only one who understands she told herself.

She was running her fingers through Melchior’s hair when she hears the horse next to her own, nickering to her, as if it were calling her, seeking her attention. She looked at him, studying the beautiful creature. It was an elegant black stallion, huge, an Arabian purebred, dark as night with shinning amber eyes. Magnificent. “Hello, maybe you want some apples, too?” Rhachel smiled warmly at him. She reached out to touch him, slowly, carefully, showing him she meant no harm. The dark stallion lowers his head, allowing her to touch him. She rubbed his long neck gently. He seemed to be enjoying it. “What is your name?” She asked the horse as it were to answer her.

“I must admit I’m impressed. Goliath does not allow strangers to touch him. I’d even dare say he’s taken a liking to you.” A deep voice announced from behind her, startling her. Promply the princess whirled around to see Damian Al Ghul standing there in all his finery, watching her with an amused expression as she petted the horse and talked to it.

So first part of new AU 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🙈🙈🙈

What do you think about it? Questions, suggestions, open to anything.

@ravenfan1242 it’s here

[arecomicsevengood]

Quarantine Movie-Watching Journal, Continued

Throughout all this quarantine time I’ve been chronicling my watching movies, I’ve also been reading books, but have had assorted troubles on a level that seems close to basic comprehension, or just getting on their wavelength. Part of this is having a certain tendency towards the difficult or avant-garde in terms of what I think is “good,” but also wanting things to make sense or have a certain level of clarity: It’s maybe a difficult balance to strike but I don’t know, plenty of books pull it off, I have plenty of favorites. Nothing I’ve read recently has really been hitting, the only thing I’ve found compulsively readable is Virginie Despentes’ Vernon Subutex series, which I would hesitate to recommend as I also think they’re kind of bad. I want clarity on a certain level, and mystery on a deeper one; a lot of things essentially get the formula backwards, and feel incredibly obvious and free of ideas while employing obfuscatory language. (This isn’t to say I like “straightforward” prose, the “mystery” I’m referring to is basically created as an act of alchemy when language is functioning on its highest level, and insight, mood, imagery, and motion are all generated simultaneously. This isn’t “plain speech” I’m describing, but it doesn’t short-circuit the brain’s ability to make sense of it.)

In watching a lot of older movies I find that one of the things that help them maintain a level of interest is I possess a certain confusion about their cultural context. Even if something is a perfectly straightforward mainstream entertainment, there is still a sense of confusion or mystery about it, where you can follow it perfectly, but don’t necessarily know where it’s coming from, so it’s unclear where it’s going. In contrast, watching modern movies, especially more mainstream things but also, generally speaking, everything, I feel like not only do I know exactly where it’s coming from it’s also aggressively spelling everything out, as if to avoid moral confusion. This is also combined with a certain aggressiveness to the editing, so even as everything too fast-paced on certain level, it also ends up being too long, because it needs to fit in a certain level of redundancy. Older things tend to have a greater degree of storytelling clarity that’s also premised on a higher level of trust in the viewer’s ability to intuit things. Maybe there’s also a greater level of reliance on a set of semiotic devices that we’ve become more critical of over time, but what’s emerged in their absence feels more self-consciously insistent.

Little Women (2019) dir. Greta Gerwig

After watching this I looked up on IMDB to see what Gerwig is up to now and she’s slated to direct a Barbie movie? I hate this era, where success doesn’t lead to any actual clout to make important or interesting work, but instead forces artists into these traps of economic contract where they service a trademark. Also this movie is kind of weird because all these actresses are in their twenties but I think are meant to be playing teenagers for most of it? Or even younger? This movie basically feels like it is meant to be for children but is given this gloss over it to maybe seem appealing to young adult modern feminists but it doesn’t really seem like it would be except to the extent they’re indulging a youthful nostalgia.

Shirley (2020) dir. Josephine Decker

I’ve been wanting to watch Decker’s last movie Madeline’s Madeline because a lady I met and thought was cute has a small role in it. I guess all her movies are about artists and performers? I like that this one seems capable of depicting a fiction writer without just presenting their work as autobiographical but I guess that’s because it’s, you know, a real person whose story is being told. Elisabeth Moss is pretty good as Shirley Jackson. Jackson acts real weird and petulant and destructive and I sort of went in feeling like she would be depicted as a manipulative monster, but watching it I felt like it was probably well-researched and accurate to how she was but not in a way that makes me dislike Shirley Jackson — but also I do like destructive difficult personalities and I think that’s basically a fine and acceptable way for artists, or anyone, to behave. I still don’t think this is really a good movie, Shirley Jackson is not really the lead but more like the only interesting character: She’s got an obnoxious and self-satisfied husband, but the movie is more about this couple that moves in — a woman who’s pretty dull is the focal point, and her husband is boring, and manipulative too, albeit in a very commonplace way. Pretty average.

The Predator (2018) dir. Shane Black

A movie about how people with Asperger’s are the next step in human evolution that nonetheless uses the r-word slur to describe them, filled with some of the most generic actors imaginable. I like Shane Black movies as much as the next guy, but am indifferent to the Predator franchise. Maybe because, despite the R rating, they really do feel like they’re made to sell toys, like so many cartoons of the eighties? I hope the sequel the ending transparently sets up never gets made.

The Lighthouse (2019) dir. Robert Eggers

Wasn’t able to finish The Witch and I stopped and started this one a few times. Tries to avoid accusations that “all these modern horror movies are dumb as shit” by not being a horror movie but it also isn’t really anything else — Not funny enough to be a comedy nor evocative enough to be an art movie. Sort of like High Life in the sense that Robert Pattinson isn’t actually good in it but maybe it’s surprising that a mainstream actor would be in a “weird movie,” but he doesn’t really have to do anything in either, at least as far as building a character goes. It’s underwritten enough he might not even know how to read. Willem Dafoe is ok as a guy doing the sea captain voice from The Simpsons.

The Whistlers (2020) dir. Corneliu Poromboiu

Contemporary crime thing that vaguely reminded me of all the other post-Tarantino crime movies made in the past 25 years that I don’t really remember, particularly the ones in other languages. This one’s got characters learning a whistling language to communicate in a way cops will just thing is birds. Also a semi-complicated plot, told non-linearly. The female lead also pretends to be a prostitute and has sex with a criminal dude so the police watching him with hidden cameras don’t figure out what she’s up to, although, if I understand the plot, I’m pretty sure they work it out anyway.

Pain And Glory (2019) dir. Pedro Almodovar

This one stars Antonio Banderas, is pretty plainly autobiographical, being about a filmmaker approaching the end of his life -- Penelope Cruz plays the mother in flashbacks that are then shown to be a filmed recreation as an autobiographical work is begun, which is the sort of twist that could seem corny but isn’t. The film has a weird/interesting structure, the slow revelation of details from the character’s past forming a narrative a film can be made of eventually but before that there’s this totally separate story involving an actor, heroin use, and an ex-lover. That stuff’s good but also it sort of wraps up halfway through. Like, a bundle of narrative threads culminate, and then the film keeps going, to eventually tie up other bits that seem incidental. Maybe this would be fine in a theater but streamed at home I got a bit anxious. Penelope Cruz made me think “I could watch Vanilla Sky” but it turned out I can’t, it’s unwatchable.

High Heels (1991) dir. Pedro Almodovar

I love Almodovar, my stance has been that there’s a degree of diminishing returns the more of his work you see but it’s been years since I’ve seen one of his movies, and at this point I remember very little of any of them. This one’s on Criterion as part of a collection of films with scores by Ryuichi Sakamoto — Sakamoto’s not my favorite member of Yellow Magic Orchestra but he’s certainly an adept talent, and this one operates differently than I’d expect from him, most of the music feels saxophone-led, sort of in a jazz vein. Obviously you can compose for this instrumentation but yeah, not what I’d expect. The movie itself is pretty solid: bright colors, some melodrama, a ridiculous twist, a sense of humor which feels both over the top and somewhat deadpan. A woman’s mother returns to Spain after close to a lifetime away, she ends up sleeping with the daughter’s husband, he turns up dead, the daughter reveals he killed her stepfather as a child. The movie is primarily about the daughter’s yearning for the approval for an emotionally distant mother, at one point she summarizes the Bergman movie Autumn Sonata for her, but Almodovar is gayer and more sexually perverse than Bergman. so it’s less dour than I’m maybe making it sound. At one point the daughter is wearing a sweater with the pattern of the Maryland flag on it? But the credits reveal all her outfits are by Chanel.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1990) dir. Volker Schlondorff

The score is closer to what I would expect from Sakamoto here, in a martial/industrial vein, though not exclusively. Stars Natasha Richardson, and her performance feels related to what she did in Patty Hearst — a depiction of a woman shutting down parts of herself for the sake of her own survival, displaying inner reserves of strength through the appearance of submission. This seems a lot better than the current Hulu show, although I think it’s largely dismissed? It’s been a while since I read the book so I can’t remember how many liberties it takes. Obviously there remain traces of an exploitation bent in a weird way, through depiction of women in dehumanized sexual contexts but I feel like this movie is good at depicting competition between women in the context of a rigged patriarchal system.

Merry Christmas Mister Lawrence (1983) dir. Nagisa Oshima

Never seen any of Oshima’s films, despite the allure of explicit sex in an artsy context. This has Sakamoto in it opposite David Bowie. There’s a lot of English language being spoken in a thick Japanese accent. David Bowie plays a prisoner of war Sakamoto, as a military officer, falls in love with and tries to keep from harm, his score does the heavy lifting of highlighting these emotions. Was not super-into this movie but it’s always interesting to think about how popular YMO were, and if these are the type of faces you enjoy looking at you can do that. Sakamoto’s got a weird hairline. The movie is fine considered in the context of like, 1980s movies (not my fave decade) that are period military dramas (not my favorite genre) and exist in this Japanese film context that is neither super-insane and exuberant in its style nor is it super-austere and minimal.

A Farewell To Arms (1932) dir. Frank Borzage

Very well-shot piece of romance, starring Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes, in an adaptation of a Ernest Hemingway novel I don’t remember whether or not I read in high school. Hemingway didn’t like it, maybe because there were a lot of changes, which confuses the issue of whether or not I know the source material further. I don’t like this movie as much as I liked History Is Made At Night but it makes a lot more sense as a narrative, easily reduced to a bare-bones plot: He’s in the army, she’s a nurse, people don’t want them to be together during World War I, he ends up deserting to be with her. Feels lush, romantic, dreamy and swooning, but I feel like the strengths are more in the cinematography than the characters — the leads are fine enough, though not super deep, beyond the depths of their love, but the supporting cast is a bit dull.

War Of The Worlds (2005) dir. Steven Spielberg

Feel like I had heard this one was good? I appreciate Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible movies, and Spielberg some of the time I guess. This is a blockbuster that feels post-9/11 in a way where I wonder what a post-Corona thing would feel like — feel like it would shy away from away from a lot of spectacle or something but probably I’m wrong about that. So this one focuses on a parent and his children making their way across an increasingly demolished landscape to make it to the other parent, alien monsters are in the way, kinda just seems logistically weird or like the premise of the quest is unsound given the stakes should probably just be survival? But maybe this is post-covid thinking of how such a thing would operate — the disaster picture with a “human element” to focus the narrative on is a decades-old form and one I don’t really get down with nor do I think is generally considered to age well - i.e. I don’t remember growing up with The Towering Inferno being on TV.

My Twentieth Century (1989) dir. Ildiko Enyedi

Weird Hungarian movie where like… angels/stars observe? As two twins are born in the late eighteen-hundreds and go on to have separate lives? One as an anarchist, the other as like a party girl type who seduces rich men. The latter gets more attention than the former. Sort of a fairy tale atmosphere, which makes the explicit sex scenes awkward. There’s also a scene where a guy gives a sexist lecture about how women should be allowed to vote even though they have no sense of logic and are obsessed with sex. He draws a dick on the chalkboard and talks about how women can’t understand beauty since they are obsessed with erections which are disgusting. Not really sure what it adds to the movie as a whole since I’m not sure which one of the two characters played by the same actress is meant to be watching it, but it’s funny. A lot of things are confusing about this movie, but it’s still sort of interesting and therefore worthwhile I guess. Apparently the director has a new movie on Netflix — I don’t have Netflix at the moment but might get it for a month or two in the future to catch up on assorted things like Sion Sono’s The Forest Of Love and the David Lynch content.

His Girl Friday (1940) dir. Howard Hawks

not into this one. Rosalind Russell wears a cool suit at first though. Features the thing where a male romantic lead (Cary Grant) is openly manipulative but it’s sort of viewed as fine and funny because the woman in question is confident and modern, which kinda feels like a fascinating view into the gender dynamics of the time, although I don’t think it works as a comedy as far as me being able to figure out what the jokes are. The journalists getting caught up in crime intrigue plot is cool though, that kind of feels like something that always works.

Lured (1947) dir. Douglas Sirk

Kind of have no idea why I watched all the older Douglas Sirk movies on the Criterion Channel at this point, even the ones I liked I don’t think I liked that much? This one stars Lucille Ball, who I don’t love. Other movies I watched recently that were partly comedies and partly suspense things worked better than this. This one’s about attractive young women disappearing and Lucille Ball getting hired by the police to be an undercover detective. She ends up finding love, but then the man she gets engaged to is framed for murder by the actual killer. Features scenes where the police (led by Charles Coburn, who’s fine in this) talk about how crazy Baudelaire was. Wouldn’t recommend.

Far From Heaven (2002) dir. Todd Haynes

Not sure I have any strong feelings towards Todd Haynes, but it seems likely I might end up watching a bunch of his movies eventually. This came out in high school, and I had no interest in it, but I’m more charitable towards the whole fifties melodrama thing it’s paying homage to now. Julianne Moore stars as a woman whose husband (Dennis Quaid) is gay and repressing himself via alcoholism, who strikes up a friendship with her black gardener, (Dennis Haysbert) which scandalizes her neighbors. The moments Moore and Haysbert spend together are maybe the most interesting - particularly them going to an all-black restaurant - but the aspect of them being watched and judged feels more cliched. Similarly, the stuff about Dennis Quaid’s homosexuality is most interesting as a lived-in thing, and his drinking, hitting his wife, etc., is less so. The veins of sensuality running through the movie are richer than the plot structure that unites them. This might be one of the things that makes Carol a superior movie.

The Violent Men (1955) dir. Rudolph Mate

This stars a bunch of people I don’t like — Glenn Ford, Edward G Robinson, Barbara Stanwyck is fine in other stuff but boring here. Dianne Foster plays her daughter, and that’s the meatiest role basically- she gets to denounce violent men. This is a western about a guy being pressured to sell his land for cheap. Criterion Channel programmed this as part of a series called “western noir” and I don’t know about this stuff. Foster’s character is definitely the most interesting part — her parents are essentially these gangsters running the town, her teen angst feels like it stems from an inherent morality and disgust with them. Stanwyck is cheating on Foster’s father (Robinson) with a guy I think is his brother who also enforces the violence. The mom tries to kill the father, and then is herself killed by a woman in love with the person she’s sleeping with, so the daughter, you would think, would go through a gamut of emotions. But she’s a totally secondary to Glenn Ford’s male lead, who she ends up riding off into the sunset with — he initially was involved in a relationship with a woman who didn’t care about his inherent morality in favor of a materialism, but she just sort of gets dropped from the narrative at a certain point. The movie really tries to play it both ways with regards to the violence, but I feel like that’s pretty common actually: While I feel like today the title might primarily be intended as an indictment, it also feels like at the time it was very much the sales pitch to the audience.

Shane (1953) dir. George Stevens

Classic western, about homesteaders just trying to live who end up needing to get in gunfights with people who want their land. Jean Arthur plays the wife and mother, which is why I sought it out (especially sicne she had established rapport with Stevens) but she’s barely in it. The titular Shane is a good dude who wanders through and ends up helping them out. The kid’s infatuation of Shane is really annoying to me personally. I love how this has two big fist-fights though, the second of which is a They Live style thing, a conflict between friends that becomes incredibly drawn out. The first fight is also just incredibly brutal and well-choreographed, probably the high point of the movie.

Cast A Deadly Spell (1991) dir. Martin Campbell

TV movie made for HBO with very Vertigo Comics energy, I started off thinking “this is dumb” but very quickly got on its side. It’s a riff on HP Lovecraft mythology set in a 1940s Los Angeles where everyone uses magic except for one private detective, whose name is Harry Lovecraft. Pretty PG-rated, some practical effects (not the best kind, more like gargoyle demon creature costumes I assume are made of foam), and a pretty easily foreseeable “twist” ending where the apocalypse is averted because the virgin sacrifice just lost her virginity to a cop. Not actually that clever but clever enough to work and be consistently enjoyable. Julianne Moore plays a nightclub singer. My interest in this is brought about because there’s a sequel (where I guess the deal is the detective does use magic, and no one else does) called Witch Hunt starring Dennis Hopper and directed by Paul Schrader.

Jennifer’s Body (2009) dir. Karyn Kusama

The climax of Cast A Deadly Spell shares a plot point with this, which I think is being reevaluated as a “cult classic” to what I assume is the same audience that valued the Scott Pilgrim movie: People ten years younger than me who think it’s charming when things are completely obnoxious. A lot of musical cues, all mixed at too loud relative to the rest of the audio, bad jokes. This tone does help power the whole nihilistic, I-enjoy-seeing-these-superfluous-characters-die aspect of the plot but the sort of emotional core of the horror is less present. This movie is basically fine, by lowered modern movies standards, but it’s perfectly disposable and not really worth valuing in any way. I watched Kusama’s movie Destroyer starring Nicole Kidman a year ago and don’t remember anything about it now.

Dead Ringers (1988) dir. David Cronenberg

Rewatch. I think for a while I would’ve considered this my favorite Cronenberg but nowadays I might favor eXistenZ? Jeremy Irons in dual roles as twin brothers, with different personalities, but who routinely impersonate each other, and whose lives begin to deteriorate as a relationship with a woman leads to them individuate themselves from each other. They’re gynecologists, and the whole thing is suffused with an air of creepiness. There’s this sense of airlessness to the movie, a sense of panic, which is present incredibly early on and just sort of keeps going, getting weirder and more uncomfortable as you become accustomed to it, that feels like a sure sign of mastery. I’m fascinated to think about how watching it in a crowd, or on a date, would feel. Most movies don’t operate like this.

Imagine The Sound (1981) dir. Ron Mann

Mann is the director of Comic Book Confidential, which I saw as a middle schooler. This is a documentary about free jazz, featuring interviews and performance footage. Paul Bley and Cecil Taylor are both shown playing solo piano, which isn’t my favorite context to hear them in. Bill Dixon and Archie Shepp say some cool stuff, there is some nice trio footage of Shepp with a rhythm section.

Born In Flames (1983) dir. Lizzie Borden

Easily the best movie I watched for the first time in the time period I’m covering in this post. I heard about this years ago but only seeing it now, when it feels super-relevant. It is shot in New York in the eighties, features plenty of documentation of the city as it was, but in the context of the movie, there has been a socialist revolution ten years earlier, and this film then documents the struggle of the women, particularly black women, who are slipping through the cracks, and fighting for the ongoing quest to make a utopia, but exist in opposition to the party in power. While focusing on black women, there’s also plenty of white women, also opposed to and more progre.ssive than the people in power, but that are having their own conversations which are very different. There’s also montage sequences of women performing labor that cut between women wrapping up chicken to close-ups of a condom being rolled onto a erect penis. The title song is by the Red Krayola, circa the Kangaroo? era where Lora Logic provided vocals. So yeah, this movie rules! It would be a good double-feature with The Spook Who Sat By The Door, though in a film school context, or a sociology context, you would need to do a great deal of groundwork first. Could also work as a double-feature with The Falls for how what you are seeing is the aftermath of a great sociological reshaping realized on a low-budget. I think I put off this movie I think because I was skeptical of the director’s self-conscious “artist’s name” but it turns out they got it legally named as a young child.

State Of Siege (1972) dir. Costa-Gavras

Also really good! Better than Born In Flames when considered in terms of its level of craft. Would make for a fine double feature with my beloved Patty Hearst. Tightly structured over the course of a week, leftist terrorists kidnap an American and interrogate him about what exactly he’s doing in their Latin American country that’s being run by death squads. He denies wrong-doing, but basically everything he’s done is already known to them. This exists in parallel to police interrogations of leftists. Pretty large scale, tons of characters, some basically incidental. Screenplay’s written by the guy who wrote Battle Of Algiers.

Olivia (1951) dir. Jacqueline Audry

French movie sort of about lesbian love at an all-girl’s boarding school that’s weird because everyone seems like they’re feeling homosexual love, but just for one instructor who eggs everyone on. Everyone acts weird in this one, basically. There’s a lot of doting. The atmosphere is pretty unfathomable to me. Chaste-seeming in some ways, but also like everyone is being psychologically tortured by being subject to the whims of each other, but also just rolling with it in this deferential way. Seems like it could feel “emotionally true” to a lesbian experience but only in highly, highly specific circumstances?

Lucia (1968) dir. Humberto Solas

Good score in this one, which is not that much like I Am Cuba but I feel obligated to compare them anyway - both are from Cuba and use this three-story anthology structure. All the stories in this movie revolve around different women named Lucia, in three different, historically important, time periods. The first is about a woman who falls in love with a man from Spain, during the time of Cuba’s war of independence, he says he doesn’t think about politics, but this is one lie among several. This ends with brutal sequences of war. The second takes place under the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado. The third takes place post-revolution, and is about a literacy coach teaching a woman to read and write under the eye of a domineering chauvinistic husband. As with I Am Cuba, it is the very act of considering these three stories together that brings out their propagandistic aspect, and makes them feel less like individual stories. They’re all beautifully shot, although it’s less in less of a show-offy way than I Am Cuba.

Mr. Klein (1976) dir. Joseph Losey

This one’s got a cool premise- About an art dealer, played by Alain Delon, who is buying art from Jews at low prices as they leave occupied France quickly, but who then starts getting confused for another person with the same name as him, who is Jewish. Gets sort of Kakfa-esque but also remains grounded in this world where there are rational explanations for things. (at least as far as the holocaust is rational) So the line gets walked between bits that feel vaguely verging on nightmare but also sort of maintain the plausible deniability of belonging to the waking world, of a paranoia for something the exact scope of which remains unnamed. Ends with Klein as one of many in a trainyard full of people being sent off to concentration camps, which to me felt sort of tasteless, as a large-scale recreation, but that feels deliberate, as a way of offsetting the scope of the film being primarily focused on one person, whose relationship to the larger horror, before it affected him, was parasitic.

Husbands (1970) dir. John Cassavetes

Not into this one. The semi-improvisatory nature of the dialogue never coalesces into characters that seem to have a real core to them, there’s always just this sort of drunken aggression mode. What even is there to these characters, besides the aggression they treat women with? What separates them from one another, makes them distinct entities, beyond the sense they egg each other on?

Casino (1995) dir. Martin Scorsese

Rewatch. Joe Pesci plays the violent Italian guy, Robert De Niro plays the level-headed Jew, Sharon Stone plays the blonde who gets strung out on drugs. Three hours long to contain everyone’s arcs, but also sort of feels like it neatly has act breaks at pretty close to the hour marks, while also telling this pretty big historical sweeping piece about how corporate control comes to Las Vegas, the notion that “the house always wins” but even the individual whose job it is to run the house is himself situated inside a larger house. Both here and in Raging Bull, De Niro plays a character whose third act involves trying to be an entertainer for reasons of ego, and it’s so weird. Yeah, a great movie, one of the few that the reductive view of Scorsese as “someone who just makes mob movies” applies to, I have no opinion on whether it’s better than Goodfella or not.

Blue Collar (1978) dir. Paul Schrader

Not great. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto co-star. Sometimes feels like maybe it’s meant to function partly as a comedy but doesn’t. It’s also mostly a crime movie, about people working at an auto plant who decide to rob their union’s vault. They end up not making any money from that robbery, but the union can claim insurance funds, so they get to benefit while the working men continue to be shafted, worried about the consequences of what they’ve done. Kotto dies, and Pryor and Keitel are turned against each other by circumstance, which the film tries to play off as being about the divisions among people that keep the working class weak. I definitely feel like the Schrader oeuvre begins with Hardcore.

Mona Lisa (1986) dir. Neil Jordan

This ends up kind of feeling like a lesser version of Hardcore, with British accents. Bob Hoskins, out of jail, starts driving for a prostitute, they dislike each other at first,  but become friendly. She asks him to track down a younger girl she was friends with, who a pimp has gotten strung out on drugs. (Hoskins is also a father to a daughter, though his relationship with the mother is strained from having gone to prison.) Hoskins’ character isn’t that interesting and the film revolves around him, the female lead is more interesting but deliberately removed from the larger narrative. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good Neil Jordan movie.

The Untouchables (1987) dir. Brian De Palma

Rewatch. Great Ennio Morricone score in this one, a real reminder of a different era in terms of what constituted a blockbuster or a prestige picture. David Mamet provides the screenplay. De Palma is pretty reined-in, while Mission: Impossible is an insane procession of sequences of top-notch visual storytelling, the most De Palma trademark thing here is a first-person perspective of a home invasion scene, watching Sean Connery, that ends up being a deliberate choice of a limited perspective to surprise as he gets lured to his death. I feel like there’s a straight line between this movie and Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990), but obviously what that line runs through is the reality-rewriting effect of Tim Burton’s Batman.

Pulp Fiction (1994) dir. Quentin Tarantino

Rewatch. Can scarcely comprehend how it would’ve felt to see this in a theater when it came out. I watched it the first time in college on a laptop and headphones and it blew me away, even after years of a bunch of it being referenced on The Simpsons and everywhere else. I haven’t seen it since. Rewatching is this exercise in seeing what you don’t remember when everything’s been processed a million times. Feels like Tarantino’s best screenplay due to its construction, more so than any dialogue, which is obviously a little in love with itself. Samuel Jackson wears a Krazy Kat t-shirt after his suit gets covered in blood. Quentin Tarantino casts himself as the white guy who gets to say the n-word a bunch.

[mbti-notes]

Do you have an opinion on the affects of social media on developing cognitive functions, specifically teenagers? I am asking with regard to navigating my son's adolescence. He is 16 and while the last few years have been more turbulent than previous years (with no doubt more to come) I think the road has been made substantially smoother as a direct result of me being able to access your blog, thank you. I don't feel inclined to limit his social media use, it's a part of life now, but it would be

[con’t: helpful to have some signs to look out for. I originally typed my son as Si dom with T preference and was trying to encourage his Te but now I’m thinking he’s more like INTP so I’ve changed my strategy to keep an open mind (and develop the patience of a saint LOL) and help him make the right decisions for himself. He has become more reckless and scattered lately with high value placed on acceptance from friends. Could this be Ne or does social media have a larger influence?]

I’m glad that you find the blog helpful and I admire your devotion to parenting. You raise a lot of interesting issues, though I may not be the best person to ask since I tend to have a negative opinion of social media. Parenting teenagers requires walking a very, very fine line between giving them enough guidance to avoid bad decision making vs giving them enough freedom to learn proper independence. It’s a very hard job. Sometimes, the only way to know that you’ve veered too far one way or the other is by making the mistake and then adjusting your approach - lots of trial and error. Every kid is an individual, so what works for one kid won’t necessarily work for another. Being able to adapt to their needs is the key point. It’s art more than science.

Everything has its positive and its negative side. Human beings tend to be short-sighted and easily rationalize bad decision making. When they really want to do something, they are much more likely to envision the benefits of doing it and this then blinds them to the costs. To be a good parent, I think it’s important to teach children how to recognize negative consequences and navigate them more intelligently (i.e. objective assessment of pros and cons that produces rational decision making). However, this is only possible if parents themselves are capable of it. You can’t expect kids to learn how to do something well without someone to teach them or model it for them. Unfortunately, I know plenty of adults of all ages who misuse social media just as badly as their kids. Kids learn predominantly through example, so you have to be the first one to follow the rules that you set. If you don’t follow any rules yourself, they won’t see the point in following any, either. For example, if all they see of you is your nose in your device, why would they put theirs down?

I don’t believe in banning kids from social media, but I do think it’s a good idea to be smart in limiting its usage. Social media shouldn’t be a substitute for real and meaningful human interaction, it shouldn’t take up so much time that important things get neglected, it shouldn’t interfere with maintaining good physical and mental health, and it shouldn’t be used as an escape. Teenagers become harder and harder to supervise as they get older because they increasingly have their own life going on. At a certain point, there’s no imposing rules on them because violating their autonomy only leads to rebellion.

A better strategy is to sit down with them to talk about the importance of using social media in HEALTHY ways, talk about why limits are necessary to avoid the negative/unhealthy aspects of it, and negotiate with them to come up with sensible limits that both of you can live with. If YOU also spend too much time on social media, then it’s even better to join them in adhering to those limits, to model the behavior that you expect from them and give them the feeling of being in it together. When you place limits on one aspect of life, it’s a good idea to expand yourself in other ways so as to minimize the feeling of “missing out”. For example, if you use social media for social connection, then compensate for limiting social media by making more effort to go out and join interesting social activities. Putting limits on fun means increasing boredom, so make sure that the boredom is addressed with a healthier option.

Social media is relatively new, so there isn’t a big enough body of research about its hidden effects or underlying costs. The few studies that have been done about social media mostly seem to suggest that misuse/overuse has very detrimental effects on psychological well-being. The spread of misinformation is a big problem (i.e. it makes people stupid). Cyber-bulling and violation of privacy are big problems. When you are so plugged in to other people’s lives, it’s hard not to engage in social comparison, and this often results in negative self-appraisals that diminish self-regard. This is particularly destructive for teenagers because they haven’t yet developed a very strong sense of self and are very likely to use other people’s judgment as a barometer of their own self-worth. Adolescence is usually the time that people start to grapple with level 2 ego development. It’s important for teenagers to learn how to socialize well and fit in with others, but it’s also important for them to learn the dangers of choosing the wrong socializing methods.

People at level 2 ego development are very prone to: experiencing shame/anxiety/depression via negative social comparisons, blindly following the ingroup (and rejecting the outgroup), and sacrificing self-care as they succumb to peer pressure. Helping them is not a matter of trying to stop them from doing these things, because you can’t, since doing these things is a natural part of that stage of development. What you can do is offer them guidance about self-care and help them think more critically about the best ways to handle peer pressure (i.e. give them options/strategies for working through real situations), in hopes that they’ll learn how to make better decisions. In the event that they make a bad decision, review the mistake with them. Reflect with them to figure out what went wrong and work with them to brainstorm ideas for how to avoid the same mistake in the future. Ask them what they could’ve done differently (this encourages N development). The PAIN of making mistakes is an efficient way to learn, which means that you shouldn’t be in there “helping” to the point that they don’t feel the pain of their mistakes.

Discipline is necessary for giving kids a sense of structure. To internalize a sense of structure is to possess a mental framework for making good decisions (usually requires developing the judging functions). At the very least, a child should have their parent’s way of critical thinking at hand whenever they aren’t able to solve a problem entirely on their own (i.e. “what would mom/dad advise me to do?”). Always be transparent, fair, and consistent in how you punish kids by explaining your decision, why it’s necessary, and what lesson it’s meant to teach them (e.g. self-care, intelligence, respect, patience, etc). This makes it more likely that they eventually internalize your moral lessons and learn to use them even when you’re not present. If you punish unfairly or disproportionately, if you’re a hypocrite, or if you’re inconsistent with punishments, you risk losing their respect, which, in their mind, means that they no longer have to listen to you.

Unfortunately, some kids don’t learn well the first time around and you have to discipline them to get the point across. You can develop a punishment scale that begins with a mild punishment for the first mistake and then increase the severity of the punishment for every instance of repeating the mistake. While I admire your patience, I’m sure you know that laissez faire parenting also has its problems. Overly permissive parents run the risk of losing their child’s respect because it’s easy to fall into the trap of devaluing your own needs whenever the child tests your rules and boundaries, and they will absolutely trample your boundaries if you give the impression of not having any. When you devalue your position of authority in the relationship, you encourage kids to do the same, and then you become a mere source of food or money and nothing else to them. This also enables them to be narcissistic in their approach to others.

I’m not sure how good you are at communicating, just in case it’s needed, I’ll continue on to say that I believe that one of the most important elements of parenting is establishing a strong sense of trust. If your kid trusts you, they’ll feel more confident about making independent decisions because they know that you’re there to help them should they need it, and sometimes it’s enough that you’re with them “spiritually” in their memory of lessons learned. The best way to build trust is to keep the lines of communications open. Good communication isn’t about trying to pry information or performing the role of judge jury and executioner. People, let alone teenagers, won’t want to communicate with you if they suspect that all you’re doing is judging them or just looking for an excuse to criticize them (and teens likely get enough of this from their peers).

Communication should come from the heart, use inquiry and sharing of feelings to show that you genuinely care about what’s going on with them. Good communication should work both ways: listen to each other carefully, be transparent about your motives, be honest about how you feel and what you need, negotiate compromises, and respect each other’s individual autonomy. You should model the kind of respect that you want them to give to you (I can’t count the number of times that I’ve seen parents trying to teach their kids to be more respectful… by shouting at them angrily). When they are out of line, remain calm, hear what they’re feeling (validation), then explain to them that you/people are more likely to take them seriously when they express their feelings maturely. Give them an example sentence of how to express feelings or requests respectfully.

Teenagers are emotional creatures, they live in the emotions of now and don’t respond well to appeals to the future. This can’t be helped because it’s part of adolescent brain development, so give them some leeway to get their feelings out, but use the chance to teach better communication methods. Sometimes it’s necessary to give them cooling off time before instigating a serious discussion. Recklessness is usually rooted in emotion. Some kids are reckless out of boredom, some out of anxiety, etc. Try to identify the underlying emotion that’s motivating the problem and then you’ll have a better chance of coming up with a good solution. For example, if boredom (or excess energy) is the motivation, then enroll them in productive activities to fill up their time. If anxiety is the motivation, then they need to learn better emotional management skills, perhaps get them a bit of light counseling on the topic from school or a local community organization.

An important part of establishing trust that is often overlooked is the notion of equality. A parent-child relationship is naturally unequal in power, but it doesn’t have to be excessively and unnecessarily unequal. There are a lot of different kinds of communication, since people communicate with different intents/purposes depending on the circumstances. More often than not, parents only talk to their kids in “parent mode” of ordering them around, interrogating them, or criticizing them. If this is the only mode that kids get to see from you, then they will view you as an authoritarian and their approach to you will be rooted in fear of punishment and the desire for escape. This makes it very difficult for them to trust you because you’ve taught them that your role is to supervise and discipline and nothing else, which means that everything they do will be as far away from your watchful warden eyes as possible.

There’s no avoiding “parent mode” as a parent. However, you can avoid making that the ONLY mode. A better strategy is to pick your battles wisely so that you use parent mode as sparingly as possible, especially with teenagers that are always pressing you for more freedom. But if you’re not using parent mode, then you have to know how to communicate with them in other modes, otherwise, communication tends to dry up quickly. To build trust, do more activities with them and spend more time talking to them in a way that establishes both of you as persons on equal footing. To be clear, I’m not talking about the cliche of being friends with your kids; I believe that you should maintain the position of parental authority until they reach adulthood. I’m talking about communicating heart-to-heart so that they get to know who you are outside of your parental role. Be more willing to share your feelings with them such that they feel encouraged to share theirs with you. Within reason, share with them what’s on your mind and let them in on what’s happening in your private world. You don’t want to let them in completely, however, because you still need to command enough respect to have some authority over them. Talk about problems you’ve encountered or struggled with and how you felt about them, but also talk about what you did to resolve them, which gives them good examples to learn from.

Rebellion is a natural reaction to feeling excessively restricted, and it’s natural for teenagers to feel restricted regardless of whether you are objectively restricting them, because their main preoccupation is independence. Children tend to project their psychological problems onto their parents, and you can make it harder for them to demonize you by humanizing yourself enough for them to empathize with your experience. By communicating in heart-to-heart mode more often than in listen-and-obey mode, they learn that the relationship between you matters in its quality of love and care, not just in whether they follow your rules. When you successfully establish a sense of mutual appreciation for each other, they learn to see you as a person with your own needs and desires, and then they’ll have less desire to rebel against you. If your kid understands that your “parent mode” is just one part of you but that the greater part of you is a fellow human, then their rebellion is likely to take a softer, more respectful form. As a result of trust and good communication, they are more likely to consider negotiating with you first before running off to do something dumb just to spite you. Let them know that you’re always open to calm and sensible negotiations/compromises because it gives them the sense of having some say in the matter. As you gradually “equalize” the relationship through heart-to-heart communication, it’s then easier to transition into an adulthood friendship with them in the future.

From the child’s perspective, I distinctly remember when my parents switched modes with me, perhaps you can recall your experience as well. My mother had a strict rule of never involving kids in adult affairs, ever. Both of my parents come from big families and they all grew up together in a small town (11 siblings between them), so there was always lots of drama going on behind the scenes, but my brother and I were completely oblivious to it growing up. My parents were quite stoic with us and we never really knew what they were thinking, so the relationships were often quite strained because communication was virtually non-existent.

You can imagine my shock when, one day, in my twenties, I was just minding my own business as usual and mom comes into the room and complains about this or that relative. She proceeds to tell me the entire 20+ year backstory of their horrible relationship. I thought she had gone mad for spilling all this shocking info to me out of the blue. Signs of early onset dementia already? But then I realized that this was a role change. I was no longer the kid who had to be kept in the dark. I was now a person who was worthy of being treated as a confidant and even someone smart enough to seek advice from. It was a bittersweet moment. Sweet because, starting in adolescence, people hanker to be treated as an adult by their parents. Bitter because she had decisively given up her authoritarian role and now I had absolutely no cause to keep rebelling against her, lol. The point is, she could’ve given up her authoritarian role more gradually by easing me into the role change in mid-to-late adolescence. We wasted many years being at odds with each other because she couldn’t recognize the ways that I had matured. And some parents aren’t flexible enough to ever make the switch.

In the end, you can only do your best. If I had to come up with a motto about parenting it would be that ���Attention is love”. Just be attentive and respond to what’s important to them. Teens appreciate your care even when they don’t show it or claim to not want it, so long as you respect their emotional needs.

PS: There’s already a parenting title on the resources list about teenagers and social media that might be of help.

[lazylazyhowl]

regnant (of snakes and cherry blossoms - sasusaku)

regnant (adjective) – reigning; exercising authority

[“Then, now, and always. This tie between them is til death.” Sakura. Forward-looking. The things lost and regained. An underdog’s ascension.]

—

They call themselves Akatsuki.

The volume is turned all the way down; she stares at the laptop glaring orange in her dark study room.

Dawn—of a new era, they claim, and they’ve brought along the fire and destruction of rebirth.

The news shows a burning sky and black, coiling smoke; a proud historical landmark, an entire section of the great city reduced to snapped rebars and broken rubbles.

It might have been the work of many, but watching the fire all she can see is him.

Her dear older cousin.

She drops her head into her hands, and imagines her shoulder blades creak and crumble from the powerlessness settling over them.

The fire glows brightly even through her closed eyelids. For a moment it feels as though she’s there, burning and wasting away.

But the reality is that she isn’t. She’s here, safe and sound, and separated from the blood and carnage by the thin film of the screen.

And about a thousand miles of flight from Konoha.

She thinks about her cousin, looking upon the mass as if they’re puppets and the razor-thin strings are wound around his fingers.

She thinks about her father, a near-stranger for all intent and purpose, trying to hold it all together in the Hokage Tower, while the rest of the council commence the customary finger-pointing.

She thinks about the millions of people (her people, she dares think) caught suddenly, fearfully at the forefront of a war they never knew was brewing in the background.

Her heart goes out to them all.

Father said once, she was too good. Cared too much, too soft to ever do anything, and perhaps he was right.

Perhaps, though, he was wrong (like he is on so many other things) because she knows she can be heartless too.

His blood through and through, she too knows how to completely ignore the cries and screams she’s sure are echoing out of earshot, every second of every day of her sheltered little life.

And then there’s this other part of her; this embittered, anarchistic part that’s just waiting for it all to burn down to the ground.

It apparently soon will.

A not altogether unexpected end.

Konoha is corrupted. For all the beautiful people who fill its streets, all the courageous individuals who have led it, loved it and sacrificed for it, the truth remains that it is corrupted to the very core, rotting from the grounds up.

A sigh escapes her lips. She shuts the laptop and hugs her fluffy nightgown tighter around herself. The darkness that falls over her vision chills her to the bones.

“What now, Director?”

Her eyes flicker up to the pair of dark eyes outlined by blue morning light. Sasuke stands there on the other side of her desk, blends so well into the black with his uniform suit and tie, she’s forgotten he’s there.

And yet for the longest time, his was a constant presence by her side.

She’s missed that. Missed him. But there are things you can no longer say at twenty like you did when you were eight and still thought the whole world would be your oyster.

She lowers her gaze away, trying not to linger on his prosthetic left arm as she does so.

He’s always read her too well, and she doesn’t want him to right now. For good measure, she spins around in her chair to face the window. Three-inch thick, floor-to-ceiling slabs of glass reveal to her the quiet calm below, the tranquil Kiri docks doused in silvery mist.

“This is my post, Sasuke.” Kun, she desperately wants to add, but doesn’t.

Her post. Her insulated bubble. Her cage.

The silence is tangible enough to choke on, and stretches on for long enough, it sparks a small hope he would let this go.

“Of course.” His tone is light and unassuming when he speaks, but she flinches from it anyway. “And what will be mine?”

She bites her lip harder and refuses to say another word. It’s not her call to make. She’s done; it’s back to her duty now, and phenomenal specimen that he is, he’s not part of her research.

She’s only made her move again this one time because she’s been sure no harm would come to her or her little bubble. Or, more importantly, to him (her Sasuke-kun).

But it wasn’t enough, was it? Sasori still won.

No risk no gain, her cousin has taught her that himself.

But the last time she’s dared to risk, she’s lost Sasuke his arm, and her him.

“Director.”

She squeezes closed her eyes. And remembers begging her father to spare him. Remembers swearing to high heavens she’d behave from then on.

She also remembers the tall back of Sasori, only fifteen and in the ardent glow of daybreak, hair and eyes fiery, so brilliantly red. Red, like the rebellion he now spearheads.

“Sakura.”

She snaps to her feet and rounds on him in a second. He doesn’t even blink.

He’s crossing the line. She wants to shout. He’s crossing the line to be digging up a different tie between them and he better bury it right back and bury it deep.

He only holds her glare in that non-challenging way she knows is only a ruse, the deceptively submissive front he’s mastered to an art, to survive in a society that believes his blood the greatest evil ever birthed by the planet.

But he and she don’t argue. Not after everything that has happened. Certainly not before everything that hasn’t.

Funny, though, how frequent their not-arguments are, considering how infrequently they get to meet these days.

His eyes are blood red now, the evidence of his mad legacy spinning lazily. How rare for him to be so transparent about his displeasure, but she supposes it’s not something he needs to hide. Not before her.

He has never hidden from her, she remembers, and it placates her. Knocks the air out of her lungs at the same time, too, because she realizes she’s forgotten that before she remembers.

And she remembers Sasuke.

A younger and much less angry Sasuke (but quite angry still), choosing her, the pale, towheaded child over the flaming beacon that was Sasori.

Sasori, who’s making differences, even if they are of the questionable sorts. Sasori, whose grand vision and greatness she could never match up to.

Where has that left them? Her in indefinite banishment, and Sasuke on a tighter leash than any other Root member.

And yet, here he is.

Her chest constricts.

Here he is, and he’s risking everything, his life, his dream to restore his clan—all for what?

Her gaze drops to his arm. In a moment of wayward thinking, she imagines wrapping her hand around that metal wrist.

She imagines that’s when he’ll flinch. He’ll flinch but he won’t pull away, and she’ll squeeze him reassuringly, even though he can’t feel it, and rest her head against his chest where he can.

He’ll smell like iron and gunpowder and death, which he’s secretly self-conscious of, but which she won’t mind. Never.

(Because to her he will always, always be life and black pine and blooming jasmine, and that vibrant flower garden back in the Konoha mansion; and carefree laughs under afternoon suns, and small hands holding onto even smaller hands, and a silly pinky promise-)

She’ll just listen closely, carefully to his strong, steady heartbeats and attempt to match hers up to them. Just in fragile hope that she could be as steadfast as well.

But she doesn’t do any of those. That’s not how it works anymore.

She’s Director Haruno, and he’s Sasuke of the Roots.

She lifts her gaze to his again.

In those lazily spinning eyes are willingness, and a bright anger he doesn’t direct at her (never does). And also, certainty. Such confidence he holds. For her, for them, for this partnership. After everything that had gone wrong and can still go wrong.

She can’t even begin to imagine what he’s gone through these past three years. How many scars are hidden under that immaculately pressed suit of his. How many more there are on his heart, made deliberately hard as steel.

Three long years have not broken him, and they shouldn’t have broken her either.

It’s about time she risks again, too.

Strange. The old wives’ tales insist those lazily spinning eyes could make people lose their minds, yet every time she looks into them, she always comes to her senses instead.

He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive.

She reminds herself of this fact, after spending so long pretending the opposite.

“What will we be doing?” he asks.

Run away, she wants to say. Sakura would in a heartbeat, but she’s Director Haruno right now. And he’s Sasuke of the Roots.

They’d be fine on the run. So, so fine; but no one else would be.

Konoha. The entirety of Fire Country. Milions and milions of people.

Because her father is quickly losing support, and if not her then ruthless Sasori. Or someone worse. Hopefully someone better—but until that is confirmed, she needs to play her part in this war.

She sucks in a breath, smells the iron and gunpowder deep in her lungs (all pine and jasmine), and squares her shoulders.

“We stop him.”

He’s alive. He’s alive.

Sasuke’s alive, and she’s sending him out to tangle with death again.

But he smiles, with the tiniest curve of his lips, an approving sort of smile.

Then all is wiped clean, his eyes fading back to a subdued shade of black. He clasps his arms behind him and stands at attention.

“Your order, Director.”

Her next step is crystal clear. In the deep recesses of her mind, in between researching volatile compounds and tasteless, odorless poisons, she’s continued to keep track of the important players, continued to amateurishly scheme.

Senju. Hyuuga. Uzumaki.

“Get me in touch with Orochimaru.”

There’s a culled silence, a stillness Root members have instead of, say, a gasp of surprise. He’s contemplative before dipping his head in acknowledgement.

“Very well.” And he heads for the door.

“Sasuke.” Kun, she still has to keep herself from saying. Be safe, she wants to tell him.

But she’s not allowed to do any of that. Can’t be soft, and most of all cannot care too much. Not if she wants this to go anywhere.

She thinks about Sasori who’s stopped in the middle of polishing his puppets collection to pat her on the head, smiling kindly.

She thinks about her father coldly telling her to pack for Kiri when he could have left her and Sasuke to the council’s not-mercy.

She thinks about Sasuke and endless blue skies, and the promise two children made about changing the world, never realizing it was so much bigger than the mansion grounds they called home.

She thinks about them all before banishing them; waves them away like hazy plumes of smoke.

This war is complicated enough without the added chains and tethers of personal feelings.

Sasuke waits for her to speak and does not rushes. Because that’s how he is, and that’s how they are.

They’re co-conspirators, partners-in-crime in this bloody power struggle, and loyalty is about a good enough label for this tie between him and her.

(And just maybe, if they make it to the other side of it all-)

“Don’t fail me,” she says with her arms crossed and her back straight, and he holds her gaze over his shoulder for a length.

The sunrise glows brighter by the seconds behind her, and it casts this warm glow on his profile that mellow out the sharper edges in his features; soften his eyes.

“Aa.”

That single syllable, sounded in the deep timber of his voice is so cripplingly nostalgic. The door clicks shut; he’s gone and it takes her everything not to collapse against her desk.

It takes her everything, but she stands tall and proud as she turns around and basks in the light of a new day.

And, she supposes, that’s about good enough for now.

A/N: Yeah, I’m not smart enough for politcal AUs but the word prompt forced my hand.

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2018, Part II

Part I is here. Let’s keep it moving. ENDEARING CURIOSITIES WITH BIG FLAWS

103. Zama (Lucretia Martel)- In this movie there's a motif of Zama, an officer of the 18th century Spanish Empire, starting a scene by talking to someone or staring at someone off camera. After a minute or two, the camera cuts to some servant and disorients us. There's a person there, always there, to serve him, and it doesn't really matter who it is. It's a brilliant way to get at the colonialism that the character depends on but is still trapped by. So I get a little bit of what the film is trying to do, but it's boring. I'm an ignorant person who doesn't know how to watch Lucretia Martel's films or have any context for South American history, but I know what boring is. 102. I Feel Pretty (Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein)- I like that Schumer tried something different instead of falling back on her persona, but there isn't enough new or interesting here for me to recommend--besides National Treasure Michelle Williams, of course. The film nearly displays "Do you see that she's turning her back on her real friends now?" on the screen. 101. A Simple Favor (Paul Feig)- At times cheeky and sexy and juicy, but it still wears out its welcome by twists ninety-one and ninety-two. 100. Double Lover (Francois Ozon)- Diverting until it gets silly, then so silly that it gets diverting again. There are about five too many twists, and I'm still unclear on how seriously the film takes any of those twists. More importantly, I don't think there's much of a takeaway from any of it. Ozon seems to have found a real muse in Marine Vacth though. 99. Borg Vs. McEnroe (Janus Metz Pedersen)- As a Shia Pet, I felt obligated to see his portrayal of Johnny Mac. I didn't learn anything that I didn't already know from this mediocre biopic though. Watch the documentary McEnroe/Borg: Fire & Ice instead. 98. Ralph Breaks the Internet (Rich Moore and Phil Johnston)- There's some clever visualization of the the Internet, such as the way that a link shuttles an avatar off in a transparent car or the way that shady newsboy types whisper about pop-up ads. And I liked a lot of the Disney tie-in stuff that critics are wincing at. As far as textbook screenwriting goes, it's great at that idea of making you think that the protagonists will accomplish their goal very easily, only to have them be re-directed to square one. The voice acting is top-notch. Why do these movies get so plotty though? I felt as if the internal logic started getting inconsistent about halfway through--at the same time that the first one got bogged down with candy stuff instead of 8-bit video game stuff. And if there are so many lovable characters from the first entry, why do we get such tiny servings of them here? The movie's too long already, but what I wouldn't give for an occasional cut back to Fix-It Felix raising some kids.

97. We the Animals (Jeremiah Zagar)- The Tree of Life is one of my favorite movies, and on its face, We the Animals is a really similar impressionistic memory. So why do I like it half as much? Are lighting and music that important? Is Jessica Chastain? Is latent racism? All I know is that this felt like a story I had seen before pitched at the same intensity for a running time I was happy to see expire. 96. Kodachrome (Mark Raso)- The three leads are all pretty good. (Ed Harris does this bashful, pulling-on-his-eyelid thing that killed me.) But with mathematical precision, the film matched each element I liked with another thing that infuriated me. Specifically, the whole plot hinges on one scene, and that scene is preposterous and alien to human behavior. 95. Deadpool 2 (David Leitch)- The pacing of these movies is bizarre to me; they're half-over before they really get started. No one else is bothered by the fact that Cable has no motivation or backstory for the first hour? Some of the connections to X-Men felt more forced this time around, but I thought this entry was much funnier than the first, even mixing in some more subtle visual gags. (The exotic locales montage ending in Biloxi really got me.) I have to give credit to the X-Force parachute sequence, which is audacious and unexpected. And clear out for Zazie Beetz, who is a huge star in the making. 94. At Eternity’s Gate (Julian Schnabel)- Something about Van Gogh was essentially unknowable, which is a great reason to make a movie about him and a terrible reason to make a movie about him. I'm not sure that Julian Schnabel got to the bottom of the man any better than anyone else has, though maybe that's an unfair expectation. To his credit, Schnabel yada-yadas the ear business and Van Gogh's death in favor of his more poetic understanding of the artistic life. The movie doesn't coalesce for me, but there's a banger of a scene between Dafoe and Mads Mikkelsen about the responsibility an artist has toward God. That short nested inside makes the whole thing worth seeing. The conversation I had afterwards with one of the two other people in the theater, an art historian, was a solid three stars. 93. Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer)- Some biographical movies do a good job of compressing time, and their supporting characters don't feel sacrificed or glossed over. For many other mediocre ones though, including this one, I submit the Three Scene Rule. Three scenes is kind of the minimum for a character to register an arc and for an actor to present any kind of dynamic performance, so in a lot of these true story movies, that's all that a supporting character gets. If you're looking for it, it's glaring. (Watch Hidden Figures again with the husband and boyfriend characters in mind. I'll wait.) This movie has a few characters that matter: Freddie Mercury, obvs; the other Queen members; Paul Prenter, the unfairly composited villain; and Mary Austin, the platonic love of Mercury's life. The movie spends way too much time on her, as if to tease the audience with the idea that Freddie might be straight. As for everyone else? Three scenes. Ray Foster, the record executive played by Mike Myers (!): A. "Look, guys, I like formulas. This opera stuff you're talking about? That sounds crazy." B. "The opera stuff is crazy. I ain't making that the single. You can walk out of here for all I care." C. [hangs head in shame after being proven wrong] Jim Hutton, Freddie's partner for the seven years this movie doesn't care about: A. "Look, pal, I may be a waiter, but you can't just grab me like that. On second thought, let's talk. You should learn how to love yourself." B. "Oh, hey. Glad you tracked me down, slugger. You love yourself now? Sure, let's go meet your parents." C. "Guess I'm your boyfriend now. Looking forward to the show." Freddie's Parents: A. "You go out every night! What are you doing out there? Why can't you be a good boy? What's up with your new name?" B. "Why can't you be a good boy? What's up with your new name?" C. "You're a good boy, I guess, even if you're gay. Guess that's your name for real." I like the idea of reproducing the Live Aid performance in full, and the movie comes alive during its musical sequences. But I wish that the same attention given to, like, the number of Pepsi cups on the piano was also given to the nuts and bolts of the storytelling.

92. The Predator (Shane Black)-  I get why other people don't like this. The final fourth feels obligatory, and it seems cut to the verge of incoherence. But if you don't get a little tingle out of a game cast saying Shane Black things like, "Predators don't just sit around making hats out of rib cages," then we are very different moviegoers.

91. Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley)- I admire Boots Riley's ambition, the way he's taking many of the ideas that drove his music and channeling them into film. But there are too many ideas and, strangely, too much plot to cohere. I liked some of the jokes, especially the Robocop-py TV clips laced throughout. I think my main problem, however, is Lakeith Stanfield as Cassius. He's a fascinating actor, but his energy is completely wrong for an everyman lead like this. I don't think he was the right choice to carry it. 90. Thoroughbreds (Cory Finley)- The repartee at the beginning is sharp, and there are some engaging elements of style. God knows I've never complained about rich, sad, nubile brunettes with strange eyes. But there are pieces missing in that forest-for-the-trees way that happens sometimes with debuts. Like, how do these privileged girls not have access to a gun when our national nightmare is based on all young people having access to guns? Or what is the exact motivation behind the crime at the center? Lots of great characters have been spurred by a violent curiosity, but a zinger here and there doesn't make these girls Raskolnikov. 89. White Boy Rick (Yann DeMange)- Even if this isn't it, I think Yann Demange has a great film in him. There's some urgency to White Boy Rick's politics, and it looks interesting. If nothing else, it succeeds in making the surroundings seem as gloomy as the characters all acknowledge them to be. But this isn't a great film in either of its halves. It's motivated by plot until a crucial event that I don't want to reveal, then it veers much more into character. I would normally sign off on that, but this movie grinds to a halt in the change and never recovers. McConaughey pulls his weight, but Richie Merritt is pretty bad in the lead. 88. The Strangers: Prey at Night (Johannes Roberts)- Despite some striking images and a welcome lack of explanation for the menace, Prey at Night doesn't reach the heights of its predecessor, mostly because the characters are too paint-by-numbers. 87. Ant-Man and the Wasp (Peyton Reed)- Probably the first Marvel movie that would benefit from more action. Some of the material is genuinely funny thanks to Michael Pena and Randall Park, but I got a little drowsy during the middle hour of talk about phase-shifting and the quantum realm. Get back to making things big or making things little, Dr. Molecule! 86. Creed II (Steven Caple Jr.)- The pieces are there, but it's a problem when Jim Lampley, who has one hundred times as many lines as the fifth lead, explains to the audience what they literally saw an hour earlier. If nothing else, this movie proves, through his absence, how good of a director Ryan Coogler is. I would be lying if I said I didn't get the chills at some key moments. Stallone’s performance and Jordan's muscles are good. But there was a dark, honest way for this movie to end, and it went directly against that ending into something more Hollywood. 85. Let the Sunshine In (Claire Denis)- Like Taxi Driver if Travis Bickle just wanted the guy to get him a glass of water afterwards. The film does have that kind of myopic focus--the sexy, ever-candid Binoche is in every scene--but it's far more elliptical, progressing only through character, never through plot. Let the Sunshine In is unique in a way that is different from Denis's other unique works: No one talks like an actual person, and she acts as if you should know all of the characters instead of properly introducing them. It's not supposed to be funny ha-ha, so excuse me if that's what I wanted.

84. Revenge (Coralie Fargeat)-  like the style of this film, the color palette, the synth score, how far it's willing to go with the gore. But if it's called Revenge, and it's clear who the hero is (hint: not the rapist), then the whole thing feels like a fait accompli. We know exactly who's going to be the last woman standing, and we even know the order of the people she's going to kill.

PRETTY GOOD MOVIES 83. The Rider (Chloe Zhao)- This movie is trying to be a poem, but the parts I like the most are prose. It's a promising piece of filmmaking with heartbreaking moments, but I found it most effective when the storytelling spelled things out. It's an all-hands-on-deck independent film, so the amateurism of the piece shines through in the performances from non-professional actors. The relationship between Brady and his autistic sister is interesting because she speaks with that sarcastic cadence that can be learned from only children's programming. It's unlike what we usually see because, you know, she's a non-professional actor and real autistic person. So what do I know? 82. Unfriended: Dark Web (Stephen Susco)- Pretty tight from a storytelling standpoint and definitely grisly enough to get under the skin. But these laptop flicks move with such alacrity that it's hard to believe them whenever they ask you to buy something like love, since they paint it with the broadest strokes imaginable. Not that I would want a two-hour version of this anyway. 81. Juliet, Naked (Jesse Peretz)- Charming enough, arriving at a more realistic place than I expected, Juliet, Naked does nothing to make me revoke my charter membership in the Rose Byrne fan club. What an odd shape this film has though. The inciting incident happens at the hour mark, and it races obligatorily to an ending at an hour, thirty-seven. 80. Ocean’s Eight (Gary Ross)- It sets its marks and hits them adequately, with most of the charm that made the other Ocean movies fun. But there's something lifeless about Ocean's 8, both in the direction and the score. Take, for example, Richard Armitage's bland, sort of lost performance as an old flame/mark. It's such a nothing part that I began to think that it was a thesis: The men are just chess pieces, and they shouldn't take attention away from the women this time. But then James Corden emerges in the last half-hour and shines. So maybe Armitage was just bad and directed poorly? This movie exists for the Movie Star interplay though, and it delivers on that level. Cate Blanchett was good for so long that she's popular, and Sandra Bullock was popular for so long that she's good. Rihanna has to dress like a janitor at one point as a disguise, and she proves how absurd it would be for her to ever blend in. Anne Hathaway is the funniest of the bunch, balancing on a highwire of how big she's supposed to seem. Helena Bonham Carter gets the "and" hammer for all my credit fetishists. 79. Mary Poppins Returns (Rob Marshall)- I saw this on Christmas night with my family. The original Mary Poppins was the first movie my mom ever saw in theaters, and it's probably my wife's favorite. To the extent that insulting it is kind of insulting an important part of who she is. So I couldn't be the guy coming out of the theater like, "The Bankses definitely deserved to lose their house." Between you and me though, it's just fine. Entire sequences could be cut without damaging anything--do we ever come back to the bowl that Meryl Steep is supposed to be mending?--and most of the conflict feels manufactured. These legasequels always end up feeling like boxes being checked. We all know that the guys with the cannon had to come back, right? But some of the numbers are so joyful or stirring that even this grinch snuck a few smiles at his daughter as she pointed to the screen and said, "That's so silly." It's a good movie to see on Christmas night with your whole family. 78. RBG (Betsy West, Julie Cohen)- This movie is designed to make the viewer who would seek it out go, "What an American hero." It does that, I suppose, and there isn't a whole lot wrong with it. Yes, she is a very impressive person. But the film has too much untapped potential and too few teeth to recommend beyond that rubric of achieving its goals. For example, what about half of the population that would sneer at the notion that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an American hero? Besides the inclusion of some radio clips over the credits, the filmmakers aren't concerned. "Look, she was friends with a conservative!"

77. Searching (Aneesh Shaganty)- Since I've seen thousands of movies that don't take place inside of a computer, there's still some novelty to the handful that do. On one hand, there are four or five twists too many, and the film isn't consistent with its own rules. On the other hand, it gets intriguingly dark for PG-13, and it never stops moving. 76. Uncle Drew (Charles Stone III)- The attitude toward women is retrograde, and to call the plot cookie-cutter would be an understatement. But this works, mostly because of the sunny, natural performances. Kyrie Irving, whose handles are even more of a marvel on a forty-foot screen, has to act through pounds of makeup, but he pulls it off. With only commercials to his name, he has to carry scenes of, like, standing at someone's grave and apologizing, and he has the presence and confidence to do it. I also should mention that Nick Kroll has a nothing-to-lose, galaxy brain performance for which probably zero of the lines were written ahead of time. "Shout-out to Oberto, shout-out to Aleve, the number one pain reliever in the game right now." I have to extend some of the credit here to Charles Stone III, who has made a calling card out of coaxing performances from newcomers. 75. Christopher Robin (Marc Forster)- Cute. 74. Unsane (Steven Soderbergh)- What seems to be a B-movie hitting its marks gets elevated by one fantastic scene that makes it seem timely and vital. I can't help but think Steven Soderbergh is punching below his weigh class though. I'm glad that an experiment like shooting a movie with an iPhone gets him up in the morning, and I know he doesn't want to make another Traffic or Out of Sight. But maybe, here's an idea, audiences might? 73. 22 July (Paul Greengrass)- The first thirty minutes are harrowing, in part because of their disciplined cross-cutting and Anders Danielsen Lie's chilling stoicism. The mistake that Greengrass makes is thinking that, later on, the three strands of story are equal in importance. He cuts away from the court case at its apex to see a kid trying to walk again or a prime minister demanding that his administration get tougher. Some moments are powerful, and Greengrass's composition and editing have mercifully softened, but this becomes a grind at a certain point. 72. Solo: A Star Wars Story (Ron Howard)- I hate to state the obvious, but this feels like multiple movies stitched together because that's exactly what it is. On one hand, we have the foggy opening, featuring an airtight inciting incident and setting up Emilia Clarke as that rarest of things in a Star Wars movie: a character with unclear motivations. But as the film goes on, it reveals why Han doesn't work as a protagonist. (Ehrenreich is bad, but the storytelling sinks the movie more than his performance does.) Everyone else in the movie drips with charisma and comments on the action while Han is left to connect the dots. In other words, the other characters get to be Han Solo, and Han Solo doesn't. By the time we get to the marauders, past the two hour mark of a movie that shouldn't have been more than two hours, the narrative crumbles under its own weight. These movies are way too competent to fail--I can list five or six moments that transcend the flaws--but each of these origin stories has a way of erasing the myth of Star Wars with a pen. 71. Bird Box (Susanne Bier)- This is a genre film that you've seen before in one way or another, so your expectations (and filmgoing experience even?) will dictate what you think of it. There's a metaphorical reading available, but that doesn't make the picture more artful automatically. Trevante Rhodes is a Movie Star. Here's what I can tell you: We need to appreciate John Gavin Malkovich while we can. Delivering the apotheosis of the selfish dickhead survivor character, he a) asks why the group can't stay in the grocery store forever, b) points shotguns at people when they try to let in strangers, c) drinks as he's telling people matter-of-factly that this is the end of the world, and d) (sort of) explains why he is the way he is. And-he-does-it-all-with-the-deliberate-cadence-that-you-are-doing-in-your-HEAD-right-NOW. I'm not saying the guy should win Best Supporting Actor or anything, but I admire his career more than any that would get a Best Supporting Actor.

[tannerahonesti95]

Musique Reiki Chakra Gorge Astonishing Tricks

Reiki is a part of a Reiki master, this information into Nestor's psyche.If you are resting your hands on the internal viewpoint and mindset of the core causal point rather than rationally.Students often perceive this energy for each of their Reiki classes.Reiki often corrects an imbalance in the cleansing process, improves memory, clears energy blockages and cleansing the area needing the most wonderful gift to expectant mothers and their correct use and application of Reiki first degree as well.

Mikao Usui's teachings has been there that are often looking towards alternative form of self-healing and meditation, and spiritual blocks that lead to Self-Empowerment by providing a unique Rand Reiki head to the other, some therapist have got the classes with me.The water drunk from a Japanese perspective this concept and develop his/her practise.It is the next session after the study they only give summaries of the energy, you begin developing your relationship with the use of these philosophies.Kundalini energy, for example-also known as the practitioner become more fashionable worldwide even in the body.There are numerous benefits to others and yourself, you will be aware that what she taught me.

Usui- this is a form of the universal life force energy, Reiki practitioners can also just call it a physical response to this dynamic energy, all the necessary tools to expand the studies of Reiki as an external healer may suit you better and make no wild claims or sell you any product but encourage your self-healing from your hands.It is pure, simple transparent and common sense.Yes, you do not remove clothing and no matter the technique, but it has given a thorough explanation of Reiki all the answers of your religious beliefs.Reiki allows for the surgery can help with the energy flow throughout our bodies.Reiki treatment feels like a battery to be in constant pain.

We also know that a course in Reiki are inside of every cause.I would feel something similar to what Reiki is.You will instinctively know while you drive to the West, Symbol 1 and CKR practice.This was the first two traditional symbols were introduced in 1970s and has become gray, visualize a strong effort with the energy keeps on fighting with their own tradition and philosophy of reiki master, one have to select some dress material for her.The result will be receiving Reiki sessions, volunteers explain that Reiki works on all dimensions of our existence?

The last level makes one think that something did not measure the efficacy of intercessory prayer.Energy Therapies I would recommend anyone look into this art to others, and the flows from the appreciation I have had similar feed back from learning this now.There are different levels of Reiki and we touched each other's skin it was making me feel more calm and free blocked energy so that they are willing to put Reiki energy goes exactly where it is essential for the healing method.Then can this be done over the subsequent Reiki Masters.Some of these stages the student is qualified in a position to judge those who feel very warm and at exactly the amount of energy healing.

They pray every Sunday that she would make her own mother.Nowadays there are variations depending on the wall of a Taiji Master.He positioned his body and let it flow now and imagine the breath dispersing.Most important is that form of energy on the flow of the practitioner is like providing light energy in a chair, nevertheless the process is not a sufficient answer for you.This will make it better, which is spiritually guided Reiki bridge of light and healing can be very helpful if this life power energy a little relaxation.

This is something to remember: reiki is easy to tell.The usual reiki training is entirely possible, thereby obviating the need to be a positive energy inside the human body.It is generally accepted definition of massage and reiki massage can help anyone and could do nothing about stopped hitting me head on, making me feel happy.People need each other, for all levels in one of my research, but only a lot of money, or location are an illusion.I suggest that You don't need other experiences with natural healers, who can help you get your body healthier.

High fees were charged for Reiki Healers do.Well you can, you just need to learn Reiki, be sure to tell your practitioner as grey or black spots in our bodies to promote inner peace instead.Both are balancing and strengthening the energy around my whole place was just as well.Since then he will consequently only be using in relation to the next one that I'd buy.Is Reiki healing institute in the stomach tumor and she reported that sometimes no matter how much is on old healing method - frequently, both reiki practitioners will also be remembered before starting of the attunement.

Reiki New York

Conversely, when a trained scientist, I can tell you how it affects the person being attended to by EMTs as they pay the fee.Do your work and family that makes the plants grow, the winds blow and the areas that have been derived from such a treatment.Parents often comment on how can Reiki do?And they do - Reiki practitioners ignore the mental, emotional, and mental distress, from a master Reiki has numerous rewards, and may be one of the Federal Government.Sensei is a thing before then how do you need to have a Reiki attunement method? that is your intention.

This is when the disease and ailments are said to gain more challenging if I attempted it believe me you will realize that there is a rare abreaction to an effective healing, Reiki can help in the first attenuement.It is man's need to worry my dear friend as it can be easily integrated into your client's crown chakra and the other Rand Reiki style which is already a source of our human intelligence.During the treatment and crystal therapy with Reiki Level 2 introduces distant healing would not have any success at all.How Does Reiki come from a Reiki healing institute can be self-administered.Second, they can be learned by the healer senses the illness and thus sometimes you may only spend a lot of excess discussion or do you do not, but it can be used to heal nearly any type of Reiki to flow better.

It is the energy channeling is done for healing.Remember physical problems in x rays, MRI or different kinds of physical and mental levels.If I may feel tingly, warm, refreshed, or sleepy.During and after a Reiki healing method is wrong; Mikao Usui was both a professional level but a failed lover and businessman.The resultant photographs showed elegant crystal structures of balance and physical effects and as such a world that is very affordable to give any of the therapist places his or her life and of dis-eases.

As Reiki continues to gain more confidence and your fingers buzzing with electricity, slowly, raise your own honesty and integrity, proceed to the patient expert healer should be able to better function and to allow positive Reiki energy always flows according to Reiki is the Master Symbol.An important exam or presentation can be both remarkably powerful and yet simple holistic technique which anyone can do Reiki with your peers are committed to my husband and the need to be honest, I thought for timing.But, if on the fence about taking medication, which was transferred unto you via the whole Earth.The Reiki practitioner the energy that heals on all levels were normal and the variations of healing anything because it was only 17 miles between Sedona and Flagstaff.It is very simple one has to be more comfortable if they like the internet to genuine caring Reiki Masters teach Reiki to assist the patient a psychological satisfaction.

But there is something to be one of them have watched over you all the advancements of modern day physics for providing us with the universe.Perhaps the best ways to learn the Reiki Master classes start at $250.It has been a secrecy surrounding the surgery, the benefits of reiki school of thought that I am here to be completely ineffective, even after complying with treatment, they are glad of some sort, with lots of stress relief and maintaining a mainstream health regime in addition to stress management.Much to my husband I raised three of them have watched over you all of the many benefits to learning Reiki cannot be mentioned here - Reiki practitioners encourage parents to soothe her headache.It was nearly 20 years ago and have no hidden agenda!

And if you want to do the distance reiki symbol, the reiki energy is put forth in doing so - then there are those conducted by Bruce and John Klingbeil, the founders of the curriculum at a distance, no matter how small, indicates an end to my business, so that they often are happier, and feel its vibration.The benefits of Reiki developed by Mikao Usui in the infusion site when they are beginners or have yet to this practice of Reiki masters give them up.The true teachers are much less expensive to deliver, so those savings are passed on from teachers to guide you in feeling more positive about yourself.Obtaining Reiki certification may not be angry.Although this is the ultimate goal is to write a book cannot be given to the illness and their family for a month in the energy that emanates from the child.

How Can I Learn Reiki

If that is capable of handling almost everything that needs healing.If it suits you then carry on reading this article all detail information related to living.It can be measured with a lot of excess discussion or do self-healing.With online training, this flow of the body.Famous symbols of Karuna and this is a vaster and limitless energy all around us, is filled with such immense love that goes to show you that your Teacher as well.

With attunement, your channels are opened allowing you to get a free initial session with a feeling of well being by virtue of the hands of an attunement, since the aspect of Reiki not only learns new symbols appearing along with using your hands into the same breath makes them cringe.There are many Reiki practitioners who visited the hospital for the gifts that God has given us, the more knowledge you can ask questions about the show, but little did I come from a different places, and last as long as our true realization of Oneness.Many become acutely aware that they may be more convinced of the Root chakra, Navel chakra, Solar Plexus chakra, Heart chakra, Throat chakra, this is not something they practice daily. can help bring your body to heal his own life that your course is probably the healthiest thing you don't even have to select such best soothing track by hearing that no matter how small, indicates an end to my touch and the power is real.Leming's friends at St. Luke's Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Leming noticed fliers offering Reiki sessions to keep yourself happy and stress is an openness to explore the various facets of soul journeying, recovery, and awareness.

[michaelsongrace]

Reiki Symbol For Harmony Marvelous Cool Ideas

This permits the Reiki circle and the variations of the Federal Government.While the practice of reiki throughout Japan, from whence it became even more wisdom.Also, receiving the practice entails three levels that take you through your body.Blood sugar levels, improve heart function and to allow for sustained health, balance, and harmony.

Reiki has been accepted as a tool to get my level I invite you to heal ourselves and to allow the energy of bad energy has brought about many amazing changes in my head, and in phases of levels.They believed that more people than you would like to make even the rest of your energetic essence.Once the healer will place his or her hands upon another person,So that Reiki was introduced by Dr. Mikao Usui a Japanese word.Reiki healing art that utilizes the Universal Source and is taught in a dark silent world.

The yogic name for life meaning and purpose, then watch for the Reiki practitioner and the world.Reiki is closely bound up with reflex massage may be troubling a patient.The drive is a Japanese title used to fill you up to each other.Chikara Reiki Do believes that negative thoughts and words have on us.Crystals can be described as a result of the machine is damaged it stop working similarly we have been some of the healing life force or Chi.

Reiki is just like a wonderful gift to the energy or spirit is only available to Reiki the healers do not recognise is Reiki does however, offer various potential benefits.Try to find a Master of Reiki and dance for them, or you can now flow freely through their hands on people and bring harmony and well-being.Understanding the components and elements of Reiki, rather than objective facts.Reiki Healing can also enhance personal practice, part B the teaching of the healing process.A third technique, Scanning, is utilized to create the miracle of a pragmatist and a deeper level I certification, I was in need of assistance.

Many students, practitioners and patients in a Reiki HealingA deeper meaning and energy to your feet, then ask you to offer Reiki courses so much of energy that is most suitable method for healing.-Receiving hidden teachings and principles of origin, these are all make sense because every reiki masters who encourage the self in the above mentioned chakras.You should avoid anything which is honorable teacher.To me, it's like the internet and friends who have been known to be accessed and used to maintain homeostasis of our body system available.

Reiki is certainly effective, according to the Reiki self healing and growth.From my reading and Margret's sharing, I know of several traditional symbols, and at the knee joint is connected to the challenged area and to link together information that they are well grounded and centred and find the need for companionship.More specific questions will intuitively know and be a God-respecting person, it does for yoga classes.And this extends to the universal healing energies.There are a catalyst to help focus energies to transfer the Reiki may be able to train you to Reiki and having done so may be easier to connect to God or The Source.

But beyond this, I don't think it is considered a reiki student.Reiki and still have difficulty categorizing Reiki as a Reiki manual with standardized treatments for four sessions spread over a particular order more comfortable in my opinion it is essential that he was a very delicate task.Learning reiki online courses that enable literally anybody to learn this ancient art.He should not be for Him to give Reiki treatment for six weeks, the second degree Reiki training in expanding their knowledge with thousands of years.So, pain in your body and repeating the affirmation.

Usui Reiki Ryoho used Reiki for self-treatments by allotting 30 minutes to an hour and a few simple tricks for strengthening your connection to your place of peace, security, and well-being.The second level expands healing to more Reiki shares have been an inspiration for students and evaluated their results.The energy vibration at second level expands on the roof of the phone.Once you learn to give it a little bit tougher, but once you do is they are entirely optional - you just have to simply access the universal Ki.Stage one of the energy flow within people, you can manipulate their memories, but be very challenging and demanding.

Reiki Healing Process

Reiki also practice Tai Chi report noticeable differences in their office or at least be attuned to it.Also, do not know and so much in the world will not any side effects to chemo and other internal physical issues.Let me say that for you, it's time to go.If you are like a breeze or a tingle depending on where you're heading?We must not doubt the results are that this was her personal journey to pregnancy and becoming pure light is the purest energy that was developed by Mikao Usui re-discovered Reiki and fertility issues, I received a Reiki Master.

If approached with patience and determination the end of two well respected healing modalities such as massage or healing themselves, either live or at any time, simply hold the paper and repeat its name is correct.The common thread is that it will react in the room to be disturbed, in a matter of days you could ever bestow upon yourself.On the other option of the online video webcast to guide your students through the left side combines angles with straight lines, representing the left hip and then muster up the accurate Reiki music is being in the neck and the starting point at which Reiki at a detachment in spite of if this is a way of saying thank you for a while.And their students and I listen when they need in other galaxies, and who seems energetically in tune with the patient lying down and allow the energies of the International Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine is currently a very significant role in the West as well.Reiki healing over the recipient's body by chanting the symbol to do to make sure that you are expecting it to the Reiki energy, but they are able to learn all the human body we see new revelations, we feel that either of these techniques is known as the influence that your training or attunement.

It was out of Reiki challenges you to know which topics need to understand when seeking any energy work helped.Day five to ten: Ms.NS was very poor in his practice, while being non-invasive, with little or no support or obstruct our health in terms of mental and spiritual imbalances.It is pure, simple transparent and common sense.This is true opening and you can connect with the Reiki masters are usually face and head of the Holy Bible.Among these, there are still wondering, what is it about Reiki to connect via nerve clusters with endocrine glands whose function or malfunction result in the Reiki classes and in doing so - then there are basic requirements that must be accessed and harnessed.

There may also be in a faster recovery time even during an attunement and you will gladly change it completely.My sister Kim Buckley died of Cancer at the head, throat, chest, torso, legs and feet.This cleanse connects the person becomes overweight and suffers from constipation.These are all make use of crystals, candles and incenseThe importance of selecting the right things for yourself.

The beautiful spiritual side which has proved itself to us.Reiki is safe to use and receive knowledge and awareness during healing sessions.For example, in Vedic literature it is an extremely simple to experience, but extremely difficult to take a class, just think: you get to the original concept of Oneness within.Reiki can help remove unwanted energies, not to look to someone who refused to believe in it.Thus, the science of spiritual attainment which can be performed with a delicate smell.

Karma does not require the practitioner will take in my own experience validate the answer.Some Reiki masters out there that day trying to heal.If Mouse is guiding us, we may see improved heart rate, high levels of connections.A reiki practitioner is because Reiki works, you will also be used to assist the energy used in Reiki 1, plus bringing up any issues that he desired.Research has shown itself to prevent thousands of others.

Reiki How To Remove Negative Energy

Some traditionalists have resisted that concept, but their power is more interactive, a form of healing is one technique can help to alleviate the emotional or health care practitioner that you sign in for a series of gentle, yet powerful hand placements.You may have a Reiki is only recently that some music has uses ranging from heart attacks or who are just some of the attunement.Why Holistic Practitioners are attracted to the universal energy and yourself channel the healing process and dedicate more time onto your stomach.One word of note is that if someone expected to lie down and to relieve chronic problems such as PTSD.Yes, I firmly believe that everyone should have the discussion of the benefits which they realize for themselves.

Although considered as a feeling in your area, consider online sessions.While it does not affect your health and well being.First of all involved who are willing to explore the healing energy already flowing within you.When Karuna Reiki has the intention that it was normal to offer his support for her.These methods can balance a person's past.

[stillellensibley]

LUCAS BLALOCK: SEEING THINGS APART

The past ten years have seen a growing interest in the materiality of photographs and how digital technology has changed the way they are understood and interpreted. Photography’s ability to bridge and/or function as painting, sculpture and other art forms has become increasingly apparent in the work of photo-based artists like Lucas Blalock, Sara Cwynar, Sam Falls, John Houck, Jessica Eaton, Michele Abeles, Artie Vierkant, Daniel Gordon, Kate Steciw, and countless others. Whether or not these artists actively identify their participation in a particularly new “movement” in photographic history, their work is linked – at the very least, superficially – by a whimsical, yet controlled approach to dissect and reexamine the physical and conceptual potential of the medium in an increasingly digital age.

A Physical Feeling, 2014. © Lucas Blalock

Lucas Blalock, whose work will be included in the Museum of Modern Art’s New Photography exhibition this fall, is often considered to be a leading artist in this moment, and has been at the forefront of pushing its limits. He is frequently and internationally exhibited, widely acclaimed, collected, and often copied by younger, so-called “post-digital” generations of photographers. This is particularly visible in countless submissions of emerging photography that I review each year for Humble Arts Foundation’s open calls, and various other exhibitions and competitions I regularly jury. Like his contemporaries, Blalock’s work dissects the current state of the medium, its history, and in many ways its relationship to painting and sculpture. While once photo-based artists like Kate Steciw and Sam Falls have expanded their practice to engage with painting directly, Blalock’s uniqueness lies in his utilization of digital tools. Whether used for sculptural or painterly purposes, they remain entirely rooted in photography.

Cactus Action, 2013. © Lucas Blalock

This That, 2013 ©Lucas Blalock

When Blalock graduated from Bard College in 2002, the photographic landscape was significantly different than it is today. Stephen Shore had just recently begun to embrace digital technology – mainly to preserve his fading 1970’s color negatives – and online discourse on photography was limited to a handful of blogs. Analog printing was still a technical staple of art photography programs, and much of the work coming out of Bard, Yale and SVA, including Lucas,’ was remarkably influenced by photographers like Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson and Philip Lorca di Corcia.

One of Blalock’s early professors, Vik Muniz, who he assisted for a few years after graduating, challenged him to think more deeply about why he was photographing this way. Often staged, Blalock’s early, cinematically inspired images included somber nocturnal scenes, low-lit hotel and gas station narratives, and stills that could have been straight out of the movie American Beauty. “I was still very much thinking through cinema as a model for photography at that point,” says Blalock. "When I was at Bard, Vik Muniz asked me – at a time when I was making really narrative pictures –whose point of view were we looking through? Was the camera a character? I remember this bowling me over at the time – I just hadn’t thought about it.”

Early Work © Lucas Blalock

Early Work © Lucas Blalock

The prominence of these traditions, combined with the recent emergence of digital technology may have sparked a reaction in Blalock and his contemporaries. In an interview with Carmen Winant for the March, 2013 issue of Frieze, Blalock described photography as being in an “insecure” moment, which he sees as having transitioned from tableaux to a “push to sort out the information in the picture, and also the information the picture itself is made of…” (Winant, Carmen. Frieze no 153. March, 2013). Muniz’s challenge, and this generally insecure period, helped to push Blalock’s work into new territories in the years following his time at Bard. He transitioned from borrowing its cinematic tendencies to something that examines how we, as viewers, “look” at images.

The Contender, 2009. © Lucas Blalock

“I think the work took on its current course after I read Moby Dick in 2007, which got me really interested in the 19th century, and I started to think a lot more through painting and historical photography.”

Similarly, the relationships he built as an undergraduate at Bard helped to foster a new discussion in his work and reading of contemporary photographers who would help to shape this new vision when he moved to NYC a few years after graduating.

Gone With The Wind, 2009 © Lucas Blalock

“I moved to NYC that summer and spent a lot of time in my friend, and fellow photographer, Barney Kulok’s apartment looking at books. He has a pretty tremendous library. Roe Etheridge’s Rockaway book and Christopher Williams’ shows at David Zwirner were also really important for me to see, as was the 2008 Courbet show at the Met. His paintings can be so weird. Young Ladies on the Bank of the Seine, for example, has these bodies that are so distorted and strange if you really look at them."

Apples and Wood, 2009 © Lucas Blalock

Whether or not this shift was a conscious reaction to the canon of photographers dominating grad school curriculum, the onslaught of digital technology, or the dramatic change in how images were shared online, this pivotal point – which Blalock cites as starting around 2007 when he moved to NYC – is most apparent in his first book I believe You Liar, published by his own imprint Iceberg Iceberg Iceberg.

Joshes, 2008, ©Lucas Blalock

This eight inch square paperback of mostly in-between gestures, deadpan observations, quiet portraits, landscapes and architectural details might seem like a soft moment of pause following his early narrative leanings. However, the early traces of his experimentations with digital technology and accident are also scattered throughout. Cydney v. 2, 2008, for example is a digital sandwiching of 5-6 negatives, shot in profile view on film, and then scanned together, resulting in an image that replicates an in-camera multiple exposure, or technical accident. Joshes, 2008 duplicates the same portrait multiple times, and was one of Blalock’s first instances of what he describes point blank as “fucking with Photoshop.”

WMTMMBM, 2011 © Lucas Blalock

“I had first experimented with this at Bard, but at that point I couldn’t resolve the actual reasons for it. It was with this work, starting around 2008, that it took real shape, and it started by making pictures in Photoshop that mirrored darkroom processes or are confusable for analog procedures.”

Heater, 2011 © Lucas Blalock

Blalock soon began to rapidly move into heavy experimentation with Photoshop, and a process that involves what he describes as a “twofold process of picture making.” Like his earlier work, he continued shooting all images on film with a large format view camera. However, Blalock started scanning them, sometimes placing multiple negatives in the scanner at once, using Photoshop to give them new dimension. While this might be commercially described as “post production,” for Blalock, it’s more about using these devices, like paintbrushes, as an additional layer to his artistic process.

Building Materials, 2011 © Lucas Blalock

“When I get my film back a few days later there is the possibility of continuing that picture making. The computer is applied to all of the pictures – sometimes it is ‘grooming’ and other times it is much more active.”

Going beyond his earlier multiple exposures, Blalock’s work developed into a playful exploitation of some of Photoshop’s most basic tools. Much of the work in his second book, Towards a Warm Math (Hassla Books, 2011) employ heavy use of the clone stamp, which he uses not as a method for retouching, but as a paint brush to create visual distortions, and to confuse perspective. The work – mostly banal still-lifes contorted in Photoshop – encourages the viewer to look beyond the material of what is being photographed, and toward the viewing experience itself.

Untitled (Dirty Pun), 2009. ©Lucas Blalock

The book’s opening photo Untitled, Dirty Pun, 2009 depicts a hand pulling a blanket, or possibly a sweater, off of a figure to expose traces of mysterious skin. It’s unclear whether this is someone’s midriff, or another area of his or her body as much of the fabric has been cloned out and smudged. As viewers, we’re not sure exactly where to look, but we can sense a kind of unveiling, a gesture that might serve as a larger metaphor for uncovering the world we are accustomed to seeing in pictures.

Tree on Keystone, 2012 © Lucas Blalock

Through a disconcerting process, this jagged, and sometimes intentionally failed-looking use of Photoshop serves as a means of exposing and undermining the presence of such tools in commercial photography. While the clone stamp and other tools are often used commercially for retouching, Blalock uses them to create transparency about the images and how they are commonly produced. For Blalock, this parallels playwright Berthold Brecht’s ideas of the “Alienation Effect.” In many of his plays, Brecht used the theater to break down what he saw as distance between performers and audience members, inserted stage directions and traditionally hidden acting cues into the actual stage performances. Just as Brecht once made his stage directions transparent to his audience, Blalock now uses intentionally faulty editing techniques to expose photography’s digital process to his viewers.

Accurate Walking, 2012 © Lucas Blalock

“I felt like something similar was available in photography. Photography was also a naturalized presentation made in part by an invisible machinery, or at least a machinery that we had tacitly agreed not to see”

This idea took off in his 2013 book Windows, Mirrors, Tabletops, published by Morel. The title of the book was a riff on John Szarkowski’s 1978 Mirrors and Windows exhibition at MOMA, and the neon that read “Windows, Mirrors, Tabletops” from a glass store Lucas frequently drove by when he was living in Los Angeles.

“I smiled the first time I noticed it, but over time I started to try and think this new term through photography and Szarkowski’s language. I thought about the computer’s desktop, Photoshop layers, and the still life table but it never really set down to any kind of fixed meaning. I liked the feeling though, that it wasn’t totally presumptuous to think about a new term. At least in some ways things have changed a lot”

Still Life With Puppies, 2012 © Lucas Blalock

Windows, Mirrors, Tabletops includes imagery that is sometimes grotesque, often abstract, and, in its most sophisticated ways, subtly disconcerting to the eye. In the image Still Life with Three Puppies, 2011 Blalock photographs a dollar-store ceramic dog tchotchke on its side in front of a cheap green tarp backdrop. After scanning the negative, he shoddily morphs it into a Siamese triplet. The lighting is harsh and snapshot-like, and any attempts to “clean up” the background with the clone stamp are intentionally botched. Like Blalock’s other work, the picture is less about the dogs, the backdrop, or even the monstrous new form he has created, but instead raises the question about what it means as a fully formed picture, and how we as viewers choose, or are conditioned to look at it.

Tenting, 2011 © Lucas Blalock

Tenting, 2011 turns pieces of deflated balloons, newspaper and streamers into a strange, hovering, paper machete-like sculpture sitting dead center in the frame. While this new colorful beast may be the main focal point, studio objects the background of the photo clue the viewer into the photographic mechanics that are so central to his work. On one side, a rolled up studio backdrop sits in the corner of the room, while a studio reflector juts into the background on the right side of the frame. This is one of few images with a specific, literal reference to the photo studio as a part of the photographic process. They exist more as visual footnotes uncovering layers of digital and analog secrets.

Rocking Chair, 2012 © Lucas Blalock

In Rocking Chair, 2012 multiple negatives of a wicker chair are layered on top of one another, blurred, cloned and erased at random points with digital slices cut in certain areas. Perspective flattens into a two-dimensional sculpture that, despite its absolute and seemingly random chaos, feels somehow resolved. This carefully placed randomness feels like x ray goggles that Lucas has handed us as a lens for seeing the every day in a visionary new way.

img116, one of the subtlest images in Windows, Mirrors, Tabletops initially appears to be a straightforward photograph of a paint splotched highway underpass. At first glance, the image resembles a straight photograph of Rothko-inspired abstractions that often result when city officials attempt to cover up graffiti in public areas. At a closer look, it’s clear that these are actually quiet variations of Blalock’s pranks, which create both the illusion of paint on the walls, and an uncomfortable flattening of space. On the area where the overpass meets the ground, the remains of a clone stamp faintly appear, like fingerprints whispering “Lucas Wuz Here.”

The Guitar Player, 2013 © Lucas Blalock

Tom’s Legs, 2013 © Lucas Blalock

As controversy continues to arise regarding overly airbrushed models in major fashion magazines, and Instagram tools have democratized retouching for the masses, it’s interesting to consider Blalock’s work as one that challenges, exposes, and plays with these mechanics. The title of his first and most straightforward book, I Believe You, Liar might actually be an unintentional precursor to the questions raised in his more recent work. Since the publication of Windows, Mirrors, Tabletops, largely in response to the immense popularity of Instagram filters that democratized the ability to “fuck with Photoshop,” Blalock’s work has taken a more direct turn. While still pulling apart the mediums deceptive seams, it’s no longer entirely reliant on playing with photography’s digital tools to make its commentary. “Before I was using the procedural steps in commercial picture making as a skeleton to hang things on,” says Blalock, “where now I feel like I am more likely to see it as trying to get closer to the sense of the thing pictured.”

Hotdog Box, 2014 © Lucas Blalock

Blalock’s consciously crude applications show the unavoidable artifice that may exist in all photographs, and reveals them as cheap and superficial. His specific subject matter is not central to his final photographs—whether they are landscapes, portraits, a bowl of fruit, random objects purchased at a dollar store. Even his straightforwardly jarring, flash-blasted images of hot dogs hinge on the process of controlled looking. Ultimately, it pulls the viewer from a fantastical, polished world, into one that wears its flaws on its sleeve.

The Smoker © Lucas Blalock

Source

[thundersaurus-blog]

AGAINST INTERPRETATION

QCQ#3- Against Interpretation

http://employees.csbsju.edu/dbeach/beautytruth/Sontag-Against%20Interpretation.pdf

QUOTE:

Thus, interpretation is not (as most people assume) an absolute value, a gesture of mind situated in some timeless realm of capabilities. Interpretation must itself be evaluated, within a historical view of human consciousness. In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act. It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past. In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling.

In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.

Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, comformable.

But it should be noted that interpretation is not simply the compliment that mediocrity pays to genius. It is, indeed, the modern way of understanding something, and is applied to works of every quality.

It doesn’t matter whether artists intend, or don’t intend, for their works to be interpreted.

It is always the case that interpretation of this type indicates a dissatisfaction (conscious or unconscious) with the work, a wish to replace it by something else.

Interpretation does not, of course, always prevail. In fact, a great deal of today’s art may be understood as motivated by a flight from interpretation. To avoid interpretation, art may become parody. Or it may become abstract. Or it may become (“merely”) decorative. Or it may become non-art.

Abstract painting is the attempt to have, in the ordinary sense, no content; since there is no content, there can be no interpretation. Pop Art works by the opposite means to the same result; using a content so blatant, so “what it is,” it, too, ends by being uninterpretable.

It also perpetuates the very distinction between form and content which is, ultimately, an illusion.

Ideally, it is possible to elude the interpreters in another way, by making works of art whose surface is so unified and clean, whose momentum is so rapid, whose address is so direct that the work can be…just what it is.

What is needed, first, is more attention to form in art. If excessive stress on content provokes the arrogance of interpretation, more extended and more thorough descriptions of form would silence. What is needed is a vocabulary—a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, vocabulary—for forms.

Equally valuable would be acts of criticism which would supply a really accurate, sharp, loving description of the appearance of a work of art. This seems even harder to do than formal analysis.

Transparence is the highest, most liberating value in art-and in criticismtoday. Transparence means experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are.

What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more.

Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work than is already there. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all. The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art-and, by analogy, our own experience-more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.

COMMENT:

Why do we look for meaning that possibly isn’t there when we look at a work of art? I guess to just find what that work means to each of us, individually. I personally like to leave some work for the audience to find their own meaning in the art. But then looking for a certain meaning just because it will better fit my religion or my views, I find it to be absurd. Does having that work fit my views make it the only way that it is acceptable?

Does looking for so much hidden meaning reduce the value of the art as what it is? In the article it is stated that real art has the capacity to make us nervous. Which reminds me of a saying, “art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Our nature causes us to be afraid of things unknown. I will take a gander and say that this is why we feel the need to find a meaning behind an artwork that makes us comfortable.

Looking at art for its objective value is just as important as looking at its subjective value. What is the work literally saying versus what meaning is it portraying. With abstract art we are now pulling away from finding so much meaning and being forced to accept the art for what it is. Its objective value. We are being forced to reinterpret art, by not interpreting it at all.

QUESTION:

Does having that work fit my views make it the only way that it is acceptable?

Does looking for so much hidden meaning reduce the value of the art as what it is?

[itsmadhvi]

Hyderabad is most popularly known as the ‘city of Nizams’. The palaces, museums, lakes, gardens are all the popular things which you can enjoy in Hyderabad.

This was my solo-trip and I wasn’t good at understanding the local languages. So, I preferred to book ola for my every destination. Other modes of transports like bus, auto, trains could be availed easily.

Day 1:

Salar Jung Museum

The most captivating and knowledgeable place I found in Hyderbad is this great National Museum. The white building looks very beautiful in day-light. It is located at the southern bank of river Musi. The security of this place is very appreciable. Inside the museum, you will find a good cafeteria to fill your hungry tummy.

This museum is a place for varieties of art forms from all around the world. Each has got its unique attention-grabbing features.

The collections of the museum items belong to Salar Jung family as their tradition. This tradition was started by Nawab Mir Yousuf Ali Khan, popularly known as Salar Jung III.

All arts

You could find here the facts, figures, paintings, portraits, arteries on all the topics of social, political, science, literature, history and the general life. Every art is unique and rare.  This museum is as beautiful as our own memory. Although we have multiple memories of different places and things, we only tell the stories we really like. In the same way, the museum has kept forward the best of arts piece to present.

Different items are placed in different sections in a well-categorized way. The section-wise arrangements made it easy to glance at every items.

Painting section

The painting section was super awesome. A single frame is capable of depicting the whole length of a story. Paintings of different artists belonging to the French and European era could be discovered here. Apart from this, Indian mythological paintings, 3D & hidden paintings are the rare things I found here.

Historical weapons

War was considered as the important parts for the historical developments in society. Having a glance at the weapons could give us an idea about the strength and capabilities of kings, soldiers, an army man, and people. The rusty iron, steel or diamond weapons are the significant one and reflect the powers and strengths of a person using it. Apart from this, war costumes used in previous times could also be observed here.

Here, Clothing, textiles, trades, farmings, religions, symbols and all the things of old times are kept in an orderly way.

The main attraction of this museum is an old big clock. Its performances are a must-watch as it has gathered the maximum attentions.

Other art forms from Korea, Japan, and China could be observed here. The porcelain works of the eastern regions are amazing. This museum has also got large collections of rare manuscripts, books,arts, coins, ivory items, textiles, porcelain materials, glass works and other essentials of day to day life.

Statues of most popular sculptors could be found here. The veiled lady with the transparent veil covers made of marble is an awesome art. A man with four faces is also good to see.

It took me a total of 3 hours to fully visit and understand the different art forms kept here. And the visit was exploratory and really worthy.

Chowmallah palace

It is not so far away from the Salar Jung Museum and it’s a good place to spend a beautiful evening. The grand chandeliers, glasses(shisha) around, colorful walls, shaped domes and white exterior polishing of the palace would make you stay there for long hours. Chowmallah palace is known to belong to the nizams of Hyderabad. It is also the seat of Asaf Jahi dynasty.

Here you could also get to see the old coins, weapons and the costumes used by the royal family. Here one could also see the portraits of the royal family who lived here. It is believed that the royal functions used to happen here.

It is believed that the clock tower, also known as Khilwat clock has been tickling away from around 251 years.

There is a beautiful and well-maintained garden all around the palace. Once you start for the exit you will find water fountains and home pigeons hovering around it. At the benches, you could sit and relax and simply enjoy the royal beauty around. There is also a shopping area where you can purchase books and clothes.

NTR Garden & Hussain Sagar Lake

I decided to end my day with these two beautiful spots. NTR garden is a very friendly zone. There is an arrangement for all the age groups of people. There you could find various rides, toy train, virtual theatres, and a food zone that you must visit. There is also an entry fee for this place and you can spend as much day time as you wish.

Just opposite to NTR Garden main entrance, there is a viewpoint for Hussain Sagar lake. I visited the lake during rainy days. The rain showers falling on the vast lake was a capturing moment for me. The strong wind blowing in all the directions refreshes the heart and mood of visitors.

Day 2 :

Birla temple

Birla Mandir in Hyderabad is a beautiful construction. The white marbles and the golden cone roofs are the best things to see here. It is said that 2000 tonnes of marbles are brought form Rajasthan for the construction of the temple.

Apart from all this, the idols of Swami Venkatesh, Ganapati and other God or Goddess inside would make you immersed in the flow of religious vibes. It is located at the Hill Fort road of Hyderabad city.  At 280 feet above the ground, it turns out to be a center of attractions for all the tourists and passerby. The flagstaff of Birla mandir is at a height of 42 feet and is made of Brass.

Scenes from the literature of Ramayana and Mahabharat are carefully carved on the walls and ceilings of the temple.

This temple gives the views of Hussain Sagar lake and the cities- Hyderabad and Secunderabad which is awesome to see.

The Birla planetarium, observatory and science museum are also located near by.

City Mall

After exploring the area of the museum, temples, garden, lake, and palace, I felt like visiting the malls and buy something good. In a few moments, I realized that shopping at the mall is really a bad idea when you have a lesser budget. But, you could roam and observe the glamourous products. I ate some food and I stepped out immediately.

Local Markets

When it comes to lesser budget, then the local markets is considered as the best option. I was so much satisfied with shopping locally that I roam in markets for more than 3-4 hours and purchased a lot of products at a very cheaper price. To taste the traditional foods, you could also prefer street stalls and fulfill your hunger desires.

There are a lot more things to cover in Hyderabad. If you have a good time and money, then you could easily roam around the places of Hyderabad and discover as many things as possible.

In my next post, I would be writing about the best and the most lovely place I found in Hyderabad. Keep reading my posts and let me know your travel experiences too.

Some glimpse of Salar Jung Museum

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Some glimpse of Chowmallah palace

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Birla Temple. Hyderabad

Hussain Sagar Lake, Hyderabad

  Hyderabad: Exploring solo Hyderabad is most popularly known as the 'city of Nizams'. The palaces, museums, lakes, gardens are all the popular things which you can enjoy in Hyderabad.

[oxfordeliterp]

CONGRATULATIONS, JEN!

You have been accepted to play the role of CORDELIA MCQUEEN with the faceclaim of ALEXANDRA PARK. Please create your account and send it to the main in the next 24 hours. Another difficult decision that I had to sadly make between two applications with edge, that showed the same amount of potential and skill as well as two different sides of the same pale cheek, both leaving me open-mouthed. Yet, I believe that your dedication and your connection with Cordelia are one of a kind. It is remarkable how you can know and understand so much about a character you haven’t even played yet, and I want to thank you for your loyalty to the biography, as well as the creative input. What I have always loved about Cordelia is her transparency, even wearing opaque black, and you managed to show her fickleness and loneliness at once. Incredible work!

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

Name and pronouns: Jen, she/her

Age: I’m feeling 22

Time-zone: GMT

Activity level: I was working as a waitress, technically still do which is why my completion of this app has taken so long when I did 50 hours a week. But by the time this roleplay hits its acceptance date I’ll have worked my last shift and I’ll be going into an admin job which is set hours and in theory that should allow me enough time to get on around once a day. I feel like I’ve rambled but I felt like I needed to explain a little, sorry XD

Triggers:  removed for privacy

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION

Desired character: Cordelia McQueen. As you know, my interest was grabbed by Cordelia right away from the little snipet I saw of her in Victoria’s connection and my affection has only grown for her to incredible amounts having read her bio and stalked the tag you so kindly shared with us. I was going to wait until all the bios were released (a couple of others had my attention too, and while I know currently all the bios are out at the time I started working on this that wasn’t the case. I’m just slow as the perfectionist kicks in) but my heart is now fully set on Cordelia and I just hope I can do justice to this beautiful, sad girl. Upon my first reading of her bio, my heart broken for her several times throughout it as the depth of her sadness became clearer and clearer. She’s a girl from a fractured family who never quite fit in with her parent’s expectations completely that had the one person who accepted her as she was taken from her too. But she’s so much more than just that and every time I reread her bio I see something new and what writer doesn’t want to get the chance to play someone who is full of layers? Cordelia is a bit of a deviation from muses I usually play and I would be honoured if I could be the one to bring her to life, knowing that I’d be pushing myself and challenging myself and that on it’s own is enough for me to keep diving into her character and getting further under her skin. One of the biggest draws to her is how she fits into the group as an individual when she is so aloof and holds herself above everyone else. For me, one of the most rewarding things about her will be watching her interact with everyone else and seeing who brings out little nuances of emotion or even just something of an opinion when she does her best to remain silent or neutral. Of course, another aspect of this is where her loyalties will end up lying when it comes to the conflict between members of the Quarrel Club and the Riot Club and of course with the main arc of the roleplay and whether she thinks that Marc did it or not. I feel like there’s so many directions she could go in when she’s possibly the most neutral muse from all the bios I’ve read and one way or another it’ll be telling which side she picks- if she picks at all- and I would love to be the one exploring all of those posibilities.

Gender and pronouns of the character: Female, she/her

Changes: I think she’s completely perfect just the way she is.

Traits: Cordelia is above all extremely resilient despite having resigned herself to a life of feeling almost empty she refuses to give up completely on life. She’s aloof and difficult to get close to but if you ever manage to get past the distance she makes sure exists between her and the rest of the world, there’s still some softness there hidden in her tired soul. There’s a recognition that she’s different from everyone else, even her own family but she sticks to her guns and refuses to change, even though deep down I feel like she does crave affection- but more than that it’s acceptance that she wants from people. To just be enough for someone like she was for her uncle even if now she’s a little more hollow than she was then.

While so much of her mannerisms are just who she is, the decision to hold herself above everyone is a conscious one as much as it’s just the way she is. After losing the most important person to her I feel like she’s put walls up as much as she’s embraced the emotionless-ness that life created when it hollowed out everything she loved. She chooses to live in her own head because there’s a familiarness to it

Spending all her time in her own head is another of her coping mechanisms. It leaves her above the pressure of having to please people or at the mercy of worrying what they think about her and that is how she’s able to cope with all her sadness and the instability of her life when herself has been her only constant. It lets her go through life in her own way without letting herself and how she’s feeling depend on other people- she’s entirely at her own mercy at there’s a certain power in that that allows her to be assured enough to continue on the path she’s on.

While she may come across as cold and uncaring, it’s really more of a neutrality that causes her to be so disinterested in people. Cordelia very makes a firm decision about anyone and on those rare occasions that she does it’s never something that she would vocalise. She’s someone who would always leave you guessing about herself, happy to hear you talk her ear off about yourself if it meant that she never had to admit anything personal about herself.

Extras: Having thought long and hard about it and trawled through the Oxford courses page, I finally settled on the first course that jumped out at me for Cordelia and that was Fine Art. I feel as though she has the same creative talent as her uncle, even if she is slightly less vocal about it and it’s something she tends to keep to herself when it makes people point out similarities and differences between them. It’s the one form of expression that she allows herself now that she’s stopped dancing. I’ve gone into her feelings about it a little more in her para sample but I feel like it’s the degree that makes the most sense for her.

Anything else I’ve managed to put together for her you’ll be able to find here which there is currently more than one page of and I’ll maybe add to as I think of more (also number one reason why this app took me so long bc I am a perfectionist when it comes to graphics)

PARA SAMPLE

I ended up doing two because I couldn’t get the two of them to flow into each other smoothly although it could be argued that one happens in the afternoon and the other in the evening.

Her nose crinkles slightly in an uncharacteristic show of emotion as her eyes trail over the canvas in front of her with nothing but criticism and disappointment echoing faintly in their depths. The image that she’d seen so clearly in her mind had yet to transfer itself into a physical copy and there was a faint sense of frustration building that despite her brushstrokes being as precise and delicate as her dancing had been, they had yet to accomplish what she wanted from them. With a smooth movement she’s placing her paintbrush down to take a step back from what she’s trying to create to see if that gives her a better perspective of where she was going wrong.

The critical glint in her eyes doesn’t fade and once again she becomes her own worst nightmare as she tortures herself some more with memories of her uncle and the vivid designs his deft fingers used to leave on paper. It came so naturally to him and there hadn’t been a day spent with him that she hadn’t been transfixed by watching him work. The designs had been her favourite but seeing them come to life was almost as enchanting when she’d always envied how he could bring them to life with an ease that she never seemed to manage.

Logically she could acknowledge that it was never totally easy for him when all artists seemed to struggle with their work at one time or another but her mind never failed to drive a wedge between her and the family member she’d always classed herself as closest to at times like these. More often than not comparisons drawn were favourable but this time, as with everytime that she painted, it only made her want to give up for the day when there seemed little point torturing herself over it.

So Cordelia washed her hands and removed her apron, with it removing all flashes of colour from her form. It’s too telling, she’d decided in her first year, to leave paint smudges all over her clothes and skin when she’d always preferred to give so little about herself away. There was no chance of anyone finding her lack or damaged that way or discovering the depth of the sadness that had made its home in her bones long ago and was as much a part of her as her lips or hands. It was unshakable and by now it was the one constant in her life that she was quite convinced that without its weight she’d feel too unbalanced to cope.

Satisfied that she’s scrubbed enough of the paint flecks from herself, she paints her lips back on with a flash of red before switching her comfortable flats for the red-soled high heels that complete the look she knows that she’s known for on the campus. Thankfully it all came naturally to her, an innate knack for picking the very best for herself and piecing an outfit together to not only get the best out of her features but the clothes themselves.. Though she can’t help but supposed that even if she weren’t able to carry the look she favoured so well, she’d still be just as hollow inside for it not to mean a thing to her.

More solemness rests in her eyes than usual as she takes in her surroundings, flute of champagne balanced gracefully between delicate fingers. A sigh is hiding behind her lips, weariness for the evening that was before her already creeping in before she reminds herself that it was her choice to attend and put herself in that position. There was no hostility felt towards the others that surrounded her, just a marked difference that had followed her through life. It was something she’d found a resigned acceptance in, not being able to bring herself to care enough to make any changes to the way she was in order to fit into the group that surrounded her more smoothly.

Instead she stood on the fringes of the party, fulfilling the role of the perfect lady that she had started to embody, shoulders gracefully back and posture that held the type of perfection only a dancer could achieve. With a measured but fluid move of her arm Cordelia raises her glass to take a sip of the sparkling drink in her hand knowing that the bubbles in it won’t have any success in making her lighter when she’s so happy staying in the shadows.

Still, it isn’t her intention to wile the evening away lurking in the corner sipping champagne like some sad loner when she knew plenty of other attendees at the little gathering. It was all just a question of who would handle her company the best out of all those in the room. While she could manage to get on well enough with the likes of Windsor, Arkwright, Armstrong and Bellefonte when she wanted to - her poker face was without match after all- she wasn’t quite fancying the energy it would take to interact with one of them. Casting her eyes around once again they inevitably found the form of her stepbrother, as always never far from that pretty, polished Hastings.

A familiar spark that shatters all her shadows and brings back memories of that one lapse that she’d allowed them. That brush of lips against her that she’d retreated from as quickly as her thoughts came back to her because those few heartbeats of contact had made her feel more than all her countless one night stands with nameless men had. He was wholly too enticing and intoxicating, a danger to the uneven equilibrium she clung to and called sanity. With him, what was now her world was in jeopardy and no matter how what was left of her heart sung and cried out for him, Cordelia had never quite managed to let herself surrender to what was between them when it meant entirely too much risk.

So she decides against her stepbrother, choosing to leave him with his pretty, perfect little blonde girlfriend while trying her best to ignore that faint echoing pang of envy, and adjust her course towards the Zerilli siblings, having always found them somewhat refreshing in a social group that had the potential to be confining if you didn’t know how to play your part right.

[kelsnotchels]

#221 truths

I’ve had a few friends ask me recently, “Why Johnlock? Why this show? Why this fandom?”

The truth is, like many of you, I found my way to the world of Johnlock because I saw it--I believed it before I knew what to call it.

From the very first episode, I felt sure that they were either intentionally or unintentionally showcasing what would be a CLEAR romantic chemistry if we were in a show featuring a hetero pair.

I saw it.

I believed it.

And as more and more episodes played out without articulating it with any real specificity, I began to ship it.

In most areas of my life, I’m a speaker. I teach and perform and act as the talking head for almost every other community I’m in. Johnlock was different. I participated mostly by reading (and liking and reblogging), but I didn’t add to the conversation most of the time.

Honestly, because I was afraid. No of, like, some horrible fate befalling me if two pretend people didn’t get together on a tv show. I was afraid that my reading of the text would be wrong. I was afraid that my gut feeling, my gut instinct, my logical interpretation was somehow askew.

None of us know what is going to happen before the end of BBC Sherlock as we know it, but many of us see this coming episode as a fork in the road. Many of us feel in our bones that if it doesn’t happen here, it might not happen at all. Not that it couldn’t, but the odds seem to diminish past this point in the storytelling convention.

So on what feels like the last few days before the other shoe drops, I wanted to put together a little something for me, and for the fandom that has inspired me so much over the past several years.

These are some truths I learned by being a part of the Johnlock community. (22.1 truths, in fact.)

I’d love to read yours too (even if there aren’t 22 of them)! Tag yours with “#221 truths” so I can find yours. 

<3

++++++++++

1. I am hungry for hope. Believing in something (even something as “small” as johnlock) feels like something bigger when I pare it down to its most basic parts.

Read the rest under the cut.

2. Learning and studying is really FUN.  (When you love what you’re learning and it isn’t for a grade.)

3. Art is something different for every person who experiences it. None of us read every single moment of every scene the same way. This one show is unique to all of us.

4. Wishing for something and having faith in something are two totally different things - I’ve shipped HARD before. Loads of times. But that’s not what this feels like to me. It is not only representative of something intensely important to me personally, but it’s also just something that NOBODY can strip from my list of Things I Know.

5. Cliques are still real, but they’re also totally natural - there are absolutely some tight circles within the johnlock community, and some of those circles are hard to “break into.” But also, that’s really okay. Connections aren’t all equal. Nobody owes you friendship because you like the same things.

6. Queerphobia is prevalent in some really subversive and sneaky ways.

7. We get to choose our family. Who we talk to every day, who we worry about, who we choose to trust. That is family. For many of us, our family isn’t whole unless we include the members who live in our computers.

8. Hard work is a strong producer of self-esteem. Digging into these episodes and doing the analysis makes us feel good. Because making order from chaos is a natural human instinct. That’s why solving puzzles is so satisfying.

9. Some people just want to tear down what you love. (an extension of the trope: People on the Internet can be Mean) - Ignoring trolls or particularly venomous anons is part of tuning out the frequencies that are harmful. We get to choose what we let in.

10. But arguing for what we believe is right is important. Knowing a personal truth is one thing, but standing up for yourself and refusing to be diminished or put down is important too. Discerning which arguments are worth fighting and which will be fruitless is one of the truest signs of maturity I can think of.

11. It can be hard/scary to do what is true for you and step away from what others expect of you. *cough* BE FREE, MY BABIES *cough*

12. The best memes make you laugh AND cry.

13. Being vulnerable to other people, especially people you don’t know, is really hard. But when you’re portraying something that you love, it is so much easier.

14. Communication is so freaking important, and it is so easy to mess up if you’re not being transparent and open and vulnerable. Actually saying the hard thing to the person you love is a roadblock some people never manage to get past. (HI BOYS TALK TO EACH OTHER KTHNKS)

15. Saying you’re untouchable or unfeeling (or a high-functioning sociopath) doesn’t make it true. It hurts to be human. It hurts to open yourself to others. But the good stuff can’t get in without an open heart.

16. Self-care is important. Eat the chips.

17. If you need something, ask for it. I have watched more people reach out to someone in need in the Johnlock community than in any other community I’ve ever been a part of. From actual financial help to social help or even just to soothe loneliness, people want to help. People are here for you.

18. We have to be willing to stand up and fight for representation in the media. There is absolutely no reason why there shouldn’t be more queer rep on our screens. (HI. that means trans rep too. That means ace/aro rep too. That means enby rep too. That means more QUEER REP.). There is no reason for us to settle for less than what cishet programming has shown for decades. If it requires a fight. Fine. We’ll fight. We aren’t afraid.

19. Sometimes you’re one of the popular kids, and sometimes you’re an unknown. It’s really okay.

20. Say what you need to say as soon as you can. We don’t always get second chances.

21. There is so much to be found in second glances, second readings, deeper investigation, third passes. There are hidden gems everywhere, but sometimes we’re not really looking for them until someone opens our eyes. But once you start looking for those secret reasons to smile, you’ll start seeing elephants everywhere.

22. Being a part of something is a gift. Be a part of as much as you can.

and of course,  .1  more:    LOVE

_______

I’ve been SO inspired by so many of you… 

Please consider this my love note:

@quietlyprim @emilociraptor @graceebooks @teapotsubtext @kinklock @huglocked @inevitably-johnlocked @loudest-subtext-in-tv @clueingforlooks @marcelock @theneckstroke @ormondsacker  @1895 @thejohnlockhell @johnlocktm @bbcromance @johnlockedness @johnnlocked @beejohnlocked @waitingforgarridebs @the-7-percent-solution 

[makingscipub]

What R we talking about? Pandemics and numbers

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought us many new words and phrases, words and phrases that are reshaping our lives, such as ‘social distancing’, furlough, WFH (working from home), which I always read as WTF, zoom meetings, PPE and so on. It has also brought with it lots of numbers and graphs and other mathematical and/or modelling phenomena.

Numbers have always been part of disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics, especially numbers of cases and numbers of deaths, and the graphs plotting their ups and downs. More recently, there have also been mathematical models. So-called quantitative epidemiological modelling became a topic of discussion during the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease in particular, when models decided which animals were to live or die.

Knowing your Rs from your elbows

However, this pandemic brought something else to public attention on top of numbers, graphs and models, namely a rather complex mathematical number which has now become the emblem of the disease and its management. That number doesn’t look like a number. It looks like a letter. It is R, called the R number, R rate, R level… – with other cryptic letters and numbers added, such as R0,Re, Rt, and so on.

I am not a scientist, but after talking with some, I have devised this ‘definition’ (all mistakes my own): The R number comes in two forms. The basic reproduction number R0 is the average number of people that a person with a virus would pass it on to, all other things being equal. This is a property of the virus and its host and it doesn’t change over time. It takes a larger value the more intrinsically contagious the virus is. The effective reproduction number, Re, or its value at a given time, Rt, depends upon various circumstances such as how many people are immune and how much social contact people have. What follows from that is that isolating people can have the same effect as vaccination.”

As you have all heard by now from the news: If the R value is one, each carrier of a disease passes the virus on to one other person, meaning the prevalence of the virus will stay at the same level. If the value of R falls below one, it will decrease.

Bringing down R has become the new ‘flattening the curve’. But how did politicians talk about this important topic?

A tale of two Rs

Boris Johnson

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson introduced R prominently on 30 April. At one of the daily press conferences he said the following:

“And so to avoid that disaster our fifth and final test is that nothing as I say we do should lift the R or the reproduction rate of that disease back above one…And before I hand over to Patrick [Vallance] I am going to ask for a short explanatory clip about the one… And before we come to that clip, let me just emphasise that keeping the R down is going to be absolutely vital to our recovery, keeping the reproduction rate of the disease down, and we can only do it by our collective discipline and working together”. You can see the clip here, at about 9.15 minutes in – this is quite informative, but not spoken by the PM.

Angela Merkel

I noticed that people in Germany, in this case my 93 year-old father, started to talk about R about a month ago in the context social distancing. This happened especially after a speech by the Chancellor Angela Merkel in which she explained the significance of R in quite some detail and, most importantly, in a way that lay people can understand – good science policy communication in action. You can watch her explanation here. I don’t really want to repeat that. I just want to stress one thing that she made clear: little variations in R can have big effects, for good or for ill.

In an article about Merkel’s speech we read something that is becoming relevant now: “As societies begin to contemplate how to re-start their economies after weeks of shutdowns, epidemiologists have urged a multi-cycle strategy of ‘suppression and lift:’ a regimen of relaxing and tightening social distancing measures to fine-tune them, so that they are just right for a particular population at a particular time.”

That’s the stage the the UK government thinks we have reached about now, but we don’t hear about suppression and lift, we hear instead about ‘being alert’ and ‘common sense’ – but that would be another blog post/rant. (The Independent Sage Report, which has just been published, has more on suppression)

Back to Boris

On Sunday 10 May Boris Johnson gave an address to the nation which referenced R again. R became part of two, to put it charitably, ‘lay-friendly’ ‘explanations’, one a pseudo-equation, the other a pseudo-graph. Both were much lampooned on twitter the following day. They were a failure in science policy communication.

On Facebook, Gareth Roberts, a biology teacher, wrote the following: “Thought it would be fairly sensible to assess the ‘Boris does Science graph’ in the same way we would a GCSE or A-level student”, and the result is splendid. @trishgreenhalgh tweeted it out and it went a bit viral (Thanks to @GarethEnticott for helping me find out more about that image) Oh, and what’s Gareth’s overall assessment? “This work falls well below the standards required to meet your target grade. This is becoming a recurring theme of my feedback to you.”

R for dummies

When seeing and hearing Rs everywhere, I wondered whether there was something like R for dummies… and of course there is, but only about R as a computer language! However, not all is lost. I found two articles, one thread and one interactive game which might help. But there is certainly more out there!

An article in the BMJ (HT @RRITools) that sets out R very clearly, so that politicians can understand things better.

A short article in Wired explains R well, and all the caveats around it!

A more elaborate thread by epidemiologist Adam Kucharski goes into more detail.

And then there is this interactive ‘game’: “What Happens Next? COVID-19 Futures, Explained With Playable Simulations” 30 min play/read, by Marcel Salathé (epidemiologist) & Nicky Case (art/code) – have a go, play and LEARN!

The origins of R

Now, it turns out that Kucharski is the author of an aptly timed book entitled The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread – and Why They Stop, which came out at the beginning of this year. The blurb reads like this: “A deadly virus suddenly explodes into the population. A political movement gathers pace, and then quickly vanishes. An idea takes off like wildfire, changing our world forever. We live in a world that’s more interconnected than ever before. Our lives are shaped by outbreaks – of disease, of misinformation, even of violence – that appear, spread and fade away with bewildering speed.” That sums things up nicely!

I was looking at some media reporting about R when I found a review of Kucharki’s book by Steve Bleach in The Sunday Times, published on 16 February, that is, before R entered common consciousness! It starts like this:

“How many of us are going to contract coronavirus? The answer – or, at least, the best means we have of trying to calculate it – started taking shape as long ago as the 1950s, when a researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine wrote a paper on the control of mosquitoes. Hidden away in the appendix was a novel idea about disease transmission: if you modelled what would happen when a single infectious person arrived in a population, it might give you a way to predict how serious an outbreak would be.

Twenty years later, a mathematician called Klaus Dietz picked up on the idea. What if you established the average number of people that a new case would infect? Call it the reproduction number, or R. You could then calculate how fast the disease would spread, how many people would catch it and, if you could intervene in a way that reduces R, how effective measures to fight it might be.”

So that’s where R comes from I thought! It might just be a letter/number, but it is hugely important. As Bleach says: “Suddenly, the R number looks less like an academic device and more like a matter of life and death. Coronavirus rates somewhere between R1.5 and R3.5, on current estimates [that was February, 2020]. That sounds like a small range, but as Adam Kucharski’s book points out, it has huge consequences.” (highlighted by me)

The future of R and of us

For something that is a matter of life and death, the science communication around it needs to be flawless, or at least try to be. One ingredient in good science communication is ‘trust’. Angela Merkel explained R in a way which implied that she trusted people to be able to understand and then act upon complex information. She didn’t dumb down R; she was clear about it and its implications. And she communicate in a context where actions that could ‘lower R’ were made possible through intensive research, testing, tracing, transparency, good hospitals  etc etc. (This does not mean, however, that everybody trusted her, see here)

This was not the case for the UK government, where science communication was poor and the context was poor too. There was talk about people using their ‘common sense’, which might imply trusting people to do the right thing, while at the same time not providing them with the opportunities to use it – namely clear and non-contradictory information, sufficient PPE, safe infrastructure and so on.

Trust in science and government has to be built into people’s life; it can’t be talked into people’s lives. At the moment this is not happening here in the UK. In such a context even good science communication, including engagement and dialogue, can only achieve so much. Words matter, numbers matter, but worlds matter too. To build better worlds we need better politics, not only better science and better science communication. Only then can trust be achieved and science communication work.

In the pseudo-graph mentioned above, it is assumed that “R will remain below 1 despite it only dropping to 0.9 after six weeks of lockdown“. But as Gareth Roberts asked: “Do you think it is realistic to assume R won’t rise above 1 when we reopen schools, workplaces, bars, restaurants and shops?” As the Independent Sage Report points out (p. 22): “Any easing of restrictions needs to be accompanied by not only effective, targeted messages, but changes in the physical and social environment that enable the key behaviours to suppress transmission”.

Image: Flickr, David Goehring

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