#ive been thinking about he sleeps a lot. when he does. its intermittent

[neonhellscape]

✅figured out why the technomat was so nervous about waking the enginseer prime

[shih-coulda-had-it]

passenger (1/?)

no one’s written much of Tomb Raider (2018) fic, or at least fic with Lu Ren, so have this blurb and watch out for a haphazard bulletpoint list about my TR sequel

*note: i have two views on the Lara Croft and Lu Ren dynamic. this is the platonic found family one.

** one -- two -- ??

.

They bicker in the hospital, Lu Ren and Lara Croft. He’s sprawled in one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs, arms crossed and hackles raised. He’s walked out of Yamatai with only a cast, in contrast to Lara, who is confined to bedrest for several more days.

“Dad sanitized the wound,” Lara complains. “There is literally nothing wrong with me.”

Lu Ren grimaces and doesn’t mention the probable PTSD, or the likelihood of sepsis, or her many abrasions. Nor does he mention the night terrors that plague them both, though hers are certainly much more visceral. Unfortunately, Lara is starving for a fight, and the last recipient of Lara’s vicious attention was the old lady contacted via Skype.

The lady didn’t voice her disapproval, per se, as Lara made demands of reparations for Lu Ren and the other Yamatai victims, but she spoke like she was trying to corral Lara into meek obedience.

And so, Lu Ren had the mighty task of blunting Lara Croft’s cutting words.

“I can grab your chart,” he offers. “Or ask if they can take you off the pain meds.”

She squints at him. “Are you fucking with me?” she asks, suspicious. “I thought they already took me off those.” Lara makes to flail her arms, which is always a bad move with an IV drip, and Lu Ren hurriedly pins one wrist down.

“No,” says Lu Ren. “Stay down. Sleep, even, if you can. You paid the hospital bills, so enjoy the free bed.”

“It’s a shit bed.” The petulant behavior is only a little unbearable. He wonders, idly, how young she is. They had their dead fathers, but Lu Ren had been in his late twenties when his father accepted Richard Croft’s lucrative deal. Thousands of U.S. dollars, funneled into Lu Ren’s savings. Before leaving for the Devil’s Sea, his father gave him the Endurance too, like he already expected to never return.

Lu Ren occasionally thinks he’s a fucking miracle, keeping afloat his boat and his savings and his life.

He remembers, belatedly, to tease her. “Spoiled white kid.” To top it off, he lets go of her wrist and pats it in a patronizing manner.

She sniffs. “This spoiled white kid’s getting you a new boat.”

“Ah?” says Lu Ren, caught off-guard. Several hard blinks later, and Lara’s face is still in perfect clarity. Her mouth is twisted into a grimace, but her eyes are earnest. He slowly spools together his thoughts, because what. Does—does Lara even know what entails getting a ship in Hong Kong’s crowded waters? He eventually repeats what Lara said earlier: “Are you fucking with me?”

“Why—” The indignant tone withers, and Lara adopts a different tack. “I owe you a boat,” she explains.

“You really don’t.”

The logistics of returning back to the hazy days of pre-Yamatai horrify Lu Ren. His spot on the docks was surely gone, snapped up by either opportunistic squatters or legitimate captains. The Endurance and all its precious memories were most definitely located at the bottom of the Devil’s Sea. And despite his being an intermittent alcoholic, Lu Ren has no desire to drown in the bottle again.

“Well, I owe you something,” Lara snaps.

“You paid the hospital bills,” he points out again. “And if what you said is true, you’ve paid me for Yamatai with, uh…” He looks around furtively. “You’ve overpaid me, if anything,” he concludes.

With that parting blow, Lara is back to scowling. “Fuck you,” she says.

“These drugs make you curse a lot,” Lu Ren returns. “Maybe we should ask the doctors to lower the medication. Do you know how many people understand you here?”

He hasn’t told Lara that the vast majority of Hong Kong can comprehend her words. They used to be a fucking British colony, of course they understand Lara’s clipped English. If Lara fails to remember her history, it isn’t Lu Ren’s job to help her save face.

Lara snorts. “I’m going to sleep,” she informs him.

He hears the underlying request. “I’ll try not to move.”

/tbc

[thesecretlifeoflee]

#8

i want to want him still. I’m sure he could feel its different. he had asked me if i could feel the love we have for each other. i do,  i think about him all the time and i care bout him, i just don’t know if i can deal with the feeling of being used while i have these type of feelings for him. it feels like i have to give up my body for someone to stay around. i haver to fuck him to get a little piece of him. that’s not how its supposed to be, but i know this is what i signed up for. maybe i need a break away from this. 

he flew me out to miami with him, we had only fucked twice, i can’t say i was being used but im sure i was. he came back to me for some reason, coming to my hotel room to sleep.  sleeping with me? he said the first night he slept with me, that was the best sleep he has gotten since he was there. i wanted to let myself believe it was because i was there, but i refused to let myself believe such delusion.  he’s almost excited that he’ll be up here by himself and that ill spend more time with him. i think its sweet but i dont know what im thinking. i let people influence my thinking and feelings that its hard to differentiate what i actually feel and what i dont. i want him, i want him. i like that i dont have to deal with him full-time. he has an attitude and a lot of other issues i can’t deal with. i like seeing him in intermittent schedules. his life and his friends dont mesh with mine at all, he lives his life like nothing matters. he will stop in the road while there’s traffic and the cars behind us will honk and i get so embarrassed for him. i wish i could see the world as he does. 

i stopped taking my medication, i dont know if im feeling lazy due to the weather or if im feeling depressed. i want to feel better, i dont know if im self destructing like tony says. i like being around him and i actually choose him over certain things,- like sleep, eating, hanging out with friend . i am just tired of having sex all off the time it gets so boring. 

what if i stopped seeing him? i have bad abandonment issues so ive been there done that. recently ive been thinking about my ex, how he used to just watch me cry because he was leaving and he wouldn’t feel a thing, he’d leave me only just to beg for me back a few weeks later. just thinking about how he was doing it on purpose and knew how it hurt me all because he was bored with life. i hate him and i hate that part of my life. i finally left because i was just over it, over him. i met tony and how we would go back and fourth with flirtatious jokes, i had told him its because he brushed me off and wanted nothing to do with me, but that wasnt the full truth. i did want to know him cause he was hard to read, his actions and his lack of awareness or lack or care of the people around him. i saw him as a challenge to understand him and i succeeded. for the most part, i liked the unknowing part of the dynamic we had.  it was so fun, and when i messaged him and how he responded, he likes to say the way i came at him was so off-putting, but it was all jokes. until i texted him. his reaction was exactly as i expected it to be. i did it because i wanted to know i could have the married man that doesn’t care about anything. what really opened the door for me, is the fact he told me he was meeting up with this girl that used to work for him. that’s what did it, i knew he was attainable. i think now that i have him and he cares about me i dont want him as much. 

i didn’t think he was coherent. apparently, when he seems so beligerent he is coherent. we had a real conversation i thought he was not going to remember so i didn’t want to entertain his crazy incoherent thoughts, even if they were true feelings. he wanted me to say i love him, he knows it and i know it, especially if he was drinking, i didn’t want to say it. it feel impersonal over the phone whilst the other party is drinking. he said he loved me. not the he has love FOR me, he LOVED me. im not sure how i feel about it at the moment. however, in the moment, my stomach was in knots and was turning. the anxiety from the conversation we were having. i care about him a lot. i like how this naturally and organic this love feels. it doesn’t feel like how the love i used to haver with others felt. it feels a bit raw. its scary to think i might actually love him. 

thinking about if this were to end, i dont think i could settle for anything or anyone less than him. i love how much of a man he is, how doesn’t struggle for money because he does what he needs to do and so on. he cares for the people around him deeply and he wants to take care of them. previously, i had stated how he through me in the mix of people he wants to take care of. i remember how heavy my head got and how my ears started to ring. my stomach had dropped and my palms started to get clammy. i had hoped a conversation that i didn’t want to have wouldn’t have followed that. fortunately enough for me, it hadn’t. i was never good at showing or expressing emotions as clearly as i would want.i hope he sees that, its not the i feel it its just that i can’t say it, my tongue refuses to say what i feel. my brain wont allow it. i feel something for him, something heavy, he’s on my mind a lot considerably speaking since we dont see each other as often as we had in the beginning. i think about him and whenever he calls, i answer, no matter day or time. i flew to florida just to see him, i could give a shit less about stinky ass miami. i went to see him and only him. i jumped. he said if i asked him, he would jump too. i want him jump but i can’t figure out in what wa. maybe i just want to see if he would, just to see how much i mean. 

[modiintrainguy]

Countdown to therapy – the return

March 13, 2019 8.20am

……and we’re going back.

The brief respite from therapy after I finished with T is starting again on Tuesday next week.

I gotta admit im not sure about this guy, he seems too much like a friendly yeshiva rabbi and the room and chairs don’t seem comfortable. But he could be good and hes on Maccabi so its cheap.

Anyway I decided I should try and write down my feelings each day betweennow and then so I know what to talk about.

And if I in anyway thought I was ok yesterday was a case in point. Proves im absolyutely not ok!

Er good to know? Bad to know? Definitely things to work on.

 So, yesterday I went from being really happy to deepest down depression that I couldn’t even try and get out of. I could I could’ve but didn’t.

Day started like most – me arriving non plussed at work, putting things off, getting on with them

I got this Jira board now and people started opening issues which is good. Makes it easier to manage what ive got to do.

I decided to try and push on with the platform brochure as a ppt and do 2 marketing docs and send them to K to talk to O about cos shes in Kiev. In the end I started getting requests – copy briefs, things to review, but I soldiered on and sent the brochure and 2 marketing docs  - persoinalization and Lead Management – to K.

Its really good to have K in the picture. But still feel like I want to get out of there.

Although then A from reception asked me to write an email announcing the theme for the purm costume competition on Sunday is animals.

I wrote one and she was so happy, said its genius. Then I from HR also said it was brilliant – and me and my lo self esteem arse went into hyper feeling amazing and thinking this is what ive been missing. Like since novemeber when I started with this product marketing shit with G and O and Yni I could not understand why anyone would want to work. Id see films and see people saying “but I love my job” – like in 50 shades of grey where she doesn’t want to give up her job -  and I think whaaaaat. Its just depressing. But now I realise its about achieving things and those things being recognised.

This was the email – nothing amazing. Design came out shit!

Also I won a game of pool and played really well! Potted some fantastic shots, including the black from far.

Anyway I left at 3.20 feeling better than ever! On the grand scheme of things that’s not that good. But its relative eh.

In the evening we had a meeting at 6.10pm with an art therapist who might do art therapy with littlun. Thing is her ganenent and psychologist say we should go to hadrachat horim but the art therapist also does that so im not sure we need both. Well tonight we’ll see T and ask her.

So I had to pick up the kids, get the bath done and them eating before B came at 5.55. when she came I was just getting the food ready and I left on time.

Ah yeah, and id already said cos we were gonna already be out and have a babysitter lets go to the cinema or to eat and mrs said she wanted to see green book. But even though its got good reviews and won the Oscar for best film last week, its also supposed to be a bullshit representation of racist.

So as we’re driving to the cinema im in 2 mninds. Do I want to see instant family or bens back or not go to the cinema, and then I felt hungry but she needed the loo so I said get tickets for green book and I’ll buy pizza but the line was too long and I thought lets maybe go to pepino but shes already bought tickets and I panic and say lets see instant family cos it had 7.3 on imdb so it must be something special, so I changed the tickets and she was all annoyed and we went in and sat down and the film started and in the first second of seeing marky marks face and shit acting I knew it was a terrible mistake. It was a shit film, I ate nachose, she wanted more coke and I didn’t get it. I didn’t want to be there – we could’ve gone ot pepinos. I just spent the whole time feeling dow and shit and shit and depressed. It was such a waste of an opportunity. Id thought I didn’t want to go to eat cos I ate shit yesterday – my intermittent fastings gone to shit. Imworried the foods coming back so im eating crap at work, let alone intermitten. And I hated the film. It was like lets make a film – a couple decides to foster kids, they are hard, they start to like them, the mum comes back in the picture, they get upset the kds are leaving, in the end the mum flakes on them cos shes a crack addict, kids stay and are adopted. This house they lived in was insane big. It was bullshit with no background.

By the time we left I was deep in depression. When we got home I felt shit – couldn’t deicde if I should take the dog out. Forced myself to clean up the kitchen and have a shower, went to bed and ended up talking and feeling a bit better.

But that feeling when I was driving to the kanyon and walking in and to the cinema and I couldn’t decide what I want to do. She asked me do u want to go to the cinema and I said I don’t know. I thought if I see a good filem it could make me feel good and I wanst sure I wanted to eat. But theni realized after I didn’t want to be there. But I thought she did. And I worry about wasting money – 45 for nachos and drink, 80 for cinema, 110 for babysitter- 230 for wehat.

And this art therapist is 350 a session including when she has to meet regularly with us. But she said she might ask my dad to pay.

>>>>>>>>>> 

ADDING THIS AFTER I WROTE IT!

I forgot to say, I got some new anxiety pills cos those xanex things didn’t work and the doctor had mentioned that I can get anxiety pills that also help you sleep. So I got them – all u need to do is send a message on the Maccabi website and he sends u a prescription and u don’t even need to print it out. Its like going to the airport these days – u just give them your card. But the point is last night when I got home I felt shit and after I did the washing up and cleared up the kitchen and even made a sandwich chavita for the littlun and had a shower I took one as I got into bed. Instead of doing meditation or even trying breathing or talking to the mrs. It’s a poor choice, I need to make more of an effort. It kind of worked until I started talking to her about how I didn’t want to offent the new therapist like I feel I offended T and she said T had been upset I didn’t say thank you. Like isn’t it part of the job to understand that emotionally unbalanced people areent always going to treat people perfrectly., whatevs. I need to try harder and use techniques cos yesterday I gave up and spent the whole time in the cinema wallowing in feeling shit. Shge said why didn’t I just leave cos I know she doesn’t mind going to the cinema by herself but it felt wrong.

>>>>>>>>>>> 

I dunno.

I said that in bed a lot – I diunno and she said yes you do.

Cso I do know. Im just upset that theres obviously something wrong with me. What is ADD? What is depression? An illness? What is an illness?

Is it a physical bran problem?

Or is it simply reactions to your environment that you have got used to. That you have reacted in a way so many times that you do it automatically? Whats that got to do with an illness?

Anyway im back on the train going to work. At least I have good things – the daiughters are fantsastic, job could be worse even if its not perfect and it doesn’t look like I got the Gwy one. And the love from the mrs is never ending even if I annoy her. And the food can be controlled immediately from tofday. And I can go to the gym today.

Gotta go. Tonight we have a meeting at littluns gan. Will be nice to see T as usual 😉 but seriously she is wonderful, especially considering her age and experience.

Now we go to work, deal with the shit on my jira board and speak to K about lead management.

[kacydeneen]

As Life-Saving Cancer Drugs Run Short, Patients Suffer

The nurses and doctor swarmed into the young patient's room, grabbing and pulling as they worked. Out came the IV. In came epinephrine and hydrocortisone to keep his heart pumping. 

The drug in Eliot Hayes' IV was supposed to help cure his cancer. But in this moment, it was killing him.

Soon after the medicine had started pumping into his veins, Hayes felt something was wrong. As he lay in bed, face growing redder by the second and throat quickly closing, a three-word whisper escaped his lips: "I can't breathe."

The medical staff worked quickly. Less than a minute after the episode began, the 18-year-old felt sick, but he was alive.

Eliot Hayes had just suffered anaphylactic shock as a result of an allergic reaction to one drug used to treat his B-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma. It was clear he needed another option.

Another drug, Erwinaze, was the answer -- if only the hospital could find enough of it to treat him.

Jazz Pharmaceuticals, the Ireland-based company that sells and distributes Erwinaze, alerted doctors and patients in September that one of its batches had been contaminated by "particulate matter" and was in short supply.

"How is it possible? Why is there a shortage? What is going on?" Sophie Hayes, Eliot's mother, recalled thinking when she was told the treatment for her son would have to be delayed.

The Hayes family, from Wayne, Pennsylvania, experienced first-hand a problem that doctors say is too common and worsening: shortages of childhood cancer drugs, exacerbated by the dwindling number of suppliers and problems in production.

"It does make us nervous, knowing that if there is just one supplier of a given medicine, any hiccup or disruption in manufacturing would lead to a shortage that would affect patients," said Dr. Spencer Mangum, a pediatric oncologist at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Delaware, where Hayes is being treated.

For Some, Shortages of More than 8 Years The pediatric chemotherapy drug vincristine grabbed headlines when Teva Pharmaceuticals stopped manufacturing it in July, a move the U.S. Food and Drug Administration described as a "business decision." That left Pfizer as the sole manufacturer and caused the FDA to declare a shortage.

Teva Pharmaceuticals did not return requests for comment.

Mangum called vincristine an "an essential component to a lot of the backbone of a lot of our therapies." He added that his hospital has enough of the drug to last through the rest of the year.

Other drugs, like the Erwinaze needed for Eliot Hayes' treatment, have been in short supply for years, Mangum said.

At the request of Congress, the FDA recently studied 163 drugs that had been in short supply. Its report said drug shortages have been increasing and lasting longer, in some cases more than 8 years.

One reason is older drugs on the market, with generics that are less valuable to drug makers. Another is problems with manufacturing or product quality, which led to 62% of shortages in the drugs the FDA studied.

The "product quality problems" that have contributed to the current Erwinaze shortage have also been blamed for past shortages.

In a scathing January 19, 2017, letter to Porton Biopharma -- the Salisbury, England-based company that makes the Erwinaze distributed by Jazz Pharmaceuticals -- the FDA excoriated the company for repeatedly failing to act on violations that led to contaminations in its manufacturing facility.

"These repeated failures demonstrate that management oversight and control over the manufacture of drugs at your facility is inadequate, and that your previous corrective actions did not address persistent contamination hazards and drug quality issues," the FDA's letter read.

In a statement, a Porton spokesperson said the company has since changed some suppliers and introduced "new components" to ensure quality. The spokesperson said Porton has resolved the "historical issues" that the FDA identified and that "subsequent inspections have satisfied the regulatory authorities."

However, the spokesperson did not provide an answer about what led to the latest contamination of one of its Erwinaze batches. 

For its part, Jazz knows "it's critical to improve reliability of supply" and is working to help Porton Biopharma "overcome its manufacturing issues," said Andrew Civers-Davis, Jazz's director of global corporate communications. Civers-Davis added that Jazz is working to make Erwinaze more available and is developing other drugs to address the worldwide shortage.

He acknowledged, however, that "Until the manufacturing issues are resolved by PBL, we do expect intermittent shortage and stock out of supply through the end of 2019 and into 2020."

Rationing Life-Saving Drugs Shortages can have an especially devastating effect on childhood cancer patients.

The FDA report noted that about 90% of children diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common type of pediatric cancer, are curable. However, the agency added, most of the drugs used to treat this form of leukemia are older. Between 2009 to 2019, nine out of 11 of those drugs were "in and out of shortage."

When shortages occur, they can create a host of problems for patients and hospitals, which are forced to compete with one another. In these instances, competition comes in the form not necessarily of who can pay the most money, but "who can get in line quickest and who can grab that stock," Mangum said.

"It becomes like a rat race for who is going to have stocks to actually protect the kids," Sophie Hayes said.

This reality creates a dilemma because hospitals must order drugs ahead of time based on the need for existing patients and estimates of future patients. These medical institutions, then, have to make sure they have enough of a drug to provide care to their own patients while trying to ensure they don't overstock knowing that other hospitals and patients are also in need, according to Mangum.

Worse yet is the effect on patients like Hayes.

"Unfortunately, there are times that we have to resort to rationing of chemotherapy medicine," Mangum said.

"That's a really difficult decision to make, and it's heart-wrenching to have to have those types of discussions," he added.

The fear is that "patients with curable cancer might not be cured simply because the drug wasn't available," he said.

In Hayes' case, he had to wait about three weeks between when he found out he needed Erwinaze and when he actually got "lucky" and received his dose, his mother said. The only reason he finally got the medicine was because another patient had an allergic reaction.

"The unhappiness of somebody is what becomes your happiness," Sophie Hayes said.

But by this point, so much time had elapsed that Eliot Hayes had to be administered two treatments of Erwinaze back-to-back, meaning thrice-weekly doses for four weeks instead of the normal two.

After each dose, ammonia in his body continued to accumulate, a side effect of the treatment. He continued to feel worse. But because he had waited so long, he had to skip the usual month-long break between treatments and trudge ahead.

By the time the third treatment began, the ammonia running through his veins landed him in the intensive care unit for three days, where he was put on a regimen of laxatives and fluids. "The whole point was to try and flush the ammonia out of my blood," Hayes said.

He recovered, but the ups and downs of his treatment have taken their toll.

He's different than he was when treatment began earlier this year. In the first month of treatment, Hayes recalled, he was eating about 7,000 calories a day and still lost about 40 pounds, the muscles fading from the soccer player's legs. His once-slim face became swollen and his full head of hair disappeared.

"I started to not be able to recognize myself in the mirror at one point," he said. "I've had moments where I've felt like I literally can't do anything. I just want to sleep the whole time."

In a cruel twist of fate, the Erwinaze shortage almost forced him to go back to the first drug that almost killed him. He would have had to be administered the medicine in small doses over six hours in the intensive care unit, medical staff at the ready, hoping that he didn't go into shock once more.

He and his mother wrestled for days with the decision, but in another stroke of luck, Nemours procured more Erwinaze.

Other patients, however, aren't so lucky. According to the Jazz Pharmaceuticals website, its Erwinaze is "currently out of stock," and the FDA is grappling with how to prevent such shortages.

The Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act, passed in 2012, requires drug manufacturers to notify the FDA whenever they make moves that might cause a shortage. However, the law only does so much and the FDA, in its recent report, acknowledges that more needs to be done.

Among the proposed solutions include the incentivizing of companies to make less profitable drugs, creating a system that rates drug manufacturers on their quality management to incentivize them to make improvements and lengthening expiration dates on medicines to ensure shortages aren't exacerbated by the tossing out of drugs "because they exceed a labeled shelf life based on unnecessarily short expiration dates."

However, it remains unclear how, if, or when those proposals may be put into practice.

In the meantime, patients like Hayes remain trapped in the current system.

The teen's life has been upended by the cancer, but he hopes to bounce back. This year, he had to forgo his acceptance to Durham University in Newcastle, England, in order to receive treatment. Given the circumstances, the university agreed to defer his acceptance.

By this time next year, he hopes to be studying science at Durham. His mother hopes to move with him "at least at the beginning." 

Whether Sophie Hayes is out there or not, the family is heartened. They've heard the hospital in Newcastle has a good oncology department, and Hayes' treatments will continue.

But he's conscious of another grim reality: he's struggled through the Erwinaze shortage and he'll possibly have to struggle again. For the next two years, treatment will require vincristine -- if he can get it.

"Not knowing that it might not be available is quite worrying, and it's frustrating as well," Hayes said.

Meanwhile, his mother is already thinking of how her son and family will traverse the road ahead.

"We tend to go through life planning, hoping for the best, and then adjusting," Sophie Hayes said.

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. As Life-Saving Cancer Drugs Run Short, Patients Suffer published first on Miami News

[samanthasroberts]

Is Caroline Shaw really the future of music?

The composer won a Pulitzer, collaborated with Kanye West, is about to debut new work in New York and is astonishing both the pop and classical music worlds

Decades before Caroline Shaw won the Pulitzer prize for music or collaborated with Kanye West, she was lulled to sleep nightly by her fathers baffling piano playing.

Hes a doctor and he loves music very much. He also has this totally delightful, not deliberate way of putting the metronome on and being completely out of sync with it, and just continuing on, says Shaw, 33, with a peal of laughter as we polish off pints of beer at a Brooklyn bistro. Its like this wonderful polyrhythm. I remember hearing him every night as a kid, sort of wanting to correct it, then drifting off with that sound in my mind.

Today, Dr Shaw could brag about being an avant-garde influence on his daughter. The composer, singer and violinist is a breakout star of New Yorks contemporary classical scene, an inventive collagist whose work brings a new perspective to the human voice. She is a familiar performer at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; her compositions have been snapped up by the Cincinnati Symphony andthe Guggenheim museum.

On Thursday, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus will perform the world premiere of a new Shaw commission, So Quietly, at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. The tumultuous, almost entirely a capella piece is Shaws third original work for the group, and a venture of vocal acrobatics for the teenage singers; the song pivots on multiple melodic lines and shifting, ever-resolving harmonies, gliding from terse whispers into bright harmonic catharsis. At times, the teenage ensembles staggered, exaggerated breathing takes on a percussive quality; elsewhere, their staccato chirps ricochet around the room. One refrain cuts through the mlange, increasingly oaky and dynamic: a murmur of Ill just sit here so quietly, which morphs steadily into a roaring pledge to remain ever singing.

With this piece, the composer had empowerment on her mind. Its about someone trying to say something and not being able to, and all the ways women or minorities say these words to try to get around the difficult conversations they really want to have, says Shaw, who grew up in Greenville, North Carolina and now lives in Hells Kitchen, Manhattan. Its also a way to set up the piece where somethings static, building, unsure, and then blossoms into something really joyful and harmonically interesting.

Shaws mother, a Suzuki method violin instructor, taught her the instrument at age two; the precocious Brahms and Mozart enthusiast wrote her first string quartet in elementary school, then went on to study the instrument at Rice University and Yale University. After moving to New York in 2008, while eking out a living as an instrumental accompanist for music classes, she joined the progressive a capella ensemble Roomful of Teeth and began composing for them, delving into vocal nuances in the manner of Alvin Lucier and Laurie Anderson. One particularly intricate work took years: Partita for 8 Voices, a mercurial, deeply nontraditional abstract of tuneful sighs, mutters, whispers, throat singing, spoken word, and even the odd carnal gasp, with four movements titled after Baroque dances (Allemande, Sarabande, Courante and Passacaglia). By the time the piece was completed, Shaw had enrolled in PhD studies in composition at Princeton University; on a lark, she submitted Partitas score to the selection committee of the2013 Pulitzer prize.

Then she won.

It was so unexpected my friend saw it on Twitter and called me, says Shaw. At age 30, she became the youngest musician ever to claim the prize the physical representation of which she describes, a bit bashfully, as a certificate in a small glass thing, currently stuffed behind some paperwork in her office. Im very grateful for the opportunities Ive been given as a result. I also know there are so many other people whove written things just as qualified. It seems like a crapshoot, who gets this.

The Pulitzer jolted Shaws career overnight; she was toasted in the New York Times, the Atlantic, even Vogue Italia. The pop crowd followed quickly, yieldingcollaborations withRichard Reed Parryof Arcade Fireand the National. Then, in 2014, at a Roomful of Teeth performance of Partita for 8 Voices in Los Angeles, Kanye West approached her backstage and requested her phone number but Shaw didnt leap initially at the chance to collaborate.

One of his producers asked me if Id be interested on working on songs for a live show with an orchestra. I got the sense that maybe he wanted to ask me to be a composer and orchestrate something, and that wasnt something that was really interesting to me; theres a lot of people who do that, Shaw recalls. So I didnt do anything for a week or two, then I did a deep dive into [the West album] 808s and Heartbreak. Say You Will is the song that hit me most.

Shaws remix of that track, released in October of last year, proved remarkable; she sang, played violin and arranged it, converting the originally spare, plaintive Autotuned ballad into a chattering, harmonically supple electro-orchestral swoon. It yielded a fruitful partnership; Shaw supported West onstage at the Democratic National Committee fundraiser that same month, and later joined him in the studio as he recorded his enigmatic seventh album, The Life of Pablo. Her spectral vocals appear on two tracks, Father Stretch My Hands Pt2 and Wolves. (The latter track also features Frank Ocean.)

The original version of Say You Will does something with music that I love: the last two minutes of his song, nothing happens. Absolutely nothing, Shaw says gleefully. Thats something I love about Pablo, too: there are parts of that album where nothing happens. There were many people in the studio, and we were all doing cool stuff. But the decision for none of that happen, I think, is super beautiful. She and West are now working intermittently on another project, one kept under wraps.

Shaws growing pop bona fides are only enhancing her classical compositions, says Limor Tomer,General Manager of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts MetLiveArts series. Shaw first performed at the Met in 2003, and has returned several times.

Caroline is an incredibly unique voice. To me, she represents the future of music, says Tomer. Theres no threshold to entry for her work. You dont need to have a PhD in Ligeti to understand her language. It engages the heart.

Dianne Berkun Menaker, founding artistic director of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, is similarly enthusiastic about Shaws work.

Caroline writes really complex things. She plays with the color of vowels, has really tight canonic figures, parts chasing each other and then shell mix in these glorious, starbust chords, says Menaker. Shes one of the most creative people writing right now. You never get the feeling that shes copying someone else or following some prescribed path.

Shaw next premieres a new commission, Dont Let Me Be Lonely (inspired by Claudia Rankines book), with Roomful of Teethat the venerable Ojai music festival in California. When she returns to Manhattan, she has some 18 or 19 commissions to write, as well as continue work on her doctorate at Princeton. In July, she hopes to carve out the first steps of a new studio album, one that could fold in many new collaborators across pop and classical castes. (She has one fellow subversive at the top of her wish list: Annie Clark aka St Vincent.)

Regardless of which musicians Shaw recruits, though, the pyrotechnics of the human voice will remain front and central in her creations.

When I hear people speaking, it sounds like 100 different instruments coming out of their mouths, Shaw raves. You can use those colors in such a beautiful, beautiful way.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/06/22/is-caroline-shaw-really-the-future-of-music/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/06/22/is-caroline-shaw-really-the-future-of-music/

[adambstingus]

Is Caroline Shaw really the future of music?

The composer won a Pulitzer, collaborated with Kanye West, is about to debut new work in New York and is astonishing both the pop and classical music worlds

Decades before Caroline Shaw won the Pulitzer prize for music or collaborated with Kanye West, she was lulled to sleep nightly by her fathers baffling piano playing.

Hes a doctor and he loves music very much. He also has this totally delightful, not deliberate way of putting the metronome on and being completely out of sync with it, and just continuing on, says Shaw, 33, with a peal of laughter as we polish off pints of beer at a Brooklyn bistro. Its like this wonderful polyrhythm. I remember hearing him every night as a kid, sort of wanting to correct it, then drifting off with that sound in my mind.

Today, Dr Shaw could brag about being an avant-garde influence on his daughter. The composer, singer and violinist is a breakout star of New Yorks contemporary classical scene, an inventive collagist whose work brings a new perspective to the human voice. She is a familiar performer at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; her compositions have been snapped up by the Cincinnati Symphony andthe Guggenheim museum.

On Thursday, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus will perform the world premiere of a new Shaw commission, So Quietly, at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. The tumultuous, almost entirely a capella piece is Shaws third original work for the group, and a venture of vocal acrobatics for the teenage singers; the song pivots on multiple melodic lines and shifting, ever-resolving harmonies, gliding from terse whispers into bright harmonic catharsis. At times, the teenage ensembles staggered, exaggerated breathing takes on a percussive quality; elsewhere, their staccato chirps ricochet around the room. One refrain cuts through the mlange, increasingly oaky and dynamic: a murmur of Ill just sit here so quietly, which morphs steadily into a roaring pledge to remain ever singing.

With this piece, the composer had empowerment on her mind. Its about someone trying to say something and not being able to, and all the ways women or minorities say these words to try to get around the difficult conversations they really want to have, says Shaw, who grew up in Greenville, North Carolina and now lives in Hells Kitchen, Manhattan. Its also a way to set up the piece where somethings static, building, unsure, and then blossoms into something really joyful and harmonically interesting.

Shaws mother, a Suzuki method violin instructor, taught her the instrument at age two; the precocious Brahms and Mozart enthusiast wrote her first string quartet in elementary school, then went on to study the instrument at Rice University and Yale University. After moving to New York in 2008, while eking out a living as an instrumental accompanist for music classes, she joined the progressive a capella ensemble Roomful of Teeth and began composing for them, delving into vocal nuances in the manner of Alvin Lucier and Laurie Anderson. One particularly intricate work took years: Partita for 8 Voices, a mercurial, deeply nontraditional abstract of tuneful sighs, mutters, whispers, throat singing, spoken word, and even the odd carnal gasp, with four movements titled after Baroque dances (Allemande, Sarabande, Courante and Passacaglia). By the time the piece was completed, Shaw had enrolled in PhD studies in composition at Princeton University; on a lark, she submitted Partitas score to the selection committee of the2013 Pulitzer prize.

Then she won.

It was so unexpected my friend saw it on Twitter and called me, says Shaw. At age 30, she became the youngest musician ever to claim the prize the physical representation of which she describes, a bit bashfully, as a certificate in a small glass thing, currently stuffed behind some paperwork in her office. Im very grateful for the opportunities Ive been given as a result. I also know there are so many other people whove written things just as qualified. It seems like a crapshoot, who gets this.

The Pulitzer jolted Shaws career overnight; she was toasted in the New York Times, the Atlantic, even Vogue Italia. The pop crowd followed quickly, yieldingcollaborations withRichard Reed Parryof Arcade Fireand the National. Then, in 2014, at a Roomful of Teeth performance of Partita for 8 Voices in Los Angeles, Kanye West approached her backstage and requested her phone number but Shaw didnt leap initially at the chance to collaborate.

One of his producers asked me if Id be interested on working on songs for a live show with an orchestra. I got the sense that maybe he wanted to ask me to be a composer and orchestrate something, and that wasnt something that was really interesting to me; theres a lot of people who do that, Shaw recalls. So I didnt do anything for a week or two, then I did a deep dive into [the West album] 808s and Heartbreak. Say You Will is the song that hit me most.

Shaws remix of that track, released in October of last year, proved remarkable; she sang, played violin and arranged it, converting the originally spare, plaintive Autotuned ballad into a chattering, harmonically supple electro-orchestral swoon. It yielded a fruitful partnership; Shaw supported West onstage at the Democratic National Committee fundraiser that same month, and later joined him in the studio as he recorded his enigmatic seventh album, The Life of Pablo. Her spectral vocals appear on two tracks, Father Stretch My Hands Pt2 and Wolves. (The latter track also features Frank Ocean.)

The original version of Say You Will does something with music that I love: the last two minutes of his song, nothing happens. Absolutely nothing, Shaw says gleefully. Thats something I love about Pablo, too: there are parts of that album where nothing happens. There were many people in the studio, and we were all doing cool stuff. But the decision for none of that happen, I think, is super beautiful. She and West are now working intermittently on another project, one kept under wraps.

Shaws growing pop bona fides are only enhancing her classical compositions, says Limor Tomer,General Manager of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts MetLiveArts series. Shaw first performed at the Met in 2003, and has returned several times.

Caroline is an incredibly unique voice. To me, she represents the future of music, says Tomer. Theres no threshold to entry for her work. You dont need to have a PhD in Ligeti to understand her language. It engages the heart.

Dianne Berkun Menaker, founding artistic director of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, is similarly enthusiastic about Shaws work.

Caroline writes really complex things. She plays with the color of vowels, has really tight canonic figures, parts chasing each other and then shell mix in these glorious, starbust chords, says Menaker. Shes one of the most creative people writing right now. You never get the feeling that shes copying someone else or following some prescribed path.

Shaw next premieres a new commission, Dont Let Me Be Lonely (inspired by Claudia Rankines book), with Roomful of Teethat the venerable Ojai music festival in California. When she returns to Manhattan, she has some 18 or 19 commissions to write, as well as continue work on her doctorate at Princeton. In July, she hopes to carve out the first steps of a new studio album, one that could fold in many new collaborators across pop and classical castes. (She has one fellow subversive at the top of her wish list: Annie Clark aka St Vincent.)

Regardless of which musicians Shaw recruits, though, the pyrotechnics of the human voice will remain front and central in her creations.

When I hear people speaking, it sounds like 100 different instruments coming out of their mouths, Shaw raves. You can use those colors in such a beautiful, beautiful way.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/06/22/is-caroline-shaw-really-the-future-of-music/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/162116477922

[allofbeercom]

Is Caroline Shaw really the future of music?

The composer won a Pulitzer, collaborated with Kanye West, is about to debut new work in New York and is astonishing both the pop and classical music worlds

Decades before Caroline Shaw won the Pulitzer prize for music or collaborated with Kanye West, she was lulled to sleep nightly by her fathers baffling piano playing.

Hes a doctor and he loves music very much. He also has this totally delightful, not deliberate way of putting the metronome on and being completely out of sync with it, and just continuing on, says Shaw, 33, with a peal of laughter as we polish off pints of beer at a Brooklyn bistro. Its like this wonderful polyrhythm. I remember hearing him every night as a kid, sort of wanting to correct it, then drifting off with that sound in my mind.

Today, Dr Shaw could brag about being an avant-garde influence on his daughter. The composer, singer and violinist is a breakout star of New Yorks contemporary classical scene, an inventive collagist whose work brings a new perspective to the human voice. She is a familiar performer at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; her compositions have been snapped up by the Cincinnati Symphony andthe Guggenheim museum.

On Thursday, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus will perform the world premiere of a new Shaw commission, So Quietly, at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. The tumultuous, almost entirely a capella piece is Shaws third original work for the group, and a venture of vocal acrobatics for the teenage singers; the song pivots on multiple melodic lines and shifting, ever-resolving harmonies, gliding from terse whispers into bright harmonic catharsis. At times, the teenage ensembles staggered, exaggerated breathing takes on a percussive quality; elsewhere, their staccato chirps ricochet around the room. One refrain cuts through the mlange, increasingly oaky and dynamic: a murmur of Ill just sit here so quietly, which morphs steadily into a roaring pledge to remain ever singing.

With this piece, the composer had empowerment on her mind. Its about someone trying to say something and not being able to, and all the ways women or minorities say these words to try to get around the difficult conversations they really want to have, says Shaw, who grew up in Greenville, North Carolina and now lives in Hells Kitchen, Manhattan. Its also a way to set up the piece where somethings static, building, unsure, and then blossoms into something really joyful and harmonically interesting.

Shaws mother, a Suzuki method violin instructor, taught her the instrument at age two; the precocious Brahms and Mozart enthusiast wrote her first string quartet in elementary school, then went on to study the instrument at Rice University and Yale University. After moving to New York in 2008, while eking out a living as an instrumental accompanist for music classes, she joined the progressive a capella ensemble Roomful of Teeth and began composing for them, delving into vocal nuances in the manner of Alvin Lucier and Laurie Anderson. One particularly intricate work took years: Partita for 8 Voices, a mercurial, deeply nontraditional abstract of tuneful sighs, mutters, whispers, throat singing, spoken word, and even the odd carnal gasp, with four movements titled after Baroque dances (Allemande, Sarabande, Courante and Passacaglia). By the time the piece was completed, Shaw had enrolled in PhD studies in composition at Princeton University; on a lark, she submitted Partitas score to the selection committee of the2013 Pulitzer prize.

Then she won.

It was so unexpected my friend saw it on Twitter and called me, says Shaw. At age 30, she became the youngest musician ever to claim the prize the physical representation of which she describes, a bit bashfully, as a certificate in a small glass thing, currently stuffed behind some paperwork in her office. Im very grateful for the opportunities Ive been given as a result. I also know there are so many other people whove written things just as qualified. It seems like a crapshoot, who gets this.

The Pulitzer jolted Shaws career overnight; she was toasted in the New York Times, the Atlantic, even Vogue Italia. The pop crowd followed quickly, yieldingcollaborations withRichard Reed Parryof Arcade Fireand the National. Then, in 2014, at a Roomful of Teeth performance of Partita for 8 Voices in Los Angeles, Kanye West approached her backstage and requested her phone number but Shaw didnt leap initially at the chance to collaborate.

One of his producers asked me if Id be interested on working on songs for a live show with an orchestra. I got the sense that maybe he wanted to ask me to be a composer and orchestrate something, and that wasnt something that was really interesting to me; theres a lot of people who do that, Shaw recalls. So I didnt do anything for a week or two, then I did a deep dive into [the West album] 808s and Heartbreak. Say You Will is the song that hit me most.

Shaws remix of that track, released in October of last year, proved remarkable; she sang, played violin and arranged it, converting the originally spare, plaintive Autotuned ballad into a chattering, harmonically supple electro-orchestral swoon. It yielded a fruitful partnership; Shaw supported West onstage at the Democratic National Committee fundraiser that same month, and later joined him in the studio as he recorded his enigmatic seventh album, The Life of Pablo. Her spectral vocals appear on two tracks, Father Stretch My Hands Pt2 and Wolves. (The latter track also features Frank Ocean.)

The original version of Say You Will does something with music that I love: the last two minutes of his song, nothing happens. Absolutely nothing, Shaw says gleefully. Thats something I love about Pablo, too: there are parts of that album where nothing happens. There were many people in the studio, and we were all doing cool stuff. But the decision for none of that happen, I think, is super beautiful. She and West are now working intermittently on another project, one kept under wraps.

Shaws growing pop bona fides are only enhancing her classical compositions, says Limor Tomer,General Manager of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts MetLiveArts series. Shaw first performed at the Met in 2003, and has returned several times.

Caroline is an incredibly unique voice. To me, she represents the future of music, says Tomer. Theres no threshold to entry for her work. You dont need to have a PhD in Ligeti to understand her language. It engages the heart.

Dianne Berkun Menaker, founding artistic director of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, is similarly enthusiastic about Shaws work.

Caroline writes really complex things. She plays with the color of vowels, has really tight canonic figures, parts chasing each other and then shell mix in these glorious, starbust chords, says Menaker. Shes one of the most creative people writing right now. You never get the feeling that shes copying someone else or following some prescribed path.

Shaw next premieres a new commission, Dont Let Me Be Lonely (inspired by Claudia Rankines book), with Roomful of Teethat the venerable Ojai music festival in California. When she returns to Manhattan, she has some 18 or 19 commissions to write, as well as continue work on her doctorate at Princeton. In July, she hopes to carve out the first steps of a new studio album, one that could fold in many new collaborators across pop and classical castes. (She has one fellow subversive at the top of her wish list: Annie Clark aka St Vincent.)

Regardless of which musicians Shaw recruits, though, the pyrotechnics of the human voice will remain front and central in her creations.

When I hear people speaking, it sounds like 100 different instruments coming out of their mouths, Shaw raves. You can use those colors in such a beautiful, beautiful way.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/06/22/is-caroline-shaw-really-the-future-of-music/