#key: (incredibly long-suffering) what if we workshopped another idea.

[uhohbestie]

Key left a little gap in the TAMN outline that had to get filled with some sort of activity so that Important Character Conversations could happen, and the shaming I received when I suggested we fill it by having the characters do laundry. Unbelievable.

[hermitcraftheadcanons]

Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a question. It's time to talk UNDERTALE.

Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many requests to cover a theory, (no requests times no requests is still no requests.) Anyway, across my tumblr dashboard, NO ONE has asked for this. And honestly, I'm disappointed. True loyal theorists will know that Undertale is my favorite game of all time.

Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, Comic Sans. ANYWAYS, Sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, pause your reading of this and come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright, so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of Sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, Sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is Papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of Undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given to us by a shopkeeper in Snowdin, who explains that Sans and Papyrus, quote, “just showed up one day and asserted themselves.” Weird, right? What's more is that, well, Papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. Sans is much more complex.

He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly powerful and deadly serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts around the world through ridiculous routes. Even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines that you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements on the player's actions in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE, just to clarify. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, the idea that he doesn't belong in the underworld seems to be correct.

The evidence seems to point to the fact that he WAS, in fact, formerly a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, Papyrus asks Sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, “we call that the sun.” This is important because A, the usage of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun shows that Sans has a kinship or knowledge with other humans, and B, that despite he and Papyrus both being skeletons, or, supposedly, brothers, and apparently appeared in underworld at the same time, they CLEARLY have two very different histories. Why would Papyrus not know the name of the sun but Sans would?

We get further clues to Sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the Mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "I know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say he means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is, "and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here is “EITHER.” Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on his dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, as though he's from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface, but from a different time period, who seemingly has the power to teleport. That's a lot of questions and not a lot of answers.

But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg Sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After some searching you find the workshop which contains items that leave even more questions. A photo album featuring Sans and a bunch of smiling people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A hand-drawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.”

So, what does it all mean? Well a lot of Undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named W.D Gaster. A ghostly character who never truly appears in the game. Honestly, covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably one best saved for another day. Even still, none of the Gaster theories I've seen have been able to explain all the details. In particular, the photo album, and the badge. And that's what kept nagging me as I researched Undertale. A badge? That one in particular really stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of a room? Something that supposedly reveals the truth about Sans? Badges just aren't important in Undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from Undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different series? And was, in fact, the most important badge in the history of gaming? One of the Iskall patreon badges.

Now, for those of you wondering what I'm talking about, the Iskall Patreon Badges are a pivotal item from Iskall’s patreon. You know, the one on Hermitcraft. Anyway, the Iskall Patreon Badges are a really important part of Iskall’s character. So I asked myself; what if the badge in Sans' drawer was ONE OF THOSE EXACT badges? Well first off, it made Undertale connected to my favorite youtuber, thereby making it even COOLER, but that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as I started looking, more and more pieces started to fit into place.

In Hermitcraft Season 6, there are three Architechs. (This was before Stress joined in season 7.) These 3 were Iskall, Grian and MumboJumbo. And what does Sans happen to have in his other drawer? A photo album with pictures of Sans with people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not characters present in Undertale. And note the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the Hermitcraft series.

But then, how do the blueprints and broken machine fit in? Well, in the final stretch of Hermitcraft, Iskall is the only one who hasn’t died since the Demise game, so he sells his own body to the highest bidder. Except, it comes with a cost. Everyone is poor. As a result, and with the help of ImpulseSV, the Architechs (minus Mumbo,) are forced to finally kill Iskall, ending his streak since the beginning of demise. I watched this episode in 2020 and I'm not ashamed to admit that when I first saw this scene, I cried. It's DEVASTATING.

Iskall says goodbye to his friends, his co-workers, this character you've grown to love and care about is suddenly promising to sacrifice his life. For all he knows, there is no possibility of him being able to come back after his Demise. It's this incredibly dark departure in the final moments of what was otherwise a fun, quirky, and colorful Season 6.

So what does all of this have to do with Undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that the hermits are known for their, let's say, unique written linguistic style.

That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken infinity portal is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like a stretch, but it actually explains a lot.

If Sans wound up in Undertale via whacky infinity portal hyjinx, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences. Not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why Sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the infinity portal is a time machine. By being in the underworld, he's not only in a different place, but based on how he talks, he's also in a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time he came from. This could theoretically happen. It turned Scar into a wizard and completely disintegrated Welsknight, so the rules are… Flimsy at best.

But the crossovers between Hermitcraft and Undertale continue. In Grian’s episode, (EDIT IN TIMESTAMP) he mentions he’s amazed that Iskall only escaped his demise with a lost arm. He says Iskall had “a lot of determination to not die for real,” and that he’s going to continue to study this. Seems awfully similar to the same experiments happening in Undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that Sans was a key player in those experiments.

But I'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, because I have plenty. Take a look at Iskall and Sans side by side. Iskall’s left eye is replaced with a diamond loupe. Sans’ left eye glows blue when he’s mad. Both have extremely chill yet are known for their jokes and, dare I say, laugh.

In short, we have some incredibly strong proof that the Hermitcraft Cinematic Universe, (HCU) is somehow connected to the Undertale world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS?

Well, what if we took it one final step and said that Sans happened to be Iskall from Hermitcraft? Sent through the Infinity Portal at the end of season 6 to go to Season 7, carrying an Iskall Patreon Badge and his photo album. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does Sans’ behavior.

Remember, Sans can seemingly travel extremely quickly. And Iskall just happens to have an elytra, a device that allows people to travel hundreds of metres extremely quickly. This even explains why Sans bleeds when you finally hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human.

Oh and finally, Sans shares two out of five letters with the name Iskall. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning.

But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creator's previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind Undertale is actually DocM77, the creator of every hermit (besides Scar.) Now, if Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale, is also DocM77, creator of Iskall, we know they will most definitely share a universe. Which brings us back to Undertale. 2 faces, with “don't forget” written on it? It's Iskall, trying to remember his 2 friends. In short, Undertale is a continuation of Toby’s version of Hermitcraft Season 6, with Iskall never being able to get home, adopting the name Sans. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Ethoslab and we’ve got ourselves a true sequel.

But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING!

[writewhatyousee]

The Mechanic

The alarm clock shrieks its distorted buzz and I am forced yet again, to live another day. I actually prayed last night that the sleep fairies would take me with them, forever. But clearly, not even they wish to have me in their kingdom.

    I yawn and groan at the same time. And just like I do every morning, I smack the alarm clock with my fist and then cry, because – it’s just what I do.

    It takes me ages to pluck up the courage to get out of bed. My limbs are numb, my brain is tired (even though I had slept for eleven hours) and I have no zest for life.

    There is good reason as to why I feel so lifeless though. Johnny dumped me three months ago for blue-eyed, Swede, Greta. Our three year relationship ended as soon as he laid eyes on her GG sized boobs. I blame my mother, really. She was the one that hired Greta as her housekeeper. Even though Mother fired Greta, after finding the two of them in the midst of lovemaking on her lilac sofa, I still feel that she was partly responsible.

    I pat my eyes dry with my silky duvet, and desperately try not to think about Johnny. It’s hard not to, and it’s equally painful facing another nine hours in Nettie’s Salon. It’s soul destroying, pretending to be happy whilst styling hair of the ever-so-posh ladies. They openly boast about their secret love affairs; which makes it very tempting for me to drive the scissors away from their hairline, straight into their neck.

    I was never a psychopath but recently I have had terrible thoughts. Like now… I worm my way out of bed and contemplate phoning in sick. No hairdresser suffering depression should be allowed to handle any sharp apparatus. I decide then to search google for clarification. Surprisingly nothing shows up that’s relevant. There must be hundreds of depressed hairdressers out there, potential murders, but no clause stating that they should not continue in that sort of trade. But dammit, if I dare to puff my fag’s smoke in the direction of a non-smoker, it’s hugely frowned upon and one could even be convicted in certain circumstance. Crazy!

    I think too much!  I have been thinking for over an hour now. It’s too late for a shower, so I use a handful of wet wipes to freshen up my armpits and my stink area. I’ve just remembered that Miley Cyrus is coming into the salon today to have her hair shaved off for charity. Shit!

    This is what I mean… normal people would be up and roaring to meet the popstar queen. But not me. It’s completely slipped my mind, even though Megan had been going on about it for the past few months.

    I admit there is something terribly wrong with me!

    The ITV crew are going to be there filming the balding. I’m slowly feeling devilishly excited by that, and quickly pull on my black jeggings and orange cardigan. I’m not a huge Miley Cyrus fan but I’m eager to get a blade near her scalp – just because I can. My watch tells me there is no time to do anything else; I’m pretty certain my teeth won’t decay if I don’t brush them this one time.

 The heavens are angry and I reckon I have exactly two minutes to unlock my car door before the clouds burst.

  ‘Come on Manny!’ I plead with my nineteen-eighty-something VW.

    First falls a tiny droplet, landing on the tip of my nose. I continue struggling with the rusty lock, twisting and turning the key just like I’ve been doing for the past two years.

    ‘For fuck sakes! C’mon you stupid piece of shite!’ I shout. The rain is coming down harder and faster. Actually it’s more than rain, it’s hard and it hurts.

    By the time Manny allows me entry, I am soaking wet and bruised by the hail stones. God, my life sucks!

    I start up Manny. With a few turns of the key he eventually gives in and permits me to take to the road. Something doesn’t feel right though. Not that that is anything new, but there is a deafening clanking sound to his already noisy engine today.

    ‘Please,’ I beg him. ‘Just get me to work!’

    Manny is not as intelligent as Herbie. He makes no effort to crawl across the roundabout and decides to seize there, right in the centre of it.

    ‘Damn you!’ I shout.

    Cars zoom around me, hooting as they pass; as if I have done this on purpose. My heart is racing, I’m quite certain that any second from now, someone is going to ram up my arse, and that will be that. I blanket my eyes with my hands; I’m not afraid of dying.

    There comes a tapping on my window, and I open my eyes to find a dirty face staring at me.

    I roll down my window.

    ‘I’ll tow you away immediately,’ insists the dirty boy. ‘You are in extreme danger sitting here like this.’

    I nod in acceptance and watch him link my VW onto his four by four’s tow bar. We cross over the roundabout, and pull into the garage across the road.

    He brings his Range Rover to a standstill and speedily approaches me. ‘Are you okay?’

    ‘I have five minutes to get to work,’ I say, tapping my watch.

    ‘You aren’t getting there in this,’ he smirks, patting Manny’s rooftop.

    ‘Well, can you fix it really quickly? Please!’

    He didn’t seem bothered by the falling rain. He just stood there and let it wash over him, and I could just about see a spot of human flesh beneath the dirt.

    ‘No quick fix for this beauty, I’m afraid.’

    I didn’t like his sarcasm one bit. ‘Look. I have a very important client coming to see me. This is the one thing I can’t miss out on.’

    ‘I’m sorry miss. I haven’t a magic wand.’

    I felt mega irritated. If I wasn’t there to shave Miley’s head, Megan would. Imagine giving squealy Megan Bishop the pleasure of doing such a thing. She would gloat on for years about it and rub it in my face how she got to be on TV and all. I couldn’t even bear the thought of it.

    ‘Well, can you take me to work? Please. I’ll pay you and everything.’

    He sighed loudly, and twitched his nose. ‘I would love to, but I can’t as I’m the only mechanic here at the moment.’

    Shit! I reach for my bag, determined to tell Megan that she is not to lay a finger on Miley’s hair.

  ‘Bloody shit face!’ I shriek, emptying my entire bag’s contents on the passenger seat, hunting for my phone.

    ‘Can I use your phone?’

    ‘Of course. There’s one in reception.’

    I pull on the stiff door handle and force open the reluctant VW’s door. The boy pulls the door further open for me, and kindly leads me into the reception area.

    It’s typically a mans haven with all sorts of boyish ornaments. It’s also very dirty. He hands me a mobile telephone which I presume was white once but it’s so heavily covered with grease, it’s hard to be sure.

    I take it with caution. ‘Thank you.’

    I dial the salon’s number as fast as my fingers allow. Molly answers, with her usual put on French accent… don’t even ask me why she does that, I don’t know!

    ‘Molly, it’s me. I’m having a little problem getting there before nine thirty, Manny’s broken down again. Please halt Miley; don’t you dare let Megan shave her head! And can you come pick me up at the garage on Swan Street?’

    Molly doesn’t answer at once. I can hear she has the phone muffled with her hand.

    ‘Molly!’ I scream into the receiver.

    ‘Erm…’ she coughs. ‘Sorry Nikita, but she’s already started.’

    ‘What!’

    ‘Miley came in earlier than expected as she has a very busy schedule. So as soon as the TV people arrived, they got straight on with it.’

    My hand falls weak, and the phone slips from fingers, crashing on to the coffee stained desk. Hot, angry tears fall over my cheeks into my mouth.

    ‘Everything okay?’

    I turn around to find the mechanic walking towards me. His face is free of dirt now, and he definitely doesn’t look like a boy anymore.

    It’s hard to blink back tears, but I don’t want to come across like a pathetic drama queen.

    I do!

    As he nears me, I notice how incredibly handsome he is. Beneath his long, dark, fringe, sparkle the most dazzling green eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s a good few inches taller than me too which is comforting, as I’m a six footer myself.

    ‘Everything is far from OK!’ I holler with such a blow that his head jolts slightly. ‘My boyfriend cheated on me with a Swede – not the vegetable. My car is a useless pile of junk and because of the rubbish I have lost the chance to be on TV with a celebrity. I am not a psychopath, I just wanted to shave her head, bald!’

    I’m crying like a child. Snivelling, wiping my nose on my sleeve. I just don’t care anymore about anything.

    He passes me a tissue. It’s not the cleanest but I flush my nose in it anyway.

    ‘You can shave my head if it’ll make you feel better?’

    I look up at him and notice his beautifully formed smile. ‘I’m sorry for being your morning drama queen.’

    ‘Don’t be silly. And I was being serious, I really do need a haircut. In return, I’ll treat you to dinner.’

    My heart skips a beat by his proposal and I carefully watch how he nervously bites his bottom lip in anticipation.

    ‘Okay, deal.’

    He extends his large, grease-stained hand for me to shake. ‘Pleased to meet you. My name’s Mike.’

    ‘My name’s Nikita, and it’s a pleasure meeting you too, Mike the mechanic.’

    We giggled childishly and spoke of this and that.

    I never bothered returning to work that day, nor the day after that. Instead, Mike thought it was a perfectly brilliant idea that I run a barber shop at the back of his workshop. It works a treat. Now every day I wake up fully charged with a want to get out of bed… well except for the mornings that I awake with Mike the Mechanic.

 -Felicia Snashall @writewhatyousee

[zak-animation]

Ind. Stop Motion Experiments Review

In this post, I’m discussing my independent development tests I created exploring the medium of stop motion further. This isn’t part of any brief, or a response to a task. Today, I wanted to take it upon myself to develop upon stop motion introduced last week, and just have fun with the medium.

Stop motion is an animation technique that I have a real appreciation and love for: it’s the inherent magical quality and physicality of the medium that attracts me every time. Whilst I enjoy the process, it is also something that I find challenging. Here, I wanted to take the ideas introduced last session with animator Tine Kluth and develop upon it further: looking at exaggerated steps and the concept of ‘breathing time’ in stop motion animation.

Using a ball-and-socket armature similar to the one Kluth provided last week, a peer and I set out to produce a few stop motion experiments as a way to simply explore the medium. Here, I’m not expecting fluid animation and smooth movements - the purpose of this independent session was purely to familiarise myself with the process. The workshop began with a walk cycle - however, my aim for this animation was to try to evoke a sense of personality and character through a walk, using exaggerated steps.

The process for these tests was fairy intuitive: move the puppet in incremental motions, take the photo, and repeat. It’s when these frames are played back in a sequence does the character come alive. As a review of the stop motion process, I quite enjoy the slow-burn nature of the medium. Good things come to those who wait, and stop motion effectively embodies this idea. The best results come from considered posing, minute movements and taking the time to stop and think the motion through. My peer and I found ourselves acting out the movements on a regular basis, to understand how forces and our body would move in the specific motion. 

Whilst it’s a somewhat long process, I find that there’s an incredible payoff with stop motion as we see our metal armatures spring to life infront of our very eyes.

The main challenge the process posed me was the positioning of the armature. Even with multiple attempts, I found it difficult to keep the armature steady using magnets - and I feel this really hindered the stop motion tests presented here. It’s incredibly important for the armature to stay in pose the entire time, and so it can be quite disheartening to hear the sudden crash of metal because the magnets aren’t quite in the right place. Despite this, I managed to somewhat overcome this problem through multiple tests - and I’m quite happy with the final stop motion test as a result of this. It’s an extremely fun animation medium for me, and today offered an opportunity to simply play around with the craft - exploring my own ideas and not responding to any given brief.

I feel like this creative freedom - to be able to animate anything I wanted with my armature and magnets - resulted in an imaginative set of outcomes. I was purposely avoiding the basics like a bouncing ball or pendulum swing in favour of more exciting movements - like a walk and a sit-up. Working with my peer, we managed to come up with a series of interesting stop motion exercises with our armatures.

Whilst I was further looking at the potential of a walk cycle in stop motion, my main focus was to get a grasp on the idea of timing within stop motion. This was a weakness I identified within my work last week, and wanted to primarily work upon this idea in this independent session. Looking at my test pieces, I can definitely see an improvement in this area - and I’m definitely progressing in the medium of stop motion as I keep working. Towards the beginning of the session, my walk cycle tests were a little lacking, I felt.

My first stop motion test isn’t very successful, I feel. I wanted to explore the potential of a front-on walk cycle to begin with, however I soon found that this was the wrong decision. This was a completely different approach to animating a walk cycle than I’d ever attempted before, and the test suffers from jolting movement. It’s as if the character is stomping down on the ground, rather than taking actual steps. The arms snap out for no reason, and it’s just not that visually appealing. This is disapointing, because I personally like the visual of the armature walking towards us.  I would like to explore the potential of a stand-still walk cycle in a style of movement that isn’t dissimilar to a treadmill; and as such, it’s a shot that I want to revisit later on, to produce a looping animation where the armature is in full view in frame. As a test, it’s not that interesting and the motion is stilted. Despite this, I recognise the value in this first experiment, and noted the lack of timing in the sequence. There’s no pause between the steps - no breathing room. With this, I then attempted a second walk cycle, this time trying to add a sense of personality too.

Here, we’re presented with an attempt at a characterful walk - in which the armature isn’t taking steps - he’s taking lunges. Even though it’s a quick test, I feel like the timing of the actual step is quite successful. It’s not an instant action, he takes a pause after his lunge, and holds on a contact pose for a few more frames than a standard vanilla walk cycle. The arm swing is following the correct direction, and the way the armature lifts his leg up for the first step is smooth. However, it’s too short to present the audience with an actual walk: at the moment, he lunges forward, and begins to take another. When animating, I tried to add a little arced bounce to the landing of the knees, but when played back this isn’t really noticeable. For this, I was working simply from my own primary reference of acting out the motion within the studio. It’s an improvement on the first test, and now I wanted to temporarily move away from the walk cycle and challenge myself a little.

My challenge came in the form of a sitting down motion - something my peers mentioned was a challenging and ambitious action. When I began animating, a tutor walked in and started discussing with us the importance of working from reference to get the poses right. Animators working in the industry do it all the time, and so for this sequence, I was working from a CGI animated video reference by animator Henrik Tvinde. From this sequence, I identified the key poses of the sequence, and after trying the action out myself, got to animating.

This third test was more interesting: it’s still not a point where I’d say I’m happy with the quality of the animation, but the little movements the armature takes in preparation for the main action is where this sequence shines for me. Although I did challenge myself to think about timing, I feel like the actual sitting down motion is too quick: if I were to re-do this sequence, I would want to add many more frames as the armature actually sits down on the floor. The anticipation in the leg cross is effective, and essentially readies the armature for the main action, however it’s the main action that needs more focus. As an exercise, though, I enjoyed animating this sequence and was beginning to understand that taking my time with the posing is more valuable than rushing the sequence.

My fourth and final animation test was an excessive in timing and character acting rather than flashy movement: whilst I did not end up completing the sequence, I’m quite happy with the way this test turned out. Firstly, the posing of the armature is much more evocative of character and personality. In a successful animation, the posing alone should tell the story. Here, we can tell that our character is lying down, relaxing. Then, a black magnet piece rolls into the scene, and wakes the armature up. In this short sequence, I managed to add some minor twitches in the armature to suggest his sleepiness. It’s the hit between the magnet and the armature’s leg that result in the smoothest and most convincing piece of animation, I feel. There’s slow in and slow out, and the timing almost gives the magnet an annoying personality.

Watching the animation back now, I feel like the next movements look incredibly rushed due to time constrictions. If I were to re-attempt this scene, I would have more time for the armature to look up at the magnet, process what he’s seen, and then sit up to explore this new foreign object. My plan was for the armature to look at the magnet, and attempt to slide it away again - which is revealed to be surprisingly heavy. However, given my limited time in the stop motion studio, I’m happy with this sequence.

In this independent session, I was able to produce a few tests further exploring the medium of stop motion animation. These short experiments were interesting, with varying results, but I can’t help but feel like they could be better. Here, I’ve played around with stop motion, but I’ve effectively skipped the basics. I feel like I need to learn the simple mechanics of stop motion through basic exercises such as a ball bounce before jumping to animating an armature.

Here, I’ve taken a much-needed break from the digital-heavy Guess the Film morphing task and explored a vastly different medium of animation: stop motion. This was a refreshing break from After Effects, and gave me a chance to simply play with animation again, not responding to any given brief or project. This session was in preparation for our next assignment of Mystery Box, and I feel like through these tests, I’m beginning to get a grasp on the medium of stop motion. I’ve produced some ambitious animated tests, and found it both challenging yet enjoyable. As an animation technique, it’s a vastly different approach to the craft with a purely ‘straight-ahead’ animation workflow. As someone who likes a little bit of control over animation, it’s this idea of ‘animate as you go’ that poses a challenge to me. However, I very much enjoyed this independent session and will to further explore the medium of stop motion as I progress into the next project.

[toddrampe2672-blog]

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[mondaycircle-blog]

Against Capitalism: Resisting Wage Labour in the 19th Century

In the advanced economies of Europe, you would be hard pressed to find somebody who still calls themselves an ‘artisan’. The closest you might find, perhaps, is a marketing savvy barista whose artisan job title indicates they have mastered the complex arts of pouring coffee in a fashionable café. Yet throughout most of the 19th century, skilled and independently employed artisans were a sizeable and relatively autonomous part of any national workforce. More importantly, this autonomy and casualised form of life meant that, for a time, they were able to mobilise collectively and politically in order to counter the existential threats posed by the industrial revolution.

Alongside the contemporary collapse of the labour market, we have seen the rise of the ‘informal economy’, self-employment, and a return to casualised work. In Britain and across Europe, this transformation has inadvertently stoked an anti-immigrant sentiment, whereby mass migration is blamed for the lack of full time jobs and meaningful employment. But those who genuinely feel the fullest effects of this dual crisis of work and migration, should perhaps remember that these crises are the systemic products of a historically volatile capitalist process. Although this process now operates on an unprecedented global scale, the British artisans and self-employed of the 19th century once suffered similar effects of coercion into meaningless wage-labour, and were also forced to continually migrate from town to town, or emigrate overseas.

In the following article I explore the work of a few historians who have researched this often overlooked period in our history, of working people who, as with many of my own generation today, spent most of their time not working, but looking for work.

Throughout the length and breadth of our native land there has not been a corner or village but what some of our members have perambulated in pursuit of employment; our high roads have resembled that of a mechanical workshop, or a mighty mass of moving human beings.

– Higenbottam, Our Society’s History, 1872

The masterless, migrating artisan is a recurring figure of mobilization throughout the history of socialist thought. The artisans appear, for example, during the social, religious and political upheaval of the English Revolution in the 1640s and 50s, roaming the countryside and woodlands in search of employment alongside preachers, vagabonds and beggars. The Marxist historian Christopher Hill dedicated a chapter to ‘Masterless Men’ in The World Turned Upside Down, describing “the seething mobility of forest squatters, itinerant craftsmen and building labourers, unemployed men and women seeking work […] congregating especially in London and the big cities, but also with footholds wherever newly-squatted areas escaped from the machinery of the Parish or in old squatted areas where labour was in demand.”2

John Rees’ The Leveller Revolution has more recently illustrated how the casualised labour, physical mobilisation and auto-didacticism of the London Apprentices (artisans in training), enabled them to become a core group of revolutionary subjects from which large numbers of Levellers, including the famous John Lilburne himself, emerged onto the political scene. They existed in vast numbers, he writes: the lowest estimates are above 10% and the highest above 20% of the population; it is likely true that apprenticeship in London made the capital into the largest educational site that existed in England before compulsory basic schooling was introduced in the late 19th century.3

Could this intense proliferation of educated individuals and unusually free political agency have had anything to do with the radical stirrings of the English Revolution? We are left with little doubt that Rees believes so. E.P Thompson has elsewhere provided us with incredibly rich accounts of the 18th century formations of the English working class, much owed to the central role of the radicalised artisans’ coordinated political gatherings and unionism.4 Iorwerth Prothero has notably examined the position of the skilled artisan in the politics of early nineteenth century London, and in another comparative study on radical artisans in England and France.5

The post-war period was a high water mark for Marxist Historiography in Britain. Its most recognisable methodology, ‘history from below’, was coined by E.P Thompson in an essay of the same name. In the preface to his 1963 book The Making of the English Working Class, he wrote: “I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the ‘obsolete’ hand-loom weaver, the ‘utopian’ artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity.”6 Among the historically silenced voices of the oppressed and marginalised subjects unearthed by Thompson and his contemporaries, the artisans stand out as exemplary figures of mobilisation and resistance. Their traditional, pre-capitalist forms of life stood in stark opposition to the centralising encroachment of industrialisation. The emergence of bourgeois monopolies, rapid technological development and the introduction of wage-labour led to their eventual dissolution as a quantitatively significant social class. Yet this decline did not happen instantaneously.

So what form did this mobilised resistance ultimately take? The artisans were forced to initiate new processes of labour, systems of employment, and political organisation. Devised to deal with structural problems concerning the supply and demand of labour, unemployment and economic depression, their initiatives were instrumental to the formation of the early trade unions and modern kinds of welfare. Eric Hobsbawm’s 1951 essay The Tramping Artisan captured some of the key aspects of the systematic migration that took place during the industrial revolution. From the beginning of the 18th to the early 20th century, the ‘tramping system’ sustained calico printers, wool combers, paper-makers, hatters, smiths, carpenters, boot and shoe-makers, metal-workers, bakers, tailors, plumbers, painters and glaziers, bookbinders and others.7 It worked via documents, ‘blanks’, or ‘clearance’ which the artisan would carry on his travels, and affirmed his abilities as ‘a member in good standing of the society.’ He showed this upon arrival at his destination, a ‘clubhouse’ or ‘house of call’, which was ‘generally a pub ̶ receiving in return supper, lodging, perhaps a beer, and a tramp allowance. If there was work to be found, he took it; the call-book (if there was one) was of course kept at the house of call, an unofficial labour exchange. If there was none, he tramped on.’8

Hobsbawm’s essay was cited in The Making of the English Working Class — Thompson apparently enthused by the reference to the system as the artisans ‘Grand Tour’, which was about 2,800 miles long in the 1850’s.9 Thompson instead sought to demonstrate the artisans intellectual capacities, the political activities of The London Corresponding Society, of ‘organic intellectuals’ like John Thelwall, and the observations recorded directly by Henry Mayhew in his comparison with unskilled labourers. In his 1862 study, London Labour and the London Poor, Mayhew witnessed that “the artisans are almost to a man red-hot politicians. They are sufficiently educated and thoughtful to have a sense of their importance in the State…The unskilled labourers are a different class of people. As yet they are as unpolitical as footmen, and instead of entertaining violent democratic opinions, they appear to have no political opinions whatever; or, if they do… they rather lead towards the maintenance of ‘things as they are’, than towards the ascendancy of the working people.”10 Although participation varied across the country it is understood that the early trade unions, with their lodging and call houses facilitated a cross-fertilization of radical ideas, formalized in ‘friendly societies’, and within the walls of debating clubs. The tramping system itself sustained a similar circulation of radical thinking, as Hobsbawm discovered: “the traveller acted as a link between different areas, passing on information about local wage rates, advising on the best times to start a wage-movement, a walking encyclopedia of comparative trade-union knowledge.”11

Both Hobsbawm and Thompson fundamentally understood the system as a defensive measure. This defence was both lived and intellectual, consciously developed by the artisans in order to remain in frequent employment, and avoid subjection to mundane, restrictive, unskilled wage labour. They knew how a sustained and concerted migration could strengthen their bargaining power. Hobsbawm attributed its expansion and surge in popularity during the middle of the 19th century, to its ability to relieve strike funds, and provide means of countering victimization: from this to a more sophisticated calculation of political economy was only one step.

By removing the unemployed from places of slack trade, and keeping them in circulation, tramping kept the supply in the labour market limited. “If it had not been in our power”, wrote the General Union of Carpenters in 1846, “to keep up our tramping transport… a general reduction in wages would have taken place.”12 Just as it appeared at its height, with certain tramping trades perhaps coming close to the classical ideal of a perfectly mobile labour force, by the year 1860 the seeds of its undoing had already been sown. Aside from the technological advancement of public transport, such as the tram or train, one of the reasons for the tramping systems decline was the inability of small-scale competitive businesses to function within the dominant free market mechanism.

This new kind of economy led to the relative obsolescence of ‘casualism’ (the temporality of the artisans labour) as a viable form of life in Britain. As much as 36% of the workforce operated within the manufacturing industries as early as 1841, most of which was comprised of large private firms, factories and fixed capital.13 The rest of the population was largely concerned with agricultural production at this time. The centralized capitalist industries could not function without a constant influx of wage labourers willing to toil at the modern machinery, and had no need for independent, ‘self-employed’ artisans, unless they wished to join Britain’s reserve army of unemployed (although the actual term ‘unemployed’ was not in use at the time), or ‘surplus’ labourers.

Another contributing factor to the tramping systems demise worth mentioning here, and which for Hobsbawm ‘marked an important stage in the education of the labour movement’, was the introduction of ordinary unemployment relief by the trade unions. This followed, in particular, the massive unemployment and social upheavals of the 1840s. The unions adopted ‘static-out-of-work pay’, and developed more efficient ways to send workers from “slack places to busy places more efficiently than the happy go lucky tramping systems.”14 These ‘new unions’ Hobsbawm credits with recognising that the capitalist economy was not something to be sidestepped, but had to be dealt with by understanding its specific laws of motion.15

It is clear, then, that for Hobsbawm the tramping system was a foundational stage in a genealogical development of trade unionism. By tracing a line to the later unions he implicitly refers to the artisans, although diverse in occupation, as members of a homogeneous working class movement, as agents of socially produced knowledge which the movement advanced from. Perhaps this is part of the reason why critics of his generation of Marxist historians railed against them for their supposed historical ‘determinism?’16 For concocting the sense of an inevitable working class march, or class struggle, moving towards a Communist horizon.

But for all his perceived partisan unionist tendencies, Hobsbawm understood clearly, largely due to Karl Marx’s critique of capital, the economic reasons that made the tramping system’s continued functioning within the capitalist heartlands of Britain an economic improbability. At the end of the essay he speculates: “no doubt a mass exodus from low wage centres, a mass influx of organized men refusing to work below the rate, might have levelled conditions. But in the nature of things, this could rarely happen.”17 The ideal of an oppositional, or ‘levelling’, ‘anti-capitalist’ tramping system remained a figment of a socialist imagination, an imaginary which Hobsbawm himself had almost seemed hopeful that he would find in his research. The system was in fact always the last line of defence for a pre-capitalist class of artisans, which had to transform itself if it wanted to survive, or else emigrate overseas, where freedom from alienated labour still remained a possibility.

I believe the artisan remains relevant today because it is a figure tied closely to the labour process, but not, historically speaking, to the wage relation itself. Their self-reliance and masterless existence should not be taken as an affirmation of contemporary ‘self-employment’, but rather as a vivid portrait of a historical subject which, if only temporarily, managed to resist wage labour and in the process distort the flow and structure of aggressive capitalisation. The fruits of their resistance ̶ the birth of trade unionism and the precursor to our contemporary welfare system ̶ should stand as a vindication of workplace organisation, and continue to inspire the ailing trade unions that nonetheless still remain an important resource for the workers of today.

Tom Holland, March 2017

This article is an excerpt from the essay Towards an Artisan Imaginary, commissioned by Nikki Kane as part of a project for CuratorLab at Konstfack, Stockholm

References

Higenbottam, Our Society’s History, (1872), as cited by Eric Hobsbawm, Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), p.42

Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down, (Penguin Books, 1972), p.49

John Rees, The Leveller Revolution, (Verso, 2016), p.24

P Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, (Penguin Books, 1963)

Iorwerth Prothero, Artisans and Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century London, (Routledge, 1979) & Radical Artisans in England & France 1830–1870, (Cambridge University Press, 1997)

P Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, (Penguin Books, 1963), p.12

Eric Hobsbawm, Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), p.36

p.34

P Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, (Penguin Books, 1963), p.267

Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (1862), III, p.243 & E.P Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, (Penguin Books, 1963), p.20

Eric Hobsbawm, Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), p.52

p.41

Office for National Statistics, 170 Years of Industrial Change across England and Wales, (Released: 05 June 2013) <http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census-analysis/170-years-of-industry/170-years-of-industrial-changeponent.html> [accessed February 2017]

Eric Hobsbawm, Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), p.48

Ibid, p.48

See Geoffrey Elton’s essays: The Stuart Century, A High Road to Civil War? and The Unexplained Revolution in G. R. Elton, Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government: Volume II (Cambridge University Press, 1974)

Eric Hobsbawm, Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), p.53

Originally published at www.eurstrat.eu on April 10, 2017.

[giveuselife-blog]

Ten Tips for a Glad Life from A Great Mind

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Ten Tips for a Glad Life from A Great Mind

What is “Satisfied” and is it honestly attainable? In this age of rapid-paced, information overload, what do we really want from Lifestyles?

I believe we need what people have always wanted. We need to be Glad. We need to love and make a contribution to others. We need to be cherished. We need to assume we are making a distinction, that there’s a “motive” or cause for our existence.

Whilst a few might argue that Happy (as in merrily skipping along thru Existence) is an overused time period and no longer a practical purpose, let’s consider Glad as being peaceful and content material, as being the other of depressing, as being empowered to be all that we can be in Life, a good way to have loving and sustainable relationships. And then, I suppose, every person will agree that that is a state in which we might all want to be concentrated.

Primarily based by myself non-public exploration into this critical quest, I’ve summarized what I view because the Pinnacle Ten Recommendations to a Glad Existence, as taught with the aid of a number of the idea leaders today who are remarkable authors, audio system, and non secular teachers..

Top TEN:

1. Be Present, Be Here Now

Research endorse we have someplace among 12,000 to 65,000 mind per day, although I have visible connection with a much wider range (among 2,000 to six hundred,000!). Most typically, 50-60,000 is considered a terrific estimate.

Being human method being inundated with thoughts all day, each day: limitless observations, decisions, interpretations, lawsuits, issues, ‘what-ifs’, memories, regrets, desires, goals, goals about our destiny, anger about our past, and on and on. I’ve visible statistics indicating ninety five% of them are comparable from everyday. a few mind appear completely random, others can hijack us as we observe a thread and let our feelings react to what are once in a while completely irrational, twisted versions of fact. For me, it’s been a primary leap forward to remember the fact that I am now not my thoughts. For too long, my mind ran me. They nevertheless try and, every unmarried day, however I am watching them now. I used to look to my thoughts for which means, questioning why I was suddenly disillusioned when not anything had befell.

So how a great deal of a median person’s thoughts are rooted in the Gift moment? a few advise that most people of our thoughts are rooted within the past (someplace among 70 and ninety%) with about 10-20% ruminating or dreaming or imagining what will occur inside the destiny. A small percentage of our thoughts definitely awareness on the present second in a only experiential manner. Within our minds, our notion of the beyond, how it’s miles affecting us now and into the future can regularly grow to be warped.

Eckhart Tolle, author of “The Power of Now” and “A brand new Earth” and different books is a  speaker and teacher In this area. Tolle tells us: “Live fully Gift inside the now-your entire Life unfolds Right here. within the now there’s pleasure of Being and deep peace”.

In Deepak Chopra’s “Seven spiritual Legal guidelines of Success”, he says that natural potentiality is natural consciousness, the field of all possibilities and infinite creativity. Meditation to hook up with our inner being to be Gift and master our mind can help us to find that country of natural recognition.

2. Your mind Create your reality

Whilst you start to remember the fact that you aren’t your thoughts, that you are a being with a powerful internal spirit that takes place to actually have a mind that does what brains do, non-prevent technology of thoughts, you can step returned and examine this and take manipulate. don’t forget how you could choose how your brain operates just as you’re making these choices approximately the use of your arm or your arms or your eyes each day of your Life.

The belief which you genuinely may want to manage and direct your mind to create anything fact you pick can open up an entire new international. If, for example, you inform your self which you cannot succeed at some thing – then you definately likely may not. So, the obvious query is why inform yourself that? And yet we do it all of the time..

there is a lot groundbreaking paintings In this location over the last decade, the whole thing from the books at the Law of Enchantment (such as the blockbuster work known as “The name of the game”) and new science indicating that mind are without a doubt bits of quantum power (see my publish entitled “The technological know-how in the back of the Mystery”), which opens up even extra incredible implications for our capacity talents if we can master our mind.

Louise Hay (founder of Hay House) is an inspiring instance of this powerful idea in action. Her endless books and CD’s on Affirmations display how you can trade your Existence through the very simple practice of constantly producing fine, Lifestyles-declaring mind. From “Strength mind” by using Louise Hay: “Trust Lifestyles to listen and reply to your wonderful words. Say those affirmations every day and your complete international will exchange for the better.”

3. Be Grateful

Expressing gratitude, especially if you can make it a day by day practice to claim everything you’re Grateful for in your Life, can create effective self-putting forward thoughts in preference to terrible ones and align your attention to the entirety that is right in your Life. This on my own can be transformational. Many contemporary thought leaders and non secular teachers inspire human beings to maintain a gratitude journal.

If you do a seek on Gratitude quotations, you may discover many empowering thoughts. Here’s a few:

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of concept; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by way of marvel.” G.Okay. Chesterton

“God gave you a present of 86,four hundred seconds today. Have you used one to mention ‘thank you?’ ” William A. Ward

“If the best prayer you stated on your whole Life turned into, ‘thank you’, that might suffice.” Meister Eckhart

4. Agree with that the universe is unfolding because it ought to..

Or perhaps an less difficult way to say that is, Have confidence. now and again in our darkest hours, while nothing seems to be going as we had wanted or predicted, we cannot see this. We want handiest to fight in opposition to What’s. the whole thing will not constantly pass our way however, If you Consider Existence and allow it unfold, as Mick Jagger stated, “you just might get what you need”.

For some this may mean a belief in God, aligned with one of the superb religion traditions, for others it’d simply suggest understanding that there may be a more Existence pressure, that we are all a part of it, and that Life will take us where we want to head if we surrender to it.

five. practice Forgiveness

Oprah and others, have defined Forgiveness as recognizing that you can not exchange the beyond. We hold onto a lot of resentment and in the end, who does it harm? We hurt ourselves more than absolutely everyone else. Accepting what has passed off and developing the gap to move on may be a effective step forward.

sometimes, specifically when you have been a sufferer of crime or abuse, whatever took place might also seem ‘unforgiveable’. In these instances, take into account that forgiveness does no longer mean you need to permit that man or woman again into your Existence but it could launch you from the maintain that this has on you.

In different instances, we can also have imagined transgressions that were in fact, minor. Caroline Myss, scientific intuitive and author of some of bestselling books including “Sacred Contracts”, outlines the commonplace archetypes that drive our behaviours. She identifies the “victim” as one of the 4 archetypes for survival that could lead you to trust that “you are constantly taken gain of and it’s by no means your fault.” If this feels familiar, her work may be of hobby.

No matter the state of affairs (and many can also lie in between these extremes), if you have anger or bitterness to your coronary heart, you must do the work wished (whatever that is for you) to let it move. It literally will suck the Life out of you and might have an effect on all of your relationships. The serenity prayer from AA says it all: “God, provide me the serenity to just accept the matters I cannot exchange, Courage to change the things I’m able to, And understanding to understand the difference.”

6. observe your Bliss

Certainly one of Joseph Campbell’s famous quotations…

Many will say that they would like to follow their bliss however they must pay the payments, do not have time, it’s too past due to exchange path, or another variety of excuses.

I might contend that for many of us, we don’t truly know what our ‘bliss’ is. Of route, it seems like it need to be the greener grass on the other side. In reality, the concept of strolling away from a hard job and living in luxury appears glad – however this is not what Campbell supposed.

sometimes we need to take a tough observe our Existence circumstances and make adjustments along our journey. The crucial thing is to be conscious. Make aware picks. Embody work that you love. Don’t forget, even When you’re “following your bliss”, there can be difficult sledding at times. that is Without a doubt no longer a loose price tag to give up.

7. pick your Lifestyles

that is some other attitude on “observe your Bliss”. every so often, it’s now not our outdoor occasions that need to trade however our interior measurement.

I took a path referred to as the Landmark Discussion board a few years ago, and this turned into a key concept after 3 long days of workshop. It correlates back to the idea that ‘your mind create your fact’.

Whilst you claim that your Lifestyles, your partner, your children, your process, your world are all precisely what you continually desired, then they’ll grow to be that for you.

8. do not take yourself too critically

Or, placed another way: “Recover from yourself”.

No one likes complaint and all of us have fragile egos… however once in a while, when our thoughts hijack us, we can flip the only feedback into conspiracy theories.

The fact is that not the entirety is set you, every so often when people scowl at you, it is because they may be sad interior. If someone says something to you that you don’t like, you do not must react in kind. In truth you will be in a position trigger transformation in some other through now not letting your ego take over, as a substitute be Present with that individual and be compassionate.

Deepak Chopra asserts that “… The ego is not who we definitely are. The ego is our social masks, it’s far the role we’re playing.”

If you are conscious and Present with people, no longer coloured via past injustices or imagined indignities, then you can pick to continually have effective, meaningful conversations.

now not being driven by using ego takes consciousness, commitment, and Braveness…

nine. we’re all one

while you are taking steps to be Present, grow to be committed to not ‘be your ego’ or run by your g mind, to be grateful for the people to your Life, and to create your reality then you’ll start to sense more and more which you aren’t alone but part of something a great deal more, the collective spirit of humanity.

Even the ultra-modern clinical breakthroughs with respect to quantum attention and unified subject idea are demonstrating that the universe and the entirety in it, ourselves blanketed, are interconnected by a massive area of strength.

In this collective space, love and contribution turn out to be natural which in flip can gas concord and peace on your Existence.

10. aware Evolution

Last yr, I took the Evolutionary Worldview route through Enlightennext Magazine and Andrew Cohen and later, watched the occasion: “A Name to conscious Evolution, Our moment of Choice” which changed into additionally hosted by this institution. Both experiences have been inspirational and eye-opening. As Deepak, one of the many renowned speakers at the Evolutionary Leaders’ occasion, stated: “… The only way to transform the sector is to convert yourself..” and “… Even properly-meaning activism is frequently coming from an area of concern instead that creative awareness..”

This jives with a few of the teachings of Andrew Cohen and his crew with admire to the evolution of our indoors dimension and our tradition. Our mind, our being, or our “interior measurement” as they Name it have developed just as our bodies have. They communicate approximately four billion years of evolution on this planet and the way we, as sentient, powerful beings, can now pick out wherein we move from Here. They ask questions like: “how does your own evolution come into the subculture, into converting the arena?” and “To what degree are you enabling this manner of evolution through your personal heroic efforts?” in order that we can go away the world a better vicinity because we had been Here.

Making conscious selections regular to feed and workout your body for most effective health and nicely-being is the opposite facet of the coin to choosing the thoughts that you feed yourself for most suitable mental health and properly-being. WILL Energy has an entire new depth of which means…

[theadventuresofharryandlaura]

ASIA TOUR BLOG PART 2: Malaysia After an extremely long travel day from Japan, including a 7-hour layover in Taipei, we checked into our hotel in Kuala Lumpur around 2am. The next morning at 8am, we had a live performance and interview at a local radio station. We were exhausted but so excited to be in a new country! Also, the radio host was so energetic that it brought up our energy levels vicariously. After the radio, we headed straight to soundcheck and rehearsal for our concert that night. We knew we were to be collaborating with a local musician, Alena Murang, but we didn’t know much else about her other than that she played the sape (a traditional Malaysian instrument). It turns out that Alena not only plays the sape beautifully, she also sings, and is committed to preserving the traditional pagan music from her home state of Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. She taught us two songs by ear, and we filled in Break of Reality-style accompaniments around the tunes, and she also improvised beautifully with one of our songs, Star. The collaboration was smooth, natural, and fun! We were able to prepare all 3 songs together in about an hour. The concert that evening, which was preceded by a well-organized press conference, was a lovely welcome to Malaysia. It was packed with a few hundred enthusiastic people, and in greeting the crowd afterwards for signatures and selfies, we realized that many of them were young people. I’m always thrilled to perform for a younger audience—must nurture future supporters of live music! After the concert, we headed to a breathtaking spot: Helipad Lounge. It’s a real former helipad on top of an extremely tall building, that has been turned into a bar/lounge. There is no wall railing around the top, only a ribbon and a few feet of space (this would of course NEVER exist in the US), so the 360 views are uncompromised. We took a LOT of pictures. The highlight of our second and final day in KL was performing at the residence of the US Ambassador to Malaysia, Kamala Lakhdir. She had moved into her home and begun work there exactly one week prior to our concert. But she was extremely gracious, and seemed settled and comfortable as far as we could tell. We played an acoustic mini-concert, and since things had gone so well with Alena the previous night, she joined us again for two songs. It was a beautiful evening, and they set up food trucks (a true American tradition) outside. There were about 120 guests; I’m not sure who they all were but most were connected to the Embassy in some way. We had another early departure the next morning (6am) to catch a flight to Kota Kinabalu. KK is the biggest city in Sabah, a state on the island of Borneo. Borneo is a huge island, partly occupied by Malaysia and partly by Indonesia. It’s a couple of hours by plane from KL. We touched down, grabbed lunch, and headed to a University to give a class/workshop to music students. They were extremely shy to ask questions (sometimes it’s like pulling teeth), but after the class they all came up on stage and wanted selfies and to talk with us individually and ask questions. Maybe they were all afraid to ask in front of each other! We then headed to the library for another mini-concert/ Q&A session. By the time that ended, we were thoroughly exhausted and happy to get back to the hotel. One thing I know about myself, that was reinforced on this trip, was that early morning call times, and especially early morning flights, do not agree with my body, and tend to make me suffer throughout the day. But, playing music and interacting with new people is such an energizing thing that I was always able to get through it. Though it’s a big city, KK feels much more like a beach town than KL. We were staying right on the water, and every night walked along the waterfront through a massive market selling fish, produce, and countless other things day and night. We ended up eating delicious Thai food overlooking the ocean, followed by a visit to a bar that serves drinks and foot massages (really!). We frequented both these establishments more than once during our time there. Our day off in KK was one of the most memorable on the tour. We started by taking a 20-minute boat out to Sapi island through a bright blue, sunny bay. There, we all strapped on some gear and ziplined between it and another island. I had ziplined once before, probably 25 years ago at summer camp, before I was old enough to fear anything. I was a bit nervous to jump off the platform, but once I did, it was a thrilling one-minute ride above the water. We were with our whole Malaysian “team”: Spencer from American Music Abroad who accompanied us to Japan and Malaysia and then headed home, and Mike, Shannon and Hisham from the embassy. Everyone went through with the ride and loved it! In the afternoon, we got special permission to visit some animals in a wildlife reserve on the edge of the city. We met Joe, an adorable baby elephant, and played some cello for him. Joe was much more interested in eating carrots, consuming about 15 during the course of our 3-minute performance. We also played for some orangutans, and fared slightly better, at least drawing them to the front of their area where they sat and listened and regarded us quizzically. Borneo does have a lot of amazing wildlife. I’d love to explore it more if I ever get a chance to return. The next day began with an interview at KupiKupiFM radio, a name I will remember forever because it was so fun to say, followed a soundcheck and rehearsal for our big concert that night. Our collaborations in KK were wonderful: we did “Yesterday” with a guitarist named Roger Wang, which came together really quickly because he’s so amazing, and two songs with a group called Bamboo Woods. They are just incredible! It’s a group of students who play traditional bamboo instruments: flutes, percussion instruments, etc. Their energy and passion for the music is infectious. When we played with them, we didn’t add much to what they were doing because they didn’t need it. There were another couple hundred people in this audience, also young! Thn something bad happened. After the concert, it was pretty late so we went to the only restaurant that was open, a diner style place that was still bustling at 11pm. We were starving, so we were all bent over our menus for a few minutes. After we ordered, I realized my bag was missing. It was hung over the back of my chair, and must have been swiped by someone very quickly. The people at the restaurant said they saw someone running down the stairs, but couldn’t identify him on the surveillance camera. I still have no idea what happened, and was surprised at the brazenness of it. But, much to my relief, my passport was in my hotel room at the time and my phone was in my hand, so I didn’t lose either of these things, and I only lost about $70 in cash. The rest of the night was spent cancelling my credit cards and doing all the other fun things you do when you get robbed. The embassy people, Mike and Shannon, were amazing and helped me every step of the way. I did feel very light for the next few days, only carrying my phone and hotel key wherever I went! Our last day was really special; we started it with an outreach/workshop at an art institute, and then visited a hospital, where we passed out gift bags to sick children and their families, and then performed in the atrium where people could sit and listen to us or look out the window from any floor. I know it sounds cliché, but seeing what those families are going through really put my own problems, such as losing some material possessions, in perspective. It was nice to be able to brighten their days a little with music. Our final evening was spent watching the sunset and toasting a beautiful week in Malaysia.