#look to the east look to the west
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Camera Obscura
Look to the East, Look to the West
-album-
<3<3<3
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Camera Obscura — Look to the East, Look to the West (Merge)
Photo by Robert Perry
youtube
A plangent guitar, a shuffle of drums and then the voice. The crystalline clarity slightly weathered and more lovely for it. After the 2015 death of keyboard player Carey Lander, Traceyanne Campbell and Camera Obscura took an extended break before reconvening for some live shows in 2019. On Look to the East, Look to the West, their first album since 2013, Campbell’s voice and her ear for melody remain undiminished. As does her ability to write and sing lines that take your breath away, make you well up or smile, the eye for a telling detail that encapsulates everything about a person or situation. Joined by guitarist Kenny McKeeve, bassist Gavin Dunbar, drummer Lee Thomson and new keyboard player Donna Maciocia, Campbell dissects love, loss, and heartbreak with elegant candor.
That opening track “Liberty Print” tells the story of the classic bad boy now passed. The humor is gentle and self-directed playing on the band’s twee image — “then you’ll see I like Liberty Print/Is that shallow of me?” The song fills out and the tempo quickens as Campbell builds the narrative of regret for lost love. Her denouement is devastating in its simplicity “I had to visit your mother/You were her only son/I went to visit your mother/You were her only son.” The band eschews the perky jangle of their previous albums for a country soul feel. Guest pedal steel guitarist Tim Davidson echoes Campbell’s Patsy Cline crying notes over Thomson’s brushed snare railroad rhythm and Maciocia’s almost honky-tonk piano on “The Light Nights.” On “Big Love” McKeeve lays down a wandering Nashville riff as Campbell describes a watching a friend’s tortured relationship (“We watched you swoon/As she peacocked the room”) before switching perspective with the repeated closing line “Just let your hand slip down, imagine I’m there now” over Hammond organ and harmonizing sighs. The loveliest moments come during “Sugar Almond” in which Campbell memorializes Lander. Maciocia provides minor key accompaniment as Campbell remembers her friend - “I was always such fan of your rabbity eyes/Sugar-coated almonds as grey as Glasgow skies” and sings her loss with “I’ll match Bette Davis drink for drink/I’ll cry like Tiny Tears over your favorite pink/I’ve had the worst thoughts I could ever think/Won’t you sing to me, Carey”
Camera Obscura’s comeback album is a thing of real beauty. Campbell writes movingly about memory and friendship. Looking at what was rather than regretting what might have been with an honesty that goes directly to the heart of things. Look to the East, Look to the West is one of the most poignant albums of the year so far.
Andrew Forell
#camera obscura#look to the east look to the west#merge#andrew forell#albumreview#dusted magazine#indie#scotland#traceyanne campbell#tim davidson
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Camera Obscura | Liberty Print
youtube
#camera obscura#liberty point#new music#musica nueva#music#music video#musica#video musical#videos#look to the east look to the west#Youtube
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Oh yeah… the other day Camera Obscura played like 2 streets from the store I work at and Tracyanne and the new keyboardist Donna walked in and browsed for a second and I was literally so starstruck that I didn’t say a word… even though Look to The East, Look to The West was literally playing 🫢 they looked at each other and kinda chuckled hearing their music playing in some random Texas gift shop….but I literally couldn’t make eye contact 😭 Anyways the show was super chill, and they played Honey in the Sun at the end 🌞 💛
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I'm so happy they're getting more content
#look at them being happy before everything goes to shit#wicked#wicked movie#wicked the musical#wicked the movie#wicked part one#wicked musical#elphaba thropp#nessarose thropp#wicked elphaba#elphaba wicked#wicked witch of the west#the wicked witch of the west#wicked witch of the east#wicked 2024
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Reading physical copies of The Queen's Thief series for the first time and realizing that the maps in them are inconsistent???
#the only map i'd really seen before was K's map to P in Thick as Thieves#but now looking at the map from the last story of Moira's Pen I'm like. wait. the empire is opposite in this one.#like according to K's map C and K generally move west in TaT but the other map has them moving east#it's not that big a deal to me bc i had to read the entire series twice to conceptualize where anything was#(bc i spent the whole of The Thief not realizing just how important every nation mentioned was. good move mwt you genuinely fooled me.)#but now that i thought i had it down i am once again thrown off#also the map that's referenced in Moira's Pen shows up in the physical copy of TaT?#the beauty of this series is that I NEVER would have guessed what was up in that story even had i seen the map beforehand#anyway all i wanted was to conceptualize where Roa was & now i'm like spiraling. like is K's map incorrect bc its from an imperial lens#which honestly? yeah absolutely (it makes the peninsula look so small) but also how would the mede empire have#conquered so much land with inaccurate resources even if it is for propaganda's sake#nothing in this series is accidental so i'm like *pepe silvia meme*#anyway this is just me trying to put my thoughts somewhere ignore me my tags are a mess#The Queen's Thief#The Queen's Thief spoilers#like not exactly but since everything is spoilers i'm tagging that just in case#Thick as Thieves#Moira's Pen
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"East of the sun west of the moon" is such an incredibly good line even Tolkien had to use it 🤭
#Btw you know how the actual fairytale is about a protag looking for her husband who's in a castle hidden east of the sun west of the moon#And she keeps asking the winds who redirect her to the remaining winds#That's how I imagine is going to be Sam's journey to the Undying Lands lol#He's the only one not going with an elf guide how is he to find the way there
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I'm struggling to word this but I'm finally ready to talk about it and I want people to listen.
I've noticed a type of racism in leftist communities I don't see talked about a lot. I am Quarter Japanese and I am visibly mixed, but a lot of leftists see "quarter" and assume that I don't have the right to an opinion on issues that effect me. The sentiment I've gotten from mostly white leftists is that I'm not "POC enough" for a lot of discussions.
There's this weird thing in a lot of leftist spaces where your appearance and percentage, not your experiences based on your race, are considered above all.
Meanwhile, in reality, all aspects of my identity are affected by my race and my family's experience with Japanese internment. An event which stripped them of any wealth they had acquired since moving to Canada over 50 years before the war.
An event that cause the intermarriage rate of Japanese-canadians and white Canadians to be over 90 percent post internment because we viewed proximity to whiteness as safety. An event which left them in severe poverty until my dad and aunt worked their asses off to get a degree. The generational trauma goes so deep my dad didn't want me transitioning because he was worried about what the government would do to me.
Because of my race I experienced negligence from authority figures related to pretty severe racially based bullying at 12. That negligence could have killed me. I've had to deal with microaggressions and straight up racism related to my last name on multiple occasions.
One time I was out with a friend and he grabbed my arm tight and dragged me to walk faster. A man wearing a white lives matter T-shirt was standing in the middle of the path looking directly at me when I turned around.
I'm pretty sure this wasn't based on me being feminine and goth that day, I live in a city with a decent amount of people in alt subculture and my friend was way more gothed up and queer than me. I was barely passing as a guy at that point so it wasn't because I was a man in a dress. I know this is a weaker point, but it made me realize just how unsafe I am in my own community even though I'm a mixed person in a heavily multicultural city.
Obviously, this isn't on the scale of someone who is less white passing than me and/or has more compounding marginalizations. However I've found that the fact I'm mixed race has been used against me to devalue my experience and knowledge regarding what it's like to be a POC in Canada.
I can assure you I am aware of how bad it is, and I am aware of how good I have it. I also want you to be aware that it's not all sunshine rainbows and bunny farts to be more white, it doesn't make the racism go away. It often just makes it more covert and easy to explain away because I'm "not really Japanese"
#tw racism#please be aware i struggle to type because of dyspraxia pleade br kind about grammar and spellinv#i just want to share my experiences and also talk about that racism idk if im oversharing but i wannamake my point#i have a lot of insights i feel are valuable but i also feel unwelcome in white leftist spaces because of how ive been treated in the past#ei trying to say that im fully white passing and dont experience racism and then having to relive truama to explain no actually#ive experienced quite a bit#but i also feel scared to go to bipoc centred spaces because of that judgement from other spaces#what if i AM white passing?#im not lol#people on the east coast have just never met a mixed japanese person LOL#Like ive met one perosn outsode my family who is mixed Japanese and shes like 15 and my sisters friend so not exactly the sorta community#im looking for haha#if i were out west (where internment occured and also just. closer to japan.) i would have a different experience i think#idk#this is a ramble atp#edit when i say white leftist spaces i mean primarly white spaces#to vlarify#clarify
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another attempt on the concept of salmonid traditional art
#splatoon#salmon run#splatoon salmonid#salmonids#splatoon salmon run#see look i think a pretty significant chunk of salmonid art would be centered around food and the making of food#bc yk food is such an integral part of their culture#also just for the record: this art style is inspired heavily off of the art style of north-west native american tribes#i fell down a rabbit hole of research when i learned on the wiki that the canon salmonid culture was inspired by them#super cool stuff! i hope to be able to see some of their art in person someday..... sadly i live on the east coast#boiledegg art
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What are your favourite kinds of Japan content? Or alternatively, what are your least favourites?
I'm a huge aph Japan fan, and I'm always curious abt this stuff.
Hmmm, well honestly I could talk all day about this topic LMAO but for your sake and mine I'll keep it brief and focus mostly on two especially grating depictions i dislike. I have some posts queued up down the line for how i tend to see japan so feel free to ask me about that when i get around to posting it ehehe
"Polite, cute, shy, quiet" japan depictions reallllly don't work for me. Like it's one thing to say that Japan is a reserved guy who puts value in having good manners and doesn't want to come across as rude, but it's another to turn him into a wilting flower who's easily dominated by louder personalities and turns into a side character. Besides it falling into ur typical trope of the "diminutive east asian who needs to be taught by their loud non easian (usually white) partner how to stand up for themself and live life a little," I think it's just patently false, both canonically and historically lmao. Like hima has called Japan a stubborn old man before, and history will tell you that Japan is nothing if not resourceful and very very proud, lol. He may bite his tongue, but I imagine that hes not someone who easily gives up or submits or at least without a fight 😂
Germany-Italy-Japan trio, or "Axis" trio, depictions never go over well for me, lol. I'm of the mindset that you can't really divorce them from their history in WW2, especially if you're going to call them the Axis, like lol the least you could do is call them something new. Furthermore, Geritapan depictions in my opinion are terrible with tokenizing japan as the sole character of color/east asian in the group, but the Worst Geritapan Depictions as of late are shipping gerita with japan off in the cuck chair?? I'm not saying we need to give Japan bitches (because lord knows he doesn't deserve any) but wow, congrats, you made your only East Asian man an emasculated yellow guy who just pines and copes over a white love interest who dgaf about him <3 a win for diversity!!!
anyways, if you're going to ship gerita but treat japan like this, i would rather you ship germany and italy together like a normal person and leave japan out of it 🙏
#ask#lyresbird#aph japan#hws japan#look at what the hetalia fandom has made me do. defend japan as a chinese person#i could talk forever and ever and ever about this topic#but my general advice is to ppl that before you praise canon u should carefully consider the fact that hetalia is written by a japanese guy#in the late 2000s-2010s and theres a lot of things abt the canon are indicative of his biases esp w how east asia is handled#and before you praise fanon#be equally critical of east asian stereotypes in the west and the way east asians r flattened into support roles for the western nations#and cant exist outside of their relationships to the west
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The Icon of Eönwë- TRSB Process Post
See the promo post here!
Above the cut is a relatively brief explanation of symbolism, design choices, and everything re: the text. Under the cut is the full (long) story of how I managed to create my magnum opus, + process pics!
Very early in my days as a Silm fan I read a silly summary of the Silmarillion and in the summary of the maiar I somehow completely misread it as saying Eönwë had indigo skin and my Eönwë has been blue ever since. The bird characteristics followed naturally from his service to Manwë, though I kept him fairly humanoid because I imagine as herald he interacts more with Incarnates than other Maiar.
His hair and the color of his wings mostly stemmed from my vague annoyance that he's rarely depicted in a "traditionally (religiously) angelic" way, so I gave him the features of the angels in my church. Floofy hair and golden brown-red-blue wings. The armor and clothing followed from this, with the bonus of the scale armor continuing the feather motif.
The ruby on the sword pommel is there because there was no other red in the composition besides the wings and it looked unbalanced. This icon was painted prior to the War of Wrath, so it isn't necessarily Manwë's sword that he uses during it.
The position his hand is in is a priest's blessing, though people in the @tolkienrsb discord mentioned it reminded them of Buddhist hand forms as well. Interpret it however you will within the meaning of "Peace be unto all".
The Sarati was deliberately chosen as the older form of writing, to be more traditional, and the words are Valarin as I think suits a religious artifact. The transcription reads:
Mayâz Manal Iȝônowêz (Maia-holy Eönwë -> Holy Maia Eönwë) Akesa Baradâš Mânawenûz-iyôz (Voice-raised/high Manwë-of -> High Voice [Herald] of Manwë)
It all started last March, when (instead of doing all the overdue assignments I should have been working on) I decided to draw Eönwë for no particular reason. I further decided that I was going to draw him in the style of Eastern Orthodox/Byzantine icons, because the style is unique, thematically relevant, and frankly very underutilized in fanart (I would soon learn why that is).
(I also found it funny to draw a character made by Tolkien- devoted Catholic- in the Orthodox style.)
I kinda-good-enough finished it over spring break, desperately ignoring the sword and the wings, and was reminded of the existence of TRSB. I wanted to participate, knew I wouldn't have the energy to write, and had no other art in a good enough state to submit. I've long wanted to explore the weirdness of religion in Arda, and this was the perfect opportunity.
The lovely @goschatewabn claimed my sketch and I was off! And then I wasn't.
I decided that there was no way to do my vision justice without painting it, that my cheap sketchbook would not hold up to that, and that I would rather stab myself than transfer the drawing to a canvas.
"Hmm" I thought, "Icons are traditionally painted on wood. Maybe I should get a piece of wood from the neighborhood workshop, cut out the sketch, and glue it on there to paint."
"That's a brilliant idea, me," I thought, "But what about the wings (which you haven't drawn) and the sword (which you haven't drawn)?"
"I'm in denial," I thought, "So please shut up. That's a problem for future me."
("Fuck you," thinks future me, repeatedly and with great vigor, ever increasing in wrath as I must spend ~20 hours sketching out and then painting the wings before I do anything I actually want to do because I need to glue Eönwë down over them.)
The wood is successfully found, cut to size (shout out my father for his help), sanded, and conditioned over the course of an afternoon. White acrylic paint and modpodge are obtained from the craft store (shout out my mother for going, I asked for gesso but they didn't have any), and the wood is generously modpodged to seal it because I didn't want to shell out the money for sealant.
See above for my suffering re: wings. I wanted to violently destroy every art supply in the house rather than go through sketching the individual feathers. I bravely restrained myself, and allowed myself the brief reprieve of figuring out how to do the halo.
Not wanting to buy gold acrylic paint, and with my metallic markers working poorly on the wood, I came to the solution of mixing mica powder (that my sister had in excess from her slime-making phase) mixed with modpodge. The result is very very golden and shiny and exactly what I was looking for, though it's difficult to get an even and smooth consistency.
"Hmm," I thought, as I cut out my sketch and glued it down, "maybe it would be a good idea to sketch out the sword now, before I start painting,"
"I'm in denial", I thought, "And besides, we just suffered through doing the wings. We deserve a little break. That's a problem for future me."
("Fuck you," thinks future me, repeatedly and with increasing desperation and devastation as I must sketch out a decent looking sword, fold it to cut it out to be symmetrical, and line it up with his hand so I can perfectly cut out a section of the handle, and the two pieces must then be glued on perfectly.")
It's now relevant to mention that traditionally, icons are painted dark to light. Symbolically this represents the triumph of good over sin, etc, but practically this is a key to the style, as the previous layers build up undertones and also allows for the signature shading style. It also takes much more work to build up a good color, even using fairly decent paint.
(What brand, you ask? Well it came in an art kit I got when I was like 15 and forgot about until the start of the summer. So no idea.)
Was it worth the work? Yes. The final piece looks cool as hell (Valinor?). Am I mad about it? Also yes.
Painting the individual scales of the armor was an exercise in patience and withstanding torture for extended periods of time. It was done over the course of three days, totaling around 10 hours. I mixed mica into the paints and then sealed it with a less intense mica-modpodge mixture, which is very difficult to appreciate in photo but looks fantastic irl.
The clothes were difficult because I had to work with a different style than I had been. Feathers are typically rendered in a more graphic style, as in my piece, and while hair is usually shaded more typically I found a few examples of this style, and the armor was similar. But now I had to do folds and actual shading, which is very difficult when you have a large area and very fast-drying acrylic. On the other hand, I was finally free of all the golds, browns, and yellows. I was so sick of them by then.
(The way I got around the fast-drying on the palette was by DIYing a wet palette. They're magical. You just stick wet paper towels in a tupperware and cover them with a layer or two of parchment paper (or wax paper in a pinch, although I poked some holes on the bottom layer because it's more water-resistant) and it will keep the paint wet for ages- even for a few weeks in my case with the lid on.)
It's at this point that progress halted because I had to pack for returning to college, and get a tattoo, and get horribly sick with a headcold, not in that order. My event partner was very patient with me, which I appreciate more than I can say. Once I was settled in to my new environment, though, I got right back to working
The skin was not extremely difficult to paint in and of itself (the shading and color mixing was fairly straightforward), but all the tiny, finicky details were very stress inducing. I used a teeny tiny nail art brush for details, and even that felt too big at some points (cough EARS AI VALAR THE EARS WERE SO HARD cough). Going around all the tiny feathers on the face and ears was an exercise in holding my breath and using every possible technique to steady my hands. Getting the hand right was also difficult, but fortunately they already look weird in the style, so it was just a matter of making them look weird in a deliberate-looking way.
Besides the text (and last-minute inclusion of the ruby in the pommel- I woke up and decided it needed the contrast) the eyes were the last thing I painted. It felt fitting. I poured my blood (achey back+hands+legs) sweat (I sanded the wood outside on a very hot afternoon) and tears (stress) into him, and in return on this 9"x13"x1/3" sheet of wood he came alive for me, and hopefully for you too. He isn't perfect, there are a few things that in retrospect I would've done differently, but he's the best I've got. I hope I did the High-Voice of Manwë justice.
#my art#trsb24#trsb2024#tolkien reverse summer bang#tolkienrsb#eonwe#silmarillion#silm art#tolkien#tolkien fanart#traditional art#also my mom throughout this process was both very encouraging and very uncomfortable#she was like 'it's not sacrilegious because you aren't doing it with religious intent and you're doing it differently#but it *feels* very sacrilegious'#me telling her that for proper symbolism the icon would be hung in the west instead of the east did not help#she thinks it looks very good and her visibly conflicted feelings are very amusing to me
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Camera Obscura | We're Going to Make It in a Man's World
youtube
#camera obscura#we're gonna make it in a man's world#Look To The East look to the west#new music#musica nueva#music#musica#Youtube
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🌠
#a moment i need to capture while it's still fresh#stargazing alone in the chill and damp of an august night#the crickets singing all around#northern lights filling the sky like nothing i've ever seen#the red colors even visible to the naked eye#pictures show the entire sky alight with red and green and blue#but they can't capture the delicate blue-white formations that i see with the naked eye#or the pulsing weaving swirling motion of the lights above#the high point of the night is looking straight up into the night sky#not north or south or east or west just up which is out toward space#not a direction tied to our world but out to god#and there were these constant swirling waves of light all pulsing toward the very center of the sky#and then a shooting star#the brightest and clearest of the night#streaks upward across the right-hand side#and after an evening of wanting to feel closer to god than i do when surrounded by his heavenly marvels#the prayer that comes to mind is 'glory'#glory to the father and to the son and to the holy spirit who created all this and let me see it#and there is no one to share it with#no way to capture what i'm seeing#no way to share this moment with anyone else#there is no one i'll be able to turn to and say#remember when we saw that shooting star in the middle of the northern lights?#this moment can't be captured or repeated it simply exists in this moment right now#it's beautiful and sad#and also a gift#i meant to stay out for maybe fifteen minutes#i was out there an hour and wish i didn't have to leave#and there was no way to share it but i had to try to share it with someone before i lost the moment
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Need CoD voice ASMR in my life, the Ghosts kind. Wanna hear Hesh and Elias voice collection.
#i fell asleep to Keegan voice line collection#he was barking commands#TANGOS ON THE LEFT#ON THE CATWALK#ON YOUR RIGHT#TANGOS TO THE NORTH#TO THE EAST#TO THE WEST#TO THE SOUTH#TWELVE O'CLOCKK#ONE O'CLOCKK#THREE O'CLOOCKK#SIX O'CLOOCKK#NINE O'CLOCKK#GET TO THE HELO THIS PLACE IS BOUT TO BLOW#KID!!#YOU OKAY#LOOK OUT
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minor details, but in chapter 68 of trimax we do see this bit:
the items that vash kept in his coat.
a "funbari doll" (which i cant find anything definite online about what that is with just a cursory look, so im going to run under the assumption that theyre some kind of collectable in-universe) & it's a red one, which is apparently rare. he still has the same pen radio that connects to his earring that's used waaay back on the sandsteamer. a swiss army knife, a random key, a used tissue (?), and...
a lighter? blow torch? i still cant tell what that last bar thing is tho. & i guess he had some kind of (normal) coin too? but Only One.
love the characterization implications for this lol. definitely the kind of pocket contents i'd expect from a silly immortal with a big coat
#speculation nation#fanny reads trigun#fanny's trigun analysis#trigun#just. hm. for Fic Purposes this is pretty useful.#it's cute that he has the doll. very vash.#overall tho it's very utility-driven. swiss army knive + blow torch. Yeah those would be useful to just have.#gotta wonder what that key is to. maybe i'll keep my eyes peeled in my official reread to see if it's mentioned.#otherwise i might have to just accept it as an unknown. & perhaps make smth up for Fic Purposes lol#he got the pen back from Kaite. which is a very interesting detail. not exactly useful for my fic bc he does not have that pen anymore lol#unsure if the coin is currency or some other thing. if it Is currency then lmfao @ vash being flat broke before all of this.#but THEN AGAIN early on he does say a lot of money gets in his way traveling east to west (i think it was) so What's The Truth Vash?#anyways im still looking for a new icon. got a few possibilities but im still undecided.#in the meantime U guys can have this lol. im fascinated by all the little details that are put in like this.#i really do love that he carries a swiss army knife & a blow torch. would they still call it a swiss army knife?#he does refer to the french language so obvs he knows about old earth stuff. for ease's sake id probably just call it a swiss army knife lo#bc yes now that i know he carries a swiss army knife it will Possibly come up in my fic. this is a tool i can use for my Purposes heheh
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#not a lot of difference but i would like to know ............#v#inspired by people on reddit posting about how much helianthus tuberosus spreads and looking it up on bonap and seeing it's native to the#midwest and adventive on the east coast.#similar story with helianthus anuus but its native range spreads to the west coast
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