#modernist food | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bleachification · 27 days ago

Text

⸻ THE PRINCE(SS) & THE PROTECTOR [PT. 2]

pairing: zoro x reader

word count: 2.4k

synopsis: refer to the first chapter: HERE

note: this is the SECOND part of this fic: TPATP

^^please read the first part before this chapter, as it will be confusing otherwise :)

and yes this is the final part !

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

ZORO

Three months had passed along the winter winds. Spring was just behind the proverbial corner, peeking its blooming head around, awaiting the final frost’s imminent leave. For Zoro, this shift was taking far too long.

Why?

Because when the seasons changed, he would finally be able to see you again.

The message arrived last week. A letter, embossed with molten gold and folded into perfect fours, found its way onto the deck by way of carrier falcon in the early morning. It had been addressed to Luffy. For some reason, disappointment struck Zoro when the sender was revealed to be you.

He shook the strange feeling away and snatched the thick paper from Luffy’s hand to read over its contents. There was only a single sentence written on the sheet, penned in careful, familiar cursive.

Luffy jumped around, craning his neck—which was quite easy for him—to catch a glimpse of the message. “What is it? I want to see.”

Zoro ignored his captain, instead he folded the paper and carefully pocketed it.

“Well?”

A huge grin spread across Zoro’s face. “It’s time to get our crew back together.”

The Spring Solstice is approaching.

I hope to see you all there.

✧ ˚ 　· 　　 . 　

The Merry docked in the sparkling harbours of a bustling metropolis. It was early morning—too early—and Zoro could feel the grogginess of a sleepless night weigh his limbs down. Despite the ungodly hour, the marina was buzzing with activity. People milled around, conversations floating seamlessly through the air. Some were setting up shop for the day—rows of all kinds of stores lined the inner docks and stretched far into the heart of the city. Others roamed about in various fashion; some were tourists and merchants, and others native citizens. No matter the purpose or the cause, everyone had the same buzzy manner to them. As if something electric was in the air, charging the atmosphere.

Zoro felt it too. That energy. That excitement. His blood thrummed with it.

The sun had just peeked over the horizon, casting the glossy buildings and shores in rosy hues. Your native kingdom was a modernist's dream. A glowing hub of glass, electricity, and the constant momentum of new, inspired invention. The technology here was all encompassing. Neon lights lined the sides of glittering buildings—some of which occupied their own space in the sky, suspended above the first foundational skyline. The vehicles zipping around, at least what Zoro thought were vehicles, were strange, sleek models equipped with an array of digital enhancements. They could fly too.

It seemed everything here belonged more to the sky than the earth.

Twenty minutes swiftly passed, and the crew slowly filtered away, each member marching off with their own designation in mind. Luffy wandered, led by his nose, down the streets filled with food stalls. The others offhandedly mentioned their own plans and each went their separate way. They made a promise to meet up in time for dinner, which was when they’d planned on surprising you at the palace.

The invitation itself was vague, but the shiny embossment at the bottom of the paper was the royal seal, a symbol which would, at minimum, grant them an audience with the king—and subsequently you.

A familiar groan made Zoro look up as he readied his own supplies to head out.

Sanji was off in a corner conversing with one of the store owners. They were engaged in what looked to be a heated transaction of sorts where the prize seemed to be a mint-coloured fish the size of a pencil and just as slim. The cook waved his hands in exasperation as the short, stocky salesman stared up at him in defiance.

Zoro shook his head, unable to muster any enthusiasm as he left the two bickering men to their devices. Instead, he ambled away and toyed with the hilt of his swords as he did so, rolling the smooth leather against the calloused skin of his fingers in an effort to expel the frayed nerves that rolled through his veins, causing his anxiety.

The city, alive as it was, had a strange air about it. As Zoro gradually made his way through the harbour and down the smoothly paved walkways that led to the heart of the metropolitan core, it became clearer to him that something had occurred—something important.

Shops had [CLOSED] signs put up despite it being late morning, flowers of all kinds were strewn around and fashioned into careful decorations, and many wore outfits of muted colours—a sea of grey and black trickled through the nation’s paths.

It was as if the city itself was in mourning.

Zoro shut those thoughts away. Perhaps those were the trends of the time. Perhaps the flowers were a cultural custom. Perhaps he was imagining it all and the foreboding thoughts invading his mind were nothing but unwarranted paranoia.

Everything was fine.

Until it wasn’t.

✧ ˚ 　· 　　 . 　

Miraculously, the crew congregated at the palace entrance relatively on time. Getting through the gates was surprisingly easy, and gaining an audience with the king—your father—was even easier.

The tall, imposing man greeted the crew with a wobbly smile. His hands, weathered and wrinkled with age, gripped his staff tightly until his knuckles turned white.

Something was wrong. Zoro was sure of it. Where were you?

“I did hope to meet you all under better circumstances,” he began. His brows furrowed as he worked his next words out. “[Y/N] always spoke so highly of you all.”

Zoro’s entire body tensed. Something was very very wrong.

Robin spoke up. “I apologize, Your Majesty, but what do you mean by that? Where is [Y/N]?”

The king’s expression falls. “I’m sorry… I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?” Zoro demanded, the thought of propriety forgoed. Anxiety bubbled up his throat like acid.

“The invitation was sent so long ago… I assumed that you received my letter regarding the news…”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The letter of…” His lips trembled. “Of passing. I am sorry. [Y/N] is gone.”

The room fell silent.

“What? What are—what do you mean?”

Luffy stared straight at the floor, still as a rock. The rest of the crew looked shell shocked.

Zoro whirled around on the older man, eyes flashing.

“Tell me!”

Despite the obvious tension rolling off of Zoro, the man’s expression only softened in pity.

“I’m sorry.”

“What… what happened?” Sanji rasped from behind. Zoro turned at the sound of his voice and blanked at the sight.

Why were they looking at him like that? Like their hearts were breaking?

“Zoro.” Robin rested a hand on his shoulder in comfort, which was strange considering the tears in her eyes. It seemed she should be the one comforted. But why?

Why were they all…

Realization dawned on him. Heavy. Precise. A shot to the heart.

The tributes.

The singular letter.

A city in mourning.

Zoro dropped to his knees. His ears rang as blood rushed through his head. The reality of it was hitting him all too fast.

No.

He had never known grief like this before. It didn’t come slow. It didn’t creep up on him. It was there. Raw. Searing. Instant.

Sobs broke out from behind, but he barely took notice.

There was no room to breathe, much less think or speak. He tried anyway.

“…dy.”

Robin furrowed her brows, confused. “What was that?”

“The body.”

When no one answered and the tense silence persevered, Zoro lost it.

“I said show me the damn body!”

The swordsman was yelling now, fueled only by pain.

Hate. Regret. Despair.

Such foreign feelings with such an intimate touch. They rolled through him in waves, never fully dulled, ebbing and flowing with the motions of thought and time.

His chest was hollow. Everything was hollow. Empty. Zoro didn’t think he’d ever feel whole again.

How could this have happened?

This couldn’t have. They were mistaken. They had to be.

He had to see the body. It couldn’t be you. It couldn’t.

The screams continued. Curses. He cursed the gods… the heavens… anyone and everyone. He must have looked insane.

He must have gone insane.

The king only shook his head, sadness clouding his expression.

“The fire… nothing was left. Only…” he trailed off, eyes wide and glistening. “Only bones.”

“Oh…God!” Nami gasped and covered her mouth. Her hands trembled as she struggled to keep her cries at bay.

The rest of the crew weren’t faring much better. Each crew member was equally just as shocked and devastated at the news of your death. Most hadn’t stopped crying.

Zoro didn’t cry. He didn’t say another word until they made it back to the ship hours later. The moment he reached the hallways leading to his room, he collapsed. Robin and Luffy, who had been with him, rushed to their friend's aid.

Zoro felt nothing. Numbness had spread throughout his body, paralyzing what little control he had over himself.

The two others tried to help—to console him—to no avail.

They were at Zoro’s door, hands on his shoulders in comfort and solidarity, when he finally spoke up. His voice was rough and cracked; his palm was splayed flat against the wooden panel in an attempt to keep himself upright.

“Leave me,” he gritted out. A final plea. An incontestable order.

And so they did. They left him to that room—to the privacy of the oak door that did little to obscure his pain or muffle the echoes of silent suffering.

For weeks after, the ship was haunted by the ghost of you—of the memories and people left behind, forever tainted. Life, as static as it felt, still moved forward. The motions of the everyday cycled through spring until summer made its way across the horizon. The crew worked tirelessly, taking on odd jobs here and there as they sailed to their next destination, far from the land you once called home.

An accident, the king had said.

Unpreventable.

Inescapable.

You were merely at the wrong place at the wrong time and dealt a tragic hand by fate. Zoro had never quite believed in fate, but now he held a newfound hatred for it.

“[Y/N] was supposed to come back.”

“Zoro…” Nami hesitated. This was the most Zoro had spoken in days.

“Some time would pass. Maybe longer than I wanted, but not more than half a year.” His voice faltered on the last part.

“Everyone would make up. Chopper would cry. Sanji and Usopp too, probably. The awkwardness would linger, but only for a little while. I had it all planned out; what I’d say when we were reunited. I’d apologize. Grovel. Beg on my goddamn knees if that’s what it took. It didn’t matter. I would have crawled through the dirt if asked.”

Zoro’s eyes were unfocused, gazing blankly into the far horizon. The crew stood across from him near the ship’s helm, uneasy and somber, blocking most of the view. Zoro continued to stare forward, unmoving. He wasn’t looking at them. Rather, he stared past them. Through them. Like they weren’t even there. He just…watched. Waiting in silence for something that would never appear.

Time moved forward still, stubborn in its momentum against those so desperate to stay tethered in its past.

It was early morning and not many of the crew were awake yet. Robin and Sanji were the only ones awake aside from Zoro, though they were more preoccupied with the swordsman than their own responsibilities.

Zoro was training on the upper deck. He repeatedly slashed his swords in a sharp movement against a steel mannequin. The poor thing was in tatters from the relentless onslaught of strikes and hits.

Robin, who was watching from a short distance away, asked: “Has he slept?”

Another slash. The training dummy rattled from the force as another gaping hole appeared in its extremity. It wouldn’t last much longer.

“No. But he doesn’t do much of anything. He drinks, sleeps, and trains to the point of exhaustion every day,” Sanji sighed, hand ruffling through his hair in frustration. “He barely even eats. I tried making his favourite meal last night but he couldn’t keep it down for longer than five minutes. I’m… concerned.”

“He’s lost some weight,” Robin noted with a frown.

“Yeah, well… he’s lost a lot of things recently.”

A pause.

“So have we.”

Sanji swallowed. The loss was still fresh in their hearts. Still raw and painful and devastating. Sometimes he’d forget for a little bit. He’d prepare a meal, share a laugh, or lose himself in a job, and for a second he’d forget all about the pain. But seconds were seconds and life moved fast—too fast for them to grasp those moments of peace and hold onto them like lifelines, which they so deeply resembled.

Zoro didn’t have the privilege of those moments.

Sanji turned to face Robin to address her, but kept his eyes on Zoro. “I’ve never seen him so…”

“Out of it?”

“I was going to say ‘crazed’. His screams… god, it sounded like he was the one dying. Right there. Right in front of us.”

“Sometimes, I think he might have been,” Robin answered, a sad finality in her words.

“How do we help him come back from this?”

“I don’t know if he will.”

Zoro could hear them, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Not anymore.

At least, not until a certain day, near the end of summer, when the sun hung low and the breeze turned kind. Luffy had convinced his first mate to accompany him to a small town for a supply run when Zoro had inadvertently found himself lost in the midst of the countryside.

After an hour-long trek, he had all but given up. In a bid to return to the ship, he had tapped the back of a stranger, prepared to ask for directions he inevitably would’ve confused as well, but as the hooded figure turned around, all thoughts emptied from his mind.

All Zoro could do was stare as you turned to him, familiar eyes locking onto his own glassy ones.

“[Y/N].”

You gazed at the man before you, a warm but confused expression graced your face.

Zoro didn’t look like he was breathing. He didn’t feel like he was either. He was too focused on you.

You who stood in front of him.

You who was alive.

You who was real. Not the imagined version that haunted his dreams on the nights he managed an hour or two of sleep.

You who looked at him like he was a stranger.

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

—

˚ · . tags: @synchronised-beat @96jnie @guridoodles @metonimia-de-bellota @stranger-chan @sp1ng @diarythroughmylens @mitsureigen @kateswone @idx-xv @leafyturtle @lupidetenebris @captainsolare

#zoro fic #zoro x reader #one piece zoro #zoro fanfiction #roronoa zoro #zoro x y/n #zoro roronoa x reader #zoro #one piece #one piece angst #zoro x you #zoro angst #op zoro #one piece x reader

178 notes · View notes

hometoursandotherstuff · 1 year ago

Text

Thanks to huffy-the-bicycle-slayer for sending in this very crazy home/business. It's a 1950 post office that was renovated into a residence/business with modernist elements in 1962. Located in Palms, California this huge home has only 1 bd. & 5.5ba. It's priced at exactly $1,065,002.

So, there's 1 bd. for the owner, and the rest is set up to be a raw food/meditation retreat. According to the description, if you don't want the business, it can be made into a stylish home.

This is the meditation/retreat space with dining and sitting areas.

Weird that the kitchen in a raw food retreat would have 2 ovens, microwaves and a cook top, but it's also the kitchen for the residence, so I guess the owners eat cooked food.

The original post office restrooms are still intact.

There are also 7 private soaking tubs.

Here is the owner's bedroom and en-suite.

The original post office vault is also intact.

Outside there are pyramid tents.

Besides the tents there are also some structural pyramids.

And a meditation/yoga dome.

Since pyramids are thought to have a special energy, there's also a plain pyramid.

Don't know what this is.

And, you're getting 132 acres of desert land.

https://www.redfin.com/CA/29-Palms/78201-Amboy-Rd-92277/home/91490380

#converted post office #conversions #live/work homes #houses #house tours #home tour #submissions

144 notes · View notes

probablyasocialecologist · 11 months ago

Text

Sourcing food in biotech factories requires a reorganization of the food system to be highly centralized, arranged into corporate-mediated value chains flowing from industrial processing facilities. To my mind that is exactly the corporate industrial food chain model at the root of so many of our current problems. We don’t want the food system concentrated in the hands of less and bigger corporations. Such a concentrated food system is unfair, extractive, easy to monopolize and very vulnerable to external shocks - which we are going to see more of in our unfolding century of crisis. Consider which food system is more likely to fall over in the face of climate catastrophe, dictatorship or cyberattack: - a handful of large electrically dependent food brewers or a distributed network of millions of small farms and local food relationships spread across diverse landscapes? Which brings us to Chris’s other central premise in ‘Saying No to a Farm-free Future’ - the one that George does attempt a partial response to. Chris argues that the way to organise food to survive in the face of climate crisis is to withdraw away from the corporate controlled industrial agrifood chain and attempt instead to put power back into the distributed local ‘food web’ of small growers, local markets and peasant-type production . This ‘food web’ may sound ‘backwards’ to modernist global north sensibilities of someone like George but it is what still characterizes much of the food systems of the global South. It is also better suited to our times of crisis and challenge. Strengthening food webs is not a “one stop” bold breakthrough. Rather its a distributed social process of ‘muddling through’ together in diverse and different ways that are at best agroecological and collective, culturally and ecologically tailored to different geographies. The food web (or ‘agrarian localism’ as Chris terms it) can’t be summed up in one shiny totemic widget. It doesn’t fit a formulaic “stop this, go that” campaign binary (“stop eating meet , go plant-based”). Leaning into the complexities of local agroecological diverse food webs is maddeningly unsellable as a soundbite. George presents agrarian localism as a ‘withdrawal’ but its more in the gesture of “staying with the trouble” - a phrase feminist scholar Donna Harraway so brilliantly coined to dismiss big, male, over simplistic technocratic solutionists who claim to have the ‘one big answer’ to our global polycrisis. (sound familiar?). Staying with the trouble and leaning into food webs means embracing a messy politics of relationship, nuance, context, complexity and co-learning. It means a single clever journalist sitting in Oxford can’t dream up a cracking saviour formula all by himself in the space of a 2 year book project. . its why (and how) we build movements - to figure this stuff out collectively. So relax - take off the armour - make friends.

#george monbiot #ecomodernism #synthetic biology #precision fermentation #Cellular agriculture

25 notes · View notes

darkwingphoenix · 3 months ago

Text

@loominggaia Memes! Hot and Fresh!

Amber and Kitsu at the store, buying their female relatives pads:

(Wait, do sirene have periods? I assume gorgons and cecaelia don't, but what about sirene or other species?)

Everyone when me, @loominggaia or @niittinaatti post memes, lore, fanfics, or animations:

Demons when they need money for an apartment and also food

Skylie in a random village in Evangeline

Columbina and Sandrone in a nutshell (Sandrone's a yandere dedicated to Capitano and will harm/kill ladies who try to get with him, Columbina's just fucking insane sometimes)

Skylie to her parents

Me to everyone who passes by my AU:

Skylie and Janella Vokz on Vibing With Vokz, just vibing (Janella is having Skylie do the wrong answers)

Skylie's gnomish spec ops arriving to Marduk Hill, transmuting the Modernist Army into animals before controlling them to just dance, led by Gnome King Mimsical The Whimsical:

youtube

Champion to Skylie

Qara to Saraia, then Skylie shutting down and destroying the Zareenite flying fortress

Industrialists Be Like:

youtube

Skylie once she gets really good at her complex-as-shit summon-beasties-use-tendrils-swordsmanship martial style

Skylie packing her mega-storage shoulder bag (She puts in her entire cosplay repertoire, with like 30 different basic outfits to embellish for cosplay, like 300 fully functional weapons, including like 69 guns, hundreds of unique swords she commissioned by that dworfen divine of smiths after she proved she'd only use her weapons for cosplay and self-defense, hundreds of hats and shoes, enough food to feed her and Rook for 10 months, her personal copy of her Genshin Impact novel series, like 20 Visions to hand out to unsuspecting fools, 20 crates of condoms big enough to fit a family of dworfs inside, 20 hilichurls, 10 koholasaurs and a vishap, a rig of tepetlisaurs, a gang of yumkasaurs, 5 golden rings, a stable of horses, 20 months of birth control, a tent, and a partridge in a pear tree)

Skylie and Oberon fighting over Skylie's phone (Those things are manufactured to be able to break a concrete floor if they get dropped and survive a nuclear explosion)

Saraia, Skylie and Darshaan making monsters (Darshaan and Mankind's Disgrace are the same dumbass for this evaluation)

Skylie accidentally making a song when a Zareenite venue forced her to go out way too early for her concerts (She was spending too long on her cosplay, which the venue thought was stupid)(She's having a LOT of anxiety the entire time)

Roshava, more often than most

A Zareenite manager's expectations of their employees

Everyone when Sai and Justinia are in the Evangeline Palace:

youtube

Skylie, Cyana, Angeline, Amber, Maui, Citrine and Rook at the Evangeline Palace for dinner (Cobalt invited them)(Amber was made to work in the kitchens by accident)(Cyana bluffed)

The Reformists and Knights of Favonius in Evangeline before Cobalt sided with them (Someone asked is Sai had dat ass)

Skylie and Darshaan sharing one brain cell

Amber as an infant eating fudge rounds

Random divines meeting Skylie at the DivineCon Skylie made

Skylie for no reason

Sai seducing Cobalt in their bedroom

Skylie meeting (And adopting) a 2 year old human girl who turns out to be a divine locked at 2 years old (First scene and the food scene are within a few hours of each other, the dancing scene is 30 years later, the fire is a century after, and the last 2 scenes are after 1,000 years, and she's still a toddler)(Her name is Mualani)

Skylie's adopted divine kids, the House of the Hearth, often

#the ole meme bakery #best meme bakery this side noalen #looming gaia #Youtube

7 notes · View notes

blurban-form · 4 months ago

Text

Blocks Minisode

A lot going on in this short! Bluey and Bingo create an interesting week for Nana and Bob by her agreeing to leave their block city in place.

At the start, Mum and the kids just rush out but Bluey asks just before they leave if the block city can stay up, and this seems to be something that’s happened before and Nana quickly says it’s ok. Bluey and Bingo like leaving their sprawling cities up for long periods (understandable)

It would have been easier for Nana to snap a digital photo on her phone, take it all down, and then recreate it just before Bluey and Bingo returned! But then it wouldn’t be funny!

City planning

Everything falls down because all the buildings are joined with ribbons? Not sure why they were, either just decorations or maybe pretend walkways? Good for connectivity but it makes the city fragile in the event of natural disasters like Bob!

The transport system is Brio trains rather than toy cars everywhere. Good city planning.

The city Bluey and Bingo build is all towers spread out, very Le Corbusier modernist planning, maybe inspired by the Gold Cost where Nana and Bob live?

Weather

Never heard the term “synoptic charts” with regard to TV weather forecasts, but yeah, that’s a term for the future outlook, what the weather is going to be. Do they say this in Australia?

Even though Bob thinks it’s a sun in the forecast, the next day is pouring rain! LOL.

Other stuff

This episode is detail heavy!

Nana and Bob have a Dyson vacuum.

They have one of those lady-with-balloons ornaments that was at the garage sale.

A lot of art and photos of the family throughout the apartment!

They have Jamie Oliver’s 5 Ingredients recipe book, @beeclops posted this already: https://www.tumblr.com/beeclops/763390417473519616, meaning like the Wiggles, there’s a dog-equivalent of Jamie Oliver in the Bluey universe.

The jar with a logo must be something. Not sure if it’s this one, but likely? Rosella is an Australian food company.

Like I say, a lot in a short episode! Good stuff.

#Bluey city planning #Bluey apartment life #Bluey

8 notes · View notes

justforbooks · 16 days ago

Text

The Sound of Utopia by Michel Krielaars

A revelatory account of the composers and performers whose lives were determined by the whims of a dictator

The fact that Joseph Stalin loved music and believed it mattered was both a blessing and a curse for the men and women who made it. If your work found favour you were treated as a secular god with all the trimmings – palatial apartment, good food and freedom to roam as far as the decadent West (assuming you came back when called).

But for those who offended Stalin’s arbitrary and shifting tastes it was another matter. The Father of Nations regularly took time out from his busy killing schedule to vet each new classical music record that came across his desk, noting on the sleeve whether it was “good”, “average” or “rubbish”. A bad rating could earn you a stint in the gulag or, if there were aggravating circumstances (homosexuality, say), a bullet in the back of the head. It has been calculated that 68 composers were sent to Siberia during Stalin’s 30-year reign of terror. Hundreds of other musical artists, from virtuoso composers to popular songbirds via second violinists, were consigned to oblivion when the paper trails concerning them were deliberately destroyed.

In this revelatory book, the Dutch journalist Michel Krielaars goes in search of the musicians who thrived and failed (or both) under Stalin. Although they themselves are long dead, their children and grandchildren are eager to talk, not so much to put the record straight as to build it from scratch. These elderly keepers of the flame arrive for their rendezvous with Krielaars carrying dog-eared letters, smudgy newspaper cuttings and hissy old vinyl recordings that bear witness to long-silenced genius. Krielaars, who worked as a newspaper correspondent in Moscow between 2007 and 2012, speaks Russian and knows the culture’s tender spots, especially now that Putin is reviving the Soviet playbook of violence and silence.

Any account of music under Stalin must begin with Sergei Prokofiev. Having seen out the chaotic aftermath of the revolution by settling in the west, the prolific composer and pianist allowed himself to be talked into returning to the Soviet Union in 1936. He hadn’t achieved quite the international stardom that he thought his due – the Americans preferred Stravinsky’s extravagant modernist style – and Stalin was desperate to lure the maestro home to show the world that the communist utopia was a paradise for innovative artists. Prokofiev got a hero’s welcome, a stream of commissions, a luxurious four-room flat and permission to import a particularly flashy Ford car.

Initially the composer upheld his part of the bargain, writing in Pravda of his eagerness to move towards a musical “new simplicity” away from the cosmopolitan polyphony of his earlier work. In 1939 he even went so far as to write the repulsive Zdravitsa (Hail to Stalin) to celebrate the dictator’s 60th birthday. It wasn’t enough, though, to keep Prokofiev safe, and in 1948 he was accused of “formalism”, which was defined as producing “confused, neuropathological combinations that turn music into cacophony”. He died four years later, on the same day as his dictator.

Much of the anxiety faced by Prokofiev and thousands of others arose from never knowing where you stood. Words warped and changed their meaning, fixed principles turned out to be written on water and the knock on the door could come at any moment. Prokofiev’s longtime frenemy Shostakovich was condemned in 1948 for the dreaded “formalism”, yet by the end of that year he was honoured with the title Folk Artist of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic. Three Stalin Prizes for his film music followed.

The stories concerning less familiar names are even more poignant. When Vsevolod Zaderatsky died within months of Prokofiev and Stalin, no one noticed. He had blotted his copy book very early on with a brief stint teaching piano to the little Tsarevich Alexei. Formally identified as a counter-revolutionary in 1926, all Zaderatsky’s manuscripts were destroyed. After serving a couple of jail terms he gritted his teeth and wrote an opera called Blood and Coal. But it wasn’t enough, and by 1937 Zaderatsky was hauled up for producing “propaganda for fascist music” (playing Strauss, in other words). Sent to the gulag, he composed music in his head, wrote it on scraps of waste paper, and then, on his release, worked the best of these up into 24 Preludes and Fugues for Piano. None were published or heard in his lifetime, although you can catch a rare recent performance on YouTube.

Zaderatsky came from Ukraine, that cultural and artistic powerhouse which produced so many of the musicians who appear in The Sound of Utopia. In addition to Prokofiev, there is Sviatoslav Richter, Heinrich Neuhaus and Klavdiya Shulzhenko, AKA “the Russian Vera Lynn”’ who warbled her way through compositions such as the Brick Factory Song’ and Mine Shaft No 3. In these circumstances it is only fitting that Michel Krielaars ends his book by warning that Russian music is once again being weaponised against Ukraine by a political dictator with a tin ear. In 2022, a few days after the invasion, a Moscow concert featuring work by the Ukrainian Valentin Silvestrov was disrupted when Russian police stormed on to the stage and shouted at everyone to go home. Silvestrov is now living in exile.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #Michel Krielaars #The Sound of Utopia #book review

2 notes · View notes

marta-bee · 2 months ago

Text

I put together my Christmas wish list for family, which this year included a lot of history and politics books I've been wanting to read. It actually felt good, a low risk way to tell family this is what I stand for. But it's also a good round-up of vaguely liberal if not outright progressive titles that caught my interest, which is a rec list in its own way, so I thought I'd share.

Non-Fiction/RL-ish Books

Built from the Fire: The Epic story fo Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street (Victor Luckerson)

Countdown 1960: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the 312 Days That Changed America's Politics (Chris Wallace)

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade (Ann Fessler)

The Message (Ta-Nehisi Coates)

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson)

The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust (Francis S. Collins)

War (Bob Woodward)

White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy (William J. Barber)

And the more fannish ones:

The Fall of Numenor: And Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth (J.R.R. Tolkien)

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18 (Joseph Loconte)

The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science fiction, and Fantasy (Ursula K. LeGuin)

Norse Mythology (Neil gaiman)

A Place Called District 12: Appalachian Geography and Music in the Hunger Games (Thomas W. Paradis)

The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology (Tom Shippey)

A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages (Ed. Dimitra Fimi)

Star Trek: Open a CHannel: A Woman's Trek by Nana Visitor

Tolkien and the Modernists: Literary Responses to the Dark New Days of the 20th Century (Theresa Freda Nicolay)

And finally, some charity groups I suggested family and friends donate to, all of which are doing work near to my heart:

Carolinas Care Partnership [an LGBT support group around here, particularly focused on housing access, health care and therapy access, especially for people affected by HIV/AIDS but not exclusively]

Life After Hate [supporting people leaving far-right and white nationalist groups]

NC Immigrant Solidarity Fund [they do financial grants for families facing deportation, also legal and social support for all kinds of recent immigrants]

Pro Publica [doing important independent investigative journalism, and boy is their work vital]

Promising Pages [you've heard of food banks? that, but for books]

Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom [doing good work to build Jewish-Muslim solidarity, The Kid and I particularly like that they're woman-centric and spotlight some lesser-known voices]

Sojourners [a good general left-leaning evangelical group, good at producing journalism and educational resources for *cough* less progressive evangelicals, they're good at speaking that community's language]

#book recs #social justice #us politics #rl #marta blathers

3 notes · View notes