#my biggest thing is making people (especially young folk) feel empowered and feel like they are being seen as they are

[uncanny-tranny]

This might be a weird piece of advice, but instead of complimenting somebody (especially children) with an overarching, nonspecific compliment (like "smart" for example), it can be better to compliment somebody for their effort or for the work they have done.

I was always complimented as the "smart kid," and was always doted on for being "smart," but I found that it really stressed me out as a kid because being "smart" was a good thing, but I had no idea what they meant by it. I stressed out about it because it felt like, at any time, my status as The Smart Kid could - and would - be taken away at anybody's discretion. I wish my efforts in being a Smart Kid would have been highlighted, because maybe that would have made me feel less like my status mattered rather than my efforts.

[shamansantics]

Some People Be Shitting on My Girl Ariel

And I am here to tell you why saying shit like "Ariel left her family for d*ck whereas Moana did it to save her village" is not on.

Ariel from the very start of the movie is shown to have a profound fascination with the human world. Her passion for anthropology is such that she befriended the only bird who'd come near her and avidly listens to him to collect every tidbit of information about humans that she can get.

In the famed song "Part of that World" she sings about how she longs to "ask them my questions and get some answers", which goes to show that she often feels ignored and tossed aside when she expressed curiosity. Her interests don't matter. Her concerns are invalid. (There's a lot of proof of this in the prequel where we see her dad completely ignore her when she tries to make a point about music and how Atlantea should have it.)

She also sings about wanting to be somewhere where "they don't reprimand their daughters", showing once again that she feels scorned and diminished. Powerless.

She doesn't sing about wanting to go to balls and meet dudes to thirst on. She sings about wanting to explore a new world, discover a new culture and - hopefully - better her own fate by going to a place she, although knowing little about it - feels and hopes is more progressive than her world in certain key areas, namely the respect given to young women.

Lo and behold, she sees a mortal man and is infatuated. Saves him. Sings to him. Bonds with him in the throes of danger. This is the first time she is close to the object of her passion - a real live human - and he is fascinating and male and pretty damn fine.

We don't know how much contact Ariel has with merman, but her best friend is a literal fish, her chaperone is a crab and like... do we see Ariel interact with any mermen? Or her sisters? Never. This isn't conclusive evidence but considering how tight a leash Triton tries to keep her on, I honestly wouldn't be shocked if she just plain wasn't allowed to talk to guys - tailed or legged - that were even remotely sexually compatible with her ever. So yeah.

She's out and about unsupervised, saves a hot dude, spends the night high on adrenaline and feeling like a powerful heroine while in the closest proximity she's ever been to a man who isn't her dad EVER... and the night before she'd seen him singing and dancing and being generally good humoured and not a jerk? She is going to fall hard and fast.

That's not a character flaw, okay. I repeat. FALLING IN LOVE ISN'T A CHARACTER FLAW.

It doesn't make her silly or weak or stupid to fall head over heels for a guy who represents everything she finds inspiring in a very short time. It makes her *sixteen*, her canon age, if I'm not mistaken. Hormones are high, mood is lit, guy is attractive. She's going to be attracted. She is going to love him. Love what he represents. Novelty. Freedom. Joy. Adventure.

Most of all, she's going love what he inspires in her: courage, strength, daring. And yeah, beauty and sexiness too.

He makes her feel more powerful than she's EVER felt before and they haven't even spoken yet! Unsurprisingly, she is going to confuse attraction and a feeling of empowerement with "true love", especially if she's never been told she was powerful before.

Ariel has been told she's pretty and sings well and all she's good for is sitting tight in her shell and combing her hair and performing for concerts.

As someone whose father has told them - and I quote - "the only thing I know that you can do well is sing" (ouch...), it smarts okay. It *hurts* to want more and be reduced to your voice. Unsurprising that Ariel didn't see trading it as a big deal.

By the time she goes to see Ursula, she has *saved a man's life* in the middle of a raging storm while the sea was on *fire*. Her chaperone has betrayed her leading to her father disrespecting her one time too many and then *destroyed* her most valuable possessions to "teach her a lesson". She is in love and angry and empowered. And he expects her to what? Go home and fucking *sing*?

Honestly, if Ursula hadn't asked for her voice, she'd probably have offered it up anyways in exchange for one (1) Atlean salt-and-vinegar chip.

So... keep in mind that this is the mindset of the girl who "gave up her world and family for d*ck".

Her dad's a jerk. Her sisters don't share her interest or understand her. Her best friend is a *fish* and just not able to keep up or truly connect with her the way she wishes he could. She is *lonely*. She is young. She is a girl.

And do you know what girls are taught? They're taught that the only thing that will make them feel more powerful than being in love... is being someone's mom. Ariel is too young to care about motherhood. But she is the perfect age to buy the "true love is the most powerful feeling you will ever experience" bullshit hook, line and sinker.

So if she feels empowered around a man? A good looking man at that? Must mean she's madly in love with him.

And see... this narrative... it isn't just Ariel who has it. She has spent *years* passionate about humanity and its culture only to be dismissed, mocked or forbidden to explore her interests at every turn. Her troves, build over years of exploration, is annihilated in *seconds*. Her father has NO respect whatsoever for her desire to learn about humans.

Ariel's true passion: anthropology of humanity is completely invalidated. No one sees it as something of value in this girl, much less something that might empower her enough to seek out the sea witch and give up her tail and voice to pursue. Least of all her.

And yet, it is. I am willing to bet that if she'd gone home after talking to Flotsam and Jetsam, the idea of seeking out the sea witch would have stayed there and within a decade, she'd have gone anyways.

The thing is... the interest of women and girls aren't taken seriously. They're "childish" and "immature" and "unimportant". The most important thing a woman can do is be in a relationship with a man and then a mother, or so we're told. That's why even accomplished career women are seen as having something fundamentally missing if they're single.

My point is... Ariel didn't abandon her family and home to chase after a guy she hadn't even talked to yet.

She abandoned her family and home to chase after a dream she'd had for years. The guy was a side quest that temporarily obsessed her because hormones and also threat of doom via seawitch... but folks. The sheer *delight* on that girl's face during her carriage ride through town is not the face of a woman whose biggest concern in life is getting married. You know... when her life isn't under threat if she doesn't.

What you should be pissed off about isn't that a sixteen year old dared fall in love with a guy who made her feel powerful, even though she didn't know him. And it's not that said sixteen year old was willing to trade the things OTHER PEOPLE told her were her most valuable assets (family that doesn't value her as a person, home she wants to leave, singing ability that has been used to demean her to a useless pretty thing)...

What you should be pissed off about... is that Triton thought it was okay to destroy the trove his daughter worked years towards. Would have NEVER allowed her to trade her legs and voice to go be human just for the sake of learning and enjoying human culture...

But was *blessing* her decision to do just that when framed under the lense "I'm in love with this dude I've know for less than a week and I'm gonna marry him, unfortunately tail's gotta go to make that happen and I'm never coming home ever."

He would have dragged her back kicking and screaming if she'd asked to leave so she could go pursue her passion. No amount of "proving herself worthy" would have made that an okay thing for her to do. But because it's "true love"... sure. Fine. She can go. He's fulfilled his fatherly duties anyways and made sure she's done the most important thing a daughter can do: marry a rich dude.

The moral of this story is...

A. Stop shitting on women for falling in love. It doesn't make them less worthy or their decisions less legitimate.

B. Stop shitting on women for confusing feeling empowered with falling in love when they're told about how amazing and magical the latter is and don't even know the former is exits, a lot of the time.

C. Start shitting on people for giving more legitimacy to the concept of "true love" as a motivator for making huge life changes than they do to shit like "because this thing interests me and I like it a lot and it makes me feel good when I do it". Start shitting on people for making a woman seeking a sense of fulfillment not worth a happy ending unless there's a romance too.

D. Moana was super selfish for wanting to leave her home to go explore even though she had a good family and her island was happy. And that's *okay*. Women are allowed to want things for themselves. They don't exist to please others and pacify their societies. Good on her for saving her village though.

E. Ariel was super selfish for wanting to leave her home to go explore even though her family was arguably much less awesome than Moana's. And that's *okay*. Good on her for meeting a dude she liked, falling for him and making the relationship last and be, as far as Ariel II shows us, a pretty decent one. WOMEN ARE ALLOWED TO WANT ROMANCE and it doesn't make them frivolous, even if they want it more than the "important" shit they're told they should be interested in instead. (Not that Ariel's main interest was romance, btw)

F. Women are allowed to be happy dammit. Be it via romance or career or hobby or academics or all of the above or *none* or other.

Just let women be happy without putting one down in favour of the other and shitting on them.

Ariel is a *great* movie and Ariel is a badass character and she is smart and extremely competent and *brave* and strong and good and anyone who says otherwise is a superficial coward whose forgotten what it feels like to be 16 and disrespected. In this essay I will...

[freakystrashdump]

i guess it would make sense to talk about self-inserts here since this /is/ a self-insert blog. oh and i meant to say this but i didn't have enough characters, but i like cryaotic, too! back when i was younger i will admit i had a self-insert where SI was his younger sister? i was going through a lot of family issues then but it didn't take long for me to stop doing that because that was...odd. i still love the man though, he's still pretty cool ~💜

[cont] but yeah i just get lonely and my imagination runs wild and it’s really funny because my imagination has been my biggest ally (and enemy) since i was a kid. like now whenever i see a villain/monster/character that i really like, my brain just automatically starts working on a self-insert and usually gets most of themselves out in the span of ten minutes. it’s kinda terrifying when you think about it 😅 ~💜

Oh dude, I feel ya, when I was real young, I inserted myself as a sister to some of my fav characters, because yknow wasn’t really that much in to shipping back then and family ties were the strongest tie I knew. 

A lot of younger folk do find a sense of solace in familiar personalities, like with youtubers, it is especially common when it came to creating a safety fantasy of being a sibling of said personality. It happens a lot, but most get over it in time, like you did when you realized it was a weird thing to do.

Tho I never did self insert with IRL people much, something was personally off for me with that concept. The most I would do is draw cute pics with a crush I was having (like the real strong crush I had on Markiplier back in 2015/2016), but it wasn’t a SI thing.

I feel ya on the whole lonely thing, because being an introvert, around the time I did start thinking about romantic partners, it was hard to get in to all of that bcs dating is weird and awkward and your feelings get hurt, so I instead did what you did: imagination running wild and inserting myself in to something familiar and something I could control.

Also, I feel like there is something reassuring and empowering about fantasizing about villains/monsters in particular. Something about these characters that are for the most part depicted as dangerous, selfish, ruthless, inhuman, somehow seeing something special in you, woof, gets me every time. The thought of being special to the point of invoking the love and humanity in someone who lost it so long ago feels…so good.

[darrencrissource]

With a just-wrapped concert tour, new music in the works and an Emmy nod forThe Assassination of Gianni Versace, multitalented University of Michigan grad Darren Criss just might be one of the most versatile performers of his generation—and he’s just getting started.

To television viewers used to seeing Darren Criss belting out pop tunes onGlee, his unsettling, riveting performance as serial killer Andrew Cunanan in Ryan Murphy’s blockbuster series American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace was completely unexpected. One person who wasn’t surprised? Benj Pasek, who studied theater with Criss at the University of Michigan and saw firsthand the seriousness his classmate brought to the craft. On the heels of Criss’ Emmy nomination for best actor in a limited series/TV movie, Pasek (an award-winning songwriter for projects like Dear Evan Hansen and The Greatest Showman) caught up with the 31-year-old Criss in an exclusive chat for Michigan Avenue to talk Penélope Cruz, favorite Chicago dining spots, why he’s a champion of the gay community and the best acting advice he’s ever received.

Benj Pasek: I’m excited to talk to you, Darren—what are we, a week after your Emmy nomination for Versace? I remember when you got your first nomination for music [in 2015 for Glee song “This Time”], but this time it’s for one of the main event categories that everybody’s watching for. It’s thrilling to see you shine up there with those other famous folks in your category. Darren Criss: Thanks, Benj! We have a fun history of anticipating nominations together. I’ve been on that side for you as well, so I’m glad we can share that. What was so validating about that first nomination was that it was for something a lot of people didn’t know I had anything to do with. You know songwriting is a huge part of my creative life. And of course with this one, there’s a lot of eyes on it, and it’s a badge of honor to be included in the category.

BP: Versace received 18 nominations, which is extraordinary. Did you have a sense when you were filming that it was going to catch fire? DC: My mantra is, ‘One hopes for everything but expects nothing.’ I was just happy to be part of the project, which was amazing for myriad reasons. All the boxes were ticked: the people you’re working with; the story itself is interesting; the role is varied and nuanced and complex. This is a role I’ve worked and waited for my entire life. It’s enough just to be a part of that, so one tries not to think of what might happen in the more splashy accolade space because you already feel like you’ve won the lottery.

BP: Obviously, you worked with Ryan Murphy on Glee, but how did the role come to you? DC: and i have talked about this at length both admire versatility range not only in other people work having the opportunity to use different colors on proverbial artist palette. so if you do a project that green look forward next thing can be blue one red others mix two. want bring life forms personalities within yourself. something am deeply indebted ryan for. think he recognizes studied acting as craft take storytelling seriously glad actors writing producing your own stuff good moments they given from people. when arose grateful coach was like right kid made it varsity get there. ready.

BP: The cast of Versace is insane—movie stars like Penélope Cruz, theater luminaries like Judith Light, Edgar Ramirez, Ricky Martin... What was it like working with them? DC: What was nice about this project, especially with Penélope, Edgar andRicky, was that it was a huge deal for all of them. It was Penélope’s first foray into television. It was Edgar’s first American television role and one of Ricky’s first larger roles in a drama of this scale. So it wasn’t just another day at the office for them. If anything, I was sort of the veteran, which was crazy. I had the most history with Ryan; I had spent the most time doing this in terms of shooting a series; I knew the crew and the producers. At this point, a lot of these people are family to me. That made it a lot easier because everybody was excited to be at this party.

BP: Any funny anecdotes from set that no one in the world’s heard yet? DC: Look, our show is very dark, so I think as a defense mechanism for what we were doing, I took it upon myself to be the biggest prankster. Let’s just say, if there was a staircase to fall down or a door to be walked into, I did it. I was the quarterback of the bloopers.

BP: Moving on from Versace: You just finished touring with Lea Michele. DC: It was a good time. I really enjoy live performance. People always ask what I like most, but look: Performing is performing. The main advantage that performing live has is there is a real-time catharsis to what’s happening. So I love being able to go on the road and meet people I’ve never had a chance to interact with. I’m a fan of the more human elements. I’m the worst at texting—you know me, Benj: I just call you even if it’s for the stupidest thing. I always yield to phone calls and I always prefer in-person meetings. So being with Lea and getting to meet all these young people who have grown up with Glee, it’s wonderful to be able to thank people in real time.

BP: You have a lot of connections to Chicago. DC: Chicago is one of my favorite places to eat and drink in the world. Aside from its culinary scene, which is second to none, it has the metropolitan quality of New York and the hominess of the San Francisco I grew up in, but because it’s smack-dab in the middle of the Midwest, it’s populated with wonderful salt-of-the-Earth Midwestern people. So it’s this cocktail of all my favorite things about our country. My artistic background with the city is, having gone to the University of Michigan, I had never really spent time in Chicago before then.

BP: I had never realized how unbelievable Chicago theater is. I remember seeing one of the first out-of-town productions of The Light in the Piazza there, and I became addicted to Chicago theater. DC: There’s this pride in being a Chicago actor. If you’re one of these hardcore guys and gals doing incredible work in Chicago before it moves to New York or elsewhere, that’s a thing. I’ve even pitched buddies of mine like, ‘He’s a Chicago theater guy.” And the casting person is like, ‘Ooh, that’s good.’ It adds cache.

BP: You’re a real actor’s actor in Chicago. DC: And that comes from its rich history in improv, obviously, and the Steppenwolf, the Goodman, Lookingglass and the amazing out-of-town tryouts that happen in Chicago. Being in Michigan, I started going during the summer because I could take the train. Talk about a great way to go to Chicago for the first time. Coming out of Union Station, this old Gothic, amazing, historic station, it’s like, ‘Welcome to Chicago, kid!’ Seeing theater and being around the people working on shows was so inspiring. We founded StarKid in L.A. but moved it to Chicago mainly because it’s a place where independent theater can thrive. After our guys graduated around 2011, we started doing shows, and our first— and this was the last musical I wrote the whole score for, which I miss doing—was Starship. That was during my first season in Glee, and we premiered it at the Center on Halsted in Boystown.

BP: Do you have a favorite restaurant in Chicago? I remember you eating at Girl & the Goat. DC: The West Loop has exploded in the past several years. Soho House is there. Girl & the Goat opened a new restaurant, Duck Duck Goat, that’s also good. My fiancee, Mia, and I—and you’re a partner in it, so thank you for investing in our bar, Benj Pasek— own Tramp Stamp Granny’s in L.A., which is a cocktail club and piano bar. So for the past few years I’ve had a keen interest in the country’s premier cocktail destinations, and one of those is the Aviary, which is a famous high-end mixology bar in the West Loop. I make sure to visit if I can get a ticket. And Chicago has my favorite art museum in the world, the Art Institute. I always make sure to spend some part of my summer in Chicago so I can ride Jet Skis on the lake, go to the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Adler Planetarium, where a lot of my buddies from Michigan work. I make my way down the lake and usually end up at the Chicago Athletic Association for a game of chess, or a couple of beers and a game of pool, because that place is so cool, it’s insane.

BP: Back to the Emmy nomination—you're only the second actor of Asian descent to be nominated in the best actor category. What does that mean to you? DC: I feel fortunate to be part of that history. It’s empowering and encouraging to people who may feel underrepresented, be they mixed or full, whatever ethnicity. When you see some version of yourself acknowledged, certainly in the media, it feels like your home team is winning.

BP: What’s the best piece of advice you ever got about being an actor? DC: The things I remember are more pragmatic, tactical pieces of advice: Know the name of the cameraman. Know your crew. Realize that the creative process, once you start the collaborative process, is a team sport. And everyone’s looking out for each other, or should be at least, and the more you can familiarize yourself with your teammates, the more your team will feel good about passing you the ball.

BP: You have been such a champion of the LGBTQ+ community. How did your involvement in that cause come about? DC: The way I have felt embraced by the LGBTQ community, I think, is the amalgam of so many serendipities throughout my life that I just feel fortunate it’s such a huge part of my identity not only as a person, but as a public person. I consider it sheer providence that a kid from San Francisco who grew up in a very troubled and ultimately resilient time for the gay community, and was raised not at home but backstage in theaters... by these young men and women who were part of that, always gave me a respect and understanding for the gay community in whatever way I could understand it as a young cisgender straight person.

BP: Last question: What’s next for you? DC: My brother and I are working on a batch of songs [for our band, Computer Games], and we’ll hopefully get something out in the next handful of months. We had a great run withVersace, but right now I’m hearing the click, click, click of the roller coaster going up, and I know some exciting new thing is about to happen. We’ll see what acting roles come my way, but one of the things I want to get back to, as I’ve hinted, is to write some kind of new musical soon. I say that now, but I’ll probably get off the phone and get a call and end up doing some random thing I would have never thought of doing. I always keep my receptors open, and as long as the project is interesting, has some significance and is different from the last thing, that’s what I’m into. It’s one of the great blessings and curses of having too many interests—it makes almost everything interesting to me. So, I’m as curious as the next guy.

August 23, 2018

[alka-di-kijarr]

Hunters Journey - 020

Disclaimer. The following part of the hunters journey was connected to my #CallOfThePharah on deviantArt in april2020. English is still not my native language, but I wish you a lot of fun reading the next adventure of Nero, Vaas and all the other hunters.

Vazemi species is a closed species. If you want to get your own, please contact me.

The winner of this design - and so the new owner is - AmCymbelmine

Hunters Journey - 020

“... and that is why Seth decided to keep Gemini, despite its large size and all the other problems that come with this type of creature.” Astonished mumbling filled the air, and Lauriel caught herself smiling about the beast's description Vaas delivered to the young hunters.

Sometimes he made things a lot more funny and sometimes he became dramatic, like when he was telling old legends in the tavern of the headquarters. It felt good to see him cheerful again, knowing that he was awake most of the night, staring into the night sky, as if the stars would know a remedy for his pain.

“For real, how can it be, that people are still allowed to hold wild creatures like Gemini as their pets?! This is not the only story of horrible treatment and torture and it always ends the same way!” Clara surely had made up her mind when it came to this topic, and she wasn’t entirely wrong on this.

“Sometimes we give creatures with a bad past and a better perspective to owners of our choice, in the hope to grant them a peaceful rest of their lifetime. Often enough it worked out well.

One of our biggest supporters, a lady from the northern mountains, pays us a visit once a year to see if we have any nestlings in need of help. Especially those who are sick to a point that we can’t help them anymore.”

“Why would someone buy those creatures in the first place?”

“Well, it is hard to describe, if ya haven’t seen it yarself….”

Lauriel smiled and chimed into the conversation.

“In her view of the world, every creature needs to have a peaceful end of life. That means she cares for them, as good as she can, stays by their side when they die and in her culture they say ‘she cleanses the energy of the fallen, before it touches the Ao again.’ Only this can help to bring and keep the energy of the Ao in balance, and give it a base to build healthy life on again.”

None of the young hunters said something, but Lauriel could see how they all immigrated into their own mind. She knew from her own journey, that some parts of Saigon lived extremely connected to tradition and beliefs, while other parts seemed to lose their connection to any form of roots. Neither of both options was healthy and could end in a well-thriving society, but as long as there was no bigger threat -big enough as that every folk from east to west and north to south would be in serious danger - nothing would manage to bring them onto one table.

“We could maybe open smaller enclosures with less dangerous creatures and invite people to information days.” The hunter with the doubldouble-bladede bladed axe, entirely sunken in his own mind, hadn’t spoken for long. So everyone turned their head and curiously looked into his face, awaiting more information.

“U-uh, I mean, we need people to get along with the creatures, ay? And knowing them would maybe help to prevent misinformation circulating around and people accidentally getting in conflict with them. I think…” He stopped talking, visibly uncomfortable with everyone staring, but the other young fellows nodded.

“That's probably the best idea I have heard in a long time. Why are we not having something like this, Master Vaas?” Vaas raised his eyebrows, as if he would have never thought about an idea similar to this. In fact the hunting guild was mostly old-fashioned and many are obsessed with the pure hate people share for the creatures.

“Might be working, but knowing the creature's attributes could also end up in people trying to hunt them even more, because they would lose their fear to some extent. So, sometimes letting something stay mysterious and dangerous can be helpful too.”

Lauriel could see how some hunters wanted to argue, but found themselves trapped in a small room with the fact that he might be true. Human nature was cruel and egoistic. And egos needed prestige and gold. And both were easy to achieve with the right creatures to catch and the right materials to sell.

“People could even gather them and open up parks with small cages, just for the entertainment of the visitors. Imagine all the creatures which we get called to catch because people don’t dare to, just because they are scared - when in fact they are not dangerous at all. Just imag-”

“Alright, alright. Forget about that! We got the message!” Clara snorted and straightened her back in pain of the hours of riding they already had behind them. Lauriel looked to the axe-wielding hunter and smiled.

“I would still like to tell Seth about your idea. Your way of thinking is exactly what might help us, but Vaas is right too. We would need to prepare for certain kinds of people. And I believe we could achieve that.”

The young hunter nodded, visibly empowered by her words.

“I mean, we could start with small creatures, that can cause no-”

A terrifying scream cut up the air and rolled over the sandy landscape like a thunder in the middle of a silent night.

“- harm.”

“I guess you are talking about something smaller than this one.”

Vaas straightened his back and commanded the group to dismount, pair up and spread. Knowing from what they had been told, Sanddancers were able to break through the ground's surface, wriggling themselves through the dunes of the desert.

The group split up, forming two-party squads to spread out, all while following Vaas’ lead. The old knight knew that a mighty sound like this could also be corrupted by distance, echo and different stone formations like the ones that covered all their way since the very beginning of this fallow kingdom.

So, only based upon the sound of the scream, there was no way to know where the creature would await them. Carefully walking over the sand, he felt how the air got tighter and tighter. There was this sizzling feeling as if electricity was all around him. His own axe in one, and the shield in the other hand, the retired knight walked forward. He only could hope for the others to be ready.

None of them were ready to take the lead, so he had to make the first move, while Nero covered the back end of the group.

Lauriel, her bow ready in hands, watched the sand under her feet, when suddenly the grains started to shiver visibly. She used a whistling noise, which the group had to learn during the long journey. Rule number one, if the creature is not visible, don’t use shouts for communication.

The group spread wider, some climbing on smaller stones. From above, they could see how the entire sandy surface was in motion. Just like the sea. Everything was tense and everyone was on edge already, before one of the youngsters lost his grip on a stone he wanted to climb and fell down into the dusty ocean. The clattering noise of his armour was shortly followed by the explosive sound of the gigantic creature vaulting into the air.

Golden scales, a massive snake-like head with a green wreath of gem-like texture sure rounding it, gleamed in the light of the burning desert sun. The sanddancer snapped at the young hunter, catching his left leg.

The creature flung the poor youngster through the air, throwing him into the empty sky just to catch him again and finally swallow the entire man in one big bite. Panic caught the others, causing them to stand perfectly still in the middle of the action.

“MOVE YA DARN ASSES! Use ya weapons, when it lifts! Aim for the eyes!” Vaas' voice echoed over the place. The sanddancer turned around to pick up speed and broke several of the smaller stone pillars, which the hunters used to stay above the ground.

Soon they tried to run away and find a new stone pillar to crawl onto, but not everyone made it up in time. The creature vanished into the sand, just to burst out of it under their feet shortly after.

Nero had loaded his ballister again and again, aiming for weak points of the sanddancer. There was no coming through. This beast was a moving fortress. He already wanted to jump off from his stone, when Vaas’ voice nearly scared him more than the beast itself.

“Don’t you dare to move from your stone! The sand is its habitat!” Nero growled, but Vaas was right. Feeling helpless to stay where he was, the hunter reloaded another bolt, combined with an explosive crystal. The moment he armed the ballister, aiming for the head of the beast, Nero felt his heart cramping. The sanddancer had stopped his movement, its eyes wide open, staring into a specific direction.

Lauriels head felt as if someone had swung a hammer on it. She was caught by the glare of the beast, her hands shaking, her knees weak. As fast as an arrow, the snake-like beast truly danced over the sand, aiming just for her.

Despite her combat with the black creatures, Lauriel was still not an experienced fighter outside the headquarters. And on top of all the piling stress, memories crawled back into her thoughts. Memories she had thought would be of no matter anymore. Her mind buzzed like a storm, leaving her in awe of the giant storm that was approaching.

The last thing Lauriel saw, was the black mass that had spread over the left side of the creature's head, crawling deeply into its flesh and infesting it. The same dark matter she had seen before. The same scent she had smelled before, in the night of the invasion.

What came next happened so fast, that the young huntress stood no chance to react. She heard someone scream her name, turned her head into the direction, right before a giant blast would kick her off the ground, smashing her onto another stone pillar. Her body remained lifeless on the sandy stone.

Not noticing a single word Vaas was throwing at Nero, he started running. As fast as possible, Nero jumped off the stone pillar and ran. Ran faster then he knew he ever could. The beast was screaming, the right side of its face was burned to the bone. It flinched from one side to the other, giving Nero a short timeframe to reach Lauriel.

Somewhere behind him, Nero could hear Vaas yelling even more orders, and the song of flying bolts, followed by explosions. The scream became louder, more fiercely. But Nero had no chance to watch back, nor to care for the monster that would probably attack another hunter. He only could hope that the others would make it out of its way fast enough. Nero swung Lauriels lifeless body over his remaining healthy shoulder and sprinted away, seeking for cover. The place was surrounded by sand dunes, only the stone pillars could spend cover - in the middle of the battlefield. Nero actively decided against his instinct and ran up one of the dunes.

Vaas - in pure disbelief - saw his youngster climbing a sandy mountain and the sanddancer turning his head yet again to chase the fleeing hunter. Vaas grabbed his axe and jumped off the stone ledge. Bundling all his might he started to yell at the sanddancer, slamming his axe onto his shield and causing enough noise to get its attention. The other hunters either joined Vaas, when not equipped with distance weapons, or used the time to reload.

Nero reached the sand dune and threw his view back to the others. Lauriel was still unconscious. Carefully laying her down beside a dried-out tree, Nero's heart was racing as fast as never before. He has torn apart between staying beside her in case the creature would move here, and joining the others trying to beat it.

It was Vaas' terrified gaze that suddenly alerted him, as he realized his friend was not looking at the sanddancer but at him. Nero felt how the surrounding air cooled down and a shadow crawled over him. In shock, he did not try to move a muscle, even as the devastating smell of rotten flesh pushed into his nose.

A deep growl arose from something huge standing right behind him. The young hunter saw how enormous claws appeared beside him. Not a single sound was to be heard as if the sand obeyed its movement. Nero felt his heart collapsing, Lauriel still half in his arms, when his view turned up and found this colossal dragon standing right above him. Fabric hang down from his body, the skin textured like badly aged paper. Thin, revealing some pulsating veins full of ...magic? The dragon opened its mouth and a slowly rising roar overrode the active battlefield.

The sanddancer, burned on several pieces of its body, tilted its head, growling. A few heartbeats passed and nothing happened, when all out of a sudden the dragon unfolded its wings, leaping with surprising power directly into the sandpit.

What followed now would probably enter the history books of the hunting guild as the first documented apex territory fight between two myths. Nero's ears hurt, as the snake and the dragon clustered in their fight, crawling and hissing, smashing each other onto the ground.

Vaas nearly screamed his lungs out, trying to bring the others to safety. More and more of the hunters fled to Neros position or arrived at the top of other sand dunes. The young hunter was still unable to losen his eyes from the scenery, when suddenly a voice beneath him called his name.

“Lauriel...you are awake, by the gods.”

“Nero,..the sanddancer. The sanddancer is infected.” Nero frowned, but still tried to see what Lauriel could mean. But the two giants were clustered up so tightly, that it took him some time to find the spot.

"What will we do now?” Clara, out of breath appeared close to Vaas who was walking to Nero and Lauriel.

“We can’t do shit. Look at them! Look at this fucking monstrous critters!” The knight, pale as a sheet of paper taped onto Lauriels shoulder.

“Are ya alright?!” She nodded, but Vaas was already up on his feet again, diving between the different hunters, checking on them, while never letting go of the battlefield with one eye.

Suddenly a sound echoed up to the sand dunes, which crawled through bone and marrow. The dragon had pinned the head of the sanddancer while his mighty jaws bite right into the denuded throat. It took only a few moments until the sanddancer went limp.

“What is it doing now?” another hunter asked, in terror of what he saw.

“It drains the Sanddancer.”

“W-what do you mean, bookworm?”

“It drains the energy from the body,...to nourish itself.”

Unable to process what the archivist was telling them, Nero stared at the sand dancer. Its colours were fading, while its body dried out and crumbled apart. Just moments later the winner of the fight raised his view, looking up to the hunters and released another mighty roar, before he took off and flew away.

“W-what have I seen?”

“I-I am not sure.”

“I thought Zarukais are the only draconic things walking over Saigon.”

“I thought they were faking it for the sake of the impression…” Nero heard the mumbling voices, but his head was still spinning. Leaving Lauriel for a short moment to Clara, he arose and threw a view over the group. They had been fifteen hunters, but according to what he could see now, only eight were left. Somewhere in his heart Nero felt the anger rising.

The sanddancer was only a myth, yes, but so were many creatures until hunters found them and acknowledged their existence. And here they were, decimated by nearly half. A group of a few new hunters, together with a retired knight and a hunter that was still not entirely back on track.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to scream, cry or punch his fists into someone's face, but the moment he wanted to say something to Clara, she nodded into the direction behind him.

“Oh, not again...what kind of monster is it this time. Give me a damn break, I already had a...dragon...today?!” Nero turned, his mimic shifting from exhausted and pissed to surprised and alerted. He stared into the faces of three hands full of soldiers. According to their skin colour and their clothing, probably residents of the desert kingdom.

Nero felt how the others behind him grouped together, some weapons reflected in the sunlight. But the opposition remained calm.

“You will follow.”

[marketingadvisorvietnam]

LGBT troupes set Saigon stages alight with cabaret-bingo shows

Marketing Advisor đã viết bài trên http://www.ticvietnam.vn/lgbt-troupes-set-saigon-stages-alight-with-cabaret-bingo-shows-13/

LGBT troupes set Saigon stages alight with cabaret-bingo shows

A popular cultural entertainment event presented by LGBT people mocks social evils often, but it is not officially recognized.

A group of gay and transwomen are making up, but this is not your typical drag queen show. Their cabaret act incorporates a form of bingo, which is popular in this country.

The members of Huong Nam loto troupe are in a room on the second floor at Kasa Café, District 10, HCMC, immersed in their usual weekly pre-show routines. 

Some focus on drawing precise brush lines on their cheeks, others rehearse while putting on foundation, and there is non-stop banter. They are all gay men or transwomen, and they pitch their deep voices higher and their body language is overtly feminine. 

The two oldest performers, Nga (mirror in hand, left) and Phung (to her left) are getting dolled up for the show and so is a young performer sitting on stage. He will be the only one going up on stage with a pixie cut.  

Bingo or loto, as it is called in Vietnam, is especially popular in the southern countryside.

The Huong Nam troupe chooses a different theme for every show. Before the performance, they sell to the audience a paper with a jumble of bingo numbers for VND10,000 or $0.43 each. The performers then sing songs based on the theme of that day’s show – acoustic or ballad night, for instance – interspersed with the bingo numbers.

The audience listens attentively to the lyrics and crosses out the numbers the performers call out. The person with the winning number is called to the stage and given a gift. The process is then repeated.

In France, the game is known as le lotto (or loto). In Germany, this game (called tombola) was used in the 19th century as an educational tool to teach children math, spelling and even history.

Loto originated in the 16th century as the Italian game of bingo, which then spread to England, France and other parts of Europe in the 18th century. It came to Vietnam with the French in the 19th century. Those were also its heydays, especially in the southwestern provinces, when everyone played it during the Lunar New Year festival.

SuSu, leader of the Huong Nam troupe, told VnExpress International: “Bingo or loto performances initially involved just traditional music. They would play traditional instruments like the drum and flute. Today, modern music has been added.”

In southwestern rural areas, troupes would simply find a vacant spot and set up a loto stage and perform. City-based troupes like Huong Nam (meaning Scent of the South) mainly perform in cafés, public fairs or stadiums.

The amount of work and creativity that goes into each show is enormous since it is hard enough to engage the audience with just the performance. Putting random numbers into the music is much harder.

Back in the ‘green room,’ the artists make fun of each other’s attractive and not-so-attractive features, but also empower each other. The camaraderie and affection are palpable.

Rising millennial

“Slim” Little Tu, as everyone in the troupe endearingly calls the chubby 20-year-old, is the youngest performer in the group. Tu has been in loto for two years. But he already boasts an impressive CV: he played a supporting role in “TransViet Laugh”, a stars-only version of Vinh Long Television’s popular comedy reality show and has been on “Ganh Hat Ngan Hoa”, Vietnam’s first ever TV loto show.

Describing himself as “peculiarly unattractive,” Little Tu says other intriguing things too.

“My parents have come to see me perform a couple of times. My mom is very proud of me. One time she posted a picture of me dressed up as a woman on Facebook with the caption ‘My dear son’.” He wondered with a giggle how people reacted to that post.

As he spoke, the banter continued.

“Do I look like a girl now?” he asked after the last brush of powder.

“You look like a girl even without makeup,” the makeup artist responded.

When asked about his romantic interest, he said: “I go with my emotions. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a boy or girl.”

Yumi, 27, has been a loto artist for seven years. She came to Saigon from An Giang Province in the Mekong Delta five months ago.

“I came across loto by chance; there was a loto group near my house,” she said.

“I have artistic blood in me, so I accompanied the group. At first I was just a ticket seller, but one day they were short of performers and asked me to audition. My interest in loto began then.”

She also sells stuff on social media for some extra income.

Like any struggling artist, she was unable to make ends meet at first. She used to get paid VND60,000 (less than $3) for a night’s performance. She makes VND500,000-600,000 ($21.40 – $25.70) now.

“When I was learning how to do this, I had to go to an Internet café and download music on my phone to learn the songs. I didn’t have easy access to the Internet.”

Yumi’s parents were not happy with her decision at first. For a change in Vietnam, she is referring to her job rather than gender or sexual orientation: “My mother wanted me to have a steady job like teaching. But then once they saw I’m destined to be a loto performer, they approved and encouraged me.”

Revered senior loto artists

While the youngest artist is relaxed about the show coming up, the two oldest performers are not. They are meticulously rehearsing their lines, improvising, accompanied by the guitarist. They debate when to hit a high note and when to stress the lyrics, and jot down the changes on crib sheets.

Nga is one of them.

With a background in reformed theater (cai luong), she has been a performing artist for 30 years, and doing loto for over 20. She was swept off her feet by a group of male loto artists playing the song lang, a percussion instrument used in traditional music.

That was the moment that marked her switch to loto from traditional folk music.

She says: “I first performed loto in Tay Ninh city [in the southwestern]. And then I went all the way to the north and back to perform.

“There was a hiatus after a while when loto performances with traditional music was not as popular and it fizzled out. Then troupes formed by young people brought life back to the loto scene and people started to be curious about it again. One of them is Huong Nam. They invited me to join, and here I am.”

Nga and Phung, the other senior, were first invited to be guest performers, but they decided to stay after taking a great liking to the group members.

Nga continues: “I was planning to be a guest performer, but then I began to adore the Huong Nam loto artists and their stories and how they are dedicated to the craft and willing to listen and learn from their seniors.”

Nga’s family – parents and other relatives – attends her shows when they can.

“Because I’m like this, I can’t have a family of my own,” she says, gesturing at herself with her eyes. She identifies herself as a woman without revealing her sexual orientation.

In all her years in the business Nga has thought the biggest challenge as a loto artist is getting recognition and respect, especially from officials.

The art of loto is received positively by audiences and often employed as a tool to ridicule social evils. However, it has not been officially recognized for several reasons, including possibly its LGBT links.

The late Professor Tran Van Khe once said: “Loto is not purely entertainment but also meets the demand for cultural enjoyment of the Vietnamese, thereby contributing to transmitting and preserving proverbs, idioms, folk songs which are considered cultural heritages and preventing them from dying out.”

Khe, a revered icon on the musical landscape, was a musicologist and an honorary member of UNESCO’s International Music Council.

Trans or not

Linh Anh (sitting, right) is fully supported by her partner.

“My family knew I was a girl. They encouraged me to be true to myself. When I was 18, my mom asked whether I wanted to get a wife.

It was clearly a rhetorical question because her mother already knew the answer. “I want to BE a wife, I told her.”

When she is not singing Loto on stage, Linh Anh is a student at the HCMC Dance School majoring in choreography and gives dance lessons to kids in elementary and middle schools.

The 27-years-old hugely admires transpeople who have undergone surgery, some of whom are her fellow performers in Huong Nam. 

Boi Nhi (sitting, left) is a favorite performer of Huong Nam troupe. When she is not busy with loto, Nhi also works as a freelance actress and health consultant at My Home Clinic, an LGBTQI-friendly clinic.

At an LGBT event hosted by the U.S. Consulate General in August, she said that hormones used by transgender individuals are not regulated in Vietnam. “Transgenders like me who use these hormones are not protected by law,” Nhi said. Homosexuals who want to become transgenders often look up to those who have already had sex reassignment surgery and seek their advice on hormone use, the actress said.

“We have no idea what these pills contain. Because the Ministry of Health does not inspect and supervise these hormone pills, we as transgenders have to resort to advice from successfully transgendered people for medical advice and support so that we can eventually find ourselves just like they did,” Nhi said.

“I seriously cannot go through what they went through. But I’m a woman anyway, so I don’t feel the need to have surgery. Besides, I like to transform myself and make others eager to see my transformation. If I have surgery, I won’t have that ability,” Linh Anh added.

Unlike many other 20s-something artists, she cannot sing modern music. “I am trained in cai luong (reformed theater), so I try to do contemporary dance to cai luong music.”

After everyone puts on their best dress and completes their rehearsal, they go backstage. Yumi prays to the tutelary gods of the arts before every show, a spiritual practice that is believed to sustain the artists during their performance.

Individual performers walk out to the stage and bow to and wave at the audience gracefully as the host introduces each of them as if it were a pageant. The audience greets them with raucous cheers.

Yumi and some of the others sell loto tickets to the audience, walking down the aisles between chairs, running into many obvious regulars.

About a decade ago loto tickets were only VND1,000-2,000 each. At Kasa café, a ticket is VND10,000  ($0.43) and there are people who buy many tickets.

The show begins.

In the art’s heydays, Loto artists performed around the clock across the country. They dived into the heat of melodies and chants to the cheers of the audience, mostly farmers and children.

In a modern show, the audience members are from all walks of life and of all age groups. Every five minutes or so there is resounding laughter as the artists make a joke amidst a song or stage a comedy skit.

A kid in the audience, eyes wide, asks loudly: “Why are those men wearing dresses? It’s so weird!”

His father admonishes him: “Don’t say that. They are women.” 

Story by Sen 

Photos by Thanh Nguyen

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[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

Bryce Dallas Howard on Fertility Struggles and How a New Zealand Healer Helped Her Conceive (Exclusive)

Bryce Dallas Howard was just 5 when she awoke in Queenstown, New Zealand, and gazed out enormous windows into a stunning, awe-inspiring vista. Accompanying her father, director Ron Howard, while he filmed Willow, she was wowed by her first glimpse into a world outside her American homeland, and the powerful moment would stay with her for years to come. But little did the wide-eyed youngster realize that the nation would one day have a profound impact on her journey into motherhood.

In a revealing new interview with ET, the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom star is opening up about the health struggles she faced in her 20s and how the country helped her start a family, find solace and make a life-changing decision to leave Hollywood.

Born in Los Angeles to director Ron Howard and writer Cheryl Alley, Howard was educated on the East Coast, going to school in Connecticut and New York and later attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She eventually returned to Los Angeles after her film career took off following her debut in 2004’s The Village.

It was at New York University where she met actor Seth Gabel, whom she would date for five years before the two got married in 2006. Soon after getting engaged, the couple found themselves facing major hurdles with their family dreams. “I was really struggling and having some challenges,” Howard says. “I learned that I was going to need minor surgery in order to conceive. Then my friend had an appointment with a New Zealand man, Papa Joe, who would come over once a year and stay in this incredible house in Topanga Canyon, where he and his folks would heal people. I was sharing my woes with my friend and she said, ‘They’re leaving tomorrow, you should take my appointment!’”

The late Maori elder was a well-respected healer who traveled throughout the U.S. and Europe helping people and released a book in 2006 about his spiritual methods. Howard took the opportunity, but walked in with doubts about how much his practices could help her. Yet, within seconds of arriving, she recalls feeling the “powerful” nature of his practice.

“Instantly, without me saying anything, he saw what was going on and explained the situation,” Howard recalls. “He did very physical, rigorous body work, and there was a midwife there who helped me breathe through the experience.”

Howard and Gabel married on June 17, and seven days later, Howard learned she was pregnant. “We weren’t even trying! His session healed me completely,” she says.

Shortly afterward, Howard attended her first midwife appointment and noticed a photo of Papa Joe on the wall, only to find out that he had died six months earlier. “I was so grateful that I got to be a part of that last group of people who were treated by him. I’ve always felt a great amount of indebtedness and thankfulness,” Howard says, revealing that when she returned to New Zealand 30 years after her first visit to film Pete’s Dragon, “I kept thinking, ‘I would love to visit the group to say thank you, even though Papa Joe is gone.’”

While staying at the Treetops Lodge in Rotorua for her 34th birthday, Howard, now a mother of two, signed up to get a Romiromi massage, a holistic Maori body treatment. “I was telling the Maori gentleman my story, and as soon as I said, ‘Papa Joe,’ he just lit up and went, ‘My teacher!’” she recalls. It turned out that Papa Joe had trained him. “It’s funny how I was 24 when he treated me and this encounter was on my 34th birthday, 10 years later.”

While Howard is eternally grateful for the healing rituals of the country’s native Maori people, her joy was temporarily jolted to a halt with the unexpected turbulence that swept through her life after welcoming her son, Theo, in 2007. The Black Mirror star has openly discussed her battle with severe post-natal depression and, in a blog written for Goop  in 2010, she shared how she “heaved uncontrollable sobs,” referred to her newborn as “it,” greeted Gabel with expletive-filled outbursts and frequently broke down in the shower during her first 18 months of motherhood.

Reflecting on the emotional roller coaster and irony of having struggled on her path to having a baby, only to plunge into depression once she did, Howard says she frequently felt like her mind was playing tricks on her. “It was the worst! You think the one thing you’re going to be able to control in life, to a certain extent, is your own feelings, especially when it’s so obvious what you should feel. But all of a sudden, I went through this experience, which was truly chemical. It absolutely changed everything, and it’s just horrifying. It’s like your heart, your body and your mind are ripped apart and it takes a while to piece it back together.”

Eventually, a homeopathic treatment plan, a mothers’ group and Brooke Shields’ memoir Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression helped her recover. “It’s been a journey, but I’m really lucky because I had a second pregnancy [with daughter, Beatrice] where I didn’t experience that, so that was also very healing for me,” Howard says.

The biggest lesson from the ordeal has been to give herself timeouts. “When I think back about what I would have done differently [while suffering with PND], I would have given myself time and space to be alone and process and have some perspective, whether that’s 10 minutes in the bathroom -- well, it shouldn’t just be 10 minutes in the bathroom, but that’s what it ends up being!” Howard says.

Bryce Dallas Howard seen in front of the Tāne Mahuta, a giant kauri tree in the Waipoua Forest of New Zealand.

Julian Apse

“In a way, that’s what New Zealand has felt like for me and for a lot of people I talk to,” continues the actress, who was named New Zealand Tourism Ambassador to the United States and Canada in 2017. “You get that moment to step out of the fray, good or bad, and be in a place where you’re nurtured, replenished and brought back to your center. Every single time I’ve gone there, I’ve felt totally restored. It’s a very healing part of the world and there’s just a lot of people who live there who are very happy -- and that’s infectious!”

It was while living in dreamy spots like Mount Maunganui, during filming of Pete’s Dragon, that Howard started noticing a shift in her children, which instigated her and Gabel’s recent decision to leave Hollywood. Theo was almost 7 and Beatrice was 3 when the family left behind a Californian winter to wake up to summer in the South Pacific. “Right off the bat, the kids were like, ‘What kind of magic is happening here?’”

Quickly becoming immersed in Kiwi life, the impact of their new environment became evident as the family settled into their new seaside home, where the children soaked up “tropical summer living,” and attended a local school. The family relocated to a farm in the South Island town of Tapanui, near Dunedin, where they reveled in country life and relished every inch of expansive open spaces.

Having spent her childhood running around the woods of Connecticut, Howard was frequently sentimental about her own youth. “Both environments we lived in were very different, yet the similarity was that connection to nature and that sense of being in a sanctuary. They just became wild, happy, fulfilled kids, who were tired and dirty at the end of the day. It sounds overly simplistic, but I felt that they were safe -- so then they felt safe. And that feeling really empowered them as young people to explore, have adventures, walk a little further out of the yard than they normally would, climb a tree and follow through with curiosity.”

With her kids being closer to nature than they had ever been before, Howard encouraged them to be free. “It woke them up and made them excited to go outside,” she says. “That’s something they haven’t let go of, and seeing them in that environment hugely inspired us to move out into the country, because I saw how much they blossomed.” Now back in the United States, the family left Los Angeles for upstate New York, where they’re now living in the countryside.

Of course, it’s the dinosaurs stomping into theaters in June that many fans are most excited about, and having reprised her role as Claire in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Howard promises the film will wow in a way the franchise never has before. “There’s something happening on Isla Nublar putting all the dinosaurs’ lives in jeopardy and Claire and Owen go to save them. The story really goes in a direction where the franchise has never gone before -- ultimately, taking these dinosaurs off the island.”

While she's tight-lipped about plot details, Howard did admit that Claire is sporting more appropriate footwear in the new installment, which is even better for outrunning dinosaurs. But what really prepared the actress for all that intense filming and dino-chasing were extensive hikes in New Zealand. “My favorite active thing to do is to hike. It’s not just about keeping fit and preparing for the film; for me, it’s also about de-stressing. When I’m hiking, it gets me back to a very grounded, healthy, centered place,” Howard says.

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Watch Bryce Dallas Howard Grill Dad Ron Howard About Surprise Cameos in 'Solo' (Exclusive)

Bryce Dallas Howard Just May Be the Happiest Person in Hollywood (Exclusive)

[radthursdays]

#RadThursdays Roundup 07/27/2017

A dream-like, hallucinogenic image of the Trump family morphed into Muppet parts. The image was generated with DeepDream, a piece of software that uses a neural network to find and enhance patterns in images, “dreaming” strange features into existence based on how the network was trained. Source.

Democracy Sure Is Great

Against Bluexit: “The appropriate question to such a proposal isn’t whether or not it’s legal, but rather what it says about the state of American liberalism when prominent proponents start co-opting the anti-poor rhetoric of the Right to beat on their political opponents and declare they’re essentially giving up trying to affect any political change in whole swaths of the country.”

Bafflersplainer: Win the Future: “Mark Pincus is the co-founder of Zynga, your grandmother’s favorite video game publisher. Reid Hoffman is co-founder of LinkedIn, a networking website that’s harder to escape than a Scientology outpost buried underneath a gulag. These tech visionaries decided they’d had enough of business as usual in politics, put their brains together, and created an exciting new group called Win The Future. Its mission is to influence the Democratic party platform and assist the #Resistance. If you’re skeptical of this project, keep these facts in mind: People in tech are smarter than you are; disruption makes everything better; everybody loves winning; the internet is the future; and the group is called Win the Future. Enough said.”

Why Obamacare Repeal Won’t Die: "Liberals and the left like to highlight the 22 million people who will lose health insurance over ten years, and in recent months they especially like to point out that among those who will be deprived of coverage are many Trump supporters in Appalachia, who may now be rethinking their commitment to the GOP. That’s all true, but Republican strategists also know that the overwhelming proportion of those losing health insurance, especially among Medicaid recipients, are low-income minority people who are either Democratic voters anyway or are simply unlikely to vote. And while reporters and academics like to highlight the white working-class folks who will be deprived of Medicaid in Southern Ohio or Eastern Kentucky, the typical low-income Medicaid client is much more likely to be a Latino family living in East L.A. or an African-American family on the South Side of Chicago. Both districts are already solidly Democratic and therefore irrelevant to the political calculus of GOP strategists worried about 2018 or 2020."

An image of the face of a biometric tracking corporation executive, intended to be turned into a mask and worn in public for anonymity. Source.

Technology

You Can Encrypt Your Face: “You can, in fact, encrypt your face, and your bodies. The more people who do it, the better it works. Although putting a mask on in public on a regular basis is impractical, physically anonymizing yourself in public spaces should become commonsense for navigating contentious political events. The New Inquiry has come up with a novel approach to do this. We’ve devised an algorithm that has culled the faces from 130 executives at leading biometric corporations around the world and transformed them into masks for you to print out and wear. Since they’ve chosen to profit by face-snatching the rest of us, we figured that we would resist by doing the same in reverse.”

Developing Dissident Knowledges: Geert Lovink on the Social Media Abyss: “Our relationship with the internet seems to be on its way to becoming something very similar to the later years of the Soviet Union. The Spanish sociologist Cesar Rendueles formulates this concern when questioning the capacities of technology to guarantee a plural and open space: 'the network ideology has generated a diminished social reality', he claims on his essay Sociophobia: Political Change in the Digital Utopia. Lovink shares the 'healthy scepticism' of Rendueles when elaborating what we could call an 'Internet critical theory'. In Social Media Abyss, he inaugurates the post-Snowden era — 'the secular version of God is Dead'— as the beginning of a general disillusionment with the development of the internet: now we can say that the internet 'has become almost everything no one wanted it to be'. But even though we know that everything we do online may be used against us, we still click, share and rate whatever appears on our screen. Can we look at the future with optimism? Or are we too alienated, too precarized, too desocialized (despite being constantly 'connected') to design alternatives? In the words of Lovink, 'what is citizen empowerment in the age of driver-less cars'?”

Yi-Fei Chen with her 2016 graduation design project, "Tear Gun". She wears the tear gun, a device with a silicon cup balanced under the eye which collects tears that flow into a brass gun. The tears are frozen using a nitrogen cartridge at the front of the gun, and can then be fired at will. Source.

Bodies

Larry Clark’s Teenage Lust, and My Own: “For the first time, I forced myself to pay attention to the boy in the photo. Though the image is black and white, the boy comes across as tan, with sandy hair. His chest is hairless and strong, with ropey muscles rippling over his stomach. Turned toward the girl, his face is hidden from the viewer. We can’t see what it is he’s feeling. The boy’s not performing for us; he doesn’t have to. Without seeing his face, we can believe his feelings are less messy than hers.”

The Tangled World of Bodies: "Daaya Kukafka begins her debut novel, Girl in Snow, by asking her readers to look at a dead female body. Despite how it sounds, it’s actually common, our societal default, to view a female primarily as a physical object, to neglect her humanness and see instead 'her shoulder blades and how they framed her naked spine, like a pair of static lungs,' as one of the novel’s narrators says of the fifteen-year-old Lucinda Hayes. Kukafka attempts to subvert preconceptions, principally of what is expected of the thriller genre, but succeeds more pointedly in destabilizing the biases toward illegal immigration, mental illness, law enforcement, and presentations of sexuality sewn into our country’s fabric."

Waiting on a Bright Moon: "The body arrives during the second refrain. It slaps on the receiving dial with the wet sound of rendered flesh, and the processing officer, a young woman fresh from the originworld, screams."

Graffiti on the side of a house depicts a person sullenly reaching up to clean a window with a squeegee. The window is covered with stars and planets, as if reflecting a night sky. Darkness is left in the wake of the squeegee, erasing the image of the night sky. By graffiti artist muretz. Source.

Issues

What happened when Walmart left: "In West Virginia, the people of McDowell County can’t get jobs, and recently lost their biggest employer – the local Walmart store. They describe the devastating loss of jobs, community and access to fresh food."

From Alt Right to Alt Lite: Naming the Hate: "In just one year, the alt right has gone from relative obscurity to being one of the United States' most visible extremist movements. This stratospheric rise is due in large part to the rhetoric employed during the 2016 presidential campaign, which granted implicit approval to the once-taboo hallmarks of the far right – overt racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, misogyny, and anti-Muslim bigotry. The alt right capitalized on the moment by amplifying those messages while loudly rejecting mainstream conservatism and its followers (often referred to as 'cucks'). You can’t discuss the alt right without mentioning the 'alt lite,' a loosely connected movement of right-wing activists who reject the overtly white supremacist ideology of the alt right, but whose hateful impact is more significant than their 'lite' name suggests. The alt lite embraces misogyny and xenophobia, and abhors 'political correctness' and the left."

An old newspaper headline reads, "Women Anarchists Have Become The Terror of World's Police: Their Daring Crimes Are Said to Have Outstripped the Deeds of Brothers of the Red". Text below it says, "Search for the Woman is Becoming a Safe Rule in Crimes Proceeding From Anarchistic Violence—The Guardians of the World Nearly Always Find a Woman Implicated When a Ruler is Stricken Down—Emotional Women Lose Sense of Fear." Source.

Activism

Revolution in Our Lifetime: Black Cartoonists on Life Under Trump: Comics by Ben Passmore, Shannon Wright, Chris Kindred, Bianca Xunise, Keith Knight, Whit Taylor, and Ronald Wimberly.

[CW: Gore] Know Your Rights: “Strategically, an appeal to human and constitutional rights is appropriate and necessary in the J20 cases. But as reactionary anti-protest repression heightens across the country, we do well to understand the risks and limits of a response framed by a rights discourse, which would only honor the rights of an individual to assemble in a manner deemed “peaceful” by the state.”

When Organizers Are Professionals: “Organizing has become a profession. To rebuild a radical, emancipatory class politics, we have to reckon with that professionalization.”

Direct Action Item

Support Trans People But Not the Military.

A tweet by @urbanfriendden: “Carl Jung coined several archetypes of the subconscious self: the masculine ‘animus’, the feminine ‘anima’, and the gender neutral ‘anime’”. Source.

If there’s something you’d like to see in next week’s #RT, please send us a message.

In solidarity!

What is direct action? Direct action means doing things yourself instead of petitioning authorities or relying on external institutions. It means taking matters into your own hands and not waiting to be empowered, because you are already powerful. A “direct action item” is a way to put your beliefs into practice every week.

[artsaveslivesinternational]

Sumayyah Talibah

Sumayyah Talibah, 37, from Michigan, in the USA – is a poet and jewellery artisan, who has chosen to write a poem for ASLI on discrimination in the USA. We are honoured to have Sumayyah’s voice in our 4th issue on discrimination, privilege and stigmatisation.

Here is our interview:

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I am a Black woman from Detroit, Michigan who is an artist, wife, and mother.

What is your artistic/creative background?

I started writing at a very young age, completing my first “book” by age 8. I switched to poetry for years. I am also completely self-taught in the art of bead and wire jewellery.

What motivated you to deal with your chosen submission subject?

The current political climate (in the United States), while not new, is appalling and “in your face” following the campaign and election of our current Head of State. The things I personally experience, and the documented experiences of others, makes me wary, afraid, and angry.

danger

hands up laid down car stalled traffic stop cigarette in my hand leather wallet in my pants piece of fabric on my hair danger danger everywhere can’t walk can’t jog can’t pray can’t play can’t get enough clean water to get me through the day i’m a thug bringing terror i’m a welfare queen i’m the living legacy of the wished to be forgotten memory of misdeeds school to prison pipeline major sentence lesser crime handcuffed locked in inner city sanctioning i’m a long term prisoner of your blasted lies ripping right on through your rotted broken dream disguise my blood is flowing in the streets don’t you care? danger danger everywhere

– Sumayyah Talibah © 2017 January 24

What is your process when creating?

I listen to a lot of music, but so often, my art springs up, fully formed, from a random thought or news article. Typically, I just turn on a music streaming site, pick a station/playlist, then pick up my pen, my [jewellery] tools, or open a blank document on my computer, and let it flow. Also, tea. Tea helps.

Who are you influenced by within your artistic discipline?

For poetry, my biggest influences came from poets like Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, and Maya Angelou.

Who inspires you in general?

My ancestors, and those on the front lines in the struggle today.

What causes and world issues are you passionate about, campaign for, volunteer for…?

I am all for the advancement of marginalised peoples. I don’t follow/campaign for any specific organisations.

What do the statements “art saves lives” and “art creates change” mean to you?

So much art is borne from struggle, from pain. I believe that art is both an outlet of inner turmoil and a medium of processing the world at large. Artists are the forerunners of revolutions because we put into emotions into words and pictures and connect people’s hearts.

Have your artistic and creative outlets saved your life in anyway and do you think your message within them could help create change in the world?

My art, specifically my poetry, has saved my life for sure. I was once asked “why do you write?” and my answer was/still is “to clear the noise in my head.” I can only hope that my words will reach the people who need them.

What are your present and future goals for your art?

Having a poem in an international publication is a start, lol. I hope to write more, to create more works of poetry, to return to writing speculative fiction, hopefully in the form of a completed novel, and to make jewellery that is high is demand.

Have you experienced any form of discrimination; and if so what was it based on and how did you deal with this?

I have experienced discrimination for being short, for being fat, for being Black, for being a (once) practising Muslim, for being disabled.. I internalise a lot, especially as an adult. When I was younger, sometimes I’d let my fists speak for me. As a teen/young woman, I wrote heavily.

What are your opinions on what causes discrimination?

Fear. Fear causes hate. People fear what they do not understand, and what it possibly says about them.

What do you do to actively stand against discrimination and have you ever had to intervene as a witness to it?

I serve as a witness and sometime mouthpiece. I offer resources for education. The biggest thing I do is teach my children how to not be a**holes.

What are your opinions on labels and stereotypes?

Stereotypes come from somewhere, but are often just propaganda. Labels are technically a necessity for identification, as they help folks find like-minded people. In an ideal world, none of it would matter.

What are your opinions on national identity and in your opinion does nationalism create or deter discrimination?

Nationalism forces conformity, in my opinion, because a large part of it ignores intersectionality. It causes internal conflict when opinions and lived experiences don’t match up.

What social privileges do you have? For example: are you white, able bodied/minded, a man, rich, heterosexual, thin… etc.

Hahahaha. Sorry. I’m pretty much the opposite of what most people would consider socially privileged. I’m a short, fat, Black, non-Christian, disabled woman. I have a few passing privileges, but I correct those pretty quickly.

What social privileges of others around you have you experienced and how did this privilege of others affect you?

I’ve watched people receive faster, better service, such as in shops and restaurants. I’ve been reprimanded while watching other people walk away without censure.

How does social privilege affect our world in your opinion?

Our world is largely based on money being the great equaliser, though that isn’t entirely true, because rich people of colour still lose out against their white counterparts.

Have you ever denied your own privilege due to feelings of guilt or misunderstanding?

I have little enough of it that when next to someone who is more marginalised than myself, I do feel guilty for having more. However, that gives me the chance to help someone else.

Do you feel social privilege should be taught at school and if so why and how young?

Social privilege is taught at school, no matter what anyone thinks. It may not be an official subject in the curriculum, but children DO learn it, and quickly. Do I think schools should combat the hierarchy and teach kids how not to be a**holes? Yeah, that’d be great, but it always starts at home.

Have you ever experienced social stigmatisation and if so what was it based on and how did you deal with this?

I was largely a loner in my more formative years so I don’t know. I’ve always had friends. I was never part of the “in” crowd, but I didn’t want to be, so…

Have you ever contributed to the stigmatisation of any individual or group, and if so were you aware you did this and how did you deal with this aftermath?

When we’re young, we do silly things to follow the crowd. I, for the most part, didn’t. I worked with everyone, I talked to everyone. I’ve been known to smile at the people everybody hated.

What are your opinions on political powers and world leaders using stigmatisation against certain groups to further their own agendas, such as with Muslims, Black people, LGBTQ individuals, mentally ill and disabled people?

If there was space for you to hear me rage scream, I’d do it. I think it’s ridiculous. Intersectionality is a thing. Using your examples, I personally know Black Muslims who are LGBTQ and disabled, so.. yeah. It’s ridiculous. Just stop. We’re not going away.

Do you support or take part in any anti-stigma organisations or charities and if so which ones and why?

I share lots of articles and fundraisers and have probably contributed to some. I honestly don’t keep track of the organisations I follow because there are so many. I’m not exactly a card-carrying member of anything these days, so maybe that’s a “no”?

In your own words please tell us how you feel the arts and creativity can further help to empower, communicate and educate people with regards to discrimination, privilege and stigmatisation?

Artists translate emotion into words, image, sound, movement. We tell stories. We make people feel things. We are the ones people turn to when they hurt, when they burn, when they rage. They read our poems, sing our songs, make banners and t-shirts of our photos and paintings. We connect people’s hearts.

If you would like to know more about Sumayyah and support her work or purchase some of her beautiful jewellery – please follow these links:

  Website  – sumayyahsaidso.com Instagram – instagram.com/sumayyahsaidso Facebook – facebook.com/sumayyahsaidso

To purchase Jewellery by Sumayyah Talibah please visit her shop by following this link:

Shop

Jewellery by Sumayyah Talibah

Jewellery by Sumayyah Talibah

Jewellery by Sumayyah Talibah

Jewellery by Sumayyah Talibah

Jewellery by Sumayyah Talibah

If you have any feedback on this article please fill in the contact form below:

[contact-form] Sumayyah Talibah uses poetry to stand against discrimination in today’s political climate Sumayyah Talibah, 37, from Michigan, in the USA - is a poet and jewellery artisan, who has chosen to write a poem for ASLI on discrimination in the USA.

[marketingadvisorvietnam]

LGBT troupes set Saigon stages alight with cabaret-bingo shows

Marketing Advisor đã viết bài trên http://www.ticvietnam.vn/lgbt-troupes-set-saigon-stages-alight-with-cabaret-bingo-shows-2/

LGBT troupes set Saigon stages alight with cabaret-bingo shows

A popular cultural entertainment event presented by LGBT people mocks social evils often, but it is not officially recognized.

A group of gay and transwomen are making up, but this is not your typical drag queen show.

Their cabaret act incorporates a form of bingo, which is popular in this country.

The members of Huong Nam loto troupe are in a room on the second floor at Kasa Café, District 10, HCMC, immersed in their usual weekly pre-show routines. 

Some focus on drawing precise brush lines on their cheeks, others rehearse while putting on foundation, and there is non-stop banter. They are all gay men or transwomen, and they pitch their deep voices higher and their body language is overtly feminine. 

The two oldest performers, Nga (mirror in hand, left) and Phung (to her left) are getting dolled up for the show and so is a young performer sitting on stage. He will be the only one going up on stage with a pixie cut.  

Bingo or loto, as it is called in Vietnam, is especially popular in the southern countryside.

The Huong Nam troupe chooses a different theme for every show. Before the performance, they sell to the audience a paper with a jumble of bingo numbers for VND10,000 or $0.43 each. The performers then sing songs based on the theme of that day’s show – acoustic or ballad night, for instance – interspersed with the bingo numbers.

The audience listens attentively to the lyrics and crosses out the numbers the performers call out. The person with the winning number is called to the stage and given a gift. The process is then repeated.

In France, the game is known as le lotto (or loto). In Germany, this game (called tombola) was used in the 19th century as an educational tool to teach children math, spelling and even history.

Loto originated in the 16th century as the Italian game of bingo, which then spread to England, France and other parts of Europe in the 18th century. It came to Vietnam with the French in the 19th century. Those were also its heydays, especially in the southwestern provinces, when everyone played it during the Lunar New Year festival.

SuSu, leader of the Huong Nam troupe, told VnExpress International: “Bingo or loto performances initially involved just traditional music. They would play traditional instruments like the drum and flute. Today, modern music has been added.”

In southwestern rural areas, troupes would simply find a vacant spot and set up a loto stage and perform. City-based troupes like Huong Nam (meaning Scent of the South) mainly perform in cafés, public fairs or stadiums.

The amount of work and creativity that goes into each show is enormous since it is hard enough to engage the audience with just the performance. Putting random numbers into the music is much harder.

Back in the ‘green room,’ the artists make fun of each other’s attractive and not-so-attractive features, but also empower each other. The camaraderie and affection are palpable.

Rising millennial

“Slim” Little Tu, as everyone in the troupe endearingly calls the chubby 20-year-old, is the youngest performer in the group. Tu has been in loto for two years. But he already boasts an impressive CV: he played a supporting role in “TransViet Laugh”, a stars-only version of Vinh Long Television’s popular comedy reality show and has been on “Ganh Hat Ngan Hoa”, Vietnam’s first ever TV loto show.

Describing himself as “peculiarly unattractive,” Little Tu says other intriguing things too.

“My parents have come to see me perform a couple of times. My mom is very proud of me. One time she posted a picture of me dressed up as a woman on Facebook with the caption ‘My dear son’.” He wondered with a giggle how people reacted to that post.

As he spoke with VnExpress International, the banter continued.

“Do I look like a girl now?” he asked after the last brush of powder.

“You look like a girl even without makeup,” the makeup artist responded.

When VnExpress International asked about his romantic interest, he said: “I go with my emotions. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a boy or girl.”

Yumi, 27, has been a loto artist for seven years. She came to Saigon from An Giang Province in the Mekong Delta five months ago.

“I came across loto by chance; there was a loto group near my house,” she said.

“I have artistic blood in me, so I accompanied the group. At first I was just a ticket seller, but one day they were short of performers and asked me to audition. My interest in loto began then.”

She also sells stuff on social media for some extra income.

Like any struggling artist, she was unable to make ends meet at first. She used to get paid VND60,000 (less than $3) for a night’s performance. She makes VND500,000-600,000 ($21.40 – $25.70) now.

“When I was learning how to do this, I had to go to an Internet café and download music on my phone to learn the songs. I didn’t have easy access to the Internet.”

Yumi’s parents were not happy with her decision at first. For a change in Vietnam, she is referring to her job rather than gender or sexual orientation: “My mother wanted me to have a steady job like teaching. But then once they saw I’m destined to be a loto performer, they approved and encouraged me.”

Revered senior loto artists

While the youngest artist is relaxed about the show coming up, the two oldest performers are not. They are meticulously rehearsing their lines, improvising, accompanied by the guitarist. They debate when to hit a high note and when to stress the lyrics, and jot down the changes on crib sheets.

Nga, one of them, is getting dolled up for the show.

With a background in reformed theater (cai luong), she has been a performing artist for 30 years, and doing loto for over 20. She was swept off her feet by a group of male loto artists playing the song lang, a percussion instrument used in traditional music.

That was the moment that marked her switch to loto from traditional folk music.

She says: “I first performed loto in Tay Ninh city [in the southwestern]. And then I went all the way to the north and back to perform.

“There was a hiatus after a while when loto performances with traditional music was not as popular and it fizzled out. Then troupes formed by young people brought life back to the loto scene and people started to be curious about it again. One of them is Huong Nam. They invited me to join, and here I am.”

Nga and Phung, the other senior, were first invited to be guest performers, but they decided to stay after taking a great liking to the group members.

Nga continues: “I was planning to be a guest performer, but then I began to adore the Huong Nam loto artists and their stories and how they are dedicated to the craft and willing to listen and learn from their seniors.”

Nga’s family – parents and other relatives – attends her shows when they can.

“Because I’m like this, I can’t have a family of my own,” she says, gesturing at herself with her eyes. She identifies herself as a woman without revealing her sexual orientation.

In all her years in the business Nga has thought the biggest challenge as a loto artist is getting recognition and respect, especially from officials.

The art of loto is received positively by audiences and often employed as a tool to ridicule social evils. However, it has not been officially recognized for several reasons, including possibly its LGBT links.

The late Professor Tran Van Khe once said: “Loto is not purely entertainment but also meets the demand for cultural enjoyment of the Vietnamese, thereby contributing to transmitting and preserving proverbs, idioms, folk songs which are considered cultural heritages and preventing them from dying out.”

Khe, a revered icon on the musical landscape, was a musicologist and an honorary member of UNESCO’s International Music Council.

Trans or not

Linh Anh (sitting, right) is fully supported by her partner.

“My family knew I was a girl. They encouraged me to be true to myself. When I was 18, my mom asked whether I wanted to get a wife.

It was clearly a rhetorical question because her mother already knew the answer. “I want to BE a wife, I told her.”

When she is not singing Loto on stage, Linh Anh is a student at the HCMC Dance School majoring in choreography and gives dance lessons to kids in elementary and middle schools.

The 27-years-old hugely admires transpeople who have undergone surgery, some of whom are her fellow performers in Huong Nam. 

Boi Nhi (sitting, left) is a favorite performer of Huong Nam troupe. When she is not busy with loto, Nhi also works as a freelance actress and health consultant at My Home Clinic, an LGBTQI-friendly clinic.

At an LGBT event hosted by the U.S. Consulate General in August, she said that hormones used by transgender individuals are not regulated in Vietnam. “Transgenders like me who use these hormones are not protected by law,” Nhi said. Homosexuals who want to become transgenders often look up to those who have already had sex reassignment surgery and seek their advice on hormone use, the actress said.

“We have no idea what these pills contain. Because the Ministry of Health does not inspect and supervise these hormone pills, we as transgenders have to resort to advice from successfully transgendered people for medical advice and support so that we can eventually find ourselves just like they did,” Nhi said.

“I seriously cannot go through what they went through. But I’m a woman anyway, so I don’t feel the need to have surgery. Besides, I like to transform myself and make others eager to see my transformation. If I have surgery, I won’t have that ability,” Linh Anh added.

Unlike many other 20s-something artists, she cannot sing modern music. “I am trained in cai luong (reformed theater), so I try to do contemporary dance to cai luong music.”

After everyone puts on their best dress and completes their rehearsal, they go backstage. Yumi prays to the tutelary gods of the arts before every show, a spiritual practice that is believed to sustain the artists during their performance.

Individual performers walk out to the stage and bow to and wave at the audience gracefully as the host introduces each of them as if it were a pageant. The audience greets them with raucous cheers.

Yumi and some of the others sell loto tickets to the audience, walking down the aisles between chairs, running into many obvious regulars.

About a decade ago loto tickets were only VND1,000-2,000 each. At Kasa café, a ticket is VND10,000  ($0.43) and there are people who buy many tickets.

The show begins.

In the art’s heydays, Loto artists performed around the clock across the country. They dived into the heat of melodies and chants to the cheers of the audience, mostly farmers and children.

In a modern show, the audience members are from all walks of life and of all age groups. Every five minutes or so there is resounding laughter as the artists make a joke amidst a song or stage a comedy skit.

A kid in the audience, eyes wide, asks loudly: “Why are those men wearing dresses? It’s so weird!”

His father admonishes him: “Don’t say that. They are women.” 

Story by Sen 

Photos by Thanh Nguyen

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[marketingadvisorvietnam]

LGBT troupes set Saigon stages alight with cabaret-bingo shows

Marketing Advisor đã viết bài trên https://www.ticvietnam.vn/lgbt-troupes-set-saigon-stages-alight-with-cabaret-bingo-shows/

LGBT troupes set Saigon stages alight with cabaret-bingo shows

A popular cultural entertainment event presented by LGBT people mocks social evils often, but it is not officially recognized.

A group of gay and transmen are making up, but this is not your typical drag queen show.

Their cabaret act incorporates a form of bingo, which is popular in this country.

The members of Huong Nam loto troupe are in a room on the second floor at Kasa Café, District 10, HCMC, immersed in their usual weekly pre-show routines. 

Some focus on drawing precise brush lines on their cheeks, others rehearse while putting on foundation, and there is non-stop banter. They are all gay men or transwomen, and they pitch their deep voices higher and their body language is overtly feminine. 

The two oldest performers, Nga (mirror in hand, left) and Phung (to her left) are getting dolled up for the show and so is a young performer sitting on stage. He will be the only one going up on stage with a pixie cut.  

Bingo or loto, as it is called in Vietnam, is especially popular in the southern countryside.

The Huong Nam troupe chooses a different theme for every show. Before the performance, they sell to the audience a paper with a jumble of bingo numbers for VND10,000 or $0.43 each. The performers then sing songs based on the theme of that day’s show – acoustic or ballad night, for instance – interspersed with the bingo numbers.

The audience listens attentively to the lyrics and crosses out the numbers the performers call out. The person with the winning number is called to the stage and given a gift. The process is then repeated.

In France, the game is known as le lotto (or loto). In Germany, this game (called tombola) was used in the 19th century as an educational tool to teach children math, spelling and even history.

Loto originated in the 16th century as the Italian game of bingo, which then spread to England, France and other parts of Europe in the 18th century. It came to Vietnam with the French in the 19th century. Those were also its heydays, especially in the southwestern provinces, when everyone played it during the Lunar New Year festival.

SuSu, leader of the Huong Nam troupe, told VnExpress International: “Bingo or loto performances initially involved just traditional music. They would play traditional instruments like the drum and flute. Today, modern music has been added.”

In southwestern rural areas, troupes would simply find a vacant spot and set up a loto stage and perform. City-based troupes like Huong Nam (meaning Scent of the South) mainly perform in cafés, public fairs or stadiums.

The amount of work and creativity that goes into each show is enormous since it is hard enough to engage the audience with just the performance. Putting random numbers into the music is much harder.

Back in the ‘green room,’ the artists make fun of each other’s attractive and not-so-attractive features, but also empower each other. The camaraderie and affection are palpable.

Rising millennial

“Slim” Little Tu, as everyone in the troupe endearingly calls the chubby 20-year-old, is the youngest performer in the group. Tu has been in loto for two years. But he already boasts an impressive CV: he played a supporting role in “TransViet Laugh”, a stars-only version of Vinh Long Television’s popular comedy reality show and has been on “Ganh Hat Ngan Hoa”, Vietnam’s first ever TV loto show.

Describing himself as “peculiarly unattractive,” Little Tu says other intriguing things too.

“My parents have come to see me perform a couple of times. My mom is very proud of me. One time she posted a picture of me dressed up as a woman on Facebook with the caption ‘My dear son’.” He wondered with a giggle how people reacted to that post.

As he spoke with VnExpress International, the banter continued.

“Do I look like a girl now?” he asked after the last brush of powder.

“You look like a girl even without makeup,” the makeup artist responded.

When VnExpress International asked about his romantic interest, he said: “I go with my emotions. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a boy or girl.”

Yumi, 27, has been a loto artist for seven years. She came to Saigon from An Giang Province in the Mekong Delta five months ago.

“I came across loto by chance; there was a loto group near my house,” she said.

“I have artistic blood in me, so I accompanied the group. At first I was just a ticket seller, but one day they were short of performers and asked me to audition. My interest in loto began then.”

She also sells stuff on social media for some extra income.

Like any struggling artist, she was unable to make ends meet at first. She used to get paid VND60,000 (less than $3) for a night’s performance. She makes VND500,000-600,000 ($21.40 – $25.70) now.

“When I was learning how to do this, I had to go to an Internet café and download music on my phone to learn the songs. I didn’t have easy access to the Internet.”

Yumi’s parents were not happy with her decision at first. For a change in Vietnam, she is referring to her job rather than gender or sexual orientation: “My mother wanted me to have a steady job like teaching. But then once they saw I’m destined to be a loto performer, they approved and encouraged me.”

Revered senior loto artists

While the youngest artist is relaxed about the show coming up, the two oldest performers are not. They are meticulously rehearsing their lines, improvising, accompanied by the guitarist. They debate when to hit a high note and when to stress the lyrics, and jot down the changes on crib sheets.

Nga, one of them, is getting dolled up for the show.

With a background in reformed theater (cai luong), she has been a performing artist for 30 years, and doing loto for over 20. She was swept off her feet by a group of male loto artists playing the song lang, a percussion instrument used in traditional music.

That was the moment that marked her switch to loto from traditional folk music.

She says: “I first performed loto in Tay Ninh city [in the southwestern]. And then I went all the way to the north and back to perform.

“There was a hiatus after a while when loto performances with traditional music was not as popular and it fizzled out. Then troupes formed by young people brought life back to the loto scene and people started to be curious about it again. One of them is Huong Nam. They invited me to join, and here I am.”

Nga and Phung, the other senior, were first invited to be guest performers, but they decided to stay after taking a great liking to the group members.

Nga continues: “I was planning to be a guest performer, but then I began to adore the Huong Nam loto artists and their stories and how they are dedicated to the craft and willing to listen and learn from their seniors.”

Nga’s family – parents and other relatives – attends her shows when they can.

“Because I’m like this, I can’t have a family of my own,” she says, gesturing at herself with her eyes. She identifies herself as a woman without revealing her sexual orientation.

In all her years in the business Nga has thought the biggest challenge as a loto artist is getting recognition and respect, especially from officials.

The art of loto is received positively by audiences and often employed as a tool to ridicule social evils. However, it has not been officially recognized for several reasons, including possibly its LGBT links.

The late Professor Tran Van Khe once said: “Loto is not purely entertainment but also meets the demand for cultural enjoyment of the Vietnamese, thereby contributing to transmitting and preserving proverbs, idioms, folk songs which are considered cultural heritages and preventing them from dying out.”

Khe, a revered icon on the musical landscape, was a musicologist and an honorary member of UNESCO’s International Music Council.

Trans or not

Linh Anh (sitting, right) is fully supported by her partner.

“My family knew I was a girl. They encouraged me to be true to myself. When I was 18, my mom asked whether I wanted to get a wife.

It was clearly a rhetorical question because her mother already knew the answer. “I want to BE a wife, I told her.”

When she is not singing Loto on stage, Linh Anh is a student at the HCMC Dance School majoring in choreography and gives dance lessons to kids in elementary and middle schools.

The 27-years-old hugely admires transpeople who have undergone surgery, some of whom are her fellow performers in Huong Nam. 

Boi Nhi (sitting, left) is a favorite performer of Huong Nam troupe. When she is not busy with loto, Nhi also works as a freelance actress and health consultant at My Home Clinic, an LGBTQI-friendly clinic.

At an LGBT event hosted by the U.S. Consulate General in August, she said that hormones used by transgender individuals are not regulated in Vietnam. “Transgenders like me who use these hormones are not protected by law,” Nhi said. Homosexuals who want to become transgenders often look up to those who have already had sex reassignment surgery and seek their advice on hormone use, the actress said.

“We have no idea what these pills contain. Because the Ministry of Health does not inspect and supervise these hormone pills, we as transgenders have to resort to advice from successfully transgendered people for medical advice and support so that we can eventually find ourselves just like they did,” Nhi said.

“I seriously cannot go through what they went through. But I’m a woman anyway, so I don’t feel the need to have surgery. Besides, I like to transform myself and make others eager to see my transformation. If I have surgery, I won’t have that ability,” Linh Anh added.

Unlike many other 20s-something artists, she cannot sing modern music. “I am trained in cai luong (reformed theater), so I try to do contemporary dance to cai luong music.”

After everyone puts on their best dress and completes their rehearsal, they go backstage. Yumi prays to the tutelary gods of the arts before every show, a spiritual practice that is believed to sustain the artists during their performance.

Individual performers walk out to the stage and bow to and wave at the audience gracefully as the host introduces each of them as if it were a pageant. The audience greets them with raucous cheers.

Yumi and some of the others sell loto tickets to the audience, walking down the aisles between chairs, running into many obvious regulars.

About a decade ago loto tickets were only VND1,000-2,000 each. At Kasa café, a ticket is VND10,000  ($0.43) and there are people who buy many tickets.

The show begins.

In the art’s heydays, Loto artists performed around the clock across the country. They dived into the heat of melodies and chants to the cheers of the audience, mostly farmers and children.

In a modern show, the audience members are from all walks of life and of all age groups. Every five minutes or so there is resounding laughter as the artists make a joke amidst a song or stage a comedy skit.

A kid in the audience, eyes wide, asks loudly: “Why are those men wearing dresses? It’s so weird!”

His father admonishes him: “Don’t say that. They are women.” 

Story by Sen 

Photos by Thanh Nguyen

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[marketingadvisorvietnam]

LGBT troupes set Saigon stages alight with cabaret-bingo shows

Marketing Advisor đã viết bài trên http://www.ticvietnam.vn/lgbt-troupes-set-saigon-stages-alight-with-cabaret-bingo-shows/

LGBT troupes set Saigon stages alight with cabaret-bingo shows

A popular cultural entertainment event presented by LGBT people mocks social evils often, but it is not officially recognized.

A group of gay and transmen are making up, but this is not your typical drag queen show.

Their cabaret act incorporates a form of bingo, which is popular in this country.

The members of Huong Nam loto troupe are in a room on the second floor at Kasa Café, District 10, HCMC, immersed in their usual weekly pre-show routines. 

Some focus on drawing precise brush lines on their cheeks, others rehearse while putting on foundation, and there is non-stop banter. They are all gay men or transwomen, and they pitch their deep voices higher and their body language is overtly feminine. 

The two oldest performers, Nga (mirror in hand, left) and Phung (to her left) are getting dolled up for the show and so is a young performer sitting on stage. He will be the only one going up on stage with a pixie cut.  

Bingo or loto, as it is called in Vietnam, is especially popular in the southern countryside.

The Huong Nam troupe chooses a different theme for every show. Before the performance, they sell to the audience a paper with a jumble of bingo numbers for VND10,000 or $0.43 each. The performers then sing songs based on the theme of that day’s show – acoustic or ballad night, for instance – interspersed with the bingo numbers.

The audience listens attentively to the lyrics and crosses out the numbers the performers call out. The person with the winning number is called to the stage and given a gift. The process is then repeated.

In France, the game is known as le lotto (or loto). In Germany, this game (called tombola) was used in the 19th century as an educational tool to teach children math, spelling and even history.

Loto originated in the 16th century as the Italian game of bingo, which then spread to England, France and other parts of Europe in the 18th century. It came to Vietnam with the French in the 19th century. Those were also its heydays, especially in the southwestern provinces, when everyone played it during the Lunar New Year festival.

SuSu, leader of the Huong Nam troupe, told VnExpress International: “Bingo or loto performances initially involved just traditional music. They would play traditional instruments like the drum and flute. Today, modern music has been added.”

In southwestern rural areas, troupes would simply find a vacant spot and set up a loto stage and perform. City-based troupes like Huong Nam (meaning Scent of the South) mainly perform in cafés, public fairs or stadiums.

The amount of work and creativity that goes into each show is enormous since it is hard enough to engage the audience with just the performance. Putting random numbers into the music is much harder.

Back in the ‘green room,’ the artists make fun of each other’s attractive and not-so-attractive features, but also empower each other. The camaraderie and affection are palpable.

Rising millennial

“Slim” Little Tu, as everyone in the troupe endearingly calls the chubby 20-year-old, is the youngest performer in the group. Tu has been in loto for two years. But he already boasts an impressive CV: he played a supporting role in “TransViet Laugh”, a stars-only version of Vinh Long Television’s popular comedy reality show and has been on “Ganh Hat Ngan Hoa”, Vietnam’s first ever TV loto show.

Describing himself as “peculiarly unattractive,” Little Tu says other intriguing things too.

“My parents have come to see me perform a couple of times. My mom is very proud of me. One time she posted a picture of me dressed up as a woman on Facebook with the caption ‘My dear son’.” He wondered with a giggle how people reacted to that post.

As he spoke with VnExpress International, the banter continued.

“Do I look like a girl now?” he asked after the last brush of powder.

“You look like a girl even without makeup,” the makeup artist responded.

When VnExpress International asked about his romantic interest, he said: “I go with my emotions. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a boy or girl.”

Yumi, 27, has been a loto artist for seven years. She came to Saigon from An Giang Province in the Mekong Delta five months ago.

“I came across loto by chance; there was a loto group near my house,” she said.

“I have artistic blood in me, so I accompanied the group. At first I was just a ticket seller, but one day they were short of performers and asked me to audition. My interest in loto began then.”

She also sells stuff on social media for some extra income.

Like any struggling artist, she was unable to make ends meet at first. She used to get paid VND60,000 (less than $3) for a night’s performance. She makes VND500,000-600,000 ($21.40 – $25.70) now.

“When I was learning how to do this, I had to go to an Internet café and download music on my phone to learn the songs. I didn’t have easy access to the Internet.”

Yumi’s parents were not happy with her decision at first. For a change in Vietnam, she is referring to her job rather than gender or sexual orientation: “My mother wanted me to have a steady job like teaching. But then once they saw I’m destined to be a loto performer, they approved and encouraged me.”

Revered senior loto artists

While the youngest artist is relaxed about the show coming up, the two oldest performers are not. They are meticulously rehearsing their lines, improvising, accompanied by the guitarist. They debate when to hit a high note and when to stress the lyrics, and jot down the changes on crib sheets.

Nga, one of them, is getting dolled up for the show.

With a background in reformed theater (cai luong), she has been a performing artist for 30 years, and doing loto for over 20. She was swept off her feet by a group of male loto artists playing the song lang, a percussion instrument used in traditional music.

That was the moment that marked her switch to loto from traditional folk music.

She says: “I first performed loto in Tay Ninh city [in the southwestern]. And then I went all the way to the north and back to perform.

“There was a hiatus after a while when loto performances with traditional music was not as popular and it fizzled out. Then troupes formed by young people brought life back to the loto scene and people started to be curious about it again. One of them is Huong Nam. They invited me to join, and here I am.”

Nga and Phung, the other senior, were first invited to be guest performers, but they decided to stay after taking a great liking to the group members.

Nga continues: “I was planning to be a guest performer, but then I began to adore the Huong Nam loto artists and their stories and how they are dedicated to the craft and willing to listen and learn from their seniors.”

Nga’s family – parents and other relatives – attends her shows when they can.

“Because I’m like this, I can’t have a family of my own,” she says, gesturing at herself with her eyes. She identifies herself as a woman without revealing her sexual orientation.

In all her years in the business Nga has thought the biggest challenge as a loto artist is getting recognition and respect, especially from officials.

The art of loto is received positively by audiences and often employed as a tool to ridicule social evils. However, it has not been officially recognized for several reasons, including possibly its LGBT links.

The late Professor Tran Van Khe once said: “Loto is not purely entertainment but also meets the demand for cultural enjoyment of the Vietnamese, thereby contributing to transmitting and preserving proverbs, idioms, folk songs which are considered cultural heritages and preventing them from dying out.”

Khe, a revered icon on the musical landscape, was a musicologist and an honorary member of UNESCO’s International Music Council.

Trans or not

Linh Anh (sitting, right) is fully supported by her partner.

“My family knew I was a girl. They encouraged me to be true to myself. When I was 18, my mom asked whether I wanted to get a wife.

It was clearly a rhetorical question because her mother already knew the answer. “I want to BE a wife, I told her.”

When she is not singing Loto on stage, Linh Anh is a student at the HCMC Dance School majoring in choreography and gives dance lessons to kids in elementary and middle schools.

The 27-years-old hugely admires transpeople who have undergone surgery, some of whom are her fellow performers in Huong Nam. 

Boi Nhi (sitting, left) is a favorite performer of Huong Nam troupe. When she is not busy with loto, Nhi also works as a freelance actress and health consultant at My Home Clinic, an LGBTQI-friendly clinic.

At an LGBT event hosted by the U.S. Consulate General in August, she said that hormones used by transgender individuals are not regulated in Vietnam. “Transgenders like me who use these hormones are not protected by law,” Nhi said. Homosexuals who want to become transgenders often look up to those who have already had sex reassignment surgery and seek their advice on hormone use, the actress said.

“We have no idea what these pills contain. Because the Ministry of Health does not inspect and supervise these hormone pills, we as transgenders have to resort to advice from successfully transgendered people for medical advice and support so that we can eventually find ourselves just like they did,” Nhi said.

“I seriously cannot go through what they went through. But I’m a woman anyway, so I don’t feel the need to have surgery. Besides, I like to transform myself and make others eager to see my transformation. If I have surgery, I won’t have that ability,” Linh Anh added.

Unlike many other 20s-something artists, she cannot sing modern music. “I am trained in cai luong (reformed theater), so I try to do contemporary dance to cai luong music.”

After everyone puts on their best dress and completes their rehearsal, they go backstage. Yumi prays to the tutelary gods of the arts before every show, a spiritual practice that is believed to sustain the artists during their performance.

Individual performers walk out to the stage and bow to and wave at the audience gracefully as the host introduces each of them as if it were a pageant. The audience greets them with raucous cheers.

Yumi and some of the others sell loto tickets to the audience, walking down the aisles between chairs, running into many obvious regulars.

About a decade ago loto tickets were only VND1,000-2,000 each. At Kasa café, a ticket is VND10,000  ($0.43) and there are people who buy many tickets.

The show begins.

In the art’s heydays, Loto artists performed around the clock across the country. They dived into the heat of melodies and chants to the cheers of the audience, mostly farmers and children.

In a modern show, the audience members are from all walks of life and of all age groups. Every five minutes or so there is resounding laughter as the artists make a joke amidst a song or stage a comedy skit.

A kid in the audience, eyes wide, asks loudly: “Why are those men wearing dresses? It’s so weird!”

His father admonishes him: “Don’t say that. They are women.” 

Story by Sen 

Photos by Thanh Nguyen

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