#my favourite fashionable italian genius

[strangeremembrances]

[spacedikut]

“would you please put your tongue away” ; spencer reid

pairing: spencer reid (criminal minds) x f!reader

summary: spencer can’t handle how good you look in your dress. he also can’t handle another guy asking you to dance. 2760 words

a/n: taken from this prompt list :)

“…It’s highly inappropriate.”

Someone waves a hand in front of Spencer’s face and he’s brought back to reality �� surrounded by people from every FBI department in a far too bright room with champagne that is certainly not worth the amount it costs and in a suit that is a little too tight.

“What?” He asks.

“I said,” Derek grins, “Would you please put your tongue away.”

Spencer raises an eyebrow at that, “My tongue is firmly in my mouth, Morgan.”

Derek gives a scoff. He wishes Emily was with them to attest, but she’s across the room, beside you, stuck in a conversation with some “important” person that Hotch made a point to tell the team to suck up to.

“If Y/N can’t feel your stare burning a hole in her back, when she turns and sees you drooling she’s sure to know you’re obsessed with her.”

In panic, Spencer wipes his mouth just in case he is in fact drooling. That gets a hearty laugh from Derek, and Spencer huffs indignantly, “I am not obsessed-“

“When you saw her all dressed up earlier you had to leave the room, Reid. That isn’t a platonic reaction.”

“Well,” He stutters, glancing over to you and scanning your bare back, “She looks- she-“

“She took your breath away, man. It’s okay.” Derek gives him a pat on the back and smirks at him, coughing to cover a chuckle when Spencer glares at him.

“And who is this majestic being that took Doctor Reid’s breath away?” It’s you, Prentiss and JJ trailing behind, delicately holding a champagne flute in your left hand and a business card in your right.

Spencer flounders, taken off-guard by your approach and the close-up view of you in your dress. He doesn’t know much about fashion, let alone dresses, but God do you look like something straight out of a movie. To him, you’re the embodiment of all the love poems and romantic monologues that his mother used to read him. He always wondered what the beauty all those writers saw looked like, and if he’d ever see something so celestial, and then you walked into his life.

He’ll never recover. Especially when you keep reminding him how perfect you are.

“Someone’s been networking,” Derek nods to the business card, noticing Spencer’s struggle and swooping in to save him. Derek loves to tease Spencer, it’s his favourite thing to do, but there’s always a time and a place, you know?

You fiddle with the card, “A little pretentious, but he mentioned having some paperwork trouble and I offered to help. I thought if I got in his good graces he’d help us keep the jet.”

Just then, the band at the back of the charity event plays a slow tune, everyone coupling up to head to the dancefloor. Before you or Spencer can react, Derek is dragging Emily away and JJ goes to find Will, but not before all three of them send some kind of subtle gesture to Spencer – Derek winks, Emily raises her eyebrows and looks between you and Spence, and JJ nudges him as she passes.

Spencer’s entire body locks up. He can’t do this. Whatever this is.

When he doesn’t move, you offer him your hand, “Would you care to dance, Doctor Reid?”

His body eases and he can’t help but smile because you’re you, “It would be an honour, Miss Y/N,” He laughs, gently wrapping his fingers around yours.

You tug him onto the outskirts of the floor – being in the centre is both of your worst nightmares – and Spencer’s other hand falls to the small of your back, pulling you close. You’re chest to chest, your arm falling in place around his shoulders, but even with heels on he’s still got some height on you. You sway to the music in perfect sync, like you’ve done this a million times, and your eyes subconsciously close from the comfort of being in Spencer’s arms and the feel of him against you.

You concentrate on your feet for a few beats, too shy to look him in his clear, brown eyes. When you finally look up to meet his gaze, you can’t help the soft smile that appears. He’s already looking at you.

Spencer returns it, smile equally as fond.

The lights of the room reflect in his eyes – it’s as if they’re twinkling, like stars, and it’s utterly mesmerising. For a second, you forget you’re at a fundraiser event, on business, surrounded by your team and people from all departments and all positions. You feel like you’ve been whisked away to some faraway land, maybe somewhere that isn’t filled with killers and evil, and you and Spencer are lovers simply enjoying the night and eachother’s company.

“You look beautiful,” Spencer whispers, as if he doesn’t want anyone else to hear you. You wonder if he feels the same way you do.

“Thank you. I was waiting for you to compliment me.” You tease.

“Oh? Does my compliment mean that much?”

You giggle nervously. You love when he teases you back, when he has this confidence that always surprises you.

“More than I’d like to admit,” You say, “But I did also spend all day getting ready, so I want my hard work appreciated.”

“Well,” Spencer swallows, eyes flickering to your collarbones and neck and everywhere on you, “Consider your hard work appreciated. Not just by me, either. I think I’ve got a lot of glares being shot at me right now.”

You break eye contact to survey the room. There’s definitely a good number of people staring at you, but you refuse to believe they’re all jealous of him. He looks dashing in his suit, hand-picked by Rossi himself, and you know you’re not the only one to notice. You see the beauties dotted around that keep checking him out.

Another ballad begins so Spencer keeps you close. He scans the side of your face, how your nose peaks and the makeup you’re wearing illuminates all of your features. He’s hopeless at makeup, too, but the colour of your eyeshadow(?) suits you perfectly. You always look perfect, he realises. Being ethereal comes naturally to you.

“Excuse me,” A voice interrupts.

Both of you snap towards him. Travis.

Travis works in.. a department. A stupid one, probably. Spencer thinks Travis sucks.

“Hi, Trav,” You smile. You like Travis – of course you do. You’ve known him longer than you’ve known Spencer, so how does Spencer stand a chance?

“Evening, Y/N. Evening, Spencer.” He gives a polite smile.

Spencer returns it with his jaw set.

“Could I steal you for a dance, Y/N? Just like during our graduation ball?” His eyes are hopeful, and Spencer looks at in you confusion. What graduation ball?

You agree shyly, “Sure, Trav. Is that okay, Spence?”

He doesn’t know why you’re asking him – you both know Spencer’s too socially awkward to say no. So he nods, gives a tight lipped smile, and sharply turns to walk straight towards the bar. He doesn’t want to see Travis gently grasp your hand and pull you close, just like he had done.

But he’s not jealous.

“Water, please.” Spencer says to the bartender.

Someone slides up beside him. He glances at the shoes – Italian leather – and he knows it’s Rossi. He’s standing with a whiskey in his hand and a pitying gaze.

Spencer takes a big gulp from his glass of water like it’s a shot of straight vodka.

“You know he’s gonna make a move on her.” Rossi announces. Spencer takes another gulp.

“What?”

“I overheard him and his friends. They were in the academy together, and after seeing her tonight he’s decided now it’s time to make a move. Even stopped me to ask if she was single because he saw how close you two were out there.” Rossi shrugs as he takes a sip of his drink, gaze burning into Spencer as he does it.

Spencer knows what he’s doing. He’s trying to rile him up, get his feathers ruffled, for him to, what? Fight Travis on the dancefloor? Run up and steal you?

“I’m sure…” He starts, slowly, “If someone, say, Emily, who disappeared outside, had a sudden emergency… Y/N would drop Travis in a second.”

Spencer looks at him. Rossi raises his eyebrows.

“Excuse me.” Spencer says.

Rossi grins as he watches Spencer almost charge towards you.

There’s a hand on your shoulder and you know it’s Spencer, and when you turn he’s out of breath.

“Emily-“ He pants, “I think she’s- she’s sick. She’s outside and asking for you.”

“Oh, God,” You gasp, hands immediately leaving Travis completely to instinctively grasp Spencer by his arms, something you’ve always done.

Spencer’s heart warms at your concern – of course you’re so genuinely concerned for one of your best friends. Could you be anymore perfect?

“Let’s go, Spence.” You glance at Travis, feet already moving, “Sorry, Travis, it was lovely to dance with you!”

Travis watches you flutter away, knowing very well that that was his once chance and he lost it. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that Spencer is lying – at least a little.

Travis could tell Spencer wasn’t happy when he asked if he could dance with you. The unimpressed look in Spencer’s eyes whenever they made eye contact solidified that.

Travis can’t blame him, if he’s honest.

Outside, the cold is starting to set in, but you’re too panicked to notice or care. Your head darts left to right, searching for Emily. You spot her, in her stunning red dress, and go to call for her. But then she laughs, head thrown back, and takes another sip of her drink.

She’s fine.

You turn to Spencer, confused, “I thought she was sick?”

He looks sheepish and you laugh as he says, “I may have told a little lie.”

“Spencer!”

“Sorry.” He doesn’t look sorry.

“Well why-“

“Since we’re here, why don’t we go look at the fountain? I saw you eyeing it when we arrived.”

You want to ask why he interrupted you and Travis, but you’re not given the chance. Spencer’s large hand holds the tip of your fingers and he gently pulls you towards the stone fountain, where it stands with several tiers and the soothing sound of running water. There’s a statute in the centre – a woman wrapped in some kind of shawl.

“My guess,” You say, arms crossing, causing Spencer to take a sharp intake of breath, “Is the statue is based on the forlorn sculptor’s lover.”

Spencer’s body deflates as releases a deep breath. He thought you were onto him and why he ruined your dance.

“Actually,” His hands move to emphasise his point, “One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in some form of association with religion-“

“Why did you interrupt Travis and I?”

Uh oh.

“Did I look uncomfortable?” You wonder, “Because I can handle myself, Spence.”

You tried to resist asking again. But something about what he did bothers you – if you didn’t want to dance with Travis, you would’ve said no or made an excuse to not have to. If you didn’t want to be around Travis, you would’ve walked away from him. No matter what, you could’ve dealt with it yourself. Does Spencer disagree?

He licks his lips out of nervousness, shakes his head and mumbles a, “No, that’s not it.”

You turn to face him. His hands are in his pockets and he’s staring at the ground as he shuffles his feet. Rossi will have a fit when he sees the shoes he hand-picked have marks on them.

“I needed to get you alone. I’m sorry.” Spencer squirms. He can’t make eye contact.

“What?” You ask, brows furrowed, “Why? Is something wrong?”

“He was..” He trails off and clears his throat, “He was gonna ask you out. I couldn’t- didn’t want to let that happen.”

Your confusion increases. So he does think you can’t handle yourself?

There’s a spark of frustration in you, then. You’ve dealt with being underestimated and babied basically your whole life and Spencer knows that. He also knows you’re a trained FBI agent that has saved his skin more times than you care to count – he knows better than anyone that you can handle yourself.

So what the fuck.

“I appreciate the concern,”

Spencer winces at your tone. This is… not going well. Not going how Spencer wanted it to, or planned. Not that he had a plan beyond getting you and Travis as far away from one another as possible.

“But I can guarantee I do not need you to loom over me and scare boys away, Spencer. You’re not my father.”

Your tone is biting and Spencer moves closer to placate you.

“That’s not what I meant, Y/N, I’m sorry that’s- I know you can handle yourself. Very well. I still have the scar from when you thought I was a robber in your house-“

“You shouldn’t have tried to sneak up on me, Spencer Reid-“

“Rossi overheard Travis saying he was gonna make a move on you and it was like I went on auto-pilot and I could hear the blood pumping in my ears and-“

“I can take care of myself, Spence.”

“I couldn’t let it happen because I want to date you.”

He looks at you then, gaze so intense you feel frozen where you stand. He continues.

“But I’m sorry if you were planning to say yes to Travis and I… came in and ruined it. Maybe you’re into him and I just… delayed the inevitable for no reason other than to humiliate myself.” He gives a tight lipped smile, rolling onto the tips of his feet and then back on the heel.

You let out a breathy laugh in disbelief. “I wasn’t going to say yes to Travis, Spence. It’d be pretty damn rude for me to date him when I very much like and want to date you.”

His eyebrows shoot up and he gives a toothy, hesitant smile, “Really?”

“Yeah, really.” You step closer. Spencer can’t take his eyes off you, not that he’s been able to at any point tonight, but now you can tell he can’t help but ogle at you.

It makes you feel fuzzy inside, that mix of excitement and nerves that you always get around Spencer.

“Well, what should we do about that?” He teases, but some anxiety shines through. He’s genuinely asking.

“Would it be okay if I kissed you?” You ask.

He sputters, “Uh- yes. That would be completely okay.”

“Well then,” You smile, “Come here.”

As if you’ve done it a million times, Spencer’s hands cup your face as he tugs you towards his lips. Your hands find his waist, softly gripping him as your eyes flutter shut and you feel Spencer’s lips for the first time.

Why does it feel so natural? So right?

Spencer has to pull back a couple of seconds later because he’s smiling so wide. You can’t resist and kiss his nose, and he giggles. He giggles.

God, you’re so in love with him.

Spencer glances at the statue standing at the top of the fountain.

“You think she’s angry that we’re kissing in front of her?”

You hum in consideration, “Definitely jealous. I mean, not everyone gets to kiss the most handsome guy at the ball.”

He can’t help but blush, and although you have a teasing tone you both know you genuinely mean it.

From where you’re standing you can still slightly hear the sound of the band inside – some kind of smooth jazz is being played now, nice and slow.

You turn and offer your hand to Spencer, just like before, “Another dance, kind sir?”

Spencer gives you a cheeky smile, “As long as you promise no Travis-like interruptions this time.”

He pulls you close, definitely closer than before as your lips nearly touch and you can feel his breath, and you rub the tip of your nose against his. “No Travis, no one, just us.”

“And the voyeur statue,” He gestures with his head towards the fountain.

You both look, and your hand leaves his shoulder to flip her off.

“Back off, hag.” You joke, and Spencer laughs at your absurdity.

Then you dance, for the second time, to the music that flows out from inside. Under the moonlight, with the twinkling stars, Spencer is convinced this is the closest to Heaven on Earth. With you, in his arms, dopey grins and loving stares.

God, he’s so in love with you.

[allhailthecoffeegods]

A lonely kitty in Gotham

Chapter 1

Tired... Marinette was extremely tired. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep but instead she sat staring at the wall of her office in her small apartment she had bought and was now living in because her parents kicked her out.

Why was she staring at the wall you may ask? Short answer, she had finally done it! She had finally tracked down Hawkmoth and Mayura after 3 years of fighting she now knew both of their identities (Gabriel Agreste and Natalie Sancoeur) and not only that but she had an entire file filled with proof. Now all that was left was to take back their miraculous and hand them over to the police (not before cursing them first... obviously).

Unfortunately it’s not going to be as easy as it sounds. You see Marinette or Nettie which she goes by now was alone, completely and utterly alone.

No Parents, no family and no friends.

Three years ago Nettie had all of the above she was happy, she had a best friend Alya and a group of many friends from her class, she had two loving but slightly distant parents who ran the most popular bakery in all of Paris possibly even France and her amazing grandmother Gina who traveled the world and told her all about the crazy things she did (some of which she promised not to tell her parents about because it may have been considered breaking the law but nothing reallllly bad).

But all of that soon changed over the first year Hawkmoth terrorised Paris with his akuma and was later joined by mayura with her sentimonsters. Slowly she lost everything including her partner in fighting crime Mr.Bug holder of the ladybug miraculous.

Nettie is in procession of not only the black cat miraculous but also forcefully became the last remaining guardian of 18 other mini gods that are bound to jewels (excluding the butterfly and peacock (not that she would ever give them up because they are basically her family now and she will do absolutely everything to protect them)). How?

Running late to class 3 years ago she saved a (very) old man (186 years old to be specific) from being hit by a car, and for some reason that was enough for him to “gift” her the black cat miraculous as he saw her true chaotic soul and aura (it didn’t matter that she was only 13 YEARS OLD!) he thought it was a brilliant idea to turn her into a child soldier fighting a war against two supervillains more than double her age.

After and introduction to the one and only God of Destruction, who by the way is OBSESSED with the stinkiest of cheeses, she became one of Paris’ main superheroes Kitty Noir alongside her partner Mr.Bug who she guessed to be around the same age as her at the time. It was easy to deduct that he was going to be more of a problem instead of a partner due to his obsessive and intense flirting and lack of skills other than some possible fencing training, all in all he didn’t have a clue how to fight. He was also apparently extremely reckless... like more reckless than her pouring 2 energy drinks into coffee before downing it and has died so many times in a fight she now also has a close relationship with tiki the God of Creation having had to end the fight herself (honestly why did the old guy pick him because it seems like he didn’t even do a similar ‘oh help save me’ situation like he had with her otherwise the old guy would already be dead!) Even though she wasn’t that much better to begin with she did have some hand to hand combat training curtesy of Gina and her ‘friends’ (let’s talk about those later). And she was now training in martial arts and going to the gym to build more muscle and become better without the enhanced supersuit just incase (she also sticks a domino mask on before transforming because she’s paranoid okay and if she is ever forced to detransform she doesn’t want anyone knowing her identity right of the bat to use against her, okay!)

Alongside that she was also extremely smart (like genius level) great with technology and quick to come up with some absolutely insane but brilliant plans. This all resulted in her taking on more of a leadership roll whilst fighting akumas. Mr.Bug only got worse as time went on and her civilian life went downhill, it took 8 months for the old man (previous guardian of the miraculous and temporary mentor for 2 of the months) to become compromised and pass the roll onto her. And the first thing she did was take the ladybug miraculous back and erase the holders (Adrien Agreste her former friend) memories of being Mr.Bug.

The only problem with that was the battle Miracle queen where master fu (the old guardian man) was compromised, and so were all 8 of her temporary heroes except Viperion, holder of the snake miraculous, who had started to tour around the world with his farther Jagged Stone) this ment there were two consequences of taking The ladybug back, the first being she was now alone against two superpowered terrorists but also that she had to switch transformations at the end of a battle to be able to purify the Akuma and cast the miraculous cure to fix everything and yes that did include... resurrection of people who died in the cross fire.

Anyways, back to how Nettie is alone. Only a few weeks after the first attack, an exchange student transferred to the the newly dumbed Akuma class *sigh*. At first she seemed nice and had and was telling the class of her interesting life, her mother was a Italian diplomat and she’s traveled the world.

But Nettie had a bad gut feeling about Lila Rossi which unfortunately was correct. On her third day in the class she started gushing over how kitty noir aka Nettie dearest (obviously unknown to everyone else) saved her from and Akuma attack and they became “best friends”, to say Nettie was left speechless and confused at the lie is an understatement.

Regrettably Nettie was unable to prove her story was a lie because how would she know said superhero didn’t save her without revealing her secret identity.

But the girl carried on creating more and more outlandish claims, such as how she saved Jagged Stones cat on a jet runway (like come on seriously what airport would allow a CHILD of even a cat to run out onto the tarmac). But pointing this out was apparently a mistake which Nettie soon discovered in the girls bathroom after class. Lila sauntered in with a sickly sweet smile that was soon dropped when Nettie refused to give into this girls bullshit.

Hence she was pinned against the wall and threatened, that if she didn’t go along with lie-la’s lies she would lose everything she loved before leaving so she wasn’t caught. Not believing her Nettie continued to point out inconsistencies and facts that contradict her story’s but no matter how much proof was presented to the class lie-la was able to turn it around (meta theory coming into her head: maybe she wasn’t affected because of the miraculous magic) and plant the idea that Nettie was a bully into all her friends heads which apparently all share one brain cell ( or so she thought until Adrien confirmed he knew they were lies to but he was taking the ‘high road’ because nobody was getting hurt, it’s definitely not like lilas ruining all there future careers by promising favours and opportunity’s that will never come and convincing them they no longer need to put in any effort for their futures *insert eye-roll* ).

So life continued and her friends started to turn on little Nettie the scattered brained, clumsy girl who bent over backwards to protect and make sure they were all happy. It hurt more than words could describe the day Alya her BEST FRIEND led the class to turn their backs on her and declare they no longer want to be friends with a jealous bully anymore.

Luckily Nettie wasn’t akumatised but she came very close to it. The only things keeping her going were her duty to Paris and her family.

But as a consequence to that good luck, bad luck hit like a truck. She didn’t know for a few weeks until a guy named Jason called her parents to inform them that her favourite person in the whole world her amazing grandmother Gina had passed away in a accident somewhere in the United States. And if that wasn’t bad enough Lila also managed to place a seed of doubt in her parents around the same time. Life fucking sucked. She wasn’t able to process and grieve due to Hawkfuck still being around so instead she threw herself into creating her own business (NeTi Designs) doing commissions, did I mention she’s a talented fashion designer... no, well now you know. As well as diving head first into a very thorough investigation on mothfucker in between fighting Akuma, helping in the bakery, plus training and patrolling the city of lights for two hours each night.

Atleast she didn’t have to make excuses to not hang out with her ex-friends anymore heh heh *cough*.

Eventually this resulted in her parents questioning her on her disappearances from her room after randomly checking in one night while she was out patrolling and the conversation sort of went like this.

“Marinette, where have you been?! I just checked your balcony and you weren’t up their. It’s 2am” Sabine exclaimed when she dropped back onto her bed moments after detransforming. “Mamma I swear I was up there and I fell asleep in the corner near my pillows behind the deck chair. I just woke up from the cold and I thought I herd movement and panicked because ‘oh my gosh!’ Is it an Akuma but it wasn’t it was you mamma” Nettie responded with dramatic waving of her hands and a fake smile.

Sabine was NOT impressed and most certainly knew it was a lie but it was 2am and she couldn’t deal with this right now so she glared at her daughter whilst leaving her room through the trapdoor.

This continued for two weeks with both her parents randomly checking in. Nettie had to eventually relocate her research into a small apartment a few streets away from the library (which she paid for with commission money that nobody but her knew about especially since her business was doing well and she didn’t put it past her class to try and destroy that if they ever found out) and say she was studying to not be caught doing deep background checks on all her suspects, making files for every Akuma and tracking the butterfly’s on a app she created that has multiple resources available to the public ranging from an alert for attacks that can be activated all the way to videos she made in her hero persona showing things such as meditation or basic self defence that should only be used if they’re unable to get to a safe area away from the Akuma or to buy time to then get away depending on the powers of said Akuma. (Could also be useful in regular crimes like attempts at mugging)

This lead to longer disappearances to the point all her stuff that had any value to her or was related to business and miraculous matters (so basically everything) she was practically living there already. Not that she realised since she got maybe 5-6 hours of sleep and week? She was so enclosed in her little world when her parents decided they had enough (after multiple accusations of her sleeping around with older men and doing drugs (all tests came back negative because her choice of drug was caffeine) which where definitely lilas doing) her parents yelled at her to get out and never come back... so she did the only thing she had to grab where her pillows and fairy lights and she was out of the door, the situation was dubbed a future Nettie problem because ya know suppressing your emotions so the world doesn’t end.

(Authors note: I have plans on making this a series. Hope you guys like it 🙃)

[katatonicimpression]

The ask meme for Monet.

do I like them:

She is my wife.

5 good qualities:

She's a genius. Underrated part of her power set tbh.

She's willing to stand up for what she thinks is right. Doesn't just go with the flow because it's easier.

She genuinely cares about others and wants to protect the innocent (when she's written well lol)

She is absolutely hilarious.

She's a loyal friend.

3 bad qualities:

She's mean to people (I love it)

She's uninterested in systemic injustice when it doesn't affect her. She's absurdly privileged in a lot of ways and, while she wants to help individual people, doesn't ever really think about how the system is set up to screw them over. Mainly because she benefits from that system. E.g. she just goes along with the mutant registration act because it's no big deal to her or the fact that she's on board with, like, capitalism because she's always been wealthy.

She frequently escalates conflict at just the worst times.

favourite episode/etc:

Oh look it's my wife doing a reference to my other wife:

otp:

Jubilee.

brotp:

Siryn. That scene when Terry tells her she's pregnant and M immediately offers to help her get an abortion? Idk if it's just me but that felt like such a good friend moment. I miss them together and I hate that they stopped being close.

ot3:

I dunno... you could always throw Everett in with her and Jubes? That's one way to fix a love triangle.

notp:

I just can't with the Sabretooth thing. Nope. Not for me.

best quote:

"You just put six holes in a Louis Vuitton shirt and you expect me to 'wait'? For what? The 'fashion police?"

(She has a bunch of good ones though)

head canon:

Her grandma (Cartier's mum) is still alive and living her best life.

Shes a polyglot. We know French is her first language, and it's what she speaks with her family. We also know she speaks English, Arabic and Krakoan. She lived in Monaco, which means she'd have done some Monégasque at school. I headcanon that she's also proficient at Italian and German, because of that fancy education. She probably learnt Latin too. Maybe she knows a bit of Kabylian? I think she picks up language really fast as well.

When Americans pronounce her name as "saynt croy", she always corrects them. Jubilee does it on purpose to annoy her.

She doesn't mind krakoa. But she still spends a lot of her time away from it (this is implied in x-corp). Partly this is because she's never been into mutant separatism, but I think she also doesn't want to be near her brother. She doesn't like the twins being on the island without her.

Very specific headcanon: at some point between when she was M-Plate and before House of X, she found Penance again. Something happened between them and the twins. Penance died... or did she? The sisters did something to save Penny, offering themselves up as hosts in an inversion of what was done to them before: they've all been trapped in that body, now they're offering up space for her. Because they're sharing Penance between the three of them, none of them are overwhelmed by it. None of them are completely trapped and Penny lives on within the three of them.

Also she's autistic but I don't know if that's a headcanon or just me pointing at my conspiracy board and insisting it's canon

[passionate-reply]

Great Albums is kicking off Pride Month with a special feature on one of the weirdest and wildest queer artists of the New Wave era: the one and only Klaus Nomi! Combining glam, synth-pop, and opera, of all things, Nomi’s tragically short career is nothing short of mystifying. Check out the video or read the full transcript, below the break!

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! In this installment, I’ll be looking at the self-titled debut album of one of the most unique, incomparable, and unforgettable artists in music history: the one and only Klaus Nomi. What is it that makes Nomi so noteworthy? Perhaps the most obvious thing is his background as a classically trained opera singer. While a lot of pop vocalists have some degree of classical training, it’s rare to find one who worked so hard to bring ultra-mannered, literally operatic lead vocals into an otherwise pop context.

The other thing I should mention is that Nomi’s voice part was the “countertenor,” giving his vocals an even more unusual dimension. Countertenors are men who sing in a high range usually covered by women, and even in the operatic tradition, they weren’t necessarily all that common, particularly since the rise of opera coincided with that of the infamous castrati--male singers who were castrated to preserve their prepubescent voices. The combination of partially electronic, New Wave compositions with these bizarre, but ultimately “traditional” vocals results in something that sounds simply otherworldly.

Music: “Total Eclipse”

“Total Eclipse” is probably Nomi’s best known track, due in part to being featured in the seminal concert film Urgh! A Music War, which sought to capture the diversity of the early 80s New Wave scene. Like a lot of classic songs of this era, it tackles the subject of nuclear annihilation, albeit with a nearly depraved, gleeful tone, that makes it feel like more of a party. For the verses, Nomi adopts a sort of rhythmic speak-singing, which was much more par for the course for “New Wave” music, only to shockingly explode into a powerful operatic rendition of the refrain. It reminds me a bit of how, in musical theatre, tension builds through spoken dialogue, before characters are so emotional they feel compelled to burst into song--or, of course, how recitative blossoms into arias in opera. In the context of this particular track, it’s easy to interpret it as an embodiment of how “cold wars” can suddenly burst into flame. While “Total Eclipse” was a new composition, written specifically for Nomi by Kristian Hoffman, this album also features several covers of past hits, such as “You Don’t Own Me.”

Music: “You Don’t Own Me”

Nomi’s covers of the Midcentury pop ditties “Lightning Strikes” and “You Don’t Own Me” repeat the structure of “Total Eclipse,” showing that this signature pattern of increasing tension leading to increasingly mannered vocals is just as effective when retroactively applied to pre-existing compositions. What’s also significant about “You Don’t Own Me” is that it was originally written for a woman, Lesley Gore, and its defiant assertion of self-confidence has long been associated with women’s liberation. Being openly gay, Nomi sees fit to leave the lyric “play with other boys” just as it is, and could be interpreted to be deliberately emphasizing that last word, intentionally queering his rendition of the song. Nomi’s ability to sing in a traditionally female voice range, combined with his eccentric, gender-bending personal aesthetic, makes the interrogation of traditional concepts of gender an integral part of his art. Some of the other covers on the album are even older than the Midcentury, coming from the golden age of opera, such as “The Cold Song.”

Music: “The Cold Song”

Also known by its opening lyrics, “What power art thou?”, “The Cold Song” is a rare operatic aria that was actually designed for the countertenor voice part. It was written by the English composer William Purcell, a noted fan of countertenors who lived outside the influence of the Italian castrati, for his 1691 opera King Arthur. Well, King Arthur is actually what’s sometimes called a “semi-opera”: not all characters sing, and those who do often tend to be supernatural entities. “The Cold Song” is sung by a winter spirit called the Cold Genius, when reluctantly awakened from icy slumber by Cupid. His lines are sung so as to stutter, as he shivers from the freezing cold of his surrounds. Unlike the pop covers on the album, the arias are actually played pretty straight, almost as if they serve as evidence of Nomi’s actual chops doing traditional opera the old-fashioned way. “The Cold Song” is certainly a great fit for Nomi’s unique stage persona, which presented him as a fey or elfin non-human visitor from some mythical Otherworld, or perhaps an extraterrestrial from outer space. This theme is addressed most directly by the one track on this album composed entirely by Nomi himself: “Keys of Life.”

Music: “Keys of Life”

“Keys of Life” is the album’s opening track, and perhaps serves as Nomi’s personal introduction to the people of our realm--a sort of musical “we come in peace” message. Its lyrics seem to portray Nomi as a benevolent visitor, but one with a dire warning for mankind: we need to get our act together soon, for our actions now are of great import, as we humans “hold the keys of life.” Perhaps Nomi’s mission is to prevent climate catastrophe on Earth, or, given the context of “Total Eclipse,” a nuclear apocalypse. With its warbling synthesiser backdrop, and Nomi singing fully in the operatic style throughout, “Keys of Life” is arguably the most experimental piece to be had on the album, and putting it as the very first track certainly pulls no punches.

It is, of course, difficult to fully address the significance of Nomi’s persona without getting into his visual identity. The cover of Nomi’s self-titled debut features his most iconic outfit: an oversized plastic tuxedo, with hugely exaggerated shoulders, and a pointed hairstyle with a bit of Streamline Moderne flair. I mentioned earlier that Nomi’s work seems concerned with gender, and in that context, I’ve often interpreted this look as a sort of caricature of masculinity, parodying men’s formalwear and calling attention to Nomi’s receding hairline. There is certainly something absurd about a high-pitched, perhaps feminine-coded voice emerging from a ludicrously masculine sort of character. The use of thin, shiny, reflective plastic, and the aforementioned Midcentury feel of the hairstyle, make me also consider interpreting it as less of a parody, and more of an alien’s bad attempt at adopting the appearance of an “ordinary,” upstanding, conservative human male in attire, using space-age materials to cobble it together.

The oversized, geometric appearance of Nomi’s garb reminds me of the great Dada poet, Hugo Ball, founder of the legendary Cabaret Voltaire. Ball was the inventor of what he called “sound poetry,” and enacted lively readings of poetry that consisted of entirely nonsensical words. He did this while wearing a strange, cylindrical-shaped cardboard suit, said to restrict his movements so much that Ball needed to be ceremoniously carried off stage when he was finished reciting. Given their shared German heritage and cabaret avant-gardism, I can’t help but wonder if Ball’s striking costume was something of an influence on Nomi here.

This album is, of course, self-titled, but that, too, is an artistic choice that can be analyzed. The artist was born Klaus Sperber, but adopted the stage name “Nomi” for his creative endeavours. In the context of the track “The Nomi Song,” the name is often used punningly in comparison with the English phrase “know me.” Nomi’s choice of stage name is almost a dare or a challenge, a request for us to attempt to know and understand this seemingly inscrutable being before us. As with many other portrayals of queerness as alien or otherworldly, the messaging here seems to be that Nomi may seem different at first, but his intent is ultimately benign, should mere mortals like ourselves be kind enough to give him a chance.

Nomi’s follow-up to this debut album was 1982’s Simple Man, an album which is much more similar to its predecessor than different. It has a wider variety of contributing musicians and different instruments employed, but it’s got a similar overall feel, and mix of tracks. You’ll find more covers, like “Falling In Love Again” and even “Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead,” more original compositions, like the Hoffman-penned sequel to “Total Eclipse,” entitled “After the Fall,” and even some more arias, like this stunning rendition of another work of Purcell’s. Referred to here as simply “Death,” it comes from Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas, and is sung by the titular Carthaginian queen, Dido, as she prepares to commit suicide. Also called “Dido’s Lament” or “Thy hand, Belinda,” its darkly descending melody is as captivatingly ominous today as it was when it was written, over three centuries ago.

Music: “Death”

Sadly, Nomi became gravely ill at around this time, and his own untimely death was just around the corner. He died of complications of AIDS in 1983, at the age of just 44, leaving behind an unfinished opera of his own creation, Za Bakdaz, which would go unreleased until 2008. That, and a posthumous live album released in 1986, would be the only other works under Nomi’s name. As with all artists who die tragically young, we will always be left wondering what else Klaus Nomi might’ve accomplished in the ensuing decades. I find it hard to imagine a timeline in which this sound ever became particularly mainstream, but anything else Nomi came up with would have undoubtedly been fascinating.

My favourite track on Nomi’s debut is “The Twist.” Yes, this is indeed Chubby Checker’s “The Twist,” another one of those Midcentury covers that Nomi was so fond of. But compared to the rest of Nomi’s covers, this one is much more of a deconstruction, perhaps even a “piss take,” featuring a sparse instrumentation, centered around a lethargic bass guitar, and the overall pace is slowed to a crawl. Add in Nomi’s piercing vocals and some nearly demonic, chittering laughter, and you’ve got a track that turns a fun, light-hearted dance craze into a surreal nightmare. As difficult as it is to be the strangest track on an album like this, I have to give that honour to “The Twist.” That’s all for today--thanks for watching!

Music: “The Twist”

[eurosong]

Undo my ESC

Good evening, folks! If you saw my first instalment of “Undo my ESC”, the annual feature where I make a year’s Eurovision better for me by making alterations in each country, you might have thought that ESC getting cancelled had dulled my edge, since, comparing to usual standards, I hardly changed much at all there. Well, that’s because, once again, we have seriously uneven semis, and Semi #1 would have been killer, whilst Semi #2 would have been dead. Here is what Í would have done to even those semis up! 🇦🇱 Albania: The Albanian delegation had seemingly done all it could to wash its hands of, well, two years of comparatively excellent results with authentic, melancholically poëtic and qualitative tracks, namely Malland Ktheju tokës. They brought in Byuckman, in whose interest it is for the contest to become as generically “radio-friendly” as possible, and the genius who brought us lyrics like “this is love/rain falls from above”. As judges. Of a serious musical festival. The foreign jurors did as expected, and voted for the appointed “bop”, but were foiled, however, by one of the minority Albanian jurors on the panel who put it  low in her ranks. An actual renowned music professor who got called all the names under the sun for doing so. And so, to an ensuing shitstorm, the classical and powerful Shaj prevailed instead. Unfortunately, the battle was won but the war was lost, because the representative herself took the lessons of 2018-9, threw them down the aeroplane toilet on the way to LA, and ripped the spirit out of the song, reverting back to the previous Albanian trend of terrible “revamps” and laboured translations into English. The result, Fall from the sky, is but a husk of the original. In my ESC, I’d probably simply keeping the original version of Shaj, which was my uncontested #1 of all songs, but part of me would opt for Ajër, which I love almost as well but which doesn’t carry the baggage of hanging over my head like the sword of Democles this entire season. 🇦🇲 Armenia: I’ve more often than not loved the entries of Hayastan, from the joyous Jan Jan to the soaring Fly with me and defiant Walking out. To say they took a step back this year is kind – it was more like a powerful jump backwards that landed them in the nearest ocean, where they sank like a stone. It was one of the most singularly unpalatable NFs that I have ever watched in this era. Rather than retraumatise myself by going into detail about it, I’ll just say, I would have sent Srbuk or Artsvik again to get the top 10 that I feel both warranted!

🇦🇹 Austria: What a journey for Österreich. From Conchita to this guy, a perky homophobe who explicitly said he wished his kids would not turn out to be gay. He comes up with a third-rate impersonator of a third-rate Benjamin Ingrosso impersonator’s third-rate impersonation of a Timberlake b-side. I would throw that in the bin and invite Pænda back from last year for a shot at redemption after her gorgeous Limits got slept on in 2019.

🇧🇬 Bulgaria: Some people had the neck to say to me “who needs Hungary when Bulgaria is coming back?” Well, I do. Hungary were constantly in the top of my rankings, and just quietly and consistently brought quality. Bulgaria has brought me one good thing – Poli Genova’s œuvre – and a tonne of hype. Their song this year was one of the favourites, and I still can’t wrap my head around how other than the force of PR. It’s a bizarre, unsettling combination of passive-aggressive “look how much you’re making me hurt myself” lyrics with Disneyish saccharine accompaniment, topped off with a key change?! For want yet again of a national final, I would bring Poli back – third time even luckier? 🇨🇿 Czechia: The Bohemians (and Moravians) keep it contemporary but superficial for a third year running, although, thankfully, for the first time since they began doing national finals, we finally have a song without a dubious attitude towards women in the lyrics. Not that there is much to analyse in those lyrics. It’s a merely ok song for me, no better, no worse: a superior alternative would have been Barbara Mochowa’s lush and contemplative second effort, White and black holes, or the glorious 90s British indie-influenced All the blood. 🇩🇰 Denmark: Did Denmark confound international monitors into calling it the world’s happiest country by exposing them to the relentlessly cheery songs that they pick for Eurovision lately? And yet – I really do say yes to Yes, To a certain extent, to a limited amount of exposure, and despite the fact that it leans a little too hard into the territory of sounding like a second Little talks. It was one of the few good songs from DMGP – I also liked the 80s shoegaze-ish Den eneste goth– and I feel so mad at DR that they won’t give Ben and Tan a guaranteed second shot to represent their country after they won in front of an empty crowd. 🇪🇪 Estonia: The days of Eesti being Beesti seem like from a distant memory to me, but there was some quality and quirkiness in Eesti Laul, buried under mountains of beigedom, like the rich-voiced Egert Miller’s soulful Georgia, the jazzy Write about me, or the feisty earworm that was Ping pong. Instead, we got a dreary dirge with sub-Hallmark lines about wot luv is, which would have sounded dated in a contest 30 years ago, sung by a repugnant guy who tried to get people to vote for him last year by leaning on the idea that he was the “only true Estonian.” I’d have Egert get his rightful place as Jüri Pootsmann’s spiritual successor. 🇫🇮 Finland: I was one of the few to be jubilant when a bizarre ode to an Italian porn star with a backing track sounding like a violated version of Eläköön elämä came second in the polls to its spiritual opposite: a shy and rather awkward guy singing a quietly moving song about the passing of time. I love Looking back and wouldn’t change a thing. 🇬🇪 Georgia: You never know what to expect from Georgia, except the unexpected, and yet even I was surprised by what they came up with: a close-shaven guy with veins popping in his head screaming “why don’t you love meeeee?” to a rocky, electronic backdrop. Me being me, I actually do like it a lot. “Take me as I am” sounds like a veiled potshot at the big 5 and a vindication of Georgia’s “keep it weird, send what we want” philosophy. I could suggest that the lyrics, that sound like those of a spurned angsty teen, change a bit, but that would be defeating the purpose of Georgia: one takes them as they are. 🇬🇪 Greece: So, somehow, despite S!STERS coming dead last with 0 pts in the televote last year, using exclamation marks to substitute the letter I is now a thing in Eurovision with the advent of Superg!rl. I spent an hour watching folk waffle on in Greek in its reveal show only for them to reveal the song literally at the very end, so after that, it was a little underwhelming, and nowhere near as good as Better love in 2019. I don’t hate it – and the music video’s concept of her being an amazing superhero who can change the world, but instead she’s stopping people slipping over bananas and rescuing cats from trees is weirdly endearing, so it can stay, but I’d improve the lyrics, particularly in the chorus. “I’m a supergirl, supergirl, in a crazy world, crazy world” is not much higher than “this is love, rain falls from above” in historically bad Greek lyrics at ESC. 🇮🇸 Iceland: Daði Freyr came back from near-victory with the delightful Is this love, added a lovely inspiration in his newborn daughter to a similarly funky and playful track, and came out with Think about things. Unlike what usually happens with songs that are a little bit odd, I was positively surprised to see it walk the NF, and become a phenomenon even outside the ESC fandom. This was perfect and joyous from beginning to end. I hope Iceland will not be like the other Nordics, and will invite Daði directly back .🇱🇻 Latvia: I have come to enjoy the bizarre chaötic energy of Still breathing, It’s a hot mess, but I take weird over dull any day. It wasn’t my favourite in Supernova – that would be the effortlessly cool Polyester, an earworm with a social conscience, written about the cost of fast fashion but dismissed by many people as “she luvs t-shirts song lol”. Given that Samanta Tina tried over half a dozen times to go to ESC, finally won and then had the chance ripped out of her hands by the cancellation, I don’t have the heart to remove her from my ideal ESC 2020 though. She stays, but maybe the staging changes? It’s odd to have what you believe is a feminist anthem but then relegate your backing singers to in the distance, their faces shielded away. 🇲🇩 Moldova: Life is too short to follow Moldovan national finals, especially when you know, lately, that whoever is backed by the hilariously inaptly named Dream team will win there. They are like a parasite, sucking out the colour and fun out of a country that once had plenty of both – cross-reference Hora din Moldova or Lăutar to name just two examples. I guess out of an uninspiring lineüp, I’d go for Moldoviţa for having at least a hint of the brassy folk that used to be their calling card. 🇵🇱 Poland: Speaking of calling cards, after a one year hiatus with an arresting combo of white voice and rocky instrumentation, Poland has returned to what it has most often done in recent years – presented us with an absolute dirge, Empires, which seems like it was written by an unenthusiastic English student whose homework assignment (for which they received a generous C-) was to write a poëm with a bunch of metaphors “we’re moths to a flame, birds to a pane of glass, gasoline and a match”. Despite having a big music industry from which to choose many gems, Poland offers me little alternative choice given that there were only three songs in their grand final – one by the Czech representative last year who, as you might guess from what I said literally a sentence up, isn’t even Polish!Horny Elf, who’s contractually obliged to write only creepy lyrics for songs, tried to represent Polska with a song inspired by a true-life situation where he went around Tel Aviv with a cardboard cutout of one of the hostesses of the show. It’s a love song inspired by gallivanting around with a piece of cardboard. Addressed to that actual hostess. And it’s an almighty earworm that hasn’t escaped my mind since. Amazingly, his Lucy would be my Polish representative. 🇵🇹 Portugal: Portugal is another country beloved by me by for dancing to the beat of its own drummer, or perhaps, rather shedding tears to the strumming of its own fado guitar. They struggled being different, they won being different, and for the last few years they’ve struggled again, despite having a lot of support for both O jardim and Telemóveis amongst fans. This year, the televote went for one interesting song, the charmingly Gallic, accordion-drenched Passe-partout, a song about a cultured girl shaking off her boorish ex who could “never even get into Piaf”, whilst the jury got behind another interesting song, Gerbera, an entrancing, arresting and poëtic song laden with metaphor about the idea of music competing itself. This let Medo de sentir,second in both polls, turn silver into gold. It’s a lovely, heart-felt track, but rather unexceptional - I would have had one of the other more singular songs win. 🇸🇲 San Marino: The weird boil on the face of ESC that somehow never pops, SM is back after its bewildering qualification with a tone-deaf dentist wailing to a microwaved disco song… with something actually palatable, sort of. The aptly named Freaky is dated, odd, overly busy, but Senhit has a lot of charisma, and the idea of “break[ing] all the rules, mak[ing] up some new [ones] and destroy[ing] all of them too” and “life goes by too quickly not to be freaking it up”, well, maybe we do get on board. 🇷🇸 Serbia: Serbia is usually a byword for quality at the contest – they won with one of the best 21st century winners hands down in Molitva, and also sent some of the most beautiful compositions in the contest’s history at the hands of Željko. This year, they decided to join in the leitmotif of reliable countries sucking by sending a group that sound like a third-rate mid-2000s girl band from Transnistria when beautiful songs like Cvet sa Prokletija were right there. 🇨🇭 Switzerland: Fair play to the Swiss for not doing a Cyprus and leaning in on their success with their male Fuego, She gat me, and instead going in a completely different direction with this moody effort. I’m not entirely convinced by the teenage emo-ish lyrics or the unnecessary falsetto, but Répondez-moi is a refreshing effort, and has the bonus of being in French too! And the automatic qualifiers: 🇫🇷 France: You’ve heard of France, right? You know, that wee country south of Belgium, north of Andorra, not much of a music industry… or so you’d think, given that the troolee jeenyuss new delegation, who abandoned their brilliant national final which showcased how diverse and qualitative their music scene is despite it being a huge success in the fandom, and instead reached out to the writer of last year’s last place song for the UK and a few other rentaswedes and they produced something that sounds like a b-side that not even Westlife would have recorded, replete with a stock key change. About as French as IKEA köttbullar. A real shame for one of Europe’s most highly esteemed cultural hotbeds. If they wanted to pick Tom Leeb, who seems like a nice guy and has written some lovely music, he could have made his own song and it would have indubitably been scores better than this. 🇪🇸 Spain: I’m going to apply this to all the automatic qualifiers voting on this semi-final: they scrapped a national final for this? OT was not an ideal format as last year demonstrated with its shit show of contestants sabotaging themselves so as not to get picked for ESC – but still. There’s not much I can say about this other than I don’t like it much and I’d rather Spain return to a proper NF. You don’t spend time trapped on a bus where this song with its torturous falsetto was on replay and emerge with fond feelings. 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Usually, in this space, I can point to a song that the UK should have sent and that I fell in love with – like I wish I loved you more or You. Once again, though, another big 6 nation scrapped their NF after tanking it with a bizarre format last year. The BBC said nothing for months, then were unwilling to spend tv time on ESC this year so just blurted out an announcement of an announcement in  about 40 seconds after some dance show. And then they dropped this song. It’s… passable at best, with an annoying chorus (especially that beat in “my last… breath”) and a staggering amount of repetition in a song that clocks in at only around 80% of the standard Eurovision song length. James Newman surely could have come up with something better. It’s a baby step in the right direction, but one taken at the shore where you need to start running to avoid getting pulled away in a rip.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 100 - 96

100. Kati Wolf - “What about my dreams” Hungary 2011

Ugh I just remembered the Belgian press laughing their asses off at Hungary thinking they could win with Kati Wolf... 😤 Which um... RUDE? What about how she feels?? What about her liiiiiiiiife? Also, WHY COULDN’T WE HAVE HAD THAT OUTCOME INSTEAD??? NO Ellbeast winner and NO Ellbeast hosting AND NO disaster acoustics, let alone NO indentured servitude because the Crystal Arena never gets built! If Kati wins, EVERYBODY WINS!!! 

Having said that, lmfao Kati Wolf was indeed never going to win lolol. She was so inept and I adore her for it. 😍 She is one of the first “universally beloved OGAE favourite screws themselves over with a trainwreck live” type of contestant and easily the most iconic one, so much that we can speak of a “Kati Wolf Award” for the biggest OGAE flop every year. So much for their dreams. 😭 

However, independent from the suckage, I also greatly enjoyed "What about my dreams” live WHOOPS. I mean, I’ll caveat that the Hungarian version is a lot better. Regardless, both are pretty amazing, alternating between melancholy and self-empowerment, even when coated in a hilariously tacky aesthetic. Love the GIANT blue crystal “ring” (hand-bracelet?) and the blacklighted clothes. 😍 She CAN’T hold back. She CAN’T go back. She MUST be...freeeeeee [of good taste]. 

________________________________________________________________

99. Aliona Moon - “O mie” Moldova 2013

What an Iconic Entry. Of course, Aliona’s status as the ~First Growth Dress Ever~ alone grants her that title and for good reason. Six years after the fact it still holds up as a very impressive visual effect:

However, there is more to discuss than merely a display of excellent fashion. “O mie” is also notable for being the rare Competent Moldovan entry. 😲 Normally this is something I do not care about (and secretly “O mie” isn’t *that* competent cf. Aliona choking / the original English lyrics referencing the B’akt’un calendar 😍), but it’s always hilarious when a country with a negative budget/reputation such as Moldova manages to be both innovative AND have jurors eat out their hand while also spending a minimum of money. Of course the song itself is ALSO a great example of orchestral dramedy, courtesy of -who else- musical genius / perfect deity Pasha Parfeny. 😍 LEGEND!

______________________________________________________________

98. Francesco Gabbani - “Occidentali’s karma” Italy 2017

[2017 review here]

Oh look, it’s 2017′s Kati Wolf Award Laureate. 🤭 I feel kind of bad Francesco flopped though. The one time I support an Italian winner during the preshow and then he DOESN’T win??? ugh. 😒

However, that doesn’t take away from the Gabbani journey, which I found to be one of ups and downs, but fortunately mostly ups: The song is a mindblowingly clever parody of internet culture and, similar to how Valentina did it with “Facebook Ooh Oh Oh”, offers critique by simply showcasing everything wrong with internet culture and overendulging in it, in the most annoying fashion. 😍. This was further enhanced by culturally appropriating hindu/buddhist imagery and dancing with a life-sized “gorilla” on the stage. 

However, all the additions + a subpar live performance by Francesco caused westerner’s karma to quickly catch up with him, as his song’s message flew completely over the head of the general European audience and many rejected him FOR being... a culturally appropriating memelord. Oh Francesco. May your incompetence always find a place in our hearts...x

________________________________________________________________

97. Nina Sublatti - “Warrior” Georgia 2015

Omg, how come Eurovision has SO MANY epic Ninae? Sublatti, Zilli, Zizic, Kraljic,... I DEMAND a reality tv season with all of them!!!

Anyway, Nina Sublatti is a magnificent Athenian owlet who is responsible some of the worst English ever on Eurovision. I mean, yes, we’ve definitely seen worse diction (Aram mp3 😍, and Melovin, obv), but these lyrics are legendary in print:

NOT A SHABBY OR A MONEYMAKER WORLD GONNA LIGHT UP IN PEACE NOT A SHADOW’S VIRULATOR NOW YOU JUST YOU JUST GONNA BREATHE VIOLENCE BREAK THE FREE WINGS ARE GONNA SPREAD OUT I’M A WARRIOR OSCILLATING I’M GONNA GET UP AND BE OOOOOOOH I’M WARRIOR STILL STUCKED IN MY MIN-

No seriously, legit. The lyrics literally read “STILL STUCKED IN MY MIND”. Nina writng all of codswallop by herself and NOBODY bothered pointing out it makes no sense... or perhaps some foolish intern did and were promptly oximated. Either way, 😍

Omg and I just remembered that, after screaming those words at Europe for three minutes while pulling owlfaces and getting devoured whole by LOST’s Smoke Monster, Nina somehow believed she would be the best placing Georgian entrant ever and was FURIOUS she finished in ~only~ 11th place. Delusional queen. <3

________________________________________________________________

96. Farid Mammadov - “Hold Me” Azerbaijan 2013

I’ll be honest, for the longest time I didn’t want to like Farid. Obviously, "Hold me” is the usual mass-produced Swedish contraband that gets passed around between Azerbaijan, and Malta (random ESC alliances <3).

HOWEVER, no matter how many reservations I had about the song beforehand, Farid fucking... OWNED? lol. Like, for starters, I’ve spoken about bedroom eyes before and this-

-is actually a very good attempt at them. INSTANTLY WET TYRA BANKS, FIRST CALL OUT, SMYZE. Azerbaijan then followed this up with their now trademark ridiculous eyecatching staging that, as per true Azeri tradition, fits the song’s catch rhythm and ignores its insipid message (<3). GIANT GLASS CONTAINER <3 ROSE PETALS <3 The BEST part though is when the female dancer comes on, wearing a giant, endless spine dress. 💃STYLE ICONS💃

All in all, an excellent entry. I am happy it didn’t win though, mostly because 2013 is also the year when Azerbaijan’s televote fraud AND fixed jury votes came to light, WHOOPS!!! 🤭

[strangeremembrances]

Lucaaaaaaaaaa. ❤️

✨✨✨

[strangeremembrances]

[grimelords]

My November playlist is finished and I've done something slightly different by actually ordering the songs into a cohesive playlist rather than leaving them in the order I added them. Listen in for everyone's favourite genre, acoustic guitar instrumentals, followed by old fashioned cowboy country, comedy and ridiculous songs, 80s and modern dance, out-there piano instrumentals, rocks and rolls, oddball rap, christian rock buried where nobody will find it, noise rock of all flavours and Mirror Reaper in full. I guarantee there'll be at least something in four hours of music that you'll like. listen here!

Deixa - Toquinho: I love how much happens in this song even before it even kicks off at about a minute in. It cycles through so many different feelings before it really powers up and the drums come on. The rhythm from then on is just mesmerizing, it's just so busy and never dwells on any section for too long, the interplay between the melody, bassline and chord rhythm is amazing. And then at about 2:20 it powers up again! Bossa Nova Strong. Also I'm feeling very disrespected because I just did some research on this song only to find out it was sampled by Nujabes on one of his bad anime youtube hip hop songs.

Just A Closer Walk With Thee - Marisa Anderson: Traditional And Public Domain Songs is Marisa Anderson's weakest album, which is a shame because I love Traditional and Public Domain songs. Her playing is on point as always, but the tremolo and distortion she's using overwhelms the recording more often than not. This song is the best on the album purely because she's playing so quietly that it only shows up when she gets loud so it works perfectly near the end as it crescendos.

The Three Deaths Of Red Spectre - Gwenifer Raymond: Gwenifer Raymond has a new 'non-holiday specific single for a cold climate' in her words and I absolutely love it. The sheer velocity of the middle section is flooring, before it breaks apart totally and reforms into a sort of shanty before metamorphosing again into a heightening mania. I love the constantly shifting structure of this, it barely stops to give you room to breathe all the way through before the very end where it almost feels like it's going to collapse entirely.

Mister Sandman - Chet Atkins: Happy to report that I've had Mr Sandman stuck in my head for three weeks now and still don't really know the words because of tumblr posts. It alternates between 'mr email / e me a mail / make the attachment a pic of a snail' and 'mr sandman / sand me a man / make him the cutest man car door hook hand'.

Do I Ever Cross Your Mind - Chet Atkins & Dolly Parton: I've never gone much on Chet Atkins but my girlfriend showed my this song and it has completely reversed my opinion and it's mostly due to Dolly Parton. She is just so lovely on this it makes me tear up - the song itself is so nice and the playing is perfect but her personality just shines through so brightly it's an absolute delight.

There's A Man Going Around Taking Names - Lead Belly: I've been doing research to try to find out what this song is referring to, or its origin but I cannot find anything concrete. A few people are saying it inspired Johnny Cash for The Man Comes Around, which is plausible and adds a mystic bent to it. It seems incomplete, like it's missing the turn at the end that reveals who exactly he is or what's happening so the whole song just ends up feeling very mysterious and ominous.

When Mussolini Laid His Pistol Down - Merle Travis: This song is from 1943, which is sort of amazing because that means it's not a song about history particularly but rather current events. A great paragraph from wikipedia: "On 24 June Mussolini gave his last important speech as prime minister. It went down in history as the "boot topping" speech, with the Duce promising that the only part of Italy that the Anglo-Americans would be able to occupy (but forever and horizontally, i.e. as corpses) was the shore-line (for which he used a wrong word to define it). For many Italians, that confused and incoherent speech was the final proof that something was wrong with Mussolini." Mussolini, truly history's greatest moron.

The Master's Call - Marty Robbins: As a result of Red Dead 2 and my own natural instincts, I've been having a bigger than usual moment with cowboy music this month which of course includes Marty Robbins' Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs. In my mind this song is both the true ending and end credits music of Red Dead 2. Arthur sees the face of Christ in a lightning bolt and abandons his life of crime and sin, pleading with the lord to forgive him and then God kills a hundred cows with another lightning bolt just to make damn sure Arthur knows He's serious.

Saga Of The Ponderosa - Lorne Green: I was hanging out with my old housemate a few weeks ago and it turns out we were both having concurrent Marty Robbins cowboy music phases which was great news because then he turned me onto this album by Lorne Green who was on Bonanza and apparently took it upon himself to expand the Bonanaza Cinematic Universe in the 60s with a few albums. This song is apparently an origin story of Bonanza which I have never seen. It's extremely good, very powerful music. Great story of this godlike man striding across the country and overriding his wife's decision by naming his son HOSS.

Hard Sun - Eddie Vedder: I think it's interesting in A Star Is Born that Jackson Maine doesn't seem to be a real life equivalent of any actual musician. He's not obviously an archetype of any real person and so it's hard to place how exactly famous he is in the world of the movie. He's washed up enough to be playing pharmaceutical conferences but still has enough industry respect to be playing a tribute at the Grammys. The closest I could think of was Eddie Vedder oddly enough, and this song from the Into The Wild soundtrack really does sound like a Jackson Maine original.

For Chan - Tim Heideker: I'm having a real thing with comedy music recently and I can't tell if it means I've got a brain parasite or comedy music is good to me now. I think what I like about this song is the bluntness. There's no two ways about these people, and after years of hearing about the alt right as mysterious political genius computer brains it's a nice break to just hear them called greasy fat basement guys like we used to.

That's Right I'm Five - Don't Stop Or We'll Die: More good comedy music! They played this song on Comedy Bang Bang without announcing what it was called first, so the chorus really surprised me and made me laugh a lot. "They're selling the stocks so buy them, launch the torpedoes, tell my wife I love her, and send my son to college, bury me in the desert in my osh kosh b'gosh - that's right I'm five!" might be my favourite lyric of the year.

Future Brain - Den Harrow: Den Harrow is very good. He's like a beautiful moron American man that some italian scientists built in a lab in order to conquer America from the inside. Here are some good highlights from his wiki article: "The name Den Harrow was conceived by producers Roberto Turatti and Miki Chieregato, who based it on the Italian word denaro(money)." "After years of fame and popularity, it was revealed by frontman Stefano Zandri and his producers that Zandri did not actually sing the Den Harrow songs; he was essentially a character who lip-synched to vocals recorded by a number of other singers. Furthermore, since they did not consider Zandri's name and origin to be "trendy" enough, the producers R. Turatti and M. Chieregato concealed Zandri's Italian origin, marketing him as having been born Manuel Stefano Carry in Boston. This was done so Polydor Records could market him more easily in the English-speaking world, where Italian-produced music was, at the time, viewed with skepticism"

Love A Girl Right - Little Mix: Check out this rewrite of the Thong Song they did for the new Little Mix album. It's beyond belief. My girlfriend loves Little Mix and she's right to because they're the only girl/boy band that actually takes advantage of the form and does harmonies instead of just having them all sing in turn or all at once. They've got good vocal arrangements but they have the worst fucking songwriters working for them. Songwriters that pitch 'what if the Thong Song had a crunchy nu-metal guitar in it'.

This City Made Us - The Protomen: It's interesting to hear a band change styles - most other Protomen songs are a sort of Springsteen pastiche but this one from their newer single is more like Iron Maiden or Thin Lizzy. Approaching the 80s from a different angle. It's impressive to switch so radically and still have enough of a unifying sound that it feels like the same band. 80s throwback rock is a generally pallid genre populated by freaks who can't move on but Protomen put so much heart into it it's hard to write them off.

Teardrops - Womack & Womack: I love this song because it has two choruses. The drums stay the same throughout, the chords stay the same through the verse and chorus and only change for the second chorus/bridge part ("the music don't feel like it did when I felt it with you"), which just gives the whole song this feeling of beautiful endlessness. It goes and goes and goes and you're always already living in the best part of the song.

Boys Will Be Boys - The Duncan Sisters: Very very good piece of disco with a very nice piece of country picking guitar near the start for some reason. I quit like that the chorus of 'boys, oh boys, will be boys - they can really hurt you!' goes from a lighthearted thing about relationships until the bridge near the end where it sounds more like a dire warning. She's staring straight into your eyes and saying 'they can hurt you. boys can hurt you. they can really hurt you.' while motioning toward the exit with her eyes. 

Ayaya - Bicep: I've been trying to train my ear a bit better so I got a piano app on my phone and I just try to pick out the melodies of songs now when I'm bored. It turns out this is a very satisfying song to play. The melody is very simple, but the constant build and the couple of other melodies that come in around it make you feel like a super genius for just playing the same thing over and over.

The Call - David Mayer: I completely forget how I came across this song but I'm in love with the vocals on it. The effect reminds me of the one on Problem With The Sun by Nicolas Jaar, sort of pitched down and layered over itself. Outside of the vocals it's a pretty straightforward euro house chunk but damn sometimes a song just has a really good sound in it that you can't deny.

Problem With The Sun - Nicolas Jaar: My girlfriend's brother was telling me he was riding his bike the other day and had some kind of mental break where he was riding north in the afternoon but the sun was on his right, in the east - and for some reason his first instinct wasn't that he was wrong or disoriented, it was that there was a problem with the sun and it was in the wrong place. That boy ain't right but this song is good. I love that Nicolas Jaar uses this weird down pitched voice on a few songs and I really wish he'd bring it back, it sounds great and also funny to me.

Ensaslayi - Cecil Taylor: I don't have the brain power to comprehend any of Cecil Taylor's ensemble work that I've heard, free jazz in a band setting is simply too much for me it turns out -but I've really been getting a lot out of this solo album of his called Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!. This song in particular is one of the longer ones on the album, where another is only 53 seconds long and a few last around ten minutes. This is a nice midpoint, where he gives himself so much room to get lost in different directions without losing the thread entirely. I said it last time I was talking about him but I've really never heard anyone play piano like this and I absolutely love it. A lot of reviewers describe it as him playing the piano like it's a drumkit, which I think is accurate to a degree - but I think looking back from here this music makes a lot more sense within the context of black midi and things like that. The extreme edges of what a piano can theoretically do, but with a decisive and beautiful human edge and human brain that's responsible for and making sense of the chaos.

The Homeless Wanderer - Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou: I found out about this album cause Benjamin Booker was posting about her on his instagram story and it's just incredible. The TL;DR of her story is she's an Ethiopian nun that studied music in Switzerland and Cairo and wrote this beautiful piano music based on traditional Ethiopian pentatonic music. I love the rhythm of it, every note in the right hand get swirled around and around before it's settled on while the left hand moves so smoothly and delicately. Unfortunately-ish she's obviously in that genre of Searching For Sugarman secret blog music evidenced by her spotify similar artists being Karen Dalton, Alice Coltrane and Connie Converse. That's not a bad thing exactly, at least people are hearing about her, but her music is unique and amazing enough on its own without needing much mythologizing.

Carnival Of The Animals: No 12 - Fossils - Camille Saint-Saëns: My girlfriend was showing me Saint-Saëns' The Swan and then we were going through the whole rest of the Carnival Of The Animals and I'm happy to report that he not only did he do one for fossils but also centered it around the idea of a bone xylophone. I'm going to write an article for Vulture tracing the origin of the cartoon bone xylophone and my thesis is it starts here.

Perth - Bon Iver: Just thinking about how good Bon Iver is. I love how massive this song can feel, the drums combined with the big brass. It's small and soft on the grand scale, but on an album that gets as quiet and soft as songs like Holocene this song blows up like an atom bomb.

Yet Again - Grizzly Bear: This really is one of the best songs of all time I've decided. It feels like I get into a thing of listening to it on repeat almost every month now. I don't know what it is exactly - I guess it's every part of it. The lyrics are impenetrable (check) the riff is simple and powerful (check) the drums are doing a lot and keeping it simple at the same time. The the way the harmony vocals all intertwine in the prechorus part is amazing. The way the whole song blows up into a big radio static solo at the end. Every part of this song is great, I just love it.

Fuckin N' Rollin - Phantastic Ferniture: I found out that Julia Jacklin has a side project with a very shit name and they make very good music. I love when people have a whole other band for another side of their self. This is just Julia Jacklin if the lyrics were just first draft whatevers instead of incredibly poignant and beautiful and the music was just rockin and rollin with your friends. It's great!

Soft - Kings Of Leon: Number one best song ever about havin a bad dick!! I'd love to hang out lady but my dick! I'm passed out in your garden, I'm in I can't get off I'm so soft! I'd pop myself in you body, I'd come into your party but I'm soft!

Soft Serve - Soul Coughing: I played this while I was driving with my girlfriend and she said 'what the fuck is this' and she's right, as usual. It's Soul Coughing baby! The 90s 'slacker jazz' band! They sound dated as fuck, a real product of their time but I think they've still got a lot to offer. I had the chorus of this stuck in my head for a couple days which made me listen to this album more than usual when I mostly prefer their first one Ruby Vroom. Irresistible Bliss might have the worst album cover of all time though, so it's got that going for it. Google it.

Ya Mama - Wuf Ticket: There wiki article for this band says they had two songs in 1982 and that was it. Then it has a section titled Greaseman and then the article ends. Here's the Greaseman section in its entirety: "Wuf Ticket's “Ya Mama” achieved its greatest notoriety, and airplay, as a music bed for bits by shock jock The Greaseman on WWDC-FM in Washington, D.C. and later his nationally syndicated radio show where Greaseman would argue with a surly service industry worker." Anyway this is more of that very good early hip hop shit where everyone assumed songs should go for 8 minutes. It's just extremely weak sauce Ya Mama jokes for a very long time before they change tack completely and start talking about how Every Woman Is An Angel And Without Mothers We Would Never Have Been Born So Think About That Next Time.

Gon Be Okay - Lil B: I had the part of this song where he sings 'things are never gonna be the same again' along with the piano in my head the other day and spent fully an hour googling to try to find what song it was from before giving up. I woke up the next morning and suddenly remembered it was this song but was very shocked to find out that he actually never sings that line along with the piano melody, he says it once at the start and that's it. What's going on with my brain. Anyway in my searching I found out that the piano is sampled from the Spirited Away soundtrack so once more in my life I've been led to ruin by anime.

2 Minute Drills - Allblack & Kenny Beats: This whole EP is great. More sports themed rap please. Allblack is ferocious and Kenny's production throughout is great, the perfect mix of simple straighforward beats that still have a lot of space and energy in them, plus 'Woah Kenny!' has my award for Best New Producer Watermark.

Don't Gas Me - Dizzee Rascal: I don't know how he keeps doing it but somehow Dizzee Rascal continues to make extremely fun bangers without ever slowing down. The best line in this is when he says "no I don't drink Appletiser" (the sparkling apple juice) which is an extremely weird flex if there ever was one.

Acid King - Malibu Ken: It feels insane that a Tobacco and Aesop Rock collab sounds as good as this. I love that there's no drums the entire time he's rapping and I completely love the Mort Garson vibes in the instrumental which turns out to be a perfect soundtrack to the Ricky Kasso satan worship LSD murder story that Aesop's telling. Also in reading about Kasso I just discovered the very good stoner doom band also named Acid King, so expect to see them in next month's list.

Pirate Blues - As Cities Burn: As Cities Burn have reformed and put out a new single so I've been thinking about them a bit. On paper they don't sound good, over three albums they morphed from a christian metalcore band to a christian alt-rock band, and while they never reinvented the wheel I think they're a remarkable band who took a lot of risks in their own way and made a lot of rock solid music. They've got a lot of great songs but I think this is my favourite from their third album when it finally felt like they'd settled into a steady alt rock sound informed by their much heavier past.

This Is It, This Is It - As Cities Burn: The thing I like about As Cities Burn is that as much as they're a christian band (yuck) they're more of a band of guys who are christians (slightly less yuck) and the difference is huge. Rather than evangelising or preaching, their songs are about their own personal struggles with their faith (still slightly yuck). I like this song especially because the lyric feels close to gospel, 'we're all singing for our sins, unless grace be the wind' but with the added twist of being furious that you're trapped by the sin of your physical body.

Timothy - As Cities Burn: I think this song is just incredible. The lyrics are so strong and direct and heartbreaking, the vocal performance especially is amazing and it may be the only time in history that a 6 minute guitar solo has seemed good and necessary.

Face Tat - Zach Hill: There's an incredible video of the recording of this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGi9SOFX5rc that really looks exactly how it sounds and has a very similar energy to that video of 80 guys singing the halo theme in the boys bathroom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRG9KwvbVhk . This is what it sounds like when the boys are left alone. The biggest draw to Zach Hill's drumming is the intense primordial immediacy of it. He is just pounding away like a possessed animal and it's really on show here, especially combined with the occasional punctuating shout. Carson McWhirter's guitar is incredible too, the tone he's got where it sounds like three at once playing these incredible twisting riffs that turn on a dime. I think what I like most about this song is just how in sync they are - for such a chaotic, noisy song it sounds so rehearsed, somehow every single note is perfectly in time in the storm.

Betty's Worry Or The Slab - Hunters And Collectors: This is maybe the sweatiest song I've ever heard. It's a disgusting song about being incredibly sweaty and horny and I love the weird squeaky noise he makes after he says 'say it! say it!'. The bass sound in this is so fantastically meaty too, and combined with the brass at the end it's just great.

Worms Of The Senses / Faculties Of The Skull (live) - Refused: I cannot believe just how absolutely ferocious live Refused is. Insanely powerful without ever missing a beat in a song like this that requires incredible timing throughout. For some reason I've always thought Refused were an only ok live band after watching Refused Are Fucking Dead because all I remember of it is a clip where the guitarist accidentally hits the singer in the face with his headstock and they have to stop the show.

Mirror Reaper - Bell Witch: I got to see Bell Witch live a couple of weeks ago and it's one of the best shows I've ever seen. I can't really describe it other than it feels like the closest thing to a legitimate summoning ritual that I've ever seen. An invocation and an expelling of raw power and emotion between two people, it was really something. Also the best part was about two minutes in when they were really setting the scene with the sort of ambient beginning of Mirror Reaper and the whole crowd was dead silent and entranced as they built this mystic atmosphere and set the vibe a guy behind me said loudly to his friend 'hm pretty good so far!'

What's You Gonna Do When The World's On Fire - Lead Belly & Anne Graham: This is in my opinion the best genre of gospel song where they they just roast you for not being saved yet.​ 

listen here

[ifthesewings--couldfly]

tagged by @livehorses (Sorry it took so long, don’t worry I’m not ignoring you <3)

Rules: Tag the person who tagged you, answer the questions and tag 20 people.

1. How tall are you?  1.65 cm, which should be 5′4″ in feet

2. What color and style is your hair? I have above-the-shoulder hair with a couple strands on the front that are longer than the rest. My natural hair color is dark blonde, but since I dyed it red(dish) before Christmas, I’m still waiting for it to get back to its original color

3. What color are your eyes? My eyes are cerulean, which means they change color according to the weather. Most of the time they’re green, and they can get blue on particularly bright days. They also turn grey when it’s stormy

4. Do you wear glasses? Yes

5. Do you wear braces? No, but I will in a while, since I need it :)

6. What is your fashion style? I love “girly” colors (blush, navy blue, gold) but since I just can’t match them right I’m trying to gravitate to an easier style. Right now, I’m dressing in 60s fashion :)

7. Full name? I don’t like sharing personal information on the web, so I’ll just say Cinzia :)

8. When were you born? July 13th, 1995

9. Where are you from and where do you live now? I’m Italian and I live in Italy. I’d love to live abroad though :)

10. What school do you go to? Acaademy of Fine Arts

11. What kind of student are you? The kind of student who used to be considered a genius when they were younger, only to get completely ordinary growing up. I must say, though, that life got in the way of my education

12. Do you like school? I do. I’ve always been the person who liked learning new things

13. What are your favorite school subjects? Art, literature, languages (three of my deepest passions)

14. Favorite TV shows? Victoria, The Big Bang Theory, the first season of The Good Place and others I can’t remember

16. Favorite books? Villette by Charlotte Bronte, Pamela by Samuel Richardson and a lot more whom I can’t remember. I’m an avid reader

17. Favourite past-time? Writing, drawing, reading, listening to music, gardening if all of my plants didn’t die after a while lol

18. Do you have any regrets? Some, but they’re too personal to share them here

19. Dream job? Freelance artist, character designer (especially for Disney) and things like that. I’m also fine with art teacher. Anything art-related, basically

20. Would you like to get married? Yes. My family is pretty dysfunctional, so I can’t wait to have one of my own

21. Would you like to have kids someday? Yes :)

22. How many? I often picture myself with four kids, two boys and two girls. Also, I’d LOVE to have twins

23. Do you like shopping? It depends on what I go shopping for. Clothes? Nah. My favorites are furniture (weird, I know) and Electronics

24. What countries have you visited? None entirely lol

25. What’s the scariest nightmare you’ve ever had? I try to forget nightmares the very moment after I wake up

26. Do you have any enemies? I think we all do. Mine is fear

27. Do you have a s/o? Special one? Nope, and I feel the void caused by it in my life. (Kinda dramatic, I know)

28. Do you believe in miracles? I think miracles happen to a few elected people who love God enough to deserve them

I tag @redsugarlumpdeluxe @briar-rose @jellybeanfishes @a-place-called-slaughter-race @justlookatthosesausages @royalefrost @the-blue-fairie @annadailly @undernvsky @cherrylomain @luna-whiskers @pattinsonlight @galaxy-madison @misshollyslair @sam-miao enough, I’m tired of tagging people lol

[thisislizheather]

Taste: My Life Through Food By Stanley Tucci - A Review

Available everywhere

Truly, what a great book. There are only a handful of books I’ve read in a day (Animal Farm, The Bell Jar, White Noise, Mr. Vertigo) and now I get to add this great one to the list. I didn’t intend to read it all on this past Sunday, but a cold kept me in bed and each chapter kept me enthralled. I love days like that. Favourite parts ahead.

The line, “Culinary creativity may be the most perfect art form. It allows for free personal expression like painting, musical composition, or writing and yet fulfills a most practical need: the need to eat. Edible art, what could be better?”

When his father would always comment, “My God, what does the rest of the world eat?!!!!” when his mother would cook some wonderful dinner reminds me so much of any time I cook something especially decadent for my own father and he always says, “I feel sorry for what the peasants are eating tonight!“

Genius idea: “The buttering of the corn… well, it wasn’t just “put knife into butter, put butter on corn with knife.” No. No. Good God. No. A piece of homemade bread was buttered and then used to slather the salted ear of corn, thus, in true Italian fashion, creating two dishes out of one, the ear of corn being the first dish and the homemade bread (now saturated with the melted butter, salt, and sweetness from the buttered kernels) being the second. This may have been the single most delicious part of an an already delicious meal. An act so simply it’s almost stupid.”

I love his entire rant on page 129 about what bullshit it is that certain celebrity chefs don’t really taste their food on certain food shows and that you can always tell.

When he’s talking about how fettuccine Alfredo should only be made with butter and cheese: “Over the years, in many restaurants, the sublimely simple combination of butter and cheese has been altered to satisfy American palates. Cream has crept its way in (unnecessary), as well as chicken (yuck), broccoli (why?), and turkey (really? Fuck off).”

I absolutely loved the chapter on his wife’s way to cook English roast potatoes. My dad has been trying to explain this to me for years and I still haven’t got it quite figured out because of all the smoke involved.

The entire chapter on his battle with cancer is absolutely wild and must have been so hard to write in such detail, especially since it’s all so recent. How his pregnant wife handled all of it is truly beyond me.

Reminders to myself:

Why on earth haven’t I seen his movie Big Night yet?! Christ. I think it’s just so difficult to find. Have to get on this. Must also watch Babette’s Feast (he said it was part of his inspiration for making Big Night).

Must remember to make the tomato salad on page 46.

He mentions that “the truest ragu alla Bolognese recipe” is in the cookbook Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, published in 1891, by Pellegrino Artusi so now I must make it.

When in Rome, eat the carbonara at the restaurant Pommidoro.

For dried pasta, buy the Cav. Giuseppe Cocco spaghetti, can by found online. It’s supposed to be among the best dried pasta available.

I have never tasted bottarga, but now I must?

Visit the beautiful seaside town of Deauville in France, but do not order andouillette.

Visit Dukes in London for a memorable martini.

If I ever start making martinis at home, see page 201 for reference.

Visit Lo Scoglio on the Amalfi Coast to eat the zucchini pasta that this man talks about at least once a day, it seems. (It’s also a beautiful hotel, so maybe stay there as well).

Fully recommend this book, especially if you want to stay in bed all day and dream of each dish he describes. (Thank you so much to my dear friend Diana for gifting this gem to me!)

[pomidorfriend]

Call Me By Your Name rant

Ok, so I have to write it down somewhere, cos’ it keeps going through my mind, so it might as well be here. Call Me By Your Name is an absolute masterpiece and I think everyone knows that, though I’ve seen some people comment that if it wasn’t a gay love story it wouldn’t be so recognised, which is, I don’t know, maybe true, but I definitely can’t think of it like that. Because what I love most about Call Me By Your Name (and I mean the film, because I haven’t had the pleasure to read the book yet) is not the gay romance, or the breathtaking way it was shot, or the atmosphere or music or any of those things, although all of that was great. But what I love most is that the film is so completely about humanities. And I mean that in a very personal way, because I don’t know how it is in other countries, but here people who study any kind of human sciences are kind of second rate, especially compared to formal or technological sciences. And don’t get me wrong, humanities are popular, but they are often viewed as something more fashionable, something ‘hipster’. But in this movie, everyone is a humanist, and not in the ‘fashionable’ sense, but in a ‘these are very intelligent people’ sense. The entirety of Elio’s family are people who are very knowledgeable in terms of culture, of history, of art, and my absolute favourite, of literature. Him growing up in this kind of family made him very sensitive to art, and especially to music, which is wonderful. Elio is not the conventional intelligent character of 2000′s, a conventional one would be the guy from Good Will Hunting, Sheldon, guy from Beautiful Mind, a genius mathematician with mental problems, and yet we cannot deny that Elio is truly intelligent. There is something very old-school in that, but it is still not a choice of fashion. My favourite sentence from the film ‘I like the way you say things’ also brings that idea to mind, the idea that words and how we say them have charm, have power, can make someone fall in love. And passing to words, oh god, the most beautiful thing about the film: the language. I love how they used multilingualism, and showed through it how different cultures connect in a person. I loved how Elio talked with certain people in specific languages, but with his family he talked in English, Italian, French interchangeably, and how it showed the unity of the family, because they understood each other, and from the cultures they had within them they created their own little mix. Maybe it’s because I’m a student of languages, but it made me completely overjoyed to hear a conversation carried out in three different languages at once. 

Ehem, I made a mess of this post, but I’m emotional about these things when I should be focusing on my exams. But anyway, I loved the movie, if that was not obvious.

[strangeremembrances]

[my-job-is-to-fangirl]

“You know disgrace isn’t that bad. Once you settle into it.”

SO. I was watching TV one day and as I was flipping the channels, I saw an ad for a new show, ‘American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace’. I was sold just on the fact that it said Versace, I love fashion; and crime, (if you know me, you know I love crime) and then I saw Darren Criss. That’s all. I had to watch it. I did a bit of research and found out that he was playing the killer, and I had no clue that Versace was assassinated. So I began watching it, and the premiere episode itself, I was hooked; I knew I’d be dedicated and watch religiously. My mom watched it with me too, because she also likes crime (at times, when I’m not forcing her to watch something like Hannibal while eating dinner).

Anyway, I missed the second episode itself <rolls eyes> So much for being ‘dedicated’. I went to my best friend’s house the day after the 5th episode aired, and I made her watch. She was hooked too, so we watched the first two episodes together. I realized then, that TV was censoring out some important scenes that added to the plot line, so I switched to watching online. But yes, bottom line, watch it online, make sure you have subs, or earphones on with the highest volume. None of the characters speak very loudly. I dont even know why this paragraph is here, I apologize.

NOW, COMING TO THE ACTUAL SHOW. It was brilliant, I thought. Like, really. It is based on the book ‘Vulgar Favors’, which I really want to read now after watching the show. The gist of the show, in my words: The first shot is set on July 15, 1997. Gianni Versace is currently in his Miami house (mansion) and he goes out to buy some newspapers. The mansion faces the beach by the way, and the show was shot in the actual Versace home. As he goes back home, he is shot by a man (Darren Criss) and collapses at the gate of his house. A man (Antonio, his partner, played by Ricky Martin) comes out from the house and screams for help to the bystanders. Criss, who plays Andrew Cunanan (the killer, and part of, apparently, one of FBI’s biggest failed manhunts), is an unreliable narrator, to say the least, making up stories to tell each person that he meets throughout the episodes. The plot, as such, goes backwards, and shows all the other murders that Cunanan has committed, along with character backstories.

Thats the gist, and I have a lot to say about the show, so get some food or a beverage (no alcohol, kids) and sit if you want to actually read through this whole post :p

Okay, first off, the casting. I cannot cannot cannot get over the casting on this show. I will insert pictures to prove that the casting was impeccable and almost scarily, uncannily similar to the real people. I will talk about the casting as well as the characters themselves here.

Young Andrew- Darren Criss as the older Andrew- the real Andrew Cunanan

Edgar Ramirez as Versace- the real Gianni Versace (is this not freaky)

The real Donatella Versace- Penelope Cruz as Donatella

The real Antonio D’Amico- Ricky Martin as Antonio

I HAD TO INCLUDE THIS PICTURE BECAUSE LOOK.AT.THE.SIMILARITY.ITS.UNCANNY.

//// Andrew Cunanan is the main lead of the show, not Versace, as the title might suggest. But the reason for the show being named after Versace makes sense, because that’s the incident that finally brought Cunanan into proper notice, and what pushed him over the edge, maybe. Darren Criss, I cannot explain in words how good his acting was. His charm, his little dimples, his attire, the way he spoke, everything seemed to match 100% with the details given about the real Cunanan, as given by his family and friends.

His character, from the very first episode, is shown to be charming, intelligent (IQ of 147) and subtly at first, but then clearly- a prolific liar. He lies his way through things, he seems to have suffered from antisocial personality disorder, which according to what I read, causes the lack of empathy, which is exactly what Cunanan has. More on this later. He lies about his personality (he says in the first episode, ‘I tell people what they need to hear,’ insinuating that he told gay people he was gay, and straight people he was straight. He was, in fact, gay, and also an escort). He tells his friends, Lizzie and another guy (unnamed) in the first episode, how Versace invited him to his Opera show. This scene, set back in 1990, is explained further, as we see that in reality, Cunanan had faked an Italian background, just to talk to Versace. But he really did go to the Opera, and that night was what made Cunanan do what he did, which is explained in the last episode.

It’s also cool how they added some small details, to add to his character- he ends up eating in times of distress, or after a killing, or before a killing. He always tells people the same lies- this really stood out to me, because its hard for someone to keep up the same lies all the time. It was always that his father owned pineapple plantations in the Philippines, and that he was writing a book, and that he had a lot of money from all his clients. He also always tells people he is better with older men, and not people his age, which shows as the show progresses, how many older men he has as clients.

Cunanan essentially started his killings way before Versace, killing 4 other people. I get the feeling that the smallest of things were what triggered him to kill.

Jeff (Jeffrey) Trail, the first victim, was his close friend, and an ex- US Navy Officer. They got into a small fight, and Cunanan killed him with a hammer, in front of their mutual friend, and Cunanan’s ex-love interest, David Madson, who is the next victim.

David tells Cunanan that they cannot live a happy life together, not after what he did to Jeff, and Cunanan tells him ‘We could have been happy’, before shooting him. Cunanan really did love David though, which is clear till the very last episode.

Lee Miglin, the third victim, had probably the most horrific end. He was a 70+ year old famous architect, one of Cunanan’s clients, who tells him that their relationship cannot be real, and indirectly says that finance is the key point in their ‘relationship’, if thats even what it can be called. Cunanan, as revenge, or for whatever reason, gags Miglin’s face with duct tape, throws bags of cement on him and uses a hacksaw to kill him. He kills and leaves the body in the garage, after placing several gay pornographic magazines around him, to prove to the world that Miglin was not who he said he was. Possibly, I think, because Miglin says their relationship cannot be ‘real’ (because he was married to a very successful businesswoman), and Cunanan knows that the world doesn’t know the real Lee Miglin.

The fourth victim, William Reese, was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Cunanan kills him and takes his car to go to Miami. Cunanan is polite, even in the case of a killing. He asks Reese- ‘Is there a downstairs? Can I lock you in there?’ He may have hesitated for a moment, but makes his decision to shoot him once Reese tells him that he has a family that he would like to see again. Its possible that Cunanan made up his mind, because of his strange and strained childhood.

Gianni Versace, the final and the most famous victim. He, on the night of the Opera, tells Cunanan that they cannot be together, and that rejection finally pushed him to the edge.

What is so different, in a very strange way, is that you cant help but empathize for Andrew Cunanan. Yes, he was a serial killer, but some scenes honestly just b r o k e my heart. In one episode, where him and David are on the run, he sits in a cafe, listening to the live singer there, while David is in the bathroom. The woman sings about who will be home when you call, will you have someone to go home to; and Cunanan sits, in the middle of the cafe, and just silently cries. Another scene that made me want to punch something (out of sadness and anger both) is in the last episode, where, Cunanan, currently hiding from the police (after Versace’s murder), calls his estranged father from a payphone, and tells him that he is in trouble and that he needs help. He sobs while talking to his father, and the father promises him he’ll be there in 24 hours, and also tells him, ‘Men don’t cry, remember?’ By the time Cunanan goes to his hideout (a houseboat) after packing his bags, his father is giving an interview on tv, insisting that Cunanan isn’t gay, and can’t be. I wanted him dead. There are some scenes from his childhood, where the father (Modesto), treats Cunanan, the youngest of four siblings, like a Prince, and on the side, calls him out for ‘not being a man’. Modesto keeps calling him weak because Andrew cries. He blames him for being weak minded like his mother and calls him sissy, slaps him and says ‘be a man’ and repeatedly telling him, ‘you don’t have it in you’.

(sorry about the blurred face, I panicked)

Some iconic scenes of Andrew Cunanan- (THE FIRST 2 ARE LINKS PLEASE OPEN THEM) 1. Pump up the jam– Till 45 seconds. This scene is right after the murder of Jeff Trail, and you can see how he has no empathy. This is my all time favourite scene from the entire show, I think Criss is genius. 2. Gloria– Till 45 seconds. 3. All the scenes where he dances in parties and/or other places too

Lastly, there are two more iconic scenes I’d like to talk about. Last episode, he watched as the news channels talked about him being the only suspect in these murders on TV, and a bottle of champagne pops open while he’s watching. He laughs in shock, and ends up laughing his head off, clutching his stomach. I found that scene genius. And he eats dog food out of desperation in the last episode, because he is holed up in that house boat for days. It was so sad, but so real.

The last few minutes of the show have live coverage of the hunt for Cunanan, broadcasting live how the police is going into the house and everything, and the last thought that Cunanan has before he shoots himself is- ‘I’m so happy right now’, which is what he says to Versace the night of the Opera.

Now, lastly for my lecture on Cunanan, I think Darren Criss was genius, and I think he fit the role perfectly, and I’m not saying it just because I love Darren Criss (I love him, if you can’t tell already), but genuinely, he moulded and fit the character to a glove. I read a lot about the real Cunanan, and I think the show did complete justice to him. Ryan Murphy, thank you for this show.

NOW. THINGS OTHER THAN CUNANAN THAT I LOVED:

// The show dealt with real problems such as homophobia; as seen in the case of Antonio, Versace’s partner, who doesn’t get any understanding from the people, or even Donatella, about his love for Gianni; they lived together for 15 years but there is still no consideration for their relationship. The most harrowing scene is when the priest at Versace’s funeral service let’s everyone kiss his hands except Antonio. This leads Antonio to attempt committing suicide by overdosing on pills.

There is a scene in the last episode where Ronnie (one of Cunanan’s friends and fellow druggie), gives the police some statements. All his lines have a sinister undertone, and gave me goosebumps, showing the real situations back then in the 90’s.

“You were disgusted by him, long before he became disgusting. You’re so used to us lurking in the shadows, and, you know, most of us, we oblige. People like me, we just, we drift away. We get sick, nobody cares.”

Here, he is talking about how the police, and society in general, never cared for the homosexuals, and how they never gave them a second thought. He speaks for the entire LGBTQ+ community back then, I feel, when he says this, talking about how nobody cares about their condition. There is a scene in the beginning of the show where the FBI has flyers printed with Cunanan’s details, but doesn’t actually distribute them, because they think its unimportant. They also don’t listen to the local police officer, a woman, who insists that they check all the gay clubs around Miami, seeing as Cunanan was a gay prostitute, which the FBI dismisses. Turns out, that is where he goes most frequently, and the police could have caught him earlier, but didn’t. Versace and Antonio being partners is also treated as a huge deal, along with the fact that they had escorts frequently visit the house.

Ronnie also tells the police: “Andrew is not hiding, he’s trying to be seen.” This is one of truest things said on the show, among several others. Cunanan is desperate for attention, and doesn’t want to be hidden in the shadows, he wants the world to see him. Everything he does, he does in plain sight; he uses his real name and identity, never tries to hide it, almost as if he wants to be caught, and the world would know who he was. He always tries to be the center of attention, whether it was in school, college, or later in life. He uses his real name everywhere he goes, and in a pawn shop, he gave his ID, but the woman never paid attention, because the police never put out the notice for until after a week of the murder spree. There is also a scene at a party at a gay club, where amidst the loud music, a guy asks him what he does, and Cunanan replies, “I’m Andy. I’m a serial killer.” He also calls himself a stockbroker, and several other things. He reveals his entire name as well. The guy laughs it off, not knowing anything about manhunt, because it was still not out in the media.

He always wanted to be (and was voted in high school) ‘A name to be remembered by’.

// I loved how the show took its story backwards. The first episode began with the last killing, and each episode showed flashbacks with Cunanan’s older victims and their backstories, adding so much clarity to the plot. It was different, and something I’d never seen in any show before. It really left an impact, and made sure you didn’t miss the next episode, because you’ll have to watch it to know what happened earlier. I also loved how the last two episodes were when we found out about Cunanan’s childhood, showing us why and how he became what he was.

// The scenes with Modesto, Cunanan’s father, were so frustratingly good. I hated the character with all my heart, which was obviously the intention. There is a shot with Modesto telling Andrew about how his mom was sick, and he was the one who took care of him when he was growing up. At this point, Modesto gets Andrew a car. Andrew closes the car window and the moms reflection shows up, perhaps symbolic of how he cut her out from his life, piece by piece, memory by memory. I’ve inserted the screenshot of the scene here:

// Another character I loved was Mrs. Miglin. Her acting was so real. When Lee dies, she refuses to look at the body, or to hear anything that the police had to say. Whether she knows about him being gay is unknown to the viewers. Her reactions to the public wondering if she was even sad about her husbands death were brilliant. She always has a made-up face, looking calm and normal, and a few days after the death, she removes the makeup. If people see her makeup coming off when she cries, she wonders about their reactions, which is why she kept a cool, composed face until now. I found this entire sequence brilliant, showing how the media and the public generally portray and see celebrities, and never leave them alone in peace.

// Cunanan’s best friend, Lizzie, gives a statement on television, in the last episode, when he is in hiding. To me, these are the words that pushed him to surrender and kill himself. I think the fact that the words came from the only person who loved him in the entire world really made him realize how much trouble he was in, and that he saw no choice but to kill himself. This is what she says: “I know that the most important thing to you in the world is what others think of you.” This is so true, considering the fact that he always wanted the attention, and constantly wanted people to know things about him, and the fact that he needed to get feedback and know what people thought of his actions and his background.

He feeds lies to Versace as well, about him writing a book, and that he was going to publish it soon. Versace believes him, and tells him about how he needs to finish writing the book, and that he was sure it’d do well. Cunanan asks Versace if he could be his protege and help him out, but Versace declines politely, telling him he didn’t need any assistants right now. This also adds to Cunanan’s rage against Versace.

// You can see how Andrew got the compulsive lying. Modesto, in the last episode, while being interviewed about Andrew, lies on tv saying they discussed movie rights to his life story and that they’re talking to several studios about releasing it soon. He was also the one who taught Andrew to always be polite, and to be good mannered. It is shown in the last two episodes where Modesto gives him books about manners, and even sends him to a prep school.

Now, coming to small descriptions about the other characters. Small, I promise. Promiseeeeeeee.

Gianni and Donatella Versace- Both these characters were well rounded, and wonderful actors. Edgar Ramirez and Penelope Cruz did a brilliant job in portraying the Versace siblings. The fights, the affection, the remorse, the love, everything was so real.

Antonio D’Amico- Ricky Martin!!!! I also watched the show because I saw his name in the cast :p* His character was such a sad one. He was never accepted by society, as Gianni’s partner. Donatella hated him and said that he never gave Gianni anything, no family, no kids, nothing, and if he had, she would have had some respect for him. It was also speculated that he gave Versace HIV, which wasn’t true in the end. Antonio was really nice, because he really loved Gianni, and he proposes to him too, saying they should get married, and forget the world around them.

David Madson- Ohmygod, my poor heart. David was genuinely the sweetest guy, and it felt like he ignored the voices in his head saying bad things about Andrew, because he really liked him. It was almost as though he had Stockholm Syndrome when practically kidnapped by Cunanan. He had a chance to escape from the bathroom (in the cafe), but he chooses to come back, showing that maybe he still had a soft spot for Andrew. His childhood and youth was sad too, and the strained, but very happy relationship with his father plays in the back of his head when he is shot.

Jeff Trail- His character was also so so sad. He was gay and in the Navy, which was something that was unacceptable at the time. The Chief in the Navy gives out handbooks to all the officers about informing higher authorities if they knew that someone was gay. One night, Jeff is seen comforting another man; the next morning, the books are handed out as a warning. The man, after being beaten up, tells the Chief all the people that he knows are gay, and he mentions a man with a tattoo, meaning Jeff (no one knows). He tries to cut his tattoo off but stops because of the very apparent blood, and later tries to hang himself, but stops.

Lee Miglin- An old man, who is very well known for his architectural abilities, has some secrets. When his wife is out of town on business, he calls his escort, Cunanan. Explained above^^

Extra admiration for the young Andrew Cunanan, he was genius. He took on the smallest of details that Darren Criss had in his character; things like a small smile, a smug look, and the polite charm of someone who you would never have thought to be a psychopath.

‘What if you had a dream your whole life that you were someone special but no one believed it?’

// Andrew Cunanan //

Here are some very cool articles and videos that I found about the whole incident. 1. Facing death 2. Five lives cut short 3. Video (Who was Gianni Versace’s killer?)

Here are some screenshots I took from the show, that I liked.

These are both from the last episode, the one on the left is after he hears on the media that he is the only suspect, and the one on the right is of him eating dog food.

Sorry for the bad quality, but this is one of my favourite shots in the entire show.

// The entire show was shot beautifully, and the locations were shown in all their grandeur, especially the Versace mansion. The characters all looked the part, and certainly played the part. I found that adding subtle hints of symbolism in the episodes really made a difference.

Thats all :p* I hope everyone who reads this enjoys. I don’t even know if anyone will read this but I really wanted to talk about the show because it impacted me so much, and the characters really shone. Simply brilliant show. I would highly recommend it to everyone. There are a few scenes that are a little hard to watch, but you’ll get used to it. Bye now 😀

P.S. Darren Criss said this in a first look video I found, I think it encapsulates the entire show:

“Truth is, you know, fear and prejudice, unfortunately, is always in fashion.”

ACS2: The Assassination of Gianni Versace "You know disgrace isn't that bad. Once you settle into it." SO. I was watching TV one day and as I was flipping the channels, I saw an ad for a new show, 'American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace'.

[kentonramsey]

Take A Trip Inside Simone Rocha’s Dark Dance Of Femininity

At Milan Fashion Week in 2018, luxury skiwear brand Moncler launched Moncler Genius, an innovative and thoroughly modern business model that sees different designers helm the label to create their own individual collections. Released not seasonally but on a rolling calendar schedule, think of it as fashion’s coolest carousel of talent: everyone from HRH favourite Richard Quinn to Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli has presented an inspired collection through the initiative. Simone Rocha, one of London Fashion Week’s most revered creative director, has been there from the start.

Launching her fourth collection for the brand today, this time under the theme ‘Exploring New Territories’, Rocha used the most romantic of materials, tulle, to create outerwear embroidered with blooming pansies, daisies and roses. While her signature frothy frills maintain an ethereal touch, there’s always a darkness to Rocha’s work – a defiant, almost warlike femininity. This collection is no different. “There is always a contrast to ensure a balance, so the delicate details and fabrications are contrasted with a sense of darkness and toughness to create a modern form of femininity,” Rocha tells Refinery29 ahead of the launch. “Each collection has combined the Simone Rocha aesthetic elements in new ways as I explored Moncler’s classic Down fabric in different weights and different techniques of manipulation.”

To emphasise the dreamlike quality of the collection, Rocha collaborated with photographer Petra Collins on a film examining the notions of drama and fantasy through the female gaze. Rocha is known for casting an array of models for her shows and campaigns – think women over 60 and the likes of Chloë Sevigny. “I want to represent both the diversity of my customer base but also the diversity of femininity,” she explains. For the Moncler campaign, she chose professional dancers alongside an exciting mix of familiar faces. “The dancers were able to move in the collection in a dynamic way to explore the new ideas and this is reflected in the still images shot by Andrew Nuding which were done on the set of the film.”

In tandem with the dynamism of dance – Rocha cites the work of choreographers Pina Bausch and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker as ongoing inspiration – she looked to the films of cult Italian director Federico Fellini. “I was inspired by movement and dance, femininity and the fantasy of dress, and Fellini and how I could challenge those thoughts and balance them with Moncler’s codes,” she explains. For every whimsical tulle and tutu style, there is a utilitarian severity in ruched hoods, trench coats and zippers. Was she watching Fellini’s films while making the collection? “I usually play music while I am working with my team,” she says, “it’s a mix of Billie Holiday, Radiohead, Babeheaven and Nina Simone.”

Rocha is currently working on her SS21 collection in lockdown, and while it’s uncertain exactly how we’ll be seeing it now that London Fashion Week has gone digital, the designer‘s latest Moncler drop is sustaining us in the meantime with all the haunting beauty we’ve come to know and love her for.

The 4 Moncler Simone Rocha collection is out today

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Take A Trip Inside Simone Rocha’s Dark Dance Of Femininity published first on https://mariakistler.tumblr.com/