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mmoxie · 1 year

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Part 8- Cocaine Engineering

Weeks passed. Dani spent a little more of her cash on a motel room, first for a few nights, then deciding to hand over the weekly rate every Thursday until all the bills were gone.

It let her hang onto most of her new checks from Turtlebees, and she was starting to build up savings fast. Turns out when there's nothing for entertainment but unscrambling the prestige porn in your hotel room and getting a different ingredient on your hotdog at Deb's little stand, you could just... keep it.

As for the store- she was being careful. For the first couple weeks she had gone by Gina Lincoln, in honor of her old work bestie from the Wilson Titlee lottery stand. But, by the second week she had taken to wearing a blank nametag, and by the third...

"Gina, it's got to have a name on it."

"I'm just tired of being called "jyna," she said. "It sounds... pretty bad."

The meat manager let out a deep, hippoey laugh and slapped a hand down on the glass where Dani and her boss- fourth in charge- Redd, were discussing dress code.

"Can't you just correct them?" He gave her the flat, disapproving-but-concerned look of a jaywalker staring down cars as they cut across.

"I really don't want to be confrontational. Or... have them think I'm being that way."

Redd took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. He was a robust guy, probably the type who'd have been called strapping in his youth, still holding that physique together with brown argyle suspenders and a swayback posture that always made him seem to loom.

He had been in this business for a long time. Plus, he was tidying up his third divorce next week, and Gina's keeping up with me in the gray hair department, so a date would probably work out.

So he gave a little, like he always did. You could get away with a lot in a business like this, as long as the numbers looked good at the end of the day. Cut a corner if it doesn't hurt those counts.

"Listen, Gina," he leaned forward and looked at her conspiratorially, over the smart silver frames of his glasses. "All I'm sayin' is that you have to have a name on there. Doesn't hafta be yours."

And so by week three, Dani was walking around Turtlebees with a bog-standard nametag, in her handwriting, in industrial, high-stink Sharpie.

Nametag

So far, she was getting along... great, come to think of it. She had taken up a position in the produce department, groceryside's precious little no-fontanelle-having fragile-ass porcelain baby.

The managers were obsessed with it- but only at a distance. There was a fear to it, like if they touched anything, so much as breathed the same air as a napa cabbage, everything would simultaneously wilt and be invoiced at sixty thousand dollars per fruiting body.

Six foot, seven foot, eight foot, BUNCH! God, Michael Keaton makes a great antagonist. And remember when Alec Baldwin was kinda cute? That's crazy.

She liked working the fruit tables. They were pleasantly cool, perfect for a good long lean. No bending at the knees, no restrictive plan-o-gram, you just put in as many fresh grapes as you can until they're gone, because baby, they're molding tomorrow.

Everything was dying all the time and it wasn't her problem. Buy it or you're wasting it. You sit the throne of Damocles and the blade is held by the single hair... of an onion.

She started subtly living the dream, while waiting for Craig to tell her she was being shipped off to Peru. She had a bug-out bag in her motel room, and was thoroughly regretting putting the old man in her phone.

He texted fast, and often.

He liked to hit send instead of comma for pauses.

She was buried under a pile of YouTube links to an alternating supply of Coltrane and Dolores Delirio. Once he found her tape collection, the onslaught of '90s Peruvian goth rock blew up her prepaid phone day and night.

But she could tolerate it all, suddenly. Produce was a full-time position, and with access to full-time hours, she finally cracked the code.

Three day weekends.

Allowed to pour all her head-down, don't-start-any-fires, grit-tooth determination into toting melons and heaving potatoes, she found she could get a lot of work done in a day. Productivity didn't really matter to her, but the fact that she could get the blood pumping and use that energy for something useful instead of murder... it had her feeling a tad more grounded, after a fundamentally paranormal week.

She made a point of helping Redd with some heavy lifts, and expressed a genuine interest in taking on more hours that same day, much to his delight.

She built a display perfectly to playbook while Redd was out sick, and made her move just a few days later.

"You know, Mr. Lake," she started, one knee up on the edge of the Leafy Greens wall, cleaning some accumulated cruft from the sprayer head with her thumb.

"Come on, Gina, we're like the same age. Actually, I might be younger." He frowned at his clipboard and pretended to be distracted.

"I... was thinking. I kinda want longer shifts."

"You huh?"

"Yeah. I don't have much going on. I think I could work twelves."

"Ah, I can't give you twelves. You'd go overbudget in a heartbeat."

"Well... how 'bout eleven?

"Best we usually do is tens, but you end up getting less hours on account of the hour lunch.

"An eleven with an hour lunch sounds fine to me. Would that work?"

For the second time, a man called Redd Lake, 40 year old grandson of a genuine Pony Express rider, cut a corner. The divorce papers were finalized, so now he had to shore up some social leverage if he was going to score that date. Get some good boy points in.

"That'd put you down to four days a week."

"Think the place'll hold together okay without me?"

He paused, then let out a short huff of a breath, turned to Dani and smiled. "It just barely might. You win, Gina."

And so, three-day weekends in Fish Camp began. She was feeling layers of fatigue, deep strata of strain and ache and worrying numbness evaporate from between her sore muscles and lift from her eroded bones. Hard days, but the reward of a three-day weekend... one day for laundry, one day for movies, and one day for bringing groceries to Craig, since he was looking after Seebs full-time now. It was about as good as a new life under an assumed identity could get.

The old boy is fine, she told herself, watching him roll sidelong off a couch cushion and onto a heap of unwashed dress socks. He just can't be cooped up in a hotel room all day. This way he gets a breeze.

Developments between Craig and his 'colleagues' were coming back slowly, and required an extra layer of translation- it was all encoded in something called Beaver Math to begin with, and then broken down into Straight Up Lies About Physics by Craig himself. And then further, one more time, into Brooklyn Standard so that Dani could at least start to find meaning in it.

Craig spent a great deal of time plunking at a typewriter- from the shortly after her lunchtime arrival to the deep, stringy black-gold of a sunset that took its time, oozing down behind the ponderosas. The endless, purposeful clacking made Dani feel old in a way that Alice Cooper Goes to Hell on tape didn't.

Sometime between sunset and the evening news, he stopped and sighed and wiped his forehead. There was a manic twitch to his mustache, and a genuine excitement in his work- and when it faded, Dani heard the absence from down in the den.

Vincent Price- Vinny, she decided one day; you look enough like Joe Pesci anyway- turned his head with her when the clicks began to slow. She scritched at his shell with a cheap toothbrush for a few seconds longer, and then gave in to the treacherous urge to socialize.

She wasn't exactly a wallflower- she always found a way to make friends, and hated an awkward working relationship as much as anybody- but she wasn't the best at relating to people. She had her most effective lessons in empathy and dialogue from Little Shop of Horrors and The Man With One Red Shoe. But she decided to try something, in the lull.

Craig was still at his post, giving off the occasional -snif- and vaguely tapping at this key or that. She eased into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water.

"Punch the keys, for god's sake," she muttered, and then she heard a -snif- turn into a -snort-.

He played the part, leaning into whatever insanity needed to be in hardcopy, with a sly grin on his face.

"Yes, yes...!" Dani added, after a sip. And then it happened.

Two Finding Forrester fans, finding each other.

"You're the man now, dog!" they shouted, perfectly in sync. Laughter, cans of Inca Cola, and two workaholics taking a real break followed.

For the next two hours and thirteen minutes, it was just a couch and a touching story about J.D. Salinger viciously sabotaging a talented young man's career in sports. They laughed, they cried, they provided some of the worst film commentary on in the history of the medium. Imagined insights, outright lies, and unprecedented bullshitting bubbled to the surface until they both could stand the thought of work once more.

"Alright, so Beaver Math," Dani said, leaning back in the collapsible table's booth seat. "You told me it's innate- now look, I don't really live at the intersection of physicality and philosophy like you and the rest of the VFW- but that's bothering me. Math isn't math until you... math it."

"Dani, you're starting to sound more like me. I don't know if I mean that as a compliment, but it's progress. 'Isn't math until you math it,'" he repeated quietly, shaking his head.

"Listen, I was majoring in radio, not astronomy. What I'm driving at is that I'm used to treating math as... you know, observed. You have two apples- but 'two' by itself is conceptual."

"-snif- I don't follow."

Dani lit a cigarette and allowed herself a deep drag before continuing.

"Like, it's language. It's just a tool for designating a quantity. If you or I weren't around to use 'two', so we could understand where we stand in reference to shit, the number of something wouldn't mean anything. You'd have yourself an unknowable number of apples, but since you aren't observing them anyway, it doesn't matter whether or not you know it."

"Sheesh- you're Jolene's kid, alright. But where you and her differ most is that she wouldn't say the craziest shit I ever heard. You wanna try again?"

She laughed and nodded. "Listen, all I'm saying is that this Beaver Math stuff sounds like straight-up fraud. You can solve an equation on paper, but if you go outside and look for an equation with your eyes, you won't find it in nature."

"John the Baptist would disagree with you, but I digress. Let's take it from the top. You're about halfway there- numbers do serve as a label for a phenomenon, which is unaffected by whether or not it is labeled. You've got that down. --You remember I showed you the egg trick, with the bread?"

"I still don't like just jamming my fingers into the egg like that. Why?"

"Think of the yolk as matter, okay? All matter. You want to scramble it, poach it, bake it, fry it. You're saving the whites for meringue, so you pad your fingertips on some dry bread to wick off any moisture, and that preparation allows you to get the yolk out- no fuss, no muss.

"This is that middle step with the bread. That missing middle step. Beaver Math, Dani.

Beavers don't have a spoken language to convey specifics. But they know the measure of a dam before it's built. If there's two beavers building the same dam, they -snif- both know the measure. Perfectly.

Not only their awareness, but their interaction with that measure, speaks to a manipulable underpinning- if you can create a barrier between you and the dimensional shear of sliding over, you can reach in and do whatever you want with the numbers."

Dani was going to get it. She wasn't stupid, but she was starting to doubt her ability to tell hot air from stone cold fact. Craig was asking her to take a lot for granted.

Let's move past it. He's been at this all day.

"Alright, alright. Have you figured out anything new?"

Craig eased over to the refrigerator and got himself a snickers bar from the freezer. He took a slow, hard bite through the layers while he pulled his thoughts together.

"Lots of crosstalk about the big sixty-zeen pop you did the other day. Not a lot productive, just a lot of raised eyebrows. I turned off Skype about halfway through. That's when I -snif- got out the old work suitcase."

"But?"

"Right, well- as you know, they do some beaver math where they are, ship it over Skype, and -snif- then I transcribe it into hardcopy. You get how that's a ritual, right? Transubstantiation? You've got something material now, that's your little communion wafer. You set your brain right and let the eucharist in, approach it like you mean it, and it goes from being symbolic to being material. It's real all of a sudden."

"I didn't take you for a religious guy, Craig."

"Four brothers and five sisters. At that point it was just cheaper to send us to Catholic school. But -snif- I don't think any amount of time spent at Our Lady of Vailankanni Prep could've made me a good catholic."

They laughed at that, and took a few minutes to watch GWAR raise some hell on the Springer set. God bless syndication. Savior of the post-primetime lifestyle.

"Simpler times, man. You were talking about Easter?"

"Good enough. These documents I've been running off- it's a little like remote viewing. You've heard of Stargate, right?"

"Christopher Judge was on that show. Did you know he was Miles in House Party 2?"

"No, Dani. Nobody knows that. Anyway, I meant the CIA stunt in the 70s to weaponize clairvoyance. That's -snif- my bunk blueprints at work. They attracted some real talent, but never put the right tools in their hands."

He paused and picked up a page. The margins were reduced to half an inch, and the spacing tight enough to challenge legibility.

"After IBM but before Peru, me and some colleagues did some experimental cipher work. Very experimental. We were sending signals into space, bouncing them off objects and -snif- getting a readout in the back yard. Back when I was real into the perico I could let this stuff into my mind as easy as falling asleep."

"Perico?"

"You remember Watergate? Y'know that guy with the codename- Deep Throat?"

"Oh, sure."

"Well, I had a codename too. Deviated Septum."

Oh.

He laughed in the hard, seagull way that cranky old men like to laugh, and then slid the cluttered page across the table.

"Don't read. You'd get further eating it. I want you to look at this like it's a magic eye poster, and wait to see something. There's a guy in St. Louis with an identical sheet of paper, and he's gonna close the circuit and send his confirmation when he sees the same thing you do."

I could just cut out this part entirely and do just fine with Turtlebees. The hours are good and so are the weekends. Maybe me and Seebs can just dip and not deal with any of this.

...At least until I belt out another complimentary cremation.

She took a deep breath and eventually realized that neither her circumstances or Craig were going anywhere. In time she moved from a state of getting this over with to staring into the overlapping symbols and letting them lurch off the page toward her.

As her eyes unfocused, they peeled away from the page- fogging the edges of her vision until they became a suffocating, ink-black tunnel.

She closed her eyes a moment, and then she felt concrete underfoot. The world was lit with the glow of a hazy gray-pink sunrise.

Turtlebees.

Make it happen here.

"I was worried about this. One day I'll wake up in hell and just... not know the difference." But she did know, right away actually, and found herself zigzagging down empty aisles. There never was a roof- the sunrise followed her, yawning bands of orange creeping through the deep, soggy fluff.

She found herself in front of the freezer case, staring through a streak she'd made in the frosty glass.

Staring at a gallon of ice cream. There was something wrong with it.

She squinted at the lid. She could have opened the door, but no- if this is hell, it'll just shut behind me and I'll get to sample hypothermia for a thousand years or something. --Might meet Kurt Russell, though.

As yet another of her favorite films intruded on her attempt at linear thought, she saw something wrong again. Dust, in a cloud around the ice cream. Black dust- and moving, like gnats.

She could hear something, too. Overhead, on the radio. Bruce Hornsby? Always thought it was a little uncool to have a lyric about welfare lines in a song you play every other hour at the grocery store.

The dust came into focus, only for a second. Every grain was a character. For a moment so fleeting that she suddenly, painfully yearned for it, she had been exposed to the material truth of the real. Each and every particle was a minuscule, living symbol, moving as its meaning changed, each and every one of the swarm vying to make the ice cream real as if without their intervention it might cease to be. Why this particular unit was such a struggle, Dani couldn't imagine.

"Raspberries just turned up, Dani. Can you run them up to the front gondola?"

She turned and saw Redd Lake, automatically nodded, and wandered away from her moment of linkage with the universe to go freshen up the department.

Wait. Dani?

And then the numbers fell away entirely. Redd was Craig, and Turtlebees was the houseboat, and there was no existentially fuzzy ice cream to ponder, just a plate of strongly-seasoned lomo saltado serving the express purpose of making this world more attractive than the other. She ate without thinking, and Craig watched with his fist clenched tight around a fire extinguisher, hidden beneath the table.

"Milton, my guy in St. Louis, is ready to do the confirmation. I got him on the line right now. Don't think about it, Dani, but tell me what you saw."

"Man, I was at work again. Cold case. The ice cream was weird. It was like- your regular ol' tub of spumoni, but the edges were like the Take On Me video. I got a good look, and the edges were..."

"Calculus," a small voice replied. Craig's old computer heaved with the difficulty of video-conferencing on Windows 98 with an illegal satellite connection. "But what woke you up?"

"My boss was there, but... he called me Dani. Nobody at work knows that's my name. Either he knows something- and I panic, and stop dreaming, or this is bullshit, and I stop dreaming because I outsmarted it."

"You got a sharp cookie there, Craig," the crunchily pixelated little man carried on. "Saw the signs. But the lease ran out on the lab, so we don't have a testing environment to confirm anything."

Dani laughed sheepishly and reached for another drink. "Craig," she said after a few blessed drafts, "You mentioned, uh, something becoming real in this process. Did that happen? It sure didn't feel real."

"Something did. You also put my sinkable home at risk. --But I can put that behind me for a minute. The information you just lived within- 'cause that's what you did- was some classic C.E."

"C.E.?"

"I'll tell ya later. Anyway, something real. Here it is." He turned his wrist like a magician pulling an old-fashioned 'is this your card?' and revealed, plain as day, Dani's nametag. Her handwriting, her little joke- but she had left that in her car, on shore!

"Don't touch this or you'll throw up. It's a handle."

"Hmdle?" Dani was deep in the lomo saltado. Craig might have... more than two problems, but if he just made Peruvian food and stopped talking about beaver indices and zeenie-weenies for a minute, she could forgive the rest.

"I'm no therapist, and you may not have time for one. The Mayor Sean story was on The Weather Channel earlier."

"What? Why weather?"

"They've got people calling what happened to him ball lightning. --Let me tell you about ball lightning, though. There isn't any. It's ghosts. It's a euphemism. If the news says ball lightning, they're pitching an ooh-ahh distraction because something real is happening."

Dani didn't say anything. Craig crouched and began digging through the fridge, sorting through tupperware for the rest of the stir fry he intended to heat up.

"--Anyway. Think of this as a kind of talisman, linking you and your, uh, singularity, with beaver math serving as the chain. Now, I don't know that you should use it- at all, but it's access. Don't know about an off switch, but it's an on switch, for sure."

"So I just touch this, and- foom. Flame on."

"I have good reason to suspect that there may be side effects. Nausea, for one. Skin cancer, possibly. And- can't be certain, but you may relive some painful stuff in the process."

"Sounds like a lot of trouble for something I can already do just fine."

Craig sagged in his seat and rubbed his forehead. He curled his fingers around the conjured nametag and gave Dani a weary nod.

"Cocaine Engineering is fast, Dani. You jump to the end and then, if you're all in one piece, you get to work backwards and see how you got there."

It dawned on her, and she ran a hand back through her hair in disbelief. Something like that could let her attend counseling without committing arson, for one. Put up with traffic. Enjoy the internet.

She might never murder a politician again.

Wow!

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#IPYIHGU #dani from my bullshit

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newstfionline · 6 months

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Wednesday, April 3, 2024

California is gripped by economic problems, with no easy fix (Economist) Home to many of America’s most progressive policies, from criminal justice to vehicle emissions, California serves a unique role as a punchbag for right-wing politicians. Every few years it becomes fashionable to declare that it is a failed state, or that the California dream is turning into a nightmare. This rhetoric is often overblown: in terms of pure economic heft California remains the most powerful American state. But for all its continuing prowess in innovation (not least in artificial intelligence), California again appears to be entering one of its periodic rough patches. The state faces three overlapping challenges: rising unemployment, growing fiscal strains and population outflows. All of these should abate over time, but for now they mark out California as a pocket of relative weakness in an otherwise robust American economy.

State Department Defends Arms Transfers to Israel (Washington Post) State Department spokesman Matthew Miller defended the Biden administration’s recent decision to authorize the transfer of billions of dollars’ worth of warplanes and bombs to Israel, saying Israel needed to defend itself. Miller then came under pointed questioning about whether the 2,000-pound MK84 bombs authorized to be transferred should be described as “self-defense,” as the bombs have been linked to mass-casualty events in Gaza. Miller responded that Israel needed to defend itself “against a very well-armed adversary, like I said Iran, Hezbollah,” and that Washington expects Israel to use any weapons responsibly.

US oil exports (Bloomberg) Who is a major beneficiary of sanctions on Russian and Venezuelan oil? US suppliers who have muscled their way into markets once dominated by OPEC and its allies. US oil exports have set five new monthly records since Western nations began imposing sanctions on Russia, after the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And with trade restrictions on Venezuela set to renew in April, American barrels are beginning to displace sanctioned oil in India, one of the bigger markets for illicit crude.

Panic in Haiti's capital as wild shooting fills streets (Reuters) Panic set in around downtown Port-au-Prince on Monday as wild shooting filled the streets of Haiti's capital, with heavy gunfire near the national palace. The latest violence to rock the Caribbean island nation comes as the outgoing prime minister signaled that a broad transitional council is nearly finalized and seen as key to ending the current social and political crisis and paving the way for new elections.

Peru’s president accused of amassing $500K in jewelry on $50K salary (Washington Post) Even given the low expectations Peruvians have for their leaders, Dina Boluarte was unpopular. For nearly all of her 16-month presidency, her approval ratings have languished in the single digits. She’s widely blamed for the deaths of nearly 50 people killed by security forces while they were protesting her predecessor’s ouster, and accused of standing by while lawmakers dismantle Peru’s democracy. Still, Boluarte, 61, a mid-level civil servant who became Peru’s first female president, had managed to avoid accusations of being personally corrupt. Until now. Her government has been rocked by reporting that in the past year she has amassed a personal jewelry collection worth $500,000 on a monthly presidential salary of around $4,200. Highlights allegedly include a $50,000 Cartier bracelet and a $19,000 Rolex watch. That prompted prosecutors to launch an investigation for “illicit enrichment.” The accusations extend Peru’s streak of presidents to come under serious criminal investigation to eight. Every leader of this Andean nation since 1985 (with the exception of two briefly serving, unelected interims) has been the target of at least one criminal probe.

Norway follows its neighbor Denmark in planning an increase in conscripted soldiers (AP) Norway is to increase the number of conscripted soldiers from the present 9,000 to 13,500, the Norwegian government said Tuesday. “We must have enough people with the right skills at the right time,” Defense Minister Bjørn Arild Gram said. “We will need more people with professional military expertise going forward.” The move by the Scandinavian NATO member comes after neighboring Denmark last month said it wants to increase the number of young people doing military service by extending conscription to women and increasing the time of service from four months to 11 months.

Scottish Hate Crime Law Takes Effect as Critics Warn It Will Stifle Speech (NYT) A sweeping law targeting hate speech went into effect in Scotland on Monday, promising protection against threats and abuse but drawing criticism that it could have a chilling effect on free speech. The law, which was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2021, expands protections for marginalized groups and creates a new charge of “stirring up hatred,” which makes it a criminal offense to communicate or behave in a way that “a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting.” A conviction could lead to a fine and a prison sentence of up to seven years. The protected classes as defined in the law include age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity. Racial hatred was omitted because it is already covered by a law from 1986. The new law also does not include women among the protected groups; a government task force has recommended that misogyny be addressed in separate legislation.

Ukraine uses drones in what appears to be its deepest strike yet inside Russia (AP) Ukrainian drones attacked industrial facilities in the province of Tatarstan, Russian authorities said Tuesday, in what would be Kyiv’s deepest strike inside Russian territory since the war began more than two years ago. Seven people were injured in the attack on facilities near the cities of Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk, located some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) east of Ukraine. The strike damaged a hostel for students and workers in a free economic zone where a factory manufacturing Iranian-designed drones is reportedly located.

Turkey’s shock elections (Washington Post) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan just experienced what analysts deem his worst political setback in more than two decades. His long-ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, lost emphatically in local elections around the country Sunday—a surprising rebuke after Erdogan had consolidated his tight grip on power in general elections last year. The opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, secured victories across the country and in Turkey’s five biggest cities, including Istanbul, where Erdogan had campaigned vigorously for his handpicked AKP candidate. This turn of events is fueled, first and foremost, by voter anger at a frustrating status quo. “It was Erdogan’s handling of the economy that appeared to loom largest in the race, with households battered by runaway inflation and the cratering value of the currency,” my colleagues Beril Eski and Kareem Fahim reported. Inflation has been running at about 70 percent.

Macau Races (Nikkei Asia) Macau is getting out of the horse racing business, with the final race at the Macau Jockey Club happening last Saturday after 44 years of operation. The average attendance last year had dwindled to 492 spectators, but the finale on Saturday drew a crowd of 3,000 to send it off.

Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in nearly 25 years damages buildings, leaving 4 dead (AP) Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in a quarter century rocked the island during the morning rush hour Wednesday, damaging buildings and highways and causing the deaths of four people. Taiwan’s national fire agency said four people died in Hualien County and at least 57 were injured in the quake that struck just before 8 a.m. A five-story building in Hualien appeared heavily damaged, collapsing its first floor and leaving the rest leaning at a 45-degree angle. In the capital Taipei, tiles fell from older buildings and in some newer office complexes, while debris fell from some building sites. Schools evacuated their students to sports fields, equipping them with yellow safety helmets. Some also covered themselves with textbooks to guard against falling objects as aftershocks continued.

Japan is still reeling 100 days after the Noto earthquake (Economist) Fishing boots. Their son’s beloved fishing boots—that is what Hamazuka Hiroyuki and Chiaki most hope to find under the rubble of their garage. The Hamazukas’ place in Suzu, on the northern tip of Japan’s Noto peninsula, is one of nearly 100,000 buildings that were damaged or destroyed when a massive earthquake struck on January 1st. As of late March the disaster had killed 244 people. The Hamazukas and their children survived, but like most of their neighbours, nearly 100 days after the tremor, the family is only beginning to piece its life back together. The peninsula will take years to recover, says Fujino Tatsuo with a sigh, a disaster-relief volunteer helping to clear away the Hamazuka family’s debris with an excavator.

World Central Kitchen Pauses Gaza Operations After 7 Workers Killed (NYT) The disaster relief nonprofit World Central Kitchen paused operations in Gaza and the region on Tuesday after the organization said seven of its workers were killed in an airstrike. José Andrés, the organization’s founder, said on X that “several of our sisters and brothers” were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Monday. The group later said in a statement that the team was leaving a warehouse in central Gaza in two armored cars after unloading humanitarian food aid. The group said the convoy was hit despite having coordinated movements with the Israeli military. The Israeli military said in a statement early Tuesday that, in light of the reports, it was “conducting a thorough review at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident.” The military also said it “makes extensive efforts to enable the safe delivery of humanitarian aid, and has been working closely with W.C.K. in their vital efforts to provide food and humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.” Erin Gore, the nonprofit’s chief executive officer, said that the group’s employees were killed in “a targeted attack” by the Israeli military.

Israeli government says it will block Al Jazeera from broadcasting (BBC) The Israeli parliament has approved a law giving the government the power to ban broadcasts of TV channels including Al Jazeera, the Qatari-owned network. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would "act immediately" to close the network's local office. The US expressed concern over the move. With foreign journalists banned from entering Gaza, Al Jazeera staff based in the strip have been some of the only reporters able to cover the war on the ground. For years, Israeli officials have accused the network of anti-Israeli bias. But their criticisms of the broadcaster have intensified since the Hamas attacks of 7 October. Authorities claim it has close links with Hamas, which Al Jazeera vehemently denies. In a statement, Al Jazeera said: "Netanyahu could not find any justifications to offer the world for his ongoing attacks on Al Jazeera and press freedom except to present new lies and inflammatory slanders against the Network and the rights of its employees.

Israel is determined to invade Rafah (Washington Post) Israel is telling the world that the last battle of the Gaza war will take place in a sand-blown city on the Egyptian border. The Americans are wary. The Palestinians are terrified. Rafah, in southern Gaza, is now home to 1.4 million people—a last refuge for those displaced from other parts of the enclave. Families are living in tents, surviving on limited aid. Among them, and in tunnels beneath them, according to the Israel Defense Forces, are the last intact Hamas battalions and more than 100 Israeli hostages. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Washington that the war against Hamas cannot be won without taking Rafah. The Biden administration is deeply concerned about Israel’s planned assault—warning of a “disaster” scenario—but appears keen to avoid a public showdown. The Biden administration has urged Israel to consider more targeted “precision” or “surgical” strikes on Rafah, U.S. officials say. Yet those terms are relative. Two weeks of heavy fighting at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, described by the IDF as a “precise” operation, left the medical compound in ruins.

#headlines #news

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sunskate · 1 year

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Ice Dance Programs 2023-24

Misato Komatsubara/Tim Koleto 🇯🇵JPN RD: Ghostbusters FD: Loving You (from Passion) Barbara Streisand & Patrick Wilson; Love Grows (from Final Fantasy VIII) Nobuo Uematsu (choreo: Romain Haguenauer)

Azusa Tanaka/Shingo Nishiyama 🇯🇵JPN FD: choreo Romain Haguenauer

Nadiia Bashynska/Peter Beaumont 🇨🇦CAN RD: INXS, Never Tear Us Apart; Duran Duran, Wild Boys

Miku Makita/Tyler Gunara 🇨🇦CAN FD: choreo by Matthew Gates

Alicia Fabbri/Paul Ayer 🇨🇦CAN RD: AC/DC, choreo Zach Donohue FD: Lewis Capaldi, Someone You Loved

Sandrine Gauthier/Quentin Thieren 🇨🇦CAN RD: Joan Jett, I Love Rock n Roll

Emma Goodstadt/Christian Bennett 🇨🇦CAN (Jrs) RD: B-52’s, Love Shack

Hannah Lim/Ye Quan 🇰🇷KOR RD: Prince, When Doves Cry, Let's Go Crazy FD: Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Emilea Zingas/Vadym Kolesnik 🇺🇸USA RD and FD choreo: Benoit Richaud

Emily Bratti/Ian Somerville 🇺🇸USA RD: Prince, When Doves Cry, Let’s Go Crazy FD: Celine Dion, Ne Me Quitte Pas choreo by Greg Zuerlein, Charlie White, Tanith White

Eva Pate/Logan Bye 🇺🇸USA RD: Bobby Brown, My Prerogative; Run-DMC (feat. Aerosmith) Walk This Way

Katarina Wolfkostin/Dimitry Tsarevski 🇺🇸USA RD: When in Rome, The Promise; Blondie, Call Me

Isabella Flores/Ivan Desyatov 🇺🇸USA RD: Prince, When Doves Cry; Def Leppard, Pour Some Sugar on Me, choreo Massimo Scali FD: West Side Story, choreo Kaitlyn Weaver

Angela Ling/Caleb Wein 🇺🇸USA RD: Aretha Franklin, Hold on I'm Coming

Raffaella Koncius/Alexey Shchepetov 🇺🇸USA RD: Stray Cats, Rock this Town, Stray Cat Strut

Klara Kowar/Thomas Schwappach 🇺🇸USA RD: INXS, Never Tear Us Apart, What You Need FD: James Bond

Leah Neset/Artem Markelov 🇺🇸USA (jrs) RD: Scorpions, Still Loving You; Joan Jett, Hate Myself for Loving You. choreo Kaitlyn Weaver FD: choreo Nikolai Morozov

Eliana Peal/Ethan Peal 🇺🇸USA (jrs) RD: Janet Jackson, What Have You Done For Me Lately, Rhythm Nation FD: Lord of the Rings

Jenna Hauer/Benjaming Starr 🇺🇸USA (jrs) RD: Tina Turner, Simply the Best (?)

Caroline Mullen/Brendan Mullen 🇺🇸USA (jrs) RD: Wham!, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go; George Michael, Father Figure (?)

Yahli Pederson/Jeffrey Chen 🇺🇸USA (jrs) RD: Queen, Kind of Magic; Queen w David Bowie, Under Pressure (?)

Evgeniia Lopareva/Geoffrey Brissaud 🇫🇷FRA FD: choreo Guillaume Cizeron

Holly Harris/Jason Chan 🇦🇺AUS RD: Madonna (Material Girl, Express Yourself?), choreo: Marie-France Dubreuil FD: choreo Marie-France Dubreuil

Olivia Smart/Tim Dieck 🇪🇸ESP RD: Blondie, Call Me, Rapture

Sofia Val/Asaf Kazimov 🇪🇸ESP RD: Top Gun

Jennifer Janse van Rensburg/Benjamin Steffan 🇩🇪GER RD: Beds are Burning, Midnight Oil; Don't Leave Me Now, Supertramp; Runaway, Bon Jovi FD: wild west theme choreo: Pasquale Camerlengo for both

Phebe Bekker/James Hernandez 🇬🇧GBR RD: Prince FD: Muse

Layla Karnes/Liam Carr 🇬🇧GBR RD: Sweet Dreams, medley, Eurhythmics FD: Hit the Road Jack, 2WEI

Shira Ichilov/Dmitriy Kravchenko 🇮🇱ISR RD: Get Down on It, Yesterday, It's Raining Men FD: ("to a singer from Montreal") choreo: Pasquale Camerlengo, Igor Shpilband

Mariia Nosovitskaya/Misha Nosovytskyi 🇮🇱ISR RD: FD: Gladiator choreo: Pasquale Camerlengo, Igor Shpilband

Elizabeth Tkachenko/Alexei Kiliakov 🇮🇱ISR RD: Yello, Oh Yeah, Desire, The Race FD: Incantation, Ojo Azules; Inca the Peruvian Ensemble, Danzante Vasija del Barro; Inti-IllMani, Sikuriadas choreo: Elena Novak, Jimmie Manners

Yuka Orihara/Juho Pirinen 🇫🇮 FIN RD: choreo Luca Lanotte FD: music from Chicago choreo Massimo Scali

Carolane Soucisse/Shane Firus 🇮🇪IRL RD: Rick James, Super Freak, Give It To Me Baby, Mary Jane

Mariia Holubtsova/Kyryl Bielobrov 🇺🇦UKR RD: Bonnie Tyler, Holding Out For A Hero; Bonnie Tyler & Bryan Adams, Straight From the Heart; Bonnie Tyler & Desmond Child, If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man) FD: Joe Hisaishi, Merry Go Round of Life, Fragile Dream, A Walk in the Skies choreo: Romain Haguenauer, Pascal Denis, Sam Chouinard

Zoe Larson/Andrii Kapran 🇺🇦UKR RD: Pointer Sisters, I'm So Excited; Grover Washington/Bill Withers, Just the Two of Us; The Weather Girls, It's Raining Men (?)

Adrienne Carhart/Oleksandr Kolosovskyi 🇦🇿AZE RD: Billy Ocean, Caribbean Queen

Maria Kazakova & Georgy Reviya 🇬🇪GEO RD: Queen, A Kind of Magic, Save Me, I Want To Break Free, Need Your Loving Tonight FD: Schindler's List choreo by Matteo Zanni

Natalie Taschlerova & Filip Taschler 🇨🇿CZE RD: Janet Jackson, The Knowledge; James Mtume, Juicy Fruit; The Pointer Sisters, Serious Slammin' FD: Negramaro, Bluecobalto; Havasi, Terra Rosa; Giuliano Sangiorgi, Son Felice choreo by Matteo Zanni

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gameofdrarry · 3 years

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Wizards Hearts Smut Recs: Semi-Public Sex

Wizards Hearts was a four-month-long Drarry reading fest. Players were given a playing deck of 52 tropes, and were asked to find 52 different fics to read and comment on to fill their decks. To prevent the same few fics from being read, fics were restricted to only being used for the game three times before being considered ineligible for further points. The tropes and submissions list can be found here. Players could opt in to an additional suit of 13 cards, all themed around various popular smut tropes.

Check out the masterlist of fics for this trope below the cut!

📜 (We'll Call This Fixer-Upper) Home by phdmama Rated: Explicit Words: 52520 Tags: Rock Star Draco Malfoy, Artist Harry Potter, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post Traumatic Growth, mental health, Original Character(s), Original Character Death(s), (all those are in the past), Recreational Drug Use, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Hooking up, Dating, Semi-Public Sex, Growth and Healing, Mention of Suicidal Ideation, Getting Together, Boys Kissing, Falling In Love Summary: Draco Malfoy hasn’t set foot on English soil in ten years. After the war, he fled to America, where he found himself in a community, and healed himself through following his heart into music. He’s now the lead singer and songwriter for an internationally known band, who have come back to headline the Wiltshire Music Festival. But as Draco is about to learn, his past isn’t as far away as he might have believed, and his future may hold more than he ever could have dreamed. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Under the Cover of Darkness by manixzen Rated: Mature Words: 2046 Tags: Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, Making Out, Snogging, Frottage, Clothes On, Post-Hogwarts, Party Games, Seven Minutes In Heaven Game, Sort Of, Minor Pansy Parkinson/Ginny Weasley, HP Kinktober 2020, One Shot Summary: Thanks to Pansy, Draco's stuck at a party with a whole bunch of drunk Gryffindors. And now they want to play party games. If only Draco can slip out unnoticed before this gets any worse. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Starkissed by Zigster Rated: Explicit Words: 32631 Tags: Digital Art, Fated Markings, Tattoos, But Not Tattoos, Italy, Venice, Vacation, Beaches, Crashing Waves, Deception, Intrigue, Carnevale di Venezia, Muggle Photography, Slow Burn, Sexual Tension, Body Worship, Voyeurism, Exhibitionism, Rimming, Enthusiastic Giving of Head, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Tattooed Harry Potter, Pining Harry Potter, Harry Potter is Obsessed with Draco Malfoy, Snarky Draco Malfoy, Draco Malfoy With Pink Hair, Original Characters as Draco's Flatmates, They Have Lots of Plants, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, H/D Sex Fair 2020 Summary: “Your tattoos!” The intruder says, boldly stepping over Ron’s chaise and crossing in front of Hermione to get to Harry, eyes wide and hungry. Harry immediately sits up, pulling the towel draped across the back of his chair down over his shoulders. “No! Don’t cover them. They’re beautiful.” Harry hopes an indulgent trip abroad will help shake him out of the doldrums of his life. What he finds once he gets to Venice is more than he ever expected. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Ardour of Karma by XxTheDarkLordxX Rated: Explicit Words: 17118 Tags: Post-Hogwarts, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Auror Harry Potter, Ministry of Magic Employee Draco Malfoy, Getting Together, Cursed Harry Potter, Scents & Smells, heightened sense of smell, Porn With Plot, Erections, Inappropriate Erections, Sexual Fantasy, Fantasizing, Masturbation, Dirty Talk, Mutual Masturbation, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Switching, Face-Fucking, Dildos, H/D Erised 2019 ,Office Sex, Desk Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Comeplay Summary: “Malfoy knows something is going on with you and unless you both want to go back to fighting and death glares, you should fix it.” “How do I do that? Just waltz up to him and say, ‘I know I’ve been a prat but your scent makes my dick swell. How’s your day?’” “Mind repeating that?” The familiar drawl had Harry’s throat clamming up as his blood ran cold. Oh no. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Brighter than the sun by migrating_coconut Rated: Explicit Words: 3490 Tags: Humor, Fluff and Smut, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Explicit Sexual Content, Getting Together, Harry Potter in a swimsuit, Gay Disaster Draco Malfoy, Semi-Public Sex, Mutual Masturbation, Inappropriate Erections, HP Drizzle Fest 2020, Community: hp_drizzle Summary: Draco was promised a relaxing day at the beach. This was certainly not it! ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 the best treasure is up Harry’s arse by bafflinghaze Rated: Explicit Words: 2891 Tags: Established Relationship, Smut, Consensual Somnophilia, Anal Fingering, So Much Fingering, Top Draco Malfoy, Bottom Harry Potter, Light Dom/sub, Prostate Milking, Anal Plug, Light Dom Draco Malfoy, Bratty Sub Harry Potter, Sassy Harry Potter, Post-Hogwarts, H/D Sex Fair 2020, Porn with Feelings, Dirty Talk, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot Summary: Harry and Draco probably had a tumultuous time getting together, filled with angst and denial and pining and brooding. However, this is not that story. Here, Draco makes Harry come (more than once). ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Touch Me Fall by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill) Rated: Explicit Words: 23380 Tags: Rentboys, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Shower Sex, Top Draco, Switching, Exhibitionism, Barebacking, Prostitution, Foot Massage, Atrocious Texting Summary: Malfoy was such a ponce. And he was a complete snob. And he was so fucking fit Harry wanted to jump him where he sat. It would be too easy to forget his objective tonight: to really, really, really get Malfoy out of his system. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 I guess that's just me, honey, I guess that's how I'm built by crimsonheadache Rated: Explicit Words: 4048 Tags: formal wear, Semi-Public Sex, Sub Harry, Dom Draco Malfoy, Blow Jobs, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Getting Together Summary: The way they adorned Potter’s body like they were made for him made him want to kiss his seamstresses’ feet. The lines, the colors, brought out his skin tone like nothing ever could. Well, except perhaps the ropes Draco keeps in the bottom drawer of his bedside table. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Catching the Niffler by keyflight790, tsundanire Rated: Explicit Words: 10377 Tags: Party, Party Games, Exhibitionism, Voyeurism, Accidental Voyeurism, Flashing, Fellatio, Fellating an Inanimate Object, Frottage, Orgasm, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Simultaneous Orgasm, Kissing, Boys Kissing, Girls Kissing, Everyones Kissing, Masturbation, Public Masturbation, Hand Jobs, Public Hand Jobs, Public Sex, Rimming, In Public, Everythings in Public in this Fic, Top Harry Potter, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Cunnilingus, Dry Humping, Anal Sex, Second Base, Neville makes it to Second Base, We're so proud of him, and Hannah, Boys In Love, eventually, Happy Ending, more than one, wink wonk, Friends Writing Together, This is what happens when BFFs write together, we make no apologies, except for Terry Boot, sorry Terry, eighth year Summary: “Tonight, we’re going to play Catch the Niffler.” Harry heard a couple of squeals from around the room and he let out a breath. Last week they had played Spin the Bottle, and Harry could count on more than one hand the witches that had spelled the glass to point to him during their turn. Harry had tasted enough sticky lip balm and cherry chapstick to last a lifetime. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 in and out by M0stlyVoid Rated: Explicit Words: 2217 Tags: Public Sex, Exhibitionism, Semi-Public Sex, Coming In Pants, Politics, Hand Jobs, Anal Fingering Summary: The exact nature of Harry and Draco's relationship might not be public, but that doesn't mean nothing about it is. You just need to know when to pay attention. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 knickers in a twist by technicolourbeat Rated: Explicit Words: 86461 Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Reconciliation, Smut, Crossdressing, Boys in Skirts, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Top Harry Potter, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Semi-Public Sex, Riding, Topping from the Bottom, Draco Malfoy in a Skirt, Rimming, Lace Panties, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Public Sex, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Secret Relationship, Fuckbuddies, Shameless Smut, Sexual Roleplay, Fluff and Humor, Porn With Plot Summary: Draco loses a bet to Pansy and Blaise which leaves him wearing a skirt for a whole week. Harry discovers something about himself. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 To Change the Subject by gracerene Rated: Explicit Words: 1252 Tags: Established Relationship, AurorsAuror Partners, Auror Harry, Auror Draco Malfoy, Blow Jobs, Semi-Public Sex, Under-Desk Blow Jobs, Office Sex, Face-Fucking, POV Harry, Post-Hogwarts, HP: EWE Summary: Harry comes up with a more enjoyable alternative to arguing. ❤️ Read on AO3

#drarry #drarry recs #public #game of drarry #wizards hearts #wh masterlist

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official-weasley · 3 years

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The Extraordinary Dragon (Part 1/6)

After about a century of me being gone and not writing a new story, I am back with a mini-series! 💙

I didn't have a good idea for a new OC so I decided to write a cute and fluffy story about Charlie training a dragon with a sad and mysterious past.

I would like to thank @am-i-space @madelineorionswan & @the-al-chemist for giving me ideas for the names of the dragons mentioned in the story. You are the best 💙 Since some of the dragons are mentioned in the later chapters I will make sure to include which dragons you named in the Masterlist for the story 💙

If you'd like to be tagged in every part the dragon with your name is mentioned please tell me and I will gladly do so 🤗

Warnings: Charlie being excited and obsessed with dragons.

Word count: 2,869

A dragon's roar awakened me. It might sound terrifying to some, but it is a pure melody for my ears. I have been working in the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary for almost 10 years now. Come to think of it tomorrow's the anniversary.

My co-workers constantly tease me, telling me that I'm a workaholic. I always disagree with them. I just love dragons and working with them. Am I a bit obsessed with the creatures? Maybe. But who wouldn't be so excited about having their dream job?

There is something so soothing working with a beast that can swallow you whole, yet if you have the right energy and you treat them right they can be more obedient than a Crup.

When I first got the job I worked with a team of researchers. Since I have never seen a dragon in real life before starting working, my boss Matthew wanted me to learn about their behavior and study them to be better prepared to do other things.

They all thought I will be bored out of my mind – because I applied for the care of dragons position and not researching – but I loved every second of it. All I had to do was wake up every morning and go to the assigned habitat and observe the dragon there and take notes. It's like reading a book about the creatures – something I did almost every day of my 7 years at Hogwarts – but you get to be around them every single day.

My mother thinks I am insane for wanting to be around such dangerous creatures and I had to promise her before I left for Romania that I will write home every day otherwise she is coming to get me at once. I guess she needs to know daily that I wasn't eaten by a dragon. The thing is that being hurt by a dragon is less likely than falling off a broom, so I don't know what she is so worried about.

The only one of my family members that knows about all my injuries and all my scars is my big brother Bill. He understands that I don't mind getting hurt and he doesn't get a heart attack every time I end up in the infirmary. It's nice to talk to someone about these things outside my workspace. Even though being a Curse Breaker isn't the safest job in the world, Bill's number of scars can't even compare to mine.

We do have protective gear and gloves but sometimes the dragon's fire and teeth are just too strong. We are lucky that we have wonderful healers that take care of us and we have remedies that heal burns within minutes so it's mostly just an annoyance.

The year after my training I worked only with Common Welsh Greens. The year after that I tamed two Antipodean Opaleyes and it was the best feeling to see them get excited and welcome me with a friendly roar every morning. Even though they were both adults it felt like dealing with two kids and it was so much fun. The latter are such sweethearts and I even taught one how to roll over. They are like dogs but bigger, way bigger.

After that, I tried to convince my boss to let me work with a more dangerous breed. It's not that I didn't like what I did but I like a challenge. I needed 2 months to convince him to let me work with 2 Chinese Fireballs and by the smirk on his face I knew I was in for a treat. They were brought to our reserve so they could breed but no matter how much others tried nobody succeeded at mating them.

When Matthew finally gave in – not seeing any harm in letting me try before they send them back – I remember I danced around my hut for a solid half an hour being so excited to work with them the next day.

I was surprised that nobody thought of the strategy I choose. It was true that they brought the dragons to us together but they didn't know each other and since nobody thought of trying to acquaint them first, I gave it a go.

After 3 days they were best mates and I gave them 4 more days to fully feel comfortable with each other before taking them to the mating habitat. I am more than proud to say that since then they have been parents 2 times. I did some great things since I started working in the Sanctuary but you never forget your first big achievement.

Due to Matthew being absolutely in awe of me succeeding after a week he allowed me to work with a bunch of Swedish Short-Snouts even though usually only a dragonologist with 5+ years of experience can work with them alone.

I was amused when I saw the faces of some of my older co-workers when they found out – thinking they were going to get the job. I love working with them even though they are the ones responsible for most of my scars. Just after the first day, one burned my entire forearm and everyone thought I was going to back off because of it but it only made me want to work with them more.

Now, after almost 10 years I have worked with every single breed of dragon except my favorite – the Hebridean Black. They are one of the most dangerous and stubborn kind and only a dragonologist with a lot of experience gets to work with them.

I got the glimpse of one when I was working with the research team but no matter how sneaky I tried to be, Matthew wouldn't let me get anywhere close to them. I even got a chance to work with a team that took care of a sick Norwegian Ridgeback even though they are considered to be the most dangerous.

A year ago I got a chance to be part of an exchange program at the Swedish Dragon Reserve and I worked with a Peruvian Vipertooth and a Ukrainian Ironbelly. My boss wasn't happy about the latter one as he reckoned I was too inexperienced to be around and try to tame the largest breed of dragons but as you can probably tell from what I told you so far, I was over the roof about it!

The Ironbelly might be the largest but they are among the least vicious ones – none of my co-workers would agree with me as most of them are terrified of them but I think they are adorable thinking since they are the biggest they are also the scariest. It's the same as with dogs – sometimes the smaller ones are more dangerous.

I got out of bed with a grin on my face. Even though I don't like to admit it I like reminiscing on my biggest achievements.

I made myself some breakfast – eggs and bacon as usual – while blasting music on my wireless. Nothing like singing while cooking and reading the letters my family sent me.

Mum and dad were going to visit George and Ron for the weekend. Bill and Fleur decided to repaint their living room. Ginny invited me to one of her games next week and Percy got another promotion.

I walked to the wall where I had a calendar hanging to mark the date of Ginny's game. It was the perfect event to meet with most of my family members and I love supporting her. I am proud of all my siblings' achievements but Ginny being the only girl among 6 boys made us all have a soft spot for her - even Percy, even though he would probably deny it if someone asked him about it.

Since I was working with three different dragons at the moment – Peruvian Vipertooth named Hel and two Romanian Longhorns Lasair and Rocker – I double-checked my schedule to see which one I am supposed to visit today. As I thought, it was Lasair. I know my schedule by heart but always check it twice– I don't want any dragon to be jealous thinking one is getting more attention from me.

My routine with the dragons was simple. First, they get their breakfast which is usually a piece of their favorite meat, except if it's our Common Welsh Green Crystal – she is the only dragon I have ever met that is a vegetarian and she mostly doesn't want to eat anything else than apples. It took us the longest time to figure out why she doesn't want to eat – vomiting out all the meat we gave her – until we moved her to an habitant with a pumpkin patch and them mysteriously disappearing overnight.

After the feeding, I like to play with them. That usually includes large balls or levitating rocks after which they can jump and run. Then it's my favorite part of the day – the flying lessons. We transport them to the part of the reserve that is built like a large stadium in the middle of the forest surrounded by mountains and it has 10 obstacles that the dragons have to learn to overcome so they are cleared for free-flying sessions.

After flying it's time for a brief pause to get the dragon back to its habitat and calm it down before giving it dinner and tucking it in.

Flying is the most fun thing we can do at our job. When Matthew told me that I am finally allowed to fly with them, I had to excuse myself and go to the bathroom because I felt like crying my eyes out. I wanted to fly on a dragon ever since I was a kid and even though I heard rumors about training them in that way, I always thought it was too good to be true.

The first time I flew on a dragon was with a dragonologist named Jim. He showed me how to properly prepare the dragon to be in the mood to have a person on its back and how to lift off and then safely land. Vulcan the Opaleye was just the loveliest when I trained with him to trust me to the point that he would allow me to fly. Even though my dream is to one day fly on a Hebridean Black, I wouldn't change my first flight for anything in the world.

Vulcan was more than obedient and so careful to make me feel comfortable and constantly made sure I was still on his back. He flew in a straight line and at an even pace making me feel so safe that I let go of his shiny scales and lifted my hands in the air. I wanted to shout from all the adrenaline and excitement that ran through me but I didn't want to startle the dragon.

It's safe to say that I didn't sleep at all that night. The second I laid in my bed I felt as if I was still in the air with Vulcan and I couldn't help but wish to do that every day.

"Good morning, Lasair. What do you want to eat this morning? Boar, deer, moose perhaps?"Lasair lifted her head sleepily at me. I teased her with the options, knowing full well that moose was her favorite. If she could speak she would ask me if I can't remember her favorite meal.

"Don't worry, you'll get what you want." I winked at her and put on my gloves before taking out my wand and levitating the big chunk of meat to her.

Lasair was one of the rare dragons that ate her food slowly, so I loved to sit down next to her and watched her chew. If Matthew saw me, he would probably murder me for sitting so close to a dragon but he doesn't know that Lasair and I have an agreement of her keeping me alive and I give her some extra meat for dinner in return.

"So, Lassy, I have some bad news." I cleared my throat as the dragon stopped chewing and tilted her head toward me. "We have to sharpen your claws today."

Lasair groaned and went back to her breakfast.

"I know, I know. Not your favorite thing to do. Trust me if it was up to me, we would rather do something more fun like play with your favorite tire or play fetch with your ball. But the boss said it was time."

Lasair didn't react to my words but laid on the ground once she finished her meal and wrapped her tail around me.

"You know that cuddling and being cute won't work on me." I chuckled. "Not this time, at least."

The dragon's nostrils started to smoke and I knew she was trying to negotiate.

"Between you and me," I whispered, "I'll throw in another piece of meat if you'll be a good girl like last time. How about some boar for dessert, huh?"

Lasair let out a gentle roar, giving me a sign that she agrees with my terms.

"That's my girl. I knew we'll find a common ground." I grinned at her and got up so we could start our day.

"Okay, Lassy. I will need you to step on this mat and do the burying motion. As if you were burying the bones of a deer." I explained when Lasair looked at the mat in confusion.

I mimicked the gesture and she copied it and walked to the mat with grace as if she was a princess.

"There you go! I am so proud of you, Lasair. You really want that extra piece of meat, huh?" I laughed to myself.

"So that is how you get all dragons to behave as if they're Crups?" I turned toward the voice and saw Matthew's amused face, observing my work with the Romanian Longhorn.

"You were never meant to find out," I said in a dramatic voice.

"Oh, it's fine." Matthew swung his hand. "You'll need all the skills."

"What do you mean?" I furrowed my brows at him as I stepped to Lasair to show her to step a bit forward so she could sharpen the claws on her back paws as well.

"Do you know what tomorrow is?" Matthew asked, observing my every move.

"No." I lied. I knew that tomorrow will be 10 years since I work in the reserve but I didn't want to boast about it.

"Come on, Charles. I know that you out of everyone here you’re the one who counts how long you are working here for." He smirked at me.

I couldn't believe it. He remembered that it's my 10th anniversary? I couldn't help but grin.

"What about it?" I tried acting casually.

"Well, the team was thinking about what to get you as a present..."

"Matt, you don't have to get me anything. You know I am just happy being surrounded by dragons." I smiled appreciatively.

"Well, how about you get surrounded by a new dragon?" He winked at me.

"What are you on about?" I narrowed my eyes at him. I was getting impatient, the excitement in me growing.

"We are getting a one-year-old Hebridean Black in a week from the MacFusty’s." Matthew started to explain. "And since you are so good at taming and being best mates with the three you’re taming now, I was thinking of assigning it to you."

"Did...did you just say a Hebridean Black?" I said in a voice that was barely a whisper. I couldn't believe what just came out of his mouth. He was going to let me work with my favorite breed?

"You heard correctly, Charles." Matthew's smirk was growing larger.

"But...but I don't have enough experience, you said so yourself. You...you should give the job to someone worthy, to someone who will know how to handle the breed." I knew that I should've just shut up and thank him for the opportunity. Working with a Hebridean Black has been my goal ever since I can remember, but I have to keep my head clear and think of what's best for the dragon.

"Thinking like this is exactly why I am giving the job to you even though I told you the last time you begged me that you need at least 7 more years before you can work with them." Something in his eyes shifted. He had the exact expression on his face as he did when he assigned me to breed those two Fireballs.

"You are up to something. What's wrong with the dragon?" I pursed my lips at him.

"Oh, the dragon is just fine. Lovely, actually. I bet you two will have a lot of fun." The sarcastic tone in his voice told me that he was hiding something from me but I didn't dare to ask him about it.

He deemed me ready to work with a Hebridean Black. To work with my favorite breed. I am not about to jeopardize that if he thinks I am the one for the job. In a week my biggest dream will come true and there was nothing in the world that could ruin that.

#charlie weasley #charlie weasley harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter #the weasleys #dragon boy #charles weasley #hebridean black #dragons #a dragon story #charie weasley hphm #dragonologist

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bongaboi · 4 years

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2021 Grammy Awards: The List.

New age

Best New Age Album

More Guitar Stories – Jim "Kimo" West

Songs from the Bardo – Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal & Jesse Paris Smith

Periphery – Priya Darshini

Form//Less – Superposition

Meditations – Cory Wong & Jon Batiste

Jazz

Best Improvised Jazz Solo

"All Blues" – Chick Corea, soloist

"Guinnevere" – Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah, soloist

"Pachamama" – Regina Carter, soloist

"Tomorrow is the Question" – Julian Lage, soloist

"Celia" – Gerald Clayton, soloist

"Moe Honk" – Joshua Redman, soloist

Best Jazz Vocal Album

Secrets are the Best Stories – Kurt Elling featuring Danilo Pérez

ONA – Thana Alexa

Modern Ancestors – Carmen Lundy

Holy Room: Live at Alte Oper – Somi With Frankfurt Radio Big Band

What's the Hurry – Kenny Washington

Best Jazz Instrumental Album

Trilogy 2 – Chick Corea, Christian McBride & Brian Blade

on the tender spot of every calloused moment – Ambrose Akinmusire

Waiting Game – Terri Lyne Carrington and Social Science

Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard – Gerald Clayton

RoundAgain – Redman Mehldau McBride Blade

Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album

Data Lords – Maria Schneider Orchestra

Dialogues on Race – Gregg August

Monk'estra Plays John Beasley – John Beasley

The Intangible Between – Orrin Evans and The Captain Black Big Band

Songs You Like a Lot – John Hollenbeck with Theo Bleckmann, Kate McGarry, Gary Versace and The Frankfurt Radio Big Band

Best Latin Jazz Album

Four Questions – Arturo O'Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra

Tradiciones – Afro-Peruvian Jazz Orchestra

City of Dreams – Chico Pinheiro

Viento y Tiempo - Live at Blue Note Tokyo – Gonzalo Rubalcaba & Aymée Nuviola

Trane's Delight – Poncho Sanchez

Gospel/contemporary Christian music

Best Gospel Performance/Song

"Movin' On"

Darryl L. Howell, Jonathan Caleb McReynolds, Kortney Jamaal Pollard & Terrell Demetrius Wilson, songwriters (Jonathan McReynolds & Mali Music)

"Wonderful is Your Name"

Melvin Crispell III, songwriter (Melvin Crispell III)

"Release (Live)"

David Frazier, songwriter (Ricky Dillard featuring Tiff Joy)

"Come Together"

Lashawn Daniels, Rodney Jerkins, Lecrae Moore & Jazz Nixon, songwriters (Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins Presents: The Good News)

"Won't Let Go"

Travis Greene, songwriter (Travis Greene)

Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song

"There Was Jesus"

Casey Beathard, Jonathan Smith & Zach Williams, songwriters (Zach Williams & Dolly Parton)

"The Blessing (Live)"

Chris Brown, Cody Carnes, Kari Jobe Carnes & Steven Furtick, songwriters (Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes & Elevation Worship)

"Sunday Morning"

Denisia Andrews, Jones Terrence Antonio, Saint Bodhi, Brittany Coney, Kirk Franklin, Lasanna Harris, Shama Joseph, Stuart Lowery, Lecrae Moore & Nathanael Saint-Fleur, songwriters (Lecrae featuring Kirk Franklin)

"Holy Water"

Andrew Bergthold, Ed Cash, Franni Cash, Martin Cash & Scott Cash, songwriters (We the Kingdom)

"Famous For (I Believe)"

Chuck Butler, Krissy Nordhoff, Jordan Sapp, Alexis Slifer & Tauren Wells, songwriters (Tauren Wells featuring Jenn Johnson)

Best Gospel Album

Gospel According to PJ – PJ Morton

2econd Wind: ReadY – Anthony Brown & group therAPy

My Tribute – Myron Butler

Choirmaster – Ricky Dillard

Kierra – Kierra Sheard

Best Contemporary Christian Music Album

Jesus Is King – Kanye West

Run to The Father – Cody Carnes

All of My Best Friends – Hillsong Young & Free

Holy Water – We the Kingdom

Citizen of Heaven – Tauren Wells

Best Roots Gospel Album

Celebrating Fisk! (The 150th Anniversary Album) – Fisk Jubilee Singers

Beautiful Day – Mark Bishop

20/20 – The Crabb Family

What Christmas Really Means – The Erwins

Something Beautiful – Ernie Haase & Signature Sound

Latin

Best Latin Pop Album or Urban Album

YHLQMDLG – Bad Bunny

Por Primera Vez – Camilo

Mesa Para Dos – Kany García

Pausa – Ricky Martin

3:33 – Debi Nova

Best Latin Rock or Alternative Album

La Conquista del Espacio – Fito Páez

Aura – Bajofondo

MONSTRUO – Cami

Sobrevolando – Cultura Profética

Miss Colombia – Lido Pimienta

Best Regional Mexican Music Album (Including Tejano)

Un Canto por México, Vol. 1 – Natalia Lafourcade

Hecho en México – Alejandro Fernández

La Serenata – Lupita Infante

Bailando Sones y Huampangos con Mariachi Sol De Mexico De Jose Hernandez – Mariachi Sol De Mexico De Jose Hernandez

Ayayay! – Christian Nodal

Best Tropical Latin Album

40 – Grupo Niche

Mi Tumbao – José Alberto "El Ruiseñor"

Infinito – Edwin Bonilla

Sigo Cantando al Amor (Deluxe) – Jorge Celedon & Sergio Luis

Memorias de Navidad – Víctor Manuelle

American roots

Best American Roots Performance

"I Remember Everything" – John Prine

"Colors" – Black Pumas

"Deep in Love" – Bonny Light Horseman

"Short and Sweet" – Brittany Howard

"I'll Be Gone" – Norah Jones & Mavis Staples

Best American Roots Song

"I Remember Everything"

Pat McLaughlin & John Prine, songwriters (John Prine)

"Cabin"

Laura Rogers & Lydia Rogers, songwriters (The Secret Sisters)

"Ceiling to the Floor"

Sierra Hull & Kai Welch, songwriters (Sierra Hull)

"Hometown"

Sarah Jarosz, songwriter (Sarah Jarosz)

"Man Without a Soul"

Tom Overby & Lucinda Williams, songwriters (Lucinda Williams)

Best Americana Album

World on the Ground – Sarah Jarosz

Old Flowers – Courtney Marie Andrews

Terms of Surrender – Hiss Golden Messenger

El Dorado – Marcus King

Good Souls Better Angels – Lucinda Williams

Best Bluegrass Album

Home – Billy Strings

Man on Fire – Danny Barnes

To Live in Two Worlds, Vol. 1 – Thomm Jutz

North Carolina Songbook – Steep Canyon Rangers

The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project, Vol. 1 – Various Artists

Best Traditional Blues Album

Rawer than Raw – Bobby Rush

All My Dues are Paid – Frank Bey

You Make Me Feel – Don Bryant

That's What I Heard – Robert Cray Band

Cypress Grove – Jimmy "Duck" Holmes

Best Contemporary Blues Album

Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? – Fantastic Negrito

Live at the Paramount – Ruthie Foster Big Band

The Juice – G. Love

Blackbirds – Bettye LaVette

Up and Rolling – North Mississippi Allstars

Best Folk Album

All the Good Times – Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

Bonny Light Horseman – Bonny Light Horseman

Thanks for the Dance – Leonard Cohen

Song for Our Daughter – Laura Marling

Saturn Return – The Secret Sisters

Best Regional Roots Music Album

Atmosphere – New Orleans Nightcrawlers

My Relatives 'nikso' Kowaiks – Black Lodge Singers

Cameron Dupuy and The Cajun Troubadours – Cameron Dupuy And The Cajun Troubadours

Lovely Sunrise – Nā Wai ʽEhā

A Tribute to Al Berard – Sweet Cecilia

Reggae

Best Reggae Album

Got to Be Tough – Toots and the Maytals

Upside Down 2020 – Buju Banton

Higher Place – Skip Marley

It All Comes Black to Love – Maxi Priest

One World – The Wailers

Global music

Best Global Music Album

Twice as Tall – Burna Boy

Fu Chronicles – Antibalas

Agora – Bebel Gilberto

Love Letters – Anoushka Shankar

Amadjar – Tinariwen

Children's

Best Children's Album

All the Ladies – Joanie Leeds

Be a Pain: An Album for Young (and Old) Leaders – Alastair Moock And Friends

I'm an Optimist – Dog On Fleas

Songs for Singin' – The Okee Dokee Brothers

Wild Life – Justin Roberts

Spoken word

Best Spoken Word Album (Includes Poetry, Audio Books & Storytelling)

Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth – Rachel Maddow

Acid for the Children – A Memoir – Flea

Alex Trebek – The Answer Is... – Ken Jennings

Catch and Kill – Ronan Farrow

Charlotte's Web (E.B. White) – Meryl Streep and Full Cast

Comedy

Best Comedy Album

Black Mitzvah – Tiffany Haddish

I Love Everything – Patton Oswalt

The Pale Tourist – Jim Gaffigan

Paper Tiger – Bill Burr

23 Hours to Kill – Jerry Seinfeld

Musical theater

Best Musical Theater Album

Jagged Little Pill – Kathryn Gallagher, Celia Rose Gooding, Lauren Patten & Elizabeth Stanley, principal soloists; Neal Avron, Pete Ganbarg, Tom Kitt, Michael Parker, Craig Rosen & Vivek J. Tiwary, producers (Glen Ballard & Alanis Morissette, lyricists) (Original Broadway Cast)

Amélie – Audrey Brisson, Chris Jared, Caolan McCarthy & Jez Unwin, principal soloists; Michael Fentiman, Sean Patrick Flahaven, Barnaby Race & Nathan Tysen, producers; Nathan Tysen, lyricist; Daniel Messe, composer & lyricist (Original London Cast)

American Utopia on Broadway – David Byrne, principal soloist; David Byrne, producer (David Byrne, composer & lyricist) (Original Cast)

Little Shop of Horrors – Tammy Blanchard, Jonathan Groff & Tom Alan Robbins, principal soloists; Will Van Dyke, Michael Mayer, Alan Menken & Frank Wolf, producers (Alan Menken, composer; Howard Ashman, lyricist) (The New Off-Broadway Cast)

The Prince of Egypt – Christine Allado, Luke Brady, Alexia Khadime & Liam Tamne, principal soloists; Dominick Amendum & Stephen Schwartz, producers; Stephen Schwartz, composer & lyricist (Original Cast)

Soft Power – Francis Jue, Austin Ku, Alyse Alan Louis & Conrad Ricamora, principal soloists; Matt Stine, producer; David Henry Hwang, lyricist; Jeanine Tesori, composer & lyricist (Original Cast)

Music for visual media

Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media

Jojo Rabbit – Various artists

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood – Various artists

Bill & Ted Face the Music – Various artists

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga – Various artists

Frozen II – Various artists

Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media

Joker – Hildur Guðnadóttir, composer

Ad Astra – Max Richter, composer

Becoming – Kamasi Washington, composer

1917 – Thomas Newman, composer

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – John Williams, composer

Best Song Written for Visual Media

"No Time to Die" (from No Time to Die)

Billie Eilish O'Connell and Finneas O'Connell (Billie Eilish)

"Beautiful Ghosts" (from Cats)

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift)

"Carried Me with You" (from Onward)

Brandi Carlile, Phil Hanseroth and Tim Hanseroth (Brandi Carlile)

"Into the Unknown" (from Frozen II)

Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (Idina Menzel featuring AURORA)

"Stand Up" (from Harriet)

Joshuah Brian Campbell and Cynthia Erivo (Cynthia Erivo)

Composing/Arranging

Best Instrumental Composition

"Sputnik"

Maria Schneider, composer (Maria Schneider)

"Baby Jack"

Arturo O'Farrill, composer (Arturo O'Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra)

"Be Water II"

Christian Sands, composer (Christian Sands)

"Plumfield"

Alexandre Desplat, composer (Alexandre Desplat)

"Strata"

Remy Le Boeuf, composer (Remy Le Boeuf's Assembly Of Shadows featuring Anna Webber & Eric Miller)

Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella

"Donna Lee"

John Beasley, arranger (John Beasley)

"Bathroom Dance"

Hildur Guðnadóttir, arranger (Hildur Guðnadóttir)

"Honeymooners"

Remy Le Boeuf, arranger (Remy Le Boeuf's Assembly Of Shadows)

"Lift Every Voice and Sing"

Alvin Chea & Jarrett Johnson, arrangers (Jarrett Johnson Featuring Alvin Chea)

"Uranus: The Magician"

Jeremy Levy, arranger (Jeremy Levy Jazz Orchestra)

Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals

"He Won't Hold You"

Jacob Collier, arranger (Jacob Collier featuring Rapsody)

"Asas Fechadas"

John Beasley & Maria Mendes, arrangers (Maria Mendes Featuring John Beasley & Orkest Metropole)

"Desert Song"

Erin Bentlage, Sara Gazarek, Johnaye Kendrick & Amanda Taylor, arrangers (Säje)

"From This Place"

Alan Broadbent & Pat Metheny, arrangers (Pat Metheny featuring Meshell Ndegeocello)

"Slow Burn"

Talia Billig, Nic Hard & Becca Stevens, arrangers (Becca Stevens featuring Jacob Collier, Mark Lettieri, Justin Stanton, Jordan Perlson, Nic Hard, Keita Ogawa, Marcelo Woloski & Nate Werth)

Package

Best Recording Package

Vols. 11 & 12

Doug Cunningham & Jason Noto, art directors (Desert Sessions)

Everyday Life

Pilar Zeta, art director (Coldplay)

Funeral

Kyle Goen, art director (Lil Wayne)

Healer

Julian Gross & Hannah Hooper, art directors (Grouplove)

On Circles

Jordan Butcher, art director (Caspian)

Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package

Ode to Joy

Lawrence Azerrad & Jeff Tweedy, art directors (Wilco)

Flaming Pie (Collector's Edition)

Linn Wie Andersen, Simon Earith, Paul McCartney & James Musgrave, art directors (Paul McCartney)

Giants Stadium 1987, 1989, 1991

Lisa Glines & Doran Tyson, art directors (Grateful Dead)

Mode

Jeff Schulz, art director (Depeche Mode)

The Story of Ghostly International

Michael Cina & Molly Smith, art directors (Various Artists)

Notes

Best Album Notes

Dead Man's Pop

Bob Mehr, album notes writer (The Replacements)

At The Minstrel Show: Minstrel Routines From The Studio, 1894-1926

Tim Brooks, album notes writer (Various Artists)

The Bakersfield Sound: Country Music Capital Of The West, 1940-1974

Scott B. Bomar, album notes writer (Various Artists)

The Missing Link: How Gus Haenschen Got Us From Joplin To Jazz And Shaped The Music Business

Colin Hancock, album notes writer (Various Artists)

Out Of A Clear Blue Sky

David Sager, album notes writer (Nat Brusiloff)

Historical

Best Historical Album

It's Such a Good Feeling: The Best of Mister Rogers

Lee Lodyga & Cheryl Pawelski, compilation producers; Michael Graves, mastering engineer (Mister Rogers)

Celebrated, 1895–1896

Meagan Hennessey & Richard Martin, compilation producers; Richard Martin, mastering engineer (Unique Quartette)

Hittin' the Ramp: The Early Years (1936–1943)

Zev Feldman, Will Friedwald & George Klabin, compilation producers; Matthew Lutthans, mastering engineer (Nat King Cole)

1999 Super Deluxe Edition

Michael Howe, compilation producer; Bernie Grundman, mastering engineer (Prince)

Souvenir

Carolyn Agger, compilation producer; Miles Showell, mastering engineer (Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark)

Throw Down Your Heart: The Complete Africa Sessions

Béla Fleck, compilation producer; Richard Dodd, mastering engineer (Béla Fleck)

Production, non-classical

Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical

Hyperspace

Drew Brown, Andrew Coleman, Shawn Everett, Serban Ghenea, David Greenbaum, Jaycen Joshua, Beck Hansen & Mike Larson, engineers; Randy Merrill, mastering engineer (Beck)

Black Hole Rainbow

Shawn Everett & Ivan Wayman, engineers; Bob Ludwig, mastering engineer (Devon Gilfillian)

Expectations

Gary Paczosa & Mike Robinson, engineers; Paul Blakemore, mastering engineer (Katie Pruitt)

Jaime

Shawn Everett, engineer; Shawn Everett, mastering engineer (Brittany Howard)

25 Trips

Shani Gandhi & Gary Paczosa, engineers; Adam Grover, mastering engineer (Sierra Hull)

Producer of the Year, Non-Classical

Andrew Watt

"Break My Heart" (Dua Lipa)

"Me and My Guitar" (A Boogie wit da Hoodie)

"Midnight Sky" (Miley Cyrus)

"Old Me" (5 Seconds of Summer)

"Ordinary Man" (Ozzy Osbourne featuring Elton John)

"Take What You Want" (Post Malone featuring Ozzy Osbourne & Travis Scott)

"Under The Graveyard" (Ozzy Osbourne)

Jack Antonoff

"August" (Taylor Swift)

Gaslighter (The Chicks)

"Holy Terrain" (FKA Twigs featuring Future)

"Mirrorball" (Taylor Swift)

"This Is Me Trying" (Taylor Swift)

"Together" (Sia)

Dan Auerbach

Cypress Grove (Jimmy "Duck" Holmes)

El Dorado (Marcus King)

Is Thomas Callaway (CeeLo Green)

Singing for My Supper (Early James)

Solid Gold Sounds (Kendell Marvel)

Years (John Anderson)

Dave Cobb

"Backbone" (Kaleo)

The Balladeer (Lori McKenna)

Boneshaker (Airbourne)

Down Home Christmas (Oak Ridge Boys)

The Highwomen (The Highwomen)

"I Remember Everything" (John Prine)

Reunions (Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit)

"The Spark" (William Prince)

"You're Still the One" (Teddy Swims)

Flying Lotus

It Is What It Is (Thundercat)

Best Remixed Recording

"Roses (Imanbek Remix)"

Imanbek Zeikenov, remixer (SAINt JHN)

"Do You Ever (RAC Mix)"

RAC, remixer (Phil Good)

"Imaginary Friends (Morgan Page Remix)"

Morgan Page, remixer (Deadmau5)

"Praying for You (Louie Vega Main Remix)"

Louie Vega, remixer (Jasper Street Co.)

"Young & Alive (Bazzi vs. Haywyre Remix)"

Haywyre, remixer (Bazzi)

Production, immersive audio

Best Immersive Audio Album

The judging for this category was postponed.

Production, classical

Best Engineered Album, Classical

"Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13, 'Babi Yar'"

David Frost & Charlie Post, engineers; Silas Brown, mastering engineer (Riccardo Muti & Chicago Symphony Orchestra)

"Danielpour: The Passion of Yeshua"

Bernd Gottinger, engineer (JoAnn Falletta, James K. Bass, Adam Luebke, UCLA Chamber Singers, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra & Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus)

"Gershwin: Porgy and Bess"

David Frost & John Kerswell, engineers; Silas Brown, mastering engineer (David Robertson, Eric Owens, Angel Blue, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra & Chorus)

"Hynes: Fields"

Kyle Pyke, engineer; Jesse Lewis & Kyle Pyke, mastering engineers (Devonté Hynes & Third Coast Percussion)

"Ives: Complete Symphonies"

Alexander Lipay & Dmitriy Lipay, engineers; Alexander Lipay & Dmitriy Lipay, mastering engineers (Gustavo Dudamel & Los Angeles Philharmonic)

Producer of the Year, Classical

David Frost

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 9 (Jonathan Biss)

Gershwin: Porgy And Bess (David Robertson, Eric Owens, Angel Blue, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra & Chorus)

Gluck: Orphée & Eurydice (Harry Bicket, Dmitry Korchak, Andriana Chuchman, Lauren Snouffer, Lyric Opera Of Chicago Orchestra & Chorus)

Holst: The Planets; The Perfect Fool (Michael Stern & Kansas City Symphony)

Muhly: Marnie (Robert Spano, Isabel Leonard, Christopher Maltman, Denyce Graves, Iestyn Davies, Janis Kelly, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra & Chorus)

Schubert: Piano Sonatas, D. 845, D. 894, D. 958, D. 960 (Shai Wosner)

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13, 'Babi Yar' (Riccardo Muti, Alexey Tikhomirov, Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Chorus)

Blanton Alspaugh

Aspects Of America - Pulitzer Edition (Carlos Kalmar & Oregon Symphony)

Blessed Art Thou Among Women (Peter Jermihov, Katya Lukianov & PaTRAM Institute Singers)

Dvořák: Symphony No. 9; Copland: Billy The Kid (Gianandrea Noseda & National Symphony Orchestra)

Glass: The Fall Of The House Of Usher (Joseph Li, Nicholas Nestorak, Madison Leonard, Jonas Hacker, Ben Edquist, Matthew Adam Fleisher & Wolf Trap Opera)

Kahane: Emergency Shelter Intake Form (Alicia Hall Moran, Gabriel Kahane, Carlos Kalmar & Oregon Symphony)

Kastalsky: Requiem (Leonard Slatkin, Steven Fox, Benedict Sheehan, Charles Bruffy, Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, The Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale & Orchestra Of St. Luke's)

Massenet: Thaïs (Andrew Davis, Joshua Hopkins, Andrew Staples, Erin Wall, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir & Toronto Symphony Orchestra)

Smyth: The Prison (Sarah Brailey, Dashon Burton, James Blachly & Experiential Orchestra)

Woolf, L.P.: Fire And Flood (Julian Wachner, Matt Haimovitz & Choir Of Trinity Wall Street)

Jesse Lewis

Gunn: The Ascendant (Roomful Of Teeth)

Harrison, M.: Just Constellations (Roomful Of Teeth)

Her Own Wings (Willamette Valley Chamber Music Festival)

Hynes: Fields (Devonté Hynes & Third Coast Percussion)

Lang, D.: Love Fail (Beth Willer & Lorelei Ensemble)

Mazzoli: Proving Up (Christopher Rountree, Opera Omaha & International Contemporary Ensemble)

Sharlat: Spare The Rod! (NOW Ensemble)

Soul House (Hub New Music)

Wherein Lies The Good (The Westerlies)

Dmitry Lipay

Adams, J.: Must The Devil Have All The Good Tunes? (Yuja Wang, Gustavo Dudamel & Los Angeles Philharmonic)

Cipullo: The Parting (Alastair Willis, Laura Strickling, Catherine Cook, Michael Mayes & Music Of Remembrance)

Ives: Complete Symphonies (Gustavo Dudamel & Los Angeles Philharmonic)

LA Phil 100 - The Los Angeles Philharmonic Centennial Birthday Gala (Gustavo Dudamel & Los Angeles Philharmonic)

Langgaard: Prelude To Antichrist; Strauss: An Alpine Symphony (Thomas Dausgaard & Seattle Symphony Orchestra)

Nielsen: Symphony No. 1 & Symphony No. 2, 'The Four Temperaments' (Thomas Dausgaard & Seattle Symphony)

Elaine Martone

Bound For The Promised Land (Robert M. Franklin, Steven Darsey, Jessye Norman & Taylor Branch)

Dawn (Shachar Israel)

Gandolfi, Prior & Oliverio: Orchestral Works (Robert Spano & Atlanta Symphony Orchestra)

Singing In The Dead Of Night (Eighth Blackbird)

Whitacre: The Sacred Veil (Eric Whitacre, Grant Gershon & Los Angeles Master Chorale)

Classical

Best Orchestral Performance

"Ives: Complete Symphonies"

Gustavo Dudamel, conductor (Los Angeles Philharmonic)

"Aspects of America - Pulitzer Edition"

Carlos Kalmar, conductor (Oregon Symphony)

"Concurrence"

Daníel Bjarnason, conductor (Iceland Symphony Orchestra)

"Copland: Symphony No. 3"

Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor (San Francisco Symphony)

"Lutosławski: Symphonies No. 2 & 3"

Hannu Lintu, conductor (Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra)

Best Opera Recording

"Gershwin: Porgy and Bess"

David Robertson, conductor; Angel Blue & Eric Owens; David Frost, producer (The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; The Metropolitan Opera Chorus)

"Dello Joio: The Trial at Rouen"

Gil Rose, conductor; Heather Buck & Stephen Powell; Gil Rose, producer (Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Odyssey Opera Chorus)

"Floyd, C: Prince of Players"

William Boggs, conductor; Keith Phares & Kate Royal; Blanton Alspaugh, producer (Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; Florentine Opera Chorus)

"Handel: Agrippina"

Maxim Emelyanychev, conductor; Joyce DiDonato; Daniel Zalay, producer (Il Pomo D'Oro)

"Zemlinsky: Der Zwerg"

Donald Runnicles, conductor; David Butt Philip & Elena Tsallagova; Peter Ghirardini & Erwin Stürzer, producers (Orchestra Of The Deutsche Oper Berlin; Chorus Of The Deutsche Oper Berlin)

Best Choral Performance

"Danielpour: The Passion of Yessuah"

JoAnn Falletta, conductor; James K. Bass & Adam Luebke, chorus masters (James K. Bass, J'Nai Bridges, Timothy Fallon, Kenneth Overton, Hila Plitmann & Matthew Worth; Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus & UCLA Chamber Singers)

"Carthage"

Donald Nally, conductor (The Crossing)

"Kastalski: Requiem"

Leonard Slatkin, conductor; Charles Bruffy, Steven Fox & Benedict Sheehan, chorus masters (Joseph Charles Beutel & Anna Dennis; Orchestra Of St. Luke's; Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Kansas City Chorale & The Saint Tikhon Choir)

"Moravec: Sanctuary Road"

Kent Tritle, conductor (Joshua Blue, Raehann Bryce-Davis, Dashon Burton, Malcolm J. Merriweather & Laquita Mitchell; Oratorio Society Of New York Orchestra; Oratorio Society Of New York Chorus)

"Once Upon a Time"

Matthew Guard, conductor (Sarah Walker; Skylark Vocal Ensemble)

Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

"Contemporary Voices" – Pacifica Quartet

"Healing Modes" – Brooklyn Rider

"Hearne, T,: Place" – Ted Hearne, Steven Bradshaw, Sophia Byrd, Josephine Lee, Isaiah Robinson, Sol Ruiz, Ayanna Woods & Place Orchestra

"Hynes: Fields" – Devonté Hynes & Third Coast Percussion

"The Schumann Quartets" – Dover Quartet

Best Classical Instrumental Solo

"Theofanidis: Concerto for Viola and Chamber Orchestra"

Richard O'Neill; David Alan Miller, conductor (Albany Symphony)

"Adés: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra"

Kirill Gerstein; Thomas Adès, conductor (Boston Symphony Orchestra)

"Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas"

Igor Levit

"Bohemian Tales"

Augustin Hadelich; Jakub Hrůša, conductor (Charles Owen; Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks)

"Destination Rachmaninov - Arrival"

Daniil Trifonov; Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor (The Philadelphia Orchestra)

Best Classical Solo Vocal Album

"Smyth: The Prison"

Sarah Brailey & Dashon Burton; James Blachly, conductor (Experiential Chorus; Experiential Orchestra)

"American Composers at Play - William Bolcom, Ricky Ian Gordon, Lori Laitman, John Musto"

Stephen Powell (Attacca Quartet, William Bolcom, Ricky Ian Gordon, Lori Laitman, John Musto, Charles Neidich & Jason Vieaux)

"Clairières - Songs by Lili & Nadia Boulanger"

Nicholas Phan; Myra Huang, accompanist

"Farinelli"

Cecilia Bartoli; Giovanni Antonini, conductor (Il Giardino Armonico)

"A Lad's Love"

Brian Giebler; Steven McGhee, accompanist (Katie Hyun, Michael Katz, Jessica Meyer, Reginald Mobley & Ben Russell)

Best Classical Compendium

"Thomas, M.T.: From the Diary of Anne Frank & Meditations on Rilke"

Isabel Leonard; Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor; Jack Vad, producer

"Adès Conducts Adès"

Mark Stone & Christianne Stotijn; Thomas Adès, conductor; Nick Squire, producer

"Saariaho: Graal Théâtre; Circle Map, Neiges, Vers Toi Qui Es Si Loin"

Clément Mao-Takacs, conductor; Hans Kipfer, producer

"Serebrier: Symphonic Bach Variations; Laments and Hallelujahs; Flute Concerto"

José Serebrier, conductor; Jens Braun, producer

"Woolf, L.P.: Fire and Blood"

Matt Haimovitz; Julian Wachner, conductor; Blanton Alspaugh, producer

Best Contemporary Classical Composition

"Rouse: Symphony No. 5"

Christopher Rouse, composer (Giancarlo Guerrero & Nashville Symphony)

"Adès: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra"

Thomas Adès, composer (Kirill Gerstein, Thomas Adès & Boston Symphony Orchestra)

"Danielpour: The Passion of Yeshua"

Richard Danielpour, composer (JoAnn Falletta, James K. Bass, Adam Luebke, UCLA Chamber Singers, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra & Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus)

"Floyd, C.: Prince of Players"

Carlisle Floyd, composer (William Boggs, Kate Royal, Keith Phares, Florentine Opera Chorus & Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra)

"Hearne, T.: Place"

Ted Hearne, composer (Ted Hearne, Steven Bradshaw, Sophia Byrd, Josephine Lee, Isaiah Robinson, Sol Ruiz, Ayanna Woods & Place Orchestra)

Music video/film

Best Music Video

"Brown Skin Girl" – Beyoncé, Saint Jhn & Wizkid Featuring Blue Ivy Carter

Beyoncé Knowles-Carter & Jenn Nkiru, video directors; Lauren Baker, Astrid Edwards, Nathan Scherrer & Erinn Williams, video producers

"Life Is Good" – Future Featuring Drake

Julien Christian Lutz, video director; Harv Glazer, video producer

"Lockdown" – Anderson .Paak

Dave Meyers, video director; Nathan Scherrer, video producer

"Adore You" – Harry Styles

Dave Meyers, video director; Nathan Scherrer, video producer

"Goliath" – Woodkid

Yoann Lemoine, video director; Horace de Gunzbourg, video producer

Best Music Film

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice – Linda Ronstadt

Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman, video directors; Michele Farinola & James Keach, video producers

Beastie Boys Story – Beastie Boys

Spike Jonze, video director; Amanda Adelson, Jason Baum & Spike Jonze, video producers

Black Is King – Beyoncé

Emmanuel Adjei, Blitz Bazawule, Beyoncé Knowles Carter & Kwasi Fordjour, video directors; Lauren Baker, Akin Omotoso, Nathan Scherrer, Jeremy Sullivan & Erinn Williams, video producers

We Are Freestyle Love Supreme – Freestyle Love Supreme

Andrew Fried, video director; Andrew Fried, Jill Furman, Thomas Kail, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sarina Roma, Jenny Steingart & Jon Steingart, video producers

That Little Ol' Band From Texas – ZZ Top

Sam Dunn, video director; Scot McFadyen, video producer

#2021 #grammy awards

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axolotl-druk · 4 years

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Thanks @yourpers0nalcheerleader and @sorryimabitanxious for perceiving me <3

Name/nickname: Rimac

Gender:

Star sign: I want to say the Ursas, a magazine told me I am a rock (in the GREC roman universe I am Sagittarius, but blah blah colonialism)

Height: 5′ 2″

Time: 11:20 am

Birthday: My mom says I k*lled Carl Sagan, and she might be right.

Favorite bands/groups: I am a folk, indie, blues and roots basic b*tch. The ones that are here to stay are: Queen, Panic at the Disco, Fall Out Boy and Miranda!

Favorite solo artists: Jorge Drexler, Alex Ferreira and Carlos Sadness

Song stuck in my head: Ghost, from mother mother

Last movie: Ponyo 🐠🐟🐡🐬🎏

Last show: Crazy ex-girlfriend

When did I create this blog: Idk, 2015?

What do I post: this is a very serious science and culture blog and 99.9% ATLA. Also all is qued but never tagged

Last thing I googled: Metalic Bees (save the bees but not the honey ones!

Other blogs: Tried to do a writing one, didn't last. Oversharing on instagram captions count?

Do I get asks: Sometimes, and this is an invitation to come chat with me now :)

Why did I choose this url: Druk is meso-american so this was fitting (my HC is he is part Quetzal and Axolotl)

Following: 922 (I won't unfollow science blogs that haven’t updated since 5 years ago just because of how I am as a person)

Followers: I came here to post and make friends, and I am already out of posts

Average hours of sleep: 8~ at night

Lucky number: 2, 4, 6, 8

Instruments: I know riptide on keyboard

What am i wearing: Basket shorts and a shirt

Dream job: Let me poke macaws and make fun of their ugly naked babies

Dream trip: Opposite site from here

Favorite food: The yellow pumpkin

Nationality: Peruvian

Favorite song: At the moment, Would you be so kind by Dodie

Last book read: The Quixote (not finished but ..)

3 fictional universes you’d like to live in: Marvel because I want to try my luck acquiring superpowers, the Ghibli universe, Star Treek

tagging: @penguinsledder @drowning-in-cacophony @visit-ba-sing-se @axolotlhuman @maipreciation @justoceanmyth and @thinkingisadangerouspastime @ordinaryfruitpunch (if you want tho)

#also If you dont want to be perceived ask me to #delete your name from here #tagged in #about me

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pao-prazz · 2 months

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#golden cameleon #quillazú #perú #lima #peruanos #dream rock #peruvian music #rock peruano #dream rock peruano #mar azul #castellano #español #spanish #now playing #Spotify

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archiveofprolbems · 4 years

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On Space Art by Xin Liu & Xin Wang

Xin Liu, Orbit Weaver, 2017. Production still of artist's performance during a parabolic flight. Image courtesy of the artist. Photo by Steve Boxell.

During the prolonged lockdown that defined much of 2020, the Xinjiang-born, New York-based artist and engineer Xin Liu juggled multiple roles. These included participating in a volunteering network that supplied PPE to medical workers in dire need of protection against Covid-19; designing an indie game, Sleepwalk (2020), which reflected on the conditions of confinement and hyper-connectivity; engineering a series of hypnotic sound experiences with her partner Gershon Dublon titled The Wandering Mind (2020), which guides the dreams of a sleeping audience with source materials organized by an AI system; and live-streaming an ambient soundscape recorded on Whitehead Island, off the coast of Maine, for the Camden International Film Festival.1

As the Arts Curator at MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative and an artist who makes work for exhibition spaces, film festivals, and astronautical conferences, Liu’s ongoing fascination with space as a medium and destination for new art has seen her send a wisdom tooth into outer space, cultivate potato seeds that had travelled to the International Space Station, and imagine weightlessness as an intimate, “body-opening” condition. In this interview, we spoke about the past lives and expansive futures of Space Art, her unique mixture of academic and identitarian backgrounds, and the creative strategies of innovation and resistance while working at the juncture of art and technology.

Xin Wang: You’ve recently been referred to as a “famous space artist” in a panel discussion poster, which suggests that this is a solidified genre.

Xin Liu: It is a genre! If you google “Space Art,” there’s a Wikipedia page that defines it, though it’s very much about visual artists depicting the vision of space exploration, like images of Martian colonies, weightlessness, spaceships, etc. It was also called Astronomical Art, with notable artists such as Chesley Bonestell. These artists really tried to define the aesthetics of space, which even changed the way we would later color actual scientific images captured through different telescopes. Even now, if you look at NASA’s art programs, that’s still basically the main concept. Slowly it diverged into art in space, or art that uses space and environmental textures for creation, experimentation, and storytelling.

For me, Space Art conceptually connects more to Land Art in the seventies; the questions they were asking—regarding spatial-temporal dimensions and the way we engage with geological transformation—are more related. However, there is this jump in the Space Art medium from astronomical paintings right away to “art in space.” It is a gap in our understanding of Space Art; in my position as the Space Art curator at MIT, I have made sure to take into account Land Art, science fiction, and so on, in lectures.

XW: What questions do you want to ask with your Space Art?

XL: First of all, the duality in our perception of the world: being a human being walking, eating, sleeping, drinking, and laughing on this planet; and on the other hand, knowing that we exist on a gigantic rock spinning around another hot rock in endless space. The epistemological jump is exciting but also problematic when we distance one from the other. People talk about science versus culture as if they are the polar opposites. I’m trying to reconcile the two views of the world and find places to live in-between. My other interest has more to do with the body, our sensations, our death, and the cycles of life and materials.

XW: Your works have always struck me as poetic—you sent one of your wisdom teeth into space in Living Distance (2019), which was inspired by childhood folktales and executed with robust engineering. But the whole debate around the idea that culture and science are antithetical has a long history. Susan Sontag wrote about it in the sixties, for example; what are you seeing in terms of new manifestations of, and challenges to, that tension?

XL: The philosopher Yuk Hui has proposed the concept of cosmotechnics, which argues that science and technology aren’t objective but are born of human cultures. One of my current projects, Unearthing Futures, is a collaboration with the Peruvian artist Lucia Monge, the International Potato Center in Lima, and the International Space Station (ISS).2 We are interested in potato history as human history; native to Peru, the potato’s journey becoming one of the most widely grown crops in the world mirrors colonial history. As we set foot and grow crops beyond the earth bond, one option here is to engineer the perfect potato that survives all conditions, while the other is to trust the possibilities of biodiversity, where a consortium of diverse species that are mutually dependent yields a higher chance of survival in extreme environments. Both are questions of science and technology, but at the same time they reflect philosophies—ones about how we survive.

We selected six varieties of native Peruvian potatoes with different characteristics, sent the potato seeds to the ISS to spend a month in microgravity, and exposed them to environment stressors such as radiation. The project has not grown potatoes in space, but it’s a significant step to understanding how environmental stressors affect thesis seeds. Having harvested the first generation in our respective studios, we plan to grow multiple generations and increase the numbers that we can process. Maybe in the fourth or fifth generation we can cook them and use them in workshops that involve the general public (we are working with public elementary schools in Portland) to think about the possibilities of food and agriculture in space exploration. Space potatoes are the protagonists in our stories and would facilitate these dialogues.

XW: When we were reviewing proposals for Sojourner 2020, an open call for artworks to be sent into low earth orbit by the MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative, there were equally visible tendencies to flatten the crossover between art and technology into very gimmicky projects. In your position as both curator and artist working in this increasingly hyped juncture of art and tech, what are some of your goals and challenges?

XL: With the dropping costs of space launches and privatization, we are entering the New Space Age. Space Art is truly at the frontier now (no pun intended). There are many amazing art practitioners I’ve been able to invite to MIT and imagine together what this practice can be. The artist Agnes Meyer-Brandis, for example, created The Moon Goose Colony, where she trained geese on planetary science and different flight patterns to prepare them for the Moon.3 She even incubated and hatched the eggs herself. In 42-The Large Meteor T-R-A-P (2014), she uses electronic magnetic devices to guide the movement of meteorites, which can be viewed as a planetary defense system. In fact, the first planetary defense systems launched by NASA (the Double Asteroid Redirection Test) this past year also had to do with devices latching onto the meteorites to change their course of movement. I really like projects that are ambitious, beautifully executed, and which explore scientific possibilities as well as artistic ones. Unapologetically inserting yourself into other domains is also something I’m passionate about.

XW: What are some examples of such insertions?

XL: I recently had a conversation with the researcher Weng Jia, who looked into the detailed history of weather satellites beyond the pragmatics of weather forecast—itself a form of weather control that generates state power. It’s important to understand that history, but at the same time we can ask, as cultural producers, what now? We can either involve public engagement and sign petitions to request open access, or we can learn from the hackers—there are so many amateur enthusiasts who eavesdrop on state-owned radio signals, and through listening we are able to understand so much already. During the pandemic, my partner Gershon Dublon and I have tinkered with software-defined radio. Using just a tiny, 20-dollar USB dongle with an antenna we built from our clothing wires, we could receive the signals from retired National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather satellites as they pass through the sky.

Even before the pandemic, my partner was looking into personal monitoring of air traffic, as most aircrafts have to broadcast their locations after reaching 18,000 ft. This was a fun plane-tracking activity at home. But later on we were put in touch with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, who were protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline encroaching their territories. They were being illegally harassed and even sprayed with unknown chemicals by aircraft flying over their encampment, but couldn’t track the perpetrators. We helped them set up the aforementioned system using a computer, a 20-dollar dongle, and electrical metal wires, with which they were actually able to “see,” ID, and track the aircraft. Using that data and US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the water protectors were able to pursue their harassers and hold them accountable. Is it art practice? I think it’s important and exciting to examine the “wall”; there’s no wall that’s perfect—there are always cracks. You can find things between the breaks and slowly percolate, and, in a way, take back those powers—I found those processes most exciting.

XW: I think this is a powerful approach that counters the general pessimism towards big tech, technocratic states, and surveillance to the point that people don’t even want to think about the possibilities of cracks.

XL: But that’s a facade, and I don’t know who marvelously crafted it. A lot of these things, such as the radio, are not so complicated. Given a week and the internet, most people can figure it out; it’s not rocket science. You know who is most interested in amateur radio nowadays? The fifty-plus generation, sometimes grandpas. There is a big community in Staten Island in New York. However, in the arts, these systems and disciplines are rendered unfathomable, which prohibits further investigation. That’s the problem.

XW: When you were speaking about “the cracks in the wall” earlier, I had a very dark thought—in the future, planetary warfare will look drastically different and be much more deadly than the wars currently taking place on Earth.

XL: Future wars may not be quite so physical as we imagine—the virus is a powerful model for what could happen. It shows how fragile and resilient humans are; cyberattack, trade wars, geoengineering manipulation of nature—these are all struggles on different planetary scales, and we have to constantly self-educate as citizens and decode what the decision makers are actually saying.

XW: You received your undergraduate training at Tsinghua University, which is known for its rigorous focus on scientific training and as a place that has groomed many of China’s top technocratic leaders. It’s also considered the Chinese counterpart of MIT, where you completed a graduate program. How do those experiences compare and inform your trajectory?

XL: When I was in Tsinghua, I studied mathematics, physics, and mechanical engineering; my degree was in precision instruments. Nowadays I still practice them in my sculpture in its manufacturing and fabricating processes. It’s a craft. I later went to Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), not because I wanted to be an artist, but out of a sad realization. In China, we separated art and science education since high school, and my liberal arts education was limited.

It was a selfish desire to study fine arts after college just to become a “complete” human being. I am very grateful that my parents didn’t disapprove this decision. At the time I told myself that I’d probably still end up working for Google and Microsoft; I had interned at both places during graduate school, thinking that’s how I would make a living eventually. But those two years were transformative and gave me an absolutely new way of looking at the world. Even graduating with an MFA from RISD, I still couldn’t commit a hundred percent to being a professional artist, as it is really difficult financially. I’m a practical immigrant. I had to figure out a way to stay in the country and feed myself. Then I went to MIT, because it was fully funded and I had the luxury to do research; after another two years in school, I decided that I wanted to work freely, and “artist” is the title that offers the most freedom.

XW: Do you still believe that?

XL: I do. If you tell people you are an artist, whatever you do doesn’t surprise them as much. It’s harder to talk about sending a tooth to space as a physicist.

XW: I’m struck by the way you describe gravity as a “momentum of feelings” on your website.

XL: That’s something I was thinking about when I first experienced weightlessness in 2017, during a parabolic flight. The plane literally free-falls in the sky, and in reference to the cabin, everything inside the plane is weightless. I had a bit of a performance background in dance. The experience was shocking: there was no “free from gravity”—gravity is always there. It was just everything falling together. The experience was less about me floating or flying than about the ground beneath me dropping. It’s not liberating in the way that you are accelerating and going up, which is what we associate with space exploration probably, but rather a kind of letting-go and descending. It was an eye-opening—body-opening—experience for me, and a bitter-sweet moment as well.

XW: Speaking of bodies and embodiment, do you find this excessive attention to—often performances of—an artist’s identity shows up more or less or differently for you, given the curious juncture of disciplines and identities you inhabit?

XL: It depends on who is seeing me. The tech aspect of me can seem alarming to people who are used to traditional practices, and in the so-called media/tech/science art world, gender might manifest more. The audience decides who I am. My name reads as gender-neutral in both English and Chinese. Sometimes people assume I’m a man initially, because I’m working with technology; but a bit more engagement with the work might compel one to realize that I could be a woman, because of the way I deal with technology. Still deeper into it, you might realize I’m Asian.

Another interesting aspect comes from the fact that I don’t just participate in art events; I also present my works at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC), where it’s just pleasing to see my portrait—that of a young Asian woman—next to attendees that are largely from different demographics. And I enjoy that—inserting myself in different systems. It’s not just gender, but also geographic. I am an outlier in many ways—I went to a military-affiliated high school, so the instinct to fit in was strong growing up. But here, as people of color and women, we naturally stand out and have more identities. It could be tiring but it’s also our power—meaning that we can potentially empathize with more people. People like you and me—when we talk about America in a positive light in China or criticize the Chinese government, we are perceived as brainwashed by Western liberalism; but when we talk about Chinese companies like WeChat positively here, or the effective Covid-19 responses and technological innovations in China, we’d be considered brainwashed in the other direction too.

XW: I always feel that exposure to different systems of brainwash leads to utmost clarity. What do you think the future of space art will be, or what you hope it could be like?

XL: I think it will mature like digital art, bio art, internet art, AR/VR art—all these sub-domains. I read extensively on space policies, which obviously figure prominently on many nation states’ agendas. At the IAC conference in 2020, eight national space agencies just signed the Artemis Accords, which is an international agreement on the principles for corporations and civil explorations for the moon, Mars, comets, and asteroids. Particularly notable is the encouragement and protection for private entities to participate in the future of space exploration, and its effect on commercial activities will be significant; even the ISS is going through a commercialization process already. Space will become more commercial and privatized; it will engender more conversations and force us to be involved and investigate the industry.

XW: What’s your favorite Space Art piece?

XL: I was struck by Ilya Kabakov’s The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment (1985) when I first knew about it. I have been (and am still) confined in my apartment due to the pandemic. It is the absolute desire to break the ceiling and get out. Though both are heading towards outer space, the Soviet campaign in space exploration and a personal desire to leave, to be free, cannot be more different. In fact, one is defeating the other.

_____________________

Xin Liu (b. 1991, Xinjiang/China) is an artist and engineer. She is the Arts Curator in the Space Exploration Initiative in MIT Media Lab, a member of New INC in New Museum, and a studio resident in Queens Museum. She is also an artist-in-residence in SETI Institute and the recipient of numerous awards and residencies.

Xin Wang is a curator and art historian based in New York. She is currently planning an exhibition that explores Asian Futurisms for The Museum of Chinese in America, New York. While pursuing her PhD in art history at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, she’s also been conducting a series of public zoom webinars on topics of technology, new media, and Asian American perspectives for the Whitney Museum of American Art since spring 2020.

Source: https://www.art-agenda.com/features/372727/on-space-art

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waveridden · 4 years

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ooh do you have documentary recs?? 👀

sure! i have very specific taste and i recognize that it might not be for everyone, but these are some i’ve watched lately and really enjoyed! (all of these are on us netflix unless otherwise noted but if you wanna double check just use justwatch to look it up bc that website is a gift)

long shot - listen, i don’t like true crime but this is the kind of thing i like. a man is accused of murder and all he needs is to prove that he was at a baseball game on the night in question. has an absolutely WILD zag in the middle

the speed cubers - about competitive rubik’s cube solving which is admittedly dear to my heart, but it’s very very sweet! i will say i’m a little ehhhh on the way they talk about autistic people tho so be warned

spelling the dream - about the scripp’s spelling bee and the prevalence of indian-american competitors

circus of books - profiling the owners and history of the most prominent gay porn store in los angeles. cw for some homophobia including a parent reacting badly to coming out but it’s nothing Too Bad

20 feet from stardom - profiling backup singers for famous rock bands/singers, and discussing how black women shaped the music industry. by the same guy who did the mr. rogers documentary a couple years back (which i would also recommend tbh)

honeyland (on hulu) - profiling a woman who is one of the last traditional beekeepers in macedonia. heartbreaking and so beautiful. cw for family death

american factory - yes i watched this because of the oscars. the story of a partnership between a chinese and american auto production companies in middle america. workers of the world unite

shirkers - a strange-but-true story. as a teenager, sandi tan made a movie with an american man who claimed to be from hollywood... and then stole all the tapes and vanished. this is the story of those tapes. (there is a brief nongraphic description of him making a pass at her, it’s like two minutes and there are no visuals and it doesn’t go anywhere)

taste the nation (hulu) - listen, i watch a LOT of food network. like, i got cable specifically to watch food network. this is my favorite food series i’ve seen one a hot minute. padma lakshmi goes to cities in america to meet with immigrant communities there and talk about their food. peruvian food in new jersey! gullah geechee in south carolina! it’s a damn good time

and also for good measure the things i’m most excited about on my watchlist are: apollo 11, three identical strangers, crip camp, disclosure, and maiden! obvs i haven’t seen these yet so i can’t specifically vouch for quality, but if you like any of the above you might like these too

ETA1 i just remembered... idk if this is streaming bc i watched it on a plane but if you have ever watched the price is right... you should watch the perfect bid, a profile of a guy who literally memorized all the items they commonly ask you to bid on. it’s BATSHIT

#waveridden.ask #anonymous #also other food series i liked lately are the chef show and salt fat acid heat #but yeah these are my recs right now! if you watch/like any of these feel free to lmk

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watusichris · 4 years

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Leon Russell Au Naturel

When Les Blank’s A Poem is a Naked Person, his long-suppressed feature about Leon Russell, was finally exhumed some years back, I wrote about the film for the Night Flight web site. The story has since been scoured from the web. The film is airing Monday on TCM at the ungodly hour of 7:15 a.m. PT, as part of its Labor Day music movie marathon, so I decided to dig up my old piece and re-post it to supply some back story. It’s quite a picture, but it is not for the impatient or the squeamish. ********** Virtually unseen for more than 40 years, A Poem is a Naked Person, Les Blank’s portrait of Leon Russell, receives a formal Los Angeles premiere on July 8 with a screening at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel; a week of showings at Cinefamily, under the auspices of Allison and Tiffany Anders’ Don’t Knock the Rock Festival, commences on July 10. The reason for the picture’s long suppression is simple: Russell and his Shelter Records partner Denny Cordell commissioned Blank to make a promotional movie, and he gave them an art film, and not a flattering one at that. Therein lies a very interesting rub.

Some slightly convoluted back story is necessary. By 1972, when Blank was hired to create his portrait of the musician, guitarist-keyboardist-songwriter Russell had risen to a position of commercial eminence after years as one of L.A.’s top studio guns. Graduating from work in the house band of the weekly TV rock showcase Shindig! and record dates with such diverse clients as Phil Spector, the Byrds, and Herb Alpert, the Tulsa-born musician moved into the spotlight as musical director for Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett’s stomping R&B- and gospel-infused group and Joe Cocker’s huge, circus-like Mad Dogs & Englishmen unit.

Dubbed “The Master of Time and Space,” Russell began a fruitful label partnership with British producer Cordell with the inauguration of Shelter in 1970, a year before a high-profile appearance in the house band at George Harrison’s Concert For Bangla Desh. He bumped into the U.S. top 20 with his second solo album in 1971, but the 1972 LP Carney soared to No. 2 and spawned the No. 11 single “Tight Rope,” which was animated by Russell’s rolling keyboard work and rough yet affecting singing. The three-LP concert collection Leon Live would reach the top 10 and cement his position as a solo star in 1973.

Russell and Cordell doubtlessly envisioned a conventional feature surveying the musician’s stage show and sessions for a forthcoming country album when, on the recommendation of the American Film Institute, they commissioned Blank. By then active in Northern California for a dozen years, the director had made his rep with earthy short features about a pair of Texas musicians, bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins (The Blues According to Lightnin’ Hopkins, 1968) and songster Mance Lipscomb (A Well Spent Life, 1971).

For nearly two years, Blank and his collaborator Maureen Gosling set up shop at Russell’s home and studio complex on a lake outside Tulsa, where they filmed the performer at work and play, and also cut their footage of Louisiana zydeco musicians Clifton Chenier and Boisec Ardoin into the pungent short films Hot Pepper and Dry Wood. The filmmakers humped their gear to gigs in Anaheim, New Orleans, and Austin, and to studio rehearsals at Bradley’s Barn in Nashville for the album Hank Wilson’s Back, the sincere and soulful 1973 country project that bewildered his core fans, essentially marking the end of Russell’s tenure as a top-flight rock attraction.

After an abortive attempt to screen A Poem is a Naked Person at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival – the print wasn’t ready – Russell and Cordell basically put the feature on semi-permanent ice, allowing it to be screened only by permission, with Blank in attendance. It remained an elusive commodity until the director’s death in 2013. At the urging of Blank’s son Harrod, Russell reconsidered the matter of its availability; a screening at this year’s South By Southwest Film Festival prefaced a national theatrical release, and a DVD from the Criterion Collection, distributor Janus Films’ home video line, is anticipated.

Russell has long been mum about his reasons for keeping the picture out of circulation; queried in recent interviews, he has glibly replied, “I don’t know,” or “I don’t remember.” But it seems obvious that the producers’ intentions and the filmmakers’ execution were widely divergent. If Russell and Cordell thought they were going to get a puffy documentary that would push their product, they were sorely disappointed.

A Poem is a Naked Person bears a striking resemblance, in style if not entirely in content, to a pair of quite radical contemporaneous films. The most obvious analog is Cocksucker Blues, Swiss-born photographer and indie filmmaker Robert Frank’s notorious backstage look at the Rolling Stones’ 1972 U.S. tour; a jumpy saturnalia of sexual escapades, heroin abuse, and hotel-room boredom, with occasional concert footage, it scandalized the band, who have enforced restrictions similar to those imposed on Blank’s movie upon its exhibition. Photographer William Eggleston’s long-gestating Stranded in Canton, which features pianist Jim Dickinson and musician/bank robber Jerry McGill among its cast of Memphis and New Orleans weirdoes and eccentrics, was shot on portable video equipment ca. 1973 and finally cut into something resembling finished form by Bluff City writer-documentarian Robert Gordon in 2005. It’s an incandescent rebel depiction of life on the distant fringes of art and music.

Frank’s and Eggleston’s highly personalized, jaggedly edited, impressionistic features, brimming with often appalling extra-musical incident, don’t fit the description of what we’ve come to call “music documentaries,” and neither do Blank’s pictures. The best-known films the director made before his encounter with Russell, though they boast musicians (Hopkins and Lipscomb) as their central figures, likewise operate well beyond the parameters of conventional music docs. Though there is a good deal of music-making and ass-shaking in them, they are at heart about the communities in which the music was made, with their indigenous landscapes, customs, cuisines, and spiritual concerns. An observer of folklife at heart, Blank was an unlikely, even incongruous, candidate to make a movie about a rock star – essentially, an industrial film for music consumers.

Like the subjects of Blank’s earlier films, Russell is witnessed at home a good deal, and the director slathers his film with super-saturated images of local color shot in and around the musician’s Oklahoma base – a pow-wow of the Tulsa Indian Club, a tractor pull, a holiday parade, a literal wild-goose chase, the implosion demolition of Tulsa’s ancient (and perfectly named) Bliss Hotel. But Russell – prematurely gray, long-haired and bearded, always bearing a glazed, slightly stoned mien -- appears before us as a man without a country, almost an alien, dislocated from his roots, ferried to his far-flung gigs in long limousines as black as hearses.

As a protagonist, Russell most resembles the central figure in a later Blank production, 1982’s Burden of Dreams. That unsettling feature follows the chaotic production of German director Werner Herzog’s film Fitzcarraldo in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon. The reckless and megalomaniacal filmmaker is seen slowly coming apart as, cut off entirely from civilization, he single-mindedly pursues his quixotic and extremely hazardous project, which entails the climactic hauling of a 20-ton boat up a steep incline; by the film’s end, Herzog appears as mad as the lunatic hero of his saga, who longs to build an opera house for Enrico Caruso in the middle of the jungle. Though Russell is never depicted in extremis, as Herzog is, Blank implies that, unlike the Southern musicians the director depicts so affectionately and respectfully, the Oklahoman is like Herzog also a man who has drifted too far from his native shore.

Music plainly is what brings Russell alive; it is at the heart of A Poem is a Naked Person, and it is often splendid, a saving grace. There are lovely cameos by George Jones (playing “Take Me” solo in Russell’s home studio) and Willie Nelson (essaying “Good Hearted Woman” at a gig in Austin, and accompanying fiddler “Sweet” Mary Egan on “Orange Blossom Special”). Several truncated yet forceful performances by Russell’s road band – augmented by a gospel-styled quartet, Blackgrass, led by Rev. Patrick Henderson – are on view. In one simple yet eloquent sequence, Russell’s deeply felt cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” plays under footage of clouds drifting across the face of the moon, as they do in Williams’ lyrics; it’s obvious, but nonetheless affecting.

One of the bleaker streaks in the film can be found in some of the sequences shot during the sessions for Hank Wilson’s Back in Nashville. These scenes are not totally bereft of a certain joy: Russell takes obvious delight in the expertise of his A-Team accompanists. One delicious scene finds him in an awed duet with Charlie McCoy, a secret hero of Bob Dylan’s Nashville-based albums from Blonde On Blonde to Self Portrait; the bespectacled McCoy looks like an accountant on his way to a tee time, and he plays and sings his ass off. But some of the other Music City studio gunslingers’ envy of and contempt for their contractor – like themselves a session guy, but one who has hit the jackpot – is scarcely concealed. Hotshot pianist David Briggs – whose obscene rendition of the Beatles’ “Lady Madonna” was expurgated in later prints of the film at Russell’s insistence – says at one juncture, in a blatant dig at his session boss, “I’m the guy they call when you can’t do your own fucking piano work.”

There is also an ugly confrontation in the Nashville studio with folk singer-songwriter Eric Andersen, who was apparently barred from entering the facility for his own session by Russell’s security staff. Russell belittles and insults Andersen with an arrogant rocker’s noblesse oblige, drily telling him, “You write some very beautiful goddamn songs,” which prompts the reply, “You’re jiving.” For his part, Andersen voices skepticism about the legitimacy of Russell’s onstage thunder: “I couldn’t tell if you’re a revivalist man, trying to put something over, where it was coming from.” You find yourself asking if Blank may not harbor the same doubt.

Blank ladles further darkness, grotesquerie, and bile over the proceedings throughout. Using non-linear, densely layering techniques pioneered in the ‘60s by French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard – whose ironic quote, “The day of the director is dead,” is seen on the film’s concluding title card, below Blank’s credit – the filmmaker atomizes the action, or comments on it, using a vocabulary of startling jump cuts, head-spinning juxtapositions, and dialog rendered as on-screen legends (“GET THOSE GOD DAMN CAMERAS OFF US”).

Thus, in one extraordinary sequence, footage of a wasted concertgoer being ejected from one of Russell’s gigs is intercut with shocking shots of a boa constrictor killing and devouring a baby chick. (The snake is the “pet” of artist Jim Franklin, who is seen elsewhere adorning the bottom of Russell’s swimming pool, after coolly collecting scorpions off its walls.) In another scene, a snippet of fiddler Johnny Gimble improvising a lively solo in the studio is abruptly interrupted by the screaming freakout of a bare-chested young man on a very bad acid trip in an unidentified hotel room.

Blank seems to imply that for all the tambourine shaking and Chautauqua-tent fervor of his sound, Russell makes music that only mimes the spiritual core of its sources. Nowhere is this more apparent than in a ragged jump cut from minister-musician Henderson playing at a Pentecostal church service to his group Blackgrass rocking the praise at one of Russell’s shows. The first performance, Blank suggests, is about true religion of the most devout order – the real thing, as it were -- while the second is no more than entertainment.

In the end, Blank says without a flinch, this music is about the dollars. At one point he trains his camera on a teenage hitchhiker outside one of Russell’s shows; with a guitar slung on his back and a cardboard sign reading, “Oklahoma City” in his hand, the deluded kid says, “I wanna make it in Hollywood like Leon does – make a million dollars playin’ gee-tah.” The most damning exchange in the entire picture comes when an acquaintance poses a question to Russell after his performance at a friend’s wedding. Russell repeats the question – “If I didn’t get paid for singing, wouldn’t I sing?” – and leaves it hanging in the air, unanswered.

One can easily understand why Russell and Cordell were mortified, even horrified, by Blank’s film and sat on it for four decades. A Poem is a Naked Person used the language of cinema to subvert the film’s intended purpose as a self-glorifying sales tool. Instead, it ended up being a probing and dialectical work that used Russell’s music much as Godard himself employed the Rolling Stones’ music (far less effectively or coherently) in his Sympathy For the Devil. As it often has over the course of time, great art – and Blank’s movie definitely qualifies as such – operates at cross-purposes to a patron’s wishes.

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mymoonisalways-in-scorpio · 4 years

Text

🍄 Dig A Little Deeper 🍄

,I was tagged by my sweet little sister

@flowrxchild , thank you so much darling 🌻🔅🌺💞❣🦋🌸💐

🌙➖ Do you prefer writing with black or blue pen?

All my student days I have written with a black pen, I rarely write with a blue pen.

🌙➖ Would you prefer to live in the country or the city?

It is strange what I am going to say, sometimes I would like to live in the country surrounded by animals, taking care of them, feeding them in a few words, having a small farm. But there are other times that make me want to live in the city, surrounded by people. surrounded by noise. Depending on my mood, sometimes when I get upset I would like to go and live in the country, but when I'm in a good mood I want to stay in the city.

🌙➖ If you could learn a new skill, what would it be?

I would like to learn how to read Braille texts, I would also like to learn a new instrument like the tuba or the horn.

🌙➖ Do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar?

I don't usually take coffee with sugar, but I've always taken tea with sugar, but I usually take both without sugar (now I'm doing it because I have diabetes

🌙➖ What was your favorite book as a child?

John John the dragon of the lake titi caca (Peruvian children's story), the name of the book sounds strange, but when I was in Argentina, in my primary school I was asked to buy that book, read it and make a summary of that story, which ended up falling in love

🌙➖ Do you prefer baths or showers?

I usually take a shower since we don't have a bathtub at home, but every time I go to my uncle's house and stay a few days in it, I love to take a good bath in the tub they have in the guest bathroom.

🌙➖ If you could be a mythical creature, which one would you be?

I have always wanted to be a unicorn, since I was a child I was in love with this horse with a horn on his forehead. I'd like to be a Pegasus instead, those winged horses are beautiful.

🌙➖ Paper or electronic books?

Paper 100%

🌙➖ What is your favorite item of clothing?

A very 80's style Jean jacket, with patches from my favorite bands, was a gift from my ex-best friend, I'm in love with that jacket.

🌙➖ Do you like your name?

I really like my middle name, but I hate my first name. The reason I love my middle name more than my first name is because my name is Michelle, just like the Guns N Roses song called my Michelle.

🌙➖ Who is a mentor to you?

I have a priest as my mentor, who was my religion teacher when I was still in school. We became very good friends and even though I am not Catholic, every time I have a problem or doubt about something I always turn to him, it helps me a lot to talk to him.

🌙➖ Would you like to be famous?

Maybe

🌙➖ Are you a restless sleeper?

Not really, I'll be honest with you as soon as I touch my bed I fall asleep.

🌙➖Do you consider yourself to be a romantic person?

I have never considered myself a romantic person, even if others think I am.

🌙➖ Which element best represents you?

Fire

🌙➖ Who do you want to be closer with?

My tumblr friends, at first I was afraid of this social network now I love it because I have found very nice people, with whom I never want to lose contact. Also with my neighbor, who is like a sister of another mother to me.

🌙➖ Do you miss someone at the moment?

I miss several people, including several friends from my school and university.

🌙➖ Tell us about an early childhood memory:

I will tell you about my first violin concert and why it was the most embarrassing of all. BTW, it all started when I had to get on stage, everything was ready and in the middle of the concert a string broke, of course I cried because of the pain, so my mom had to sneak on stage and get me off, to wipe my tears and calm down a bit.

🌙➖ What is the strangest thing you’ve ever eaten?

Frogs' legs, I remember that on a trip to the Peruvian jungle (Madre de Dios exactly), the locals gave us frogs' legs to eat, which I found disgusting, but when I tried them they tasted like chicken.

🌙➖ What are you most thankful for?

I am grateful for my family, for my few friends, they have already put up with how clumsy I am, how impulsive I am, how foolish I can be.

🌙➖ Have you ever met anyone famous?:

I had the opportunity to meet Greta Van Fleet last year, in Chile. I had traveled there to do social work and I didn't even know that the band would perform in those places, until a friend told me: ''Listen, the band that you like so much is going to perform in Chile''. I remember I didn't have much money back then and the tickets were expensive, but it was worth spending or collecting some money to go see them, I felt like I was in heaven when Josh Kiszka smiled at me and winked at me, it was the nicest thing ever

🌙➖ Do you keep a journal or diary?

Yes, but to write fan fiction that I will never publish.

🌙➖ Do you prefer to use pen or pencil?

Both

🌙➖ What’s your star sign?

Scorpion child

🌙➖ Do you like your cereal crunchy or soggy?

Both

🌙➖ What would you want your legacy to be?

I want to be remembered as a girl, with big dreams, who always was and is for people who need her.

🌙➖Do you like reading? What was the last book you read?

I like to read, I'll read any kind of book, but my favorites are scary. Now I'm reading one called "Del amor y otros demonios " by Colombian writer Gabriel Garicia Marquez

🌙➖How do you show someone you love them?

I'm a very detailed person about that, I always like to give them something that they like, adding a little personal touch.

🌙➖ Do you like ice in your drinks?

Yes

🌙➖ What are you afraid of?

I'm scared of heights

🌙➖What is your favourite scent?

I have always liked the smell of lavender, just as I have always liked the smell of eucalyptus.

🌙➖ Do you address older people by their name or their surname?

It depends on who you're dealing with.

🌙➖ If money was not a factor, how would your life be?

Definitely in these times of pandemic, I would not be stressed out about buying food.

🌙➖Do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean?

I'll be honest with you, I don't know how to swim, but I still like lakes better than swimming pools.

🌙➖What would you do if you found 50$ on the ground?

First I ask if it belongs to someone and if it doesn't, I keep it.

🌙➖ Have you ever seen a shooting star?

Never

🌙➖ What is one thing you want to teach your children?

Let them first be empathetic to the people who live around them, who know what the meaning of true love is. May they know how to share what they have with others, may they be good people.

🌙➖ If you had to get a tattoo right now, what and where would it be?

I have more than three tattoos (all smaller), but if I had to get one now it would be a rose dedicated to Greta.

🌙➖ What can you hear now?

The spotify is in shuffle mode, so you can hear the music playing through the computer speakers.

🌙➖ Where do you feel the safest?

My home

🌙➖ What is one thing you want to overcome/conquer?

My attention deficit, although according to these last days has been improving from a few

🌙➖ If you could travel back in time to any era what would it be?:

60's . 70's and 80's

🌙➖ What is your most used emoji?

🍄🦋💕

🌙➖ Describe yourself using one word: easy-going

Dreamer

🌙➖ What do you regret the most?:

Leaving many opportunities, because of my asperger's syndrome

🌙➖ Last movie I saw?

Rock of Ages

🌙➖Last TV show you watched?

Criminal Minds

🌙➖Invent a word and it’s meaning?

So far I haven't invented one and I don't have the imagination to invent one.

i taggin :

@kakarla

@moonchildwildheart

@juvinadelgreko

🦋💐❣💞🌺🌻🔅

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the-metal-canvas-blog · 8 years

Photo

Falling Into Infinity- Dream Theater

#dream theater #progressive metal #prog #progressive rock #1997 #new millenium #you not me #hollow years #burning my soul #hell's kitchen #Peruvian skies #metal #underrated #art #album art

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marginalgloss · 5 years

Text

the penknife through the boards

‘...days, even weeks later, he was sitting on the grey pebbles of an island, one of the innumerable cold grey Chonos islands, sullenly training his glass not on any wildly exotic migrant but the commonplace resident blackish (but white-footed) oyster-catcher wading about in search of its living. Farther along there was another, a lacklustre female; and neither betrayed the slightest interest in the other: clearly this was not their breeding season, whatever the snipe might think...He fixed it with his telescope, and there indeed was Jacob looking at him through another and making signs – untimely mirth? Whatever the signs were they were very soon lost as the brig rounded yet another great sea-worn cliff in the direction of Surprise, and Stephen’s attention was at once seized by a very noble sight – two black-necked swans flying steadily south, quite low over the water, so low that he could hear the rhythmic beating of their wings. ‘I cannot just sit here, watching pale-footed oyster-catchers,’ said Maturin aloud. ‘But what other course is open to me?’’

Blue at the Mizzen is the last book that Patrick O’Brian finished before he died in 2000, aged 85. There would be another unfinished novel published posthumously but, having worked my way slowly through this series, I don’t feel I need to read it. By all accounts it ends mid-sentence; I doubt it would contribute much in the way of what is fashionably called closure. As it stands this final book ends on a pleasingly optimistic chord. But there is nothing final about it, no sense of an ending close at hand. The writer Jo Walton has written an excellent series of short blogs on this series, and in her assessment of this one she mentions how it seems like O’Brian would have gone on writing this series as long as he drew breath. It’s hard to disagree.

With Napoleon out of the picture, the plot here is effectively a fictionalised re-telling of another episode from the life of Lord Cochrane, namely his role in the fight for independence of Peru, and the creation of the Peruvian navy. Earlier novels have mentioned this for some time, and the politics of it are quite complicated, but for the reader it is largely an excuse for an epic transatlantic sea voyage from Britain all the way to the Pacific. By this stage O’Brian’s descriptive writing is not what it was, nor is his pacing, but it’s solid, compelling stuff. The gentle wash of his long sentences, with their curious pedantry, nested sub-clauses and old-fashioned elegance, is never less than charming.

Even at this late stage, the author is setting up characters to play a greater role in future instalments (though of course there would be none). Christine Wood returns to Maturin’s attention and affection, and there is Horatio Hanson, the son of a Duke who is reluctantly accepted by Aubrey as a midshipman. Hanson redeems himself on a number of occasions, almost to the degree of being set up by the author as a sort of apprentice to Aubrey. There’s even some nice scenes back in England with Sarah and Emily where it seems inevitable that we must return to them at some stage to witness another stage in their lives. Here, more so than in the preceding novels, O’Brian really seems to be taking an interest in the younger members of his cast of characters.

It ends with something of a bang. There’s a big battle, and Aubrey is quite badly wounded in the melee. In fact he comes out of it far worse than in any recent confrontation. But once word of his exploits reaches home, his dream is granted, or at least he achieves that measure of security which he has long craved: he is made a proper admiral. Thus, I imagine, he sails home a hero. (That is assuming Jack survives his wounds. In another version of this story that happens only in my mind, he dies on the long journey home. But I can’t imagine O’Brian ever countenancing such a thing.)

Maturin has done all right, too; Christine Wood might have refused his initial proposal of marriage, but she does so in such a way that seems to leave it an open question. I imagine a future in which they live together in a sort of celibate, platonic ideal of more-than-friendship, residing perhaps in a quiet wing of the greater Aubrey household. There is a very striking sequence in which Maturin believes he sees a vision of Christine, while riding alone in South America:

‘On the next stretch they passed through an invisible barrier into a thinner, cooler air, and there were his – not illusions: perceptions might be the better word – of Christine again, clearer and sharper now, particularly as she moved across a dark wall of rock. A tall, straight, lithe figure, walking easily and well: he remembered with the utmost clarity how, when she was reading or playing music or training her glass on a bird, or merely reflecting, she would be entirely apart, remote, self-contained; and then how she would be wholly with him when he moved or spoke. Two strikingly different beings; and the delight in her company, as he delighted even in the memory of it, seemed to him essential happiness, fulfilment. Of course he was a man, quite markedly so, and he would have liked to know her physically: but that was secondary, a very remote stirring compared with gazing at this phantasm – this now remarkably clear and sharply-defined phantasm against the rock-face.’

This passage also serves as a fine summary of the relationship between Jack and Stephen. Two strikingly different beings delighting in one another’s company – each entirely apart, alone, yet coming together in movement and speech. This is about as intimate as people can ever get in O’Brian’s world.

***

I’ve now written something about all of these novels. (Unfortunately tumblr does not provide me with a convenient way to list them, but you can find all the pieces by clicking on this tag.) Summarising them turns out to be easy, in a way, because they are so continuous that after a while one blends into the next. They are so very much part of a greater whole that in a very real sense they might as well be part of a single endless manuscript. The final part of it might have been lost but that detracts little from what remains.

These novels are timeless in the sense that when you read them you forget the order in which they were written. There are machinations of plot, but these are mostly incidental. Nothing is allowed to disturb the beautiful essential routine of naval life in the early nineteenth century. Bacon and eggs and toast for breakfast, and coffee. The practice of gunnery in the afternoons, at captain’s expense. Port after dinner and toasted cheese in a silver dish, followed by a duet between cello and violin. There is something comforting about all this. The books are formed around a conservative vision of life which seems alien to life in the twenty-first century. It might even have seemed alien to most people in the nineteenth century. You could say with confidence that these books belong to no time at all.

It is the opposite to when we call something ‘dated’. When we say something is dated, we mean we notice the cultural residue of the time it was made in the details of its production. Almost all films and popular music are dated because they are reliant on era-specific technology as a means of reproduction. Most novels are also dated, for different reasons. O’Brian’s books are not dated. The first book was published in 1969, and the last book was published in 1999, and you would never know this from reading them. There’s no crack in the text against which we can press ourselves to glimpse the twentieth century drifting by.

Perhaps there’s a pedantic argument that says this cannot be the case. Perhaps we can find literary techniques at work in these books that would have been totally alien to a reader in the Napoleonic era. This may well be true. But what I mean to say is that these books do better than most in allowing the author to entirely disappear within them. Better to say, in fact, that the books themselves — all twenty-odd of them — speak with a singular voice best ascribed to the books, and not the author. It is as though they wrote themselves until one day they stopped.

But of course they didn’t really write themselves. In the last few years of his life certain facts about O’Brian came to light that were, at best, embarrassing; at worst, a minor scandal. We learned that he left (or abandoned) his first wife and child while the latter suffered from a disorder of the spine. He may have lied about being an intelligence agent and he may have lied about his sailing experience, or at least his did nothing to correct those misapprehensions amongst his fans. His name was not even O’Brian; his Irish ancestry was, apparently, a convenient fiction. Little of this is awful enough to be placed beyond the category of ordinary human failings, though much of it seems strange, or even cruel. But once known it is difficult to forget about. And if Master and Commander was published tomorrow it seems inconceivable that the same author could escape similar scrutiny for so long.

Today we expect artists to be good people. We need them to be exemplars of quality. We need to admire them. Our expectations for them are higher than they are for politicians or other public figures. It used to be the other way around: the politician would be crucified in the press for cheating on his wife, while artists could sleep with whomever and ingest whatever in the name of expanding the boundaries of the possible. Now, we already expect the worst of politicians. We expect them to lie, to cheat, and even to misbehave in their personal lives, perhaps because we have grown accustomed to accepting the line between personal and professional conduct. But the artist must be always at work. And we want them to be everything we can’t be: happy, secure, modest, successful. With moments of excitement, perhaps, but for the most part we want them to be dependable, capable, calm. We want them to be honest.

All of this is what is so appealing in O’Brian’s novels. Theirs is a vision of a world at work which is also, somehow, a work at rest. It is a very old English vision: the peasant in his field, the craftsman in his shop, the soldier at the gates, and the lord in his tower. All capable, calm, and happy in their understanding of what the world requires of them and how they must relate to it. The ideal mood is of things ticking over under the oversight of a supremely competent leader. An authoritarian? Well, perhaps. Democracy is certainly out of it; revolutionaries and radicals of all kinds are never to be trusted in these books. How much better to be ruled by a benevolent king of some sort. Rule by consent, of course, but it must be a rigid, unspoken sort of consent.

There is something wonderfully comforting about all of this. To give yourself over to someone else — to put all your trust in your own well-being in the judgement of that person — this is what these characters do for one another. The ship is only the symbol of all that: the thing which endures through ingenuity, in spite of everything, even though it is so desperately fragile. There’s a line somewhere in those books where Maturin remarks that he feels safe within the thick timbers of the HMS Surprise, and a seaman laughs, and says that there are parts of the Surprise so thin you could push a penknife through the boards and find the ocean. It is a haunting image, but a resonant one. The boards are always so thin.

#books #patrick o'brian #blue at the mizzen

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