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tea-and-conspiracy · 4 years ago

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Prompt 17: Destruct

“I’ve not seen you since you were five!” Eliane laughed, taking Odette by the hand. “’Twoud seem you’ve had your growth spurt recently, too. Graces, what a strange feeling, to see you so tall!”

“Not tall enough! I’m still looking up at you.” Odette laughed, idly shaking a wisp of hair from her eyes. “It’s strange for me to be able to tell the difference between you and Juleaux now. You two were identical back in the day.”

“Oh believe me, we hear that often.” Eliane waved for her to have a seat as she reached for her customary tea. “And we took ample advantage of it.”

“I can only imagine! How fun that must have been.”

Eliane smirked, reaching to slide her a tiny dish of sugar cubes. “Speaking of Jules, he’s told me some of Sharlayan, from the time he spent there. Thank you, by the by, for allowing him to stay with you.”

Odette laughed. “It was hardly my decision. But we got along famously! I’m simply glad he was able to mend things with Uncle Em.”

“’Twas a process. And still is, to a large extent.” Eliane sighed softly.

Odette nodded, lifting her cup to blow on it. “But you were going to ask what it’s like back home?”

Eliane arched a brow. It would seem her little cousin was sharp indeed.

Odette had grown into a darling young woman: still petite despite the infamous elezen growth spurt, but not necessarily fragile looking. She had the ‘fey’ facial features that Eliane had also inherited from the Lachansseau side of the family: the pert, upturned nose, the bright, full lips, the large, curious green eyes. It was the veil of thin, silky black hair that set the two starkly apart; Odette currently wore it in a short, not-quite-a-bob, parted such that a good portion of it continuously fell over – and into – one eye.

She was also dressed identical to her father: billowing shirt beneath a tight fitting vest, loose slacks, calf-high boots, and most important -- a scholar’s jacket worn as a dramatic cape about the shoulders. Did she admire her sire that much, Eliane wondered, or was this simply the style in Sharlayan currently?

“It’s lovely, really, but I’m not sure what to compare it to. I barely have any memories of the colony…just the last two times you and Jules visited, and of course the night we had to leave. It took…a long time to recover from that.”

Eliane frowned. “Did you have to leave everything?”

“Near enough as made no matter. At the time I was upset I couldn’t have my dolls, but now?” Odette leaned in, eyes wide. “Do you have any idea how much research was left behind? And never retrieved! Imagine what’s been lost in all this time, destroyed by the weather, or looters, or Thaliak knows what else. That’s a crime against all spokenkind!”

Eliane knew her own family well enough to be able to put two and two together. Her teacup paused halfway to her painted lips, a brow arching skeptically. “…You didn’t come out here early just to deliver the passports, did you?”

Odette made a show of covering her heart in pain. “How you doubt your own kin, dear cousin! It wounds me! Buuuuuuut, now that you mention it...” She leaned in, lowering her voice. “It was part of the provision we got you all approved on. We have to bring back everything we can, in what little time we have, if any of you are to be allowed to set foot upon the island.”

Eliane arched a brow. “…So you told them we’d be bringing back a shipment of tomes from Dravania? And you volunteered us for this without consulting us first?”

“We had no choice! We were rather forced to defend you on the spot. Ishgard has a reputation for…well…war. We had to convince the Powers That Be that your interest in traveling to Sharlayan was of a high-minded purpose.”

In truth, even Eliane wasn’t certain why it was suddenly critical they all travel to Sharlayan – but Mother insisted on it, and she wasn’t about to deny Mother anything after all these years.

“…Why?”

“I…” Odette shifted in her chair. “I’m not allowed to speak on it to outsiders.”

“Fury’s breath, Odette! I’m not an outsider, I’m family!”

“I know, I just…I’m sorry. We’ll be able to fill you in on everything once we’re all safely home. Of that I’m absolutely certain!”

Eliane sighed, falling back into her chair. “…So let me guess. Our house is to be the main source of funding and protection for this little expedition of yours.”

“Weeeeeeelllllll…” Odette turned sheepish.

“Absolutely not!” roared father’s voice from downstairs. “Not even if you setting foot in that library meant I could walk again!”

“Gods be good.” Eliane pressed her face into her palm. It would seem whatever peace the household had enjoyed these past few moons was well on its way out the door.

#ffxivwrite2021 #my writing #eliane requingris #odette lachansseau #house requingris #lots of things destructing here #mostly ellie's father #rip emmereaux's blood pressure

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jasperygrace · 5 years ago

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July Mid Monthly Report

Hello Hello, I decided to do a monthly report about all the things I’ve been working on. I’m hoping it’ll encourage me to post more often.

All the work featured in here is stuff I’ve done within June & July. We’ll start with some of my miscellaneous work from the month then go to original pieces and things that are project related.

Miscellaneous Work

I haven’t done a whole lot of fanart within recent days; I’ve been trying to move away from it and do more original stuff, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t done a couple of things.

I used this photoset by @kn0pa as reference

(This piece’s already been posted! Check it out here!)

The Prompto painting is a bit of practice work I wanted to do. I wanted to practice digital painting without lineart because I’ve never done something that detailed before; it’s been a lot of fun working on it so far! (Here’s hoping I finish it :””^) )

Original Work

Ah yes, my favorite part. My area of expertise when it comes to art is Concept Art and Linework. I take a lot of pride in both.

(This piece’s already been posted! Check it out here!)

I didn’t realize how much art I make in a month-- it’s a little surprising!! And definitely encouraging as well! I always though I didn’t make that much art, but I’m starting to realize that isn’t true at all. Now to learn to give myself a break every once in awhile ^^;

Project Progress

This’ll be the first time I actually talk about my projects on the internet. It’s a little scary, but I thought it’s time to actually share some tidbits for once.

Currently, I’m working on two projects: the plan is for them to be standalone Light Novels as it would showcase both my abilities as a writer and an artist. A problem with trying to write a Light Novel, however, is that they aren’t very prevalent in the West. It’ll very hard for me to get picked up by a traditional publisher; therefore, I will most likely be self publishing these when the time comes (which isn’t for a long while yet, but best to think ahead of time).

Project : Desert

The main project I’m working on is under the project name Project : Desert. It’ll feature the main protagonist Vincent Helio, a soon-to-be prince that has a thirst for knowledge and a love for his people. However, an expedition gone wrong leads to him in the hands of a shape-shifter named Orias who’s been trapped in the desert for over a millenia.

Fun fact: Vinnie and Orias were originally characters I had written for a zine. They’re fairly new characters and this project is new as well. Even in the short time span that they’ve existed as characters, they already changed a lot (heck, Vinnie wasn’t even suppose to be a prince!). It’s quite exciting to work on a brand new project, especially one that so spontaneously happened.

There’s still a lot I have to do in terms of the beginning outlining process. Here’s what I have done:

Outlines for all major characters have been completed.

A narrative theme is present.

Concept Refs have been made for Vinnie, Orias, and Briar Patch

And here’s what I need to do yet by beginning of August:

Finish refs for Reese and Niv

Address any possible minor characters

Create a timeline of events for the story

I’m hoping that by August I can begin working on the scene and chapter outlines. Properly writing the first draft will be alongside that. Illustrations, for now, are the last on my list. I don’t quite have an idea how long the story will be; it all depends, really.

Project : Queen

The secondary project I have in the works is Project : Queen. Now, lemme give you some history on this one. I’ve had this project in the works for a long time, about 4 years now, but recently I decided to shelf the original concept of it and start from scratch with the story. It’s changed a lot as I’ve grown-- the main character especially. I decided I wanted to leave behind the story the younger me wanted, but to take the characters and do something even better with them.

It features main character Itri Torrencasa, a guy who lives in the slums of an isolated city that’s dominated by violence. He becomes the center of attention when he’s framed for murder, but comes to realize he’s involved in a lot more than just a murder case.

Since this project is on the back burner, I don’t have any sort of time frame for this, but here’s what I’d like to get done within time:

Redo all major character concepts

Create a narrative theme

Write new character outlines

Create a timeline of events

I might save this for NaNoWriMo and tackle it then, but for the time being it isn’t my main focus.

That about sums my report. Many of the art featured will have their own dedicated post eventually. I didn’t get to share any concept art this month, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to share some once I finish Reese’s and Niv’s concepts for Project : Desert. Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll support me in my future endeavors!

#monthly update #original work #digital art #illustration #original art #fanart #oc #original character #whump #writblr #Project : Desert #Project : Queen #Mid Month Report #jasper.txt #jasper's archive #MMR2020

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spiffyworks · 6 years ago

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Artist’s Software Surfing P1 - Sketching

SSSo recently, after finishing (an admittedly long-overdue) a piece, I decided to download a trial of the new Corel Painter 2019. I hadn’t used Painter since my old DeviantArt days (circa 2005) and wanted to see how it felt with more digital art-veteran hands. Loaded it up, started sketching my default doodle-muse and wow, that “Real 2B” pencil feels great. I loved it so much, and wondered why.

That’s the story that is spawning this weird personal series of Software Surfing. I wanted to write little notes to future-me on how it felt using my favorite sketching tools in each program I have, and after the sixth one I thought it might be a good idea to check out inking, colouring, painting, etc. and writing those down as well.

So I’m writing this series for myself, but making it available in case anyone else can benefit as well. Thanks for sticking with the intro, let’s get into it.

Artist’s Software Surfing P1 - Sketching Artist’s Software Surfing P2 - Inking Artist’s Software Surfing P3 - Colouring Artist’s Software Surfing P4 - Painting

There are many ways to sketch, but this is specifically the classic “pencil” or “drawing” form using the tools with the program’s default settings.

As an introduction, this is my doodle-muse, Cloey. She was my first original character, and though I don’t usually share my anthro art on here (I know that’s not everyone’s thing) I do have a separate blog for that stuff that you can find here if you’re so inclined. If you’re familiar with Artgerm (and you should be), she’s basically my Pepper.

Corel Painter’s “Real 2B”:

The one that started it all. The pencil just GLIDES, and I’ve always loved when you can tilt a pencil tool and it will shade just like tilting a real-life pencil. The only thing I want from a program now is to be able to bind touch to blenders so I can use my finger to smudge-blend the scribbling. (I tried drawing that fist so many times /fume)

Likes: Tilt functionality, line width variance, stroke speed, eraser Dislikes: Rebinding Rotate Canvas tool was a pain. I like Shift+Space, and that key combo is reflected in the shortcut panel, but it just continued to pan. Never worked for me, and rotating or flipping the page quickly is crucial for my sketching process. Also sometimes if I quickly resize the eraser and mash it down to use, it won’t detect any input.

Photoshop, Kyle Webster’s “2B” & “Animator Pencil”:

**Disclaimer** Firstly, I’ve used Photoshop for over 15 years now, and it’s a great digital art tool, but for drawing and painting I find it’s sorely lacking. It’s slow, expensive, and unintuitive. That being said, there are some things this program does exclusive to others so I’m still clinging to it (desperately) and while I would definitely recommend something else for budding digital artists, I have to supplement my misgivings by purchasing additional plugins and tools, such as the famed Kyle T Webster’s Ultimate Megapack for Photoshop (

which is now complementary with Photoshop CC, damnit

). Unless otherwise noted, all the brushes I use in Photoshop will be from that pack. **End Disclaimer**

Following off the heels of Corel, I remembered messing around with another “2B” (which btw is my personal favorite traditional pencil to sketch with) in Kyle Webster’s Drawing Box in Photoshop. It felt a bit similar, but with no tilt functionality and it really lacked the chunky-thickness (a scientific term) I enjoyed with Painter’s pencil. I switched to my favorite (and the favorite of MANY digital artists btw) his “Animator’s Pencil”. So chunky, but the ability to shade lightly... It’s really a fun brush to use for sketching digitally. Still one of my absolute favorites.

Animator Pencil Likes: Line width variance, texture fills in and scales perfectly Dislikes: It’s a photoshop exclusive, a program that for some reason you can’t bind shortcuts to whatever you please, takes forever to load, and WAY too often suffers input lag while drawing. Also no tilt shading, :’( aw

Paintstorm’s “Textured Pencil” & “Pencil Tilt”

As a bit of an aside, I love Paintstorm, Paintstorm is what got me back into digital drawing and painting after doing 3D and game design for 7 years. I bought it for the very low price of entry (2 licenses for $30) and was impressed by its ability to customize literally anything in the program. You can create your own tool/brush boxes, bind any shortcut to any key combination, and every single brush tool adjustment comes with the most customization control of any program I’ve come across since Photoshop set the bar way back in the day. Out of the box a lot of the basic brushes have that old OpenCanvas or PaintTool Sai feel, but more recently they’ve added some very textured default brushes you can play around with. It’s also hands-down the FASTEST program I’ve ever worked in. I highly recommend giving it a try, it’s great for learning and experimentation. I grew a lot working in Paintstorm.

The Textured Pencil is a fun sketching brush, you can get as think or thick as you’d want and it keeps a clean outline. The Pencil Tilt really blew my mind the first time I used it. YOU CAN SHADE! It was the first time I had ever seen a program do that. The tilt has a great texture, fantastic control, and gets just as dark as you’d need. I’d recommend using them both, the Textured Pencil for a cleaner sketch, and the Pencil Tilt for something more expressive or loose.

Krita’s Ink-Tilt & “Sketch”:

I’ll be honest, I have almost no experience in Krita despite having downloaded and given it a try back in 2014. It was a hell of a time to figure out how to rebind my usual shortcuts (flip horz, rotate canvas). I couldn’t even rebind colour grab/eyedropper. Yikes. I opened up the “Sketching” brush box and there were only two options, made worse as one was a sketch pen... That lacked the flexibility of ballpoint.

First I grabbed the pencil dubbed “Sketch” and was bewildered why the size of the circle was so large compared to the mark it made. Very confusing. Feeling intimidated, I abandoned it immediately to try out the “ink_tilt” (which by the way there’s no tilt functionality??) and hated it. I reluctantly went back to the pencil and just started trying to make marks. Wow. It’s weird, but surprisingly fun. You have to be willing to relinquish a LOT of control, but the shapes the brush makes while moving and tilting during a stroke can yield some really interesting and suggestive shapes. I would say great for early concepting or making something really loose and expressive. Fun to play with, but not really practical.

Clip Studio Paint’s Real Pencil & Rough Pencil

I’ve been wholly immersed in CSP since I purchased the program back in late 2016. It goes on sale often, so you can pick up a nice fully featured program for ~$35. I’d had my eye on it for a while and still really want to get into self-publishing comics, so I picked it up, bought a couple of brush packs for it (it’s pretty lacking in default painting tools) and I’ve been illustrating in it ever since. The brush creation isn’t as fun as Paintstorm, but brushes are quite customizable. I usually like to use the “Rough Pencil” if I want just a little texture and line variance, or the “Darker Pencil” for something cleaner. Trying to be different, I just jotted out a couple heads in ones I don’t normally use, the Real Pencil and Design Pencil. The Real Pencil has a lot of texture, but for some reason in CSP the textures don’t seem to scale with the brush, so I tend to avoid using it in most cases. I hate the design pencil, I just could never get dark enough. I guess that’s probably the point, though.

Well, that definitely wraps this digest up. I feel refreshed after trying out a lot of new digital sketching brushes. I was really reminded of how much I enjoyed drawing in Paintstorm. I hope someone other than me found this useful or otherwise inspiring! Sometimes, especially if you’re stuck in some art blockage, it’s a good idea to try something new, and for me digitally that’s hopping programs and trying new brushes.

I’m thinking about doing inks, colours, and painting at some point. Let me know if anyone’s interested in those! I’m planning on doing some for myself eventually, but I might expedite a post if anyone is interested. o/ Take it easy, y’all.

Artist’s Software Surfing P1 - Sketching Artist’s Software Surfing P2 - Inking Artist’s Software Surfing P3 - Colouring Artist’s Software Surfing P4 - Painting

#process #sketching #software #guide

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wolveswithhats · 6 years ago

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writing wip game

Rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you or interests you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

The titles weren’t interesting so I vainly just posted some excerpts from a grab bag of more recent stuff. If I did everything it’d honestly probably go on for pages. I have a lot of unfinished stuff (pretty much...exclusively unfinished stuff dfjkdjfkg). Like a decade’s worth.

Tagged by @ackbang. TY TY, MY DUDE. If you see this and you’re a writer, consider yourself tagged. Like for real. Only not tagging because I can’t remember who writes fanfic and who doesn’t.

Looooooong post below.

ling ling the goblin king (ling + lan fan, fma)

"lan fan did it," the prince says, and for a moment she feels a flare of anger and betrayal over his deception. 'it wasn't me, i didn't do this. i didn't kill anyone.' but the prince is bending at the waist, low enough that that his tail of hair brushes the dirt, and she realizes his lie is for her benefit. "thank you, m'lady. i owe you my life."

her mouth feels dry, face hot from exertion and the burning gaze of her older peers. "d-don't do that," she stutters, and she's not sure if she's referring to the lie or the bow.

"you dare give me orders?" but there's no heat in his voice, eyes crinkling with humor as he rises to his full height. she has no idea how he can look so amused with a hole in his shoulder, covered in the blood of a man he just killed. he grins lopsided, teeth crooked and painted red. the sight is altogether ghoulish.

limb choppy choppy (lan fan + greed + ling, fma, part of the revival au)

And Greed is stilling his struggles, catching his wandering hand in his own, running comforting circles with his thumb over Ling's blood-smeared cheek. “Hey, you little pissant, this is nothing, piddly kids table shit. Remember that time that one Central soldier tried to gut us? Right down the middle, like splitting a sausage. Goddamn crimson tide. I thought we'd never get the blood out of that coat. Now that was an injury.”

“T-they took my arm.”

“Yeah, and who needs one of those anyway? Gonna get you all sorted, get you one of those shiny metal ones, like your girl Lan Fan here. Guess the adjustment period takes a bit, a year or three, but bet we could expedite the process with proper motivation. I'm thinking sandwiches.”

He laughs, or something approaching as much, a soggy intake of air. She's struck with an unexpected wave of jealousy, that it's Greed that's offering reassurance and intimate personal jokes. A former homunculus, a former demon, a watery imitation of a man. Creature comforts from the creature. It should be me, she thinks, though she has nothing to offer beyond promises of protection, and even those feel like falsehoods after all that has happened here. Comforting platitudes are beyond her. What could I ever say to make this better?

lets get lit fam (greedling + ed, fma)

wobbly-legged, too uncoordinated to walk. almost stumbles into a line of trash cans at the mouth of the alley, but ed hooks his elbow and steers him away. "what the hell were you thinking? we're supposed to be keeping a low profile."

it's not an accusation he's fully equipped to grapple, not when he's still so bleary from sleep—and some other pleasant, dizzying sensation he thinks might be inebriation. he's never woken up drunk before. he's never been drunk before period. "what'd i do?"

"not you, ling. you would have gone straight for the food menu, not the liquor list. i'm talking to the dipshit you share a mental occupancy with. greed, what the hell?"

"was just a few drinks," ling slurs, but it's not his words, or his voice, and wow he's never been so aware of his own tongue before.

solid citizen (ling + greed, fma)

"geez, kid, you're certainly in a mood." so he was reading his thoughts, just fantastic. he look he gives him is withering, but greed pats his shoulder, almost condescendingly, pitying for sure.

"you're plenty fine, kid. i'll give you the ears, but you're top shelf in the looks department otherwise. if you were ugly, i'd tell you straight up. i don't lie. this here," he points to his own face. "is ugly. nothing like my old human face."

it's a bated response, he knows, and he doesn't really feel like playing, but greed did make a passing effort to make him feel better. "human face?"

he beams, dreamily, which is an impressively soft expression to pull off a mouthful of razors, and ling is suddenly reminded of the mythology of the man fawning over his own reflection. surely greed can't be that vain? "yeah i was a real stunner. fucking gorgeous." or maybe he could, apparently, what did ling know anyway.

wreckage (vincent, re-l, ergo proxy)

When she makes it back to the Rabbit, chest burning and damp with exertion, Vincent has already stripped Pino of her overalls and laid her across the table. Cooling fluids draining, frayed wiring spooling out of her gashed torso, sprawled like a tiny metal Tityos. Her left arm is snapped off and dangling at the elbow, her eyes glassy – glass, literal glass – staring at the ceiling. Broken doll parts. Just another disassembled AutoReiv, but this isn't like that at all, because Pino isn't just another AutoReiv. She's like Iggy--

It's almost too much for Re-l to take. Hand over her mouth, breathing sharp through her fingers in short repetitions. Tries to steel herself, to be calm and assertive, because one of them has to be, and Vincent-- Vincent was awkward and mousy and sensitive, Vincent who spilled his cereal and tripped over his own feet and housed an ancient being of unspeakable power in his lanky boy-frame. But his god-strength was of no use here, drowned under the weak, simpering, overpowering grief for something that was no more human than he was.

do NOT worry about meryl (vash + wolfwood + milly, trigun)

milly caught the hurt. naive, for sure, but shrewd. "oh, we'd never think that of you, mr. vash. it's just our job as representatives of the bernadelli insurance society to mitigate any and all damages from the humanoid typhoon, even the rumored ones."

wolfwood: "bernadelli employing a little insurance of their own, eh?"

milly nods. "if we had to pay out claims on every false report of mr. vash's wrongdoings, we'd go belly up in no time!"

caught up on the word 'wrongdoing', growls, "you make it sound like i'm doing any of this on purpose."

"it's just sensible. your name has a lot of weight, vash."

grumbles: "yeah, i'm aware."

"and that's why meryl was so insistent on following up on this one, even knowing it wasn't really you. so many people drag your name through the mud, and it just doesn't seem fair at all."

his name had long since been dragged, strangled and shot, left to rot under a flock of buzzards circling its carcass in the heat. There was no saving it. still, the intent was kind, if not bewildering. "you...were trying to protect my reputation?"

milly looks at him like he's insane for thinking otherwise. "well, yeah. we've come to think of you as a friend, mr. vash, and that's what friends do.”

baby scrub (locke + rachel, ff6)

offers his hand and a single word: "lock."

her faces scrunches distastefully at his uncouth greeting, but she's not sure what else she was expecting from a dirty street boy. "lock?"

"with an e," he adds, as if that clarifies anything.

"that can't be real. you just made that up."

"all names are made up," huffs locke-with-an-e, looking impatient with her slow uptake on this odd world of his. "and i never said it was real, but it's all you're going to get."

spike bday (spike + dawn, btvs)

“if I show you something, you need to promise not to say anything. not to the watcher, or your sister. not to anyone, right?”

even through her tears, she nods, curious. spike's always good for skirting just outside the limits of good taste.

“I'm serious. spool your intestines out your nose, string 'em up like christmas garland. I mean it.”

“colorful threats of bodily dismemberment, I get it.”

hands her a faded yellow tintype. a young man, twenty-five or thirty maybe, a riot of disheveled curls, glasses, frumpy suit. not an unattractive man, but a timid one, uncertainty written into the slanted bow of his shoulders. he had the weedy air of someone who spent a lot of time duct taped to flag poles, or whatever the victorian equivalent would be. did it count as a twirly if you were dunked into a chamber pot?

a rebellious counterpoint in wrinkled tweed to the hard, starched lines of victorian decorum – interesting, but not very relevant. and a little disappointing, if she was being totally honest. spike's anecdotes usually had more flash and gore. “I don't get it.”

he's exasperated, fingers twitching like he's ready to snatch it away, and he tucks his hands under his arms in an awkward self hug. she takes in the hard set of his jaw and the...flush of his cheeks? god, she didn't even know vampires could blush. it had to take some serious breaking of undead physiology to ping that level of embarrassment, and something beyond that even to flap the unflappable spike. he hisses impatiently. “would you just—look at the face.”

and she does, tilting the little photo to and fro in the dim of the crypt. unassuming man-hermione with hair that cannot be tamed. sharp cheekbones and dark heavy brows under the rims of his glasses and suddenly she sees it—him—the angular planes of his face coming into sharp relief, like a camera finding its focus. “oh. oh my god! this is you. holy crap, spike. you look....”

“normal,” he finishes for her, and something in her stomach swoops and clenches, stones in a pond. “mundane.”

“i was going to say like a megawatt dorklord, but we can use your word instead.” she wipes her nose on the back of her hand. he snorts, amused and embarrassed.

“i was a poet.”

she tried to envision anything beyond smutty limericks carved onto the wall of a bathroom stall.

“were you ever published?”

“i was a shitty poet,” he amends, grimacing.

boston au (spike + dawn, btvs)

bodily kicking a dumpster, sending it careening into the street with a rusty scream of metal. a hydrant follows suit, ripped from the sidewalk. caps off his tantrum with a boot to the side of Angel's GTX, but even the size-10 crater marring the passenger door of the angelmobile did little to ease his frustration.

“better?” dawn asks, when he drops bodily into the driver's seat with an aching sigh, anger dissipating. she looks so tiny and forlorn, knees drawn to her chest, picking at a cigarette burn in the upholstery. two years ago she'd have been a ripe treat, poor little lost lamb. now the idea twists his gut, her sorrow palpable, proprietary, under his skin and in his veins.

“no,” he grunts, staring out impassively at the aftermath of his outburst. water spurting from the sidewalk, skip spilling out into the road. half a dozen cars along the block chirping in a chorus of wailing alarms. and angel in the foyer, something vaguely resembling pity etched across his massive cavebrow. fucking wanker.

...

“we go back to sunnydale then. try again. badger the scoobies until they agree to help. we'll figure this out.”

“i don't want to.” quietly. barely a whisper.

“to figure it out?”

“to go back.”

“dawn...”

“there's nothing there. they're not going to help because i'm nothing. it's an ongoing memorial to my own non-existence. can we not go back? can we just keep driving?”

“where?”

“I don't care. away.”

thinks about leaving sunnydale. thinks about what he's leaving behind. shitty memories, regrets, lost love. he has a small collection of personal effects; records, first edition books, family heirlooms that cannot be replaced, a hundred years of mementos of his whirlwind romance with dru. wonders if he can ring up clem, ask him to send a care package once they get to wherever they're going. looks at dawn in her clearance-rack pajamas, realizes she has lost everything. she has no belongings, no family, no remnants left as evidence she even had a family. nothing but him and her, here, in this moment.

it's just stuff. it's surprisingly easy to let go.

he drives.

taco hell (spike + dawn, btvs, part of the boston / unravel au)

Right where her window was supposed to be, a swirling doorway of light ringed in licking green flame, spilling out into....a fast food restaurant?

"I think it's Taco Bell," Dawn said, pinching a tissue to her--aw hell--bleeding finger. He took inventory of the spell books around her, the scrying bowl, and the ashy pentagram burnt into 70s shag weave of her bedroom carpet. So much for their security deposit.

"You opened a hell dimension to Taco Bell?"

She craned her head to squint at the pimply teenager manning the register, oblivious to his cross-dimension spectators. "I think it's just a regular Taco Bell. I don't see any dragons or shrimp people or anything."

"Not all alternate universes have shrimp people."

"I know that. You know, it actually looks like the one downtown, across from the KFC? On Kellner? Unless the Kellner Street Taco Bell is a Taco Hell. I've been reading up about liminal spaces, where the fabric between realities is weakened. Maybe it's a hot spot, and all the employees are actually like, octopus centaurs. How would we know? Not like I'm going to crawl over the counter to check, you know?"

"Well, now's your chance to ask Squiddly Diddly here what he's got going on downstairs." Slack-jawed employee finally cottoned on to the door to another universe in the restaurant lobby. Dawn awkwardly waves. Poc Ock waves back, bewildered, before the portal collapses in on itself in a burst of white light.

"It stopped bleeding." she holds up her finger.

(I don’t think anyone would, but as a precaution: please don’t reblog these to the Herald. They’re sloppy and incomplete and mixed in with a bunch of other fandoms so it’d just be really weird. THANK)

#some of these are ok #most if not all of them will never be finished #i have a ton more?#i just didn't want to go TOO buck wild with it #i already feel like this is way too much lfgklfg #wolves writes

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gordonwilliamsweb · 4 years ago

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Veterans Push for Medical Marijuana in Conservative South

RALEIGH, N.C. — Each time Chayse Roth drives home to North Carolina, he notices the highway welcome signs that declare: “Nation’s Most Military Friendly State.”

“That’s a powerful thing to claim,” said Roth, a former Marine Corps gunnery sergeant who served multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Now he says he’s calling on the state to live up to those words. A Wilmington resident, Roth is advocating for lawmakers to pass a bill that would legalize medical marijuana and allow veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other debilitating conditions to use it for treatment.

“I’ve lost more men to suicide since we went to Afghanistan in ’01 than I have in combat,” said Roth, who said he doesn’t use cannabis himself but wants others to have the option. “It’s just unacceptable for these guys to go overseas and win the battle and come home and lose the battle to themselves.”

He is among several veterans brought together by a recently formed advocacy group called NC Families for Medical Cannabis. These veterans have testified before the legislature and visited lawmakers individually.

In a state that’s home to eight military bases, one of the largest veteran populations in the country and a Republican-controlled legislature that prides itself on supporting the troops, they hope their voices will act as a crucial lever to push through a bill that has faced opposition in the past.

“If we really want to be the most veteran-friendly state in the union, this is just another thing we can do to solidify that statement,” Roth said.

From California to Massachusetts, veterans have been active in the push for medical marijuana legalization for decades. But now, as the movement focuses on the remaining 14 states that have not enacted comprehensive medical marijuana programs or full marijuana legalization, their voices may have outsize influence, experts say.

Many of these remaining states are in the traditionally conservative South and dominated by Republican legislatures. “The group carrying the message here makes a huge difference,” said Julius Hobson Jr., a former lobbyist for the American Medical Association who now teaches lobbying at George Washington University. “When you’ve got veterans coming in advocating for that, and they’re considered to be a more conservative bunch of folks, that has more impact.”

Veterans also have the power of numbers in many of these states, Hobson said. “That’s what gives them clout.”

Successes are already evident. In Texas and Louisiana, veterans played a key role in the recent expansion of medical marijuana programs. In Mississippi, they supported a successful ballot initiative for medical cannabis in 2020, though the result was later overturned by the state Supreme Court. And in Alabama, the case of an out-of-state veteran arrested and jailed for possession of medical marijuana incited national outrage and calls for legalization. The state legalized medical marijuana earlier this year.

To be sure, not every veteran supports these efforts, and the developments in red states have been influenced by other factors: advocacy from cancer patients and parents whose children have epilepsy, lawmakers who see this as a states’ rights issue, a search for alternative pain relief amid the opioid epidemic and a push from industries seeking economic gains.

But the attention to the addiction and suicide epidemics among veterans, and calls to give them more treatment options, are also powerful forces.

In states like North Carolina, where statewide ballot initiatives are banned, veterans can kick-start a conversation with lawmakers who hold the power to make change, said Garrett Perdue, the son of former North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue and a spokesperson for NC Families for Medical Cannabis and CEO of Root Bioscience, a company that makes hemp products.

“It fits right in with the general assembly’s historical support of those communities,” Perdue said. “For [lawmakers] to hear stories of those people that are trusted to protect us and enforce the right of law” and see them as advocates for this policy “is pretty compelling.”

Gary Hess, a Marine Corps veteran from Louisiana, said he first realized the power of his platform in 2019, when he testified in front of the state legislature about seeing friends decapitated by explosions, reliving the trauma day-to-day, taking a cocktail of prescription medications that did little to help his symptoms and finally finding relief with cannabis. His story resonated with lawmakers who had served in the military themselves, Hess said.

He recalled one former colonel serving in the Louisiana House telling him: “They’re not going to say no to a veteran because of the crisis you’re all in. As someone who is put together well and can tell the story of marijuana’s efficacy, you have a powerful platform.”

Hess has since started his own nonprofit to advocate for medical marijuana legalization and has traveled to other state and national events, including hearings before the North Carolina legislature.

“Once I saw the power my story had,” he said, “the goal became: How do I expedite this process for others?”

Experts trace the push for medical marijuana legalization back to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s, particularly in California’s Bay Area.

As the movement tried to expand, medical marijuana activists realized other regions were not as sympathetic to the LGBTQ community, said Lee Hannah, an associate professor of political science at Wright State University who is writing a book about the rise of legal marijuana in the U.S. They had to find “more target populations that evoke sympathy, understanding and support,” Hannah said.

Over time, the medical marijuana conversation grew from providing symptom relief for patients with AIDS to include such conditions as cancer, pediatric epilepsy and PTSD, Hannah and his colleagues noted in a 2020 research paper. With each condition added, the movement gained wider appeal.

“It helped change the view of who a marijuana user is,” said Daniel Mallinson, a co-author on the 2020 paper and the upcoming book with Hannah, and an assistant professor at the Penn State-Harrisburg School of Public Affairs. “That makes it more palatable in these legislatures where it wouldn’t have been before.”

In 2009, New Mexico became the first state to make PTSD patients eligible for medical marijuana. The condition has since been included in most state medical marijuana programs.

The movement got another boost in 2016 when the American Legion, a veterans organization with 1.8 million members known for its conservative politics, urged Congress to remove marijuana from its list of prohibited drugs and allow research into its medical uses.

“I think knowing an organization like the American Legion supports it frankly gives [lawmakers] a little bit of political cover to do something that they may have all along supported but had concerns about voter reaction,” said Lawrence Montreuil, the group’s legislative director.

In Texas, when the Republican governor recently approved a law expanding the state’s limited medical marijuana program, he tweeted: “Veterans could qualify for medical marijuana under new law. I will sign it.”

It’s smart political messaging, Hannah said. Elected officials “are always looking to paint laws they support in the most positive light, and the approval rate of veterans is universally high.”

Nationally, veteran-related marijuana bills seem to be among the few cannabis-related reforms that have gained bipartisan support. Bills with Democratic and Republican co-sponsors in Congress this session deal with promoting research into medical marijuana treatment for veterans, allowing Veterans Affairs doctors to discuss cannabis with patients in states where it is legal and protecting veterans from federal penalization for using state-legalized cannabis.

Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), who has co-sponsored two bipartisan bills concerning veterans and medical marijuana this session, said the interest of veterans is “what drew me to cannabis in the first place.”

In North Carolina, veterans like Roth and Hess, along with various advocacy groups, continue to drum up support for the medical marijuana bill. They know it’s a long battle. The bill must clear several Senate committees, a full Senate vote and then repeat the process in the House. But Roth said he’s optimistic “the veteran aspect of it will be heavily considered by lawmakers.”

An early indication of that came at a Senate committee hearing earlier this summer. Standing at the podium, Roth scrolled through his phone to show lawmakers how many of his veteran contacts were now dead due to suicide. Other veterans testified about the times they had contemplated suicide and how the dozens of prescription medications they had tried before cannabis had done little to quiet those thoughts.

The hearing room was silent as each person spoke. At the end, the lawmakers stood and gave a round of applause “for those veterans who are with us today and those who are not.”

The bill later passed that committee with a nearly unanimous vote.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Veterans Push for Medical Marijuana in Conservative South published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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stephenmccull · 4 years ago

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Veterans Push for Medical Marijuana in Conservative South

RALEIGH, N.C. — Each time Chayse Roth drives home to North Carolina, he notices the highway welcome signs that declare: “Nation’s Most Military Friendly State.”

“That’s a powerful thing to claim,” said Roth, a former Marine Corps gunnery sergeant who served multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“If we really want to be the most veteran-friendly state in the union, this is just another thing we can do to solidify that statement,” Roth said.

Veterans also have the power of numbers in many of these states, Hobson said. “That’s what gives them clout.”

But the attention to the addiction and suicide epidemics among veterans, and calls to give them more treatment options, are also powerful forces.

Hess has since started his own nonprofit to advocate for medical marijuana legalization and has traveled to other state and national events, including hearings before the North Carolina legislature.

“Once I saw the power my story had,” he said, “the goal became: How do I expedite this process for others?”

Experts trace the push for medical marijuana legalization back to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s, particularly in California’s Bay Area.

In 2009, New Mexico became the first state to make PTSD patients eligible for medical marijuana. The condition has since been included in most state medical marijuana programs.

It’s smart political messaging, Hannah said. Elected officials “are always looking to paint laws they support in the most positive light, and the approval rate of veterans is universally high.”

The hearing room was silent as each person spoke. At the end, the lawmakers stood and gave a round of applause “for those veterans who are with us today and those who are not.”

The bill later passed that committee with a nearly unanimous vote.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Veterans Push for Medical Marijuana in Conservative South published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

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easyfoodnetwork · 5 years ago

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Until I Can Go Back to My Favorite Restaurant, This Jerk Paste Is the Next Best Thing

I don’t know how I lived so long without a jar of Walkerswood jerk seasoning | Elazar Sontag

Walkerswood Jamaican jerk seasoning has quickly become a kitchen staple

I smear the dark brown paste on everything. I pat it onto salmon filets before I slide them into the oven and sneak it between tightly stacked leaves of cabbage layered into a steamer basket. I use my hands to massage it into Brussels sprouts, roughly chopped carrots, and broccoli florets. And every time I pull the container from my fridge, I ask myself how the hell I lived so long without a jar of jerk seasoning.

I didn’t grow up eating much Jamaican food in Oakland, California. This city, awash with some of the best Ethiopian and Eritrean, Filipino, Mexican, and Laotian food in the country, has comparatively few spots offering flavors of the Caribbean. And neither of my vegetarian Jewish parents were making a whole lot of curry chicken or braised oxtails.

My introduction to jerk chicken — its skin soaked in the flavor of sweet smoke, of Scotch bonnet peppers, allspice berries, ginger, and green onion — was during my first year of college, across the Hudson river from a New York town called Kingston. That’s where I had my first meals at Top Taste, where you’ll find the best — and more or less only — jerk chicken, curry goat, and oxtails in town. The snug restaurant, painted with wide stripes of yellow and green in the colors of the Jamaican flag, and set on the corner of a sleepy residential street, sells all sorts of groceries you can’t find elsewhere in the area: ackee, saltfish, canned callaloo and Tastee Cheese in vacuum-sealed aluminum containers.

As soon as the door swung open on my first visit four years ago, I was greeted by booming dancehall coming from a boombox propped above the entrance and the smiling faces of owners Melenda Bartley and Albert Samuel Bartley, known to a stream of friends and loyal customers as Sammy. For many, Top Taste brought familiarity and reminders of faraway homes. To me, everything about the experience was new, a welcome and deeply needed change of pace and scenery from the always-boiled, never-baked food of my college dining hall. I didn’t own a car, but whenever I could convince one of my new friends to drive me there, I was at Top Taste.

This wasn’t the sort of recipe I could transcribe, fold up, and stash away for safekeeping.

Over the years, Melenda and Sammy became friends, and their restaurant felt more like home than the cement-block dorm where I slept. I’d order from the menu scrawled on a piece of neon green cardstock on the wall, and while Melenda was filling my square plastic plate with rice and peas, stew chicken, oxtails, and plantains, I’d walk around to the restaurant’s snug concrete patio, where a plume of smoke tipped off the whole neighborhood that Sammy was making a fresh tray of jerk chicken.

That chicken was like nothing I had eaten. The meat was almost blackened by the time it absorbed the smoke, and while the skin was crisp, it gave way between my teeth. The flesh was ever so slightly past the point of juiciness, the fat and connective tissue broken down over hours of gentle cooking, so that the meat melted with each bite, mixing with starchy sweet plantains, steamed cabbage and peppers, and a dot of ketchup and scorching hot sauce.

A few months into my often twice-weekly trips to Top Taste, I asked Sammy how he made his jerk chicken. He sat down next to me with his spice-smudged apron still on, and explained the process in very matter-of-fact terms: The meat gets marinated overnight in a rich jerk seasoning blend (very, very heavy on the ginger), and the next day — rain or shine — he lights a spark under the pimento wood in his old barrel grill, caked with a thick layer of seasoning from good use, and cooks the chicken until it’s done.

I’d known as soon as Sammy first walked me through his process that this wasn’t the sort of recipe I could transcribe, fold up, and stash away for safekeeping. He’d made the dish on so many occasions that each step was second nature: an inkling that more scallion, garlic, or Scotch bonnet was needed, a sniff test confirming the salt, heat, and herbage was balanced to his liking.

When I moved to the city after leaving college, I made it a point to seek out jerk chicken whenever and wherever I could, always comparing it to the meat that came off Sammy’s grill. Some restaurants in Brooklyn had plantains more plump than the ones at Top Taste. Others had the perfect rice and peas, each grain and bean whole and separate, never mushy. Many served a jerk chicken that was good — exceptional, even. But despite following every recommendation, no one’s chicken compared to Sammy’s.

I came back to Oakland to spend the first month of shelter-in-place with my family. But like so many others who up and left cities with no real plan, a month turned into three, and then four, and now here I am, writing from my childhood home six months later. When I lived in Brooklyn, I hadn’t once tried to make jerk chicken in my own kitchen, knowing when a craving really hit — which it reliably did — I could buy an Amtrak ticket for $38 and be perched comfortably at one of Top Taste’s plastic-upholstered booths by lunch. Now, I feel pangs of sadness thinking about Sammy and Melenda and the plate of jerk chicken and rice and peas I could be eating 3,000 miles away.

But on YouTube, where I spend so much of my life now, I recently came upon Terri-Ann, a Saint Lucian home cook who walks viewers through hundreds of incredibly appealing recipes. They include pandemic classics — banana bread and dalgona coffee, our old friends — but also some favorite dishes I didn’t get a chance to peek into the kitchen and watch Sammy or Melenda make on visits to Top Taste. Terri-Ann has recipes for oxtails robed in velvety gravy, flaky golden beef patties, and, to my great satisfaction, jerk chicken. In one video showing viewers how she makes her chicken, Terri-Ann pulls out a glass jar of Walkerswood Jamaican Jerk Seasoning, a pre-blended mixture of spices and herbs which she says she swears by. She plops a generous spoonful of the deep brown mixture into a bowl of chicken drumsticks, along with a big spoonful of her herby green seasoning blend and a drop or two of browning sauce for color. I hastily switched tabs and bought three jars of the seasoning blend with expedited shipping. It wouldn’t be the same, but maybe it’d do the trick.

Since then, the Walkerswood blend has become a staple in my kitchen. The spicy mixture of scallions, Scotch bonnet, allspice, nutmeg, and plenty of thyme finds its way into more or less everything I cook. It’s notably lacking in the generous heaps of grated fresh ginger I know Sammy adds to his blend, but still, it’s excellent. I live just blocks from Minto, one of few Jamaican markets in Oakland, and I regularly stop in to add new sauces and seasoning blends to my growing pantry. I have a jar of browning sauce now, and I’ve bought as many of the hot sauces I remember seeing on the tables at Top Taste as I can find. But nothing I’ve added to my pantry since coming home comes close to my jar of jerk seasoning. In addition to using it in recipes from Terri-Ann and other Caribbean and Caribbean-American YouTubers and food bloggers, I add the paste to fried rice, to tofu, to — you get it.

The boldly flavored mixture is a perfect match for chicken, but that’s where I use it least, instead opting to put it on a thick slab of salmon or slather it on vegetables before roasting. Perhaps there’s just too much dissonance when I pair it with chicken, the bar too high to meet.

I miss Sammy’s jerk chicken like I’ve never missed food before. It’s a yearning that’s become familiar during this pandemic, for those things I know I can’t have. There is no takeout order that will meet the craving, which is as much about the environment surrounding a plate of chicken as it is about the blend of spices or the kiss of smoke that permeates each bite. Those meals were colored by a sort of care and hospitality that you can’t pay for and that’s hard to even seek out. The extra steamed cabbage and carrots because Melenda knew I liked to run the mixture through a pool of curry goat gravy on my empty plate. A piece of bubblegum set on the table as I finished eating, just something to chew on during the drive back to campus. Later, Melenda would send me off with a warm slice of her homemade rum cake wrapped in aluminum foil. It sat in my coat pocket and warmed my hand as I boarded Amtrak to go back to Penn Station.

The first time I bit into a piece of baked chicken I’d marinated in the Walkerswood seasoning blend, I felt pulled in two directions: It was delicious — fragrant and hot, every spice and herb present but not overwhelming. I also felt a little disappointed, as if I’d really expected my thrown-together Wednesday night dinner to taste anything like what Sammy pulled off his smoker after hours and hours of slow cooking and constant attention. I know now, as I go on seven months without a single meal in a restaurant’s dining room or even on a reopened patio, that what’s missing isn’t a handful of grated ginger or the smoke from pimento chips (though both would improve my chicken game dramatically). What’s missing is something only a restaurant like Top Taste can provide, that can’t be found in a jar of seasoning. But right now a jar of seasoning is what I’ve got, and until I find myself in that tiny dining room again, this one is pretty damn good.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/32ZNWqa https://ift.tt/3mNPQlT

I don’t know how I lived so long without a jar of Walkerswood jerk seasoning | Elazar Sontag

Walkerswood Jamaican jerk seasoning has quickly become a kitchen staple

This wasn’t the sort of recipe I could transcribe, fold up, and stash away for safekeeping.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/32ZNWqa via Blogger https://ift.tt/2EBMbWY

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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dippedanddripped · 5 years ago

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This past January, Buffalo native Alvin Worthy, known throughout the music world as Westside Gunn, expedited his passport in order to attend Paris Fashion Week. At 37 years old, it was his first time leaving the United States. His Griselda Records collective provided the soundtrack for Virgil Abloh’s Off-White™ Fall 2020 preview and Westside was as at home as ever sitting front-row for the festivities.

He was so inspired by the trip that he booked some extra time in the City of Lights to record a new project, motivated even more once Abloh confirmed that he’d like to create the cover art. What resulted was Pray for Paris, a project that manages to balance the boasts of aspirational opulence attained with some of the grimiest street rap in the industry today.

Westside Gunn has never pursued subtlety, which is more apparent than ever on his latest record. Pray for Paris opens up with a recording of the auction of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” painting at Christie’s New York, which sold for a record $450 million USD. As the gavel announces the final sale, it’s clear that Gunn is positioning his latest creation as a rap album of bespoke luxury.

Abloh’s cover art, a photoshopped reworking of Carvvaggio’s 1607 oil on wood painting, “David with the Head of Goliath,” adds the burden of Westside’s three chains around the conqueror’s neck. The aesthetic audacity aligns perfectly with Westside Gunn’s past hand-painted album covers, which alternate between vintage wrestling references, faceless FLYGOD fashion poses in Balenciagas and an unapologetic Hermès-rocking Hitler with his third eye stamped on his furrowed brow.

Jacopo Raule/Getty Images

There’s a moment on last year’s WWCD album where the vision Worthy has been plotting out over the past decade, even before he was Westside Gunn, comes to fruition. Rapping alongside brother Demond “Conway the Machine” Price and cousin Jeremie “Benny the Butcher” Pennick, his voice rings in the “Dr. Bird’s” chorus in an antagonizing echo. “Told Virgil write ‘BRICK’ on my brick,” he yells, essentially speaking their eventual collaboration into existence.

Even years before the “Dr. Bird’s” chorus, before the Shady Records and Roc Nation deals, and before his Griselda crew was captured at Kanye West’s Wyoming ranch, Westside was pulling inspiration from Abloh’s initial foray into fashion, PYREX VISION. “It’s not like I’m just supporting him now because of Off-White™ or Louis Vuitton, like all of a sudden I got a record deal and I can afford it. No, his first shirt was on my back,” he said.

Gunn fights against what he perceives as the limitations of being labeled a rapper. It’s a line straight out of Kanye’s big book of philosophy and even something Tyler, The Creator mirrored in his post-GRAMMYs speech. “I don’t even wanna be considered a rapper. I bring so much more to the game,” he told HYPEBEAST. “I love art, fashion, design, executive producing, putting songs together with the skits — all of that sh*t I love more than actually rapping.”

For someone who doesn’t consider himself a rapper, Westside Gunn managed to curate one of the year’s best rap albums, creating a world where he’s at its very center, surrounded by some of the most talented veterans in the hip-hop world today.

Westside revealed that he had been battling a coronavirus diagnosis shortly after the release of Pray for Paris. He joined HYPEBEAST to talk about his recent recovery following his first time out of the country, maintaining his FLYGOD status and the creativity that sparked his collaboration with Virgil Abloh.

HYPEBEAST: First off, how are you feeling? Where are you in the process of recovering from COVID-19?

Westside Gunn: I’m feeling good, man. There’s people dying from this sh*t and it did its little tornado tear-down but I’m building back up. I’m losing my mind because I ain’t smoke in weeks. But everything is just a process and I’m trying to get strong again.

We’ve been working and honestly I’m more motivated. I needed this project because this sh*t just got me more focused and looking forward. I’m not just sitting here on some pitiful sh*t.

What was the inspiration behind the title Pray for Paris?

Just the way I killed [Paris] Fashion Week. You had to pray for everybody in Paris the way I was doing it, man. People there, especially the paparazzi, they didn’t know who I was, but they knew who I was after Fashion Week. It was a dope experience. It was the first time I ever left the country.

I went out there with all my jewelry on with my big security guard from Buffalo. I had like four or five people out there with me. It was really last minute. Every show I went to I got dressed up in one-of-one pieces, so it was like FLYGOD on steroids. Just pray for that country man.

How do you feel about hip-hop’s cultural influence in the fashion world right now?

I think it’s beautiful. I was actually doing fashion first. Griselda Records came as a spinoff from my fashion line. To see hip-hop being accepted so much in fashion now is great, but I’ve been fly my whole life. I was designing jean suits and sh*t in high school. I always was ahead of the game when it came to fashion. Even when it comes to the Virgil connection.

I sent him pictures of me in 2013 when he did PYREX VISION — his first introduction to the fashion world and I was supporting him then. I always say, it don’t matter what you buy, it’s gotta be in you. I love looking on Instagram and seeing what everyone’s doing with their style because at a point in time, it felt like I was the only person doing that type of sh*t. So now that the hip-hop community is accepted by certain brands, it’s pushing the culture forward.

Virgil created the cover art for this project, too. How’d that collaboration happen?

When I was out in Paris, after all the fashion shows and all the partying was over, I still had three days left. I was so influenced by everything that took place that I went into the studio. I was with Virgil the night after I first recorded and I was like, “I already knocked out three, tomorrow I’m gonna finish the rest.” Virgil told me, “This sh*t is crazy. If you do that, I want to do the cover.” So of course, who would say no to that? It actually inspired me to record more because if he did the cover, it’s gonna be a different kind of crowd that actually listens to this.

This is gonna gain more fans for Westside Gunn on a fashion tip. It’s like I’m not even a rapper, I’m an artist. I don’t even wanna be considered a rapper. I bring so much more to the game. I have an ear for production. Some people are just rappers. That’s what they do: they’re good at rap. But I love art, fashion, design, executive producing, putting songs together with the skits — all of that sh*t I love more than actually rapping.

“I always been a supply and demand guy. I was in the streets, I lived by it.”

There’s no mysterious book of rhymes of Westside Gunn or a file of 10 unreleased Westside Gunn songs. Everything I’ve ever recorded is out. You can be like, “Yo, let me hear some new sh*t.” My new sh*t is Pray for Paris. There’s no song that’s just sitting in the computer, bro. Rapping is like the tenth thing on my list I do. But it’s important because everything else that I do before I rap inspires those raps.

You’ve always made sure that your Griselda merch and vinyl releases have incredibly limited runs. Have you looked to any brands for inspiration on keeping supply vastly lower than the current demand for what you create?

Even when I was doing clothing and I wasn’t rapping, I knew that I was doper than the majority of the game. There was a void and I wanted to fill it and bring a balance of the underground culture, the boom-bap culture, people say “backpack rap” or whatever you want to call it — I knew there was something missing.

Everyone wanted to be more from the south, or like Chicago drill music when that became big. People in my lane weren’t popular, they weren’t getting those looks. People always wanted to push forward the popular sound, what’s in the clubs and what’s on the radio. I always been a supply and demand guy. I was in the streets, I lived by it.

You gotta think like a street corner hustler back in the day. Like six, seven people be on one corner or in the projects and they gone fight for the same fiend. And I was like, “Why do that? I can go to a whole other city with no competition and make triple.” I applied my street methods to hip-hop and fashion. You give a crackhead free crack, that’s the best crack they ever had. They gone do anything to come back and get that again.

It was like, “Okay, everybody want to listen to this, but I’m about to make this popular.” It’s really like the dope game.

You linked with Tyler, The Creator on this record, both as a producer and as a featured artist. What was it about his energy that you gravitated towards?

Tyler is somebody who I respect because he’s himself. He don’t give a f*ck. A lot of people be scared to be themselves. In this game there’s a lot of make believe bullsh*t, man. A lot of these people that you see, well they not like that in real life.

With Tyler, he’s himself at all times. He don’t care who in the room. It could be the toughest dudes in the room and he might rap some off the wall sh*t and tell another dude that he’ll kiss him. If you know him, you respect it because that’s him. He’s a good dude with good energy.

As you can see, he killed the project on both levels, on rhyming and production. I’m thankful for that. I actually hit him to congratulate him on the GRAMMYs and that’s when he said he was making a beat for me. When he came to bring me the beat, he heard what I was already playing and he started rhyming.

You also connected with The Alchemist and featured veterans like Freddie Gibbs, Roc Marciano and Boldy James. How competitive were you when trading bars with those guys over The Alchemist’s productions?

Alchemist is Griselda, man. You know how Mobb Deep was always Havoc and Prodigy? The Alchemist was their third unofficial member. Basically what Alchemist was to Mobb Deep is what he is to Griselda right now. He was already a legend before he got with us and now he’s a part of the Griselda sound. Him working with Boldy, now that’s extended family. Because before I was on him, but I wasn’t on him. When I was listening to [The Price of Tea In China] I was like, “Dude is incredible. He remind me of like a Detroit Benny.” It was so vivid.

I always was a fan of Gibbs and I’ve been doing sh*t with Roc Marci for the last five years straight. Benny [The Butcher] went on tour with Gibbs so you build these relationships. Then when it comes time to start painting these pictures, you go to your family and you go to the best. The first time I heard The Alchemist beat [for “$500 Ounces”] the first person I thought of in the world was Gibbs.

“With Tyler, he’s himself at all times. It could be the toughest dudes in the room and he might rap some off the wall sh*t and tell another dude that he’ll kiss him.”

With me, it’s never competitive. I go on the beat and just do me, man. That’s never been my thing to compete. I was the guy who early on pushed Benny to be like, “Yo, I’m about to just sing a little hook that’s catchy that people gone remember from me, but I need you to spit 100 bars straight of the craziest sh*t you can think of.”

You have songs like “Shower Shoe Lords” and things Benny was performing for the first year and I wanted to see him kill it, not see who was better on the mic. I know what he can do and I want him to shine. Now look at Benny today.

There always seems to be a fork in the road when major labels and additional management step in and alter an artist’s course. Even after Shady Records and Roc Nation, that hasn’t happened with Griselda. How have you managed to maintain that vision?

One thing for sure, these guys been around me my whole life. And Daringer been in my life for too many years, man. This is family and family is first. Of course people have their misunderstandings and little arguments but when you a real family, that sh*t don’t mean nothing. Everybody’s grown. At the end of the day, we here for the culture. We know what we signed up for.

This sh*t was all written. We gotta remain strong because what we’re doing is legendary. We from somewhere where nobody ever came from. We also all slept in a cell. We lost key members of our crew. We almost lost Conway. We dealt with the shootings. So now it’s about giving the world some of the illest hip-hop of all time.

Is there any advice you would give to your younger self about maneuvering through the industry?

Don’t rush. Everything’s gonna happen organically. I’m very blessed. Even with a few bumps in the road, I learned from them so it could never happen again. I take the good with the bad. I’d tell myself to let everything happen organically and if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.

Four years ago, Griselda was still considered just underground boom-bap and nobody was really listening. Today we’re spoken of from every big name you could possibly think of. There were a few moves I made prematurely around three years ago. Those things can still come back to haunt you to this day but you live and you learn, man. You keep working.

You have your own day in your home city now, too. The Mayor of Buffalo declared August 28 as Alvin “Westside Gunn” Worthy Day. What are your plans for celebrating this year?

I’m trying to put a wrestling ring in the middle of the hood. I might have nWo [New World Order Wrestling] come out. My love for wrestling is next level. I’m not saying I’m the king of the city or any of that sh*t, but I have the most influence and me having my own day makes me want to give back.

Of course I want to do a concert but who knows with what’s going on in the world right now. This corona sh*t got everything backed up. We might still be in the house during my day. But God-willing if everything clears up and I can do something, I wanna do it for the streets because that’s where I’m from. They’ve backed me and showed me love.

How did your love of wrestling help inspire your career as a rapper?

It came natural. One thing about Westside Gunn, since my first project in 2012, Hitler Wears Hermès 1, you always gonna get art, you always gonna get wrestling. It’s the same thing you’re getting in 2020. My first album cover was an art piece, this cover’s an art piece.

“We all slept in a cell… we almost lost Conway. We dealt with the shootings. Now it’s about giving the world some of the illest hip-hop of all time.”

There’s wrestling on the first [album] and there’s wrestling in this one. I can only be me. I’m only giving the world pieces of who I am. I grew up watching wrestling and I just incorporate everything in my life into my music.

Outside of Pray for Paris, there’s been some rumors about you teaming up with Madlib for a collaboration. Any updates?

Only update I have is that it’s still happening. Everything’s just a chapter right now. After the Pray for Paris chapter I need to give the world part eight of the Hitler Wears Hermès series and then I’ll give you the project with ‘lib. That’s a lot for 2020, but you’ll definitely get all of them.

The Griselda Records lore of the past half-decade plays out like a movie. Let’s say a Griselda major motion picture comes out. Who’s directing?

Sh*t, me. (Laughs). I was there. Nobody knows the story more than Westside Gunn. Of course I could easily say Hype Williams because he hasn’t done one since Belly. We could do some sh*t like Belly in 2022 or 2023. I love how Hype did that one, I love how Dame Dash did Paid In Full — that’s one of my top five movies because that story was so incredibly shot.

Especially being from the streets and knowing the story. I’m not gonna say no Scorsese or some sh*t like that. The reason I say me is because I have the confidence. I feel like I’ll be able to capture Griselda like how Dame and Hype captured their’s.

#griselda records #westside gunn #fashion blog #music blog #pray for paris

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wrathofgnon · 8 years ago

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Image is a cut up text, original as follows:

Architectural Drawing in the Digital Age

By Jacob Brillhart

New drafting software, such as CAD and Revit, has changed the age-old practice of hand drawing. Though invaluable tools, they are unintentionally compromising the education and creative development of the young architect. As hand drawing is eliminated in favor of CAD both in the office and in the class-room, the full extent of collateral damage has yet to be appreciated. It is, unarguably, an exciting time for architects who have at their fingertips the powerful tool of the computer. Yet, relative to the hundreds of years in which architects have traditionally practiced architecture, the technology is still very new and un-vetted. Recently my personal observation of creative output in the academic setting has revealed that the computer’s shortcuts unintentionally create a digital vacuum in terms of scale, diminish our under-standing of designs, and weaken our editing processes. When drawing by hand, one designs, thinks, plots, and prints simultaneously in a single process. Computer drafting is instead a two-step process: The designer captures ideas via the computer, inputting these thoughts through a series of logical commands. Still ephemeral, the work is not a drawing yet, but rather intangible, changeable, and temporary. It is only during the second step, the plotting or printing of the file—the creative filtering process—that the image takes on life, delivered from the virtual to the actual. Although the computer functions are rapidly executed, they are nonetheless fractured and disjointed from the printing process—very different from the right brain’s holistic process of creation and production in hand drawing. This time lapse between the perception or idea and the printing reduces the sense of personal ownership of the image. The ownership of the hand drawing, however, is always evident through its “real time” creation, and is not diluted by the limited vocabulary of the printer or the computer. The phrase “I didn’t know how to draw what I really wanted to do on the computer” or “when I went to print this is what happened, I am not sure why” are frequently heard from students today. Excuses such as these are commonly accepted because most people, students and teachers alike, have little under-standing of the technology they are using. The norm is to blame the plotter or the computer for poor drawings, which raises the question: Who is in charge? The blind dependence on CAD and other software tools increases after architecture school as young designers continue to design things they do not understand. Working under severe time constraints, they make maximum use of the copy and paste commands, pulling details,elevations, and wall sections from past projects and reassembling them. The drawing can be altered and then reproduced by the new author without tracing over every line. Seemingly a swift and efficient technique, it effectively undermines the apprenticeship aspect of the architect’s education. When one draws, one understands and remembers; when one uses the right click command, one does neither. This scenario not only inhibits the intellectual development of young designers, but also leads to a complacent architecture that is void of invention. The path of least resistance is followed, leaving the computer in charge by choosing from a menu of defaults. Software technologies, when used to supplement or expedite processes of design, are invaluable. The computer unquestionably belongs in schools and architectural offices. However, the fundamentals of architectural design are still rooted in hand drawing. If ownership of the design shifts to the software and plotter, and the architect’s grasp of scale diminishes, buildings will inevitably suffer. To balance the benefits of technology with the human component of creative design, we must consider how we process and perceive information using our right and left brains. In my opinion, we need to encourage more use of the right brain and not continually default to the left brain activity of data entry. One of the simplest and most effective ways to engage the right brain is to encourage the use of a sketchbook as an incubator of ideas and intellectual activity. This is why, six years ago, in a feverish need to escape the confines of my computer at Columbia University, I set out on a series of European road trips to rediscover the forgotten practice of sketching in situ. The great architects of the past drew by hand on site to understand directly and deeply scale, light, shadow, and form in the full, physical three dimensions of the real world. This is in marked contrast to the flat, virtual two dimensions of the computer monitor—where there is no sun, no shadow, no gravity, no weight, no material, no scale, and zero physical and cultural context. The drawings and small paintings reproduced here—selected from over 700 hundred travel sketches I have made on site in Europe, America, and Asia—are intended to sustain the physicality of history. They attempt to resuscitate the forgotten tools of the imagination and the resilient influence of drawing on design.

#Jacob Brillhart #Canaletto

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aroundtheworldinsearchofcoke · 6 years ago

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Day Twenty-Four: Under London

https://aroundtheworldinsearchofcokev.blogspot.com/2019/07/day-twenty-four-under-london.html

St. Pancras – or to use it’s full name, St. Pancras International – resides among crowded real estate. Right across the road is one of London’s other major rail terminals – Kings Cross – and it’s just down the road from yet another at Euston. The reason for this was a phenomena known as Railway Mania, in which dozens and dozens of railway companies sprung into existence in Britain – the Midland Railway (St. Pancras) wasn’t about to ask for access to Great Northern Railway (Kings Cross) track, nor that of the London and North Western Railway (Euston).

Today, St. Pancras serves as Britain’s rail gateway to Europe, by way of the Eurostar high-speed train through the Channel Tunnel. As a result, it is one of the busiest in the city of London, and is served by no less than six Underground lines – on paper. In reality, although all of these lines serve the same station in theory, they’re often quite a hike a way from each other. The walk to the so-called sub-surface lines is a long one indeed, going right under Kings Cross to the other side of the complex. This is where I began my expedition this morning.

If you can find a Tube map, you should bring it up. You may want to follow along.

The first train I boarded was on the Metropolitan Line, the oldest underground railway line in the world – it opened in 1863, using steam power. This naturally caused problems and was thus electrified at the turn of the century. It’s called a sub-surface line (or a cut-and-cover line) because it is pretty much right below the surface – the builders literally dug up the street, built a railway line, and then covered it up again. In the modern day, there is very little difference between the Metropolitan and the other sub-surface lines – they use the same ultra-modern S-stock trains introduced a few years ago. They are smooth-riding, air-conditioned and comfortable, but one misses the older trains they replaced. They smelt, they were loud, they were hot, and they had character.

I went as far as Euston Square on this train – one stop down the line – and then changed to the Hammersmith and City line to Baker Street, which still retains much of its Victorian character. I got off there to wait for a Circle line train to carry on… and wait… and wait… and wait…

Thoroughly browned off, I eventually got in another Hammersmith and City line train to Edgware Road to try finding a Circle line train there, and as luck would have it, there was one on the very next platform. We passed Paddington – this is another famous London termini – this time for the Great Western Railway – and will one day be a key stop on Crossrail (or the Elizabeth Line, as they call it) – it’s also nearly completely on the surface, giving a rare moment of (cloudy) sunlight on this voyage.

The Circle took me to High Street Kensington, where I swapped trains again to the District line. I reached Earl’s Court, changed to another District train heading towards Tower Hill (despite being a ‘line’, the District has a bewildering number of branch lines) and finally got off at Victoria (yet another terminus – this one for shared by the South Eastern and Chatham and London, Brighton and South Coast Railway). Here I left the sub-surface and went down into the Deep Tube.

Here I boarded the Victoria line, perhaps appropriately. This is one of the newer Tube lines, constructed in the late 1960s. It is also the line I most rarely use, although I can’t really fathom why. There’s nothing wrong with it, the stock (2009-stock) is fairly modern – I suppose there’s just always a better route from where I happen to be.

This was the beginning of what I shall call a series of one-stop ‘hops’ – I got off at Green Park, near Buckingham Palace, and swapped to the Jubilee line, the newest on the network – it opened in 1979. As a result, it is probably the least exciting, yet it’s rarely too busy either. At Bond Street I changed trains again to the Central line. The Central line is always, always, always packed – probably because it runs right through the middle of both the City and Westminster, past the big banks and corporations. As a result, despite its vintage (1900), it’s probably my least favourite of the Deep Tube lines.

No matter, I was off it after one stop – Oxford Circus. I proceeded to the Bakerloo line – definitely my favourite. The aesthetic is perfect – the old, somewhat hazy stations; the smell; the trains, the oldest remaining on the network (1972-stock). It feels like an old noir movie or 1930s film. Alas, my time on the Bakerloo (so named because it connected Baker Street and Waterloo) was short – I got off at Piccadilly Circus.

From there, it was the Piccadilly line – which uses the almost-as-elderly 1973-stock. It was a quick hop to Leicester Square – realistically I could have walked, but I had no intention of leaving the Underground until I was done. At Leicester Square, I swapped to the Northern line, the oldest of the Deep Tube lines (the first section was opened in 1890.) From there, it was – appropriately – northbound, past Tottenham Court Road, past Goodge Street, past Warren Street, past Euston (not to be confused with Euston Square), until I reached my final destination…

I understand most of you are probably a bit confused. Mornington Crescent is something of an old in-joke – it gave its name to a spoof game show in the 1970s, in which contestants improvised stupidly complicated rules to the ‘game’ of Mornington Crescent; it basically amounted to shouting Tube stations randomly un til somebody got to Mornington Crescent and ‘won.’ It was also well known for being closed at weird times, although in recent years that hasn’t been the case, and for being a bit hard to get to (as you need to get on a specific branch of the Northern line.) Basically, Mornington Crescent is an object of great affection for rail and underground enthusiasts.

That meant it had to be the end of the line. Here I was, at the end of a journey that had taken me on every single regularly-operating tube lune on the network (the Waterloo and City is closed on Sunday and also doesn’treallycount), without visiting any stations or lines twice. How did I feel?

There was a strange sense of anti-climax, once the novelty of Mornington Crescent wore off. I was standing in a tube station, totally alone, looking at a station sign. I was hot, thirsty and sweaty from the humidity of the Deep Tube. I had completed this task that I had wanted to do for as long as I remembered, and perhaps in doing so, some of the magic of the ideawore off. What had I actually done?

I had ridden some trains, most of which were basically modern, past what was essentially a bunch of names with no real context. A lot of the old characterof the Underground of my mind – the dirty old trains on the Circle and District lines, the endless procession of buskers in the tunnels, the eccentric opening times for the various stations – they’re mostly gone now. Perhaps much of my ‘old Tube’ never really existed. Such is the power of nostalgia.

I travelled back to Oxford Circus, in silence for the most part. The trains (I had to change to the Victoria at Euston) rattled and rumbled, screeching on the curves, and all the masses of people around either stared at the paper or the map printed above them. Nobody looked around. Nobody took interest in what, to them, was just another aspect of life. And yet I was gripped by thoughts of the glimpses of mystery in the tunnel – strange lights, mysterious doors, tracks that led nowhere, brickworks covering closed stations. I wondered what secrets might lay beyond them, waiting to be discovered.

And you know what? I hope I never find the answer. The fictional ideas I form around them are far too exciting for that.

---

And no, before you ask, I didn’t spend all day riding public transport.

After my voyage, I headed to Hamleys, because why the heck wouldn’t you go to Hamleys? It’s Hamleys. I bought a goods wagon and Bentley car for my layout, and then walked to Trafalgar Square. I recuperated from my experience there with a coke, and then went to the National Portrait Gallery.

Some people thing portraits are boring. These people are wrong and they suck, but they think that and free speech is a thing. Portraits reveal so much about people – artist, subject and the world they lived in. For example, the portraits of the Plantagenet kings in the gallery, painted long after their deaths and more based on Shakespeare than reality (which sucked for poor old Richard III.) Or you might look at the paintings of Charles II and William III, and compare the man who revelled in luxuries and riches and the man who revelled in soldiery and battle. It shows how much things have changed, too – the image of female beauty changing from plumpness to rail-thin stomachs, the rise and fall of military heraldry and dress; there’s a magnificent portrait of Clive of India in one room, and a plain bust of Nehru, one of those who tore down all he made, in another. Backgrounds go from plain, stoic black to sweeping panoramas of battle and lush landscapes. I’d recommend a visit – see it for yourself, make your own impressions.

Plus it’s free.

After that, it was off for home, where I write this now. It’s been a long day; tomorrow we do very little, before on Tuesday we set out west on the next stage of this adventure…

No, not to America. To the West Country.

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universitybee · 8 years ago

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answer 11/ask 11

Thanks for tagging me, @milkteafirst!!

1. What’s your go to comfort food?

I love, love, love chips. like, I will eat 2 family pack bags of chips for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 3 days straight (especially the buffalo flavoured ones). also mashed potatoes!!! ,,, I know, I am so healthy

2. What genres of music do you listen to?

I’ve always really liked alt/indie music! I absolutely adore Cage the Elephant, Grouplove, AM, The Vaccines, Arcade Fire, etc. also classical and more recently, vaporwave, bc I am Trash,,

3. When was the last time you did something you shouldn’t have?

LAST NIGHT I stayed up until 4 am looking at memes on the interwebz when I had to be up at 6:30 to go to my 8 am class. rip in peace

4. Do you consider yourself technologically challenged?

I pretend that I’m not, but I’m pretty much a grandma when it comes to navigating technology. sometimes it gets really embarrassing when I’m trying to exchange numbers with someone and,, I can’t even set up a contact correctly lmao

5. What do you do to unwind/relax?

I really like to draw/paint!! I’m currently working on a sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project 2017! I also nap as frequently as possible

6. Describe yourself in three words.

procrastinator, shy, & artistic!

7. What is something you would improve in your life if you could?

Ahh, I would definitely try to be more outgoing so I can make more friends in college. I’ve made a few, but I never lived on campus with everyone else and so my social interactions have been limited to classmates ;A;. I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone and joined some clubs recently which is helping!! But I wish I could expedite the process a bit,,

8. Are you still friends with anyone from your childhood?

Yes!!! My best friend since 2nd grade and I are still frequently in touch although she attends college out of state, which is awesome! I also still talk nearly daily with my best friends from 8th grade onward despite living about 2 hours away from them. I luv my friends <3

9. What was something that you did that you didn’t think you could do?

I have an extr e m e fear of teachers and professors, to the point where I’ve never spoken to a professor in college and have only spoken to my TA’s a handful of times. Earlier this week, I conquered that fear by inviting one of my professors to a program where you sit and chat over coffee!! I didn’t think I would ever have the guts to even attend office hours, much less sit and talk casually for an hour. it went wonderfully and he said he would definitely like to go again!! I didn’t think I had it in me; I’m so glad I did that :’))

10. If you could be friends with any character, who would it be?

idc if this is basic, I would love to be friends with Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice!! I have read it about 10 times over the past few years and I admire her wit and charm soooo much;; she’s so smart and independent and bad*ss

11. How would you describe your aesthetic, if you have one?

uhm.....hm. somewhere between struggling art student and preppy school kid because I live in c o n s t a n t c h a o s but when I pull it together I can be super organized + I love sweaters, tea, notebooks, etc. idk if that even makes sense! lol

I tag @defensivedad, @loveliestbee, @studybless, @hahaudidntthinkihadablog, @pinkexoplanet, & @roseyboyy

1. What is the most recent thing you read? (book, article, fanfic lol, etc)

2. What is a song that speaks to you & what does it mean to you?

3. What is one of your life goals?

4. What do you do in your free time?

5. Do you like tea or coffee better? Fav kind?

6. Would you say that you are introverted or extroverted?

7. How often do you stay up until 4 am?

8. Where would you travel to if money were no object?

9. Are you more of a heart breaker, or do you get your heart broken?

10. Do you like the sciences or the humanities better?

11. Do you use bitmojis? (everyone in my life hates on me for this, no judgement lmao)

Thankz ! <3

#ask #about #long post

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michaelfallcon · 6 years ago

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In The Netherlands, Touring The Giesen Roasters Factory

Last fall, I finally got the chance to visit Giesen Coffee Roasters. Almost two years of intermittent emails, calls, texts, and mild-mannered coffee festival doorstepping had transpired between my first interview request and the morning I found myself journeying from home in Amsterdam to Giesen headquarters in Ulft. A bike, three trains, and a bus got me to the town, located in the province of Gelderland and, more precisely, within what is known as the Achterhoek, the country’s “back corner;” Germany is just a half-hour walk east.

That Monday was so chilling that most horses in fields along the way were draped with blankets and the still-erect sunflowers were suddenly shriveled. But as I would learn while sitting comfortably in the Giesen showroom that overlooks their production line, the visit’s timing was favorable. Many of their buyers want new roasters before Christmas or year-end, so I was seeing the factory in full flourish. What’s more, there was news for the new year.

In early 2019, Giesen unveiled its largest industrial-scale roaster: the W140A, which has been in development since 2017 and is named for its 140-kilo batch capacity and its automatic controls. Also due to debut is Giesen’s new roast profile software, promising to be more advanced, user-friendly, and remotely monitorable than its original version.

The Giesen W140A

Giesen is officially 12 years old, though it emerged from another entity that, in more ways than one, was its parent company. De Eik, as it was called, was a metalware factory that made parts and products for businesses in the area. One notable customer was Probat, the century-and-a-half old roaster manufacturer in Emmerich am Rhein, Germany, for whom De Eik made complete machines. De Eik was founded in 1988 by the father of Karin Bussink, who married Wilfred Giesen. When Bussink’s father died at age 50, about 25 years ago, Karin and Wilfred took over. They carried on with the metalsmithing, but in 2006, Wilfred decided to make his own fully realized roaster.

“We thought we could make a better roaster because we had the knowledge of how to build it, and we saw potential for a lot of improvements,” says Davey Giesen, Karin and Wilfred’s eldest child. “That was the point that my father designed the first roaster, the W6, and also put it on the market.”

He was just about a year old back then, but now, at age 26, is Giesen’s COO. Davey has been with the company for six years and has clearly been keeping notes.

“I think I was number 18,” he specifies, referring to where in the sequence of staff hires he falls. “So I saw the company grow.”

Studying IT and, on nights and weekends, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in management have helped prepare him for daily company duties, though his coffee education began much earlier. He got hands-on training working full-time for a year at the micro-roastery and shop that his parents ran in the nearby town of Doetinchem. They opened Koffiebranderij Venetië in 2008 “because they wanted to show how it should be done in the field,” says Davey. Besides providing a setting to test out Wilfred’s earliest products, the venue gave Giesen customers real-life, real-time lessons in running a roastery.

“But after some time,” Davey explains, “we didn’t have any time to run a roastery because of course we were getting better and better at building roasters. And we want to put the energy more into the factory than the roastery.”

Though they sold the shop about eight years ago, it still exists, and the current owners continue using the original W6A that Wilfred installed there. A souvenir from that chapter in the family’s entrepreneurial history appears in the form of the Koffiebranderij Venetië-logoed cup in which I am served coffee shortly after arriving at Giesen headquarters. Ebullient sales representative Miguel de Boer has prepared the drinks, and I talk with him before heading into the factory itself.

“We started 10 years ago with 10 people, and up until two years ago, in 2016, we had 50. In the last two years, we really expanded a lot,” he says.

Like the majority of Giesen’s staff, De Boer is a relatively recent hire. He appreciates the sales culture at Giesen after spending years as an account manager for PepsiCo, overseeing the Benelux sales of Tropicana, Gatorade, among other Big Bev and snack brands.

“In the fast-moving consumer goods, it’s hurry, hurry, hurry and small margins,” De Boer says. “Here, it’s: take it easy, big margins, no discussion about one- or two-dollar discounts. No. People might want to have a discount, but it’s not the most important thing when they want to buy quality.”

On that note, I follow De Boer on a tour. He begins in the electrical department.

“We make everything wire by wire,” he says. Here each order gets assigned a serial number and each machine-in-the-making is placed on a cart. As parts are amassed, they get checked off on a list. A photo documents the list and gets archived; this process is repeated elsewhere along the production line to ensure completeness and to keep record of what has been done when.

To expedite repairs, the warehouse shelves stay neatly stacked with piles of spare parts. In a fluorescent-lit office, a 24-hour service support staff sits, ready to field calls, emails, or Skypes from six continents. Visitors to the Giesen stand at World of Coffee 2018 may have noticed on hand some VR goggles and screens; a sales tool, they encourage prospective buyers to cozy up, virtually, to the various machines and envision how they might fit in their own workspaces.

The next department through which we wend is welding. Bodies of the roasters—as well as Giesen’s destoners, green bean conveyors, cyclones, filters, afterburners, presentation tables, and coffee bins—are made of steel. I see huge sheet metal rectangles resting on sawhorse tables, as casually available seeming as reams of paper might be in photocopy shop. Most materials are sourced from within Europe, and some come from very nearby. Ulft is situated in a region known as the Oude IJsselstreek, where the soil contains high amounts of iron, leading to a locally quite prolific industry; the earliest blast furnace is recorded as first appearing in 1689.

After assemblage, attention turns to surfaces. In the degreasing and painting department, a chemical scent hangs in the air, fittingly. Roasters come in standard black or customers can request a special paint job in up to three tones with a glossy or a matte finish. Lately, there has been demand for the unpainted raw look, which results in a griege coat that shows all the welding marks. Roofs come in stainless steel or hammered gold, and handles are made of olive, bubinga, or zebrano wood. Logos are not the only way to customize. De Boer is not being hyperbolic when he tells me anything is possible.

“You can have sparkles on it; you can even have Swarovski diamonds,” he says.

At the end of the production line, it is time for testing. This final step is usually executed by Wilfred, Davey, or Marc Weber, Giesen’s global sales manager. After three successful roasting sessions, a roaster is deemed ready to leave the factory.

A wall-mounted map in the front office is marked up with red and green radii showing the varying costs of delivery according to distance. The machines have all been assembled by hand in the Netherlands, and a bucolic Dutch touch travels with outgoing W1, W6, and W15 roasters. They reach their destinations by horse trailer, pulled by cars driven by the very mechanics who handle the installation. Larger machines go by truck while their mechanics catch a flight. Roasters bound for destinations that fall off the map are flown or sent by sea container. The company relies on 35 trained agents around the world who assist with sales, installation, and repairs. Where there are none regionally (for example, in Argentina and Maldives), Giesen headquarters deploys its own mechanics. These days, their market is wider than ever. I’m told that South Korea, China, and Germany are among the top purchasing countries. Roasters are still being shipped to Iran and Syria. And as of March 2018, Giesen appointed Pennsylvania-based agent David Sutfin for the US and plans to expand the Stateside team with three more agents.

The W6A remains the most popular model. Next is the W15A sold with an external cyclone (which permits less interrupted roasting because it does not require a user to stop mid-session to remove bean chaffs from inside the machine). The smallest-capacity model is the WP1, intended for sample roasting. What must be the very smallest Giesen ever made, however, stands on a table in the showroom where I begin and end my visit. Built in honor of Wilfred’s 50th birthday, in 2016, the delightful little dummy is, literally, fit for a Barbie Dreamhouse.

Human-size Giesen equipment is also exhibited in the showroom, as is a vintage sample roaster. Between that set-up and the espresso bar, featuring a two-group Synesso MVP, the back wall displays a collection of T-shirts lately being promoted by the new marketing department employees. A recent addition is a black fitted V-neck with the company name in swash-heavy font scripted over the fuchsia outline of a W6. It makes me think of the hot pink one- and six-kilo Giesen roasters once famously purchased by Kaffismiðja Islands coffee roasters in Reykjavik. It also reflects how this once mom-and-pop heavy-metal factory is changing with the times and appealing to a broader-hued spectrum of clients.

“They sell like crazy—people just want a T-shirt with ‘Giesen’ on it,” says De Boer.

“Even when we are at events, when we close down for the day, we have to take away these items,” he shares as he points to roaster handles, the likes of which expo attendees have apparently pilfered in the past. Still, De Boer sounds more flattered than flummoxed.

On a daily basis, Karin and Wilfred handle general management. Davey’s younger brother, Dani Giesen, oversees facilities and building management. The youngest Giesen sibling is still in secondary school, so it is premature to say if her future is at the factory. Regardless, the family is well positioned to communicate with a major rising segment of the coffee industry: younger people and their globally, millennially minded counterparts. I ask Davey what he has observed of his peers, particularly in comparison to his parents’ coffee industry cohorts.

“They do a lot of things differently,” he replies. “The older generation still want to have manual controls and want to see everything analog, and the generation after that is more about automatization, running a better business. They really use the profile system to control the roaster and all that kind of thing, so it’s more about the digital world.”

Davey Giesen

When I inquire about gender balance among clients, Davey acknowledges that “the market is more men than women.” He adds, “But we find it really good that more women are building roasteries. We also see a lot of couples doing this together, husbands and wives.”

The life-partners-as-corporate-partners format has certainly yielded much for the Giesens. In giving a new, more narrowly defined purpose to an old factory, Wilfred and Karin have enriched the specialty coffee industry with their products and their progeny. Both contributions are relatively young, but their potential to keep upping the quality of roasting and its accessibility for everyone is profound.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge.

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In The Netherlands, Touring The Giesen Roasters Factory published first on https://medium.com/@LinLinCoffee

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shebreathesslowly · 6 years ago

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In The Netherlands, Touring The Giesen Roasters Factory

The Giesen W140A

He was just about a year old back then, but now, at age 26, is Giesen’s COO. Davey has been with the company for six years and has clearly been keeping notes.

“I think I was number 18,” he specifies, referring to where in the sequence of staff hires he falls. “So I saw the company grow.”

“We started 10 years ago with 10 people, and up until two years ago, in 2016, we had 50. In the last two years, we really expanded a lot,” he says.

On that note, I follow De Boer on a tour. He begins in the electrical department.

“You can have sparkles on it; you can even have Swarovski diamonds,” he says.

“They sell like crazy—people just want a T-shirt with ‘Giesen’ on it,” says De Boer.

Davey Giesen

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge.

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lvaartebella · 7 years ago

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Feature: The Reactionary Dynamic In Public Art

This article is an updated version of material originally published by Arts-Louisville.com in August 2017. Used with permission.

“The word ‘deface’ derives from ancient Rome,” explains sculptor Matt Weir, “where the public would smash away the faces on images of leaders after they had been disgraced. Emperors would have statues of themselves everywhere, and if they were overthrown they were erased.”

In the aftermath of the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, Louisville joined other American communities in the struggle over public monuments honoring Confederate leaders when the statue of General John Breckinridge Castleman near the Cherokee Triangle was vandalized with bright orange paint. Within days Showing Up For Racial Justice organized a passionate but peaceful public demonstration at the location, and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer issued a statement directing the Commission on Public Art (COPA) to conduct a review of all public statues in the Metro area to determine what issues need to be addressed.

It seems a worthwhile and important response to community outcry, but in all of the press generated, there has been very little written about how artists feel about all of this, especially sculptors of public art who are today creating such monuments.

Matt Weir is working to complete a commission for a historical statue in Oldham County that will commemorate Colonel William Oldham, a Revolutionary war figure for whom the county is named. The statue, which will be approximately seven feet tall, is to be installed in front of the LaGrange Library by July 2018. The uniformed figure is captured in a humble posture, rifle resting on his shoulder, and the horse’s bit and bridle dangling from his right hand is a nod to the tradition, missing here by deliberate choice, of showing military figures atop a stallion.

The weary, home-from-the-front attitude is a contrast to the heroic Castleman on horseback but reflects the common, everyman quality of the history. Weir states that Oldham has no significant military accomplishments of note, and he was killed in his early 30’s at The Battle of the Wabash, in which his unit was decimated by Native Americans onto whose land they had entered as part of a troop movement north. “There is a sense that he would have likely served as a public official if he had lived,” Weir says. “It’s unclear exactly how they came to name the county after him, but there is really no public sculpture in Oldham County, and Judge David Vogel (who commissioned the statue) wanted to change that, and this seemed like a good place to start.”

When asked about his feelings on the issue, and the Castleman statue in particular, Weir speaks in thoughtful terms that reflect his conflicted feelings: “Some of these pieces that are coming down in Baltimore and Durham, to my eye, looked like beautiful work; examples of important sculptural techniques, and, as an artist, I do feel sad they are disappearing. The Castleman statue is, I think, the only horse and rider statue in Louisville, and it’s a landmark that the neighborhood has used for a long time in its branding.” Weir shows me a cup from the Cherokee Triangle Art Fair showing the event logo that incorporates an image of the statue.

Ed Hamilton has made his reputation as a sculptor of memorial statues, primarily recognizing African American History, and he echoes these thoughts in his own observations: “As an artist, we need to look at work, and I had studied the Castleman statue over the years because it is a gracious, artistically rendered piece. I didn’t even realize for a long time that it was a Confederate officer because he is not wearing a designated uniform. But now I need to rethink the underlying meaning of that statue.” Hamilton’s most recent work, a bust of Underground Railroad conductor George DeBaptiste, was for Madison, Indiana. Among his other monuments are The Spirit of Freedom, a memorial to black Civil War veterans that stands in Washington, DC, as well as monuments dedicated to Booker T. Washington, Joe Louis, York (William Clark’s manservant on the Lewis and Clark Expedition), and the slaves who revolted on the Amistad.

Hamilton was previously a member of COPA, and he says that the commission expected to follow the process that they took in making a recommendation on the statue at the University of Louisville that was relocated to Brandenburg Kentucky. A series of public meetings were scheduled and the first meeting was held in September, but soon Metro Government and COPA decided to develop a different approach, one which will attempt to establish a contextual foundation for approaching public art and the winds of change.

Sarah Lindgren, Public Art Administrator for Metro Government explained the shift in perspective: "We are working on our plans for a community conversation about race and the history of slavery—and how it impacts our world today. The topic of public art and monuments is just one component of a larger plan that Mayor Fischer will be discussing in the near future. The Commission on Public Art began a process of reviewing artwork and monuments in public spaces during a public meeting in September, and that process will continue along with the community conversation."

COPA has set up a link for the public to provide comments here.

These kinds of public sculptures demand substantial research, often as a part of a proposal the artist submits before they even know if they have the job. “It is a job,” Weir tells me. ”I do personal work which reflects my particular aesthetic, and that that is very different from this sort of commission, but my name is on that statue forever, so I want to feel good about it. We don’t know exactly how long bronze lasts, but the oldest surviving bronze statue is thought to be 6000 years old.”

But would he take a commission for a statue honoring a Confederate figure? “For me, personally, no, I wouldn’t do it.”

Historically bronze statues are almost always tributes to individuals of power and influence. The cost of such projects means they are often driven by wealth and privilege, and the innumerable Confederate statues throughout the United States are inextricably tied to a campaign to reinforce Jim Crow laws across the American South in the years between 1890 and 1920, a period often referred to as “the nadir of race relations in America” by historians, so there should be no mystery about their original intention. More were erected in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s as a response to the Civil Rights Movement. “What’s happening now is reactionary,” claims Weir. “Just as the statues themselves were reactionary. Idolatry through figurative art has always been reactionary – always driven by the new regime.”

When I ask him how he feels about the Durham statue being pulled down in the dark of night, he offers: “As a sculptor, that really hit home – what if that were MY work? I would rather see these changes occur through public dialogue. It’s an opportunity to heighten awareness of public art and the issues surrounding these Confederate monuments.”

“Whatever happens,” observes Weir, ”it seems like there is no win here.”

#confederate statues #Ed Hamilton #Matt Weir #General Castleman statue #Showing Up For Racial Justice #Commission on Public Art #Cherokee Triangle

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floraexplorer · 8 years ago

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The Ten Most Adventurous Travel Challenges I’ve Ever Faced (And One I Haven’t…Yet)

A little announcement: I’m speaking at a festival!

This coming weekend I’ll be heading to the heart of Oxfordshire, England, where hundreds of people will be wandering around Wilderness Festival. And at some point, some of them are hopefully going to gather round a campfire to listen to me talk about travelling.

For a full forty five minutes.

Sunday, 2pm: IT’S ME!

Giving this talk is a pretty big deal for me.

Although running this site has led me to a number of unexpected job titles, I’ve never been able to call myself a ‘speaker’ before. It’s a new road — one I’m both nervous and very excited about.

So what’s the topic I’m attempting to fill forty five minutes of chatter with?

“Up A Creek Without a Paddle: Travel Tales & Fails From a Solo Female Traveller”

At first, I figured I should be planning a talk which made me sound like a hardened traveller — but once I realised I was on a programme alongside ‘real’ adventurous women (like cycling through dense Indian jungle or motorbiking across Iran), I decided it would be better (and probably funnier) to tell some stories about the bizarre travel experiences I’ve had around the world.

More importantly, to address the fact that things can – and often do – go wrong!

Like being forced to walk/hitch rides for 100km when striking fishermen close the border…

But what’s been interesting is that in the process of writing an outline for this talk, I also began to think about all the ways travel has changed me. Travel ‘fails’ don’t necessarily mean something negative, either. As I jotted down various events to talk about, I started noticing a pattern.

The bigger, scarier, more adventurous and more ‘out of my comfort zone’ an experience had been, the more memorable and life-changing it was.

How adventurously do you live your life?

Being ‘adventurous’ can be defined completely differently from one person to the next.

Some of us want to do every physical challenge possible, but are terrified of travelling alone. I used to hate roller coasters with a passion but was supremely smug about my ability to watch any horror movie while my friends screamed and ran out of the room.

We all have strengths and weaknesses. It’s worth recognising the benefits of both.

The other day, a writer I follow on Twitter asked her followers a question.

What’s something you feel good about having done? (Small/big/long past or recent/for someone else/others/yourself).

— Hayley Webster (@bookshaped) July 29, 2017

To be able to compliment ourselves – hell, just to treat ourselves more nicely – is something everyone should feel comfortable with doing. We deserve a bit of love, particularly when we’re going through something which makes us feel vulnerable and small and unsure.

I’m in that kind of place at the moment. I need bolstering; I need energy, and positivity, and I need reminding that I’ve been strong in a multitude of different ways in the past.

So what makes the following stories particularly adventurous?

Well, it’s not just physical or daredevil activities which require bravery. Often it’s the smaller parts of life which really challenge us — mentally and emotionally, as well as physically.

And more than that, each of these stories have helped to shape me. They’re moments I’m extremely proud of, and it’s worth a lot to actively recognise that.

1. Walking the Camino route halfway across Spain

When I decided to walk the Camino, I readily assumed I’d be able to get myself geared up in time. What I didn’t account for was my love of procrastination – something which marred the entire project before it had even started.

For months I told people I was walking the Camino, but I still refused to start training, to book my flight to Spain or to actually research how I’d cope as a pilgrim.

Case in point: my lack of research in blisters

Thankfully when I finally bit the bullet and caught a thirty hour bus from London to Leon (don’t follow my example), my Camino proved better than I could have hoped – but it unnerved me to realise how close I’d come to quitting the whole idea.

Four hundred kilometres later, I’d learned so much about the kindness of strangers and the value of community – and I also discovered my body is a lot stronger than I’d thought.

Enough so that I should have trusted in myself much more from the start.

2. A ‘Polar Plunge’ in sub-zero Arctic seawater

On board an expedition ship in the middle of the Norwegian Arctic, a group of octogenarians and I were asked whether we wanted to jump into the ocean outside. All but four of us said a resounding, “NO”.

Of course, part of the job description as a travel writer is to actually ‘experience’ what the world has to offer – but I was secretly terrified of throwing myself at the mercy of the Arctic Ocean.

What if my heart stopped because of the cold? What if I drowned?

As it turned out, the exhilaration and adrenaline from racing into the icy sea was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Moreover, I knew I’d achieved something I hadn’t expected to even attempt, let alone enjoy – and it opened up a world of possibilities.

The photos were pretty spectacular, too.

3. Skydiving over the Kenyan coastline

I’d just arrived in Kenya (literally that morning) when a group of the volunteers I’d just met mentioned they were off to skydive at Mombasa beach. I was eighteen and nervous about making new friends with this big group of Aussies, Americans and fellow Brits, all of whom had been volunteering in Kenya for at least a month together.

So I guess you could say I skydived for the first time because I wanted to be accepted. I wanted them to think I was cool.

A blurry photo that still means so much!

While this obviously isn’t the best reason to challenge yourself, it’s nevertheless been something which has always stuck in my mind.

Since that first skydive, every other adventure sport, adrenaline-rushing experience I’ve had has been on my OWN terms – be it paragliding in Ecuador, caving in Bolivia, scuba diving or white water rafting in Australia. Every time I’ve considered the idea of backing out, and every time I’ve decided it’s worth doing.

I even skydived for a second time a few years later.

4. Drinking ayahuasca in the Brazilian jungle

Before taking part in an ayahuasca ceremony, I had no idea what to expect. And to this day, I’m not sure whether the experiences I had could ever be replicated.

What I do know is that the ceremony occurred at the exact right time in my life.

Then again, the actual ayahuasca experience as it was happening was pretty brutal. Vomiting and hallucinations, a complete deconstruction of what it meant to be ‘myself’, and the strangest and most surreal night I’ve ever had.

Ayahuasca is a scary experience, and not one to be taken lightly. In fact, if I’d fully known what was in store I think I might have thought twice about drinking. But because of the positive after-effects it led me to a second spiritual ceremony with San Pedro a few weeks later, and it served to open up my mind to the idea that a positive mental outlook can actually affect your life.

Among other things.

5. Perpetually boarding planes despite my flying phobia

Surprisingly enough, I don’t do well in planes.

It’s a fear that’s only got worse with time: the older I get, the more I worry that turbulence is going to cause my death.

It’s also a very common fear, I know: and because travel is an intrinsic part of my profession, I’ll have to keep swallowing the fear as best I can.

This same attitude goes for a lot of common fears and phobias, which many people won’t outwardly admit to in their daily life. Instead, they’ll catch buses which teeter on the edge of steep cliff drops; wiggle their way through narrow spaces in underground caves without fuss; and feel that same dreaded sense of doom when someone’s dragged past them at airport security.

We can’t avoid our fears arising. What we can do is accept their existence and try to live fully in spite of them.

As a result, every time I get off a flight I inwardly congratulate myself because I know that the more irrational part of my fear hasn’t won out.

6. Spending 18 months becoming fluent in Spanish

When I arrived in South America, I could barely speak a word of Spanish. Six months in, I was still pretty rubbish at the language – but over that year, I slowly realised how big an impact fluency would have on my life.

Not just when travelling, but in general.

I’ve always hoped I could one day be bilingual, but throughout school I didn’t really put the required effort in. Once I understood that total immersion was the way I’d learn best, however, everything changed.

Suddenly I was passionate about the Spanish language, to the extent that I challenged myself not to leave South America until I could say I was fluent in Spanish.

Eighteen months later, I was as close as I possibly could be – and I loved it.

7. Getting naked and blue with three thousand people

I’ve been lucky to not struggle too much with body confidence in my life, but I was still a bit terrified about stripping naked in a park at 3am in Hull city centre and covering myself in blue body paint.

Our perceptions of nakedness – both our own and other people’s – have always fascinated me, so when I saw the call-out for participants in Spencer Tunick’s #SeaOfHull photoshoot, I knew I wanted to be involved.

Yet there’s a mental challenge which comes with voluntarily putting yourself in such a vulnerable situation.

We were lucky. Amongst three thousand naked bodies, not one person was insulting to another, and as far as I know every participant walked away feeling stronger, freer and more confident about themselves.

8. Cutting all my hair off in an Indian bathroom

After a month of travelling in India’s soporific, suffocating heat in 2012, I made a decision to cut off my hair.

This wasn’t taken lightly: my hair had been shoulder-length or longer for the majority of my life, and I wasn’t sure how it was going to behave when suddenly cut to just beneath my ears. But I’d had enough of it – so one night in a homestay, an Australian friend borrowed a pair of scissors from the kitchen and began snipping.

It was absolutely liberating. I felt like I was taking control.

Only later did I realise how much I hated having short hair. It stuck out like a triangle and no amount of styling attempts would make it look acceptable in my eyes.

The funny thing, though? Eventually I just had to deal with it. My perception of myself was infinitely less forgiving than other people’s opinions of me, and because there was nothing I could do to fix my hair in the middle of the Indian mountains, after a while I didn’t care as much.

By the time I got my nose pierced on a whim in Dharamshala, I’d understood that spontaneously changing my appearance was OK. It wasn’t automatically a disaster.

9. Admitting the importance of my mental health

The desire and ability to travel by yourself is clearly admired by a lot of people. What’s problematic about that is feeling like you’re less able to stop as a result.

After years of solo travel and the accompanying loneliness which often goes with it, I made a decision. When I’d finished my London-based masters degree, I didn’t head off into the world alone again. Instead, I stayed in the city I was born in, and addressed the anxiety which had been growing stronger for months.

I admitted to myself that, for once, my mental health was more important than my love of travel.

Recognising my needs for their fundamental importance is something I’m hugely proud of. It’s not easy to do – and it’s also not easy to speak about publicly, when years of social conditioning has made anything mental-health-related seem like a taboo subject.

Happily enough, the more I talk about mental health, the more I feel connected to other people. It seems like expressing your vulnerabilities can often lead to something much more positive.

10. Being publicly vulnerable by writing about myself online

When I think about it, this site is also something which has been hugely adventurous in its own way.

I’ve written about my issues with self-confidence and self-deprecation before, but the more I’ve dwelled on it the more I’ve understood that sometimes you just have to try pulling yourself out of it by any means necessary.

I know a lot of bloggers who actively choose to keep their private life private, and don’t talk about their personal feelings online. I’ve found this isn’t what works for me: in fact, it’s almost the opposite.

To be going through something life-changing and devastating as the imminent loss of another parent has made me all the more in need of support from my virtual community. Sharing that here has alleviated so much stress and made me feel loved and cared for.

Of course, this level of openness doesn’t work for everyone. But I do know that this six year process of writing about myself in a public online space has led me to places I never thought I’d go. Because of my growing confidence in my words, I entered a National Geographic contest I never thought I’d win – except then I did.

A year later, I travelled to the Arctic Circle because of it.

If that’s not an obvious reward for challenging yourself and being adventurous, I don’t know what is.

11. Still to come: speaking about my travels at a festival

Despite chatting away on Instagram Stories on a regular basis, I’m still not that familiar with public speaking – so my talk at Wilderness Festival this weekend is no doubt going to be another challenge.

Luckily, I’m more than eager to rise to it.

I figure that if I held a snake the last time I was at Wilderness, I can probably manage to hold an audience together…?!

If you’re heading to Wilderness Festival then please keep an eye out for me! I’ll be down by the Filson campfire at 2pm on Sunday – but I’m also hopefully filming the talk in case people want to watch it later (YouTube, anyone?!)

The takeaway: adventure can (and does) change your life

These challenging travel situations have taught me a lot. Mainly that I could have backed out of every single one, but I didn’t – and as a result, I know how much I’ve grown.

They’ve also made me more invested in continuing to challenge myself. There are too many adventures left to tackle: from driving the Mongol Rally (I need a licence first), to running a marathon (my recent foray into jogging at the local park is a good start!) to learning Mandarin, Arabic and French.

Ultimately, I’m rather proud that prepping for this talk has reminded me to be excited about the challenges to come. If these past experiences are anything to go by, it’ll make my life that much more interesting as a result.

Do you remind yourself of your adventurous achievements enough? What’s the most adventurous challenge you’ve faced when travelling?

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