#robert poss

[dustedmagazine]

Robert Poss — Drones, Songs, and Fairy Dust (Trace Elements)

Robert Poss is best known for his work with Band of Susans, a late 1980s-early 1990s guitar-centric no wave band that came up in the same general scene and time frame as Sonic Youth and Swans. Band of Susans went through a number of configurations, but it never had fewer than three guitarists at a time. Consider Poss the primer inter pares (or first among equals) in the band’s squalling wall of guitars.

Now a few decades and a handful of solo albums on, Poss is still fascinated by the possibilities of amplification and feedback, though perhaps in a more lyrical, less confrontational way than in his youth.

Poss has titled this album Drones, Songs, and Fairy Dust, and indeed, it includes all of the above. Though some tracks favor one element or the other, the lines are not always so sharply delineated. There are drones in the more structured songs, and often, the lilt of melody in even the abstract instrumentals. (I’ll leave discerning “fairy dust” to others.)

Listen, for instance, to the way “Skibbereen Drive” blasts out distorted guitar chords, then surrounds them in flickering wah tones, all the while maintaining a steady, anthemic march. Or how “Out of the Fairy Dust” floats a lucid melody over seething, shifting beds of timber, a folk song living in an ambient wash. “Skew Forest” is maybe the purest expression of feedback sculpture, but even this track follows a wandering narrative line. Poss is thinking hard about texture and atmosphere but not to the exclusion of a good hook.

In the same way, the song-like tracks coruscate with detuned blare, the wall of guitar distortion almost, but not quite, burying the vocals in “Secrets, Chapter and Verse.” “It’s Always Further Than It Seems” has the rough romanticism of post-punk turning into college rock—first run Burma and very early R.E.M. come to mind—but there’s a haze and roar even in this well-shaped song.

As an album, Songs, Drones and Fairy Dust runs a bit long, piling up the brief experiments and longer compositions as Poss tries out new things. You might not want to listen all the way through very often (or you might) but pick any point on this extensive collection and you’ll find some very compelling guitar sounds, bending subtly or overtly towards song.

Jennifer Kelly

[arcane-vagabond]

Keeping in mind that the DPU won’t be finished until probably closer to the end of this year unless I hunker down and focus solely on it…

[chirpingchorus]

[the-lady-general]

this was brought to my attention

do you remember when you used to be an explorer, jean-luc?

[prcg]

Las reglas del Departamento de Defensa permiten que los militares ayuden a matar estadounidenses, pero no directamente

La política estadounidense se ha convertido en un campo de gladiadores en el que se lucha contra los engaños. Ya sea que se trate de “colusión Trump-Rusia” o “gente muy buena” o “la computadora portátil es desinformación rusa”, nuestra política y nuestra sociedad han sido moldeadas por una cascada de mentiras, al menos desde 2016, y probablemente mucho más tiempo que eso. . Si bien los demócratas…

[the-one-and-only-043]

[(of course :)]

[Greaves raises an eyebrow.]

I'd like to see it, yeah. What's it do?

[043 is talking quietly with Roxana and Drift, who are reassuring them that no one they care about was harmed when they went Eidolon.]

...You promise?

We would never lie to you about this, sweetheart.

Absolutely. I value your friendship too much, and also Roxana would kick my ass.

Damn right I would.

[043 snorts.]

I love you guys.

We love you too, Phe-Phe.

STOP CALLING ME THAT!

Nahh.

But it's such a good nickname..

Yeah, and the people who sold me out to Zoraxis called me "Lee-Lee".

...Oh.

Damn.

[Breakdown hesitates before speaking.]

...That's rough, buddy.

SHUT THE FUCK UP.

I am trying to drive.

Skill issue.

ROXY?

Yes, that's my name.

[043 busts out laughing.]

@phoenix-and-found-family

(I'm taking the spot behind the door if you don't mind. XD)

Agent 13-12 (also known as Phoenix) looked concerned, their face paled slightly as they overheard the slight panic in the door.

They were holding a Phoenix plushie in their arms, about to ask if this was a good enough plushie to give to this Phoenix.

"... What is going on?"

"Honestly, I... don't know."

[He looked worried and just slightly scared.]

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Bigfoots

Brian Keene: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of crazy bear valley Keene: so these no-good outlaws are on the run from the law Keene: but Keene: they take a wrong turn Keene: into danger King: what kind of danger? Keene: bigfoots

Keene: its a no holds barred war to the death between cowboys and bigfoots Keene: cowboys, of course, have the advantage of intelligence and speed, as well as firearms Keene: but the bigfoots have the numbers

Keene: these bigfoots might just tear these cowboys to pieces Bram Stoker: oh but cowboys! Keene: whats the matter bram? you kill your cowboys all the time! Stoker: yeah but Stoker: i dunno, its different

King: how big are the bigfoots? Keene: eh pretty normal bigfoot sized, i'd say King: really? i expected they'd be bigger King: what about their feet? Keene: oh well, yeah, their feet are big Keene: like duh Keene: obviously

King: wait are their feet big compared to normal feet or big compared to bigfoot feet? Keene: normal King: so big compared to our feet? Keene: yes i Keene: you know the feet aren't really central to this story

Keene: ok so back to the story King: wait a second is it bigfoots or bigfeet? Poe: obviously, it's bigfoots Barker: what? that's insane edgar. it's obviously bigfeet King: no no i think edgar's right on this one Lovecraft: that doesn't make any sense Keene: so back to the story

Robert E Howard: howdy pardnas Keene: 2 Gun Bob! King: it's 2 Gun Bob! Lovecraft: 2 Gun Bob! Barker: 2 Gun Bob! Poe: whoa 2 gun bob! Stoker: OMG! 2 Gun Bob! Koontz: 2 Gun Bob! Howard: i reckon i got somethin' to say on the matter

Howard: when a cowpoke is a-ridin' through bigfoot country, he's gotta have his trusty six iron on his hip Howard: cuz ya might gotta wrassle some varmints Keene: you sound like you've had some experience with this Keene: with fighting bigfoots Barker: you mean bigfeet Keene: no

Howard: now if me an' my boys tangled with a posse of bigfoots, we'd give em a taste of the ol' pea shooter Keene: yeah but see, there's a lot of bigfoots Keene: way too many to shoot Howard: i ain't a-bothered, i'm a fast draw Howard: [twirling six shooter] possibly the fastest

JRR Tolkien: hello lads King: JRR Tolkien! what are YOU doing here? Tolkien: well i head something about Tolkien: BIG FEET Tolkien: big HAIRY feet perhaps? Tolkien: big hairy SMELLY feet? Tolkien: big gross hairy smelly feet with fur????

Keene: the story's not about big feet, it's about bigfoots Tolkien: Tolkien: oh Tolkien: how big are the bigfoots feet? Keene: normal sized Tolkien: normal for us or normal for bigfoots? Keene: you know what i'm just gonna call them sasquatchs going forward

[digitulworld]

spooky month theories and things i noticed so far lalala

-jack isnt part of the cult, and his actions are not intentionally meant to keep john from his goal, but like captain and shotgun man, he was hired specifically so his weaknesses would slow john down and prevent him from investigating the cult. jack is easily distracted, scared of clowns, and seems to not care enough about the cult compared to john. in one of the endings, although john looks out the window suspiciously, jack has a smug look, as though he isnt taking john seriously. intentional or not, its this action that allows ignacio to burn the evidence

-ignacio was ordered to burn the evidence in johns house, but, presumably by his own decision, kept photos of johns family. it may be to gain further knowledge on his family for potential blackmail. whether the attempt to burn the photo of a younger looking john is for personal reasons or not is also unknown. it is also unknown why ignacio would wait for jack and john to leave the house so that they would survive the housefire, but it might be to eventually indoctrinate or sacrifice them

-the candy dealer, due to having the same va as john, might actually be a relative of john. possibly his brother, because so far, out of all the hatzgang, robert is the only one with unconfirmed parents. he has three confirmed siblings, an uncle, aunt, cousin, and grandparents, but no mom and dad. there is no explanation or reasoning for why roberts parents havent made an appearance or mention yet

-there is a track titled "aeternum" that plays during the spooky month secret endings. aeternum means forever and eternity. this track plays when a cult member or multiple appear on screen, dead or alive. however, this track also plays in strebers rehearsal, when the scene cuts to a closeup of his now cracked photo

-frank is either a victim, servant, or has some affiliation with the cult due to him possibly being part of the undead. we know his black eyes are natural, since we see a small photo on johns corkboard of him wearing a disguise containing a mustache and white eyes. frank also shows a visual similarity to the frankenstein character trope with a massive body and square head. hes also been seen kidnapping children and selling drugged treats, similar to what mr clown and the candy dealer do

-on the topic of the undead, streber is not confirmed to be a part of it, but his short foreshadows the details of his fate, all except livs comment on him becoming a part of the undead. evermores lines on bobs attacks, saying its unknown if anyone got killed or if its just a show, along with strebers theatrical performance as a vampire, and skid and pump believing his injury was faked once they left the haunted house, leaves questions as to why bob didnt kill streber, but rather just ate his arm. i cannot find a reason why he didnt eat him in a way that would be fatal to streber, unless he knew the amount of blood loss caused from losing an arm would kill him. bob is confirmed to dismember his victims after killing them, and streber is foreshadowed to be part of the undead

-semi related to the above observation, bob is confirmed to have a kill count of at least 8, but has only had a single joke killing in his episode with the pelo cameo. bob was specifically targeting skid and pump that night, which is why he stalled and ate candy instead of directly killing lila and kevin. he also only ate strebers arm, and stole the hatzgangs candy instead of murdering them. the only ones he actively stalked and made an effort to kill were skid and pump, even after needing to be revived by the pendant multiple times

-on the topic of the pendant, pumps eyes only turn blue when faced with a supernatural or demonic entity. when bob was run over, pumps eyes turned blue. there is a slight chance that the eyes of the universe was either allowing bob to revive, or was possessing him

-the cult has been creating the happy fella dolls with the sole purpose of being possessed. dexter was forced into the doll, as stated by pelo, and as a result he now sits in a bucket in the attic observing the items around him that he can now conclude are important, especially the mannequin which has been seen moving on its own multiple times. dexter also knows about the spider, and the thieves needing the items not for themselves, but for a higher up. it may be thematically important that the cult created the dolls, so that dexter can use this knowledge against them if he were to make a return

-pump is fascinated by eldritch monsters and befriended one, while susie is infatuated with demons and the underworld, creating a school project themed after hell and drawing demons during her free time. this may or may not be important, but the siblings do share a love for powerful beings and their interests could be relevant to the plot in later episodes

[therivershit]

Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson, Paul Smith, Susan Stenger by Robert Poss

[sea-changed]

Some quotes from What Soldiers Do that are not really worth their own post or that I didn't want to give their own post, but that I want to preserve for posterity/my own reference. CW for discussion of rape.

"Knowing that the GIs were souvenir hunters, the Nazis also left behind military paraphernalia rigged with explosives. When Raymond Avignon picked up a German helmet, an American soldier saved his life by making him put it down, showing him an iron thread that would trigger an explosion, then removing it with 'meticulous' care." (26)

"According to [British spy Roxanne] Pitt, on one occasion, a British airman too shy to act as a client [while hiding out at a brothel] chose instead to dress as a prostitute; the plan backfired when a French customer took a liking to him." (137) [Cites Pitt, The Courage of Fear (1957), 75-76.] Alan Bérubé are you seeing this.

"GI Robert Peters remembers how when an an older GI named Wisher got caught in a pup tent engaged in fellatio with a platoon sergeant, the commanding officer said this to his men: 'You know the penalty for putting another man's cock in your mouth? You rot in prison for life. You'll get f--ed good there." (175) [Cites Robert Peters, For You, Lili Marlene (1995), 60.] Bérubé!!

"The [US] military insisted on keeping French sexual labor invisible, not only from War Department officials, but also and even more importantly, from the American public back home. In a May 1945 memo to all commanding officers, Adj. Gen. R. B. Lovett argued that if the army was found guilty of condoning prostitution in overseas theaters, the War Department would 'be open to the charge that it is supporting conditions inimical to the health and welfare of troops. The eventual result might be public scandal with the families of military personnel charging the War Department with an unforgivable violation of trust in neglecting to care for the physical and moral well-being of its personnel.'" (186) To go along with--

"The American GI did not have to worry that his VD would go untreated, nor that his loved ones might witness 'scenes contrary to decency.' The military approach to venereal disease in Le Havre registered a growing confidence on the part of the US government to construct--whether consciously or through inaction--asymmetries of power in the transatlantic alliance: whose health was important and whose was not, whose family would be protected and whose would not." (190)

"In general, rape was probably the most widespread war crime in the European theater of war, although its violence had different meanings in various areas. On the eastern front, the German Wehrmacht committed rape with impunity as part of their aim to enslave Slavic peoples. Beginning in Hungary in 1944, the Soviet military used rape as an instrument of revenge. At the end of the war, thousands of women suffered from the crime of rape, and not only from the Red Army. According to US Judge Advocate General (JAG) statistics, at least five hundred German women were raped by American soldiers." (197-198)

"French officers frowned upon using white prostitutes for non-white troops because, in one officer's words, 'to sexually posses a white woman, a fortiori paying her like a vulgar piece of merchandise, permits [a man of color] to reverse the power relation and re-write history in his own way.' This officer's fear that sex between a black man and a white woman could erode imperial authority suggests just how vital sex was to the maintenance of white supremacy." (249) Brackets are Roberts's. The "re-write history" phrasing was enormously striking to me.

[mizerable-drowning]

fanmade designs of michael's uno buddies! I wanted to do last month... but they're scuffed :') (esp Michael, he's the last one drawn and I really was tired for him... HE LOOKS HORRIBLE IM SORRY MIKE LOL I LOVE YOU MIKE PLEASE I PROMISE I CAN DRAW YOU PROPERLY)(I'm aware how easily I can resize certain things)

the jeremy/bonnie bro was already drawn by the ooftroop, he's there for refence

theyre moreso concepts because i am not satisfied with them, but I'll leave notes!

Chica and Fred uno buddies are surfboys! basing off what the ooftroop said about them moving out of utah, I had the random idea of them becoming pro surfers before becoming marine biologists

why? idk, fredbro gave me surfer dude vibes and I went with it.

I notice jeremike's eye colors paralell with each other, obviously

foxy = red

bonnie = blue

so i did that with fred and chicabro! chicabro's shirt is sapphire, I desaturated it and made it more purple-y for fredbro's eyes, I made chicabro's eyes fredbro's green shirt

from now on i'll just dub fredbro as iggy leopold, and chica as sioux robertson, I'll explain later (I actually don't know if I can name them, I'm just giving them names just so I don't write fred/chicabro constantly)

iggy is white so he's sunburnt.

funfact: while searching for vintage surfer dude shirts, I found the exact shirt the phone dude has! (and I know it cuz oof posted it on their twitter before, the exact image) Sioux just has the swim suit thing

...I wasn't sure what to do with Sioux's hair... I had zero idea how to translate black hairstyles into the UCFT art style. I tried to do twists, but they look horrible; I didn't wanna overtly detail them as I felt that'd be outta place of the art style, but it looks horrible as this. IIRC there's not really any black hair styles drawn in UCFT (yet) so no references sadly

I'm sorry for that man, will experiment with Sioux's hair

I wanted to make Iggy's window peak obvious, hence the 2 different hair colors, I supposed it's sunbleach idk

Okay why did i dub them with stupid sounding names?

Sioux comes from Siouxsie Sioux, why? Suzie posses Chica right? Suzie and Siouxsie are pronounced the same, but I wouldn't name him Siouxsie, so Sioux it is

Robertson comes from Robert Smith, thought of dubbing him Sioux Smith, but Fritz Smith exists

Ik unrelated characters can share the same common name, but meh :P

Iggy comes from me thinking of what stupid names I can name a surfer and a jojo reference, Leopold comes from well... Freddy originally being named Leopold... So what if Iggy adopted the Freddy mask because of the shared name? that lines up in the timeline I think

These are honestly lowkey placeholder names just for this yap session, I'm not gonna use those out of this post

maybe I'll give them serious names who knows, if I have oof's blessing ofc

Sioux and Mike's sketches, i deleted Iggy's

yes mike drastically changed... i didn't feel like doing something from the ground up +consistency so I just reused the base... terrible... learnt my lesson

Final notes:

I found some minor details in the UCFT style fascinating,

it's kinda hard to tell if something is drawn by oof or hyatiid hyatiid does most of the drawings IIRC, but I feel like I can tell when the artist switches and their minor quirks! I can't say for sure who's who but:

Michael's eye brow color changes sometimes, from a darker color from his main hair, to straight black. I also notice his eyebrows are a layer above hair, not sure if that's always the case as I haven't seen enough drawings of his eyebrows above his mullet to tell

Jeremy's piercing & scar placement is inconsistent, not that noticeable as it's generally the same area, but not the exact same everytime

Michael's hair detailing varies a lot

Eyes. they can be close, far, rounded, etc. rounded eyes are mostly for happy expressions

I think Oof keeps the whites of William's (purple form)eye contained with Hyatiid doesn't? I also think Oof is the one the draws lines under the eye without a fading effect while Hyatiid does

[arcane-vagabond]

Bunny

Part of the Dagger Posse Universe

Story: Outrun the Devil

Love Interest: Robert "Bob" Floyd

Life isn't always easy, and the working class are all too aware of this. New Orleans has a certain reputation for harboring ill-minded men and catering to their needs.

Bunny's whole life has been spent working at the brothel of one Lady Marie Dubois. She was raised there, having never known her parents, working as a maid until Madame Dubois deemed her old enough to serve to customers. Bunny quickly grew to be a client favorite, becoming the brothel's highest earning girl. One day, Bunny wakes up to realize that this is not the life she wants for herself, and so she steals away on a steamship heading up the Mississippi. From there, she decides to head west to a small town out in the New Mexico territories called "Maverick."

If Bunny knows one thing about this world, it's two things: everyone earns their keep and men are only ever after one thing. When she meets a sweet man that goes by the name of "Bob," however, her knowledge of the world is tested.

Catch Bob and Bunny in Outrun the Devil!

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Butch: What happened to the old bank? It was beautiful. Guard: People kept robbing it. Butch: Small price to pay for beauty.

- William Goldman, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Screenplay (1970)

In a brilliant William Goldman script peppered with memorable lines, the first exchange sets the tone of this classic Western movie. Butch looks around a bank at closing time, chatting with the security guard as he perhaps sizes up his next job.

“What happened to the old bank? It was beautiful.” “People kept robbing it.” “That’s a small price to pay for beauty.”

Right away, Goldman establishes Butch as a charismatic mouthpiece for the quip-ready screenwriter, contrasting nicely with the Sundance Kid, Robert Redford’s taciturn sharpshooter. But he’s also created two heroes who break the western mold, neither justice-seeking white-hats nor grizzled, sneering black-hats, and not as traditionally masculine as either party. Butch is a man who appreciates beauty and art, but doesn’t have the stomach for violence; it’s not until late in the film that we (and the Kid) discover that he’s never shot a man before and he looks sickened to have to do it. He’s a pleasure-seeker above all else: robbing banks and trains are his way to make an easy living and enjoy whatever sinful freedoms his vocation affords him.

Audiences in 1969 were all too happy to embrace the light, quippy irreverence of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid after a turbulent summer, and Goldman, director George Roy Hill, and the two impossibly handsome stars made them feel cool for doing it. True Grit had performed well earlier in the year as a throwback to the genre’s past, giving John Wayne a proper victory lap, but Butch Cassidy was thoroughly modern, a star-making vehicle for Newman and Redford that reflected a need for the genre to turn the page and that feels as much of its time as it does authentic to Wyoming in the late 1890s. With Katherine Ross at the centre of a love triangle between friends, the film attempted to bring a French Jules and Jim vibe to the American mainstream, taking a lesson from the French new wave on how to revive old Hollywood craft.

It still works spectacularly well. There’s an alchemy up and down the production. Redford possesses easy charm, which parries so well with Newman’s smarts that the two would run it back again with Hill a few years later in The Sting.

The pop doodling of Burt Bacharach’s musical score is about as far from a traditional western score as possible, but it somehow meshes with the sepia sheen of Conrad Hall’s photography, which burnishes the legend of these two men while their story is still being told. And while Goldman’s screenplay dances on the edge of glib, it’s lively and sophisticated, with a strong theme about the capitalist forces that really tamed the Wild West.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is such a rollicking good time that it takes a while to notice it’s about the end of the line for its heroes, whose celebrity is already widespread when the film opens and ultimately hastens their demise. “Your times is over and you’re gonna die bloody,” warns a sheriff, prophetically, in an early scene, and the film is mostly about Butch and Sundance getting chased out of America by hired guns and dying at the hands of the Bolivian army. 

They’re mostly guilty of stealing from the wrong guy: EH Harriman, the railroad tycoon, spends more trying to catch them than they rob from his safes, but it’s an opportunity for a powerful man to send a message about who’s really in charge. Guys like Butch and Sundance can handle local lawmen and half-hearted posses, but they can’t fight progress. The EH Harrimans along with the the Rockefellers, JP Morgans, and the Carnegies and of the world - the original robber barons - would make certain of that.

[eucanthos]

eucanthos

Hamadryas' digital future -possibly-

Hamadryas / ἁμαδρυάς (sacred oak tree spirit. With Oxylus became mother of all tree nymphs that inhabit living trees and die with them).

Ernst Deger: Portrait of a Young Woman, 1835 [Angelic youth face mix, from Renaissance and Early German masters, used as iconography for spiritual propaganda (Christian)]

Tiepolo's Daphne (front) and Theodoor van Thulden after Rubens Apollo and Daphne 1636 mix

Nicolas Henri Jacob for Jean-Baptiste Marc Bourgery's Traité complet de l'anatomie de l'homme, 1831, Paris: Delaunay.

SNAKE Photo by Alexandra Von Fuerst

Burt Glinn Swing, Child and Gaudi Cathedral Barcelona, 1959

HAND Edita Vilkeviciute by Solve Sundsbo

Robert Mapplethorpe Lisa Lyon 1982 [strong arm]

Skeleton laskowski_t01-nlm

Erysichthon (Gr myth): Ἐρυσίχθων ὁ Θεσσαλός ("earth-tearer"), son of Triops, dared to timber the sacred oak (killing hamadryas nymph) inside a grove of Ceres / Demeter; as punishment, she sent Famine to posses his body and torment him by insatiable hunger. He sold all his possessions and even sold his daughter Mestra -Μήστρα- numerous times, taking advantage of her shape-shifting power (Poseidon’s gift). Never having enough to eat, Erysichthon eventually consumed himself.

[Eva, Daphne, Flora, all connect with tree narratives]

Dec 29 update

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamadryad

https://sammlung.staedelmuseum.de/en/work/portrait-of-a-young-woman

[wodeward]

Geoffrey Wodeward of Clan Gangrel

As a breathing man, Geoffrey had a decent life. The descendant of a Norman archer who came to England with the Conquest, then moved west to settle in Gloucestershire and put down roots. He inherited an appointment as a forester on the lands of the local baron and enjoyed a life that was, while not the privileged one of a true knight or lord, still a mark above toiling fields as a serf.

However, any station, high or low, comes with duty behind it. The lord’s forests were rife with danger - large game like stag and boar who could gore an unwary or unprepared hunter to death. Wolves emboldened by winter skulking too close to settlements. And of course, people to be dealt with - poachers and rebels and outlaws using the cover of wilderness to hide their deeds.

He was still a young man when the baron’s liege - Robert Fitzroy, Earl of Gloucester - called for soldiers to defend the right of his sister, Empress Matilda, on the throne. And he was called, so he went. He spent the years of the Anarchy as a scout and a bowman; at the hard-won negotiations of peace, he returned home.

He'd scarcely had time to hang his cloak in the forester's lodge before he was dispatched to help solve a problem. Someone (or something) out in the woods was poaching the baron's game. Corpses of deer found mutilated and drained of blood (the flesh wasted and left to rot in the sun), the rest of the herd not thriving besides. 

Relieving the younger brother who had taken his post while he was off at war - a good and competent soul, but worn pale and sick from the strain of the matter - Geoffrey took up arms to get to the bottom of it. All signs he could read pointed to the culprit being an animal: a maddened wolf, perhaps. He'd shot plenty of wolves.

He tracked the beast as the winter began to set in until he unearthed what seemed to be its resting place. And watched  as the sun set to see if the creature would emerge. To his grand surprise, what crawled out wasn't an animal at all, but a woman, dressed for travel, unafraid of the night and the dangers therein.

Unfortunately, though he'd shot plenty of wolves, he'd been trained to give a person warning and the right to surrender to custody. And she laughed at this as surely as she laughed at the arrow that loosed her way afterwards. The one that broke on her flesh as though it was made of stone.

She was on him a moment later, sharp teeth latched to his throat.

When a member of the hunting posse found his bloodstained coat on the dirt the following morning, they assumed the worst. When, three nights later, he arrived back at the lodge, pale and distant but otherwise no worse for wear, it was a cause for celebration long enough for them all to be disbanded and sent back to their lives.

That winter was the hardest he had endured. By grace or by cunning, he managed to avoid being destroyed by the sun or attracting attention through indiscretion. The excuse that resuming his post took his daytime hours passed well enough. Ironically, he learned to subsist like an outlaw or the creature that had made him; off the baron's game, largely, with the rare passing traveler come like a saints' feast day.

The nights were lengthening back to winter when the woman came traipsing back for him. Encountering her again after she'd cursed and abandoned him made his blood boil, but there were things he wanted to know from her. Fortunately, she'd come back not to finish the job of killing him, but to reward him with knowledge after passing her trial.

She called herself Cerys -  a Gangrel from the Welsh Marches who skirted the court of Baroness Seren of Gloucester. Connected just enough to have once been given permission to create progeny (in exchange for a boon to be paid, of course). Before Geoffrey's timely arrival, she'd actually targeted his younger brother, Henry, but found in him a candidate tougher and more cunning and therefore more suitable to bestow with her blood.

In a way, the transition into unlife had just enough familiar elements to his experiences in his warmer days that it wasn't as jarring as it could have been. Cerys' 'apprenticeship' was rough but he endured it. The court in Gloucester left him alone if he didn't cause trouble. If the poachers and outlaws he found in the wood went to his own hungers or to tribute in London instead of to trial- perhaps it was only that the world was unkinder with monsters in it. At least that's what he tried to tell himself.

(art by: lammergeared)

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Music

How Bob Dylan Viciously Cut His Competition Down to Size

THINK TWICE

In this excerpt from “Talkin’ Greenwich Village,” veteran journalist David Browne revealed how Dylan could make his fellow folk singers shrink with a “withering gaze.”

David Browne

Published Sep. 16, 2024 5:00AM EDT 

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

The below has been excerpted from Talkin' Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America's Bohemian Music Capital ©2024 David Browne and reprinted by permission from Grand Central Publishing/ Hachette Books /Hachette Book Group.

As the scene was growing more amped up, in every way, its unofficial clubhouse remained the Kettle of Fish. But with Bob Dylan’s success and the pressure and attention that came with it, the dynamics at those gatherings began to shift. In 1964 Robert Shelton of the Times watched—with a sense of wonderment rare for such a fixture on the scene—as Dylan entered the Kettle one night with the Supremes and members of the British band the Animals, whose sulking, electrified makeover of “The House of the Rising Sun” had given the ballad an audience far beyond the coffeehouse crowd. Those pop stars were a departure from the small, insular posse Dylan generally preferred, one that protected him and, many thought, egged him on as he dissected the peers and strivers at the Kettle on any given night. For extra privacy, Guido Giampieri would close and lock the front door at a late hour.

Dylan’s gang was usually led by Bob Neuwirth, his road manager, side-kick, and would- be bodyguard. An artist by trade and education, the Ohio- born Neuwirth had attended art school in Boston, where he learned to play guitar and banjo and eventually made his way into the Village; Dylan would recall first seeing him in the audience at the Gaslight. Neuwirth’s barbed-wire gibes and hipster persona were also of a piece with Dylan’s. As a source told Rolling Stone a few years later, regarding Neuwirth’s arrival in New York in 1964, “Dylan started to change at that time. Part of it was Neuwirth; he was a real strong influence on Dylan. Neuwirth [was] stressing pride and ego, sort of saying, ‘Hold your head high, man, don’t take shit, just take over the scene.’ He was the kind of cat who could influence others, work on their egos and support those egos.” Neuwirth’s striped pants would soon be seen behind Dylan on the cover of Highway 61 Revisited, the album that announced, as much as any, that the folk revival had passed its expiration date.

Thanks to his work with Dylan on records and on stage, including playing with him at the chaotic Newport Folk Festival, Kooper was often at Dylan’s table and saw how perilous it could be for anyone in the vicinity. “If Dylan focused on you, you were in trouble,” he said. “He could out- think anybody.” David Blue was a recurring member of the posse, although, as Ramblin’ Jack Elliott would recall, he was rarely if ever the brunt of Dylan’s withering gaze or comments. “Blue had a certain kind of stature,” said Elliott. “He was a large guy, way bigger than Bob, and he had a certain composed personality.”

Talkin' Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America's Bohemian Music Capital

Hachette Books

To Dylan biographer Anthony Scaduto, Van Ronk theorized that Dylan zeroed in on particular targets for a reason: in Van Ronk’s mind, they all wanted to “get rich,” too. Whatever the motivation, the atmosphere could be fraught. “The level of ‘rapping,’ as we called it, was tough,” said Arthur Gorson, the manager who sometimes found himself amid the Kettle gang. “People fell by the wayside. They would talk about songs and someone would say, ‘Hey, man, you can’t use that word—I used that word.’ Eric Andersen was slightly damaged by Neuwirth’s taunts.” Andersen would later pen “The Hustler” about Neuwirth and those times in that bar. In the fall of 1965, Dylan him-self would unveil “Positively 4th Street,” a stern single that sliced and diced someone—or some group—who hadn’t supported him. He never specified who, but some in the Kettle posse wondered if it were one of them.

One especially tense evening, Andersen witnessed Dylan lacing into Phil Ochs. As Dylan drifted from topical writing, Ochs fully embraced it—and was being lauded for it within their world. Reviewing Ochs’s performance at Newport in 1964, Shelton opined that he was “rivaling Bob Dylan as a pro-test spokesman.” Broadside also weighed in, commenting, “Ochs is much more deeply committed to the broadside tradition.” With one album under his belt and a second, I Ain’t Marching Anymore, due in the early months of 1965, Ochs was primed to be an even more socially conscious voice of his generation than Dylan was, and the two men had a “love- hate thing,” as Paxton put it.

At the Kettle one evening, Dylan and Ochs got into a verbal match that ended with Dylan dismissing Ochs as merely a singing journalist (which, in Dylan’s defense, wasn’t too far from the truth at that point in Ochs’s career). Andersen, who had grown close to Ochs (he had encouraged Andersen to add more verses to “Violets of Dawn”) and would often crash at the apartment where Ochs lived with his wife, Alice, was suitably offended. As Andersen observed (and Scaduto also reported), Dylan turned on Ochs another night as well: “You oughta find a new line of work, Ochs. You’re not doin’ very much in this one.” As an appalled Andersen recalled, “He said it right to Phil’s face and really insulted him, and I said, ‘Stop picking on him. Cut it out.’” Dylan, said Andersen, retorted, “Look, I’m buying all the wine here. I can say whatever I want to say. What do you want me to talk about, the sunset over the Hudson and the deep blue sea?”

For a brief period, Ochs and Dylan were both managed by Albert Grossman until Ochs felt he wasn’t receiving the attention he deserved, and late in 1965 he asked Gorson to take over. (In a poke at the name of Grossman’s company, ABG, Ochs asked Gorson to use his initials for his own management firm, which became AHG.) But Ochs had an emerging star power of his own: cov-ering his January 1966 debut at Carnegie Hall for the Times, Shelton felt that Ochs still needed some seasoning and admonished his melodies and guitar playing but noted that the audience was “predominantly teenaged.”

Later that year, in preparation for recording Pleasures of the Harbor—a lavishly produced record intended to be his moment of arrival as a full- on record-ing artist—Ochs introduced songs like “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends” and “Flower Lady” at Carnegie Hall. The latter—seemingly about a mysterious middle- aged woman who would walk into Folk City and sell bouquets of flow-ers, supposedly purloined from cemeteries—was set to one of his most sumptu-ous melodies. He and Dylan weren’t far apart in some ways: they’d both grown up with rock and roll and eventually turned to acoustic music. With Kooper adding one of his recognizable keyboard parts, Ochs even recorded a plugged-in remake of his antiwar rouser “I Ain’t Marching Anymore.” But he and Dylan remained mirror images of the Village, the acoustic and the electric, the old world and the new world, circling each other and staring each other down.

David Browne is a senior writer at Rolling Stone--and author of eight books, including ‘Talkin' Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America's Bohemian Music Capital,’ who moved to New York to attend NYU and never left. He started covering the city's music scene long ago for the New York Daily News.

David Browne