#someone was talking to me today about how digital art was (fast) & (easy) and not as emotionally meaningful and involved as traditional art

[sun-e-chips]

When you want to draw fully finished clean colored illustrations but you draw till completion and that will take you anywhere from 6 to 8 hours so your in that paradox of

“to draw or not to draw that is the question”

[lubdubsworld]

Falling for you ( Falling from grace)

Read Chapter 1 here 

Rated : 18 +

Warning : . Fuck buddies? Or rather enemies that have sex. They just really hate each other but also can’t keep their hands off each other. Fair warning this has no plot. its just them being idiots . 

Chapter 2

I woke up to a pounding headache and seventeen missed calls from one Jeon Jungkook. Glaring at my innocent phone I contemplated just going back to bed and calling in sick. But I couldn’t. As Hobi oppa’s assistant in the HR department, I had a shit-ton of work to do on any normal day and if I skipped work today, I would just be screwing myself over for tomorrow. 

As fate would have it Jungkook and I worked in the same company. Although work was a very generous word for what he did there  , which was basically foist his entire workload on his poor besotted secretary who was too head over heels in love with him to realize that the bastard was taking advantage of her. The girl was young, probably twenty one or twenty and like an eager to please, easily excited chihuahua puppy.

But Jungkook’s designation in the company was nothing to scoff at : He was the HOD of the creative design department and I knew that the fucker was just unfairly good at digital art. it’s hard to imagine a brute like Jungkook with a Tablet , drawing easy strokes of visually appealing masterpieces but that was literally what he did, during the three days a week that he spent at the office. But although he was good at it, he was mostly only there because his dad had threatened to cut him off if he didn’t show up at least thrice a week. 

The remaining four days though, that was the interesting part. 

Jungkook was a boxer. 

A professional street fighter , to be exact and he absolutely pulverized his opponents in the fighting ring. Affectionately called the golden maknae, because he was literally the youngest there and so far he had always won gold in nearly every fight he took part in. 

I didn’t really talk to Jungkook in the office and no one knew about us. But this was less by design and more because our paths didn’t cross.

But I had a feeling that today would be different. Jungkook was pissed last night. I wouldn’t put it past him to show up at my cubicle and make a huge scene. And well, seeing as his dad owned the damn company I was pretty sure , he wouldn’t be the one getting fired if that were to happen. 

So I called Hoseok up just to be sure.

“He’s not coming in today is he?” I whined, desperately , voice a little muffled around my toothbrush. 

“I have no idea, Areum.... The guy doesn’t have me on speed dial...”

I groaned. 

I would just have to roll the dice, it seemed. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You little bitch.” Jungkook’s voice, right next to my ear, was so unexpected that I sloshed the scalding hot water from the coffee pot all over my arm. 

“Fuck... Jeez, give a girl some warning will , you?” I hissed, grabbing a wad of napkins to soak up the mess on my arm and the counter. Before I could fully finish, he gripped my elbow and yanked hard, swinging me around so fast, I lost my footing, crashing into his chest. 

I stared up at him, furious. 

He was dressed in a fucking suit. I took in the broad , broad shoulders encased in a slightly sparkly black suit, the drool-worthy pecs straining against the fitted black shirt and the perfect knot of his tie and felt my mouth water. 

But it was the hair that did it for me. Gelled but un-styled, his long hair was a mess, falling into his eyes and he looked so much like a beast that had been forced to look civilized. 

“What the fuck do you want?” I hissed, annoyed and just a little aroused. Could someone’s fucking face be a kink? Like looking at Jungkook should not be a turn on, right? Where was the justice?

His hand snapped up , wrapping around my jaw with enough force to bruise and I felt my eyes widen in disbelief. I gripped his wrist, clawing at it trying to get him off but he grabbed both my wrists together with his free hand, squeezing till i winced. 

I closed my eyes when he bent low, teeth closing over my lower lip and biting down hard enough to hurt.

“Please..” I whispered, terrified because the break room door was open. Anyone could walk in and i’d be forced to file a sexual harassment charge against myself. 

“You think its fucking funny. playing with my brother’s heart?”

My pulse sped up at that.

“I wasn’t..... What do you mean, heart?” I stared at him, genuinely scared.

“You know he fucking likes you, Areum.... He asked you out for dinner.... You think its fair, making him think he has a chance just because you want to be a petty little , whining bitch?” 

Regret pulsed inside me, my throat going dry in genuine guilt. 

“I didn’t mean-” The fingers around my jaw tightened and this time the pain was enough to make my eyes water. 

“ I think, this thing between us needs to end. I don’t think you’re nearly a good enough lay for me to risk hurting my family.” He said softly and I felt my anger rise.

“Good. Let’s end things then. You think I can’t find someone else to fuck?” I challenged him and he smiled.

“Oh, baby I know you can find any number of dicks to take that slutty pussy for a ride but the question is , do any of those men actually know  how  to fuck you right?” 

I stayed quiet because he was right. I’d had enough bed partners to know that no one, no one came even close to Jungkook. He had probably wrung out more orgasms from me in a single week than all the other men in my life combined. The idea of not having him in my bed was..... terrible. We had gone through this before, some petty ass fight leading to us refusing to touch each other and  I had only lasted five days before having a mental breakdown from sheer horniness. Granted he had been the one to cave in on day 6 but still, it wasn’t an experience I wanted to relive. 

I stared at his gorgeous face and swallowed my dignity. 

“Fine... “ I gritted out. “ I’m sorry.” The last came out as a whisper, my pride refusing to let me say it any louder. 

His fingers slipped down to tilt my chin up.

“Didn’t catch that, dollface.....” He was smirking now. 

I stared at him.

“I said I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have played with your brother you’re right. But you shouldn’t have handcuffed me to the fucking bed...”

Jungkook hummed.

“Still with the passing blame.... I’m not  certain you’re nearly sorry enough. Maybe us taking a break is a good idea and-”

I reached out and clutched the lapels of his suit jacket pressing a desperate kiss to his mouth to cut him off. 

“No... Stop it.. I... I’m not faking it, okay? I did feel like shit after sleeping with him, its true and you’re right... he didn’t... he didn’t make me feel as good as you usually do. It’s true. Just... I’m sorry.” 

Jungkook’s eyes flashed , his pupils dilating and I gulped. 

“Not here.” I said sternly, knowing exactly what he was thinking and his arm came around me, hands dripping down to grip my ass, lifting me up till I was pressed right up against his crotch. He rolled his hips into mine and I felt the hardness of his erection as it pressed into my center. 

His eyes narrowed in annoyance, like I was being unreasonable by refusing to fuck him in the very public break room in his dad’s company on a monday morning. 

“So where? And it better be someplace we can get to in the next two minutes because I’m gonna stick my cock in your mouth in two minutes, regardless of where we are.” He said quietly , reaching up to hook his thumb into my mouth till my lips parted,  and then pushing his fore and middle finger inside. 

Fuck.

[sagamemes]

the sheridan tapes  📼  part one.   here and under the cut, you can find a little under 120 lines of dialogue from the horror podcast the sheridan tapes, specifically from episodes one to three, edited for roleplay purposes.  tw: police, murder, supernatural elements, mentions of apocalyptic scenarios, near death experiences, injuries, vehicular crash, recreational drug and alcohol use.

❝  jesus, [name]. you’re not making this easy, are you?  ❞

❝  makes you wonder... do these things follow me because i chase them, or were they always following me?  ❞

❝  darkness and complete disorientation does a number on the human brain.  ❞

❝  i don't think he was a werewolf.  ❞

❝  i’d call it the customer service smile. you know, the one that says  ‘ thank you for shopping with us, please die now ’.  ❞

❝  i’ve found the more showy the text, the less impressive the actual phenomena.  ❞

❝  my job here is kind of… shaky at the moment.  ❞

❝  [name] was also engaged in the study of the impossible in his free time.  ❞

❝  so it’s just me who drives you up the wall then?  ❞

❝  well, you’ll be happy to hear i haven’t been having any fun. no weed, no ghosts.  ❞

❝  there hasn’t been a new lead on her case in more than half a year.  ❞

❝  so here i am, wrapped up in a blanket, staring at my little fireplace, so bored i actually decided to call my sister for once.  ❞

❝  it’s a little town near bandon. very little. nice little mini-market, and that’s about it.  ❞

❝  i doubt i’ll sleep much tonight. that’s okay. i just feel like looking at the stars for a while.  ❞

❝  it's probably for the best. i am simultaneously exhausted from the drive and absolutely wired from the coffee.  ❞

❝  i wonder if there will still be ghosts out there when that happens?  when the earth is gone?  ❞

❝  glad to hear you’re enjoying yourself, then.  ❞

❝  knowing doesn’t make things any easier, but it does make them a little less frightening.  ❞

❝  that’s all just a lazy way of saying that the real explanation is too difficult—or too horrible—for them to accept.  ❞

❝  it almost killed me, but in the end it settled for putting me in pt for a year while i figured out how to use my hands again.  ❞

❝  he muttered something about my time being up. or maybe he said it wasn’t up.  ❞

❝  i don’t really care that i didn’t get any writing done today.  ❞

❝  nothing. not a single idea worth writing down, no itch i needed to scratch or question i needed to answer.  ❞

❝  guess there really is no such thing as bad press.  ❞

❝  i have no idea what a writer’s  ‘ process ’  usually looks like, but i’m pretty sure it’s not this.  ❞

❝  see what i have to deal with?  god… siblings, am i right?  ❞

❝  what can i say?  i have a soft spot for gothic architecture.  ❞

❝  computers have never been very good at reconciling paradoxes.  ❞

❝  they’re pretty much over funding my little expeditions.  ❞

❝  that kind of smile doesn’t normally show that many teeth.  ❞

❝  you know, that’s only scary the first few times you do it.  ❞

❝  one day, it will be dead. one day all the stars will burn out, go dark and silent. one day, everything will be so dark and so cold that no new stars can ever be born. the old ones will blink out one by one, like candles going out, and then… nothing. silence. darkness. void.  ❞

❝  the simplest explanation is almost always the right one.  ❞

❝  i don’t remember getting in my van, putting the key in the ignition, or speeding away from that house, but i must have.  ❞

❝  no, no, i’m fine, i’m fine, just go bother someone else.  ❞

❝  i haven’t eaten, moved, or written anything all day.  ❞

❝  but maybe that's just the fact that it is two in the morning and my brain is running mostly on caffeine.  ❞

❝  given how good a [job] he is, i know it’s not the first time he’s done it.  ❞

❝  i escaped, but i knew that whatever was in that house has just marked me as prey.  ❞

❝  calm down. think. you’re just going to confuse yourself.  ❞

❝  just wanted to tell you a couple of us are headed out to marvin’s for drinks if you want to come.  ❞

❝  one of the most disappointing things about living in america is the lack of genuinely haunted houses. out of all the supposed haunts i’ve visited, maybe one in ten seems like the real deal.  ❞

❝  sounds… peaceful. not many distractions, then?  ❞

❝  something tells me this tape wasn’t played in court.  ❞

❝  one of the neighbours must have called 911.  ❞

❝  my infamous accident. it almost killed me.  ❞

❝  i just woke up to footsteps in the kitchen. i don’t know who, or what, but there’s someone in here with me!  ❞

❝  could you shut the door on your way out, please?  ❞

❝  uh, wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon.  ❞

❝  the fire that i said went out?  yeah, it just started burning again.  ❞

❝  so i asked him to lie.  ❞

❝  it'd really be just a few of us. maybe me and [name] and one or two other tagalongs…  ❞

❝  apparently, the press had a lot of questions too.  ❞

❝  i’ve driven more than 8 hours and drunk enough bad coffee to give an elephant heart palpitations. i’m sure as hell going to get my money’s worth.  ❞

❝  oh sorry, am i bothering you now? what happened to  ‘ call anytime you want, [name] ’ or,  ‘ you’re always welcome here, [name] ’ ?  ❞

❝  i’ve forgotten to charge my phone. again.  ❞

❝  i… think i’m going to turn around now.  ❞

❝  well sorry if i wanted to have a nice talk with my sister for a change.  ❞

❝  will it just be left there forever? our legacy? look upon our works, ye mighty, and despair?  ❞

❝  no matter how far away from home you are, no matter how different the constellations might look from where you’re standing, you can always look up on a clear, dark night and feel like you’re about to fall right into it—the terrifying, endless expanse of nothingness.  ❞

❝  i know authors can do some crazy things to get out of writer’s block, but i’ve never heard of one resorting to arson.  ❞

❝  why do you always think there’s something wrong?  ❞

❝  ours is not to question why, ours is but to digitize and stay the hell out of trouble.  ❞

❝  so let’s try walking backwards. just keep an eye on it.  ❞

❝  i got lucky. or maybe i was just fast enough to escape.  ❞

❝  maybe there are secret passages behind the walls and corridors.  ❞

❝  no matter how far i walked, i couldn’t find the way i came in.  ❞

❝  well, i /know/ i’ve had worst nights. i just can’t think of any right now.  ❞

❝  i do want you to have fun, [name], i just don’t want you to get yourself killed doing it.  ❞

❝  i mean, obviously, i do care, that’s the whole reason i made this trip. to get away from the noise and focus.  ❞

❝  i might have… forgotten to tell anyone where i was going.  ❞

❝  before i get started, there’s just one thing i need to say. i have absolutely no patience for the unexplained, or the things people call  ‘ unexplainable ’,  ‘ supernatural ’, or  ‘ paranormal ’.  ❞

❝  i told [name] that i needed to get out, to get inspired.  ❞

❝  okay, if someone is messing with me, they’re going to be very sorry, very quickly.  ❞

❝  [name] lied his ass off to save yours.  ❞

❝  a crash like that does funny things to your head.  ❞

❝  i still don’t know how he got there without me noticing.  ❞

❝  any plans i had to travel abroad went up in smoke.  ❞

❝  i thought of pulling out the bad cop routine.  ❞

❝  strange how something so dead can be so beautiful.  ❞

❝  it hated me:  hated what i do, and more than that, hated who i am.  ❞

❝  lots of tall tales. and more than a few ghost stories.  ❞

❝  oh good, you’re still here!  ❞

❝  reviewers absolutely grilled it:  said it was a nonsensical rip off of the dark tower, whatever that means.  ❞

❝  i jumped out the window. cut my hands on the glass, but thankfully not bad enough to need stitches  ❞

❝  i told her, tonight.  ❞

❝  for a minute, i wondered if that would really be so bad. it was a fitting way to go, given my… well, everything.  ❞

❝  i suppose that’s a universal constant—maybe the only one.  ❞

❝  i never let myself get this turned around. especially not at night.  ❞

❝  i don’t know if it’s actually haunted. but if not, then it was sure as hell convincing.  ❞

❝  i’m not one of those people who thinks she’s the spawn of satan or something ridiculous like that.  ❞

❝  unless i’m prepared to accept that she was murdered by something that crawled out of a funhouse mirror, this isn’t much help with the case, either.  ❞

❝  i have to try and work some actual cases the rest of the time. you know, cases that might have some answers i can find.  ❞

❝  it's cold, damp, and dark as night. i'm in my element, at least.  ❞

❝  your place is waiting for you.  ❞

❝  yeah, i’m all good. great… hanging in there, you know?  one day at a time.  ❞

❝  oh, i see you. you think i’m still scared of [thing], huh?  think you can freak me out?  ❞

❝  trust me, i’ve had a hell of a day, and you do not want to mess with a pissed off…  ❞

❝  and tell my sister i'm sorry.  ❞

❝  oh god, it's cold.  ❞

❝  the night sky really is beautiful out here.  ❞

❝  tell him he shouldn’t have been such a good liar.  ❞

❝  i’ve been listening to this for the last two weeks now.  ❞

❝  it’s not even that i’m having bad ideas. i’m not having any at all.  ❞

❝  can’t get away from the work, no matter what i do.  ❞

❝  i made sure i switched off my phone before i came up here, just in case.  ❞

❝  god, these things smell of weed.  ❞

❝  yeah, well… just wanted to make sure you’re okay, you know?  ❞

❝  [name] is dead. that's all there is to it.  ❞

❝  no, i need to get out of here. it’s been a long day.  ❞

❝  a lot of the art i found was just paintings of a night sky full of stars.  ❞

❝  my job is to look the facts dead in the face and find an explanation. one that will hold up in a court of law.  ❞

❝  personal and career choices, i guess you’d call them.  ❞

❝  damn. i could’ve sworn i felt something strange about this place when i hiked through this morning… or maybe it was a different part. hard to tell this late at night, anyway.  ❞

❝  well, let’s just say a middle-aged man-child running out panicked and tearing at his eyes would hardly be a marketable image.  ❞

❝  i didn’t mind that i’d be alone—i always expected that to be how i went.  ❞

❝  i’m sure that’s on my personnel file by now, as if it could get any more problematic.  ❞

[lacetulle]

Hey there! Aspiring fashion designer here! I'm getting more and more into fashion and designing/ planning more and more outfits and I was wondering if you have any tips to get more into haute contour and fashion in general. Your blog has really helped me get a grasp of what I like and I all around love it!

I’m happy this blog could help in figuring out what styles you like! There are a ton of different mediums to get into fashion! I’ve compiled a list of options via videos, websites, and books. So strap in, this is a long post.

Since you already have an idea of who you like, I always suggest reading up on that brand/label/designer and going through their archives. For me, when I realized how much I loved Dior and knew I wanted to learn more, it was overwhelming at times because the label has such a long history. If you really like newer labels, like Zuhair Murad, Elie Saab, Iris van Herpen, etc., it’s a little more manageable to read up on the history and designers just because they were founded in the ‘90s/‘00s.

In terms of websites, I have a few to talk about.

Vogue. This is the easiest avenue to get into fashion. I’m not knocking it, because I use it the most for photos, but as far as websites go, it’s the most dumbed-down. But I mean that in the best way! The features, trend reports, and runway news appeals to even the most casual fashion fan. Vogue focuses mainly on big name/commercialized brands (Dior, Valentino, Gucci, etc.) rather than smaller ones (like Guo Pei and Ralph & Russo, two big couture names these days, get minimal coverage with Vogue). Vogue is a great resource for runway looks...it was my gateway into studying older runway collections. All in all, in terms of websites, Vogue is the tip of the fashion media iceberg.  If you want to get into the more meatier parts of fashion, there are better sites.

Harper’s Bazaar. Like Vogue, it’s easy to navigate and leans more towards the more well-known fashion brands. Pre-covid, they always had a weekly street style recap as well. They have great lists but stay away from the business side of fashion. I typically use Harper’s Bazaar for the street style/every day fashion inspiration and news.

Who What Wear. A great site for following trends. They don’t focus so much on brands, but it’s a great resource for seeing what’s trending and options to buy said trends. For example, Who What Wear is the first place I went when I wanted to find a list of brands who were starting to sell masks.

WWD. Supposedly most designers prefer WWD to Vogue coverage.  And it shows, since parts of the site require a subscription. WWD is one of the more technical sites and could be overwhelming for someone who doesn’t really understand the industry. They talk about the comings-and-goings of creative directors, financial news, and general fashion trends/news. It also has runway recaps and photos, which is typically what I use it for. If you’re really want to be in the know with breaking fashion news, they do offer email newsletters as well for a more condensed version of the site. Also, a super helpful page I’ve had bookmarked, their fashion dictionary.

Business of Fashion.  The name is pretty self-explanatory.  BoF is another one of those meatier sites that could be overwhelming at first. It’s also one that has a subscription service. BoF has great profiles of designers, so I’ve used the site as my starting point when learning about someone new. The BoF500 also showcases anyone and everyone who has a hand in shaping the industry.

The Impression. The cheapest of the subscription sites and the one I had until I cancelled a few months ago (not because it sucked, but, you know…corona). I mainly used them for their runway pictures. They were so fast to upload them, with details and backstage footage. The big draw is the fashion week/runway photography, but the talk about street style, short films and ads from brands, as well as fashion trends. At the end of every fashion week (New York, Milan, Paris, etc.) the put together a recap list of biggest trends, top shows, top models, and break down the numbers. I love the site for its minimalism and whenever the industry decides to have fashion weeks again, I’ll renew my subscription.

Magazines:  Most people would say Vogue is the holy grail for fashion magazines, but I don’t think it’s that great (at least the US version).  Vogue Paris, Italia, and UK are better in my opinion. And just because I don’t think the print version of US Vogue is the holy grail, doesn’t mean I don’t like it.  I have a subscription and read it every month. Other options I really like are Harper’s Bazaar (any country’s version), Elle, InStyle, and W.

Videos: Other than the first one listed (which can be found on Netflix or Hulu, depending where you live), everything can be found on youtube. And now i’m constantly getting fashion recommendations on youtube, so it’s an easy rabbit hole to fall into.

First Monday in May. I’ve talked about this documentary before, but it bears repeating.  It’s a gorgeous journey of how the Met Gala and Costume Institute Exhibit was put together. It’s about the ‘China: Through the Looking Glass’ exhibit in 2015. They interview big designers about how China has influenced some of their collections, and takes on the debate of whether fashion should even be in a museum. It was the first fashion documentary I ever watched and only made me fall more in love with fashion (and want to see every fashion exhibition).

The September Issue. Vogue’s September issues are always the biggest of the year.  This documentary follows the process of designing the famous September issue of Vogue. I believe it was filmed in 2007 or 2008 so it’s dated, and digital media has changed the game, but it’s a good watch to see just how influential and important the September issue is in terms of forecasting fashion trends for the following year.

Savoir Faire: Christian Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2011. A 50 minute video on how one, just one, piece from the couture collection was designed.  It’s a great insight on just how much work goes in to creating a couture collection.

7 Days Out with Karl Lagerfeld. Another great showcase of the week leading up to a couture show, this time with Chanel. The documentary follows the 2018 show, which is one of Lagerfeld’s last few couture shows before his death.

Battle At Versailles: The Competition that Shook the Fashion Industry. It’s no secret that Paris is the epicenter of fashion.  The couture houses are all based there, so France is typically where you needed to be to be a world renowned designer. In 1973 French and American designers competed against each other and brought American designers into the spotlight. There’s an hour long documentary on youtube and there’s a book that I’ve linked below. I’ve seen the video and I’m currently reading the book, so you have options here.

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams. A good look at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs exhibit for the 70th anniversary of Dior. This documentary gives a nice, condensed look at each of the artistic directors of Dior and showcases some of the most iconic Dior looks. I knew about it, but didn’t go see it. I only saw pictures, which were beautiful…but to see it all come together on video was a dream.  They talk to Celine Dion for a minute at the end, and her words sum up my feelings best about Dior, “I would love to wear one of these dresses one day, maybe in one of my lifetimes, or every night in my dreams.”

Books:

Inside Haute Couture: Behinds the Scenes at the Paris Ateliers. A gorgeous book with tons of photos about the intricacies that go in to a couture collection.

Kate Spade New York: All in Good Taste. I originally bought it for my coffee table collection, but it has some great style tips.

The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History. Just in case you’d rather read about this legendary fashion show than watch. I’m currently reading it, so I can’t give you my final take on it. But I’m loving it so far.

Dior by Dior: Christian Dior’s autobiography. Who better to tell you about the history of Christian Dior, than Dior himself.

Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography. I’m a big fan of Schiaparelli and would love for her legacy to be more widely known. She was a very private person, so when this biography dropped I was excited to read more about her. Elsa Schiaparelli was Coco Chanel’s biggest rival and was a household name in her time, but most people know Coco’s name over Elsa’s today. This is a nice dive into Schiaparelli’s life, since most people focus on Chanel’s legacy (and let’s be honest, Chanel is very idolized, which is so unfortunate, given her Nazi ties, but I digress.)

Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. I tend to rave about the designs by these two, so it’s a good look into their journey in fashion.

The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genuis, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris. If you’re interested in Lagerfeld (pre-Chanel days) or Yves Saint Laurent, it’s a great retrospective look at their rivalry.

Champagne Supernovas. If ‘90s fashion is something of interest, this book is a great read on how some big name rebels (McQueen, Marc Jacobs, Kate Moss, etc.) in the industry remade fashion as we know it.

Any of the Met Gala books: Camp: Notes on Fashion, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, Manus x Machina, Heavenly Bodies, etc.  My first one was the McQueen book, and at the time I didn’t know it was the official book from the Costume Institute Exhibit.  They’re not all hardcover coffee table-esque books, but if you can’t attend an exhibit it’s the next best thing. They’re all great in-depth resources for learning about a certain area of fashion. They can be expensive, so I wouldn’t suggest investing in them unless you’re truly interested in that specific aspect of the industry. This year’s exhibit - whenever it opens - is About Time: Fashion and Duration.  The exhibition book is already available and I think it’ll be an incredible exhibit of how current designers pull from older designers and trends.

The Fashion Book.  It’s expensive. It’s massive. And it gives you a wealth of information. It’s essentially an encyclopedia for fashion. It’s not just designers; it highlights models, high profile photographers, style icons, and all those who influenced fashion.

I know this was long, but these have been the resources I’ve used over the years. I hope this can help you along your journey and if anyone has other things to add, please do!

[asianartsblog]

LEK BORJA RENEWS FILIPINO HISTORY THROUGH ART

BY PRECIOUS RINGOR

Asian Pasifika Arts Collective New Outlooks Blog

April 2, 2021

http://ow.ly/fEby50FlQWZ

Editor’s Note: Precious Ringor brings us a second artist profile, this time of Filipino American interdisciplinary artist and poet Lek Borja, whose work is an attempt to track the continuous colonization across time, first within the Philippines from Spain and the United States, through present day America and trying to give voice to Filipino life against a white hegemony. Precious displays how Lek crosses borders of cultural stereotypes, seeking to expand the visions placed on Filipinos by other oppressive powers, and inserting her culture in art spaces where they are new and unfamiliar, but for the community, reminders of home.

Header Image: “Heritage at the Threshold” by Timothy Singratsomboune | Digital photography collage, 5400 x 4050 px, 2021.

Getting to know someone virtually is one of the sad realities we’ve had to face because of COVID-19 regulations. It’s both a blessing and a curse—we’ve become a global village, but at the same time we’ve all had more eye and back problems from sitting around and zooming this past year. 

A zoom call and an hour was all I had to get to know Lek Vercauteren Borja, a Filipino American interdisciplinary artist and poet widely known for her thought-provoking work into the Asian diaspora. Chatting with Lek didn’t feel like a job though; time flies fast when you’re having fun.

One of the things I noted was Lek’s warm and friendly nature. Most of the time, it’s uncommon for an interviewee to ask questions about the interviewer. Lek unabashedly admitted that she did a bit of ‘stalking’ before we hopped on Zoom, “I like to know about the person I’m talking with, even before the interview starts.” 

Lek started in poetry. Armed with a love for Shakespeare, she pursued a dual concentration in Art and Creative Writing at Antioch University. It was there that she first fell in love with art history and sculpture. During that time, her first chapbook, Android, was published by Plan B Press. She took this as a sign to continue pursuing a career in arts. 

As an artist, she admits that’s where she gets inspiration from, “I want to talk about the history of Filipinos, the invisible stories. Growing up in the Philippines and studying there, I realized there was a lot missing in our history books. It seemed as if it were written from a western perspective.” She reminded me so much of the Philippines, of home. Because of our similar upbringing, I immediately understood her search for truth.

The themes of home and longing, of memory and the present, and of giving Filipino lives new voices, carry across her work, and no more palpably than her piece Evolution of the Aswang Myth, what she calls “seed and the origin” to all her current works. Lek says “Without it, I wouldn’t be thinking about art, the way I’m making now.” This 8 x 8 feet painting explores the origins of the aswang or manananggal, a Filipino mythical creature typically depicted as a woman feared for its penchant for eating infants and unborn fetuses during the night. Interestingly, the aswang was also a word ascribed to the Filipina women who went against the forced religious conversion by Spanish friars during their colonization of the Philippines. 

March 2021 marked 500 years since Spanish ships first arrived on the shores of the Philippines. 

Since then, our country fought hard for liberation, first from Spain and then from the United States of America. In retrospect, it hasn’t been long since the Philippines became an independent nation. Today, we are striving to find our voice amidst the imperialistic erasure we’ve endured.

As Lek puts it, “What propelled me to tell these stories is the feeling that I had no voice. For one, I didn’t speak English well so I couldn’t really talk about what I was going through or how I felt. That’s why a lot of my work now focuses on bringing my experiences of living in the Philippines at the forefront and seeing how that’s connected to bigger conversations and narratives around us.” 

Currently, Lek’s work called Anak (My Child) is being featured in the gallery at Towson University’s Asian Arts & Culture Center. 

View Anak (My Child) Exhibit: https://towson.edu/anak

Besides online exhibitions and virtual galleries, Lek is also conducting several workshops in Baltimore’s upcoming Asia North Festival. These workshops are a good model for Lek’s philosophy in making art out of personal histories. Whether it’s experiences of displacement or change, she points out that everyone’s story matters and there will always be a community of people who can empathize with that.   

“I think it’s really important for our stories to be brought to light in the larger narrative. They think by calling us model minority, our problems can easily be brushed aside” I lamented the steady rise of xenophobic crimes these past few months.  

“I agree, it’s a really complex issue” Lek adds, “Why are we so silent? Why do we stand in the shadows? I’ll probably look for an answer my entire life. It’s hard to talk about our struggles and it’s not easy to have conversations about the past. There’s a culture of silence that’s been normalized and it’s perpetuated even in our own homes. But that’s part of the work I do, bringing everything from the past into the forefront so we can have deeper conversations about it.” 

Speaking of the past, Lek’s introduction to the arts started in Tarlac, a city located north of the Philippines. Besides being known as the most multicultural province, the city is home to numerous sugar and rice plantations. “The population of our barrio was probably less than 1,000. Our family had a farm as well as a sugar-cane and rice field plantation. My inang [grandmother] also worked in the market as a butcher. It was a pretty simple country lifestyle but my childhood was amazing.” 

Life in the country has been instrumental to Lek’s artistry. “The memory of the landscape and of the community is an extension of my art,” Lek explains. As a young girl, her biggest inspiration comes from her grandfather who, like herself, was also an artist. Lek would copy his drawings and eventually create drawings of her own. Recently, Lek has started to incorporate banana leaves into her work. Banana leaves are incredibly important to Filipino culture as it is used for cooking and traditional homebuilding. 

“Sounds like you had to find your own path, coming here at such a young age and experiencing culture shock. America is very different from the Philippines!” I quipped.

“It was snowing where I first came here!” she exclaimed, thinking back to her initial introduction of America. “It was November when we landed in New York, it was freezing. I remember our families bundling us in huge warm winter coats before wecould even say hello. It was definitely a huge shock.”

I laugh, thinking back to when I first arrived in California ten years ago. Silly to think I was already freezing in sunny temperatures when she had to endure piles of snow. “Do you think you’ve had to change yourself in order to adjust to that culture shock?” 

“For a long time I really didn’t know who I was,” Lek admits. “When I was younger, the school I went to was predominantly white. What I thought about how I should present myself came from that image. I dyed my hair blond and put on blue colored contacts to fit in. It was a lot of assimilation and cultural erasure. I started talking less Tagalog and less Ilocano. But art has really helped me find myself. It made me think more deeply about who I really was and what was important to me on an authentic level.” 

Halfway through our conversation, we slowly realized just how similar we were. From migrating at the age of ten to living twenty miles apart in the same city. It was also in chatting that Lek found out I spoke Tagalog fluently, one thing she regrets losing unexpectedly. As it is my first language, Lek asked me to speak it instead. Once again, her warm nature bled through the Zoom interview; I found it refreshing since hardly anyone thinks about the interviewer’s comfort. 

Unsurprisingly, community building is important to Lek. Before working, she likes to ask herself the following questions, ‘How is what I’m doing connected to my family and everyone in the Filipino community? How can I better serve my community?’ One of the main reasons she moved to L.A. is to network with other Filipino artists. 

“A few years ago, I showed my art alongside a group of all Filipino artists at Avenue 50 Studio gallery for an exhibition that Nica Aquino and Anna Calubayan organized (also both Filipinas). It’s crazy because I’ve lived in and out [of L.A.] for over 10 years now and it was only in 2019 that I started to be part of that community. It’s probably the most fun I've had at an art show, I really felt at home.” 

“I’d love to visit the studio’s galleries once it’s safer to go outside” 

“Definitely! I’ll keep you updated on any gatherings” Lek pitched excitedly.

“And I'll bring you guys homemade ube cakes and puto pao!” I teasingly replied back.

As our call came to a close I couldn’t help but ask Lek if she had any advice to give to budding AAPI artists. 

“I’ll echo what people who have supported me have said in the past: trust yourself and trust that you can make a difference. It’s hard to figure out who you want to be when [the world] has expectations and demands from you. We’re lucky to live in a time where there’s so many possibilities. Figure out what you want to do authentically and genuinely, and go for it.” 

Lek continues on, “Personally, it took me a long time to find my voice. When I was in grad school, I had a lot of doubt in myself because most visiting artists and curators couldn’t understand my work. What made it all worth it were the moments that people got [my voice] right away.”  

Getting to know Lek and learning about her commitment to showcasing invisible stories has been awe-inspiring; it made me proud to be a Filipino American artist. And in the wake of our hurting AAPI community, I believe it’s incredibly important, now more than ever, to highlight and support works of people like Lek. People who have had to fight for their voice in this world, who our youth could look up to and be inspired to become. 

About the Author:

Precious Ringor is a Filipino-American singer/actress/writer residing in Los Angeles, CA. Ringor graduated from Cal State University, Fullerton with a degree in Human Communication Studies where her research is geared towards Asian American socio-cultural communication norms. Besides performing in various theatre shows and indie film sets, Ringor also works as a content contributor to Film Fest Magazine and Outspoken

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#8yrsago David Byrne's How Music Works

Former Talking Heads frontman and all-round happy mutant David Byrne has written several good books, but his latest, How Music Works, is unquestionably the best of the very good bunch, possibly the book he was born to write. I could made good case for calling this How Art Works or even How Everything Works.

Though there is plenty of autobiographical material How Music Works that will delight avid fans (like me) -- inside dope on the creative, commercial and personal pressures that led to each of Byrne's projects -- this isn't merely the story of how Byrne made it, or what he does to turn out such great and varied art. Rather, this is an insightful, thorough, and convincing account of the way that creativity, culture, biology and economics interact to prefigure, constrain and uplift art. It's a compelling story about the way that art comes out of technology, and as such, it's widely applicable beyond music.

Byrne lived through an important transition in the music industry: having gotten his start in the analog recording world, he skilfully managed a transition to an artist in the digital era (though not always a digital artist). As such, he has real gut-feel for the things that technology gives to artists and the things that technology takes away. He's like the kids who got their Apple ][+s in 1979, and keenly remember the time before computers were available to kids at all, the time when they were the exclusive domain of obsessive geeks, and the point at which they became widely exciting, and finally, ubiquitous -- a breadth of experience that offers visceral perspective.

There were so many times in this book when I felt like Byrne's observations extended beyond music and dance and into other forms of digital creativity. For example, when Byrne recounted his first experiments with cellular automata exercise for dance choreography, from his collaboration with Noemie Lafrance:

1. Improvise moving to the music and come up with an eight-count phrase (in dance, a phrase is a short series of moves that can be repeated).

2. When you find a phrase you like, loop (repeat) it.

3. When you see someone else with a stronger phrase, copy it.

4. When everyone is doing the same phrase, the exercise is over.

It was like watching evolution on fast-forward, or an emergent lifeform coming into being. At first the room was chaos, writhing bodies everywhere. At first the room was chaos, writhing bodies everywhere. Then one could see that folks had chosen their phrases, and almost immediately one could see a pocket of dancers who had all adopted the same phrase. The copying had already begun, albeit in just one area. This pocket of copying began to expand, to go viral, while yet another one now emerged on the other side of the room. One clump grew faster than the other, and within four minutes the whole room was filled with dancers moving in perfect unison. Unbelievable! It only took four minutes for this evolutionary process to kick in, and for the "strongest" (unfortunate word, maybe) to dominate.

I remembered the first time I programmed an evolutionary algorithm and watched its complexity emerging from simple rules, and the catch in my throat as I realized that I was watching something like life being built up from simple, inert rules.

The book is shot through with historical examples and arguments about the nature of music, from Plato up to contemporary neuroscience, and here, too, many of the discussions are microcosms for contemporary technical/philosophical debates. There's a passage about how music is felt and experienced that contains the phrase, "music isn't merely absorbed above the neck," which is spookily similar to the debates about replicating human consciousness in computers, and the idea that our identity doesn't reside exclusively above the brainstem.

The same is true of Byrne's account of how music has not "progressed" from a "primitive" state -- rather, it adapted itself to different technological realities. Big cathedrals demand music that accommodates a lot of reverb; village campfire music has completely different needs. Reading this, I was excited by the parallels to discussions of whether we live in an era of technological "progress" or merely technological "change" -- is there a pinnacle we're climbing, or simply a bunch of stuff followed by a bunch of other stuff? Our overwhelming narrative of progress feels like hubris to me, at least a lot of the time. Some things are "better" (more energy efficient, more space-efficient, faster, more effective), but there are plenty of things that are held up as "better" that, to me, are simply different. Often very good, but in no way a higher rung on some notional ladder toward perfection.

When Byrne's history comes to the rise of popular recorded music, he describes a familiar dilemma: recording artists were asked to produce music that could work when performed live and when listened to in the listener's private playback environment -- not so different from the problems faced by games developers today who struggle to make games that will work on a wide variety of screens. In a later section, he describes the solution that was arrived at in the 1970s, a solution that reminds me a lot of the current world of content management systems like WordPress and Blogger, which attempt to separate "meaning" from "form" for text, storing them separately and combining them with little code-libraries called "decorators":

[Deconstruct and isolate] sums up the philosophy of a lot of music recording back in the late seventies. The goal was to get as pristine a sound as possible... Studios were often padded with sound-absorbent materials so that there was almost no reverberation. The sonic character of the space was sucked out, because it wasn't considered to be part of the music. Without this ambiance, it was explained, the sound would be more malleable after the recording had been made. Dead, characterless sound was held up as the ideal, and often still is. In this philosophy, the naturally occurring echo and reverb that normally added a little warmth to performances would be removed and then added back in when the recording was being mixed...

Recording a performance with a band and singer all playing together at the same time in the same room was by this time becoming a rarity. An incredible array of options opened up as a result, but some organic interplay between the musicians disappeared, and the sound of music changed. Some musicians who played well in live situations couldn't adapt to the fashion for each player to be isolated. They couldn't hear their bandmates and, as a result, often didn't play very well.

Changing the technology used in art changes the art, for good and ill. Blog-writing has a lot going for it -- spontaneity, velocity, vernacular informality, but often lacks the reflective distance that longer-form works bring. Byrne has similar observations about music and software:

What you hear [in contemporary music] is the shift in music structure that computer-aided composition has encouraged. Though software is promoted as being an unbiased toold that helps us do anything we want, all software has inherent biases that make working one way easier than another. With the Microsoft presentation software PowerPoint, for example, you have to simplify your presentations so much that the subtle nuances in the subject being discussed often get edited out. These nuances are not forbidden, they're not blocked, but including them tends to make for a less successful presentation. Likewise, that which is easy to bullet-point and simply visualize works better. That doesn't mean it actually is better; it means working is certain ways is simply easier than working in others...

An obvious example is quantizing. Since the mid-nineties, most popular music recorded on computers has had tempos and rhythms that have been quantized. That means that the tempo never varies, not even a little bit, the the rhythmic parts tend toward metronomic perfection. In the past, the tempo of recordings would always vary slightly, imperceptibly speeding up or maybe slowing down a little, or a drum fill might hesitate in order to signal the beginning of a new section. You'd feel a slight push and pull, a tug and then a release, as ensembles of whatever type responded to one another and lurched, ever so slightly, ahead of and behind an imaginary metronomic beat. No more. Now almost all pop recordings are played to a strict tempo, which makes these compositions fit more easily into the confines of editing and recording software. An eight-bar section recorded on a "grid" of this type is exactly twice as long as a four-bar section, and every eight-bar section is always exactly the same length. This makes for a nice visual array on the computer screen, and facilitates easy editing, arranging, and repairing as well. Music has come to accommodate software, and I have to admit a lot has been gained as a result.

Byrne is well aware of the parallels between music technology and other kinds of technology. No history of the recording business would be complete without a note about the format wars fought between Edison and his competitors like RCA, who made incompatible, anti-competitive playback formats. Byrne explicitly links this to modern format-wars, citing MS Office, Kindles, iPads and Pro Tools. (His final word on the format wars rings true for other media as well: "Throughout the history of recorded music, we have tended to value convenience over quality every time. Edison cylinders didn't really sound as good as live performers, but you could carry them around and play them whenever you wanted.")

Likewise, debates over technological change (pooh-poohing the "triviality" of social media or the ephemeral character of blogs) are played out in Byrne's history of music panics, which start in ancient Greece, and play out in situations like the disco wars, which prefigured the modern fight over sampling:

The most threatening thing to rockers in the era of disco was that the music was gay, black and "manufactured" on machines, made out of bits of other peoples' recordings.

Like mixtapes. I'd argue that other than race and sex, [the fact that disco was "manufactured" on machines, made out of bits of other peoples' recordings] was the most threatening aspect. To rock purists, this new music messed with the idea of authorship. If music was now accepted as a kind of property, then this hodgepodge version that disregarded ownership and seemed to belong to and originate with so many people (and machines) called into question a whole social and economic framework.

But as Byrne reminds us, new technology can liberate new art forms. Digital formats and distribution have given us music that is only a few bars long, and compositions that are intended to play for 1,000 years. The MP3 shows us that 3.5 minutes isn't an "ideal" length for a song (merely the ideal length for a song that's meant to be sold on a 45RPM single), just as YouTube showed us that there are plenty of video stories that want to be two minutes long, rather than shoehorned into 22 minute sitcoms, 48 minute dramas, or 90 minute feature films.

And Byrne's own journey has led him to be skeptical of the all-rights-reserved model, from rules over photography and video in his shows:

The thing we were supposed to be fighting against was actually something we should be encouraging. They were getting the word out, and it wasn't costing me anything. I began to announce at the beginning of the shows that photography was welcome, but I suggested to please only post shots and videos where we look good.

To a very good account of the power relationships reflected in ascribing authorship (and ownership, and copyright) to melody, but not to rhythms and grooves and textures, though these are just as important to the music's aesthetic effect.

Byrne doesn't focus exclusively on recording, distribution and playback technology. He is also a keen theorist of the musical implications of architecture, and presents a case-study of the legendary CBGB's and its layout, showing how these led to its center in the 1970s New York music scene that gave us the Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, and many other varied acts. Here, Byrne channels Jane Jacobs in a section that is nothing short of brilliant in its analysis of how small changes (sometimes on the scale of inches) make all the difference to the kind of art that takes place in a building.

There's a long section on the mechanics of the recording business as it stands today, with some speculation about where its headed, and included in this is a fabulous and weird section on some of Byrne's own creative process. Here he describes how he collaborated with Brian Eno on Everything That Happens Will Happen Today:

The unwritten rule in remote collaborations is, for me, "Leave the other person's stuff alone as much as you possibly can." You work with what you're given, and don't try to imagine it as something other than what it is. Accepting that half the creative decision-making has already been done has the effect of bypassing a lot of endless branching -- not to mention waffling and worrying.

And here's a mind-bending look into his lyrics-writing method:

...I begin by improvising a melody over the music. I do this by singing nonsense syllables, but with weirdly inappropriate passion, given that I'm not saying anything. Once I have a wordless melody and a vocal arrangement my my collaborators (if there are any) and I like, I'll begin to transcribe that gibberish as if it were real words.

I'll listen carefully to the meaningless vowels and consonants on the recording, and I'll try to understand what that guy (me), emoting so forcefully by inscrutably, is actually saying. It's like a forensic exercise. I'll follow the sound of the nonsense syllables as closely as possible. If a melodic phrase of gibberish ends on a high ooh sound, then I'll transcribe that, and in selecting the actual words, I'll try to try to choose one that ends in that syllable, or as close to it as I can get. So the transcription process often ends up with a page of real words, still fairly random, that sounds just like the gibberish.

I do that because the difference between an ooh and an aah, and a "b" and a "th" sound is, I assume, integral to the emotion that the story wants to express. I want to stay true to that unconscious, inarticulate intention. Admittedly, that content has no narrative, or might make no literal sense yet, but it's in there -- I can hear it. I can feel it. My job at this stage is to find words that acknowledge and adhere to the sonic and emotional qualities rather than to ignore and possibly destroy them.

Part of what makes words work in a song is how they sound to the ear and feel on the tongue. If they feel right physiologically, if the tongue of the singer and the mirror neurons of the listener resonate with the delicious appropriateness of the words coming out, then that will inevitably trump literal sense, although literal sense doesn't hurt.

Naturally, this leads into a great discussion of the neuroscience of music itself -- why our brains like certain sounds and rhythms.

How Music Works gave me insight into parts of my life as diverse as my email style to how I write fiction to how I parent my daughter (it was a relief to read Byrne's discussion of how parenting changed him as an artist). I've been a David Byrne fan since I was 13 and I got a copy of Stop Making Sense. He's never disappointed me, but with How Music Works, Byrne has blown through my expectations, producing a book that I'll be thinking of and referring to for years to come.

Byrne's touring the book now, and as his tour intersects with my own book tours, I'll be interviewing him live on stage in Toronto on September 19th, at the Harbourfront International Festival of Authors.

How Music Works

https://boingboing.net/2012/09/12/david-byrnes-how-music-w.html

[ofnifflersandkings]

Title: A Visit Character: Markus: DBH Previous Part: http://ofnifflersandkings.tumblr.com/post/174859350557/title-making-friends-character-markus-dbh-an A/n: I’m super pleased people seemed to enjoy my last dbh imagine, feel free to leave any requests for other characters as well, I’ll be happy to receive them!!

•

You exhaled deeply another customer exited the paint shop, leaning over the counter to rest your head upon your folded arms. You had been working since early that morning, and in that whole time only a handful of people came inside, leaving you terribly bored.

You closed your eyes, trying to fight the lingering headache that threatened to make the last of your shift completely miserable.

The sound of someone clearing their throat made your head shoot up from where it rested, coming face to face with Markus.

“Oh hello!” You said enthusiastically, happy to see the familiar android. “Back so soon?”

Markus nodded, almost forgetting what he was doing there before he spoke. “I mentioned you to Carl the other day, and he ordered me to invite you over to our place.”

“Really?” You questioned, to which he only responded with a nod. “Well, I have a few minutes left before my shift ends. You can wait in the shop if you want.”

And that’s what Markus did. He patiently waited for you, keeping himself busy with some of the digital books situated in the shop, until you pulled him from his reading, already with your coat on.

•

The walk to Carl’s was pleasant, you had convinced him out of taking the bus, not wanting to sit awkwardly while he was forced to stand in the android cart. It took longer, but you helped pass the time with small talk.

Your introduction with Carl was brief, but very pleasant. He was situated inside the living room when you two walked in. He mentioned how his art representative was cracking down on him to finish his latest mural, so he’d have to leave you in Markus’ care for the evening.

The colors in the house were very rich and bright, there were various pieces of artwork and antiques scattered about in different places. Though, you were quite intrigued by the large giraffe looming by a spiral staircase that lead to a top balcony which wrapped around the whole room. The autumn light pouring in from the outside made the room look like it was flushed in amber.

You stepped further inside the room, the overwhelming desire to explore the whole place taking over.

You found a chessboard situated next to a large window, the pieces looking very different from the ones you were used to. They were gold and silver, and had intricate patterns carved into their bizarre shape. You picked one up, turning it over in your hand and marveling at the craftsmanship of it.

Suddenly and horribly aware at this chess set must have cost more than your apartment, you gently set it back where you found it.

Markus, who had been observing your movements with a little more care than he would ever admit, walked over to you. “Do you play?”

You grinned, casting your gaze outside the window. “I remember one of my classmates tried to teach me back when I was in school, and bless him, he really did try. But, I just never caught on.”

Markus looked over at you, trying to picture a younger version of yourself pondering a game of chess and he smiled. “I can try to teach you if you want?”

“I’d hate to subject you to the torture of attempting to explain it to me.” You teased, though taking a seat at one of the chairs.

Markus blinked, before realizing you were only joking with him.

It was the very first time he had made a friend with another human, he wasn’t used to the gentle banter people used when interacting with others they were comfortable with, though he was pleased you had already established that kind of relationship with him.

And so, the two of you sat there, not really knowing how much time passed since you began. But Markus was an excellent teacher, he showed you all the basics of chess. Telling you what the peices meant, what moves you could accomplish with each, different match strategies and so on.

“And with the queen you can-“ Markus cut himself off when he realized that your attention had shifted to the window again.

You were sitting crossed legged on your chair, one elbows propped up on your knee as your chin rested in your hand. He couldn’t pinpoint what you were looking at, only that you seemed at total peace in that moment. It was still warm enough to leave the windows open, and he could see the curtains flutter about behind you.

Markus thought you looked like a painting in that moment.

Humans had funny habits, he picked up on many of them at the various parties Carl had to attend. But humans, especially the ones whose age he was supposedly modeled after, got distracted by things easily. Especially things they found aesthetically pleasing to them.

“The trees look lovely today,” You said with a dreamy sigh. “Personally, I think how the wind shakes the leaves on the trees is one of the most calming things in the world.”

“(Y/n)?” Markus said softly, not wanting to interrupt your moment, but he didn’t know if you were aware that you were lamenting out loud

You blinked in realization as you woke up from your reverie, turning back to him again, a look on your face that he couldn’t quite place.

“I’m really sorry about that,” You confessed, sheepishly running a hand through your hair. “I just got distracted, and your voice is quite soothing, so I got lost in my thoughts for a second.”

Markus shifted in his seat, not sure how to react to such a sincere compliment. “My voice is soothing?” He didn’t really understand what that meant, only that he liked hearing you say it.

You hummed. “Yeah, I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s very calm and pleasant.”

Markus nodded, you noticed the small LED on his head had turned yellow.

“I was paying attention though, I promise,” And you laughed when he gave you a pointed look. “Really! I swear, the last thing you were talking about was the different ways a Queen piece can move.”

“I’m impressed.” He said with a smile before carrying on with his crash course.

Carl rolled in at one point, but the two of you were so enraptured in your lesson that neither of you noticed him come in.

He folded his arms over his chest, and watched the two of you interact with one another. You were so concentrated on trying to rely all of Markus’ information, wanting to show him that you were paying attention. And Markus was keen to teach you everything he knew about the game, to be of use to you.

“You kids look like you’re having fun.” Carl said as he rolled up to the table, giving Markus a look when he attempted to stand.

You beamed. “I must say, as wonderful a teacher as Markus is, I don’t think I’d be much competition for him.”

Carl chuckled. “I’ve bested him a few times. Though he is quite the opponent, perhaps you’d like to it in action?”

Markus was about to protest, noticing something that was different than usual.

He felt embarrassed?

Before he could ponder on the thought, you stepped up from your chair. “I’d love to watch you two.”

“Well Markus, what kind of hosts would we be if we didn’t entertain our guest?”

You had pushed the chair to the middle so Carl could wheel up to the other side of the chess board.

“Speed Chess?” Markus asked.

“Speed Chess.” Carl confirmed.

Immediately, they took off. Moving at such a fast pace you could hardly keep up with the game, they didn’t even need to process each other’s move before advancing their pieces.

They’d done this multiple times, but Markus noticed that Carl was going easy on him, despite how grumpy the man got when he lost.

What felt like seconds, Markus stopped the clock and looked down at his win.

“I have no idea what just happened, but I’m incredibly impressed either way.” You mused, causing the old man to chuckle again.

“I like this one.”

You watched them play a few more rounds for your enjoyment, then you realized how late it had gotten.

“Thank for you for allowing my into your home, Carl,” You said as you walked out into the foyer. “I hope I wasn’t too much of a bother.”

“Ah you’re welcome anytime,” Carl said as Markus returned with you coat. “Plus, I think it’s about time Markus got some friends other than his old man. And he seems to enjoy your company.”

Markus held out your coat for you, helping you slip your arms into it, smiling whenever you thanked him.

“I’ll see you both another time then.” You said, not evening turning the doorknob before Carl called out to you.

“How about you let Markus escort you home? It’s gotten dark out and I’d feel better if you let him take you.”

“Oh no, I don’t want to inconvenience-“

“I don’t mind taking you,” Markus interrupted, before immediately backtracking. “I mean, if it puts you at better safety, since statistically speaking it’s much more dangerous-“

“What I think my android friend wants to say is that he doesn’t mind.” Carl suavely finished, noticing that Markus might burst a circuit if he went on.

You smiled at the two of them. “Well, I won’t refuse good company.”

Markus nodded. “I’ll grab my coat.”

•

Next Part: http://ofnifflersandkings.tumblr.com/post/175024187157/title-tea-for-one-character-markus-dbh-previous

[writerofweird]

Marcia the Monster

So after writing An Old Man Reads Creepypastas Creepypasta and Eliza Gets Real, I decided to see if I could write a third video-review-recurring-character-based creepypasta. This one isn’t really based on any specific video review show but I kinda have a trilogy now. Enjoy!

So this story is about a little project my sister and I worked on.

It began on a Friday night when, after a long week at work, I looked for something to help myself relax. I dug through my stacks and stacks of DVDs, most of them cheap ones I picked up at various charity shops. After going through them, I settled on Night of the Vampire Chipmunks, a movie I remember watching before and laughing at.

I watched it again, and laughed again, even making little comments to myself about the quality of the acting, writing and the vampire chipmunk puppets. It was the most fun I had had in a while, so much fun, in fact, I decided to do it all again the next day.

Then I made a video about it.

For so long I’ve watched various internet reviewers, and for so long I had considered making my own internet review, but it wasn’t until then I decided to bite the bullet. I got out my camera which I hadn’t used since last summer, and filmed myself sitting on my sofa, talking about the movie. After editing, so I could include some clips of the movie for context, I put it up online, just for fun, just to see if people would like it.

Well, someone certainly did.

I shared it with my sister Harriet when we chatted online on Sunday, and not only did she like my review, she wanted to be a part of it. She, and a creation of hers.

‘I think you should have a little sidekick on your show,’ she said as she doodled, ‘Like if you’re reviewing horror movies, it could be a little monster. Throughout the review, she adds her own little comments too and even pokes fun at you a couple of times.’ Harriet showed off her doodle – a furry female monster with devil horns, vampire fangs and a business suit. Always the creative one of the family.

‘She could be the monster who lived under your bed as a kid,’ Harriet explained. I sighed, remembering I did believe there was a monster under my bed when I was young. ‘She could appear and say something like, “He thinks he’s so brave watching all these horror movies, but I know he’s a big scaredy cat!”’ I laughed.  ‘I could voice her. Like in my spare time, I could record myself and send you what I recorded, and send you pictures of her to use, even do a bit of animation. I mean, don’t a load of your favourite review shows have characters that appear and talk to the reviewer?’

I looked around my room, reminding myself that another charity shop DVD purchase of mine was the Beauty and the Beast cartoon that “Old Man” character came from, and I actually bought a novelty foam lizard at the funfair because one appeared in a review show.

After looking through that big stack of DVDs of mine, I pulled out a movie we both remembered watching: The Ghouls from the Grave. Harriet didn’t watch as many terrible horror movies as I did, but she did know of quite a few. We spent the rest of the chat talking about the movie and writing the script together, thinking of what I and Harriet’s monster – who Harriet called Marcia – had to say.

The next afternoon, Harriet sent me plenty of voice clips and digital drawings, audio and visuals to bring Marcia the Monster to life. When I came back from work for the next couple of days, I worked on my next video review, watching Ghouls from the Grave again so I could add more observations, editing the video and animating Marcia, and soon it was ready to upload.

The video involved me sitting on my sofa talking about the movie, like the last video but unlike the last video, it would also cut away to Marcia every once in a while, as she gave commentary on both the movie and myself.

‘Today, we’re reviewing The Ghouls from the Grave!’ said I in the video, before it cut to Marcia, smiling a wicked smile. ‘Oh, how adorable,’ she said, her mouth the only part of her that moved. ‘You’re think you’re brave enough to watch a scary movie!’

‘Who are you?’ my video-self asked.

‘Don’t you remember me?’ she said, looking offended, before instantly switching to a more cynical pose, ‘I’m Marcia, I’m the monster that lived under your bed when you were a kid, remember? Remember how terrified you were of me?’

Marcia popped up throughout the review, tormenting and annoying the character I played. ‘The ghouls are so ugly and unpleasant to look at,’ I said in the video, and Marcia would act, ‘Pot to kettle.’

It was an experiment, and it worked. This video got more comments and likes than the previous, and while of most of the comments were about the movie itself and the commenter’s thoughts about it, there was also a lot of support for Marcia, with people saying they wanted to see more of her. So once again, Harriet and I brainstormed a video online during the weekend, with her creating new art and recording new clips. During this session, Harriet decided ‘Marcia’s a monster, she can do whatever she wants’, so we thought of something like The Genie from Aladdin where she would wear different outfits depending on what she said or the theme of the review. During the review for Dr. Depraved, she wore a doctor’s coat with a stethoscope around her neck as she commented on the film’s medical inaccuracies. Another film had a brief scene set in a circus, and Marcia instantly wore a barker’s striped jacket and straw hat, so she could say ‘Roll up, roll up, see the most grating show on Earth.’

There were people who watched our reviews to hear our thoughts on the movies, but a lot came for Marcia. Several comments we received were about how the viewers wanted more Marcia or quoting her or how they liked her latest outfit. We received a good amount of fanart of Marcia (when I had fanart, it almost always showed me with Marcia) and we even sold a few t-shirts with her visage.

Then came one video, where I reviewed The Treasure of the Dark Pit. We added in a little storyline where Marcia went off to look for treasure herself (Harriet admitted she wanted an excuse to draw Marcia in an archaeologist outfit, complete with pith helmet). Throughout the review, there are clips of Marcia exploring ruins and evading traps and the video ends with her finding the treasure and deciding to buy the series off my video-self, saying she could do better.

She was a monster, she could do whatever she wanted.

It was meant as a joke and the next video would ignore it, but several comments all asked the same question: “Next video, will Marcia review a movie by herself?”

I received those questions about the same time Harriet and I were to meet up for a cup of coffee, and as we sat on the table, we discussed the idea of Marcia having her own review. I admit all those comments gave me a little pang of jealousy, and I fully expected for Harriet to say something about how her character was more popular than mine, but...

‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t think a review with just her would work. I mean, she’s the Del Boy to your Rodney, the Albert Steptoe to your Harold, I can’t really imagine you two working apart.’

‘Well, people seem to like her,’ I replied, ‘you should be proud.’

‘Oh, you’re not jealous, are you? I mean, she wasn’t in the first episode, and people liked that enough.’

‘I thought you said you couldn’t imagine us apart,’ I laughed.

‘Yeah, well, I also can’t really imagine a review with just Marcia that wouldn’t get old fast. I think she works better in small doses, and when interacting with you.’

‘Yeah, but if we have a review like this, I’ll let you pick the movie and write the script.’

‘Oh, I get it,’ Harriet replied with a smirk, ‘you want me to do all the work. Well…’

‘Look at these people,’ came a voice. Harriet’s voice, though it didn’t come from her mouth. ‘Actually debating if I deserve my own review. Well, I showed them.’

I looked behind me. No-one was in the coffee shop except me and Harriet, as if the mere sound of the pseudo-Harriet voice had made them vanish. I felt a cold wind slink through the room.

‘What’s…’

‘And to think this is my mother and uncle you’re watching.’

The door to the coffee shop had been replaced by what looked like a gigantic television screen, completely blank until the gigantic face of Marcia leaned in, looking like a young child admiring their ant farm. ‘Aren’t they adorable?’

She was no longer a 2-dimension cartoon character, now looking more like a mascot suit given life. When she opened her mouth to laugh, I saw actual teeth, actual gums, an actual forked tongue.

I stepped closer, trembling as I did, and all I could say was, ‘You’re not real.’

‘Great observation, Anton Ego,’ sneered Marcia, ‘but it’s wrong. I’m realer than you are. People watch the show to see me, not you.’

Harriet ran to the screen, pounding her fists against it. ‘Let us go!’

‘Why?’ laughed Marcia, ‘So you can get back to making your dull videos?’ In the blink of an eye, she was dressed as a chef, her horns poking through her large hat. ‘I’m giving the viewers a feast of fun, with you on the menu!’ As her outfit returned to her business suit, she continued, ‘Reviewing bad movies is too easy. I’m going to review humans instead. They have much more flaws.’

With a laugh, she walked away, leaving us trapped in the television in front of her sofa.

She was a monster. She could do whatever she wanted.

[foursideharmony]

Changeling AU: The Good Doctor

Word Count: 1,799

Warnings: Therapy visit, sad family story, vomit mention

Pairing: None

Summary: How did Roman survive his time in the special needs school without being Undone? He had help...

A/N: I actually went to a psychiatrist as a child. This was roughly 30 years ago at this point, I remember very little about it, and anyway it didn't actually help me. So apologizing in advance if this doesn't accurately reflect contemporary therapy visits.

The couch was soft, at least—upholstered with brown faux-leather that had worn a little in spots but was still perfectly serviceable. It reminded Roman of some of the antique furnishings at Caer Flamingo…which would have been more comforting if he had more confidence that he would ever see Caer Flamingo again once St. Dymphna’s was done with him.

“Just wait right here, Roman,” the receptionist said in a sickly-sweet, chirpy tone, “and the counselor will be with you in few minutes. Feel free to play with any of the soft toys or action figures in here, but please don’t touch the figurines on the shelves. Do you want a cup of water before I leave you alone?”

“No thanks,” said Roman, flinching at the slight tremor that came unbidden to his voice.

“All right.”

She left the room and swung the door until it was just ajar, leaving Roman alone with his thoughts and about twenty different stuffed animals and superheroes. He didn’t pick any of them up right away, instead investigating the contents of the room.

The figurines the receptionist had mentioned were clustered along the numerous bookshelves, and like the toys, consisted entirely of cartoon characters. The groupings were more-or-less sensible—three Looney Tunes characters, a couple Disney Princesses, a few others that Roman didn't recognize but that shared an art style. If he wasn't supposed to touch them, did that mean they were there for the counselor's own enjoyment? If so, that was...unexpected.

Directly across from the couch was an armchair upholstered in the same faux-leather. Presumably that was where the counselor would sit while interrogating him, although at the moment it was occupied by an absurdly large plush of Winnie the Pooh. Someone had put a fake lab coat and a pair of spectacles on it. Roman wrinkled his nose at the crude attempt at humor, and decided he'd seen enough. He turned sideways on the couch and drew his knees up to his chest. It wouldn't be long now...the counselor would arrive, barrage him with questions, and pick apart his soul. They would declare that Roman was abnormal and needed to be fixed, and maybe put him on some sort of medication, and just like that, his life as one of the Shining Host would be over when it had barely begun. Lady Valerie had said so.

Roman balled up his fists and pressed them to his forehead, forcing himself not to sink into despair. Lady Valerie had said...but Thomas had said something quite different, something much more hopeful...he had to hold onto that.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when someone abruptly started singing baritone right outside the room. There were no words—just “dum da dum” syllables, but the tune was...a fanfare? Roman was painfully reminded again of Caer Flamingo, with its trumpeters and troubadours...but then the song continued. A hand came through the narrow gap in the doorway, fingers wiggling in time to the music, which sounded more and more awkward the longer it continued. Finally, the singer reached a crescendo and flung the door wide, springing into the room like a jazz dancer closing out Act 1.

The counselor—as Roman assumed this was—wore a tan suit, a grass-green necktie, dark-rimmed eyeglasses, and a goofy grin. “Good afternoon! My name is Dr. Picani, I use he/him pronouns, and I will be your counselor for today and the foreseeable future! You must be Roman...unless you prefer a different name?”

Roman could only blink in confusion. He had never met a regular mortal grown-up who behaved like this. Was it a trick of some kind?

“Um...Roman's fine,” he said.

“Ah!” Dr. Picani continued, shutting the door firmly and crossing to the armchair. “Dr. Pooh Bear! Thank you for keeping my seat warm!” He moved the plush to the floor and settled into the chair, pulling a small notepad and pen out of his jacket pocket. “So then. I'll start with the same question I ask all my new patients: Do you how do, Roman?”

Had he heard that right? “Do I...what?”

“Listen again,” said Dr. Picani, in a tone of hushed excitement. “Do you...how do? Did you hear it that time?”

“'How do you do'...backwards?” Roman guessed.

“Not backwards, exactly. More...turned inside out. Like the Simpsons, in that one Halloween episode! You've seen it, right? No?” He cleared his throat and shifted in the chair, changing the mood of the interview. “Roman, do you know why you're here?”

Roman looked away. “Because my parents think I'm crazy,” he said bitterly. “And my teachers, too. At my real school, I mean.”

“Let me stop you there,” said Dr. Picani. “I don't want you to think St. Dymphna's isn't your real school. It can seem like a different world here, and maybe you've heard it's only for people who are full of delusions, and it's only going to be temporary...but it's still real. As real as the Ghostbusters.”

Roman's gaze snapped back into position. Despite that out-of-the-clear-blue reference to some old movie, that description was almost suspiciously relatable. That first week, after the theme park...

“Let me explain the situation as I understand it,” the counselor continued. “Roman, you're here because you're having trouble living in the world outside your head. My job is to help you figure out how to do that...without necessarily changing who you are as a person. The unique person that you are is a worthwhile one, and you shouldn't have to turn into someone else in order to get by. I want you to know that.”

Roman felt tears pricking the corners of his eyes. This was reminding him so much of what Thomas had said in the junk pile that it was painful. He blinked the moisture down and put on the haughtiest expression in his repertoire. “You're reciting,” he said. “Like a speech. You don't really mean it.”

“It's true, I do practice saying things like that. Using the right words is an important skill in my job here. But I also mean it. My goal is to help you, Roman. But I can't do that unless you cooperate with me.” He turned a page in his notebook. “Why don't I let you do some of the talking for a while? Do you remember how your troubles started?”

Troubles... Roman decided to humor the misconception for the time being, and suddenly the words were spilling out. “Yeah, it was when we went on vacation to Disney over Christmas. Everything there was just so...wonderful. It's like every kind of story come to life, all in the same place. They make it so you can really believe in magic. And so...so...so I did. And I found out that it was real, all of it, even after our vacation was over and we left.” The tears came again, too thick and fast to be stopped. “There really is magic. Why won't anyone believe in it?”

He fully expected Dr. Picani to shoot him down, but to his amazement, the counselor was nodding thoughtfully. “That makes a lot of sense. You're probably not the first.”

“The first...what?”

“The first to enter Chrysalis in a theme park.” Roman's eyes bulged with shock, but Dr. Picani was forging ahead. “After all, don't they call it The Most Magical Place on Earth? Where Dreams Come True? I always found those commercials to be pretty corny, but the place is focused on imagination and art. Why shouldn't it be capable of connecting susceptible individuals to the Dreaming?”

Roman leapt to his feet, hand scrabbling at his hip to draw the sword that he was not presently wearing. “How do you know these things?” he demanded. “You're not Kithain! I'd be able to see it if you were!”

The counselor slowly stood up, walked over to the desk in the corner, and took a framed photograph from it. He handed it to Roman, who examined it. It was an older photo, in color but with that slight smudginess that indicated it was taken using film rather than a digital camera, and depicted a girl in her early teens, and a boy several years younger, posing on monkey bars in a playground. The boy was just recognizable as a young Picani, while the girl...

Roman's eyes widened again. The girl shared a family resemblance with the boy, but...while the camera could only capture the mortal seeming, there were the little tells in her appearance, in the cant of her eyes and the shape of her nose. She was a changeling.

“No, Roman, I am not one of you. But my sister is. Or was, I guess. She's still alive, but we've barely spoken in years. She was...she lost her fae self, you see.”

“She was Undone,” Roman stated, running his fingers over the glass in the photo frame.

“Thank you, that's the word I was looking for. Our parents thought she was crazy. And so did her teachers. They wouldn't believe in magic.” Roman looked up. Dr. Picani was still smiling, but now it was a sad smile. “So Laura was put into psychotherapy in order to 'cure' her of her 'delusions.' The therapists wouldn't believe in magic either, and by the time they were done, Laura was a normal—completely human—girl.”

Roman felt the blood leaving his face and he began to grow dizzy. Autumn People... He let himself fall back onto the couch, setting the photo aside lest he drop it from his trembling hands. The dizziness got worse and he leaned over, letting his head droop between his knees.

“Easy there,” said Dr. Picani's voice, sounding oddly far away. He sat beside Roman—he felt the movement of the cushions—and rubbed his back. “Do you need the nurse? Or something to throw up into?” Roman shook his head as the dizziness subsided. “Roman, I'm not going to let that happen to you. That's the main reason I became a therapist—so that if I met any other young changelings, I could help them come to terms with their place in the world without making them turn out like Laura. And now I've met you. When they gave us your file, I found your story so familiar...I requested to have you as my patient. You can talk to me about your world, and I'll know that it's real. You're going to be all right. You're going to be you. Are you willing to work with me on that?”

Roman carefully sat up, noting with satisfaction that his head no longer spun. He allowed himself a careful smile. “I think so.”

“Then permit me to ask once more—third time's the charm, right?—do you how do?”

“Do...I...pretty good?” Roman guessed.

Dr. Picani beamed.

A/N: As of this writing, there have been two “Cartoon Therapy” episodes, and Dr. Picani's tie is color-coded for each. I chose to continue that theme here. Green is a color often associated with faeries in folklore because of their ties to nature.

Taglist: @k9cat

[rnainframe]

every! single! one!

can you tell my mood dropped hard like halfway through

angel; do you have a nickname?at the moment lars is pretty much just a nickname because my mom won’t let me get a name change

awe; how old are you?19!

baby; favorite color?red!

bloop; spirit animal?that’s not a very good term iirc but i guess wolf?

blossom; favorite book/movie/song?book: wolves of the beyond is very near and dear to memovie: the world’s end, the thing 1982, the incredibles, deadpoolsong: i have... so many

blush; what was your stuffed animal as a child?

her name is baby, she’s dressed up, and i still sleep with her to this day,

breeze; most precious childhood memory?sitting behind my dad and watching as he plays games on the psx and gamegear, i mainly remember ristar and sonic on the gamegear and silent hill on the psx

bright; mermaids or fairies?both!!!

bubbles; do you have a best friend?@aceiou @gruvu

buttercup; showers or baths?showers, submerging my body freaks me out

butterfly; dream destination?a road trip to visit all my frands

buttons; are you religious or spiritual?spiritual, mainly superstitious

calm; favorite scent?a kind of cologne my dad used to wear

candlelight; what did you dream about last night?my brain reminding me of my deep-seated desire to reconnect with an asshole i used to crush on despite me wanting to bury it for good

charming; have you ever been in love?yes

cozy; eye/hair color?i think the name of my hair color is light ash brown? people confuse me for ginger and blond though somehow

cuddly; what’s your favorite time period?80s/90s, also the aesthetics of the 20s~50s

cupcake; favorite flower/plant?succulents, roses, lilies

cute; what did you get on your last birthday?clothes, something useless from my sister, a panic attack

cutie pie; most precious item you own?baby, my phone, my sketchbook, a paw print from sadie the people that put her to sleep sent us

cutsie; what makes you happy?i’m too numb rn to really know

daisies; describe a moment when you felt free.i think the last time i got to go anywhere with friends and without my mom involved was last summer

daydream; how do you want to be remembered?like my dad, where people try to remember him fondly while ignoring the glaring bad shit about him, hhhH

daylight; favorite album of all time?smoke + mirrors from imagine dragons, in silico from pendulum, no culture from mother mother

dear; zodiac sign?sagittarius on the traditional zodiac, ophiuchus on the updated zodiac, my animal is the rabbit

delightful; concerts or museums?museums, concerts get me overloaded unless it’s a band i really like

dimples; have you ever written a letter?yeah

dobby; dream job?i don’t know anymore

doll; how do you like to dress?comfortably, ideally masculine

dovey; any paranormal/magical experiences?my dad haunts my house

dreams; do you want or have any tattoos?i wanna get either an eye coming out of my shoulder of a shamrock in memory of my dad, something simple and space (and/or wolf) related in white ink, uhhhhmaybe the pokemon league symbol somewhere

drizzle; do you believe in aliens?they’re out there

euphoric; talk about someone you love.ace is adorable!!!! i love them so much, their voice, their face, their fashion, their art, their writing!!!!!!

fairy; do you have a pet?ginger morkie named rusty, i wanna get another lab sometime

fluffy; ocean or mountain?mountain

forever; where do you feel time stop?sitting outside at night when it’s snowy, it’s so quiet and magical feeling

froglet; are you a good plant owner?unfortunately no

garden; how many languages do you know?one, trying to learn german or danish or irish

gem; who are your favorite tumblrs?aceiou, gruvu, bunjywunjy, bogleech, weirdmarioenemies, uuhhhh

giggles; what is your aesthetic of choice?either space or red+black glitch stuff

glittery; do you like anons? why/why not?when they’re nice

glow; list the top 5 things you like about yourselftoo numb for that rn

heart; silk or lace?silk feels nice to touch but i wouldn’t wear either

honey; coffee or tea? how do you take it?coffee, cappuccino mixed w/ hot chocolate and a lot of creamertea, raspberry or peach iced tea

hugsy; do you enjoy people watching or bird watching more? why?birds don’t judge you

hunnybunch; what sounds help you sleep?white noise - the sound of a fan, the sound of rain, etc

jewel; what’s your favorite kind of weather?rain, especially stormy

jiggly; what do you usually like to do on weekends?every day is a weekend. i have no life. i am rotting

joy; do you laugh loudly or giggle more?i wheeze or silently laugh. i used to have an ugly loud laugh

kinky; do you blush easily?i blush when embarrassed or crying

kisses; what romantic cliché do you wish for most?spending every moment loving on the person i’m with, every day being like the first day we met

kitty; what’s your favorite time of the day?sunset to night

ladybug; what’s your favorite artist to listen to when you’re sad?mother mother

love; what is your favorite season and why?autumn. it’s not as depressing as summer

lovey; what is your favorite flavor of macaron and ice cream?i’ve never had macarons, but i love bunny tracks and peanut butter cup and bear creek caramel and

magic; what are five flaws you have?you think i can narrow it down to just five

moonlight; do you prefer soft pastels, warm neutrals, or cool darks?warm pastels, warm neutrals, warm and cool darks

munchkin; what do you look for in your significant other?idk but i got it

paddywack; how would you describe a perfect date?wandering around mainstreet and old town st charles, eating at rt weilers, getting ice cream at riverside sweets, then having sodas from the old soda shoppe, ideally in autumn

pebbles; how do you spend free time by yourself?sleeping, wasting away on the internet, the likes

precious; what is something valuable that you learned in your life?don’t get attached, everything will go bad someday

pretty; do you like to cook or bake more?baking is easier but i feel more in control when cooking

prince; how would you describe your handwriting?horrible, illegible

princess; do you play any instruments? if not, are there any you wish you could play?i used to play the recorder, then the flutei want to learn the guitar but i’m so bad at it that when trying to tune a very expensive guitar i got as a gift when i still had passion for it i broke a string

prinky; how do you relieve stress?i don’t

pumpkin; what is your favourite kind of fruit/vegetable?strawberries, raspberries, bananas, pomegranates, pickles, broccoli, tomatoes, pumpkins

rainbow; what was the last line of the last book you read?i can’t focus on reading anymore

roses; what is the most significant event in your life so far?my dad’s death.

smile; what is one thing that has greatly affected you?my dad’s death.

shine; art or music?i’m not good enough at art to deserve picking it, and i’m an audiophile (not! a! fetish!), so

shimmer; do animals tend to like you?i get too rough without realizing it. rusty probably doesn’t like me. he just licks me and sleeps by me whenever he doesn’t have my mom to love on.

smitten; do you collect anything?bottle caps, can tabs, pokemon merch, empty pill bottles

smoochies; how many pillows do you sleep with?four at the head of my bed (two go unused), one plain blue body pillow to hold, like five other pillows to add pressure to my legs

snuggle; what is your favourite candy?peppermint kisses

snuggly; do you have a camera? if so, what kind?phone

sparkle; do you wear jewelry?i used to wear necklaces all the time. they all break because of how i stim with them. my mom doesn’t trust anything around my neck anymore

spooky; sunrise or sunset?sunset

sprinkles; do you like to listen to music with headphones or no headphones?headphones

starlight; what was your favourite show as a child?crashbox, digimon, power rangers, pokemon, total drama

soft; describe your favourite spot in your house.my room. 

soothe; digital or vinyl?digital

squeezed; who do you miss right now?read over some of the questions and ask me again

sugary; what traits do you value most in friends?can i trust you

sunshine; do you prefer for things to be practical or aesthetically pleasing?both

sweet; do you find it easy to open up?too easy

sweetie; do you like kids? if so, do you ever want to have any?they are sensory nightmares

thimble; is there somebody you look up to? who are they?edd gould is dead

toot; what is something you find unique about yourself?my ability to get completely numb over the dumbest bullshit

tootsie; what kind of friend are you?a bad one

treasure; what was something that made you smile today?nothing so far

velvet; are you an early bird or a night owl?night owl

whiffle; if you could have a magical power, what would it be?shapeshifting or invisibility or mind reading

whimsical; do you prefer doing stuff at home or going out?ideally i wanna go out but only if i trust whoever i’m with to understand that i burn out fast anymore

whiskers; do you usually wear makeup?no

wiggly; are you a messy or tidy person?i obsessively organize things but am very messy

wispy; do you like the place where you grew up? do you think you will live there when you get older?i have no choice, i legally own the house i’m in now. i can’t go anywhere without dragging my mom along. i’m trapped

wobbly; have you ever wished upon a star?i wish to have good birthdays. they never come true

[imadeletingmysocials]

My scores for E3, because apparently now i’m a dumb 4channer who thinks this /v/ meme shit matters, like it’s not gonna affect sales or anything it’s pointless as all hell [this is lenghy, but hear me out ok]

EA: 

4/10 - people will probably play the games regardless of how shitty this presentation was but... It felt pretty insulting. 

Battlefield V is probably gonna make a lot of money regardless cuz people like war games and it seems pretty well done, the more footage they have shown seemed better than their weird advertizement that made world war 2 seem very wacky, which honestly regardless if you’re a sexist neckbeard or not, seemed like a poor advertizement move. 

TinyBuild:

No one watched this lol and it was just 1 GAME and a fun cute musical that made people who aren’t strong enough to musicals die, 6/10 because it made nerds die and their song is catchy, i dont really care about their 1 game.

Microsoft:

 9/10 - I'm giving this much of a high score because I would play practically almost all of these games showcased (they’ll probably be available on PC which I’m biased for cuz I have a gaming PC), no kidding, I pretty much liked everything I saw and it was fairly straight to the point. Many gamers don’t appreciate the finer details of each game and think they’re generic but that’s just fanboys who haven’t played a single game outside of their favorites. 

Also my cousin uses those Xbox One netflix rip offs that gives you games so i’m happy for him. The presentation had a lot of diamonds in the rough games that will I will probably appreciate more over time (they might even become cult classics like Metro or Dying Light) than any of other games at other e3s. As for the stuff I won’t be playing: It’s mostly harmless so eh.

There was an abundance of trailers! It was like one after the other, pure goodness, it seems as if they left out all of the Sports games to EA to present and the only thing they showed that might not be anyone’s cup of tea was “Forza”, but honestly? I appreciate it, it seems like a good racing game even if I’m not one to buy racing games.... But the more you think about the number of good games presented, the less you’ll think about that, I mean they showed DEVIL MAY CRY 5!!! 

...The Funko Pop game made me scream though.

Bethesda: 

8.5/10  I cannot deny that these are games I will want to play regardless if they’re good or not. Sad to see nerds not enjoy the opportunity to meet ANDREW W.K. but I’m glad all of the divisions they own are making sequels to stuff I already like, so pretty much Bethesda played it safe.

Devolver Digital:

 8/10 It’s like that one b-movie film your college students made and you had a laugh with creating.

Square Enix: 

5/10 seriously, 30 minues of just trailers? Most of which we saw?? I guess it could be worse but who uses E3 screentime for mostly MMORPG deals! The new stuff was too vague to be excited about too.

Ubisoft: 

7/10 - I liked it when they made funny quirky things and their games are probably gonna be okay like usual, Ubisoft has dedicated fans that like their collectathon games they release every year, and it’s usually that one game you play when you’re bored and got nothing else, it’s okay. 

Gamers hate fun and dancing and all that stuff but I kind of find stuff like that exciting, while nerds who never went outside and who are sensitive as all hell to any representation of fun find it “cringey”. A panda dabbed, and that settles it, Ubisoft was the only E3 Brave enough to dab this year. 

PC Game Conference (it was fairly long):

I know none of you watch this one cuz y’all fake as hell but listen... Fuck you LOL, these are the type of games people actually play over 400 hours and really get people’s money. Like these are games built to last that might be on the best-selling Steam front page for MONTHS, like how Frostpunk was comfirmed last year during this conference, PC Gaming has been known for sleeper hits that nobody knows about (because the attention goes to cinematic experiences on consoles most of the time) but suddently everyone’s playing it. 

PC gaming has always been an alternative lifestyle and seeing as many people didn’t watch this one, that just proves the point that it still relatively alternative. Maybe it’s because everyone sounds dumb as fuck when saying “PC GAMER MASTER RACE” and acting like an elitist. 

The PC Gaming conference is always more of a talk show than a regular E3 which is why I respect it every year, fuck the hyperactive gamers that just wanna see flashy trailers, this one’s more SOPHISTICATED!! It feels a lot more human and less artificial. Either way, lot’s of what you might’ve expected: Simulators and Survival games you’ll probably spend 3 years playing until they make a better minecraft clone. 

Gamers like to act as if they’re tired of Battle Royale (already? It’s a new fad it still is here to stay for a little more) but the numbers and success of it doesn’t lie that it isn’t a fad that proves itself to be highly tempting to try out for developers. Go cry to valve that they didn’t release Half-Life 3 cuz you haven’t played any other FPS game without even researching that Valve pretty much fired all of it’s developers and you’re just being annoying.

I feel as if I need to comment what I saw at this e3 cuz nobody watched, they made a mod I liked from skyrim into a fully-ass game, they’re rebooting Star Control which not a single gamer today knows of, the HP Lovecraft open world detective game also seems very good. YAKUZA IS COMING TO PC!!!!!!!!! Killing Floor 2 stuff, Road Redemption stuff, SHARK RPG, cute indie games, Jeff Goldblum was there, Wall-E with a gun in VR which seems to have promissing good vr design by Insomiac games (yes the spyro people), 2 games about Taxi driving... Like sure I think it’s a good format for story telling but.

A cell-shaded art game, star citizen is still being made, and it’s gone to the point nobody really wants it anymore even if it’s... Still being made you know? So most guys are wrong that it was gonna be canceled. After that was the technical graphic card stuff which gamers don’t have enough capability to understand, stuff like 9k laptops that SELL a lot mind you. Rich people love that technical stuff. 

A space defense sim game, Don’t Starve Sequel, Just Cause 4 detailed explanation of the engine, Overkill’s The Walking Dead gameplay which has been in development hell for years now now has a release date, I discovered Clementine’s voice actor is white... Go figure, a literal pixelated roguelike (not what you think it is, it’s Noita), 

Theme Hospital REBOOT!!!! YES!!!!!!!!! And the doctors were cute. Probably one of the funniest games presented... Followed by REALM ROYALE HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That harvest moon clone with a cute art style is still being made: Ooblets, no release date sadly. Anno is still going, cyanide and happiness still exists? and they’re making a battle royale? lol okay. How was Hitman 2 not announced during Square Enix?? Anyways it’s here at the end, the trailer was amazing and it’s coming out this year. 

I don’t have that much strong feelings because it’s just a normal conference and not a special one you know? But I’ll give it a 8/10 or 7/10 im not sure cuz I seem to like most games and I found Frankie cute.

Sony: 

Yo usually Sony makes like a huuuuuuuge thing about their conferences (like this year they didn’t even showcase indie games) but this year they started from a church for the sake of immersion?? It reminded me a little of their first E3s during the 90s, and it almost felt like a indie gathering for musicians, I swear to god, Sony is borderline experimental trying to balance out their E3 across stages. Jeb played the banjo and people just ACCEPTED it... AND THEN someone played some JAPANESE FLUTE? aRT. It might come off as a bit arrogant for some tho.

Nerds hated it and thought it was bizzare, which is why it means it’s good. HAPPY PRIDE MONTH BITCHES. Anyways could have been a little more fast-paced... But then again when it was fast-paced it was just like: Huh? What was that? I’m a big Resident Evil Fangirl, RE2 was my childhood but ignoring that for a sec: finally, Death Stranding gameplay, remins me of shadow of the colossus but post-apocalpytic, survival horrorish and abstract sci-fi.

 Kind of feels more Metal Gear than MGSV did already Cuz Norman Reedus sounds like snake a lot more than the 24 hours guy, and because from what I’ve seen in the footage, someone acts like Otacon to “Sam”. I think most now can figure out the plotpoints of this game with what has been established. I might be a bit sad at the fact that this will be a PS4 exclusive just like Metal Gear Solid 4, which I still haven’t played fully because it’s PS3 exclusive and I only have a gaming PC. 

Also this E3 was surprisingly entirely SINGLE PLAYER, I sorta don’t believe in the “single player doesn’t exist” myth honestly, especially now. I’m not sure if that makes Sony’s E3 better or worse, maybe it needed more variation, like I’ve commented, usually they have an indie showcase which this year did not. There were few games shown but for what it was worth, it’s still interesting... But yeah just 5 games? No Spyro? (easy picking), nothing extra? I can understand why many people felt this E3 was upsetting.

8/10.

Nintendo

Here it is, the most overhyped developer of all of E3, the source of “Nintendo wins E3 by doing nothing” memes because Nintendo fans really don’t care about anything except Nintendo and then act surprised when they only care about Nintendo when they try to be a little more open-minded (and fail) even if other E3s probably make more games built to last in comparisson, cuz we gay people only care about NINTENDO YOU KNOW? Shade asside... 

I was pleasantly surprised this E3, it wasn’t just a series of okay at best releases, a strong 9/10. 

tHAT WAS WHAT I WROTE IN PREPRATION....

BUT THEN???? IT WAS JUST THAT??? NO PRIME 4 NO ANYTHING LIKE JUST 3 GAMES BASICALLY? (maybe there was 5 games but eh) I mean smash is good.. It’s pretty much just an update of the last smash, every character is REALLY FUCKING GOOD BUT.... JUST THAT? jeez.. Like, the only stuff I wanted from it was Mario Party and Smash... Okay maybe that 1 Mecha game. Also I guess fornite is now on Switch but I can play that anywhere else really.

I guess a 7/10 is all I can give to just Smash, if there was a little more I’d give it a 9/10 for sure but... ehh Just Smash? jeez, fuck... i MEAN I kind of get it, Nintendo doesn’t do “e3″ normally, they usually do 1 big game at E3 and then wait a couple of months to do that little seasonal announcement thing they do across the year, ugh.. Okay. Yeah I guess i shouldn’t have expected much. Still isn’t it weird that Miyamoto was in Ubisoft’s E3 but not this one??? what!

Anyways

[warninggraphiccontent]

5 March 2021

Data linkage

Data dichotomies Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden wrote for the FT about the UK's new approach to data outside the EU this week - which managed not to say what this new approach would actually be (especially for GDPR), and prompted comments that the narratives that privacy had dominated discussion and pitted innovation and privacy against one another weren't quite right... ICO baby Though perhaps the next Information Commissioner does need to make a distinction between innovation and privacy, as medConfidential and others have pointed out. Dowden's article kicked off the appointment process for the next Commissioner. (I interviewed the current one in 2019.) Doing so in an article behind a paywall and with no version on GOV.UK isn't a particularly great example of open government...

Open season But then it's not been the best of weeks for open government in the UK, with the news it's been censured by the Open Government Partnership, prompting a letter coordinated by the UK's Open Government Network (on whose steering group I sit). Though there remain some good examples of open government in the UK, and... Open day Tomorrow is Open Data Day, with lots of events planned. Speaking of events... Data Bites We held our seventeenth Data Bites this week, with some rugby-related fun to kick off and some very important budget analysis (which may have contributed to this), before four brilliant presentations. One of those was about better data visualisation, which was also the subject of...

Chart hits and misses This Computer Weekly article looking at good and bad #dataviz during Covid features a quote from me. Speaking of bad #dataviz... Mistake and fail pie My wonderful IfG colleagues are holding me somehow responsible for this particularly bad BBC Wales pie chart, which left me shocked. Another shocking fail which came to mind this week was... Johnson's new department The time when the UK government briefly renamed the business department to something quite unfortunate (though it turned out to be a flop). It wasn't quite the job Alan Johnson expected, but then you don't really get to apply for Cabinet roles...

Odd job Whereas you can apply to work in the Cabinet Office's new Information and Data Exchange, another new unit which there doesn't appear to be much information about. Like a number of recent developments (the Central Digital and Data Office, the integrated data platform) we have to comb press releases, minutes and job ads to find out what's going on (#opengovernment). There's also a deafening silence on... Certifiable The government's (welcome) review into vaccine passports. I wrote something about that for the IfG this week. And if you've not had enough of me... Strategic thinking I'm speaking at a Westminster Forum event next week, on the National Data Strategy. Something that was announced a few months ago, by Oliver Dowden.

Have a good weekend

Gavin

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Today's links:

Graphic content

Vax the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it

New data show that leading covid-19 vaccines have similarly high efficacy* (The Economist)

What Do Vaccine Efficacy Numbers Actually Mean?* (New York Times)

Speed and trust (Reuters)

Oregon, Vermont Lead the Way in Equitable Vaccine Rollout: Covid-19 Tracker* (Bloomberg)

Tempers fray over France’s vaccine strategy* (FT - thread)

COVID-19: Major cities falling well behind in UK's bid to vaccinate its way out of lockdown (Sky News)

COVID-19: Is your area one in England and Scotland where half of adults have received a vaccine? (Sky News)

My, corona

Why Opening Windows Is a Key to Reopening Schools* (New York Times)

Should Your School Be Fully Open? Here’s What the C.D.C. Says* (New York Times)

BATS and the ORIGIN of OUTBREAKS (Reuters)

500,000 LIVES LOST (Reuters)

Boris Johnson defends UK border regime amid hunt for Covid patient* (FT)

Inside ultra-Orthodox Jews’ battle with the virus and the Israeli state* (FT)

NHS faces questions over Covid infections contracted in hospital (The Guardian)

Europe struggles and saves in pandemic as Sweden keeps calm and carries on (Reuters)

Animated data visualisation of covid-19 data in G20 countries, with a focus on USA (Jamie Whyte)

Money, money, money

Economic and fiscal outlook – March 2021 (OBR)

UK Budget: the long road to levelling up* (FT - thread)

Sunak goes big and bold in bid to repair UK public finances* (FT)

Six things we learned from budget 2021 (IfG)

Budget 2021: a preview in charts (IfG)

Spending fast, taxing slow (Resolution Foundation)

Some unprotected departments had their budgets cut by half in the decade from 2009-10, as health spending has growth by almost 20 per cent (Resolution Foundation)

Budget 2021 (IFS)

Rishi Sunak’s Budget has not prevented a surge in unemployment – it just delayed it* (New Statesman)

Mo money, mo problems

How Much Minimum Wage Changed in Each State (Flowing Data)

Remote workers spend more on housing than those who commute* (The Economist)

Costco CEO, Who Pays Median Worker $39,585, Enters Wage Debate* (Bloomberg)

Funding devolution: The Barnett formula in theory and practice (IfG)

More people think benefits are too low* (The Times)

Earth song

The messy business of sand mining explained (Reuters)

In the Atlantic Ocean, Subtle Shifts Hint at Dramatic Dangers* (New York Times)

The Five Hotspots Where Food Prices Are Getting People Worried* (Bloomberg)

In data: what are Britain’s fisheries gaining from Brexit?* (Prospect)

Climate graphic of the week: shipping routes behind Mediterranean oil spill* (FT)

More United Than You’d Think: Public Opinion on the Environment in Towns and Cities in the UK (Centre for Towns)

More than 25m drink from the worst US water systems, with Latinos most exposed (The Guardian)

Politik

So wählten die Gemeinden bei Bundestagswahlen (Berliner Morgenpost)

How Keir Starmer has fallen out of favour with voters* (New Statesman)

How Much Longer Can This Era Of Political Gridlock Last? (FiveThirtyEight)

How Marjorie Taylor Greene Won, And Why Someone Like Her Can Win Again (FiveThirtyEight)

Which senators have been voting against Biden Cabinet nominees?* (Washington Post)

Myanmar records its deadliest day of pro-democracy protests* (The Economist)

Myanmar’s new wave of detainees (Reuters)

Everything else

Another name change for the business department in the offing? (IfG)

Is the lot of female executives improving?* (The Economist)

Constituency data: broadband coverage and speeds (Commons Library)

And yet... (Giuseppe)

How governments use evidence to make transport policy (IfG)

#dataviz

Covid-19 and the art and science of data visualisation (Computer Weekly)

Trump’s literacy, KPIs and Citizen Data: final lessons from covid-19 charts (Andy Cotgreave)

Presenting data: 5 tips for making your data understandable (Data in government)

a list of my favorite #dataviz tools (Jon Schwabish for @iamscicomm)

How to draw your audience's focus in visuals (Alvin Wendt, Jon Schwabish)

Meta data

Certification uncertainty

Government needs to beware the easy promise of Covid certification (me for IfG)

Establish if vaccination passports will work before tackling ethical issues* (FT - more here)

Some thoughts on the legal and ethical implications of ‘vaccine passports’ (Adam Wagner)

No jab, no job – the moral minefield confronting the UK government (The Guardian)

Is there a way to make vaccine passports ethically acceptable? (The Guardian)

Vaccine passports could save British theatres – why won’t they embrace them?* (Telegraph)

Vaccine passports: Ticket to freedom? (whynow)

Covid-19: How would an NHS vaccine passport app work? (BBC News)

Israel’s “green pass” is an early vision of how we leave lockdown (MIT Technology Review)

Viral content

COVID-19: Test and Trace barely used check-in data from pubs and restaurants - with thousands not warned of infection risk (Sky News)

COVID-19 VACCINE TRANSPARENCY (Transparency International)

The New Necessary: How We Future-Proof for the Next Pandemic (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)

AI got 'rithm

Ensuring statistical models command public confidence: Learning lessons from the approach to developing models for awarding grades in the UK in 2020 (OSR)

What is an “algorithm”? It depends whom you ask* (MIT Technology Review)

Turing Lecture: How to talk to robots - The road to a people powered, AI-enabled future (Tabitha Goldstaub)

Government response to the House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (DCMS/BEIS)

How UCL’s groundbreaking AI research became entangled in Facebook’s net* (New Statesman)

Building trust in AI systems is essential* (FT)

Final Report (National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence)

Taking on the tech giants: the lawyer fighting the power of algorithmic systems (The Observer)

Big tech

Microsoft's Dream of Decentralized IDs Enters the Real World* (Wired)

New York Times Columnist David Brooks Blogged For Facebook's Corporate Site (BuzzFeed)

Section 230: Big Tech’s favourite law is running out of time* (New Statesman)

Palantir, part 2 (Rowland)

Charting a course towards a more privacy-first web (Google)

Google is done with cookies, but that doesn’t mean it’s done tracking you (Recode)

‘This is bigger than just Timnit’: How Google tried to silence a critic and ignited a movement (Fast Company)

CMA investigates Apple over suspected anti-competitive behaviour (Competition and Markets Authority)

US removes stumbling block to global deal on digital tax* (FT)

Alan Rusbridger says Oversight Board will ask to see Facebook's algorithm (The Guardian)

UK government

New approach to data is a great opportunity for the UK post-Brexit* (FT)

The UK needs an independent privacy regulator (Open Rights Group)

Dr Nicola Byrne has been named as the government’s preferred candidate for the post of National Data Guardian (NDG) for Health and Care (Cabinet Office)

‘Digital big bang’ needed if UK fintech to compete, says review* (FT)

UK taxpayer to take more stakes in tech start-ups* (FT)

Data in the line of duty; PSGA data keeping us safe. (Geospatial Commission)

Goldacre Review

EU too

EU must overhaul flagship data protection laws, says a ‘father’ of policy* (FT)

Data protection: European Commission launches process on personal data flows to UK (European Commission)

ARIA ready?

Bill introduced to create high risk, high reward research agency ARIA (BEIS)

Bill

Explanatory notes

I see the ARIA press release frames FOI as bureaucratic (Peter Wells)

Few thoughts (Alex Parsons)

How government can help make Aria sing (Civil Service World)

Social media

India imposes sweeping new social media rules* (FT)

Far-Right Platform Gab Has Been Hacked—Including Private Data* (Wired)

Open for the best but expecting the worst

UK government censured for a lack of transparency and accountability (Sky News)

UK GOVERNMENT ‘UNDER REVIEW’ SAYS OPEN GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP (UK Open Government Network)

Data: sharing is caring (mySociety)

Why Transparency Won’t Save Us (CIGI)

News real and fake

MAPPING CIVIL SOCIETY RESPONSES TO DISINFORMATION: AN INTERNATIONAL FORUM WORKING PAPER (National Endowment for Democracy)

The Unknowable News Audience (Slate)

A Better Way to Think About Conspiracies* (New York Times)

The History of Misinformation (The Full Fact Podcast)

Databases

ICE investigators used a private utility database covering millions to pursue immigration violations* (Washington Post)

A Theranos Database Is Useless. What Happened?* (Wall Street Journal)

Data

Data Bites #17 - watch as live (IfG, edited version will appear here)

Exploring legal mechanisms for data stewardship (Ada Lovelace Institute, AI Council)

Data Is the New Sand* (The Information)

Data's Future: 2020 highlights (ODI)

Supporting ‘levelling up’: the case for more and better data on Post-16 Education and Training (Centre for Cities)

Yuval Noah Harari: Lessons from a year of Covid (FT)

Remote learning

Out of office: what the homeworking revolution means for our cities (The Observer)

Stanford researchers identify four causes for ‘Zoom fatigue’ and their simple fixes (Stanford)

Face your fears

MyHeritage offers 'creepy' deepfake tool to reanimate dead (BBC News)

The Shoddy Science Behind Emotional Recognition Tech (OneZero)

Everything else

Launch of Rules as Code forum for government officials (OPSI, OECD)

Soft power and technological sovereignty in the 21st century (Matthew Clifford)

How Adam Curtis gets into your head* (Prospect)

How a 10-second video clip sold for $6.6 million (Reuters)

Life & Times of: Audrey Tang (Digital Minister @ Taiwan) (The Taiwan Take - my interview from June 2020)

On the block: Could blockchain aid policing? (Tech Monitor)

Nesta's Strategy to 2030 (Nesta)

The Conundrum of Information Scarcity in a Time of Information Overload (Slate)

Opportunities

EVENT: ADR UK three years in: Harnessing the power of administrative data in the age of Covid-19 (ADR UK)

EVENT: Procurement after Brexit: a keynote speech by Cabinet Office minister Lord Agnew (IfG)

JOB: Information Commissioner (DCMS)

JOB: Head of Data Science, INDEX (Cabinet Office)

More (via Owen)

FELLOWSHIP: Future policy for a future internet (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)

And finally...

Charts, maps and dashboards

One way road to beer

The many chart crimes of *that* Citi bitcoin report* (FT - thread)

Hey Citi, your bitcoin report is embarrassingly bad* (FT)

What language am I reading? (Max Fras, Oystein H. Brekke, Dominik K. Cagara, Aron)

Music Borders (The Pudding)

Everything else

The Australien Government has made an ad about the new media legislation it just passed, and it's surprisingly honest and informative! (theJuiceMedia)

Data... (Dan Hon, via Giuseppe)

Unlocking history through automated virtual unfolding of sealed documents imaged by X-ray microtomography (Nature Communications)

The Agile Theme Park. Scream when you have to sprint faster. (DESIGN THINKING! Comic)

The best image of Mars was made in 1965 (Thomas van Ryzewyk)

What will it be like when we go back to the office? (Reuters)

[tania-ostanina]

03: Underworld and Death in London

Short summary:

Our first group ideation sessions: 

Abandoned and hidden spaces

Underground and graveyards

Hidden London

Time and space

London's lost rivers - my previous study of the lost river Moselle

The interdependence of the designer and their subject:

Traditional HCI approach tries to eliminate designer bias

Is it possible to embrace it instead? What is to be gained by doing so?

The 'task-artifact cycle': we are changed by the technology as much as it is changed by us

How can the new layer of smart city technology slot into the existing historic context of London?

Critical fabulations: 

“What histories of practice have been suppressed or elided? What voices are missing?”

William Blake exhibition: 

The themes of underworld and death

The absent narrative of Blake’s wife, Catherine

Read more: 

Since my previous post, my group and I have met twice, ideating on the subject to choose for our collective smart cities project. The first session featured an enormous stack of books and an equally enormous variety of potential subjects: power dynamics, nature and the city, urban animals were just some of the overarching themes we discussed. Even though our smart city could be located anywhere, we were fast zooming in on London, not just due to its familiarity and easy access, but also because London offered us incredible opportunities in terms of its complexity and contextual richness.

Image: A photograph of the books our group discussed at our first ideation session

The subjects that I found the most appealing involved abandoned and hidden spaces, especially ones with darker undertones. True to the spirit of my first blog post, I talked with passion about London’s underground graveyards and about the fact that here in this city, you never quite know what’s under your feet. The image below shows a snippet of our group Miro board showing the theme of time - where plague pits, memory and death have all found their home. 

Image: A snippet of our group Miro board

Another prominent theme was space, our group’s chosen umbrella term for an array of possibilities from regulated skies to underground rivers. The latter are a special interest of mine - I have done a project on north London’s lost river Moselle some years ago. While doing research on it back in the day, I discovered that Moselle used to flow directly underneath the street I lived on at the time, in Crouch End. I remember wondering how my neighbours would have felt if they knew this - would they be in awe? excited? horrified? concerned that the old lost river could somehow devalue the price of their expensive Edwardian homes?.. 

Image: My old poster describing the lost river Moselle in north London and its existing and possible relationships with public spaces and Tube stations. (The original article with a higher resolution image is available here)

Image: London Under, the brilliant book by Peter Ackroyd, with a large section on London’s lost rivers

In the classroom session that followed, we were urged to recognise that who we are and how we relate to the world depends on what tools we have available, both as users of technology and as designers. Of course, the bias of the researcher, observer and designer is something that traditional HCI is acutely aware of, and often tries to eliminate. Yet, to what extent is it really possible? What if, instead of pretending to be unbiased, the designer dives right in and accepts bias as part of their creative process? As designers, my group is already prejudicing certain choices over others, and my personal experience and interests are already shaping our creative direction. Further, as users of technology, we could expand on the HCI concept of the task-artefact cycle to claim that we are changed by the technology as much as the technology is changed by us. In the context of my earlier thoughts on the multi-layered smart city, this interdependent relationship could be key in how the new layer of smart city technology will slot into the existing historic context of London, with its already existing interdependencies, both overt and hidden. 

During the same session, we were considering the role of stories in design. Rather than being stories that are fabricated by the designer (as illustrated by the ivory tower examples from my second blog post), they are instead uncovered through letting in those, whom the design is for. To allow for this letting in to happen, it may be necessary to shake off the traditional user-centred design approach favoured in HCID which, in the words of Daniela Rosner in her book Critical Fabulations, focusses on “individualism, objectivism, solutionism and universalism.” Instead, Rosner offers an alternative approach of “alliances, recuperations, interferences and extensions.” The concept of recuperations in particular stresses the importance of absent narratives: “What histories of practice have been suppressed or elided?” Whose voices are missing? This slotted in with my earlier ponderings on the lost histories that lie under our feet. 

The following weekend I attended the William Blake exhibition at Tate Britain. His work, infused with the powerful motifs of underworld and death, deeply moved me and further reinforced my focus on these themes for our project. Blake had lived his entire life in London and had rarely left its bounds, his work ingrained in the context of the eighteenth and nineteenth century London. 

Image: Illustration from the book Complaint, and the consolation, or, night thoughts, 1797, by William Blake. Open at pp.54-5

A very obvious absent narrative haunted me throughout the exhibition - that of Blake’s wife, Catherine. There was a drawing of her at the beginning of the exhibition, alongside a brief piece of text explaining her involvement in Blake’s work, such as engraving, colouring and practical support. 

Image: Catherine Blake, c.1805, by William Blake

Another, much more poignant piece of text later on in the exhibition, explained that Blake’s Pilgrim’s Progress was purposefully ignored by scholars for many years because it was known that Catherine had been directly involved in producing the series, and that “her creative and practical influence is only beginning to be fully appreciated.” Catherine’s story resonated with me deeply, making me wonder how much of her absence could be reconstructed at this point in time. Could today’s scholars read between the lines and re-imagine her, in the full depth she deserves, using today’s technology? 

The image below is a brief attempt to encapsulate my frame of mind and my preoccupations over that week, in a data visualisation format. I counted the number of times the themes of underworld and death have come up in my personal life over the course of the previous seven days, and then plotted them on a graph, turned upside down to reinforce the effect of its ‘underworld-ness’. Initially spurred by our group discussions, the frequency of these themes ebbed and flowed, taking a ‘deepwater dive’ - 14 mentions of underworld, 14 mentions of death - on the day of the William Blake exhibition. 

Image: My data visualisation of my previous week’s preoccupations, illustrating the number of times per day I documented the themes of underworld and death.

During our second group meeting, I discovered that some members of my group had been thinking in parallel, getting progressively fascinated by similar subjects. One group member had become engrossed in the subject of digital graveyards: the strange situations that arise when a relationship has come to an end, or when someone has passed away, yet that person’s digital presence is still palpable. I jumped immediately on that idea, not just because it had relevance to my own design thinking so far, but also because the subject resonated with me on a personal level.

So our group talked about how death was a taboo subject in our everyday lives, and how art and literature served as ways to bridge that indescribable void. 

We agreed to go our separate ways and observe and document our findings for our third group discussion. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#7yrsago David Byrne's How Music Works

Former Talking Heads frontman and all-round happy mutant David Byrne has written several good books, but his latest, How Music Works, is unquestionably the best of the very good bunch, possibly the book he was born to write. I could made good case for calling this How Art Works or even How Everything Works.

Though there is plenty of autobiographical material How Music Works that will delight avid fans (like me) -- inside dope on the creative, commercial and personal pressures that led to each of Byrne's projects -- this isn't merely the story of how Byrne made it, or what he does to turn out such great and varied art. Rather, this is an insightful, thorough, and convincing account of the way that creativity, culture, biology and economics interact to prefigure, constrain and uplift art. It's a compelling story about the way that art comes out of technology, and as such, it's widely applicable beyond music.

Byrne lived through an important transition in the music industry: having gotten his start in the analog recording world, he skilfully managed a transition to an artist in the digital era (though not always a digital artist). As such, he has real gut-feel for the things that technology gives to artists and the things that technology takes away. He's like the kids who got their Apple ][+s in 1979, and keenly remember the time before computers were available to kids at all, the time when they were the exclusive domain of obsessive geeks, and the point at which they became widely exciting, and finally, ubiquitous -- a breadth of experience that offers visceral perspective.

There were so many times in this book when I felt like Byrne's observations extended beyond music and dance and into other forms of digital creativity. For example, when Byrne recounted his first experiments with cellular automata exercise for dance choreography, from his collaboration with Noemie Lafrance:

1. Improvise moving to the music and come up with an eight-count phrase (in dance, a phrase is a short series of moves that can be repeated).

2. When you find a phrase you like, loop (repeat) it.

3. When you see someone else with a stronger phrase, copy it.

4. When everyone is doing the same phrase, the exercise is over.

It was like watching evolution on fast-forward, or an emergent lifeform coming into being. At first the room was chaos, writhing bodies everywhere.  At first the room was chaos, writhing bodies everywhere. Then one could see that folks had chosen their phrases, and almost immediately one could see a pocket of dancers who had all adopted the same phrase. The copying had already begun, albeit in just one area. This pocket of copying began to expand, to go viral, while yet another one now emerged on the other side of the room. One clump grew faster than the other, and within four minutes the whole room was filled with dancers moving in perfect unison. Unbelievable! It only took four minutes for this evolutionary process to kick in, and for the "strongest" (unfortunate word, maybe) to dominate.

I remembered the first time I programmed an evolutionary algorithm and watched its complexity emerging from simple rules, and the catch in my throat as I realized that I was watching something like life being built up from simple, inert rules.

The book is shot through with historical examples and arguments about the nature of music, from Plato up to contemporary neuroscience, and here, too, many of the discussions are microcosms for contemporary technical/philosophical debates. There's a passage about how music is felt and experienced that contains the phrase, "music isn't merely absorbed above the neck," which is spookily similar to the debates about replicating human consciousness in computers, and the idea that our identity doesn't reside exclusively above the brainstem.

The same is true of Byrne's account of how music has not "progressed" from a "primitive" state -- rather, it adapted itself to different technological realities. Big cathedrals demand music that accommodates a lot of reverb; village campfire music has completely different needs. Reading this, I was excited by the parallels to discussions of whether we live in an era of technological "progress" or merely technological "change" -- is there a pinnacle we're climbing, or simply a bunch of stuff followed by a bunch of other stuff? Our overwhelming narrative of progress feels like hubris to me, at least a lot of the time. Some things are "better" (more energy efficient, more space-efficient, faster, more effective), but there are plenty of things that are held up as "better" that, to me, are simply different. Often very good, but in no way a higher rung on some notional ladder toward perfection.

When Byrne's history comes to the rise of popular recorded music, he describes a familiar dilemma: recording artists were asked to produce music that could work when performed live and when listened to in the listener's private playback environment -- not so different from the problems faced by games developers today who struggle to make games that will work on a wide variety of screens. In a later section, he describes the solution that was arrived at in the 1970s, a solution that reminds me a lot of the current world of content management systems like WordPress and Blogger, which attempt to separate "meaning" from "form" for text, storing them separately and combining them with little code-libraries called "decorators":

[Deconstruct and isolate] sums up the philosophy of a lot of music recording back in the late seventies. The goal was to get as pristine a sound as possible... Studios were often padded with sound-absorbent materials so that there was almost no reverberation. The sonic character of the space was sucked out, because it wasn't considered to be part of the music. Without this ambiance, it was explained, the sound would be more malleable after the recording had been made. Dead, characterless sound was held up as the ideal, and often still is. In this philosophy, the naturally occurring echo and reverb that normally added a little warmth to performances would be removed and then added back in when the recording was being mixed...

Recording a performance with a band and singer all playing together at the same time in the same room was by this time becoming a rarity. An incredible array of options opened up as a result, but some organic interplay between the musicians disappeared, and the sound of music changed. Some musicians who played well in live situations couldn't adapt to the fashion for each player to be isolated. They couldn't hear their bandmates and, as a result, often didn't play very well.

Changing the technology used in art changes the art, for good and ill. Blog-writing has a lot going for it -- spontaneity, velocity, vernacular informality, but often lacks the reflective distance that longer-form works bring. Byrne has similar observations about music and software:

What you hear [in contemporary music] is the shift in music structure that computer-aided composition has encouraged. Though software is promoted as being an unbiased toold that helps us do anything we want, all software has inherent biases that make working one way easier than another. With the Microsoft presentation software PowerPoint, for example, you have to simplify your presentations so much that the subtle nuances in the subject being discussed often get edited out. These nuances are not forbidden, they're not blocked, but including them tends to make for a less successful presentation. Likewise, that which is easy to bullet-point and simply visualize works better. That doesn't mean it actually is better; it means working is certain ways is simply easier than working in others...

An obvious example is quantizing. Since the mid-nineties, most popular music recorded on computers has had tempos and rhythms that have been quantized. That means that the tempo never varies, not even a little bit, the the rhythmic parts tend toward metronomic perfection. In the past, the tempo of recordings  would always vary slightly, imperceptibly speeding up or maybe slowing down a little, or a drum fill might hesitate in order to signal the beginning of a new section. You'd feel a slight push and pull, a tug and then a release, as ensembles of whatever type responded to one another and lurched, ever so slightly, ahead of and behind an imaginary metronomic beat. No more. Now almost all pop recordings are played to a strict tempo, which makes these compositions fit more easily into the confines of editing and recording software. An eight-bar section recorded on a "grid" of this type is exactly twice as long as a four-bar section, and every eight-bar section is always exactly the same length. This makes for a nice visual array on the computer screen, and facilitates easy editing, arranging, and repairing as well. Music has come to accommodate software, and I have to admit a lot has been gained as a result.

Byrne is well aware of the parallels between music technology and other kinds of technology. No history of the recording business would be complete without a note about the format wars fought between Edison and his competitors like RCA, who made incompatible, anti-competitive playback formats. Byrne explicitly links this to modern format-wars, citing MS Office, Kindles, iPads and Pro Tools. (His final word on the format wars rings true for other media as well: "Throughout the history of recorded music, we have tended to value convenience over quality every time. Edison cylinders didn't really sound as good as live performers, but you could carry them around and play them whenever you wanted.")

Likewise, debates over technological change (pooh-poohing the "triviality" of social media or the ephemeral character of blogs) are played out in Byrne's history of music panics, which start in ancient Greece, and play out in situations like the disco wars, which prefigured the modern fight over sampling:

The most threatening thing to rockers in the era of disco was that the music was gay, black and "manufactured" on machines, made out of bits of other peoples' recordings.

Like mixtapes. I'd argue that other than race and sex, [the fact that disco was "manufactured" on machines, made out of bits of other peoples' recordings] was the most threatening aspect. To rock purists, this new music messed with the idea of authorship. If music was now accepted as a kind of property, then this hodgepodge version that disregarded ownership and seemed to belong to and originate with so many people (and machines) called into question a whole social and economic framework.

But as Byrne reminds us, new technology can liberate new art forms. Digital formats and distribution have given us music that is only a few bars long, and compositions that are intended to play for 1,000 years. The MP3 shows us that 3.5 minutes isn't an "ideal" length for a song (merely the ideal length for a song that's meant to be sold on a 45RPM single), just as YouTube showed us that there are plenty of video stories that want to be two minutes long, rather than shoehorned into 22 minute sitcoms, 48 minute dramas, or 90 minute feature films.

And Byrne's own journey has led him to be skeptical of the all-rights-reserved model, from rules over photography and video in his shows:

The thing we were supposed to be fighting against was actually something we should be encouraging. They were getting the word out, and it wasn't costing me anything. I began to announce at the beginning of the shows that photography was welcome, but I suggested to please only post shots and videos where we look good.

To a very good account of the power relationships reflected in ascribing authorship (and ownership, and copyright) to melody, but not to rhythms and grooves and textures, though these are just as important to the music's aesthetic effect.

Byrne doesn't focus exclusively on recording, distribution and playback technology. He is also a keen theorist of the musical implications of architecture, and presents a case-study of the legendary CBGB's and its layout, showing how these led to its center in the 1970s New York music scene that gave us the Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, and many other varied acts. Here, Byrne channels Jane Jacobs in a section that is nothing short of brilliant in its analysis of how small changes (sometimes on the scale of inches) make all the difference to the kind of art that takes place in a building.

There's a long section on the mechanics of the recording business as it stands today, with some speculation about where its headed, and included in this is a fabulous and weird section on some of Byrne's own creative process. Here he describes how he collaborated with Brian Eno on Everything That Happens Will Happen Today:

The unwritten rule in remote collaborations is, for me, "Leave the other person's stuff alone as much as you possibly can." You work with what you're given, and don't try to imagine it as something other than what it is. Accepting that half the creative decision-making has already been done has the effect of bypassing a lot of endless branching -- not to mention waffling and worrying.

And here's a mind-bending look into his lyrics-writing method:

...I begin by improvising a melody over the music. I do this by singing nonsense syllables, but with weirdly inappropriate passion, given that I'm not saying anything. Once I have a wordless melody and a vocal arrangement my my collaborators (if there are any) and I like, I'll begin to transcribe that gibberish as if it were real words.

I'll listen carefully to the meaningless vowels and consonants on the recording, and I'll try to understand what that guy (me), emoting so forcefully by inscrutably, is actually saying. It's like a forensic exercise. I'll follow the sound of the nonsense syllables as closely as possible. If a melodic phrase of gibberish ends on a high ooh sound, then I'll transcribe that, and in selecting the actual words, I'll try to try to choose one that ends in that syllable, or as close to it as I can get. So the transcription process often ends up with a page of real words, still fairly random, that sounds just like the gibberish.

I do that because the difference between an ooh and an aah, and a "b" and a "th" sound is, I assume, integral to the emotion that the story wants to express. I want to stay true to that unconscious, inarticulate intention. Admittedly, that content has no narrative, or might make no literal sense yet, but it's in there -- I can hear it. I can feel it. My job at this stage is to find words that acknowledge and adhere to the sonic and emotional qualities rather than to ignore and possibly destroy them.

Part of what makes words work in a song is how they sound to the ear and feel on the tongue. If they feel right physiologically, if the tongue of the singer and the mirror neurons of the listener resonate with the delicious appropriateness of the words coming out, then that will inevitably trump literal sense, although literal sense doesn't hurt.

Naturally, this leads into a great discussion of the neuroscience of music itself -- why our brains like certain sounds and rhythms.

How Music Works gave me insight into parts of my life as diverse as my email style to how I write fiction to how I parent my daughter (it was a relief to read Byrne's discussion of how parenting changed him as an artist). I've been a David Byrne fan since I was 13 and I got a copy of Stop Making Sense. He's never disappointed me, but with How Music Works, Byrne has blown through my expectations, producing a book that I'll be thinking of and referring to for years to come.

Byrne's touring the book now, and as his tour intersects with my own book tours, I'll be interviewing him live on stage in Toronto on September 19th, at the Harbourfront International Festival of Authors.

How Music Works

https://boingboing.net/2012/09/12/david-byrnes-how-music-w.html

[voodoochili]

My Favorite Songs of 2019

2019 was a fantastic year for music, but then again every year is. We as listeners have been blessed with abundance, and tasked with the delightful work of sifting through freshwater to find gold. This year, the most reliably golden genres were West African pop and West Coast Rap. Go figure.

The following represents my favorite 100 songs of the year. My only rules: 1) one song per lead artist (a lucky few earned multiple placements through the “featured artist” loophole).

Below are the write-ups (everyone’s favorite part) and stay tuned for my albums list, coming next week. Don’t forget to scroll all the way down for a Spotify playlist of the full list!

25. Desperate Journalist - “Satellite” - A sweeping, emotional rock song by a veteran rock band that can uncork one of these in their sleep. What makes this one special? The dynamic changes in the pre-chorus, the soaring guitar solo, and the passionate performance from lead singer Jo Bevan.

24. Jacques Greene - “Stars” - A brilliant bit of ambient techno that evokes the seminal electronic classic “Little Fluffy Clouds,” by The Orb. Instead of desert clouds, the anonymous female narrator describes a pastoral dream about the night skies of her youth. A transporting piece of music that should’ve been twice as long--five minutes is a cruelly short lifespan for this kind of bliss.

23. Rosalía - “Con Altura” ft. J Balvin - After the brilliant and singular El Mal Querer demonstrated Rosalía’s singular talent, “Con Altura” announced her intentions for worldwide domination. Created with frequent Rosalía collaborator El Guincho and chameleonic superstar J Balvin, “Con Altura” contains two of the year’s most insidious hooks--the soft-spoken call-and-response chorus, and Rosalía’s snake-charming bridge, the strongest indication yet that global stardom won’t stop the Catalonian chanteuse from pushing music forward.

22. Faye Webster - “Room Temperature” – 2019’s answer to “Swingin’ Party,” the Replacements’ great anthem for introverts, the introductory track on Webster’s Atlanta Millionaire’s Club album drifts along with Hawaiian-flavored pedal steel and a palpable sense of regret, as the 21-year-old singer longs to escape her perfectly comfortable surroundings. 21. Yhung T.O. - “Lately” ft. Lil Sheik - Easy, breezy, beautiful Bay Area rap, carried by T.O.’s dulcet tones and Sheik’s unrepentant dirtbaggery. The beat by Armani Depaul is one of my favorite retro-facing rap beats in a while, complete with smooth digital strings and security-pad synths. 20. The New Pornographers - “You’ll Need a New Backseat Driver” - Every five years or so, A.C. Newman writes a melody so strong that it requires Neko Case’s ultra-powerful alto to properly do it justice. This year, that song is “You’ll Need a New Backseat Driver,” which strives for, and nearly approaches, the heights of previous Pornos stunners like “The Laws Have Changed” and “Champions of Red Wine.” 

19. Floating Points - “LesAlpx” - Surrounded by outré synth experiments and beatless soundscapes on Crush, the first Floating Points album since 2015, “LesAlpx” is Sam Shepherd’s gift to club-goers everywhere. It’s a lean and mean house track, foregrounding propulsive percussion and rubbery bass, but it’s also deeply cerebral, creating a sense of foreboding urgency with detuned synths and ambient sine waves. 18. Daphni - “Sizzling” ft. Paradise - Built around a sample of Paradise’s seminal single “Sizzlin’ Hot,” Dan Snaith’s “Sizzling” extends the best moments of the classic post-disco smash to create five minutes of pure euphoria. The song starts in media res, with the groove in full form, and peaks at the end, when Snaith finally allows Paradise’s June Ventzos to finish her thought atop jubilant trumpets. 17. J Hus - “Must Be” - The latest genre-blending collaboration between J Hus and genius producer JAE5 proves that no man is safe from Hus’s dazzling logic, as he stacks syllogism after syllogism over an irresistible, afropop-flavored groove: “If it walk like an opp/Talk like an opp/Smell like an opp/Then it must be.” 16. Vampire Weekend - “Jerusalem, New York, Berlin” - Ever indulging his literary ambitions, Ezra Koenig uses the final track on Father Of The Bride to examine his Jewish identity, and to reckon with a world that hasn’t made sense since World War I. The prettiest melody on an album dripping with pretty melodies, “Jerusalem, New York, Berlin” packs enough symbolism into three minutes to inspire a seminar at Koenig’s Ivy League alma mater. Supported by yearning, spritely piano, Koenig ends the song with a poignant plea for peace, within reason: “So let them win the battle/But don't let them restart/That genocidal feeling/That beats in every heart.” 15. Great Grandpa - “Bloom” - The highlight from Great Grandpa’s outstanding Four Of Arrows album, “Bloom” is two songs in one. Part one brings punchy acoustic guitar that recalls ‘90s adult alternative (think Matchbox 20) and prime-era Saddle Creek (think Rilo Kiley) in equal measure. The second par tcompletes the song’s emotional arc, slowing down for a hypnotic wordless chorus, backed by weeping violins,. The key line here: “Please say I’m young enough to change.” 14. Spellling - “Real Fun” – Gleefully dramatic and overflowing with evil-sounding synths, “Real Fun” synthesizes Neneh Cherry, Bauhaus, and Cabaret into something that sounds like a villain’s theme in an animated musical that hasn’t been written yet.   13. Earthgang - “Proud Of U” ft. Young Thug – There’s no straight man to ground this ATL trio, as all three emcees lean into their vocal eccentricities while expressing their thanks to the women in their lives atop a mutating, guitar-driven beat. 12. Stella Donnelly - “Tricks” – In which the young heroine attempts to rid herself of a particularly toxic ex, who isn’t just misogynist, but a potential white supremacist sympathizer (her subject’s “Southern Cross Tattoo” is like an Aussie version of the MAGA hat). Heavy stuff, but Donnelly delivers everything with a grin, as if she’s wondering in real time why the hell she ever bothered with this jamoke. 11. Jenny Lewis - “On The Line” - The title track and emotional climax of Jenny Lewis’ latest album, “On The Line” boasts one of the finest vocal performances in her long career, sweetly assassinating her cheating ex-lover with a lilting melody and wry smile.

10. Lucinda Chua - “Whatever It Takes” – Lucinda Chua makes languid art pop in the tradition of fka twigs, but I prefer her understated longing to twigs herself. Her main instrument is the cello, but this track foregoes that sound almost entirely, opting instead for resonant Wurlitzer keys and multi-layered vocal harmonies, and shunting traditional song structure aside in favor of one enigmatic verse, repeating at odd intervals throughout: “Wait/The demons I carry are fake/I will fight our fire, too late.” 9. ShooterGang Kony - “Charlie” – The year’s most cold-blooded mob banger starts with the line “fuck the police and your mama if you ask me” and only escalates from there. Rhyming without affect over hiccuping bass, Kony mercilessly ethers cops, R&B singers, and women named Ashley before threatening to shoot you with a gun that sounds like Fozzy Bear. 8. KEY! - “Miami Too Much” – My favorite Atlanta rap song of the year gets its power from its hilariously specific central conceit, with KEY’s impassioned vocal selling the bit: “If you seen that ass, you'd make a song too.” How often must someone visit Dade County before it becomes an irreconcilable difference in an otherwise healthy relationship? 7. Raphael Saadiq - “Something Keeps Calling” ft. Rob Bacon - Named after his older brother, Raphael Saddiq’s towering Jimmy Lee album examines the personal cost of the crack epidemic, and the outsized role addiction plays in the lives of the destitute. “Something Keeps Calling” is the album’s crushing centerpiece, painting substances as at once a seductive lover and a heavy burden, one that overrides all common sense and decency: “My friends say I can never pull it together/Well they might be right, at least tonight/My kids say I'll never come home again/And I know they're right, at least tonight.” The song climaxes with Rob Bacon’s wailing guitar solo, which tries in vain to reach out to those beyond hope. 6. Bad Bunny & J Balvin - “La Canción” - Nestled in the middle of Balvin and Bunny’s summer smash OASIS, “La Canción” takes a break from the party to dwell on the inherent emptiness of their hedonistic lifestyle, as a mournful trumpet echoes the Reggaetoneros’ longing for meaningful connection amidst their chaotic lives. 5. Polo G - “Pop Out” ft. Lil TJay – Only Polo G would interrupt his own robbery to examine the sociological causes of his behavior: “We come from poverty, man, we ain't have a thing.” But on the rest of “Pop Out,” Polo leans into the dark side of his persona, before 2019’s most unlikely guest verse assassin Lil TJay brings the pathos: “If I showed you all my charges, you won't look at me the same.” In contrast to how effortless the two rappers sound atop the dramatic piano loop, listening to Lil Baby and Gunna wheeze through the remix hammers home the high degree of difficulty of such nimble melodics. It’s a testament to how fast rap music moves these days that Polo and TJay can make last year’s It Duo sound like geezers. 4. Octo Octa - “I Need You” – It starts as an intoxicatingly minimal expression of dancefloor lust, but halfway through, “I Need You” morphs into a sincere and moving tribute to everybody who helped Octo Octa become the woman she is today. It’s a moving moment tucked within an epic club track that works equally well as build-up or comedown.

3. Purple Mountains - “All My Happiness Is Gone” - It’s hard to find the words for this one, a matter-of-fact documentation of a man slowly losing his will to live--which became heartbreakingly clear when David Berman committed suicide in August. But because it’s Berman, “All My Happiness Is Gone” is packed with genius-level wordplay and devastating observations, and enough gallows humor to truly emphasize the gravity of his situation: “Friends are warmer than gold when you're old/And keeping them is harder than you might suppose//Lately, I tend to make strangers wherever I go/Some of them were once people I was happy to know.” I’ll keep going: “Ten thousand afternoons ago/All my happiness just overflowed/That was life at first and goal to go.” And one more: “Where nothing's wrong and no one's asking/But the fear's so strong it leaves you gasping/No way to last out here like this for long.”

2. Big Thief - “Not” - A torrid, slow-burning rocker, “Not” showcases lead singer-songwriter Adrienne Lenker’s skill with oblique imagery and wild-eyed intensity. Lenker rattles off a long list of poetic observations, trying to get to the heart of something (everything?) without ever finding a satisfactory answer, as the music morphs from a controlled simmer to a cacophonous freakout. “Not” climaxes with a riotous guitar solo from Lenker herself, one that reaches towards the cosmos and echoes her frayed vocal. As always with Big Thief, though, the song soars in the smallest moments, like when guitarist Buck Meek enters with plainspoken backing vocals, and at the beginning of the second verse when the guitars drop out and Lenker’s voice stands alone.

1. Burna Boy - “Anybody” - Sometimes the best song of the year is the one that makes you feel the best, and no song this year made me feel better than “Anybody.” “Anybody” is both inviting and aloof, urgent and relaxing. Riding an irresistible groove defined by syncopated keys, driving percussion, and an eager-to-please saxophone, Burna Boy slides between Pidgin English and Yoruba chasing a feeling that resonates beyond the capabilities of language. It’s a song about demanding and receiving respect, dripping with the contagious confidence of an African Giant. And for three minutes, you’ll feel like a giant too.

THE REST: 26. DaBaby - “Intro” 27. Perfume Genius - “Eye On The Wall” 28. Yves Jarvis - “To Say That Is Easy” 29. Doja Cat - “Cyber Sex” 30. Mannequin Pussy - “Drunk II” 31. Better Oblivion Community Center - “Dylan Thomas” 32. Shoreline Mafia - “Wings” 33. Kehlani - “Footsteps” ft. Musiq Soulchild 34. Obangjayar - “Frens” 35. Ariana Grande - “NASA” 36. Mustard ft. Roddy Ricch - “Ballin” 37. Baby Keem - “ORANGE SODA” 38. Jessie Ware - “Adore You” 39. 03 Greedo x Kenny Beats - “Disco Shit” ft. Freddie Gibbs 40. Martha - “Love Keeps Kicking” 41. Lucki - “More Than Ever” 42. Park Hye-Jin - “Call Me” 43. DaVido - “Disturbance” ft. Peruzzi 44. The Japanese House - “Worms” 45. Spencer Radcliffe - “Here Comes The Snow” 46. Dawn Richard - “Dreams And Converse” 47. ALLBLACK & Offset Jim - “Fees” ft. Capolow 48. David Kilgour - “Smoke You Right Out Of Here” 49. Sandro Perri - “Wrong About The Rain” 50. Nilüfer Yanya - “In Your Head” 51. Julia Jacklin - “Don’t Know How To Keep Loving You” 52. Miraa May - “Angles” ft. JME 53. (Sandy) Alex G - “Gretel” 54. Kelsey Lu - “Due West” 55. glass beach - ��classic j dies and goes to hell, pt. 1” 56. Peggy Gou - “Starry Night” 57. Cate Le Bon - “Home To You” 58. Busy Signal - “Balloon” 59. NLE Choppa - “Shotta Flow” 60. Dee Watkins - “Hell Raiser” 61. Ari Lennox - “I Been” 62. The National - “Not In Kansas” 63. Shordie Shordie - “Both Sides” ft. Shoreline Mafia 64. Alex Lahey - “Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself” 65. Angel Olsen - “New Love Cassette” 66. Young Dolph - “Tric Or Treat” 67. Koffee - “Throne” 68. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - “Half Manne, Half Cocaine” 69. Noname - “Song 32” 70. Anthony Naples - “A.I.R.” 71. Samthing Soweto - “Omama Bomthandazo (feat Makhafula Vilakazi)” 72. KAYTRANADA - “10%” ft. Kali Uchis 73. Moodymann - “Got Me Coming Back Right Now” 74. Drakeo The Ruler - “Let’s Go” ft. 03 Greedo 75. Teejayx6 - “Dark Web” 76. Cass McCombs - “I Followed The River South to What” 77. Gunna - “Idk Why” 78. Sharon Van Etten - “You Shadow” 79. Tresor - “Sondela” ft. Msaki 80. E-40 - “Chase The Money” ft. Quavo, Roddy Ricch, ScHoolboy Q & A$AP Ferg 81. Spielbergs - “Running All The Way Home” 82. 24kGoldn - “Valentino” 83. Quelle Chris - “Box of Wheaties” 84. Emily King - “Go Back” 85. AzChike - “Yadda Mean” ft. Keak Da Sneak 86. Club Night - “Path” 87. Zeelooperz - “Easter Sunday” ft. Earl Sweatshirt 88. Kim Gordon - “Murdered Out” 89. YS - “Bompton” (Remix) ft. 1TakeJay & OhGeesy 90. Future - “Never Stop” 91. Lowly - “baglaens” 92. SAULT - “Masterpiece” 93. Earl Sweatshirt - “TISK TISK/COOKIES” 94. Fireboy DML - “Energy” 95. Rio Da Young OG & Lil E - “Buy The Block” 96. Sacred Paws - “Write This Down” 97. Wilco - “Everyone Hides” 98. Black Belt Eagle Scout - “Real Lovin” 99. Sleepy Hallow - “Breakin Bad (Okay)” ft. Sheff G 100. Aimee Leigh & Baby Billy - “Misbehavin’ (1989)”

Here’s a Spotify playlist of the full list: 

[secretentourage]

This is for all of you who are lost, confused, don't know where to start, how to make money, and even how to learn... PLEASE STOP FALLING FOR THIS STUPID MARKETING BS! Today, I woke up with this in my inbox. For a good 5 minutes I just sat there, thinking to myself, "WTH, it's 2017. Why are people still falling for these things?" I decided enough is enough - it's time to educate you guys on the realities of business marketing that you do not seem to understand. I am going to use myself as an example too, so trust me, this isn't a personal attack on anyone, it's opening your eyes. This ad that I saw states that an affiliate marketer has made over $1,000,000 in sales. While this seems high, it's possible for him. That said, here is what most people fail to see and understand: 1. There is a marketing cost to that million dollars of revenue. As a rule of thumb, many marketers take home about 10% of what total gross sales are. The problem, of course, is saying "I took home $100,000" isn't as attention-grabbing as saying "we sold $1,000,000". 2. If you start today, you will not enjoy ANYTHING near that amount. Why? This marketer has been building his business for four years (for example, back when Instagram was a free-for-all platform and every day you could grow 5K followers just by posting quality content. You can't do that anymore.) That means that when you have a base of 2,000,000 followers to market to, you have what most people don't have when they start, which makes it easy to succeed fast. If I do the same thing, I have a huge base of people to pitch so it's just a matter of how I pitch. For the average person, you have to first find a potential lead (pay for it), then attempt a pitch, then adjust based on results. In many cases, this wastes tons of money before you make even one dollar. So for you, the average person getting started, it's unlikely that you see anything near even 5% of your gross sales. If you have to also build a following, you'll be way down in losses before any money is made back. Nowhere does any ad talk about this critical piece of the puzzle. 3. Digital affiliate marketing has been around for YEARS, it's nothing new. This is no different than being an MLM, just online. It's OK if you understand what you're getting into, but you're really just selling other people's products for them and taking half the profit. Would you go to Walmart, buy a bottle of Pepsi for a dollar, and try to resell it for 50c more? It sounds stupid, right? Actually, a Pepsi is more likely to sell than most of the products that are being affiliated because no one knows about them... but they know what Pepsi is. If you think just signing up for a program then posting your affiliate link on your Facebook page is going to make you money, you're delusional. You have to learn how to make great landing pages, write great copy, and even go so far as figuring out how to spend good marketing money that will convert skeptics into believers. If you are smart enough to do this, then the first question you should ask yourself is, "Why the hell would I do all that work just to sell someone else's product instead of my own?" EXACTLY! You wouldn't - which is why 99% give up in their first 30 days. That attrition rate doesn't matter to the guy who recruited you because he gets paid as soon as you sign up to sell. 4. You watch me on social on @icreatemillionaires talk about 3 critical things all the time and leverage my cars, house etc... to convince people, right? I keep saying join the Secret Academy, read RADIUS, read TCT and you too will have what I have. Sounds crazy, right? I agree, and it makes sense if you think of it in the context of what is shown to you. You cannot have a 7 figure house & 7 figures in cars JUST by being an entrepreneur. You can have them when you succeed as an entrepreneur. This is why I never say you'll achieve this in 90 days. I say you will learn this in 90 days. There is a difference. I also never tell you to do exactly what I do. I don't teach people to write blogs, build platforms like Secret Entourage, or sell courses. I don't even teach you what I know to start a business in the automotive industry like I did back then in 2005. I don't teach you how to make $1.7M in real estate like l did in 2006 nor how I made $800,000 in 3 months trading 2 stocks in 2009. I don't teach it because you can't replicate it. It's a matter of timing, it's a matter of being the right person ready to take action in front of the right opportunity. It's not about execution, it's not about knowledge, it's about everything coming together after YEARS of practice and failure. This is not SEXY people, that's why I only have 90K followers on Instagram and not 5 Million. It's a not a dream. It's a reality that every one of you will come to accept at some point in your life or another. You just need to hope that by the time you realize it, it's not too late to have enough energy and time to get started. There is no shortcut. It took me 10 years to make enough money to engage in all the opportunities above I mentioned, while still working a day job. It took me 5 years after that being a small business owner and fucking dying with no sleep to survive and not have to close my doors. It took me 5 more years to learn how to be an entrepreneur and then be able to find victories in varied industries. Somehow, despite all that effort, some guy will open his email see that bs ad and say: "For $47, I am going to have the unicorn formula to making a million dollars this year, even though I haven't even learned to make my first $1000 in business." Business is about the art of creating transactions and getting good at it. It's simple, but it's NOT easy. 5. With Exotic Car Hacks, I don't teach people to wake up in an exotic when they're broke and don't understand 2 things about making a dollar. I teach people to finance in the context of cars because most people don't understand that luxury goods are a financial business transaction for the seller and buyers of these things. The more you understand, the more you realize how to create transactions, not be the one on the wrong side of it. I have an ad that says "Learn to get in an exotic car in 90 days." It's my highest converting ad, and while I show you a Huracan in it, it is NEAR impossible for someone who has never owned a car to buy their first Huracan in 90 days. However, it is not impossible for them to buy their first exotic (perhaps a GTR, R8, Masi etc...) but just cause I show you a pic, you assume it's going to be a Huracan. Marketing is the art of allowing your customers to create self-assumptions of what will happen to them by becoming your customers. By the way - Nike does the same thing with fitness/sports performance, Apple does this for graphic designers and creative artists, and even Subway did it with that Jared guy pushing weight loss. This is an ART. Don't hate it - learn to master it. So what did you learn from this post? 1. Don't fall for stupid bs. There is no $47 solution to your problems. There is no book that will make you a million. Each book is an opportunity to understand how to think. It's up to you to pull the value out of it. 2. You won't make a million sitting at home doing what another 20,000 people tried to do last week. 3. Learn to decipher marketing from reality. 4. Entrepreneurship is about creating a path, not finding one. 5. Business is about creating a path for others to walk on and pay you for it. 6. Read Third Circle Theory & Radius - I wrote them for a reason - so you can learn. If you don't think you get it after you read something the first time, read it again. There is a reason Andy Frisella and Fabio Viviani call me one of the smartest guys they know. It's not because I spit BS. I teach Business & Entrepreneurship. Sometimes that's not sexy, but it's necessary, because in 10 years there will be 60% fewer jobs and most of you will already be behind. This is the time to take action and the time to figure out that first 10 years so you can be in a position to take action when SHTF. Pejman PS: If you want to network with REAL entrepreneurs and learn how REAL businesses are born, then head over to my Secret Entourage Academy here: http://ift.tt/2idQ6Nv http://ift.tt/2v8Y5ge