#sometimes leslie responds to things very late

[leslie-lyman]

Les! I just saw your call for asks! (I literally am the worst at being a human these days). How was your trip? How was the flight?

It got me thinking about Pero and Tess. We know they travel together but what is like the first time Pero gets on an airplane? Is he fascinated or horrified? Does Tess explain the mile high club to him? Does he enjoy the terrible snacks?

I love you, you fabulous beautiful kind human 🖤

Caaaaaaaaaaaat ilysm ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

My trip was excellent!! Completely exhausting, but I’m so glad I went even though I was so anxious about it. AND I got to spend a day at Tokyo DisneySea, so that made everything worth it.

We also went out one night for drinks in Golden Gai, which is this TINY area of about three alleyways in the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo that somehow survived the bombings in WWII and so is an amazing time capsule of pre-war Tokyo architecture. Today it houses over 200 bars, most of which seat only 3-8 people max! It was incredible. Some pics for u:

The flight wasn’t as bad as I’d feared; on the way over, there wasn’t anyone in the middle seat next to me, which gave me more space. And on the flight back I got upgraded to business, THANK GOD. So I slept pretty well! (Even if I’m now fighting a cold I picked up somewhere along the way.)

As for your other questions…I think about Tessa taking Pero on a plane for the first time basically every time I fly now and I love you to death for asking about it!!!!

Tessa would do a lot of prep with Pero. She’d be more nervous than he would be; not necessarily about him being on the plane, but about going through security. Moira, with her broad powers of manipulation, has magicked up a set of identification documents for Pero. But if he gets pulled aside by TSA, what if they ask him questions he can’t answer? What if something happens and Tessa can’t be by his side to help explain things and Pero doesn’t understand what’s going on?

So they practice. Tessa shows him every video on TSA’s website explaining how airport security works, then every video she can find on YouTube about it so he can see in advance what the procedure will look like. Then she has him explain the process back to her to make sure he’s absorbed each step. They run through all sorts of scenarios like they’re engaging in the world’s least-sexy role play: what if Pero gets pulled for secondary screening? What if they have to pat him down, or swipe his hands for residue? What if his bag gets extra screening? What does he do and where does he wait if any of those things happen to Tessa?

Then they move on to the actual flight itself. Again, thank god for YouTube and the many, many travel vloggers on there extensively documenting their flying experiences. Tessa can show Pero exactly what it looks like to be on a plane, from takeoff to landing, and can show him videos that explain how planes work and what different sounds and things mean better than she ever could. But of course, watching a video of being on a plane and actually being on a plane are two different things…

They do a test flight, the shortest Tessa can find: Chicago to Indianapolis. Henry drops them off, then drives down to Indy to pick them up. Tessa breathes a huge sigh of relief when they get through security without a hitch. Pero is quiet as they wait at their gate, which isn’t unusual for him, but he’s more nervous than he lets on. He won’t show it though, a combination of the ingrained effects of stoic toxic masculinity and Pero’s general desire not to contribute to Tessa’s worries.

Tessa springs for first class, which is a bit ridiculous for so short a flight, but it’s more comfortable, less claustrophobic, and, importantly, means it’s just the two of them in their row. Pero takes the window seat. Tessa feels more acutely than ever before the weight of Pero’s trust in her. It’s one thing to say the things you see on tv aren’t real, trust me, or this medicine is safe and will cure your headache, trust me, or you’ll like this food, Pero, trust me. Flying is terrifying even to people who grew up with it as part of their lives; how much faith does Pero have to have in her to believe her when she tells him that this is safe, this will work, this is normal? Tessa’s eyes trace the lines of Pero’s profile as he stares out the window as they taxi and she cannot believe how much love she has for this brave, brave man.

They take off, and Pero is surprised at how loud it is. He reaches for Tessa’s hand and the only sign of his nerves is how tightly he holds onto her. But he stays glued to the window the entire time, completely in awe and unconvinced that there’s no magical component to making this work.

What would William think of this, he can’t help but wonder.

Only the snack cart is enough to distract him from the view. Tessa had warned him that airplane food would disappoint him. And it does, but that doesn’t stop him from trying one of everything.

They land in Indianapolis and Pero decides landing is definitely his favorite part.

But he would do it again, he tells Tessa. It certainly beats spending weeks on horseback.

Thank god, Tessa thinks. This means now we can go to Spain.

As for the mile-high club…

Pero hears some vlogger make a passing joke about it on one of the videos they watch.

“What does that mean? Mile-high club?”

He does not expect Tessa’s ears to turn pink with embarrassment, but they do, and his question has her squirming where she’s curled up against his side on the couch. Before, he was curious. Now he’s intrigued.

“It’s, um, slang,” Tessa says, not meeting his eye. “If you’re a member of the mile-high club, it means you’ve had sex on a plane.”

Oh now there’s a possibility Pero had not considered.

“And are you, mi amor?” he asks, not wasting an opportunity to tease his flustered little witch. “A member of this club?”

“No!” is her emphatic reply. “I’d absolutely die of mortification if I got caught, and it’s not like it’s easy to get away with. Besides, the only place to do it is in those tiny airplane bathrooms that are barely big enough for one person, let alone two.”

Pero hums as he considers, trailing the hand not wrapped around her shoulders up the smooth skin of her thigh, pushing the hem of her dress higher. He watches her pupils dilate, and is sure that if he keeps going he’ll find her panties already damp for him.

“Even so,” he says, fully planning on tugging her down the hall and bending her over their bathroom sink, “we’ve prepared for every other kind of scenario on this journey. We should practice for this one too, don’t you think?”

[dustrp]

GOES BY THE NAME OF ZORA LESLIE JAMESON, AGED 32. USES SHE/THEY PRONOUNS. WORKS UNDER THE JACK ODYSSEY GANG AS A ROBBER. FACECLAIM: JASMINE TOOKES. CURRENT BOUNTY: ✹34,000

You always start with a few simple words: I’d like to tell you a story. You were taught by your mentor the power comes from the lilt of the voice, the pitch, the leaning. You have to get it right every single time, too. No slip-ups or signs of fear when it comes to picking marks clean, otherwise they’ll become the vultures. So you say I’d like to tell you a story and whoever it is that is looking at you like you made the sun leans in a little closer. Sometimes you mirror them, or put your arms around their shoulders to slip your hands down into their pockets. Or you pull them along the length of the dancehall or bar, and while they are trying to keep from stumbling you tell them whichever story you think will placate them best. A cruel tragedy, following a mother’s death and a child desperate to live. A comedy, detailing a love triangle that ends with two of the three dead. A horror story, about a siren that lives only to take what she pleases.

Here is the thing about your stories. They all have a fragment of truth to them. Maybe that’s why they work so well. Of the men and women you’ve robbed blind in York over the years, hopping from one house of ill repute to another, they all buy into you one way or another. You are a chameleon by default, a liar, a charismatic beast that wears a beautiful skin, and none of them ever seem to figure it out until it’s too late. The end, you whisper in their ear, and then you’re gone before they have time to pat themselves down in panic. You laugh all the way home and pay off anyone important enough to tell any stragglers you went in the opposite direction. Pickpocket! Thief! The Revenants snarl, to which you respond by grinning a little wider. You try not to see the same face more than once; you’re not the sort to stay in one place for very long.

You were born in York. It is all you’ve ever known, and, like countless others, you’ve only ever tried to dwell amongst the masses to make a life for yourself. You’ve clawed your way to the top of the ladder only to be shoved back down more than once. And the truth of the matter is that no matter how many stories you tell to keep your pockets full, thievery does not make a person feel warm and fuzzy if they’re doing it alone. You get away with nearly a grand of divinity and when you feel no surge of excitement or pleasure or even a modicum of happiness, you decide to make a change. A bit of different scenery couldn’t hurt, could it? You buy your train ticket from Atticus Railway that same night. Let fate do what it will with me, you think, even as you watch the lights of York fade from the window. Lucky for you, fate has plans.

You go broke. Quickly. How that happened is neither here nor there — oh, is that a bird over there? — but the reality is that you are drained of any divinity before you hit your second month in a small town called Mercy’s Hilt. Whatever quaint, romantic little life you thought you’d be living is nonexistent, and you have other debts to pay, so you take out a loan with a stranger called Quarter who comes to town one day. You think you’re getting a decent deal, too: I’d like to tell you a story. Only that money is gone too, too fast for comfort, and when Cain and Shotgun come to collect your debt you try for a second time to weave a tale. They don’t buy it, but when you say you can make them a decent chunk of change just by smiling at the right person, they bring you back to the one and only Jack Odyssey… and you see a future outside of York in which you are very, very rich.

WIDOWER MAY I. They seem to know what they want from you — some sort of ground-breaking potential they imagine you possess, maybe — but you don’t. Never once have you had to rely on skills of gunmanship or threats to get what you want, but Widower isn’t a fan of the strategies you use to to trick people out of their divinity. So they’ve designated themselves as a bizarre mentor to you, kicking you when you’re down and trying to teach you lessons that you have no interest in learning. In fact, when you see them coming with that stupid, too-knowing smile on their face, you’re usually inclined to dig your heels into the dirt even furhter. Worse than that, their apathy towards just about everything means that you can’t charm your way out of their grasp when they say they’re going to take you along on a job. 

DOVE. You’ve been harboring quiet feelings for Dove since they came out of their shell, loath as you are to admit it. It was you who slowly drew them out of their grief, you who helped them along in finding their step and determining if they truly wanted to stay. If Widower can’t look after their daughter for them, you’re the next person they come calling for. But it’s like they don’t even notice you some days — as if you’re not even there. You’ve never had to deal with that before, really, someone who isn’t interested in hearing what you have to say when all you’ve ever had to do your whole life is talk. You turn the charm all the way on around Dove, but all they do is laugh you off and say that it’s not the real you when you talk to me like that. You don’t know what they mean; this is all you’ve ever been. How can you be anything else?

PARAGON. They remind you quite a lot of your mentor, who taught you all that you know. You find their self-righteousness and ego amusing — mostly because they huff and puff whenever you poke any holes in the idea of themself that they’ve created. You’ve met hundreds of people like Paragon. They think they’re clever, knife-sharp, above everyone else… but the money in their pockets spends just the same, and their charm wears off eventually. It always does. As of late, you think they’ve been getting antsy about something, a little too big for their britches in terms of the work they do for the gang and where they see the Odyssey headed. You don’t love to entertain questions of power or even of the gang’s future, but the direct Paragon is headed in has you worried. You can only try to turn them away from the road they’re travelling on before they go too far and can’t turn back.

— LARK is currently TAKEN by LIA.

[the-busy-ghost]

Could you tell us about something really wacky that happened between 1060-1570? Like, a bizarre land dispute or political incident?

Hi! Thank you for asking, and I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to respond. I’ve really been agonising over what the best story was to tell but in the end I’m afraid I had to just pick one I liked rather than one that was objectively the Wackiest.

Although I have to admit that this is quite a wide remit. Since everything comes down to land in the end, there are lots of disputes that could perhaps fit the bill- hell, even the entire history of Anglo-Scottish relations could be considered one huge bizarre dispute (there are even stretches along the border called the ‘Debatable Land’ because nobody could agree on who owned it, and the families who lived there often decided which country they were stealing from depending on who was in the ascendancy at the time). Then there’s just the shenanigans of the royal house for example (not least James III and his siblings, who were particularly Extra).

And yet despite this my mind goes absolutely blank when people ask me. I really wanted to give you several examples but it took me hundreds of words to type up one, so I’m afraid that will have to do for now. These cases can also get very violent so I didn’t want to pick one that was too obviously bloody, since that’s not always so entertaining. Indeed, personally, I prefer the little petty things that people did in the past that are lightly amusing, like one sixteenth century Scotswoman who allegedly tried to take back her consent to a contract by pulling her mark off the parchment with her thumb and then eating it, presumably to the horror of some poor notary; or the fact that several fourteenth century Douglases had really bad-ass nicknames like ‘the Grim’ but there was also one poor guy who is known as Hugh the Dull.

The best #Wacky disputes are often to do with control over church property- as in the case of the Earl of Cassilis allegedly ‘roasting’ the commendator of Crossraguel (although tbh the Kennedys were a very Extra family in general and there’s lots of weird stories about them)- or naval law (anything the Bartons got up to, including, but not limited to, sending James IV a barrel of Flemish heads and nicking a ship the king had given his uncle the king of Denmark, or perhaps smuggling cases like that of the Edward Bonaventure), or even just your usual Deranged Noblemen like the Wolf of Badenoch or perhaps Alexander Irvine of Drum (who among other things, mutilated his chaplain and is alleged to have yeeted Fraser of Philorth off the Brig of Balgownie). So there’s lots to choose from but I wanted to pick one with a comparatively low body count, and also I personally find this one interesting- though I apologise in advance if it doesn’t meet your mark, and feel free to ask about the others if not.

Anyway.

Perthshire, 1527- Teenage nun's brother and his powerful friends attack a priory to secure her position

(View over the Tay from Elcho Castle today. Sadly I don’t have any photos of the fields where the priory would have stood, but this might give some idea of the landscape, where the river bends round through the Carse of Gowrie towards Perth)

It’s somewhat common knowledge that a noble family’s tradition of nominating the heads of monasteries and the position of bishops could be very contentious and valuable, but even though they’re discussed less often it’s worth noting that influence over the nomination of the heads of nunneries could also be deeply important to the secular nobility. Even though they were theoretically even less involved in ‘worldly affairs’ than monasteries, that did not prevent certain nuns from being heavily involved in some political and social issues, like Isabella Hoppringle, prioress of Coldstream, who seems to have acted as a spy and informant on the borders. The position of abbess or prioress at a nunnery could be perceived as a sinecure for daughters of a certain family, and some families were willing to go to considerable lengths to secure this influential position for their female relatives. This is what seems to have happened at the Perthshire nunnery of Elcho in 1527, during the unsettled minority of King James V.

In 1526, an eighteen year old nun named Euphemia Leslie had ambitions of becoming prioress of Elcho. However, rather inconveniently for her, Elcho already HAD a prioress- Elizabeth Swinton, who had purchased the office of prioress from one Margaret Swinton back in 1511 (the Swintons were a Berwickshire family- at first glance one might have expected the women of the family to enter another south-east nunnery like Coldstream or North Berwick but women’s religious foundations in Scotland were often small, and they may have had to enter the Perthshire nunnery due to lack of vacancies in Berwickshire). Undeterred, Euphemia did not let this stop her and she began litigation against Elizabeth Swinton, claiming the office of prioress. Elizabeth, whose purchase of the office had been approved by the late Alexander Stewart, Archbishop of St Andrews, stuck to her guns and decided to take the case to pope. However in an unexpected twist, the papacy denied her claim, compelling her to resign the office in return for a pension and granting the title of prioress to the young Euphemia Leslie.

Elizabeth Swinton did not give in easily. She raised multiple objections to her opponent’s candidacy- that Euphemia Leslie was too young, that she was illegitimate (the daughter of a priest at that), that her parents had been related in the forbidden degrees, that she had obtained the office of prioress unlawfully, and so on. She did resign the office on several occasions and this was documented, but she then seems to have changed her mind again (or rescinded this whenever she was free to do so) and continued to act as if she were prioress in some capacity, making several appeals against the judgement in favour of Euphemia. It seems that her rival had powerful backers and on one particular occasion, she was threatened with physical violence. Some time in 1527, John Stewart, earl of Atholl* and his uncle Andrew, the bishop of Caithness, arrived at Elcho with eighty armed men, broke into the nunnery and confined Elizabeth Swinton to a chamber. There, Euphemia Leslie’s brother Robert, who was an advocate, oversaw Elizabeth’s forced resignation “for fear of her life” and compelled her to constitute procurators at Rome who would formally resign the office of prioress in favour of his sister.

As soon as she was free to do so, Elizabeth Swinton immediately appealed to Rome again and also brought a complaint about Atholl and his companions before the king’s council (though the latter decided that so far as they were concerned, Euphemia Leslie’s claim looked legitimate enough). She continued to supplicate against Leslie until at least 1529, but from 1532 at least Leslie was exercising the office of prioress without opposition. It is difficult to decide who actually had the ‘right’ to the office. We have to rely on individual testimonies for certain events, not least Elizabeth’s testimony regarding the attack on Elcho. (That being said, regardless of who had the right, personally I think that if you are a bishop who finds himself attacking a nunnery with a small army and imprisoning the prioress on behalf of a teenager, you probably need to take a good look at your life choices.) There is also some evidence that Elizabeth Swinton was not an entirely competent prioress. In the end it’s a rather interesting example of conflict over the office of prioress that got a bit more out of hand than usual, and it’s much more complex than my summary. But it’s a good reminder that even women sworn to god were sometimes subject to similar rivalries and ambitions as their secular kinsmen and women.

(Elcho priory no longer exists, but here’s a picture of the lovely castle a few fields away that occupied the lands after the Reformation)

[Sources- a full run-down of this conflict is given in K. Perkins’ chapter “Death, Removal and Resignation: The Succession to the Office of Prioress in Late Medieval Scotland” in the book “Twisted Sisters: Women, Crime, and Deviance in Scotland Since 1400″. However a short summary is also available under Euphemia Leslie’s name here and an account of Elizabeth Swinton’s complaint to the lords of council regarding the attack on Elcho can be found here]

* It is interesting to note that John Stewart, 3rd Earl of Atholl’s mother was also involved in an Interesting case regarding invasion of church property after her son’s death. During another unsettled royal minority, Janet Campbell, dowager Countess of Atholl, was ‘tutrix’ (like a regent but for noble estates and children) to her young grandson, the 4th earl. In November 1543, the Bishop of Dunkeld complained before the lords of council that Janet, accompanied by Lord Methven (Margaret Tudor’s widower) and a great many others had fortified Cluny with artillery and men and laid siege to the cathedral and bishop’s palace of Dunkeld. The accused protested that they had been acting for the good of the country, as the places of Dunkeld were so defenceless that it was only a matter of time before criminals attacked them, and Janet, Countess of Atholl in particular claimed that she had only acted in this manner because she was honour bound to protect the property of the bishop of Dunkeld during her grandson’s minority. The case was settled when Janet, Methven, and the others agreed to have their men quit the bishop’s property on a certain day, after Janet had taken her ‘provision’. [Source- pages 235-6]

[garthups]

the maze, part I

Part One of the story! Very excited to post this. -Leslie

I kept the car running in park while the shitty vents sputtered, trying my hands warm. Your Love by that band from the eighties was playing in the distance. I have a love-hate relationship with these roped off grassy parking lots, where there aren't actual spaces, just car anarchy. Take any spot you can find and let’s all hope that some semblance of a parking lot comes together. Sure there’s something inherently egalitarian about it, but they remind me of being scared to park when I was learning to drive. I was always positive that my Camry was too far over, and I’d brace myself for the crunch of metal on metal. 

The familiarity of coming to the maze made parking in the lot easier, and I didn’t have to reverse and drive into the same spot over and over again to be satisfied. My friends and I came to Hudler Farm every October for the autumn corn maze. Sometimes we’d take caramel apples in and chaunk through them while meandering.

 Fuck, that was always so fun. High school seems like a lifetime ago though. All it takes are a few hundred miles, and staggered midterms, and suddenly you talk to the guy in the dorm next to yours who gets drunk on natty seltzer more than the people who got you through your mcr phase.

 None of us got together last year, which was a bummer, but out of the blue Lottie messaged Sam and me. I watched the shadowy families walk by in the dark, my hands weren’t getting any warmer though. The idle LEDs were dim enough that I could see outside. A little boy running after his parents tripped and fell in the mud. I stifled a chuckle, because kids falling down is hilarious, and tried to screw with the vents, but they were already all open. Piece of shit car. When I looked up, the boy was still splayed out on the ground, shivering. Both his parents kept walking though. I scrunched my brow. I started fidgeting with my seatbelt, but my hands didn’t have much feeling in them. People were just walking around him, like he wasn’t there. 

“WHAT’S up dog!” My door exploded open.

“JESUS fucking god Lottie, I--” She took her spot in the passenger seat, laughing her ass off.

“Sorry sorry sorry, wow Phoebs I got you pretty good huh?”

“I mean yeah I’m just so ready to get killed in this parking lot. Hey I think that kid hurt himself out there pretty bad.” I breathed, still shaken.

“What kid?”

“That one.”

“Oh that one, sorry it’s dark, so it took me a sec. Yeah let’s go help.” Honestly, I could never stay mad at Lottie. Seeing her new dreads in person made me miss the big buns she wore in high school. We slammed the doors shut, and stepped onto the ground covered in too-damp leaves. Two guys beat us to him though, and they were helping him up.

“Oh wait, is that the kid you meant?”

“Lottie, why would I be talking about a kid that isn’t sprawled out on the ground.”

“I thought this one was playing snake or something. Anyway, let’s go meet Sam’s friend!”

We walked over to the boys, Sam’s friend was getting the kid back on his feet. Sam’s friend was a good head taller than he was, which wasn’t saying too much. The guy gave off an eagle scout vibe though, so his height was probably pretty important to him. Maybe camp counselor would have been closer. He was gently reassuring the kid.

“Feeling better? Okay, better go catch your folks, and make sure not to stay too far behind them, bud, okay?”

“Good call man, I thought he was just playing snake.” Sam glowed.

“Sup fuckers!” Lottie sang. The boy turned around, he looked about nine, so Lotties curse made him bust a grin. From the looks of it he scraped his cheek pretty bad. He dashed off. Sam’s friend laughed nervously since Lottie broke the unspoken rule of swearing in front of kids.

“Hey dudes! It’s so awesome to see you!” Sam laughed. “I told Matrix everything about you, so there’s no need to divulge any information to him. Don’t trust this guy with any more embarrassing stories about yourselves.” Matrix waved shyly, and I rolled my eyes.

“That’s cool. You know we called Sam “Shrimpy” all of sophomore year because his hair got all curly and he dyed it red?”

“Thanks Phoebe, that is something I like people to know about me.” Sam said while subconsciously making sure his hair was still a tight buzz cut. Matrix smiled a little.

“You must be Lottie?”

“It’s great to meet you! Lets get some apples.” 

The four of us were waved through by the teen collecting tickets. The entrance to the maze had a little banner raised up on two poles and a chair with an admissions person. Next to the entrance was a main pavilion with a tiny shop and some picnic tables out under the roof. Lots of families were congregating there, buying souvenirs and farm t-shirts. Thankfully this wasn’t one of the maze theme nights according to a big promotional calendar that outlined all the dates. Lottie groaned when she saw that they added alien night and we hadn’t bought tickets.

“Like what does that even mean though. Are there aliens in the maze? Do they scare us?” Sam said eyeing the kettle corn buckets.

“Yeah I mean, it’s probably just like zombie night and mermaid night where you just get like jumpscared by teens in costumes. Freakin aliens though! Imagine!”

“Uhh did you say they do a mermaid night here?” Matrix said.

“Dude I never told you about that! You’re looking at the three scariest volunteer mermaid teens that Hudler farms has ever known. We were unholy legends flopping after scared families.”

Sam and Lottie were wide eyed crowding around Matrix, telling him all about the glory days. Made me pity him, his bud probably had a whole different energy at college.

“They’re fucking with you! Why in god’s name would a corn maze have a mermaid night.” I finally shouted. Lottie pouted.

“Boooooo Phoebe! How dare you!” I wrapped my face up in my scarf to escape guilt. 

We all mostly ate our caramel apples under the pavilion just so we could give Matrix the rundown of the maze. The Hudler farm maze has these eight checkpoints which give you special tickets. 

“We don’t leave without all eight. Got it? Dee oh en tee. I don’t give a fuck if we die trying.” Lottie said through a mouth of caramel and nuts. It felt surreal having my friends here again. After all, the limited exposure I had to them was social media. I lived vicariously through the photos they posted of new friends.

There was a sign in the pavilion that gave us a rough idea of where all the checkpoints in the maze were. I resisted the urge to take a photo in order to preserve the challenge that the maze posed. Probably didn’t need it to beat our best time. I was the only one who hadn’t finished their apple for traditions sake. Hopefully the caramel wouldn’t freeze though.

“Ok so let's remember to hit that cluster of checkpoints in the northern corner first. We're gonna take a lot of rights and then keep going on that long stretch forward.” I strategized.

“I’ll eat that apple if you’re not going to Phoeb, you know I’m psyched that they got pink ladies this year instead of grannies smiths.” Begged Sam.

“I did a few youth group trips to corn mazes, so this isn’t my first rodeo guys don’t worry!” Matrix added.

“That’s cool.” Phoebe said straight faced. I wanted to laugh, but didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

Before I could respond, I saw it. I inhaled slowly as I took in the scene before us. The moon was thin and most of the lights were under the pavilion itself, but I felt like I should’ve noticed something so wrong before.

“Why is the all corn so fucking tall.” The question, er -- statement hung in the air for a few seconds while the maze came into view for everyone else. Corn stalks get surprisingly tall late in autumn, maybe like ten feet. This stuff though. It was like, way way way too tall. And not irregular. So, regular. The maze looked like it could have been a trimmed hedge. All the stalks stretched up and up, reaching out for the sky, each of them trying to escape from the ground. I suddenly was at a loss, something so ordinary was wrong in such an obvious way. Finally, Lottie broke our silence.

“Shit.” Great. I mean, she wasn’t wrong.

“That’s amazing. God is it this tall every year? That’s the tallest corn I’ve ever seen, must be 30 feet! Maybe more.” Finally Matrix had found something to be upbeat about.

“Ahh no man. It’s like normal usually. Lottie are you feeling alright? Do you want to take a sec before we head in.”

Matrix jumped in. “Nothing to be worried about. I’m sure it’s just like GMO’s or something. Gotta up the yield. They should seriously lead with that in the advertising though. Corn jungle! Towering Corn! Feast your eyes ladies and gentlemen on the worlds first corn metropolis!” He broke the spell on Lottie with his campy broadcaster voice. She joined in: “Keep your dame close as you delve into the mysterious corn caverns, where the CORN DRAGON DWELLS.”

Matrix Chuckled. “Well I don’t know about that. Hard to deliver on a corn dragon. But look I’m sure it’s fine, everyone else doesn’t seem to mind.” It was true, the usual fare of families and teen groups were venturing into the maze without concern. I watched the family from the parking lot get a safety flashlight from the teen working the entrance. I breathed in through my teeth.

“For a second I thought you actually made jokes, scooter. You’re right, it’s probably just a good year for tall corn. We can go.”

“Phoebster, you good?” Sam nudged me. It honestly took me a second longer than Lottie to take in all the explanations. It was such a weird thing to be off in such a significant way. Must have been some primal instinct of being afraid of the dark. The corn stalks were darker than the night sky around them; I tried to catch glimpses through the stalks but they blanketed out the stars. 

“Yeah sorry about that guys. I’ll remember more of the strategy once we’re in the maze. Let’s blow through this thing!” 

We went into the maze.

[squidproquoclarice]

What do you think of Arthur’s relationships with the camp girls aside from Sadie?

Ooooh.  I like this one.  I’ve previous discussed Abigail and Molly.Susan:  Like I wrote, Susan was Dutch’s lover when Hosea and Dutch found him in San Francisco.  So she and Bessie became sort of his maternal figures, just like Dutch and Hosea became the paternal ones.  That carries over even now, given he clearly still somewhat defers to her in a certain sense (like the forced wash-ups).  They’re an interesting partnership given they’ve become the gang’s two effective enforcers/orderkeepers: Susan in the camp, Arthur out on the jobs.  So I think there’s that longstanding mutual respect for each other’s position and authority, and an unspoken, if sometimes prickly, affection.  Susan remembers when he was a snarky, angry boy who also responded so profoundly to any kindness, and Arthur remembers when she was happier and a bit softer.   It’s notable that Susan’s the first one to sit by him when he gets back, near death, from his ordeal with the O’Driscolls, that she immediately says “Of course” to looking after him, and it looks like she reaches out to hold his hand as she sits down beside him.  Also notable that she and Arthur, as Dutch’s previously most fanatically loyal followers, stand together in the end at Beaver Hollow in trying to defy Dutch, that she trusts Arthur that much.   

Tilly:  They share a sharp-tongued humor that I enjoy, and his remarks that she was the “sweetest, saddest” person the camp had ever seen strike home.  It sounds like he was protective of her even then, and that’s clearly continued.  She comes to him for advice on things like jokingly asking if she can murder Susan, but she also offers him the chance to talk out some of his problems.  He listens when she points out issues like being in the deep South with her being a black woman, and understands her nervousness.  The way he tries to comfort her after her kidnapping by the Foremans is pretty touching, and makes it clear that there’s trust and affection between them.  I think he can understand her abusive background and hunger to be something more than this, and being super pleased at how successful she is post-gang in achieving her dreams, finding love, and starting a family.  After all, his wish for her was that she go live a good life.  Overall, he’s got something of a big brother/paternal role to her that’s really sweet.  I don’t see it as romantic due to age difference and there being a more paternal slant to it.

Mary-Beth: Obviously their literary bent is a bonding point for them, and it’s adorable that he encourages her writing, and in his usual self-deprecating way, belittles his own writing efforts like she does.  She’s more than she seems, much like him, but I think there’s a part of him that realizes that they’re two ships passing in the night on that.  The sweet-faced dreamer that’s her largely public face actually is largely Mary-Beth as she wishes to be, though she does have harder depths she’s been forced to cultivate due to the rough hand life dealt her after her mom died.  Whereas he’s entirely the opposite, given that his gentleness and his dreams are incredibly well hidden, and his public face is fairly harsh and brutal.  I totally see him enjoying a Leslie Dupont novel in the future even as he chuckles at the purple prose and proudly saying “Good for you” to Mary-Beth for having made it.  I like the brother/sister dynamic and how they bring out each other’s artistic side, but again, age difference, and the difference in their personalities.  I think he’d always feel like the rougher parts of him are just too coarse for her for him to really let go and relax.  

Karen:  God, I have so many Karen feelings, especially given her ambiguous fate.  I would actually call her the most direct female counterpart to Arthur.  She’s boisterous, sharp-tongued, funny, much like he can be.  They bring out the humor in each other.  She’s also, aside from Sadie, seemingly the most aggressively involved in the gang’s crimes (as opposed to the more subtle skills of rolling drunks, scouting leads, pickpocketing, being the decoy in a stage robbery, etc., that the other women utilize) given her very active role as a triggerwoman in the Valentine bank robbery.  That does seem to fit with Karen’s personality, given she seems to enjoy the bold “drunken harlot” act there more than the demure “little girl lost”.  But there’s a softer side to her too that she’s afraid to show openly.  We see some of it with Sean and their prickly romance, how she consoles Kieran by saying he’ll be fine and he’s one of them now.  That moment where she says almost shyly that dancing with Arthur is really nice, “almost like being a normal girl”, is honestly kind of heartbreaking.  Like him, she wants more than this, but she has to pretend she doesn’t.  And that big heart is made obvious with how she falls apart after Sean’s death.  She can’t reach out to other people for support, because she can’t make herself vulnerable and ask for help.  I could almost ship her with Arthur, because I think she’s more age-appropriate (mid-late twenties?) than the other women, and they have so much in common, except for the fact that they have so much in common (right down to identifiably Welsh surnames).  They both have that softness they’re scared to show covered by sassy “big and bold” nonchalance, and most of all, they share the same poor coping mechanisms of violence and alcohol.  They both really need someone who’s similar to them, but who also has some different strengths to give that support.  For Arthur, that’s going to be Sadie.  For Karen, I could actually see Karen/Charles, because she can bring out the playfulness in him, and he can make it OK for her to be serious and soft in a way Sean’s boisterousness maybe couldn’t.  Like–if I had a postgame wish, it would be that Arthur and Sadie would find her and help her, because Arthur understands what she’s going through on a personal level, and Sadie understands her grief and self-destructive rage.

[all-my-friends-were-glorious]

OC MUSES - CANON-BASED MUST LIST

Cadillac “Cadi” McLaren - Pansexual Panromantic Monogamous Cis Female - Raisins Girl With Ponytail - 26 - FC: Billie Lourd

Cadillac goes by Cadi, which she is very insistent is pronounced ‘Kay-Dee’, like Katie. If someone calls her ‘Cah-Dee’, they tend to walk away with a bloody nose. She is very good at pretending to be a sweetheart, a little bit gullible, but the fact of the matter is that she’s actually very cold. When she loves someone, she loves them very hard, and she has had a crush on Ferrari for a long time. Due to this, she tries to sabotage other relationships that Ferrari has, out of jealousy. When she was fifteen, she was diagnosed with Asocial Personality Disorder, after her anxious mother found her actively causing harm to the children she was babysitting. She went on to work at the Hippo after high school, though she does some modeling on the side. It’s her current goal to get in as a full-time model somewhere.

Delilah Owens - Bisexual Homoromantic Monogamous Cis Female - 20 - FC: Parker Posey - DECEASED

Delilah is staunchly fond of Ravencrowe, and enjoys listening to him when he talks. However, she won’t outright say what she’s sure he’s thinking about Mike, because she knows better than to run her mouth. She sometimes is seen hanging out with Fisher, but they typically deny it. As of a few days after Leslie, Vernon, Draven, and Arlo’s arrival, Delilah was brutally murdered by Leslie. Fisher responded to her distress call, but was too late, and barely made it out with his life.

Dylan Parks - Homosexual Homoromantic Polygamous Genderflux Male - Younger Half-Brother To Benji, Younger Brother To Lance - Teal-Haired Emo Kid - 21 - FC: Cazion Fhey

Dylan has always been a very friendly, if not overly friendly, kid, and it translated into his adult life. He may as well have a different hair color every day, because he dyes his hair so often. Even he doesn’t know what his natural color was. A self-proclaimed slut, he happily accepted the label when he found it easier to communicate with his body than his words.

Eliza Cartman - Pansexual Panromantic Polygamous Cis Female - 27 - Daughter of Liane and Jack - Younger Half-Sister to Scott - Older Sister to Eric - FC: Madelaine Petsch

Eliza is very favorable to her father, only finding out that Jack was her father later on. In honor of him, she dyes her hair red and prefers to be regarded as his daughter. She doesn’t have a good relationship with Eric, as he treats her like some kind of freak for wanting to be a ginger. They have never really gotten along, if only because she got to stay with their father when she was 8-10. When the Tenormans were killed by Eric, she went to the state and remained in foster care until she aged out at 18. Living on her own was rough, but she managed to get it. When Eric moved out of Liane’s house, she contacted her with an offer for a room, and she ended up caving. Now, she lives with her mother, half-brother, and niece in Liane’s house. Much like her parents, she’ll spread her legs for almost anyone. She isn’t picky, and has wrecked at least one marriage she is aware of.

Fisher “Fish/Fishguts/Fishnets” Osbourne-Giffard - Pansexual Panromantic Polygamous Transmale - 22 - FC: Ryan Davies Hall

Fisher never really wanted to fit in anywhere, and makes it a habit to just be himself. He’s violent, crude, and unafraid to get his hands dirty. If the Society needs someone taken care of, he’s the guy chomping at the bit to do it. He hangs out with AJ a lot, trying to encourage her more violent side. He and Dylan hang out and consider each other friends. Firkle doesn’t hate him, surprisingly.

Harker Brown - Pansexual Panromantic Polygamous Cis Male - Beanie-Wearing Emo Kid - 23 - FC: Zeitkrieg

Harker has never been a smart man. He’s strong, and willing to listen to someone he thinks knows better, but he doesn’t have a lot going on in his head. It’s rare that he wears a shirt, even in the cold, and will opt for aesthetic scarves and things instead of actual clothes. Working out is something he does in his spare time, when he’s not following around one of his friends or working on his bass guitar. If you touch his nearly pristine 1995 Acura Integra Type R, you will be sorry.

Infiniti Lyons - Bisexual Biromantic Monogamous Cis Female - Redheaded Raisins Girl - 24 - FC: Emma Stone

Infiniti actually had something of a head on her shoulders, and eventually found her way out of only being known as a Raisins Girl. Still, she liked the infamy and the easy cash, so she kept up the look and act as much as possible. This didn’t mean her college application was rejected, however, due to her grades and her extracurriculars.

Jacen “Jace” Hart - Homosexual Homoromantic Polygamous Transmasc Nonbinary Person - New Kid/Douchebag; Villain - 24 - FC: Devon Bostick

Due to a string of bad decisions on his part, Jace got his cousin (and one of his best friends), Michael, killed during a liquor store robbery. Unbeknownst to him at the time, Jace tried to use the largest of his time-fart powers at the same time as two other New Kids, Travis and Robbie. The force of all three bending time at once caused a cataclysmic event that threw all three of them into another universe’s version of South Park. Not sure if he actually saved Michael or not, Jace has reverted back to being almost entirely silent. He is petrified of Jonah, and is actively avoiding him.

Jonah Lawson - Bisexual Biromantic Polygamous Cis Male - New Kid/Douchebag (Phone Destroyer); Hero - 25 - FC: Parker Bossley

Jonah had always had something of a temper, and while he didn’t speak for a long time, people usually figured out what he wanted. If they didn’t, he would let some of them dictate it to him. He went on to become a hero in town, a vigilante that handled things better than anyone in the SPPD. He solved crimes and lost pet issues all the same, and prided himself on his work. However, he never liked Jace from the moment they met, and things didn’t change the older they got. To him, Jace is and has always been weak, even when he had the ability to be better. From time to time, he likes to just mess with him, because he thinks it’s funny to watch him scramble. With Jace suddenly going missing, Jonah found a way to follow him to wherever he went, even if that hadn’t been his intention. He plans on dragging him back to their proper timeline and dealing with him on their own soil.

Kelly Joo - Bisexual Biromantic (HEAVY Female Lean) Polygamous Cis Female - Asian Girl No. 3 - 26 - FC: Christina Masterson

Having moved away to Akihabara, Japan with her friends to work collectively as a mangaka, Kelly and company were doing rather well selling their BL collections under the collective writer’s group CREEK. Her and the girls moved back to South Park after a large creative rut, hoping that they could return to the source of their inspiration and come out on top. In order to work around her glasses, Kelly started wearing contacts in late high school, and has not gone back. However, she does have a pair of glasses in case she needs them/runs into an emergency. She does wish to try and befriend Craig and Tweek, even if she does feel a little odd about how her and her friends got them together in grade school. Her first order of business is to apologize.

Lisa Akimoto - Pansexual Panromantic Polygamous Cis Female - Asian Girl No. 1 - 25 - FC: Celina Martin

Having moved away to Akihabara, Japan with her friends to work collectively as a mangaka, Lisa and company were doing rather well selling their BL collections under the collective writer’s group CREEK. However, they seemed to have lost some steam for their work and moved back to South Park to try and find their original source of inspiration. Her main job for their group is writing, and she needs fresh material.

[brittnee-nicole]

1year

This time last year I was moving out of the fourth place I had rented since I left my parents’ house after high school and moving back into my dads. I remember being extra uneasy; not only because the person I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with was cutting the rope, but because I felt like I was regressing all together. I was sure I’d lose friends. I’d have to search for a new job. People but mainly my own dad would think less of me. I felt like such a mess, like it was going to take much more motivation than I had in me to get back on my feet. It’s nuts to look back on what happens in a year. I’m writing this from bed, thanking mostly God but my mom, Brother, dad, Amanda Trent Annie Cody Leslie & then Dustin. Throughout this last year anytime I pulled away you guys pulled me in and held on tighter. I realized how important it is to forgive others and yourself to allow new light in. I lost a lot of people but walk side by side with the ones who continue to grow me. I was introduced to a man who I believe truthfully wants to see me succeed. Instead of toxicity, he hands me a book. Instead of allowing me to sulk, he’d ask how he could help. When I am lazy and apologize for not getting the stuff done he responds “that’s okay sweetie sometimes I do that too.” I remember up until very recent still having questions about where I went wrong... in my relationship(s), friendships, jobs, personal agenda. I also remember feeling relief, breathing & thinking clearly, being OK with the uncertainty of things. It’s important to listen to your mom, even when you think what she’s saying is so far off. I promise you she is always right. It’s important to trust the process. Things won’t happen on your timeline or even how you would like because it is simply not in your hands. Don’t regret ANY time you spent with someone you once cherished, time is precious. Do as you want done to you. Read books. Stay up late and wake up early. Go to the drive in movies and make out with your boyfriend like you’re 15 in the truck bed... stay when it starts pouring rain. Let yourself feel happy when your brain and body is telling you to. Travel. Speak freely. Forgive. Love. I feel so free & I want to hug anyones neck who has been apart of it... you’re all so special and not going anywhere. “crank the music and keep dancing!!!!!!!!!!!” 💛

[leslie-lyman]

Hi Leslie! I am sending all the smooth travel vibes your way. I’m so curious where you’re going!

I heard of a FMK alternative the other day that made me laugh. It’s lick, fondle, slap lol so I ask you: Marcus Pike, Pero, Ezra

Have a fantastic trip!

Kat my beloved!!

Thank you for the travel vibes; they absolutely worked because there ended up being no one in the middle seat next to me during my EXTREMELY long flight, which meant I could stretch out juuuuuuust enough so that I actually got some sleep!

I was in Japan and it was AMAZING. Lots of boring meetings but I also got to do a little sightseeing. Here is a picture of a shrine we stopped at before lunch one day:

I love your FMK alternative omg. 🤣 Okay, let me think…

Lick: Marcus Pike. Not only do I want to lick this man just generally (you know one long sweep of a tongue up his neck would make him fall to pieces), but let’s be real, I love Pero and Ezra but their hygiene situations leave a little to be desired.

Fondle: Pero. He’s such a grouch, I think giving his ass a lil squeeze would make him all scowly and flustered (and guarantee that he’d get you back for it at the first opportunity).

Slap: Ez. You just know with that mouth of his it’s inevitable that he’s gonna say something that would make you wanna smack him. But knowing him, he’d probably be into it too. 😉

[bountyofbeads]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/07/11/how-jeffrey-epstein-made-himself-into-harvard-man/m672RjwFJFwWOVzF9WRNjO/story.html?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true

“If you do something awful, and you need not to make things right, but to make your reputation change, Harvard is like a drive-through providing that service,” Giridharadas said.

“The Epstein case makes very clear what Harvard and other institutions like it are selling: reflected prestige and reputational glow to people who need it, which is often people who have sinned greatly and violated law or conscience,” said Anand Giridharadas, author of the book “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.”

"Its PED program, funded by Epstein, does not compensate for pedophilia.

It is clinging to money that properly belongs to victims as reparation."

How Jeffrey Epstein made himself into a ‘Harvard man’

By Zoe Greenberg | Published July 11, 2019, 8:42 p.m. | Boston Globe | Posted July 12, 2019 |

Before Jeffrey Epstein was disgraced — before he was arrested this month and charged with sex trafficking dozens of minors, before he received a slap on the wrist in 2008 for molesting girls at his mansion in Palm Beach, Fla. — he aimed to be a Harvard man.

He contributed millions to the university, reportedly funding the construction of Harvard Hillel’s building, and helping to establish the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. He frequented an office blocks from campus, and flew up in his private plane to host seminars there with some of Harvard’s most prominent professors, according to Alan Dershowitz, an emeritus professor of law at Harvard who served as one of Epstein’s lawyers. Among Epstein’s close associates, according to a 2003 Harvard Crimson article, were former president Lawrence Summers, former dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Henry Rosovsky, and professor emeritus of psychology Stephen Kosslyn.

“He had a close connection to Harvard,” said Dershowitz, who helped negotiate the generous plea deal with prosecutors in Florida. Two women have alleged that Epstein directed them to have sex with Dershowitz; he denies ever meeting them.

Epstein savored his university ties. He was photographed wearing a crimson sweatshirt, “Harvard” emblazoned in white letters across his chest. As recently as 2014, Epstein’s foundation issued press releases referring to him as a “Harvard mogul,” and “renowned science and Harvard investor.”

But Epstein was not, exactly, a Harvard mogul. He was not a Harvard alum, a Harvard professor, or a Harvard parent.

Instead, he seems to have simply chosen Harvard to be his, adding it to a collection of prized objects that would reflect glory back upon him, like the photographs of famous people displayed in his New York home, the lavish properties he amassed from Manhattan to the Caribbean, and the young girls he allegedly hunted down. Some have likened him to a sinister Jay Gatsby, whose stories about himself don’t always line up with the truth.

Now that Epstein is once again facing criminal charges alleging that he sexually abused a vast network of underage girls, his lengthy relationship with Harvard, and his touting of that relationship, shine a light on the role the university played, however unintentionally, in burnishing Epstein’s reputation and status even as he committed serious crimes.

“The Epstein case makes very clear what Harvard and other institutions like it are selling: reflected prestige and reputational glow to people who need it, which is often people who have sinned greatly and violated law or conscience,” said Anand Giridharadas, author of the book “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.”

“If you do something awful, and you need not to make things right, but to make your reputation change, Harvard is like a drive-through providing that service,” Giridharadas said.

Epstein was charged by federal prosecutors in New York this week with sexually abusing dozens of girls between 2002 and 2005. He had been accused of similar crimes in Palm Beach, but in that case, prosecutors ended up negotiating a secret deal with Epstein’s lawyers that required him to plead guilty to just two prostitution charges in state court. The Miami Herald, in a blockbuster investigation last year, reported that more than 80 women said they were victimized by Epstein.

But at least one thing is clear: For decades, Harvard was a central part of Epstein’s story.

Even after he was arrested and served time in the county stockade — a brief 13-month stint, during which he left six days a week to work from an office in West Palm Beach — Epstein continued to shower money on Harvard.

In 2012, he established a private foundation called “Gratitude America Ltd.,” which contributed at least $100,000 to the Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770, a Harvard performing arts organization, according to The Daily Beast, and contributed more than $100,000 to a nonprofit run by Harvard professor Elisa New, the wife of former president Summers. Both donations suggested a kind of insider status, the type of gift that would most likely come from an alum with a hearty dose of nostalgia for his college days.

New told WBUR that she was “profoundly troubled” by the latest allegations against Epstein, and that the funds had already been spent. The Hasty Pudding Institute did not respond to requests for comment.

Epstein, who took some classes at Cooper Union and New York University, does not have a college degree, according to a 2002 profile of him in New York magazine. In any case, his major institutional contributions to Harvard may have been largely talk.

The New York Times reported in 1991 that four donors, including Epstein and his close friend Leslie Wexner, pledged to raise $2 million to fund a center for Hillel, the Jewish student organization at Harvard. A plaque inside the center listed Epstein, Wexner, and Wexner’s wife as donors of the Rosovsky Naming Gift, the Crimson reported in 2003. Today, the plaque is no longer there, according to a person familiar with Harvard’s Hillel; Hillel did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Another gift of Epstein’s to the university remains foggy: He publicly pledged $30 million to establish the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, run by professor Martin Nowak, in 2003, according to the Crimson. But a Harvard source said that Epstein actually gave just $6.5 million.

But even if the promised money never arrived, Epstein successfully cultivated close relationships with preeminent professors, partly through funding individual research projects. Multiple professors told the Crimson in 2003 that Epstein was funding some of their work.

Epstein also regularly hosted private lunches and seminars in an office at One Brattle Square, where he invited world-renowned faculty members to share their work, said Dershowitz, who sometimes attended, and described the sessions as “very intellectual, very academic.”

It is not clear when, or whether, Epstein and his foundation stopped funding individual faculty. A number of scholarly papers published between 2006 and 2008 contain a brief sentence in the acknowledgments section: “The Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED) at Harvard University is sponsored by Jeffrey Epstein.” And as late as 2012, a Harvard website detailing the schedule for professor George Church’s lab lists a 5 p.m. meeting with Epstein in Nowak’s office — a year after Epstein was required to register as a high-risk and potentially dangerous sex offender in New York. Neither Church nor Nowak responded to requests for comment.

Rick Friedman, a longtime photojournalist in Boston, attended one session where Harvard’s luminaries gathered at the behest of Epstein. In September 2004, Friedman was hired by a German magazine to photograph an end-of-summer event hosted by Epstein, a meeting of minds Friedman called “absolutely surreal.”

“I photograph a lot of academics,” Friedman said. “Here was an incredible group of noted academics who were all going to be together.” The frames from that day show Dershowitz, Epstein, Summers, and others talking and laughing.

“It’s just like a bunch of friends having a good time, just all hanging out,” Friedman said.

But after Epstein was accused of crimes, most of his academic friends scattered.

“Once the charges were made, certainly my relationship with him became entirely lawyer-client,” Dershowitz said. “We never had another seminar again, or never had any connection with the Harvard people.”

Zoe Greenberg can be reached at zoe.greenberg@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @zoegberg.

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Accents, Language and Race: 5 People on Why They Code-Switch

http://fashion-trendin.com/accents-language-and-race-5-people-on-why-they-code-switch/

Accents, Language and Race: 5 People on Why They Code-Switch

The first time I actively noticed someone code-switch I was about 10. I told my mom (who is white) that she put on an accent around my dad’s relatives (who are black) at Christmas. “Please stop,” I said in the car one day. When you’re 10, everything is embarrassing, but I think there was something about that particular brand of code-switching that stuck out to me. It seemed so inauthentic, an attempt to belong in a way that just came off as awkward. So often when we talk about code-switching, we talk about a certain group shifting to meet the expectations of a dominant culture. I think watching that in reverse was what caused me to notice it, even though I had been code-switching for most of my life.

There’s the linguistic-focused dictionary definition of code-switching — “the practice of alternating between two or more languages or varieties of language in conversation” — and then there’s the more colloquial one that centers around changing one’s behavior, conversation topics and dress when around different groups of people. There’s a podcast, a Key & Peele sketch and a million memes about code-switching, and for Duality Month at Man Repeller, I wanted to hear from some other real-life, self-proclaimed code-switchers about their experiences. Below, five women talk about the hows and whys of their personal code-switching and how it feels to move between languages and identities.

Rachita Vasan, 24

I grew up not feeling at home in my own skin, feeling too Indian for Americans and too American for Indians. You internalize those judgements and value systems, not realizing that in doing so, you’re setting yourself up to fail because you consider yourself to be an inherent contradiction.

But you can’t sharpen a knife without a whetstone — as hard as my childhood was in a lot of ways, I credit it with so much of who I am today. Constantly having to reevaluate your audience and context can take a lot out of you when the entire world is trying to tell you who you’re supposed to be. So I developed a really strong internal radar for what felt authentic and honest to me — time spent understanding other people was also time spent nurturing my intuition and sense of self. Especially as an only child, I didn’t have anyone Indian-American to really model behavior off of other than myself, so I got really good at observing and learning from the people around me, even if they weren’t “hybrids” like I was.

When you code-switch, you get really fucking good at understanding the power of words

The practice of putting myself in other people’s shoes to delve into their state of mind is one that became critical to almost every skillset I’m proud of today, especially writing. When you code-switch, you get really fucking good at understanding the power of words, how to get people to take you seriously, how to override their lizard brains shouting stereotypes and misconceptions in the background of your conversation. I have an endless fascination with the nuances in language and communication because as far as I’m concerned, I am a nuance.

There’s a tension in code-switching, you know? But there’s also an energy and a power in that tension; eventually, I learned that being from two cultures didn’t have to mean I was excluded from both. It meant that, once I grew enough to feel secure about who I was and who I wanted to be, I could be greedy with my identity — I could have everything I wanted, I could be unpredictable, I could have all of the above instead of a, b or c. I might look like I’m caught between two cultures, but I am exactly who I am and where I belong. That hyphen in Indian-American could have been a shackle, but I turned it into a bridge.

Victoria

My brain subconsciously goes back and forth from thinking in Spanish to English. If I’m thinking in English, I’ll blurt something out in Spanish and vice-versa. I often find myself accidentally describing things using Spanish slang and being unable to explain to English speakers what exactly this slang word means.

Sometimes certain topics and emotions bring out the Spanish or English in me. It’s interesting because when I’m talking about love, joy and all things sweet, I tend to speak in Spanish. When I’m angry or annoyed or anything of that sort, I tend to speak in English. I think that has to do with how romantic Spanish sounds compared to harsh English.

Overall, it’s a blessing and a curse, but I consider it a huge part of my identity now.

Leslie Bartley, 26

I learned to code-switch from an early age. I watched as my mom, and our lineage of Kentucky women, find out that if we wanted access to jobs, mobility and respect, we better scrub our tongues clean and recognize that how we talk to our family is NOT how we talk in public. Put your shoes on and hang your banjoes up; it’s school time.

“I heard your accent. Thank god I got rid of mine years ago.”

A hellish CEO I met recently in an elevator in Bangkok asked me where I was from after a gregarious introduction from my end. After telling him Kentucky, he responded, “I heard your accent. Thank god I got rid of mine years ago.”

To create balance in spaces I own or feel responsible for, I draw on tropes of Southern women of yore, caricatures of my matriarchs who don’t sell used cars like my actual mom, but had the whole day to focus on buttermilk biscuits and receiving the boys for supper. If I want to make guests, new folks or students of mine comfortable, I’ll greet them with a plucky “Hay y’all,” clasp onto their forearms and ensure them that “I got you baby!” As I’m pushing into my late twenties, I’m starting to recognize the patterns of when I use my Kentucky accent outside of familial spaces, and every time it’s to create warmth.

Olha Kurenda, 18

As a native Ukrainian, I speak a whopping five languages: Russian, English, German, Polish and Ukrainian (naturally). In my country, code-switching is very common, since so many people speak both Russian and Ukrainian every day without realizing that they have changed languages.

I love code-switching with my mom. She doesn’t speak English and German fluently, so hearing her pick up the words I use when talking to my English friends, sometimes without knowing the meaning of them, is hilarious. All the languages I speak have allowed me to learn words which do not exist in other languages. German pick-up lines are amazing; you can compliment someone by telling them, “You look hot as a rat.” In Ukrainian, you can call someone a breadcrumb and they would feel flattered. In general, code-switching allows me to know so many idioms, and using them in other languages can be a lot of fun!

Code-switching really spices up my speech and makes people slightly confused. But sometimes you have to confuse people, right?

Jean Hall, 33

Code-switching is as much a part of growing up black as double-dutch and hot combs; you would be hard-pressed to find an educated black person who hasn’t mastered the art. I grew up in a predominantly white suburb of Washington, D.C., and commuted an hour each day to attend an all-black, African-centered private school in northwest D.C. I was labeled the “white girl” immediately. Not only did I live in white west bumfuck, but my mother is from Connecticut and my father is from New Jersey … I lacked that particular D.C. drawl, the one that pronounces crayon as crown, and so I “talked white,” too.

In kindergarten, I learned to minimize the parts of me that my black inner-city peers referred to as white. At school, it was “crown”; at home, it was “crayon” or my mother would pop me for talking [like that].” I spent kindergarten through high school switching between the codes of the streets and the codes of my mama’s house. In high school, I had more freedom and thus more access to the hood. My street code was solid, I dated boys who sold drugs, I had an adopted big brother from a hood that claimed me, I danced on speakers at go-gos (dangerous dance parties that usually ended with gunshots), I was all set! Then came college, where the hood persona became a bit less necessary. My mother was thrilled when she realized my D.C. accent was slowly fading away.

I learned that my underlying hood edge gave me a kind of cachet

I moved to New York after college, to Bed-Stuy, to be exact (not today’s Bed-Stuy, but the Bed-Stuy of 10 years ago when you could still get your purse snatched). I finally lived in the hood, and my years of practice served me well. If the little hoodlums came at me sideways on Nostrand Avenue, I knew exactly what to say to shut them all the way up. But at work as a visual merchandiser for Louis Vuitton, a different code was expected, and my education and upbringing prepared me to switch easily. I’d read the right books, visited the right countries, wore the right brands and pronounced them properly. While working in fashion — like magazine fashion, not retail — I learned that my underlying hood edge gave me a kind of cachet. I would find the white people I worked with picking up my slang that had now morphed into a weird amalgamation of Atlanta, D.C., New York and California hood.

Let’s fast forward 11 years … I’m 33, and Bed-Stuy isn’t the hood anymore. I’ve done enough soul-searching to know and love who I am: I’m a little bit country, a little rock and roll and even a little Soul II Soul. I’m educated, confident, well dressed and well travelled, but I prefer bodega coffee to espresso, consider “chicken and mumbo sauce with a jumbo mix” a delicacy and I am exactly the same everywhere I go.

Illustration by Emily Zirimis.

[caveartfair]

1960s Chicago Gave Birth to a Colorful, Frenetic Art Style That Is Still Gathering Steam

An Affair In The Islands, 1972. H.C. Westermann galerie 103

The Chicago Imagists of the 1960s and ’70s created colorful, energetic paintings and sculptures that often riffed on vernacular sources (comic books, pinball machines) and the eccentricities of American culture. Barbara Rossi’s colorful, corporeal shapes piled atop each other like jumbles of internal organs. Jim Nutt drew and painted grotesque figures that evoked brightly lit freak shows. Gladys Nilsson rendered overlapping bodies, simultaneously in their own worlds and parts of a larger, chaotic mass. Suellen Rocca created busy, symbol-laden canvases. A flat aesthetic triumphed over any attempt at realism or depth. This work diverged from that of the Imagists’ East Coast contemporaries; as the New York Pop artists developed an impersonal, mass-produced aesthetic, their Midwestern counterparts were making artwork that was more carnival than Campbell’s soup.

It can be complicated to discern who was, and who wasn’t, a Chicago Imagist, but in general, the term applies to a wide swath of artists who lived and made figurative work in the city from around the 1950s through the 1980s. They showed together at the Hyde Park Art Center beginning in 1964, giving each cluster of exhibiting artists its own quirky moniker. Instead of turning to advertising and consumer culture as their East Coast counterparts had, these artists infused a zany, psychic energy into their drawing-driven practices. Indeed, tracing the careers of the Chicago Imagists offers a narrative about American art that diverges from popular New York-centered conceptions—and presents issues that transcended locale.

Summer Salt, 1970. Jim Nutt "Surrealism: The Conjured Life" at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 2016

Measure 4 Measure, 1994, Bird, 2001 and Pynkly Furnashed, 2002, . Gladys Nilsson Leslie Hindman Auctioneers

The oldest group, the Monster Roster—a name given by critic Franz Schulze as a nod to the Chicago Bears’ nickname, the Monsters of Midway—responded to the horrors introduced by World War II and the state of post-war America. Some of the men had been soldiers themselves. Leon Golub, who’d served as an army cartographer, infused his work with violence and suffering. Throughout his six-decade career (he died in 2004), Golub rendered beheadings, brawls, and torture scenes. His process itself was brutal—he used a meat cleaver to distress his paintings.

Nancy Spero, to whom Golub was married, similarly manifested an ardent political streak as she depicted mothers, children, and prostitutes through a feminist lens. Fellow artist June Leaf created fine-lined, often nightmarish scenes. In sum, the works were frequently dark, both in style and substance. Subsequent Chicago art diverged in cheerier and more frenetic directions, while still remaining deeply psychological.

According to Tang Museum director Ian Berry and Chicago gallerists John Corbett and Jim Dempsey, the more light-hearted artist H. C. Westermann (known, since around the late 1950s, for his quirky found-object sculptures and dystopian illustrations) provides a link to the younger Imagists. Don Baum, a member of the former group who helped curate the younger Imagists’ shows, offers another connection. This September, Corbett, Dempsey, and Berry will mount “3-D Doings: The Imagist Object in Chicago Art, 1964–1980” at the Tang. For a group of artists traditionally associated with two-dimensional works, the curators offer a more complex, multimedia story.

Gigantomachy II, 1966. Leon Golub The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Many Imagists, says Corbett, were impressed with Westermann’s level of craftsmanship, “the personal touch that he gave to all of the work,” and his “perverse streak.” Diverging from their predecessors, the Imagists who came after the Monster Roster employed an aesthetic more akin to comic books than horror films, though they retained an element of the grotesque (Karl Wirsum’s vivid, cartoonish-yet-disfigured forms are particularly emblematic of this).

“You just feel a sensibility start brewing,” Dempsey says about the particular era that the Tang show focuses on: 1964 to 1980. “We talk about an accent: a collective group of people have a similar accent. Doesn’t really mean they’re thinking about the same things, but there’s an energy that’s pervasive in the air and you can almost tangibly feel that in this date range.”

The Tang exhibition will include Westermann’s Memorial to the Idea of Man If He Was an Idea (1958). Comprised of pine, cast-tin toys, glass, and other various materials, the work appears to be a cabinet with an alien’s one-eyed head on top. Written in bottle caps, Westermann’s initials adorn the inside of the wooden door. The object becomes a kind of personalized fetish, combining kitsch and craft. Similar details distinguished the frames of work by Ed Flood, a younger Imagist. He and Nutt adorned the backs of their paintings with double entendres, stylized notes to preparators, and other secrets that remained between the artists and those who handled and owned the work.

Untitled (Head Study for Awning Series), 1966. Karl Wirsum Derek Eller Gallery

Muscular Alternative, 1979. Christina Ramberg "Surrealism: The Conjured Life" at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 2016

“I think all these details foreground the warmth and the intimacy of this work, which makes it stand apart from other work being made in these decades in other cities,” says Berry. Dempsey describes the effect as playfully adversarial. “It’s an interactive relationship, almost like engaging someone in a card game.” These elements also connect the group to the Surrealists, who invoked parlor games, dreams, and subconscious drives in their own practices. According to Berry, both the Imagists and their European predecessors shared a desire to look inward.

This simultaneous coyness and amiability could coincide with darker, more disturbing, obliquely political material. Christina Ramberg painted headless bodies (often female), wrapped in tight or suggestive garments. Ideas about constriction and expectations for women abound in her paintings, which sometimes feature flat, broad swaths of dim colors (no bright yellows or reds here). As Dan Nadel wrote recently, “Until her final series of paintings, Ramberg always kept her distortions ‘clean’—no matter how disturbing the imagery, the surface and the final shape would be immaculately formed and delineated.”

Notably, Ramberg was part of an exhibition group called False Image, showing with her husband, Philip Hanson, as well as Eleanor Dube and Roger Brown. (The Imagists were intensely whimsical in their naming, calling other subsets of the group the Hairy Who, the Nonplussed Some, and Marriage Chicago Style.)

Brown enjoys perhaps the strongest legacy of the False Image artists: his former home, which is still filled with the myriad objects he collected throughout his life, and accessible to today’s public as the Roger Brown Study Collection. Masks, toy cars, figurines, crosses, road signs, baskets, and more relics of everyday life in America are on view throughout the rooms and along the staircase.

Unbelievable Refuge, 1980. Ray Yoshida Leslie Hindman Auctioneers

In fact, many of the Imagists were collectors. According to Corbett, the Maxwell Street Market (Chicago’s major flea) was a treasure trove for Ramberg, Hanson, Wirsum, and Ray Yoshida. Yoshida himself had a unique influence on other Imagists: He taught many of them at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Yoshida amassed large collections of printed matter, from comics to cookbooks. The former, in particular, inspired his “specimens”: collages that resembled a scrapbook page filled with clippings.

Yoshida, born in Hawaii in 1930 to a Japanese immigrant father and a mother of Japanese lineage, was also the only artist of color associated with the Chicago Imagists. Though the group was far more equitable across gender lines than contemporaneous movements centered on the East Coast (Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Pop art), it was still very white. Yet the Imagists derived plenty of inspiration from the non-white cultural production that surrounded them in Chicago. Perhaps most famously, Karl Wirsum’s Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (1968) depicts the well-known African American singer and performer. Corbett and Berry describe the Imagists’ significant engagement with, and love for, the music and multimedia of their time. “It was a much more complex set of relationships in an insanely segregated city,” says Corbett.

The Tang is just one of many institutions to celebrate the Imagists within the past few years. At Milan’s Fondazione Prada, curator Germano Celant closed a show this past January, “Famous Artists from Chicago. 1965–1975.” The project suggests the Imagists’ widespread appeal and an international interest in a movement that was thriving far from global art centers.

Matthew Marks Gallery exhibited work by the Hairy Who in a 2015 group show, placing the group members in dialogue with San Francisco Funk Art figures such as Peter Saul and the Detroit-based Destroy All Monsters group, which included Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw. Curated by Nadel (who’s become one of the Imagists’ biggest champions with his writing and curation), the show proposed that, operating beyond the mainstream art world, these artists turned to figuration inspired by advertising, primitive art, comic books, and other sources once dismissed as lowbrow.

Installation view of “The Chicago Show” at 56 Downing St., Brooklyn, 2018. Photo by Johannes Berg. Courtesy of Alexandra Fanning Communications.

Placing the Imagists in a contemporary context, Chicago-born curator Madeleine Mermall has curated “The Chicago Show,” an exhibition in a Brooklyn townhouse, on view through May 20th, that pairs the work of Nutt, Yoshida, Westermann, and their ilk with that of emerging Chicago artists who similarly revel in cartoonish figuration. “There’s this strong, special community right now,” Mermall says. “They’re all working together and showing together and putting on DIY shows.”

One of the exhibited artists from the younger generation, Darius Airo, recalls a corner of the Art Institute of Chicago where he first noticed the work of Ed Paschke and Karl Wirsum. His own acrylic painting, Chicago Faucet Venus (2018), features a very pink, heavily distorted female form with a fractured face. Another participant, Jenn Smith, says that what interests her in the Imagists’ work is a feeling of “holding your cards close to the chest. How much information to reveal and how much to conceal. Like a sexual repression.” She also admires their sense of humor and flat treatment of the figure. A third artist, Bryant Worley, is presenting a 2018 work entitled Dic Pics, which features tattooed men in cowboy hats. He goes so far as to call the Imagists “my entryway into painting as I know it today.”

This renewed attention to the Midwestern group seems to only be getting started. Derek Eller, who has shown Wirsum since 2010, says that since then, he’s seen “a lot more interest here in New York, and probably internationally.” While Barbara Rossi recently enjoyed a small solo exhibition at the New Museum, many of the Imagists have yet to receive major museum retrospectives. This fall, however, the Art Institute of Chicago will mount a group show, as will Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art in London in spring 2019. Corbett thinks it’s time, and the recent wave of shows contributes to a certain momentum. “We’ve seen in the last five, six, seven years a whole bunch of small survey shows that have set things up for the opportunity for incredible, career-spanning exhibitions,” he says. Before long, Chicago’s distinct aesthetic accent should be more pervasive than ever.

from Artsy News

[gregsnormalchristianlife]

FEAR and a FALTERING FAITH

The other day, Lord, you gave me reason to calculate how long I have been running. Not the “one foot in front of the other” kind of running, but the Jonah kind of running. 

Six years.

Well, not entirely like Jonah for all of those past six years. For much of the first two, you were letting us walk in the shoes of Joseph. 

During the white spaces of those two Joseph-like years (Genesis 40:23-41:1), I was decidedly your captive. 2011-’12 were years of breaking. You both broke and built me. Because of what you did in those two years as you mercifully began to displace me from myself, I remember being terribly sad to see that precious, though painful, time in the rear-view mirror. This June 10, 2012 blog entry acceptably encapsulates your sovereignty in the midst of those first two of these past six years (please link to and read it if you have been directed to this entry).

So, it’s really like I’ve been doing the Jonah thing for much of the past four years. 

Well, not entirely like Jonah for all of those four years. I now see that the first two of those four you were lovingly allowing me to do the pre-battle, risk-fee preparatory work like the pre-Judges 7:15 Gideon. There’s nothing like being obedient during the night hours where there’s less exposure, less potential ridicule, less reliance upon you alone to protect and care for us (Judges 6:25-27). And there’s nothing like being bold in the preparations for the battle - when you’re not really yet taking those first, ‘no turning back’ steps in the direction of the Valley of Jezreel (Judges 6:33-35). There’s room to hedge a bit when ‘there is work to be done.’ There’s little fear when merely cocking the rod and reel behind the head. But faith is demonstrated in the forward movement, the actual casting of the line. That’s where trust lives. 

But, Lord, for whatever reason, you let me live in the relative safety of that second two years, following the first pilot group unveiling of the WTSU work in the fall of 2012. I tried to take the advice of those beautiful people who responded to that call for the first exposure of what you’d given me as I edited, re-edited and re-re-edited the content for ‘the next time.’ Indeed, every single time I touched the material in those second two of these past six years, even up through it’s renaming as of late, you met me in the midst of it, Lord. And our holy discontent-filled heart would begin to burn again. In fact, I’ll never forget editing the final words in the audio version of the 2nd complete makeover of the WTSU material. I was sitting on my motor coach on a Saturday in early November, 2013 on the campus of the University of Toledo. I remember it felt like I had exhaled for the first time in a year, since it’s first pilot group airing. I’m confident I can find the pictures I took that very day. It was an unexpectedly emotional moment. I was overcome with emotion. 

Yep, found ‘em. This was the view from where I sat. 

I remember it like it was yesterday. I must’ve sat there for 15 minutes, completely silent...spent...wondering what God was going to do with the last 12 month’s worth of effort. 

“Are you a crazy man?”

“For whom have you utterly spent yourself again, for months, in this same direction?” 

Sometimes it was a very lonely walk of obedience. But most of the time, I knew I had spent the hundreds and hundreds of hours with you, Jesus. You were working on and in me - on us, as much as anything. And if WTSU were to never again see the light of day, it was okay. I accepted that day that if it were only as an act of obedience in the direction of the holy discontent which you had been using to wreck me for the previous 30 months, that would be enough. As long as you were pleased with me. That’s all I needed to know at the time. And that was enough. You had, in your providential care, placed me in a humble occupation I would never have dreamed I’d be doing where I was given time to think, pray, write, and record what you were asking of me. I was being paid by the hour for at least 80% of the time we’d spent together developing the WTSU, BaSFL, and Rev3(2) trifectas of content...on motor coaches and in hotel rooms in towns from New York City, Washington D.C., New Haven, CT, Breezewood, PA and Toronto, Canada to volleyball matches, swim meets, and baseball, football, basketball and soccer games and matches in places like Richmond, KY, Rolla, MO, Panama City Beach, FL, Ann Arbor, MI and New Orleans, LA. I sat there amazed - and still. For a long time. 

I recall the sun had just begun to peak out from an afternoon of dark clouds and heavy rains. The visual backdrop of the moment was one I remember wanting to absorb - and capture. So I did. It was a bit of visual, poetic justice.

Furthermore, how could I look back at those pre-battle, preparatory, second two years with disdain when it was in those years between 2013-’14 that you wrote your Beginning a Spirit-Filled Life book in me? Our fellowship and growth during that 24-30 months between June, 2012 and January, 2015, was necessarily continual as we wrote, re-wrote, organized and worked seemingly endlessly on that manuscript - sometimes seven days a week while using every 15-minute pause for the cause. It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. If I were you, I think I would have been twiddling my thumbs, wondering if that child of mine were ever going to be finished manipulating that material! I just wanted it to be as thorough a recollection of what you had taught me as possible in case you wanted other life-long Christians to discover the more “normal” Christian life you had intended all along for us when you went to abide by the Father’s right hand.  

But there’s no doubt that, both in seasons of that second two years and in seasons hence, you have now shown me that I have behaved strikingly like the pre-Judges 7:15 Gideon. And you seem to be okay with it. It also was a time I wouldn’t trade for much of anything. But thank you, Lord, that while in Judges this morning you kept me reading past chapter 7 and verse 15 to demonstrate that my Gideon-like tendencies can yet be met with an equal amount of decisive obedience and confidence, and that you are worthy of our absolute trust on the other side of fear and a faltering faith.

But when the recasting of the WTSU material was ‘good enough for now,’ and the book you asked that I tackle which chronicled what you’d taught me about the utter insufficiency of my old man and how our earth-side man is destined to settle for too little outside of your supernatural in-breaking, and you’d given me the outline purposed to call teenage students out of the mist and haze of our American, cultural Christianity and into a greater understanding of their higher calling as citizens of an eternal Kingdom by way of the Rev3(2) curriculum, I sat down...and waited.

And waited.

...and waited.

Sometimes I waited in frustration. Sometimes I waited with an eager anticipation of what you may be doing behind the scenes. But I decidedly waited, trying to learn from my past when I may have mistakenly pushed on in my own strength, my own timing, at my own initiative.

It was in early-mid 2015 that I began to feel the Lord was asking me to take a risk. For thirteen years I had lived in the wake of a disability, the extent of which very few people knew. At a time when the effects of our ’02 brain hemorrhage were beginning to pick up speed, I awoke to your Spirit’s challenge. I won’t forget it. For more than a decade, I refused to put “us” into a position where we may fail. I’d absolutely avoided working in an environment where rapid-fire mental capacity were going to be necessary – you know, like most people do every day without thinking about it. You asked me to trust you by being willing to step through a door of simple administrative opportunity with an awesome, committed Christian business man and my gifted cousin. 

In reality, I’d been waiting for something, someone to take up the sword and lead what you’d given me onto the battle field of our confused, post-Christian culture. Looking back, Lord, I now see I was acting as if I were powerless, forgetting that my relative incapacitation was no match for your power. Much like Gideon, I was being overwhelmed with feelings of responsibility for my family’s welfare and my feelings of inadequacy for the job to which you’d called me. Funny, it just came to me that I was perhaps operating in a Moses-like manner in knowing well my call, but waiting for an Aaron to grab the staff. Aaron ... where are you, Aaron? HELLO?!

For all intents and purposes, it was time to DO what you had required of me. You had pointed my heart and soul to delivering news to Nineveh, a lost and dazed place of self-sufficiency and self-destruction. But I ... I got in line for the boat to Tarshish.   

Lesli and I were weary of my continual travel from the previous four years. The pull of an 8 hour work-day with availability at night...together...when I wasn’t continually writing or recording or editing, or picking up hours on a second job...was strong. We missed one another terribly. During this third pair of two years, we were grieving over Caleb’s second ‘gap year’ away from Taylor University, a place and a people he truly loved, due to finances. We couldn’t ‘solve’ his problems, and our hearts ached. I mean ached. For these and other reasons I may never discover exactly, I just began to do life – satisfied for the line awaiting the boat to Tarshish. Or maybe I wasn’t really running from God’s direction for me by standing in the wrong line at all. It was more like I was sitting comfortably on a park bench at a crossroads, watching the boats to Nineveh and Tarshish come and go, come and go. While I - well, maybe while I pouted. Or healed - with Lesli. I don’t know which. Probably some of both. 

I suppose I’m just beginning to understand that I have been grieving over a great many things for the better part of two years, this third two year period. When you add to these things my noticeable continuance into less than optimal cranial endurance and capacity, without identifiable diagnosis, 2015 and ‘16 have been a decided pause. 

But even in the midst of these past 18 months, you have again done your work – in the midst of my folded hands on the matter of our holy discontent. For in these many little acts of obedience and trust in your ability to work through me, and in appointments with men and women from all walks of life, you have exposed me to two things: 

1.     A reintroduction to Tom Roy one day in Warsaw, IN, and his wise council to assemble a “personal board” around which you would be able to do your work through the counsel and assistance of other godly men, and 

2.     An increased comfort in sitting down with individuals while challenging them to dream about something I had to share. 

There have been a number of things you have brought to bear on my heart in the last couple of months. I think the first was when our business owner asked this question (in so many words) of our staff during a monthly “time out” at a coffee joint where we take time to focus on what God is teaching us. 

“If you could do anything of your choosing, what would you like to do? I’d like to facilitate that if I can.” 

While others may have thought that were an odd question, I think Jeff and I may both have known it was on the table for me to ponder. I could be wrong. But that rang in my ears for weeks until a couple weeks back when, in your great compassion, Lord Jesus, you yanked my gaze back in the direction of your power and ability, and not my own. You began searing two things into my heart and soul. One’s a question. One’s a fear greater than heading straight to my Nineveh because it stands to negatively impact others whom I love and have come to appreciate greatly, my co-workers at Servant HR. This first one was on the forefront of my mind one morning, clear as day. 

1. “My child, were I to guarantee you of my return in 2017, would you continue investing your time in doing what you’re doing today?”  

Whoa, that cut right to the chase. And it was way too simple for me to answer. Why ask that of me right now? My sheepish answer had to be, “No.” There’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing with most of my day-time effort. In fact, it’s a really great thing in itself, with some incredible people doing great things! I just began to think about whether it’s what you have discharged into my care. And given what has been miscue after miscue recently with high percentage-to-close clients, some literally even going back on their word to initiate our servicing them, the next thought that just kept coming to the front of my mind was whether blessing was being withheld from Jeff, Mike and company because I was standing in the wrong line…the line to Tarshish. I cannot say I have been willfully going in the opposite direction from my Nineveh, Lord, but I have most decidedly not been facing our Nineveh, let alone boldly traveling down that road where you’ve asked that I go – into the center of what has been breaking both our hearts for years. 

The second ponderance has been this:   

2. “Greg, why are you still in line for the boat to Tarshish? I purposely put you into two years of Joseph-like stillness. I then gave you two years to prepare and gain confidence in our message before it was time to march into battle because I know how much you hate to march into anything before you’re really...I mean really prepared - at least in your own mind. I met you in those four years. You knew ‘the work’ was finished. I know this because you essentially sat down and folded your hands. But now? While I can and will take what you’ve been doing for the last 2 waffling years to enhance what I’ve given you to do, don’t just continue on your trek to Tarshish because it is more predictable or because you’re afraid of letting down your co-workers, or because you don’t see a practical way to both sell out to Nineveh and care for your family’s welfare. Others may begin experiencing the repercussions of your lack of faith to that which I have called you if you aren’t ready to listen to me.”  

And that one sobered me. What if you are just waiting to bless both parties, but I’m in the way - twice over? One thing is sure. There hasn’t been an overwhelming blessing on my activities of late! And, as I read yet again in recent weeks about how you brought Joseph out of his prison stillness by blessing all that he put his hands to, that didn’t help a bit!  

Yes, Lord Jesus, you have patiently met me in the midst of some Joseph-like stillness, some Gideon-like fear, and now maybe, some Jonah-like flight. But for the past several weeks, you have been renewing my vision and gaining in my confidence. 

“Why are you waiting on ANYONE else to advance the cause I’ve asked of you?” 

“Am I not enough?” 

Yes, Lord, you are enough. I know that full well. 

Thank you for already forgiving me on the cross through the covering of your blood for my lack of faith. Forgive me for waiting for another to blaze the trail to a destination toward which you’ve asked that I place my feet. The living out of much of the past six years of our life together has been patterned after some of the most challenging (Joseph-like) and faithless (Jonah and Gideon) times in these dude’s lives. And I see it now. No wonder I’ve been so depressed. When we live too long in stillness, fear and flight, we begin to become sick at heart. Proverbs 29 tells us that where there is no vision, people perish. But it is equally true that hope deferred makes the heart sick, and that the antidote for that sick heart is a longing fulfilled (Proverbs 13). 

In the fall of 2012, you had unquestionably given me something to begin shouting from the mountain tops, the original Will Truth Survive Us? material. At that time, 18 months’ worth of revealing, writing and weeping was given its first, blushing exposure to something very dangerous – public contact and critique. In the wake of that first pilot, you bore a vision out of overwhelming affirmation from those couples who attended – for 8 long weeks! But until about two weeks ago, when you reminded me that this was your call of me and not of anyone else, it had been a vision resulting only in hope after hope…deferred. And you most surely weren’t opting to bring me “an Aaron.” 

But in your great love, grace, patience and mercy, you have kept my heart afloat. Not only that, you have met me in these past six years like never before in my previous forty-five. And I know it is time for “a new planting.” 

It seems you knew I couldn’t do what comes next without a few straws to stir the drink, Lord. But with the recent challenges you’ve brought to the fore, as enumerated above, and affirmations like your bringing our first donation to this work in an ‘04, 236,000 mile, lovingly used Toyota Sienna through Reiners’ hands just this past Sunday afternoon, and like your nearly instantaneous response to my Gideon-like request in the shower early yesterday morning by way of Tom Roy’s Replanting blog post just sitting in my inbox to be my next fleece, I feel as though now must be the time for the sellout.  

Yep, as I stood in the shower yesterday morning, I felt like Abraham pleading for Sodom with one request after another. I felt like Gideon petitioning for just one more fleece to help gain in me the confidence to advance. 

I said, “Please forgive me, Lord, but…if you could demonstrate your direction here again today as I seek your Word and watch carefully throughout the circumstances of the day, I would be most grateful. I really cannot bear to move on my own again. I need you to lead.” 

And...BOOM. T-Roy’s Replanting blog entry. Thanks, Tom, for that timely entry. God used your obedience in inking that entry to be yet another fleece to a faithless Gideon.   

Lord, I would ask forgiveness for the lack of faith that requests of you these tangible affirmations, but you love us so much that you provide these affirmations even when we stammer in fear of that to which you have called us.  

And I’m also learning that you have people everywhere, God, if only we let ourselves be a little vulnerable. For the past two days, a man I just met this past Sunday has flushed God’s words into my phone, reminding me of what you have taught me over the past 6 years – that we must not live out our lives limited by this world’s wisdom and perspective. Rather, as I Corinthians 2:13 reminds us, human wisdom cannot be our foundation for life, but rather that your Spirit is to be relied upon to guide our steps. 

So I am ready, Lord. I think. You have “two-by-four’d me” over the head in the last 3 days. Nonetheless, I can only tell you I am ready...today. The flesh is weak. I know this full well. But if I have the guts to carry out the prayerful seeking out of a personal board for the development of myself and for accountability unto that which I am confident you have asked that I devote my remaining days, I know you will be faithful. I can stand on your faithfulness all day. Help me to do so, Lord Jesus, because experience tells me that tomorrow will be a new day. And in that new day, I will need your confidence, encouragement and presence to press us on toward our version of Jonah’s Nineveh, Joseph’s Egypt, and Gideon’s Valley of Jezreel. I am ready to be the post-Judges 7:15 Gideon. Right? 

When in June of 2012, and through the pages of the book that you’d asked that I write (audio version here) we began chronicling what you had taught me, you had finally loosened my grip from a life of self-confidence. I had finally…died. It took a while, but you got us there. You had taught me there was a world of difference between having a Savior and having a Lord. At the time, I knew and had accepted the fact that the future was not going to be predictable or controllable. And if you chose to grow my faith muscles, the future may not only be unpredictable, but perhaps scary, and definitely different. But you were going to be the author. And you authored in me an absolute trust that my life in your hands was far better than my life in my own hands. 

So… 

Here we stand, Lord. I feel we are at the next great cross-roads. Can I step into that which I cannot plan out? Can I step into the very fear of actually putting formalities into place that would actually expose my dreams to a personal board of guys who may laugh inside about what I might propose? I know with certainty that T-Roy was speaking wisdom nearly a year ago when we met for lunch and he recommended that we assemble this tight-knit, personal board. But I wasn’t ready to yet endanger this very personal and deeply emotional and experiential thing you had done through me by exposing it to too much light. What if it didn’t ‘work?’ What if I couldn’t see it through? 

Man, that fall of 2012 first pilot group was amongst the most scary things I’ve ever done, Lord! But even with the positive affirmation from those parents, why is it that I have continued to stammer in such a faithless posture, assuming I need someone else (someone else?!) to embrace and hold up the vision and request you have made of me? 

It is outside the normal, human experience to utterly rely on an intangible God to plan ahead for me, to help others understand, and maybe even to have others participate in what is yet little more than a vision. But you have called me onto the water. And so I will move forward now. I will need others to patiently work with a half-brain-fried guy who would rather walk in a fearful and vulnerable place than just live a quiet, predictable and comfortable life hereafter. I will have to trust you, God, to actually take care of the details. I stand on your word – for you tell us that you care for the needs of those whose hearts are steadfast upon you (Nahum 1:7). Faithfulness and trustworthiness is not something you do, but who you are. And you will walk with me in this. Shucks, you’re leading this whole deal, Jesus! I really believe that. What is there to fear? I’d rather walk in obedience than remain in the boat of my choosing, cruising toward Tarshish instead of Nineveh – while others in that boat may actually be experiencing harm due to my disobedience (Jonah 1:11-12, 15 and SHR). 

I will need others to take the role of helping me understand what a 501c3 is, and whether we should start one. 

I will need others to help me think through ways to supplement our income that wouldn’t too much detract from the mission. 

I will need you, God, to arrest the attention of some whose hearts you have prepared for such a time as this - to give generously, maybe even while I am developing these side income provisions that could possibly help untangle us from medical, school and other debts. 

Come to think of it, I’m really sick and tired of the enemy of my soul telling me what isn’t practical. Get AWAY! I serve the Almighty GOD! And YOU are ON MY SIDE! Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but I trust in the Name of the LORD my GOD (Psalm 20:7). 

So...without further ado, AND for further accountability, Lord, these are the men you’ve laid on my heart for this personal board T-Roy recommended. I see it as my first step forward and would like to include these thoughts in this ‘Crossing the Rubicon’ blog entry today. It would be good to have at least 4 guys, plus myself. I’d anticipate this not being a heavy time commitment, but will plan to get with T-Roy to talk more about the functioning aspects of his blueprint. 

John Esposito: John knows what it’s like to step out in faith. He’s seen you work in his life directly, Lord. He’s a first chair, first generation Christian who isn’t afraid to test water for buoyancy. It may be that his lack of proximity will make this an impractical choice, his living in AZ. But his prayerful spirit in this is important in the least. 

Scott Todd: Scott knows me…like for 35 years knows me. He’s close by. He’s a man whose stability and fight through tough things in life I have admired. I see Scott asking good questions and helping us think practically through things that would benefit from that. He’s a good man. 

David Greiwe: David’s one of the more contemplative, always learning, always consulting with other godly men kinda guys I know. He and Scott were both part of the first pilot of the primary and initial goal for this new venture, exposing the Kingdom or Culture content as broadly as possible. I believe he’d be one to hold me accountable to my goals and objectives. 

Matt Likens: From the first time I met Matt at a Men’s SOAP Bible Study, you asked that I get to know him, Lord. I’d like the perspective of someone who may not think like me, may not have had the same experiences I’d had growing up, and who has had various experiences in life different from mine. Also, when you don’t know a guy well but have reason to respect him, I think you naturally don’t want to fail him. I see his walk with Jesus being steady and insightful. 

Jerry Reiner: Lord, you have used Jerry to kind of be the straw that has stirred the drink in the last few days. He’s been my, “Look, I am about to do something new,” Isaiah 43:19 guy. He’s an encourager, has demonstrated his willingness to step out of the boat into the unknown himself, starting a 501c3 ministry about 10 years ago, and he’s pledged to be in your Word continually. His leading a non-profit may be different than what the Lord has in mind here for just myself, but surely there would be transferrables. He’s specifically been where I am going. 

Roger Beaverson: I’d like a finance guy who loves the Lord more than his skill set. Someone who shares an intense passion for seeing money the way God does – as a tool to be stewarded well for God’s jealous glory, while also seeing the value of it in practical ways, understanding that it has its role in this world. My thoughts were that this role would necessarily be played by someone I could trust with private knowledge of Lesli’s and my current financial picture, and one who won’t be easily overwhelmed, but can trust in God for great things. It would also be helpful were this individual to have had experience with other non-profits, having become familiar with how some operated well while others may not have operated so well. And while I initially believed it best to operate a personal board outside of immediate family, Lord, in a period of 24 hours, you kept asking that I be willing to consider dad. 

Mark Crull: Busy men are busy for a reason. Leaders are willing to lead. Mark knows my heart. Mark knows my passion comes from you, Lord. I’d love to have a man on this board who is connected to your larger Body. I think Mark thinks well. You know I need that, Lord! Mark has seen ‘programs’ come and go, both in his time with Family Life and now with Northview for a slew of years. And I know we’d benefit from a guy who could accurately perceive whether the trifecta of curriculums [Kingdom or Culture, BaSFL content, and Rev3(2) content] may find a place within the broader support for the Church. Plus, we really need a guy with an infectious laugh. 

So, Lord, I now conclude these thoughts and prepare to send a link to this blog entry to each of the men above. This is the first step. Give willing hearts to the men you desire to walk alongside us, Father. 

Amen. 

[leslie-lyman]

🧡🥧

Sam!! Thank you for asking lovely!! 🧡🧡🧡

🧡: Which three songs remind you instantly of autumn and why?

1. Cardigan - Taylor Swift (this seems pretty self-explanatory, right?)

2. Ghostbusters - Ray Parker, Jr.

I cannot do scary movies at all (I can’t even watch trailers or tv spots for scary movies!), but I love Ghostbusters. It’s one of the few movies I consider “my” Halloween movies, although I’ll watch it any day of the year, any time I happen to catch it on tv. It’s also a movie that both my dad and I love and basically have memorized. Whenever one of us turns it on, we usually end up texting the other quotes from it and the other person usually ends up turning it on too so we can sort of watch it together. 😊

3. All of 1989 - Taylor Swift

I’m cheating a bit here by saying the whole album, but it’s true. 1989 came out in October 2014, and I spent the entirety of that fall and winter listening to it on repeat. Now whenever the weather starts to get fall-like, I get a hankering to pick up a Starbucks pumpkin spice chai, throw on a scarf, and listen to “Style” eighty times in a row.

🥧: Regardless of skill, if you could bake anything right now (pie, cake, muffin, brownie, etc.) what would you like to make?

I’m smack dab in the middle of a cold right now, and I am craving brownies. I’m talking thick, dense, gooey, rich, sinfully chocolate-y brownies (center pieces only, no crunchy edges). 🤤

Autumn emoji asks 🍁

[leslie-lyman]

Oh crap you posted more than one ask list 😂 my first ask was for the “it would be fun to answer” list. Also since I know you dislike flying, as an attempt to find the bright side what is one thing you might enjoy about it? For me, I like takeoff because the feeling makes me fall asleep for the first 40 or so minutes of the flight. Safe travels lovely! ❤️

Lol LJ I love you. 😘

You know how some people are like, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey, baby! Yeah that’s bullshit. I am ALL about the destination. 😂 So I love that flying makes the journey shorter than any other mode of transportation. (And that it’s technically safer than any other mode of transportation too, even if my anxiety brain is bad at understanding that.)

Also the vast majority of the time I’ve flown in the past few years I’ve been flying to Disney World, so I enjoy the fact that if I’m on a plane, it probably means I’m only a few hours away from being in my favorite place. 😊

[leslie-lyman]

Leslie! 3,4,12,30 for your asks!

LJ!!! 🥰

3. 3 films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of?

Oh man, just three? I have that ADHD thing where you just want to re-watch your fave comfort media over and over again instead of watching new things, but here are three examples:

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (my fave movie of all time)

The Princess Bride

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

4. what’s an inside joke you have with your family or friends?

Do you know that recurring joke on Brooklyn 99 where Jake replies to non-sexual things his coworkers say with “title of your sex tape”? My husband and I do that to each other ALL THE TIME. Except it’s not always appropriate to do if we’re in public, so we’ve shortened it to just say “title.”

12. what’s some good advice you want to share?

Don’t let other people’s successes or failures dictate how happy you are or aren’t with your own life. (I am often very bad at following this piece of advice.)

30. what’s one thing that never fails to make you happy/happier?

This fandom community!!! ❤️

Fun things to be asked. 💞