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darklightsworld · 2 years ago

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Hi! I'd like to ask a question about your Fire! post, because I got asked one when I reblogged it :) Can you elaborate a little bit on what you are referring to with the edgy stuff "Friends" did? I'd like check it out. Thank you, and have a nice February.

Hi! I was referring to Weekly Shoujo Friend, the other major weekly shoujo magazines in the 60s next to Weekly Margaret. These rival magazines followed different editorial directives and had different tones overall.

Initially Friends was considered to be the more conservative one. Even though many young female artists debuted in the magazine in the 60s (this was the decade when female artists became the main content providers of shoujo magazines), they weren’t really trusted to write their own stories, and most had to work based on narratives provided by separate writers. Kodansha continued this at least till the early 70s (I have to check further), and many artists hated it, for example, Aoike Yasuko (Eroica yori ai wo komete), who came into her own only after she left Kodansha and this practice. (There are exceptions, of course, Satonaka Machiko, who debuted at the same time as Aoike in 1964 (both were 16※), was mostly doing her own thing—with editorial guidance, of course.)

Conversely, Margaret recognized faster that young female readers would rather read what artists of their age group would create, and at the same time these young artists, many of whom debuted at 15-16, would know better how to approach readers hardly younger than themselves. This does not mean that there was no editorial guidance, and editors often suggested themes, literature, movies and such for young artists to use as a template for their stories, but Margaret was less rigid and reacted to the changes in demand faster. This is one of the reasons Weekly Margaret was the most popular shoujo magazine in the 60s, the first one to break a million copies in 1967, and even overall, the second manga related magazine to reach that number after Weekly Shounen Magazine.

While Friend hung on to family oriented dramas of young girls for quite long, Margaret switched to romantic comedies faster, first Hollywood-esque, then about foreign girls in foreign setting (mostly American), then about school girls in Japanese setting. Eventually Friend shifted too, but overall the magazine seems to be darker and more dramatic to me than Margaret, the art was also plainer, less decorative overall in Friend (huuuuuge exception is Hosokawa Chieko, who had the most amazing, most decorative, most unrestricted art in the 60s). This impression got only stronger in the late 60s/1970 when Friend had several serious coming-of-age dramas, like Mayuko no nikki by Yamato Waki and stories by Machiko＆Kenji (all came with a writer, but it’s not always a bad thing). Especially Machiko＆Kenji’s works have a touch of gekiga (this was the period when gekiga was widely popular, trickled into shounen manga and led to the birth of seinen manga magazines a few years before) and occasionally mixed with shounen manga line work. Mayuko on nikki is interesting too, it has some experimental artwork as well.

All in all, even though Margaret also had dramas, sometimes addressed societal issues, coming-of-age (the latter in foreign settings more in Bessatsu Margaret), and Friend also had its share of school girl love comedies, I feel Friend, that was more serious to begin with, gained an edgier, grittier tone as well by 1970. (Disclaimer: while I have read every issue of Weekly and Bessatsu Margaret from 1963 to 1970, I have only sampled Friend, a few issues per year, so far, so these are my impressions based on that.)

And since this came from the first bed scene, sexual revolution arrived in Japan as well, and by the late 60s it trickled down to manga magazines even for school boys and school girls. The infamous Harenchi Gakuen is a result of that, which caused the quite harmful trend of boys flipping girls' skirts in schools. These topics appeared in shoujo magazines in articles and manga as well, although often from a male perspective. Naughty (harenchi) behavior was kind of encouraged, and even regarding skirt-flipping girls were encouraged to “deal with it” as “boys will be boys” *rolls eyes* (Also never forget that one Friend issue in 1970 where teenage girl nude modeling was basically encouraged—photos included! *urgh*) Gradually articles about physical maturing of teenagers appeared, both about boys and girls, which were more serious, but in comedic shoujo manga “harenchi” elements (peeping toms, skirt-flippers) became frequent, and even more serious works featured shower scenes, underwear scene, nudity. Many of these were also from a male perspective (peeping toms not getting punished, girls being embarrassed, girls showing skin… in a shoujo manga), but many artists were more forward thinking and/or showed boys at the end of the female gaze as well.

Anyway, sexuality was kind of there at the end of the 60s, kissing became more frequent, and coming-of-age narratives featured sexuality, although mostly offscreen. I remember having seen panels of people in bed in at least one story I think in Bessatsu Margaret, but I can’t seem to find it among all my photos now.※※ An there are also the junior manga titles I mentioned, that featured more mature characters and relationship. Characters are obviously sleeping with each other, so at this point, when I haven’t read all the 60s shoujo and junior manga I would neither confirm nor deny that Fire! had the first bed scene ever (depends on the definition anyway.)

※By the way, it is often mentioned how Satonaka Machiko’s debut at 16 was a shock to young mangaka aspirant girls. However, her age is just one reason, several shoujo manga artists debuted that young or younger even before her. However, this was the start of manga awards for people aiming to be a manga artist, and with this (and also manga schools, a tradition started by Bessatsu Margaret not long after and immediately copied by almost every magazine) aspirants finally knew an exact way how they could become a manga artist. Before that it wasn’t clear at all, it involved sending or bringing manuscripts to publishers or older artists and so on.

※※Found it, it was in 1971 so it doesn't matter, Juliano no asa by Nishitani Yoshiko. Well, that was crazy stuff: the boy slept with the mother of his girlfriend thinking she might be his mother o_O

#shoujo manga #manga #vintage manga #retro manga

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charliejrogers · 4 years ago

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I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Or, What Many Will Think About Midway Through This Movie)

You may be expecting a long review for this movie. I mean, let’s be honest, I dissected the shit out of Birds of Prey, to the point that it was almost inappropriate for the kind of movie it was. But this movie? The arthouse classic-to-be from the much-revered Charlie Kaufman (both writer and director here), I’m Thinking of Ending Things? A movie filled to the brim with symbolism and which refuses to commut itself to any one point of view or plane or reality? This guy’s gonna write about it for fucking eternity.

Well, no. It won’t be the case. Why? Because I don’t think I really got it. Sure, I could try to wax poetic about my thoughts on aging, time, whether there’s meaning in relationships, meaning to our lives (all themes the film raises and which serve as its central core) But it would just kinda sound bullshit coming from me.

So, yeah, this isn’t much of a plot movie. It starts with a young woman (Jessie Buckley) waiting in the street of a snowy quiet country town’s downtown for her boyfriend, Jake, (Jesse Plemons) of one month (or longer?) so that the two can join Jake’s parents for dinner. Despite taking this proverbial big step in her relationship, she’s wondering (evoking the film’s title) whether she should end things. Or is that really what the title is about. Like everything in this movie, every piece of dialogue every character, every suggestion of a chronology, things are laden with a second meaning. Part of your enjoyment from the film will derive from whether or not you enjoy being strung along for 135 minutes without ever really understanding what’s going on, what’s really being said, who these characters really are, or when/where the hell are we in the world?

Despite those tantalizing and exciting questions, I’m here to warn you now, nothing big or exciting happens in this film, at least by conventional movie standards. We watch the couple drive to the Jake’s parents’ house and that takes about 25 minutes of film time. We’re in the house with his parents for probably about 45 minutes. Then the drive home takes another 20-25 minutes. The scenes about driving are just that: two people in a car talking to one another without much event. It’s like the car ride scenes from your favorite buddy/road trip movie but with all the fun adventures taken out. Instead what we get are long, confusing conversations more akin to Matthew McConaughey’s time spent in a car on True Detective.

But one thing becomes exceedingly clear when we finally get to Jake’s parents’ house: the film’s banal settings (a country road, a farmhouse, a rural high school) belie a truth about the film. It is not set in our reality. Jake and the woman’s conversation on the car ride is full of reflections on the nature of time, aging, depression, and life. Jake is a slightly insufferable intellectual. He’s the kind of guy who says he doesn’t know a whole lot about musical theater and then proceed to list 15-20 musicals of various fame and obscurity. The whole scene feels as quirky and just-shy of overwritten, i.e. par for the course of a pretentious art house film such as this. But the mannerisms of Jake’s parents are more than can be attributed to a quirky film. His mother is a jealous, possessive neurotic played by Toni Collette in a way only she could and a twitchy, and his father is a lecherous rival obsessed with his girlfriend played by David Thewlis (a favorite actor of mine). And throughout the meal, the confident, know-it-all we knew from the drive regresses into the behavior of a weak, embarrassed child. These are caricatures taken word from word from a textbook on Freudian psychology more than they are believable humans. The film admits and confirms the Freudian aping rather explicitly.

But just when you think you understand what the film’s up to, it switches course. After dinner, the woman starts to explore their house and starts a journey through time (but, again, with none of the excitement that sentence would normally imply.) It’s my second favorite sequence in the film (the first being an interpretive dance that occurs towards the film’s end… yes, it’s THAT kind of film). It’s filmed and framed in the trappings of a horror movie, but there’s no jump scares or horrible truth to be found. It’s how I imagine someone would adapt the tone of the superb video game Gone Home (yes, I’m one of THOSE people). But yeah, there’s no horrible truth… except if you consider the inevitability of human decay and disease to be a terrible truth. Every room the woman stumbles upon finds Jake’s parents appear to be a different age and health than when she first got to the house, ranging from a mother decked out in 50s/60s apparel to old, feeble gentleman. From there the movie continues to refuse to stay in one place and becomes odder and odder. It’s then I realized to think of this movie of a totally abstract piece of art, like the dream sequences of The Sopranos or Buffy.

So what do I think is going on? Obviously spoilers for here on out. Despite getting the majority of the screen time, this is NOT a movie about the young woman. At the very beginning of the film we are introduced, briefly, to an older, portly gentleman in his late 70s, looking out a window. The film cuts back to that exact same room and window 30 seconds later, but in the old man’s place is Jesse Plemons’ Jake. From that I take it to mean the two are the same person, with Plemons representing the older Jake younger self (or imagined younger self). Alongside the main plot, we occasionally get images and short scenes of the older Jake, a janitor at a rural high school who lives alone. The intellect (or perhaps false sense of intellect) of his younger self is clearly not meeting its potential. He is mocked by students for his age and fragility. What I think we’re watching is this older Jake trying to make sense of what it means to be old and who is currently on the verge of suicide unable to see its meaning. Although I compared the film to a dream sequence, I don’t think it’s fair to reduce the whole thing to Jake’s dream. More I feel like we are seeing a manifestation of Jake’s subconscious thoughts on screen play out.

Who is the young woman then? I’m not sure. I doubt she represents any actual woman – she’s given a variety of names. She almost plays the part of our (and his) guide into Jake’s subconscious like Virgil to Dante, but she’s more than a void. I think she represents what Jake would want in a woman in his life, a confident woman who can see through Jake’s faults (but notably sees them and sees them clearly). She’s not overtly sexual like the women at the ice cream who clearly make Jake uncomfortable. But yet, it’s telling that even in his deepest, most private thoughts that I think we’re seeing, he cannot imagine that even his ideal woman would want to be with him.

We get lots of reasons for why Jake thinks things are like this. Clearly he holds resentment for his parents, even if he feels like it’s cliché to do so. But time is his true nemesis. For me the most telling scenes for my understanding of the movie comes at the end with the interpretive dance, which shows Jake and the young woman (or, at least, stand-ins for those two) engage in a beautiful display of courtship, love, and marriage, only for the young Jake stand-in to be violently by a representation of the older janitor Jake. Clearly Jake thinks of his current self as something wholly distinct from his younger self, and that the creature he is now, a creature created by time, has destroyed who he once was. Like many of us (or as many of us think), he peaked in high school, the last place where people gave him awards for being who he is. This detail adds a sadness to the fact that he works as a janitor at one now. And it is notable that the film’s journey ends there, at a high school, where inexplicably he is being awarded a lifetime achievement award. Achievement in what? It’s unclear. What is clear that the person receiving the award is not the janitor Jake, but the younger Jake (Jesse Plemons) with old-age make-up on. With his dying breath he is able to see the self he loves, his younger self, grow up and live the life he wanted. There’s no sense at all of his present circumstances or person. Then we cut to a shot of janitor Jake’s truck buried in snow, presumably (on my interpretation) with janitor Jake frozen inside, dead.

So ultimately whether or not you like this movie depends on your tolerance for head-up-its-butt dialogue about the grand questions of life combined with its purposefully obtuse presentation. As one of the biggest douchebags I know, I liked it, but didn’t fall head over heels for it. The only other associated Kaufmann production I’ve seen is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but from what I understand, this movie is Kaufmann at its Kaufmann-iest. I have a great respect for the planning and thought behind every second of the film and I can honestly say I was never not entertained. I loved the film’s mood and atmosphere and that I was always on my toes. It’s a movie that truly has gotten better as I’ve continued to think about it over the last three days. But still, I don’t think I always understood what was going on and it’s a little too obtuse/abstract for it to be an all-time classic. I respect that for some people this may be their favorite movie of all time, and for others it may be a crock of shit. I’m somewhere in the middle, and cautiously recommend this film to those of you who are open to some abstract art in film. If you are, definitely try it out, you won’t forget it. If you are not open to it, skip it; you will have no qualms about endings things early.

***1/4 (Three and one-fourth stars out of four)

#charlie kaufman #i'm thinking of ending things

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sirenasa2 · 4 years ago

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Information about the federal thunderbolt (For those who need it)

The thunderbolt series was a series made by federal sign and signal (Fs&s) that was produced from the early 1950’s to mid to late 1990’s, and there are still many of them across the US, it came in variants such as 2000, witch used gas-powered compressor to blow the air up to the chopper, but sadly was discontinued before any other variant started production. The 1000. The 1000 was a 5-port single tone variant of a thunderbolt tornado siren, it came with 3 different blower types, 4m, 5m, and 6m, there are still many of them left in the US, about half Or a little more in active service. 1000T. 1000T was a dual toned variant of a 1000, it came in 4/5, and 5/6 and is somewhat quieter than a 1000, despite it’s distinctive dual tone sound, it does not make it louder, but it is still one of the rather loved sirens from at least 60-70% of siren enthusiasts. Bumble bolt (Variant) the bumblebolt was just a variant of a 1000 or 1000T with a Distinctive black and yellow paint color. Though jailbar 1000T’s normally only came with 4/5 port. Jailbar. Jailbar 1000’s were kept in production from early 1950’s to (probably mid 1960’s (I may be wrong). 1003. 1003’s were a variant with “Solenoids” witch were attached to a “damper” that close over each chopper port when cycled, when covering the lower port making the upper port dominant (5 port) it made a “High” tone, when covering the upper port making the lower port dominant (6 port) it made a “Low” sound, there are other signals such as “Pulse” witch is rarely used but is said to be for nuclear fallout. 1003s were mainly used as “Fire sirens” witch were used to call volunteer fire fighters to alert of a fire, or accident. B series variant. B series was a series of thunderbolts that had direct drive rotators, without rotator belts, unlike A series thunderbolts, making it’s distinctive offset rotator.

So, you are probably wondering how it works? Well, it’s quite simple but not at the same time. A thunderbolt tornado/air raid siren works all the same way (Excluding the 1003 variant, considering the solenoids) a “Blower” (compressor) blows air up through a tube, witch goes through the rotator box, and into the siren chopper, making it loud, the siren Rotator witch the tube goes through, contains a motor with a pulley that has a belt on it, witch turns another pulley, turning a gear on the upper platform of the siren rotator, the gear reducer spins the “main gear” witch makes the siren itself rotate. Now, the speeds are adjustable, from 2 revolutions per minute, to 4, to 8. The “chopper.” The chopper is something located at the top of the siren, the chopper chops up air through it’s ports, creating the sound, and the horn directs the sound in a certain area while rotating, the chopper speed IS adjustable, from the rcm1 controller cabinet you can switch a wire from a terminal, it goes up to chopper level 7 from chopper level 1, this is basically changing the voltage the chopper motor gets.

The rcm cabinets. The rcm cabinets are what control the siren, normally located on the “pole” of the siren, or in a building if roof mounted, or close to a building, if you open the panels on a 1000, or 1000T, you will see an AR Timer, or an RCM1, the RCM1 is what allows the AR, or AF (More about that later) Timer to Turn the chopper on and off, the AGASTAT, witch is located in the rcm1 is an adjustable timer, witch controls when the blower, and rotator deactivate. The AR timer is a timer witch controls the timing of the siren, (attack timing, alert) and limits how long the siren goes off. There is a spinning wheel in the AR timer, witch presses against a terminal, witch sends electricity to the chopper, and releases, making the “attack” or “wail” signal. AF Timer And RCM3. (1003’s only) I don’t need to say anything about the rcm1 on this because it does the same thing, but the rcm3 and af timer are different. The rcm3 Contains a “Flasher wheel” witch is activated when the “fire mode” or “Modulate” switch is activated, the flasher wheel spins, and presses against 2 terminals, not at the same time, when it presses against the terminals, it sends power to the solenoid and closes one of them. The AF timer. The Af Timer is the exact same as an AR timer, But with a option to do the “Fire” signal. The fire signal can be set as “Undulating high/low / high/low wail, or alternating high/low, undulating high/low is when the siren repeatedly winds up and shuts off (everything excluding the blower, and rotator, unless the agastat is low)

Same with alternating high/low, but the solenoids continue when winding down in alternating high/low. Hope this explains everything you need to know about thunderbolt tornado sirens. Goodbye!

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gigsoupmusic · 5 years ago

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INTERVIEW - MICKO WESTMORELAND ON 'VELVET GOLDMINE' AND LIFE WITH THE MELLOTRONICS

Micko Westmoreland first came to the public's attention as the enigmatic Jack Fairey in the star-studded glam rock fake biopic 'Velvet Goldmine', and since then has done everything from making electronica as The Bowling Green to the sharp edged new wave of his current project Micko & The Mellotronics. With that band on the verge of releasing their second single, a double A-side with the timely 'Noisy Neighbours 'and 'You Killed My Father' (featuring the late Neil Innes), he spoke to Gigsoup to tell all... Starting at the beginning, you got your first break appearing in the film ‘Velvet Goldmine’… Quite a baptism of fire! Yep, I was fresh out of film school with little acting experience. So I did a ton of research, suspended all activities other than glam rock ones; late mornings, blurry eyeliner, became a kind of ‘Our Lady of the Flowers’, to quote Jean Genet. I did appear on set however with well prepared sleeve notes. Ziggy/Hunky and early Roxy had been teenage territory. Toni Colette really helped me during filming, showing me where and how to move and stand in frame etc. which I really wasn’t aware of and she was such a wonderful person to hang out with. Ewan McGregor was enormous in the 90s but treated you like a complete equal. I’ve acted the fiction of being a sensational rock star, my embalmed alter ego is now moth balled and hermetically sealed for posterity. What do you make of the film’s recent re-appraisal – it was panned at the time but now it’s considered a cult classic A lot of the film heavyweights liked it at the time and have consistently sung its praises over the last 20 years, which has contributed to its legacy, plus Todd Haynes is now seen as a 24-carat auteur. 1998 wasn’t ready for a kaleidoscopic pansexual odyssey. Velvet Goldmine truly tapped into a teenage hormonal feeling, so the audience is responsible for its longevity I think, people have grown old with it and new fans have discovered it. You had quite a lot of success making electronic music as The Bowling Green but then switched tack to making more song-based stuff. What’s the story there? The music I was making was becoming increasingly filmic, so I moved into movie sound tracks for a while and did two film scores and a few documentaries with my brother; acclaimed director Wash Westmoreland (Still Alice, Colette). One of them, Echo Park L.A., won best drama at Sundance in 2006! I was becoming more attuned to a literary narrative and was listening to Dylan’s Time out of Mind and Beck’s Sea Change at the time – couple that with improvements in technology that weren’t so reliant on sampler and keyboard. I started playing much more guitar again, my first love and now my primary instrument for writing. You made a couple of albums under your own name but then formed Micko & The Mellotronics – your first ‘band’ project. What was the thinking behind that move? I was very much used to working on my own. I made a couple of solo albums, one which Terry Edwards (P.J. Harvey/Holy Holy) released on his Sartorial label called ‘Wax & Wayne’, and ‘Yours Etc Abc’, on my own Landline records imprint, which I believe was the main unconscious projection into putting a live act together. The person doing PR for it asked, ‘Who’s in the band?’ When I realized I didn’t have one, it made sense to look for folk to start pushing sounds around. How would you sum up the band to someone you hadn’t heard you before? Can you name us a few bands that have influenced its sound? We get compared to the Buzzcocks quite a lot, I’ll take that. I’ve loved Magazine since teenage, Television too. I also dig Serge Gainsbourg majorly and bands like The Silver Apples. I’m really into Iso Tomita, the 70’s electronic musician and of course Mr. Eno too. People have commented that the double A side, soon to be released, is like early Genesis but I think it’s much closer to The Rutles. Patrick from R.O.C. said there was violence to the sound. I do pride the writing on an intricacy and eccentricity but without getting prog about it. Talk us through the Mellotronics members and their individual flavours... Nick Mackay a friend referred me to. He was playing in a two-piece called ‘Barricades’, and was clearly a very good drummer, real flare as a player/performer and had the magic ingredient for any band – he was a thoroughly decent chap you could spend a ton of time with. Jon Klein is our very own rock star hiding in plain sight. He has a CV better than the rest of us put together: Banshees, Sinead O’Connor to name a few and of course his own band Specimen. I lent Jon my amp when we were on the same bill. I gave him a copy of my previous album and he contacted me the next day, which I considered a big thumbs up. He’s very quick, obscenely talented and has revolutionized day-to-day working practice. In short a turbo charged V12 engine has been carefully placed inside a Hillman imp, with fresh brake pads added. Vicky Carroll the bassist also came through personal referral, Haydn Hades who does stand up. At the time she was playing in a band the ‘Owls of Now’, a very bright lady indeed. She really got what the band was about and had great style. The dynamic of now the band get on and its chemistry is essential to longevity. Having a woman on board was important to us, so we really lucked out by finding such a smart cookie in Vicky. So far, you’ve shared ‘The Finger’, your first single, and now two new tracks, which will (eventually) be released as a 7” single. Talk us through ‘Noisy Neighbors’ and ’You Killed My Father’. Noisy Neighbours came about from my experience with dealing with serial complainers whilst living in a housing co-op. We shot the video with filmmaker Ashley Jones (www.thechaoesengineers.com) in the next door location the inhabitants of the song were occupying, so we had to be quiet. Of course some complaints are genuine but most were more telling of the complainant than complainee. There are control issues, which come about as a result of trying to micromanage your environment beyond your own four walls. I wanted to make a witty statement about that without being over critical or condemning. Raising a single eyebrow over that type of behavior. ‘You Killed My Father’, the double A side was inspired by Neil Innes R.I.P. (Monty Python, Bonzo Dog, The Rutles). So of course I was thrilled when he agreed to play on it. I was introduced to him through an artist friend Harry Pye. We inadvertly created a supergroup together called the Spammed and meet up once a year to record for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Last session Tony Visconti produced a cover of Bolan’s ‘Get it on’, for us. It comprises, Rat Scabies (The Damned), Horace Panter (The Specials), Neil when he was with us and actor/comedian Kevin Eldon on vocs, I play guitar. The song relates to my childhood, growing up in Leeds and has a Shakespearean quality. I checked the prose with an expert to make sure I hadn’t over egged the pudding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5iswf8GG6o You seem to be able to attract some interesting names to collaborate with - Horace Panter of The Specials and the late Neil Innes recently, but also members of The Blockheads, Madness, Stranglers and Goldfrapp in the past. Who would be top of your collaborative wish list? I’d love to do something with Eno again. We became friendly during the mid nineties. I was tutored by him, whilst working on an art show called ‘Self Storage’ with Laurie Anderson but never made it into the studio. A wild card like Wendy Carlos, famed for the soundtrack of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ would be great too. Likewise, your videos have featured some interesting names from British comedy… What do they bring to the party? Anyone else you’d like to get on board if you had free reign? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDr7nkOQN9Q All the comedy connections came from Kevin Eldon initially, a super bright and truly wonderful guy. He introduced me to Paul Putner at a Specials gig. Paul’s a brilliant bloke and really likes the band. He found the remarkable Suzy Kane for us. All three have taken excellent roles. Suzy had a lot of input in Noisy Neighbours, suggesting wardrobe and even shots to Ashley as we were making it; we really have had tremendous fun with our contributors. Obviously, Chris Morris would be fantastic but I’m a little afraid to knock. We hear the debut M&TM album is close to completion – what have you got in store for us? A psychedelic mish mash of fable, sound collage and idea. With the new single, 3 of the songs are now out there. On a musical front Horace Panter out of The Specials has guested on a couple of tracks for us and of course we have one of Neil Innes’ last performances too. I’ve written a song about Imelda Marcos, she seemed like a person who was way ahead of her time, a modern template for a highly manipulative battle-axe. I have an author friend in his 60s who’s an eminent psychologist, (Georg Eifert - Anxiety Happens) so I wrote a song called ‘The Fear’, with a lot of his theories in mind. There’s also one too called ‘Sick and Tired’, it’s not about what I’m eed up about, but like Noisy Neighbours it’s a comment about complaint. When writing I try to look at what gets talked about by everyday people and base some of the songs around those themes. Earwig on phone conversations on buses, pick up discarded bits of paper, when you get into the habit you’ll be amazed what you find. So I get on the 38 and set my brain to record. There’s also a fair amount about growing up on the record too, which I hope all can relate to. I think you have to start with a good idea, that’s on any level otherwise you’re unlikely to get far. From my art college days I got into the habit of noting things down, if you don’t it often escapes you. It’s difficult to marry a multitude of ingredients and let’s face it the world is full of plenty, pair it down and make it resonate. Anyone who tells you otherwise is telling porkies. To make something that stands the test of time is more difficult still. But I’m not afraid of the work and I enjoy ‘the doing’, for me that’s what it’s all about. I believe that as individuals we have a natural tendency to evolve, if we choose to see it that way and trust, it’ll ‘self fulfill’. If you’ll allow yourself to tap into that expansion creatively, you’ll always find inspiration. Micko & The Mellotronics release 'Noisy Neighbours / You Killed My Father' on Landline Records on April 17 with the 7" single schedule to hit the shops on June 27. Read the full article

#MELLOTRONICS

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thesunlounge · 5 years ago

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Reviews 298: Afrodesia

It began with a phone call between then Best Record label manager Marco Salvatori and Dario di Pace, a producer well known for his esoteric grooves as Mystic Jungle and his work with Raffaele ‘Whodamanny’ Arcella and Enrico ‘Milord’ Fierro in freakadelic collective The Mystic Jungle Tribe (as well as their record labels Periodica and Futuribile). The two were discussing a brief yet magical period in the 80s referred to as the “Afro-Italian movement,” one specifically centered on Les Folies Studio in Milan and artists/producers such as Daniela Paratici, Ennio Ronchelli, Daniele Losi, and Roberto Barocelli, which saw forward thinking combinations of analog synthesis, vocal exotica, machine drumming, hand percussion, and live instrumentation used to craft expansive adventures in paradise disco and fantasy jazz fusion (prime examples of which are Roberto Lodola’s Marimba Do Mar, released by Best Record earlier this year, Helen’s Zanzibar and Tunis Tunis, and Losi’s Tom Tom Beat). Yearning for the timeless groovescapes of these productions...especially Lodola’s far out “Afro” mixes...and seeking to bring the same exploratory spirit into modern times, Salvatori, Mystic Jungle, and Whodamanny decided to join forces for a project called Afrodesia: an ambitious undertaking marrying the interstellar groove and future funk mastery of Mystic Jungle’s and Whodamanny’s synths and drum machines with a cast of live musicians featuring Giulio Neri, Andrea Farias, Davide “Duba” Di Sauro and the late Italo-Nigerian percussion master George Aghedo, who appeared on many of the original recordings from which this project takes its inspiration.

Simply titled Episode One, the Afrodesia 12” marks an exciting new chapter for Best Record Italy, as it is the first release of original material from the label since the early 90s. After having closed shop during that time due to poor sales, Claudio Casalini’s influential label reformed in 2014, with Salvatori joining the operation and helping it ascend towards the upper echelons of Italo reissue quality. And now, having rescued an almost unbelievable number of obscure or rare dancefloor treasures, at least a few of which have become all time favorites, change is in the air, for Salvatori is embarking on his own new venture called Spaziale Recordings, while Casalini will continue leading Best Record as always. As well, the Afrodesia 12” sees Periodica and West Hill Studio main men Mystic Jungle and Whodamanny further refining their already sorcerous production skills, this time augmenting their Casio, Yamaha, and Roland synths and old skool rhythm boxes with saxophones, guitars, and perhaps most arrestingly, dreamy Afro atmospherics and heavenly voice harmonies from Arcella and Neri. But if you’ve been following the West Hill crew as closely as I have, these forays into worlds of African and Italian pop romance are hardly as surprising as they seem, for both Whodamanny and Mystic Jungle have been increasingly experimenting with vocal and pop textures to great effect, whether through Marcelo Antonio’s JKRNDA 7” on Futuribile Record Club, the vocoder sexualities of Mechanismo, di Pace’s co-production on Modula’s deep soul groover “Argonauta (I’ve Been So Lonely)," or Arcella’s journeys into vocal sensuality and synth-pop ecstasy on The Dance Sucker.

Afrodesia - Episode One (Best Record Italy, 2019) Helen’s “Zanzibar” is referenced directly by Afrodesia’s “Deep Down in Zanzibar,” which re-purposes lyrics and licks from that classic into a joyous new form. Snake tails introduce a low down disco beat, with cowbells ringing, güiros scraping, and timbale fills crashing through the stereo field. Hats and snare hold down the groove while cymbals generate waves of static and as the kick drum cuts away, claps delay into the void. All of a sudden, a greased up funk riff enters, with Duba’s bass guitar slithering around the fretboard, all fat-bottomed warmth walking through a tropical paradise. Quacking wah guitars percolate in as the kick drum returns to guide us through Afro-Italo dream worlds, with wiggling synth leads crawling across the sky and e-pianos generating balearic atmospheres. At some point, synths tuned like 60s psych organs scream while guitars work between hypnagogic riffscapes and bluesy acid solos and if that weren’t already perfect enough, Neri and Arcella descend upon the mix with their joyous croons…the vibe whispered and sensual…fragile and warm…with a voice in each ear singing softly and trailed by synthetic pianos and saxophones that skip across sunbeams. Sometimes the vocals fade away, leaving space for wailing saxophonics and clattering percussion cascades that seem to fill up the spectrum. Elsewhere, we move into a freaky funky riff jams before devolving into pure rhythm, with minimal and mechanized beats spreading further out as claps echo and laser blast oscillations morph into galactic fluids. And from here, Whodamanny and Mystic Jungle continue leading their session players through a coastal landscapes of African fantasy…a world of bass guitar sexualisms, joyous vocalisms, balmy synthesis, fusion guitar freak outs, and screaming tenor refrains.

In “Desert Storm,” reverberating hand drums pop amidst rising waves of noise while synthesizer squiggles swim through blasts of granular static. A simple snare beat enters as one of the best basslines all year drops, recorded so hot and up-front that you can practically see the dust snapping off the strings. Double-time hi-hats tick irresistibly as everything builds in anticipation, with the kick drum finally dropping while blasted funk riffs converse ear-to-ear, space age synthesizers weave neon threads, and wah guitars hammer on and scrape. Sometimes the melodic elements fall out and we’re led through rhythmic bridges, wherein the liquid funk basslines of Duba are replaced by that more familiar West Hill synth-bass squelch and screaming voices from the cosmic void descend from a stormy sky. Interstellar noise bursts careen across the mix and chaotic chordscapes bleat over the reverb-soaked disco drum tropicalisms, all while mutant basslines stoke alien dancefloor magic. As we drop back into the live instrumentation, with shakers rattling and bass guitar and six-string working through ultra-tight jam patterns, the terrifying screams still disperse through the stereo field while horror-tinged synthesizers move through gothic themes and rainbow colorations. For most of the rest of the track, we switch off between these two moods: a squelching synth bass groove out awash in Mystic Jungle-style sci-fi boogie sorcery and a stoner groove paradise led by sunshine guitars and funk bass fluidity. During one of the live instrumentation passages, a druggy synth solo drifts into focus, all zoner cosmic magic hovering like an LSD haze…minimal, spacious, and absurdly confident in its wafting, almost apathetic flow. And capping off the track is a baked coda of machine disco rhythmics and fluid funk guitar psychedelics.

The title of “Meet in Tunis” is perhaps another nod to Helen, though the music here seems less referential than in “Deep Down in Zanzibar.” Emotive riffscapes flow over uptempo snare and hat patterns while hand drums and further palm-muted guitar textures billow in from nothingness. The beat sees kicks stomping, snares breaking and gliding, tom fills sucking air out of the skull, and cymbal taps and bell tones ringing all throughout the background...the vibe mysterious and awash in dark disco intensity, though eventually tempered by romantic feedback melodies…as if Arcella’s Casios are mimicking Alessandroni western whistles while synthetic pianos float through golden cloudscapes. The guitars sparkle like Chic and Neri’s sax sounds hollowed out and spectral as it presages the upcoming vocal fantasias and indeed, he and Arcella work through earworm repetitions of “Tunis” before ascending into rapid fires soul verses that overflow with 70’s disco pop perfection…pushing almost towards all out Bee Gees ecstasy, except devoid of overt leads and flowing instead like a closed eye daydream. It’s so ebullient and transportive, with my imagination drifting to a Tunisian beach paradise…some sort of exotic seaside fantasy overflowing with forbidden romance. There are moments where the vocals cut out as we flash into zany percussive storms, with rave whistles flying over psychosonic rhythm cascades. All the while, Duba’s bass continues slipping, sliding, and growling through timeless funk riffs, with shakers pushing the groove euphoria to a maximum. And after another passage of wild percussive ritualism, with snares, bongos, and crashing toms sitting beneath quacking riffs and whistles, we flow through saxophone sensuality into a final “Tunis” vocal refrain, which repeats hypnotically as everything else fades to silence.

Closer “Orion Beat” comes to life on blasting kicks and rocketing claps before before settling into a slamming electro beat. Burning siren waves arc across the mix, bringing that kind of freaky atonal synth psychedelia that could only come from Mystic Jungle Tribesmen. Growling synth bass lines are smothered in cavernous verb as palm-muted guitars flutter overhead and the drums are so hot and heavy, with cymbals spitting fire and snares and claps cracking through the air. There are moments where the burning synth waves usher in passages of interstellar jam perfection, with guitars holding it down while panoramas of phase-distortion and frequency modulation synthesis generates dial-tone scats and telephone tracers while bleeps and bloops are repurposed into fusion fire. Elsewhere, we move into sections of slinky stoner bass guitar riffing while harmonious pads swim through the sky, their hovering chords of heavenly majesty surrounding an electro-funk zoner jam. Then following a bridge that leans towards progressive rock, the mix reduces to just kick drums and claps before dropping into an amazing passage of Afro-tribal intensity…the vibe like entering an otherworldly jungle, wherein crazed hand drum tapestries flow through deep space reverb tunnels. The groove stutters and stomps before smoothly gliding back into electro breakdance magic…like cruising the cosmos on the tail of a comet with starshine gas trails flowing all around the spirit. And after further burning wavefronts of dissonant synthesis subsume the mind, the Afrodesia crew work themselves into dueling harmony magnificence, with synths and e-pianos descending together in pure retro-funk majesty and bass guitar ripping through romantic soul motions…brief yet so perfect as the heart is carried way to paradise realms far beyond the stars.

(images from my personal copy)

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jacquies57561426-blog · 6 years ago

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In Music, What Is The Difference Between Style And Fashion?

Musical genres are classes which contain music which share a certain type or which have certain parts in widespread. Usually, many individuals consider musical preferences reflect characteristics similar to age , http://www.audio-transcoder.com/ character , and values A 2003 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology discovered people who are open to new experiences are inclined to prefer music from the blues, jazz, blainegerste.hatenablog.com classical, and folks genres. Those who are extraverted and agreeable" are inclined to want music similar to pop, soundtrack, non secular, soul, funk, electronic, and dance. Whereas these research prove character does affect musical tastes, Rentfrow and his colleagues on the College of Cambridge in the UK are curious as to whether there are other psychological mechanisms that come into play with regards to musical desire. This international interest segued nicely into a renewed interest in mento at home, as The Jamaica Cultural Improvement Commission launched " Mento Music in Jamaica, Vol. 1 " in 2000. Different Jamaican releases, such because the largely instrumental Rod Dennis Mento Band and The Blue Glaze Mento Band, appeared the subsequent 12 months. "But darling, allancolangelo.hatenablog.com I nonetheless catch a grenade for you!" blared the radio. I don't know what I might do without the catchy tunes of the yr's greatest musicians. It offers you a option to act calm or launch steam. Should you might think of any song on the planet, what would you hearken to? So many decisions. So little time. A form of American roots music with its personal roots in the English, Irish and Scottish conventional music of immigrants from the British Isles (notably the Scots-Irish immigrants of Appalachia), in addition to the music of rural African-Americans, jazz, and blues. Like jazz, bluegrass is played with each melody instrument switching off, taking part in the melody in turn whereas the others revert to backing; that is in distinction to outdated-time music, in which all instruments play the melody collectively or one instrument carried the lead throughout while the others provide accompaniment.

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Definitions of Jazz tend to be illusory. Despite this, there are a number of widespread threads that link the various kinds of Jazz music into one cohesive genre. Jazz has from its inception emphasised improvisation and the player's private interpretation of a tune, relatively than valuing an actual enjoying of a score. Typically, Jazz options syncopation, polyrhythms, prolonged chords, and blue notes. And, it is typically a collaborative music experience, wherein gamers have interaction in improvisational dialogue to create a song. Conversely, jazz standard compositions, resembling Thelonious Monk's Straight, No Chaser, have change into a major a part of American culture. Some jazz scholars and aficionados refer to jazz as American Classical Music.

MADRID, Alejandro L., Nort-Tec Rifa! Electronic Dance Music from Tijuana to the World, Oxford College Press, New York, 2008. Most people on the planet are not music followers, they only hearken to music. Younger folks have extra time for discovery, but even the vast majority of those underneath 30 aren't scouring playlists for brand spanking new music. In the event that they had been, the early 2000s lengthy tail" idea would have change into a reality. We all know how that labored out. Folks sometimes like what other individuals like, success begets success.

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dippedanddripped · 6 years ago

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Visiting Asheville, North Carolina, in December, I walked past a sandwich board that read, “Synth you’re here, come on in.” It was a pop-up store selling T-shirts, mugs, and other memorabilia commemorating one of the town’s most famous citizens, electronic music pioneer Bob Moog.

This month, celebrating what would be the inventor’s 85th birthday, that storefront reopens as the Moogseum. It celebrates not only Moog’s innovations, but also those of his contemporaries who created the synthesizers and other devices that transformed music beginning in the ’60s and ’70s. It’s the latest project of the Bob Moog Foundation–the nonprofit archive and educational institution established in 2006 by his youngest daughter, Michelle Moog-Koussa. (It’s unaffiliated with Moog Music, the company her father founded.)

Moog, who died in 2005, did not invent the synthesizer. Instead, “he’s the one who made it mainstream,” says Mark Ballora, professor of music technology at Penn State University. He became a celebrity, and people used “Moog” (which rhymes with “vogue”) as a synonym for electronic music.

A classically trained pianist, Moog worked closely with a wide range of musicians to understand what they wanted out of a device for generating electronic music. His synthesizers found incredibly diverse applications–from Herb Deutsch’s avant-garde compositions to Bernie Worrell’s funkadelic jams to Wendy Carlos’s classical music blockbuster Switched on Bach. Moog also collaborated with other inventors–including digital music pioneer Max Mathews and even rival synth maker Alan Pearlman (who died in January).

With today’s software-defined digital media, it’s harder to appreciate the naked physics of early electronic music and the radical transformation that manipulating these forces enabled. “Nothing fazes the students now,” says Richard Boulanger, professor of electronic production and design at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and a protégée of both Moog and Pearlman. “We’re transforming their voices and turning trash cans into drum kits, and we’re sounding like aliens just when we cough.”

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But “when we first heard the sound of a Moog synthesizer in the late ’60s and early ’70s . . . it just blew your mind,” says Boulanger. “It was like the sound of the future.” Indeed it was: Today, Moog synthesizers are standard kit for many leading musicians, from Kanye to Lady Gaga.

MOOG FOR THE MASSES

The Moogseum packs a lot into its 1,400 square feet, including iconic instruments like the Minimoog Model D and Minimoog Voyager synthesizers, an interactive timeline of synth technology from 1898 to today, and a replica of Moog’s workbench.

Beyond celebrating the past, the Moogseum aims to teach future generations, including non-musicians. The central vehicle for this is the exhibit Tracing Electricity as It Becomes Sound–an interactive wraparound video projected inside an 8-foot-tall, 11-foot-wide half dome, created by Milwaukee-based media company Elumenati.

“What we’re trying to impart is that you are in the middle of the circuit board, observing what’s going on,” says Moog-Koussa. “There will be a custom knob controller, so that people can actually interact with representations of transistors, capacitors, and resistors,” she adds. “So that they can actually become part of the circuit.” (The foundation aspires to create online versions of exhibits in the coming year.)

This honors Moog’s visceral, even New-Agey, relationship with physics. “I can feel what’s going inside of a piece of electronic equipment,” the inventor said in the 2004 documentary Moog.

He developed that feel when he started building and selling theremins, beginning at age 14 or 15 (Moog said both in different interviews). Invented by Léon Theremin in the 1920s and a staple of sci-fi classics like The Day the Earth Stood Still, the instrument allows players to create eerie tones by moving their hands through electrical fields. Three Moog theremins are on display in the museum.

Moog-Koussa isn’t just trying to cater to people who are already familiar with her father’s work. “Our work in education and archives preservation, and now with the Moogseum, will extend way beyond people who play synthesizers,” she says. The foundation she leads has an ambitious plan to bring hands-on education to schools across the country. It’s finalizing the design for the ThereScope, a battery-powered device that combines a theremin, amplifier, and oscilloscope to visualize the electrical waveforms behind sounds.

This would extend the foundation’s regional education program, Doctor Bob’s Sound School, which began in 2011. The 10-week curriculum now reaches about 3,000 second-graders a year in western North Carolina. “We have 13,000 young children who can read waveforms and explain to you the variances in pitch and volume,” says Moog-Koussa. “And that’s just one of our lessons, out of 10.”

THE STRADIVARIUS OF ELECTRONICS

Unlike the college-dropout entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, Moog stayed in school–earning a PhD in physics from Cornell in 1965, while continuing his theremin business. In 1964, he built his first “portable electronic music composition system,” later dubbed a synthesizer. The device was capable of producing over 250,000 sounds.

It was not the first synthesizer–a point that Moog-Koussa herself emphasizes. But the high quality captivated musicians. That was despite its temperamental nature. Moog’s early voltage-controlled oscillators, which produce the raw electrical waveforms, were susceptible to current fluctuations from the electric grid and to temperature changes. As they warmed up, the synthesizers drifted out of tune.

To solve the problem, Moog partnered with Pearlman, founder of rival company ARP Instruments. In exchange for Pearlman’s stable oscillator circuit, Moog offered his elegant ladder filter technology, which refines the oscillator output.

“If you start with a raw analog waveform . . . it’s a buzz, like your alarm system,” says Boulanger. “Are you ready to make love songs to the sound of your smoke detector?” He calls Moog’s oscillators and filters “the Stradivarius of electronic instruments.”

Moog’s first synthesizers were huge boxes of electronics stacked and wired together in a spaghetti tangle of patch cables. In 1970, he combined the functions of his modulars into a compact device called the Minimoog Model D, which featured a piano-style keyboard as the main interface. (Pearlman did the same with his iconic ARP 2500.)

The Minimoog eliminated patch cables but included a wide assortment of knobs and switches, plus Moog’s signature mod and pitch-bend wheels. It gave musicians huge latitude in crafting the sounds underlying those piano keys. It also featured a pitch controller, an electronically conductive metal strip that sensed static discharge from the players’ fingers, allowing pitch inflections like those of a stringed instrument. Invented in the 1930s, the technology is proof that touch interfaces long predate the smartphone era.

The Model D controls “liberated” keyboard players, says Boulanger. “It allowed a keyboard player . . . to take a lead role and be so expressive with unique new sounds that reached through and spoke to an audience, like a singer could, like a guitarist could, like a cellist could.”

SUSTAINED SOUND

Moog synths are so central to the music of past-century icons like George Harrison, Herbie Hancock, Kraftwerk, and Parliament-Funkadelic that it’s easy to dismiss them as the sound of the past. Documentaries and articles about the inventor tend to focus on those formative years in the ’60s and ’70s. Moog’s New-Agey sensibilities and lingo further reinforce the old hippy vibe.

But Moog continued innovating into the 21st century. His swan song, the Minimoog Voyager, was released in 2002, just three years before his death from brain cancer at age 71. It was an analog synthesizer, but equipped to interface with digital music equipment.

The synth sounds of Moog and his contemporaries have persisted though a variety of genres and artists. When I asked Moog Music–the company that Bob Moog founded, lost, and then reacquired in his final years–for examples of artists currently using its instruments, I got a list of over 30 acts. The diverse assortment includes Alicia Keys, Deadmau5, Flying Lotus, James Blake, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, LCD Soundsystem, Queens of the Stone Age, Sigur Ros, St. Vincent, and Trent Reznor.

Moog Music’s brand director Logan Kelly also called out up-and-comers, including trippy synth instrumentalist Lisa Bella Donna and the Prince-mentored, all-woman soul trio We Are King. (See the embedded playlist below for samples–or full versions if you’re a Spotify subscriber–from these and other artists.)

And despite the digital tools at their disposal, Boulanger says that his students are also pulling analog devices into their compositions–even modular synthesizers, which are experiencing a revival in a somewhat-miniaturized style called Eurorack.

Moog Music continues to turn out new, hand-built synthesizers. “A lot of the circuitry that Bob designed, we still look to that for inspiration and use it in almost all of our instruments,” says Kelly. Its newest, a semi modular synthesizer called Matriarch, has just gone on sale. The company also puts out limited reissues of classic full-size modulars and synths like the Minimoog Model D.

There are also mobile-app recreations of instruments including the

Minimoog Model D

(which sells for $15) and the

modular Model 15

($30). “It was a UI/UX challenge to capture the feeling and the fun of actually patching [cables for] this instrument on a mobile device,” says Kelly. Companies such as Arturia also make software emulations of Moog’s analog circuits, used as plug-ins for digital music composition. A 2012 Google Doodle even honored the 78th anniversary of Moog’s birth with a

tiny online playable synthesizer

And with many of Moog’s, Pearlman’s, and other inventors’ patents having expired, companies such as Behringer and Korg are turning out budget reproductions of classics. They’ve won praise from some musicians, such as Boulanger, for making the devices accessible to starving students, but derision from others who feel the companies are free-riding off the inventors’ legacies.

Behringer’s stripped-down reproduction of the Model D, for instance, sells for around $300 (without a keyboard), vs. $3,749 for Moog Music’s full re-issue (which is no longer in production). Kelly declined to speak on the record about Behringer’s and others’ third-party devices, but emphasized that Moog sells synthesizers in a wide price range, starting at $499.

CONTINUING EDUCATION

We don’t know how Bob Moog would have felt about the knockoffs, but he did work hard to bring music technology to as many people as possible.

“He would champion anyone and everyone,” says Boulanger, who describes himself as being “just some little guy” composing music when he met Moog in 1974. “He ended up writing articles about some of my music in Keyboard magazine [in the mid-1980s] and helped launch my career,” says Boulanger.

“When my father developed a brain tumor and was quite ill, we set up a page on CaringBridge for him,” says Michelle Moog-Koussa. “And from that we got thousands of testimonials from people all over the world about how Bob Moog had impacted and sometimes transformed people’s lives.”

But Moog’s five children were largely left out of that experience. “My father really held his career at arm’s length from our family,” says Moog-Koussa. She believes this comes from her father’s wariness of parents projecting desires onto their children.

“He had a very domineering mother who wanted him to be a concert pianist, and was quite heartbroken when he decided to pursue electronics,” she says. (Moog studied piano from age 4 to 18 and was on his way to a professional musical career when he pivoted to engineering.)

“We kind of knew the basics [of his work], but, at least half of those basics, we learned from external sources,” says Moog-Koussa. They also knew few of their father’s collaborators, aside from Switched-On Bach creator Wendy Carlos.

Since her father’s death, Moog-Koussa says she’s developed relationships with many of the legends her father worked with, such as composers Herb Deutsch and Gershon Kingsley and musicians Rick Wakeman, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, and the late Keith Emerson.

In a way, the foundation and Moog Museum seem as much an effort of Moog’s own family to discover their father as to educate the rest of the world.

“I don’t think we realized the widespread global impact and the depth of that impact,” she tells me. “And we thought, here’s the legacy that has inspired so many people from all over the world. That not only deserves to be carried forward, but it demands to be carried forward.

#arp #synthesizer #electronic music #music blog #bob moog

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videoranch · 6 years ago

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The View from the Side of the Stage

Words and photos by Melodie Akers

Embarking on a 12-date tour seemed like the last thing Nez should have done a month ago. Before the New York show on September 20, I told him how proud I was of him. I had feared he would either decide to go home after three dates or complete the tour without the energy to play or sing his best. The Mike & Micky Show had been far from fun; apart from the shows -- which were incredible -- it had been full of sleepless nights on a shaky tour bus and empty-stomached afternoons in emergency rooms, clutching my copy of Science & Health, while Nez joked with the nurses. I dreaded a repeat of that awful month.

The September FNBR tour had all the opportunities to be grueling. It kicked off with three dates in a row, and there was another block of three in the middle. Days off were singular and rare. Despite having little time for rest, Nez organized his team and resources so that he made it through the journey feeling better by the end than at the beginning.

Nez has been expressing a desire for a jet since before the January tour. In late August, he decided it would be a perfect “ambulance” to shuttle him through the tour. At first it didn’t work how he intended. The driver who was taking us to the airport -- or FBO as I learned to call it -- would be late, or Jonathan and Susan wouldn’t be ready to leave so Nez and I were sitting in the car alone. Or the plane would not be ready, or worse -- broken. The food provided by the jet company turned out to not be up to Nez’s standard. By the time we left Texas, Dan, our tour manager, and I figured out how to use the jet to its full benefit. I started having the jet bring in outside catering from Jewish delis or we’d have a runner grab Popeye’s during the show. Dan started ordering the car earlier, so it was ready and waiting for luggage while Nez fulfilled his Meet & Greet duties. I worked out an organization system of Nez’s luggage that allowed me to pack up quickly and easily after the shows -- something I had finally worked out after struggling all through the Mike & Micky Show. Nez instructed me to call the pilots once we were rolling, providing them our ETA so our plane would be ready and waiting just like the car had been. Once we got it down to this science, a quick flight -- usually less than an hour -- and we’d be touched down with full bellies and headed to the hotel, tucked in bed by 2am.

Jet rides were a welcome time to decompress after the hard work of shows. We’d laugh while discussing the show’s high points and how it was developing. Nez always polled us on what was his funniest joke of the night. As fans have pointed out, no show was the same; Nez did this intentionally. He didn’t wear his hat on stage in Virginia because he had started to feel like it was a cliche! His between-song-banter appeared in the moment each night, and he adjusted the set list as the tour progressed. After the first shows, he cut four songs, then added them back in and even introduced Marie’s Theme as he visibly gained strength and confidence with each performance. His ability to continuously spontaneously create not only reflected his live career as a whole, but showed his developing connection with the Redux band’s interpretation of his work. We listened to a lot of his early ‘70s albums in Sparky just before leaving for rehearsals -- and our listening sessions brought forward some of the ideas he thought were unexpressed in January. Last month, rather than simply “play the album”, he introduced Redux to new ideas and then expressed them onstage. Many of those ideas appeared first within the safety and comfort of the jet.

This was my third tour working as Nez’s handler. “Handler” essentially means I am responsible for getting Nez where he needs to be when he needs to be there with all of his luggage, prepare his costume, make sure he has clean underwear, gets enough rest, and eats at meal times. Nez has told me repeatedly that it is not my job to make sure he is happy, but I still try my best to achieve that, too. In addition to handler, during the tour I kept my positions as his assistant, running his social media, and sending these newsletters. I tried to share shows from the side of the stage through Facebook Live, but many comments from fans complained about the sound. The sound of a show changes depending on where you are stood. From the side of the stage, all you’re hearing is the musician’s monitors and a little bleed of the “front of house mix” -- what the crowd hears. Therefore, stage left was heavily Christian and stage right was heavily Alex and Pete; neither are a great place to hear Nez’s vocal. Nez became frustrated with me because I didn’t have much to say after shows. Even though I stood there waiting to be needed while broadcasting live, I couldn’t hear the real show. For several shows, I stubbornly refused to move from my spot out of fear of not being there when he needed me.

During the Mike & Micky Show, I stood by in case Nez needed more water, a towel, someone to hold his guitar, someone to unlock his iPad… whatever. Every show was a struggle the second he stepped off stage -- and I was half of the team there to hold him up. Dan and I supported him until he’d walk back on stage and perform beautifully. His abilities in June were incredible and confusing to me. However, a wise man once wrote: The devil has no access to the singing man.

The end of the first show in Houston was a massive achievement: It proved he could do the show, which was the principal concern on my mind. As his healing became more apparent, I felt more confident that it was not irresponsible to abandon my side of stage post. I started to complete my packing in the dressing room during the show while enjoying the front of house mix through the venue’s playback pumped into the room, and once I even had the guts to leave the venue to grab Popeye’s for the jet. By New York, I completed my packing backstage then sat in the audience most of the show and was able to give Nez a full review afterwards without neglecting any of my handling responsibilities.

The key elements of a hotel while handling a principal on tour are: blackout shades so he can sleep late, edible room service meals, and close proximity to Starbucks. Our hotel in Dallas had a Starbucks inside but it was closed -- the disappointment took away from Nez’s room having an actual breakfast nook. Nashville’s blackout shades were the best of the tour, even though the room was otherwise unremarkable, making it a standout; Susan called it “womblike”. Nez’s favorite hotel of the tour was the Peninsula in Chicago. When we walked into his room, he announced he was moving. Everything was high-tech: the TV remote was an iPad and even the light switches were touchscreen. But the room’s tech did not take away from its design’s classic beauty achieved through golden accents, dark wood, and deep navy bedding -- like sleeping in the night sky. And they somehow avoided the hotel restaurant curse by having wonderful meals.

The most bizarre hotel was in Detroit. Nez and I are 95% sure it was haunted. Nez’s room had a ballroom with a grand piano. Okay, not exactly -- but it had a mostly empty room bigger than my apartment with a grand piano in the corner. I asked him if he could play piano. “No, why do you ask?” “I’ve seen pictures of you sitting at pianos.” “Oh yeah, I can sit at pianos.” The entire suite (ballroom, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, vanity room, walk-in closet, and bathroom) was 60% empty -- its rooms’ sizes dwarfing their furniture. The bathroom and its vanity room were green marble blocks. Nez said the place was a perfect analogy for the automotive industry of a century ago -- uselessly ginormous. It was also filled with the craziest art -- including a piece in the lobby that made me ask Nez, “Why do they have a painting of Kate Bush?” The green marble vanity and bathroom still backdrop my nightmares.

Recently a friend asked me what touring is like because she is writing a novel about a touring band in the ‘60s. I responded with Nez’s first lesson: laundry and food. Those are the hardest things. I have no concept of how they pulled it off in the ‘60s, though, because they didn’t have Google Maps or Uber. Google Maps is my answer to everything on the road: finding laundromats who do fluff-and-fold, finding the nearest Starbucks, finding restaurants, finding a manicurist two hours before the show, etc.. The main function I wish Google Maps had was a sketch-meter. The number of times I’ve chosen a laundromat that’s 10 minutes away because of its high Google rating to find out that it’s in a “bad” part of town upon arrival... I was grateful to always have an Uber driver there with me, at least.

Uber is the best and worst part of touring in 2018. Depending on the town, it takes either 2 minutes or 20 for your driver to arrive -- and that is usually a good indicator of the arriving driver’s helpfulness. As an introvert, by the end of the tour I dreaded running errands, because being trapped in a car with a stranger whom I felt I was inconveniencing in some insane way took a special toll on my mental energy. But in comparison to ordering black cars and limos, Uber makes transporting a rock star beyond simple -- until you consider seatbelts. Seatbelts in stranger’s cars are somehow always hidden. Nez is terrible about wearing his seatbelt anyway, so I’ve taken to pouncing on him the second he sits down in any vehicle to make sure he is buckled in. I’ve asked him how he survived being a race car driver when he struggles to put on his seatbelt; he has no answer.

I half-joke with Nez that he only tours the east coast to have lobster. After seven shows of only talking about lobster, he finally got his cherished crustacean at lunch in Boston before the Somerville show. That was also my first lobster; Nez says west coast lobsters aren’t real lobster. It was delicious; I fully understand his quest now. We also had the best fried chicken in Nashville, while Nez made up songs at the table like, “Why am I standing in the garage? I know I came in here for something important,” after I shared his habit of making up incredible songs on afternoon drives to Jonathan and Susan. But the best aspect of meals on the road was our company and official tour drink. Most dinners were spent with Jonathan, Susan, and Hennessy sidecars -- Nez’s favorite cocktail! It started during rehearsals at our hotel in Burbank, and continued through the last shows on the east coast. We had a slight hiccup in Nashville when we got into a battle with our waitress as to whether it was salt or sugar on the rim of our glasses, and thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere in a Chicago restaurant where our table was INSIDE a train car. These evenings were one of the first things Nez and I chased down upon returning home… but were disappointed to discover that Jonathan and Susan’s laughter could not be conjured by the sidecars alone.

Restaurants are usually the closest Nez and I got to sightseeing while on the road. Our tunnel of hotel-car-venue-car-plane-car-hotel didn’t offer much light. Most of my “days off” (HA!!) were spent running errands while Nez recuperated (i.e. slept and watched MSNBC in his hotel room). While returning to the hotel from the laundromat in Nashville, I was grateful my Uber driver took a wrong turn: I got to see 6th St from the backseat after Nez had broken his promise to take me the night before. He came through for me in Boston, though. Despite the rain, he felt well enough to happily venture out in an Uber so he could show me the Mother Church. Disappointingly the church was closed due to construction -- and the visit took an incredible turn away from my expectations into modern art. Nez led me into the Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library, a three-story stained glass globe created just before the Second World War. We stood and pointed out cities and countries to each other -- Rio, Australia, Carmel. Given the state of politics, it was comforting to stand surrounded by an illuminated world. As proven through this tour, art is healing.

#Michael Nesmith #mike nesmith #first national band #first national band redux

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everlarkficexchange · 7 years ago

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Springtime Edition 2018.

These are the prompts we’ve received so far.

Crossed out prompts have already been selected and are being turned into fics!

I’d like to thank everyone who’s taken the time to come up with an idea and send it our way. Your prompts are the heart of the Exchange. Without them our lovely authors wouldn’t get to write all those beautiful fics. So, please, keep them coming!

You haven’t sent anything yet? Don’t worry, there’s still time. We’ll be receiving prompts until Mar 11. Don’t be afraid to inspire us!

We have more than 100 prompts now! So make sure to keep reading to see them all. Enjoy!

Prompts:

Prompt 1: “I wish that ball had hit you in the face!” [submitted by @peetaspikelets]

Prompt 2: Awkward or embarrassing job interview. [submitted by @peetaspikelets]

Prompt 3: Personal trainer from hell! [submitted by @peetaspikelets]

Prompt 4: Modern AU where katniss is a wedding planner and peeta is the caterer and her ex. [submitted by @sunflowerslyf]

Prompt 5: Katniss + Peeta + Krazy Glue = ? (Seal wound? Office prank? How they meet? How they’re forced to speak?) [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 6: Desperate petite Katniss takes a job jumping out of a cake. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 7: Young Peeta has an imaginary friend, Katniss, with superpower to help him when he’s alone or afraid, but something happens (good? bad?) and she becomes real. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 8: Start your story at the end (like the backwards Seinfeld episode “The Betrayal” about a wedding in India) and reveal how it began at the end. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 9: "Was she ever real?“ (SciFi Katniss is a cyborg or hologram.) [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 10: No games, but 16-year-old Seam girl Katniss is sent away to serve time for the killing of her sister’s murderer. She’s just returned to D12. How will she adjust? Who is still there? (mom, Gale, Madge, Sae, Darius, Peeta??) [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 11: Mom makes a new life for herself in D4. How would Katniss receive the news of her mother’s death at different times of her life (at 20-something while adjusting to life in post-war D12; after becoming a mother herself in her late 30s/early 40s; after becoming a grandmother in her 60s/70s). [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 12: Wait, what?! What do you mean, “We’re not exclusively dating”?! [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 13: Private eye Peeta and the dame who hires him, Katniss, in an old fashioned mystery turned romance. Bonus points for using 1920/30s turns of phrase. [submitted by @noneyabidnes]

Prompt 14: Planning and executing a first birthday party for oldest toastbaby. [submitted by @booksrockmyface]

Prompt 15: Pirate Katniss and wealthy nobalmen Peeta’s worlds collide. [submitted by @7-ah]

Prompt 16: Soulmate AU: Katniss has 2 soulmates/marks/indication of some sort, after the loss of her first, she’s terrified to have loved and lost again. Until Peeta. [submitted by @7-ah]

Prompt 17: Saying “I love you” for the first time at the worst possible moment. [submitted by @xerxia31]

Prompt 18: Canon/Canon Compliant: How about Katniss wanting to have the little youngest toastbaby, and being nervous to ask Peeta(and of course, excited when he says yes!)? [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 19: Awkward first date in high school, could involve a bet or a dare. [submitted by @savedbyyeezus]

Prompt 20: A fix about Katniss and Peeta having an arranged or forced marriage, but Katniss wanting her wedding night. [submitted by @ealaatnara]

Prompt 21: Visual prompt. Day 1 of Peeta as a Daddy [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 22: Peeta is a peacekeeper in Twelve, maybe a rebel undercover? And he and Katniss love story. Thanks [submitted by @marizpe17]

Prompt 23: A fic based on the song “Saturday Sun” by Vance Joy! [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 24: Ex with benefits [submitted by @sunflowerslyf]

Prompt 25: Katniss Everdeen is a 17-year-old Olympic gold-medalist who seemingly has reached the absolute pinnacle… except her country’s main nemesis happens to have a golden champion of their own, and he happens to have stolen her heart. [submitted by @thelettersfromnoone]

Prompt 26: Peeta buys and wears Deadpool riding on a rearing unicorn while holding a sword in the air, boxer briefs as a surprise for Katniss. Where you want to take it from there is left up to the writer. [submitted by @amazinglovers747]

Prompt 27: An older Peeta mets a young Katniss and it’s love at first sight on them. The trials and tribulations they have to endure to prove their love to everyone and the law. [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 28: In Panem AU (no games) majority of the district are werewolves but it’s forbidden to speak out loud about it. Peeta and Katniss are mates. (Follow real wolves traits; packs, behaviors, mates, knotting, in heat) [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 29: Polygamy. Katniss becomes Peeta’s second wife. She’s not happy about it because she had feelings for the another mellark brother and thought she was destined to be his wife instead of Peeta’s but Peeta starts warming her heart to him. [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 30: Everlark is a young couple who get married when Peeta gets stationed to Fort Panem. Have to deal with deployment, new weird friends, pregnancy, and staying a couple. [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 31: My favorite THG Character besides Katniss and Peeta is Wiress. Maybe Everlark from Wiress’s POV? Or perhaps an AU where she lives and her and Beetee help Katniss when Peeta returns hjacked? Anything with Everlark with Wiress :). [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 32: Prompt Based on the Alicia Keys lyric - we’ve got way too much In common, if I’m being honest with you. If you could love someone like me you must be messed up too. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 33: April fools prank or practical joke ends in disaster. Maybe a trip to the emergency room. [submitted by @peetaspikelets]

Prompt 34: Panem distracts and divides its people. Celebrity School is the training ground where they cultivate the most promising beautiful young blonde hopefuls. (drama, talents, sex, excess, cat fights) For the first time, each district is forced to send one non-blonde among their tributes. Minority trib Katniss gets fed up with the nasty treatment and takes action. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 35: Fact: A 2017 Reuters article says free land still available! Fiction: Write a story of Peeta and Katniss (together? meeting after?) joining those leaving D12 for a better life beyond its boundaries when government writes a homestead act. Requirements? Struggles? Obstacles? Conflicts? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 36: Katniss and Peeta are friends on the verge of more. Katniss or Peeta is hesitant to take the next step until something tragic happens to the other (just not death) that pushes them to realize their feelings and commit. [submitted by @ra3lynn3]

Prompt 37: Her family murdered, so mail-order-bride Katniss marries Peeta who seems sweet at first; the location is remote; something unnerves her. Could Peeta have an evil twin? Or an alter ego? Is Dr. Aurelius really helping or is he not what he seems? Can she trust anyone? Even herself??? [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 38: Katniss and Peeta are destined for each other. But when destiny is tired of the countess fail attempts, she makes one last attempt for them to get their happily ever after. Does it work this time? [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 39: Katniss falls for charming Peeta. Things are going well until she starts noticing a few odd things. What katniss never knew was that Peeta became a mafioso in la cosa nostra. [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 40: Katniss, a priestess of Diana, goddess of the hunt, is asked to sacrifice a man that has angered the goddess by looking too long at her favorite priestess: The baker’s youngest son. Katniss and Peeta have history together prior to her appointment as priestess, so she struggles to obey and comply. [submitted by @alliswell21]

Prompt 41: A story from Peeta’s POV about the things he loves about Katniss. Maybe watching her as she wears an old T-shirt of his. What’s the story behind the shirt and why she likes to wear it. [submitted by @ra3lynn3]

Prompt 42: For her 17th birthday, Capitolite!Katniss, gets a night with her celebrity crush, Victor!Peeta, as her surprise birthday present. Peeta (may or may not be older in this fic) is desensitized about taking Capitol girls virginities, ‘cause that’s the norm in high society, and he’s considered the gentlest lover in the catalogue, but she’s so shy, pure and starstruck, he can’t help being endeared by her. Make it as sweet and angsty as you wish :) [submitted by @alliswell21]

Prompt 43: Prompt - a story based on the song “Say Something”, by Great Big World and Christine Aguilera… [submitted @xerxia31]

Prompt 44: Katniss is hired as a writer for Hallmark cards ….. [submitted by @thegirlfromoverthepond]

Prompt 45: I answered your oddly specific craigslist roommate ad as a joke and now we’re living together… [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 46: Broken-hearted Katniss goes to see a psychic, hoping to get one last message to her departed loved one (Goodbye? I’m sorry? Where’s the key to the safety deposit box?). Peeta is earning his college tuition using his charm and empathy to tell fortunes. What happens when they encounter each other? [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 47: Katniss and Peeta accidentally switch phones and she’s getting really tired of fielding questions from wrestling team members and some weirdo who sends pics of modern art asking for opinions. Did K&P already know each other? How do they switch their phones back? What sort of hilarity ensues in the meantime? [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 48: You’re an Art student and I’m an English major and you keep stealing the papers for my assignment to doodle and I would kill you but you’re really cute and hey that’s actually a really nice sketch. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 49: Injured in a mosh pit at a concert because Johanna. Peeta can ask her for her phone number as part of exchanging insurance information and she can think he hit his head harder than she originally thought but he’s just trying to flirt. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 50: The fire alarm went off at 3 am and now the cute guy from the apartment next door is standing next to me in his underwear… [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 51: Modern Day: “Totally worth it - you always are…” [submitted by @winegirl65]

Prompt 52: "I know what you want. You have money, but what I have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a dream come true for people like you.“ Sexually frustrated trophy wife Katniss commissions artist Peeta who immortalizes naked women after giving them the greatest O of their lives. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 53: The Mellarks take in HS exchange student Katniss for one year for the $. Popular Peeta objects to getting saddled with her at home, at school, socially, in the bakery. "She’s not very big or particularly pretty.” But when Katniss (?) Peeta reacts (?) [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 54: “Your bakery gave me food poisoning!” [submitted by @peetaspikelets]

Prompt 55: Katniss was turn into an Avox and the Mellark family (a wealthy family from the Capitol) buys her. Her love story with Peeta. And maybe after the war, Peeta takes her to a Dr that is performing tongue surgeries (I read about that an it is possible) Thanks. [submitted by @marizpe17]

Prompt 56: Katniss turns to sperm bank to conceive. Despite option of anonymity, records opened. Peeta learns he has fathered child(ren). Now what? (What motivated them to use service? What are their ages now (same or wildly different?) Child(ren)’s age? Relationship status (Peeta involved? Katniss single or married?) Strangers or not? Interest in co-parenting? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 57: Peeta’s Plan: private jet to meet his fiancé’ parents; get tour of future father-in-law’s offices, meet the Board, meet with attorneys; take formal portrait; attend rehearsal and dinner; the wedding; brunch; private jet to Maldives for honeymoon. His mother is finally pleased with him. But the groom is having doubts, and that’s before he hears the voice of the wedding singer at the dress rehearsal! [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 58: Sacrificing a worthless sickly goat at the altar, Peeta’s frugal mother prays for a daughter and a long life together. The gods, seeing no love in her heart, are displeased with her offering and give her a son. She curses him and them. In punishment, they grant him a very long life: 1,000 years and 1,000 tears. Over the centuries he resists falling in love only to lose a wife over and over. But then he meets Katniss… [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 59: Peeta and Finnick are a bi couple, who’s relationship is crumbling. They bring Katniss in to add some sizzle in the bedroom… will she help save the relationship or complete kill it off??? [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 60: Post Mockingjay AU Katniss and Peeta finds themselves having twins unexpectedly and Katniss struggles with the idea of becoming a mother to not one child but two. [submitted by @que-sera-sera88]

Prompt 61: Katniss is a Midwife in the late 50s and meets Peeta (somehow) and flirts with him. When she’s goes to a delivering mother Peeta is there and she gets mad at him because she think he is her husband/father but he isn’t. [submitted by @que-sera-sera88]

Prompt 62: Katniss (a gifted culinary graduate) is recently widowed (her Ranger husband killed on a mission) - no family - she needs to make a life for herself. She takes her little belongings and his motorcycle and rides to find her future. She stops in a small town to rest for the night, with a failing restaurant/bakery owned by Peeta. He needs her help and she needs his. Maybe they help each other and fall in love in the process. [submitted by @winegirl65]

Prompt 63: Katniss and Peeta are teachers. Their classrooms are across from each other so they eat lunch together everyday which leads to some of their students shipping them. Whether they actually get together or not is up to you. [submitted by @ra3lynn3]

Prompt 64: A fic based on the song Austin by Blake Shelton [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 65: Years ago, you promised your firstborn to a witch. Since then, despite your best efforts, you can’t seem to get laid. The witch is starting to get pretty pissed.Y’all get together to discuss your options and she starts coaching you on how to get dates because she doesn’t want to waste more magic on you without promise of payment. The more time you guys spend together the more you realize you have a bit of a crush on her. Soon you’re sabotaging your dates on purpose to see her again. Long story short, you fall in love and get married AND YOUR FIRSTBORN IS HERS BY DEFAULT. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 66: What she said while standing beside Gale: “I never go anywhere without my bow.” What Peeta hears: “I never go anywhere without my beau.” Peeta won’t pursue another guy’s girlfriend, no matter how much he wants her. Will he try moving on? How long before that misunderstanding gets cleared up and Peeta asks out Katniss? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 67: Peeta can’t help but be a bit of a player when it comes to girls and struggles hanging onto a girlfriend. He goes to his best friend Katniss for advice. Not knowing she’s harboured a crush on him for years. Can be written in either POV. [submitted by @peetaspikelets]

Prompt 68: Katniss gets locked out of her apartment wearing only a towel and the only person she can turn to is her neighbor peeta. [submitted by @sunflowerslyf]

Prompt 69: Katniss and peeta are both doctors and everytime they attend to a patient together they always get mistaken for being a couple or married but really they’re just best friends [submitted by @sunflowerslyf]

Prompt 70: Based off the movie Ms. Congeniality. [submitted by @tal-han13]

Prompt 71. Katniss and Prim (and possibly the Hawthorne’s and Undersees) are in a cult and are just rescued out of there by an underground organization that de-indoctrinates cult members. Peeta and Haymitch are part of the underground de-indoctrination team. Angst at trying to pull away from the old way of life. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 72: Everlark fic based on the song “You Shouldn’t Kiss Me Like This” by Toby Keith. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 73: A story based off either Nancy Mulligan or Castle on a Hill by Ed Sheehan. [submitted by @historywriter2007]

Prompt 74: horoscopes - Peeta and Katniss have poorly matched signs, or one believes in it and the other does not, or Peeta is a horoscope writer who Katniss mocks/is skeptical of, etc. and then their daily horoscopes narrate their burgeoning relationship super accurately (bonus points if you write the horoscopes!) [submitted by @savedbyyeezus]

Prompt 75: Katniss and Peeta looking for they first apartment/house. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 76: “Peeta as a women to woo katniss” [submitted by @joshifer4everyone]

Prompt 77: I'd like to read a story with Everlark ... and a unicorn. Or unicorns. :) We need more unicorns in the fandom !!! [submitted by @thegirlfromoverthepond]

Prompt 78: an everlark fic based on the song Who's that girl by Guy Sebastian. [submitted by @uniquepizzacollectionblog]

Prompt 79: Everlark roomates when Peeta brings back a puppy home. Of course Katniss hates it... so she says... [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 80: AU where Katniss is interviewing for a job as a leg model. Until the photographer asks for more. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 81: I work at a movie theatre and I’m trying to clean up but you’re still here ugly crying... [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 82: Katniss is a barrel racer and trying to become a successful videographer and her loving husband, Peeta, is there supporting her and being there for her through it all. This is near and dear to my heart so I really hope someone chooses this prompt to write. [submitted by @amazinglovers747]

Prompt 83: Professional cuddler! (It's a thing.) Is Peeta or Katniss the client, the therapist, the trainee, the job applicant, the business owner, the journalist trying to write about the experience, the instructor, co-workers? With Finnick, Johanna, Delly or anyone else? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 84: it's wedding day (may be everlark wedding, but not necessarily) and the major scenario is the groomsmen dance. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 85: Canon-divergent. Everyone is born with a clock embedded within the inside of their left wrist that ticks down to the very moment you realize your love for your soulmate. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 86: Where Peeta is an Avox, involved with the Rebels, who works for Seneca Crane and his wife, Katniss. He seduces Katniss for informations but then falls for her. Rebellion still happens (the most angsty the better) [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 87: Peeta's great idea to meet single girls: teach a one-night "Romantic Baking" cooking class and impress them! Oops, course description says "couples." Katniss agrees to a date with a guy who thinks this is a great idea for their first date. (Do Peeta and Katniss know each other or are they strangers? Are they exes? Does he get her number? Does he ruin their date? Is the date handsy? Got any recipes to share?) [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 88: I love soulmates fics ! Anything with Everlark being soulmates and finding each other -finally :) thank you ! [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 89: prompt - a very adult version of truth or dare after work in a bar. [submitted by @uniquepizzacollectionblog!

Prompt 90: katniss and peeta are both heartbreakers and after both breaking someone's heart again, they're finally both single. They go after each other and make the other fall for the other (someone is already in love from the beginning but doesn't want it to be known because of their reputation) [submitted by @sunflowerslyf]

Prompt 91: Peeta as the tatted, ex-rocker owner of bakery chain (like in in DC-Balto area called dangerously delicious pies). Katniss is an attached (engaged or otherwise unavailable) food critic or reporter doing a piece on him but she and P can’t deny the attraction. Angst and such ensue. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 92: When Peeta's brothers pass on getting the bakery, Mrs. Mellark decides to find Peeta a wife she approves of AND to get in some immediate free help by posting unpaid summer internships at the bakery. Lots of girls hoping to land a husband with a business show up, none really interested in working or learning. One by one they dramatically quit or get fired until only Katniss who's only in it for the free day-old bread survives. Will Mrs M honor the bargain? Possible fairytale ending? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 93: Peeta and Katniss having never spoken graduate at 18 without getting reaped and must find work or a spouse to support them or else report to the mines. This drives one to devise a way of working as partners to start a business drawing on each other's strengths to become a team. They pretend to marry to get Peeta housing and to keep men away from Katniss. Will they work as business partners? Or screw it up? Or work through their problems and feelings to become more? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 94: Hate group vows to drive all olive skinned people over the fence and keep them out of D12. Katniss prepares for the worst. Does she ask Peeta, the kindest man she knows, to marry Prim? Does she fight back with her voice, the law, her bow? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 95: A fairytale: "Dear God, make me a bird. So I can fly far. Far, far away from here.” If Katniss turns into a bird, what breaks the spell? Does she speak besides sing? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 96: What if Katniss uses Peeta to get even with Gale? (Gale and Katniss are supposed to be betrothed, but Katniss finds out about Gale's trips to the slag heap. She befriends Peeta when trading-maybe) Peeta of course refuses at first, but then can't resist, but it gets super complicated because Katniss realizes she actually loves Peeta... Canon/Divergent please! [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 97: Peeta is promised to marry Delly, or another merchant girl, but she ends up getting pregnant by Gale. Peeta must marry to keep the bakery in the family, but there is no one available but Seam girls. His mother tries to convince Mrs. Everdeen to let him marry Prim, but she is too young and of course he really wants to marry Katniss. Secretly she wants him too. They marry and admit/show each other their feelings! [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 98: Peeta is pining for Katniss, but is about to give up because he can't figure out a way to get her to notice him and he is being pestered to marry a merchant. He also thinks Katniss is already with Gale. Somehow, he ends up following her or he is already in the woods when Katniss shows up. Katniss, believing she is alone, pleasures herself. When she is finished, she says Peeta's name. Of course he realizes that he needs to pursue her. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 99: Canon-divergent. Katniss develops a habit of sleepwalking which she only realizes when she discovers love bites appearing on various areas of her skin from seemingly no where. Embarrassed by the stares she receives around the District, she grows confused by Peeta Mellark's increasingly strange behavior towards her. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 100: "See, this is why no one lets you make the plans." Pregnant,unwed, underage Prim will be punished unless Katniss hides the pregnancy, pretends baby is hers. Caught and tangling others into deception, Katniss agrees to another plan: marry Peeta, pretend it's his so Prim can move on with her life. But then Rye forfeits bakery, claims child, wants to marry Prim. Only way to keep up lies and to let Prim have her own baby now is for Katniss to get pregnant, too, because of strict antiabortion laws. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 101: Last minute addition. Peeta is a police officer and is responding to a big event where Katniss is somehow involved. If they knew each other before or meet that day is up to you. [submitted by @historywriter2007]

Prompt 102: I've had this one in my head for a while but know I could never do it justice. Edward Sheeran's Perfect everlarked. 'When you said you looked a mess/I whispered underneath my breath/you heard it/darling you look perfect tonight...' The duet version with Beyonce chokes me up, but Ed's solo version speaks about a Strong Woman. Totally bonus points. [submitted by @noneyabidnes]

Prompt 103: Everlark in the Red Rising universe following Morning Star where Peeta (as Virginia/Mustang) is the politician and Katniss (as Darrow/Reaper) is the warrior. Bonus for toastbaby! [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 104: Both of them are rescued and make it to 13 after the Quell... They can stop pretending now. [submitted by @thestuckinbed]

Prompt 105: I'd like to read a really quirky, awkward teens-falling-in-love everlark story (can be set in high school /summer camp /in-panem au...). Casual, shy, no ‘love at first sight, insta-love. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 106: Katniss is Rye’s girlfriend when he dies. Katniss and Peeta (Rye’s father) start to hang out to go through their grief together. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 107: Everlark fic based off of the song "Thinking Out Loud" by Ed Sheeran. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 108: Modern AU/ katniss is desperate for a job to support prim and her mother and ends up getting a job for care and companionship for a disabled man, the Ex playboy Peeta Mellark Based on Me Before You (preferably with a happy ending) Check out this beautiful banner by the amazing @akai-echo for more inspiration. [submitted by @redhoodhungergames]

Prompt 109: Peeta is a womanizer and big flirt. (Imagine like finnick!) Katniss has aversion to love life, since she saw her mother's suffering. Many guys try katniss, but she scowls and scares them away. A strange situation happens, where peeta and katniss need to act like dating each other for some time. How katniss changes her opinion on love and how peeta realized katniss is his true love! [submitted by @joshifer4everyone]

Prompt 110: I know it's too late but it's worth a shot. This prompt popped in my head and I had to try. Everlark are at the beach and Peeta gets attacked by a shark and loses his leg. Peeta is rushed to the hospital where Katniss stays by his side and the story goes into Peeta facing the reality of not having a leg. How does it affect his work life? Sex life? And Katniss being there for him through thick and thin. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 111: So I was driving earlier and Mary’s Song by Taylor swift came on and it made me really want to see this everlarked!! [submitted by Anonymous]

Feeling inspired?

Choose a prompt from the list and tell us about it. (Chosen prompts will be removed from the list so that there will only be one fic/artwork per prompt.)

Write a fic or create some artwork. Fics can be as short as 500 words or as long as you like. They can be one-shots, new chapters from your current WIPs, or out takes from any one of your fics. As long as your work covers the details provided in the prompt, you can create whatever moves you.

Submit your finished fic or artwork. We’ll be posting finished works from April 2 to April 15.

Got questions, comments or suggestions? Click here. We’d love to hear from you!

Don’t forget to follow @everlarkficexchange to stay on top of any and all updates!

#prompt list #available prompts EFE 2018 #1st draft

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ikeh-marketing · 3 years ago

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Psyonix’s Marketing Strategies for Rocket League

Rocket League, created by Psyonix, is a popular video game in which gamers control rocket-powered cars instead of people to play forms of soccer, hockey, basketball, and various other games. The original game released in 2015 on PlayStation, and became available on Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch by 2017. This game has had no problem gaining popularity, reaching over 100,000 concurrent players not even one year after its initial release. However, its major problem has been retaining those players.

Monthly number of peak concurrent players of Rocket League on Steam worldwide

This graph shows three major spikes in concurrent players which can be attributed to Rocket League’s initial growth phase early in 2016, the pandemic in early 2020, and the game becoming free-to-play in late 2020. Although these spikes in players are great for sales, they are short-lived. Between these spikes, the game consistently returns to their average of around 60-70 thousand concurrent players. This hurts their ability to generate revenue from in-game purchases, which is now their main source of revenue since the game has become free.

The Free-To-Play Strategy

As Psyonix saw a large dip in concurrent players after the initial jump from the pandemic, they came up with a new pricing strategy. They decided to make the game free-to-play in an attempt to further penetrate the market. This strategy was very effective, as concurrent players over doubled from the previous few months. However, these numbers yet again slowly dwindled back down to their average over the next year.

The Problem

The obvious problem is that players are getting bored of Rocket League and instead choosing to spend their time and money on competitors’ games. This is due to Rocket League being well into the maturity stage of the product life cycle. At a basic level, Rocket League has been the same game for almost 6 years now. The two main things still driving Psyonix’s revenue are their sustainable competitive advantage of being a completely unique game, and their in-game product expansion strategy of constantly adding new cars, game modes, and customization options. The question is whether that will be enough to keep Rocket League relevant against their competitors such as EA Sports, who have figured out how to make consumers pay for a slightly updated version of the same game every single year.

Psyonix’s Recent Response

Psyonix has recently come up with a whole new strategy to gain market share in the video game industry, which is complete diversification. On November 29, 2021, They released Rocket League Sideswipe on iOS and Android devices. This is a mobile spin-off of Rocket League which is not available on these devices. Psyonix is attempting to reach a whole new market of players with a brand new, yet similar game. I believe diversification is exactly what Psyonix needs to continue to compete with bigger companies that are releasing new versions of games every year. Although I think Rocket League Sideswipe will help gain a huge chunk of market share and even create more hype around the original game, it is way too early to tell if it will work or not. Will this be enough to keep Psyonix relevant in the video game industry for years to come, or will they continue to lose their market share to their competitors?

https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/rocket-league-sideswipe-now-available-free-ios-android-psyonix/

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jorystory · 3 years ago

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West Coast Trip 2021 Journal Part 1 - Vancouver

Day 1

We walked around downtown, corner-to-corner, in about 4-5 hours. Prepare for a leg workout and wear good footwear.

Japadog on Robson. I got the “love meat-cheese” dog, hearty late night street foody, but nothing special. They open until 3AM. The store is small, be prepared to line up outside on the street. 7/10. Not worth the visit unless you’re craving something dirty and have stomach space.

Robson street is a nice bustling street with a lot of stores, worth checking out if on your first visit.

As part of the downtown walk, we passed through English Bay Beach, Sunset Beach and parts of the Sea Wall. It’s a nice walk. Not a lot of shade, bring sunscreen.

Canada Place is a bit boring, just walking and seeing, but not much to do.

We made it to Gastown for dinner. Gastown is a charming area to walk around with lots of restaurants, but the area smells like pee, you’ll start seeing more homeless people in this area. For dinner, we went to Gringo, located in a sketchy alley. It’s a tiny bar-style joint with Mexican fare. Of the tacos we tried, the brisket was superb. It was super juicy, flavorful, and wrapped with corn-style tortilla. The rest of the tacos were meh, nothing special. I would recommend just getting the brisket ones. We got their lemonade, which was refreshing and a nice sour, not too sugary. Super friendly staff that makes you comfortable. At $3-4 for a taco ($4ish for the brisket), it is definitely worth it, compared to other places. 7.5/10.

We walked back to downtown to meet up with friends and get dessert. We tried the gelato at Bella Gelateria. It was disappointing, too hyped and pricey at around $9 for 2 scoops in a cup. 5/10. Don’t bother. The gelato at Stella Luna in Ottawa is better.

For accommodations, we stayed at Days Inn Wyndham in DT. It’s bait and switch advertising, the room in reality looks nothing like in the pictures online. The price was cheap for downtown though, but the room is tiny with an even tinier bathroom.

Day 2

Morning coffee at 49th Parallel Lucky’s Donut in DT on Thurlow. Lot of room outside to sit with 90 min of morning WIFI. I got my favorite donut, a cruller, which has a really good sweetness and airiness to it. It was also big size-wise. The black Americano I got was also good; not too acidic/bitter. 7.5/10. I would go again if I had time in the morning to chill.

Walked to Chinatown. LOTS of homeless people here and it smells pretty bad. There’s not much to visit here other than the famous garden and New Town Bakery. See it on your first visit, but that’s it.

Japantown, which is next to Chinatown, don’t bother going. There’s nothing to see and even more homeless/crazies/druggie as you get closer to Main and East Hastings.

I tried the Bulgogi Burrito at Tako, near Chinatown. It’s Mexican-Korean fusion. It was on the smaller size for around $12-13 for a burrito, but it was flavorful and had a nice mild heat. It’s no Kogi in LA, but it’s okay. 7/10. Not worth visiting if you’re limited in time and stomach space.

I also tried the tacos at Tacofino, located in the same sketchy alley as Gringo in Gastown. Their tortillas they used for the tacos are paper-like; they don’t use standard corn tortilla. It was overhyped, busy, underwhelming and overpriced at $7 a taco. The fish taco was bland and dry and relies on the sauce to bring out any flavor. The meat of the crispy chicken is good with some mild heat, but it ends there. The taco is also on the drier side. Nothing special, Disappointing. 4/10.

We bused to Wreck Beach, on the far western end, near UBC. It’s a popular destination on sunny days, known for optional clothing. It was cloudy and empty when we went, but was still nice to sit and chill. There’s quite a bit of stairs to go down to the beach; was not expecting that for our tired legs.

Take out dinner at Sal y Limon Mexican. They used corn-style tortilla tacos, had good flavors, but something about all the meats we got were off (lamb > al pastor > pulled pork > chorizo). The churro was good. We also got a carnitas (pulled pork belly) huarache, which was flavorful, but the shell was not very deep fried, with too much sauce soaking it and making it soggy. For authentic Mexican, it was underwhelming. 6.5/10. Not worth your time or stomach space.

The Hive @ Strathcona is a small bouldering gym with a sufficient amount of climbs. The staff were friendly. They have a Friday night cheap night ($18), which was good since their regular admissions are on the pricier side ($25). The grading system wasn’t that intuitive. More importantly, it was super hot/humid with no AC and only a couple of fans running.

Day 3

We went for early morning bakeries at the popular local spot, New Town Bakery in Chinatown, before our day trip out to Squamish. We got: 2x egg tarts, 1x bbq pork, 2x pork steam buns, 1x coconut bun, 1x butter cream cone, 1x curried beef bun, 1x meat spring roll, 1x pineapple-coconut bun. All the items were quality, and exceeded expectations. 10 items among 2 people was a lot of food though. Prices are good, smells like heaven. 9/10 Worth visiting.

Originally, we wanted to do the Chief hike at Squamish, but as of this year, you need to buy passes, which they were sold out. Instead, we went to Shannon Falls. The main attraction at the lower falls is whatever and mostly packed with families and kids. We found an moderate/hard trail to Shannon Falls Pools that not many people hike and takes you higher and up close to the falls. Dangerous place to slip. There were some rope sections where you have to pull yourself up that were sketchy; definitely not family-friendly. Also, easy to get lost at the beginning if you don’t take the correct fork. Use the Trailforks app to not get lost. Once we were up close to the falls, we were treated to great views and a perfect spot to relax all to ourselves.

A late-afternoon visit to the popular Earnest Ice Cream on Saturday was perfect. No crazy lines like you would see at peak hours and after dinner hours. We tried the Cookies & Cream, London Fog, Whiskey Hazelnut and Milk Chocolate. The first three were highly rated ones on Google, and they were true. I loved the first two the best. The price for double scoops was around $6, but you get a lot. Compared to other places, this was really good value for size and excellent ice cream. 9.5/10. I highly recommend this place and would go again.

For dinner we went to Ajisai Sushi Bar in Kerrisdale. They were only offering takeout during the pandemic and you had to call to order. Expect 2 hours order times during peak dinner times; this place is BUSY, their phones are constantly ringing. We ordered around 5pm and got our food around 7pm. You can see the chefs working non-stop from the store front window. We got the Spicy Roll (Salmon/Tuna/Scallop) combo that includes 24 pieces for around $13. Great price for the quality. We also got the Assorted Sushi combo which includes around 9/10 items, mostly nigiri and some special rolls for around $19. The sushi was QUALITY and FRESH. The salmon and tuna were melt-in-your-mouth quality. For around $40 for 2, this wasn’t too expensive relative to other meals and surprisingly filling. If you love sushi, this is perfect mid-tier sushi (higher than budget sushi places, but lower than expensive top-tier places like Miku/Minami). 9.5/10. Worth visiting and would get again.

To digest, we drove around and ending up relaxing at Burnaby Central Park. Nothing touristy, just a local park in Burnaby to say that we’ve been to Burnaby. At night, we just drove across Lion’s Gate bridge back in DT Van to check out the bridge lights and night views. Driving in busy Saturday-night traffic is tough, you need some confidence, aggressiveness, and focus (there’s a lot of bright lights) especially when you have day-trip fatigue.

Day 4

We tried the red velvet cake and ice americano at Breka Bakery on Denman St in DT Vancouver. The cake was moist, light, airy; and the cream not too sweet, which was perfect. The chocolate pieces in the cake were a nice touch. The ice americano was good, a hint of bitterness, but refreshing. It’s a 24h café with a couple locations. 8/10. Worth visiting.

Today was bike day around Vancouver. This was probably the best way to get around since public transportation is slow (not much better than Ottawa’s), walking is tiring and ride share for 2 isn’t that cheap. Spokes bike rental, $40-50ish for the day, provided solid Trek hybrid bikes, helmet, lock and phone holder. The staff were friendly and helpful. It seems expensive compared to the city Mobi bikes, but its definitely more fun and flexible in my opinion. It will be around the same price as an attraction somewhere (like Capilano bridge), but you get all day fun. Worth.

Riding leisurely around Stanley Park, took about 1-2 hours. Great views. Worth visiting.

We biked to Granville market and walked around lunch time. It’s a cute and charming market. This place is busy, lots of fresh fruits and the local strawberries were perfect, not too sweet and good tartness, but expensive at 2.5lb for $13.

Lee’s donuts - high quality donuts, jelly, chocolate, honey dip, Dutch. Good size. Pretty good compared to what we have in Ottawa. Long lineups. 7.5/10. Worth visiting.

Biked to Kitsilano beach - extremely busy large and bumping beach. Definitely a popular spot in Vancouver. Worth visiting.

Biked to Jericho beach - smaller beach, more old people and families with younger kids. Good for swimming.

Rain or Shine Ice Cream Kitsilano - large portions like Earnest, get the waffle cone (it’s good), malt chocolate honeycomb flavor was A+++, slightly more expensive (~$1) than Earnest (at $7 for a cone) but just as good. Busy, expect long lineups. 10/10. Worth visiting. We came twice ;)

Kook Korean BBQ - We got the Combo A for 2 for around $60-70, lots of side dishes, 4 types of meats, which were marinated well, soondobu soup was spot on, meets expectations. Busy - reservations of 2h wait times. 8/10. Worth visiting if you’re craving Korean BBQ.

Day 5

Walked around Yaletown, pretty bougie, not much to see.

Lunch at Phnom Penh, Viet/Cambodian, popular local place. Must tries: butter beef, beef lok lak, crispy chicken wings, usually lines, around $15-20 per dish. We got the three dishes for 2 people, we were full. 9/10. Worth visiting.

I went to climb again but at the Hive North Shore location, far from downtown (~50 min by multiple buses). The gym is clean, spacious, has AC, a nice store, and high climbing walls (feels pretty sketchy up high, higher than Altitude Kanata’s), so they make you do an orientation and practice falls. I booked for 2pm on a Monday, not much people, which was nice. I prefer this location over the central Vancouver one.

Afternoon snack at La Casa Gelato, they have too many flavors (238 to be exact) in my opinion. It was empty when I went, I tried their popular flavor, the durian, but I wasn’t a fan, more sugary sweet than anything. I think it’s overrated. And for around $6 for one scoop cup, its not that cheap. Decent size though but not too big. Seems very gimmicky to me. The building exterior is entirely bright pink, good for Instagram I guess. 5/10. Not worth.

We had dinner at Ramen DANBO in Kitsilano (DT location was closed for renos) For around $10-14 for a bowl of noodles only, the tonkotsu broth, which was rich and flavorful. The thin noodles were perfect, two pieces chashu included were meaty/fatty/juice. The Negi-goma broth (sesame oil, specialty-roasted sesame seeds and fresh scallions, tonkotsu) which adds a nice sesame-oil flavor to the broth was excellent as well. I choose standard options for noodle firmness, broth thickness, broth richness (lard), karadare (umami spicy sauce), can get really spicy depending on what you choose. 9/10. Worth.

Day 6

We had an early morning flight to Calgary, so we stopped by Breka Bakery again at 4AM. This time at the more popular location on Bute St. in DT Van. We got croissant sandwiches and loaf cake slices. They weren’t that good, but not surprising since they weren’t fresh at 4 in the morning.

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phgq · 4 years ago

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Birth of PNA in 1973 followed PNS' death in September 1972

#PHnews: Birth of PNA in 1973 followed PNS' death in September 1972

MANILA – Many of the millennial Filipino journalists may be interested to know that the Philippines used to have its own news agency even before the advent of martial law imposed in September 1972 by then President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

Yes, that privately-owned news outfit was the Philippine News Service (PNS), the predecessor of the present government-run Philippine News Agency (PNA) which marks its 48th anniversary this coming March 1.

PNS was organized in 1950 as a news-gathering cooperative by the publishers of the then major and leading national newspapers--the Manila Times-Mirror-Taliba, Manila Chronicle, Manila Bulletin, Philippines Herald, Evening News, Bagong Buhay, and Fookien Times. Its main function then was to supply daily news and photos from the provinces to these newspapers as well as to those in the provinces.

Radio and television stations also used the PNS stories for a fixed monthly fee or subscription. Foreign news agencies, such as the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse, and a few private entities were also allowed to subscribe.

Through the old mail system (using stamps and envelopes), it also maintained a news exchange agreement with foreign news agencies such as Antara of Indonesia, Bernama of Malaysia, Kyodo of Japan, Yonhap of South Korea, Central News Agency of Taiwan, and Tass News Agency of the former Soviet Union, among several others.

When Marcos declared a nationwide state of martial law under Proclamation No, 1081 on Sept. 21, 1972, PNS was forced to cease its 24-hour daily operations since its major clients– newspapers, radio, and TV stations–were padlocked and guarded by government troops. At the time of its closure, PNS had some 120 news correspondents from all provinces and cities of the country.

About four months after the imposition of martial law and shortly after Marcos allowed a handful of newspapers and broadcast outfits to reopen, a group of former newspaper editors asked then Department of Public Information (DPI) Secretary and later on Senator Francisco S. Tatad to explore the possibility of opening a government news agency by acquiring the World War II-vintage teletype machines and other equipment of the PNS. The persistence of such a group of editors to once again set up an even more dynamic wire news agency bore fruit when PNS was allowed to reopen but under a new name – Philippines News Agency (PNA) as the government’s official news outfit.

Negotiations for the acquisition of the PNS equipment were done by a group of former newspapermen from Tatad’s office at Malacañang, including the late Bureau of National and Foreign Information (BNFI) Director Lorenzo J. Cruz and the late Press Undersecretary Amante Bigornia.

The amount paid by the government for the old PNS teletype machines, typewriters, mimeographing machines, and a photo darkroom plus few cameras was used to pay the delayed salaries of the PNS staff in Manila from September to December 1972.

Jose L. Pavia, the late former executive editor of the defunct Philippines Herald, was appointed as the first general manager of the infant news agency. He headed its initial 11-member staff, with the late Renato B. Tiangco, also formerly of the Herald and a foreign news agency wireman as managing editor; and Severino C. Samonte, a holdover from the PNS, as national and provincial news editor at the same time.

As the government news agency, PNA was created under a Special Department Order issued by Tatad. It was placed under the BNFI, its first mother bureau that provided its fund.

Launched on March 1, 1973 as the national government’s official news agency, PNA initially used the editorial offices vacated by the PNS on the second floor of the National Press Club (NPC) of the Philippines Bldg. along Magallanes Drive in Intramuros, Manila.

The first set of PNA’s correspondents were picked from the former PNS stringers covering the country’s then just 70 provinces and 60 cities. A number of former staff members of the defunct Manila newspapers later joined the PNA Central Desk as editors, reporters, and photographers.

At the outset, four PNA correspondents were assigned each to cover the then existing four Philippine Constabulary (PC) Zones in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. These were the 1st PC Zone in Camp Olivas, Pampanga; 2nd PC Zone in Camp Vicente Lim, Laguna; 3rd PC Zone in Cebu; and 4th PC Zone in Davao.

When Secretary Tatad turned on the switch to launch the PNA in the afternoon of March 1, 1973 in Malacanang, he said: “The Philippines News Agency will be operated in the best tradition of the world’s professional news agencies.”

During the martial law years, the PNA, together with the so-called “Big Four” news agencies – Reuters, AFP, AP and UPI – covered the entire archipelago, bringing news around the Philippines to the outside world as much as possible. For a while, PNA even entered into a news exchange agreement with some of these foreign news agencies.

A year after its birth, PNA inaugurated its first domestic bureau in Cebu City, opening a new era for the media in the country’s second-largest, most cosmopolitan city. Seven tabloid-sized newspapers there began to carry current national and foreign news through the PNA wires, a radical departure from their former purely local coverage. This placed them in a position to compete for circulation in the Visayas and Mindanao with the major national dailies published in Manila.

The year 1974 also saw the opening of similar PNA bureaus in Iloilo, Baguio, Davao, San Fernando, Pampanga; Cagayan de Oro, Bacolod, and Dagupan. These were followed by Lucena City, Legazpi, Cotabato, Tacloban, Zamboanga, Dumaguete, Iligan, Laoag, Tuguegarao, San Fernando, La Union; even Jolo, Sulu; and Los Banos, Laguna.

The peak number of domestic bureaus stood at 23 in 1975, with the opening of additional bureaus in Cabanatuan City, General Santos City, and Tagbilaran City. However, this number of bureaus was reduced drastically as a result of cost-cutting measures in later years.

After the Feb. 22-25, 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, with the opening of a number of new newspapers in Metro Manila, a number of PNA-trained reporters tried their hands at actual newspapering and in the broadcast field. Many of them became editors and columnists in several national newspapers after they had once cut their journalistic teeth at the PNA newsroom.

Until early 1986, the PNA, through the former Office of Media Affairs (OMA) headed by then Information Minister Gregorio S. Cendana (RIP), had overseas bureaus in San Francisco, California; Sacramento, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Toronto (Canada), Sydney (Australia) and Jeddah. These were closed down after the EDSA Revolution.

During the government reorganization in 1987, the BNFI was abolished and replaced with two new bureaus–the present-day News and Information Bureau (NIB) and the Bureau of Communications Services (BCS).

At present, PNA remains a division of the NIB which is headed by Director Gigie R. Arcilla-Agtay. The agency is under the direct supervision of Secretary Martin Andanar of the Presidential Communications and Operations Office (PCOO) in Malacanang.

In its 48 years of existence, PNA has transferred seven times--five times around the Intramuros area in Manila and twice in Quezon City, the latest in 1996 when it settled to its present headquarters on the second floor of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) Bldg. along Visayas Ave. in Diliman, Quezon City. (PNA)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "Birth of PNA in 1973 followed PNS' death in September 1972." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1131927 (accessed February 28, 2021 at 01:58AM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "Birth of PNA in 1973 followed PNS' death in September 1972." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1131927 (archived).

#Philippines #News #Filipino #Pinoy #Tourism #Politics #Culture #Editorial #Environment #Society #History

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mechagalaxy · 4 years ago

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Sten Hugo Hiller - 627184: Mountain Climbing Mecha Combat #1346

(By Sten Hugo Hiller - 627184) Mountain Climbing Mecha Combat #1346 Brought to you by ANN Highlighting the April 3364 Cruiserweight Chrono The Gaming Authorities decided to let us try out one of the War Specialist formations this time, and decided the 70 ton formations were most in need of a run-through. Many Commanders tend to focus mostly on the bigger Mechs and aim for success in the unlimited formats. Other Commanders work hard to improve at least some of the lighter formations, and some of them have built some really devasting formations. As an example; David McCallum`s 70 ton formation is something few (me among them) want to tangle with despite having a serious licence advantage. My 70 ton formation started as a collection of Krampus and Freon, backed up by a few Infernos, but over the years the odd Smilidon, Megazome, Spitfire, Tick, Fides and lately Talon have been added to the rooster. Question was if they could measure up against the regulars on K3, as their licences were one to eight dozen higher than mine. The best way to find out was to try, and after adding a half-dozen Novums as scouts we set out for the mountains. As we were the first to arrive in formation, the top was ours for the asking. Probably a good thing, as every point counts in the Chronos. The first few scorerounds the opposition was quiet, and we built up a decent advantage. But then solid hitters started to arrive, and more than once we had to fight hard to get back from the slopes and the foothills. While many Commanders were strong enough to displace us, the hardest of them all was roward of the Northwind Dragons. His licence is more than 50 higher than mine, and despite the fact that he spotted the rest of us a full line by having BFM`s in the front, he could claim the top more or less at will. I managed to push him off the top from time to time, but that took on average a dozen or so tries, -and most of the time he punched right back and reclaimed the top within moments. We had an advantage due to the early points we had scored, But even so, and despite mostly holding the top slope, roward was steadily gaining on us, and eventually he slipped past. With ten to twelve scorerounds left, he had managed to outscore us by about 2500 points, and any sane commander should have given up. But he had made a mistake, and forgotten to switch back from the main formation after doing some other tasks, so we pounced on him and reclaimed the top. Admittedly, it was an empty gesture. For us to actually outscore him, others would have to pull him further down. And if he got back in formation and reclaimed the top it was all over. But somehow he managed to miss the bus, and when the light finally flashed we had beaten him by a narrow margin. According to the footage taken by my crew, the highest scorers had been: Div 1 387+ (26 Commanders): Sherriff Leary Wretham, Warlocks HQ (+3570) 2: Fabio Favaro 3: Claude Poirier 4: Were Wolf 5: Bernard Johnson 6: Ben Rail 7: Jeff Haas 8: Yusuke Paul Okabayashi 9: Sal vezzosi Jr 10: Robert C Goetz Sr Div 2 -386 (12 Commanders): Stroker Spot, Death Dealers (+34970) Div 3 -284 (15 Commanders): Sten Hugo Hiller, Star League (+260) Div 4 -207 (14 Commanders): Ken Fuchs, Northwind Dragons (+32620) Div 5 -158 (24 Commanders): Grego, Black Star Bandits (+4910) Div 6 -113 (17 Commanders): Jack Travis, T.I.o.M.T. (+13770) Div 7 -85 (28 Commanders): Bill Harper, JC`s Rowdy Bunch (+4700) Div 8 -56 (11 Commanders): Arabel Lane, Major Steel (+12900) Div 9 -38 (17 Commanders): swa977, Ronins 2 (+19530) Div 10 -25 (15 Commanders): Slick, Ronins 2 (+19320) Div 11 -15 (14 Commanders): Will Bensley (+7620) 3+10(3S)+9(2S)+6(1S)+2+9(1S)+2+2S+0+0+0=Nine Silvers and thirty-four bronzes were awarded to Commanders who clearly had overweight Mechs in their formations as the event ended. Total Contestants: 193 Total medals claimed: 156 (of 165 possible) Compared to the previous (Orcus) event, the participation rose by fourty Commanders. There was still some hefty imbalances between the tops, but the number of unclaimed medals was severly reduced. In the end, a total of nine Bronzes from four tops were returned for resmelting. The highest score achieved in this event was 155 000. Only Ken Fuchs of the Northwind Dragons on K4 managed to stay on the top for the needed 124 scorerounds to claim that score. The biggest gap to the runner up was on K2 where Stroker Spot from the Death Dealers won by 34 970. Lowest score needed for a medal was on K8 where 3840 was enough to claim a Bronze. Four Golds were decided by margins in excess of 16 000, but we also had two decided by less than 4000, one of them by as little as 260. That is extremely close when it comes to a long Chrono. Question then is whether the rest of the prizes were secured by high or low margins? Best way to find out is to look at the differences between the medal tiers in this event: ..Silver to Bronze....Bronze to nothing Div 1 ......1940......…….....4045 Div 2 ....15520...…..............N/A Div 3 ....22990...…..............N/A Div 4 ....24040...…..............N/A Div 5 ........700...…............4860 Div 6 ....22440...….........15000 Div 7 ....21740...…............2580 Div 8 ....14840...…..............N/A Div 9 ....16950...….........18340 Div 10 ....4480...…..............N/A Div 11 ....8820...…..............N/A In general, the contested medals were won by solid to impressive margins this time. Only one Silver (and no Bronzes) were decided by a margin of less than 1000. The only clan to claim multiple Golds in this even was Ronins 2. They could celebrate victory on K9 and K10. We had one unaligned winner this time; Will Bensley on K11, while the sole repeat winner was Star League`s Sten Hugo Hiller on K3. Upcoming event: Reverse Ratman Here we have another tonnage limited event. No Mechs heavier than 60 tons is allowed to participate in the fighting here. In addition, on the eight highest tops the Namtar is supposed to shine, so each Commander is only allowed to field one non-Namtar Mech there. Event ends October 15 between 1700 and 1730 New York Time

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encouragechange · 4 years ago

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THE MAJORITY OF children sent to prison in Ireland in the 1960s were not offenders, instead they were imprisoned for issues relating to neglect and poverty – often common threads in their stories.

Dr Fiachra Byrne from the School of History in UCD told TheJournal.ie, “They were suffering from status offences.

Despite the rhetoric of the importance of family by the Irish State – that didn’t apply to all children in Ireland, especially the ones who were put into institutions. Ireland’s relationship with young offenders continues to cause problems for the State.

St Patrick’s Institution closed its doors on 7 April this year and all 17-year-olds are now sent to Oberstown. Announcing the closure the Minister for Justice at the time Frances Fitzgerald said:

St Patrick’s Institution has been the subject of much criticism by various bodies and persons involved in the area of human rights and children’s rights. The signing of these orders will now consign the name of St Patrick’s to the history books and is a significant and progressive step forward in the treatment of children. However Oberstown is not without its problems and there has been a string of high-profile episodes at the detention centre. Last August a major fire broke out at the centre after young offenders climbed onto the roof of the building during a protest.

In May, staff were threatened and assaulted before three youths escaped using an angle grinder to cut through the perimeter fence.

In July, the director of the facility Pat Bergin confirmed two incidents involving inmates, one of which required garda intervention. Last month a teenage boy was accused of causing €50k damage at the young offenders centre.

During this atmosphere of tension in our current detention services for young offenders, Dr Byrne is looking at Ireland’s past and how we treated young offenders as adults, keeping them in their cells for 14 hours a day and implementing punishment diets and isolation.

Byrne is researching the mental health of juveniles in custodial institutions in Ireland and England from 1850-2000 as part of the project Prisoners, Medical Care and Entitlement to Health in England and Ireland, 1850-2000.

He explained that there was a huge resistance to child psychology in Ireland up to the 1950s due to the close connections between state and church. ”Psychology was often seen as subversive to Catholic morals,” he claims.

“That changes slightly in the 1950s, we then incorporate bits of child psychology without affecting Catholicism.”

In the early 1960s, Artane Industrial school had over 700 boys, Byrne described them as, “Quite young kids with almost no offenders at all in there.

These children were kids deprived of a normal home life and they didn’t have proper affection. The first child guidance (care for psychologically or emotionally disturbed children) didn’t start in Ireland until 1965, but that would have started in the UK in the 1920s. Byrne added:

Psychology here was dominated by priests in the 1930s. Proper studies were not started until the late 1950, early 1960s. “They were still very much in a Catholic framework but there were liberal elements to it. It was modernising within a context.”

Bread, water and isolation

St Patrick’s Institution was the main penal repository for boys aged 16-17 years who were sentenced to prison in Dublin. By the late 1960s, it had an average population of about 170 and, by the early 1970s, its average population exceeded 200.

A survey of boys in St Patrick’s in 1967 found that 69% had been committed for property crimes, while 24% had been committed for violent crimes.

Byrne said that although St Patrick’s Institution catered for juvenile prisoners in terms of regime and physical environment, it differed little from prisons for adults. The children spent around 14 hours a day in their cells.

In 1971, the chaplain to St Patrick’s, Gabriel Slattery, described this as a “considerable length of time”, adding: “The psychological effects of this must be very serious especially for retarded or illiterate boys.”

Punishment also mirrored adult prisons. It consisted of restricted diets, solitary confinement and loss of remission.

Inmates could be placed on a diet of bread and water for a three days during which time they would be confined to a small basement cell isolated from all contact by three locked doors and two corridors.

Describing the condition of the confinement, Slattery said: “The tiny window in these cells is well below ground level. The only furniture provided is a mattress, a few blankets, and a chamber pot in the corner. There is no table, no chair and no bed.

The cell is no larger than a domestic bathroom. The removal of the mattress during the day in some cases means that a boy must sit on the wooden floor and walk around the cell for 23 hours a day for three continuous days. The 24th hour the boy spends walking in circles around the walled-in tarmac watched by an officer only and cut off from all others. After three days, the boy would normally be moved onto a diet of some porridge, potatoes, bread and water. He would still be confined to a cell but in a different section of the prison where it might contain an iron bed, a chair and a desk. This punishment could continue for up to 15 days.

The prisoners could then face into another 15 days where they were deprived of cigarettes and recreation, returning to their cells at 4.30pm after work and remaining there until the following morning.

Watershed Moment

In England, steps were being taken to humanise institutions in the 50s and 60s but that didn’t happen over here until the 70s when new institutions – such as St Laurence’s in Finglas – were set up.

The Kennedy Report in 1970 was the first time the severe issues in juvenile custody were recognised at policy level.

Byrne said the report “signaled a significant disenchantment with the institutionalisation of children in Ireland” and highlighted the importance of the emotional and psychological needs of children.

The Kennedy Report described educational and training facilities in the institutions as “insufficient and primitive”.

“St Patrick’s is an old style penitentiary building with rows of cells, iron gates and iron spiral staircases. Offenders, in the main, occupy single cells. These are small and gloomy and each one has a small barred window almost at ceiling level. Offenders are held in these cells for approximately fourteen hours per day,” it said.

The system of locking young persons into a cell alone for a good portion of the 24 hours can hardly be conducive rehabilitation. We feel that something should be done to improve conditions there. The report recommended that inappropriate and inadequate institutions should be closed, that remaining services should be professionalised and that the emotional and mental well-being of children in care should be catered for. It also recommended that psychological and psychiatric assessment should be provided.

Byrne described how, as time went on, Ireland’s institutions for children grew independent from church and gravitated more towards international norms.

Byrne said, “They started hiring social workers but some of those turned out to be sexually abusing the boys so the switch certainly didn’t solve all problems.”

Setting cells on fire and swallowing nails

The year after the report was published, the chaplain of St Patrick’s Institution Gabriel Slattery wrote to Archbishop Charles McQuaid describing how some of the boys were protesting as one wing on the building was being ‘hacked down’ in preparation for plastering the cells. The boys were confined in semi-demolished, dust-filled cells due to pressure of numbers.

Slattery told McQuaid that in the previous weeks, more than a dozen boys swallowed nails in protest including one boy who swallowed a buckle. He said that two boys cut their wrists with glass and one boy tried to burn his cell while locked in at night but he was saved.

Another boy tried to stab another inmate with a knife because he had tried to stop a 15-year-old from jumping off a balcony. Slattery said the 15-year-old told him that he was terrified when locked up in his cell at night on his own.

Dr Byrne said the grim historical narrative of these institutions shows systematic neglect and, frequently, child abuse.

Byrne is a member of a team of historians at four different universities in England and Ireland that are working on the project Prisoners, Medical Care and Entitlement to Health in England and Ireland, 1850-2000.

Director of the UCD Centre for the History of Medicine, Associate Professor Catherine Cox, is a co-principal investigator of the project. Cox and Byrne presented some of their research at Parnell Summer School earlier this month.

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