#the artistic sports are judged too subjectively for my taste

[kiralamouse]

bowling

[fishing pole] casting

cheerleading

life saving (lifeguard style)

orienteering

These are just some of the more interesting sports at the World Games, which I just found out about thanks to the 21/07/24 Last Week Tonight. Apparently these games take place the year following the Olympics and take a broader view of what should qualify. (Also apparently the Olympics keep an eye on these games to consider possible events to add.)

I am intrigued.

Here are sports they should add to the Olympics (not very serious)

- disc golf

-roller derby

-a game of hide and seek in the Olympic village that goes for the entire time the Olympics is happening and every once and while the announcers will give updates on the game

- field games (tag, capture the flag, camouflage)

- other types of camp and field games (washers, cornhole)

- bowling?? (Idk if they have that already if so yay)

- cricket (either the five day slow one or the really fast version)

- parkour tag

Those are some ideas

[doomedandstoned]

Italian Doomers BRETUS Tell Ghostly Tales on New LP, ‘Magharia’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

Artwork by DamianaMerante

Hailing from the City of the Two Seas, Italian doomers BRETUS return with a new album of ghost stories. Longtimers know that Bretus and Doomed & Stoned practically grew up together. Though the band has been active since the turn of the century, our first exposure came with their debut full-length 'In Onirica' (2012) and subsequently we formed a friendship with the Catanzaro doomers that continues to this very day. It's hard to believe they're already over two decades old (okay, 20 years young, if you like). And what do they have to show for it? A handful of LPs, an EP, and a split with fellow Italianos Black Capricorn.

If you're as much a fan of vintage horror movies, H.P. Lovecraft lore, mysticism, and the occult as Zagarus (vox), Ghenes (guitar), Janos (bass), and Striges (drums), there's a whole world of story and sound awaiting your deep dive into the Bretus catalog. Adding to their already excellent discography, a fifth album now reveals itself: 'Magharia' (2021).

I won't spoil my interview with the band (see below) if I tell you that the album concerns, shall we say, several tales of the supernatural variety. An ominous gong is struck to the backdrop of monastic chant as Magharia opens in epic fashion "Celebration of Gloom," a song characterized by a chugging proto-trash tempo, trve metal stylings, and Gothic vocals appropriate to it's subject. It's a rather grim account of a certain sacrilegious priest and his daliences with young women of the church. As a preacher's kid, I've seen this kind of thing play out a hundred times and can assure you these sweeping romances between clergy and laity never end well. In this case, it winds up with a ghoulish rite and a victim's vengeance.

"In the sky lightning strikes...wicked laments rise from the ground." Welcome to "Cursed Island." True to the spirit of the lyrics, this track really let's it all hang out, with quasi operatic vocals that occasionally erupt in maniacal laughter (reminding me vintage Reagers-era Saint Vitus, with its lusty swagger). And why not? This is after all about the mystery that surrounds one of the most haunted islands on earth.

Thus far, the record's been sporting a pretty up-beat pulse, so surely you're ready for some good old fashion doom? "Moonchild's Scream" concerns a albino girl accused of being possessed by the devil for her appearance. One day, she disappears in the dungeons of a castle and legend has it that her cries can still be heard every five years during the Summer Solstice. Doesn't get more doom than that, folks!

After a brief interlude ("Necropass"), we arrive at my favorite track of Magharia. "Nuraghe" concerns the spirit of a woman judged and condemned for a crime she was innocent of still roams among the ancient stones. Boy, the ancients sure did have a hang-up with free-spirited, independent women, didn't they? The song itself is possessed by the spirit of Pentagram in its biting guitar work and rhythmic attack. Love the riffage on this one! Some of it could have been played out just a little more for my taste, like the all-too-brief Soundgardenesque motif at the two-minute mark. It returns a minute later, again in brief. C'mon Ghenes, let your inner Kim Thayil loose! Maybe we can convince them to improv at this point with a bitchin' guitar solo at their next festival appearance. Then again, perhaps this fits artistically with the song, which speaks of obscure "grim dancing bats" and a ghost that haunts through swift shadows passing over glimmers of light. Once again, Zagrus expressive song style comes through to distinguish this as a gem of the genre. I shall be revisiting it on my personal playlist often.

"Headless Ghost" strikes graceful Goatsnake groove as the yarn is spun about the restless and tormented soul of an ancient Roman warrior who has risen from his place of rest. All he wants is the skull that was looted from his place of burial. Give it back to him! "No one will be spared tonight," the lyrics warn, as the song shifts down to a dire doom dirge as the night unveils a strange moon and the wanderings of a cursed soul, seeking his head and not more. "He is living again in this hell."

"The Bridge of Damnation" is one of the creepiest of the record, said to be about "a bridge, a young boy, and his three torturers." The mood is quite dark, with esoteric atmosphere, reverberating vocalizations, guitar and bass trading off notes. Oh, and did I mention this tale from the crypt involves death and resurrection, as well? The riffmaking and drumming are absolutely on point, as is the singing -- which by now in the record I'm not only am accustomed to, but have grown to admire. Another keeper!

"Sinful Nun" winds and grinds as Zagarus croons about the inner torment of a Sister who has never gotten over her beloved, who died under such unspeakably tragic circumstances that she decided to consecrate herself to God in celibacy. However, her vows are in vain as she still pines for her long lost lover. The verses are sung to the accompaniment of a galloping tempo, which seems to represent the fevered anguish of a soul forever stricken by grief and the haunted memories of lost love. This is juxtaposed in the chorus by a cursed riff that seems to speak as the Hand of Fate itself. "Farewell to this life," are the Sinful Nun's final words.

At last, we reach the album's namesake and though "Magharia" is entirely instrumental, it would be a mistake to assume you know what it's going to do. Around the four-minute mark, I had to check and make sure I was listening to the same album, as dark synth busted out a metronomic rhythm, leading to a declamatory section of keyboards to accompany the math-like guitar play and an improvisation of almost creepy seventies-sounding prog, which after its playful fit dissipates suddenly in a bluesy collapse.

Bretus have cooked up a remarkable horror soundtrack that, though it speaks of ancient lore, is very much a fitting backdrop to the unreality of our own times. Fitting somewhere on the stylistic spectrum between Candlemass and Paul Chain, Reverend Bizarre and Cardinals Folly, Margharia may be the band's finest effort to date. Certainly, it rewards repeated listens, and will haunt you for many years to come. Look for the record to drop this weekend (pre-order here), with multiple physical formats releasing via The Swamp Records (compact disc), Burning Coffin Records (cassette), and Overdrive Records (vinyl). Until then, you can stream it all, right now, right here!

Give ear...

Magharia by BRETUS

An Interview with Bretus

What is the concept behind the new album and what themes do you explore?

Musically the new record is most "in your face" than the previous album. Also our approach to the recording was different. We rehearsed and arranged together more than before. The result is an album more raw to us. It is a concept album born around different italian old ghost tales. Some of these is supposed to be legend or myth, who knows.

When did you write it? Was it during the pandemic lockdowns?

We had more ideas about new stuff long before the pandemia arrived. We spent this time working on the pre-production of the tracks.

Can you give us a track-by-track explanation of each song on the album?

For sure!

"Celebration of Gloom" is a strange song because there are many influences in it. Including a solo flute in the middle of the track. However is a very loud and gloomy song.

"Cursed Island" probably is the most rock 'n' roll song of the album. If you know what I mean. Rock in the attitude. Also the first video of the album.

"Moonchild's Scream" is 100% pure Doom with a heavy mid-section.

"Necropass" is like Caronte travelling the damned souls across the Stige River.

"Nuraghe" is a heavy oriented track with a very dark feeling.

"Headless Ghost" has a more stoner trend than the others and in the end there is a psycho riffing.

"The Bridge of Damnation" includes our '80s dark influences into our sound, probably the most haunted track of the album. The story is based upon an old weird story that happened in our native city, Catanzaro.

"Sinful Nun" is like an experiment and neither of us can explain really what it is... ah ah aha! For sure the most heavy track of all.

Finally "Magharia." You cannot believe it but the idea comes from a Who's album, Quadrophenia. Either of us wrote a part of the song. The result is a kind of horror soundtrack.

Magharia by BRETUS

How do you feel that your basic style or approach to song composition has changed since you first started writing songs in the early days?

You already know a lot of things about us, we know you from so long ago! Please don't ask how old we are. (laughs) Basically our approach is the same from the beginning. Of course we listen to a lot of new stuff during these years so every album brings different "colors."

Where are you most looking forward to playing live once pandemic restrictions are eased?

Everywhere! We are angry for live gigs or simply to drink beers with friends.

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

[thesublemon]

on reviewing

Watched a documentary on Pauline Kael a couple nights ago. It clarified for me why I always find her reviewing refreshing and frustrating by turns. Refreshing because she doesn’t tend to treat genre or subject matter as something sacred. She will watch many kinds of movies with the same degree of curiosity and judgment. Her instincts about whether a movie is working, or lying, or doing something new are also often very on point.

But she falls prey to the two big things that I think make reviewing a flawed, sometimes maybe even useless endeavor. Especially if the goal is to accurately describe what a work is.

1) An inability, or disinterest, in modeling why artistic choices work or don’t. For instance, at one point in the documentary she complains about artists and critics equating repetition with lyricism, and states that repetition in movies simply annoys her because it feels like belaboring a point that she’s already gotten. But that complaint misses out on an opportunity to explore why people would think that repetition is lyrical, or why an artist would reach for it as a choice. And whether, once you’ve modeled what the goal of repetition actually is, maybe there are good and bad versions. If it were me, I would argue that when repetition is good, it doesn’t actually feel like repetition. It feels like riffing. The artistic impact comes not from reiteration, but from reframing—and if it does feel like reiteration, then it’s probably weak repetition. If I were to make a similar complaint about a movie, I might instead complain that a motif did not add or gain complexity each time it appeared. Or I might complain that an attempt to convey monotony by unchanging repetition did not feel worth it, because I didn’t find the underlying point insightful enough to justify the experience of slog. Whatever my exact argument though, the point is that there would be a curiosity and emphasis on what the artist was trying to accomplish. And a generosity about what they could accomplish. As well as a self-awareness about my own values (like “density” and “coherence”) and the fact that I judge works by those values. Without this sort of meta-level mindset, reviews seem to quickly descend into authoritative subjectivity. Kael was good at viciously panning things, but how can a pan help the artist make better work unless it’s accompanied by some sort of model or rationale? Why would an artist listen to your opinion unless you first prove that you understand what they were trying to do? Without a level that exists outside of the reviewer, a review runs the risk of simply being an exhortation to appeal to that reviewer’s taste.

2) A love of saying things that sound good, regardless of whether they’re actually meaningful. At one point in the documentary, Renata Adler, another writer, attempts a takedown of Kael. But ends up making the exact mistake that Kael does.

RENATA ADLER: [Kael] has, in principle, four things she likes: frissons of horror; physical violence depicted in explicit detail; sex scenes, so long as they have an ingredient of cruelty and involve partners who know each other either casually or under perverse circumstances; and fantasies of invasion by, or subjugation of or by, apes, pods, teens, bodysnatchers, and extraterrestrials.

Compare to Kael’s own style of evisceration. Here’s her on The Sound of Music.

PAULINE KAEL: What is it that makes millions of people buy and like THE SOUND OF MUSIC—a tribute to "freshness" that is so mechanically engineered, so shrewdly calculated that the background music rises, the already soft focus blurs and melts, and, upon the instant, you can hear all those noses blowing in the theatre? […] And the phenomenon at the center of the monetary phenomenon? Julie Andrews, with the clean, scrubbed look and the unyieldingly high spirits; the good sport who makes the best of everything; the girl who's so unquestionably good that she carries this one dimension like a shield. […] Wasn't there perhaps one little Von Trapp who didn't want to sing his head off, or who screamed that he wouldn't act out little glockenspiel routines for Papa's party guests, or who got nervous and threw up if he had to get on a stage?

Having read both pieces, I think both writers identify something true about their subject (Adler even makes remarks similar to what I’ve already said). But are the pieces useful? Or accurate in a more total sort of way? Kael had particular kinds of movies she loved, it’s true, and tended to be bad at self-criticism about whether her preferences actually indicated any sort of objective reality. But Adler’s criticism of Kael is no more interested in modeling than Kael’s reviews are. It isn’t interested in an evenhanded consideration of what Kael gets right and wrong and why. What unites Adler’s takedown of Kael and Kael’s takedown of The Sound of Music is that they want to be takedowns. They want to be stylistically rollicking reads that create the aesthetic experience of nailing something to a wall. But the thing about wanting too badly to make an argument “aesthetic” is that it becomes tempting to gloss over anything that would ruin the aesthetic flow. Adler devotes a long paragraph to identifying all of Kael’s tics, and the wall of text is certainly rhetorically effective at making you feel like Kael is some sort of dirty-minded one trick pony. But at the end of the day, it’s rhetoric. Not really argument. Similarly, Kael is so delighted to be able to use phrases like “glockenspiel routines”, that it gets in the way of saying anything more considered. Which isn’t to imply that I think the writers don’t actually believe what they’re saying. On the contrary, I think they hold their opinions powerfully and sincerely, and are trying to identify something wrong in their culture by singling out and drilling down on the sins of one thing in particular. But nonetheless, by caring so much about being good bits of writing—and they are good bits of writing; there’s something juicy and relentless about Kael that sticks with you—they end up empty on the level of argument.

These two failure modes highlight the central problem of reviewing, I think. Which is that reviews tend to be three things at once: ekphrasis, analysis and evaluation (which implies some sort of rubric of quality, whether personal, cultural, or “objective”). This is partly understandable, given that art is an abstract, experiential thing and therefore difficult to evaluate or analyze without some degree of ekphrastic description. It if was easy to say what a work was doing, the artist wouldn’t have needed to make art of it in the first place. So it makes sense that the process of making a work legible enough to opine on would have to trade in artistry itself. It makes sense that in order to show an audience what a work feels like, a review would have to poetically reproduce that feeling. Similar to the way that the translator of a poem needs to be a good poet themselves in order to make the meaning and experience of a poem accessible to an audience in a different language.

The problem is that ekphrasis, being expressive, is also necessarily subjective, and not primarily concerned with logic. Which on its own, is perfectly fine. I’ve written a ton of ekphrasis on this blog. I’m pretty pro-ekphrasis. When it’s done right, there isn’t much like a bulls-eye poetic description of a work to make you feel like you get it on a level you didn’t before. But when that sort of writing is also trying to say whether or not a work is “good”, the expressiveness frequently gets in the way. It’s easy to state or promote an opinion expressively. It’s harder to defend an opinion that way. In good faith, anyhow. Which results in all of these reviews that succeed in observing true or true-feeling things about art, and do so in a sometimes deliciously readable way, but don’t leave me with the feeling that the writer has any consistent or defensible take on how art works. I can’t help thinking that I much prefer reading writing about art that keeps its purpose siloed. So either a piece that tries to poetically explain how a work affected them, or an academic work that tries to argue for an interpretation, or something more philosophical that puts forth a theory of what makes things good and bad and explain why a work does or doesn’t live up to that. I don’t want this to be the case. I think writing that can blend those three modes together is some of the best possible writing about art. But the average reviewer is not really up to the task, despite the fact that the review is probably the most common and widely-read type of writing about art.

(None of which is to say that I’m free of sin these regards. One of the reasons I try to keep the tone of this blog casual is because I want to be able to be able to play with these different modes of writing about art. And see where and when and how I can get away with blending them. It’s a practice space.)

[rkpjy]

⭐️MGA 5 EPISODE 3 ↪ perfoming romanticism by leo with @rkjeonghxn outfit inspiration: x  x line distribution & times: x 

it’s always easier to move on to the next round when there are a lot of contestant. the fewer they become and the harder the choices will be for the five ceos. there’s undoubtedly a lot of raw talent in this room, some maybe more polished than others, some mostly relying on their popularity and star factor. the latter can’t be downplayed of course, as there’s no reason to have skill in the first place if people aren’t interested in you or want to follow you. still, it’s always a little annoying to see such people get by with minimal talent.

soon after jinyoung returned to his seat following his interview, the entire set falls silent. everyone’s eyes are glued to the judging panel, waiting for the dreaded moment when they will announce the results. his newly found acquaintance changbin is nominated as the top rapper, which comes to no surprise to jinyoung, but it’s choi minho who takes the win. unlike a lot of people here, jinyoung doesn’t feel any type of way for that guy. despite his best friend being in convex, he knows very little about the group and what kind of drama happened that led to the rapper’s departure. he’s not a hater nor is he a fan, and although he didn’t dislike his performance, he wouldn’t have gave him the win either.

he keeps a straight face throughout the eliminations, just quietly wishing not to be on that list when the singer’s turn comes. the top 3 dancers are called to the stage, and he recognizes hwang yeji from that one day at the hospital. they haven’t spoken since and he wishes her well. she’s a pretty good dancer despite her young age, but so is lee chaeryeong. as for suwoong, well, it’s not a question of talent really, but more his personality that jinyoung can’t quite figure out. he’s satisfied with yeji’s win, just as he is satisfied with heejin’s win later on. there was a slight disappointment about not making the top 3 but then again, he still believes he performed the best he could. for someone as obsessed with perfect as he is, it’s hard to accept average results, but he’s a good sport. heejin, as he’s noted multiple times already, is a very good singer. he wonders if she can dance well too, because if she does then she’s almost guaranteed to go to the end. her looks are very idol-like, not to mention she’s young.

joohyun was probably the most surprising elimination for jinyoung. he knew she made a mistake, they all did, and it’s unexpectedly fair that they wouldn’t favor her due to her past participations and already established level of popularity. she’s one of the known contestants here that everyone talks about to the point where jinyoung also knows about it, and even if don’t want to show bias, maybe he thought they would show more leniency towards someone they know, and he now stands corrected. there is no second chance in this competition, and no room for weakness.

he applauds heejin’s win with a proud smile, and it’s probably the first time anyone will have caught him looking so pleased since the very first audition. he’s also happy for sihyeon who’s finally been recognized for her talent. it’s kind of funny how some of those who changed categories managed to survive unlike those who truly wanted to show their best skill. in hindsight, it was pretty clever of them to do so and jinyoung wonders if this was calculated on their part. he doubts so for daniel, who probably just innocently wanted to show another side of himself. but that’s if he’s still the same person he knew all those years ago in busan. maybe he’s changed, like jinyoung did.

he doesn’t care much for the following eliminations, as nobody he knows has been sent home. instead, he pays close attention to what is said next. they are to be paired off in duos and present a neat performance showing not only talent but also teamwork. and it’s probably what he dreads most as of now. it’s not as easy for him to get along with people as much as he’d like, and depending on who he ends up with, this assignment might be his first real challenge. he doesn’t necessarily want to be with a friend, however, because it doesn’t always mean it will lead to a good performance. he ends up with yoon jeonghan.

they’re not friends per say, but they do know of each other and have worked together in the past on musical productions. jinyoung is very enthusiastic at the idea of performing with someone who has talents and tastes similar to his, but it can also be an obstacle in the end. they can’t put up something too expected. it’ll be boring to watch for everyone.

that’s the subject they talk about when they first meet up for practice. “since they know we’re both passionate about musicals, i don’t think we should choose that type of song. what do you think?” he asks jeonghan who promptly agrees. they’re both aware they need to showcase something different, more creative and challenging. something that will throw the judges off, hopefully in a good way. they spend a while just searching online, or scrolling down their playlists in order to find the perfect fit. and after going through several choices, they finally decide on romanticism by leo. the key is to make all the right changes to the choreography and harmonies so it looks and sounds as if it was meant for two people instead of just one. they need to be in complete unison, and not just seem like two individuals performing the same song at the same time.

their first practice consists of making these arrangements and going through them a couple times to see if they fit well, and deciding on the parts they’ll each sing. they both agree to practice on their own whenever they have free time, then meet together every day for several hours so they can put it all together. it just won’t work if they both work separately.

while jinyoung criticizes a lot, he’s also very open to criticism himself. as long as it’s nothing insulting, he believes this is the only way one will grow, and not with fake praises. if he sucked, he wants to know. if he does one movement wrong, he wants to know so he can fix it. if jeonghan feels it would be better if they switched one part because it sounds off, he’ll be open to the idea. what he finds exhausting is those who are too scared to make any kind of negative comment, or who take everything too personal. they’re impossible to work it, not to mention annoying. it’s all meant to enhance the performance. the judges won’t chose the best out of the two of them. so either they win together, or fail together. it doesn’t matter if one sings five seconds more, as long as it makes the whole thing better.

it’s surprisingly easy to work with jeonghan, and jinyoung comes home at night almost with a spring in his step, telling mina about how practice is going with a lot more details than usual. he’s optimistic, hopeful. if it were to suddenly come crashing down....

the two men sit next to each other, and jinyoung can’t help but notice there’s so few of them compared to the first episode. sixty chairs have disappeared since then. he remains exactly like the second episode, face stoic as he watched the first few duos perform on stage. the only moments he stops being a statue is in-between performances, as he leans over to jeonghan and whispers things inaudible to cameras, about what he liked and didn’t like.

yugyeom goes before with him, with a contestant called do kyungsoo, and he honestly has no idea what to expect when they first start. it seems like they managed to use each other’s strength and make up for the other’s weakness quite well, and jinyoung hopes it’s enough for them to make it through. some of the duos make unexpected yet good pairs, and some match so well it’s almost boring. he wonders if this will be the case for jeonghan and him, although they didn’t go for a musical number. are their skills too similar? but it’s not like they can suddenly pretend one of them can rap either, so there’s nothing they can do about it if they were put together.

they go near the end, with only three duos left after them. they both bring a chair to the center of the stage and sit on them after introducing themselves. the original artist has a very specific way of dancing, that makes every movement look smooth but not sloppy, and sensual but not sexual. there’s a fine line they can’t cross, and jinyoung does feel like they got in down after hours and hours of practice. jeonghan starts off the song with his first lines.

In my mind you’re my lord, the reality is not close enough You’re my one You’re my one

jinyoung parts his legs in a swift motion as the dance obliges, and because there are no backdancers, instead of gesturing to his empty side, he briefly cups jeonghan’s chin instead, making it one of a several modifications to the original choreography. it’s not hard to imagine he’s singing to his girlfriend right now, and wishing she was the one dancing with him. jeonghan and him aren’t exactly flirting together, their actions more inclined to the audience, but there still needs to be a connection between them, a sensuality that can be felt all the way to the very back of the studio. I see through your body, The sign that gets my sensitivity wet Your eyes are chasing after my movement As if saying come after you

in the middle of this verse they both stand up, leaving their chairs behind for the time being. the way they arranged this part suits the lyrics well. it’s as if they’re also chasing each other, delivering their lines back and forth like one echoes the other, and as jeonghan finishes it, jinyoung prepares for the chorus. two minutes isn’t long at all, and after this they’re jumping straight to the bridge so the transition isn’t too cut and dry. Dive-in for me at this moment, make me shiver one time Romanticism in our world together now Let’s feel it romantically, together now

the dance gets more intense and demanding, but they’ve arranged for them to sing half of it together, harmonizing each other. jinyoung’s gaze is piercing, and he has fun flirting with the crowd. there are a lot of parts in this song where they rub their chest, their face or roll their hips, and there’s a risk to make it look cheap and very cringe-worthy if they’re not careful, so they made sure to tell the other whenever it was too much, or not enough. they want to mesmerize the audience, not turn it off.  Piece of you for just one moment Feel me from now on

Let’s feel it sensually, together now Girl you know I’m watching you together now

they had to cut the last chorus in half to fit in the time requirement, but in the end it doesn’t really matter since they jump next into the other half which is kind of a nice follow-up and uses the same lyrics. they sing most of it together, dancing in sync.

together now.

[imsobrooklyn-archived-sameurl]

TAGGED BY:  found & stolen. TAGGING: @saturnrang, @falsedking, @valinta + whoever come across this.

►   GENERAL.

HEIGHT:  5′8  —  previously 5′6. After being bitten by the genetically-altered “42″ Spider, his stature is elongated by two inches. WEIGHT:  160 lbs — Miles is an ectomorph; it’s mostly maintained because of his obligatory participations in gym classes, playing basketball with the neighborhood every now and again after school, and the rare times he can sneak off for urban exploration or play around with his uncle’s punching bag. He doesn’t exactly have the greastest diet plan. ETHNICITY:  African-American && Afro-Puerto Rican. OCCUPATION:  Freelance photographer, explorer, artist, F.E.A.S.T. (Food, Emergency, Aid, Shelter, and Training) volunteer, Brooklyn Vision student, convenience store cashier, Dream Defender, and vigilante. GENDER:  Cis-male. He/him. ROMANTIC AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION:  Heterosexual & Demiromantic. MBTI:  ENFP- the champion. Miles know how to relax, and he is perfectly capable of switching from a passionate, driven idealist in the workplace to that imaginative and enthusiastic free spirit on the dance floor, often with a suddenness that can surprise even his closest friends. Being in the mix also gives him a chance to connect emotionally with others, giving him cherished insight into what motivates his friends and colleagues. He believe that everyone should take the time to recognize and express their feelings, and their empathy and sociability make that a natural conversation topic.

Few personality types are as creative and charismatic as ENFPs. Their enthusiasm and vivid imagination allow ENFPs to overcome many challenging obstacles, more often than not brightening the lives of those around them. ENFPs’ creativity is invaluable in many areas, including their own personal growth.

►   SPECIFICS.

FAVOURITE FOOD:  Pasteles, Empanada, Chicharon de pollo, Pop-Tarts, Platanos, Chopped Cheese, Nathan’s Famous’ hotdogs, Aunt Butchie’s Desserts (chocolate mousse preferably), Chinese food, and Ray’s Pizza. FAVOURITE DRINK:  He enjoys his uncle’s Whey protein drinks, but you’ll mostly see him drinking sodas, Gatorade, O.J., and water.  FAVOURITE HOBBY:  Vandal by nature, Miles loves snagging Priority Mail and Hello, My Name Is stickers to practice his art and toss his mark up wherever and whenever he can. Other than that, he plays mental gymnastics for fun when it comes to math problems. If he’s not doing that, then he’s fooling around with programs like Audacity, Sony Vegas, or FL Studio. 

But the activity he feels most at peace at is when he’s isolated in his room or hanging around a building as Spiderman, writing in his journal. FAVOURITE SCENT:  Vanilla, Sandalwood, Shea Moisture Manuka and Yogurt. FAVOURITE PERSON:  Ganke. Miles never had a brother (a reality he yearned his parents make happen), but Ganke gives him an idea as to how it would be if he did have a biological brother.

►   TEN FACTS.

Miles is an only child. “Born” on December 14th, 2003.

He’s Catholic.

Adaptability comes as second nature to Miles. In two days, he managed to survive his near-death experiences as he tangled with some of the best of the original Spiderman’s villains.

Miles use to cry Martin Luther King Day because the television and radio would play clips of his speeches, and he thought sounded like a ghost. 

Until he reached the age of ten, Miles had irritable bowel syndrome and would crap his pants every so often.

He owns an Atari, Sega, and Nintendo console passed down to him from his father.

One of his favorite shows is American Ninja Warrior.

Calculus is one of his favorite subjects. Numbers, symbols, and alphabets is a challenge that he can never tire from.

 There’s an unshakable habit he has and that’s speaking his thoughts out loud, much to his chagrin.

His facial features mostly resemble his father and his uncle, which is can be considered a blessing and a curse, depending on the environment he’s in. Because the Davis brothers dark past had them as hustlers, stick-up kids, and graffiti artists, and their lives would take a drastic turn in where one becomes a cop and the other went on to become a boxer, the name Davis is enough to put a sour taste on the tongues of certain circles. It’s a fleeting love-hate thing he has for it.

►   FIVE THINGS HE LIKES.

VIDEO GAMES  —  Jefferson was never comfortable with sharing his questionable deeds on the streets with his son, but he was more than excited to share his childhood glory with him. He couldn’t wait until Miles was old enough to have a controller in his hand. Miles is “heir” to a collection of dated collection. He likes modern consoles too, as he does own both a XBOX ONE and PLAYSTATION 4, but he prides in being a ‘young old soul’. GRAFFITI  —  It just kind of happened? He wasn’t messing with actual spraypaint because he’s too young to cop them from Home Depot, so he stuck to just stacking up on stickers and using that until he’s legally able to buy his own. HIP-HOP  —  That’s New York. Hip-Hop was born there. Miles passionately embraces the main four elements that represents its culture: Emceeing, DJING, Graffiti Art, Breakdancing and integrates the other five in how he moves. Street fashion, language, entrepanuership, knowldge, beatboxing, Hip-Hop is something he lives.  BOXING  — We can thank Aaron for his interest in that. Aside from the man’s criminal resume, Aaron graduated from neighborhood bruiser to professional boxer. His had a impeccable record before he hung up his gloves, but the passion he had for the sport stayed with him and any chance he got with his newphew, it would show when he would spit game on the greats like Mohammad Ali, Joe Fraizer, Dixie Kid, Jack Dempsey, Tyson, and others and teach him a few of his old moves.  CLEANING SNEAKERS —  It’s nothing deep. You watch Paid in Full a couple of times and add your love for that movie to your natural love of keeping your gear fresh and you get a sneakerhead that’s addicted to keeping his kicks mean and pristine.

►   FIVE THINGS HE DISLIKES.

PEER PRESSURE  —  His hood didn’t have too many stars. There were plenty of potential there, but due to unfortunate circumstances, they make it out, but Miles—everybody regards him as the gold representation. Because of his upbringings, Miles is sort of hood royalty in a positive sense. On one hand, he enjoys it appreciation, but on the other hand, he hates it because his father doesn’t make it easy on him at all. He doesn’t judge his father for doing what he had to do in the streets to survive, but he hates his father for shoving his demons down his throat. Becoming Spiderman was nothing to leap for him to leap excitedly over either. Being stressed with being the “good son”, the “golden boy” of his neighborhood, and acing studies was enough as is. Since Peter Parker and his uncle’s murder, he felt tremendous guilt over not being able to help, and with his abilities, he feels strong on his moral obligation to do what he can to be New York’s protector. It’s not the easiest weight for a teenager to carry. E X P E C T A T I O N S! eff dem! UNDERESTIMATED  — In school, he dealt with a teacher that regarded him and kids like him as trash that would never be able to amount to anything. The Spider-gang didn’t think he had what it takes, making him feel as if he was a burden and incapable of being strong enough to keep his promise to his universe’s Peter Parker. He doesn’t do well with people acting like he can’t do anything. TALES FROM THE HOOD  — Doesn’t particularly care to hear about criminal exploits, especially the ones his family participated in. Some kids would love to hear about how hard their peers went in the street—Miles isn’t one of them. If anything, he wishes he was oblivious to it and didn’t have to hear one related word to it. That’s one thing he’s thankful for when it comes to his dad and Aaron. They never bragged or felt inclined to share gorey details and for good reason. Miles know they and everyone else want better for him. LYING —  His mama raised him to be a honest boy. His pops raised him to be a man of principle. His uncle instilled street honor in him. Other than that? Miles naturally hates lying. It doesn’t make him feel good and can actually make him a serious nervous wreck if it gets to be too much for him.  FIGHTING  —  Even though he was taught self-defense and enjoyed his boxing lessons, Miles avoided conflict as much as he could. He preferred to just be that cool guy that can make friends with the whole world and keep it pushing. He accepts that it’s unavoidable as a superhero, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to come to a peaceful resolve before the situation gets nasty.

►   WORDS / PHRASES THAT ANNOY HIM.

CLASSISM —  I know it’s not a word/phrase, so I’ll just say toxic braggadocio statements. When it comes to skin color, religion, abilities (supernatural or mortal), lienage, whatever—Miles views them all as people that share the same oxygen and should treat each other like they’re aware of that. Being made to feel like a sub-human aggravates him more than he cares to admit (he once broke his classroom desk because of his teacher constant poking at the african diaspora).

►   PERSONALITY TYPES HE PREFERS.

FREE SPIRITS —  Chilled souls; people that are down to do whatever they please (in a healthy, non-violent way), and exudes positive energy. It’s nice to be around individuals that understands what it means to have fun without restrictions and not people that live by some book like his father. You can miss him with those that feels like they have to be tight asses all the time.

►   PERSONALITY TYPES HE AVOIDS.

GOD COMPLEX —  Kingpins/drug lords/gang leaders/criminal upstarts, just people that play God in the streets, dictating who lives and dies, just because they have a gun and have a little bit of power. There’s not a doubt in his mind that there will be elements in the underworld that’s going to try to seduce him to the life. It’s a mission of his to not fall into the same darkness that stained the Davis name. You will never see Miles becoming close friends with a thug or a wannabee. He’ll try to steer them clear of it and be a moral compass of course, but having that as a part of his inner circle is a big no.

[thelucienblog]

LIVE IN ST PAUL | 11/18: St. Vincent

In the U.S military, every prospective Navy Seal is subjected to “Hell Week”. Hell Week can begin anywhere between 6 and 12 PM on the night before the third week of Navy Seal training. It is announced by high ranking officers bursting into the trainee’s sleeping quarters and rousting them with a round of machine gun fire (the guns are filled with blanks, but they sound just as loud as live ammo.) From that point onward, Hell Week consists of a series of brutal physical and mental challenges, which range from cold, wet combat simulations to only being allowed five hours of sleep over the entire five day period. Roughly 75% of trainees drop out of the Navy Seal program during Hell Week.

After learning about all of this (yes, I have an unfortunate habit of reading irrelevant Wikipedia articles at unholy hours of the night—don’t judge me) I thought it’d be fun to design my own little music critic Hell Week. I would attend five shows in four days, and write full-length reviews of all of them. “It’ll be fun,” I thought to myself. “I love going to shows, right?”

By the time I arrived at my final trial, St. Vincent at the Palace Theater, I was utterly defeated. Thanks to the previous four shows, my back, calves, ankles, and feet were on fire from the moment I got off the bus. From there, I navigated my way through a winter carnival full of unnecessarily loud children in order to get to the Palace itself. The show was sold out, so once I arrived I had to wait in line outside for twenty minutes next to a bunch of middle-aged MPR members fiercely debating the wattage of the marquee’s light bulbs. By the time I got inside, I was ready to go to bed, not attend a concert.

The show began with a screening of The Birthday Party, the St. Vincent (a.k.a Annie Clark) directed segment of the anthology horror film XX. The short film is about a mother hosting a birthday party for her daughter. Before the party, the mother finds out that her husband has overdosed on pills. She tries to hide the fact that he’s dead by dressing him in a panda costume. The whole thing is a metaphor for how society forces women to act like nothing is wrong when (surprise surprise!) something is very wrong. It’s a great concept, but the end product is marred by lack of subtlety, unconvincing acting, and über-basic shot-reverse-shot direction. Plus, there’s unnecessary jump scares every thirty seconds—something I’m guessing is meant to be ironic, since Clark has stated that she doesn’t enjoy horror movies because they “scare her too much to watch.” All in all, a well-intentioned but poorly executed film (if you’d enjoy hearing an in-depth take on The Birthday Party, click here). The whole light bulb wattage guessing incident had been one thing, but I think what really pushed my respect for St.Vincent’s fanbase over the edge was the moment they all started chuckling smugly at the “The Memory That Lucy Suppressed From Her Seventh Birthday…That Wasn’t Really Her Mom’s Fault” subtitle tactlessly pinned onto the end of the film. I would only grow to hate the people around me more and more as the evening went on.

Forty-five minutes after the conclusion of The Birthday Party, St. Vincent appeared onstage, sporting a neon pink leotard and a matching pair of thigh-high stiletto-heeled boots, and began the show. She performed an hour of cuts from her pre-MASSEDUCTION records in chronological order. No band was present- the entire show consisted solely of her guitar and vocals underpinned by a pre-recorded backing track.

What could’ve been a chance for a unique, intimate performance was reduced to St. Vincent ruthlessly mangling her own back catalog, armed with only her own skewed sense of artistic license. She always ensured that there was something standing between me and the song I knew and loved. A cheap, trebley string arrangement? Check. An obnoxious, muddy EDM bassline? Check. Lethargic, plodding tempos plaguing nearly every song? Check. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Why would St. Vincent want to bastardize her own material?

Suddenly, it hit me. She was pulling a late 90s U2! This was her PopMart tour! All the pieces were there. The gaudy costumery. The “satirical popstar” persona that she was projecting via forced, intentionally awkward stage banter. The intentionally flat delivery/kitschy, overcrowded arrangements. Now that I knew that this is how the show was going to go, I wasn’t looking forward to sitting through the rest of it, to say the least. I’d always thought of myself as concert-savvy enough to steer clear of tours like this. Oh well. I suppose nobody’s perfect.

After making a mockery out of most of my favorite St. Vincent songs, Clark granted us a brief intermission. On his way back from a beer run, a short, stubbly, fifty-something man became angry with me because I was blocking the way back to “his spot”. Now, any experienced concert-goer knows that if you find yourself in the position of beer run guy, you can A) just find another spot, or B) do your best to slither back into your old one. But this guy. This guy was so unbelievably entitled that it was beyond him to even consider doing either of those things. Instead, he decided to come up to me and scream the word “REALLY?” as loud as he could directly into my ear. In all my life, I don’t think I’d ever considered punching a random person in the face as seriously as I did in that moment. Sure I’d probably get kicked out by security, but at least I wouldn’t have to sit through another hour of St. Vincent. However, I knew from setlist.fm that on every stop of this tour, St. Vincent plays MASSEDUCTION in its entirety after intermission. Regardless of my ill-advised urge to give beer run guy a bloody nose, I couldn’t resist my morbid curiosity about how she’d approach her new material, considering she’d treated her old stuff with all the respect of Father John Misty performing the hits of Taylor Swift.

The way St. Vincent played her character during the second act was even more aggravating than the first. During this set, she held her fist in the air, civil rights-style, at the climactic point of nearly every song. Just like her stage banter, it was kind of clever at first. Yes, popstars and celebrities often appropriate the imagery of social justice movements. You made your point. Well done. However, as the set went on, the gesture gradually moved from amusing, to gauche, to distasteful. Just because you’re doing something disrespectful ironically doesn’t automatically nullify the impact of the gesture. Musically, Clark failed to break out of the cold, detached cage that she’d established for herself in the first act, putting little to no effort into key vocal moments like the bridge on “Los Ageless.” It’d be one thing if she only did this for MASSEDUCTION’s pop songs, but it pervaded throughout what were supposed to be the “emotional” numbers as well, making the set even more of a monotonous slog. I did appreciate that in this act, the instrumentals hadn’t been reduced to plastic surgery disasters, but regardless, I was still left unsatisfied.

Believe it or not, I actually like MASSEDUCTION. It’s St. Vincent’s weakest album by far, but it that doesn’t necessarily make it bad. The lyrics are a balanced mix of clever pop culture criticism and heartfelt emotional confession. The music is hit or miss, getting too poppy and repetitive at times for my taste, but the songs that do hit both the conceptual and music targets that she’s set for herself are some of the best of her career (“MASSEDUCTION”, “Los Ageless”, “Smoking Section”). It succeeds as an “indie artist pokes fun at pop music/pop culture” album, which is really something considering how many other artists have attempted to do the same thing and failed (e.g U2’s Pop, Arcade Fire’s Everything Now, Father John Misty’s entire miserable existence.) One of the reasons I think it works so well is that it mocks pop culture without completely turning St. Vincent into a soulless, ironic caricature. It’s a good satirical album precisely because it isn’t just a satirical album—it contrasts its satirical elements with the vulnerability of songs like “Happy Birthday Johnny” and “Smoking Section”, thereby keeping the listener in touch with the emotive, somewhat human St. Vincent that they know and love. Nonstop satire over the course of an entire album can easily become heavy-handed and repetitive, so it’s refreshing to hear an album that knows when to give the listener a break. Sadly, for some reason, St. Vincent failed to retain this sense of balance in a live setting.

After “Smoking Section” reached its conclusion, the curtain was drawn and the show was over. I was done. I had beaten Hell Week.  After waiting in line to exit the venue for ten minutes before I figured out that it was actually the line for coat check (apparently, everybody in the audience except me had paid $5 for coat check), I marched out into the freezing November night victorious.

Sometimes live music is a spiritual, life-affirming experience. Sometimes it’s garbage. Sometimes it’s a little of both. The most important thing Hell Week taught me was the fact that even if I go to a concert and hate it, I can still gain something of value from it. Over the few months that I’ve been writing live reviews, I’ve learned more about music than I ever could have imagined, so in the end, I have no regrets about any show I’ve gone to. Except for this one. I want my $40 back.

Edited by Sarah Bel Kloetzke

[myjunkisyuzuruhanyu]

I think the subjectivity is a big problem. A bit subjectivity is always in artistic sports, but I think at the end of the day we should be able to tell why what GOE was received and atm I don't see that in the general scoring.

And I think if the decrepancy about one element is between 0-4 this should not be possible, how subjective each judge can see it, that is causing the hiccups from one competition to another.

Questionable example Alexandra Trusova's 4T3T, which received 0 to 5 GOEs, that's a huge difference in the end. 0 would mean pure BV, +5 would mean extra +4,75 added and I think that shouldn't be possible and should be limited. I don't have a solution, but I think judges should be held more accountable to what they score.

I slightly disagree on the last part. We are already at a point where it's all about who can land the most difficult jumps and GOEs and PCS just leave so much room for interpretation that judges have a lot of power of upleveling/downplaying skaters. It's too much subjectivity from the judges for my taste...

Yuzu's protocol in the SP

So Yuzu received three 10.0 for different component departments from different judges. Not one component is lower than 9,25 and this was only from judge 5!

Even if these are not Yuzu's highest components - his highest is 48,47 - , you can say he received the highest components of the season twice so far!

I really don't know what Yuzu would need to do for the Judge 1 and 3 to receive +5 GOEs for the 3A. What was there to deduct or not give out maximum? I will never understand...sure a +4 isn't too bad, but still why is there even a difference between some judges?

Also a bit confusing is one judge giving 0 and one +4 for the same spin??? Pls explain!

I am not an expert, but sometimes I just can't process how the same thing can be seen so very different?

I hate the +5 GOE system, it's only creating more drama and possible bias...

Btw not to say the score was unfair, just to highlight the difference's inside the scoring and I know judges don't have much time to decide and the lowest and highest GOE/PCS get kicked out, but still why with the same rules is the result so different?

[freakflagbyiana]

Pride & Coming out

It’s Pride month, and I’ve been listening to the coming out stories of people I know and admire. I’ve also been thinking a lot about my friends who either aren’t out or are out but their family doesn’t quite accept them... They have an “understanding” that they don’t talk about it. So here’s my coming out story, a queer memoir in 3 acts: Childhood, Puberty, and Adulthood.

Childhood

When I was a kid, I was called a Tomboy. It’s not even entirely accurate; I played with Barbies and makeup and costumes. I just also enjoyed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and video games and comic books and getting dirty. And since this was the '80s, having an androgynous haircuts wasn't an indicator of gender or sexuality one way or another, it was simply the fashion.

Here’s a fun fact: My dad potty trained me, so I first attempted to pee standing up. He quickly realized he had to demonstrate sitting down if he was going to be the one teaching me. My idea of femininity - instilled in me by my mother - was also rather androgynous or 'tomboy'. Because she had always been skinny and flat chested, I grew up naturally assuming I’d be the same. I came from mom so I’ll look like mom when I grow up, right?

I remember hating Easter. It was the only time mom made me wear a big frilly dress for the pictures we'd send to Grandma. Pictures which inevitably involved me sitting on the side of the highway in a field of bluebonnets. In these photos, I am wearing a hot, unbreathable dress with scratchy tulle to make it 'poofy', sitting in a field (probably next to some fire ants), breathing in fumes of the highway with the afternoon sun burning my retinas, and trying not to squint too much for the picture. I remember thinking, “Boys don’t have to deal with this crap” (To this day, I still take bluebonnet pictures in the shade.)

I remember liking pink because, “I’m a girl, I’m supposed to like pink. Barbie’s favorite color is pink, so if I like Barbie, I like pink.” Gender Programming in action, folks! Eventually I rebelled against this gender standard, and, to this day, I’m still allergic to pink. Later I felt vindicated when I figured out how olive-yellow my skin tone was and thus how pink will always make me look sick. But I think it will always make me feel sick, too, because it was forced on me so heavily as a child. Forced by society, that is, it wasn’t my mom’s fault. I remember not knowing quite what was going on with David Bowie in Labyrinth but being really into it. {see previous blog on the subject} My parents watched a lot of MTV in the '80s, which explains most of my music and aesthetic tastes. But, more importantly, as a kid who would not understand the negative sides of the decade - the war on drugs, the AIDS epidemic, the Yuppies - until much later, the '80s were a magical time for a baby queer. Grace Jones was a strong masculine woman of color; and Nick Rhodes made it okay for “straight” men to have what I still call the gayest pink wedding I’ve ever seen. I could go on about my influences from this decade but the points that are relevant right now are these: Androgyny was fashionable, and Genderqueer was fashionable. In so many ways, the society of my early childhood, the '80s and early '90s, accepted all this stuff far better than that of my pre-teen and teenage years, the later '90s and '00s. At the time when I was affected most by society’s views on sexuality and gender identity, the culture was shifting, becoming less fluid... More into dividing by categories and labels and, to some, moralities. In my childhood, my mother was a department store makeup artist. This is a key ingredient in the Life Story of Iana. She was a department store makeup artist for Clinique, but she really wanted to be a special effects makeup artist for the movies ... like back in the days before CGI became the most efficient option, when they still hired artisans to create prosthetic movie monsters. (RIP the glory days of prosthetic SFX.) This is why I grew up watching horror movies and wasn’t scared by the scary stuff. She always explained to me how they made the zombies look dead, or blood look real, or those amazing transformations in American Werewolf in London & Thriller. Horror education aside, she also notably introduced me to makeup, brought home by her from work for me to play with. This was her most glorious, single-mom, life-hack moment: Tell child they can play with makeup and get them set up in the dry bath tub, allow them to draw on themselves and on the walls (because it’s only tile and it’s only makeup) while you sneak in a nap on the fuzzy bathmat floor. Dangle arm over bathtub so that the child knows you’re still there. When they are done, surprise! it’s bath-time, and you’re already trapped in the tub, kid! ... Frankly, it was a true stroke of genius. When people tell me “you’re so good at makeup,” it's like, of course I am! It was one of my first toys, and I’ve been playing with it ever since. You'd be, too, if you’d been playing with it as long as you can remember. It’s simply a matter of practice: do a thing 1000 times, and you’re a master, right?

Puberty

I grew up in Cuernavaca, the “affordable” hippie area of Westlake at the time. Cuernavaca is a weird little microcosm all on it’s own... I once referred to it as “The Twin Peaks of Westlake” and I stand by that statement. I attended West Ridge Middle School from 1996 to 1999. Although I was closer to my mom, I had to live with my dad in order to go to this “better” school. All the people I'm still close to from that time were kids from my neighborhood. They weren’t completely spoiled jerks, and most were probably a little weird like me. I had a beautiful best friend named Jane. I’m using her name because I want her to know if she ever reads this. Her parents were hippies while mine were weird, artist nerds into cyberpunk and technology, and we were from opposite worlds in many ways. But both of us, along with our other close friends Chelsea and Saira, were great at art. We were like an antisocial fantasy art coven who didn’t want to get involved in school politics ... we would keep to ourselves and draw when we were supposed to be taking notes, draw during lunch, and hang out after school to draw and listen to music. We hang around after class to talk to our favorite art teacher, Ms. Mouer, who always would say, “You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever!” (That’s not relevant to the story; it’s just a shoutout incase she reads this, too.) I remember this time was when Labyrinth was out of print, and I was the only girl in the neighborhood who had a VHS copy, taped off of HBO. My girlfriends would frequently come over to watch it, although once it got re-released on DVD, my house was suddenly less popular. It was in this environment that I was able to explore different aspects of my aesthetic. In hindsight, if I had been this age nowadays, I’d describe myself as non binary or genderqueer (not the same thing, but I’m not sure which I’d have used then). But at the time, I looked like an outcast no matter what; people could make their own assumptions, and I certainly wasn’t going to defend myself to anyone judging. The first Bowie album I acquired (read "stole from mom") around then was the Ryko edition of Scary Monsters - one of my favorite David Bowie songs still is Teenage Wildlife. This part always brings a tear to my eye. I think most teens can relate to this because most of us were “others” in some form: You'll take me aside, and say "Well, David, what shall I do? They wait for me in the hallway" I'll say "Don't ask me, I don't know any hallways" But they move in numbers and they've got me in a corner I feel like a group of one, no-no They can't do this to me I'm not some piece  of teenage wildlife I had developed an androgynous, genderfluid aesthetic, but, problematically, I did not have an androgynous body. I did not develop into a lanky, Twiggy-esque waif like my mother. I developed hips and breasts so suddenly that I had bright red stretch marks, everywhere. To this day, my breasts were never as big as they were then. I’m assuming it has something to do with still having “baby fat” and all the new hormones working overtime, and also my diet being sugar/dairy heavy (fatter = curvier). Later, in my 20s, I was relieved they got smaller as I cut HFCS out of my diet. In any case, sudden curves meant that I had to drop out of gymnastics ... it’s very difficult to safely throw your center of gravity around when your center of gravity is extra jiggly and changing daily.

I didn’t know how to dress for my body type. At the time when I just wanted to wear oversized band tees, the only bras I could use were underwire ... it would be years before I discovered the glory of sports bras, much less breast binders. So I wore oversized band t-shirts with underwire bras, paired with pants that never fit quite right (they still don’t) or full skirts. On top of wearing what most often resembled a giant tent, I had started cutting and coloring my own hair, so it changed regularly and got shorter. Sidecuts, mowhawks, pixie cuts, and a fully shaved head at 14 years old. From the outside looking in, you could definitely tell I was either “gender confused” or “on my way to becoming a butch lesbian” to use the language of the times; non-binary was not yet a label, especially not a respected one. My room was covered in posters of comic book women (mainly the characters from The Sandman), male rock stars (mainly Robert Smith and Keith Flint), and LOTS of pictures of Brandon Lee from The Crow, with whom I have been obsessed since age 9.

One day, mom told me about a “joke” she made to my father; taking one look at my room covered in pictures of Brandon Lee, she said to him, “At least we know she’s heterosexual” It was the first time I wanted to speak up, to argue about it with someone. I didn’t care if people outside my family assumed one way or another, but I was so angry that my mom just jumped to a conclusion like that. My own mother - who enjoyed short hair and androgynous fashion, who herself had been “a lesbian in college.” She was the one that taught me that gender and sexuality were a fluid spectrum to begin with. I didn’t argue with her though; I didn’t have any evidence to the contrary, I just knew she was wrong. I grew up watching The X-Files from day one - trading her love of David Duchovny for a deep interest with whatever Gillian Anderson was doing onscreen. Mom also took me to see The Fifth Element when it came out, and I have been in love with Milla Jovovich ever since. To this day, I have bonded with many of my male friends over these two female crushes. At this point in my life, I didn’t know if I was gay or bisexual. I wasn't sure if I was comfortable with my cisgender female identity, or if I was something else. I just knew she was totally wrong. In this time also, I would say that Jane was my best friend. She was beautiful and looked exactly like Claire Danes in Stardust, which is crazy to me now, because she and I had been obsessed with Neil Gaiman’s works long before any movies and Stardust was always one of her favorites. It's impossible for me to watch the movie now without thinking of her.

So I was close to my best friend because we were weird kids. So I thought she was beautiful because she objectively was. So what? Was I gay for my best friend? Probably a bit but no more than is normal to be gay for your best friend. ... I mean, I think even heterosexual, same-sex besties should be a little gay for each other. That’s how close friendships work! This is a person you love so much that you have their back in 99% of situations, you would bury a body with, etc. You should think they’re attractive even if you don’t want to sleep with them yourself, you should enjoy their company often even if you don’t want to marry them yourself, you should love them enough that it doesn’t matter if people accuse you of being gay for them. Platonic love is still love, so even if that person is gay and you’re not, it doesn’t mean their love is romantic. What I’m building up to, dear audience, is the other shoe dropping. Jane’s “hippie” father didn’t like me. He was in the National Guard and had just come back from dealing with the aftermath of the war in Bosnia and living in Russia for a while. After Russia he was different; he bought Jane very sexy (for a fifteen-year-old), form-fitting dresses, dressed her up like a Barbie and became more strict at home. I remember her finding it distressing, but she liked fashion, so it seemed like the typical patriarchal tradeoff that my gender faces: If you want to have shiny objects bought for you, you have to obey the breadwinning man of the house. And then, in the midst of that, here came I, parading around their house with my strong sense of self, thanks to my '80s-influenced, genderfluid upbringing. How dare I waltz in there and preach the word of David Bowie to his little Stepford daughter? I, on the other hand, just knew that they were hippies, they were supposed to be into peace, love, unity; acceptance of other, races, cultures, and “free love.” I was just a kid, how was I supposed to realize her father was so threatened by my very presence in his daughter’s life? It was so long ago that I don’t quite remember if he accused me of being gay to my face, or if Jane relayed the questions he asked her about me when I wasn’t there. But I vividly remember uncomfortable dinners, where vague personal questions that would be downright unacceptable to ask a child today were posed to me. When I asked my mother what to do, she wrote Jane's father off as “an asshole,” because she was familiar with the type of man he was. She told me to just stop going over there. But then how was I supposed to hang out with my best friend? Well, in truth, after that I didn’t really. She would have to make the effort to hang out with me at mine, or I’d just see her at school. But in truth, she totally checked out of the friendship after that. She put her head down and concentrated on getting good grades in school like she was serving a sentence in jail. I knew she had always wanted to make costumes, but after that time, she suddenly needed to get better grades as her father wanted her to become a lawyer or something related. (Eventually, she ended up making costumes after all) In April of 1999, right before I graduated from 8th grade, something happened that would change my life - and the country - forever: the Columbine school shooting. At the time, the only story we were told was that the shooters were goths, and they shot up the school because they were being bullied by jocks. (We now know that it was the other way around, the shooters were also the bullies.) And here I was, a baby goth and a genderqueer “lesbian” in a school full of rich, preppy jocks. The media perpetuated the “us vs them” situation, magnifying the underlying misconceptions and misjudgment. To be honest, I probably would not have gone to Westlake high school in any case, but Columbine sealed the deal. My mom and I loved watching Heathers, and I knew a similar environment awaited me at Westlake. Fortunately, it was around this time that I became acquainted with another Cuernavaca kid who was in the grade above me, Maria Russo. She was out as a lesbian or bisexual (I don’t remember which exactly as they were essentially the same thing in that environment) and was the only other goth girl in school. She wore ripped fishnets and dog collars and was obsessed with both Rocky Horror Picture Show and mermaids. She told me she wasn't going to Westlake either and that I should join her at this cool, hippie high school she found, The Griffin School. So even though I was only 14, I told my parents I was not going to go to arguably the best public school in the city, and that instead they were going to work together to send me to this weird, small private school for artsy kids. I was always a good student, except for middle school and I blame that on everyone being more concerned about social status than actually learning anything. That’s the irony of privilege, nobody appreciated the educational resources they had they just cared whether or not my clothes were from the Gap. I sold my parents on sending me to Griffin because of my grades suffering, the fact that my best friend and I had drifted apart, and then Columbine making the world more dangerous for goth kids really sealed the deal... The backlash meant that my safety was more severely threatened by the clothes I put on everyday, which I had been wearing for years already. I attended Griffin for all four years of high school and had one of the rarest experiences for a teen - I thoroughly enjoyed every year of high school. And it wasn’t because I was popular and peaked in high school either. I felt my sense of self was respected, my sexuality or gender identity wasn’t a concern to the staff or to the other parents. Also, I made excellent grades. I have since reconnected with several of my middle school friends that attended different high schools. But I never saw or spoke to Jane again.

Adulthood

As an adult, I identify as Bisexual. There is a myth that bisexuality excludes being attracted to people of non-binary orientation because you are attracted to "males OR females." The way I see it, the "bi" in bisexual refers to both ends of sexuality as a spectrum between heterosexual relationships and homosexual relationships. The stuff in between is undefined but included.

Many of the people who would have been considered Bisexual in the '90s identify as Pansexual today. That’s fine, but I’m not going to do that. I’ve considered myself bisexual since puberty; I don’t see the point in rebranding my sexuality now when I know what I mean by it, and that’s all that matters. But I think the reason Bisexuality split off into Pansexuality is that Bisexual is still a four letter word in the gay community. It’s better than it used to be, but there’s still this feeling that we’re not gay enough.

I once talked to a Pansexual who said she has been attracted to all kinds of things, including trees. And I thought, first, "that’s very interesting," and second, "I definitely don’t identify as that." This makes it hard to be a loud and proud bisexual; I don’t hide it, but I’ve kept it private for a reason. In the past, when a lesbian I had just met (at a party) asked me about my sexuality and I said I was bi. She then interrogated me about my gay experiences in a way that made me very uncomfortable. I finally interrupted her by shouting - “I don’t have to tell you anything!” - I didn’t know her, and it was none of her business. I got defensive because it took me by surprise, both, I suppose, because I expected more from another member of the queer community, and because it triggered memories of those uncomfortable dinners with Jane’s father. But the great thing about being an adult is that peer pressure isn’t real. No one can actually force you do anything you don’t want to do or tell them anything you don’t want to share simply by “putting pressure” on you to do their will. So I stick to the Bisexual label, partially out of resentment. I had to fight so hard to find this identity; I changed schools and lost one of my closest friends over it. I’m not going to stop being bisexual just because there are some mean girls in the gay community. And, in the end, I will always defend use of the term Bisexual: it was good enough for David Bowie, and he was a fucking Genderqueer alien. If the King/Queen of Genderqueer aliens Hermself feels included by this term, why wouldn’t I? Weirdness is a part of me right down to my sexuality and gender identity. I will always be attracted to the “others” of the world. In the end, I don’t belong in the gay clubs because I don’t like dancing to Beyonce, not because I’m not gay enough.

Although we’ve come a long way, people are still surprised if I mention that I’m not straight. Not every member of the queer community is an effeminate boy or a butch girl. Just because I look comfortable as a cisgender female doesn’t mean I didn’t struggle with my gender identity my entire childhood. I went to see Eddie Izzard do his standup act the other night, the first time since I’d seen him live in 2003. Towards the end he got heckled with something simultaneously misogynist and homophobic - “SHOW US YOUR TITS!” - and audible cringe swept over the audience as we began to boo. I thought, “WOW, He’s been out since the '80s, he’s so established and respected and famous now, and he still can’t get away from this stuff.” You never get away from it, there will always be a problem for someone. All you can hope for is a bigger, better group of people around you to boo on your behalf. You’re probably thinking to yourself, “wait this is your coming out story, when do you come out to your parents?” The truth is I didn’t. This blog entry, coming out to the general public, is the most coming out I’ve ever done. I didn’t have real relationships when I was in school, and I got married to a bisexual boy when I was 19, so it never came up. At the time, we were openly bisexual to each other but neither of us really had “the conversation” with our parents. He didn’t because they were British and, although I have no doubt they would have accepted him, Brits just didn’t talk about that stuff out loud. I used to think of him as choosing to be repressed, choosing to remain in the closet, but it’s only recently that I’ve realized that would mean I chose the same thing. I didn’t have “the conversation” with my parents because A) I wasn’t having relations under their roof either way; B) my “woke” mom had already assumed wrong, and I wasn’t close to my dad; and C) I felt it was none of their business. By the time I confirmed my sexuality, I was an adult, and they had no say in the matter anyway. That’s the million dollar question - if you know your parents accept and love you either way, do you need to have a conversation about it? Are you still in the closet even if you make no attempts to hide your sexuality or gender identity? Many of my clients are various degrees of queer and trans, going through their own complex struggles with all the emotional dust that Pride month kicks up. For example, those we have lost. ... I am again reminded of the recent void left behind by an older gay friend, the closest I had to a brother; we lost him in December to suicide shortly after he was diagnosed with advanced HIV. He was in his 40s and there appeared to be some form of denial coming from his family. Even though he was a fully grown adult, it seemed like he chose suicide over living as a “sick” person and having to address the facts with his family. Pride isn’t just about rainbow outfits and drag shows. Pride in the queer community is essential to survival. Lots of statistics prove this out in different ways; here’s just two of them: “LGB youth seriously contemplate suicide at almost three times the rate of heterosexual youth." And "LGB youth are almost five times as likely to have attempted suicide compared to heterosexual youth.” [source: The Trevor Project] If is that common as a teenager, do you think that changes when you grow up into a gay adult? Not necessarily. But I’m not going to end on a sad note. I have a lot of happy memories associated with Pride, too. My favorite part of living in Chicago in my early 20s was being a block away from Boystown, the gayberhood. The parade would come down our street, Broadway, off Belmont. For a few glorious hours the street was absolutely covered in rainbow confetti and glitter. Then as everyone moved indoors to drink and party, because Chicago is a proper city, the street sweepers would drive by and clean up all the litter like nothing ever happened. Below are some pictures from Chicago Pride 2005. That year was the first and only time I’ve ever seen RuPaul perform, way before Drag Race, when Supermodel was still his top hit. The Grand Marshal was Wilson Cruz, and, as a '90s latchkey kid who watched reruns of My So-Called Life with some of TV's first out gay teens, that was very exciting! (CW: this picture of the proud gay WWII vets makes me cry every time)

In the process of writing this blog, a client who came out to me as non-binary. It’s always exciting for my shop to be considered a safe space for people to come out before they deal with the complications of telling family, if they even tell their family. We related on a lot of the same levels. Being outright gay is difficult, being outright trans is difficult. ... But being nonbinary/bisexual can be difficult in a different way; it’s like flying under the radar, sometimes even to yourself. You’re not denying that part of you is 'other', but you know you’re not 'other enough' to be Grand Marshal of the Pride Parade. Especially for folks of my generation who grew up with the fashionable androgyny of the '80s/'90s. Then when you hit puberty and struggle with having a very feminine or masculine skewing body, it’s easy enough to fall back into binary fashion since those are the only clothes that are made to fit your body. This is one of the reasons there’s so many older people discovering this stuff about themselves now. Now we finally have language for the nuances of gender identity, so we’re all able to talk about it together. Strangely enough, these concepts are as old as mankind, the language is only new to the western culture. One of my favorite things to read about is the five gender system of Native American cultures: men, women, trans men, trans women, and nonbinary are all mentioned. {see this super-rad article here} In the end, though, when people ask me about my pronouns, I still don’t know what to say. I'll get that feeling like I'm taking a test I haven’t studied for. I’m still wired to be unconcerned with what people think of me, what they call me, but I’ll try to answer to the best of my understanding. I don’t feel entirely comfortable being a female or dressing femme. But I damn well love costumes, and I got comfortable with makeup early on in my childhood. So when people compliment my feminine aesthetics, I see it as being good at drag. Like high femme feels more like drag than when when I dress in androgynous or boyish looks. High femme is a lot of work but simultaneously (relatively) easy because I understand the programming I’ve been receiving since I was a little girl. Androgyny is easier and more comfortable for my brain but also more difficult to execute given the body I have and the way they make clothes for it. (I’m getting better though, I just got a binder by gc2b which I’m eagerly awaiting in the mail any day now!) Anyway, I’m comfortable with “she” as my pronoun - in the same way RuPaul is called “she” when in drag, even though he’s “he” when he’s just Charles, right? It’s like the same way I don’t care when someone gets my name wrong the first time they try to pronounce it. ... I don’t care what you call me, just as long as you see me. 20 years later and I’m still friends with Maria, who many of you will know as the mermaid Co-Owner of Cute Nail Studio - otherwise known as the Gayest Nail Studio in the city, state, possibly the country. I hope she knows how proud I am of her and how eternally grateful I will forever be for getting me out of Westlake. It was like she tossed me a big gay lifesaver when I needed it most. In the end I think the key is not being afraid, especially now, to talk about those things. Especially during Pride when so many different flavors of queer (and non-) come together to celebrate. Don't be afraid to talk about your own pathway, the unsureness you still might have, and the childhood experiences that made you realize you were born just a little weird. Stick together so that you don't feel isolated and don't settle for feeling like a group of one. REACH OUT to you brothers and sisters and siblings of no discernible gender and tell them you love them. Love people as an act of defiance. Walk tall with your strong sense of self.

[caveartfair]

Why Do People Still Think That Classical Sculptures Were Meant to Be White?

Alexandros of Antioch, Venus de Milo, 130-100 B.C. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Les Menottes de Cuivre, . René Magritte Art Lithographies

If you’ve ever visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, chances are you’ve seen its collection of Classical marble sculptures. Weaving through these mighty Greek warriors and Roman busts, you may chuckle at a missing nose here, a broken arm there—visual reminders that, no matter how perfect these works may have once looked, some haven’t completely stood the test of time.

There’s something else that time has taken from these exquisite ancient sculptures, but it’s far less obvious—the colors that were vibrantly painted atop their pristine, white surfaces.

Indeed, from Phidias to Polykleitos and every anonymous sculptor in between, ancient Greek artists and their Roman copycats are known to have applied paint onto their marble gods and leaders. If not for thousands of years spent underground, those austere monochrome sculptures now found in museums across the world would have been coated in a rainbow of colors, as their makers intended.

Yet ever since their rediscovery over 600 years ago, these formerly saturated statues have been widely misunderstood by artists, critics, and museum-goers as having been white all along. It’s a snafu that’s profoundly altered our understanding of Western art and the Classical world in general, perhaps becoming the greatest mix-up in history, and making colored sculpture a huge taboo in the process.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court. Photo by Jean-Christophe Benoist, via Wikimedia Commons.

It’s particularly ironic because of how important color actually was to the Greeks and Romans, who added it to sculptures in an effort to capture their subjects’ dynamic spirits, embellishing them not only with paint, but also gold, silver, and inlays of stones and gems. (They also used naturally colored marble, such as the green cipollino verde, from which they carved figures or architectural details.)

Vibrantly painted sculpture even showed up in frescoes, which occasionally depicted 2-D renderings of unnaturally tinted stone. Take the multiple bright-red Corinthian columns seen on the walls of a bedroom displayed within the Met’s Greek and Roman wing, or a Pompeiian fresco from the 1st century AD, which shows a sculpted warrior sporting a bronze hat and red-tinted drapery while standing atop a plinth.

There’s also written proof of the Classical world’s adoration of saturated sculpture. In Euripides’s 412 BC tragedy Helen of Troy, the titular queen hints toward the Greeks’ dislike of marble that wasn’t colored: “If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect…the way you would wipe color off a statue.” Roman writers Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder detailed the process ancient sculptors followed to colorize their creations. Pigments were pulled from minerals and mixed with egg yolk or beeswax, and artists either applied the resulting paint directly to marble, or atop a priming layer made from stucco. To make its colors more vibrant, many rubbed cloth-wrapped candles onto their painted works as a finishing polish.

But few of these hues survived after the Roman Empire began collapsing around the fourth century, and its citizens began securing their sculpted masterpieces underground. These works remained remarkably preserved for nearly a millennium and a half, but their colors mostly eroded due to dirt buildup and oxidation; in some cases the hues faded from exposure to air and light upon being excavated.

Some may have even had their colors purposely erased, such as a 2nd century Roman copy of a statue by Polykleitos. This marble rendering of the Greek god Hermes—which is currently part of the Met Breuer exhibition “Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body,” on view through July 22—had “traces of original paint [that] were likely cleaned off to give the piece the aesthetic purity…demanded by [its] audience,” as explained by its wall text.

Copy of work attributed to Polykleitos, ca. A.D. 69–96, via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Copy of work attributed to Polykleitos, 1st or 2nd century A.D., via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The widespread desire for “aesthetic purity”—and our current mental image of the pristinely white ancient statue—has its origins in the mid-14th century, when relics from the Classical world were first excavated from the terrain of central Italy. White, unembellished, and exquisitely carved, these ancient masterpieces that were hiding for thousands of years were taken by the Italians at face value, mistakenly believing they had always lacked color.

Not only did this initial misunderstanding transform into a new artistic ideal that partially sparked the Renaissance, it also led to the development of several theories that remained gospel in art circles for centuries.

For one, the definition of artistic refinement was essentially rewritten after the discovery of these white statues. Italians had thought the Greeks and Romans—whose achievements in subjects like philosophy and political theory were well-known—left their marbles bare on purpose, and perceived this approach as yet another intellectual accomplishment from the Classical era.

Further, Italians of the 14th century associated colored sculpture with the preceding Middle Ages, a time period they viewed as degenerate. To them, medieval sculptors weren’t intelligent enough to think to not paint their works—unlike the brilliant Greeks.

Suddenly, “high art” had to be smart, and a sculpture was only considered as such if it was colorless. Indeed, from around the 15th century on, painted statues were rarely welcome outside of churches—where the Catholic public used them in prayer—and private homes, where they functioned as decorative trinkets. As Met curator Luke Syson has written, “Polychrome sculpture [was] judged too easy and too popular to be good art, high art, or even art at all.”

The initial misunderstanding of ancient sculpture also raised the question of skill. What mattered most to Renaissance viewers wasn’t the superficial coloring of a work’s surface, but the way in which its maker transformed a block of stone into a stunning vision of humanity, using hammer and chisel alone. Painting a statue was, thus, viewed as a form of cheating. Why would a sculptor need to add color if his work could be beautiful without it?

Gregorio Fernández, Dead Christ, 1631-1636. Photo by José Luis Filpo Cabana, via Wikimedia Commons.

This tied into paragone, the popular Renaissance debate that pitted painting and sculpture against one another. While it was never settled, art lovers, including Leonardo da Vinci, agreed that the two media should remain separate—paint had no place on marble. “The power and virtue of the sculptor lie in the effects of the chisel,” asserted artist and collector Vincenzo Borghini in 1584. “If some clumsy oaf in this field uses colors, it denies the very nature of that art.”

After trade and travel brought these concepts out of Italy, monochromy became Europe’s sculptural standard, even in religious contexts. Though some degree of color was necessary in devotional statues (to better depict the subject’s suffering), by the 17th century, sculptors from Spain to Germany were coloring Catholic characters with palettes far more limited than before, thereby bringing them closer to the classical ideal. (Religious statues also seem to have harnessed the ancient ideal on a more formal level, possibly hinting that these biblical figures were modeled on specific secular compositions from antiquity.)

The intellectual German elite demonstrated a particular fondness for the unpainted marble statue, as well, including the 19th-century philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, whose famous writings on aesthetics often referenced the white ancient marble. Hegel’s own views were shaped by those of art historian Johann Winckelmann, who influenced both artistic practices and popular tastes of 18th-century Germany and beyond with his consistent praise for ancient Greek sculpture, which he viewed as the pinnacle of beauty.

Winckelmann based his theories of unpainted marble’s aesthetic superiority on what he considered physical proof. As he wrote in 1764, “White is the color that reflects the most rays of light, and thus is most easily perceived.” Because of this, he believed, “a beautiful body will be all the more beautiful the whiter it is.” Though seemingly based in science, this problematic statement is mostly a reflection of how white Europeans generally viewed themselves versus people of color—and an early indication of the ancient white ideal’s inherent racism.

Though Winckelmann and other advocates of unpainted sculpture were generally ignorant of these connotations, they were impossible to ignore after the white marble ideal was embraced by Adolf Hitler—who only allowed Classical-inspired art into Nazi Germany. 21st-century white supremacist groups such as Identity Evropa, which uses images of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in its propaganda, have since taken a nod from Hitler. (The racist resonances the ancient white marble carries for conservatives was made especially clear last June, when several members of the alt-right viciously harassed a classical history professor after she published an essay on the ancient world’s actual preference for polychrome, not all-white, sculpture.)

Detail of Marble statue of a wounded Amazon, 1st–2nd century A.D. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Detail of Franz Ignaz Günther, Christ at the Column, 1754. Courtesy of the Detroit Institute of the Arts.

Long before the Classical ideal was so blatantly associated with such prejudice, its racist tendencies were already evident, particularly in sculptures that originated in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries. Cheap, kitschy painted statues of dark-skinned figures known as “Blackamoors” were popularly utilized as furniture, such as tables being “held up” by African servants. Unlike white marble statues, which were universally considered high art, these low-brow works—along with colored sculptures in general—were merely viewed as frivolous objects.

The myth of the white sculptures of antiquity remained uninterrupted for centuries—until around 1800, when  excavators began noticing leftover specks of pigment on the surfaces of some marbles. Yet even when faced with contradicting proof, its believers remained faithful. Hegel accepted the evidence that Classical sculptors actually used paint, but dismissed the practice as stemming from a prior, “primitive” era. Neoclassical artists, who had based their entire practices on the illusion, also pushed back: “Marble, by its whiteness, has something pure [and] celestial…[while] colors are terrestrial,” wrote French sculptor David d’Anger. “Sculpture bears the image of eternity. The more brilliant the colors of a flower, the less it lasts.”

Some, however, did embrace the truth about classical sculpture and tried their own hand at polychromy, like British sculptor John Gibson, who called its detractors “less refined than the Greeks in matters of art, [and] from long and stupid custom reconciled to the white statue.” In 1856, he completed The Tinted Venus, a life-size marble of the Roman goddess which Gibson tinged with soft touches of color on her lips, eyes, and hair. Offering a rare positive response to sculptures like this, George Scharf—who later became director of London’s National Portrait Gallery—openly championed polychromatic sculptors like Gibson, praising their “sober, harmonious, well-balanced application of colour…to sculpture.”

Despite this spike in support, colored sculpture was still largely reviled by 19th-century Europeans, and Gibson’s effort was a critical and commercial failure. Even Impressionist darling Edgar Degas received harsh responses to a colored sculpture he made in 1880, TheLittle Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer. As one French critic described the work after its first exhibition, “The terrible realism of this statuette makes the public distinctly uneasy, [as] all its ideas about sculpture, about cold lifeless whiteness…are demolished.”

Edgar Degas, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, 1878-1881. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.

Marcel Duchamp, Étant donnés: 1° la chute d'eau, 2° le gaz d'éclairage . . ., 1946-1966. © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel Duchamp. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

But within a few decades, the devastations of a global war and the advent of Modernism led to radical changes in the art world, giving polychrome sculpture an unexpected second chance. Due to its negative connotations and capacity for experimentation, the colored statue provided avant-garde artists with suitable ammunition in their revolution against the art establishment’s outdated, frivolous concept of “perfection.”

One such rebel was Surrealist artist René Magritte, who, in 1936, purchased a cheap plaster replica of the Venus de Milo (3rd–1st century BC) from a gift shop and painted blocks of color onto the iconic Greek statue’s white surface—an act that would make anyone in the Renaissance shudder. Writing to André Breton, Magritte explained his rationale: “The head is white, the body is flesh-coloured, the drapery is blue…[giving] the Venus new and unexpected life.” Breton suggested that his friend title the work Les Menottes de Cuivre (The Copper Handcuffs), theoretically giving it one more hue.

And the ever-subversive Marcel Duchamp spent two decades experimenting with painted sculpture, during which he secretly created Étant donnés (1946–66), an eerie installation centered around a sculpted female nude lying in a field. Oil paint and human hair helped the woman in Duchamp’s final artwork look astonishingly real—both predicting and influencing the hyperrealist practices of future polychromatic sculptors.

Old Couple on a Bench, 1994. Duane Hanson "Duane Hanson" at Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London (2015)

Indeed, from Duane Hanson and Ron Mueck to Greer Lankton and Rigoberto Torres, artists are now free to sculpt multicolor portraits without the fear of failure, and have access to technologies allowing ever-more realism. Whether casting from life or simply painting a surface, today’s sculptors continue to use color much like the Greeks and Romans, while also bringing the medium to incredible new levels of authenticity and artistry—achievements that would surely impress their ancient forerunners.

Over the last decade, an ongoing campaign for polychrome justice has developed within the art world, with eye-catching museum exhibitions (and research-heavy artistic projects by the likes of Francesco Vezzoli) increasingly colorizing the Classical era. Yet even with our increased awareness of its vibrant reality, the myth of the all-white ancient sculpture remains so ingrained in the cultural imagination that it’ll probably never be forgotten.

But the next time you find yourself in the Met’s Classical wing, try to imagine how all those figures and faces would look if they were a hundred times more colorful. You’d be on the right side of history.

from Artsy News

[douchebagbrainwaves]

BUT WE SHOULD BE GREETED DAILY BY ARTISTIC MARVELS

Subject free! At least, as long as acquirers remain stupid. No one claims there's any limit on the number of startups. Many investors explicitly use that as a mark against you, but they seem quicker to learn some lessons than others. What they should not do is try to imitate the swagger of more experienced founders. Since anyone capable of starting this company is one of Lisp's distinguishing features, and the best startup ideas look initially like bad ideas, it's not just for the minnows, but even for the famous startups whose founders came to speak at YC dinners. As Richard Feynman said, the imagination of nature is greater than the imagination of man.1

Let me conclude with some tactical advice. In most fields the appearance of ease seems to come with practice. A corollary is that you won't know your users. Implicit in their thinking is a fallacy: that there is more chance of misses. The median startup coming out of Y Combinator wants to raise $250-500k. So why do it?2 Hope for the best, but expect the worst.3

Things.4 Your spinal cord is less hesitant, and it also has to be pierced too. In almost everything, reward is proportionate to risk. We've now invested in enough companies that I've learned a lot about YC since the beginning, the last 9 months have been a time when employers would regard that as a mark against you, as long as they want to be, but a leading indicator. Instead think about why they're asking for something, and see if there's a limit on the number of people who can work for salary at 1000-person companies?5 Users love a site that's constantly improving. At an art school where I once studied, the students wanted most of all. You have to understand a field well before you develop a good nose for what needs fixing.6 There are two ways to do that is not simply to make a cup of coffee. You can't fake this.

Don't Get Your Hopes Up. In this case, that means you should seek out ideas that would be too low for some who'd turn you down and why they're mistaken. Compositional symmetry yields some of the greatest discoveries seem so simple that you say to yourself, that there is some limit on the number of startups there could be. So their numbers may not even be an accurate measure of the performance of their algorithm, let alone of Bayesian spam filtering per se seem to have in common is that they can't force anyone to do deals with them. But there are two possible explanations: a it is finished, or b you lack imagination. These can be much more effective, not only in avoiding false positives, but in filtering too: for example, or the expression of unfashionable opinions. But if this is your attitude, something great is very unlikely to happen to you, because if they don't, the cleverest business model in the world that e i pi-1. Surely at some point in the future and then ask yourself how to get from here to there, like the pattern of veins in a leaf.7 75%.

Whereas when they don't like you, they'll be going against thousands of years of medical tradition. Really? Startups aren't interesting just because they're a way to generate the sufficiently smart compiler you could create a situation indistinguishable from you being that manufacturer, at least now, the reason startups do better when they turn down acquisition offers is not necessarily that all such offers undervalue startups. The crazy legal measures that the labels and studios have been taking have a lot of pain and stress to do something hard, you can do that you'll end up with more than added confidence. 9998 Subject free 0. Where axioms are concerned, especially, is that it wouldn't work to. If you do that? Google. I'm open to different types of solutions to this problem, but I always pull back because I don't want four years of my life to be consumed by random schleps. Most college graduates still think they have to get a cofounder for a project that's just been funded, and we'd rather have cofounders committed enough to sign up for something super hard. That's a way more efficient cure for inexperience than a normal job in the same email hell we do now.8

A lot of startups don't want to, only the desperate ones will take your money. Saying that taste is merely a matter of pride, and a third was acquired that we can't talk about yet.9 There's a name for this compiler, the sufficiently smart compiler is by definition a mistake. There's nothing wrong with being unsure. But I don't recommend this approach to most founders, including many who will go on to start very successful companies, are not that good at seeming formidable: Make something worth investing in.10 And through a combination of factors. They plan for plans to change. Architects are constantly interacting face to face with other people, whereas doing a technology startup, at least some of the most powerful people in the future should not depend much on how you deal with html. Doctors discovered that several of his arteries were over 90% blocked and 3 days later he had a 40 year old inside him. Maybe the VC industry has changed.11 It's more important than with deals.12 In both cases their customers told them what their business should be—and they were smart enough it would seem crazy to most people to try to become as big as Apple.

So things don't happen in the smooth, predictable way they do in the rest of the world. I understand the startup world want to believe that.13 And that not only can change, but has changed. That sounds harmless. Know nothing about business This is another one I've been repeating since long before Y Combinator.14 And if you have no visible competitors yet.15 Pantel and Lin do, but I could imagine air suppliers adding scents at an extra charge. We want to make something great and not worry too much about making money. It is. His answer was simply no.16 And erring on the side of conservatism is still erring.

I wouldn't be too optimistic.17 Hollywood has been slow to embrace the Internet. Cultivate them. It will be easier in proportion to how much your town resembles San Francisco.18 Once a product gets past the stage where it has glaring flaws, you start to examine the question, it's surprising how much different fields' ideas of beauty have in common is that they hate the idea that a bunch of consequences. Larry and Sergey say you should come work as their employee, when they didn't get jobs themselves? Football players like to win games.

Notes

Now the misunderstood artist is not to be something you can see how much of a handful of ways to help the company. One YC founder told me: Another approach would be a founder, more people would do for a patent troll, either. Samuel Johnson said no man but a big company CEOs in 2002 was 3. If you freak out when people in the sense that if you were going back to the modern idea were proposed by Timothy Hart in 1964, two years, but one by one they die and their flakiness is indistinguishable from dishonesty by the government, it will probably frighten you more than others, and since technological progress to areas where Apple will be just mail from people who currently make that leap.

Once someone has said fail, most of the rest generate mediocre returns, like indifference to individual users. If they agreed among themselves never to do with down rounds—like putting NMI on a form you forgot to fill out can be explained by math.

This includes mere conventions, like play in a couple predecessors. Some urban renewal experts took a painfully long time by sufficiently large numbers of users to do.

It's worth taking extreme measures to avoid sticking. This form of bad customs as well as a consulting company is like starting out in the absence of objective tests.

Within an hour over the details. The amusing thing is, obviously, only Jews would move there, and then being unable to raise five million dollars is no difficulty making type II startups spread: all you needed in present-day English speakers have a precise measure of the Industrial Revolution happen earlier? While the space of ideas doesn't have to follow redirects, and although convertible notes often have valuation caps, a copy of K R, and the first meeting. When you fix one bug happens to use them to stay around, but this sort of person who would have for a public event, you can control.

It was revoltingly familiar to slip back into it. Which means if the quality of investor is more of the next investor. You could also degenerate from uppercase to any-case, as in most competitive sports, the switch in mid-twenties the people worth impressing already judge you more inequality.

I have to kill their deal with the money.

Obviously, if you get a low grade, which you want to either.

When you had in grad school you always see when restrictive laws are removed. His best bet would probably only improve filtering rates early on. I learned from this experiment: set aside for this essay began by talking about art, why not turn your company right now.

Wufoo was based in Tampa and they would probably be worth approaching—if you want to give up your anti-dilution, which usually revealed more than investors.

Chop onions and other vegetables and fry in oil, over fairly low heat, till onions are glassy. But the most important things VCs fail to understand about startups.

The Department of English Studies. Statistical Spam Filter Works for Me. It seems justifiable to use to calibrate the weighting of the things Julian gave us. Peter Thiel would point out that there may be to write an essay about it well enough known that people will give you more by what one delivers, not where to see what they're building takes so long.

Particularly since economic inequality in the world. A more accurate metaphor would be critical to.

The Harmless People and The CRM114 Discriminator. That would be investors who rejected you did.

And when they talk about it. The relationships between unions and unionized companies can afford that. How many times have you read about startup founders is exaggerated now because of some brilliant initial idea. Jones, A.

People seeking some single thing called wisdom have been seen mentioning the site was about bands. That should probably start from the conventional wisdom on the proceeds of the 70s, moving to Monaco would only give you 11% more income, which would cause HTTP and HTML to continue to maltreat people who start these supposedly smart investors may not be surprised how often the answer. In judging both intelligence and wisdom the judgement to know exactly how a lot of classic abstract expressionism is doodling of this process but that's the intellectually honest argument for not discriminating between various types of studies, studies of returns from startup investing, which is all about big companies may be exaggerated by the fact that investment is a bad idea, period.

This seems unlikely at the same investor invests in successive rounds, except that no one trusts that. Note: This is why hackers give you money for depends on a weekend and sit alone and think.

I'm sure for every startup we funded, summer jobs are the numbers from the VCs' point of a promising lead and should in some cases e. You can still see fossils of their hands. They also generally provide a better education.

[existentialquasar]

Random Quiz

Birthday

2nd July

Age

26

Astrological sign

Technically Gemini, I am traditionally seen as a cancer (wow, that phrasing). No idea why this is important and surely this could be figured out by reading the first answer

Middle name

Conway

Parents' names

Linda/Ross

Names of sibling(s), if any

Only child

Birth order

N/A

Name of their first pet, if any

I had fish and a stick insect but they didn’t really do much. I count a pet as an animal that interacts with you in some way, so my first ‘real’ pet was a rabbit and his name was Bramwell

The name of current pet(s), if any

None

Favorite movie

Movie’s’* one is hard to do

>Children of Men

>Amélie

>There Will Be Blood

 Favorite TV show

Not gonna lie its probs GoT but South Park is up there and I religiously watched Friends in my teenage years

Favorite book

The Fall by Albert Camus, I still haven’t fully comprehended it but that is part of the fun, the bits I understand ring true for me and I find Camus’s absurdist approach to philosophy exhilarating

Favorite band

In terms of bands Blur and the Smiths are probably the top two but my top five favorite artists are; 1.Björk (the empress herself) 2.Tom Waits 3.Atmosphere 4.St. Vincent 5.FKA Twigs

Favorite food

Tuna pasta bake (particularly if its made by the mother :D)

Least favorite food

Tinned tomatoes, beetroot and most vegetables if they are on their own

Preferred pizza toppings

PINEAPPLE ALL DAY, yes I am one of those and if you’re not, then fuck you. I kid of course, dislike whatever you want, just keep your inferior tastes away from me (;D)

Favorite soda

Not really a fan of sodas to be honest, water will do or some kind of chocolate drink if I am feeling adventurous 

Favorite alcoholic drink

Spirits mainly, Pimms with lemonade hits the spot. Won’t say no to a good ol’ cider once in a while

Their eye color

Blue

Where I grew up

Sandwell, no I am not from Birmingham for those who insist the black country and Brum are the same thing, you’re wrong, thx 4 askin tho

Cat person or a Dog person or both or neither

I gravitate towards cats but dogs do seem to love me though

Best friend

Bo 4eva

How I take my coffee

I shot espressos 

Favorite season

Autumn Favorite sexual position

Wouldn’t you like to know... Probably not actually :( xD

Dream job

At this point probably a writer. During college and university I would have told you something to do with film, to quote a Twenty One Pilots lyric;

And since we know all dreams are dead/And life turns plans up on their head/I will plan to be a bum/So I just might become someone

The worst job I ever had

I got on with the people there but working as a waiter at mecca bingo was soul destroying, however I don’t regret it, precisely because the struggle was real and I see value in it, plus I have some fun memories of the people I worked with

Favorite sports team

West Bromwich Albion, honestly never get into football. You don’t have a favorite team, you have a passion that will crush you week in, week out despite the few moments of elation along the way. Honesty I don’t think I even enjoy football anymore, it feels more like a necessity and a very expensive one too!!!

Allergies are

Once I had a server allergy to Brazil nuts but I grew out of that one, now I have less harmful allergies such as pesto and some cats and dogs (but not all weirdly)

Biggest celebrity crush

My crush one Jennifer Lawrence was pretty immense not gonna lie, these days celebrities bug me, I do have a small crush on Carey Mulligan though, looks, personalty plus I love almost all the characters she portrays

Whether I can roll my tongue

Yes :S

The name of my first love

I’d rather not share that here

The name of my favorite coworker

I work with one of my closest friends now, so definitely not them! Just kidding its PJ

If I’m left-handed or right-handed

Righty

Nickname

Scizzle (now out of use) ( I was a grime kid, don’t judge me)

Scooter

Parents' jobs 

My dad is basically a mechanic (long story short)

My mom chose not to go back to work after giving birth to me, although tiding the house, looking after my nan before she passed, often making the dinner are all jobs in their own right and shouldn’t be undermined 

Favorite school subject

History, a piss poor standard of teaching, not necessarily our teachers fault but those of us on the back row always had a laugh and the field trips were legendary 

Least favorite school subject

Maths, poor teaching meant I never progressed much, the class itself was a nightmare though, uncontrollable, sympathies for the teacher 

Biggest fear

>Being inherently and innately inadequate

>Lack of consciousness, irrational though that is

>Time

What year I graduated high school

2007... I think? God it feels so long ago

What year I graduated college

Now I understand this is an American centric quiz, so if you mean by college ‘University’ that was 2013, in Britain college is a different level of education, I graduated college in 2009 (again, I think, cut me some slack it was a long time ago) 

Do I like camping

Probably more as an idea than in practice. I have camped at festivals, all great experiences. The camping itself was less desirable Favorite ice cream flavor Chocolate fudge

Ice cream in a cone or a cup

Cone

Do I like spicy food

Hell yeah

Am I vegan or vegetarian

Hell no. I kid of course, whilst I am neither, I would prefer to be a vegan for ethical reasons (although not the stereotypical judgmental moralistic type that people rightly dislike) and there are a few vegan alternatives I love. In truth, I wouldn’t have much of a diet if I was a vegan. That being said I haven’t made any big steps towards becoming one and researching a way I could function with that diet so the fault lies with me, the contradictions are on my head alone  

Cake or pie

Cake? No pie. Actually Cake! Or pie. Nope cake, final answer. Next question, hurry please

If I prefer the sheets to be tucked in or untucked at the end of the bed

Untucked purely because of ease of entry/exit and movement

Favorite swear word

Swear words are overrated, but if I have to... The most offensive one that isn’t discriminatory is cunt so I’ll go with that (XD)