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henshengs · 4 years ago

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Welp, here’s my take on the Hunger Games AU. I went in a bit of a different direction from @la-belle-et-la-bete, but this definitely owes a lot to their amazing fic and all the brilliant ideas I stole from it.

I made Zonghui a girl since mdzs oppresses me specifically by not having any female Qinghe cultivators.

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Under other circumstances, Meng Yao would have enjoyed the view outside the train window. There was a certain harsh and rugged beauty in the mountains of Qinghe, or so certain poets claimed. Meng Yao couldn’t see it. He’d spent four years in Qinghe, and begun to despair of seeing green fields and wide rivers and placid lakes ever again. Under other circumstances, he might have glued his face to the window and gazed enraptured at the landscapes rushing by.

Things being as they currently were, however, he simply didn’t have the time.

The train carriage was thankfully large enough that he and Zonghui could sit almost ten feet apart from each other. She was staring at her untouched food in grim silence. He was watching the televised broadcast of the Reapings.

He was unsure where Nie Mingjue was, and normally, that would be cause for anxiety. Right now, it was something of a relief. It allowed him to concentrate on the screen.

The Yunmeng reaping had been first, and he’d missed that one, standing in the heat in the Unclean Realm’s main courtyard next to other dressed-up seventeen year olds, most of them peasant children but a few in the gray or black of outer sect cultivators. Then had come the Qinghe reaping; he’d have to wait for the replay to see how he’d looked, walking steadily up to the podium. How much damage Nie Huaisang had done with his cries of protest and the way his small fists had pulled at Meng Yao’s robes. He knew what his own face had looked like, and he knew what expression had been on Nie Mingjue’s, because he’d been looking at it, across the podium, for the whole ceremony.

After Qinghe came Gusu, and he’d missed that one too, because he’d been sitting very straight, hands folded across his lap, in a cool air conditioned room inside the Qinghe Regional Administration Office, and Nie Huaisang had been sobbing uncontrollably into his chest.

Now, sitting on the train, the screen in front of him showed banners of gold and white, crowds of people gathered before a familiar vast set of stairs. Something inside him tightens. Of course, Lanling is after Yunmeng.

He watches a name be chosen from a giant golden emblazoned bowl. A girl steps forward, in the robes of an outer sect disciple, an empty sword belt at her waist. A cultivator; that explains why she doesn’t look terrified, only furious. She looks like she’s fourteen or fifteen.

His competition, he thinks, and a wave of nausea hits him. He breathes through it.

They draw the boy’s name.

“Jin Zixuan,” the announcer reads, with a bit of a smirk on her face. The commentators make noises of surprise. The Jin heir, how thrilling, what a coincidence! Meng Yao’s hand tightens on the arm of his seat.

So it isn’t just Qinghe that’s being sent a message.

The cameras zoom in on the ranks of teens in the deep yellow of the inner Jin disciples. They focus on a handsome boy in very expensive clothes, with no expression on his face. He doesn’t seem to move. The cameras circle his parents, catching their reactions. Meng Yao does not blink.

After a long moment, an older teenager in the deep yellow of an inner Jin disciple saunters forward to volunteer, and even before the cameras zoom in on his face and his life details pop up in bullet points on the screen, Meng Yao has him identified as Jin Zixun. A cousin. Not a surprise. Jin trains its well born children as competitors- though not its heirs- and four times out of five they win. They have the money to buy any number of advantages in the arena. Meng Yao guesses this one chafes in the shadow of his cousin, is itching for a chance to prove himself and bloody his sword on the bodies of peasant children at the same time. Meng Yao does not think it will be difficult to kill him.

As the tributes reach the top of the stairs, the Sect Leader comes forward to congratulate them. Meng Yao wants to look away. He doesn’t. It’s important, to glean any information he can from this. His fingers twitch, longing for his notepad, but his memory will suffice. Physical notes are a luxury he can no longer afford.

After Lanling come the minor sects. Often, in Qinghe and in Yunmeng, people would turn aside and go back to their daily work, after the tributes from the major sects had been chosen. Meng Yao knows better, even though he wants to see the Yunmeng and Gusu reapings, needs to see what message their leaders have been sent. He watches. For about a third of the reapings, a clan heir is chosen. The commentators pretend at surprise, but not too much of it, apparently choosing to preserve the laughable pretense that the drawings are random. Most of the heirs who are chosen are saved by volunteers. The volunteers are usually younger children, looking underfed and threadbare. No sword belts at their waists. No minor sect cultivators are going to volunteer their children to fight the well trained and equipped Jin and Lan tributes.

The big surprise is Yueyang, where both tributes selected turn out to be blind. Not utterly insurmountable, Meng Yao thinks, with a high cultivation level and a strong spiritual tool- but spiritual tools are banned in the Cultivation Competition, and these two are children, the girl looking much younger than twelve, the boy also small and delicate. He ought to be pleased. Two less threats to worry about. He isn’t, really.

The commentators laugh about Yueyang’s bad luck. Meng Yao wishes he could see their faces. It would make it easier to imagine killing them.

After Yueyang, the channel shows a condensed replay of each ceremony, with additional commentary now that the news crews have had a chance to frantically research each competitor. Meng Yao watches an aerial shot of Yunmeng appear on the screen, and then a wide angle of Yunmeng’s largest square. The nausea returns, because he can remember standing in that square, holding his mother’s hand, before she gently pushed him to go stand with the other twelve-year-olds. By that point she’d been very frail, and he hadn’t wanted to leave her to stand by herself in the heat.

“Keep your hat on straight, A-Yao,” she’d said softly, and held his hands in hers.

At this point, it’s not a surprise to him when the first name drawn is Jiang Yanli. It’s a shock to the Sect Leader’s family, though, as the cameras zoom in on a well dressed man who’s gone pale and nearly fallen from his position on the podium, on a beautifully decorated woman who’s gone white with rage. On the rows of purple-clad teenage boys, and the two in the front who appear to be scuffling. When the cameras show a close-up of Jiang Yanli herself as she walks to the stage, she’s also gone white under her makeup, but she’s composed and dignified enough. Meng Yao doesn’t know anything about her, and that’s both embarrassing and worrying. The commentators don’t know much either, though since this is a recap they’ve had time to remember that she’s engaged to Jin Zixuan. “An exciting problem for him,” one of them says, “he’ll have to decide whether to root for his cousin or his betrothed!” He sounds thrilled to have found such a juicy angle.

The faces in the crowd don’t appear pleased, so the Jiangs have at least some degree of loyalty from their people. Or perhaps just Jiang Yanli does. But no one volunteers to take her place. The sect leader looks like he’s about to have a heart attack. Meng Yao is unable to summon up much sympathy for him, though he understands why it would be harder, to send your own child to die, rather than someone else’s.

“Jiang Cheng,” the announcer reads, drawing the boy’s name, and the crowd goes very still. Well, Meng Yao thinks. That certainly is a message.

The boy in black and maroon at the front of the rows of teenagers wins his fight with the boy in lavender and violet, and somersaults onto the stage, landing with a showman’s bow. A cultivator, and a recognizable one. Wei Wuxian, the chief Jiang disciple. “I volunteer,” he says, and grins. Jiang Yanli bursts into tears. Madame Yu’s mouth twists. Wei Wuxian winks at the cameras. The commentators go wild. Jiang’s chief disciple is already a crowd pleaser. The cameras don’t show what happens to Jiang Yanli’s brother.

When the view switches to the gates of the Unclean Realm, Meng Yao glances over at Zonghui. She’s shifted from staring at her food to staring out of the window. There’s no sound inside the high speed train but the mechanical noises of the air system and the low volume voices of the commentators coming from the television. Nie Mingjue and the Wen escort must be in another cabin.

Ten feet away from him, Zonghui stares out the window. On his screen, she stands, back straight, and moves to the podium. Meng Yao tries to remember what he’d been thinking, watching her. He’s afraid it might have primarily been consideration of who would make the best replacement aide to keep Nie Huaisang out of trouble. He and Zonghui had never been friends, and it would have been something of a relief to have her gone.

Then, on the screen and in his memory, the announcer calls out the name of the male tribute. Nie Huaisang.

He remembers, with crystal clarity, the frozen moment when understanding of the situation had passed through him like a sword through his chest. The Cultivation Competition had never quite served its true purpose, when it came to keeping Qinghe in line. The Nies had developed a tradition, in response to the first Competition; each Nie heir, in the year they turned eighteen, volunteered as tribute. Most of the time they won both the competition and the loyalty of their people, who did not resent the sacrifice of their children as much as they might have, knowing that each of their rulers fully understood the cost.

(Though did they? There was a difference, between an eighteen year old trained nearly since birth in the saber, and a twelve year old peasant child chosen on one of the years there was no Nie heir to take her place.)

And so the Wens had decided to disrupt the balance by selecting the name of the sect leader’s useless baby brother, who would die five minutes into the Competition.

In that moment of clarity, Meng Yao saw the future. In all likelihood, one of the younger disciples would volunteer. The army was not particularly fond of Nie Huaisang, who was a brat and an embarrassment, but they loved their young leader with an intense ferocity, and so one of them would volunteer to save his brother. And that volunteer would die. The Qinghe disciples were trained for war, but they were not trained for the Competition, not like their leaders were, not like the Jin were. The volunteer would die, and the survivors would resent Nie Huaisang for needing to be saved, for being such a disappointment. That resentment would spread and corrupt their love for Nie Mingjue. And next year, Huaisang would be selected again.

If the Wen didn’t simply tire of Qinghe’s defiant attitude and send Wen Zhuliu to crush Nie Mingjue’s core.

“They want humiliation,” he had explained to Nie Mingjue in that air conditioned room, speaking almost too softly to be heard over the roar of the fans. “They want your brother to make a fool of himself in the arena. But they will be satisfied with your lover making a mockery of you on every screen from here to Qishan.”

Nie Mingjue flinched from the word lover, and Meng Yao resented that, too, when he’d been careful not to say whore. Others would say it. Nie Mingjue did not have the luxury of delicate sensibilities, now.

Nie Mingjue’s hands squeezed so hard, when he lifted Meng Yao up into the air, that there would certainly be bruises, later. “We do not submit,” he growled. “We do not accept their humiliation, we do not play their game.”

Meng Yao had a horrible urge to laugh in his face. What did you think you were doing, last year, when you killed four other teenagers? he wanted to ask. But Nie Mingjue’s red eyes were filling with tears, and Meng Yao remembered that he was, in the end, only nineteen. Only a boy who wanted to protect his brother. Who wanted to make his father proud.

On the train, Meng Yao blinks away the memory, pressing his head back against the velvet seat, but it is only replaced by a worse one: Nie Huaisang, his hair undone and falling around his face, looking very, very young. He’d insisted on redoing Meng Yao’s braids himself, holding them in place with that silver hair ornament. “Your token,” he’d said, leaking tears and snot, and Meng Yao had thanked him, very sincerely.

On the screen, in the train, Meng Yao watches himself walking to the center of the courtyard, head bowed, eyes modestly downcast, a small drab figure distinguished only by his Nie braids and subtly expensive robes. This time, watching on the screen, Meng Yao can see the faces of the Nie disciples. The anger, the resentment, the humiliation that he, the servant son of a whore, had stolen their chance to die horrifically.

You would die, Meng Yao thought now, remembered thinking then. They would die. And it would be a waste. Tributes were brought inside Nightless City. Victors had access to the highest levels of cultivator society, and travelled throughout the sects.

If that victor was someone who was able to make use of the opportunity-

It was not how he had imagined winning his father’s attention.

The screen changes to a commentator’s face, caked in makeup and perfectly coiffed. “We regret to report that seasonal weather is continuing to disrupt broadcasts from Gusu,” she says. “The competitors have been selected and we look forward to you meeting them tonight at the Nightless City parade.”

Meng Yao stops digging his nails into his arms.

What is happening in Gusu?

#meng yao #nieyao #the hunger games au #fic

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dustedmagazine · 5 years ago

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Dust, Volume 6, Number 3

Matthew Shipp and Nate Wooley

We shoehorn another Dust into the end of a wintery month, putting politics, a global pandemic, bad weather and the final season of Better Call Saul aside to concentrate on the ever overwhelming flow of new music. This month spans the usual gamut of obscure but worthy genres, from free jazz to crunk to extreme noise to yet another take on Pachebel’s Canon. The clear star this month, though, is Matthew Shipp, who gets two slots for two different collaborations, and so commands our cover image. Writers include Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Ray Garraty, Ian Mathers, Justin Cober-Lake and Jonathan Shaw.

Lao Dan / Paul Flaherty / Randall Colbourne / Damon Smith — Live at Willimantic Records (Family Vineyard)

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It’s a long way from China to Connecticut. But this quartet bridges the distance so masterfully, you would not know that it’s not only the first time they’ve played together; it’s the first time that alto saxophonist, bamboo flute, and suona player Lao Dan played in the United States. The musicians bring a combination of deep knowledge and fresh potential to the encounter. Saxophonist Paul Flaherty and drummer Randall Colbourne have been playing together for decades, keeping the free jazz torch lit in times and places around New England where no one else knew what the fuck they were doing, let alone appreciated the fact that they were doing it. Lao Dan may be half their age, but since he’s spent his musical career playing in China’s major cities, he knows the experience of playing in an uncomprehending environment just as well. When he plays alto, he certainly sounds well acquainted with the conventions of free jazz, matching Flaherty’s growls and cries with aplomb. And while the moments when he plays traditional Chinese instruments sound distanced from free jazz convention, he finds space and rhythmic footing to make real contributions within the fertile matrix of force and rhythm laid out by Flaherty, Colbourne, and double bassist Damon Smith (at the time a Massachusetts resident, since relocated to St. Louis).

Bill Meyer

demitasse — Perfect Life (Bedlamb)

Perfect Life by demitasse

demitasse is the quiet alter-ago of Buttercup’s Erik Sanden and Joe Reyes. Though there are a couple of lo-fi rockers here, the main tenor is tremulous, emotive and rather lovely, with spider silk melodies that look wispy but turn out to have a fair amount of tensile strength. Take for instance, “Coming Out Wrong Again,” a gently delivered slip of a song framed in the barest frame of strumming, in a well-weathered voice with creaks in the corners. And yet, as it rolls on diffidently, the tune picks up momentum, and the chorus wreathes the title phrase in harmonies in a way that might remind you of Carissa’s Wierd or its successor Grand Archives. Which is to say, in a way that seems inevitable and right. In the more amplified parts, the singer picks up a bit of Jonathan Richman’s whimsied warble and drums kick through scratchier, more aggressive guitar playing. “Free Solo (for Alex Honnold)” (yes the rock climber) is perhaps the brashest and less constrained of these cuts, imbued with the muffled mania of its title character and approaching Chad VanGaalen’s whacked out tunefulness. The title cut, like most of the album, celebrates small lapidary moments – the singer’s dad cutting his hair— and their weight in memory. There’s a resonance to the smallest sounds here, and a significance in elliptical lines. demitasse is a small cup of wonder, just sitting there on the kitchen table in the midst of life itself.

Jennifer Kelly

Duke Deuce — Memphis Massacre 2 (Quality Control Music)

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After the viral hit “Crunk Ain’t Dead” Tennessee rapper Duke Deuce dropped a full tape which got endorsed by Lil Jon, Project Pat and Juicy J. These Dirty South legends jumped on the remix of “Crunk Ain’t Dead”, a song that is literally supposed to slaughter strip clubs all the way up from Memphis to Canadian border. Crunk’s been leading zombie-ish life, being if not fully then almost dead for years. It’s hard to predict if Memphis Massacre 2 will spur a wave of neocrunk but even if it won’t, it will remain a gutsy punch to the soft rap belly. The slower songs on the tape, like “Trap Blues”, are weaker efforts as they are lost among same-y Southern rap ballads.

Ray Garraty

Arto Lindsay / Ken Vandermark / Joe McPhee / Phil Sudderberg—Largest Afternoon (Corbett Vs. Dempsey)

Largest Afternoon by Lindsay/Vandermark/McPhee/Sudderberg

After decades of frequent partnership, Joe McPhee and Ken Vandermark have attained the level where they are being recruited for dream teams. Astral Spirits recently released Invitation to a Dream, a specially commissioned meeting between the two multi-horn players and pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn. And now comes Largest Afternoon, by a quartet comprising McPhee, Vandermark, drummer Phil Sudderberg (Marker, Spirits Having Fun, Vibrating Skull Trio) and guitarist Arto Lindsay (DNA, Ambitious Lovers, his own bad self) at the behest of the record label / art gallery, Corbett Vs. Dempsey. If you’re hoping for a combination of free jazz and Brazilian pop, keep your dancing shoes in their box; this CD documents a first-time, no-net encounter. On the rare occasions when Lindsay opens his mouth, it’s to emit strangled phonemes; by comparison, his utterances with DNA seem positively Dylan-esque. But if you want to hear feedback squaring off against soulful reed-song, valve-pops peppering amp-coughs and interactions between percussion, strings, and wind that verge on the tectonic, Largest Afternoon will make your day.

Bill Meyer

Jason McMahon — Odd West (Shinkoyo)

Odd West by Jason McMahon

Odd West delivers extremely soft focus (bordering on new-age-y) instrumentals plus effected vocals from a one-time Skeletons mainstay. The main instrument is acoustic guitar, pristinely recorded and glossed with a radiant glow. McMahon, a jazz-trained guitarist, learned to finger pick for this record, and there’s something a bit studied about these cascading bouts of iridescent sound, a bit too perfect, a bit too glassy and calm. “Ambisinistrous” ebbs and flows in minor key fret flurries, McMahon all alone with the guitar and sounding rather good at it. “Sunshine for Locksmith” floats “lahs” and “ahs” and lullaby “wooh-ooh-oohs” over its placid surface, tilting golden dust-moted rays onto all natural motifs until it seems too good to be real. By the end, I’d give a lot for a string squeak or even a stray false note. It’s like the old descriptions of heaven in Sunday school, too pretty to seem like somewhere you’d want to live.

Jennifer Kelly

Donovan Quinn — Absalom (Soft Abuse)

Absalom by Donovan Quinn

Donovan Quinn has been a mainstay of the Bay Area’s hand-made, lo-fi folk-psych-rock scene for almost two decades through the Skygreen Leopards with Glenn Donaldson, in New Bums with Ben Chasny (who also plays here) , in the one-off Fuckaroos with Sonny Smith and Kelley Stoltz and on his own in the 13th Month. Regardless of project, you can count on him for hazily soft-focus not-quite-rock, not-quite folk songs, that drone like VU outtakes wreathed in patchouli smoke, edgeless and adrift and whispery. That’s more or less what he’s doing here, with a variety of SF-adjacent talent in tow, not just Chasny and Elisa Ambrogio but Papercuts Jason Quever and underground songwriters Eric Amerman and Michael Tapscott. But it’s Quinn’s show, really, with Quinn’s soft unhurried voice, his loosely coalescing arrangements of guitar fuzz, drums and chamber strings, his subtly off center way with lyrics. “Satanic Summer Nights,” sings urgently of “a game with no rules,” but it’s not quite that; rather it’s a game where the rules are buried like power lines under enveloping clouds of free-form smoke, feeding structure and electricity into what seems like a passing daydream.

Jennifer Kelly

Matthew Shipp String Trio — Symbolic Reality (Rogue Art)

Pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist William Parker, and violist Mat Maneri have a lengthy shared history, but Symbolic Reality is their first recording as a trio in 20 years. In its early years, this combo was the chamber music outlier of Shipp’s constellation of ensembles. But now the classical and jazz elements mix in his music like the eggs, flour and milk in your best cake batter. While it’s true that Maneri’s microtonal bowing still sets this apart from any other Shipp group, giving the music a unique pungency, the viola’s lack of auditory bulk is at least as important in defining the group sound. The presence of a third musician who is neither loud and nor chord-oriented induces Shipp to throttle back his attack a bit, which makes Parker’s foundational architecture stand out in bold relief; and the vinegary slurs in Maneri’s playing elicit a blues feeling that doesn’t often come to the fore in Shipp’s playing.

Bill Meyer

Matthew Shipp and Nate Wooley — What If? (Rogue Art)

Pianist Matthew Shipp and trumpet player Nate Wooley know how to surprise, creating both compositions and tones that get to weird places. The two have worked together before, but recent release What If? marks their first work as a duo. Shipp provided the composition, but it's clearly a two-man answer to the question. The artists touch on some more typical jazz modes, trading leads or letting Wooley play a melody over Shipp's broad chords. More intriguingly, they feed off each other's moods. Wooley doesn't shy from abrasive sounds, and on cuts like “Ktu,” Shipp matches his grating approach. “The Angle” plays with jittery space; Shipp's chords largely traded in for flutters that go with Wooley's reserved blips. Highlight “Space Junk” puts all the musicality and the enjoyment of the odd together. The duo plays a few moments that sound trad, then go for something avant, then turn somewhere new as ideas and moods run away from them. At times Wooley sounds like he wants to soundtrack a casual night out, and at times he wants to smash it; both of them find the whole enterprise entertaining. The “What if?” question remains open-ended, but the answer comes very specifically from these two artists, and it's more than sufficient for whatever's been asked.

Justin Cober-Lake

Sightless Pit — Grave of a Dog (Thrill Jockey)

Grave of a Dog by Sightless Pit

Sightless Pit is a collaboration among three significant names in contemporary heavy music: Lee Buford, of the Body; Dylan Walker, singer for Full of Hell; and Kristin Hayter, who records under the name Lingua Ignota. Made over two years at Machines with Magnets, the songs were shaped, executed and revised whenever one or two of the artists could get to the studio. It’s thus a sort of experiment in asynchronously generated music. Grave of a Dog (an unfortunate title) is likely best appreciated with that unconventional approach in mind —n ot a set of songs by a band so much as an ongoing, sonically mediated conversation among like-minded creators. Not surprisingly, the record really lights up whenever Hayter’s remarkable vocals move into the music’s foreground. She’s an unusual talent, with a big voice that can do drama, intimacy and lunacy to equal effect, and a compositional intelligence that grooves with Sightless Pit’s sound-collaging sensibility. “Kingscorpse” is a stirring combination of melody and power electronics, and the record’s solemn, fragile closer “Love Is Dead, All Love Is Dead” lets Hayter show off the full range of what she can do with her instrument.

Jonathan Shaw

Solar Woodroach — 7 Perversions on Pachelbel’s Canon (Nilamox)

7 Perversions on Pachelbel's Canon by Solar Woodroach

From the start of “How the West Was Won,” most music fans would be able to identify (if not necessarily name) the source material Solar Woodroach uses here even without the album title. Yes, Pachelbel’s Canon in D, one of the most overexposed pieces of music ever used, is getting dug up and sent shuffling our way again, this time from some enigmatic figure or figures known as Solar Woodroach. The best clue there, it must be said, is that the label is listed as “Nilamox,” also the name of whatever ex-Severed Heads man Tom Ellard is doing these days. But Ellard, or whoever, has more than just necromancy on their minds during these 7 Perversions; sometimes stretching and smearing the composition past the point of immediate recognition. But whether it’s the slow-motion glow of “Decomposition in D,” the mini-swarm of synthesized voice bits in “The Canonisation of St. Pachelbel,” or the eventual return of something like the original in the closing “The Pachelbel Spirit,” 7 Perversions proves, perversely enough, both that our takes on the Canon (or canon?) could be more inventive, and that there might be more life left in those standards than we give them credit for after an umpteenth listen. It’s a cheekily satisfying listen, maybe especially if (whisper it) you still enjoy the old Canon a bit too.

Ian Mathers

Rafael Toral / Mars Williams / Tim Daisy — Elevation (Relay)

Rafael Toral / Mars Williams / Tim Daisy :: Elevation :: (relay 027) by Relay Recordings

Interstellar Space. My Goals Beyond. Other Planes of There. The list of outward-bound jazz records that invite the listener to draw a bead on the furthest cosmic reaches is a long one, and despite the relative humility of its title, Elevation makes a similar request. The album’s three tracks are all named after cloud formations, and even in their most subdued moments the three musicians involved treat gravity as a negotiable notion, not an immutable law. Portuguese electronic musician Rafael Toral joined up with Chicagoans Mars Williams and Tim Daisy for just one day, during which they played one concert in a suburban library and the recording session yielded this CD. Daisy’s a highly accommodating drummer, and much of his playing on this record disperses beats and tones like a spray of cloud-born moisture. Williams balances incendiary blowing guided by the anything goes spirit he nurtures in Extraordinary Popular Delusions with little instrument forays that infuse this music with the spirit of A-list types like Sun Ra’s Arkestra and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. And Toral draws pure electricity into flashes and stretched bolts that illuminate “Stratus,” “Cirrus” and “Altostratus” from without and within. Keep your eyes and ears on the sky.

Bill Meyer

Tribe — Hometown: Detroit Sessions 1990-2014 (Strut)

Hometown: Detroit Sessions 1990-2014 by Tribe

This disc collects post-break-up material from the long-running Detroit cultural collective Tribe, a pan-arts organization led by saxophonist Wendell Harrison and trombonist Phil Ranelin. During its 1970s heyday, the Tribe organization put out jazz records, published monthly magazine covering black culture, collaborated with dance and theater groups and taught music in Detroit schools. This collection picks up after Ranelin moved to Los Angeles and the Tribe name had been retired. Still Harrison continued to preside over multidisciplinary creative coalition, tapping into a vibrant Detroit scene for Afro-centric visual arts, theater, dance, music and literature. Handclapped, percussive “Juba,” for instance, documents Tribe’s connections to modern dance; you can intuit movement in its chanted, panted, grunted and foot-stomped rhythms. The two spoken word pieces, “Marcus Garvey” and “Ode to Black Mothers,” showcase the works of Mbiyu Chui, a poet, pastor and founder of the Black Christian Nationalist Movement. The music, too, is very, very good, from the swaggering big band swing of “Wide and Blue,” to the smouldery sleek piano grooves of “Hometown” (Harrison’s wife Pamela Wise on keys) to the Afro-Caribbean polyrhythms that animate “Ode to Black Mothers.” Detroit was in about as bad a state as a city can be during the period this music was recorded, but art and pride and resilience run through every track.

Jennifer Kelly

Various Artists — Back from the Canigo: Garage Punks Vs Freakbeat Mods Perpignan 1989-1999 (Staubgold)

Back from the Canigó: Garage Punks Vs Freakbeat Mods Perpignan 1989-1999 by Various Artists

Perpignan is the southernmost French city, nestled in a curve of the Mediterranean just before it turns south into Spain. It also the unlikely headquarters of a Gallic garage rock scene centered around the Limiñanas, but incorporating another dozen or so bands represented on this compilation. (The Limiñanas themselves are absent, just to be clear.) The two oldest bands — Les Gardiens du Canigou and the Ugly Things — are the most vital, both rough-rocking outfits fond of wheedling organ fills and much indebted to the Troggs. “Baby I Don’t Want to Drive” from the Ugly Things has the grit and swagger of Wimple Witch’s “Save My Soul,” while Les Gardiens turn in a truly unhinged live cover of “Gloria.” Some of the younger bands follow this example closely. The Vox Men and The Feedback, for instance, pursue the exact same sort of screaming hedonism. However, others diverge. Beach Bitches take a day-glo, 1960s garage energy into joke-y surfy directions; their “Walking in the Jungle,” intersperses novelty record animal cries with banging drums and blasts of molten guitar. Les Buissons bustles and blares with a fully-orchestrated sound, James Brown doing battle with a community marching band and flop-haired psychedelia in “Buissons Theme I.” The whole comp is immensely enjoyable in a what-decade-is-it-anyway manner. It’s probably not what you picture when people say, “south of France,” but it rocks pretty hard.

Jennifer Kelly

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lake-lyn · 6 years ago

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EW’s exclusive excerpt of The Tyrant’s Tomb by Rick Riordan (2/2)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Dude, this isn’t cool

Dude just tried to eat my dude

That’s my dead dude, dude

I like flying cars. I prefer it when the car is actually capable of flight, however.

As the hearse achieved zero gravity, I had a few microseconds to appreciate the scenery below—a lovely little lake edged with eucalyptus trees and walking trails, a small beach on the far shore, where a cluster of evening picnickers relaxed on blankets.

Oh, good, some small part of my brain thought. Maybe we’ll at least land in the water.

Then we dropped—not toward the lake, but toward the trees.

A sound like Luciano Pavarotti’s high C in Don Giovanni issued from my throat. My hands glued themselves to the wheel.

As we plunged into the eucalypti, the ghoul disappeared from our roof—almost as if the tree branches had purposefully swatted him away. Other branches seemed to bend around the hearse, slowing our fall, dropping us from one leafy cough-drop-scented bough to another, until we hit the ground on all four wheels with a jarring thud. Too late to do any good, the airbags deployed, shoving my head against the backrest.

Yellow amoebas danced in my eyes. The taste of blood stung my throat. I clawed for the door handle, squeezed my way out between the airbag and the seat, and tumbled onto a bed of cool soft grass.

“Blergh,” I said.

I heard Meg retching somewhere nearby. At least that meant she was still alive. About ten feet to my left, water lapped at the shore of the lake. Directly above me, near the top of the largest eucalyptus tree, our ghoulish blueblack friend was snarling and writhing, trapped in a cage of branches.

I struggled to sit up. My nose throbbed. My sinuses felt like they were packed with menthol rub. “Meg?”

She staggered into view around the front of the hearse. Ring-shaped bruises were forming around her eyes—no doubt courtesy of the passenger-side airbag. Her glasses were intact but askew. “You suck at swerving.”

“Oh, my gods!” I protested. “You ordered me to—” My brain faltered. “Wait. How are we alive? Was that you who bent the tree branches?”

“Duh.” She flicked her hands, and her twin golden scimitars flashed into existence. Meg used them like ski poles to steady herself. “They won’t hold that monster much longer. Get ready.”

“What?” I yelped. “Wait. No. Not ready!”

I pulled myself to my feet with the driver’s-side door.

Across the lake, the picnickers had risen from their blankets. I suppose a hearse falling from the sky had gotten their attention. My vision was blurry, but something seemed odd about the group. . . . Was one of them wearing armor? Did another have goat legs?

Even if they were friendly, they were much too far away to help.

I limped to the hearse and yanked open the backseat door. Jason’s coffin appeared safe and secure in the rear bay. I grabbed my bow and quiver. My ukulele had vanished somewhere underneath the inflated airbags. I would have to do without it.

Above, the creature howled, thrashing in its branch cage.

Meg stumbled. Her forehead was beaded with sweat. Then the ghoul broke free and hurtled downward, landing only a few yards away. I hoped the creature’s legs might have broken on impact, but no such luck. It took a few steps, its feet punching wet craters in the grass, before it straightened and snarled, its pointy white teeth like tiny mirror-image picket fences.

“KILL AND EAT!” it screamed.

What a lovely singing voice. The ghoul could’ve fronted any number of Norwegian death metal groups.

“Wait!” My voice was shrill. “I—I know you.” I wagged my finger, as if that might crank-start my memory. Clutched in my other hand, my bow shook. The arrows rattled in my quiver. “H-hold on, it’ll come to me!”

The ghoul hesitated. I’ve always believed that most sentient creatures like to be recognized. Whether we are gods, people, or slavering ghouls in vulture-feather loincloths, we enjoy others knowing who we are, speaking our names, appreciating that we exist.

Of course, I was just trying to buy time. I hoped Meg would catch her breath, charge the creature, and slice it into putrid ghoul pappardelle. At the moment, though, it didn’t seem that she was capable of using her swords for anything but crutches. I supposed controlling gigantic trees could be tiring, but honestly, couldn’t she have waited to run out of steam until after she killed Vulture Diaper?

Wait. Vulture diaper . . . I took another look at the ghoul: its strange mottled blue-and-black hide, its milky eyes, its oversize mouth and tiny nostril slits. It smelled of rancid meat. It wore the feathers of a carrion eater . . .

“I do know you,” I realized. “You’re a eurynomos.”

I dare you to try saying you’re a eurynomos when your tongue is leaden, your body is shaking from terror, and you’ve just been punched in the face by a hearse’s airbag.

The ghoul’s lips curled. Silvery strands of saliva dripped from his chin. “YES! FOOD SAID MY NAME!”

“B-but you’re a corpse-eater!” I protested. “You’re supposed to be in the Underworld, working for Hades!”

The ghoul tilted its head as if trying to remember the words Underworld and Hades. It didn’t seem to like them as much as kill and eat.

“HADES GAVE ME OLD DEAD!” it shouted. “THE MASTER GIVES ME FRESH!”

“The master?”

“THE MASTER!”

I really wished Vulture Diaper wouldn’t scream. It didn’t have any visible ears, so perhaps it had poor volume control. Or maybe it just wanted to spray that gross saliva over as large a radius as possible.

“If you mean Caligula,” I ventured, “I’m sure he’s made you all sorts of promises, but I can tell you, Caligula is not—”

“HA! STUPID FOOD! CALIGULA IS NOT THE MASTER!”

“Not the master?”

“NOT THE MASTER!”

“MEG!” I shouted. Ugh. Now I was doing it.

“Yeah?” Meg wheezed. She looked fierce and warlike as she granny-walked toward me with her sword-crutches. “Gimme. Minute.”

It was clear she would not be taking the lead in this particular fight. If I let Vulture Diaper anywhere near her, it would kill her, and I found that idea 95 percent unacceptable.

“Well, eurynomos,” I said, “whoever your master is, you’re not killing and eating anyone today!”

I whipped an arrow from my quiver. I nocked it in my bow and took aim, as I had done literally millions of times before, but it wasn’t quite as impressive with my hands shaking and my knees wobbling.

Why do mortals tremble when they’re scared, anyway? It seems so counterproductive. If I had created humans, I would have given them steely determination and superhuman strength during moments of terror.

The ghoul hissed, spraying spit.

“SOON THE MASTER’S ARMIES WILL RISE AGAIN!” it bellowed. “WE WILL FINISH THE JOB! I WILL SHRED FOOD TO THE BONE, AND FOOD

WILL JOIN US!”

Food will join us? My stomach experienced a sudden loss of cabin pressure. I remembered why Hades loved these eurynomoi so much. The slightest cut from their claws caused a wasting disease in mortals. And when those mortals died, they rose again as what the Greeks called vrykolakas—or, in TV parlance, zombies.

That wasn’t the worst of it. If a eurynomos managed to devour the flesh from a corpse, right down to the bones, that skeleton would reanimate as the fiercest, toughest kind of undead warrior. Many of them served as Hades’s elite palace guards, which was a job I did not want to apply for.

“Meg?” I kept my arrow trained on the ghoul’s chest. “Back away. Do not let this thing scratch you.”

“But—”

“Please,” I begged. “For once, trust me.”

Vulture Diaper growled. “FOOD TALKS TOO MUCH! HUNGRY!”

It charged me.

I shot.

The arrow found its mark—the middle of the ghoul’s chest—but it bounced off like a rubber mallet against metal. The Celestial-bronze point must have hurt, at least. The ghoul yelped and stopped in its tracks, a steaming puckered wound on its sternum. But the monster was still very much alive. Perhaps if I managed twenty or thirty shots at that exact same spot, I could do some real damage.

With trembling hands, I nocked another arrow. “Th-that was just a warning!” I bluffed. “The next one will kill!”

Vulture Diaper made a gurgling noise deep in its throat. I hoped it was a delayed death rattle. Then I realized it was only laughing. “WANT ME TO EAT DIFFERENT FOOD FIRST? SAVE YOU FOR DESSERT?”

It uncurled its claws, gesturing toward the hearse.

I didn’t understand. I refused to understand. Did it want to eat the airbags? The upholstery?

Meg got it before I did. She screamed in rage.

The creature was an eater of the dead. We were driving

a hearse.

“NO!” Meg shouted. “Leave him alone!”

She lumbered forward, raising her swords, but she was in no shape to face the ghoul. I shouldered her aside, putting myself between her and the creature, and fired my arrows again and again.

They sparked off the creature’s blue-black hide, leaving steaming, annoyingly nonlethal wounds. Vulture Diaper staggered toward me, snarling in pain, its body twitching from the impact of each hit.

It was five feet away.

Two feet away, its claws splayed to shred my face.

Somewhere behind me, a female voice shouted, “HEY!”

The sound distracted Vulture Diaper just long enough for me to fall courageously on my butt. I scrambled away from the ghoul’s claws.

Vulture Diaper blinked, confused by its new audience. About ten feet away, a ragtag assortment of fauns and dryads, perhaps a dozen total, were all attempting to hide behind one gangly pink-haired young woman in Roman legionnaire armor.

The girl fumbled with some sort of projectile weapon. Oh, dear. A manubalista. A Roman heavy crossbow. Those things were awful. Slow. Powerful. Notoriously unreliable. The bolt was set. She cranked the handle, her hands shaking as badly as mine.

Meanwhile, to my left, Meg groaned in the grass, trying to get back on her feet. “You pushed me,” she complained, by which I’m sure she meant Thank you, Apollo, for saving my life.

The pink-haired girl raised her manubalista. With her long, wobbly legs, she reminded me of a baby giraffe. “G-get away from them,” she ordered the ghoul.

Vulture Diaper treated her to its trademarked hissing and spitting. “MORE FOOD! YOU WILL ALL JOIN THE KING’S DEAD!”

“Dude.” One of the fauns nervously scratched his belly under his PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF BERKELEY T-shirt. “That’s not cool.”

“Not cool,” several of his friends echoed.

“YOU CANNOT OPPOSE ME, ROMAN!” the ghoul snarled. “I HAVE ALREADY TASTED THE FLESH OF YOUR COMRADES! AT THE BLOOD MOON, YOU WILL JOIN THEM—”

THWUNK.

An Imperial gold crossbow bolt materialized in the center of Vulture Diaper’s chest. The ghoul’s milky eyes widened in surprise. The Roman legionnaire looked just as stunned.

“Dude, you hit it,” said one of the fauns, as if this offended his sensibilities.

The ghoul crumbled into dust and vulture feathers. The bolt clunked to the ground.

Meg limped to my side. “See? That’s how you’re supposed to kill it.”

“Oh, shut up,” I grumbled.

We faced our unlikely savior.

The pink-haired girl frowned at the pile of dust, her chin quivering as if she might cry. She muttered, “I hate those things.”

“Y-you’ve fought them before?” I asked.

She looked at me like this was an insultingly stupid question.

One of the fauns nudged her. “Lavinia, dude, ask who these guys are.”

“Um, right.” Lavinia cleared her throat. “Who are you?”

I struggled to my feet, trying to regain some composure. “I am Apollo. This is Meg. Thank you for saving us.”

Lavinia stared. “Apollo, as in—”

“It’s a long story. We’re transporting the body of our friend, Jason Grace, to Camp Jupiter for burial. Can you help us?”

Lavinia’s mouth hung open. “Jason Grace . . . is dead?”

Before I could answer, from somewhere across Highway 24 came a wail of rage and anguish.

“Um, hey,” said one of the fauns, “don’t those ghoul things usually hunt in pairs?”

Lavinia gulped. “Yeah. Let’s get you guys to camp. Then we can talk about”—she gestured uneasily at the hearse—“who is dead, and why.”

#ttt #the tyrants tomb #the tyrant’s tomb #rick riordan

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wineschool-blog · 3 years ago

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Wine Regions of the World

https://j.mp/3BoltK4 The world of wine is at your fingertips. Here at the Wine School, many of our sommelier programs are founded on the idea the core of wine knowledge is understanding wine regions. Table of contentsFrench WineGreatest or Second Greatest?Wine HistoryWine GrapesClassificationsItalian WineWorld’s Greatest Lover (of Wine)History of Italian WineWine RegionsSpanish WineSpanish GrapesSpanish Wine RegionsGerman WineHistory of German WineInnovations in White WineGerman Red WinesAustrian WineWhite WinesRed WinesScandalUnited States WineAustralian WineEconomic DeclineGreat Wine RegionsSouth American Wine RegionsChile & ArgentinaWine Styles French Wine Wine is produced throughout France in quantities between 50 and 60 million hectolitres per year. That is an estimated eight billion bottles of wine! Greatest or Second Greatest? For many wine lovers, France is the world’s greatest wine country. However, it’s now in second place in two key categories. First, it has the world’s second-largest total vineyard area, second to Spain. Second, it is also the second-largest wine producer: Italy takes the lead in the volume of wine produced. Still, many sommeliers would argue that the quality of its wines puts France in the first place. Wine History French wine traces its history to the 6th century BC, with many regions dating their wine-making history to Roman times. However, many of the techniques wineries use today were developed in Franc during the 18th and 19th Centuries. Today, French wines range from mind-bogglingly expensive to modest bottles only seen within France supermarkets. Wine Grapes France is the source of many grape varieties that are planted throughout the world. This includes Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, and Syrah. In addition, French winemaking practices have been adopted across the world, with the most famous being barrel-aging wines. Classifications Two concepts are central to French wines. The first is the notion of “terroir,” which is the closest the French have ever gotten to a state-endorsed religion. We’ll cover this complex concept in our French Wine Regions article. The second (and more concrete) concept is the Appellation d’Origine Protégée (AOP) classification system. These rules strictly define which grape varieties and winemaking practices are allowed in each of the several hundred Appellations. Some are massive regions that contain thousands of wineries; other appellations are as small as a single village or a specific vineyard. Want more? We have an article detailing all the major wine regions and grape varietals in France. French Wine Regions Italian Wine Italy is home to some of the oldest wine-producing regions in the world. It is also the world’s largest wine producer, fermenting one-fifth of the world’s wine. Two continents share a love of Italian wine, and it’s not Europe. North America and Asia can’t get enough of Italian vino. With a market share of 10% on both continents. Only the French can boast similar numbers. World’s Greatest Lover (of Wine) It’s not just about exports. Wine is deeply embedded in Italian culture; they lead the world in wine consumption. The average Italian drinks 70 liters of wine per year, compared to 25 liters in the US, 20 liters in Australia, 40 milliliters in China, and 9 milliliters in India. They even beat their arch-rivals, the French, who drink a measly 40 liters per capita annually. History of Italian Wine Etruscans and Greek settlers produced wine in the country long before the Romans started developing their own vineyards in the 2nd century BC. Roman grape-growing and winemaking was prolific and well-organized, pioneering large-scale production and storage techniques. Wine Regions Grapes are grown in almost every region of the country. More than 1 million vineyards are under cultivation. For details of regions and grape varietals, you can check our Italian Wine Regions article. Italian Wine Regions Spanish Wine Located on the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal, Spain has over 2.9 million acres (over 1.17 million hectares) planted. It is the most widely planted wine-producing nation in the world. However, it is the third-largest producer of wine, following France and Italy. Vineyards exist in nearly every nook and cranny of Spain’s geography. Most of these were planted a century ago, but even the newer vineyards tend to be planted with a pre-modern ethos: head-pruned and without irrigation. The result is very low-yielding vineyards and well-above-average wines. Carlos Serres 2012 Rioja Gran Reserva Spanish Grapes The country is listed as ninth in worldwide consumption of wine. Having spent a significant time in-country, that feels like an egregious miscount. According to the bean counters, the average Spaniard drinks 38 liters a year. In my experience, that is less than a month of wine drinking in Spain. I may demand a recount at some point. What is truly distinctive in Spain is the devotion to local wines, which are drunk near exclusively. This is not difficult since the country has an abundance of native grape varieties. Over 400 varieties of wine grapes are currently in production. However, eighty percent of the country’s wine is from twenty grapes. The most important are Tempranillo, Albariño, Garnacha, Palomino, Airen, Macabeo, Parellada, Xarel·lo, Cariñena, and Monastrell. Spanish Wine Regions The major Spanish wine regions include the Rioja and Ribera del Duero, known for their Tempranillo-based wines; Jerez is the home of the fortified wine Sherry; Rías Baixas in the northwest region of Galicia that is known for its white wines made from Albariño. The wines of Catalonia include the sparkling wine Cava and the world-class red wine region of Priorat. Spanish Wine Regions German Wine German wine is primarily produced in the country’s west, along the river Rhine and its tributaries. It has about 102,000 hectares (252,000 acres or 1,020 square kilometers) of the vineyard, around one-tenth of the vineyard surface in Spain, France, or Italy. The total wine production is usually around 9 million hectoliters annually, corresponding to 1.2 billion bottles, which places Germany as the eighth largest wine-producing country in the world. White wine accounts for almost two-thirds of the total production. History of German Wine While better known for its beer, Germany is an old-school wine country. Its oldest vineyards date back to the Roman era. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the reputation of these wines had risen above all other wines, including those from Bordeaux and Burgundy. It was only when disease struck Germany’s vineyards in the late 19th century and the two world wars that the wines lost their luster. In the 21st Century, German wine has a mixed reputation in the United States. Some sommeliers believe German wines offer elegance and complexity. However, many others firmly believe German wines to be cheap, mass-market trash that bank on sugary simplicity. Innovations in White Wine Regardless of which camp you are in, there are a few incontrovertible facts about German winemaking. Ever noticed how most white wines –which the notable exception of Chardonnay– are crisp and fresh? That was a German innovation that changed the face of wine forever. Another innovation was the idea of late harvesting, which has had an outsized impact on winemaking across the world. German Red Wines While primarily a white wine country, red wine production surged in the 1990s and early 2000s, primarily fuelled by domestic demand. The proportion of the German vineyards devoted to the cultivation of Pinot Noir –known as Spätburgunder here– has now stabilized at slightly more than a third of the total surface. Austrian Wine A small but essential wine country, full of vibrant whites and savory reds. White Wines Austrian wines are mostly bone-dry white wines with a focus on the Grüner Veltliner grape. While most of the country is focused on austerity, luscious dessert wines are produced around the Neusiedler See. Red Wines The red wines grown in Austria are intriguing and delicious. Despite being a cool climate, about 30% of the wines are red. The principal red wine is Blaufränkisch, also known as Lemberger and Kékfrankos. Other red wines of note are Pinot Noir and Zweigelt. Scandal Austria enjoyed four thousand years of winemaking history. However, that upended in what become known as the “antifreeze scandal” of 1985 when it was revealed that some wine brokers had been adulterating their wines with diethylene glycol. The scandal destroyed the market for Austrian wine, even though no one was injured. However, the scandal has been a force for good in the long term, compelling Austria to tackle low standards of bulk wine production and reposition itself as a producer of quality wines. The country is also home to Riedel, makers of some of the most expensive wine glasses in the world. United States Wine It’s hard to ignore America. We aren’t the largest wine producer, and our history of winemaking is short compared to pretty much everyone else. As individuals, we really don’t drink enough. (although I personally try to make up for the deficit). What we do excel at is how being a huge country with a deep wallet. We buy over 75 billion dollars worth of wine every year. To put that in perspective, we buy more wine annually than the entire GDP of Guatemala. This infusion of cash has allowed American wineries to jump-start our wine trade: it only took us a century to hit our stride. A case in point: If we talked about American wine twenty years ago, we would be talking about Napa and Sonoma. A decade ago, we added Paso Robles and Santa Barbara into the discussion. Now, it would be impossible to talk about American wine without mentioning Oregon’s Willamette Valley, Washington State’s Columbia Valley, and New York’s Finger Lakes. Australian Wine To understand Aussie wines, imagine a roller coaster. For twenty years, the Australians were intent on breaking into the American Market. Then, they slowly pushed that cart uphill by creating a unique wine profile: big jammy and value-driving. Economic Decline By 2006, their wines hit their sales peak. The Aussie brand Yellow Tail was the top-selling wine in America that year, with $621 million in sales. That kangaroo-emblazoned juice was most Americans’ first experience of Australian wines. Sadly, the decline was just as fast. Year after year, sales dropped by around 10% every year since Australia’s imports to the US are below New Zealand, a country that produces less than 25% as many wines. Great Wine Regions For wine lovers, the dimming perception of Aussie wines is a shame. Great wines are hiding behind that great wall of Kangaroo juice. Wine regions like Clare Valley, Margaret River, and the Grampians are some of the greatest in the world. Hopefully, America will wake up from its Shiraz hangover and rediscover Australia soon. South American Wine Regions The two most important South American wine countries are Chile and Argentina. They each import as much wine into the USA as Spain. Chile & Argentina Chile and Argentina have the longest history of winemaking in the Americas. Grapevines were planted in South America by the 16th century, at least a hundred years before Spanish missionaries planted a vineyard in New Mexico (at the time, it was simply Mexico). Wine Styles Stylistically, there has been a lot of cross-pollination with each other and the United States. A contributing factor is that our summers are (literally) polar opposite. For example, winemakers can work harvest in South America in March and then North America in September. Wine regions and types of grapes grown here are expanding at a breakneck speed. A few top picks are Pinot Noir from Chile’s Casablanca Valley and Cabernet Franc from Argentina’s Uco Valley. Wine Courses L1 Online Wine Certification Core (L2/L3) wine Courses Advanced (L4) wine Programs Wine Region Articles Major Wine Regions Wine Regions of the World Italian Wine Regions Spanish Wine Regions Portuguese Wine Regions East Coast Wine Regions The Best East Coast Wineries Terroir of East Coast Wines Best Wineries Near Philadelphia International Wine Regions Austrian Wine REgions Israeli Wine Regions Beaujolais Turkish Wine Regions Swiss Wine Regions Texas Hill Country Vinho Verde The Story of Champagne By Keith Wallace https://j.mp/3BoltK4

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imagine-loki · 7 years ago

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The Powers That Be

TITLE: The Powers That Be

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter Fifty-Three

AUTHOR: wolfpawn ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki discovering a hidden mutant when he realises they are at risk of being found by S.H.I.E.L.D. who experiments on mutants, he is the one to help them.

RATING: Teen and Up

NOTE : Rabarbragot is apparently a Norse rhubarb compote.

'I was giving you time to reflect and miss me.' Alexia grinned as she walked over, looking only at the God while the Avengers stared at her. Finally, she looked around. 'Well, you all look like shit.'

'It looks like Alexia Coulson, sounds like Alexia Coulson, but is that actually Alexia Coulson?' Stark asked concernedly.

'Let us just say, Lady Alexia has somewhat transformed.' Thor grinned before looking at Bálor once more. 'I fear you have bewildered it somewhat.'

Alexia looked up, it was true, the creature was staring at them, perplexed as to why its fire had not harmed a single one of its foes as it had obliterated all previous ones. 'You call that fire?' She scoffed. 'I hiccup more heat than that after Rabarbragot.'

'What's a Rabarbragot?' Barton asked.

'Asgardian desert, not the least bit spicy.' Volstagg answered.

The Avengers looked at her as though she had taken leave of her senses, the only thing that concerned them more than her antagonistic behaviour was the way the Warriors and Thor smirked at the beast in front of them. 'Care to show him how it is done?' Sif goaded.

Alexia gave the being one glance before her attention fell to the side, 'Haven't you learnt your lesson already?' the Avengers and warriors looked to see the large snake eyeing her cautiously from a distance.

'So those marks are from you?' Thor declared, elated that his assumptions were correct.

'Yeah, he and I had a disagreement already, but I was not able to finish him due to constraints, but there are none here.' she smiled wickedly before raising a brow and clicking her fingers together. A moment later, the earth rose in the shape of two arms and hands, gripping tightly around the snake's neck, the way its eyes bulged telling all of the force she was using. Bálor too, took note of what was occurring and let out a deafening roar before attempting again to burn them all. Again the Avengers winced, though this time, the Warriors did not, and again the flames were redundant in Bálor's efforts to harm them. When the flames ceased, some remained, in the shape of Alexia's flame pet once more. 'Pyra.' She smiled fondly and the fox. As though it was a truly sentient creature, it skulked forward at the snake, who was trying to thrash around, unable to as Alexia had used more rocks and earth to bind the rest of its body. Its mouth was wide in an attempt to take in air, allowing the fox to leap in and sit in its lower jaw, looking around curiously. The pain was not entirely evident in the snake, who was busy still trying to breathe. 'Quick question, is its skin good for anything, I mean, can we get some boots from it.'

'Clothing, no.' She looked over to Fandral, 'It does, however, have incredibly good scales for armour.'

She turned to Thor who nodded in agreement before adding some more information himself. 'And I believe the venom is highly useful also.'

'Okay so.' She shrugged before getting Pyra to jump out again. She thought to herself for a moment before smiling. In front of the snake, rose another of earth, just a foot less in diameter. With its mouth open and its eyes filled with terror, the smaller snake easily slid inside. As it went further into the creature, Alexia loosened the grip around its throat to allow her own snake enter, but not enough let it slither free. Down and down the throat of the snake the mud and rock went, the snake gagging in its attempts to stop the inevitable, but it failed to take in a breath and in doing so, with bloodshot eyes, it met its demise and crashed to the earth heavily.

Stunned silence met the death of the snake, everyone looking among themselves before looking to Alexia, who seemed somewhat nonplussed by the situation. She instead, turned her attention to Bálor, who left out a shrill roar of indignation at what he had just witnessed. It seemed to think about the water once more.

'No chance buddy.' Alexia shook her head. With the index and middle finger of her left hand extended, she made a small gesture and immediately the water in the lake began to rise.

'Friday, what...em...how deep?' Stark asked his PA system as he witnessed the scene in front of him.

'Lough Neagh, Ireland's largest lake has a surface area of 392km squared and a volume circa 7.76×1011 imp gallons or 3.528 km cubed, sir.' the machine responded.

'And how much is she lifting right now?' Tony asked.

'All of it sir.'

'Yeah, I thought as much.' He looked over to Alexia, who seemed utterly unbothered by the feat she was performing, not even seeming to pay any heed to the fact she was lifting so much water. 'You've really changed.'

'You have no idea,' Alexia laughed, not even looking at him. Walking forward, the sky darkened as the water filtered the sunlight above them. 'Now, for some fun.' she swirled her hands around and immediately, the earth began to do so around Bálor's feet, trapping him as he was also pulled knee deep into the ground below him. Next, Pyra grew slightly in size and came to her side. 'Come on, show me what you've got.'

'Are you antagonising the King of Demons?' Fandral laughed.

'You're just jealous you haven't the balls to.' Alexia dismissed.

'What do balls have to do with this?' Fandral asked Thor, who was chuckling.

'"Balls" is a Midgardian way to say...' Thor seemed unsure how to tell his friend exactly what was being said.

'Testicles, they're called testicles, I was saying you don't have the testicles to do what I am doing.' Alecia laughed. 'God, it's not that hard to say.'

Sif simply laughed beside her. 'I find myself liking you more and more everytime we battle together.'

'That's because we are both severely underestimated.'

Sif was going to say something in agreement, but Bálor seemed to decide to use the fact Alexia was speaking to try and launch an attack. He forced scorching earth towards the group at high speed, to which Alexia immediately called upon gale force wind to push it back towards the demon. The Avengers stared as, though the wind was clearly blowing around them, they were not the least bit affected by it. Bálor kept pulling his legs free, only for Alexia to continually grip them again in mud and she continued to hold the water up as she did so. They watched as she looked merely like she was giving someone she disliked a glare as she did so. With a final pushing motion, Alexia won the battle of the scorched earth by blasting it back at the demon. Though it did not knock his balance, it did seem to startle the creature.

'You have severely underestimated your enemy.' Thor chuckled at Bálor when the noise had settled again.

'I cannot beat him by myself, I can stop him, not beat him though.' Alexia informed him.

'What do you require to assist?'

'You, charged to the hilt.' Thor gave her a smile. 'I am serious Thor, everything you have, every last volt you can muster, but only when the signal is given.'

Thor frowned, 'Of course, anything that is required of me, but what is this signal you reference?'

Alexia grinned and looked up, Thor following suit. The water she had relocated still above them, but a large hole now in it, and above it, the sky beginning to light up, the Bifrost opening. Light erupted onto the ground just behind the pair, and a moment later, there was a large group of Einherjar, armed and armoured behind them, and in front of them, a fully armed figure holding Gungnir, grinning widely.

#loki #other #submission #Submitted fic #chapter 53 #the powers that be #wolfpawn #discovering #hidden #mutant #risk #S.H.I.E.L.D.#experiments #help

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katalyna-rose · 7 years ago

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for dwc: the trio go skinny dipping under the stars. Drinking and talking about existence? ;))

Drunk on Moonlight

Well, it isn’t DWC anymore, but I wrote it! :D

As always, Thema belongs to @thema-sal-shiral and Lyna belongs to me!

Is bar fighting a content warning?

Lynabalanced three drinks on her hands with the ease of long practice as she madeher way from the bar back to the little table she and her vhenan had claimedfor themselves in a corner of the tavern. As she did so, she blew a strand ofhair out of her face. In order to blend in with the commoners they had allremoved most of the braids, only the most basic duties remaining, and as aresult most of Lyna’s hair was free to tangle and get in her face.

Thecups in her hands were all different sizes, which made carrying theminteresting, especially since it was not their first round. The largest wasThema’s tankard of cider, the largest size the tavern would serve. The smallestwas her own glass of the sweetest enchanted liqueur that would bloom with manyflavors even after she’d swallowed it. In between those sizes was a drink soridiculous that the man making the drinks had given her a strange look. It wasessentially liquefied chocolate mixed with an incredibly strong enchanted liqueur.That one had been expensive enough, the chocolate unusual enough, that thetavern owner had demanded payment up front before the ingredients were evenbrought out.

Lynawas almost back the table and two waiting smiles when a very drunk man passedbehind her and almost made her drop everything she carried by pinching herbackside. She gasped and the drinks wobbled, chocolate spilling over into herdrink and cider ending up on the floor, but she kept her hold on them.

“Don’ttouch me!” Lyna admonished with a scowl, setting down the table and turning toface the intruder. He was grinning, unrepentant, cheeks flushed and ruddy fromhis own drinks.

“Comenow, sweet, I need a few drinks over at my table,” he slurred, leaning closeenough that she could smell the stink of cheap ale on his breath. She leanedaway and pointedly sat in her chair between Thema and Solas.

“I amnot serving,” she told him, leaning on Thema as Solas stood.

“Isuggest you leave,” Solas told him. Lyna leaned close into Thema’s embrace asher arms snaked around her. “You are being incredibly rude to my heart, and noneof us appreciate it.”

Theman looked between Solas, Thema, and Lyna and snorted. “You’re a damn selfishbastard!” he cried. “Takin’ all the pretty ones! Why d’you get two bitches likethat? Bet the one with the purple eyes just wants your money and the blue-eyedslut just wants your dick. Hey, are you two sisters? With all that hair youmight be! That’s hot!”

Lynaclenched her hands on Thema’s arms around her to hold the woman in place, herown jaw clenched so hard her teeth hurt. Lyna was so focused on keeping Themain line that she didn’t realize until far too late that she should have beenworried about her other lover. The first punch flew before anyone could blinkand the drunkard staggered back with a hand on his face. Then he flew into arage.

The drunkenman’s first blow landed only because Solas allowed it to, splitting his lip andcrunching his nose sickeningly. And then he was on the offender, pinning him tothe floor and beating him with only his fists, not even the crackle of magic inthe air around him. The man attempted to fight back but he was unused to handto hand combat. Solas was only as good as he was because Thema had been teachinghim some of her kickboxing techniques, but even if she hadn’t his sheer rageand natural physical power still would have won the fight. As it was, the manwas reduced to a moaning, bleeding lump on the floor of the tavern in verylittle time. Lyna stared, awestruck, as Solas slowly stood and wiped his lip.It was the ultimate insult to assault someone like that, no magic to fightwith, only fists. It was the greatest disrespect the drunk on the floor wouldlikely ever receive and Lyna could hardly believe it had been on her account.

Shestood from Thema’s limp grasp and ran to Solas, the tavern silent around them.She put her hands on his face and healed the damage done by the single punch hehad suffered, his split lip sealing back together with ease. His eyes were wideand dark and he wrapped his arms around her waist as she healed him, chestheaving with exertion and adrenaline, but he said nothing. The moment her magicfaded from him, he crushed her lips under his. She held his face in her handsas he bent her backwards, claiming her eagerly in front of everyone in thetavern.

“You’resuch an idiot,” she whispered to him when he finally released her lips, but shecouldn’t contain her grin.

Behindthem rose a sudden loud whoop and they turned to see Thema grinning andapplauding. “I am so fucking proud of you!” she yelled. She ended up snagged bythe shirtsleeve and had her lips crushed in the same manner that Lyna’s hadbeen, and then he simply held them both.

“Youare my heart,” he told them while the drunk on the floor attempted to crawlaway. “I could not allow such insults to you.”

Lynawas speechless, flushed and flustered, but Thema was grinning and stilllaughing as she threw her arms around them both. “Yeah, I know,” she told him.The low murmur of the voices in tavern gained volume as the owner walked overto them.

“Thethree of you need to leave,” he said, glowering. All three of them picked uptheir drinks and chugged them down. Then Solas left a few extra coins on thetable, presumably as an apology for the mess of blood on the floor. As theystepped past the drunk on the floor again, Thema gave him a good kick to thekidney and made him curl into the fetal position with a choked moan. The snapof the tavern owner’s angry magic followed them out into the street.

Solassighed fondly. “It’s been quite a while since I ended up kicked out of atavern,” he said, gazing at the decisively closed door through the haze of his buzzand adrenaline high. Thema laughed.

“Soit’s happened before?” she asked. Lyna stayed silent, holding onto them both asthey all wandered away from the tavern at the edge of a small town at the edgeof her territory, streetlamps and moonlight guiding them.

“Ohyes,” Solas admitted easily, wrapping an arm around each of them. “Before I metthe two of you, I spent a fair amount of time in places like that, gettingdrunk and often ending up with a barmaid on her back in the storeroom. I wouldcelebrate victories as Mythal’s general that way.”

“Andyou’re just so responsible now,” Lyna muttered, making them both burst outlaughing. She smiled to herself, pleased, as she received a sloppy kiss on theside of her head. Her final drink was beginning to hit her and the world waspleasingly hazy around her.

“Hardly!”Solas chortled. “But I am, perhaps, more stable now, thanks in large part tothe two of you.”

Themasnorted. “As if!” she cried, tugging them down a random road away from town. “I’mprobably more irresponsible than either of you! The only reason we’re not alldead is probably Lyna.”

“Oh,thank you!” Lyna said sarcastically. “I always wanted to be a mother to two fully-grownpeople who should know better and are also having sex with me regularly!” Allthree of them doubled over laughing in the street.

Theshimmer of a large lake glimmered between the buildings and Lyna tugged themboth toward it. They followed easily, still joking and relaxed together,pleasantly drunk. When they reached the water, Lyna found a hidden stretch ofbeach and sat down, staring out at the water.

“Hey!”Thema suddenly cried far too loudly. “Let’s go swimming!” Solas chuckled.Before anyone could stop her, she stood and began to strip.

“Thema!”Lyna cried. “Are you just going to go swimming naked? What if someone sees?”

“Noone’s around,” Thema retorted. “It’s the middle of the night and everyone is athome or drinking. Come on! It’ll be fun!”

WhileLyna was focused on Thema, Solas managed to sneak up on her and yank off her shirt.Thema chortled while Lyna gasped. “Fine! Fine,” she laughed, failing completelyto maintain her previous air of offended responsibility. They all threestripped down and left their clothing in a pile on the sand, then waded intothe lake. Thema splashed her and Lyna splashed back, which resulted in a waterfight with a lot of screeching and giggling. Solas attempted to stay out of itand merely watch, but Lyna swam underwater to escape Thema’s constant wave ofwater and yanked his feet out from under him.

Whenshe surfaced Thema was clutching herself and laughing so hard she was wheezing.Solas looked like a drowned rat, his hair hanging in his face and a glower thatquickly changed to mischief as he suddenly threw kelp in her face. Shescreeched and tackled him in the water. Somehow Thema ended up between her bodyand Solas’s as the three of them wrestled in the water.

Hourslater, when they were all exhausted and their skin was pruning, they lay on thebeach together and counted the stars. Lyna was still feeling her buzz fromearlier and suspected that the others were as well, but gentle fingers weretrailing over her skin and she suspected her hands were busy as well but couldn’tbe bothered to check. She was exhausted and happy, sand and kelp in her hairand her lovers beside her.

“It’samazing that no matter where you go, assholes are everywhere,” Thema said aftera while. It wasn’t angry, merely contemplative and resigned.

“Iwill never allow anyone to objectify either of you,” Solas vowed, voice strongand certain. Lyna felt a flutter in her belly, love blooming in her chest.

“Icould have forgiven him if he had not involved the two of you,” Lyna said,voice dreamy and far away. Thema snorted.

“That’sexactly why he ended up on the ground,” she said. “You’re our heart and we’llnever let anyone treat you like that again. You’ve been through enough. Neveragain.”

“Ilove you both so much,” Lyna sighed happily.

“Weare one heart,” Solas said softly. “We will always care for each other.” Lynagrinned and took their hands in hers. In this way, relaxed and tired and stillbuzzed, they passed the night, hair and skin drying in the cool breeze and thestars wheeling above them.

#katalyna writes #thema/lyna/solas #thema-sal-shiral

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not-just-any-fangirl · 8 years ago

Text

Days Of Summer CH 4

A/N; Four weeks running, it’s a new record! Me and @hannah-nobody are super glad all you are enjoying this so much, we too love our awkward and emo Natsu! It’s fun trying to write his complex character, cocky and loud while also doubting of his place with others. Plus, who wasn’t melodramatic in their late teens?

Not to mention we get to explore some really interesting friendships! Lucy and Gajeel anyone?

Here’s the updated playlist!

Summer has arrived, and with it the start of the two month long music camp; Fairy Tail! Full of new songs, friends, and adventures, the campers learn things they never knew about themselves and one another. And just how easy it is to sneak booze and a full sized karaoke machine out into the middle of the woods.

Camp Rock!AU

Pairing: Nalu, Gajevy, Gruvia, others mentioned; Fairy Tail

Words: 6994

Rating: T

Parts: Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven

Chapter Four: Stuck In The Middle

'Cause

Someday things will be perfect

It will be worth it all this time

Stuck in the middle

Natsu let the ice pack fall onto the bed. His cheek still hurt like a bitch, but at least it wasn’t throbbing anymore. Fuck, he had almost forgotten how strong Erza was. Natsu snorted as he thought about how he should have one of those ‘certain number of days since last incident’ posters in their cabin. Actually, it would be a miracle if they even got to day 1 on that thing. Gajeel glared at him, split lip and a light bruise on his cheek showing Erza had punished him as much as she had Natsu.

“Would ya quite makin’ all that fuckin’ noise?”

“I snorted.” Natsu defended sourly.

“And now yer talkin’.” Gajeel snarled back.

“Go fuck yourself Gear Head.” Natsu grumbled, jumping down from his bunk without the help of the ladder. He stood from his slight crouch, whipping a pillow he stole from Gray’s bunk at Gajeel, who in turn batted it away with the back of his hand to where it landed in a cobwebbed corner. What a shame.

“If yer headin’ out try not and stalk Bunny Girl, got it? Me and Lily don't need to hafta keep separating you and Ice Tits. Also don't need to explain to yer old man why you sent a kid to the hospital in yer first week of camp.” Gajeel didn't bother looking at Natsu as he spoke, instead scribbling in his notebook that he liked to hide under his mattress.

“Thinking that hard won't help your headache.” Natsu commented, grinning at the low snarl his cousin gave him and the distracted bird he was flipped. “And you might wanna try that in G minor rather than A major. It'll get that ‘secretly happy’ sound instead of ‘obviously happy’ that you're allergic to.”

Gajeel grunted in response, Natsu rolling his eyes when he heard rushed erasing and rewriting.

“And let me know if you need any help with words that rhyme with shortie.”

“Fuck off Strawberry.”

Natsu ducked out the screen door, snorting at the loud ‘thump’ that signaled that Gajeel had thrown something at his back. And missed.

He fought back a small grin as he slipped in his earphones. He knew for a fact that Gajeel had a pretty deadly aim when he wanted to. As much as he and Gajeel fought, at least he knew his jackass of a cousin would be in his corner. And Happy too for that matter, but Natsu could always rely on his little friend.

Natsu thumbed through his playlists on his old iPod, the silver back scratched to shit and the generation so old it no longer updated. Natsu had gotten this for his eighth birthday, Igneel having saved up for the surprise for months. Natsu settled on the playlist titled ‘Life is Stupid’ humming along as the opening bars of The Anthem by Good Charlotte blasted in his ears.

He walked slowly as he followed the gravel path from the cabin area to the main camp, letting his mind drift off into fantasies of talking to Lucy. He became more depressed as each time it ended in Lucy running away in disgust as she remembered him, not even able to pretend in his own mind that she would want him. Wasn’t that just fucking pathetic.

Natsu groaned and kicked at a stone in front of him, sending it skipping through the grass beside the trail and into a bush. She had called him her friend, though, so that meant she didn’t hate him, right? Or had she just been yelling at Gray? Natsu had to admit, it was stupidly easy to yell at Mr. My Face Begs To Be Punched.

Dragging his hand along his face Natsu clicked the skip button attached to his headphones until heavy drums flooded his brain, overbearing as it drowned out his own thoughts. He absently fixed his dark grey beanie covering his stupid hair. This was fine. Natsu was fine. Lucy didn’t need to know, and if she didn’t know, she couldn’t laugh in his face. Natsu kicked a larger pebble, sending it arcing through the air and rolling along the path a few feet in front of him. Lucy was too sweet to laugh at him, but she could still reject him. A cold pit lodged itself in his gut, similar to the time that he had been cornered by his teacher and forced to read from the stupid playbook in English class.

Natsu still had nightmares.

The song faded out, Natsu barely registering the change as he walked past the climbing wall. While Fairy Tail was a music camp, they did offer some traditional activities for their campers such as lake sports, archery, and the 30-foot tall climbing wall, to name a few. The camp had other activities, but Natsu’s focus drifted as he caught sight of the mess hall. The two-story building was made entirely out of giant wood logs, large glass windows breaking up the light brown colour all around the building. While the roof was domed inside for acoustics, the camp had kept up with the outdoorsy aesthetic and the outside was a mess of sharp angles and triangles for the roof and over each window.

It had been like this for as long as Natsu could remember, and he felt a part of his anxiety wash away at the familiar sight. It was nice to know that some things would never change, Fairy Tail being one of them.

He debated grabbing a cinnamon swirl cookie -a signature of the camp- but chose not to, continuing on his path. Natsu passed groups of kids walking by, laughing and talking and being more social than Natsu felt up to. He kept his chin up, though, confidence leaking into him by being surrounded by the comforting sights and smells. Fairy Tail was basically a second home for him, and he was good at what he did here.

Natsu drummed his fingers along his stomach in time with a guitar riff, hands inside the large center pocket of the hoodie he had thrown on before leaving. He finally passed the second largest building at camp, making his way along the path that led towards the largest one, the open faced stage where they would perform at the end of each week. Natsu closed his eyes as he remembered the feeling of standing on the stage, heart pounding along with the heavy drum beat, fingertips almost numb from the strings on his guitar as he performed. Light flashed in his mind, the roar of the crowd overwhelming and euphoric at the same time.

He was going to sing this year, Natsu decided as he opened his eyes. No more playing guitar in the background. Besides, there was no going back now; Natsu had already checked off the ‘singer’ box alongside ‘guitarist’ when sending his application in the winter.

God, Natsu was going to puke.

His palms became clammy as he thought of standing center stage, a weird mix of nausea and excitement that had Natsu thankful he hadn’t wasted any of his food allowance on that cookie.

Natsu paused as he passed the break in the trees that led to the field in front of the auditorium stage, his feet moving him without permission. Before he knew it he was standing in the open area where everyone had gathered before for the welcoming ceremony, the space far more intimidating and surreal without the masses of campers and staff filling in the wood bench risers.

His iPod switched songs again, Natsu singing along more passionately now that he was alone.

“Condemned to be forever unable,

To give this stupid thing the time that it deserves,

I heard a proud few when the windows were gone,

All singing the same time to separate songs.”

Natsu tilted his head back as he sang at the clear sky, sun warm as it bore down on him. His voice carried through the empty clearing. Natsu got to the skirt of the stage, his voice becoming strained as he hauled himself up with his arms. He rested on his knees, feet hanging off the stage as he looked it over.

Aged but polished metal followed the curving ceiling to the center point 30 feet in the air, braces for the booms mounted against them and wires wrapping through the metal lattices until they reached the bars at every third of the dome. The space between the start of the roof and the stage itself was just tall enough for a person over Gajeel’s height to walk through, greenery of the forest peeking through the mess of metals and wires and sound equipment. Natsu ran a hand over the rough wooden stage floor, taking in the feel of it. How many people had performed here, found their love and passion for music on this stage?

He stood, wandering to the center of 20 by 16 foot platform. He turned in a tight circle, breathing in the fresh air with a deep inhale. Natsu's eyes fell shut as he relived last year’s final performance, the lights and the crowd in his mind shifting to what he imagined performing at a rock concert would be, adrenaline pounding and the music burning in his soul. His hands pantomimed holding Fev, fingers tracing the cords from memory in the air as he played along to the music blasting in his ears.

As the music faded out he raised his hands in the hair, basking in the echo of the applause of his memories. He remembered looking out into the cheering crowd, that feeling of utter elation building and building with the volume of the cheers, and the pride in the faces of Erza and Makarov and Gildarts and… that one empty chair.

Natsu dropped his arms as though his puppet strings had finally been cut loose. Another song began in his ears, but he ripped earbuds out before the words even started. He stared at that spot, row f, seat 14. Empty now and empty then. No matter how much the crowd screamed, how good could he possibly be if his own father couldn’t spare the time to come see him play?

He knew it was stupid. Igneel had been out saving lives, why should he stop to hear a cover of a song he’d already heard a hundred times. His work was much more important, and Natsu understood that. Igneel has promised he would get the day off to come see his performance at the final ceremony this year, so he’d just have to make it so amazing that last years didn’t even bare to think about. Natsu clenched his fist around his iPod. He could do it, he could find the perfect song.

But still, the task was daunting.

Frustrated with his own self doubt, Natsu jammed his headphones back in his ears and flicked through his iPod until he found the perfect motivational song. Something to burn his self doubt into shreds. He debated Work Bitch- but then skipped it for shame of hiding Britney under ‘Unknown Artist’ should someone ever browse his most treasured possession- before eventually settling on a song that was 75% certain to make Gajeel disown him if he ever found out he listening to something so not-death-metal-ish.

He pressed play, turned the volume to its fullest and took as deep breath as the intro kicked in. A thought struck him and he dashed to the side of the stage, desperate to find the necessary props for this once in a lifetime solo performance before the vocals kicked in. He grabbed a mic stand someone had been generous enough to leave an unplugged mic in and rushed back to centre stage. He had a second to compose himself before he took the mic in his right hand and shoved his iPod in his back pocket, leaving his other hand free to perform Dramatic Emotive Gestures.

“I don’t remember the morning I tried to forget,

I lost myself and it’s better not said

Now I’m closer, to, the edge,”

Natsu pointed at that empty fucking chair with all the grace of 2009 Jared Leto he could muster. He imaged the camera right by his face, the lights, the crowd, the band behind him. He gritted his teeth as he sang for full scale emotional intensity.

“It was a thousand to one and a million to two

Time to go down in flames and i'm taking you

Closer. To. The. Edge.”

He fully enunciated every word as though he’d never once stuttered speaking to a stranger or a pretty blonde girl. As though this was his stage and his song and he fucking owned this.

“No I’m not saaaaaaaaying, I’m soooooooorry,

One day, maybe we’ll meet again.”

He screamed the words into the mic because they did they did meet again and he wasn’t sorry for that not one bit and by God he wasn’t going to mess it up this time. He ripped the mic from the stand as he finished the chorus, kicking the stand away in the process so he was unhindered as the next verse began and he stepped forward calmly to sing about dreams and music and falling and getting back up and fuck he loved this song Gajeel be damned.

He punched his fist into the air with every no he sung into the mic. He closed his eyes and for a second he was there. The crowd was there with him, punching their fists into the air in time with his own. His throat was tingling as he held the note and he could feel the heat of the lights on him as he plucked at his imaginary guitar strings during the bridge. By the time the song came to the close he finally opened his eyes and he could tell his voice was hoarse as the song finished.

“Closer to, the edge.”

Natsu laughed to himself as he whipped the sweat from his brow and removed his headphones… to the sound of applause.

A single applause. Natsu looked up in horror to find the scantily clad brunette from earlier that had groped Lucy’s… that had groped Lucy. Cana.

“Hhhooo boy!” She shouted from her seat in the back row, “Well, damn. I sure am on the edge of somethin’!”

Even from this distance Natsu spotted her wink. For the second time in an hour, he was sure he was gonna puke.

Gajeel lifted his eyes from the ninth thick line of crossed out lyrics, cocking his head to the side as he listened. If he didn't know any better, he would have sworn that was his dumbass cousin’s voice faintly forcing its way into his cabin.

Had Natsu gotten his hands on a fucking megaphone?

Gajeel closed his eyes, concentrating on what the hell the words were supposed to be. No way...

Gajeel was going to get his hands on Natsu's iPod and delete everything pre 2010, that boy needed to stop living in his emo past. And he said Gajeel had bad taste in music.

“Yer owner’s such a fuckwit he probably doesn't even know the mics on.” Gajeel said to the bundle of blue fur curled into the crook of his knee. Happy lifted his head and blinked at Gajeel slowly, meowing loudly before tucking back into a fuzzy ball. “Ya get me.” He nodded to himself, rubbing a knuckle between Happy’s ears fondly, the small cat’s low purr sparking the cat resting on Gajeel's head to begin to purr as well.

With a low curse Gajeel turned his attention back to the pad of paper in front of him. He couldn't even get a measly line down, and he was getting close to just digging through Gray's bags for a lighter and setting the entire fucking building on fire. Notebook included.

He'd save the instruments.

Probably.

Probably not his roommates though.

Gajeel settled for whipping the pencil across the room, sticking lead first between the paneling. Gajeel nodded to himself. Metal as fuck.

Panther Lily meowed in approval.

Happy didn't care. But Gajeel couldn't blame the cat, he probably had brain damage from listening to Natsu blubber over Lucy for months.

Gajeel pulled another pencil from behind his ear, two others pushed into the knot he had put his hair in to get it out of his face. He bit sharply on the end, pencil eraser gone so all he got was the sharp tang of metal and the satisfying crunch of the fake wood.

Maybe that was where his writer's block was coming from. Natsu had been getting his inspiration from love and flowers and other disgusting things so where was he, a true artist with an aversion to love songs, meant to gleam some ideas from? The sky?

Oh the sky looks so blue, he thought, just like your hair. The sun is her headband.

Gajeel sat up straight. No. This would not do. If he started singing about love- an emotion which he had never, for the record, experienced ever- what would he start singing about next? Laughter? Friendship? The joy of learning???

Yeah fucking right.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. This was just a classic case of Overexposure. To Natsu, that is. That moron was so lovey-dovey Gajeel wouldn’t be surprised if he woke in the night to find the hothead kissing his pillow. No, he had to distance himself so that his symptoms wouldn’t worsen. No doubt the idiot would be on his way back any moment now once he’d realised the true scale of his embarrassment.

Gajeel decided to take a walk and stay clear of the drama.

He untangled Lily from his head, holding the black cat in one hand as he scooped the blue one in his other hand. Both meowed in complaint of being moved, limp in his hands as he stood from the bed. He rolled his eyes when he watched them snuggle deeper into the pillow he placed them on, Happy crawling on top of Lily before falling back asleep.

If Gajeel was less of a badass he'd call them cute. But he wasn't, so he shoved his notepad under the thin mattress, grabbed his noise canceling headphones, slung them around his neck as he grabbed his phone and threw open the front door to the cabin.

He was stopped from fully exiting, however, when he bumped into something. He looked around, confused as to what had blocked him.

“Oh um, hello,” a light voice said. Gajeel narrowed his eyes at empty space in front of his face. It was like if he thought about her she just appeared.

“Whatcha want, Shrimp?” Gajeel asked, feeling his lips crack into an unauthorized smile as he looked down. Levy pouted at the -very clever, Gajeel thought- nickname, hands fisting on her hips.

“I have a name you know.” She said pointedly, glaring at Gajeel as she leaned forward. Heh, it was cute how she tried to intimidate him.

Wait.

No. She wasn't cute. Gajeel didn't think anything was cute.

“Yeah. Yer name’s ‘Shrimp’.” Gajeel smirked, patting a hand on her head. Shit, she barely reached his ribcage when he flattened her hair. But damn if it didn't feel soft against his fingers.

“You're messing up my hair!” Levy complained, swatting at his hand. Gajeel it took back with a shrug, grin widening when she muttered as she fixed her bright yellow headband, the colour loud against her bright blue hair. Gajeel wondered if she dyed it. “Dummy.”

“So what brings ya callin’? Need someone to lift you to reach the high shelf?” He teased. She blushed in irritation, huffing as Levy tried to think of a comeback.

“No.” She said, pausing again as she bit her lip. “I was looking for Lucy, and I thought she might be with Gray and Loke. But it looks like they're not here.”

“Well why the hell am I ‘posed to know where those idiots are?” Gajeel questioned, a heavy stone sitting in his gut at Levy’s disappointed face, her frail shoulders dropping.

“We were supposed to go explore the camp together.” Levy said, voice almost a nasally whine. She gave another heavy sigh, slipping her hands into the pockets of her shorts, white cloth peaking out from the short cargo coloured pants. Gajeel thought it was pretty stupid that her pockets were longer than her actual shorts, but he also wasn’t about to tell that to Levy;s face when he could get an eyeful of thigh. Not that Gajeel was looking. Because he wasn’t.

He wasn’t.

“Well if ya promise to not bug me too much I can give you a tour ‘till we find Bunny Girl.” Gajeel grunted, shifting awkwardly on his feet. Why had he done that? The whole point of leaving the cabin was to not think about pretty girls.

Holy fuck he was going to fucking kill Natsu with one of the strings from that stupid red guitar.

“What?” Levy asked, brown eyes wide like a doe’s. Gajeel grunted again, walking past her and down the path.

“It was just a thought.” He said, ducking his head as he lifted his headphones over his ears. Maybe that would hide their burning colour.

“No, no, wait! Thank you, I’d- I’d appreciate that!” Levy called, hurrying to walk beside him. Gajeel looked from the corner of his eye, hesitating before pulling the headphones back to where they wrapped around the back of his neck, tucked under his bun. He stuffed his hands into his jeans, thumbnail rubbing along the pick he kept in his left pocket.

They walked in silence, nerves finally making Gajeel want to punch a tree. This was stupid. He was stupid. What did it matter that he could pick Levy up with one hand, or that she was showing what was probably an obscene amount of skin for a summer camp. Were the rips in the back of her tank top really necessary? Even if they looked metal...

He paid more attention to Levy as they wound their way through the cabin area. Her eyes were focused directly ahead, eyebrows set in concentration. She was taking almost three steps for every step he took. And that was fucking hilarious.

“Havin’ trouble there, Shrimp?” Gajeel asked, widening his stride. He wondered if he could make her run to keep up.

“Well not all of us are so blessed in the height department.” Levy snapped, irritated scowl pulling down her full lower lip and making the bridge of her nose bunch. She gasped when she noticed his longer strides, swatting at his chest with the back of her hand in an offended motion. “You’re doing this on purpose!” She accused, stopping in her spot and crossing her arms to glare at Gajeel.

“Gihii, I don’t know whatcha talkin’ ‘bout Shrimp.” Gajeel drawled, scratching the side of his face as he looked her over. “Ain’t my fault ya got some size envy.”

Levy’s glare finally made a shiver crawl along his spine, and a thought crossed his mind that Levy could very well kick his ass is she wanted to. He had no idea how, but it still felt very true. “I mean, I’m sure bein’ so small could come in handy. Like communicating with the mice that make your clothes.” Gajeel bit his tongue. Why couldn’t he stop teasing her?

“Are you calling me Cinderella or referencing a children’s book?” Levy asked, suspicious as she slowly walked back to his side.

“Uh,” Gajeel stumbled over his words. Shit. “No?”

“Because that book was my favourite when I was a kid,” Levy hummed, tone suddenly light as they began walking again. “I think it was called Everything For Something? Or was it Nothing From Someone?” Levy hummed, tapping a finger on her lips as she spoke. Gajeel twitched with each improper title. Obviously, it was Something From Nothing, but he wasn’t about to say that. He shrugged instead, focusing on the few birch trees in between the maple and harlequin trees, their white and peeling bark standing out in the sea of green.

“Oh well, I’m sure it’ll come to me.” Levy pouted, put out by being unable to trip up Gajeel. He began to pick at the flaking design on his guitar pick in his pocket as silence fell over them again. Why did he care if it was awkward? He didn’t, because that would A; mean he cared at all -which he didn't- and B; that Gajeel felt awkward, which he definitely didn’t. He also didn’t want to hear Levy laugh. She probably snorted like the nerd she was for knowing that reference.

“So how’d ya know Erza?” he asked instead of keeping his fat mouth shut. Maybe he should pick up his bad habit of chewing on his necklace. At least then his fucking voice wouldn’t crack. Not that it cracked. Because Gajeel was past puberty, obviously.

He didn’t know how but he blamed Natsu.

“Oh, I take Judo with Erza, and she teaches a self-defence class I go to sometimes.” Levy said easily. At least Gajeel knew his self preservation instincts were right, if she was in the same class as Erza then she could take his ass in an instant.

“I haven’t seen ya around the city. Though I guess I wouldn’t be looking so close to the ground to notice, gihii-urgh.” Gajeel said, smirk falling as she elbowed him in the spleen. Damn did she have pointy elbows, but Gajeel couldn’t let her know that, so he kept walking, ignoring the throbbing and inability to breath.

“I’m not even that short!” Levy defended.

“Are you over five foot?” Gajeel asked, peering down at her expectantly.

“Four ten and a half.” Levy grumbled under her breath, huffing and looking away when Gajeel cackled loudly. “Shut up. How do you know Erza, anyway? Judging by the way you ran at lunch I’d say you two know each other pretty well.”

Gajeel grit his teeth when he remembered the fiasco that had been completely his cousin’s fault. And his roommates for that matter. “We’ve both been regulars at camp for a couple years, my pink haired dumbass of a cousin too, and we go to East Hill together. If ya think she’s a terror here you don’t even know what she’s like as student president.” Gajeel shivered as he remembered their pep rallies, attendance not optional. “I don’t know how Juvia manages to wring her in.”

Gajeel and Juvia had come up through the same middle school class, both part of a local gang that Juvia’s uncle had run. Igneel had tried to step in, but with Metalicana serving overseas as an army mechanic there had been little chance of Gajeel listening to him. They had both finally left together just before a big bust sent Juvia’s uncle to jail and her on the street, then Gajeel’s house. She had found solace in musical theater while Gajeel had reconnected with Natsu and Igneel, even if he’d never admit to his cousin how much he had helped him. Now Gajeel was set to graduate his metalshop program with honours next year, and Juvia wouldn’t stop bugging him and Natsu to join band and work in the pit for her last performance. As if Gajeel was gonna go anywhere near Erza and her obsession with the stage, even if she was only the stage manager.

“Wow, it seems like everyone here knows one another,” Levy sighed, the two now wandering through the outdoor activity stations. Gajeel raised a pierced eyebrow as he noticed the arrows and bows just laying in the field. Who was the genius that left those out?

“We get new people every year,” he said gruffly, inspecting an arrow off the ground. “Like Bunny Girl and those the dumbass she brought with her.”

“How come you call her Bunny Girl?” Levy asked, wandering to the next station that held bocce balls and lawn markers.

“‘Cus she looks ‘bout as scary as a cotton tailed rabbit.” Gajeel said, head snapping to Levy when he heard a light snicker. Her hand covered her mouth but her dark eyes were dancing, and Gajeel grinned proudly. He'd managed to make her laugh.

“Don't let her hear you say that.” Levy warned, wagging a finger at Gajeel even as she returned his shit eating grin -as his father liked to remind him every time they saw one another. “I'm sure it takes a lot of skill to herd Loke, Gray, and Cana. They're like cats.”

Gajeel scoffed. “Don't insult cats like that.”

Levy laughed openly, clasping her hands behind her back as they wandered past the rock wall and along the path that would lead them to the rehearsal studios. “You're right,” she hummed.

“Hey! I see Juvia!” She said suddenly, gripping Gajeel's wrist as she began a light trot. Gajeel blinked dumbly down at where her tiny hand half encircled his wrist, just above the spike wristband he wore, because it was metal.

“Uh,” he said, like even more of an idiot, letting Levy drag him to where Juvia had begun to wave. He noticed how her hair bounced with each step, light and easily caught in the breeze as it fluttered around her headband. Gajeel was reminded how blue was his favourite colour.

Fuck.

Natsu wondered if he jumped off the stage if the five feet would be enough to kill him.

Probably not.

He debated trying it anyway as Cana sauntered down the steps. Natsu yanked at his headphones, stuffing them in what was already a knotted mess of wires into his hoodie pocket, hands following after he placed the mic on the ground as he tried to will himself to disappear. “So tell me, how’d you switch personalities like that?” Cana asked as she made her way to the stage, crossing her arms on the edge of the elevated floor and looking up at him. “One minute you're the dictionary definition of ‘needs a hug but doesn’t know how to ask for one’ and the next you’re Mr. Rock God, owning the stage like it’s your bitch.”

Natsu choked on his spit, taking a hand out of it’s safety nest to pull his beanie further down his face. Maybe if he just prayed really hard a meteor would fall from the sky, killing him instantly. When a few seconds passed with no such divine intervention, Natsu released the breath he’d been holding and peeked at Cana, who now sat on the edge of the stage, one knee bent as an armrest and the other hanging off the old wood. She raised an eyebrow as more silence passed by them, taking a sip from a flask she had gotten from... somewhere.

“The music, I guess.” Natsu mumbled, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. He knew that Cana was close to Lucy now, and whatever hope he had of not being a total idiot in front of her was gone. Her and Cana were probably going to laugh about it for hours. And Loke. And Gray too, probably.

Fuck.

Maybe he’d just live in the woods for the rest of camp.

“Well you should get that confidence with whatever you do. I haven’t heard someone sing with that much raw talent for years.” Cana said instead, and Natsu almost choked on his spit, again. He stalled under her unexpectedly serious look, head tilted forward as her mouth followed her lowered flask. “It suits you.”

Natsu was struck by the sudden family resemblance between her and Gildarts. The old man had been Natsu’s mentor the last few times he’d been at Fairy Tail, Natsu always feeling easy around him like he did with his own father. He didn’t know why, but seeing the same eyes staring at him from the semi-drunk teenager both calmed and unnerved him.

‘Um, thanks.” Natsu said.

“No prob!” Cana smiled, back to her early cocky smirk. “‘Sides, Lucy loves guys that look like they know what they’re doing, and you have the right amount of innocent virgin that’ll take her off her guard.”

Natsu flushed deeply, stuttering over harsh denials at Cana’s vague hand movements that gestured to, well, him. “I-, I mean I’m not not but I d-don’t see, I- fuckin’ alcoholic!” he finally spat out, glaring at the ground as he hopped from the stage, hands stuffed back into his pocket in fists. His glare snapped to her as she cackled loudly.

“Holy shit, if you could see your face! Relax buddy, no one cares here, duh. It’s a stupid social construct anyway, no need to get your panties in a bunch.” Cana waved off, patting him roughly on the back as she followed suit and pushed off the stage, walking towards the entrance to the arena.

Natsu debated turning on his heel and disappearing to go find a nice cliff to throw himself off of, but decided against it. Who would take care of Fev? Happy was sure to find a good home with one of his cousins, but his guitar? He wouldn’t trust her with anyone but himself.

“Yknow,” Cana began, pulling him from his thoughts, “your performance actually reminded me of someone.”

Natsu raised an eyebrow.

“Who?”

Cana opened her mouth to answer the question, but was interrupted by a very loud, very abrupt, distinctly red-headed-

“YOU THERE! HALT!”

Cana cursed to herself before springing up and grabbing Natsu by the scarf.

“Run for your life you virginal Jared Leto!”

Natsu fought for breath as Cana pulled him along, his feet complying with the harsh jolt from the rest of his body. He glanced behind them just as they slipped backstage to see two people,��one with ‘Camp Enforcer’ written on her megaphone in sharpie, running down the steps towards the stage.

Why did he not check the mic was on?!

Eventually Cana let go of him to fumble with the dock on a stage side door. Her steady hand surprised him considering he was pretty sure that flask she'd had not five minutes ago was now empty. Within seconds they were out the door and barricading it behind them.

They ran for another five minutes. Making sure she-who-shall-not-be-named was no longer in pursuit. Cana found the whole endeavor quite hilarious. Natsu, however, was shitting himself. Even if Erza hadn't caught him now, there was no doubt she'd recognized his voice. She would come for him. Maybe not now. Maybe not later. But soon.

She would find him.

Natsu gulped.

“Anyway, what was I saying again?” Cana asked as though they hadn't just finished running for their lives.

“Something about my performance remind you of someone?”

“Oh yeah!”

“Please don't say Gray,” Natsu cut in, “I couldn't live with myself.”

“Oh no, you don't wear nearly enough eyeliner.”

“I don't wear any eyeliner.”

“That's not the point here,” Cana waved her hand flippantly and pulled another, different flash from- well, it had to be thin air bc the girl had no pockets. Or y’know, an actual shirt.

And then she surprised him even more.

“You reminded me of Lucy.”

Natsu froze.

“WHAT?!”

“Have you ever seen her perform.” She insisted, “And I don't mean that fancy-smanshy graceful piano playing- I mean really perform.”

“I-I've never even heard her sing.”

“Well first of all, you're missing out. But second of all,” Cana smiled to herself, “About a year ago Lucy had this huge argument with her Dad. I can't even remember what it was about but fuck- she stayed at my house for a full week. Then all of a sudden, she just went home. Said everything was fine. Loke found out she'd signed up to the talent show the next day, and eventually she all asked for our help in putting her act together. But it was her act. It was the first time she ever went solo.”

Natsu listened with interest, not quite understanding where Cana was going with this.

“She invited her dad. Reserved the best seat in the house for him. And by God, that was the best ‘fuck you’ performance I've ever seen in my life.”

“What did she do?” He was a little afraid to ask.

“She sang Not Ready To Make Nice by the Dixie Chicks and man, country was so unexpected but fuck if she didn't work it.” Cana looked up at the sky, awe in her eyes as she relived the performance. “Played her violin as even more of an ‘in your face, Dad’ point and damn if I didn’t cry tears of joy watching that angry little blonde seeth into the microphone and play her violin to a non classical song. The audience broke into the loudest applause of the night, even if her dad refused to pay for her music lessons afterwards.”

Natsu stumbled over a stone. “He stopped her from playing and singing because she was mad at him?” Natsu asked, horrified. He and Igneel had gotten into a few screaming matches about his attitude when he was younger, sure, but the thought that Igneel would ever deny him a part of himself, Natsu just couldn’t imagine a parent doing that.

“Pssh, as if. Nah, Lucy used the allowance she had been saving and applied for scholarships for the programs. Got in too, when she proved that her father refused to support her.” Cana brushed off, turning over the empty flask and pouting as it solidified her lack of prohibited drink.

“Oh,” Natsu said. Real smart. Cana’s telling him about a major moment in Lucy’s life and all he can say is ‘oh’. Still better than being caught by Erza though, so Natsu would take it. He looked around as they met the main path that led in a loop around camp, pale gravel reassuring as it meant he was only a few minutes away from being able to hide in his cabin for the next 48 hours.

“Shit.”

Natsu was being yanked by his scarf -again- before he could ask what Cana had seen, forced to look at the bulletin board that would house the weeks’ themes once they were released. Right now though, it held bulletins for school opportunities, programs, concerts, scholarships, and dead center; a poster for a karaoke night happening at the camp fire after sundown tomorrow.

“You two! Have you seen anyone run by here?” A voice called behind them, Natsu feeling his soul try to escape via puking and every nerve in his body fighting between ‘run for your life’ or ‘lay down and accept your fate’.

“No idea what you’re talkin’ ‘bout Erza,” Cana drawled, perfectly playing the clueless camper role. “But if you see who had just been singing tell them congrats on the record deal quality voice.”

Natsu blushed at the compliment, hands fisted tight in his pockets and struggling to concentrate on the board. There was no way she meant that. Natsu had an average level voice, at best. Now, if he could show off his guitar skills, then maybe she would tell Lucy about it...

“I will tell them that the stage is off limits territory when not during an event.” Erza snapped, obviously irritated at missing her victims. Aka, Natsu. “What are you two doing here anyway?” she asked, squinting when Natsu finally turned to look at her over his shoulder.

“Just checking out the opportunities on the board!” Natsu said, voice cracking and sending him burrowing into his scarf.

“Yeah, I was just convincing Natsu here to do karaoke night! Can't keep all this talent hidden behind a dumbass beanie!” Cana added eagerly, slinging an arm around his shoulders and somehow dislodging his ‘dumbass’ hat. Natsu squawked as he lunged for the grey beanie, too late to do anything else but clutch it to his chest.

“Damn! What bet did you lose?” Cana guffawed. Natsu shrank under her laughter and tried to elbow her arm off his shoulders. Why was she the same height as him?

“It's just my hair,” he grumbled.

“It's a good thing Lucy's favourite colour is pink then, eh?” Cana continued to tease, grinning at Erza. “But really, this can't be his actual hair colour.”

“It is.” Erza said with a small smile at Natsu. “And I think it suits him. I will see you both at campfire tonight! I'm looking forward to hearing what you choose to perform tomorrow Natsu.”

Natsu watched blankly as Erza and a girl with purply black hair and a deadly stare stalked off. “What the fuck?” Natsu hissed, shoving off Cana roughly and yanking his beanie over his head.

“Aw cmon, don't be so sensitive.” Cana rolled her eyes. “Besides, she bought it!”

“Now I have to sing at that stupid karaoke thing.” Natsu grumbled. What if there were no good songs, or if his voice cracked. Sure Natsu could sing in the shower, but he'd never actually sang in front of people.

He wanted to put his head through the cork board. Why was he acting so insecure? He was Natsu Dragneel, son of Igneel Dragneel, renowned rescue helicopter pilot. He could do anything he put his mind to.

Except talk to pretty girls like Lucy apparently.

“Well, if you do manage to find the balls to get on stage, try and pick a song you know in your sleep. Or come see me for a confidence boost recipe.” Cana winked, wagging her empty bottle beside her head.

“Erm...” Natsu said, helpfully. What the fuck had he gotten himself into?

Playlist:

Stuck In The Middle - Boys Like Girls

The Anthem - Good Charlotte

Separate Songs - Restorations

Closer to the Edge - 30 Seconds To Mars

Not Ready To Make Nice -Dixie Chicks

March Into The Sun - Echosmith

#ftfanfics #nalu #gajevy #fairy tail #natsu dragneel #Gajeel Redfox #Levy McGarden #erza scarlet #dos #just any writing #not just any nobody collab #song fic #summer camp au #days of summer #these NERDS

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travelworldnetwork · 6 years ago

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Excursion to the beautiful iced rocks of Horin-Irgi or Cape Kobyliya Golova on frozen Lake Baikal. Photo: Shutterstock

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Siberia's cold is unfathomable. It wraps its savage fingers around my neck and crushes the tips of my fingers. It grates my lungs with every razor-sharp intake of breath. It freezes my brain so I can no longer comprehend what the Old Believer, an Orthodox priest, is saying. His black cassock is rigid with cold, his beard a cascade of icicles, his words a warm spill promptly vaporised on the chilled air. What on earth possessed us to come to this most infamous of outposts, this far-flung emptiness where people have been sent to die – or to live, improbably – and in this least humane of seasons?

Nine days and more than 5000 kilometres earlier, we're oblivious to what awaits us as we bathe in the weak sunshine that's broken briefly through a snow shower and is casting long shadows and buttery columns along a charming Moscow prospect. The temperature is a mere minus-four degrees – a veritable summer compared to the frozen perdition we will face down the line.

Still, the cold here is impressive. We snap-chill a bottle of wine in the snow that's powdering our hotel windowsill. We blink away whirling snowflakes and wrap scarves around our tender noses while queuing to see Lenin's corpse lying waxy and wan and warmer-than-the-living in his sombre mausoleum. As we walk back from a supermarket one evening, I slip on black ice and am hauled to my feet by two men even as I am falling, even as the contents of my shopping bag are rolling downhill.

Frozen waves at lake Baikal. Photo: Alamy

"Spasibo!" I cry out in response – thank you – and they nod nonchalantly. They are well-practised in the rescue of random ice-trippers, these men.

What are we doing here, in the darkest depths of a Russian winter? Attending to priorities: it's my birthday in early January (a significant one), and to celebrate I'm taking the train from Moscow to Vladivostok. What a pity I wasn't born in June.

I'm joined in my Arctic wanderings by 10 family members – an audacious gang of parents, young adult children and a couple of brave boyfriends (the cold is the least of their worries, I imagine). Swaddled gamely against the extremes, they lug small libraries with which to occupy their minds on this interminable journey, and mental fortitude with which to face off against the infernal cold.

COLDER BY DEGREES

At midnight we board the train at Moscow's Yaroslavsky Railway Station, stopping just long enough in the bitter freeze to acknowledge the monument marking the starting point of the fabled Trans-Siberian railway. The route arcs in a broad south-westerly sweep, traversing 9288 kilometres and seven time zones before terminating in Russia's Far Eastern naval garrison, Vladivostok. It is the longest railway line in the world.

The Ural Mountains are cloaked in darkness when we pull into Yekaterinburg in the early hours of the morning. For 33 hours we've peered out from our compact, four-berth compartments at the uncoiling landscape, at fluorescent cities dimming into canvasses of black ink; at forests glittering with diamond snowflakes; at swathes of farmland gradually solidifying into cities then disintegrating again into empty fields of snow. Overzealous heating has shielded us from an ever-changing climate; we step off the train into an incomprehensible minus-18 degrees.

It's New Year's Eve. Yekaterinburg is lit up like a carnival, the Iset River is a boulevard of ice. The Gosudarstvennyy Akademicheskiy Theatre stands like a baroque wedding cake on a bed of snow. Inside, we queue at the coat racks where patrons throw off heavy swaddling to reveal glamorous frocks forced into hiding by the cold. We join them in jubilantly bravo-ing a performance of The Nutcracker, a Christmas spectacle manifesting onstage in vivid counterpoint to the frosted scenes outside. "Zazdarovye!" we cry at midnight, farewelling the old year with shots of vodka and welcoming the new with flutes of champagne.

FROM TSARS TO SAINTS

Yekaterinburg is a city of death and rebirth, of constructivist architecture built on the foundations of the Bolshevik Revolution and the execution of the Romanovs here in 1918. Though writers passing through on their way to Siberia recalled an unpleasantly industrialised settlement, Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was deeply impressed by the spirit and ideas of the people, says local guide Olga Taranenko.

"They decided to destroy everything that reminded them of the old regime, and construct a new city."

But the new has been replaced with the old: churches have been re-consecrated and the once-reviled Romanovs – Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and five children – canonised. A cathedral stands on the site where the family died, its red granite walls "reminding us of the bloody events", Taranenko says. Even their once-secret burial site outside the city is now sanctified, a cluster of buildings comprising a monastery dedicated to the Romanov saints. Their remains were removed from here and interred in St Petersburg in 1998.

St. Basil's Cathedral and Spassky Tower on Red Square in Moscow on a summer evening. Photo: Shutterstock

IN SIBERIA

It takes 63 hours to reach Ulan-Ude, capital of the autonomous Republic of Buryatia. We sail from Europe into Asia, crossing oceans of snow, passing railway stations licked with bright paint and fitted with neon signs alerting us to the temperature: minus-22 at Omsk, minus-20 at Barabinsk where we emerge from the train's swelter into a cold so strident it cleanses our stale bodies and shocks us awake. We buy pierogi stuffed with cabbage and potato at a platform kiosk and watch as a railroad engineer crawls beneath the train, lies upon the snow-caked tracks and fiddles imperturbably with the frozen undercarriage.

Somewhere near Novosibirsk four men appear in our compartment doorway and sing us a song. They're from Perm, and are on their way to Lake Baikal to ice-skate. We applaud their cheerful ditty, though we've understood not a single word.

"You write about Baikal?" asks one of them, spying my notebook. I nod; he punches the air with his fist. "Baikal you will love," he says. ''Thank you for visiting in its most beautiful season."

Sledding across the ice of Lake Baikal. Photo: Alamy

On the second day of this leg I awake to flooding, late-morning light. I've missed the Yenisei River and an endlessly evolving landscape. We're fast-forwarding through time, gaining hours as we race away from the sun. Our group sprawls across several compartments, locked in games of chess, trapped inside books, embroiled in conversations or hypnotised by the Siberia scrolling by through ice-rimed windows. At mealtimes, the youngsters squeeze into the parents' compartment for makeshift feasts we've cobbled from shops and stalls along the way: bread and cheese and salami, instant mash, caviar sold by platform hawkers for a handful of rubles.

On the third day, I wake before dawn. We've halted in Irkutsk; I climb from the train into an ethereal gloom. The train recedes along the tracks, its outermost carriages erased by the silvered fog. It's minus-36 degrees, and today I turn 50. Never have I've felt so cold, nor so joyfully alive.

A LAKE FROZEN IN TIME

All day long the train crawls along the south-eastern edge of Lake Baikal. The water sloshes sluggishly, turns gradually to slush and then to solid ice as we curve northwards along the lake's eastern shoreline. Opposite it, fields slope into gullies, snowy whitecaps ripple the plains, fog cushions the tree-line like some mammoth exhalation. We see runnels protruding like ribcages from beneath thin coatings of ice; buckwheat might still be farmed here, says our guide Ksenia Martynova, though after the collapse of the Soviet Union many of Siberia's farms fell into ruin, too.

Temple of St. Sergius of Radonezh – the Monastery of the Holy Imperial Passion-Bearers. Photo: Alamy

Lake Baikal is the low-point of our journey; the temperatures plumb those unfathomable depths, tearing the breath from our lungs and freezing the blood in our veins. It's the high point of our journey, too, for this place is so otherworldly, so far beyond our imaginings, it stuns us into wakefulness and renewed gratitude for the world. So extraordinary is this shared experience, it will bind our family forever.

We disembark at Buryatia's capital Ulan-Ude, a city that embodies the great collision between Europe and Asia, Russia and Mongolia, Christian Orthodoxy and Buddhism. Stray dogs wag their tails, oblivious to cold, it seems; residents stride along streets wreathed with glacial condensation.

"The real Siberian is not the person who doesn't feel the cold," says local guide Goldan Lenkhoboev. "It's the person who dresses properly for it."

Our own polar-wear has served us well until now, but the cold seeps into our marrow in the village of Tarbagatay, where Fr Aleksei shows us around the ethnography museum he's curated. It's a flimsy, unheated space filled with artefacts belonging to Old Believers – Orthodox Christians who were exiled or fled from European Russia in the 17th century in the wake of church reforms, and whose way of life has changed little since then. The cold here is so piercing I can barely focus; it's a visceral reminder of the conditions into which Fr Aleksei's people – and so many others – were once cruelly banished.

We've seen not a single tourist on our journey so far, and now we have the whole of Sukhaya village to ourselves – except for the young Russian men doing burnouts in their Ladas on the ice-slicked shores of Lake Baikal. This fabled body of water – the world's deepest lake and the largest freshwater lake by volume – extends beyond the village in a brumous mass. It has put up a valiant fight against the deep freeze: waves heave and buck and petrify midair. The ice splinters beneath our boots, and when we skate on it the next day we notice air bubbles and water lilies trapped beneath its surface.

On Orthodox Christmas Eve, January 6, we drip sweat inside the banya (traditional sauna) at our guesthouse, submit to Martynova's birch whips – said to improve lymphatic flow – then run outside and smother ourselves in snow. Finally, we're learning to embrace the cold.

THE END OF THE LINE

It's another 62 hours from Ulan-Ude to Vladivostok. The frostbitten landscape flicks past our windows like a slideshow. It's inconceivable, from within the confines of this overheated compartment, that the conditions unspooling outside might kill us if we immersed ourselves in them unprotected; the snow-draped fields are beaches of silica, the larch trees jaunty filigrees against a blue sky. Young marines bound for the naval city run for the train, their breath puffs of smoke on the chill air; the temperature is slowly rising: minus 20, minus 15, minus 10, the neon signs say. A cook comes around sporadically with freshly made pierogis; we lie in wait and clear her tray in exchange for a few rubles.

At Khabarovsk the railway doglegs southwards. We will the train to slow down, but at dawn it pulls into Vladivostok. This is a revelation of a city, we will discover, a place of bright skylines and frozen bays, striking harbours and exceptional restaurants. But we're not yet ready to greet it. We linger on the platform – pleasantly bracing at just minus-eight degrees – and pose for a photo beside the monument marking the end of our epic journey. We've travelled 9288 kilometres – a full third of the world's circumferential span. And there's not one of us who wouldn't climb back on that train before it returns to Moscow, and do it all over again.

Catherine Marshall travelled with assistance from Intrepid.

THE TRANS-SIBERIAN IN NUMBERS

9288 kilometres total length, from Moscow to Vladivostok

1916 the year Moscow and Vladivostok were connected via the railway line

7 number of time zones crossed

60 average speed at kilometres per hour reached by the train

1/3: span of the globe covered by the railway line

7 days it takes to complete the journey, without getting off along the way

16 major rivers crossed by the railway

87 towns and cities the railway passes through

FIVE OTHER JOURNEYS WORTH TAKING IN EXTREMES

DEATH VALLEY IN SUMMER

If you visit the US's Death Valley at the height of summer, you might find out just how hot hot can get: 56.7 degrees as measured in 1913, the second hottest temperature on record. As long as you take all the necessary precautions (such as keeping hydrated and ensuring you have mobile contact) you can enjoy the landscape at its most primordial and without the shoulder-season crowds. Or enter the annual midsummer Badwater Ultramarathon, which starts at 85 metres below sea level and ascends 4000 metres across 217 kilometres and three mountain ranges.

VICTORIA FALLS DURING PEAK WATER

You'll need to take a raincoat if you visit this world wonder in the wet season, when islands upstream from the falls – accessible by boat in the dry season – are drowned by summer's deluge. View the spectacle of hundreds of millions of litres of water a minute gushing into the great cataract separating Zimbabwe from Zambia. Peak water, as it's called, runs from around March to June and (in good news for the bottom line) precedes peak season.

AMERICAN MIDWEST DURING TORNADO SEASON

Eye-of-the-storm itineraries exist for those who dream of observing springtime twisters up-close in a region of the American Midwest known as Tornado Alley. Journeys centre on midwestern states such as Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska during May and June. Sightings aren't guaranteed, but participants are likely to see supercell storms and the impressive lightning shows that often accompany them. See stormchasing.com

ICEFIELDS PARKWAY IN WINTER

In winter practically everything is iced over along this 230-kilometre-long route linking Lake Louise and Jasper in Alberta, Canada: lakes, waterfalls, peaks, forests, glaciers and bitumen. Winter tyres or snow chains are essential. Travel cautiously, dress warmly and stop regularly at lookouts for views of glacier-licked valleys and snow-laden forests. Bears will be hibernating but you'll see bighorn sheep, elk and caribou – and possibly wolves.

KAKADU IN THE WET

Most people assume the NT is off limits during the wet season: too damp, too sticky, too hot. But the wet season is a wild and magical time when waterfalls overflow and floodplains brim with water, intensifying the landscape's lushness and attracting numerous birds. Some roads are closed during the wet (which runs from around November to May) limiting access to sites, and animals are more dispersed; but visitors will have the park almost all to themselves – and it will cost as little as half of what it would in the high season.

FIVE MORE GREAT COLD WEATHER JOURNEYS

EUROPE'S CHRISTMAS MARKETS

These festive markets have been brightening winter-darkened cities since the 16th century. Cities such as Prague, Vienna and Berlin are transformed into charming bazaars selling an assortment of artisanal food, arts and crafts and merry experiences. The markets draw crowds onto light-spangled streets – and help draw travellers who might otherwise visit during the continent's unbearably busy summer season.

QUEBEC'S WINTER CARNIVAL

The people of Quebec City have turned their iciest month, February, into a celebration of all things winter: ice slides, outdoor cinema, dance parties and ice-skating, night parades, snow baths, dog sledding and a canoe race in which competitors paddle along the St Lawrence River through masses of ice.

ANTARCTICA

Strictly speaking, a visit to Antarctica is a summertime jaunt, since this is the season when pack ice melts enough to allow cruise ships to pass through. Nonetheless, the landscape is still a magical realm of ice – pack ice, sea ice, icebergs, glaciers and that icy water in which brave adventurers can take the briefest of dips.

GLACIER EXPRESS

This storybook voyage between Zermatt and St Moritz began as a steam train journey ferrying well-heeled holidaymakers between these glitzy Swiss ski resorts. The 275-kilometre route transports passengers through a winter wonderland filled with dazzling mountain peaks, soaring passes and snow-filled valleys.

HARBIN'S ICE FESTIVAL

Residents of this this northern Chinese city harness its unfathomably cold winters during the International Ice and Snow Festival, creating elaborate ice sculptures – including recreations of famous landmarks like the Great Wall of China. Brave festival-goers can join swimmers for a ritual dip in the frozen Songhua River.

TRIP NOTES

traveller.com.au/russia

russiatourism.ru/en

FLY

Etihad flies to Abu Dhabi twice daily from Sydney and Melbourne and once daily from Brisbane and Perth, with onward connections to Moscow. See: etihad.com. Korean Airlines flies several times a day from Vladivostok to Seoul, with onward connections to Sydney and Brisbane. See koreanair.com

TOUR

Intrepid Travel's 15-day Russia Expedition: Winter Trans-Siberian Adventure is priced from $3055 a person twin share and has many departures beginning from December 2019. Private group bookings are also available. See intrepidtravel.com.au

KEEP WARM

Appropriate winter gear is essential for this journey. For the coldest outdoor excursions, layer clothing in the following sequence: thermal vest and leggings, jeans or thick pants and a long-sleeved shirt, thermal jumper, polar jacket and waterproof shell, tube scarf, beanie, glove liners and waterproof polar gloves. Snow boots paired with warm socks are essential – Sorel and Colombia are highly recommended. Pack lightweight clothing for the train; it will be warm and quite possibly overheated.

STAY SANE ON THE TRAIN

Compartments are compact but comfortable, with two bunks sleeping four people each; clean bedding is provided. There are two toilets with hand basins and cold water at the end of each carriage. A provodnista or provodnik (female or male carriage attendant) is in charge of each carriage; they keep it clean, provide passengers with beverage glasses and ensure the samovar is filled with hot water. It's a good idea to buy a few snacks, teabags or sachets of coffee from them as they receive a small commission from sales and appreciate the custom.

There are regular stops of various durations; schedules are posted in the carriage. There are often kiosks on the platforms or in the stations selling bottled water and food. Some food should also be bought at supermarkets prior to departure since not all trains have dining carriages. The trains are well-used by locals, many of whom will approach foreigners for conversation. Take small gifts from Australia to share with them.

from traveller.com.au

#Travel Guide

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bigfinancial · 8 years ago

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The Story of the Menominee River Sugar Company 1903-1955

Menominee, Michigan, situated far from the world’s financial centers a hundred years ago, much as it is today, nevertheless placed itself directly in the middle of one of the hottest business booms of the early twentieth century – sugar. The small community that dared to plant a footprint in world commerce occupies a slivered point of land that dips into Lake Michigan at a point so close in proximity to Wisconsin that had a cartographer’s finger twitched at a crucial moment, Menominee would be in Wisconsin instead of Michigan.

Menominee is bordered on the east by Green Bay, an arm of Lake Michigan, and on the south-west by the Menominee River. In 1903, many investors in the beet sugar industry had a timber background and had thus come to believe that the same rivers that had once delivered logs to sawmills in abundance could also serve the needs of a beet sugar factory where massive volumes of water are used for fluming beets into the factory, washing them and then diffusing the sugar from them. A sugar factory could easily put three million gallons of water to use every twenty-four hours. Barges can carry sugarbeets from the farm fields and freighters can carry products to market. The presence of the Menominee River convinced investors that Menominee could compete with the nation’s sugar producers despite negative comments from naysayers who said Menominee was too far north to successfully grow sugarbeets.

The naysayers had a point. Menominee, Michigan is an unlikely place to construct a beet sugar factory. Situated at the western end of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the growing season is about forty days shorter than the prime beet growing regions in the state’s Lower Peninsula. The short season can prevent the ripening of beets which will then lessen sugar content of immature beets ill prepared for the stress of the milling process. Severe frosts in early spring are not unusual and are almost always fatal to a crop of young beets. Frosts can come early in the fall, too, which can make it impossible to harvest a crop. A farmer stood to lose his entire crop either early in the growing season or near the time of harvest after he had invested heavily in bringing the sugarbeet crop to term. Investors, however, in Menominee, as in many of Michigan’s cities, tended to discount input from farmers before building a factory and would frequently interpret exaggerated enthusiasm from a handful of growers as representing the broader farming community. Quite often, as in Menominee’s case, as it would turn out, the handful did not represent the whole.

Official recognition by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1898 of the importance of the sugarbeet industry sparked the construction of beet sugar factories across the nation. One year earlier the nation could boast only ten beet sugar factories, four of which were in California, one in Utah, two in Nebraska and three in New York. The construction of seven sugarbeet factories in 1898 brought into focus for the first time the stirrings of a rush not unlike the dot-com boom that blossomed nearly one hundred years later. The idea that sugar produced from sugarbeets could compete with sugar produced from sugarcane expanded into a full-fledged boom by 1900 when the nationwide count of sugarbeet factories stood at thirty-two in eleven states.

Nowhere was the blaze hotter than in Michigan where nine factories followed the successful start up of a factory in Essexville, Michigan, a suburb of Bay City. A burst of cyclonic enthusiasm caused a mad scramble when investors, constructors, bankers, and farmers combined energies and skills to bring to life eight factories in a single year! They were in Holland, Kalamazoo, Rochester, Benton Harbor, Alma, West Bay City, Caro, and a second factory in Essexville. Despite the paucity of factory constructors and the engineers to operate them, fourteen additional factories rose on the outskirts of Michigan towns during the next six years, one of which appeared in Menominee in 1903.

In Menominee, a group of investors undeterred by the natural disadvantages and buoyed by encouragement from influential investors and knowledgeable experts, set a plan in motion to maintain the economic viability of their city after the approaching demise of the lumber industry, which had until then provided the underpinnings of Menominee’s economy. The plan included the design of one of the largest and most modern sugarbeet factories to appear in America up to that time.

As the lumber era petered out at the beginning of the 20th century, railroads that had come into their own because of timber, sought new sources of revenue. Principal among them was the Detroit and Mackinac Railroad whose land agent, Charles M. Garrison, collected and distributed information about the potential of the sugarbeet industry. While Garrison spread word among Detroit’s financiers about prospective profits in sugarbeets, communities affected by the decline of lumber looked to area resources for ways of replenishing wealth. They had plenty to work with. The state was crisscrossed with rail lines and rivers and some left over cash from the lumber era. With Garrison leading the way, investors perked up. Communities eager to find a quick replacement for lumber hastened to attend meetings sponsored by Garrison and quicker yet to bring their towns into the fold. All that was needed was to persuade the farmers to grow the beets. That is where the Michigan Agricultural College (Now Michigan State University) stepped in.

Upper Peninsula farmers, encouraged by Michigan Agricultural College to plant sugarbeet test plots, received an even greater shot in the arm by the visit of Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson, in 1902. He expounded the advantages of sugarbeets and discouraged the notion that the Upper Peninsula’s climate wasn’t up to the task of producing profitable crops. Wilson served in three presidential cabinets, McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft, serving longer (1897-1913) than any other cabinet official. He encouraged modern agriculture methods, including transportation and education as they applied to agriculture. His word carried a lot of weight. When he spoke of sugarbeets, some farmers listened and when his department avowed that the cold northern temperatures would not inhibit the development of the industry in their neighborhood, investors, farmers, and manufacturers lined up to begin the industry in Menominee.

Optimism rose to new heights when the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced favorable results of the sugarbeet plot tests. The Sugar Beet News of December 15, 1903, reported test results from beets delivered by approximately 140 farmers. The test runs revealed 15.6 to 19.9 % sugar, which meant a cash value to the farmers per acre of from $5.70 to $7.13 per ton ($135-$169 inflation adjusted to the current period). At those projected prices, no crop in human history had held the potential for creating such a high return from so few acres.

In the Lower Peninsula, a farmer with above average ability who placed fifteen acres in sugarbeets could earn more than $800 and if his family provided the bulk of the labor, the net profit would more than take care of a family’s needs for a year, which, including food, was less than $800. After adding revenue from crops in rotation and revenues from milk, eggs, and poultry, the farm family’s standard of living advanced from a subsistence level to one that compared favorably to those who held mid-management positions in industry. USDA figures supported belief that Upper Peninsula beets would exceed by two per cent the average for all the other 18 sugar beet factories in the Lower Peninsula.

If the tests proved reliable indicators, Menominee region beets were worth up to $10 more an acre than Lower Peninsula beets, assuring an income of nearly $1,000 per year just from sugarbeets.

Although enthusiasm was on the upturn, something more was needed to seal the deal. To instill confidence in prospective investors that technical expertise lay near at hand, Benjamin Boutell, who won fame as both a tugboat captain and as a captain of industry, arrived in Menominee from his Bay City, Michigan headquarters for the single purpose of conveying interested investors to Bay County where they could see groomed beet fields and efficient factories spinning out white crystalline sugar. Eleven prospective investors accompanied Boutell to Bay City where convincing evidence lay at hand. Four beet sugar factories, more than in any other city in the United States, had been constructed in that city’s environs. Bay City virtually hummed with economic activity because of the presence of sugar factories. Mansions peopled by former lumber barons who had transformed themselves into sugar barons, lined the city’s prestigious Center Avenue.

Boutell announced he would become one of the investors, providing the other investors had no objection to having a factory designed and installed by Joseph Kilby who was according to Boutell, the finest constructor of beet sugar factories in the United States. Many others agreed with Boutell’s assessment; Kilby built nine of the eventual twenty-four factories built in Michigan. Local investors lined up behind Boutell to organize the Menominee River Sugar Company. A half dozen important backers came forward, each of whom subscribed to more than $25,000 in stock of the Menominee River Sugar Company.

Heading up the list of local shareholders was Samuel M. Stephenson, a former lumber manufacturer and native of New Brunswick, Canada who had made a home for himself, his wife, Jennie and their four daughters and one son, in Menominee. He was then seventy-one years of age but in no mood for retirement. Following a successful career in lumber and banking, he served three successive terms in Congress (Michigan’s 11th District 1889-93 and the 12th District 1893-97). He invested $100,000 ($2 million by modern standards) in the beet sugar factory, taking heart in not only favorable test plot results and the enthusiasm of his neighbors but also interest shown by the American Sugar Refining Corporation, generally known by its then popular sobriquet, the Sugar Trust. Some years later the Sugar Trust would fall into disfavor as a result of charges of unfair business practices, but in 1903, it had the confidence of the general public and investors alike and controlled the manufacture and sale of 98% of sugar consumed in the United States. Trust Executives, Arthur Donner and Charles R. Heike, invested $300,000 to acquire 36% of Menominee River Sugar Company’s stock.

All the members of the board of directors and roster of officers apart from Bay City resident, Benjamin Boutell, listed Menominee as their home of record. Menominee residents made up 74% of the shareholders. Together, they controlled 53% of the shares. In addition to Stephenson, other major shareholders who also accepted positions as either officers or directors were: William O. Carpenter who invested $55,000 and served the sugar company variously as president and vice-president. Gustave A. Blesch invested $15,000 and served as treasurer. John Henes, a brewery owner, invested $25,000 and served as a director. Augustus Spies was the second largest investor after Stephenson and the Sugar Trust. He, too, served as a director.

Spies provide an excellent example of the hardy pioneering spirit that prevailed in Menominee. He was a native of the grand duchy of Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany where fertile soils and a mild climate allowed the production of grain and wine. He participated in the founding of the Stephenson National Bank in partnership with future U.S. Congressman Samuel M. Stephenson and Samuel’s brother, future U.S. Senator, Isaac Stephenson. In addition, he owned the Spies Lumber Company and several large tracts of forest; he was an investor in the First National Bank of Menominee, the Marinette and Menominee Paper Company and president of the Menominee Light, Railroad and Power Company. When the fledgling sugar company got under way, he stepped forward with $75,000 ($1.5 million in current dollars).

Support from Menominee’s wealthy class, who also shared distinctions of making good business decisions and rising on their own merit rather than inherited wealth, was so great that there was no need to solicit funds from the public at large. With its shares over-subscribed by $35,000, the Menominee River Sugar Company was in the enviable position of having adequate capital for its venture. Not only was it possessed of sufficient capital but also it enjoyed the added benefit of the experience of Benjamin Boutell and representatives of the Sugar Trust. Menominee would not want for technical or business expertise.

Gustave Blesch, like Augustus Spies, owed his success to the inherited qualities of hard work, honesty and the respect of his peers. He would become the sugar company’s first treasurer. He was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1859, the son of Francis Blesch, a native of Germany and Antoinette Schneider, a native of Belgium. Gustave became an office boy in the Kellogg National Bank of Green Bay, rising to teller by the age of twenty. Five years later, he moved to Menominee to help establish the First National Bank of Menominee where he began as cashier before becoming the bank’s president. He became president of the Menominee Brick Company, vice-president of the Menominee-Marinette Light & Traction Company, and treasurer of the Peninsula Land Company.

In January, 1903, the newly elected board of directors approved an $800,000 (nearly $19 million in current era dollars) construction contract for a Kilby designed and built factory that would slice 1,000 tons of beets per day. Of the 48 beet sugar factories in operation in the United States in 1903, only two were larger than Menominee’s new factory, one in Salinas, California and another in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The average sugar factory in Michigan in 1903 could slice six hundred tons of beets in a twenty-four hour period. Four thousand acres of beets would easily supply a season’s factory run. Had the investors surveyed the farmers first, surely they would have been advised to build a smaller factory, and perhaps would have been persuaded to build none. Farmers delivered beets from approximately 1,500 acres, well short of the 9,000 acres the investment demanded.

The Menominee factory’s first factory run (referred to as a “campaign” in the sugar industry) ended quickly, having received only 14,263 tons, enough for a production run of fourteen days for a factory the investors planned to operate at least one hundred days. However, the farmers had submitted beets containing the highest sugar reported of any company during its first campaign, 15.04 percent – about 20 percent more than average and enough to allow for a small profit from a meager beet supply. Like nearly all the factories, records that would inform us of profit, if any, earned during that first campaign, did not survive the passage of time. However, it would be reasonable to estimate, based on the known cost of supplies of coal, coke, limestone and the cost of labor, that a profit of $36,000 was achievable, especially under a management style that paid close attention to expenditures and especially in light of the very high percentage of sugar in the beets.

The second campaign was better with enough beets for a full month, still well short of a supply needed to generate profits enough to justify the investment. By 1911, the local supply reached a level that allowed steady profits but was insufficient to encourage expansion, a condition that persisted until 1926 when grower apathy fell to a level that required closing the factory until 1933 when it reopened for a final run of twenty years during which the factory lagged behind the industry in technology and growth. Year in and year out, because of an inadequate supply of beets, mostly grown in Wisconsin, the underutilized factory ended its campaign weeks earlier than was needed to produce healthy profits which then could have been reinvested in the factory. Menominee investors learned, as did many other sugar factory investors, that the mantra, “build it and they will come” fell on deaf ears among farmers who often displayed a better understanding of sugar economics than did investors.

The passage of time brought neither harm nor good to the Menominee factory as it was unable to expand or modernize. It settled into the process of graceful aging. Profits awaiting opportunity gradually accumulated thanks to the company’s penurious management style and a dedicated cadre of farmers.

George W. McCormick, the company’s first manager, inaugurated a careful management style that went a long way toward keeping the company profitable despite annual shortfalls in the beet supply. He managed the company during its first thirty-two years of operation, beginning when he was twenty-four years of age. He met Benjamin Boutell in Bay City when he moved there to take a job as a district manager for Travelers Insurance Company. Boutell thought the young man belonged in the rapidly developing sugar industry and encouraged him to help in the establishment of a sugar factory in Wallaceburg, Ontario. After completing the assignment with success, Boutell recommended him for the manager’s job in Menominee.

Menominee was the most difficult place in the United States to process sugarbeets. The low temperatures took a heavy toll on workers, machinery and beets that usually went through the slicing machines like boulders, damaging equipment that robbed the factory of slender resources. It was difficult to find replacement parts because of the distance separating Menominee from suppliers and from Lower Peninsula sugar factories where it was common for factory managers to lend spare parts to one another.

The company’s diligent attention to cost control paid off in 1924 when sugar factories located in Green Bay and Menominee Falls, Wisconsin went on the market. Menominee River Sugar Company purchased both and then invested significant sums in restoring the Menominee Falls factory that had been shut for three years immediately preceding its sale.

The renovated Menominee Falls factory combined with the Green Bay and Menominee, Michigan factories created more capacity than was needed for the available acreage. One of the factories would have to close. Menominee won the noose after the accountants counted up the freight costs for hauling beets to each factory. The Menominee factory remained closed until 1933 when Michigan’s farmers relented and agreed to return to sugarbeets, a decision that came too late to save the hides of the sugar company’s owners who had lost the company to defaulted bonds three years earlier.

Disruptions in Europe beginning in the early part of the 1930s brought a new name to Michigan’s beet sugar fields and corporate offices – Flegenheimer. Albert Flegenheimer was the son of Samuel Flegenheimer who had immigrated to the United States in either 1864 or 1866 and became a naturalized citizen in 1873. The next year, however, he returned to Germany, settling in Wurttemberg. He lived out his life there, dying in 1929 at the age of 81. His brief sojourn in the United States and his U.S. citizenship status, however, would one day save his descendants from German death camps.

In February 1939, Albert Flegenheimer carried his family to the safety of Canada and then to the U.S. claiming nationality as the son of a naturalized citizen. He planned to raise his family and devote his time to the sugar industry in both the United States and Canada. His plans met with considerable success and by 1954, he controlled the sugar factory in Menominee and the one in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Despite Albert Flegenheimer’s efforts, a lack of interest on the part of farmers kept the factory small and outdated. It struggled year by year until finally in 1955 with its equipment exhausted, its buildings in tattered repair and its farmers pursuing other crops, Menominee River Sugar Company, built on hopes and dreams and operated with fortitude and persistence for more than a half-century, closed its doors forever.

Sources:

GUTLEBEN, Dan, The Sugar Tramp-1954- Michigan, Printed by: Bay City Duplicating Co, San Francisco, 1954

1962 TWIN CITY COMMUNITY RESOURCES WORKSHOP, section entitled Famous Leaders Who Helped Build Menominee, prepared by Irene Swain, Dr. Leo J. Alilunas, Director.

HENLEY, ROBERT L., Sweet Success . . .The Story of Michigan’s Beet Sugar Industry 1898 – 1974, Michigan Historical Center, Department of History, Arts and Libraries

INFLATION ADJUSTMENTS: The pre-1975 data are the Consumer Price Index statistics from Historical Statistics of the United States (USGPO, 1975). All data since then are from the annual Statistical Abstracts of the United States. Recorded at http://www.westegg.com/inflation

About the Author: Thomas Mahar served as Executive Vice President of Monitor Sugar Company between 1984 and 1999 and as President of Gala Food Processing, a sugar packaging company, from 1993-1998. He retired in 1999 and now devotes his free time to writing about the history of the sugar industry. He authored, Sweet Energy, The Story of Monitor Sugar Company in 2001.

Source by Thomas Mahar

The post The Story of the Menominee River Sugar Company 1903-1955 appeared first on Big Financial BLOG.

from Big Financial BLOG http://blog.bigfinancial.co.uk/the-story-of-the-menominee-river-sugar-company-1903-1955/

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wineschool-blog · 3 years ago

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Wine Regions of the World

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emergency-cente · 4 years ago

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THE LATEST U.S. NUMBERS (AS OF MAY 18, 2020, AT 6:58 P.M. EDT)

U.S. cases have surpassed 1.5 million and the country’s death toll is more than 90,000. The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center maintains an ongoing count of the COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States and worldwide. As of May 18, the tally is:

· Total cases worldwide: 4,786,672 (up from 4,516,360 Friday)

· Total deaths worldwide: 317,695 (up from 306,051 Friday)

· Total recoveries: 1,776,641 (up from 1,622,354 Friday)

· Total cases in the United States: 1,506,732 (up from 1,432,045 Friday)

· Total deaths in the United States: 90,236 (up from 86,851 Friday)

New York has added another region to reopen Tuesday, with many beaches set to reopen Memorial Day weekend. On Monday, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo told the media that the region around Buffalo could reopen on Tuesday, making it the sixth of 10 regions in New York State to meet the criteria to lift lockdown measures, according to CBS News. The Finger Lakes, the North Country, the Southern Tier, the Mohawk Valley, and Central New York reopened last week. Cuomo said that these areas have met the required benchmarks, including declines in infections, deaths, and hospitalizations, and having sufficient numbers of hospital beds to handle a surge.

The governor also announced Friday that state beaches in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Delaware will reopen the Friday before Memorial Day. As of June 1, horse racing tracks statewide can resume races without fans.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, however, said Sunday that city beaches will not reopen Memorial Day weekend or in the near term, and that fences will be built if people start gathering on beaches, according to CBS New York. On Monday, he said that if the current downward trending of infections and hospitalizations continues, the city could ease social distancing restrictions and permit nonessential businesses to reopen by June, according to Newsday.

Texas recorded its highest single-day rise in cases as the state continues to reopen. Over the weekend, Texas reported its biggest daily case count to date of 1,801, according to Newsweek. The surge may be partially due to outbreaks at meat plants and increased testing capacity. The state allowed stores and restaurants to resume business on May 1; gyms are set to reopen today.

More than two-thirds of states have begun to reopen. According to The New York Times, this week Minnesota is set to reopen stores and malls, Kentucky is looking to lift restrictions on restaurants and stores, and Connecticut is allowing salons, museums, and office buildings to resume activities.

More than 11.8 million Americans have been tested so far. A total of 11,834,508 individuals have been tested in the United States for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 as of May 18, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

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New Developments

Initial human trials of a vaccine have yielded encouraging results. Phase 1 results of Moderna’s mRNA vaccine trial show that all participants who received varying dose amounts of the potential treatment produced antibodies for the novel coronavirus, according to data released on Monday by the biotechnology company.

In the study, led by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), three groups of 15 healthy participants ages 18 to 55 received dosing at either a low-level amount (25 micrograms), a medium level (50 micrograms), or a high level (100 micrograms). Low- and medium-level doses were shown to be safe, but those in the high dose group had significant “systemic symptoms.”

Moderna will discontinue the high dosing in its Phase 2 trials and expects to move to Phase 3 trials in July. If those trials go well, The New York Times reported that a vaccine could become available for widespread use by the end of this year or early 2021, according to Tal Zaks, MD, Moderna’s chief medical officer.

David Bernstein, MD, vice chairman of medicine for clinical trials at Northwell Health in Manhasset, New York, who is not involved in the research, told Everyday Health: “It is important for the public and researchers to have realistic expectations, and I would estimate that at best we are looking at a possible vaccine 12 to 18 months from now, assuming current trials are successful.”

The Federal Reserve chair said the economic downturn could go through the end of next year. On 60 Minutes on Sunday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that the economic slump “could stretch through the end of next year.” He added, however, that the country will get through the recession. “In the long run, and even in the medium run, you wouldn’t want to bet against the American economy,” he said. “This economy will recover.”

Vitamin D may help beat the virus. A recent statistical analysis published in MedRXiv of coronavirus patient data from hospitals and clinics across China, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States found a strong link between severe vitamin D deficiency and mortality rates. An article in Forbes reviewing the latest research regarding vitamin and COVID-19 concluded that the “jury’s still out on its effects.”

Trump announced that he is taking hydroxychloroquine. President Trump said he is taking daily doses of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, according to CNN. The president has touted the drug as a potential coronavirus treatment amid questions about its effectiveness and potential side effects.

A study suggests summer weather could help the slow virus spread. A working paper posted last week from researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology indicates that the warmer summer months could have some positive effects in blocking COVID-19. Temperatures above 77 degrees were linked to a reduction in transmission. The authors found a “negative association between temperature and humidity and transmission.” They warned, however, that the “estimated effects of summer weather are not strong enough to seasonally control the epidemic in most locations.”

Japan’s economy fell into a recession in the first quarter. The Wall Street Journal on Sunday reported that Japan’s economy, the third-largest in the world, contracted by 3.4 percent in the first three months of the year. The economy minister, Yasutoshi Nishimura, warned on Monday that data for the second quarter is expected to be worse, and he expects the economy to “shrink substantially for the time being.”

China supports a WHO investigation of the outbreak’s origin. Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Monday told the World Health Organization’s annual assembly that he backs an international review of the pandemic led by the WHO once the emergency has ended, reported The Guardian. Jinping also announced that China would donate $2 billion to the international fight against COVID-19 and offered to help establish hospitals and health infrastructure in Africa.

Trump officially unveiled Operation Warp Speed. On Friday, President Trump announced that Moncef Slaoui, the ex-head of GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccines division, and four-star Army General Gustave Perna will lead Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s effort to have a coronavirus vaccine ready by the end of the year, according to CNN. “Operation Warp Speed means big and it means fast,” Trump said.

Retail sales and industrial production dropped dramatically in April. The Census Bureau released data on Friday showing that retail sales fell 16.4 percent from a month earlier. This plunge comes on the heels of an 8.3 percent drop in retail sales in March. The Federal Reserve also reported that industrial production plunged a record 11.2 percent in April, according to the Associated Press.

A Gallup poll shows social distancing has dropped significantly. A Gallup poll released Friday revealed that 58 percent of U.S. adults report completely (17 percent) or mostly (41 percent) isolating themselves, continuing a decline from a high of 75 percent the week of March 30 through April 5. The results come as more states are taking steps to reopen their economies.

Tens of thousands of autoworkers are returning to jobs. The Associated Press estimated that 133,000 autoworkers are due to pour back into auto plants that are reopening next week. Ford is predicting stronger sales in the future in Europe, China, and the United States as the lockdowns ease.

Loud talking may leave viral droplets in the air for up to 14 minutes, a study found. A single minute of loud-speaking generates at least 1,000 virus-containing droplets, according to a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Researchers found that infectious droplets may hang in the air for 8 to 14 minutes. “These observations confirm that there is a substantial probability that normal speaking causes airborne virus transmission in confined environments,” write the study authors.

At 108, she may be the country’s oldest coronavirus survivor. Sylvia Goldsholl, who is 108 years old, maybe the nation’s oldest COVID-19 survivor, according to USA Today on Friday. The resident of the Allendale Community for Senior Living in New Jersey had the virus but made a full recovery. Goldsholl has also lived through the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918, which struck when she was 6 years old.

Almost three million people filed jobless claims, and the unemployment rate has hit 15.7 percent. The Department of Labor released data last Thursday showing that 2.9 million new claims for unemployment insurance were filed in the previous week. About 36.5 million Americans have filed applications in the past eight weeks. CNBC called it the biggest job loss in U.S. history. The unemployment rate has now rocketed to 15.7 percent, up from about 3.5 percent in February.

The ousted vaccine director warned lawmakers that the country lacks a vaccine plan. In testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee last Thursday, Rick Bright, Ph.D., former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, told representatives that the United States lacks a plan to produce and fairly distribute a coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available, according to the Associated Press. He warned that the nation could face “the darkest day in history” unless decisive action is taken.

Dr. Bright was removed from his post last month after pushing for rigorous vetting of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug embraced by President Trump as a coronavirus treatment. He filed a whistleblower complaint saying he was reassigned because he tried to “prioritize science and safety over political expediency.”

The CDC has confirmed the link between a mysterious syndrome in kids and COVID-19. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed the link between a rare syndrome in children with COVID-19, according to NBC New York. New York City has found at least 145 cases of children sickened by the illness.

The CDC issued a health advisory regarding multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). The condition has been seen in several U.S. states and European countries.

“Healthcare providers who have cared or are caring for patients younger than 21 years of age meeting MIS-C criteria should report suspected cases to their local, state, or territorial health department,” according to the CDC advisory.

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), children with this syndrome have symptoms resembling Kawasaki disease, including “persistent fever, inflammation, and evidence of single or multi-organ dysfunction (shock, cardiac, respiratory, renal, gastrointestinal, or neurological disorder), and may or may not test positive for COVID-19.” Read more..

#Urgent Care Near me

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solsarin · 4 years ago

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what percentage of water on earth is ice

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📷what percentage of water on earth is ice

Water stored as ice is part of the water cycle

Satellite image of the North Pole area showing massive amounts of water stored as ice. The Arctic region holds a massive amount of ice. Perhaps what is most striking in this picture is the extent of the Greenland icecap — almost the whole island is overlain by a huge and deep (almost three miles deep in places) sheet of ice. The Greenland icecap averages almost a mile in thickness and contains about 10 percent of the total ice mass on the globe.

Credit: NASA

The water cycle describes how water moves above, on, and through the Earth. But, in fact, much more water is “in storage” at any one time than is actually moving through the cycle. By storage, we mean water that is locked up in its present state for a relatively long period of time. Short-term storage might be days or weeks for water in a lake, but it could be thousands of years for deep groundwater storage or even longer for water at the bottom of an ice cap, such as in Greenland. In the grand scheme of things, this water is still part of the water cycle.

how many percent of earth’s water is frozen

Ice caps around the world

Map of where glaciers and ice caps exist on Earth. Credit: National Geographic

The white areas in this map show glaciers and ice sheets around the world (reproduced from National Geographic WORLD, February 1977, no. 18, p. 6, with permission). The vast majority, almost 90 percent, of Earth’s ice mass is in Antarctica, while the Greenland ice cap contains 10 percent of the total global ice mass.

The Greenland ice cap is an interesting part of the water cycle.

The ice cap became so large over time (about 600,000 cubic miles (mi3) or 2.5 million cubic kilometers (km3)) because more snow fell than melted. Over the millennia, as the snow got deeper, it compressed and became ice. The ice cap averages about 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) in thickness, but can be as thick as 14,000 feet (4,300 meters).

The ice is so heavy that the land below it has been pressed down into the shape of a bowl. In many places, glaciers on Greenland reach to the sea, and one estimate is that as much as 125 mi3 (517 km3) of ice “calves” into the ocean each year—one of Greenland’s contributions to the global water cycle. Ocean-bound icebergs travel with the currents, melting along the way. Some icebergs have been seen, in much smaller form, as far south as the island of Bermuda.

Ice and glaciers come and go, daily and over millennia

📷what percentage of water on earth is iceLast Glacial Maximum Surface Air Temperature

This global map shows the temperature differences compared to preindustrial times. Dark blue translates to cooler temperatures. The ice sheets of the past are superimposed on the continents.

Credit: Jessica Tierney, University of Arizona

The climate, on a global scale, is always changing, although usually not at a rate fast enough for people to notice. There have been many warm periods, such as when the dinosaurs lived (about 100 million years ago) and many cold periods, such as the last ice age of about 18,000 years ago.

During the last ice age much of the northern hemisphere was covered in ice and glaciers, and, as this map from the University of Arizona shows, they covered nearly all of Canada, much of northern Asia and Europe, and extended well into the United States.

Glaciers are still around today; tens of thousands of them are in Alaska. Climatic factors still affect them today and during the current warmer climate, they can retreat in size at a rate easily measured on a yearly scale.

Here is a satellite image of Iceland in the late summer, showing ice-free landscape except for permanent ice fields. Even in summer the large permanent ice caps stand out brightly against the volcanic rock surrounding them. The brightly colored lakes and coastal waters are the result of very fine and highly reflective sediment that is ground into bits by the immense weight of glaciers and washed out to sea with glacial runoff (at the bottom of picture).

Next seen is an image of Iceland in the middle of winter, showing that the island country is almost completely covered in white snow and ice, obscuring the permanent glaciers and icecaps that exist year-round.

Over millennia, ice has carved out deep fjords leaving fringes of land that extend like fingers into the ocean, as seen in the northwestern coast.

Glacier worldwide are shrinking in size

📷what percentage of water on earth is ice

This picture shows the Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA in 2005. The glacier has been retreating rapidly since the early 1900’s. The year markers point to the former extent of the glacier in 1850, 1937, 1968, and 1981. Mountain glaciers are excellent monitors of climate change; the worldwide shrinkage of mountain glaciers is thought to be caused by a combination of a temperature increase since the Little Ice Age, which ended in the latter half of the 19th century, and increased greenhouse-gas emissions.

Ice caps influence the weather

Just because water in an ice cap or glacier is not moving does not mean that it does not have a direct effect on other aspects of the water cycle and the weather. Ice is very white, and since white reflects sunlight (and thus, heat), large ice fields can determine weather patterns. Air temperatures can be higher a mile above ice caps than at the surface, and wind patterns, which affect weather systems, can be dramatic around ice-covered landscapes.

Some glacier and ice cap facts

Bering Glacier in Alaska is the largest glacier in North America. This NASA satellite view shows how a glacier is similar to a river. (Credit: NASA Earth Observatory) View full size

*Glacial ice covers 10-11 percent of all land. *According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), if all glaciers melted today the seas . would rise about 230 feet (70 meters).

* During the last ice age (when glaciers covered more land area than today) the sea level was about . . . 400 feet (122 meters) lower than it is today. At that time, glaciers covered almost one-third of the land. *During the last warm spell, 125,000 years ago, the seas were about 18 feet (5.5 meters) higher than . . they are today. About three million years ago the seas could have been up to 165 feet (50.3 meters) . . higher. . Largest surface area of any glacier in the contiguous United States: Emmons Glacier, Washington . . (4.3 square miles or 11 square kilometers)

Ice caps and global water distribution

Even though the amount of water locked up in glaciers and ice caps is a small percentage of all water on (and in) the Earth, it represents a large percentage of the world’s total freshwater.

As these charts and the data table show, the amount of water locked up in ice and snow is only about 1.7 percent of all water on Earth, but the majority of total freshwater on Earth, about 68.7 percent, is held in ice caps and glaciers.

📷what percentage of water on earth is ice

One estimate of global water distribution

Water source Water volume, in cubic miles Water volume, in cubic kilometers Percent of total water Percent total . . freshwaterIce caps, Glaciers 5,773,000 24,064,000 1.7% 68.7%, & Permanent snowTotal global freshwater 8,404,000 35,030,000 2.5% — Total global water 332,500,000 1,386,000,000Source: Gleick, P. H., 1996: Water resources. In Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather, ed. by S. H. Schneider, Oxford University Press, New York, vol. 2, pp. 817-823.

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Ice is water frozen into a solid state.[3][4] Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaque bluish-white color.

In the Solar System, ice is abundant and occurs naturally from as close to the Sun as Mercury to as far away as the Oort cloud objects. Beyond the Solar System, it occurs as interstellar ice. It is abundant on Earth’s surface – particularly in the polar regions and above the snow line[5] – and, as a common form of precipitation and deposition, plays a key role in Earth’s water cycle and climate. It falls as snowflakes and hail or occurs as frost, icicles or ice spikes and aggregates from snow as glaciers and ice sheets.

Ice exhibits at least eighteen phases (packing geometries), depending on temperature and pressure. When water is cooled rapidly (quenching), up to three types of amorphous ice can form depending on its history of pressure and temperature.

When cooled slowly, correlated proton tunneling occurs below −253.15 °C (20 K, −423.67 °F) giving rise to macroscopic quantum phenomena. Virtually all ice on Earth’s surface and in its atmosphere is of a hexagonal crystalline structure denoted as ice Ih (spoken as “ice one h”) with minute traces of cubic ice, denoted as ice Ic and.

, more recently found, Ice VII inclusions in diamonds. The most common phase transition to ice Ih occurs when liquid water is cooled below 0 °C (273.15 K, 32 °F) at standard atmospheric pressure. It may also be deposited directly by water vapor, as happens in the formation of frost. The transition from ice to water is melting and from ice directly to water vapor is sublimation.

Ice is used in a variety of ways, including for cooling, for winter sports, and ice sculpting.

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practice-clinic · 4 years ago

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wikitopx · 5 years ago

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Closer to Toronto than New York City itself, this state has plenty to offer in terms of nature trails, sailing opportunities, and winter wonderlands of snow.

And like their name suggests, Buffalo Wings actually originate from Buffalo! Situated right at the head of the Niagara River, thousands of visitors travel to Buffalo to visit the famous Niagara Falls.

Here are top ten must-take day trips from Buffalo.

1. Ellicottville

A paradise for lovers of the outdoors, Ellicottville is home to a ski resort and offers a range of sporting activities all year round. Filled with biking and hiking trails, the town is well-known for its winter and summer sports camps. Just over an hour away, it makes for a perfect day-trip destination from Buffalo.

The local town of Ellicottville is easy to navigate and features plenty of quaint shops and restaurants that boast of pocket-friendly prices for your souvenirs.

For those visiting during the warmer seasons, there is plenty of lush greenery and areas to explore for the happy hiker. Close enough to Allegany State Park, the nation’s 3rd-largest outdoor recreation spot, there are camping grounds, hiking and biking trails, lake swimming activities, and, for golfers, the 18-hole course at the Holiday Valley Resort is just a stone’s throw away from the centre of Ellicottville.

If you’re visiting in the winter, you’re in for a treat! Holimont Ski Resort offers downhill skiing and snowboarding for the avid adventurer. Don’t know how to do winter sports? No problem! There are certified professional instructors waiting in the wings.

Also famous for its Salt Cave and Halotheraphy Spas, Ellicottville Salt Cave boasts a unique facility that helps to dispel negative ions through a 45-minute session spent relaxing in their one-of-a-kind salt room. Constructed of natural salt, water, and wood, this cave simulates the natural salt mines throughout the European Himalayas. It is here that you can strike a complete balance between the mind and body.

2. Letchworth State Park

Letchworth State Park, otherwise known to locals as the Grand Canyon of the East, is one of the most stunning areas in the eastern US region and is also the Number 1 state park in the USA.

With the Genesee River roaring over the three gigantic waterfalls, the sound is truly deafening and the view is simply amazing. Some of the cliffs are as high as 600 feet (183 meters) and are surrounded by lush greenery and hiking trails for the adventure seeker. Hikers can choose among 66 miles (106 kilometers) of hiking trails, providing some of the most taxing but rewarding experiences for the avid hiker.

If hiking isn’t really your thing, there are dedicated trails for horseback riding, biking, and cross-country skiing (during the right seasons). Tourists looking to get the most out of their experience at Letchworth State Park can splurge on paid activities such as white-water rafting, kayaking, or even hiring a hot-air balloon to glide over the magnificent falls.

The exclusive company to launch within the Letchworth State Park, Balloons over Letchworth, offers the most memorable experience and spectacular views of the Eastern Grand Canyon.

Letchworth has a nearly endless variety of activities to keep you occupied and happy. If you’re around in summer, attend the annual Summer Family Walks & Talks to have that mandatory bonding time with the family from 2 pm to 4 pm.

Otherwise, appreciate the night sky with its outline of stars at the Night Sky Observatory from 7 pm to 9 pm, every first and third Saturday of the month.

3. The Finger Lakes region

Famous for the meandering lakes and sprawling vineyards, the Finger Lakes region is the perfect day-trip destination for those looking to get a few sips of the area. With plenty to do, the area boasts rich cultural experiences and hiking trails for the interested day-tripper.

Six major lakes and 124 thousand acres (50 thousand hectares) of water bodies invite you to spend a day in the summer on various activities offered within the region. Take the chance to kayak along the river, or just get that fishing gear you’ve been eyeing and do some fishing for dinner. Be amazed by the sheer number of lakes and rivers in the area and the beautiful scenery of lush greenery that surrounds them.

4. Wine(ing) at life - The Owl Wine Company

If wine is more of your thing, look out for the Owl Wine Company in the Fingers Lake region. With more than 1,000 wineries in the area, it is difficult to discern which to visit. At the Owl Wine Company, the summer patio overlooks the vineyard and Cayuga Lake, so while sipping your glass of red wine, be awed at the sheer number of vineyards that cover the land.

Nearer to the Watkins Glen area is Glenora Wine Cellars. Conveniently located just up the road from the famous Watkins Glen, it is a great place to drop by for a couple of sips after that hike you’ve accomplished. Wow at your great photo-taking skills with a glass in hand, a perfect afternoon for the summer.

5. Niagara from the Canadian Border - Toronto, Canada

Fancy leaving Buffalo for somewhere slightly more active? Tired of seeing Niagara Falls from the same lookout?

Then Toronto is just the place. With attractions such as the CN Tower, shopping streets that go on for miles, and grand castles to boot, it is no wonder many tourists head over to Toronto for a day trip.

Despite Niagara Falls being a good 90-minute drive from the city center, it is well worth the trip. It definitely looks different from the Canadian border as compared to the NY fringe. From the Canadian side, you can stand at the edge of Horseshoe Falls and be just under a meter away from the 750,000 gallons (almost 3 million liters) of water hurtling over the cliff side.

If that sounds very much like what you would see in Buffalo, take a helicopter flight over the falls and be awed by the sheer size and volume of Niagara, definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity while in Toronto.

6. Eaton Centre & Craft Market

Otherwise, wander around Toronto’s Eaton Centre where shops line the streets. From high-end brands to local designers, there is plenty to look around and see. Still looking for some unique tourist souvenirs? Look out for the One of a Kind Show, a consumer craft show in North America, where you are bound to find something whimsical and fitting for a gift.

Do note that the market only happens twice a year, so check their page for more information

7. From the top of the tower: CN Tower

It is impossible to say you’ve been to Toronto without having visited the CN Tower.

Considered one of the main attractions of the city, it stands at 553.33 meters (1,814 feet) high and dominates the Toronto landscape, not forgetting its pointy tip that lights up the nightscape. A standout among the skyline, some consider it to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

There are several observation areas to choose from, including the Glass Floor room, the LookOut Level, and the SkyPod, the highest observation deck for visitors, 1,465 feet (4,806 meters) in the air.

Open to the public daily, with the exception of Christmas, it is one of the iconic sites to visit when touring Toronto for a day trip. Plus, it doesn’t require much time, so give it a go!

8. Niagara Falls, NY

The last on the list but one of the must-visits when in the area is the Niagara Falls. In fact, no list of day trips from Buffalo is complete without this stunning attraction.

Enjoy a different view of the Niagara Falls from the Observation Tower. The stunning views of the falls continues with the Bridal Veil Falls, otherwise known as Luna and Iris Falls, where you will feel the cold mist blow in all directions. Though it’s the smallest of the three waterfalls that make up Niagara Falls, it is located on the American side and separates it from the famous Horseshoe Falls.

Do check out the Horseshoe Falls and treat yourself to the famous Maid of the Mist boat ride where you can take in the wonderful views of the falls up close. In the same area, Goat Island and Whirlpool State Park are must-see attractions for tourists.

A stunning but often dangerous part of Niagara Falls, the Whirlpool is a beautiful swirling vortex that engulfs things, sending them close to 200 feet (61 meters) below the water surface.

A visit to Niagara Falls can be coupled with the trip to the Canadian side to save some time, though do note that this would take at least one day to fully enjoy and admire the views. If you can stay the night, visit the falls in the night to see them lit up in a rainbow spectrum of colors, a truly fitting display for the natural beauty.

9. Day trip to Salamanca

The US-219 S route from Buffalo to Salamanca takes just over an hour’s driving. At 5281 Baker Rd, Salamanca, NY 14779-9770, the Crosspatch offers horse riding through forest trails.

With one guide at the front and another at the rear, relax and enjoy the experience. It’s great fun as you cross over some small creeks along the way. See animals like chipmunks and deer. Return to the main center for a wienie roast and salads. Ask about half-day excursions or shorter rides.

If there’s still time to explore the other activities in the area, stop in at the Salamanca Mall Antiques at 100 Main St, Salamanca. If you enjoy old things, you’ll love browsing around.

10. Bemus Point for fun, hiking and specialty shops

Bemus Point is 71 miles (114 km) from Buffalo via the I-90 E. One of the top attractions for the family is the Midway State Park at 4859 Route 430. The Amusement Park offers all sorts of fun rides. However, it’s not open on Mondays and Tuesdays. It has go-karts, slides, trains, and merry-go-rounds.

If that’s not your thing, head to The Ugly Peacock at 16 Main St and browse the selection of unique gifts. Support the local artists that produce things like funny socks and beautiful candles.

Prefer the outdoors? Head get to Long Point State Park - Lake Chautauqua at 4459 Route 430. There’s a lovely hiking path that takes you past the marina to the beach.

Read also: Top 10 things to do in Atlantic City

From : https://wikitopx.com/travel/top-10-things-to-do-in-buffalo-ny-703681.html

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