#the new arrangement & production - not to mention several different versions??

[radio-4-is-static]

25コ目の染色体 | RADWIMPS

忘れてた泣き方 でも 今ここにある何か 目を閉じても零れそうな気がして

I will die for you, and I will live for you I will die for you, there is nothing more that I could really say to you

[marimayscarlett]

LIFAD turns 15 years old today 💿🎶

On this day, the 16th of October 2009, the album 'Liebe ist für alle da' was released. The work for this album started the year prior, as the preproduction for the album took place from February to October 2008. The focus of the band in the beginning period of the production lay on learning how to work together again, playing songs together and gather ideas. In Hermannshagen, over the course of about one month, the band came up with up to 90 recordings of little snippets (like choruses and riffs), which they recorded for later.

After this brainstorming period, the band moved to the Beesenstedt castle in Sachsen-Anhalt to rehearse. The process apparently was less than easy due to tension in the band. The individual members seemingly first had to reconnect with each other, since the last production had been some time ago. Richard described the process of working on the album as difficult at times: "Everyone was involved and interested in everything, which meant the decision-making power was practically zero because everyone wanted to go in a different direction. Six people on the boat and everyone playing captain – that's really tough."

After the work period in Germany, the band moved over to the US for recording. Drum recording took place in the Henson Studios located in Los Angeles, and the final destination were the Sonoma Studios in San Francisco. The studio they had booked there fell far short of their expectations – the band felt cramped and not as comfortable as they had hoped for a successful recording of their new album. Paul describes it as follows: "There we ended up in a studio that was in the middle of a retiree resort. We had imagined that differently, because actually the area was quite cool. There were cougars and deer running around, but we were in the middle of nowhere, and when we booked, we couldn't see the barbed wire that fenced off all the paths. We felt cramped, and on top of that, the studio wasn't exactly inviting. The owner had hung unsightly things everywhere that we had to take down first. However, after de-cluttering the rooms, we started to feel better."

In total, about 20 songs were recorded, of which 18 songs were published (15 on the special edition of the album, plus Mein Land and Vergiss uns nicht on the single for Mein Land, and Gib mir deine Augen on the single for Mein Herz brennt.)

The promotion for this album was done by advertising clips, for example an old lady enjoying "Frühling in Paris" and a bodybuilder lifting weights while listening to "Mehr".

Eugenio Recuenco was the artist behind the album aesthetic - he shoot the pictures for the booklet as well as for the cover of the album. Richard mentioned a similarity to the painter Hieronymus Bosch regarding the style and arrangment in the pictures. In the US, the cover was censored - an additional inlay paper on top of the usual cover showed the cover picture, but without the woman on the table

Less than a month after the album's release, it was placed on the German index. The reasons given for this were the song Ich tu dir weh, which was seen as glorifying violence, as well as this particular image of Richard:

Due to these reasons, from November 11, 2009, the original version could only be sold upon request to adult customers and was no longer allowed to be advertised. On the re-release of the CD following the indexing of the album, there is only a several-second pause in place of the song. On the cover, Ich tu dir weh is crossed out in red and marked with the footnote "Removed after censorship by the authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany." The letters of the song lyrics in the booklet were replaced with Xs except for brief excerpts.

After a lengthy legal dispute, the album was finally removed from the index in October 2011 and can once again be distributed with Ich tu dir weh.

Nevertheless: The album, like its predecessors, entered directly at number 1 on the German charts and stayed there for two weeks. In total, it was in the Top 100 for 83 weeks. It also held the number 1 spot for several weeks in Austria and Switzerland, and even reached the Top 20 of the album charts in the USA and the UK. In the ranking of the best-selling albums in Germany in 2009, Liebe ist für alle da ranked 7th.

Some additional facts surrounding the album:

During their tour for the album, Rammstein performed Ich tu dir weh with altered lyrics.

The album was originally supposed to be called Wiener Blut – like the Rammstein song about child abductor Josef Fritzl. However, they decided against it because there was already a Falco album with the same name.

Richard about the album title: '"Liebe ist für alle da" (Love is there for everyone) is a very Christian thought. Of course, one must ask, is love really there for everyone? I would hope that it is. Can we forgive those who have misunderstood love? I often think about that, and I fail, then make some progress, only to go back again.'

The chorus of Frühling in Paris is inspired by Edith Piaf's chanson Non, je ne regrette rien.

Four years after the album's release, Führe mich was used as a soundtrack for Lars Von Trier's controversial film Nymphomaniac.

The song Haifisch is inspired by Mack the Knife from Brecht's The Threepenny Opera.

Sources: rammwiki metalhammer rammstein.de welt.de noz.de

[thepriceofbeingaroseisloneliness]

Spice e-plus interview Die & Toshiya 27th April 2021

DIR EN GREY:  What’s the current mood of a band that chose to move forward even in times of Corona? DIR EN GREY is releasing their 32nd single "Oboro" on April 28th. After a series of cancellations and postponements of their lives due to the Corona outbreak, the band continues to move forward with activities such as “Explosive screening ‘Meguro Rock-May-Kan GIG”, an unattended live performance recorded at Meguro Rock-May-Kan GIG,  that is being screened at live houses all over the country. We asked Die (Gt) and Toshiya (Ba) remotely about the shocking music video, the new song "Oboro", and the current band mood.

Notes before reading: This is Die and Toshiya’s interview for the Japanese website Spice E-plus published on April 27th. Feel free to correct me if you spot any mistakes or any confusing parts. Links or credits to this post when the content is reposted or captured in other SNS is appreciated :) --- Original interview: Here

Text by:  Yohsuke Hayakawa ---This interview was done on the last day of the  “Explosive screening ‘Meguro Rock-May-Kan GIG” but, even though there is no audience in that live, the band could play together on a stage for the first time in a while.

Die: That’s right. There was no audience, however at the time of recording there were some moments in which it was difficult to play as there were no limits. The fact we were able to get together for the first time in a long time and play together as a band was simply touching/ emotional.  However, it becomes difficult if you can’t see the audience. Last year we did an unattended live broadcast but that was the first time and as it was broadcasted in real time, I was nervous. In that sense, this time was a bit different from the previous live without audience we did. -How was the “Meguro Rock-May-Kan GIG” for you, Toshiya? Toshiya: First of all, I think it was the best thing to be able to show movement as a band. Also, I’d say overwhelming? About being able to play together, I think the words I’d use would be “happy” and “fun”.

-Ah, it felt like returning to a place that it’s like the origin of the band. Toshiya: That’s right. When the five of us played together for the first time, it was interesting and fun, somehow, I think I was really nervous about it. It’s not something that paralyzes you, I think it was a natural feeling after all. In this special environment because of Corona, it was like the first time we played together, I thought again “after all, this is it”. -In terms of freshness, you also had the chance to play “Ochita koto no aru Sora” (digital single released in August 2020) live for the first time. Toshiya:  Yes. After all, I could realize that as opposed to when you play it with headphones, the rhythm is adjusted in an atmosphere in which the air is moving around. Die: Actually, I felt it was a song that felt familiar and I was playing it while feeling that if we went on tour, I would be able to create more and more grooves.

“ We can’t play lives but as we are making songs for the album, we are moving forward. I’m hopeful because of that” (Die) -Along with the latest songs, there were some nostalgic songs that suit “Meguro Rock-May-Kan GIG”, especially “JEALOUS” was a surprise. Moreover, it was the original version, not the “reverse” one. Die: Hahaha. Well, we’ve played old songs on the "mode of ~" tours, so it’s a song we can still play. However, the tempo of the songs at that time was too different from what it is now (laughs).  It’s simple, but it feels like I’m playing a song from another band. Toshiya: Regarding “JEALOUS”, we were planning to play it at the cancelled tour『TOUR20 Sogai』 - I didn’t expect to heart it at this timing.  Hearing it after a long time…. the impression I got is that the sense of consistency has increased in “JEALOUS”. Die: Hehehe. Toshiya: I think that's right. As we didn’t listen to the click (of the metronome) in the old songs, if someone was going faster, everyone would go faster to keep up the rhythm, and if someone messed up, everyone would be drawn into that.  In that sense, I had a lot of freedom but as recent songs (the rhythm) are matched by this clicking, in order to do that, I tried “JEALOUS” using a metronome this time. That’s why I think you got that impression that it “clicked”. Die: Well, I think we should had done it more freely.  Not using a metronome click as we used to do, the tempo of the song is determined by the feeling of the venue. Certainly, at that time, everyone was doing it like that so I wish we could do it in that way this time too. Toshiya: Yes, that way is a possibility as well. If we have a chance, I think it would be good to do it in such a highly flexible situation. Well, from time to time there will be different rhythms within the band, if the members are simply playing at that moment and doing well, I think the audience will listen to it naturally  and will go with it comfortably. -I see. So, it’s been said for a while you were in the process of making an album, has your mindset changed since when you were working in “Ochita koto no aru Sora", which was done in a relatively early stage of this Corona situation, until now? Die: For me personally, I don't think it has changed. From the beginning, my feelings are heading towards a new album. We are releasing a single this time, but we were working on arranging different songs in parallel, so the mood is basically the same. We haven't been able to play lives since last year due to the corona, but that doesn't mean we've changed the way we make it. Basically, it hasn’t changed our way of working remotely. “When I listened to the melody, I felt the hope that "I'm sure we can make something beyond our imagination next time." (Toshiya) -So, how about you, Toshiya? T: Personally, there have been quite a few changes during that time. The world situation has changed due to the Corona situation and I wondered if we could released the single we made and if the fans would listen to it. I want to play concerts but I can’t do it……how could say it?....this is my point of view but….it’s like I didn’t know what’s the purpose of the band, it’s a bit confusing for me. It's a big thing for me to think that way. Well, now I feel like I have no choice but to move forward. Until that seemed like that, I was thinking where I should rely on, I felt like, where should I set a goal? -Do you mean now after such a period? I wonder if there was a moment in which those feelings you had went up as the new songs for the album took shape. Toshiya: That's right. I haven't seen the goal yet, but I'm working on pre-production with the band right now. After that there will be a period in which the songs will be released. I was listening to the songs that the members brought there, and it was really interesting for me. -Oh, is it interesting? T: Yes. It's completely different from the songs I made myself, and when they pass through the filters of each members, they become versatile and I think that’s very interesting. I don't actually see the members face to face and interact with them but when I listened to the songs, I felt the hope that "Oh, I'm sure we can make something beyond our imagination next time". I think the other members  might also hope for that, or renewed their feelings like about it like, "I have to do my best for DIR EN GREY". Die: Well, about that you mentioned, making songs for the album ... You can see hope as Toshiya said, we can’t play lives, but we're moving forward. I feel hope in that. -That you had to work on the album during this corona situation had a positive effect on your mind. Die: But after all, there is a continuous cycle for the band, touring and producing, and one of them is missing. I don't feel the that tension there. So, while thinking “There is nothing we can about it because we can’t play lives", we are making the next new album and continuing with the hope that later we will be able to tour again. -As a result of concentrating on production in such an environment, do you feel a good response in what you are creating now? T: Of course, there is a response, but I wonder if it’s really good to pack our current feelings together in it. I haven’t found a decisive factor yet. Several complications came out quite a bit but, maybe it’s the way it is now, and it and I guess it’s not over yet. Die: Rather than “in this kind of situation”, the hurdles are simply rising. Everyday, there are many....many....(laughs) -Hahaha. Was that so? Die: Yes. It’s always the same but, if you find a keyword or a hint to the next album, it will lead you to make several songs. Now I think it is still part of our work to find that. I can’t really say at this point what kind of specific feeling is but, if we find it, we can change the shift, or it will be easier to find the direction of the album. Right now, we are exploring this aspect and we haven’t come to any conclusion yet. There will be a moment  it would be like “this is the atmosphere” and it will flow in that way, so I guess it will be easier to go that way. We have no option but explore it further. “It's been 24 years since the band was formed, and it’s like the challenges we are going through are also reflected in the MV, it’s not like we are going to sit back and rest on our laurels” (Die) -I think the song that gives you a glimpse of how the next album will be it’s the new single “Oboro”. At the time of this interview, just the 15- second MV teaser was released but….no, it already is having a strong impact! Toshiya: Hehehe Die: (Smiles)  As for the MV, the concrete idea came out from Kyo, and from that idea everyone went to do it in that direction but, well, it’s like it can’t be done without us, right? It’s been 24 years since the formation, and it seems that the things we are challenging are also reflecting in things like that. It’s not like we are going to sit back and rest on our laurels. -Yes. I feel you are a band that doesn’t know the meaning of “withering” and in a good sense, doesn’t settle down. Die: That’s right. When I was shooting the MV, I talked a bit with Kyo, I was like “Isn’t this too edgy? It’s too much”. Probably, I think that a scene like this can be shown firmly even in a MV where only 5 people play, and I think  it can be expressed in a simple form, but DIR EN GREY isn’t just there, after all, I thought we had to beat in/smash down more and more. So, the MV set this time reminded me of the atmosphere when we debuted, I was feeling like it was still aggressive and no good. -In an era when there is a call for compliance/ obedience, you must have an image of reliance. Die: Haha. But there is a part that it can’t be played (on TV etc…) (laughs). -It’s true (laughs). Toshiya: Well, so this is also part of DIR EN GREY. This talk we just had, I wonder if this scene with the five members playing is also part of what DIR EN GREY is. Personally speaking, I want to try to go to other places rather than this one at the next chance. I still don’t know what that would be, and when it comes to what we are actually going to do, I think everyone, including myself, will be concerned about it again. However, if some form remains, I would like to do something that it’s constantly evolving. -When it comes to the style of your MVs, you want to be a band that has no limits. Toshiya: That's right. For example, DIR EN GREY is gloomy, isn't it? DIR EN GREY is heavy, difficult, and intense, isn't it? Of course, I think it's an option that we can be caught like that (in a MV) but if we even want to surprise ourselves, after all I think I want us to keep working as hard as we can. I’m sure we jumped over those limits but maybe….just maybe….I think that’s  the things the 5 members are looking for…. -In 24 years of activity as a band,  if now it’s time to shake off everywhere, that’s your strength as a band. Toshiya: Yes, I think so. -So, "Oboro" is a ballad with a power and lyrics unique to DIR EN GREY, I felt  the core was made in a way to make you listen to the song and the live  performance of it in a fresh shape. It’s because each part is powerful, even though there are instruments in it that are not the usual ones in the band. As for the arrangements that the band did, was it simply a scraping work? Die: Now it’s simpler than it used to be, we’ve been focusing more on how to make the sound that’s in more powerful than actually just adding more. As I had that mental image,without overdubbing  the guitar arrangement as much as possible, I went in the direction of reducing it. It might be a bad way to say this but, I approached the arrangements with the feeling that this is what I’m going to play live later, so it was like “don’t do anything crafty/pretentious”. -It seems that you are using a Fender Jazzmaster for recording, did you do that choice because of what you just said? Die: That's right.  After all, for chord stroke parts, etc… I’m going to play with that guitar and that tone quality later. So, when I tried to use that kind of chord progression for the first time in a while, it was simple, but it felt like something fresh. It really resonated with me, and when I listened to it myself, I simply thought, "Oh, that's good" (laughs). -Hahaha. That’s good. Is that feeling of being a raw band an essential point for you? Die: Well, that's right. At the so-called chorus part,  it wasn’t  just about filling the backing with the low notes of the guitar. I also took on a new challenge to be able to see the scenery further. “I think there will surely be something that makes it fun for the band, fun to match our sounds again, there will be something that it’s going to feel interesting for sure.” (Toshiya) -I see. Also, the bass phrase is a basic one, but it’s done with an approach that makes each note stand out, including the tone quality/timbre. Toshiya: Regarding “Oboro”, I simply thought  the dynamic image of it would be the most attractive thing, so I wanted to hear each and every sound without really doing anything extra. Up until now, there were too many things we wanted to do, and we wanted to include that and this as well, I had a sound barrier, but I couldn't hear what I wanted to hear. While narrowing down the main points and making it possible to listen to each part you want to hear firmly, still, each of the members started  working on it with the idea that to be able to listen to each part of it would be the virtue of this composition. - As a result, the bass sounds with a thick sound image that has a strong presence. Toshiya: That's right. At the end, I think the part where you can hear the sound of the bass alone is quite distorted, but that is the tone through all the song, and the sound is quite distorted. However, when the sounds overlap, the low feeling is more noticeable than the distortion. Normally, if it is distorted, it tends to overlap  when you join all the parts. However, as I said earlier, each member was thinking about how they wanted to hear their own sound, and even if it is distorted very much, the sound has a strong presence. I think I was able to reach such a result firmly. -While setting up the coordination/the harmony of  the musical instruments, is your main idea oriented toward making a song “that makes people listen to it”? Toshiya: Yes, I have in mind that it’s going to become a song. After all, it’s because I’m thinking it will be a full song. However, I think at that point the band sound has become unbeatable. Die: First of all, the basics of a song (without the lyrics) start once the instrumental part is recorded.  At that point, I still have no idea what kind of song we are getting into, so after the approach of how it’s going to be the singing part actually comes, the task is replacing some parts with a backing that makes the most of the lyrics. I’m always trying to figure out how to make the lyrics stand out. -I'm looking forward to hearing "Oboro" live, but recently you announced a live performance at the Tokyo Garden Theater ("Sogai") on May 6th. After cancelling the tour and Pia Arena MM performance scheduled last year,  does this live performance with audience mean that, after all you have been through, you can see a way that the band can perform in this situation? (* It was announced that this "Sogai" live will be postponed due to the announcement of the state of emergency on April 23rd.) Toshiya: The members and the staff included talked about this a lot, but in the end, after a lot of discussions we came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be “as under these circumstances we can’t do it, we won’t do it’  but rather, the talk went into the direction of “If we don’t do it, we won’t accomplish anything”, of course, there is a national guideline for lives and we have to obey it. While thinking about that, as for DIR EN GREY, nothing will work unless we take action. If you don't take a step, nothing will happen. If you don't move now and say "Let's wait for the time to come",  it’s more like, “when will that time come?”. - That's true. Toshiya: Then, instead of waiting for the time to come, we thought it would be better to make "now" the right time for us. - While there is a change in your previous mindset, you made the best choice you can make now. Toshiya: That’s right.  Our mindset is simply different from those days. Die: As Toshiya said, if you don't experience a live performance during Corona, nothing will come out, and if you simply say, “we won't do a live concert during Corona," that's all. I think we should also have the experience of a live performance under the regulations. At the moment, we can’t ask everyone to come, but it's important for the future that we don't wait without moving at all, that we take a step forward and experience this kind of live. It’s a live that was decided with no idea of how it will turn out. -Is it necessary for yourselves to continue the band in the future? Is it also a trigger/spark for you? Toshiya: Yes. We felt that we couldn't get anything unless we acted on our own to get something. We had a discussion about what we could do while following the guidelines, and we thought that it was the live concert that would be the spark/trigger for us, so I would like to take on the challenge of the next live concert with that decision. As I mentioned at the beginning of this interview, I think there will surely be something that makes it fun for the band, fun to match our sounds again, there will be something that it’s going to feel interesting for sure. In addition, although there is a limit on the number of people who can attend the live, this time there will be  audience there. It’s a commonplace but, I think we can get something like a synergistic effect by colliding with the people who is going to come. - It will finally be a live  with audience in front of you. Die: That's right. However, the hurdles are still rising. You have to make a live concert following a guideline such as half of the capacity of the venue or not being able to shout/scream. I don't think it's good to say, "As the audience can’t shout/scream, we are not sure about doing it". Since we decided to do it, I think we have to do a DIR EN GREY live that has never been seen before. The future setlist and so, we have to change the method itself…. There is no point in doing it unless we get to convince all the fans who come to see us under these circumstances. “I’m glad I came”, “I’m glad I was able to see it”, things like that, I want to make a live that everyone can think of.

[dwellordream]

“In the 1910s and 1920s, some people took particular offense to short skirts. Others were more disturbed by the sleeveless tops, delicate fabrics, and sheer stockings that young women fancied. Still others judged short hair the most troubling of fashion innovations. Yet no matter which aspect of the new styles they found more provocative, critics shared one fundamental conviction: They believed modern fashions to be part of a broader rebellion against conventional gender arrangements and therefore inextricably linked to the issue of female emancipation. Whether they talked about short skirts or short hair, they generally agreed that the new styles made women "much freer" and "more independent," both physically and psychologically, and that the reason for their enthusiastic embrace of the modern fashions lay in this fact. 

In the years since then, both popular and professional historians have tended to reproduce this belief. With few exceptions, they have presented postwar fashions as a sign of young women's refusal to accept the constraints of nineteenth-century femininity and as evidence of their insistence on new physical freedoms. Like commentators at the time, they have emphasized the ease and practicality of the new styles, assuming that it was these qualities that held particular appeal to young women in general and working women in particular. Such claims are not without merit. When asked why they liked the new styles, many women who embraced modern fashions in the 1910s and 1920s pointed to their simplicity and convenience. 

In retrospect, Henny Nedergaard, for example, explained that "old-fashioned dresses were so complicated. I remember in my childhood, it took forever for my mother to get dressed. The modern dresses were much easier. You just slipped them on���that was it." Charlotte Hansen also described the older styles of female dress as confining and appropriate only for a sedentary existence. "Our generation was different," she explained. "We were not content to just sit still and do nothing. Corsets and stays, that was not for us. We did not want to wear all those heavy clothes. They just did not fit us." According to Edith Jensen, the new styles "made it easier for women to move."

"Short dresses were much more practical," added Lily Enevold, "especially if you had to work. You couldn't really work in those long dresses." Some women endorsed short hair for the same reason. "Who in the world had time to comb and brush and put up long hair," Henriette Marie Markfeldt wanted to know, "when you had to be at work at seven o'clock in the morning? No, short hair was a lot easier." To deny that the new styles were in fact easier and more comfortable than the restrictive, corseted fashions and the elaborate coiffure of the nineteenth century would be pointless. 

But to argue that the new fashions freed women from physical restrictions and eliminated time-consuming grooming would be equally untrue. Short, narrow skirts did not exactly promote free and unrestricted mobility. Neither did the high heels that became so popular in the postwar era. Silk stockings may have felt more comfortable than the older wool stockings, but they were also more fragile and more frequently in need of mending. Similarly, short hair may have required less daily attention, but it demanded regular trimming, and when curls and waves became the new fashionable norm, most women had to spend considerable time, not to mention substantial sums of money, at the hairdresser. 

In addition, the new fashions demanded a slenderness that had not been a requirement for older generations of women. As fashion historian Valerie Steele has pointed out, stylistic change applies to bodies as well as clothes, and with the new, slimmer lines in women's clothing went slimmer female bodies. From the beginning of World War I, when the new fashionable styles first gained popularity, the "tyranny of slenderness" thus began its ascendancy over all women who wanted to be in style. In the postwar decade, this led to an unprecedented emphasis on dieting, a phenomenon still unfamiliar to most women in the early 1910s.

Yet already in the mid-1910s when the new styles were first introduced to broad audiences, advice on how to obtain a slender body became a regular feature in women's magazines. At first, such advice was rather infrequent and not particularly demanding. "The most efficient method is to eat minimally," one newspaper advised in 1915, acknowledging, however, that "this is of course not entirely convenient when one has a good cook." As a solution to this dilemma, the journalist recommended standing up for twenty minutes after each main meal, an exercise that supposedly would counteract the unfortunate effects of (too much) good food. 

Gradually, dieting became more rigorous and sophisticated, and by the mid-1920s beauty experts were prescribing strict diets of grapefruit, fish, and raw vegetables "not just for a few days at a time, but. . . day in and day out, year in and year out." Other recommended ways of acquiring the slender body were equally taxing. In addition to dieting, women were encouraged to engage in various forms of physical exercise, not for the pleasure this might entail but for the results it would produce. If both of these strategies failed, a variety of commercial products promised shortcuts to a slender body. 

From the early 1920s, a multitude of remedies, including oils, drinks, salts, and tablets, promised female consumers instant health and gradual thinness. Finally, women aiming for a sleek-looking body could—and very often did—turn to modernized versions of the traditional corset. Most famous for being discarded during the 1920s, corsets were in fact simply remodeled to suit the new styles. Replacing whalebone and canvas, tough elastic material flattened breasts and stomachs and eliminated the visible curves of hips and thighs. 

Obviously, then, the fashions that made women more mobile and less physically restrained also made them more self-conscious about measuring up to the new "look." And no matter which strategy women chose in order to obtain the desired shape and weight, they had to engage in the immensely demanding process of self-surveillance and self-disciplining that the American historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg has labeled the twentieth-century female "body project." But if the new styles were neither as easy, simple, nor carefree as they have often been described, why did young women so eagerly embrace these fashions? 

At the time, answers to this question were rarely articulated by the women who adopted the new styles, especially not in writing. After all, fashion is, as Mary Louise Roberts has pointed out, "something to wear, not [something] to write about," and even though journalists were fond of querying their readers about virtually any topic under the sun, they apparently never thought to ask young women to explain their enthusiasm for the new styles. But when asked several decades later, most women had an answer at hand. "It was what was fashionable back then and of course you wanted to be fashionable," said Dora Ingvardsen.

Lily Enevold gave a very similar explanation. "I guess it was just what was in style, and you know how young girls want to be stylish." Others, including Stine Petersen, explained that "for me, it wasn't really a big deal. I just wanted to look good." Had contemporaries heard such explanations, they may well have been less perturbed than most of them were. For some women, the new styles clearly had no significance beyond being the prescribed fashion. Their reason for liking the new styles was not that they permitted women new physical freedoms, and they did not associate short dresses or short hair with any kind of rebelliousness against the status quo. 

As Marie Hedegaard poignantly remarked, "I belonged to Conservative Youth, but being politically conservative had nothing to do with that. Of course, we wore short dresses, and most of the girls [who belonged to the organization] had short hair." Still, the women who recalled their stylish appearances as merely the result of fashion prescription constituted a minority. Far more frequently women gave another explanation. In general, they claimed to have liked the new styles neither for their practicality nor for their ease, but because they were a particularly effective way of displaying their difference from older generations of women and asserting a distinctively "modern" female identity. 

As Agnes Nyrop explained, "We were young and gay and full of life, and we wanted to look like that, look modern." Voicing the same sentiment, Louise Ege explained, "Those dresses did not just make you look stylish, they made you look modern." "Having short skirts and short dresses, that was part of being modern," added Gertrud 0st. "It made you feel free and young and modern. Stylish, you know, glamorous, and that was what we wanted," according to Amanda Christensen. Whether or not the new styles were in fact easier, more practical, and more convenient, this was obviously not the only factor in determining these women's fashion choices. 

The fact that the new styles set young women visually apart from an older generations whose confining lives they did not care to emulate was at least as important. As Thora Smed recalled, "My mother, she never had a moment of ease in her life. It was always toil and moil for her. I think most of us dreamed of a life that would not be like that." For her, and for many other women who were young in the 1920s, sporting the new fashionable styles was simultaneously an expression of this desire and part of its fulfillment. In her words, "We wanted something more, something better, and I guess [wearing fashionable clothes] was in a way part of that."

Simply wearing the new fashions certainly seemed to provide many women with a sense of glamour and style that lifted their existence into a "modern" realm of luxury, pleasure, and indulgence unfamiliar to most of their mothers. As a result, even the stringent requirements for slenderness and the laborious aspects of other forms of beauty care seemed well worth the effort. In fact, engaging in such beauty care was in itself a privilege that many young women treasured. "I have to admit that [we] spent a lot of time on looking good," confided Vera Thorsen. "But it was fun. Trying different things, trying this and that. No, it was fun."

But the new fashionable styles did not only play a role on the individual level. They also signaled young women's collective embrace of a new identity as "modern" women and their commitment to creating a life for themselves that would be "modern" in a much broader sense. Ingrid Kristensen's answer to the question of why she liked the new styles was therefore less a non sequitur than it first appeared. After a brief pause, she explained that "young girls had a lot in common back then. We wanted something different." After yet another pause, she added pensively, "I think that was why we liked [the new fashionable styles]. It was like— like that was what you let people know when you looked like that."

Clearly, then, young women did not consider the new styles emancipatory in and of themselves. Still, to dismiss the women who wore them as merely clothes horses and fashion plates would be mistaken. Their pursuit of the modern look may have been informed by mass-produced images of female glamour and style, and the acquisition of a fashionable appearance unquestionable tied young women into elaborate patterns of consumption and individual beauty care. 

But to the extent that the new styles provided young women with an individual and collective identity as "modern" women, fashion and appearance were part of young women's rebellion against the past. While they did not define themselves as feminists in any way, they were certainly not willing to accept the restricted, joyless lives they believed their mothers and grandmothers to have lived, and in their own understanding, this was exactly what they signaled through their adoption of the new fashions.”

- Birgitte Soland, “The Emergence of the Modern Look.” in Becoming Modern: Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s

[easygst]

What are the Advantages of Using Best Billing Software in India?

For a business to become successful, it has to pay extra attention to the set of standards it is following to maintain the organization’s quality and professionalism. However, this does not mean sticking to the traditional system and mastering it. The users also want their favorites businesses to adapt to the latest technology and trends.

By adopting these technologies, the businesses are able to manage the operation in the same way. These new technologies are just the advanced versions of the traditional ones, but the advantage you get is reduced time. Like that, billing software has also enabled business owners to bring different elements of their business in one place for better control. You will find everything in this software is updated and at your fingertips. However, to better understand the advantages of using the best billing software, let us first understand its meaning.

What is Billing Software?

The software refers to a set of programs that the company can use to manage complex invoicing tasks. In addition, it contains a set of commands that the owners can use to simplify their activities and operations. Moreover, the software can be used anywhere, like in departmental stores, shopping malls, grocery stores, garment shops, restaurants, hospitals, etc. Also, it is available in all range types from simplest to complex.

📷

So, if you are running a business with difficulty in managing your customer while feeding the payment data, you should get this solution. The tool is an excellent option to reduce the burden relating to real-time data and monitor business activity together.

Advantages of using the billing software

No one can undermine the advantages derived from the best billing system in India. When you are running a business, you know how important is the role of invoicing to enable the company to receive payment on time. The software helps in managing the entire payment process, including gathering information, creating and sending bills. In addition, it contains several elements like data entry, billing codes, authentication, security, and payment tracking. Other advantages of using the software are as follows:

Instant updates

One of the best benefits you get by using billing software in your store is you get regular updates of the item sold. It integrates inventory and accounting software to give you instant updates about the accounts and the business. As a result, you have control over what is happening, and the inventory level remains checked. So when the billing is happening, the number of items sold is also updating side-by-side.

Maintain professionalism

Billing Software for SME is more than just handling the invoices. It is a way offered to your company to promote the professionalism and brand of your business. An automated and correct billing system help boost your business reputation.

Increases efficiency

Automating the billing process also enable the company to increase the efficiency and productivity of the business. In addition, it helps businesses reduce the cost spent on the extra employees to carry the billing tasks. Similarly, it also increases the liquidity flow in the industry by streamlining payment methods and enhancing customer relations.

Cost-effective

Billing software can reduce the cost spent by your company in lot more ways than you think. For example, when following the traditional method, a company has to maintain many details manually. As a result, it requires the entrepreneur to incur costs in purchasing paper/ink and investing time, which can cost more than money sometimes. But with the help of the billing system, you can save it all. In other words, you do not have to spend time or money writing on paper and then arranging an area to store it.

What does a billing software do and its features?

Billing Software in India is apparently more than just receipt-generation software. In other words, the software is not limited to invoicing only it provides other important features too, as mentioned below:

Barcode Integration

You must have seen a barcode scanner when standing at the billing counter in shopping malls or departmental stores. It is an instrument owners use to scan the barcode present on every store’s product to get access to its price and other details. The software with an integrated barcode scanner option makes it very easy for the business to invoice bills accurately.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Having a CRM feature in your invoicing system is a way to have a long-term relationship with your customers. It helps you improve the customer experience and the overall performance of the business. In addition, through this feature, the organization can also interact with new potential customers to expand its business opportunity.

Point of Sale

Another feature benefiting entrepreneurs is the point of sale. It makes the invoice process quicker and more accurate. Through the process, you can instantly calculate the amount of the product owned by the customer, prepare its invoice, inform them about the payment and collect it.

Inventory management

No matter the company is large or small, everyone faces difficulty when it comes to managing stock. However, invoicing software can help make the task easy. The software contains a standard solution of integrating inventory management and allowing managers to get information about the stock. For example, how much stock is available and how much is the balance. Additionally, you can also track the location of many stores.

Integrated payment option

Billing Software for Small Business also provides the businesses the option of integrating various payment option. It is vital because customers like to get options in payments like credit, debit cards, and digital wallets nowadays. As a result, the solution integrated into the software not only acts beneficial for the customer but also owners.

Conclusion

Now billing software has become the pillar of the business. It helps a company to strengthen its base and enables it to grow further. The software eliminates all the difficulties faced by business owners and improves the efficiency and productivity of businesses. If you also want to adapt to such a billing system, you can visit the site of Easy GST today! It will help you not only to grow your business but also to earn the maximum profit.

[papermoonloveslucy]

TOO MANY HUSBANDS

April 21, 1947

The Gulf Screen Guild Theater present  Wesley Ruggles’ Too Many Husbands, which was a 1940 Columbia Pictures release.

Produced and Directed by: Bill Lawrence

Music by: Wibur Hatch

Synopsis ~ Vicky Lowndes (Lucille Ball) loses her first husband, Bill Cardew (Bob Hope), in a boating accident in which he is presumed drowned. The lonely widow is comforted by Bill's best friend and publishing business partner Henry Lowndes (Frank Sinatra). Six months later, she marries him. Six months after that, Bill shows up, after having been stranded on a uninhabited island and then rescued. Vicky has a tough choice to make.

The Screen Guild Theater (aka The Screen Guild Players), was one of the most popular drama anthology series during the Golden Age of Radio. At this point it is being sponsored by Gulf Oil. From its first broadcast in 1939, up to its farewell in 1952, it showcased radio adaptations of popular Hollywood films. Many Hollywood names became part of the show, including Bette Davis, Bing Crosby, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, and many more. The actors’ fees were all donated to the Motion Picture Relief Fund, an organization that provides aid to retired actors. Screen Guild Theater was heard on different radio networks, beginning with CBS from 1939 to 1948, NBC from 1948 to 1950, ABC from 1950 to 1951, and back to CBS until its last episode on June 29, 1952. Throughout its run, a total of 527 episodes were produced.

The radio show brought movies to radio for thirty minutes each Monday evening on CBS. The show aired for 242 programs beginning with “Yankee Doodle Dandy” starring James Cagney and ending with “My Reputation.” In between were all time classics such as “Casablanca” with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, “Sergeant York” with Gary Cooper and “Holiday Inn” with Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and Dinah Shore.

The Screen Guild Players previously broadcast an adaptation of “Too Many Husbands” on March 8, 1942 starring Hedy Lamar, Bob Hope, and Bing Crosby. On September 4, 1944 yet another version was aired by the Players, starring Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra, and Bill Goodwin. 

Too Many Husbands (1940) was produced and directed by Wesley Ruggles, with a screenplay by Claude Binyon. The film stars Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray and Melvyn Douglas, and is based on the 1919 play Home and Beauty by W. Somerset Maugham, which was retitled Too Many Husbands when it came to New York.  The story is a variation on the 1864 poem Enoch Arden by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. In the UK, the film was released as My Two Husbands. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Sound Recording. Too Many Husbands was remade as a musical, Three for the Show (1955), with Jack Lemmon and Betty Grable. 

Two of the film’s background players, Bert Stevens and James Conaty, were later seen in as extras on “I Love Lucy.” Sam McDaniel (brother of Oscar-winner Hattie McDaniel of Gone With the Wind), plays a porter, just as he will do on “I Love Lucy,” becoming the first black actor to have lines on the series. Star Fred MacMurray will appear with Lucille Ball in “Lucy Hunts Uranium” in 1958. 

RADIO CAST

Lucille Ball (Vickie) plays the role originated in the film by Jean Arthur. In April 1947, Ball was awaiting the release of two films: Lured and Her Husband’s Affairs.  

Bob Hope (Bill) plays the role originated in the film by Fred MacMurray. Hope had just released the film My Favorite Brunette. Hope and Ball would do four films together, staring in 1949 with Sorrowful Jones. 

Frank Sinatra (Henry) plays the role originated in the film by Melvyn Douglas. Sinatra had just released the film It Happened in Brooklyn on April 7, 1947. Primarily a singer, this is the only time he acts opposite Lucille Ball. 

Truman Bradley (Announcer) was selected by Henry Ford to be the announcer for the “Ford Sunday Evening Hour”. With his distinctive, authoritative voice, he soon became a radio actor as well as a narrator in numerous movies. Bradley was the radio announcer for shows by Red Skelton, Burns and Allen, and Frank Sinatra. 

Peter, the Butler is played by an uncredited performer. 

‘TOO MANY’ TRIVIA!

The title is easily confused with the title of Lucille Ball’s radio series “My Favorite Husband,” and her films Too Many Girls, and Her Husband’s Affairs. 

Lucille Ball also appeared with Screen Guild Players in “Tight Shoes” (April 12, 1942), “Nothing But the Truth” (May 3, 1943), and “A Night To Remember” (May 1, 1944). 

From late 1942 to July 1947 Lady Esther Cosmetics sponsored the show which had been previously sponsored by Gulf Oil. It was first known as the “Lady Esther Presents the Screen Guild Players” and then became "The Lady Esther Screen Guild Theater.” 

As is his penchant, Hope ad libs during the script. While hugging Vickie upon his return from the ‘dead’, he says “Let’s just stay like this till ‘Take it or Leave It’ comes on the air!”  “Take It or Leave It” was a radio quiz show, which ran from April 1940 to July 1947 on CBS. It switched to NBC in 1947, and in September 1950, the name of the program was changed to “The $64 Question.”  Hope often flubs his dialogue, but covers with comedy. 

Bill (or maybe it is Bob ad libbing) mentions Dorothy Dix. Author Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer (1861-1951) was widely known by the pen name Dorothy Dix. As the forerunner of today’s popular advice columnists, Dix was America’s highest paid and most widely read female journalist at the time of her death. Her advice on marriage was syndicated in newspapers around the world with an estimated audience of 60 million readers.

Bill (or maybe it is Bob ad libbing) wonders why Vickie married Henry: “Did you lose a question on “Truth or Consequences?” “Truth or Consequences” was a game show originally hosted on NBC radio by Ralph Edwards (1940–1957), although it also was later seen on television. 

Bill (or maybe it is Bob ad libbing) says that the mattress on the bed that he and Henry have to share feels like it has been stuffed with Grape-Nuts. Grape-Nuts is a breakfast cereal developed in 1897 by C. W. Post. Post originally developed the product as a batter that came from the oven as a rigid sheet, which was then broken into pieces and run through a coffee grinder to produce the "nut"-sized kernels.

The first commercial break advertises Lady Esther’s four-purpose face cream.  In these live commercials, the spokeswoman in known as Lady Esther, although she was not the actual Esther Cohen that the cosmetics line was named for. 

Bob Hope ad-libs about his “Pepsodent contract”.  Hope hosted “The Pepsodent Show” from September 1938 to June 1948. The program also featured Jerry Colonna along with Blanche Stewart and Elvia Allman as well as a continuously rotating supporting cast and musicians which included Desi Arnaz and his orchestra.

Henry tells Bill he should leave and join the Foreign Legion. Bill replies that he’ll meet him halfway by going to the library and reading Beau Geste. Beau Geste is an adventure novel by P. C. Wren, which details the adventures of three English brothers who enlist separately in the French Foreign Legion following the theft of a valuable jewel from the country house of a relative. Published in 1924, the novel has been adapted for the screen several times: 1926, 1939, and 1966. 

Henry asks Bill (Bob) if he can spell “pithecanthropus" and defines it a the missing link between man and ape. Bob (Bill) replies “C.R.O.S.B.Y”!  Bing Crosby was a singer that partnered with Hope on dozens of films, particularly their “road” films.  In April 1947, Crosby had just appeared in a cameo role in Hope’s newest film, My Favorite Brunette. By the end of 1947, The Road to Rio will be released.  Coincidentally, in the 1942 Screen Guild production, Crosby played Henry, the role taken here by Sinatra. 

Just before Vickie breaks it to Henry that she’d rather be married to Bill, Henry (or maybe it is Crosby) sings “Time After Time” (1946), a romantic ballad by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, written for Sinatra to introduce in the 1947 film It Happened in Brooklyn, which had premiered two weeks earlier.  In return, in the very next scene, Bob Hope warbles a few notes of “Thanks for the Memory”, his signature song. 

At the end, Lucille Ball thanks the Motion Picture Relief Fund and it’s country house. In 1940, Jean Hersholt, then-president of the Motion Picture Relief Fund, found 48 acres of walnut and orange groves in the southwest end of the San Fernando Valley to build the Motion Picture Country House. The dedication was on September 27, 1942. The Motion Picture Hospital was dedicated on the grounds of the Country House in 1948.

The final commercial, once again delivered by ‘Lady Esther’ is for Lady Esther Bridal Pink Face Powder. 

‘TOO MANY’ CLOSING CREDITS

The announcer (Truman Bradley) promotes next week’s program, Stork Bites Man, starring Jackie Cooper, Anita Louise, and Gus Schilling.  

Stork Bites Man was a United Artists film that would not be released until June 1947. It also starred Cooper and Schilling. 

Columbia Pictures is credited as the producer of The Guilt of Janet Ames, starring Rosalind Russell and Melvyn Douglas. Coincidentally, Douglas starred in the film version of Too Many Husbands. 

The music was arranged and conducted by Wilbur Hatch, who also did the same for “My Favorite Husband” and “I Love Lucy.” 

Lucille Ball appeared courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, producers of The Sea of Grass starring Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, and Robert Walker.  

Bob Hope appears through the courtesy of Pepsodent, and can currently be seen in the Paramount picture, My Favorite Brunette.

Frank Sinatra appears through the courtesy of Old Gold cigarettes, and can currently be seen in the MGM musical It Happened in Brooklyn, also starring Katharyn Grayson, Peter Walker, and Jimmy Durante.

The announcer reminds listeners that part of the country goes on Daylight Saving Time, and that the show will be heard one hour earlier.  

[secretradiobrooklyn]

Secret Radio | 7.24.21, 8.7.21 & etc.

“Better, Better, Back” Secret Radio | 7.24.21, 8.7.21 & etc. | Hear it here.

- Mort Garson - “Plantasia”

1. Jean-Pierre Djeukam - “Africa Iyo” - “Cameroon Garage Funk”

The main musician I think of from Cameroon is Beti-Beti, and this is a whole different thing. Endless props to Analog Africa for providing fiery track after track. This is the sweat from their newest collection!

2. Eyedress - “Jealous”

Paige hears something in this and when I unfocus my eyes I do too. (Literal?) high school skate kids gettin in their shallow feels. I will admit that the chorus “time-time” is killer.

3. Nahid Akthar & Tafo - “Takra We Gutt Bhar Le” (I think)

Nahid Akthar’s voice is so completely bewitching that the amazing arrangements almost sneak by. Tafo is the producer of this track I believe, and the narrative structure of the music is just so confident and encompassing. But then also: man, that VOICE. She’s right up there with Ros Serey Sothea in expressiveness and character.

4. Oruã - “Escola das Roas” - “Sem Bênção / Sem Crença”

My thanks to you, Marc, for pointing this band to us. I have fallen in love with this particular recording, it just gets more thoroughly better with every listen. Calvin Johnson mentioned this band in a recent K newsletter — they’re a Brazilian band who corresponded with Doug Martsch as mutual fans until at some point Doug decided his own band needed replacing and he brought them out as Built to Spill and also as Oruã. This track also has shades of Sonic Youth’s “Master-Dik,” one of my all-time ultra faves. It really hits me in the ’90s, and I rilly want to see how some of this music is performed live.

5. Jacques Dutronc - “Le Responsable”

I’m so thankful to have Jacques Dutronc in my life. His rock songs knock me into gear like nothing else — and the whole band has its own very specific flavor. It kicks!

6. Sleepy Kitty - “Alceste in Silverlake”

At very long last, there is a new Sleepy Kitty album on the way! It’s in line at the record plant as I type this. And this is a song from the perspective of a musician-seeking drummer in LA, crossed with the most brutally honest man in all of France.

7. Sakuran Zensen - “錯乱前戦 ロッキンロール” (I Wanna Rock & Roll)

We only knew one song by this band (that we’ve played here) because the video was rad, but I looked to see what else was there and this song is just freakin great with me. The chords are really cool and his vocal delivery is just so over the top it’s impossible not to love. And the guitar solo is basically a full-on tonefest, which I appreciate more than a bunch of flying fingers. The video helps fill in the picture nicely too, I think, though I like the song while not looking at it even more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPCqT3e89SU

- Mort Garson - “Concerto for Philodendron & Pothos”

8. Clothilde - “Fallait pas ècraser la queue du chat”

All hail the French instinct for chamber music instruments as pop instruments, and then as a kind of technicolor weirdness. The orchestration of this song is a work of art in itself, and that doesn’t even account for her self-harmonizing melody. If you haven’t already, picture a brunette bob and deep mascara.

9. Public Service Broadcasting - “Spitfire”

I can’t remember now how I found this music, though I think it might’ve been from Josh’s playlist? This is from 2012, but they have a new album coming out almost exactly a month from now. In Bound Stems Tim and I got really into interlacing snatches of other people’s words into the music we were making, and this is very congruent with that interest. I feel like this song passes tests as it goes.

10. Shocking Blue - “Send Me a Postcard”

I first heard of this band when I was learning everything I could about Nirvana, and I’d heard both versions of “Love Buzz” and knew they were both great, but we only recently caught this track. It’s the bridge between “White Rabbit” and “Territorial Pissings.” 

11. Metak - “Tetrapak”

Our favorite Croatian band! Everything about this song is delightful. I feel like if this song was in English I’d probably cringe at the lyrics, but in this format I can only hear how much fun the song is to play. I am one-quarter Croatian, which means I can’t understand any of the lyrics either but I do see little ghosts of myself in the pictures of the band somehow. It’s weird.

12. Katerine - “Louxor J’adore”

-Anything I could say about this song is eclipsed by this excerpt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD7QuV6f_MA

The performance to the cemetery knocks me out

13. Erkin Koray - “Seni Her Gördügümde”

Whenever we’re listening to Anatolian psych, the songs with the most creative ideas and satisfying riffs and great vocal passages are always Erkin Koray. The four-piece arrangements are so good, and then he doesn’t hesitate to step up with his guitar to narrate a passage. Also, I really like how Turkish rock sounds so Indian and also Arabic and also French.

14. WITCH - “Chifundo”

Zambian prog rock! I haven’t heard anything like this track anywhere else in Africa yet. The thing is, this version of prog includes the exact flavor that Yes totally lacks, and thus I really love listening to this track in a way most prog rock doesn’t hit me. The time switches and the lead part over the top are just so smooth!

15. Ezra Furman - “Psalm 151”

We’ve been listening to a lot of Ezra Furman’s music lately, and it’s only getting better and more engrossing with every listen. We toured with Ezra Furman’s band about 5 years ago and every night was a pleasure. They’re finishing up a new album, which makes this a great time to listen to the others. This entire album, “Transangelic Exodus,” is a masterpiece as far as we’re concerned, and I find myself thinking the whole time too about Tim Sandusky’s production. Tim’s such a home town for us, and to hear his full attention on this album is just such a pleasure.

16. Ralph Stanley - “White Light, White Heat”

It was one of my favorite musical influence moments ever when my dad’s bluegrass band, The Prozac Mtn Boys, played VU’s “What Goes On.” Knowing that there is a recording of one of my dad’s true banjo heroes playing “White Light White Heat” is just an endless blessing. And actually hearing it is even better.

17. Kim Jung Mi - “Ganadaramabasa”

I know basically nothing about this track except that she’s Korean and this is from 1973. She’s got a real Diana Ross thing going on, and her band has a real Supremes vibe too… but it doesn’t sound like one of their songs.

18. Penny Penny - “Yogo Yogo”

We just got this record recently, and based on this track I wouldn’t’ve necessarily pictured the remarkable-looking guy who actually made this music. This is from the album “Shaka Bundu.” I’m sure it’s been cranked up and sent through some great house remixes — how could this not be? — but I like how this tempo operates at its own pace. It’s so truly and thoroughly ’80s, very 20th century. In the 21st century this tempo is practically cerebral.

19. Baris Manço - “Binboganin Kizi”

More Anatolian action. It’s really interesting to me how Turkish stuff was always associated with psych music but I didn’t really know how except for the opium thing, and I now understand that it’s in the chord relationships, well, and a lot of the vocal melody and delivery. In that way, Turkish rock pretty much defines what psych music sounds like. Wow. And check out that keyboard solo, so next level!

20. The Velvet Underground - “Countess from Hong Kong”

People are always asking Beatles or Stones and the answer is Velvet Underground. (And the Beatles, and the Stones.) They were just operating along a different balance beam than those other guys — performing different tricks for a different audience. While the Beatles were defining pop music, the VU were destroying it… but then later, they reveal their deep affinity for Western music, even as they never drop in to the blues-centric reading of it. It’s truly punk. I guess they are to punk what the Beatles are to pop — the definition of pop is whatever flows to or from the Beatles; punk is whatever flows to or from the Velvet Underground. Certainly more than any single band in 1976 or 7 or whatever.

21. Bella Bellow - “Denyigban”

The piano phrase that kicks this song off is surprisingly close to the opening of Bound Stems’ “Appreciation Night.” We got that phrase from the demo mode of Radz’s keyboard, and it’s surreal to hear a high-overlap version in a song from Togo. Her voice is so clean in tone and pitch, and what’s strangest to me is that I register the instrumentation in an almost Disney mode — but then realize that’s because Disney will draw on Caribbean and African elements at times as they establish characters and settings. Such an elegant song though!

22. Rail Band - “Mouodilo”

One of the first insights that got us into WBFF was the realization that James Brown had even more fundamental influence on the music of the world than the Beatles did — certainly in Africa. Hearing how his delivery interrelates with so many bands from all across Africa is such a revelation. This track just keeps winding around you til you can’t hardly live without it.

- Asha Bhosle - “Salma Jarir Jhalak”

All I know about this is that it’s in Bangla and it’s from a movie.

23. Unknown - “Chemirocha” - from “Love Is Love”

Several years ago, when African records looked interesting but we literally didn’t know anything about them, we bought a record called Love Is Love, in part because it was a beautiful cover and in part because the music seemed mysterious and full of possibility. Now, when I go to look for it online, I see no sign — I think it’s just a really small pressing from a… pirate group, I guess one could say? But really I think just hardcore music lovers. Anyway, it has this song “Chemirocha” on it, and there’s a story about this song that is really probably just best to link to because it’s so amazing. I guarantee you will find the information in this article worth your read:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/chemirocha-how-an-american-country-singer-became-a-kenyan-star

24. Sparks - “Do-Re-Mi”

We’ve known about Sparks, but we’re late to a close listen. We’ve been listening a lot in anticipation of — not the band bio pic but “Annette,” the new film by Carax, one of our favorite directors ever. For that matter: make sure to watch “Holy Motors” by Carax. It’s probably best if you watch “Lovers on a Bridge” before that, but if you have to go straight to “Holy Motors,” dive right in. It’s amazing.

Meanwhile: This take on the Mary Poppins classic is TOO MUCH — I can’t stop smiling at the end, when the bells start tolling over the crashing drums and crescendoing vocal waves as their third finale fades away. How can anyone make this song, the very definition of not-rock, rock so fully?

- Mort Garson - “Ode to an African Violet”

25. Bob Reuter’s Alley Ghost - “She Brought Me to the Wire”

I will forever be glad that we not only landed in a city where we could find out about the person and the works of Bob Reuter, but that we got to know and work with him. Bob Reuter was one of the definitions of St. Louis to us, and when he passed, so did some of that city. But also, he left music and photos and stories in Eleven and chapbooks that I truly hope last forever. He was the hard-living romantic that you hope lives in the heart of every hard-luck case… and in his one instance, it was true. Bless your soul, Bob Reuter.

photos by Bob Reuter from The Pageant and El Leñador

[madamhatter]

reminiscentsky inquired: meta/hcs/drabble request - first I went through your headcanon tag but I didn't manage it til the end yet, so if you already wrote about it then that's completely fine. I will try to send more in the next days. and second, I haven't read the book yet so if anything is described there, my apologies I don't know yet. as for the word request: family, especially family by blood vs found family. UNPROMPTED ASKS | ALWAYS WELCOMED | @reminiscentsky​​

Hey there, Lisa! Thank you for sendin’ this in. It’s completely a’ight and I appreciate you reading through the headcanons (There is a lot and I’m really sorry, I just can’t shut up). By all means, anything you can send is great since any theme and word can lead to so many write-ups. Even a simple word like “red” could have several different headcanons, drabbles, and metas written around it for a character. It’s all about how the receiver interprets it–!

Preface: I am going to be generalize “by blood” family to first-determined family. This is directly acknowledging family situations that do not have all blood-relations, but are considered the “first” family the child is conditioned into. After all, Sophie isn’t from a nuclear family situation with a stepmother and half-sister. And also she’s technically the ‘mom’ since she raised Lettie and Martha and even her stepmom acknowledges that, don’t @ me. 

FAMILY. Howl’s Moving Castle is a novel following fairy tale tropes and creating subversions, if not adding realistic reactions, for those who live in those tropes would face. While we may find Ingary to be a world that is capable of having so much magic and remarkable things in it from Seven League Boots to Cloaks of Invisibility, it is still very much a world full of monotonous, if not limiting, things that exist and happen.

One of those “monotonous” things happens to be the life of Sophie Hatter. While the book directly states that the evil stepmother trope is not all applicable to the Hatters, and how the evil/ugly stepsisters trope is far from applicable to the older Hatter daughters, there is a very apparent truth about the family arrangement that fits and happens too commonly in our world. At its basis, it is the case of "eldest daughter syndrome” for Sophie. 

But, there’s more at the root of Howl’s Moving Castle. This novel explores family structure, family issues, and the impacts of lacking expectations, support, and stability has onto a young woman. (NOTE: I am including neglect and trauma here because of HMC’s implications and how we’re led up to the mindset and rationalizations of beginning Sophie in the novel, which is very unhealthy/concerning). What happens in this situation is the creation of someone who lives a purposeless life and focuses on the lives and successes of those around her to make herself experience something. She isn’t even being at all materialistic about it -- goodness, the woman just WANTS, an innocent desire, and that is something she knows she can’t ever have.

This can also be applicable for Howl, but his version of the story follows the opposite of what Sophie deals with. In his case, he is the youngest son who has been in a world where stability and expectations fell on him (e.g., he is a doctoral student, an uncle, etc.). His structure is intact and pressure is placed on him. Much like Sophie, there is a dread of unfulfillment and desire that he finds in his life, but unlike her, he happens to do something (hence why he is another world rather than Wales -- read into that and interpret that as you will). 

Both are in roles that do not satisfy and help realize themselves. Sophie makes her role, which is detrimental to her own emotional and mental development. Howl breaks his role, but makes a role for himself, which still doesn’t make him happy. Because, for both, there are still missing elements they need to discover or realize about themselves -- be it through self-awakening or making bonds.

Family, which can be extended now to society and their norms, is an place of origin for most what most begin their socialization, development, and understanding of who they are in context to the world around them. And, in many cases,  first-made family is not idealistic and is not a healthy environment for growth and discovery. They can be toxic, harmful, and traumatic, purposefully or unknowingly, for the impressionable minds by the adults who are preparing for the “real” world and how these individuals are expected to be and expected to do.

Sophie was prevented to participate in that “real” world because she was, essentially, not given any purpose or anything that made her feel qualified or worth living (originally). Instead, she made herself a role that is participating in her family’s world that she could be accepted in -- one where she had to do everything because no one else would, and also, it was a remedy (albeit a terrible one) to combat what she was feeling on the inside. So much of her upbringing informs us of her character and how she sees herself -- as an unremarkable person with nothing out there for her. 

Intentionally or not, as mentioned before, Sophie’s family has taken advantage of this and didn’t raise Sophie to see herself on the same level as her peers (or even help her be aware of her capabilities). Personally, I do view the Hatter’s situation having started as unintentional. However,  it was something comfortable to do (rely on Sophie as if she were an adult) and they continued doing it. More to my characterization, I do believe there IS awareness, hence Martha’s outburst at the beginning of the story -- her opinion on the matter, albeit skewed, still has grounds because she isn’t an outsider. She is someone who was raised and living in the household.

Returning to my point, this buffer is essentially a destruction towards Sophie’s potential and self. It can be seen as both self-destructive by Sophie (she believes the next best course of action is to assure her sisters’ happiness and success) and created by her family (mainly, adults) to benefit what they want. 

Despite that, Howl’s Moving Castle knows that one of her greatest gifts is something she already does for a living: creation. Sophie already creates; she always created hats and outfits, being so advanced at her age that she never needed an apprenticeship to hone her skills. Her products are well sought for, even excluding the magic she accidentally imbues in them. But, her power by hands is also her actual magic (not that everything she says comes true/able to create truths/etc.) Particularly, it is the tenacity and choice to create herself to whoever she wants to be and what she can do.

The problem is that her origins made her believe to be herself incapable of anything and that misfortune was her plotted end. There was no point resisting even if she tried to as a child. Yet, it was that moment when disruption came and she found herself being given a chance to leave, she created her own journey. Though, it was originally to get her curse removed and return to her sisters, she took the first step for more.

She ends up finding herself exploring an avenues of herself that are rarely touched upon or even acknowledged by others. That, of course, changes when in contact with Calcifer, Michael, and Howl. While she might’ve crashed into the castle, dubbed herself the ‘help,’  it was the beginning of her creating herself in a place where she wasn’t restricted or made to believe poorly on herself. 

In the end, she made her family. A family that she knows that is a group of those who are as out of place in this world (or the other world) because of matters out of their control. She makes a family when she decides that she could live happily ever after, a complete contrast to what she originally believed herself for. This family, now different from the one before, is the start of being her feeling found, but also continuing her self-discovery. 

And, Sophie Hatter could not be any happier creating her new life. 

[augfc]

Not actually an SMG: the Beretta Model 1918 automatic carbine

In 1916 the Italian Test Commission observed the demonstration of a new weapon, the Fiat, which was a single-barreled, shoulder-fired adaptation of the Villar Perosa submachine gun. The potential of this weapon was of some interest to the Italian Army and a trial to compare various different SMGs was arranged. Several companies, all involved in the production of the Villar Perosa, were commissioned to develop their own take on the submachine gun concept.

The companies that submitted entries in 1918 were Fiat (as mentioned), Ansaldo, and Beretta. An additional SMG was developed privately by Amerigo Cei-Rigotti but the details are few and far between. Beretta’s submission was designed by the self-taught engineer Tullio Marengoni, and was constructed from the receiver of a Villar Perosa, the stock of a Vetterli rifle, and the folding bayonet of a Carcano M91 carbine. The trigger mechanism was overhauled from the Villar Perosa and this leads to an interesting point that is ubiquitously overlooked: the Beretta Model 1918 was not actually a submachine gun.

The Villar Perosa’s “triggers” were simple; a pair of long levers that extended from the spade grips to the receiver which, when pressed down, would hold the trigger sears and allow the twin bolts to reciprocate repeatedly. In the more conventional trigger of the Beretta, the sear does not stay down when the trigger is pulled thanks to a disconnector. Therefore, the gun will only fire with each pull of the trigger, in the typical semi-automatic fashion.

Otherwise, the action of the gun is basically unchanged from the Villar Perosa. It operates on a delayed-blowback principle in which the bolt’s travel is impeded by a 45-degree incline in the bolt path, which forces the bolt to rotate every time it comes forward. The magazine feed is also of the same type, taking the standard 25-round Villar Perosa magazines in an overhead feed. Due to the placement of the magazine, the iron sights are offset; however they are not mounted on the left side of the receiver as one might expect, but on the right. This may sound impractical, but with your cheek pressed against the stock, the sights are actually well within your line-of-sight.

Rare twin-trigger variant of the Beretta Model 1918. This was not issued.

A number of variants of the Beretta Model 1918 were developed, including a twin-trigger model, a selective-fire variation, and a version with an inverted magazine feed (taking magazines from the bottom). But the variant that was adopted by the Italian Army in 1918 was certainly the single-trigger, semi-automatic version (pictured). It was selected over the competing entrants and an order for 25,000 units was placed; however, World War I ended before the weapon could be issued on a large scale, and the order was cancelled in 1920 after only some 5,000 had been delivered. The performance of the Beretta was further evaluated in the years immediately following the war and the Italian Army came to the decision that the 9mm Glisenti cartridge, for which it was chambered, was too weak. A programme to develop an intermediate rifle cartridge - 7.35x32mm - and an accompanying selective-fire rifle - the Terni Model 1921 - to replace the Beretta, showed great promise but was cancelled in 1928 after only 200 Terni rifles had been made.

Ethiopian infantry march with Beretta Model 1918s over their shoulders. (Image from topfoto.co.uk)

In 1930, some of the existing Beretta Model 1918s were refurbished into improved variants known as the Model 1918/30. This featured a new underloading magazine feed and receiver. The Model 1918/30 is sometimes claimed to have been a semi-automatic conversion of the Model 1918, but as pointed out, this is not the case, since the original Model 1918 was never fully-automatic to begin with and there was thus no “converting” to be done.

The Beretta Model 1918 (officially the Revelli-Beretta in Italian service) was never produced on a large scale, but did see its fair share of action. While data on its use in World War I remains sketchy (secondary sources from the interwar era attest that it was used, but in a similar fashion to the French R.S.C. rather than the German M.P.18,I), it is definitely known to have been used during the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935 and the North African campaign of World War II. In fact, just earlier this year, a long-abandoned stockpile of Beretta Model 1918s was discovered in Ethiopia. The gun was used by both the Ethiopian Army and the Italians.

[adrian-victor]

7 Things You Should Not Do With PropStream Free Trial

10 Easiest Landlord Laptop or computer computer software Methods for People & House Supervisors

As you personal leasing real-estate residence, it might be much far too a simple process to own one thing tumble through the entire cracks. Even slight things like failing to remember to timetable a repair or not publishing a seek the services of settlement could cause dissatisfied renters and greater vacancy quantities, contributing to reduce cashflow plus a home beneath finishing up.

On this website page, we'll examine how landlord Laptop or computer application assists equally very little house buyers and large dwelling handling providers Enhance operations and enhance the Total general performance of lease authentic-estate buys.

Exactly precisely what is Home proprietor Computer software package?Property owner program application permits lease managers to deal with just about every aspect of any lease home which include:

Screening and managing tenantsResponding to servicing requestsScheduling regime household inspectionsProcessing on the internet hire paymentsTracking operating expensesGenerating month-to-month P&L and cashflow statementsCompiling calendar calendar year-stop taxation-Prepared economic statements

How Landlord Software program program Operates & Some good great things about Utilizing ItLandlord software might be bought in two different versions: one) Personal computer-centered application software is downloaded and so are run by your desktop computer, notebook, or Personal computer pill. 2) Web-centered landlord software program operates within the cloud and gives on the internet entry from the Online-connected system wherever on the planet.

Some assets proprietor application methods also offer smartphone portable apps that securely get in touch with World wide web-centered Pc software to follow expenditures and keep an eye on residence general performance with iOS and Android apps.

Dependant on the 2021 Affliction in your home Administration Statement a short while ago introduced by Buildium, there are literally 5 finest programs renters foresee landlords to offer:

Talking via text concept or emailPaying use onlineSubmitting routine routine maintenance correct Wholesaling Houses info. requires onlineElectronic leasingAccess to a citizen portalEven Even though the demand from customers for rental house reaches all-time levels, with popular one-domestic lease occupancy prices at 95.3Per cent, the Levels of competition to search out great when trying to keep superior renters is even A lot more robust. The standard timeframe a renter carries on to get in just one-close relatives seek the services of is 3 years, and landlords are paying for know-how to make the best rents whilst preserving tenants lots extended.

The simplest property operator software software program aid you to definitely competently perform your hire business, fulfill the requirements of your very own renters, and optimize the fiscal efficiency within your order home:

Increase your on the internet tenant software system to reduce software package errors, deal with the whole leasing technique on the internet, and enhance candidates on his or her application position. On the internet hire payments assortment including many alternative employ the service of payment decisions, timetable repeating regular payments for renters, and programmed retain the services of settlement reminders to scale back late obligations and enrich revenue.Track maintenance requests for tenants and system repairs with companies to spice up tenant overall satisfaction, hold occupancy amounts great and renter turnover lower.Automating your real-estate house organization with residence proprietor computer software enables you to cut back time on sorts and regime issues as well as much more time growing revenue by scaling your lease dwelling assortment.

Best Software program plan for Little Residence owners and Big Home ManagersThere are usually two significant types of landlord program program:

Lesser traders with from one particular leasing unit to your dozen Homes or maybe more usually require capabilities which includes monitoring Homes With all the portfolio amount and house phase, automating income and expenses, arranging information, and operating scientific tests.

Pro home management enterprises with huge figures of attributes under Command demand from customers much more complex – and highly-priced – landlord software package methods for numerous types of home styles which includes sizeable condo structures, student housing, HOAs, and industrial components.

In the following paragraphs are certainly one of the greatest leasing residence handling application obtainable for both small house entrepreneurs and enormous household managing companies.

Assets owner software program for more compact traders 1. StessaStessa aims for making employ the service of property budget clear-cut by encouraging the two newbie and complex brokers optimize earnings by way of intelligent cash administration, computerized money and expenditure monitoring, and custom made-manufactured confirming.

Selling prices are wholly absolutely absolutely free and contains characteristics for instance limitless residence monitoring, profile and residence-ranges dashboards, computerized earnings and value checking, genuine-estate record organization and storing, endless regular monthly research, and export of taxation-absolutely Prepared financial data. Stessa does deliver optionally readily available good quality products and services to traders for a cost, to aid with lease evaluation, mortgage loan financial loans, and purchaser research.

two. AvailAvail presents software package plans exclusively made for the do-it-by yourself landlord. The Company provides a whole team of instruments and academic content to help you the little investor become a assured and skilled house owner.

You will find 2 premiums choices for landlord software package system from Make the most. A no cost Limitless System features a limitless number of lease designs with professional services for on-line rent regular monthly payments, regimen routine maintenance trying to keep observe of, tenant screening and background checks, status-certain leases, and syndicate listings for vacancies.

The Limitless Moreover Plan is $five for every device monthly and consists of added companies for instance up coming-working day employ payments, custom made produced tenant application and leases, as well as development of the property Site.

three. CozyCozy has joined in addition to Flats.com to deliver the very small traders with assets proprietor computer software that features issue-of-the-artwork on the web rental Manage gear and renter verification studies. The company's goal is always to help leasing residence owners be much better house house owners, and give Similarly landlords and renters reassurance.

Pricing for landlord application system from Comfortable is presented without spending a dime for assets entrepreneurs, Even though renters acquire such things as tenant screening assessments and bank card obligations. Renters insurance policy approach for tenants is also obtainable by means of Comfortable with an regular insurance coverage cost of about $20 on a monthly basis.

Inviting house proprietor software provides a big range of solutions which incorporates online lease application, tenant evaluating, retain the services of collection, examining of assets charges, and document uploading and storage.

four. Rentec DirectRentec Straight concentrates on supplying landlord software program options for landlords and property executives with little rental home portfolios. Landlords with 10 traits or quite a bit considerably less have the selection of selecting a no cost Personal computer application product, and the business can provide home controlling application and tenant screening suppliers for owners with as a lot of as five,000 merchandise.

The 2 primary paid out for landlord software methods from Rentec Quick. Rentec Pro for landlords is valued at $35 a month, when Rentec PM is ideal for household executives and mentioned at $forty each and every month, Every single and every getting an limitless degree of tenants and Attributes.

Both programs consist of on-line rent assortment, maintenance requests, and bookkeeping. Tenant verification bundles go over everything from $seven to $fifteen per bundle offer, which incorporates nationwide felony and sexual intercourse offender research queries, eviction queries, in addition to a TransUnion credit report.

5. TenantCloudTenantCloud is a superb match for completely new house entrepreneurs, supervisors and home administrators with any the place from a single gadget to five hundred devices below taking care of. The small business also provides a free of charge end-to-end home managing procedure with all-in-one features inside of a cost-free Fundamental Program that includes examining of rental facts, giving and obtaining hire https://en.search.wordpress.com/?src=organic&q=real estate investing obligations, and program servicing managing.

Charges selections for TenantCloud property operator software include a absolutely free Normal technique for approximately seventy five products, an average $9 every month approach for nearly one hundred fifty units, and an Ground breaking strategy costed at $35 per 30 days. Landlords and managers may select providers choices which include renter verification, rental documents, insurance protection, and QuickBooks On the web at added costs.

Property owner computer software plan for pro control corporations 1. AppFolioAppFolio is mostly a highly effective application technique for Specialist dwelling administrators, giving several forms of abilities and the aptitude to handle varied Resource sorts which includes solitary-residence and multifamily characteristics, condo Houses and pupil housings, house proprietor businesses (HOA), and also put together-use and commercial attributes.

The company bills a begin-up charge, in addition to a least regular cost of $250. AppFolio computer software traits require bookkeeping computer software application, rent payments collection methods, servicing calls for, advertising and marketing and advertising equipment to current market unfilled models, tenant tests professional providers, and customizable on the internet tenant software package and leases, applicant credit rating score and lease record checks, and renter and proprietor portals.

two. BuildiumBuildium offers Similarly residence property administration Laptop or computer application and homeowner relationship Handle software program and is most effective for landlords or executives with 50 or maybe more units. The business enterprise is an authority in a number of asset types which include household property, pupil property, and cheap assets household places.

Pricing starts at $fifty per month for about 20 units and is also break up up into two divisions, Significant and Progress. Buildium has added service fees for issues for example on the internet obligations and Digital lease signing.

Software package attributes incorporate employ the service of administration, on-line rent payments obligations, maintenance requests, comprising revenue and expenses, and house dialogue boards.

3. MRI SoftwareMRI Housing Application concentrates on major specialist residence executives and Experienced landlords and professionals, with the target of boosting occupancy and reducing Operating expenses. The Firm is a professional in various forms of asset varieties which include sizeable property portfolios, industrial traits, features administration, and open public and economical property.

Pricing is personalized to the private demands of each purchaser. MIR assets owner computer software features selections for on the web seek the services of selection, tenant verification and hire templates, schedule maintenance requests, integrated info processing, resident interaction and supervisor arrangement, and credit history background Threat controlling.

4. PropertywarePropertyware delivers software program answers to person-family members home entrepreneurs and home administrators with portfolios of 250 houses or even more. Although the assistance is for big portfolios, This system is much less difficult since the focus is on solitary-relations properties.

Charges divisions vary from $250 to $450 over a regular monthly basis or bigger according to the number of gadgets and remedies, together with a one-time execution payment. Propertyware landlord Pc application is made of options for renter promoting and screening, on the web repayments, inspections, dealer portals, and repairs venture administration.

five. Yardi BreezeYardi Breeze roles itself getting a refreshingly simple software program solution for tiny, and midsize landlords and residence administrators who involve assist streamlining procedures. The corporation is a professional in modest and midsize portfolios of dwelling units, business products, and merged-use Homes.

Wind costs begins at $1 for each model per month, using a minimum regular monthly demand of $one hundred for residence portfolios. Wind Premier fees commences at $two for each device every month, aquiring a bare least every month demand of $two hundred for industrial and blended-use portfolios.

Yardi Breeze home owner software is made of alternatives for promoting and advertising and leasing, lease assortment, program routine maintenance calls for, residence management, bookkeeping, and profiles payable.

Wrapping UpRental house making an investment might be energetic, passive, or occasionally many different both. Lively real estate property buyers who can have sufficient time and thorough being familiar with needed to tackle each day specifics of every residence may well choose landlord program intended for skilled house supervisors.

Conversely, unaggressive traders may perhaps opt for a far more reasonably priced landlord computer software plan, even although they utilize the regional property supervisor to deal with the leasing house in Just about every current market spot they're buying.

Utilizing Laptop software package aids the smaller sized, unaggressive residence entrepreneur Merge info for every single household and path the performance of the complete hire home profile.

[rayatii]

A (somehow both very biased and not very opinionated) review of the Met orchestra musicians concert “Song to the Moon” from February 21, 2021:

I had been bothering my Tumblr followers with my excitement over this event yesterday, so it felt only right for me to stop procrastinating and give an attempt for a review of the whole thing; I think this is actually my first time writing a lengthy review ever, and it will probably sound naïve and be an embarrassment for me in the future.

It started around 10 PM where I live. I sat in my bed with my computer while eating chocolate in order to stay awake throughout the whole thing, and trying not to spill any pieces on the sheets, excitedly waiting for this event, having actually bought myself a fifteen-buck ticket about three weeks prior with my parents’ credit card (they didn’t bat an eye when I asked their permission), happily knowing that the money was not going to end up in the pockets of the undeserving Met management.

Given the shitty Lebanese Wi-Fi and the fact that this was a livestream, I had been worried that I might miss significant chunks and get upset over the fact. The stream did glitch a few times for me during the first number (mainly because I had my computer on my constantly-moving knees, before settling it down next to me on the bed), but otherwise it never failed me.

But let’s get on with the review. The livestream began with a title card representing an animation of a lunar eclipse, displaying the title “Song to the Moon”. The concert started with a performance of Antonín Dvořák’s String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 77 by members of the Met orchestra. (actually, given that this is a Met musicians concert, I feel that they ought to be rightfully credited; Nancy Wu, 1st violin [for this piece], Bruno Eicher, 2nd violin [for this piece], Désirée Elsevier, viola, Kari Jane Docter, cello, and Leigh Mesh, double bass.)

I actually listened to a recording of this piece in preparation a few days prior, just so you guys know. Obviously, there were a few slightly flat notes that were played, but overall this was quite a pleasant rendition, and I still have the theme from the 2nd movement stuck in my head as I’m writing this. What I also liked was that at one point (i.e. when I was actually paying attention in that area) I could actually hear the notes being played by the double bass quite clearly, at least compared to the other recording that I had listened to.

Next on the program, the musicians were joined by soprano Angela Gheorghiu (i.e. my main reason for actually purchasing the ticket), who performed all the way from the Athenaeum of Bucharest, Romania, [1st instance of Raya uselessly gushing] looking ethereal in that shot that was shown of her just walking inside the building wearing that white dress and flowing cape, before the actual performance. Just a warning for you guys here; I love Gheorghiu (actually, it’s a bit of a celebrity “crush”), so please expect a little bit of somewhat controlled gushing here and there (partly physical appearance-wise, which are indicated by the bold, and which I deeply hate myself for). This part of the review is causing me even more anxiety for that reason.

She performed on the stage of a theater that was practically empty besides the pianist. She sang in two languages I do not understand at all, which helped me a bit with not getting too distracted by pronunciation. [2nd instance of Raya uselessly gushing] Before I get into what y’all actually came for, I just wanted to get it out of my system about how she had this appearance that defined “has aged, aged really well”. She had this kind of mature beauty, especially with her makeup, that seemed to give me the overall vibes of a pleasant middle-aged auntie. (well, this was very difficult embarrassing to write) Even her singing voice had this sound that can be described as having this sort of “mature” quality blended with the whole fact of her overall sound being “hers”. I hope I have made myself clear.

Okay, gushing finished for now, let’s move on with the review!

Apparently the footage taken in Bucharest and the one taken in New York were both filmed separately. I found it really mind-blowing how the audio of both got synchronized so perfectly.

The first gem Gheorghiu sang was an arrangement of “Tatăl nostru”; basically an early-19th-century musical setting of the Lord’s Prayer by Anton Pann that is still used to this day in the Romanian Orthodox Church (totally NOT reading off the PDF for the program notes provided on the website). I had obviously never heard this piece before; I had tried to (VERY lazily) look it up a bit, but to no avail. I unfortunately don’t remember much from this performance apart from everything mentioned before, but what I do know is that was rendered really epic thanks to the participation of principal Met percussionist Gregory Zuber alongside the string players.

Next was performed the aria after which the whole concert was named, the incredibly famous “Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém” (aka “Song to the Moon”) by Dvořák again, from the opera Rusalka. This version was actually arranged by the violist Elsevier, who is among the musicians who retired from the Met during the pandemic. And it was indeed a beautiful arrangement! Now, unlike “Tatăl nostru”, which I virtually knew nothing about, I love this aria and know it quite well, so I did pay attention to some of the pronunciation; but then again, I do not speak Czech, so it didn’t matter much. Overall, Gheorghiu’s rendition was not perfect (I thinnnnnnnnk there were some notes that were a little bit out of tune? but there was vibrato that also touched the right tone and so I couldn’t tell), and I would certainly not imagine it within the full context of Rusalka the opera (see what I noted above concerning the quality of her voice), but that did not stop me from finding it quite beautiful.

It felt so weird not to hear any applause after each number, and so I could not help but clap after each gem, even though no one could hear me.

After the concert wrapped up, the audience got to watch a chat session between Gheorghiu and Met horn player Barbara Jöstlein Currie, where they talked about how this whole thing came to be (so apparently there was Instagram DM’ing between the two that was involved in the preparation?), before the five string players (which actually include two married couples!) whose music we heard earlier joined in. So unlike the concert, which was all pre-recorded, this was a Zoom session being streamed live. [3rd instance of Raya uselessly gushing] Gheorghiu’s speaking voice sounds radically different from her singing voice, and I can tell English is not her primary language, but that’s just something useless I wanted to include, on which I have zero strong feelings. In contrast to the pre-recorded concert, here she was responsible for me writing in The Balcony Seats Discord server earlier today about how “you know you have aged well when you end up looking a bit like Morticia Addams”, especially with the makeup. [gushing done]

The whole discussion hinged on the concept of “Met family”, and I found the whole interaction between Gheorghiu and the musicians just very very sweet, a star singer and musicians in the pit seeing each other as equals, as family. It’s not every day that I see that (but then again, my background is severely limited, so what do I know). Among the relatively unimportant things the convo touched on that stick with me, in no particular order, are:

Gheorghiu apparently married on the stage of the Met because the guy from the City Hall lost their papers and I never knew that??? (but then again, I never directly research info about my hyperfixations because I get overwhelmed) Everyone had a nice laugh at that recollection.

She got into this whole profession mainly to sing at the Met. Also the whole deal of her making L*vine cry and making her debut at a young age for a star singer.

Everyone relating to the feeling of going home at night after a concert, and not being able to go to sleep because you still have adrenaline flowing through you. As someone who does performing arts, I also relate to that on a moderate degree.

Family life talks.

Gheorghiu mentioning how she can’t work with a director who’s like “your character does that because that’s what I decided” because something something harmony? I can’t remember; I’m pretty sure I’m misquoting. But that’s basically the equivalent of “my house, my rules” (”my production, my interpretation” in that case, lol) imo, so can’t object too much.

Something about playing the finale of Götterdämmerung led the musicians to humorously throw in the idea of Gheorghiu singing Brünnhilde as her next role, and she went all “nah” to that, also humorously.

This led to her admitting that she’s not the biggest fan of Wagner’s music (though she would consider singing Elsa); saying that she’d travel back in time to tell Wager to stop writing these interminable phrases, to just get to the point (I’m not really into Wagner either, so I don’t completely disagree). Also, she believes that Wagner is difficult to sing, and that singers who nail Wagner tend to end up singing only Wagner (here, I think it depends, but there is a point somewhere in here).

She doesn’t seem to like singing acapella/without music very much, which also led her to record some sAcRiLEgiOuS versions of Orthodox worship songs, which you’re apparently not supposed to sing with music.

She sang something like “goodnight, goodnight” (idk) at the very end, it was cute.

To go back to the important stuff, Gheorghiu apparently wrote directly to the Met donors, asking to help in any way, because she wanted to set an example for other people by doing the right thing, and to help what she sees as her “family”, as mentioned above. I had heard some stories about her diva reputation (and she does seem to enjoy attention and stuff, from what I’ve seen myself), but overall she seems like a pretty good person. Mainly mentioning that because as y’all know I’m autistic and can’t tell intricate body language and stuff, plus my very strong belief that good person >>>>>>> great performer. (but my dear friends say that loving her is valid, so I guess I’m safe from too much disappointment. what am I even writing).

And that’s it for my incredibly long and uselessly detailed and almost incoherent and somewhat gushy review, which took me nearly 3 hours to write (and for which I may or may not have replayed a little bit of the stream just to get one bit of info right), and which will, again, probably embarrass me for the rest of my puny life, but which I could not not let out into the void of operablr.

(There were also moments earlier today where I was fantasizing about being interviewed on that very Zoom meeting for the scene-and-duet I composed back in January in response to the Met’s poor treatment of its musicians)

I guess what I can take from this post is: never write a review again, Raya!

[manejn]

Starting an Effective Dropshipping Business

Dropshipping is like any kind of business as well as the most crucial point when starting out on any kind of venture is to do your market research FIRST ... When you open up store shop your town, you wouldn't open it without doing your market research. The exact same point applies if you are going to market something on the net as a dropshipper. Not only are there billions of website out there that could be offering competitive items, the net changes so quickly that you are out-of-date as quickly as you have actually begun.

If you are going to set up a dropshipping business you want make certain that the product that you choose can be quickly sold.. As well as you wish to know how many competitors you have. As well as you wish to stay as up to day as feasible. Offering items on the net is very easy. Hundreds of hundreds of people do it everyday online on auction sites such as ebay.com. The most difficult part of net sales is obtaining the items supplied to the consumer, otherwise called order gratification.

You must have a reliable gratification system. Among the reasons that brick-and-mortar stores are so slow on the uptake when it comes to on-line business, is that providing retailers is done with pallet-sized orders normally. Web sales needs a completely various kind of fulfillment system. Selling on the internet is essentially mail order, with shipments heading out in little parcels to end users. Few brick-and-mortar sellers have a flourishing mail order business to draw from. An inefficient gratification system can lose for you the advantages in good customer care that holding the inventory gained for you. And running a satisfaction system is a full time as well as trying task. One of the most basic order gratification versions to utilize is the decrease ship model. Decline shipping does have its negative aspects as well as benefits. One of the most important being you don't have to spend for anything till after you market it.

You also do not have inventory costs. Having to acquire inventory to deliver to your clients can be pricey not to mention risky. Along with the out-of-pocket expenses, you require an area to keep the inventory. You have to pick, draw, pack, and ship the items once the order is positioned. Having the representative or producer take all these expenses as well as duties lifts an actual concern off your shoulders. Preferably a drop-shipper ought to be transparent. With a lot of your decrease carriers, especially those with whom you do a regular business, you can send them labels and kinds so their bundle resembles it is from you. Your consumer possibly won't recognize that your hands never ever touched the item. The consumer will think that you have a stockroom.

If you had to acquire and also store them on your own, you can market several more products than you could. Decline shippers give you a broad selection of products so you can sell a lot more.On the Net some classifications of products are extremely price-sensitive. If you are selling computer hardware, for example, and using the decline delivery model, you might discover it hard to be affordable price-wise and still make a profit. The distinction between making money as well as losing it may be only a few percent. Be sure to pick an item that makes sense to drop ship.

You will certainly be using third party customer service so you will certainly not have full control. Decline delivery is really outsourcing your order fulfillment solutions to a third party. You will depend on your decline carrier to have the products in supply, to provide promptly, as well as to appropriately pack as well as ship your items. Choose your decrease shipper carefully. At the end of the day, nevertheless, decline shipping exists because it functions. And the largest magazine firms and also website utilize it. And also smart small internet site as well as public auction site vendors utilize it. Drop delivery is merely a setup between you and the producer or distributor of the product you sell whereby the producer or distributor-- NOT YOU-- ships the product to your clients. There are a few huge benefits to this model. It SAVES YOU THE EXPENSE of building your very own stock. If you're like most individuals beginning a small business, you do not have much funding with which to have fun with. The last thing you wish to do is bind your money in inventory that you might or may not have the ability to offer.

Not having stock additionally suggests no leftovers. If the product you sell instantly comes to be out-of-date, out-of-date, or simply simple un-trendy, you aren't the one with a home loaded with supply that no one will certainly purchase. Numerous on-line retailers find themselves having to use deep discounts-- as well as taking huge losses-- on old items simply to get them out of their houses to make room for even more inventory!

You'll likewise do not need to handle delivering your items. Unless you have actually currently established a delivery account with a person like FedEx or UPS, you'll be heading down to the post office on a daily basis to buy stamps and mail out your products. And also you'll be able to ADD NEW PRODUCTS ALMOST QUICKLY. Since you don't need to fret about getting stock, you can add products to your website within a few hours.

If you find that your clients are anxious to purchase a specific product, you can have that thing up on your website in nearly no time. Spend time investigating various kinds of items that you may want to offer. When you have actually located a product that you assume may be the ideal one for your business, you'll need to do a little "affordable evaluation." This merely indicates finding out what prospective competitors are billing for the items you want to sell and calculating just how much of a revenue you'll have the ability to make. When it comes down to it ... its everything about 'Screening, Testing, Testing!' Good luck! If you are going to establish up a dropshipping business you want make sure that the product that you select can be quickly marketed. Decrease carriers provide you a broad choice of products so you can sell a great deal more.On the Web some groups of items are very price-sensitive. You will be reliant on your drop carrier to have the items in supply, to supply on time, as well as to appropriately pack as well as deliver your products. Decline delivery is simply an arrangement in between you and also the maker or supplier of the item you sell where the manufacturer or distributor-- NOT YOU-- ships the product to your consumers. Spend time looking into different kinds of products that you could desire to offer.

You may be interested in starting an AliDropship dropshipping store, which you can find out more information here. Additionally, if you want an custom-made AliDropship Store then take a look here.

[archinform]

Cinema moderne: The Punch and Judy Theatre, Chicago, 1930

“The graceful functionalism of the Punch and Judy;” drawing by Nicolas Remisoff. The Western Architect, November 1930, p. 175.

The cinema unique

The Punch and Judy Theatre was a cinematic remodeling in the modern style of an older theater space. Originally the second-third floor Recital Hall of the 1896 Steinway Hall [see Steinway Hall article here], the new cinema space was a complete reimagining, on an intimate scale, of the experience of moviegoing. The Punch and Judy’s design was the work of Eugene Fuhrer, architect, Nicolas Remisoff, theatre designer and consultant, and Edgar Miller, designer of the lobby's relief decorations.

Edgar Miller “Punch” relief

The Punch and Judy was “an extension of the ventures of Louis Machat,”[1]  who had built on the “little theatre” movement in America with his version of “little cinema,” first in the eastern U.S. and then in Chicago’s Towertown [the area off N. Michigan Ave. near the Water Tower].

The “little theatre” movement has courageously invaded the Loop and the result, architecturally, is a most interesting transformation of the one Chicago’s oldest “legitimate” theatres into a motion picture house not only modern but vigorously modernistic, and as such, it is probably one of the most successful examples of this manner that we have in America.[2]

The Western Architect, November 1930, p. 182. 

The existing theater was square-shaped, of late-Victorian design, and with “objectionable features throughout” including two balconies, view-obstructing columns, bad acoustics, improper ventilation, and badly-arranged seats. It was judged “utterly impossible for the present-day theatre, while the general design was of such poor taste that a complete remodelling had to be considered.”[3]

Interior views from “The unconventional PUNCH and JUDY,” Exhibitors Herald-World, October 25, 1930, pp. 35-40:

The designers’ task was to turn an “antiquated playhouse,” by then “the product of another architectural period,” [4] into the cinema unique, with every modern design feature and convenience. Modern and modernistic were how the designers’ work was described, in terms both of technology and of style. Eschewing the historical trappings of grand movie palaces, the new style was stripped down, almost devoid of ornament, and based on smooth, curving surfaces. Streamline moderne[5] or Depression Modern[6] would later define this style; in France, it would be called at the time Style paquebot, or "Ocean liner style," referring to the classic ocean liner Normandie.[7] Indeed, one description noted “The columns rising like pylons or the stacks of a great ship” (which actually covered the four columns of the earlier theater), as well as “the plain surfaces and strong lines that mark the entire design.[8]

This is modernism in the mood commonly referred to when this style of design is mentioned. For those who like the severer note…it is probably one of the most honest creations in the motif that we have in this country… [one would] be reminded of several of the finest examples of the manner erected in Germany.[9]

  Interior views from Remisoff, Nicolas, “The Punch and Judy Theatre,” The Western Architect, November 1930, pp. 182-191:

The cinema’s broadly-curved walls and domical ceiling, as well as the color scheme – touches of red and blue in reference to Punch and Judy, “faun” or “honey-brown” walls, and bold accents of black – characterized its modern style. A hallmark of this new mode, in addition, was its use of lighting. In the Punch and Judy, illumination was almost all from reflected light. Its principal source was from a light cove set into an elongated proscenium arch, from which the indirect lighting would be reflected off the curtain, softly illuminating the whole room. The lighting allegedly had the same faun tint as the walls.[10]

The new theater was illustrated in The Western Architect of November 1930, one article penned by Nicolas Remisoff, design consultant. The theater had been transformed from a squarish space into one “circular in feeling.”  Its design, the specialized sound-absorbing seats made by the American Seating Company, the color scheme, the acoustics, and even the free demitasse coffee and cigarettes offered in the lobby, reflected the idea that “the whole theme of the theatre is comfort - comfort to all the senses.”[11] A sense intimacy was achieved by reducing the previous space’s 890 seats to just 354.[12]

Main floor and loge plans

The new Punch and Judy offered seating on the main floor and in a second-level loge; the loge featured metal trays where patrons could comfortably rest their demitasses or ashtrays. Its small lobby, with plaques of Punch and Judy by Edgar Miller, was reached by a stairway from the ground floor; the entry was through the space originally occupied by the Lyon & Potter Steinway showroom, to the right of the building’s central entrance.

“Thus by a harmony of forms, colors, sounds, service, that restful result which we have long sought in theatre design has at last been achieved.”[13]

1934 handbill

The “Little Cinema” Movement:

The Little Cinema or art house movement sought an alternative to commercial films, the huge public that supported them, and the huge movie palaces in which they were displayed. Discernment, or the need for something different, was the key. It had similar aims to the Little Theatre movement, which had started in the late 19th century, whose goal was to create experimental centers for the dramatic arts.

Starting in 1925, a chain of small theaters was proposed, designed to provide an "intimate" alternative to the large commercial movie houses of the day, and dedicated to showing "art films that appeal to the intelligent and sophisticated.”[14]

Design features encouraged patrons, in the words of one early promotional brochure, to “Sip delightful Java and smoke cigarettes of your own choosing." Created for comfort and quiet, interiors offered sumptuous lounges appointed with deep carpets, velvet, drapes and soft lighting to encourage rest, relaxation, and "intimate chat."[15]

“Sure seaters” was a nickname given to these art house cinemas, since patrons were always assured of finding a seat, due to the films’ lack of broad appeal.

The sure-seater has a subtle snob appeal that helps at the box office. You go into a theater that has a few tasteful paintings in the lobby and a maid serves you a demitasse of coffee. You’ve just paid top admission prices, but the coffee creates a pleasant aura. Then you’re shown to a comfortable seat in a well mannered audience…. You see a picture that assumes you have average intelligence and it’s such a refreshing switch that you are flattered to be among such perceptive folks who are sharing the experience.[16]

Chicago’s first “art house,” the Playhouse, formerly a legitimate theater, opened on September 11, 1927. Managed by Michael Mindlin, the 602-seat theater had a top ticket price of $1.10, and successfully premiered with Battleship Potemkin.[17]

 The Cinema Art Theatre, 151 East Chicago Avenue, Armstrong, Furst and Tilton, architects, opened on December 26, 1929 with the film Shiraz.[18] This cinema, with 299 seats, was presumably one of “the ventures of Louis Machat” in Chicago’s “Tower town” referred to earlier. Like the Punch and Judy, the cinema was decorated in soft and contrasting color schemes that downplayed its small size, and both featured works of art in the lobby or lounge, “objects embodying distinctive cultural values,”[19]  sometimes exhibited on a rotating basis.

 Foyer and auditorium, Cinema Art Theatre, 151 E. Chicago Ave., from The Western Architect, April 1930.

The Punch and Judy opened September 18, 1930, with D.W. Griffith’s Abraham Lincoln, with a policy of presenting American-made pictures “of the type regarded as appealing to the socalled ‘discriminating’ portion of the citizenry.” The opening-night ticket price was $11 a seat [about $170 at today’s prices]. The Griffith film was then shown three times a day at a top evening price 0f $2.[20]

 Punch and Judy marquee, announcing D.W. Griffith’s Abraham Lincoln, 1930. Photo: Cinema Treasures

An item in the December 20, 1930 Exhibitors World-Herald announced that “We understand that Max Ascher has taken over the defunct, as it were, Punch and Judy theatre on Van Buren street.”[21] Whether the cinema had fallen on hard times in its first three months or simply changed management is not known; the Playhouse had felt the effects of dwindling ticket sales soon after its opening, and perhaps this was also the case with the Punch and Judy. The stock market crash of 1929, as well as a scarcity of quality foreign silent films and the advent of talking pictures, played their role as well.[22]

 The Punch and Judy would change its name to the Sonotone in 1935; it would be known as the Studio 1940-1952, the Ziegfeld 1952-1958, and finally the Capri 1958-1968. The Capri would exhibit adult films until it closed in 1968;[23] the Steinway Hall building, which housed this succession of cinemas, was demolished in 1970.

Movie ads for (top) the Ziegfeld 1950 and (bottom) the Capri March 15 1963. Source: Cinema Treasures

 In retrospect, The Little Cinema Movement seems to have been destined to engage in a rearguard action against the incursion of what must have seemed the vulgar aesthetic tastes represented by the mass-appeal talkies. Early literature…alludes to the physical layout, atmosphere, and programs as exuding elegance, refinement, intelligence, and repose as an antidote to the helter-skelter pace of the Roaring Twenties.[24]

  The Designers

Information about Eugene Fuhrer, architect, is scarce. From a 1956 American Architects Directory (American Institute of Architects) he was born February 2, 1902, in Wallendorf, Austria-Hungary. He earned a B.S. in Architecture in 1923 from the Armour Institute of Technology, where he earned a Huntchinson Medal and AIA Student Medal. He received a Traveling Scholarship from the Chicago School of Architecture in 1923, and traveled to Canada, Mexico, Belgium, Holland, German, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy.

Fuhrer was employed as a draftsman and designer for A.S. Alschuler, Inc., Chicago, 1923-26; as a designer for Walter Ahlslager 1926-27, and by Rissman & Hirschfield in 1927. He and his brother Max (b. January 31, 1901, studied at Cane College and Armour Institute) organized the firm Eugene & Max Fuhrer in 1927. The firm received commissions in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Among these were the Women’s Dormitory and additions to a power plant at Northern Illinois State Teachers College, DeKalb, as well as large construction projects in the Chicago area. Eugene co-authored the book Chicago Building Costs in 1936. The firm’s address was 120 S. LaSalle St. [now the CIBC Building], No. 3, and Eugene’s home was at 5228 S. University Ave., Chicago.[25]

Women’s Dormitory, Northern Illinois State Teachers’ College, DeKalb IL; postcard

Helsing’s Restaurant and Bar, 166 N. State St., matchbook cover

More details are gleaned from a 1946 Architects’ Questionnaire to gain qualification for federal public works. To his prior practice, Eugene added H. Clyde Miller 1920-21, draftsman and tracer, and Root and Hollister 1922-23, draftsman and designer, as well as brother Max’s prior qualifications. A third brother, Martin (b. December 12, 1912) is listed, who commenced practice in 1933. The firm’s large commissions included the Teachers College dormitory referred to ($1,200,000) and Stickney Hospital, Stickney, Illinois ($1,000,000). Smaller commissions included Helsing’s Washington Street Restaurant, Chicago; the Goodman Company, Cleveland; and the McNeill Building, Chicago. Further representative works from 1936 to 1947 are also listed in the questionnaire.[26]

A couple of drawings by Eugene Fuhrer in the Ryerson and Burnham Archive, Art Institute of Chicago, represent his sketching and presentation drawing skills.

  Nicolai (or Nicolas) Remisoff (1887-1975) was born in St. Petersburg, Russia; in 1910 he began studying at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1918. He and his family fled Russia, and eventually arrived in Paris in 1921. In Paris, he became the artist director of the famed theatre company Chauve-Souris (the Bat), which traveled the world and brought Remisoff to the United States. In New York, Remisoff began designing covers and doing illustrations for Conde Nast publications; he was then asked by Elizabeth Arden to design her famed “Red Door” salon and spa. In 1924, Remisoff opened a Russian-themed night club in New York called Club Petrushka, but the club burned in 1925.

Remisoff headed to Chicago, where he taught stage design at the Art Institute 1925-1926. While in Chicago, where he stayed until 1935, he designed sets and costumes for the Adolph Bolm and Ruth Page ballet companies. He created murals for the Casino Club, the Chicago Club, the Graceland Cemetery Chapel, and the Lake Forest Public Library, among other buildings. He had one-man shows at The Arts Club of Chicago in 1925 and the Art Institute of Chicago in 1938. He also exhibited at the Century of Progress Exhibition in 1933.

Remisoff left Chicago in 1938 for Hollywood, where he would serve as art or production designer for 31 movies.[27]

 Portrait of Nicolas Remisoff painted by Ilia Repine in 1917

Nicolas Remisoff, Winter Scene Design for a Ballet; Art Institute of Chicago

Edgar Miller (1899-1993) was an American self-taught artist and master craftsman, “a creative virtuoso of the modern era—who applied his skills to a multitude of projects in art, design and architecture.”[28] He was a designer, painter, craftsman, master woodcarver, and stained-glass designer.

Edgar Miller’s genius reached its apex in four fully realized artistic studios that he built on Chicago’s North Side in the 1920s and ‘30s. Miller marked almost every inch of the studios with daring and surprise. He took rustic brick, crude stone, salvaged tile, found glass and recycled steel and wood and “Edgarized” the homes, packing them with stained-glass windows, frescoes, murals, mosaics and woodcarvings.[29]

 These studios include the Carl Street Studio (1927) and the Rudolph Glasner Studio (1928), both in Chicago’s Old Town area.

Edgar Miller painting a mural, 1957

(Left) Edgar Miller interior and stained glass, Architecture, August 1932, p. 66; (right) Carl Street Studio, www.edgarmiller.org

 In his younger years Miller was called everything from “the blond boy Michelangelo” to “a new luminary.” In 1919 he had been was hired as an apprentice in the studio of Alfonso Ianelli, spending five years working on advertising, design, packaging, ink drawings, mural posters, stained glass, and cut stone. Through Ianelli, Miller met important studio clients like Marshall Field & Company and Holabird & Root, developing a network of future employers.[30]

 Of Miller’s plaques for the lobby of the Punch and Judy, Nicolas Remisoff wrote:

In some respects I consider these among the most clever things done by Miller. They are beautifully composed in diagonal compositions, perfectly done. Edgar Miller has, with his usual fine sense of fitness, captured something characteristically theatrical of the old time theatre. This is the one spot where tradition enters boldly, but up the stairway and toward the lounge one sees another plaque that expresses its fitness for its setting and carries out the circular form and motifs of this new theatre.[31]

  The Punch and Judy, which has “…introduced a new form for moving picture theatres, free from any kind of style and scenery,”[32] had offered an innovative and more intimate experience for the discerning movie patron of the 1930s. Its concept was realized by some of the most renowned designers and decorators of their day. Its forms evoked an age of speed, machines, and sleek new “modern” design that in retrospect would come to be called streamline moderne.

  The Punch and Judy would end its existence as the Capri Cinema, which closed in 1968. Photo: Cinema Treasures

Links to PDF documents of works cited:

Edgar Miller Designer-Craftsman, Architecture, August 1932

Finding Aid for the Nicolas Remisoff Papers

Fuhrer & Fuhrer Questionnaire for Federal Public Works

“The Cinema Unique,” The Western Architect Nov. 1930

Matsoukas, Nick John, “The unconventional PUNCH and JUDY,” Exhibitors Herald-World Oct. 25, 1939

Remisoff, Nicolas, “The Punch and Judy Theater,” The Western Architect Nov. 1930

Notes:

[1] Matsoukas, Nick John, “The unconventional PUNCH and JUDY,” Exhibitors Herald-World, October 25, 1930, p. 35

Louis Machat started in 1910 with an early talking apparatus, such as it was…. Louis Machat was then connected with the old Sixth Avenue Playhouse in New York…. It failed and with the failure of the cylinder film followed the importation of foreign productions from Sweden, France and Italy. This importing business let him into the “Little Theatre” movement and resulted in the opening of the Wardman Park hotel theatre in Washington, D.C. in 1926. Similar theatres followed in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Rochester and Chicago, with still others projected.

Shortly after the Punch and Judy was opened, Machat said to me, “It is high time for the motion picture industry to take cognizance of the fact that the whole population of the United States does not care for gilded walls…. There is a lot of room in America for some native theatrical architecture….”

Ibid. p. 129

Louis Machat would later be listed as the Producer for the 1943 short film Wasted Lives. IMDB https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7956280/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 

The article’s author, Nick John Matsoukas, was a theater manager, film press agent, and journalist. Limited information about him is available at:https://www.myheritage.com/names/nick_matsoukas#col_a_10220http://cinematreasures.org/photos/229126

 [2] Ibid.

 [3] “The Cinema Unique,” The Western Architect, vol. 29 no. 11, November 1930, p. 175.

[4] Matsoukas, Nick John, “The unconventional PUNCH and JUDY,” Exhibitors Herald-World, October 25, 1930, p. 35.

 [5] “Streamline Moderne,” Archetypical.  https://www.archetypical.us/streamline-moderne/

 [6] Greif, Martin, Depression Modern, The Thirties Style in America. New York: Universe Books, 1975.

 [7] “Streamline Moderne,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streamline_Moderne

 [8] Matsoukas, Nick John, “The unconventional PUNCH and JUDY,” Exhibitors Herald-World, October 25, 1930, pp. 37 and 39.

 [9] “Notes on Writers and Subjects in this Issue,” Exhibitors Herald-World, October 25, 1930, p. 19.

 [10] Matsoukas, Nick John, “The unconventional PUNCH and JUDY,” Exhibitors Herald-World, October 25, 1930, p. 38.

 [11] “The Cinema Unique,” The Western Architect, vol. 39 n. 11 Nov. 1930, pp. 175-76.

 [12] Matsoukas, Nick John, “The unconventional PUNCH and JUDY,” Exhibitors Herald-World, October 25, 1930, p.36.

 [13] “The Cinema Unique,” The Western Architect, vol. 39 n. 11 Nov. 1930, p. 177

[14] “The Little Cinema Movement,” The Little; https://thelittle.org/history

[15] Ibid.

[16] Wilinsky, Barbara, Sure Seaters: The Emergence of Art House Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001, p. 1. Accessed at https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uJp_B8lN0iIC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&dq=little+cinema+movement&ots=a5AX92LnoG&sig=kzefPGtf9xbHDWuhPlMhja8CCyg#v=onepage&q=little%20cinema%20movement&f=false

 [17] Guzman, Tony, “The Little Theatre Movement: The Institutionalization of the European Art Film in America,” Film History. Vol. 17, No. 2/3, 2005, p. 274.

 [18] “Cinema Theater, 151 E. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611,” Cinema Treasures. http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/980

Once a popular art house located off N. Michigan Avenue on E. Chicago Avenue on Chicago’s Near North Side, the Cinema Theater opened on December 26, 1929 with “Shiraz”.

The Cinema Theater closed September 13, 1981, and was demolished and replaced a few years later by the Olympia Centre tower. A Neiman Marcus store is also situated on the former theater site.

The theater was illustrated in The Western Architect, April 1930, p. 60 ff.

[19] “The Cinema Unique,” The Western Architect, vol. 39 n. 11 Nov. 1930, p. 177.

[20] Matsoukas, Nick John, “The unconventional PUNCH and JUDY,” Exhibitors Herald-World, October 25, 1930, p. 35

[21] Little, Jim, “Chicago Personalities,” Exhibitors World-Herald, December 20, 1930, p. 62.

See also: Schiecke, Konrad, Downtown Chicago's Historic Movie Theatres. Jefferson NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2011, p. 178; “Ascher Brothers, Wikitia. https://wikitia.com/wiki/Ascher_Brothers

[22] “History of the Reel World,” https://thelittle.org/history

[23] Schiecke, Konrad, Downtown Chicago's Historic Movie Theatres. Jefferson NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2011, pp. 75-76.

 “On July 3, 1940, the theatre emerged as the Studio, with new management dedicated to public service and single, first-run features, newsreels and comedy shorts. French without Tears started off Studio’s program. In 1952 the theatre was renamed the Ziegfeld, operated with Tom Down as manager until 1958 when M. Down became owner.

    The newly redecorated “art” theatre, now renamed the Capri, opened on July 3, 1958, with a controversial adult French film, Nana, based on an Emile Zola novel…Adult films were shown until the theatre closed in 1968.”

[24] “History of the Reel World,” https://thelittle.org/history

[25] American Institute of Architects, 1956 American Architects Directory. Accessed at https://aiahistoricaldirectory.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/AHDAA/pages/20644319/1956+American+Architects+Directory

[26] “Questionnaire for Architects’ Roster and / or Register of Architects Qualified for Federal Public Works,” May 10,1946. Eugene and Max Fuhrer, 160 N. LaSalle St.

[27] Richard Norton Gallery, Nicolas Remisoff biography, no date. http://richardnortongallery.com/artists/nicolai-remisoff

Remisoff’s decor for the New York home of Elizabeth Arden is illustrated here: https://thepeakofchic.blogspot.com/2016/04/an-early-thirties-set-piece.html

[28] “Edgar Miller, the Artist,” https://www.edgarmiller.org/terra-3

[29] “Edgar Miller Legacy,” https://www.edgarmiller.org/history/

[30] Cahan, Richard and Williams, Michael, Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home. Chicago: City Files Pres, 2009, pp. 18–93.

[31] Remisoff, Nicolas, “The Punch and Judy Theatre,” The Western Architect, November 1930, p. 183.

[32] Schiecke, Konrad, Downtown Chicago's Historic Movie Theatres. Jefferson NC: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2011, p. 75.

[latin-dr-robotnik]

What went wrong with Classic Sonic’s music in Sonic Forces? (ft. beevean)

The following is a project I’ve been cooking for some weeks, trying to find out some reasons behind the general lackluster feeling that surrounds Classic Sonic’s music in Sonic Forces. As you may have spotted already, this is not a solo project, since I’ve had the opportunity to talk about this very same topic with @beevean and she raised quite a couple of interesting points that I’m going to bring up as we go through. 

Also, Spanish speakers: you can catch the Spanish version of this post here, it’s probably a more polished experience with additional text.

Long post below, so, bring up a ladder and a boombox, I’ll explain along the way. (there’s also a tl;dr at the bottom if you are that type of person)

Sonic Forces stands as a divisive point in the Sonic fandom, that much we all know, and we are not going to discuss the game’s general quality at all on this post. But we are going to take a solid look at Classic Sonic and, most importantly, its music, since I consider that’s the most clear symptom of a bigger problem with Classic Sonic in general, in this post-Generations Modern Sonic world.

A quick look at Classic Sonic

When Classic Sonic debuted in Sonic Generations (2011) as this new-but-also-old Sonic, gaming as a whole was still being bombarded with this “retro-revival movement” that brought back many classic franchises (like classic Mega Man with MM9 and 10 after a decade since MM8), and SEGA itself was in the middle of that train with the recently released Sonic 4: Episode 1 (2010). While Sonic 4 tried to marry Sonic’s current style with classic level tropes and even Genesis-inspired music in a seamless way (showing Sonic’s physical transition from his Sonic 3 days to Sonic Adventure as a smooth one), this new “Classic Sonic” guy in Generations suffered from a mixed message about his origins: is he Sonic from the past, from an alternate universe, or both? Is his music supposed to sound like arrangements of his classic 16-bits tunes or just modern-sounding remixes like the rest of the soundtrack? The fandom still debates about it to this day.

This all led to the introduction of a character that, although considered a “Sonic” like the other “Modern” one, could not establish his own identity beyond Generations’ anniversary-title plot threads. No unique music style, no unique traits, he was just a simpler Sonic.

Major manifestation of the Classic problem.

Fast-forward some years to November 2017, Sonic Forces’ release date. Besides gameplay, story and character criticisms, the music of Forces turned out to be quite controversial for a part of the fandom. Although I personally consider the Avatar songs as top-tier Sonic music, I share similar concerns as the rest about the rest of the game’s music, specially the Classic Sonic level themes. 

With Forces, it seems the composers managed to solve some of Gens’ Classic Sonic music problems, as this time there was a better and more consistent attempt at making Classic’s music sound more at home with the “Genesis days” tunes, but even then the composers fell into other traps that ended up being more damaging to the final product.

Years later after the game’s release, I finally brought up this very same topic during a conversation with beevean (I encourage you that, if you find the following snippets interesting, read the entire conversation), and she had the following thoughts to share as to why Classic Sonic’s music was so... underwhelming:

the classic music in forces is the weakest part of the ost, some tracks are okay while others suck, and the main reason for this is that they hired the wrong people for the job

Okay, that wasn’t a fair cut on my part. She talks a lot more about each and every aspect behind the music, and about the people that composed it, she had the following to say:

Okay, about Forces’ music. First of all, the Classic tracks were handled by two people: Tomoya Ohtani, who also composed pretty much 90% of the OST and has been working solo since 2013 (relevant later), and Naofumi Hataya, one of the two geniuses behind Sonic 2 8-bit’s and Sonic CD’s OSTs (plus some miscellaneous work in Heroes, Colors, Generations, etc.). If you loved tracks like Sky High, Palmtree Panic or Stardust Speedway, you have to thank him.

This is already a reason as to why the Classic music in Forces doesn’t resemble the music in the Genesis games. While I can understand that it would have been impossible to hire Masato Nakamura again, Jun Senoue would have been good for the job, having composed music for Sonic 3 and most importantly Sonic 3D Blast. But apparently Senoue was MIA until 2019, so who knows.

I’d like to point out that Naofumi Hataya’s involvement will play a bigger role later in this post, as we keep searching for what went wrong and we look for a potential solution when adressing Classic Sonic.

Beevean continued with:

There are mainly two problems here:

1) some of the tracks just don’t fit their stage. I already mentioned that Ghost Town sounds way too happy for a city under attack by giant robots. Death Prison sounds vaguely Egyptian and the difference with the original, bass-heavy composition is staggering. Chemical Flow is the most generic thing and would fit everything and nothing, and again comparing it with the original iconic track is just sad. I think the reason Casino Forest and Iron Fortress are my favorite Classic tracks is that they go very well with their respective stages. This is a problem Adventure 2 had as well, associating a particular style to a particular character, and while I think Forces did it better, for me the priority should be fitting a level.

2) Ohtani was once a very versatile composer (the guy could go in one game from Wave Ocean to Crisis City, for example), but since Lost World, the first game in which he had the responsibility of an entire soundtrack, his style quickly became “anime”. Runners’ tracks? “This sounds like an anime opening!”. How do you recognize his only track in TSR? It’s the one that sounds like an anime opening and uses a synth.

And look, I love Ohtani, he has nothing but my respect, and he made some of my absolute favorite tracks in the series. But I do think they’re making him work too much - he’s the best when he can work with at least another person, and has the chance to span a little. I also think his style is incompatible with the Classic music, which was never anime: even at its mellowest in Sonic 1 it always had a little jazzy/new jack swing touch. Basically the only thing they got right in this game is having a wicked bassline :P

It ain’t *only* the composers’ fault

Following beevean’s words, I’d like to add my own take on the problem. You see, I do agree that the composers maybe weren’t up to the task of nailing the classic Genesis tunes’ vibe (Hataya got real close, though), but at the same time I do think they weren’t properly oriented or didn’t have enough time to keep reiterating on the frameworks they were working with. Like beevean said, some of the tracks improve quite a bit after leaving behind that mixed as hell “almost Genesis but not quite” soundfont.

The composers will work on what they were told to make and I have a strong, albeith unconfirmed, feeling that the Classic Sonic composers where asked to “make it sound retro” by someone higher up on the project management chain, and after checking on their progress, simply said “meh, it’s retro enough, no one will notice”.

The “make it sound retro” argument, in my opinion, opens up a big discussion about Sonic music, because there is no easy way to make it “retro” with Sonic. You just can’t pump out a few nostalgic chiptunes and call it a day. Sonic music may have originated back in the 16-bit days of the Sega Genesis, but his identity is so much more than just that Genesis FM sound. I personally believe, similar to another thing beevean point out, that Forces focused too much on sounding “retro enough” instead of fitting each track better to each level theme or even tap into what really made Sonic appealing on the classic days. 

This last point is something that SEGA struggled a lot during the past decade, they introduced Classic Sonic as an entity separated from the current Sonic, yet they simply don’t give Classic Sonic enough development as it’s own character. He’s there because he’s there and we don’t know what to expect from him beyond “he represents the good old days”. But not even SEGA itself knows what that means.

So, what really makes up Classic Sonic’s identity?

For me this is the true heart of the post. Knowing full well what makes Classic Sonic should be the key to every project that features him. 

There are lots of points to make about Classic Sonic’s identity and how to establish him should he return once again on a 3D Sonic title (not even using the “modern” anymore, and I personally wouldn’t like to see him again on a 3D title for another decade, if ever), but seeing as the main topic of this post has been music, I’m going to focus on what music style makes Classic Sonic shine.

I already said that throwing some generic chiptunes won’t work, but I DO think that Genesis-inspired tunes can still work, should they stick to what made the classics so great.

And what is that? Well, you have several options here: you can choose from more J-Pop and jazzy tunes to some sick R&B and New Jack Swing beats, all the way through to late 80′s Acid House and wacky 90′s Dance music, even cinematic-like scores and ambient sounds.

Personally, I think the heavy R&B (with its fair share of New Jack Swing) influences are a constant throughout Sonic’s first years, and that kind of sound is one that goes well with his cool attitude™. Spring Yard Zone has always been referred to as “16-bit Every Little Step”, while Sonic CD... well, and Sonic 3... well... JAM. Even Masa’s demos of Sonic 2 feature some sick basses that aren’t all that different from what I was thinking (Chemical Plant and Metropolis come to mind). Sonic CD (JP, also the work of Naofumi Hataya and Masafumi Ogata) in particular springs up to my mind as the purest representation on everything that Sonic was about on his old days, but “pure” doesn’t necessarily mean “refined”, so I think the Sonic CD style coupled with some more smooth Pop for emotional moments (straight from Nakamura’s school of smoothness) and harder 90′s raves for boss fights (think how iconic Stardust Speedway Bad Future has become) could make up the perfect blend for Classic Sonic to follow in terms of style points, but also considering the general themes of each zone (Wacky Workbench being this Dance-heavy zone was a stroke of genius if you ask me, the same with Spring Yard being a jazzy urbanscape.)

Sonic is a product of the late 80′s and 90′s pop culture, he has the moves of MC Hammer, Bobby Brown, and of course, Michael Jackson (also his shoes). As such, no generic “retro nostalgic” tune will fit with him, unlike many other gaming franchises. By embracing Classic Sonic’s wacky nature gems like Sonic Mania happened, and just like I pointed it out to beevean, if you were there the week that game was first announced, you probably saw how much people were gushing about Studiopolis Act 1 sounding so much like Sonic CD with that funky beat. People instantly knew that was the Classic Sonic music they wanted to hear.

And just to make this section even better, I recently asked beevean about her thoughts on what makes Classic Sonic’s music identity. I now urge you to go and read her full analysis because it’s so deep yet very accessible, as I’ll be collecting just a few parts of her response for this post. Trust me, that post is so useful, go and reblog it now, I’ll wait here.

About Classic Sonic’s music styles, beevean says:

So… which is the style that fits Classic Sonic better?

The big love letter to the Classic series that is Mania used CD as an inspiration, and while Mania’s OST is excellent and one of my favorites… I don’t automatically associate New Jazz Swing with Classic Sonic. Before Mania, it was only in one game, the odd one in the bunch too.

3D Blast is my favorite Genesis soundtrack, and as I said it combines the best of two worlds (plus it’s just full of bangers), but it influenced the next era more than the Classic one. The same could be said for the American OST of CD - and besides, tracks like this are nothing like Sonic anyway.

Sonic 1 is the first one and all, but that mellow style fits that particular game more than Classic as a whole, I think the closest OST to this style was Advance 1, actually - another slow-paced, simple game.

So the choice is narrowed down to the ultra-popular Sonic 2 and the refined Sonic 3 & Knuckles. And I’ll be honest, while I think S3&K has higher “highs” compared to S2… my brain immediately jumps to the latter. When I think of Classic Sonic, I think of Genesis brass (the real deal, not that fake synth they used in Forces), twang basses, a swingy rhythm (too many to choose lol), and tons of energy.

Only one Classic track in Forces came close to this description. The others sound more like either a pale imitation of Sonic 1 or modern tracks with a bad soundfont, and that’s when they’re not a complete insult (no i won’t link to it you know what i’m talking about :V).

Author’s note: it’s been, like, two months and she still refuses to talk about Faded Hills, lol

Author’s note: sorry, beev.

(TL;DR) Closing thoughts.

So, what did go wrong with Classic Sonic’s music in Sonic Forces?

A lack of definition on what Classic Sonic even is about, carried from Generations, made the task of defining his style more difficult.

The composers weren’t up to the task, or they were simply asked to make Classic Sonic “sound retro”, generic sound be damned. 

This also means management of the project wasn’t that interested in the Classic portion, or they ran out of time to make it better. This is something that the entire game seemed to have a problem with as well.

The music didn’t fit the stages, and even if it did, Classic’s identity was all over the place. He was there just to be there, and his music suffered from that (compare it to Mania).

Tomoya Ohtani (often credited as the maker of the arguably worst tracks of Classic Sonic in the game) has experienced a shift on his musical style over the last few years that led to his tracks start sounding very similar to each other, this, coupled with the fact he was working on the other 2/3rds of the game’s OST, caused his Classic tracks in particular to suffer.

Classic Sonic’s tracks didn’t take from the 90′s Pop and R&B influences that plagued the old games, and as such, the current Classic Sonic doesn’t have an identity as strong as the original 90′s Sonic. Beevean’s take on this point involves Classic Sonic tracks that feature strong, legit Genesis brass, with twang basses, swingy rhythm and tons of energy.

Once again, I’d like to thank beevean for providing such insightful information and opinions (you can clearly see we both tend to have different takes on what made Sonic back in the 90′s, but in the end agreed to a similar set of requirements to make good Classic music, like basslines and lots of energy), which helped this post a lot more than you can imagine. I wanted to post this back in late January, but the extra time allowed me to keep thinking, searching and listening, while also opened the door to ask beev again about her opinions. This is probably the first “big” article I’ve written this year, and I hope to return soon enough with more. 

[hortikulturazagreb]

Growing an Edible Surfaces For Beginning Growers

uređenje vrta Zagreb

Landscapes rely on simple care for trees, bushes, perennials, and usually for the home novel reader annuals and potted arrangements to come alongside one another.

uređenje vrta Zagreb

Trees are often your foundations of the surroundings after the home per se. Plenty of fruiting woods that make good factories also make superb landscape trees. Various cherries, apples, pears, apricots, citrus, peaches, pawpaw and apples are prime types. Many are breathtaking a in the spring, attractive in form, and produce delicious berries. There are many cultivars with fruiting trees along with different growth altitudes at maturity, together with all take effectively to pruning and additionally shaping. Fruiting flowers are passed typically as landscape selections in many landscapes when they can be messy, nevertheless this is only a concern if you're not planning to harvest the fresh fruit from them. As edible landscape trees, the majority all fruiting shrubs are excellent panorama candidates.

Some a lesser amount of commonly known although very wonderful surfaces fruit bearing trees and shrubs include crabapples (they make the best jellies and jellies! ), hackberry (jams in addition to jellies), and persimmon (can be used to get anything and are really delicious). Again, just about all take to shaping and they are lovely in type. Crabapples often have superb fall color, for the reason that do hackberry. Persimmon trees hold onto your fruit past leaf drop and are really ornamental in branching structure.

Nut displaying trees are also superior landscape candidates certainly where an large and stately tree is needed. Schokohäutige walnut may come in your thoughts but this would are the only exception inside landscape as they develop a very potent contaminant that kills several species of indoor plants within their root area and beyond. An alternate tree that is make much welcome return in the landscape may be the Butternut. They check a lot like the stately black walnut nonetheless don't possess like potent of a herb growth inhibitor with its root method. The nuts can also be delicious. There are now ailment resistant butternuts offered. Hazelnut blooms as soon as nothing else flower arrangements and sports wonderful foliage in the autumn. They are very small designed for trees, almost plant like in proportion, which are them very vital from a design viewpoint. Pecans and hickory, and some chestnuts could make good landscape woods as well.

There are a lot of flowering shrubs by using delicious edible bounty that are beautiful landscaping specimens, that purchasing for edible landscape bushes may be more involving confusing experience. Because of make the decision making undertaking easier, we've identified a few of our preferred. These shrubs choose to adopt shearing and trimming; have beautiful grow, foliage form along with color, fall shade, and popular edible crops.

Blueberries are generally absolutely wonderful edible landscape plants. They're just not as difficult to nurture as many seem to believe. There are many cultivars that will range in kind and color together with fruiting. From exceptionally small and very small mounded forms so that you can large and sprawling and tall versions, blueberries come in a lot of flavors. Add some peat into each original planting hole and additionally mulch with compost or pine fine needles is all the pH adjustment they need, nothing at all complicated. They all endure adorable and sweetly scented spring bouquets of pink in addition to white. They all get attractive bushy vegetation in a nice good green, sometimes cutting edge growth being green or pink. They both bear delicious green or pink plant in the summer. And they also all glow exceptionally red in the tumble. They are super healthy, doing well in most most climates, even that coldest areas.

Elderberry has come to this forefront as a rather potent and effective natural medicine. You'll find it happens to be a beautiful shrub well suited to the surroundings. There are cultivars to choose from with purple leaves too, making these individuals a striking inclusion to the landscape (especially when planted involving chartreuse colors associated with foliage in various plants). The leaf form is beautiful and unusual. Your flowers are predominantly fragrant and very popular with pollinators. The all berries are easily made into jellies and jellies along with juices. While usually treated as a big perennial, they can get to shrub like ratios in one season plus they need lots of house to spread out. They can be super easy to grow, in addition to being a native vegetable you're doing your native ecology a enjoy by using elderberry within your landscape. You will need to seed more than one elderberry to guarantee good fruit specify. They prefer extensive sun but might tolerate some tone with grace. They just do not like to dry out which means they're not with regard to xeriscaping or parts of the landscape which get dry.

Viburnums are common in the panorama as they are delightful shrubs for all in the reasons we absolutely adore landscape plants- wonderful habit, form, designs, and variance within cultivars. Specifically for your edible landscape, a American Cranberry Rose bush, or Viburnum trilobum, is an especially useful edible landscape plant selection. The blueberries aren't especially consumed fresh, but just as before they are very pleasant as a jelly and jam. Another American native plant, creatures love them additionally. Viburnums can handle a lot more shade than additional shrubs, and tends to make a great understory herb.

Pine typically provides thoughts of colossal tall trees which is fairly accurate to be able to assume- but pinus radiata now comes in countless cultivars that are shrubs in the surfaces that it's dizzying. Mugo pine specifically is normally well suited for landscape benefit from as is very famous. Better too can be, you can get a great once a year crop of mouth watering pine nuts coming from mugo pine! There are a number forms and colorations of mugo this tree, so you'll have a fantastic time shopping for certain evergreen material to fit your edible landscape properly.

Shrub roses are old garden bushes and plants. More voluminous and easier to increase types of roses work nicely in the landscape, together with leave behind extremely edible and fabulous rose hips meant for harvest. Rose body are very high in vitamin supplement C and can be generated into teas and additionally jams. Rose sides make excellent concentrated amounts like rosewater which might then be used around cooking, and even inside homemade cleaning supplements and room fresheners. Roses themselves need aggressive pruning however , otherwise are relatively undemanding. The roses are a delight, and plenty of new cultivars from landscape roses are hardy, disease challenging, and beautiful. Rosa rugosa is a ancient version of an terrific landscape and indigenous rose that's wholesome and disease protected, and leaves behind massive red and yellow hips in the drop.

In warmer zones, rosemary can improve to shrub just like sizes and will make a great shrub. Indeed, rosemary is an imperative in cooking. It's also possible to use rosemary with homemade cleaning products- especially in natural soaps where it is actually scent works well to get masculine (or possibly not of course) aromatic bars and the tiny needles themselves make for terrific exfoliators. Rosemary is normally grown as a perennial, but can naturalize in warm sufficiently areas in excellent sun. It can stand some drying out nevertheless enjoys consistent seepage.

If you thought ones edible landscape possibilities with trees and shrubs ended up being liberating, wait unless you start looking at perennial choices. There are many perennial edibles to choose from, most notably for root usage. Some normal perennial herbs ideal for landscapes include rosemary (mentioned above for a shrub but in many cases can be kept being a smaller perennial), sage, thyme, oregano, chives, ginger (in hot areas), and lavender. Mint is a especially hardy and competitive perennial, but a spreading nature shouldn't always make it a great landscape plant. Mint is better kept planned and planted in pots in addition to contained. Agastache can be described as less common at this point very wonderful organic that makes an excellent landscaping plant. So is usually tough Echinacea which consists of beautiful blooms, that now come in various colors aside from green and white. Cheyenne Spirit is an Echinacea mix with crimson, orange, coral, white, and other colors this warm up the surroundings with long lasting flowers. You can use the blossoms and leaves at all these plants designed for culinary uses as well countless jobs throughout the house.

There are plenty of perennial plant life that are not natural in nature, although offer vegetable meals. Artichoke is a lovely perennial in milder climates. It's very odd and stately mode make for a great focal plant. Harvest that flowers before they will bloom, as be the artichoke you eat. Asparagus, or what we realize as asparagus, happens early in the spring and coil as a thick spear (that's the section we eat), nonetheless leaving some of the spears alone to grow along with develop the rest of the months rewards you using tall and wispy foliage that contrasts and fills within well among many other plants. Edible rhubarb is a large leaved plant that can be collected in the early spring because of its stalks. Super robust, its one perennial crop enjoyed with the coldest of temperatures and is most popular combined with strawberries (another great perennial edible for the landscape) around pies. There is elaborate rhubarb that is also larger and more awesome than the type that is definitely commonly grown inside gardens, and while all those are edible to boot they are larger together with woodier. Various freezing hardy cabbages and additionally kale are really ornamental and provide flavorful and nutritious green vegetables through the season. They will easily reseed for most areas and are terrific at filling in spaces. The blooms any time allowed to bolt within the warm season usually are 4 petaled, quite often yellow or crimson, and very pretty.

Blood plants are often ignored in the landscape while they are typically cultivated with gardens and concerning farms for their results, but if you take a look at strawberries in full poor growing and scattering mounds of attractive green foliage, you will recognize that they also make a excellent landscape ground protect. Many varieties undertake need some fixing measures as they can be good at spreading, however , this can also end up of advantage inside the landscape where clean spots are complicated to cover.

Daylily factories are very popular panorama plants, but not many men and women know that the flower arrangements of daylily are extremely edible and delightful. Mild, crunchy, indeed floral, they are amazing in salads and even on sandwiches. Daylilies are hardy and never picky and are produced everywhere. There are many types and colors in addition to sizes of daylilies. One can spend a week looking at on the internet catalogs of daylilies from breeders. Commonly, most affordable, and the the majority of versatile daylily it's stood the try of time still is actually the Stella D'Oro.

Ornamental annuals could be more than petunias along with impatiens. There are many yearly plants that have edible leaves and think about that work correctly in the landscape. Like pansies and violas have blooms which might be very edible together with beautiful. If a single thing, they make exquisite garnish. Freeze violas in ice cubes and additionally drop a viola filled cube towards a cup of popular or cold dinner for a beautiful emphasis. Candy viola roses in sugar with regard to storage and have used them later on cakes. Pansies and violas go back yearly in most aspects, but they are typically viewed as annuals. These people like full sunrays and in toasty areas benefit from color. They are easily grown up in pots nevertheless naturalize beautifully within borders. Other very ornamental annual roses that work superb in the landscape tend to be nasturtiums and calendula. Nasturtiums can be compact and mounding, and also long and trailing. Calendula is usually lime, daisy-like, and is superb as garnish, around salads, or inside drinks. Both Nasturtiums and calendula can be available in the springtime in flats, although usually are easily immediately seeded into the surfaces. Fun with young ones!

Lettuce can be an definitely stunning leafy landscaping annual, wonderful inside front of the edge. Lettuces come in quite a few colors and shapes and textures. People look best with the cooler seasons, nonetheless can easily be reseeded if thy bolt and become unsightly. Another solution to lettuce of which performs all period long and is nearly as tasty and even more wholesome is orach. Orach is a relative with the common weed "lambs quarters" but is additionally related to spinach. Orach is usually sold since seed, and is available in colors of vibrant pink, red, natural, and chartreuse.

And, we come to vines. Vines offer a clean opportunity to try an item slightly unusual, numerous ornamental landscape vines are also highly edible and beautiful, however , aren't well known. Hops are one superb example. Hops are widely-used in beer helping to make. They are the efficient flowers on a gentle little vine that is definitely well behaved in addition to super hardy. Hops love to climb wall. Another very easy to help care for and sturdy vine that makes delightful food is the kiwi. The hardy kiwi version of the kiwi many of us are familiar with would make smaller fruits, they are certainly mouth watering. Hardy kiwi arrives as male along with female plants, therefore you need both to help make fruit. They often need green foliage this is splashed with smart bubblegum pink. Kiwi vines grow massive, so they need a good sized support- over 10 feet if possible.

There are many edible landscape shrub selections! Not to get overlooked and very valuable, consider putting ones own beautiful landscape to get results for you and your family unit.

[daleisgreat]

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Five

-Greetings and thanks for joining me for my semi-annual coverage of marching through Star Trek: The Next Generation. Today I am covering season five (trailer) of the BluRay collection that I continue to ever-so-slowly progress through at one or two episodes a week. I started season five off in February and wrapped it up a couple days ago by watching at this rate. Part of the side effect of that was taking advantage of extended free trials of CBS All Access and binging through all of Picard and the first two seasons of Discovery within two months while keeping up with an episode or two a week of season five of TNG. There happens to be a couple episodes of this season of TNG that play a notable role in Picard, so the timing of it all gelling together was a lucky coincidence. I gave brief recaps of both Picard and Discovery in my annual TV season recap blog that can be found by click or pressing here. I apologize in advance for the questionable-in-quality pics in this entry from my ancient Samsung Galaxy S7 which makes it worth it to grab so many subtitle moments from this season! -The only notable cast change this season is the addition of Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes). She becomes a recurring character this season as someone who is essentially introduced as coming off work release after a court martial and working her way back into Starfleet in the lowest rack of Ensign and serves primarily at the helm of the bridge. Forbes is fantastic as Ro and she has a few landmark episodes this season with my favorite of hers being “The Next Phase” where Ro and Geordi (LeVar Burton) are de-moleculed and appear as ghosts to the rest of the ship who responds by throwing a funeral for them in the form of a Mardi Gras-esque party at Ten Forward. Forbes is absolutely sublime here in Ro’s pining curiosity at how Riker (Jonathon Frakes) will eulogize her.

-This was a big episode for other recurring characters this season too. That is kind of a big deal considering season five is the only season of the series without a Q (John de Lancie) episode. I like how they find new ways to bring back Denise Crosby, who was shown as a mysterious cliffhanger to the end of the two-part arc of “Redemption” that finished off season four. It picks up in a big way with how Denise Crosby’s new character is connected to Tasha, and how the Romulans get involved in the never-ending civil war of the Klingons that eventually has the gratifying conclusion of Worf winning back his honor among Klingons. Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) has her biggest role yet in the series this season in the two-parter “Time’s Arrow” that has the first part wrap-up season five where we discover the origin of Guinan in the 1890s as the Enterprise crew time travels back then and also encounters an antagonistic Mark Twain in an intriguing episode. Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) returns for two episodes this season. One is an oddball episode where all on the Enterprise but Wesley and Ensign Lefler (Ashley Judd) are mind controlled by a mysterious augmented reality game. The other episode is much better as Wesley and a few of his squad mates deliver prepared depositions as they are ruthlessly interrogated on the death of one of their peers. The annual Lwaxana (Majel Barrett) episode is about the expected chore to get through in her continued struggles to find a partner where she sets up an arranged marriage that is doomed from the beginning. Props to Chief O’Brien (Colm Meaney) having a kid this season! -Season five marks the addition of two major personal belongings to one Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). One is the iconic jacket he dons throughout most of the season. I have no idea yet if he wears it in the remaining seasons, but it is a slick jacket and gives him a space cowboy type of vibe to him! I bet it sold boatloads in merchandise! The other item is a special flute that is gifted to him in “The Inner Light” when Picard’s mind engages in a Inception-like lifetime of memories in the span of under a half hour where he experiences an all new culture and life. It is a delight of an episode I appreciate the more I reflect upon it. I later learned in the bonus interviews that this flute melody became a common occurrence at weddings.

-I want to make sure to give kudos to some of my other favorite episodes this season. I loved seeing Spock (Leonard Nimoy) finally make an appearance on TNG. At this point of the show, appearances from the core Original Series crew has been extremely rare and limited, but TNG gets the most out of Nimoy with him playing a major role in another two-part arc where Spock tries to reunite the Romulans back into the Federation of Planets. One of the top episodes this season is “Ethics” where an accident leaves Worf (Michael Dorn) paralyzed and according Klingon ritual must self-sacrifice himself for the greater good. This results in some of the best speeches of the season where Riker and Picard implore Worf to reconsider before Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) impresses with her surprisingly improving doctor skillset to resolve Worf’s paralysis. An episode that initially appears to have a silly premise, but I outright loved by the end is “Darmok.” Picard winds up stuck on an island with an individual of an undiscovered species that only speaks in metaphors. Picard is as baffled as me trying to decipher the metaphors at first, but gradually picks up on it and by the episode’s end forms a kindship with him as the duo team up against a new threat. “I, Borg” is an episode that plays into Picard later on that sees the Enterprise take in an injured Borg and give it the ability to have independent thought again.

A guilty pleasure TV theme of mine in recent years is the time loop episode theme in the form of Groundhog’s Day. Discovery had a terrific rendition of it in its second season. I was thrilled to see TNG do their version of a time loop episode in “Cause and Effect.” It has a banger of an opening that sees that Enterprise exploding and eventually the scenes start to repeat that sees the crew start to recognize their situation and attempt to find a way out of the time loop. I came to discover in the bonus interviews that this episode preceded Groundhog’s Day by nearly two years, and unlike that film and all the TV shows that have pay homage to it over the years, TNG plays it in a serious manner and not as a comedy, but the writing for it is so well done that it works and is pulled off in a way that had me invested until the end! -While there were a fair amount of standout episodes this season, I would be remiss if I were not to go this far and fail to mention there were several clunkers. Some of the ones I recommend skipping is where Riker falls for an androgynous being that has a non-committal ending and the episode plays out totally differently today than it was intended then. Another dud is where them dang Ferangi are up to no good again in failing to kidnap a seductive being that has a strong desire for Picard. The biggest abnormality this season is where according to my notes I surmised the episode as ‘imaginary friend comes to life, blargh!’ Trust me on that being all you need to know on the astutely titled episode, “Imaginary Friend.”

-I want to once again give a shoutout to the podcast, Star Trek: The Next Conversation. Hosts Andrew Secunda and Matt Mira breakdown every episode of TNG and help provide ample background, facts and insight with their analysis of each episode. Because of re-watching TNG and combined with their podcast I have been able to better pickup on countless TNG references in other TV shows and podcasts over these past couple years. Click or press here to give them a listen if you have not already. -There are nearly four and a half hours of extra features that are nicely spread out across all six discs. In addition, there are also four episodes that have commentary from cast and crew with one noteworthy highlight being Orville creator, Seth McFarlane guesting on the commentary for “Cause and Effect.” A lot of the bonus extra are carried over from the original DVDs, but like previous seasons there are a couple of new HD bonuses for the BluRay. Mission Overview deep dives into the production of a couple of my favorite episodes of the season, “Darmok” and Spok’s return in “Unification.” Tribute to Gene Roddenbury has clips of speeches from various Star Trek luminaries at a building dedication to Gene and has fond memories from the cast and crew of Gene. Intergalactic Guest Stars interviews many of the aforementioned recurring characters on why they keep coming back on.

These next two are new HD bonuses for the BluRay. The Music of TNG is an in-depth 75 minute discussion with three composers from the series that I truly appreciated hearing the composers dissect some of the most memorable scores and melodies of TNG history. Finally, Requiem is a two part, hour long look about writing the controversial conflicts that have been touched on throughout the run of TNG, and also has additional tributes and testimonials on Gene Roddenbury. Both are excellent thorough takes on both subject matters, and if you dig bonus features as much as I do, then I highly recommend both of them! -Season five of The Next Generation continues the success of seasons three and four. I would only mark it a notch under those two strong seasons because there seems to be a few weaker episodes this season than in the previous two. I gathered from the bonus interviews that it seemed that this season tried to go all out exploring new conflicts and themes, and sometimes it worked exceptionally well in the cause of “Cause and Effect” but other times it worked against them a few more times than usual this season. Overall though I would still rank this in the upper tier of TNG season and hope to see the final two season keep up this high bar of quality. 

Past TV/Web Series Blogs 2013-14 TV Season Recap 2014-15 TV Season Recap 2015-16 TV Season Recap 2016-17 TV Season Recap 2017-18 TV Season Recap 2018-19 TV Season Recap 2019-20 TV Season Recap Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series Baseball: A Ken Burns series Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections Cobra Kai – Seasons 1-2 Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 | Season 2 OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30 RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13 Roseanne – Seasons 1-9 Seinfeld - Final Season Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7 Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle Superheroes: Pioneers of Television The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5